Use of Weapons (4 page)

Sma
whirled round to the drone, which was now humming innocently and apparently
staring into the depths of a gaudily coloured flower, its stubby snout half
buried in the bloom. It noticed her and looked up. She stood with legs apart,
put one fist on her hip and said, ' "
Toots
"?'

The
drone's aura field flashed on; the mixture of purple regret and gunmetal
puzzlement looked distinctly unconvincing. 'I don't know, Sma... just slipped
out. Alliteration.'

Sma
kicked at a dead branch, fixed the drone with a glare and said, 'Well?'

'You're
not going to like this,' the drone said quietly, retreating a little and going
dark with sorrow.

Sma
hesitated. She looked away for a moment, shoulders suddenly slumping. She sat
down on one of the tree roots. The gown crumpled around her. 'It's Zakalwe,
isn't it?'

The
drone flashed rainbow in surprise; so quickly - she thought - it might even
have been genuine. 'Good grief,' it said. 'How...?'

She
waved the question away. 'I don't know. Tone of voice. Human intuition... Just
that time again. Life was getting to be too much fun.' She closed her eyes and
rested her head against the rough dark trunk of the tree. 'So?'

The
drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw lowered itself to the same height as the woman's
shoulder and floated near her. She looked at it.

'We
need him back again,' it told her.

'I
sort of thought so,' Sma sighed, flicking away an insect which had just landed
on her shoulder.

'Well,
yes. I'm afraid nothing else will work; it has to be him personally.'

'Yeah,
but does it have to be
me
personally?'

'That's...
the consensus.'

'Wonderful,'
Sma said sourly.

'You
want the rest?'

'Does
it get any better?'

'Not
really.'

'Hell,'
Sma clapped her hands on her lap and rubbed them up and down. 'Might as well
have it all at once.'

'You
would have to leave tomorrow.'

'Aw
drone, come on!' She buried her head in her hands. She looked up. The drone was
fiddling with a twig. 'You're kidding.'

''Fraid
not.'

'What
about all this?' She waved towards the turbine hall doors. 'What about the
peace conference? What about all the froth out there with their greased-up
palms and their beady eyes? What about three years work? What about an entire
fucking planet...?'

'The
conference will go ahead.'

'Oh
sure, but what about this "pivotal role" I was supposed to be
playing?'

'Ah,'
said the drone, bringing the twig right up to the sensing band on the front of
its casing, 'well...'

'Oh
no.'

'Look,
I know you don't like...'

'No,
drone; it's not...' Sma got up suddenly and went to the edge of the crystal
wall, looking out into the night.

'Dizzy...',
the drone said, drifting closer.

'Don't
you "Dizzy" me.'

'Sma...
it isn't real. It's a stand-in; electronic, mechanical, electro-chemical,
chemical; a machine; a Mind-controlled machine, not alive in itself. Not a
clone or...'

'I
know what it is, drone,' she said, clasping her hands behind her.

The
drone floated closer to her, putting its fields to her shoulders, squeezing
gently. She shook its grip off, looked down.

'We
need your permission, Diziet.'

'Yeah,
I know that, too.' She looked up for stars that were twice hidden, by cloud and
by the lights of the arboretum.

'You
can, of course, stay here if you want to.' The drone's voice was heavy,
remorseful. 'The peace conference is certainly important; it needs... somebody
to smooth things through. No doubt about that.'

'And
what's so goddamn crucial I have to high-tail it tomorrow?'

'Remember
Voerenhutz?'

'I
remember Voerenhutz,' she said, voice flat.

'Well,
the peace lasted forty years, but it's breaking down now. Zakalwe worked with a
man called...'

'Maitchigh?'
she frowned, half turning her head to the drone.

'Beychae.
Tsoldrin Beychae. He became president of the cluster following our involvement.
While he was in power he held the political system together, but he retired
eight years ago, long before he had to, to pursue a life of study and
contemplation.' The drone made a sighing noise. 'Things have slipped back since,
and at the moment Beychae lives on a planet whose leaders are subtly hostile to
the forces Zakalwe and Beychae represented and we backed, and who are taking a
leading part in the factionalising of the group. There are several small
conflicts under way and many more brewing; full-scale war involving the entire
cluster is, as they say, imminent.'

'And
Zakalwe?'

'Basically,
it's an Out. Down to the planet, convince Beychae he's needed, and at the very
least get him to declare an interest. But it may mean a physical spring, and
the added complication is Beychae may require a lot of convincing.'

Sma
thought it through, still regarding the night. 'No tricks we can play?'

'The
two men know each other too well for anything other than the real Zakalwe to
work... likewise Tsoldrin Beychae and the political machine throughout the
entire system. Too many memories involved altogether.'

'Yeah,'
Sma said quietly. 'Too many memories.' She rubbed her bare shoulders, as though
she was cold. 'What about big guns?'

'We've
a nebula fleet assembling; a core of one Limited System Vehicle and three
General Contact Units stationed around the cluster itself, plus eighty or so
GCUs keeping their tracks within a month's rush-in distance. There ought to be
four or five GSVs within a two-to-three-months dash for the next year or so.
But that's very, very much a last resort.'

'Megadeath
figures looking a bit equivocal are they?' Sma sounded bitter.

'If
you want to put it that way,' Skaffen Amtiskaw said.

'Oh
goddamn,' Sma said quietly, closing her eyes. 'So; how far away is Voerenhutz?
I've forgotten.'

'Only
about forty days, but we have to pick Zakalwe up first; say... ninety for the
whole outward journey.'

She
turned around. 'Who's going to control the stand-in if the ship's taking me?'
Her gaze flicked skyward.

'The
Just Testing
will remain here in any
event,' the drone said. 'The very fast picket
Xenophobe
has been put at your disposal. It can uplift tomorrow, a
little after noon, earliest... should you wish.'

Sma
stood still for a moment, feet together and arms crossed, her lips pursed and
face pinched. Skaffen-Amtiskaw introspected for a moment, and decided it felt
sorry for her.

The
woman was immobile and silent for a few seconds; then, abruptly, she was
striding towards the turbine hall doors, heels clattering on the brick pathway.

The
drone swooped after her, falling in at her shoulder. 'What I wish,' Sma said,
'is that you had a better sense of timing.'

'I'm
sorry. Did I interrupt something?'

'Not
at all. And what the hell's a "very fast picket" anyway?'

'New
name for a (Demilitarised) Rapid Offensive Unit,' the drone said.

She
glanced at it. It wobbled, shrugging.

'It's
supposed to sound better.'

'And
it's called the
Xenophobe.
Well
that's just fine. Can the stand-in pick up immediately?'

'Noon
tomorrow; can you de-brief up to...?'

'Tomorrow
morning.' Sma said, as the drone flicked round in front of her and sucked the
tall doors open; she strode through and leapt up the steps into the turbine
hall, skirts gathered in front her her. The hralzs came skidding round the
corner from the hall and gathered yelping and bouncing around her. Sma stopped,
while they milled around her, sniffing her hems and trying to lick her hands.

'No,'
she told the drone. 'On second thoughts, scan me tonight, when I tell you. I'll
get rid of this lot early if I can. I'm going to find Ambassador Onitnert now,
have Maikril tell Chuzleis she's to get the minister over to the bar at turbine
one in ten minutes. Make my apologies to the System Times hacks, have them taken
back to the city and released; give them a bottle of nightflor each. Cancel the
photographer, give him one still camera and let him take... sixty-four snaps,
strictly full permission required. Have one of the male staff find Relstoch
Sussepin and invite him to my apartments in two hours. Oh, and-'

Sma
broke off suddenly and went down on her haunches to cradle the long snout of
one of the whimpering hralzs in her hands. 'Gainly, Gainly, I know, I know,'
she said, as the big-bellied animal keened and licked at her face. 'I wanted to
be here to see your babies born, but I can't...' she sighed, hugged the beast,
then held its chin in one hand. 'What am I to do, Gainly? I could have you put
to sleep until I come back, and you'd never know... but all your friends would
miss you.'

'Have
them all put to sleep,' the drone suggested.

Sma
shook her head. 'You take care of them till I get back,' she told the other
hralz. 'All right?' She kissed the animal's nose and got up. Gainly sneezed.

'Two
other things, drone,' Sma said, walking through the excited pack.

'What?'

'Don't
call me "Toots" again, all right?'

'All
right. What else?'

They
rounded the gleaming bulk of the long-stilled number six turbine, and Sma
stopped for a moment, surveying the busy crowd in front of her, taking a deep
breath and straightening her shoulders. She was already smiling as she started
forward and said quietly to the drone, 'I don't want the stand-in screwing
anybody.'

'Okay,'
the drone said as they went towards the partying people. 'It is, after all, in
a sense, your body.'

'That's
just it, drone,' Sma said, nodding to a waiter, who scurried forward, drinks
tray proffered. 'It
isn't
my body.'

Aircraft
and ground vehicles floated and wound away from the old power station. The
important people had departed. There were a few stragglers left in the hall,
but they didn't need her. She felt weary, and glanded a little
snap
to lift the mood.

From
the south balcony of the apartments fashioned from the station's admin block,
she looked down to the deep valley and the line of tail lights strung out along
Riverside Drive. An aircraft whistled overhead, banking and disappearing over
the tall curved lip of the old dam. She watched the plane go, then turned
towards the penthouse doors, taking off the small formal jacket and slinging it
over her shoulder.

Music
was playing, deep inside the sumptuous suite beneath the roof garden. She
headed instead for the study, where Skaffen-Amtiskaw was waiting.

The
scan to update the stand-in took only a couple of minutes. She came round with
the usual feeling of dislocation, but it passed quickly enough. She kicked off
her shoes and padded through the soft dark corridors towards the music.

Relstoch
Sussepin drew himself out of the seat he'd been occupying, still holding a
softly glowing glass of nightflor. Sma stopped in the doorway.

'Thank
you for staying,' she said, dropping the little jacket onto a couch.

'That's
all right.' He brought the glass of glowing drink towards his lips, then seemed
to think the better of it, and cradled it in both hands instead. 'What, ah...
was there anything, in particular you...?'

Sma
smiled, somehow sadly, and put both hands on the wings of a big revolving
chair, which she stood behind. She looked down at the hide cushion. 'Perhaps,
now, I'm flattering myself,' she said. 'But, not to put too fine a point on
it...' She looked up at him. 'Would you like to fuck?'

Relstoch
Sussepin stood stock still. After a while he raised the glass to his lips and
took a long slow drink, then brought the glass slowly back down again. 'Yes,'
he said. 'Yes, I wanted to... instantly.'

'There's
only tonight,' she said, holding up one hand. 'Just tonight. It's difficult to
explain, but from tomorrow onwards... for maybe half a year or more, I'm going
to be incredibly busy; two-places-at-once sort of busy, you know?'

He
shrugged. 'Sure. Anything you say.'

Sma
relaxed then, and a smile grew gradually on her face. She pushed the big chair
round and slid the bracelet from her wrist to let it fall into the seat. Then she
gently unbuttoned the top of her gown, and stood there.

Sussepin
drained his glass, placed it on a shelf, and walked towards her.

'Lights,'
she whispered.

The
lights slowly dimmed, right down, until eventually the softly glowing dregs of
the finished drink made the glass on the shelf the brightest thing in the room.