by Allen Wold
They passed through a gate, slowed as they drove between well-trimmed lawns, entered a huge courtyard, with arches on the right and left leading to subsidiary courts. The van stopped in front of the main entrance. The building, at the front, was about six floors tall.
As they got out of the van the entrance doors opened and a man came out. He was in his middle years, and dressed quite conservatively. Rikard approached him but stopped halfway to the front door and let the man meet him there.
"Msr. Rikard," the man said. "Welcome. Will you come with me please."
It was not a question. He preceded them to the front door, and as they went another vehicle, a truck, came into the courtyard even as the van went into a side court. The truck turned into the other secondary court, and all was quiet.
The servant led them in through a foyer as large as the main lounge at the shuttleport, with stairs at the far end, two sets of large double doors on each side wall and another set on either side of the stairs, and through the first doors on the right into a parlor, as big as an average home, furnished simply but perfectly. "Msr. Gawin will be with you shortly," the man said. "Please make yourselves comfortable." Then he left.
The floors were of polished wood that almost glowed. So were the walls, of a slightly lighter color. The window frames were wood, the picture frames were wood, the doorways and doors were all of precious wood, some warm, some pale, some grained, some translucent.
There were carpets, the feel of which could only be attributed to natural animal fibers, natural plant fibers, not synthetics. The pictures were gallery quality; the chandeliers, lamps, and sconces were crystal; the furniture was perfectly proportioned and positioned so that the room was divided into four central areas and a surrounding area for communication. The textiles were all natural fibers, the finishes looked hand-rubbed, the seats were comfortable when Rikard sat down, and there was a stack of cushions that could only have been meant for Droagn.
"Your uncle must be very wealthy indeed," Droagn said.
"I guess the art business pays a lot better than I thought."
"Or maybe he just invests his money wisely," Grayshard said.
"I don't remember him being this rich when he came to Mother's funeral. And he couldn't have been wealthy back when Dad rescued Mom or he'd have paid the fee even if Grandfather couldn't."
"There's more to this than just wealth," Droagn said. "Whoever set this place up is used to luxury. Very used to it indeed."
"That's the part I don't understand," Rikard said.
There was a bar on one side of the room, obviously intended for self-service, even in a house like this one. Rikard felt in the need of a little refreshment. The counter was a solid block of wood, the panels in front were polished black wood, the stools were padded with leather, the glassware behind was not glass, it was crystal.
"Can I get you anything," he called over his shoulder as he checked out the stock. There were a variety of beers and ales and related brews that he'd heard of but never tried. "Is there any fruit juice," Droagn called.
Rikard opened a cooler. "Lots." There were bottles of at least forty or fifty different kinds. "Maybe you'd better come over and choose something."
Droagn did so.
And so did Grayshard, who found, much to his surprise, what looked like professionally bottled containers of mineral-spiked animal ferment. "I am most impressed," he said as he read a label. "Private bottling. Gawin seems to have done his homework."
A door on the far side of the room, opposite the foyer, opened, and Gawin Malvrone strode into the room. He was casually dressed, in black slacks and a loose-fitting white shirt, and he had a broad smile on his face. "Rikard," he said. "Good to see you again."
Rikard put down his beer. "How are you, Uncle Gawin?" He felt inordinately pleased that his uncle should be so glad to see him.
Gawin came up to him, with his arms out, and they embraced. "Now we can get comfortable," he said, "and maybe make up for some lost time."
"I can stay as long as I'm welcome," Rikard said.
"Good." Gawin turned to Grayshard, who was holding the opened mouth of his bottle under the palm of his gloved hand, so that the bundle of fibers extending down into it was not easily noticeable. "Good to see you again, Grayshard," he said. He did not offer to shake hands. "I am honored to have the only Vaashka in the Federation as my guest. Please feel free to make yourself comfortable however you wish."
"Thank you," Grayshard said. He raised the bottle. "May I compliment your brewer."
"I will tell him. And, Droagn," he said as he reached up to shake a huge hand, "I hope you'll be comfortable here."
"I am so far."
"Good. Would you like to participate in the evaluation of those artifacts and books that you brought me?"
"Not really. Finding them is one thing, scholarly work is another."
"Just let me know if you get curious." He turned to the bar and fetched himself a beer. "Let's sit down," he said. They made themselves comfortable, but Rikard kept feeling like he'd forgotten something. "Ah, how's the rest of the family?" he asked at last.
Gawin took a pull at his beer. "I haven't seen them since, oh, some time before I went to Mensenear. But that's not unusual. We go our own ways. They're just fine I'm sure."
"You know," Rikard said, "I've never met any of them. Do they all feel the same way about me that Grandfather does?"
"I'm sorry to say that they don't think about you at all. My brother and sister rather missed your mother after she went off with your father, but not very much, and not for long."
"Is there a chance that I could meet them?"
Gawin sighed. "I'll see what I can do, but don't get your hopes up. My parents are, ah, very busy people, and Braice and Bevry each live their own lives. Braice takes after Father I'm afraid."
"Does Grandfather know I'm here?"
"I haven't told him, or had a chance to, but he knows what goes on, even here."
That struck Rikard as a little curious, but before he could ask what his uncle had meant, a servant appeared at an inner door and stood silently. Gawin glanced at him, then said, "Your rooms are ready." He put down his drink and stood, and Rikard and his companions did likewise, or the equivalent. They all went to the door where the servant stood waiting, and he preceded them into a cross passage with doors opposite and at either end.
They went to the right and through the door into an elevator. It was very smooth. They went up, Rikard couldn't tell how far, one floor or six, and when they got out they entered a large common room, with two doors in each of the four walls. Gawin pointed to the doors on the right. "You'll have the north suite," he said, and showed them in.
There was a foyer, a parlor, a dining room with a small kitchen, a private lounge, three bedrooms including one set up for Droagn—their luggage had been brought in and distributed correctly—a back office, two bathrooms, balconies looking over the back of the house and the terraced properties, beyond which were fields of something growing.
"What is that?" Rikard asked.
"It's just for appearance," Gawin said. "Those trees are date palms. And over there, those are grapes. There are seven different kinds of melons in those fields. They're all good, but I have them just because they look good. Now, why don't you take your time and settle in, make sure all your luggage is in good order, and call me when you're ready." He gave Rikard's upper arms a squeeze and left them to themselves.
They unpacked. Everything was in order. Droagn discovered the sauna and decided to take advantage of it. Grayshard got out of his harness and slithered around in the kitchen where, to his surprise, he found a special pantry with his kind of food in it. Rikard, out of habit, checked out the entire suite with his security monitor, including the kitchen, which was remarkably equipped, and especially the windows and the two exits. He tried all switches and traced the circuitry as far as he could, to make sure that the apartment was secure, not so much from outsiders as from, well, from Gawin perhaps, or o
ther family.
As far as he could tell the place was completely tight. He wasn't sure that he could actually trust his examination, after seeing what kind of security Gawin had of his own, but there was nothing he could do about it, so he might as well behave as if it were actually clean.
The last thing to check was the comcon. There was a rather large center in the parlor and terminals in every room. Besides regular communications the system offered local sound and picture broadcasts, standard news services, planetary communications with full directory, and in-house communications with either a live or AI operator, Rikard couldn't tell which. In either case, it was very expensive, and he wondered how Gawin had acquired such tastes.
Droagn came out of the sauna, rubbing his scales with a fragrant oil that smelled something like cedar, and something like butter. "I could use a bit of refreshment," he said.
"Me too," Rikard agreed. He went into the kitchen where Grayshard was sampling a variety of food items that were every bit as fragrant as Droagn's body oil but far less pleasant to Rikard's nose. "Shall we join my uncle for a drink?" he asked.
"By all means," Grayshard said. Rikard punched on the comcon and asked for his uncle. The operator smiled and made the connection.
"How would you like some company?" Rikard asked.
"I'd like it very much," Gawin said. "Why don't you come down for a drink?"
"We'd love to. Where shall we meet you, and how do we get there?"
Gawin chuckled and said, "Just come on out into the foyer, someone will meet you."
"Be there in a minute," Rikard said, and disconnected.
"I'm going to take him at his word," Grayshard said from the doorway. His vocalizer was buried deep in the mass of his white tendrils. Without it, he could not communicate at all, since his people had a strong chemical component in their speech, which served only to produce hallucinations in other species.
"I'm sure Gawin won't mind," Rikard said, "but he may be optimistic about his staff."
They left the suite, and found a servant waiting for them in the foyer. She smiled at them, as if she had seen a naked Vaashka many times before, and said, "This way please." They got into the elevator and went to some floor or other. From there they took a powered walkway through a well-lit corridor. There were a few other people on the walkway, but they paid no attention to either Droagn or Grayshard. After a while they got off the walkway at another lounge, where again those present were unaffected by the two non-Humans. Grayshard moved in a rather flamboyant way as if he somehow enjoyed showing off his bizarre physiology, though Rikard had never known him to express any recognizable emotion before.
From the lounge they went through a door into a corridor with a glass roof, at the end of which was a large foyer, and off that was a large room, which was a kind of study or library. There the young woman smiled again and left them.
Gawin was sitting in a large overstuffed chair when they came in, and stood up to greet them. He, too, seemed unperturbed by Grayshard's appearance. "Please feel free to fix whatever you like to drink." He gestured to a large and well-stocked portable bar.
They availed themselves of his hospitality and sat down.
"So what have you been up to lately," Gawin said to Rikard when they were all comfortable. "I'm glad you could come by so soon."
"I followed up on that picture we looked at." Rikard told his uncle briefly what they had found in the core of the alien cone on Dannon's Keep.
Gawin got more and more excited, occasionally muttered something about this university and that museum, with a grin on his face that had little to do with avarice.
"When can I see some of this stuff?" he asked when Rikard finished.
Rikard, with chagrin, reached into his jacket pocket and took out a set of four square orange plates, each a distinct shade, and the black dice with different symbols on each face. He held them out to his uncle.
Even as Gawin reached for them he said, with dismay, "You didn't actually bring the stuff here?"
"Not all of it," Rikard said.
Gawin took the objects and looked at them, turning them over and over in his hands. "Even this," he said, "could get me into a lot of trouble. This stuff isn't legal, you know, and if anybody found out that I deal in black market art, the police would shut me down."
"From what I've seen at the spaceport," Rikard said, "you seem to be pretty well connected. If you have enough influence to get me through customs without inspection, how could something like this be any danger?"
"You walked through immigration with this in your pocket?"
"I did."
"It scares me just thinking about it." He put the four orange squares down on a table in front of him, but kept the dice, and juggled them as he talked. "I'm not as powerful as it seems. It, ah, is really Father's connections that make the difference."
"Well, then, can't he give you any protection?"
"It's not that simple," Gawin said. "Father doesn't really know about my business, let alone the black market side of it. He hates the idea of commerce in the first place, and if he ever found out there was anything the least bit shady about it—not to say strictly illegal by Federal statute—he'd throw me to the wolves."
"Not really?"
"Remember what he did to your mother. He hired Arin to rescue her because it made Father look bad, not really because he was concerned for Sigra. Then he kicked her out when she married your father because, again, it was a smirch on his image, his reputation."
"I thought she left of her own accord."
"That was because she was in love with your father, and she had to make a choice. Father never forgave her for that. He kept on hoping she'd acknowledge his dominance and authority and beg his forgiveness. But she never did. He shut her out of his life, out of his mind, completely. When Sigra finally died, it hardly made any difference to him anymore."
"It's difficult to believe that he could be so hard."
"It's the way the family is. Not all of us, but... If Father finds out about this"—he juggled the black dice—"if he finds out about 'Nevile Beneking,' he'll have no compunction about turning me in. I don't want to go to jail."
"Just for these few little things?"
"No, for all the other stuff I've done. Do you have anything more?"
From his other jacket pocket Rikard took two small objects consisting of spheres piled on top of one another; a set of the very thin and springy hexagons of foil with a pattern on one side and progressive symbols on the other in three colors; and a set of the tiny game figures in six colors representing cyclopeans and other strange creatures, and handed them to Gawin. Gray shard and Droagn watched quietly as Gawin looked them over.
"I can't believe," Rikard said, "that they'd put you in jail for running cultural artifacts. Even if Grandfather disowned you, you still have connections of your own, and you're still a part of this family, which seems pretty important even if they aren't well off. And if you really own this estate, you shouldn't have any difficulty paying any fine and restitution. And if this is all just for show, I could help out."
Gawin's expression became ever odder as Rikard spoke. He looked up at the last, as if surprised. "How could you help me?"
Rikard took a dangly bauble from his pocket and tossed it to Gawin. The metal was simply silver and gold. The stones were three large, polished, and faceted spheroids, each about the size of his thumb. They were transparent, and had hearts of pale iridescent fire.
Gawin at first didn't recognize the stones. After all, one never expected to see dialithite, commonly called dragongems, outside a carefully guarded museum display. But as they warmed in his hand, and began to exert their peculiar hypnotic effect, he knew what they were and gaped. For a moment it seemed as though he would fall under their spell, carried away by colors beyond human vision into realms of power and peace, so that Rikard started to reach for the stones. But before he could touch them Gawin tore his eyes away from them and looked at Rikard. If he just held the stones
without looking at them, or looked at them without touching, he would feel no effect, though now, holding them as he did, the temptation to gaze and lose himself in their spell was obvious. He did not yield.
"Where in the hell did you get this?" he demanded.
"My father's legacy," Rikard said bitterly. "I have a few of these, I know how and where to sell them."
"So what do you do with the money from that stuff you brought me?"
"That's my public money, what I declare on my taxes. I set up a fund, keep the cash in various accounts, it doesn't matter. So don't sweat the artifacts, Uncle Gawin. Or your fortune either."
Gawin glanced down at the dragongems. Their colors were, if anything, brighter and more intense as they warmed in his hand. "It isn't just the money," he said. "Here, and under my own name, I live an exemplary life. You don't know how well I was covered when we met on Mensenear, and the trouble I went to afterward to cover up our relation. You know my reputation as a dealer. I can't afford to lose that, and if the connection between Gawin Malvrone and Nevile Beneking were known, we'd 'both' suffer." He handed the bauble back to Rikard. "And if there were any proof of black marketeering, the police would have to look into it, not only for its own sake but because of and in spite of my family and connections, and they'd find out, ah, about one other thing that I don't want to talk about." Rikard put the bauble back in his pocket. "So please, in the future, be more careful. We can always meet at Mensenear, the place is secure."
Gawin looked now at the few cyclopean objects resting on the table in front of him. The dragongems were forgotten, and in spite of his anxiety, he was obviously excited. "I've never seen anything like these before," he said.
"You're right," Rikard said, "since this is a newly discovered species."
"Of course there are lots of lost sentient species," Gawin said, "but few of them ever achieve any degree of culture or technology."
