The Price of the Stars: Book One of Mageworlds (22 page)

Read The Price of the Stars: Book One of Mageworlds Online

Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: The Price of the Stars: Book One of Mageworlds
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Not long at all
, she thought happily,
now that we’ve got him
.
 
At his post against the atrium wall, Gil nursed along yet another glass of the sparkling pink punch—something put together, he suspected, from a recipe labeled “suitable for maiden aunts and Space Force commanders”—and watched the Sapnish royalty weaving their net around Ebenra D’Caer.
Right now the Princess of Sapne, a shy blush coloring her cheeks, was flirting with D’Caer like a schoolgirl. Knowing what he knew about Beka Rosselin-Metadi, Gil wasn’t sure whether the sight made him want to laugh or gave him the cold shivers.
I wish I knew what they plan to do with him,
Gil thought.
Then I’d know whether I ought to stop it, or just stand back and watch the fun.
Without warning, the Princess’s companion put a hand to her forehead, swayed, and collapsed against her royal mistress.
Good move
, thought Gil, after the colloquy that followed resulted in the Crown Prince Jamil leading the drooping chaperone out of the atrium.
Let’s see what happens next
.
He watched as D’Caer spoke with the grey-haired gentleman. The Princess said something on a note of entreaty; the grey-haired gentleman seemed to waver; D’Caer spoke again, and it was settled. The older man withdrew, and the Princess took D’Caer’s arm with a smile.
He works fast
, thought Gil, frowning.
And so do they
. Neither Lieutenant Jessan nor the Adept had reappeared, and the man called the Professor had effaced himself as soon as D’Caer strolled off with the Princess.
Whatever they’re planning, it’s going to happen soon
.
D’Caer and the Princess made a couple of turns about the atrium. D’Caer, Gil noticed, was doing most of the talking. After the two had made their second circuit, Gil saw D’Caer say something to the Princess that made her drop her eyes to hide some emotion or other—modest confusion, one might say, but somehow Gil doubted it. She made a little gesture of one slim hand toward the hallway, and murmured something that made D’Caer look like a hungry man who’d just smelled supper cooking. The two of them headed, not rapidly but with purposeful steps, down the long hall.
Time to circulate again, Commander
, Gil said to himself.
This could get interesting.
He moved away from the wall and wandered down the hallway after them, glass of punch in hand.
By the time Gil rounded the corner into the cross-corridor, the Princess and D’Caer had almost reached the door of the last room along. With a curt gesture, D’Caer waved off his ever-present bodyguard.
He’s still the same charmer he’s always been
, thought Gil, as the Princess disappeared through the door—a delicate antique hung on carefully restored hinges—that her escort opened for her.
Doesn’t want witnesses.
The door started swinging closed behind the pair of them, apparently of its own volition.
Now they’ve got him
, thought Gil.
He wasn’t the only one thinking. D’Caer’s bodyguard hadn’t gone farther than the intersection of the two corridors when the door swung shut, and he was evidently brighter than most of the breed. The man’s eyes widened as the significance of that quiet closure came home to him. He started down the hallway toward the suspicious door.
“Right you are,” muttered Gil, and moved out on an intercept course. In a few long strides, he drew even with D’Caer’s man, and then took one more step into a crashing collision that involved both the bodyguard and a passing waiter.
The three men went sprawling onto the marble floor—an effect that had required some last-minute contortions on Gil’s part, but with which he found himself inordinately pleased. The wave of pink punch that drenched them all was a happy accident, but one that Gil intended to give due thanks for someday when this was over.
“Oh, my dear sir!” he exclaimed, helping the bodyguard to rise. “Oh,
my very
dear sir … !”
 
Jessan had his arms around D‘Caer and was lowering him to the floor as the man’s legs crumpled under him. The Khesatan looked at the lump beginning to form under D’Caer’s right ear.
“Amazing,” he said under his breath, “exactly how useful a first-rate medical education can be.”
Beka looked up from straightening her gown. “Let’s get him out of here before his bodyguard shows up.”
“As you will, dear sister.”
The two picked up D’Caer’s limp body between them and walked him, toes dragging, to the window that looked out onto the garden. Ari, impressive in his chauffeur’s uniform, stood waiting outside the open casement.
“Marchen’s head gardener is going to fall on his pruning shears when he sees what your big feet have done to his floral borders,” Jessan said.
Ari looked at Jessan and shook his head. “You’d make small talk at your own funeral.” He took D’Caer’s limp form and lifted it at shoulders and knees. “Got him. See you out front in five minutes.”
Jessan closed and locked the window, then crossed the room, opening a hand holoprojector as he did so. He flicked on the expensive toy. The far side of the room wavered like concrete on a hot day and changed into a facsimile of itself—quite hiding, he was pleased to note, the reality behind it, including Beka Rosselin-Metadi in a pale green gown.
“A very high quality holovid,” he murmured in satisfaction, and joined Beka behind the projection. With the illusion in place the room appeared empty, and the ribboned-off doorway to the back stairs stood open invitingly on the far side.
From where Jessan stood, he could watch through the projection as the door opened and D’Caer’s bodyguard stepped in. The big man was red-faced and his livery was in disarray. He looked as if he’d slept in his clothes and then given them for washing and pressing to an enthusiastic but untrained laundry maid. Jessan stifled a smile—the laundry maid had apparently used sparkling pink punch for cleaning fluid as well.
I wonder who we can thank for that?
he thought.
It doesn’t seem quite the Professor’s style, somehow, or Llannat’s either.
The bodyguard crossed the room to the window and checked that it was fastened from inside. From there he went to the stairway, stepped delicately over the scarlet restraining ribbon, and disappeared in the direction of the upper floors.
As soon as he was out of sight, Jessan clicked off the holoprojector.
“Come, Berran,” he said. “Our uncle is waiting.”
She took his arm. He opened the door, and the two of them walked out, side by side. The Professor was standing with Llannat in the atrium.
“Uncle, I am weary,” Jessan announced. “Shall we away?”
 
From Marchen Bres’s reception-room window, a Space Force commander in a rumpled and punch-stained dress uniform watched the Sapnish party emerge onto the gravel driveway.
The big chauffeur—plainly Ari Rosselin-Metadi in livery—stood waiting beside the gleaming hovercar, braced at a stiffer attention than he’d probably assumed since he left.the Academy. He handed up first the Princess Berran and her companion, next the Crown Prince Jamil, and finally His Grace the Duke. Then he rounded the vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat. With a rising whine, the hovercar dashed away down the drive.
At the window, Commander Gil raised his too-small glass of wine in a silent toast.
 
E
VEN IN hyperspace, the observation deck on
Crystal World
offered a view of stars—not the real ones, of course, but more of the Professor’s holographic simulations.
You have to admit it, Ari thought. The man’s an artist.
As soon as
Crystal World
had left Ovredisi orbit and made her jump, Ari had brought the cha’a pot and a stack of cups from the galley up to the forward dorsal section of the little yacht. Here, a quarter-sphere of spaceworthy armor-glass replaced everything but the rear bulkhead and the deck, and a simulated starscape twinkled outside.
He could have taken his cha’a to the dining salon, a tiny masterpiece of etched glass and silvered-steel filigree work, but the smallness of the room made him feel cramped at the same time as its fussiness made him restless. On the observation deck, at least, he didn’t feel as though his head was always about to crash into the crystal chandeliers.
Ignoring the assortment of wrought-metal chairs, he seated himself on the carpeted deck where he could use one of the sturdier-looking hassocks as a backrest. A moment later, the door in the rear bulkhead slid aside. He looked around.
“Hello, Llannat,” he said as the Adept stepped clear of the doors and let them slide shut again behind her. She’d lost no time in returning to her usual clothing, and “Cousin Lana” had apparently gone into the closet right along with her collection of demure black dresses.
Ari waved a hand at the collection of furniture scattered about the green-carpeted observation deck as if on a manicured lawn. “Have a seat someplace. Want some cha’a?”
She smiled. “So that’s what I heard calling my name out here. Did you bring an extra cup?”
“I brought a whole stack of them,” Ari said. He poured her some of the steaming drink. “The rest of the gang’s probably going to show up fairly soon.”
Llannat took the cup and saucer and sat down in a chair next to Ari. “How’s our passenger?”
Ari shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Jessan. He look over that end of things once we got D’Caer tucked away.”
“Crew berthing?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
“Where are you going to bunk, then?”
The doorway opened as she spoke, and Jessan walked in. “Ari’s in stateroom three, with me,” said the Khesatan. “But if he talks in his sleep I swear I’m going to throw him out here with some pillows and a blanket.”
Ari laughed. “You and who else?”
Jessan picked out a chair within easy reach of the cha’a-pot, straightened the cushion a little, and sat down. “There is that,” he admitted, pouring himself a cup. “Maybe I’ll just move out here myself. I have to check on D’Caer’s condition every few hours anyway, if we’re going to keep him under all the way to base.”
“You don’t have to handle the whole job yourself, just because you’re feeling guilty about living it up while Ari and I waited on you hand and foot,” Llannat said. “We’ll take our shifts, too.”
“Now, that’s an idea I can approve of, Mistress Hyfid,” said Beka. She came up the steep metal stairway from the
Crystal World’s
bridge, located below the observation deck in the yacht’s forward ventral section. The Professor followed close at her heels. “With three medics tending him round the clock, D’Caer can’t claim he didn’t get quality attention.”
She poured herself a cup of cha’a and carried it over to a chair-and-hassock set that offered a good view of the rest of the deck. Like Llannat, she’d taken the time to change her clothes, and once again wore Tarnekep Portree’s Mandeynan-style clothing. Her yellow hair was tied back from her face with one of Portree’s black velvet ribbons, and of Princess Berran, only a few smudges of makeup remained.
The Professor, not surprisingly, looked much the same as he had before: an elderly gentleman with a great deal of money and quiet, if a bit old-fashioned, good taste. Ari and the rest of the group on the observation deck watched in a sudden stillness as he filled a cup at the cha’a pot and sat down.
The Entiboran looked around the little group. “Captain,” he said, “Mistress Hyfid, Lieutenant Commander Jessan, Lieutenant Rosselin-Metadi—the time has come for us to decide what to do with Gentlesir Ebenra D’Caer.”
“You know what I want to do with him, Professor,” said Beka. She stretched her long legs out on the hassock in front of her and regarded the polished toes of her boots with an expression that Ari found more than a little unsettling. “And I hadn’t heard that it was a voting proposition.”
“No, my lady,” the Professor said. “But our advice, if you wish it, is at your disposal.”
“Quite the diplomat, aren’t you, ‘Uncle’?” Beka said. “But you’re right, I suppose … so who’ll go first? How about you, Ari? You look like you’re just bursting with things you’d like to say to me.”
Ari counted to ten, slowly.
You knew she might get like this, he reminded himself. You thought you could handle it, remember?
Aloud, he said only, “Go easy, Bee. You don’t know for certain yet if he’s guilty.”
“Do you seriously think he isn’t?” she demanded.
Before he could think of anything else to say, Llannat’s gentle voice spoke up from the chair beside him. “We haven’t got proof.”
Jessan looked across at the Adept with a curious expression. “The comps back at the asteroid put his guilt at ninety per cent probable,” he said. “Isn’t that enough?”
Llannat shook her head. “Not for a private trial and execution.”
An uncomfortable silence followed. She had, Adept-like, put her finger on the problem. Jessan had never taken his eyes away from Llannat during the interchange, and when he spoke again his voice was low and unwontedly sober.
“What if D’Caer confesses?”
Beka gave a short laugh. “Him? You’ve got to be kidding.”
Jessan glanced over at her as she spoke, and shook his head. “We’ve already got him doped to the gills—just vary the dose a little, and he’ll answer anything.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” said the Professor, “but the suggestion has merit.”
Ari shook his head. “No. No chemicals.”
Beka fixed him with a cold blue stare. “I don’t care what sort of philosophical objections you picked up from your scaly buddies on Maraghai. This is no time to get particular.”
He shook his head again. “If you want a confession that badly, I can always try reasoning with him.”
She cocked her head. “Reasoning, big brother?”
“Strenuously, if necessary.”
They gazed at one another across the observation deck, and Beka began to smile. “Sounds good to me.”
“But inelegant,” the Professor said. “Confessions gained in that manner always have a taint to them.”
The grey-haired Entiboran looked directly at Llannat, and there was a long pause before he spoke again. “You could help us get the proof, Mistress Hyfid, if you would.”
Ari expected to hear an angry denial from the Adept. Instead, she looked down at her hands and answered without raising her eyes, “No Adept has been trained as an interrogator since the end of the war.”
“I have some small skill in the art,” the Professor said. “With your assistance, I think we can get the confirmation we need without doing violence to D’Caer’s person.”
There was another drawn-out silence before Llannat said, “Or to his mind?”
Beka slammed her empty cup down on the glass-topped side table at her elbow with a violence that threatened to break cup and tabletop both. “Damnation take it, Mistress Hyfid! What the hell else do you want?”
“Gently, my lady,” said the Professor. “Mistress Hyfid and I understand one another, I believe.” He looked back again at Llannat. “I give you my word, Mistress. Neither invasion nor compulsion.”
“And what if D’Caer does admit his guilt?” Beka asked hotly. “Then what am I supposed to do? Give him shuttle fare and send him home?”
Nobody else spoke, and Llannat was looking back down at her hands again. Finally, the Adept lifted her head and met Beka’s challenging gaze.
“Captain Rosselin-Metadi,” she said, “if Ebenra D’Caer condemns himself out of his own mouth and of his own volition, then you can do whatever you want with him and I won’t lift a hand to stop you.”
 
Someone was knocking at the door …
Ebenra D’Caer let fall the arm that he’d slid around the Princess of Sapne’s shoulders. His bodyguard stuck his head into the room.
“Your pardon, sir, but there’s a call for you.”
D’Caer scowled. “Can’t you see that I’m busy?”
“It’s important.”
“Oh, very well.”
He turned back to Princess Berran. “Excuse me, Your Highness, but I’ll have to leave you alone here for a moment.”
She smiled at him. Her blue eyes were bright and eager in spite of the modest blush that pinkened her pale cheeks. “I understand, Gentlesir D’Caer—but hurry back. Uncle will scold me dreadfully if I’m gone too long.”
He kissed her hand. “I live for your smile, Your Highness,” he said, and followed the bodyguard out.
The hallway and atrium of Marchen Bres’s country estate buzzed with the sound of sociable chatter. The bodyguard walked ahead, making a path through the crush of party-goers as the two men made their way to a quiet alcove off the main atrium.
D’Caer followed his bodyguard into the alcove. The guard pressed a stud set into the wainscoting, and the back wall slid aside to reveal a secure comm-link console, its red “call waiting” light flashing on and off. D’Caer picked up the handset and the light went out.
“Get away at once,” a rough voice whispered over the link. “They know everything.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Who are you?”
The rough voice didn’t answer, but hurried on, sounding breathless and afraid. “Space Force Intelligence knows about the Council assassination. They’ve sent a man to Ovredis to arrest you.”
D’Caer looked out into the main room. A Space Force commander lounged against the far wall, resplendent in his dress blues.
He hasn’t moved since I came in. Is he the one?
The commander glanced to left and right. D‘Caer followed the glances. Now that he knew what to look for, he could count half a dozen muscular young men with military haircuts dispersed in key positions around the room. A chill ran down D’Caer’s spine. He set the handset back down without looking at it, and forced himself to gaze about the atrium with a casual air.
After all
, he reminded himself,
this isn’t the worst scrape you’ve ever been in.
Wait … there was the Princess again, standing just outside the alcove. He’d all but forgotten about that interrupted bit of diversion.
He frowned. “You shouldn’t have come here, Your Highness.”
“I was bored, sitting all alone,” she said. “So I came looking for you.”
He had no time now for royal fluffbrains, no matter how entertainingly innocent; he was about to send her back to her uncle when an idea struck him, and he smiled.
He stepped up to her and took her arm. “Then we can go together, Your Highness.”
Her blue eyes widened. “Oh, but I couldn’t do that—Uncle would be so very angry!”
D’Caer pressed his other hand against her waist, then tilted it up to show her a tiny hand-blaster. “We’re going.”
The fine blue vein in her throat leaped with the sudden race of her pulse, but she made no resistance as he guided her firmly through the press of bodies to the front door.
“Summon your vehicle,” he whispered.
The Princess of Sapne tilted her head. The doorman said a few words over the in-house comm circuit to the parking bays, where the ranks of hovercars waited with their chauffeurs.
The royal family’s hovercar was waiting when they reached the bottom of the steps. The driver, a huge man in Sapnish livery, leaped out to open the rear door and stand beside it.
“No tricks, Your Highness,” D’Caer whispered in the girl’s ear. “Or I will hurt you. Badly.”
The girl gasped and bit her lip. D’Caer could feel her whole body trembling against him as they climbed into the hovercar’s private rear compartment.
“The spaceport, and hurry,” he commanded the driver.
The chauffeur inclined his head and shut the door behind them, then took his place behind the controls. The hovercar purred forward. D’Caer watched the countryside flowing smoothly past the windows for a moment, and then turned to the Princess.
“Ah, well,” he said, and shifted the miniature blaster over to his other hand. “No reason why the moment should be wasted. Shall we resume where we left off, my dear?”
The Princess shook her head wordlessly, and shrank against the seat back in a useless attempt at evasion. D’Caer contemplated the fearful young woman for a moment. Then, still smiling, he reached out with his free hand to cup one of her breasts, firm and warm under the fabric of her gown.

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