by Brian Daley
She wore the proteus Floyt recalled, an Impe'ria Optitech that looked like a chic manacle, made of precious metals set with natural wavestones, ardors, and Satan's tears.
As for Alacrity, he was as heroic and noble as could be in his splendid captain's uniform. Their appearance alone made them a formidable couple, an impact to be reckoned with. Alacrity gazed around rapt at the Vale, which had long ago rested on a planetary surface—in Alacrity's grandfather's backyard on Paradise, to be exact.
Sibyl Higgins spied the two and didn't hesitate for a moment to block their way, making Heart less ebullient and Alacrity mistrustful. "So, Fitzhugh, you made it here alive! Against the odds! I have heard a good deal about you, and read the files. Young man, you do not strike me as the sort of chap who'll die in bed!"
"God knows, I try, ma'am."
Heart stifled a kind of yimph! of laughter and fought to keep a straight face. Higgins nearly smiled. "How very nice for you both, I'm sure. Shareholder Fitzhugh, your friend Mr. Floyt knows a certain amount about what's about here tonight. I suggest you join him. How you vote is your decision, of course. Your sympathies seem to lie in the right place; I hope you are with us as a matter of morale, even though you don't represent much stock."
"Thanks." Have you got a surprise coming, Granny!
Higgins went to make final preparations, joined by Heart and the rest of her privy circle, One-Vote-Fitzhugh pointedly excluded. Alacrity ambled over to Floyt, who was savoring a cup of coffee that tasted far better than any the Earthservice ever served up to a functionary third class.
"Hecate's in the bag," Alacrity slurred, so that Floyt had a hard time catching it, Alacrity unsure of who might be watching or listening. "What've you found out?"
Floyt sipped again, eyes closed in rapture. "Just that the White Ship is practically a sideshow, in some ways, at this point."
That made Alacrity's big, oblique eyes go nearly round. "Wha? Look, spit it out; we haven't got much time."
Floyt set the delicate cup down in its fragile saucer precisely. "There are the many, many patents and licenses that have come out of the White Ship and Ship research, of course, and they represent a huge income. But even those are secondary. Alacrity, that Heavyset ship? The one down near Spica? It's here because it heard the White Ship! The Ship's AI's summoned it, or were talking to each other, or something, in Heavyset, or modified Precursor symbology, or some combination of the foregoing. Nobody's sure."
"They—who—how—"
"Don't interrupt, and I'll endeavor to make this painless."
A serving robo drifted by and Alacrity got it to cough up a pisco sour. He debated over an inhaler of perkup; the contusions and other hurts he'd received in the scuffle with Gentry Standing Bear were starting to ache again. So he shrugged and took a wheeze or two.
He wished there was a little more recuperative time available. A half-grain hit of kick might do as a substitute, but it would be a bad idea to overdo and be playing Tarzan out on a Vale tree limb someplace while Dincrist and his contingent made their move.
In the meantime Floyt brought Alacrity up to date. "I've been listening to these people here and accessing a little, and I tell you, the Ship's brain and the AI's it uses to run things—well, they're very good, but they were drawn from everywhere, put together piecemeal and updated very, ah, haphazardly. Stuff right out of military R&D side by side with stuff that had been extracted from older starships, do you see what I mean? What I'm saying is, the right hand doesn't necessarily know what the left is doing.
"And so what happened was, Dincrist and that lot began making inroads with the Ship, starting some years back. They were using data that were of interest to the Ship to open up operational areas of its brain to them, so they could window their way through to a position of power, at the same time as they were putting together a majority of voting shares. They've got the shares, but they don't seem to have that window, at least not yet."
Floyt stopped for a deep breath and another sip of coffee. Alacrity sipped the pisco sour and curbed himself from interrupting.
"But what the Old Guard did feed in—Dincrist did, mainly—were Heavyset/Precursor correlations. Symbols, impulses; I don't quite understand yet. Alacrity, I think some of it came from Weir. That in return for the Blackguard intelligence Dincrist gave Weir—and that Dincrist thought Weir was merely going to use to become a landholder on Blackguard, instead of using it to throw down the Camarilla—Dincrist got some of the Heavyset/Precursor stuff I'm talking about." His voice had dropped to a stage whisper.
Alacrity's forehead was ridged with lines of thought. "Maybe as his Inheritance?"
Floyt held up his hands helplessly. "I wish I could tell you. I won't have a clear idea until I do a lot more accessing, preferably someplace private."
The perkup had Alacrity feeling alert, dynamic, unhampered by injuries, tingling. Floyt said, "Put down that inhaler and listen, damn you! Somewhere in the labyrinth of the Ship mind, in some information pocket no one's been able to isolate, is the basis for the first real contact humans or anyone else have ever had with the Heavysets! As long as you're going to stand there with your mouth open, drink."
Alacrity did, but not much; he was too distracted.
The Heavysets were almost as much a mystery as the Precursors. There were those who thought the Heavies were the Precursors. Except that the Heavysets seemed more or less contemporaries of humanity and were anxious to solve the Precursor enigmas, too. Certainly, the Heavies avoided contact with Homo sapiens, and just as certainly their technology gave humans every reason not to push the issue.
A few observations had been made, like the fact that Heavyset ships apparently zipped in and out of singularities as they pleased, and a few conclusions, such as the one that the Heavysets had visited the Galactic Core and other galaxies as well. They preferred extreme-gravity worlds and situations; thus their name.
An exclusive pipeline to the Heavysets could amount to a throne from which the human race and most other known intelligent species could be ruled if the wrong party or parties controlled the White Ship.
Sibyl Higgins, swiping her peppermint hair out of her eyes, was clearing her throat and calling for attention. Alacrity, looking at her, wondered if she'd worn her white clinician outfit for prestige or simply because she figured there might be some medical emergencies before the meeting was over.
"As leading shareholder of our faction, I believe I'm to speak for us all. Unless someone objects? I hold four hundred fifty-five thousand six hundred shares in the White Ship."
Nobody said anything. Alacrity seemed very interested in the bioluminescent grass, so like cotton candy, underfoot.
"We are met in that very same Paradise Vale where the original Ship founders convened and threw in their lot together these many years ago," Higgins went on. "This very beautiful place that was later transported up in toto and made part of the Ship." She gestured around her at the faerie beauty.
"I shall put our case at the full meeting, as we've agreed, and we'll see whom we may sway on the other side. Failing an upset, it seems, we must turn our efforts to public opinion and to every avenue of acquisition of more shares."
As if Dincrist and his bunch would care about public opinion if they get a hotline to the Heavies, Alacrity thought. I sure wouldn't.
A tone sounded through the Vale, not out of phase with the humming of XT insects and the susurrus of a light breeze that came from no source Floyt could see.
"The meeting begins directly," Higgins said. "Please take your places." The Nonpareil took Alacrity's hand and led him to his assigned place. On the way, Higgins intercepted again and drew Alacrity aside.
"Your family was well intended, from what I can find out. But good intentions are not enough. Don't disrupt what we are trying to do here for personal vendettas. I hope you're made of sterner stuff than your mother and father."
Heart and Floyt held their breath, and Floyt readied to jump into a brawl again. Alacrity said in a low,
scorching voice, "Look, I know all about you and that Strike Recondo training, but if you ever say anything like that to me again, I'll drink your blood, understand?"
Once she saw she'd gotten him angry, Higgins became as serene as the Ship. "If I've given you rage, channel it toward our opposition, as shrewdness."
"Madam, you are crotch curd."
Alacrity assumed his seat, face burning. Floyt stood behind it, as the other advisors and companions were doing for their principals, and asked himself which side Sibyl Higgins was working for.
Yester, behind Wulf's seat, looked like a graven image. Sibyl Higgins sat at one end of the table, all the New Faction to her right, Heart the closest; no one stood behind Heart's chair, or Higgins's.
From among the trees walked a file of newcomers, about an even balance of males and females, along with two nonhumans, wending their way down through the magical Vale. Dincrist led.
Heart's father came to stand at the other end of the table; those who followed him went to their places at his right. The nonhuman pair was Srillan, and Floyt had a momentary feeling of pleasure; though Srillans had laid waste so much of Terra during the Final Smear, the two members of that species he'd met personally turned out to be good friends and allies. But he saw that neither the aardvarklike alien in the chair nor the one who stood behind was Maska or his nephew Corva. Floyt's Earthbred loathing overcame him again.
Alacrity scanned the newcomers, too: Dincrist, regally tall and fit and tan, silver-maned, sworn to kill Alacrity and Floyt. Clearly the leader. Next along was Praxis, head of the Church of Human Potential, Saint of the Irreducible I, textbook-class mental defective. Praxis had the white hair and distinguished looks common to his type, a holyman of self-forgiveness and self-understanding. His secret vice, known to Alacrity and Floyt and a very few others, was subjecting clones of himself to unutterable abuses.
Floyt recognized most of the others from the files he'd read—well fleshed but hard-eyed, all, including the several women among them.
Watching Alacrity with predatory hatred was Baron Mason of Styx, once a Better of Blackguard until Alacrity and Floyt had to bring all Blackguard's ugliness down to get away with their skins, and also because the universe was better off that way. Mason was the biggest person there, half a head taller than Alacrity, vigorous looking, with direct, piercing black eyes. He had a head of thick, curly black hair touched with white—not gray—at the temples. His beard projected in two menacing spikes, the middle of his chin being clean shaven.
And standing behind Mason …
Alacrity's mouth twisted. "Well, hey, Constance! Up and around, huh? I figured they'd still be busy replacing that brain of yours with something a little better, like for example a half-watt bulb."
Constance, once Dincrist's creature, now stood behind Mason's chair, from where she gave Alacrity a seething, teasing look. Constance had helped waylay Alacrity and Floyt and implant the actijots in them. She no longer worked in tandem with her pirate-partner/lover Sile because Sile wasn't very presentable after Alacrity shot him dead.
Constance's eyes were long, painted ellipses—eyes blue as Spica, Alacrity had once observed to himself. Floyt compared them to cornflowers. She was olive-skinned, lean-flanked as a boy, with lemon-yellow hair barely long enough to hold a part. She wore soleskins and a minimal V-shaped garment of white glove leather, crotch to shoulders, her skin glitterflecked.
Constance crossed her arms, tapping herself absently with fingers encased in long golden mandarin-style sheaths set with gems and painted in enamel to look like dragon's claws. Alacrity knew the fingernails within were bitten to the quick. Floyt thought of Hecate, and of Paloma Sudan.
" 'Lo, cupcake," she purred. "You don't know how much I wanted to see you again. And poor old dippy Hobart Floyt, there, too, it goes without saying! But, oh, Fitz-yow! Teh! The score we have to settle!"
Constance shook her head and rolled her eyes. Floyt felt the hair stand on the back of his neck. Constance's main thrill was pain, and he knew enough about her to be scared. Further along the table the Nonpareil was staring raw death at her.
"Enough."
That one word from Captain Softcoygne Dincrist, Heart's father, was enough to cut through the murmuring at the table and end the sideshow. Constance subsided, running one talon along Baron Mason's chair sullenly, as everyone looked to Dincrist. His place became the head of the table with his presence, since Higgins was seated. "We have business at hand." He rapped the table with a large signet ring that carried his family crest.
The Srillan who was seated, the shareholder, slapped paws together, sleepy-eyed but animated. His silver-black pelt was beginning to show the russet frosting of old age.
"Indeed! Here at last we'll have one of the shortest board meetings on record!" His Terranglish wasn't bad but, as with all his species, it was like listening to somebody talking through a rolled-up rug.
Alacrity put the arm on a passing robo for a refill. Dincrist gave a death's-head grin. "Yes, a very succinct meeting. Now: the usual agenda is set aside. The question before us is: shall a research team as specified in the proposal addendum be constituted as described to isolate from the White Ship's AI's the basis of this apparent communication with the Heavysets and render a detailed report to my committee?
"Now, speaking for my group, I cast a majority vote aye, in advance. Debate will be limited to five minutes, and then—Fitzhugh! Stop that!"
Alacrity was rapping his knuckles on the robo who'd given him his drinks. "Hey! Paracelsus! How about a readout on that? The majority, I mean?"
The automaton said in the Ship's voice, "Impossible to compute until you declare your preference, Shareholder Fitzhugh."
Dincrist's snowy brows lowered. "What's this? That young whoreson votes only one share!"
"As of sixteen thirteen Ship time, this date," the robo corrected in the virgin-priestess voice, "Alacrity Fitzhugh holds voting power over three hundred forty thousand and one shares."
There were open mouths all around except for Floyt. Floyt reached around the chair and whapped Alacrity's shoulder triumphantly. Heart rayed him with a smile that made his whole life worthwhile.
Alacrity raised the pisco sour. "Some of us are born to greatness; others don't see anything wrong with swiping it."
"What's that one share for?" Wulf leaned out over the table to ask. "Luck?"
"To grow an inch," Alacrity said, leering at Heart. He turned back to her father.
"Anyway, I vote against this motion, or resolution, or whatever you want to call it. Motion denied, Paracelsus?"
"Motion rejected by a vote of one million four hundred seventy-nine thousand four hundred twenty-five shares in favor to one million five hundred twenty thousand five hundred seventy-five opposed."
Dincrist shook a big, browned, very impressive fist. "This is a fraud! He's rigged the computers somehow!" He pointed at Alacrity. "You're not going to cheat me again!"
Mason had risen and walked off to one side of Dincrist's chair, the Srillan shareholder waddling to the other, both of them calming him. Constance drew slow breaths, nostrils flared, pursing her lips at Alacrity. Heart's dimples appeared first, then her full smile was directed his way as Alacrity felt a distinct increase in his vitamin D level.
"This is an important vote," Baron Mason said after a quick, whispered conference with Dincrist. He glared around the table. "The bulk of the information the Ship used in contacting the Heavysets came from Captain Dincrist's sources, and he has the right to litigate to deny you access to the final product! And then no one profits.
"Now then: what I propose is that our faction withdraw from the Vale for a few minutes—say, five. We will caucus, and you here may reconsider the matter among yourselves."
What must it have taken to make these two sworn enemies allies? Floyt wondered.
Mason moved around the table as the other Old Guard members rose to follow along with their escorts. Alacrity saw with surprise that the baron was coming his way.
>
Floyt wasn't sure what to do, but Alacrity gave him a nod, so he made way. Any transgression would be picked up by the Ship herself and dealt with, and Alacrity knew Mason was smart enough to be well aware of that. Alacrity rose and met the baron partway though, to have some maneuvering room just in case. Others there did their best to appear not to be staring.
"You have something that belongs to me," the baron whispered harshly, glaring.
"Your proteus, you mean?" Alacrity smiled innocently. "Well, I'll tell you, now, it looked like you were going to use it to get me and the others blasted as soon as you could get free of that riot, and it looked sort of valuable, so I just took it for safekeeping."
"Don't toy with me, you little nobody! That instrument is of no value to you, and you'll soon have all the trouble you can handle and more if you don't start using common sense, believe me! Now, what have you done with that proteus?"
"Oh," Alacrity said, pretending Mason's threats hadn't rattled him, "why don't we talk about that a little later? And why don't we also talk about how you're going to vote your shares for the rest of this meeting?"
Baron Mason's eyes went wide, but Dincrist called out to him, Constance was coming nearer, and the rest of the Old Guard had already withdrawn. Nodding balefully, Mason went, flanked by Constance, to join Dincrist. They followed their allies up the path.
Alacrity walked back to his place as murmured side exchanges began to die away. After a short silence, Sibyl Higgins put the question, "I believe I'm safe in saying none of us cares to change his or her vote?" Nobody contradicted her.
"Then I see no reason to prolong—" Higgins had just begun when hatches boomed closed, reverberating, and a voice filled the Vale. It was the first time any of them had heard the Ship speak with any voice but her own; it was nothing short of terrifying that it was the voice of Dincrist.
