The Elysium Commission (27 page)

“She mentioned that she might be an agent.”

“First, it's likely that she is also Astrid Forte. Second, the admin type had no advance notice. The same day Gonne left was the day the termination went in. How likely is that for someone doing an outstanding job?”

“Rather unlikely. It's all theory, though.”

Krij didn't have to tell me that. I knew it all too well.

“What are you going to do?”

“Stay out of the shadows for a while. Try to find another angle on the Elysium business. Keep working. What else can I do?”

“Try not to dig any deeper holes.”

I laughed.

After Krij broke off, I tried searching the civil directory for names that might be covers for Maureen or Astrid.

Incoming from Andres Hevaness.

I didn't know an Andres Hevaness.
Accept.

The holo image was a saturnine figure, with a large head, almost triangular, with golden eyes and tight-curled short dark hair. His skin was bronze. His shoulders were twice as broad as mine. I thought there might be two golden horns on each side of his skull. There was no holo background. That suggested he was linking from someplace other than home or work.

“Seignior Donne?” The voice was so low it almost created subsonics.

“The same. What can I do for you?”

“Apollon Renzies said you solved problems.”

Apollon Renzies? The Apollon who had been at Myndanori's? “It depends on the problem.”

“I can tell you. Do I have to come to you?”

“No. If you're comfortable with it, we can start by vidlink.”

“It's like this. I've had this conapt for years. It's in Creteor, you know, just below the back of the Heights. Ten years ago, well, Escamillo, he was…anyway, we partnered. It didn't last. He always wanted to fight first. He left a good five years ago. Then, this week, he starts vidlinking claiming that half the conapt is his because we were partnered. Besides the job at the Minoan Palace, it's all I really got.”

“What kind of partnering?” I asked.

“Just as partners. I figured we could go full later if it worked out. It didn't. Now…he's claiming I owe him.”

“If you didn't register as full-union samers, but only as partners, then the conapt isn't subject to community property.”

“You're sure about that?”

“I'm not an advocate. I can't do legal work. And this isn't something that ought to be muscled. But I can tell you whom to contact, what to tell him, and how much you should pay. He can file for damages for you if this Escamillo doesn't stop bothering you.”

In the end, I referred Hevaness to Jay Smith, with detailed instructions. I declined any payment.

I was awake and up early on Marten. Not by choice. I hadn't slept well. Another of Siendra's phrases had been going through my head. This time it was “neither rest nor respite.” Was that the way I felt as well? Or was there some other reason her phrase echoed through my thoughts? I'd also been worrying about Elisabetta Reynarda and her not-so-veiled threat.

The only good news was that I could wiggle my fingers and move them without pain. Nanomeds did speed up healing—a lot. For that, I silently thanked the medcenter.

I'd gotten through dressing and breakfast and was sitting in my study wondering which commission offered the prospect of the quickest resolution.

Incoming from Krij.

Accept.

Krij was in green again, dark and light, with a black belt. “Blaine, I can't talk long. We're swamped here, but I have two things. First, Banque de L'Ouest backed off. They'll issue a correction and retraction, but they'll claim it was a system error. It's probably not worth pursuing further. Second, there's one more bit of information that I thought you might find useful.”

“I'll accept the retraction on your advice, and I'd be happy to have anything useful. I'm not doing too well in finding much of use at the moment.”

“Simeon Eloi and his entire family left on the
Etoile
this morning.”

“For Firenza?”

“You already knew that?” Krij frowned.

“No. I knew that Princesse Odilia and her daughter were on the
Etoile
and going to Firenza. I didn't know anything about Simeon Eloi. Are there any Elois left on Devanta besides Legaar?”

“I don't have any way of finding that out.”

“What about access to full-clone facilities? Does Legaar operate anything like that?”

Krij laughed. “That's totally illegal, and he's been doing it for years. Most of the nymphs he provides for his guests are clones. The others are back-gene modified at the same place.”

“The facility must be at Time's End.” That was the only way it made sense. If the clones never left Legaar's private property, there was no evidence of cloning, and the Civitas Sorores couldn't enter the estate without some form of real proof.

“Probably.” After a brief silence, Krij cleared her throat. “Oh…there's one last thing. Siendra was worried that you might have been upset that she didn't get back to you until late on Senen.”

“She doesn't need to worry.” Siendra worry? The most reserved and composed lady I'd known in years? “If anyone understands the needs of dealing with commitments and what they can demand…”

“Blaine…in some ways. Siendra's not what she seems.”

“None of us are.”

“Blaine! Would you listen?”

“Yes, elder sister dear.”

“She's the only surviving child of a samer triad lost in the Cloud Chaos. She can tell you, if she chooses, just how bad it was. Just don't ask her. Don't even hint at it. She got an education by going through the space service ranks, and then, just below the max age, going back to the Marist Academy under the ranker option to get her degree and commission. She's extraordinarily competent, especially in reading most people. You're anything but most people. You act, then think.”

The retort I'd had in mind died. Less than fifteen percent of the space service rankers who entered Marist graduated and got commissioned. Close to a third of those graduates died on hazardous duty on their first tour. Siendra had told me she'd been an Assembly space service officer. She just hadn't explained how she'd gotten her commission.

“I see I finally got your attention.”

“You did.”

“Siendra's very reserved. You've noted that. She made an effort in coming with me the other night. I just wanted you to understand. No…she's not samer. She's cautious.”

I understood that as well. None of the space service academies were exactly bastions of sexual privacy or choice.

“Don't you dare say a word to her about what I've told you. She hates pity even more than condescension. I've looked for a good business partner for a long time, and I don't want to lose her because of your misplaced feelings.”

“Then why—”

“Because you understand just enough to jump to the wrong conclusions. You'll protect anyone whom you think needs it without asking them.”

I nodded. We'd had that conversation before. She was right. I didn't like it, but I wasn't a total idiot.

“I have to go. Until later.”

I just sat behind my table desk for a time. Krij could be very protective. She'd been protective of me when I'd needed it, and certainly of her daughter Andrea. I just hadn't realized that Siendra was also in that ambit of concern. I should have.

The fact that all the Elois except Legaar were either out-system or headed there chilled me. Yet…short of liquidating my assets, which would be difficult, if not impossible on such short notice, and fleeing from an undefined “something” that I couldn't even pin down, exactly what could I do? I didn't even have a nightflitter left.

Then, as I'd proved on Pournelle II, and since, I did have a tendency to be impatient. At the very least, I could wait to hear what Seigniora Reynarda had to say.

Incoming from Myndanori,
Max announced.

Accept.

Myndanori—or her image—wore shocking green. “Blaine, dear man. Was what I provided useful?”

“Most useful, and I think I've resolved matters quietly.” Certainly profitably.

“Good!” There was a pause.

She was asking for details, but I couldn't provide them.

“Oh…Apollon says to say thank you for pointing Andres in the right direction. He's already been in touch with the advocate.”

“I'm glad I could help. If I can ever be of assistance…you'll let me know?”

“That I will, dear man.”

That left the Stella Strong commission and the reclusive author. I decided to concentrate on the author.

Marley Louis, Carey Douglass, or Terrie McGerrie wrote intricate works that showed a deep understanding of people. The fact that she had left Donacyr D'Azouza suggested that he should have been left. That also raised another question. Did I really want to find her for him?

Except…he hadn't asked that. He hadn't even been in touch, and that made little sense.

Nothing about that commission made any sense.

McGerrie's works were successful enough commercially that she was still writing, but none had cracked the top ratings. Was that because she understood too much? There was also a sense of history behind the well-chosen words.

Query. Find any historical links between the names Terrie McGerrie, Marley Louis, Carey Douglass.

In less than two minutes, Max had an answer.

All names are variations on the names of once-well-known but now obscure female writers of the pre-Diasporan period on Old Earth. They are all linked to the term speculative fiction.

What did that linkage mean? It certainly argued that the individual using the cover pseudonyms had a certain historical understanding as well. It also argued for brilliance, yet clearly the individual did not want her literary or dramatic abilities linked to whatever her true profession might be. But why speculative-fiction-based pseudonyms?

I didn't get too much farther in the time before Max announced,
Seigniora Reynarda is arriving, ser.

Thank you, Max.

I stood beside the table desk and waited. Given her high-handed threat, I didn't feel that I needed to meet her at the study door.

She walked in. Her eyes fixed on me. She wore the same kind of clothes as she had the last two times—except that this time the short jacket was light gray trimmed in black, while the singlesuit was dark gray, with matching dark gray boots. She was still wearing the silver fox pin.

“Seignior Donne, have you been successful?” Her words were just short of mocking.

“You asked to see me. It wasn't even an inquiry, but a threat,” I pointed out. “I agreed as a courtesy. You've already paid me and dismissed me.”

“Seignior Donne, you have tracked me and invaded my privacy. That is not acceptable. For what reason was that necessary?” The black eyes were darker, somehow.

“Possibly for the same reason that you set me running as a lure for Eloi Enterprises. You already knew there was a link between Maraniss, Legaar Eloi, and Elysium.”

“I never said there wasn't. Your commission was to find evidentiary proof.”

“Why? Because TABS, the Elois, and the Assembly—”

Energy flared everywhere—and a wall of blackness slammed through my shields.

Seignior Donne…Seignior Donne…

Max was on the fringe of what I could pick up. I blinked. Overhead, I could see the pale ivory of the crown molding. I was still in my office, lying on my back beside the bookcases.

What happened?

The systems suffered a massive energy overload, ser. It was focused to a point three point four meters of front of you. It had the characteristics of a variable-geometric particle beam.

What happened to Seigniora Reynarda?

The system has no record. She vanished from all surveillance coincident with the focused energy attack. Analyzers detected no hydrocarbon or other organic residues.

She vanished, and you don't know how?
I lurched to my feet. There wasn't even a hint of black or brown on the Sacrestan carpet before my desk. My face felt flushed from the heat.

That is correct, ser.

I felt a bit dizzy. I sat down in the chair behind the table desk, trying to gather my thoughts. Had Elisabetta Reynarda—or her body—been destroyed right before me? Or had she somehow vanished? How could either have penetrated the villa's defenses without leaving some sort of record? It was a warning of some sort, but for what? Not to follow the commission? Or not to follow the seigniora?

Was her disappearance/removal/focused explosion somehow connected to whatever had moved me from the limo after the opera? But…if that were the case, that suggested that Elisabetta Reynarda had to be a creature of Legaar Eloi and Maraniss. Why would they commission someone to track down and make obvious a connection that no one knew anything about?

I'd known the commission would be a problem, but it was clearly far larger and more deadly than I'd ever anticipated—and I still didn't even have the faintest idea what Elysium was beyond Maraniss's description of an ideal city. Were he and the Elois planning to wipe out Thurene and start over with an ideal city? That made no sense, because even Legaar Eloi didn't have the adequate resources for such an effort, and the Assembly of Worlds certainly wouldn't stand by and let that happen. Or did they have some technology that would change any city into an Elysium? And would that change effectively force the Civitas Sorores from power?

There is a Garda flitter incoming, ser.

I didn't need that. But what I needed wasn't likely to be what I got.

Hold the defenses, Max.
I stood and walked slowly to the study door, then across the entry foyer. I stood outside and watched as the flitter set down.

Surprisingly, the Garda patroller who walked up the steps was not Javerr, but Donahew.

“Officer Donahew.” I inclined my head.

“Captain Shannon has requested that you come to Garda headquarters.”

At least, Shannon was requesting. “Did he say why, Officer?”

“He only said that, if you were going to stick your neck out, Seignior Donne, that you should be fitted for armor.”

That sounded all too much like the colonel I'd known. “I'll accept the invitation.” Not that I had any choice.

We walked down to the Garda flitter. Just as a precaution, I ordered Max to put all the villa defenses on full alert and response until I returned.

Nothing happened on the flight to Garda headquarters. Donahew escorted me off the rooftop landing area and down the ramps. We kept going down. That did concern me.

The colonel was waiting in a small office at least two levels below ground. There was nothing on the gray walls. The only furnishings were a flat oblong table and two chairs, one on each side of the table. Shannon sat in the one facing the door. There was nothing on the table.

“Ser…” offered Donahew.

“Thank you, Donahew. I'll take it from here.” He looked at me. “Sit down.”

I sat. I didn't have that good a feeling about what might come next.

Shannon just looked at me until the door closed and we were alone. “You never learn, do you?”

“Probably not. What didn't I learn this time?”

“You'll find out.” He stood.

Behind him, a section of wall split apart, revealing another ramp leading downward. He nodded toward the ramp. “This way.”

“Am I being charged with anything?”

“What good would that do?” He started walking.

I debated whether to follow.

“Javerr will be returning shortly.” Shannon did not look back over his shoulder. “You really don't want to see him.”

I started after Shannon. “Why does the Garda allow him to remain on duty?”

“Call it an accommodation with reality,” the Garda captain and former SpecOps colonel replied. “Those with extreme wealth will always buy influence. It helps to know who's influenced and by what means.”

At the end of the ramp was a small private maglev car. The hatch was open.

“Get in.”

I didn't have anything better to do. Besides, a private maglev capsule suggested matters might not be quite so bad as they could have been.

The maglev trip was short, possibly less than two klicks. When the hatch opened, I asked, “Where are we?”

“Exactly where? I couldn't say. This area belongs to the Soror Tertia.”