The Crown Jewels

by Walter Jon Williams

  “It would seem to me, speaking strictly as an observer, that you’re almost asking for betrayal. Why should anyone be loyal to a government that will never trust her?”

  “Perhaps in a few generations, after the Imperial threat becomes less acute. . . .”

  “And I must say, speaking again as an observer, that you seem rather naive about human nature.”

  A veil of steel seemed to move over Amalia Jensen’s eyes. Tvi realized she may have offended by offering a judgment on Amalia’s species. Oh well, she thought, what was the point of being a languid sophisticate if you couldn’t offer sweeping judgments?

  Besides, this wasn’t anything Amalia hadn’t just done with respect to races other than her own. “Yes?” Amalia said. “How so?”

  “Because you are underestimating the extent of human corruptibility. Miss Jensen. Why do you assume that an individual will be loyal simply because he is human? Are not humans as susceptible to greed, extortion, and treachery as any other? More so, if the stereotypes are to be believed.” Seeing Amalia’s dark glance, Tvi hastened to add, “Which I don’t for a moment believe, by the way. But d’you see what I mean? If you waste all your resources averting treachery on the part of nonhumans who may not be traitors in the first place, you may be missing the humans who are.”

  “I’m not advocating for a minute spending all our resources doing any one thing,” Amalia said. “But still, one may assume a certain species loyalty, yes? Why else would so many well-placed humans support the Rebellion, even though such support was largely against their own interests?”

  “Greed and blackmail, for starters.”

  Amalia frowned and pushed her tray away. “That’s not true.”

  “Probably not. Not in more than a few cases, anyway.” Tvi threw her other leg over the chair arm and snuggled into the cushion. “I’m just offering a pair of motivations you seem not to have considered in the case of your own species, but are all too happy to attribute to others.”

  Amalia Jensen winced and turned her eyes away. “I understand the reasons for Ronnie Romper,” she said, “but can’t you get rid of the smile, somehow? It’s just too distracting, having to debate that grin.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Amalia gave a sigh and put her chin on her hand. “I’ll just have to bear up, then.”

  “Good advice, I’d say, for a woman in your situation.”

  *

  Bingo, thought Gregor Norman. Point for me. He looked at the numbers shimmering on his computer screen and leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his neck just above where the proximity wire in his collar interfaced his mind with the computer. A grin spread over his face. The champagne that still sparkled on the frontiers of his consciousness acted to widen the grin. He nodded in time to the Vivaldi he was playing on his Troxan sound deck, enjoyed his triumph for a few moments, then reached to the service plate on the wall and pressed the ideograph for “general announcement.”

  “Boss. I think I’ve found something.”

  If Gregor hadn’t been anticipating, he never would have heard Maijstral enter. The man moved in such absolute silence that, in the early months of his apprenticeship, Gregor had wondered if there was something uncanny about it. Just good training, he finally decided, and began consciously to imitate him.

  Gregor was a good thief, had always been. He’d been living by his wits for most of his life, but he knew he’d never make it to the top of the ratings as an Allowed Burglar.

  The problem was those ten points for style. The people at the top of the charts— Alice Manderley, Geoff Fu George, Baron Drago— they fairly oozed style, and moved among their victims with such charm that it almost seemed as if no one in the company resented the way his valuables kept disappearing. Maijstral, for example, had all the advantages— gentle birth, schooling in the Empire, the right social connections. When the teenaged Gregor had heard about Maijstral and Nichole, he’d breathed fiery jealousy for weeks.

  Gregor was Non-U, that was the trouble. Should he ever have occasion to meet Nichole, he wouldn’t know how to make an approach, what to talk about. If he was to be a successful Allowed Burglar, he’d have to know how to move among these people, how they spoke, thought, interacted. He’d learned a lot just watching Maijstral. He was taking diction lessons. He’d learned that the hair style he’d favored on his home world would have got him challenges on half the planets in the Empire. He’d learned not to paint his face in the pastel colors he had favored in his youth, and to say “perhaps” instead of “maybe,” and “vetch” instead of “clinker.” But he still had a long way to go.

  Anticipating, Gregor looked up just as Maijstral appeared, in his silence, behind Gregor’s right shoulder. “I think I found it,’’ he said. “I broke into the phone company’s computers and got Countess Anastasia’s numbers, including her address. I cross-checked the address with my security file and found out that Anastasia added multiple security to her residence just yesterday, which might mean she was anticipating having to put the snatch on Jensen.”

  “What sort of security?” Maijstral asked.

  “Leapers, screamers, and flaxes.”

  “Go on.”

  “No hoppers. So it might not be individual objects she’s guarding, but an area. Like an area holding a prisoner.”

  “Can you get a map of the building?”

  “Maybe. Perhaps. I’ll check the planning authority. That will give me a chance to use the peeler program Poston sold us.”

  “Coming up.”

  Still leaning back in his chair, Gregor gave a mental command to his computer and supervised as it phoned the planning authority, then crashed through its defenses like an Imperial cruiser through a swarm of insects. Poston’s peeler was brute force, no mistake, not a bit of elegance. No style points here. Gregor smiled as the data read across the visual centers of his brain.

  “Woolvinn Leases, Ltd,” he said. “Shall I look at the Countess’s household computer, boss? If we can check her food shipments we might be able to find out how many people she has in there.”

  Maijstral considered this. “If you’re certain it won’t give us away. . . .”

  “Not with Poston’s peeler. I can always just ring off and say it was a mistake.”

  “Very well. Go ahead.”

  “Only too.”

  Gregor started the program on its merry way, his head bobbing to the sound of Vivaldi. He looked up at Maijstral, seeing the man withdrawn behind his hooded eyes. He thought about Maijstral’s conversation with Pietro Quijano that morning, and a troubling thought entered his mind. He’d assumed that Maijstral had merely been playing with the man, but with Maijstral it was hard to tell. “Boss?” he asked. “About the reliquary?”

  Maijstral’s expression was abstracted. “Yes, Gregor?”

  “You were just pretending to consider selling the thing to the Imperials, correct? I mean, we really wouldn’t do it, right?”

  Maijstral’s eyes turned to him. There was a hint of intensity behind the lidded eyes. “Would it bother you if we did?”

  Gregor shifted uneasily in his chair. “Well, boss, I don’t think much of the Constellation or the hacks that run it, but that doesn’t mean I want to have aliens over us again. Let alone an Emperor. Not only that, but my granddad fought in the Rebellion, and he used to tell me a story about what it was like under the Empire. It wasn’t good for a lot of people, boss.”

  Maijstral’s smile was slight. Vivaldi was reaching a climax, and he seemed abstracted, his mind somewhere off in the music. “The possibility of the Empire returning,” he said, “seems remote.”

  “Besides. Those people stole our client.”

  “That has not escaped my attention, Gregor.”

  Gregor frowned. He was not comforted. Maijstral’s hand reached for Gregor’s sound deck, popped the trapdoor, removed Vivaldi. “What next?” he asked.

  “The Snail.”

  Maijstral’s hand flourished another recording. “Sn
ail shall it be. I always like the D Minor.” He dropped the recording into the trapdoor and pushed the play button. He turned to Gregor with a smile.

  “Anything from the Countess’s?”

  “Right.” Gregor turned his attention to the data that had been winking in his mind for some moments. “Looks like the Countess had visitors last night. A lot of wine and dinner for four.” He laughed. “The comp prepared breakfast for five this morning. Luncheon for five, too. Where’d number five come from?”

  “I’m sure we can guess.”

  “And— let’s see— she’s ordered some tools, timber, plywood. . . .”

  “It seems as if her ladyship might be nailing shut a window or two.”

  “It seems like. And she’s also ordered a heavy-duty bolt, some tools for installation, and a Ronnie Romper disguise from a costume shop.” He looked up at Maijstral. “Ronnie Romper?” he asked.

  Music wafted into the room. Maijstral shrugged. “Perhaps Ronnie is her favorite. I always liked him when I was young.”

  “I never cared for him. It was the smile, I think. Never went away.”

  Maijstral nodded to the sound of violas. His eyes were dreamy. “The D Minor. I always liked those first four bars.”

  “Me, too, boss.” Gregor looked at Maijstral, disquiet humming in his mind. He knew he’d been diverted from his question about the reliquary’s ultimate fate— and expertly diverted, too— but his admiration for Maijstral’s style had not obscured his disquiet. He had no objection to looking after profit, but neither did he enjoy the idea of the Imperium coming back.

  All this, he concluded, was going to take some thinking about.

  *

  Woolvinn Leases had a small office in the center of Peleng City. Beside the door was a copper plate that was probably polished daily. The door was opaque from the outside but transparent from the inside, so that the functionary therein could observe the customer on his approach and decide on the proper attitude. Roman stepped through the door and gazed at the functionary through rose-colored spectacles. “Mr. Woolvinn, please.”

  “Mr. Woolvinn has been deceased for eighty years,” the functionary reported. He was a Tanquer and looked up at Roman through slitted, supercilious nictitating membranes. “I will show you to Mr. Clive. Who may I tell him is calling?”

  “My name is Castor. I am personal assistant to Lord Graves.” Roman handed the Tanquer a card. The real Graves was a distant relation of Maijstral’s who lived in the Imperium, a spare and miserly young gentleman who would have been mortally offended by the uses to which Roman put his name, but too parsimonious to send a message complaining about it.

  “Sir.” The Tanquer bowed, his striped tail swishing, and led Roman to an office paneled in light, varnished wood. “Please wait here, sir.” The functionary indicated a chair, then a bar set into the wall. “May I offer you coffee, tea, rink, kif infusion? Wine, perhaps?”

  “A kif infusion. Thank you.”

  Roman sipped his drink and felt a warm and secret joy. In addition to his ornamental spectacles he wore a soft grey jacket with a dark braided collar and black laces, an antique gorget of darkened Wilkinson steel, and handmade boots of brown leather. It was anything but what a servant should wear, and that was what gave Roman pleasure. He had always thought, in his heart of hearts, he would make a first-rate lord. He was secretly pleased that Woolvinn’s had proven sufficiently old-fashioned not to have connected their computer files to the telephone, and that he’d have to do his reconnaissance the old-fashioned way.

  Mr. Clive proved to be human, a middle-aged man of pleasant aspect and Empire-tailored coat. Roman sniffed ears and declined an offer of pastry.

  “Is that a Jasper?” he asked, indicating a smooth silver-alloy construction rising gracefully in the corner. A lesser impersonator would have said “genuine Jasper.”

  “Indeed, yes,” said Mr. Clive. “Our founder, Woolvinn the Elder, was a collector.”

  Roman sat, and Clive followed suit. “I congratulate Mr. Woolvinn on his tastes,” Roman said. “My own taste runs more to Torfelks. Lord Graves had a small collection to which he is always hoping to add, but alas, Jaspers are much harder to acquire these days than in the late Mr. Woolvinn’s time.”

  “Indeed, yes,” Mr. Clive murmured.

  “Lord Graves wishes to make a tour of the Constellation,” Roman said. “He hopes to spend a month on Peleng, beginning eighteen months from now. He wishes to have suitable accommodation.”

  “His lordship will doubtless want a house in town.”

  “In the country, methinks.” The Countess Anastasia’s residence had a rural address, and Maijstral had primed Roman with a description of her tastes. “A sizable place, suitable for entertaining his lordship’s large acquaintance. Elegantly appointed, with an arbor for preference, perhaps a croquet court. Would this be possible?”

  “Indeed, yes,” Mr. Clive said, now for the third time. “We have several properties that might suit. In eighteen months, you say?”

  “Indeed,” said Roman, “Yes.”

  Roman viewed holographic representations of a number of residences, any of which might suit the given description. He knew that, in view of the amount of money they charged for a monthly rental, Woolvinn Ltd. would damn well install a croquet court if necessary. He looked at the address of each hologram, and when the fifth residence appeared, he leaned back and tilted his muzzle up to look through his spectacles at the neo-Georgian pile with its veined porcelain roof.

  “Sink me,” he said. “That’s his lordship’s taste, if ever I’ve seen it!”

  Mr. Clive’s ears pricked forward. A subtle light, far too tenuous to be called a gleam, crept into his eyes. “Let me show you the entry hall. Marble imported from Couscous.”

  Roman purred his joy over the Couscous marble, the furnishings, the exquisite taste and the care with which the house was assembled. Since Lord Graves traveled surrounded by numerous objets d’art, Roman inquired about security, and received a careful briefing concerning the mansion’s protective systems. He asked for a copy of the company’s hologram so that he could send it to Lord Graves so that his lordship could view the furnishings and appointments himself. This was happily provided. He asked if he could see the place. Mr. Clive said that the house was currently occupied by the Countess Anastasia and her suite, but that she had only rented the place for a month, and that he would call to see if a visit would be convenient for her.

  If he could have the number of Mr. Castor’s telephone . . . ?

  Roman gave him the number of the cottage where Maijstral was hiding and rose to give his congé. Mr. Clive showed him to the door and sniffed his ears.

  Roman noticed that the functionary had completely unslitted his eyes (a compliment he assumed), and he gave the Tanquer a nod as he left. As he walked down the blue brick sidewalk, his private joy rekindled. For the brief moments of the two-hundred-yard walk between Woolvinn’s and his flier, he abandoned himself entirely to the concept of Mr. Castor, associate of an Imperial lord, confidante of the aristocracy, dancing an elegant and graceful ballet amid the highest circles of Empire . . .

  Amazing, come to think of it, what a braided coat and a pair of rose-colored spectacles can do for a person. Here was Roman, the controlled and very muscular associate of a known thief, strolling down the street awarding benign and gracious nods to those he passed, a living embodiment of noblesse oblige and a glorious example of what a Khosalikh can be, given the removal of a few minor inhibitions. His secret joy seemed to communicate to those he met, and they went on their way with their hearts lightened, a spring growing in their step, smelling the fresher-seeming air, all pleased that the tall, dark Khosali lord seemed so happy merely to encounter them on the street. It was a small miracle, this two-hundred-yard stretch of shared bliss, but a miracle nonetheless.

  Roman, still glowing with the inner conviction of being Mr. Castor, climbed graciously into his flier and took his miraculous way into the sky.

 
*

  The Countess Anastasia heard Maijstral’s household robot answer the telephone and dropped her phone into its cradle. Maijstral hadn’t answered all day. He was probably in Nichole’s suite, spending himself in some appalling sensual indulgence, when instead he could be here fighting for the Empire as his father and grandfather had done. . . .

  It made the Countess want to spit.

  “Maijstral is probably hiding out until the statue of limitations passes,” said Baron Sinn. “We’ll be able to get in touch with him tomorrow morning.”

  The Countess was still white about the nose. “This is frustrating. I want the Imperial Artifact, and I want that Jensen creature out of my house.”

  “There is no need to fear. There is no way she can know where she is being kept. She has not seen either of us.”

  The Countess frowned. “That isn’t what I was worried about. Maijstral is . . . he’s a lazy man. But he is not without his pride.”

  Sinn’s ears turned thoughtfully downward. “You mean he may turn awkward.”

  “That is my fear. And he is very effective at what he actually puts his mind to. Perhaps we ought to increase the number of guards around the place.” She put her hand on his arm, stroking the dense velvet. “There are two men I know. We’ve used them as security for Imperialist meetings, in case people try to disrupt us.”

  Sinn was thoughtful. “The fewer people who know, the better it will be for us.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t mention the real reason why they were here. Just that I had reason to suspect some trouble. We could give them rooms downstairs, that way they’d be within call but out of our way.”

  The Baron’s diaphragm throbbed. “Very well, Countess,” he said. “Make your call.”

  Smiling, Countess Anastasia reached again for the phone. She felt unaccountably buoyed. Even though the presence of the two men would probably not make any difference, it was still a comfort to be doing something.

  “Perhaps later,” she said, “you would join me for some croquet.”