He handed her a cigaret and began a search through pockets for his lighter, but Roberta found hers first. They puffed in somber silence for a moment.
“He’s run off to Nichole,” she remarked. “I suppose there’s nothing in it—she’s an old friend and everything—but I’d much rather he’d run off to me.”
The Bubber did his best to be helpful. “Well, he couldn’t, could he? I’ve been taking up all your time.”
Roberta rose from her cane chair. “There’s nothing left to arrange, is there?” she said, and walked toward the door. “I might as well try to get a few hours’ sleep.”
“You think you can sleep?” the Bubber asked in surprise. “I know I won’t catch so much as a wink.”
She hesitated by the door. “Well,” she said: “I suppose you’re right.”
“There’s an all-night bistro down the street,” the Bubber said; “Perhaps we could have some coffee and a pastry.”
“Oh.” Roberta tilted her head and considered. “I suppose I might as well join you,” she said. “The coffee will be welcome, but I don’t think I could eat anything.”
The Bubber flicked ashes into the starfish ashtray and rose, then hesitated on his way to the door. “I say,” he said. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“I haven’t—er—bungled this horribly, have I? I haven’t got my brother killed without realizing it?”
Roberta smiled and patted his arm. “You’ve done very well,” she said.
“Oh.” A surprised look crossed the Bubber’s face. “Well. That’s all right, then.”
*
Maijstral left the hotel after telling the security people he needed some time alone, and flew off with the impression they were happy to see the back of him. Once, in Tejas, he scouted the perimeter of Joseph Bob’s estate, then left the car, activated his darksuit, and flew on silent repellers to the Prince’s huge manor house.
His plan was simple. He’d sabotage the stunner on the one end of Joseph Bob’s dire staff so that it wouldn’t work at all, and then take care of the bladed end through the use of a resonance ring, a clever bit of burglar’s paraphernalia intended for use on barred windows. The ring would snap around the bar in question, then find the frequency of the metal. A resonance effect would be set up that would shatter the crystalline bonds holding together the metal’s molecules. The metal would weaken, then come apart.
Maijstral planned merely to weaken Joseph Bob’s staff near its bladed head. Then, first thing in the fight, he’d take a swipe at the blades, and the thing would come off.
Everyone, he hopefully presumed, would believe that the old weapon suffered from metal fatigue, or perhaps just conclude that Maijstral was a far stronger warrior than he looked.
After disabling Joseph Bob’s weapon, Maijstral would keep hitting away until he’d either won or the seconds put an end to it. Either way, honor was satisfied, and he would decline any challenge to a second encounter.
Maijstral broke into Joseph Bob’s house easily enough, then headed for the exercise room, where Joseph Bob might have been practicing with His weapon. No dire staffs were to be found. He went to the study, in case the dire staff was hung on the wall with Joseph Bob’s other weapons, but it wasn’t there, either.
Good grief, Maijstral thought, is he sleeping with the damned thing?
He floated up to the regal apartments and glided to the door of the Prince’s room. He deployed his scanners, but the audio scanner failed to report the sound of breathing, and the infrared scanner detected no body temperature.
Maijstral peeled the lock and entered. No one sleeping here: the bed had not even been turned down. No dire staff.
An uneasy feeling began to creep up Maijstral’s spine. No, Maijstral thought, the Prince was just spending his last night with his Princess. Where was Arlette’s room?
Arlette’s room proved empty as well. Maijstral felt his mouth go dry. He flew along the corridor, peeling locks and entering rooms. The whole family had left, and Maijstral didn’t know where.
Terror beat a tattoo in his heart. He wiped his forehead and tried frantically to guess where the family might have gone. Somewhere closer to the site of the duel, perhaps, Key West or Miami or even Havana. They might be in the same resort as Maijstral and Nichole!
The point was, he didn’t know. He had no knowledge of what holdings the Prince or the Bubber might have in the Caribbean, and he had no idea, on such short notice, how to find out.
What, he considered, would happen if he just got back in his flier and zoomed off to continue his life as if nothing had happened? Live off his loot, or perhaps check into a New Puritan monastery and announce that he’d found God.
He would be disgraced, of course. Most if not all of his friends would drop him. There would be no question of marriage to the likes of Roberta or Nichole—they’d flee in disgust at the very mention of his name. He would no longer be able to float about at the top of society, picking his scores and earning a good living from commissions. The Imperial Sporting Commission might well revoke his license, which would mean that he could be arrested much more easily. If he ever needed money, he’d have to sneak about, travel incognito, and take down vaults and storehouses just for the money, and he’d be very, very vulnerable to the police.
And all because he didn’t want to get killed. How fair was that? he wanted to know.
But the thing that really chilled his blood was the realization that Roman might leave his employ. Roman had standards. Roman was devoted to all the ideals implied by that scroll he’d created: family and honor and nobility. Maijstral didn’t believe in any of these things, but Roman did, and if Maijstral betrayed them all in one fell swoop, then Roman, he was sure, would be compelled to leave him.
How could he survive without Roman? Roman was his prop, his anchor, the one certain, unequivocal thing in his difficult and equivocal life. Roman was home.
Roman had saved Maijstral’s life a dozen times. If Roman left, Maijstral might as well be dead anyhow.
And if he was going to die, the duel was as good a place as any.
But still, there had to be an escape. He gave desperate. thought to the matter.
Well, he thought, he was here in Joseph Bob’s house; he had sufficient gadgets to get him access to Joseph Bob’s computers; and they could very likely get him a list of the family holdings. It might be possible to find that dire staff yet.
He might as well get busy. He had nothing else to do than die.
*
“Roberta?”
“Yes?”
“It’s time to get in our aerocars and pick up our duelists.”
“How far do you have to go?”
“Only as far as Key Largo. My brother’s staying at the estate of Lord Pony: J.B. wanted to be able to practice with the staff and not have to deal with any interruptions. He hasn’t told anyone he’s there except family.”
“Well, I don’t have much farther to fly myself.”
“Havana, yes?”
“Yes.”
“A lovely place. You might stop there on your honeymoon, if things work out.”
Beat.
“Was that a really tactless thing to say?” A sigh.
“I don’t think so. But I’ll give it further thought, if you like.”
*
Doomed, doomed, doomed.
The word rang through Maijstral’s head as he stood wrapped in a cloak on the verge of the sea.
Doomed, doomed, doomed.
He had found a list of all of Joseph Bob’s possessions in the Caribbean. He had flown to every single one of them, his desperation increasing with the cumulative realization that neither Joseph Bob nor his dire staff was in any one of them.
Doomed, doomed, doomed.
Finally he’d run out of options. He had nothing to do but return to Havana, pick up his staff, head out to the Dry Tortugas, and die like a gentleman.
Doomed, doomed, doomed.
Doomed, doomed, doomed.
After his return to Havana he’d figured he might as well give fighting a chance, and he’d had Roman give him a lesson with the dire staff. It had been a disaster. The staff was solid steel and immeasurably heavy—every movement seemed to take forever and left him panting for breath. The wicked nest of interlaced blades on the end of the staff were appallingly sharp. He’d fired off the stunner once by accident and put his own foot to sleep.
He could not rely on martial prowess. And his only chance to rig the outcome had failed.
Doomed, doomed, doomed.
“Drake? It’s time.”
Roberta touched him lightly on the shoulder.
“I need to do your hair.”
He gazed at the sea while Roberta tied his hair back with a ribbon. Then he turned and followed her to the designated spot. He took off the cloak, and Roman approached and handed him his staff.
“Remember,” Roman said. “Get inside him. Hit left and right.”
Maijstral didn’t understand a word of it. It all sounded like the most inane babble in the world. “Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t forget the Yell of Hate.”
Maijstral nodded.
Roberta squeezed his arm. He felt the moist touch of her lips on his cheek. “Come back to me,” she said.
Doomed, doomed, doomed.
Joseph Bob marched toward him confidently, the rising sun gleaming on his perfect blond hair. He looked utterly at home in this circumstance, and he carried his dire staff with confident ease. His lips were turned up in a slight smile. He looked as if he were on his way to a game of cards.
The only imperfection was the slight swelling around the broken nose—he’d removed his semilife patches so that they wouldn’t interfere with his vision during the fight.
Doomed, doomed, doomed.
It was at this point, viewing his opponent, that resentment rose in Maijstral. How dare the man smile! How dare he look so perfectly at ease, so sans-peur-et-sans-reproche, so damned happy to be here! The man was a fool. A dupe. He was being used as a puppet by a legion of conspirators, and he neither knew nor cared.
“Ready!” The Bubber’s voice broke and squeaked on the second syllable.
Combats with the dire staff begin corps-a-corps, with each staff held crosswise in both hands and touching, so that neither side could get off an easy shot with the stunner right at the start. Maijstral braced himself and pushed his weapon forward, felt Joseph Bob’s weight as the two staffs came into contact.
Joseph Bob gave a little grunt of satisfaction as he leaned his mass into Maijstral. He was bigger and stronger and had longer arms, and the advantage was all his. Maijstral felt Joseph Bob’s weight driving him into the ground like a tent peg, and dug his heels into the sand to arrest his backward movement. His arms were already tired.
“Begin on the count of three!” the Bubber shouted. “One . . .”
In the corner of his eye Maijstral could see media globes winking in the sun. This whole fiasco was being recorded in order to demonstrate to the authorities that it was fair.
Fair. The whole notion made Maijstral’s blood boil. What was fair about a big, strong idiot being permitted to butcher a smaller, far more intelligent man?
“Two!”
Joseph Bob was a moron! A simpleton! How dare he be so casual about this?
“Three!”
Maijstral's resentment and indignation burst from his throat in a shattering scream.
“Yaaaaaaaaah!” he yelled.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Maijstral opened his eyes and blinked lazily at the ceiling. He yawned. He stretched. He rose from his bed and planted his bare feet on the floor and clenched his toes in the thick nap of the carpet.
He looked down at his knuckles. They were reddened and swollen and a bit sore. He flexed them in time with the clenching of his toes.
Voices were heard from the drawing room adjacent. Maijstral padded to the door, opened it, and entered the room.
Roberta, Nichole, and Kuusinen were watching a video and chatting. Glasses, bottles, and dirty dishes were strewn on tables. It was perhaps the twentieth time they’d seen the video, and they hadn’t tired of it yet.
“Do you know,” Roberta said, “I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen one human being climb another.”
In the video, Maijstral and Joseph Bob were facing each other, each with dire staff braced. The Bubber called out commands. And then, before Joseph Bob could move, Maijstral screamed, batted the Prince’s dire staff out of the way, then threw down his own weapon and launched himself at his foe.
“Clever,” Kuusinen commented. “Butting his highness on his broken nose that way.”
Maijstral couldn’t remember any of it. He could view the video almost as if he were watching Laurence play some Maijstral-analogue in a fictional adventure. He was fairly certain that his head butt to Joseph Bob’s nose was an accident, but he couldn’t swear to it.
On the video, the Prince lurched as Maijstral climbed his front like a squirrel climbing a tree. Maijstral bit, punched, butted, and gouged. He screamed aloud the entire time. The Prince staggered, dropped his staff, and fell backward to the sand with Maijstral on top. Maijstral, still screaming, sat on his chest and hammered his head into the sand with his fists until Roberta and the Bubber dashed in to seize him and drag him off his prey.
“That’s quite a Yell of Hate,” Roberta observed.
“Drake looks like an animal,” Nichole said, a bit wide-eyed. Despite their long acquaintance, this was clearly an aspect of Maijstral that was new to her.
“Is it feeding time at the zoo?” Maijstral asked. They all turned to Kim in surprise. Nichole flushed with embarrassment at being overheard.
Silent entrances were a signal feature of Maijstral’s profession.
“Slept well?” Roberta asked.
“I think I can safely say it was the sleep of the just.”
He sat beside Roberta on a settee and she took his hand. “We’ve been discussing you,” she said. “And we’ve come to some conclusions.”
“Other than the observation that I’m an animal?”
“That, too.”
Maijstral flexed a hand and wondered a bit at the video he’d just seen. His astonishment at himself was still, in a very tender state. He had some years before concluded that he no longer possessed the ability to surprise himself, and over time he’d managed to reconcile himself to the idea that he was incapable of facing physical danger; but the video was clear evidence that his notions of himself needed an overhaul.
If only he could remember. He couldn’t recall a thing from the moment the Bubber counted three till Roberta and the Bubber hauled him off the Prince’s splayed and hapless form.
Nichole turned to Kuusinen. “Mr. Kuusinen, I think, can outline the substance of our conversation.”
“Could you call for dinner first?” Maijstral asked. “I’m starving.”
He hadn’t, he realized, eaten in days. His meals kept getting interrupted.
Maijstral’s dinner was ordered from room service, then he poured himself champagne from a half-empty bottle that was sitting convenient to hand in a silver bucket. Kuusinen frowned, settled himself in his chair, and began his summary.
“It’s obvious enough that you are the victim of a conspiracy,” he said. “Our difficulty is that, while we can eliminate any number of suspects, we still have no firm idea who is behind it all, or what that person’s motive might be.
“The conspiracy would seem to be aimed at getting you challenged by those people who have consented to be your hosts while you’ve been staying on Earth. The first attempt, at the home of the Prince of Tejas, was successful.”
A memory bubbled, like champagne, to the surface of Mai
jstral’s mind. “It wasn’t the first,” he said suddenly. “When I was staying with Lord Huyghe, Conchita Sparrow saw someone in a darksuit hovering outside my window. The intruder fled, and I’ve assumed all along it was a police spy of some sort, but now it seems likely the stranger was a member of the conspiracy.”
Kuusinen nodded. “That datum somewhat alters the time scheme,” he said. “Your enemies are very well organized. Perhaps we should begin by itemizing their knowledge and capabilities.”
He held up a finger. “First, they’re aware of your travel schedule, and have laid plans in advance.” Another finger. “Second, they include in their number a burglar of considerable prowess—Roman informed us that he had booby-trapped your room in the Underwater Palace such that it would have taken a burglar of no small competence to break in undetected, and of course it would have taken an extremely capable burglar to have stolen Prince Hunac’s stele in the first place.”
“That leaves out the Bubber,” Roberta said. “Will probably could have stolen and planted the pistol, but he wasn’t anywhere near the Underwater Palace, and nothing in his background suggests he could at any point in his life have acquired any competence as a thief.”
Maijstral frowned into his champagne. “I have given some consideration to the notion that Drexler might be responsible,” he said.
“Roman informs us,” Kuusinen said, “that he and Drexler were dining together in the servants’ hall of the Underwater Palace when you came across the burglar.”
“Oh.”
At this point the door chime gave a soft, shimmery noise; and three individuals, uniformed as splendidly as fleet admirals and operating in efficient silence, delivered Maijstral’s dinner and swept away the dirty plates. The conversation suspended itself while they were in the room. It was always possible that one of them had been corrupted by the media.
As the grand potentates of room service bowed their way out, Maijstral applied himself to his plate. Sea lion Provençal, one of his favorites, mixed vegetables in season, and little heads of khronkh, fried crispy.
Kuusinen frowned and looked at his hand, with the first two fingers extended, and quite visibly rewound his summary, mentally replayed his earlier remarks, and then, once he located himself, recommenced. He thrust out his third finger.
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