“I see why you said we had to finish our drinks,” Sharrow said, steadying herself against the wall by the grab-handles. Geis still held both their glasses from the party, but he’d insisted they drink up before they took the elevator to inspect the gallery.
The air whistled round the lift like a distant scream.
Geis glanced at the depth display. “Should start braking now,” he said. The elevator shook slightly, the screaming noise altered in pitch, and weight gradually returned.
“What was this anyway?” Sharrow asked.
“Old gold mine,” Geis said as the lift slowed further and they felt their weight increase. The scream died to a moan.
“Feels like we’re almost through the crust,” Sharrow said, flexing her legs.
“Hardly,” Geis said. “But we are very deep; deep enough to need refrigeration to keep the tunnels comfortable.” The lift came smoothly to a stop and the doors opened.
“Where the hell is he?” Sharrow looked up at where the first hint of the slow dawn was turning the membrane sky a faint, streaky blue.
They had quit The Broken Neck almost as fast as they had The Pulled Nail. They returned to the stable on the other side of town where they’d sold the jemers they’d ridden in on. There hadn’t been any need to hammer at the door to get the proprietors up; like most people in Pharpech town, they had been awake all night, first celebrating the King’s miraculous escape, then mourning his tragic demise. Cenuij was supposed to meet them there, but they’d already waited two hours.
The stable had gone quiet behind them, the owner and his family finally gone to bed. They waited on the road outside. Zefla lay curled up asleep amongst their baggage, her head resting against a shallow bark crate full of empty beer jugs the stable had left out for collection by the local brewery. Dloan sat near her, looking down the road the way Cenuij ought to come, while Miz paced up and down and Sharrow alternated standing with her arms folded, foot tapping, and also pacing up and down. Their five mounts and two pack jemers snored and snorted fitfully, lying sleeping at the side of the road.
“Let me call him,” Miz said to Sharrow, coming up to her and waving the transceiver.
She shook her head. “He’ll call us as soon as he can.”
“Well let me go in and find out what’s happening!” Miz pleaded, pointing to the low, dark lump that was the town, barely outlined against the lighter darkness behind it.
“No, Miz,” she said.
Miz held his hands up in a gesture of desperation. “So what do we do? Wait here forever? Leave without him?”
“Wait till he comes. We can’t leave him here for the Huhsz. Anyway,” she said, “he’s probably the only one who remembers the route back to the railway…” Her voice trailed off as the transceiver in Miz’s hand buzzed.
Miz glanced at the dark, windowless wall of the stable behind him, turned away from it, then clicked the communicator on. “Yes?” he said quietly.
“Miz.” It was Cenuij’s voice. “You have the animals?”
“Yeah; we gave you the ugly one. What’s keeping you?”
“Desecrations. Listen; meet me behind the cathedral as soon as you can.”
“What?” Miz said, glancing at Sharrow.
“Behind the cathedral. Ride in. Bring my mount. And something the same size as the book.”
“The same—?” Miz began.
Sharrow took hold of his hand, talking into the transceiver. “Cenuij, what about the Huhsz?”
“Taken care of. I have to go now—”
“Cenuij!” Sharrow said. “Reassure me.”
“Eh?” They could hear the note of impatience in his voice. “Oh…It’s all a Huhsz trick; flee for your lives. Happy?”
“No,” she said. “Get out of there.”
“Absolutely not. Behind the cathedral; bring a book. Out.”
The transceiver chimed once and went silent.
“Call him back,” Sharrow said.
Miz tried. “Switched off.” He shrugged.
Sharrow glared at the transceiver. “Bastard,” she said.
Miz put it back in his pocket and held his arms out. “Now what?”
The tunnel revealed beyond the elevator doors was four meters across and gently lit. The air in the tunnel was as warm as the evening breeze had been on the terrace of the villa five kilometers above on the shoulder of one of the Blue Hills of Piphram, where the New Year party was still in full swing. Geis showed her into a small electric buggy. He took a small bottle from his jacket and filled both their glasses with the echirn spirit. They clinked glasses solemnly, then he took the buggy’s controls and the vehicle jerked into motion, spilling a little of her drink on the yolk of her dress.
“Eek,” she said, and burped decorously.
“Whoops.” Geis grinned and handed her a handkerchief. “Sorry,” he said.
“That’s quite all right,” she told him, dabbing at her dress. The lights of the corridor moved smoothly past as they drove toward a set of steel-blue doors filling the tunnel ahead. She looked back toward the lift. “Hope they’re not missing you at the party.”
“Let them,” Geis said. He took a pack of cheroots from his jacket. “Smoke?” he asked as he slowed down for the doors.
“Shoan, right?”
“How’d you guess?”
“I’m a genius.”
Geis just grinned as the buggy halted; he jumped out, went to the tall doors, pressed his hand to a panel and stepped back. The meter-thick doors swung outward slowly and silently, revealing a short stretch of narrower tunnel beyond and then a similar set of doors.
“Geis,” Sharrow said, hiccuping once as she drew on the cheroot, lighting it. “You’re collecting doors. Your art collection consists of several sets of nuke-proof doors.”
Geis swung back into the buggy and started it moving.
“Come to think of it,” he said, “they are antiques. I hadn’t thought of that.”
She stuck the cheroot between her lips and put her hand out toward him as they slowed for the second set of doors. “I demand my Finder’s Fee,” she said.
He took her hand and kissed it. “Later,” he said. He jumped out of the buggy and went to the doors ahead.
She frowned, looking at her hand, then turned to look back at the first set of doors; they had closed.
“Hey, Zef?”
“Mmm?”
“Up, girl; we need your pillow.”
“What?”
The gallery was a long cavern alcoved with short tunnels, each fitted with its own blast door; the gallery’s gray ceiling was half-hidden by cable runs, pipes and ducting. Geis turned all the lights on and had the alcove doors swing open. Each alcove held a few paintings, statues, full bookcases, or a piece of ancient technology.
She drank from her glass and smoked the shoan cheroot, walking with him from alcove to alcove, surveying the collected treasures, some belonging to Geis’s branch of the family, some the property of the Dascen house itself and not claimed by the World Court, and some the investments of Geis’s family’s companies.
She made a show of looking round. “You didn’t rescue old Gorko’s tomb when they removed it from Tzant, did you?” she asked, smiling at him.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t. It’s still under Court jurisdiction.” If Geis connected the tomb with his enjoyment of Breyguhn that afternoon of the funeral, it didn’t show on his face. “Ended up in a warehouse in Vembyr,” he told her, “if I remember correctly. I’ll bid for it, of course, if and when it…” He paused, looking puzzled. “Why are you grinning like that?”
“Nothing,” she said, looking away. “You don’t really think any of this stuff’s going to be at risk, do you?” she asked, drawing her light wrap over her bare shoulders as they moved beneath the chill downdraft of a ventilation grille.
“Oh, it’s just a precaution,” Geis said, glancing at her. “Are you cold?” he asked. “Here, have my jacket.”
“Don’t be silly,” she told h
im, pushing his offered jacket away.
He slung his jacket over his shoulder. “I don’t think there will be a war. Even if there is it’ll probably be over quickly, and probably just be a space war; but you can’t be sure. I thought it best to get this stuff to safety while there was a threat. It might look like overreaction, but these things are priceless; irreplaceable. And they are my responsibility.” He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t expect a student to understand, though. You lot all support the anti-Tax side anyway, don’t you?”
She snorted. “The ones who aren’t on establishment scholarships, or too deep in their studies to care, or permanently zonked, yes,” she told him.
He stopped in front of an alcove where a glisteningly polished marble statue showed two naked lovers embracing. He refilled her glass.
“Well,” he said. “I have some sympathies with the anti-Tax side, too, but—”
“You’re in the Alliance Navy, cuz,” she reminded him.
“In logistics liaison, on a sporadic commission,” he said. “I’m not likely to be fighting space battles.”
“So what?” she said scornfully.
“I believe I have a duty to be there,” he said reasonably. “To represent the family’s best interests. But I don’t want to be put in a position of actually…”
“Fighting.”
“Making a mistake that would cost lives,” he said, smiling.
She ground the stub of the cheroot under one heel. “Very convincing,” she said.
She walked on. Geis stopped to swivel his boot over the cheroot stub as well.
They left Zefla at the stables with her mount and the two pack animals and rode into the town. Cenuij met them in a narrow cobbled street between the cathedral and a tall, teetering tenement.
It was still very dark; they didn’t see Cenuij until he appeared out of the shadows beneath an overhanging story above a shop-front.
Sharrow jumped down and grabbed the throat of his cassock with one hand. She held the HandCannon in the other.
“This had better be good, Mu.”
“It is!” he whispered, as Miz and Dloan joined them. Cenuij pointed at the cathedral with one shaking hand. “The book is in there! In the cathedral! Now! And it’s practically unguarded!”
Miz bent forward, eyes narrowing. “Define ‘practically.’ ”
“Two guards?” Cenuij said.
Miz straightened and looked round at the dark bulk of the cathedral. “Hmm,” he said.
“Did you bring something the same size as the book?” Cenuij asked as Sharrow let go of his habit.
“Yes,” she said.
“Perfect.” Cenuij rubbed his hands together.
“The small matter of the Huhsz, Cenuij…” Sharrow said.
Cenuij waved one hand. “A detachment of Royal Guardsmen went out to surround the inn over an hour ago. The Huhsz will be spending some time in custody; certainly they won’t be seeing daylight until the prince is crowned King next week.”
“So why’s the book in the cathedral now if the coronation’s not till next week?” Miz asked.
Cenuij’s smile showed up in the darkness. “The terms of the late King’s will dictated that when he lay in state in the cathedral it should be with his feet lying on the book. It’s a position of disgrace usually reserved for enemies’ skulls and unfaithful mistresses. His Majesty’s bibliophobia to the rescue.” Cenuij adjusted his habit and drew himself up and said primly, “I thought it too good an opportunity to miss.”
“You’d better be right about the Huhsz,” she told him. “Where exactly is the book?”
“Follow me.”
“I didn’t really have any choice, Sharrow,” Geis said wearily, following her past the softly lit alcoves. “I had to join the Navy, for my own self-respect and because, when you have this sort of power, this responsibility, you can’t choose not to have it when the decisions become tough. You can’t afford to prevaricate or delegate; you have to be engaged. You can’t stay neutral; you can say you’re neutral, and try to act as though you are, but that neutrality will always help one side more than the other; that’s just the way power works…the leverage it exerts.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s mealy-mouthed, dishonorable, even, to shy away from something like this. One side has to be more right than the other, has to be better for…for us, and I have a responsibility to try to work out which, and then to act on that evaluation. One has to declare for one side or the other.” He smiled ruefully. “I know it’s tough at the bottom, too, and maybe in worse ways, but it really isn’t that easy being at the top. There’s less freedom than people think.”
“If you say so.” She shrugged.
They came to an alcove where a giant plastic packing-case a couple of meters square sat on a couple of low trestles.
“Latest arrival,” Geis said, patting the case. “Shall we open it?”
“Why not?”
He unclipped the catches, swung a lever up and stepped back. The front of the case split, opening outward like the blast doors earlier; a white tidal wave of tiny foam squares flooded from the interior of the case, spilling out over Geis and submerging him up to the waist; she gave a little yelp and stepped back, laughing as the white avalanche swept around her, the level of tickling squares rising to her knees before the flood subsided.
Geis had turned back to look at her, laughing and brushing foam squares out of his hair. Behind him in the packing case, still secured by straps and lapped by white foam squares, was another life-size statue of two lovers. The statue looked like part of a series; it seemed the two lovers were no longer merely embracing, but actually copulating.
Geis spread his hands. “The tide of history,” he laughed. She smiled. He waded through the wash of foam squares to her and stood in front of her, studying her. “You are so beautiful,” he said softly.
He let his jacket drop behind him.
“Geis,” she said.
“Sharrow…” He put one hand behind her neck and pulled her to him, kissing her. She put one hand against his chest and tried to push him away. His lips covered hers, his tongue trying to force its way between. He came closer, putting his other arm round her, pulling her to him.
She forced her head to one side for a moment, gulping. “Geis,” she said, laughing nervously.
He pulled her back and kissed her neck and ears and face, muttering things she could never remember later, and while she tried to push him away, still half-laughing, he ran his hands down her back, under her wrap and up between that and her thin dress. His lips found hers again as she started to speak his name, and his tongue slipped into her mouth. She almost choked, straining to pull her head back as he bent over her; she dropped her glass to push him away with both hands.
“ G—” she managed, before they tumbled over backward into the slope of white foam.
There were two guards in the cathedral sacristy, left there to look after the hated and possibly holy book while the nave of the cathedral was hurriedly prepared to accept the late King’s body, the head of which was currently being packed and stitched into something approaching physiological acceptability in the castle surgery.
One of the guards opened the door when Cenuij knocked.
“My son; I have come to exorcise the book,” he told him.
The guard frowned but opened the door. Cenuij entered. The guard stuck his head out into the cloister to look round. Miz put his gun gently against the guard’s head, just behind his ear, and the man went very still. Cenuij drew his own gun as the other guard was standing up and reaching for his carbine.
Geis straddled her, still kissing her, then suddenly pulled his face away, breathing hard, his hands parting her wrap and running down over her dress, over her breasts and belly.
“It’s all right,” he said breathlessly, smiling down at her. “It’s all right.”
She pushed her pelvis upward, trying to heave him off; her arms foundered in the soft depths of foamy squares. “It is not all right,” she gasped.
<
br /> He pulled his shirt open, buttons popping. “Don’t worry,” he said. He grabbed her dress around her stockinged thighs and pushed it up.
“Geis!”
He fell back on top of her, his head moving quickly from side to side as he tried to kiss her again. He grabbed her arms with his hands, then held both her wrists with one hand and started to undo his trousers. “It’s all right, Sharrow,” he said breathlessly.
“Geis!” she screamed. “NO!”
“Don’t worry; I love you.” He fumbled with her underclothes.
She went limp.
“It’s perfectly simple,” Miz said, addressing the two guards who were sitting on the floor of the sacristy. Cenuij stood by the locked door. Sharrow and Dloan lifted the book out of its palanquin and put it on a long, low vestment chest. Dloan slit the stitching on the book’s skin cover with a viblade. The guards watched, eyes wide.
“We’re going to take this actually quite worthless book away with us,” Miz told them, “and replace it with this rather attractive crate of empty beer jugs.” Miz pointed at the squat beer crate. The guards looked at it, then back at him. “And you aren’t going to say anything, because if you do, and we’re caught, we’ll destroy the book. So the choice is; raise the alarm and have to admit you let us take this supposedly incredibly precious article without really putting up a fight, or say nothing.” Miz spread his hands, smiling happily. “And live to spend these small tokens of our appreciation for your cooperation.” He counted out some silver coins and slipped them into the guards’ pockets.
Sharrow held the skin cover while Dloan slid the book out. The case revealed was made of stainless steel embedded with smooth stones of jacinth, sard, chrysoberyl and tourmaline and inlaid with whorls of soft gold. Dloan checked the lock mechanism. He smiled.
Cenuij pushed him out of the way and put his hands on the book’s case, gently turning it on its side. There was a single glyph on what looked like the spine of the metal box. It wasn’t a script that any of the others recognized, but Cenuij’s face radiated joy when he saw it.
“Yes,” he whispered, stroking the surface of the casing.
Against a Dark Background Page 32
