House of Shards

by Walter Jon Williams

“Its lordship is threatening the station?” Khamiss stared at Lady Dosvidern in surprise.

  Lord Qlp’s voice boomed from the speakers. “It says,” Lady Dosvidern said, her voice trembling, “that if it doesn’t get the Perfected Tear, it’s going to ram the Viscount Cheng into the antimatter bottle in the surface power plant and blow everything up.”

  Khamiss ignored strangling sounds from the Tanquer and considered the situation, wondering primarily if it was still possible to throw up her hands and turn the situation over to Mr. Sun.

  Mr. Sun’s choked, purple face rose in her mind. Probably not, she decided.

  “Can its lordship do that?” Lady Dosvidern said. “Is ‘here really antimatter onstation?” Her eyes were hopeless.

  “Isn’t that old-fashioned? I thought everyone used sidestep systems these days.”

  “Silverside Station’s in an unstable orbit around an un stable star system,” Khamiss said. “There’s tremendous gravitational stress, and we need to adjust our position and gravity from one second to the next. Energy expend-iture is enormous, and a matter-antimatter reaction was the most efficient way to provide it. The power plant got put on the surface so that if there was a problem with the magnetic containment bottle, the antimatter would boil off into space instead of blowing up Silverside.” Her ears flickered uncertainly. “That was the hope, at any rate.”

  “There’s nothing protecting the bottle?”

  “Cold fields to keep out the odd meteor strike. But I doubt they’re strong enough to keep out anything with the size and mass of the Viscount Cheng.”

  There was a thud. Khamiss glanced over her shoulder and observed that the Tanquer had passed out from lack of oxygen.

  “Good,” she said. “She was making me nervous.”

  ———

  Advert smiled as she entered Pearl Woman’s suite. “I’m so glad you changed your mind,” she said. “I really think it’s for the best.”

  Pearl Woman looked at her without joy. “I really wish you’d tell me,” she said.

  “Pearl! You know I promised.”

  “I’m not entirely happy about the way the price went up.”

  “I’m sorry, Pearl, but you really shouldn’t have delayed.”

  Pearl Woman handed Advert a credit chip. “Here,” she said. “A hundred.”

  Advert looked at the chip and smiled. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.” She paused in the doorway. “You’re doing the right thing. I’m sure of it.”

  ———

  “I’m afraid the place was gutted before I arrived,” Geoff Fu George said. “The only thing of value remaining was the big diamond—I suppose it was too awkward to transport.” His ears fluttered in an offhand way. “Sorry, Ma-jjstral. Say, can I lower my hands?”

  Maijstral stared at Fu George over the sights of his pistol. Anger tugged at his nerves, his mind, his trigger finger.

  “I can’t accept that, Fu George,” he said. “My swag’s stolen, and you’re in my closet. These are facts difficult to ignore.”

  “About my hands, Maijstral.”

  “I need the Eltdown Shard. I need it now.”

  “The boss is telling the truth.”

  Startled, Maijstral swung his pistol to cover the new voice, his heart hammering anew. Chalice had appeared in the doorway—also, strangely, in evening dress. Observing that Roberta and Gregor had Chalice covered, Maijstral swung back to Fu George.

  “Shut the door, Roman,” he said. “Let’s keep this gathering private, shall we?”

  “It took us a long time to get through your traps and alarms.” Chalice stepped into the room while Roman stepped behind him to close the door. “Once we got through, Mr. Fu George entered and found your room plundered. I was running black boxes outside. I heard you coming and hid around the comer. It was too late for the boss to get away.”

  Maijstral kept his pistol aimed four inches below Fu George’s famous hairline. Probably Fu George’s evening jacket/darksuit contained defenses; but since his encounters with the Ronnie Romper creature on Peleng, Maijstral had been carrying the most powerful Trilby 8 spitfire available and he was reasonably certain of blasting through Fu George’s shields. This certainty served to elevate his confidence.

  “I might point out,” he said, “that we’ve caught you red-handed in an act of burglary. We’ve got don’t know what Baron Silverside intends for anyone caught stealing on his station, but he’s a sovereign lord here and he’s got a very simple and very medieval court system in which he plays both judge and advocate; and I assume that there would be little problem for him in sentencing you to ten or twelve years of breaking rocks on Gosat. I suggest therefore that returning my property would seem by far the most convenient alternative.”recordings. I

  “Love to oblige, old man,” Fu George said. “Unfortunately, it ain’t in the cards. Look, can I put my hands down?”

  “You may not,” Maijstral snarled at him, happy to vent his anger. “I like you with your hands in the air. I think it suits you. Perhaps you’ll be buried that way.”

  “I prefer cremation, old man. Incidentally, I wouldn’t put too much trust in those recordings. They also record the presence of this big diamond, which I suspect is not yet your legal property.”

  Maijstral hesitated, then smiled. “This isn’t my room. The diamond has nothing to do with me.”

  “If this isn’t your room, then what are you doing in it?”

  “Making an arrest, looks like.”

  “Mr. Fu George,” Roberta said.’ “There are lives at stake here.”

  Fu George offered her a graceful inclination of his head “No one regrets that more than I, your grace. Except possibly for Chalice.”

  “That isn’t what I meant.” Quickly, her pistol trained unerringly on Chalice’s right ear, Roberta explained Lord Qlp’s behavior and its threat of planetary discontinuation.

  “Very strange, your grace,” Fu George said. “Were the Shard in my possession, I’d be happy to arrange its ransom. However, as I have no idea where the Shard might be—”

  Maijstral’s exasperation boiled over. “Oh, shut up,” he said. “I don’t believe you.”

  Fu George raised an eyebrow. “Are you calling me a liar, Maijstral?”

  “Damn right I am,” Maijstral snarled. “Old man.” He glanced over his shoulder at the Duchess. “I’m going to have Roman and Gregor hold Fu George here while I take a look in his suite. The Shard may be there.”

  While Maijstral spoke, Fu George glided forward with absolute, professional silence; Maijstral turned back at the motion and saw a slight smile on Fu George’s face in the instant before the man’s right fist filled the vision of his left eye.

  The fist drove full-force into the detector goggles, which in turn drove into Maijstral’s eye. Caught by surprise, Maijstral sat down on the bed. In purest reflex, he jabbed his pistol into Fu George’s midsection: Fu George folded backward into the closet, cracking his head on the back wall. One of Dolfuss’s loud jackets dropped silently on his head.

  “Are you injured, sir?” the closet said. “I can summon medical assistance if necessary.”

  “I will ask the Marquess Kotani to act for me,” Fu George said, his voice muffled. “And thanks anyway, closet, but I don’t need your help.”

  Horror glibbered in Maijstral’s mind at the realization of his own invidious carelessness. He had called Fu George a liar, which was a killing offence, and he’d done it in front of witnesses; he could have got away with an apology save that Fu George had then gone and hit him, which was another killing offence, and this meant he couldn’t possibly escape the inevitable violence. Maijstral was possessed by a desperate need to shriek and dive under the bed, but his body seemed paralyzed, so instead he simply sat where he was, pistol braced, while he gazed at Fu George’s plaid-draped form and contemplated his own speechless terror.

  Training, in the end, loosened his voice. The Nnoivarl Academy had drilled its students well, or at any rate well enough to be able
to speak formulae while terrified witless.

  “Your grace,” Maijstral said while his mind cringed at what his mouth actually had the audacity to say, “will you do me the inestimable favor of acting for me in this matter?”

  “I would be honored, Maijstral.” She paused for a moment’s thought. “So what do we do now? Are you still going to search Fu George’s suite?” Maijstral felt the Trilby begin to quake in his hands, and he lowered the pistol while he contemplated his situation. His stolen loot, the Eltdown Shard, and even planetary discontinuation had begun to assume an air of insignificance.

  “There wouldn’t be a lot of point,” Chalice interrupted. “Drexler was with us, helping with the black boxes. He’s run back to guard the suite.”

  “Fu George,” Maijstral said. “Take that stupid thing off your head and leave.”

  “Your servant,” replied Fu George’s muffled voice. “Old man.” Fu George removed Dolfuss’s jacket, rose from the closet, and brushed at his clothing. “Come, Chalice.”

  “Good work, sir,” Chalice said.

  “Mr. Chalice,” Roman said, as he showed the others the door. “I believe you still owe Gregor and me ten novae.”

  Fu George looked at his assistant. “Ten novae?”

  Maijstral stared down at the pistol in his hands and wondered if it was too late to shoot the pair of them. Perhaps the could arrive at a plausible reason for it later.

  No. There were too many witnesses.

  The words took up a dull refrain in his head. Too many witnesses. Too many witnesses. Too many witnesses.

  The door closed shut behind Chalice and Fu George. Maijstral put his gun on the bed and stretched out with his head on the pillow. He looked up at Dolfuss’s empty ceiling. There was a moment’s silence.

  “I don’t see what else we could have done,” Roberta said.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Roman said. “It’s my fault. Once I closed the door, I should have returned to help you cover Fu George.”

  “If it’s your fault,” Maijstral almost said, “you fight the man,” but he bit the words back. No purpose would be served by getting his servant and chief henchman angry at him.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” he said. He felt mild surprise at how well he was articulating. “I let things get out of control.”

  “You handled that real cool, boss.” Gregor’s tones were admiring. Another savage comment came to Maijstral’s mind, and again Maijstral squelched it.

  Roberta bent to return her pistol to its holster. When she straightened, there was a serious light in her eyes. “What weapons?” she asked.

  Maijstral’s mind curdled as it raced through the appalling possibilities. The inventory of classical Khosali duelling weapons, developed over millennia, was impressive. There were weapons for cutting, weapons for hacking, weapons that shot flame or explosive bolts. There were strangling cords and bludgeons and sophisticated devices for picking apart the opponent’s mind and leaving him a pain-riven vegetable all the rest of his days. The weapons had one thing in common: Maijstral had no confidence in his ability to damage Fu George with any of them.

  Why, he asked the ceiling, had he been born in a society that countenanced mutual slaughter, but only so long as the slaughter was done on what purported to be a fair basis? Why was fairness the criterion? Why not cleverness! If one could cleverly arrange matters so that one’s opponent had no chance whatever of survival, and oneself had every possible chance, why should any reasonable individual object? Why shouldn’t the clever survive over the stupid? Wouldn’t it improve the breed in the long run?

  Maijstral waved an airy hand.

  “Chugger,” he said. “And let’s not use explosive bullets or automatic fire. Far too vulgar.” The point of a chugger duel was that each side got only one shot. He wasn’t going to give Fu George more than one try at him.

  “Very well.”

  “Anything you won’t use?”

  Everything! his mind squalled, but instead his voice was calm. “Axes. Clubs. Pole weapons. That sort of thing. Too…” Brutal, he almost said, but corrected himself at the last second. “… common.”

  “How about psych-scanners?”

  Maijstral thought for a long moment. A psych-scanner in the hands of an expert could turn an opponent’s brain into a mass of toasted cheese. Against a stupid or slow man, Maijstral would have had every confidence in using a scanner. Unfortunately Fu George was neither stupid nor slow.

  He thought about the long nightmare that might result, with Fu George slamming at his brain for hours while he gibbered in terror and tried to evade the relentless psychic blast. No, he decided. Pistols were a lot quicker.

  “I’d rather not,” he said. “Scanners are an honorable weapon, but too often they leave both combatants brain-dead. I’d prefer one of us survive this.”

  “Bravo, boss. Only too.” Gregor gave a laugh as he beat out a quick pattern on the bureau.

  Maijstral looked at him bleakly. Gregor had been impressed by his chivalry, but Maijstral, to himself at least, meant only that he intended himself to be the survivor, and to hell with anything else. He’d rigged a chugger duel in his youth, when he’d been driven into an encounter during his last year at the Nnoivarl Academy; he wasn’t sure he could work the same trick with a scanner.

  “Any feelings about swords?” Roberta asked.

  Wrong phrasing, Maijstral thought. He had very clear feelings about swords, though none of them capable of articulation in this company.

  “I would prefer smallswords,” he said. “Or rapier and targe.” Keep the damage to a minimum, he thought, with a light weapon. Perhaps he could manage to get himself scratched on the arm and pronounce honor satisfied.

  “I would also prefer,” Maijstral said, “that the meeting be postponed for a few days. I’d like to get to the bottom of this Shard business first.”

  “Thank you, Maijstral,” Roberta said. “I appreciate that.”

  “I am at your service, your grace.” Delay the thing as long as possible, he thought, which would give him a greater chance to fix the outcome. Perhaps, he thought cheerlessly, he could just poison Fu George in the night. Or get him arrested.

  “What shall we do about the Shard?”

  “If I were you, I’d try to buy it from Fu George. If you approach him privately, he may act differently than when he had my gun pointed at his head.”

  She looked at him with a frown. “I suppose I should see him as soon as possible.”

  “Right now, if you like.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Maijstral. I’ll see Kotani as soon as the present crisis is over.”

  “Don’t hurry on my account,” Maijstral almost said. Instead he said merely, “Your servant.”

  “Yours.”

  Roberta bowed and left. Maijstral stared at Dolfuss’s ceiling and asked it a long series of questions. There was no reply.

  ———

  Viscount Cheng’s captain, whom Khamiss was beginning to think of as Cap’n Bob, gazed in surprise at the unconscious body of the Tanquer.

  “Er,” she began, “is this somehow related to our problem?”

  “Not really,” Khamiss said. She turned to the console. “Ring the Duchess of Benn’s suite,” she said. “Then ring the White Room, the other lounges, each restaurant, the Casino, and all the shops on the commercial level. Give them the following message: should anyone see her grace the Duchess of Benn, Drake Maijstral, or Geoff Fu George, please have them call Khamiss at the central switchboard. Inform them that this is a serious emergency. End of message.”

  “At your service,” said the console.

  Kovinn answered the Duchess’s phone. “Is her grace in?” Khamiss asked.

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am.”

  “I need to speak with her right away. This is an emergency.”

  Kovinn’s ears twitched. “Very well, madam. I shall inform her grace when she arrives.”

  “My name is Khamiss. I’m at the central communications switchboard.
Please beg her grace to call .me as soon as she arrives.”

  “I will give her your message.”

  “Thank you.” Khamiss rang off, then frowned and looked at the console. What next?

  Cap’n Bob provided the answer. “Does Baron Silverside know?”

  “No.” She turned to the console, an order poised on her lips, and then she hesitated, a clear picture rising in her mind of Baron Silverside having a fit of hysterics and tearing out hunks of whisker.

  “Let’s not,” she decided.

  ———

  “Cheeseup!” called Dolfuss at the top of his lungs. By this point spectators’ heads had ceased to turn at the sound of his roars, but instead had begun ducking between shoulders as if caught in an exploding hailstorm of bad taste. Dolfuss laid down his cards. “And I’ve got the Emperor in what-d’you-call-it, and that’s…”

  “Cheddar,” said Vanessa.

  “Right. How many points?”

  Vanessa laid down her cards. “Sixty-four.”

  “Right again.” He beamed. “I’m glad you suggested this game. Winning this one hand I’ve earned more cash than I get in sales commissions for a whole year.”

  Vanessa rose from her seat. “It’s been a… unique experience, Mr. Dolfuss,” she said. “I regret I must leave you.”

  “Too bad.” Smirking. “Sorry to see you go. If you could, ah… ?” He took one of the betting chips and handed it to her. He looked at the score. “That’s a total of two hundred and forty-four.”

  “Yes.” She wrote the amount and signed it, then handed the chip back. Choke on it, she thought.

  Dolfuss grinned and twitched the lapels of his green-on-yellow jacket. “Maybe I ought to travel to these sorts of places more often. I figured I wouldn’t be able to afford them, but maybe I can after all.” He gave Vanessa a speculative look. “Where are you travelling next? Maybe we can meet for another game, ha ha.”

  “I’m afraid my plans are unsettled; I really can’t say where I’ll be. Good afternoon, Mr. Dolfuss.”

  “Afternoon.”

  Seething, her whole being shrieking for bloody vengeance, Vanessa began moving toward the exit, then checked when she saw Fu George walking toward her. She approached him and took his arm.