Conn saw the Incomparable’s back curve while his head went forward in an attempt to counterbalance and thought, That can’t be good. A moment later, the Crab abruptly used her feet to slow the speed of the roll’s spin and her purple-clad opponent tried a desperate lateral pass to an Incomparable on another roll. The attempt came to nothing. The ball went wide and the Incomparable went into the water, to hoots and shouts from the section of the seating where electric blue scarves and berets waved, and groans from where the purple sat.
At the end of the first of four periods, with the score at three to two for the Crabs, the teams exchanged ends. By halftime the Incomparables had added two more goals to their total. But in a lighting-fast, last-moment rush the Crabs leapfrogged up the right side of the pool then executed a brilliant series of lateral leaps and passages that put their left forward in position to hurl the ball through the Incomparables’ goal just before the bell rang.
“This is an enjoyable game to watch,” Conn said as the players retired to the preparation rooms for the halftime rest.
“Even more enjoyable to play,” said Iriess, unpacking a basket of filled buns and cold fish pies. “You look to be well coordinated, and I can teach you the strategy if you would like to try out for the reserves.”
“I cannot swim.”
Iriess blinked in surprise. “You may be the first adult I have ever met who could make that statement.”
“My employer on Thrais saw no need for me to learn. In any case, I lived all of my life in a single large building. It did not contain a pool.”
Jenore had left her friends to join them and heard the exchange. “Conn is not like us,” she said. “The Spray is strewn with worlds based on profoundly different strategies for organizing lives.”
“You were a slave, were you not?” Iriess said.
“No,” said Conn. “I was not owned as a chattel. I had obligations to my employer. I met them honorably, as he met his obligations to me.”
“Yet he decided all things.”
“Many decisions were mine to make. Others were negotiable. It was a complex relationship.”
Iriess gave a small shudder. “I prefer our way,” he said, passing Conn a seeded bun and a smoked eel pastie. “All is simple and above board. Each sets his course as he sees fit and we all get along.”
As they had been speaking, the crowd around them had been generating a buzz of conversation punctuated by shouts and laughs from its younger members who sought to impress each other and especially those who were of the same age but of different family and gender. Now Conn heard a new note under the general hubbub: a darker grumble pierced by growls of disapproval.
His eyes were drawn to the landward end of the playing pool where a knot of older boys and young men were gathered around the portly figure of Alwan Foulaine, highly visible in a robe of yellow and green at the foot of one of the tiers of seats. He stood on a box that raised him head and shoulders above the crowd. He held a clipboard to which he continually affixed small slips of paper passed to him by the men and boys surrounding him. He would consider each slip in turn, compare it with information on the board, then speak to the skulker of the night before who waited at his elbow.
The assistant – Conn had learned that his name was Whitlow – wore an apron faced with several bulging pouches. Upon each instruction he would reach into a pouch and count out a number of colored disks – red, yellow and green – placing them in the hand of whoever had passed a slip to the balding man above him. Some recipients would take the tokens and string them onto a cord worn about the neck; others could be seen immediately passing the tokens back to the wiry man and, after a brief exchange, receiving a new slip of paper from Foulaine.
Conn noted that some of the crowd wore complete necklaces of tokens, some with two or three strands. Others boasted only a few disks on a string. Those who had more generally looked happier than those who had few, but Conn could see that the distribution of smiles and frowns depended on whether an individual was proffering a slip to collect a reward or tearing one up and throwing away the pieces.
“That is the Tote,” he said.
“Indeed,” said Iriess. “You have already met Alwan Foulaine, its originator.”
Now it was Jenore’s turn to shudder slightly. “He not only grew the paunch but acquired the face of a truculent dog,” she said. “I remember now why I was so glad to join Chabriz’s show.”
“Shame,” said a deep voice nearby, not as loud as a shout but well above a mutter. Conn looked up to see Eblon Mordene glowering at the swirl around Alwan Foulaine and especially at its centerpiece. Other growls and rumbles could be heard from the spectators and the faces of many older members of the crowd showed the same grim censure that darkened Conn’s host’s.
The troop of men and boys around Foulaine and Whitlow was shrinking as people collected winnings and made fresh bets. Some of them did so with defiant glances at their grumbling elders, others filing back to their seats with careful faces, as if they heard nothing. Foulaine himself turned a bland face to the bleachers then went back to business.
“What is the problem?” Conn asked.
“It is the tokens,” Iriess said. “For some, they seem too much like money.”
“But they cannot be spent for anything, so they are no more significant than colored pebbles from the beach.”
“I tend to agree. My father has different views. it is a generational divide.”
Jenore stepped into the conversation. “I agree with our father. No coin has been passed between Shorraffis since time out of mind. This is not good.”
“They are not coins,” said her brother. “What can they buy?”
“Respect,” she said. “Those who have strings of tokens about their necks are judged to be more handed at predicting outcomes of birl matches.”
Iriess waved dismissively. “They do not purchase their handedness with tokens. The strings are mere symbols of their ability.”
“Perhaps because I have been among coin-passers I see dangers that are not apparent to you.”
“Or perhaps you disapprove because it was Alwan Foulaine who originated the Tote.”
“What is Foulaine’s handedness?” Conn asked.
Jenore made a rude noise with lips and tongue. Her brother ignored the sound and answered the question. “He was very good at throwing knives and hand-axes, though it’s not a skill that commands much respect. But he has an amazing facility with numbers. He can multiply one four digit number by another in less time than it takes to state the integers.”
“Impressive,” Conn said.
“Give him a date and he can tell you what day of the week it fell on, though it be a thousand years ago.”
“Remarkable.”
“But useless,” said Jenore. “If I need an arithmetical result, I ask an integrator. If I need to know the day of a date, I consult a calendar.”
Iriess had to agree that Foulaine’s gift was of little practical purpose. “It is a shame, in a way,” he said. “If he’d been able to do anything that would win him praise he might not have become such a...”
His assessment of Alwan Foulaine was drowned in a blare of horns from the roof above the preparation rooms. Now the players marched back onto the field to the strains of Yet Again to The Fray. It was an ancient paean, one Conn had heard often during his own contests on Thrais and it raised an unfamiliar feeling in him to hear it here. But he shook off the sentiment and concentrated on the Crabs and Incomparables.
Play was even more brisk as the second half opened, the players in blue clearly energized by their success in holding the highly regarded purple-silvers to a first-half draw. The Crab forwards seemed almost to walk on water as they skipped from plat to roll while the Incomparables quickly lost whatever elan they had summoned up between halves. Within minutes, the score was five to four for the upstarts and the Crabs were pressing hard for an insurance goal.
“The Incomparables needed a come-uppance,” Iriess said. “The
ir playbook has not changed since I was a first-year reservist.”
“But do you look forward to facing the Crabs?” Conn asked. “I sense an aura of ensuance about them.”
At Iriess’s blank look he explained that he had used a Thraisian term for a competitor’s sense of being attuned to victory, when every stroke and motion achieves exactly its intended effect and the body seems guided toward perfection by some irresistible outside force.
“We shall see,” said Iriess. “They won’t be playing those lumberers if they come to our pool. They’ll be...”
He broke off to shade his eyes against the sun. Something bright and flashing was in the air above Five Fingers Key and as Conn followed Iriess’s gaze the object resolved itself into a long and luxurious air yacht, yellow and black with crimson sponsons and fairings and the coat of arms of a noble house prominent on the tail fin. It swooped gracefully toward the open field behind the preparation building and even the birlers watched it come down. Then it passed out of their sight behind the building and the game went on.
Conn shaded his eyes. He saw a portal open and a ramp descend. Four figures descended. “That, I believe, is the intercessor Gievel,” he said.
“Yes,” Jenore said. “Along with two lords and, probably, their own intercessor.”
“Well.” Conn stood up. “I will go and see what there is to see.”
Jenore also rose and said to her brother, “Are you coming?”
At that moment the crowd erupted in mingled cheers and groans as a Crab forward was dunked. Iriess tore his gaze away from the action to look up at Conn and Jenore but could not keep his eyes from sliding back toward the pool.
“Never mind,” she said.
“You do not need to accompany me either,” Conn told her.
“When we were on Thrais I contracted to guide you in encounters with some of Old Earth’s peculiarities. You are about to meet some of them.” She linked an arm in his and drew him down the steps between rows of seats. “Besides, I have another motive. We will pass within close range of Alwan Foulaine. I wish him to see me in your company again.”
“You should forget him.”
“I do not forget as easily as you,” she said. “There, we have caught his eye. Try to appear serene and dangerous.”
They passed behind the bench where the Incomparables’ reserves sat. Conn noted a forlornness in the set of the players’ shoulders and the degree of elevation at which they held their heads. If he were interested in collecting Tote tokens, he would have bet against the purples. He was familiar with the aura of impending defeat.
During his brief inspection of the losing team his peripheral vision caught a motion of yellow and green. “Foulaine is following us,” he said.
Jenore tossed her head and made a wordless sound that paradoxically conveyed both victory and indifference. They made their way around the robing room and saw the air yacht hovering just above a stretch of lawn. Gievel and the three others were waiting at the bottom of the ramp.
“A quick lesson,” said Jenore as they approached. “When we meet them you must make the motions I do.”
“On Thrais, we greet each other thus and so,” Conn said, demonstrating the chest-tap and knuckle-brush that constituted a formal greeting.
“I know,” she said, “but these are more sensitive circumstances. Old Earth aristocrats are trained from infancy to respond to forms and procedures. If you do not make the right gestures they may not be able even to see you.”
“I am capable of drawing myself to their attention,” Conn said.
“There is a difference between seeing and recognizing,” Jenore said. “As well, they will know that you were recently indentured, therefore your present rank puts you beneath their normal threshold of perception. They will have difficulty seeing you in the best of circumstances and will not address you at all. They will speak to their intercessor who will speak to Gievel. It would be best if you replied through him.”
“I am accustomed to negotiate for myself,” Conn said.
“They are not accustomed to negotiate at all. To let Gievel be the buffer will avert unnecessary lapses in communication. Remember, when on Haxxi...”
Conn acceded to her greater experience. “They certainly are remarkable in their appearance.”
The aristocrats wore loose upper garments of shimmering fabric which constantly changed color as the breeze altered the angle at which it encountered sunlight. The sleeves were slashed to reveal the contrasting buff fabric of their linings and the shoulders, which extended well beyond the width of the rest of the garments, were augmented by long quills ending in feathery tassels. The blouses were gathered at the hips by broad belts of supple leather, beneath was pastel-shaded, limb-hugging hose that hardened to become boots. The lords’ hands and wrists were encased in metallic gauntlets that each sported one finger more than should have been necessary.
But what captured Conn’s attention were the spherical masks that fully covered the visitors’ heads. Fashioned from a translucent material, each made it appear as if its wearer had replaced his own head with a transparent helmet in which someone else’s head floated. Above the shoulders of the taller of the two aristocrats was the head of a mature man wearing an expression of studied inattention. The shorter wore the curls and features of a little girl.
As Conn and Jenore approached, the tall one’s mask turned briefly toward them, though its eyes did not quite focus, then redirected its attention to the intercessor, a man in understated clothing who stood with Gievel. Jenore stopped a short distance before reaching the group and executed a series of formal gestures which Conn copied. Then she took a step closer, repeated two of the motions and adopted an attitude of decorous expectation. Again Conn did as she did.
The taller lord inclined his floating head toward the other intercessor and spoke softly. The man turned to Conn and said, “I am Ezrail Opteram. I have the honor to name Lord Vullamir and Lord Magratte. They decline a statement of lineages and exquisitries, these being without meaning to you.”
“I am Conn Labro, an unencumbered consumer...,” Conn began, but Gievel indicated that there was no need to identify himself. The intercessor said to Opteram, “My client is present and desires to hear your offer.”
Opteram said something to Lord Vullamir, the taller of the two aristocrats. Words passed from the lord to his intercessor.
Opteram said, “Your client has come into possession of an object that was stolen from its rightful owners many years ago. My clients are interested in...”
Gievel listened attentively, his face neutral, but Conn interrupted the other intercessor. “Am I accused of theft? Is that why my assets have been distrained?”
Again, Gievel gestured for calm and quiet. “Let me counsel that we hear the other side in full before we make a response.” To Opteram he said, “Please continue.”
“I will address the point,” the other man said. “No accusation of theft is leveled against your client. The object was stolen by one Cooblor Tonn, who it turned out also went by the name Hallis Tharp. It was taken from his employers and carried away.”
At the mention of the old man’s name, it seemed to Conn that the sun’s warmth grew weaker and the air took on a chill. “Who were his employers?” he said.
“Please,” said Gievel, an edge creeping into his tone, “let me handle this.”
“The identity of Tonn’s employers is not germane to the issue at hand,” Opteram said. “We are here to discuss the object and its disposition.”
“Just so,” said Gievel. “Pray continue.”
“No,” said Conn. “The matter of Hallis Tharp is of relevance to me. I believe he was killed by someone who wished to obtain the ‘object,’ and there were two attempts on my life. I will not discuss the matter unless my questions are answered.”
Gievel and Opteram put their heads together and spoke quietly, then the latter spoke in turn to Lord Vullamir. The lordly head on the aristocrat’s shoulders rotated until its
eyes focused on Conn. The young man found the gaze disconcerting because he was unable to read any expression in it. Although the head appeared to be fully realized it conveyed no more sense of an inner life than if it had been carved from stone. Meanwhile, the little girl’s head on the second lord’s shoulders peered at him with a peevish expression.
Vullamir turned back to Opteram and said something. The intercessor bowed and turned to Gievel. “I will relate what I know of the matter.”
He said that Cooblor Tonn, as he had then been known, had been employed for several years by the Flagit brothers, Ermin and Blathe, as a developer of entertainments and amusements. He had designed and overseen the construction of a play area on their vast estate at the landward end of the Olkney peninsula as well as some off-world retreats.
“What sorts of entertainments and amusements?” Conn interrupted. “Who are these Flagits?”
The Flagits turned out to have been the inheritors of an immense fortune built up by generations of entrepreneurial ancestors who seemed to have reliably passed down the gene for turning opportunity into profit. They entered adulthood with a greater net worth than any other resident of Old Earth, indeed greater than the fortunes of the next three wealthiest families combined.
However, unlike the long succession of Flagits that preceded them, the brothers did not use their mind-staggering riches to generate even greater heaps of plenty. Instead, they devoted their lives to amusing themselves on grander and grander scales.
“They liked to play games,” Opteram said, “against each other. Very large games, so large that eventually their scale grew too great for their estate. They acquired a small, private planet named Forlor and there they conducted wars using robot armies and fleets.”
The armies and fleets grew bigger and the fighting ever more ferocious, but with each iteration the Flagits would experience the same cycle of initial excitement and a growing absorption that ultimately led to satiation and ennui.
“Then, it is said, they decided that the robots were the problem, that they were too predictable. The brothers wanted to fight their wars with armies of men and so they put out calls for recruits. At that point, a number of governments became concerned as they often do when private armies begin to blossom in their areas of jurisdiction.
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