“Of course.”
“If we examine the volume of Sezen’s communications from Executives, there is a marked increase beginning eight cycles ago. That is also the point at which Lady Gloria Constantin began to pressure Sezen. So it isn’t class that Gloria is worried about; she’s maneuvering for more voting power.”
I unearthed a special garment from Sezen’s closet, a neck-to-ankle suit that was so black, it seemed impervious to the light around it. I found soft boots and gloves of the same material, and had to wonder if Sezen had ever thought to put this outfit to the same purpose I would.
From the moment I set foot in the Charmayne guest compound, I had known that it was wise to take note of the construction that had been done to expand it. My past experience with Executives had proved that they were far more concerned with being able to get in and out of places without being seen by their Security teams than with keeping their residents safe. So I asked Nefertari and Kumiko to prowl the access tunnels and air ducts.
I told them,
And speaking of watchers—Lady Sheba’s ghost found eight devices hidden in Sezen’s guest quarters. She hijacked them and transmitted false data to their receiver.
In the process, she also located that receiver. And it turned out to be in a very interesting spot.
* * *
Olympia has many air locks, so you might get the impression that any ship would fly directly in or out of the big locks. But our habitat is spinning. It wouldn’t be impossible to plot a trajectory into a lock, but the possibility of an accident is higher under those circumstances than it is to have automatic systems land a shuttle or freighter on the outside and then tow it into a lock. In fact, the Executive shuttles stay docked on the outside and use an elevator to and from the lock.
The receiver for the data transmitted from Gennady’s spy bugs was on one of those Executive shuttles. When Sheba’s ghost accessed the Security data for that location, she discovered someone inside—someone who did not have a locator or an ID.
I wore Nefertari. Kumiko scouted for us as we crept through the access tunnels and exited a lock close to the transmission source. The music that played in my head was by Franz Waxman, the title music from Rear Window, a movie about a man who thinks one of the neighbors in his apartment complex is a murderer. It begins with a brisk tempo played with drumsticks on cymbals, and then the other instruments join in to suggest the hustle and bustle of a city that never sleeps. And weaving in and out of that melody is a wild theme, warning that things aren’t normal, things aren’t what they seem.
It seemed an appropriate soundtrack for our mission to stalk a mysterious Russian.
Technically we could have used the lock connected to the shuttle—but that seemed brash. Too much was still unknown. Instead, we found a maintenance lock three hundred meters from our target and made our way cautiously across the terrain in between, Kumiko still acting as scout. We could see the shuttle’s thrusters looming higher than any other features of the landscape.
That was her way of saying that our route to the shuttle was not the way any logical person would have gone.
Not that the Executive shuttles were logical things. I’ve never seen an explanation that justified their existence. Periodically Executives take them out for “inspection” cruises, flying around Olympia in the pretense of assessing her general health. They compose spectacles for the public news channels in which they give speeches about our wonderful mission and our hardworking Executives.
Behind the scenes, an exclusive party is going on. The point of the party is for the crème de la crème to enjoy their—um—crème-i-ness? And to assert to other Executives that, for whatever reason, they haven’t made the grade. They do it a couple of times a year. And they always do it in this particular shuttle, which though it is claimed to belong to Olympia, actually belongs to the Charmaynes. Perhaps that would explain why the damned thing is so huge. It can comfortably hold a thousand people.
As far as we knew, it was currently holding only one person. But something was poking my uh-oh button above and beyond my normal levels of paranoia. Because when the Executives are on that shuttle, they often appear to be somewhere else—even when viewed through my vastly superior Security overlay. So we approached the party shuttle as if it were a wild animal that could turn on us and tear our limbs off.
The party shuttle showed its belly to the stars, which seemed counterintuitive until you remembered that its connection to Olympia allowed it to experience the spin gravity, and no one enjoyed entering a vessel and promptly falling on their heads. The shuttle features large transparencies through which the well-heeled guests can look at the view. I’ve often wondered whether the damned thing was ever expected to enter an atmosphere. Even if it could survive the heat of entry, the view might cause the passengers to toss their cookies.
Kumiko, Nefertari, and I needed to avoid those transparencies once we had climbed up the cold engine nozzles and over the shuttle like octopuses traversing a coral reef. As we passed each section, the Medusa units scanned for occupants using sensors on the tips of their tentacles. We didn’t find anyone until we had reached the nose of the craft. In there, we found three people. Gennady was just one of them.
The other two were Baylor and Ryan Charmayne.
Gennady sat in the pilot’s seat with his back to the Charmaynes. He seemed perfectly comfortable with that situation.
Ryan and Baylor were both standing. They didn’t look remotely at ease.
Unfortunately, they were speaking aloud—not messaging each other. So I couldn’t listen in on the conversation.
Here is her transcript of what they said:
GENNADY:… that you think all this talk of who votes and who does not is important. Within two years, the Weapons Clan will claim their resource. Do you suppose you will get to vote about it?
BAYLOR: Where will you be when it goes down, Gennady? This shuttle won’t take you far.
GENNADY: It doesn’t matter where I am. What matters is where you are, Baylor. I advised you to separate yourself from the herd. But that’s hard to do when you’re preying on that herd.
RYAN: Preying on them? We’ve done more to help the people of Olympia than any other Executive family.
GENNADY (after a pause): You really believe that.
RYAN: You want proof? You want to have this argument point by point?
BAYLOR: No—this isn’t the House of Clans. Look, Gennady. We’re the ones who govern on Olympia. You want things to go smoothly? We need the leverage Sezen will give us. If she doesn’t want to play ball, we’ve got options.
GENNADY: How will you make her play ball?
BAYLOR: There are drugs we can use. I guarantee she won’t say no to Ryan’s marriage proposal. Once we’ve harvested her eggs, we can hold them hostage. Eventually she’ll have a child to protect.
GENNADY: That didn’t work too well for your dear Bunny, as I recall.
BAYLOR: It worked well enough to get the job done.
GENNADY: Well, then. I suppose you’re determined. I await the outcome.
RYAN: If you’re so worried, why not get back into a deepsleep unit? Isn’t that where you slept for one hundred years while the Charmaynes worked to keep everything running properly?
GENNADY: Oh, dear me. Your father didn’t tell you? I h
ave never used a deepsleep unit. I’ve been awake for your entire voyage. Just as I’ll be awake long after your grandchildren are dead, Ryan. I belong to the Mironenko family. When we say we’re old, we’re not speaking metaphorically.
END OF TRANSCRIPT
Gennady said something more to the Charmaynes, but we’ll never know what it was, because he turned to face them at that point. Whatever he said, they didn’t reply. But they looked shocked. And then they turned and walked to the lock that was connected with the elevator.
Gennady stayed in his seat, his back to us.
* * *
I knew Nefertari and Kumiko would share what they had learned with Nuruddin and Terry. I couldn’t order them not to—they were my collaborators, not my Servants. And even if I could have prevented them from revealing what we had learned, I’m not sure that I would have. I had no illusions that I could puzzle this new mess out on my own.
We parted in the tunnels outside the access plate that lead to the Charmayne guest quarters. I climbed through and pulled the plate back in place behind me. It was dark in the maintenance tunnel, and I used my Security overlay to plot my way through it. But I didn’t include personnel locators in the overlay, so I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone until I had made it almost all the way back to the duct that led to my quarters.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I wheeled, and someone shined a light in my eyes. When I flinched, he lowered the light, and I could see the steward who had cast all those sideways looks at me the day I arrived, hoping to catch me off guard. “Where are you sneaking back from, Lady Sezen?” he said.
“None of your business, Steward,” I replied.
He gave me a thin smile. “I’m a Charmayne. Even the least of us has more status than you. Especially when you’re worming your way through our tunnels.”
He didn’t know how close he was to the truth when he said worming. “What do you want?” I said, wondering if he would demand chocolate. Did stewards who were also Charmaynes get their own chocolate?
He licked his lips, and his eyes roved up and down my body. “We can work something out,” he said. “Just as we did the last time you were here.”
So. There was a good reason Sezen had stayed away from the Charmayne guest quarters for so long.
I touched his cheek with my fingertips and turned a languid circle around him. When I was behind him, I pressed my body against his back and brushed his ear with my lips. “You’re an idiot,” I whispered, and put him in a choke hold.
He passed out pretty quickly. I kept pressing against the artery in his neck until I didn’t feel his pulse anymore, and then I let him fall.
That late, few people were out and about. Kumiko found it fairly easy to avoid being seen when she dragged him back to his quarters. she said.
Oops.
Well, thank goodness for faithful friends.
* * *
Back in my quarters, I changed into lounging clothes. If I were able to sleep, I doubted I would do it soon. Instead, I settled in the chair next to Isildur’s chess set, where I could also see my tiger tapestry. I cleared my mind.
My mother’s ghost took that as an invitation.
Lightning danced inside the virtual space in my head. My mother rode the storm that crawled over the hull of Titania. “The Weapons Clan,” she said, “could be the ones who gave Baylor and Sheba the gravity bombs.” Her hayashi-kata struck up the tune they had played for me on that day of calamity.
I walked inside Titania’s worm tunnels. Time slowed so I could observe the destruction in detail. My narrow perspective was forcibly widened as the floor dipped beneath me and gaped open to reveal the Habitat Sector. I saw a figure riding the current of escaping atmosphere. Sheba’s ghost looked as if she were flying. “That makes more sense,” she said, “than the idea that the gravity bombs were left over from a previous war.”
I crouched in what was left of my tunnel, fighting vertigo.
My tunnel twisted further out of sound, and now I had a view of Titania’s mangled hull, tearing open with a corkscrew motion. Mercifully, my virtual demonstration did not include the people who must have leaked from every rift. The sight inspired me to ponder what Gennady had said about the Weapons Clan.
“Someone did see it otherwise,” my mother’s ghost reminded me. She danced with the lightning storm until it subsided as her hayashi-kata finished their performance. Together they bowed; the ruin of Titania resolved back into the living habitat of Olympia, and I stared into the worried eyes of the tiger in the tapestry.
Sheba’s ghost remained with me. “Now that you have some perspective, I must draw your attention to the note.” She pointed to the chess set, where the amber queen held down a flat square of something cream colored.
I touched the flat thing—the note. It felt dry, and had a texture almost like fabric.
“Paper,” said Sheba’s ghost. “Pick it up and read what is written on it.”
“That’s ink,” said Sheba’s ghost. “It was written with a pen.”
Don’t marry Ryan Charmayne, said the note. He wants your voting privileges. They’ll kill you once they’ve secured them through marriage.
“You’ll never guess who left it,” said Sheba’s ghost. And she showed me the footage.
It was Edna Constantin.
19
Advice from Edna
I may have mentioned that I sleep like a baby, regardless of the many, many disturbing things I could be thinking about long into the night. I learned this technique as a child. My father taught it to me.
“Remember this always,” he said. “If you want things to get better and for your problems to be solved, sleep to make yourself stronger. Put your troubles aside when you lie down; peel them off like the clothes you remove at the end of the cycle. Then wake and tackle those problems. You do one so you can do the other.”
I have to admit, I wouldn’t be able to take his advice so well if I were not a confident person. I may regret some of the choices I’ve made, but I don’t regret making decisions in general, even when I’m confronted with problems that were caused specifically by those decisions—like the avalanche of communications that clamored for my attention in the morning, when I would much rather have been enjoying waffles and coffee (which were brought to me by a brand-new steward).
At the top of the virtual pile, I saw a message from Ryan Charmayne.
“Marriage and romance are not the same thing,” she said. “I suspect that’s as true for worms as it is for Executives.”
I could have cited Nuruddin’s example to argue the point, but who had the time? Instead, I opened Ryan’s message.
Now that you have Altan Koto’s voting power, you need to learn the protocols for the House of Clans. I will be your sponsor. We’ll be meeting in three cycles at 06:00. You may report directly to the rotunda. I’ll find you there and moni
tor you.
“You should be. He’s speaking to you as if you were a low-level Executive. You must set him straight about that.”
I looked longingly at my breakfast.
“Have two,” said Sheba’s ghost. “Ryan’s discourtesy should not be answered quickly. This evening will be soon enough to send a formal reply refusing his sponsorship.”
I paused with my cup in midair.
“Once you’ve sorted through the rest of your correspondence, you’ll find messages from the Executives on whose committee you have been placed. They are your sponsors. Accepting Ryan’s terms would start you off on the wrong foot.”
I sipped, then added more sugar.
“Oh yes. And it will remain so, even after your revolution. So you may as well learn the ropes now.”
And so it went, much as it had the day before, only this time I didn’t simply sort out social invitations. I also exchanged messages with my fellow committee members, all of which I handled so well (with the deft advice of Sheba’s ghost), the tone of those messages quickly changed from forced courtesy to respect—even relief, as these Executives realized that they would not be handicapped with a confused novice.
Our committee oversaw water resources, and once these Executives realized I could get quickly to work, they sent me information that I thought I already had, about how water was managed on Olympia. But I was only half right about that. I had seen the information before, but not sorted in the particular way they liked to see it. Forgive the pun, but on Olympia, it’s all about the spin.
My breakfast plates were taken away, but I requested another urn of coffee. A bad habit to get into, I suppose, but another cup or two, properly nursed, would get me through the social correspondence that still waited to be done.
Alas, none of it was from Gennady.
Perhaps that was because of my new voting status. When I was a midlevel Executive, Gennady could spend time with me without suggesting any political affiliations. Now that I was a voting member of the House of Clans, we must interact with more formality. It was for the best, but I think I shall always treasure that night when he showed me the fun way to taste food, while the waterfalls splashed nearby and the koi spied on us from behind the lily pads.
Medusa Uploaded_A Novel_The Medusa Cycle Page 20
