Rock of Ages

by Walter Jon Williams

  Maijstral, particularly in his early days as a burglar, had been known to plunder the odd diamond vault himself. And even Ralph Adverse, the most legendary burglar of all, Ralph Adverse of the Losey Portrait, the Manchester Apollo, and the Eltdown Shard itself, was said to have knocked over a bank or two when the opportunity presented.

  “Drexler,” Maijstral said, “go to the flier and check the news bulletins. Find out if Nokh & Nokh had a robbery in the last day or so.”

  Drexler snapped his hi-stick in two and tossed the broken bits into the Canyon. “Whether she’s telling the truth or not,” he said, “she still called me a goon. I think we should chuck her in just for that.”

  “Sir,” Roman said, as Drexler walked toward the flier, “it would have been daylight in Australia when the pistol was stolen. Hardly an ideal time to break into a vault.”

  Maijstral brightened. “Daylight, eh?” he said cheerfully. He turned to Conchita. “What do you say to that, Miss Sparrow?”

  “It was William Bligh Day,” Conchita said, “A holiday. I had the whole day to plunder the vault.”

  Maijstral scowled. He was vexed with William Bligh, and he didn’t even know who Bligh was.

  This was unfortunate, for had Maijstral only known it, Bligh had much in common with Maijstral’s family, specifically Maijstral’s grandfather. Both Bligh and Governor His Grace Robert, Duke of Dornier, had the misfortune to suffer mutinies and handle them badly. Bligh was the victim of no less than two mutinies during his naval career, and then suffered the final martyrdom when the entire continent of Australia mutinied against his administration. Duke Robert had only one mutiny to deal with, but he mishandled it so spectacularly that his name, and that of his descendants, were blighted forevermore.

  It is instructive to observe how the Khosali dealt with each of these unfortunate officers. With their passion for law, discipline, and regularity, the Khosali were sympathetic to Bligh, viewed him as a martyr to Order, and created a holiday for him. Statues were built to him throughout Oceania. Duke Robert, by contrast, had acquired such an infamous reputation that the Khosali preferred to treat him gingerly, when they treated him at all. No mention was made of him, no statues built, no holidays declared. No posthumous decorations were ordered. The Green Legion was mothballed, and any mentions in the official histories were as terse and uninformative as possible.

  Even the Khosali quest for Order has its limits.

  *

  “Bad news, boss,” Drexler said from the flier. “Nokh & Nokh got knocked over.”

  Maijstral took the bad news stoically. He turned to Roman. “You might as well let Miss Sparrow down, and she can show us her recordings of the happy event.”

  “Do I have to?” Conchita said, rising and dusting herself off. “I didn’t exactly cover myself with glory on this one.”

  Which proved to be an understatement. The burglary had begun quite well, with Conchita’s black boxes successfully overcoming the vault’s alarm systems, defense robots, and locking mechanism. She walked into the vault looking very pleased with herself, and then carefully closed the vault door behind her so that no passing guard might see that the huge round door was open.

  At this point Drexler’s tongue flopped from his mouth in uncontrollable mirth. Maijstral turned away so that Conchita wouldn’t see his smile. Only Roman managed to maintain his previous demeanor—which was not in his case difficult, considering that he was nearly psychotic with surging hormones, continual itching, and persistent shedding.

  For Conchita had just locked herself in the vault. With all her vault-springing mechanisms left outside.

  The video-Conchita, however, took some time to realize this. She emptied the vault of its contents, packed everything neatly into the levitating luggage she’d brought with her. She was looking quite relieved that she hadn’t bungled anything for a change . . . and then she turned to leave.

  She looked at the door. Frowned. Frowned some more. Drexler began massaging his diaphragm, which was cramping with pleasure. “I can’t look,” he moaned.

  “All my black boxes worked,” Conchita said defensively. “That’s my specialty.”

  “How did you get out?” Maijstral asked.

  “Vaults aren’t constructed so as to prevent people from breaking out,” Conchita said. “I had to improvise some tools from bits of my luggage and some things I’d found in the vaults.”

  “And how long did this take you?” Maijstral asked.

  “Nine hours,” Conchita said in a small voice.

  “I think,” Maijstral said as he turned off the display, “that we may spare ourselves the next nine hours of video.”

  “Perhaps we could just skip to the end,” Drexler suggested cheerfully.

  Maijstral turned to Conchita. “I apologize for the hasty assumptions that led me to bring you here. My associates will return you to your home.”

  “Thank you.” She gazed at the surrounding countryside through the flier’s transparent top. “It was nice to get a chance to see the Grand Canyon. Even though I’ve lived on Earth all my life, I’d never come here.”

  “And you were favored with a unique perspective of the Canyon that few others will ever have experienced.”

  She giggled. “True.” Her brow furrowed. “What is it all about, anyway? What exactly was I supposed to have done?”

  “Well,” Maijstral sighed, “I suppose after all this I might well owe you an explanation.”

  He told her, briefly, the facts of the case. She whistled.

  “You’re in the soup, all right. And that explains how you came to have a semilife patch on your face. But how did you figure it was me that did it?”

  “I’d turned you down when you applied for a job.”

  “What—you don’t have any worse enemies?”

  Maijstral frowned thoughtfully. “It would appear that I do.”

  “Any idea who they are?”

  Maijstral flattened his ears in perplexity. “No one really comes to mind,” he said. “Colonel-General Vandergilt, of course, but I don’t know whether she’s fanatic enough to plant evidence, or for that matter whether she or her associates have the skill to do it. Putting the pistol in the ventilator of the room I was sleeping in would have taken no small ability.”

  “But Vandergilt’s a member of the Special Services Corps, right?” Conchita said. “Then she’s a spy, or at least knows spies. That pistol might have been planted by a government burglar, not one of us stylish amateurs.”

  Maijstral considered this and felt a nebulous, creeping sort of gloom float into his mind, like a low cloud casting cold shadows on his thoughts.

  “Or possibly the burglar was one who’d been arrested, and was given special consideration if he agreed to set you up,” Conchita added. “Maybe you should check to see which burglars have been arrested lately and then let loose. Drexler”—smiling over her shoulder—”can you spare a hi-stick?”

  Drexler scowled as he forked over the intoxicant.

  “Roman . . .” Maijstral began.

  “Very good, sir. I’ll check the arrest records as soon as I take the young lady home.”

  Conchita turned to Maijstral. Her eyes sparkled. “Maybe I could help,” she said. “I have some contacts among Earth burglars. I’ll make a few calls and see if I pick up any rumors.”

  “I would appreciate that,” Maijstral said.

  “I told you I could prove useful.”

  “So you did.” Maijstral opened the flier and stepped out. “I thank you in advance for any information you may discover.”

  “I say we still chuck her in,” Drexler growled. “She called me a goon.”

  Conchita stuck out her tongue at him, but Maijstral gave no sign that he had heard. He hadn’t.

  An image, was repeating itself in his mind over and over again: Joseph Bob pointing a pistol at him, squeezing the trigger, and firing. The image recurred with minor variations, all of which involved the pistol’s muzzle getting larger and larger.
r />   Cold sweat trickled down Maijstral’s neck.

  He was going to have to think of something fast.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There were a lot of colorful stories about Prince Hunac, and for the most part he did a good job of living up to them. He was, for starters, the direct descendant of the Kings of Palenque, whose descent and lineage had been carefully hidden away during the Spanish and Ladino occupation, but which were nevertheless fully documented by records immaculately kept in their original Mayan script. When the Khosali had conquered the Ladinos, and for that matter everyone else, and when subsequently the black-furred conquerors had proved to be such thoroughgoing legitimists as to restore to at least some of their former glory various Habsburgs and Bourbons and Wittelsbachs and all the other smug, dreary royalty from which humanity had after bloody centuries finally unsaddled itself, the lords of Palenque had emerged from seclusion to present their credentials. The City of Seven Bright Rings had been pleased to recognize their legitimacy and made them Dukes of Palenque and later Princes of Quintana Roo.

  During the Great Rebellion, Prince Hunac’s family had sensibly taken both sides, some fighting with the Emperor, others with the rebellious humans. After the Rebellion’s success, Prince Hunac’s grandmother, a rebel leader; had been appointed heir, and the family thus retained its land and wealth after the establishment of the Human Constellation.

  Though Maijstral had never met Prince Hunac, he’d naturally heard of him. Leaving behind a fine record as a dashing eccentric and sportsman, Hunac had graduated ten years ahead of Maijstral at the Nnoivarl Academy. (Just because Hunac’s ancestor had fought for the Rebellion was no reason for the family to turn up its noses at the social advantages of a thoroughgoing Imperialist education.) Hunac had become something of a legend at the school because of his adoption of the stylish dress of the Khosali Al-Ashi Dynasty, which involved elaborate feathered cloaks and headdresses similar to those Hunac’s royal ancestors might have worn on formal occasions. He had kept quetzal birds in his rooms, and was alleged to conduct elaborate religious rituals in secret, not only to maintain his own status among his subjects but, it was said, to maintain the integrity of the universe.

  Since leaving the Academy, Hunac had sponsored hundreds of archaeological expeditions in his native Yucatan. He had donated tens of thousands of items to museums, kept thousands of others in his collection, and contributed greatly to the understanding of the native cultures of the area. He had also made a name for himself as an oceanographer, in which role he charted any number of obscure ocean depths, restored fish populations, and, of course, built the fabulous Underwater Palace on, or rather in, the reefs of Cozumel.

  But Hunac was most famous as a host. His week-long theme parties rolled on for half the weeks of the year, and to those with anxieties over their status in the ton, it was a comforting confirmation of one’s social arrival to receive one of Hunac’s invitations.

  Celebrated and renowned though the Prince was, Maijstral hadn’t been prepared for one aspect—the Prince’s size. Hunac was short. Shorter even than Conchita. Almost as short as a Troxan.

  Short. Hunac was very, very short. Maijstral had not been prepared.

  Maijstral advanced, clasped hands—two friendly fingers each—and then Maijstral bent a surprising distance to sniff the Prince’s ears. Hunac smiled up at him and spoke in Khosali Standard. “The Show Business Party is still under way,” he said. “The Glorious Achievers’ Party, which was to be yours, won’t be on for a few days, but I imagine you’ll find people to talk to in the meantime. The fellow who plays you on video, for one.”

  Maijstral looked around at people drifting through the reception area. “Anaya’s here?” he said.

  “That’s the old video. Maijstral. Laurence is the new one. Don’t you keep up with your own exploits?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t seen either one.”

  Hunac cocked an eyebrow. “Really? How modest of you.”

  It wasn’t modesty, Maijstral wanted to explain, but pure lack of interest. After living with Nichole for several years, he’d had all he needed of actors and their concerns. And he knew that though the thefts in the videos themselves were based on his own professional recordings, with his image electronically altered, the fictional dramas surrounding the thefts were so contrived and awful he didn’t want to be caught watching them.

  But it didn’t seem the sort of thing to admit at a show business party. Where there were celebrities, there were reporters, and where there were reporters, there were usually hovering media globes recording conversations and replaying them for Empire-wide audiences.

  Maijstral hadn’t seen any so far, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  “Please have a drink,” Hunac said hospitably, “and meet some people. If you want, to go out and tour the reefs, we can equip you with a submarine or diving gear—whichever is to your taste.”

  Maijstral gazed out at the reefs surrounding him. “Thank you,” he said. “I’d like that.”

  Celebrated though Prince Hunac was, the majesty of his person was somewhat overwhelmed by the aquatic glory of his surroundings. Cozumel’s reefs—huge coral castles, honeycombed with tunnels and alive with blazing color—loomed on either side, visible through the reception room’s transparent dome. Mayan steles from the Prince’s collection stood in a circle around the reception area, looking like an underwater homage to Stonehenge. Ideograms for “ocean world” and “palace of the lord” floated holographically in the air.

  Hunac took Maijstral’s arm and began strolling toward the bar. “I was wondering if you might give me some advice regarding security matters,” he said. “I have so many rare and valuable things, and it’s only a matter of time before a real first-rate burglar takes a crack at them.”

  “Your palace is secure by its very nature,” Maijstral said. “It’s accessible only through the tunnel from the mainland or by submarine. I would hate to try to steal anything here— getting away would be a challenge.”

  “It’s a complication, admittedly—have some of this Rhenish, it’s splendid—but for someone as inventive as yourself, surely it’s only a matter of false credentials, or flummoxing an airlock. Child’s play, I’m sure.”

  Maijstral sipped his wine. “Hardly that.” He gave the matter thought. “A place like this would be a major operation. One would need many assistants, which multiplies the number of misunderstandings or mistakes that could occur. If one went in by submarine, one would have to take immense trouble to keep your underwater sensors from seeing it—I take it you have underwater sensors?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Well, the cost of preparing the submarine would be high, which would necessitate stealing a whole submarineful of artifacts in order to make a profit, and the sheer size of the operation would make it dangerous.”

  “Profit isn’t always the motive for Allowed Burglary, is it?” Hunac said. “Sometimes you steal for the sheer glory of it, or to publicly surmount an obstacle, or because there’s simply something you want to possess. Ralph Adverse, for example—he stole the most beautiful objects, but he died bankrupt, because he wanted them for their beauty alone, and not for the wealth they could bring him.”

  “You won’t find many Ralph Adverses in the burglary business these days,” Maijstral said.

  “You disappoint me, Maijstral.”

  Maijstral thoughtfully sipped at his drink. “I would say,” he said, “that your chief danger comes, as you say, from someone entering under false credentials, stealing something valuable but fairly portable, and then just riding the train to the surface through the tunnel.”

  “Or,” Hunac smiled, “I could invite someone into my home who is a burglar, simply because I thought he would make an interesting guest. And he could take something, thinking that my hospitality would extend to such a thing. In this assumption, of course, he would be wrong.”

  He had shifted to High Khosali, unmatched for both difficulty of parsing and precision
of communication, as each word commented on the word before it, thus adding cumulative impact to the entire statement.

  A cold current wafted up Maijstral’s spine at the whiteness of Hunac’s smile.

  “Naturally the burglar would be wrong,” Maijstral said, responding after a moment’s, hesitation in the same difficult parsing. He added a commonplace aphorism of the sort that was frequently found in High Khosali, because it saved the trouble of constructing something original.

  “Hospitality should at all points be respected,” he said.

  Hunac’s smile whitened. “I have heard something of your problem with Joseph Bob.”

  Maijstral felt himself stiffening. “It is a misunderstanding,” he said.

  “I am pleased to hear it. I mention the matter only to make certain that no such misunderstandings ever plague our friendship.”

  “I am certain they will not.”

  Hunac shifted back to Khosali Standard. “Very good.” He patted Maijstral’s arm, then turned to an approaching guest. The guest looked remarkably like Elvis Presley, white suit, jeweled wrestler’s belt, and all.

  “Maijstral, have you met Major Ruth Song?”

  “I have not had the pleasure. Charmed.”

  Maijstral offered Major Song two fingers in the handclasp—everyone knows Elvis, after all—and received a single formal finger in reply. She stiffened a bit as he sniffed her ears. Perhaps, he thought, she did not wish him to inspect her cosmetic job at such close range. No need to be so nervous, Maijstral thought: the work was very good, and had turned her into a remarkably successful facsimile Elvis.

  “I hope to persuade Major Song to perform tonight,” Hunac remarked.

  “I will look forward with pleasure,” Maijstral said.

  “Thank you,” Song said. “I need to stay in practice, with the Memphis Olympiad coming up.”

  She replied, oddly, in Human Standard, not Khosali, and Maijstral and Hunac obliged her by switching languages.