by John Barnes
"How did you meet my friends?" Jak whispered to Shadow.
"I had followed you to the prison—I was planning to break you out, but your friends got there first," the Rubahy said. "I knew your friends would be bringing you to Fermi sooner or later because that was where your mission was, so I accomplished my own errand at the Rubahy embassy here in Fermi, and then thought that before starting my next assignment, I'd look in to see if I could help you, and thus I found your other friends, who all behave as if they owe you an even greater debt of honor than I do. You must be an extraordinary person among humans, Jak Jinnaka, to have so many and such fine friends, and I am honored to have taken an honor-oath with you back on the launch."
Jak realized that there was probably something the Rubahy was misinterpreting, but this would not be the time to try to straighten him out.
"So," Shadow went on, "this fellow here"—he gestured at Black—"was kind enough to engage my services as warrior, and also very interested in these other friends, and not long after you went to negotiate, he looked them up at the cafe where they were waiting. He hired them, also, to be the blue team for this operation. We would have swooped in to rescue you sooner, but as it happened, the blue team was delayed with getting their package—"
"The blue team is Piaro, Phrysaba, Myxenna, and Dujuv?"
"That is correct."
"And the 'package'—"
"Oh, of course, you weren't there for the planning," the Rubahy said. "It must seem very confusing to you. I apologize for that. By 'getting the package,' of course, I mean 'hijacking a warshuttle.'"
As they approached the spaceport, Black took the helicopter lower and lower, until finally it seemed to Jak that they were just skimming the roofs of the warehouses. Black was now talking constantly into his microphone, sometimes to Piaro, mostly to what seemed to be military officers, and it sounded to Jak more or less as if he were working out some kind of a complex auction arrangement, though Jak could understand neither what was being bought or sold, nor the medium of exchange.
They came up on the edge of the field, where the warshuttles were parked, and it was immediately obvious which one had been seized; it was the one surrounded by B&Es, who crouched behind barrels and trucks, or around the corners of the warehouses, their weapons aimed at one craft. The warshuttle's ground protection guns wavered ominously as they automatically sighted in on anything that moved; if anyone inside gave the command, the warshuttle would at least go out shooting.
About thirty more beanies lay prone on a rooftop as the helicopter zoomed over them, their weapons also pointed toward the warshuttle, and crouched behind a chimney there was a man with a large radio booster plugged into his purse. Black waved at the man with the radio booster, who waved back and shouted to the men on the rooftop.
A few of the beanies on the roof turned and started to sight in on the helicopter, but for some reason or other, their comrades immediately wrestled them to the ground, ripping their weapons from their hands. Jak was puzzled, but he was getting used to not understanding things.
The copter slowly descended between the ship and the B&Es, in a wide bare area, and as soon as he'd stopped the rotor, Black hopped out and walked out onto the heat-scarred tarmac. He looked toward the ship and beckoned; looked toward the B&Es and beckoned; and in a moment, the captain of the warshuttle, in his full-dress uniform, emerged and walked toward Black. A few seconds later, a B&E, this one in combat gear, emerged from one of the barricades and walked over to join them.
The captain arrived first, snapping a brisk salute and then kneeling. The B&E seemed taken aback, but kept walking; then he obviously recognized Black, and did the same salute-and-kneel. Black gestured for them to rise, and after a few brief words, the B&E officer and the warshuttle captain went back to their posts, talking vociferously into their purses. In a moment, the B&Es were standing up and stowing arms; the ground protection guns of the warshuttle were pointed harmlessly at the sky; and it was abundantly clear that whatever the crisis had been, it was now over.
Black turned back toward the helicopter, made a "come-on" gesture to Jak, Sesh, and Shadow, and turned to walk toward the warshuttle's ramp. Jak and Shadow followed at once—something about Black didn't let you think of disobeying. Sesh kicked off her remaining shoe. "Eeep," she commented as she ran across the hot tarmac in her bare feet, trying to keep her breasts covered with her hands. "Eep."
All over the spaceport, sirens were sounding and people were running and shouting, but there were no bangs from projectile weapons and no hisses of beam weapons. It didn't sound so much like an impending attack or an accident, as like mass confusion. They ran up the ramp into the warshuttle. The ramp lifted behind them, and a bell rang. "This is the captain. Everyone grab an emergency security surface and stay on it. We're taking off."
Because warshuttles so often accelerate suddenly, there are almost always several acceleration couches within few meters of you; Jak, Shadow, and Sesh pulled three down from the wall and lay on them. "Wonder where we're going?" Jak said.
"Low Earth orbit, or else somewhere else on Earth. Those are actually the only available choices," Shadow on the Frost said.
"Earth or somewhere close," Sesh said. "That helps a lot."
Shadow made that bubbles-in-a-bucket sound. "Your demmy has a sense of humor as fine as your own, Jak Jinnaka."
There was a tremendous roar and they boosted at what had to be at least four g, mashing them down hard into the acceleration couches. After a few minutes, the acceleration cut out, and the captain said, "We're in orbit; move around if you need or want to."
Jak unbuckled, floated free, and looked out the viewport; sure enough, they were perhaps five hundred km above the planet, now.
A door opened, and Dujuv, Myxenna, Phrysaba, and Piaro swam in. "You have splendid friends," Shadow on the Frost said. "It speaks well of one who has chosen to share honor with me."
Myx and Duj immediately scrambled to hug Sesh and make sure she was all right. Sesh was suddenly acutely aware that she was all but naked; Dujuv pulled off his tunic and gave it to her, where it fit like a bedsheet over an end table, but at least provided some modesty.
Jak noted that Phrysaba had taken a firm grip on his arm, and she breathed in his ear, "Well, at least this way everyone got to find out what you see in her."
Trying to disentangle himself gently, he said, "I arrived right when Psim Cofinalez was trying to rape her—"
"He did what?" Dujuv said, turning and staring.
"Not me," said Black, coming in through the same door. "I didn't have the luxury of giving Jak quite the elaborate explanation I gave you. That unpleasant little turd of a person who was up in the garden with you, Princess Shyf, was Pukh Cofinalez, the heir to the throne of Uranium, a creepy little man, and incidentally already married. Or not so incidentally. He needed to get you into a line marriage with him, which would have broken his old marriage, not to mention capturing Greenworld for us and thereby getting him in good with Pop. But since Greenworld would hardly have allowed the courtship, and would have fought a war to keep you out of that situation with a married fellow, he needed to be an unmarried one—so he just borrowed my identity. Since my picture doesn't get around much, for security reasons, nor does his, for esthetic reasons, and he had noticed I was building a very pleasant palace where I in-tended to live myself, but which could be perfectly adapted as a cage for kidnapped princesses, he just grabbed me while I was sleeping one night and sent me off to Tjadou, where the family stores all the inconvenient prisoners. Pop doesn't get out much anymore and isn't all that sharp when he does, so he didn't ask any awkward questions, and Pukh had things pretty much his way unless and until I could escape and rally family forces loyal to me. Jak's escape gave me a way to escape, and the rest will probably be history once it's all declassified."
Sesh looked bewildered. "But to marry him with full consent, as a marriage-of-lines requires, I'd have had to find out that he was Pukh, not Psim—"
"You
'd also have had to fall really, sincerely in love, contrary to both your political and personal interests, with a man who had you kidnapped and held for months or years against your will. Pukh is not what you'd call the brains of the family. Or the looks. Or indeed much else, in the family, at all, now, (I am delighted to say!) because I've already sent over the details of the sorry djeste to Pop, and though he's not as sharp as he once was, perhaps, he's more than sharp enough to recognize inept treachery, which is the one kind he can't tolerate. Pukh is out, I'm in, and I'll be Ducent for Pop and then Duke thereafter. And though it's not in the nature of the positions of our houses and holdings to be friends or even allies, Princess, I hope we can avoid being enemies."
"You're doing very well so far."
"Well, good then. Within an orbit or two, the captain should notify me that our forces are holding everything important in Fermi, and then we'll be able to ground and sort things out. It will take some time, first with getting confirmed as Ducent and then with all the things I have to do as Ducent, but we should have everything straightened out in a few days, if everyone will bear with me."
Fermi was a charming, beautiful city (at least when one was not being chased through it) but it did have an African climate and full gravity. While they waited to hear what arrangements the new Ducent had made, they all elected to move up to one of the hotels owned by the Cofinalez family, as part of their personal property, on Singing Port. If things seemed a little—well, extremely—tense between Phrysaba and Sesh, that was something that Jak could deal with by simply spending time sparring with Dujuv and Piaro, and playing Maniples with Shadow on the Frost, who had such a different approach to things that Jak felt he was making extraordinary progress with his game. Twice, in the period of a few days, they all came together to experience, by live viv, Pabrino playing some planet-class opponent; the sporting-and-games news media were already calling him the "spaceborn phenom."
When Ducent Psim Cofinalez was finally able to get time to meet with all of them, it was not for the small dinner or party he had hoped for. It was really just a short, friendly meeting in a conference room before the new Ducent attended four more meetings in the hotel and then flew back to Fermi the next day. "Well," Psim said, "I would really rather do this more gradually, but I didn't want to keep you all in suspense any longer, and I know the importance of gratitude to friends, so let me tell you what I'm planning to do. Remember Principle 159: 'Money changes everything.'"
He turned to Phrysaba and Piaro, and said, "One way that money can change everything is that what's a disaster for some of my friends is no more than writing a couple of checks for me. I'm going to buy the cargo of the Spirit of Singing Port, at a price which will get you part of the way out of debt with enough credit to get the ship fully repaired and up to spec, and then have you take it to Mercury for me, which should make enough profit to pay off the rest and keep you flying as free merchants." Piaro's and Phrysaba's jaws dropped, and then they bounced up as to embrace him, but he waved them off, clearly embarrassed. "Oh, now, now, let's not exaggerate the importance of this. I know your sunclipper is your world, but for the House of Cofinalez, it's about forty-four minutes of profit. Not to mention that we aren't always eager to have everyone know just what cargo is going where, and friends among the spaceborn are always good to have."
"You know you have them on the Spirit of Singing Port" Piaro said.
"Well, then, your next destination after Mercury is the Aerie, where you will be dropping Princess Shyf off, and I'll pay for a premium passage for her."
Piaro smiled in a way that Jak wasn't sure he liked. "Well, that will be great."
Phrysaba and Sesh were not-looking at each other as hard as they could.
The Ducent went on. "Shadow on the Frost will be joining my little cadre of Rubahy mercenaries for a while, which is a much better job than he was headed for."
Shadow nodded graciously.
"How is it better, Shadow?" Jak asked.
"Though my oath-bound cousins-club has granted me honors, the fraternity of my voluntary parents found that those honors were an affront to their sense of grandiose prolixity, and the fact that my honors were not unbalanced has somewhat shamed my uncle-group, which was already displeased with me and therefore was going to assign my next mission as something very high risk, to see if I survived, and thereby re-won them the honor I had cost them," the Rubahy said, calmly. "Er, that's a tough translation but I didn't want to include too much about the secondary connections. Anyway, luckily, this offer will pay well enough so that I can buy myself out of the displeasure of every group to which I belong and into whose bad graces I've fallen. We have a saying rather like one of your Principles of the Wager: 'Honor is without price but can often be cheaply bought.'"
The Ducent nodded. "Principle 159 remains my favorite. Jak and Dujuv, are you aware of the PSA's foreign trainee program?"
They glanced at each other and shrugged. "Not at all," Jak said.
"Well, your administrative types, among the wasps, are among the cleverest administrators that the solar system has ever known, and so one thing they do regularly is offer slots at the PSA for aspiring bureaucrats from all the thousands of other nations in the solar system, to come and learn the wasp way of doing things. It is always presented, of course, as a very altruistic way of as-sisting the functioning of the whole human race, which I suppose it might be if you really think the human race would function better if only it were run from the Hive. And pretty well no other nation, especially not one of any power or size, ever takes advantage of the offer, because we all understand perfectly well that what this will do is eventually fill our civil service with wasp agents, many of whom won't even know that they're wasp agents, because they think that the way in which they have learned to make everywhere as much like the Hive as possible is merely 'good administration' or 'modern management.'
"Well, along the way of things, my intelligence service, which does quite a good job of supplying background information, discovered two very deserving young citizens of the Hive who didn't get into the PSA, and what I propose is this: I'll declare you both to be subjects of the Duchy of Uranium, and send you to the PSA as foreign exchange students. In exchange for that, I ask only that you promptly defect to the Hive when you're all done with school, and that above all else you don't come back here and introduce all that public service nonsense into my administration! I have nice trustworthy officials who take bribes on everything that doesn't matter, so that business gets done, and are terrified of my secret police about everything that does matter—I don't believe I have a single bureaucrat who cares about fairness, procedure, or principles, which is why Uranium is such a pleasant place to live, with plenty of slack always and no worries about some idiot in the Un-derbureau of Classification making a mess, or committing treason by deciding to do something for the greater good. So… if I do send you both to the PSA, I assume I have no worries about your coming back here and trying to reform and improve anything?"
"None at all, Your Excellency," Dujuv said.
"You should know us better than that, sir," Jak added.
The new Ducent laughed and clapped them both on the shoulders. "Well, then, the ship is saved from bondage, everyone is going to where they belong, and we have all the elements of a happy ending in place."
"Uh, was there anything you were going to do for Myxenna?" Jak asked, not wanting a tove left out of the bounty.
She turned on a radiant smile, the kind that she normally got while watching the buttocks of an attractive young man, or when suggesting that she knew a good private place to talk; Jak had seen that smile focused on himself a few times and privately—that is, never in any way the panth might be aware of—regarded the times when he'd received that smile as high points of his life. "Well," she said, "we haven't exactly specked what would be appropriate"—Jak had never before realized how perfect the word "appropriate" is for purring—"but Psim and I are having dinner tonight to talk about that very question.
"
Jak glanced away, not wanting to see Dujuv's reaction. Phrysaba and Sesh were looking at each other as if each were contemplating how pleasant it would be to wear the other's entrails as a feather boa. A moment or two later, after the Duke had left, Jak grabbed Shadow, Piaro, and Duj and suggested that they all go someplace for a large meal to celebrate, "just us heets."
Halfway through a third plate of glutles, the panth looked up and said, "She called him by his first name."
"Well, I guess that's what he has a first name for, so people can call him by it." Piaro dove back into his plate of Tranquility Scallops, clearly hoping he'd closed off the conversation.
"He's a duke. Or a ducent, anyway."
"Way above her, so he won't be interested," Jak said, firmly.
Shadow nodded. "In your social order, he is going to be the top, she is going to be underneath him, eh? And I am sure that they are not unhappy with that. She is a loyal person of respect and she will very much enjoy being under him."
Dujuv, appearing to have been poisoned, got up and went into the rest room. After he had gone, Shadow on the Frost began to shake, and to emit the familiar burble of bubbles in a metal bucket. "You evil bastard," Piaro said, "you speak Standard better than that!"
"Absolutely cruel and evil," Jak said.
"Horrible thing to do," Piaro agreed.
The metal bucket burble got stronger and louder, and Shadow on the Frost was now shaking like a spastic monkey, his feathers fluffed up in pure glee.
"Funny, though," Piaro said, giving way and laughing, and Jak joined them a moment later, admitting to himself that for an evil feathered lizard, Shadow wasn't a bad heet to hang around with.
Chapter 12
The Two of You Could Have Shaken Hands…
Gweshira had arranged to spend a while talking with Jak, and since she was practically family—toktru, he liked her a lot better than the only family he had, just now—he had to admit, at least to himself, that he was hoping she could patch things up. When she joined him at the little cafe, there was no one else there; it was in the back parts of Entrepot, notorious as places where people went for a romantic rendezvous, and Jak was mildly amused at the thought that he might be mistaken for a gigolo, before sternly reminding himself that if Gweshira had wanted one, she could have afforded something far better than Jak.
