Fall of the White Ship Avatar (8 page)

When the hire-flier touched down someone was waiting to meet them. Floyt's abrupt prayer was answered by the glint of burgundy glowtulle. The woman who'd taken their call watched them, Cornucopia's rays striking breathtaking highlights from her, her lips playing between smile and not-smile.

Floyt waited for Alacrity's inevitable response: hardwired glans-penis override to frontal lobes. But when she swayed over to meet them as they emerged, Alacrity slid out straightfaced, reserved, waiting for Floyt to come after. She smelled the way Paradise was supposed to.

Either he's really worrying about Heart,
Floyt concluded,
or this meeting with Perlez is serious business
indeed. Or else he's ill. Maybe all three.

She gave them an engaging smile and didn't look offended when only Floyt returned it. Alacrity was staring at Perlez's vaulted artwork of a manor house, thinking things that were impossible to guess.

"Greetings and welcome, honored guests," the woman said. "I am Lord Marcus's special secretary, Tomasina. He's waiting for you in the kitchen, if you'd be kind enough to follow me."

The cab rose and sped back for the city before the three had gone half the distance to a pair of ten-meter-high green squeezewood doors set with blue ivory scrollwork, the main entrance.

The doors opened for Tomasina in silent, stately fashion. The wood was a half-meter thickness of facade; behind it was another meter or so of armor-grade alloy.

The house was done in Omnimedia Arcade Polyglot, an oddly luminous and happy-go-lucky motif for file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (37 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

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such an enormous, polished cathedral of a place. Ends Well was quite cheery, not only because of the neon brightness of its decor, but also owing to the many windows and skylights and because all the woodwork was very light, blond or white. Some kind of stately music in three-quarter time was playing over the sound system; Floyt had a vague impression that it was a military
polonaise
from old Earth, but his knowledge of the subject was shakey.
But the music's in keeping with the rest,
he told himself, looking around.
What we have here is a summer palace.

He sighed.
We seem fated to veer between mansions and skid row. If we ever end up in normal
surroundings I'm not sure I'll know how to act anymore.

Ends Well featured old-fashioned stairs and hallways, no whisk-platform transport system or chuteshafts. Alacrity, looking around, couldn't tell if it had changed; he'd been there only briefly, as a child. An awful lot had happened to him since; several lifetimes' worth.

The companions took in the splendor with only a fraction of their attention, the rest devoted to Tomasina's smooth, finely muscled behind, which orbited through divine figure eights as she led the way. Floyt was reassured in that Alacrity had reemerged from his distraction enough to oggle. Alacrity did not, however, as might otherwise have been the case, offer to lick Tomasina's skin until his tongue wore down.

They came at length to the central kitchen, high up in the summit of Ends Well, a room only slightly smaller than a concert hall, with sky and sunlight all around. It was equipped with every variety of food processor and cooking tackle Alacrity could think of, along with a lot he didn't recognize, in glittering maxtech surfaces and brushed metal. There were banks of readout projectors and indicators in glowing colors.

But in one corner sat a modest little work area consisting of heating unit, sink, preservation locker, and countertop—archaic, simple, and uncomplicated. There Lord Marcus Perlez puttered, chopping and dicing, humming to himself, keeping one eye on a wok, his apron covering a very expensive housesuit.

The place smelled nearly as mouth-watering as Tomasina.

A woman was standing by, attentive to him. She was Tomasina's duplicate, right down to the attire, the fragrance, and the darkly lustrous Lillith's eye at her bosom.

Lord Marcus turned as he heard their footsteps, gave them a cheerful, harried wave and a grin, bushy eyebrows fluttering, then went back to his cooking. Tomasina's double gave them a quick smile.

"Sorry, sorry; can't let this stuff get away from you, y'know, or it's ruined, just ruined," Marcus told them over his shoulder, waving a wooden spatula. "Take yourselves some seats! Here; keep me company. Too file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (38 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

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early for a drink?"

"It's late afternoon for us," Floyt replied as he and Alacrity sat on high, heavy old stools upholstered with bluish leather.

"We'll have what you're having," Alacrity added. "And thanks. You're looking well, sir."

Perlez took a moment from his cooking to wipe his hand on his apron and give Alacrity a quick, firm wrist-clasp. But there was something distracted about it, and Floyt could see that the old man and Alacrity were both thinking of less pleasant times.

"Good to see you, m'lad," Perlez said, winking, one bushy eyebrow lowering. He was gruffly compassionate, giving Alacrity's wrist a last squeeze. "Glad you made it."

He turned to Floyt. "You too, you too!" He had time for a rushed Terran-style handshake, then he was back to his chefery. "Callisto, if you'd be so kind as to do the honors, my pet?"

Callisto turned out to be the woman next to him and, what with the advanced systemry in the kitchen, she had five drinks ready with amazing speed, depth charges in frosted beer mugs, the liquor some thick stuff as dark as the Lillith's eyes. Floyt studied, with some trepidation, the shot glass standing on the bottom of his mug, but clinked glasses with the rest.

As Tomasina busied herself setting out sopmat coasters, Lord Marcus said, "My dears, these good gents and I have a few things we should discuss in private, so I'm afraid you must busy yourselves elsewhere.

That's presuming you don't prefer to retire, too, sir?"

That last was to Floyt. Alacrity said, "No, I want him to hear this."

Tomasina smiled beautifully. "We have work to do anyway, thank you, sir. I'll be taking lunch and working on the staff roster in the greenhouse if you require any service."

"I'll be going through the household accounts," Callisto announced. Floyt, studying her closely, saw that her eyes were an even lighter shade of the eerie, miraculous blue than Tomasina's.

Lord Marcus let out a yipe, skipping aside and nearly falling as his right shin was struck. Floyt gaped down at what had buffeted him, a wooly brown thing about the size of a Welsh corgi with layered giltfix on its horns and a dog collar set with ranks of gleaming, pea-size lava pearls around its solid little neck.

Marcus had managed not to spill his drink, and now he set it aside, then stooped to pick up the dwarf bison that was still butting his leg. "How d'you like my little
bonsai
?" He scratched the thing's shaggy back; it squirmed, tail flicking.

"This is Larrup, old North American buffalo, bred from pure stock from Adam's Apple."

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Floyt could only stare. The last American bison had died in the Second Breath, and he'd never expected to see a live one much less a gene-engineered miniature. Alacrity took a quick glance at Larrup and went back to studying Lord Marcus.

Marcus handed Larrup into Callisto's lovely arms; she and Tomasina took their drinks and left together while Floyt stared at the identical derrieres wistfully, as Alacrity and Marcus exchanged calculating looks.

"Clones?" Floyt asked in a low whisper, riveted on the callipygian grace.

"Nah!" Lord Marcus yelled, worrying the food with his spatula once more. "Any dimwit could have some clones run up, and what would that reveal to him or her about human nature and the Universe?"

Floyt was at a loss to tell. Perlez brandished the spatula at him—"Nothing!"—and resumed cooking.

"No, I recruit my treasures based on an ideal of my own. How many such is our human race blessed with, out of all the planets we've populated? And of those, how many will consent to join my household?

And then there's always the temptation to compromise my standards."

"They look the same as when I was a kid," Alacrity piped up suddenly.

"Yes; well. There's been a certain amount of turnover since then," Perlez admitted, and an uncomfortable silence flourished abruptly, except for the feverish cooking.

"I feared the worst when I heard the latest news, boy," he said to Alacrity all at once. "I thought you niight've gone and gotten yourself hurt or tossed into the lockup somewhere, Jordy."

Jordy,
Floyt registered. He'd known from the first that Alacrity Fitzhugh was an alias. He'd always felt it impolite to ask, and Alacrity never offered to clarify. It was still a shock to hear.
Jordy.

"Oh, I got by all right," Alacrity was saying. "Had some help at the right time. Lord Marcus, this is my friend, Citizen Hobart Floyt, of Terra."

Perlez spared Floyt a cordial half bow and a wave of the spatula. Floyt waved in answer and took another cautious sip of his depth charge.

"Rather thought that's who you are," Perlez called to Floyt over his shoulder, bending over his wok again. "You two laddybucks raised some fuss, eh? Get ready now; here's something you'll like."

Then he was handing them plates heaped with food, taking one for himself. The three sat there eating off a counter. They garnished with a bit of teriyaki sauce and dug in. The food was so good that for a moment Floyt almost lost track of what was being said.

"All the arrangements are made, Jordan," Perlez was saying, "or should I call you Alacrity? I'll transfer file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (40 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

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the voting share to you whenever you like."

"Alacrity's fine," Alacrity said, eating with great concentration. "And thanks."

Lord Marcus savored his own cooking a lot, even though he didn't look like he had to watch his weight.

"Have you thought about what you're going to
do
with that share?" he asked, still apparently intent on his meal.

Alacrity looked up at him. "Haven't thought about much else, Lord M. I'm taking back the White Ship."

Perlez's chopsticks opened and a bit of beansprout dropped onto his chin.

"Taking her back," Alacrity vowed, "and I'm using her the way my family meant her to be used. And when I find out the secrets of the Precursors, I'll use
them
the way my family wanted, not the way the Board of Interested Parties or the Betterment League or the Progress Cartel or the Spican government thinks it ought to be done. The White Ship isn't for easy money or quick power. There's got to be something higher than that, something more worthy, or what's the point of it all?"

Perlez had cleaned up the spillage. "Well, that's a virtuous idea, boyo. But how?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I know I will. I didn't, until a little while ago, after I fell in with Hobart, here,"

Alacrity explained. Floyt cringed inwardly, knowing Alacrity was thinking of the causality harp.

"I'm not trying to be mysterious," Alacrity went on. "I'll explain the whole thing to you later."

Floyt was watching Perlez's face. The old man said, "Ever run into a man named Dincrist?"

Floyt looked back to his food and Alacrity showed no response.

"It is my conclusion that you have," Perlez continued, "because the word is that he'd very much like to get his hands on you. There's also mention of a gentleman named Baron Mason, an extremely influential and formidable man who's become an Interested Party of late. What's this all about, Jo—Alacrity?"

Alacrity thought for a moment. If he couldn't trust Lord Marcus Perlez, things were about as bad as they could get anyway.

"Dincrist has his own plan to take control of the Ship board. But all the details of that fell into the hands of … somebody I know." He held up his fist, showing his proteus. "I managed to get a copy and I've studied it all the way here from Luna. I think that same takeover idea can be used by somebody else. Me.

Or
us,
if you want. It all involves leverage on the board."

Floyt watched, speculating on how far Alacrity would go in not mentioning Heart by name if the talk came down to cases. Perlez napkinned his mouth and mustache and stuck out his hand. Alacrity gripped his wrist and Lord Marcus reciprocated.

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"As for Baron Mason," Alacrity thought it fair to add, "Ho and me had a kind of run-in with him, on a place called Blackguard. As a matter of fact—"

Alacrity dug another proteus out of his pocket, an ordinary-looking but powerful model. "I took this from Mason in the Grand Guignol Compound there."

Floyt recalled that vividly, surprised it had slipped his mind. Evidently Alacrity had simply been carrying it around in his warbag all that time since.

"This one is full of encrypted stuff I haven't been able to crack," he said. "But maybe if we could borrow some of your equipment, Ho and I could pump it dry."

Perlez was nodding thoughtfully, looking the thing over. "That sounds splendid. But the first thing we'll have to do is get your name on that share. And I want you in on a council of war with Vinzix. He's a minor shareholder, even though he's got a lot more of them than you. He and I rather see things the same way. He's from Darwin's Star."

Alacrity's frowned. "A Dar, huh? I'm not real fond of 'em. Bunch of snotty, high-handed liars."

Perlez stopped eating again. "So? I've heard a bit about what you've been doing and where you've been seen from time to time. I'd have thought you'd learned by now that you can't always be choosy about your allies, or judge them beforehand."