House of Shards

by Walter Jon Williams

  Khamiss looked at the Tanquer, then at the board. There had to be a proper response to this.

  If only she knew what it was.

  ———

  Paavo Kuusinen was poised and ready when Kovinn finished her phone call and dropped her privacy screen. She goggled when she saw that Maijstral was gone. Kuusinen approached.

  “May I be of service, Kovinn?”

  “Yes. Have you seen Drake Maijstral?”

  “I believe he and the Marchioness Kotani were walking in that direction. Please allow me to accompany you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kuusinen. If I lost Maijstral again, I don’t know what kind of trouble might result.”

  “Perhaps,” lightly, “if I knew the nature of the crisis, I might be able to assist.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t really know, except that it has to do with Lord Qlp. It burst in on her grace this morning, and -there’s Maijstral. Sir! Sir!”

  Kuusinen watched as Kovinn broke into a run. The mystery, it seemed, was deepening.

  ———

  Cheng’s captain was a short Khosali female who was clearly annoyed at being roused out of bed. Khamiss suspected, from the way she kept looking over her shoulder, that she was not alone. Khamiss also couldn’t help but notice that the captain’s annoyance increased a chance resemblance to the crusty-but-loyal Cap’n Bob, one of the fixtures on the Ronnie Romper program.

  “Well, no,” the captain said as she fingered the collar of her dressing gown. “There was no one aboard Cheng except the maintenance robots. We all have four days’ station leave.”

  “So anyone could have got onto the ship.”

  “The airlock was sealed, and only the ship’s officers had the codes, but I suppose the lock could have been broken…” The captain’s ears suddenly pricked forward in alarm. “What’s happened aboard my Cheng?”

  “It appears someone’s stolen your ship.”

  “The whole thing?”

  Given time and thought, Khamiss might have found the captain’s response curious and asked if the captain were more accustomed to having her ship stolen one piece at a time. Under the pressure of the emergency, however, Khamiss could only reply in the affirmative.

  “The whole thing, ma’am. Sorry.”

  The captain sat down suddenly. The phone camera, a jolt, tracked her collapse. The resemblance to Cap’n Bob became even more pronounced.

  “I don’t suppose,” she said, “there’s any way this could be kept quiet.”

  ———

  “Advert. What news?” Pearl Woman’s holographic face broadcast against the opalescence of one of the White Room’s privacy screens, showed taut signs of strain. Her fingers twined in her leonine hair, drawing it down over her ear. The duelling scar gave her anxiety a sinister cast.

  Advert, trying to remember not to giggle with joy, nodded and gave what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “I know who’s got the pearl,” she said.

  Pearl Woman’s eyes gleamed with a tigerish light. “Good. Give me the name.”

  “The name was given me in confidence. I’m sorry, but in return for the information I had to promise not to tell.”

  “Come now, Advert. You can tell me. After all, I—”

  “The price is ninety.” Firmly.

  Baffled rage entered Pearl Woman’s face. “That’s outrageous! Last time he only asked sixty.”

  “Apparently the stakes in the contest between Fu George and Maijstral have risen. The price is firm, but at least it includes media rights. No one will ever know the pearl was taken.”

  “Drat.” Pearl Woman chewed her lower lip. “Very well,” she said. “If you’d be so kind as to advance me the money, I’ll—”

  “Pearl!” Advert widened her eyes in feigned surprise. “I don’t have anything like ninety novae. I spent everything paying for the pearl last time. Now that you’ve gone and lost it again, I’m afraid you’ll have to raise the money yourself.”

  With visible care, Pearl Woman mastered her indignation.

  “Are you certain you can’t give me ten or twenty? Perhaps you can get an advance on your allowance.”

  “Sorry, Pearl.” Advert struggled to contain her inward delight and simulate proper regret. “I’m really broke. Possibly you can get a loan from the Marquess Kotani. Or an advance from the Diadem.”

  Pearl Woman’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know if it’s worth ninety, Advert. Can’t you negotiate?”

  “I wouldn’t know how. Besides, as I said, the price is really firm.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “I don’t know how much longer the offer will hold. The price may go up.”

  “I said I’ll think about it.” The Pearl’s face was hard.

  “Very well. But one shouldn’t become so dependent on the material aspects of existence. You’ve told me that often enough.”

  Pearl Woman’s face vanished before Advert had quite finished, replaced by the “at your service” ideogram. Advert gave a short, delighted laugh, then composed her features carefully and dropped the privacy screen. The White Room leaped into existence around her. Kotani was passing by, walking stick dangling from his fingers. It was time, Advert thought, to increase the pressure.

  “Ah,” she said. “Marquess Kotani. I’m afraid the Pearl is in an unpleasant situation, and I was wondering if I might ask your advice.”

  ———

  “Thank you so much for waiting. I know her grace will be eternally thankful.”

  “If it is, as you say, an emergency, then how could I refuse? It’s cost me nothing but a late breakfast.”

  “No doubt,” observed the Marchioness tautly, as the others moved away, “her grace has her own reasons for interrupting Maijstral’s breakfast. Whatever they may be.” The sullen quality of her beauty had increased.

  Paavo Kuusinen followed Maijstral’s party in companionable silence. He was thinking about the Disappearing Bartender.

  ———

  Kyoko Asperson told her telephone to record, then rang Pearl Woman’s suite. She smiled as she saw that Pearl Woman only answered on audio.

  “I apologize, Miss Asperson, but I just stepped out of bed and I’m not presentable.”

  “I understand. I’m sure you must be prostrate.”

  “Oh?” Badly disguised suspicion.

  “I gather you’ve lost some property.”

  Pearl Woman’s voice turned cool. “Might I ask where you obtained this information?”

  “Sorry, Pearl Woman, but you know that I can’t say. I have to protect the confidentiality of my sources.”

  “It was just that I wondered who might be spreading this story about me. It’s quite inaccurate, you know.”

  “Really? I’ll have to question my source further.”

  There was a moment’s suspicious pause. “I’ll see you later this afternoon,” she said, “and we’ll straighten out the entire misunderstanding.”

  “I’ll be looking forward. Thank you.”

  “At your service, Miss Asperson.”

  Kyoko rang off. Smiling, she sent one of her media globes to hover outside Singh’s Jewelers on the main commercial level, just in case Pearl Woman decided to purchase a substitute.

  ———

  “You know, I keep thinking I’ve heard that voice somewhere before.”

  “That bellowing sound?” The Tanquer shrugged delicately. “How dreadful. It sounds like a large and very wild beast.”

  “Wait a moment.” Recollection rose in Khamis, then clarified. Her nostrils slammed shut at the memory. She touched an ideogram on the console.

  “Get me Lord Qlp’s suite,” she said, denasal. “I’d like to speak to Lady Dosvidern.”

  ———

  “An interspecies emergency?” Maijstral gave the situation a moment of thought. “Do you truly think Lord Qlp might do away with itself?”

  Roberta gave an exasperated wave of her hands. “I think Lord Qlp’s species might do away with itself.” She glanced abo
ve and made certain no hovering media globes were recording their conversation. “I’ll pay you the amount we agreed upon, and I’ll pay it right now. You won’t be involved any further in the matter of Lord Qlp.”

  Maijstral frowned and twisted his diamond ring. Roberta’s appeal might, of course, be part of an elaborate trap, an attempt catch him red-handed with the Eltdown Shard before it was legally his. On the other hand, the situation seemed too implausibly bizarre to constitute a trap—if Roberta were involved in an attempt to snare him, Maijstral suspected the excuse offered him might be more conventional: a family crisis, say, that required her instant departure from Silverside and the immediate ransoming of the Shard.

  “Give me a moment,” he said. “I must offer my apologies to the Marchioness.”

  “Of course.”

  Maijstral stepped toward where the Marchioness waited out of earshot and leaned toward her, speaking in her ear. “I’m afraid this is a matter of some urgency, my lady.”

  The Marchioness drew herself up. “If it’s quite that im-portant, Maijstral…”

  “There may be lives at stake. I still trust we may sup together, perhaps tonight.”

  She looked at him suspiciously, then relaxed her famous pout. “Perhaps,” she said. “I’ll have to see what Kotani has planned.”

  “Till later, then.” He sniffed her and turned, seeing Roman and Gregor moving some of his equipment to their suite. He caught Roman’s eye. Roman nodded, then glided across the room toward him.

  “I require a tail track to Dolfuss’s room,” Maijstral said. “I need to run a very important errand, and her grace and I may be followed.”

  Roman’s eyes glittered. “Shall I tell Gregor, sir?”

  “Yes. The more eyes and detectors, the better. Have robots take the stage equipment back to the Coronet Suite.”

  “At once, sir.”

  Roberta was speaking with Paavo Kuusinen. Suspicion awakened in Maijstral, and he gave the man a cautious nod. “Shall we go, your grace?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “May Mr. Kuusinen accompany us?”

  “With respect, I’d rather he didn’t. My apologies, Mr. Kuusinen, but this is private business.”

  Kuusinen bowed stiffly. “No offence taken, sir.”

  “Your grace?”

  “Yes.” Roberta moved at once for the exit. “Let’s hurry, if we may.”

  ———

  “Yes,” Lady Dosvidern said. “That’s its lordship’s voice. You’ve found Lord Qlp, then?”

  “In a manner of speaking, my lady,” Khamiss said. “It appears that its lordship has stolen the Viscount Cheng.”

  Lady Dosvidern’s muzzle gaped in surprise.

  “My lady,” Khamiss went on, “could you come to our communications room? I think we may need a translator.”

  ———

  “Excuse me, Vanessa,” Dolfuss said. He looked at his cards with a puzzled expression. “Could you remind me of the sequence from secundus onward?”

  Vanessa looked at him from over her cards and smiled. “Of course, Mr. Dolfuss. Secundus, response, octet, and cheeseup.”

  “Ah.” Dolfuss frowned over his cards for another moment, his brows knit, then he put his hand on the table.

  “That’s octet,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Congratulations, Mr. Dolfuss.” She folded her hand and dropped her cards atop the discard pile.

  “And with the Emperor in Elevation, isn’t that something else?”

  “Camembert.” Stonily.

  Dolfuss grinned. “So that gives me forty-one, right? My luck is in this afternoon.”

  “It seems so.”

  Dolfuss’s laugh boomed across the Casino. Heads turned. “I thought that’s what it was!” he roared. “Camembert!” Heads turned away.

  Vanessa reached for the cards and began to shuffle. “I hope you will consent to another game, Mr. Dolfuss,” she said.

  “For you, lady,” Dolfuss said, “anything. Anything at all.”

  ———

  Zoot gazed at the contents of his closet in bleak despair. How to dress for one’s suicide? he wondered. Did this count as a formal event, or was he allowed to dress casually? Formal, he decided. Go with dignity.

  He reached for his evening clothes, then hesitated. The jacket he’d invented might be more appropriate: it was his trademark, after all. If the back of his head was blown off he thought morbidly, at least he’d be recognizable.

  He stood away from the closet. Perhaps he should just write the note first. Traditionally this was done in High Khosali, in which the parsing of each sentence commented on the sentence before, the whole unrolling, ideally anyway, in as precise and rigorous terms as a mathematical statement. Zoot spoke High Khosali fairly well, but minor mistakes were easy to make; and he had to be careful as possible. Nobody wanted to be known for bungling his last words, and Zoot would need to produce two sets of them. A public apology, suitably phrased, to be found in his breast pocket, along with a private note to Lady Dosvidern to be hand delivered by a discreet member of the Very Private Letter service, apologizing for destroying her reputation. There were certain delicacies to be observed as well: in the public statement, he had to make his reasons for killing himself clear, publicly exonerate the lady of all suspicion, and yet in so doing never mention her by name.

  It was ironic, Zoot thought, that the cause of all this was just the sort of thing that members of the Diadem were supposed to do. He was expected to have affaires and scrapes and then have them broadcast throughout the Constellation and Empire by the Diadem’s own exclusive news service. But Diadem members weren’t supposed to botch things, weren’t supposed to babble and stare when subjected to pointed interviews, to blurt out obvious untruths and cause potential Colonial Service incidents between opaque aliens and their wives.

  There was only one way for a gentleman to behave once he’d wrecked things to that degree.

  Zoot stepped to the closet again, hesitated once more.It was a practical issue that finally decided him. After he’d blown his brains out, the famous jacket would be a lot asier to clean than would formal evening clothes.

  He still had to write his note.

  Suicides, he realized in growing despair, were much more complicated than they seemed.

  ———

  Maijstral hastened down the corridor with her grace of Benn at his side. Roman and Gregor followed behind, hovering at the edge of Maijstral’s awareness, their detectors deployed. Roberta had a stylus and one of the credit chips from the Casino: carefully she rearranged molecules as she walked, wrote an amount, signed and thumbprinted it. She handed it to Maijstral.

  “There. Your losses at tiles multiplied by a large factor.”

  Maijstral came to Dolfuss’s door. He reached for the lock, hesitated, drew his hand back. Electricity crackled through his nerves.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Roberta.

  Maijstral did not quite trust himself to speak; instead his hand went to the small of his back and drew out a pistol. His other hand took Roberta’s shoulder; he gently guided her away from the line of fire. Turning toward Roman and Gregor, he gestured significantly with the pistol. Weapons drawn, detectors screening their eyes, the pair moved silently down the corridor. Roman reached into a pocket and handed Maijstral a pair of detector goggles: he drew them on with his free hand. A pair of media globes rose out of Roman’s pocket and hovered in the air.

  Maijstral paused for a moment of consideration. Roman and Gregor waited.

  Roberta, violet eyes alight, bent and drew a small, elegant

  ———

  Nana-Coulville Elite spitfire from an ankle holster. Roman and Gregor observed this with a certain amount of admi ration.

  Maijstral, with careful consideration for the state of his nerves, concluded that he was not going to be the first person into the room. With gestures, Maijstral told Roman to dive through the door: he and Gregor would provide cover fire and support.

&
nbsp; Roman bowed; he flexed his muscles, set his pistol to “lethal,” opened the door lock with a touch of his hand and charged.

  Through the haze of his fear, Maijstral experienced a moment of admiration for the absolute grace of Roman’s movement, for the elegance of Roman’s execution, his total silence.

  Roman entered low and dove to his right out of the line of fire. A media globe swooped over his head. Maijstral and Gregor followed, guns thrust forward.

  The giant impact diamond was propped in a corner. No person was visible. The bed was unmade—Maijstral hadn’t permitted maid service since he’d begun stowing his loot in the room.

  Roman, Gregor, and Maijstral fanned over the room. Maijstral’s heart thundered in his breast. He dropped by the bed—into convenient cover—and kept his arms locked rigid in a firing position, thereby feigning an inspection of anything beneath the mattress. There was, he discovered, nothing—none of the rolled paintings or compact sculptures that had once belonged to the Baroness Silverside and that, as of midnight, had become his personal property. Anger growled in his nerves. He stood, flipped over his pillow. The box with the Eltdown Shard was gone.

  Roberta glided into the room, pistol ready in her hand, her eyes questioning.

  Maijstral stepped to the closet and pointed his pistol at the closed door. “Fu George,” he said, “come out, please.”

  There was a moment’s pause, then the closet door came open. Geoff Fu George, elegantly attired in an evening jacket that made an unfortunate contrast to the bruising around his eyes, smiled ruefully. A pair of media globes orbited his head as he stepped into the room. Apparently, with his equipment, he’d managed to overcome the closet’s reluctance to close.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, and bowed. “Your grace.”

  Fu George, Maijstral realized, had four pistols pointed at him. Maijstral’s nervousness eased; he seemed to be in control of the situation.

  “The Shard, if you please,” Maijstral said.

  Fu George spread in hands in a helpless gesture.

  “Sorry, Maijstral,” he said. “I’d be perfectly happy to oblige you, but as it happens I don’t have it.”

  ———