Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds (24 page)

Tiajo commanded that the match be halted. Alacrity and Dincrist frantically pressed the emergency—stop buttons on their mitts—to no avail. The buzzball continued its violent discharges and careening, while the players were hurled and dropped, then hurled again.

Redlock had appeared and was tugging at the manual release to the tank door, accomplishing nothing. The game's computer had overridden it, sealing the players inside. The Nonpareil hammered at the tank with her fists, screaming as her snowy curls whipped her face.

"Shut down the field unit!" Sortie-Wolf hollered in a parade-ground voice. Floyt joined the others who sprinted off toward it.

Endwraithe, the Spican banker, was first to reach the machine, only to discover that its protective panel was closed and that he couldn't open the latch; its mechanism was covered with a mass of epoxy from the repair benches, stuff that solidified to metallic hardness almost instantly.

Floyt, arriving on Endwraithe's heels, tried to help him, using every bit of strength, wrenching muscles, and tearing loose fingernails. It was hopeless. Into the Earther's mind flashed the image of Brother Grimm bending the barbell.

He shouted for Djinn, but Grimm, among others, was still attempting fruitlessly to get the tank door open.

Floyt started off to get the Djinn, even though it seemed a doomed effort. If the tank's gravity increased much more, those inside would be dashed to death before anyone could gain access to the controls.

Just at that moment Sintilla approached, yanking an Invincible officer along with her, tugging at his harness. Queen Dorraine was right behind. Taking in the situation at a glance, Tilla ordered, "Use your gun! Shoot the computer!"

The lieutenant was a loyal and courageous man, but only recently commissioned and not an individual of great personal initiative. Invincible officers were the only ones there who carried firearms, and the officer corps had been admonished by Grandam Tiajo in person to draw their weapons
only
in the event that some other person was using deadly force. She hadn't foreseen this eventuality, but one violated the orders of the grandam at the risk of general court-martial.

While the lieutenant was struggling toward a decision, Dorraine acted. She snatched the Invincible's pistol, a Nova Special, a cannon of a weapon, in a class with the Captain's Sidearm.

"You! Out of my way!"

Floyt and the banker needed no second invitation; they both dived for cover. Holding the Special cup-in-saucer fashion, the Agoran fired into the game's computer with one spectacular, sustained shot.

Smoke and brilliant eruptions, detonations and molten metal flew outward from the unit. Onlookers yelled in shock and fright. In the midst of the storm of scorching heat and flying debris, Dorraine cooly stood her ground and let the machine have it again.

Alacrity and Dincrist were sliding up a wall toward the ceiling when the field cut out. Luckily they hadn't gone far.

The artificial gravity yielded to the natural; they were abruptly headed for the floor at full gee.

They hit at the same instant and lay stunned, a meter or so apart. Alacrity levered himself up off his stomach so that he could see the Scoreboard which, for some reason, still worked. The score was still tied.

"Son … of … a …
bitch
!" he ground out.

Household physicians entered the tank and examined the players on the spot, scanning with instruments, probing and poking. Both men denied that there was anything wrong with them. Aside from cuts, sprains, and strains, and what promised to be a bumper crop of bruises, they were correct. They'd been padded and protected for buzzball, and that had saved them because the gravity hadn't climbed all the way to Standard.

Heart knelt by her father's side, avoiding Alacrity's eyes. The two men traded a dirty look, but their grudge had been set aside for the time being.

"A miracle they weren't crippled or killed," pronounced the Presbyter Kuss.

"Never mind that now," Tiajo said. She'd summoned her Chief of Staff for Security, a colonel with many years in grade, who now wore a worried look on her face. She promised to brief Tiajo shortly on what she and her people could discover from the game computer's remains. Alacrity could tell at a glance that that wouldn't be much. There'd been only one security drone drifting in the vicinity of the tanks during the game, and it had been aimed the wrong way.

So, while it was manifest that there'd been sabotage, there was no telling who'd violated the High Truce or why. Defense Minister Seven Wars and Theater General Sortie-Wolf therefore had little ground for complaint to Dame Tiajo.

Both Alacrity and Dincrist were ambulatory but required observation. To avoid further friction, the physicians elected to divide into teams and attend each man in his quarters. That met with no objection, and both were floated away on hover-gurneys.

"Let the Observances continue," Tiajo bade as they drifted off. Guests took up their diversions again, but the general attitude seemed to be that the day's high point had passed.

Sintilla accompanied Floyt back to Riffraff Alley, standing at his elbow as he coded open the suite door. It seemed only polite to invite her in.

Alacrity was sitting up on the gurney, in good spirits. He held the remote control unit for the suite's commo terminal. As Sintilla and Floyt entered, he casually chucked it aside.

The only altercation came when the breakabout refused a sedative. The doctors were thorough and competent, but as serving physicians to the redoubtable Tiajo, less prone than many members of their profession to insist on having their way.

Sintilla kept up a bubbly stream of prattle, gossip, and innuendo. The doctors, finishing, left Alacrity some medication and the advice that he rest. When they'd gone, Sintilla said, "There were so many people gathered around the tank, any one of them could've rigged the buzzball computer."

"Including you, Tilla?" Alacrity asked softly.

"
Huh
?
Oh, I see. Yeah, I guess I'm a suspect too. Except why would I want to hurt you?"

"If I got killed or injured, that'd make it a lot easier to get at Ho."

Floyt protested, "Then why would Tilla practically drag that Invincible over to the control panel by his ankle?"

Alacrity colored with embarrassment. "I didn't know about that. Sorry, Tilla."

She made a mischievous moue. "You're just doing your job, high mover."

Alacrity snorted. "Besides, who says the whole thing wasn't about Dincrist?"

"
Dincrist
?"

"Uh-huh. You should've heard him carrying on in that tank when we hit the heavy weather. I think he assumed somebody was out to get
him,
not me. One thing's for sure:
he
didn't have anything to do with it. And from what they tell me, he's got a lot more people who don't like him any more than I do."

Someone signaled at the door repeatedly, and kept it up. Rather than answer, Floyt, cautious now, activated the corridor pickup. It was Heart.

Aware that she was under surveillance, she bristled. "Damn your eyes, Fitzhugh! Open this door!"

"Speaking of suspects," Sintilla half sang.

"She does sound a tad hostile," Floyt agreed, surprised by the Nonpareil's pique.

Alacrity was neither surprised nor put off. "Let her in please, Ho."

Incensed, Heart stormed into the room. She'd changed from the maillot to a demure househabit that covered wrists and feet, its cowl thrown back to expose snowy curls.

"You really work at being a spoiled child, don't you?" she seethed at Alacrity. "I'd have thought you'd be more considerate, Inheritor Floyt."

"Wait! Calm down!" Floyt implored. "What's this all about?"

"You weren't in on it? The commo answering message?"

Before the breakabout could grab it, Sintilla pounced on the remote he'd been playing with when she and Floyt arrived.

"The terminal's set to refuse incoming calls." Sintilla manipulated the remote, and the terminal's answering device began to play lush ballroom music into the sound system. It was the same musk Alacrity and Heart had danced to the evening before. After a few moments, the breakabout's solicitous voice announced, "Alacrity Fitzhugh has succumbed to acute indifference. Refunds available on unused portion with proof of purchase." The music continued until Sintilla shut the system off.

"Oh, Alacrity, how could you?" Sintilla asked.

"Arrested adolescence!" the Nonpareil fumed.

"How was I to know you'd mind?" was his innocent rejoinder.

Her eyes blazed at him. "I came over here to tell you what a spiteful thing that was to do. And I have something else to say to you while I'm at it."

Sintilla jumped to her feet, slapping her thighs. "Well, come on, Hobart. I'll take you up on that backgammon game."

"I beg your—oh! Yes. That'd be fine, Tilla." Floyt rose. Opting to leave Heart and the breakabout on their own tripped no conditioning alarms in the Earther. He was getting accustomed to the fact that he was no longer acting in strict accordance with either his upbringing or the dictates of the Earthservice. It didn't make him feel as bad as he'd have expected.

Alacrity made no objection to their going. When they'd left, he waited and watched Heart, wide topaz eyes boring into hazel ones.

"You can turn off the headlights, Fitzhugh. They won't do you any good."

"That what you came here to tell me?"

"I came to tell you that you're not being funny at all, just petulant. When you talk about not caring about how others feel, it wouldn't hurt to take a look at yourself first. And now that I've had my say, I'm leaving."

He jumped from the gurney, stabbing at the remote in mid-vector, moving to block her way at the door. The dance music came up again. He got his arms around her, and her perfume and the feel of her made it difficult for him to think straight.

She pushed at him to free herself. "Get away from me!"

"You came to tell me I was wrong about you. Well, didn't you?"

"Yes!" But she'd stopped struggling to separate herself from him. "I hate you for what you think of me. I
can
care for someone, but … you don't understand what could happen."

" 'What could happen' is my bill of fare these days." He still held her, but gently. "You're not going to get me to say, 'I understand; be careful.' " He began moving with the music, fingers interlocked at the small of her back.

"Alacrity, you're not being fair. Let me go."

"No."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid you wouldn't come back."

He tilted his head, leaning toward her. Their first kiss was light, barely a meeting of lips, but lasting and sure. She yielded; the dance resumed. She buried her fingers in the heavy gray-and-silver mane that grew down into the channel of his spine, head to his cheek. He held her to him and drew the fabric off her shoulder to kiss it longingly.

The bannered glory of Frostpile filled the sweep of the skylight bowl; Halidome's rays picked out every particle in the air of the room, but they were oblivious to it all. The dance paused, and they kissed one another for minutes, lips and face, shoulders and throat, where each felt the other's racing pulse.

Both were breathing quickly. They were impassioned but unhurried. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his back; she wound a fistful of his hair, keeping his mouth locked to hers. Alacrity bared both her shoulders and kissed the pale swell of her bosom until she moaned, clasping his head to her. When he drew her toward his bed she went eagerly.

Later they lay together naked and warm in the Halidome light streaming down through the skylight, legs intertwined and arms around each other.

She said, "Alacrity, you have to promise me this won't lead to more trouble."

"That's all right with me. What's your father got against me anyway?"

"You're a breakabout. When he was younger, serving out his apprenticeship aboard family vessels, the high movers always gave him such a difficult time. He still carries the resentment around in him, even though he buys and sells fleets now."

Alacrity knew that breakabouts could be cruel in their hazing and harassing. He wouldn't have been surprised, though, to find out that Dincrist had brought a lot of trouble down on himself.

"Won't he go into launch mode when he finds out you're here?"

"He's sleeping; the doctor gave him a sedative. I'll be back when he wakes up." She pillowed her head on her arm and looked him in the eye. "There's something else; you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"You mean am I using birth control? Yes."

She poked him one in the ribs.

"All right, what?" He began trailing the backs of his fingertips up and down her body slowly and lightly.

"Well, Hobart—mmm, that feels nice—Hobart's a sweet man, but sometimes it seems as though he's got some sort of hold on you."

"No, nothing like that," the conditioning and his own pride made him reply.

"Good, because I like him." She squirmed a little under his delicate teasing, laughing. "Stop, or I'll go into seizures!"

He leaned over her. "I'll go with you."

CHAPTER 13—TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY

The next morning Alacrity and Floyt went forth just after Halidome rose, as preparations for the Hunt reached their climax.

Floyt wore brown bush fatigues and Alacrity an old, comfortable gray groundside coverall, along with his pathfinder boots and a big, cobalt-colored kerchief knotted around his neck. The kerchief, like the brolly he carried slung from his shoulder, was a simple, versatile, and durable piece of gear with any number of survival uses.

Since both men had been opposed to Sintilla's accompanying them, she'd elected to sleep in and cover the event in a more leisurely and comfortable fashion.

The two arrived at one of Frostpile's expansive outer yards to find a scene of near-chaos.

All around stood Inheritors and others who planned to do their hunting from the luxury and safety of air and land craft, many of them organizing themselves into parties, in both the celebratory and sporting sense of the word. The hunting areas set aside for these groups had been carefully marked on the ground, so that airborne gunners wouldn't shoot those afoot or on animals. No pedal-powered airbikes were aloft this morning; the turbulence caused by the hunters' low-flying spotters made the flimsy craft too hazardous.