Put more simply, beautiful women have something they can trade for not having to go out and be jostled by the dirty, poor, and ugly.
The richer the rich are, compared with the poor, the more impetus the poor have to trade it in.
The sharper the difference between the wealthy and the poor in any society, the more motivation lower-class girls have for finding a man of a higher class to take them away from it all, no matter what he wants in return; the sharper the motivation for middle-class women to do anything rather than fall to the bottom.
A quick eyeball estimate suggested that, of the thousand or so people at the manager's reception, fully ten percent were lovely women. Yet another point for my theory.
Clinging to the arm of a fat man in an elegant purple knee-coat and silken breeches, a long-haired redhead smiled an invitation at me. She wore a clinging silver sequined dress that must have cost her mackereau plenty. It was gathered at the neck, and slit in the front to an impressive cleavage, and slit up almost to her left hip on the side. She gave a half-turn away, letting me see that her dress left her back bare from the neck almost to the base of the spine.
I returned the smile for just a moment, until she turned back to her companion and gave a deep-throated, totally sympathetic laugh at whatever he'd just said.
I know what the laugh of a whore sounds like. I left the laugh behind.
The first step was to find the host.
I found Port Manager Bercuson at the far end of the room, an overweight, over-jeweled dowager, presumably his wife, at his side. They were engaged in conversation with a dozen men and women in TW Commerce Department formal finery: high-collared black suits, brass buttons down the front, black trousers with gold stripes on the men, knee-length pleated black skirts on the women, rank insignia on collars and sleeves, medals and ribbons on the left breast.
He carried more hardware than any of the others: the four broad stripes on his sleeve, proclaiming him a manager, got him off to a good start.
I've never quite figured out what the Commerce Department gives its people medals for, and I've never really bothered to ask. It's more fun guessing, and I've made up my private translation table. He had the Loss of Baggage Cross with three oak leaf clusters as the senior medal, accompanied by a Dithering Device, a Prolonged Negotiation Cross, and two of the strange little devices that really look like golden nails, as in "for want of a nail . . ."
"Good evening, Manager Bercuson."
I didn't have a nameplate on the left side of my tunic, but he had apparently been briefed.
"Inspector-General Tetsuo Hanavi." His handshake was moist, but correct. "I'm so pleased that you could join us this evening." He indicated the woman on his right. "My wife, Elena. Dear, this is the inspector-general I was telling you about. He's going to make sure that Metzada fulfills its contract to whichever side they sign on with in the upcoming Nueva war."
Unusual. Usually CD people try to pretend that all wars are avoidable, if only the right words are said at the right time.
She gave a half-sniff. At that, the conversation around us quickly died off.
Don't worry about it, old woman. I bathed fairly recently.
I had to throw something into the silence. "Very kind of you to give this reception, Manager," I said.
His smile may have been genuine. "Not at all, Inspector-General, not at all. Most of the Thellonee's trade is half the continent away at Mukachevo these days; any excuse for a reception is a pleasure. Which isn't to say," he quickly added, "that your being here is any less of an honor."
Or any more of one, either.
I stayed another couple of minutes, until the conversation overloaded my banality circuits, then made my excuses and left.
Over by the east wall, under a Boccaccio tapestry of nymphs and satyrs frolicking in a wooded glen, the Casalingpaesan general was holding court, several dozen officers and companions waiting on his words with either bated breath or a politic simulation.
I hitched at my swords and made my way over towards the Casas. A much-beribboned, fortyish colonel of artillery nodded a greeting, and opened his mouth to say something when the general stopped what he was saying and turned to me.
"Tetsuo Hanavi," General Vittorio Giacometti exclaimed, with what sounded like genuine pleasure. "How long has it been?"
He was an unabashedly portly man, the scarlet tunic and glistening black trousers of his uniform perfectly tailored. Handing his glass to his companion, a slim, dark-haired girl who couldn't have been more than eighteen, he walked over and gripped my shoulders. "And with stars on your shoulders, yet. Well done, boy, well done. How long has it been?"
"A few years, General," I said. "I think it was that time outside of Anchorville?"
I knew it was that time outside of Anchorville, and he knew it was that time outside Anchorville, but maybe there was somebody who didn't listening in.
"Ahh . . . Correggio it's now called. Yesyesyes," he said. "You don't look any older, though that was ten years or so ago." He turned to the civilian at his right, a fiftyish, square-jawed Casa who looked almost too neat and clean in his black kneecoat and breeches, like he'd just been unwrapped from the plastic.
"Almost eleven," I said. "I had some difficulty on Rand a couple years back. My face had to be rebuilt a little."
One of his officers, a major whose face was heavily fire-scarred, looked at me long and steadily. I couldn't tell if he was glaring at me; his face was the rigid, expressionless mask that fire leaves behind.
Sorry, Major. If Casalingpaesa wants to pay for Metzadan reconstructive surgery, they're welcome to. It's not cheap. But we don't export that kind of information. Generally, you can only sell information once, and not for enough.
Giacometti cleared his throat. "In any case .. . Ambassador Gianpaulo Adazzi, Inspector-General Tetsuo Hanavi," he said, presenting me with an elegant flourish.
I bowed, not deeply. "Ambassador."
"Inspector-General."
"The ambassador is my superior, General. He'll be doing the negotiating for Casalingpaesa. We are big on civilian control, you know."
I was surprised, but it wouldn't do to act surprised. "I know about civilian control," I said, taking a light tone. "It's one of the perversions you offworlders fall subject to," I added with a smile.
Giacometti turned to snap his fingers at the crowd of officers and companions at his left. "Are there no manners here?" the general said. "One of you run to the bar and get a drink for the Inspector-General—and quickly, quickly, quickly, before he dies of thirst. Whiskey, General?"
"Scots whiskey, if they have it" Another guilty pleasure. It's remarkable how much soup could be made with the barley that goes into just one liter of whiskey.
"Wonderful exercise, Correggio was," Giacometti went on. "One of your brother's early commands, as I recall."
"One of them." His first, really, but that wasn't how Ari had been advertised.
Reclaiming his glass, the general took a quick slurp before addressing the assemblage. "Simply wonderful His brother found a unique way of motivating a tired unit. Absolutely saved the day. Absolutely." He waited, expectantly.
One of the captains took the bait. "Unique way, General?"
"Yes," Giacometti said, with a smile. "He called in an enemy artillery barrage on his own position. It worked beautifully."
That wasn't quite how it happened, but it was close enough.
"It did, at that," I said, proud that there was not even a trace of irony in my voice.
Despite the almost clownish demeanor, it would have been a mistake to underrate Giacometti. His chest was covered with medals—which wouldn't necessarily mean much; a Casa private usually carries almost enough brass on his chest to make a cannon—but just under the senior Casa decoration was the Two Swords, with Shimon's three unauthorized red stitches. Vittorio Giacometti was one of Shimon Bar-El's cronies, from the first time Shimon was on Nueva.
My uncle never picks his people haphazardly.
"Fine." I accepted the glass. Any one would have been fine; it's hard to develop a discriminating palate for whiskies when you have your first taste at sixteen, and that only the harsh stuff we use at home for the Mercenary's Toast.
The ambassador ignored Giacometti's attempt to change the subject. "You don't approve of civilian control, then. May one inquire as to why?"
"Nothing personal, Ambassador. It's just that civilians tend to keep modifying objectives and making tactical and strategic decisions they've got no business making. Instructions from civilians to the military should consist of one word: win."
"Very interesting. And one should leave to the military the question of what is a 'win' and what means to do it with?"
"Not necessarily." I sipped at my whiskey. "Only if you've got the right military. They can do better with what you have than you think they can." I smiled genially at him. "End of free lesson. The next one costs."
He took a moment to think that over. "I've decided that wasn't intended as an insult. Why am I right?"
I decided that I liked this ambassador. "Because we're always professionals, and you aren't. You've got some fine officers, in and out of uniform. Ditto for the best of your NCOs.
"But you don't have any blooded privates, damned few good NCOs left in the companies, and what blooded company-grade officers you have are the losers who haven't even been able to make major in ten years of peace. That leaves you vulnerable in a way that the Freiheimers aren't: they've got a stronger martial tradition than you have. You've lost too many good men to civvy street, and promoted too many good paper-pushers in the past ten years."
I turned to Giacometti. "Present company excepted, General," I said levelly, hoping that he understood that I wasn't speaking just out of politeness. Giacometti may have seemed half-clown in a social setting, but I'd seen him run a division.
"So why Metzada? Why not some of the private companies?" Adazzi asked.
I shrugged. "That's the kind of question you should be saving for General Alon, and his staff. I'm just the IG. He can tell you what the private companies are capable of, individually and collectively. Forgetting for the moment that none of them can put together anything larger than a beefed-up regiment, we're better. Not cheaper. Better." I smiled. "Meaner."
"That may well be," Adazzi said, his voice holding only a trace of the skepticism he wanted me to know he felt.
"Ladies and gentlemen, a toast," the general said. "To renewed acquaintances."
"Renewed acquaintances." I drained the glass.
"Speaking of your brother, is he among your party, by any chance?" Giacometti asked.
"Sorry, no—his battalion just got home from Thuringia. He's taking some well-earned rest with his family."
"Ahh. Unfortunate. One of our party was his exec, in his old company. Major Paulo Stuarti? You recall?"
I nodded; I recalled. A good hand with a handgun, even if he was a bit too quick with the hip flask. Although . . . just a major? Unless his performance had degraded one hell of a lot over the past decade, Stuarti should have been at least a light colonel. He was a damn fine combat officer.
I flagged a passing waiter, and snagged a couple of hors d'oeuvres from his silver tray.
"I don't see him." I wasn't sure what it was on the crackers, but it tasted agreeably salty.
"He is somewhere around; it's far too early for him and his companion to have retired. There was somebody else here, wanting to meet you—an assistant police prefect, something-or-other Dunnigan? Dunfey, I think it is. Yes, yes, Dunfey. You should keep an eye out for him." The tone was a dismissal
"That I should." Probably the usual don't-get-into-trouble warning, which I'd best put off as long as possible. I nodded, again. "Good to see you again, sir."
"Be well, Inspector-General. Be well."
Leaving the empty glass on a table, I worked my way through the crowd toward the other side of the room. Both etiquette and common sense would keep Casalingpaesans and Freiheimers on opposite sides of the room, and I'd have to seem to pay equal attention to both. Giacometti was fully capable of finesse; it was possible that he really didn't want me to spend more than a few minutes with his opposite number. Or maybe he didn't want me to irritate the ambassador too much.
I was almost all the way across the room when she caught my arm.
It's one move to turn, block and strike, but there are thousands of combinations.
I turned slowly and smiled.
"How are you this evening?" she asked, her even smile more promise than invitation. Again, she tossed her head to give me the effect of her long red hair spilling down her mostly-naked back. I was grateful, of course, but didn't know quite how to thank her.
"Fine. And how have you been?"
"Oh? Have we met before?"
"Pardon my bluntness." Or don't. I've met you on a dozen worlds, lady. "But who are you?"
"Well," she said, tucking her hand under my arm, "you can call me Melanie. And I'm more of a what than a who."
"Really? Then what are you?"
"I'm sort of your present for tonight. With General Giacometti's compliments." She said the words easily, without embarrassment, as though being a whore were a simple fact, like the sun rising in the morning.
This was surprising. Giacometti should have known better than to try and bribe me. Not that I wouldn't take a bribe, mind; that's permitted. Doing something you weren't otherwise going to do in return for a bribe is what is forbidden. Strictly.
"I have to pay my respects to the Freiheimers," I said.
"They are this way," she said, pulling gently on my arm.
You can't serve under Shimon Bar-El without something of him rubbing off on you. My brother learned command presence; I picked up something else.
General Manfred Holtenbrenner made me want to reach for my swords.
He was a tall man, even taller than I am, his back ramrod straight, his black Freiheimer uniform elegantly edged in gold. Almost all of him was studiously elegant. His hair was black, carefully flecked with gray only at the temples. A slim tabstick dangled from his lower lip; he reached up incongruously stubby fingers to take it out as he greeted us.
To his right, a watery-eyed, blond lieutenant wearing an aide's golden aiguillette watched me carefully, as though there were something the pasty-faced little bastard could do if I decided I wanted the general dead. I returned his level, almost frankly hostile gaze with a weak smile, resisting the urge to let some threat shine through.
After all, the IG is a noncombatant.
"Guten abend, Herr General," I said.
He waved it away. "English, please, Inspector-General," he said in a voice that held no accent, except, perhaps, a bit of extra guttural on the voiced consonants.
"Tetsuo Hanavi," I said.
"I am Manfred Holtenbrenner," he gave more of a medium nod than a slight bow, but not much more. "And the young lady?"
Perhaps there was a trace of a sneer on his lip, just a bit of knowing scorn in his voice; perhaps not. But I remembered—
Shimon Bar-El's face is greasy in the firelight. "Freiheimers, they call themselves," he says. "Freiheimers. I remember them. I remember Amalek," he says. There is a small leather-covered Bible in his left hand, but he's not reading from it. He doesn't have to, not for these verses.
"Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Riphidim.
"And Moshe said to Yehoshua: 'Choose men, and go out and fight with Amalek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of the Lord in my hand.'
"Yehoshua did as Moshe said to him, and fought with Amalek; and Moshe, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And it came to pass, when Moshe held up his hand, that Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
"But Moshe's hands were heavy,
so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, one on the other, and his hands were steady until the sun went down.
"And Yehoshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
"And the Lord said to Moshe, 'Write this for a memorial in the book, and rehearse it in the ears of Yehoshua, for I—I, Shimon Bar-El—will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.' And Moshe built an altar, and called it The Lord Is My Banner, and he said, 'With my hand on the throne of the Lord, I swear that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.' "
He tucks the Bible back in his khaki shirt and makes us all wait while he buttons his shirt carefully over it.
"I remember," he says, his voice a quiet murmur, almost a whisper. We all have to hold our breath to hear him now, and that's probably just the way he wants it. "I remember Amalek. Let the rest of the universe forget, I remember. You think Amalek perished there, in Riphidim?
"No. I say to you that Amalek is here, and I tell you that I have a war to finish with Amalek." Tears stream down his broad face; he seems to stagger for a moment, then he recovers.
"More." He holds up his hands as he looks me square in the face. Me, out of the hundreds there. "I tell you that you have a war with Amalek. And here is where you face him—"
I looked him square in the face. My brother was right: Shimon would not have passed us knowledge that we could use to strike a deal with Freiheim. I didn't see all the traps, but it didn't matter. If we were to get involved in the war, it would be alongside the Casas again. It had long been decided, maybe even in Riphidim. Knowing that felt good, but it didn't matter how I felt about it. It wasn't my decision. It was the old man's. Again. I felt distant, as though all this were happening a long way away, my mouth and limbs controlled by a distant puppeteer. But I was, at that moment, unable to resent it, any more than the puppet does.
"The young lady," I heard myself saying, "is a whore, of good Junker stock, that my friend General Giacometti is giving me for the night."
Not For Glory Page 10
