Drawn by his cheerful, soothing voice, the kitten approached, windmilling its paws, braking to a drifting halt siemmes above his legs. It added another few judicious strokes, settled to his robed lap, and began to give itself another bath. Unnecessarily in this room, Demondion-Echeverria mused, instinct is overcome only within limits, an important point for a man of power to be reminded of. To business, then, the curtain is about to go up.
This perhaps overly dramatic thought was nevertheless literally correct. The servitor appeared in silhouette at a curtained portal two measures square, separating this chamber from the ambassador's office. It announced itself—it was laboriously trained not to startle—and drew the curtain. He could now see into what looked like a stage set and adjusted the lighting so that he could be seen, as well. A goldfish swam before his eyes. He and the kitten ignored it. This was not the only such portal in the suite. The building had been selected neither for price nor the neighborhood in which it sat, but for its architecture. Had something suitable not been available, he would have ordered it constructed, for he reclined, suspended in a room filled—and woe betide the servitor who permitted unsightly bubbles to collect near the ceiling—with well-filtered, oxygen-enriched liquid fluoro-carbon.
The ambassador's apartments had been designed so that the liquid-filled rooms were at the center, overlooking every other portion of the embassy. They were protected from sudden breach (either of physical integrity or the Empery-Cirot's extraterritoriality) by double walls, and built upon one level to avoid pressure necessitating elaborate decompression.
He grimaced with distaste. Revealed in the stronger light, something bobbed near the ceiling, too large for the filters which handled innocent indiscretions of the sort committed
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by kittens or goldfish. A second glance showed it to be a slipper, escaped from a dresser drawer. The girls, lucky creatures, spent more time here than he did, but, like all women in his experience, tended toward a general untidiness. He took a deep breath, inhaling oxygen-rich liquid, exhaling it laden with carbon dioxide.
A peculiar substance, fluorocarbon, with even more peculiar properties. Primitive matches, useless in these rooms (the liquid carried heat away too quickly to support flame), still lit after being soaked. Lights, timepieces, communicators, thille players, all operated without fault. Undistracting music wafted through the room. He must commend the technician. After many experiments, the transducers had been adjusted to allow for differences between his current ambience and the air in which the music was enthilled. (He was grateful the same could not be done to his voice.) As with most pleasures of which he availed himself, this served more purposes than one. Buried within the wave-forms of the music—and this, he gathered, was what had offered technical difficulty—a superheterodyning signal insured that anything uttered within the room would be converted by listening devices into gabble, punctuated by painful shrilling. He was free to say, and do, anything he wished, even enjoy an amusing, if one-sided, conversation with a kitten.
He glanced at the jewel-encrusted thrustible lying with comforting familiarity along his left forearm. It was reliable when immersed, a virtue more attributable to the liquid than to the weapon, but all to the good. Otherwise, security considerations might have limited the hours he could relax here even more than doing business with the unenlightened already did.
He took another breath, letting his arms lift and settle back. The pure liquid was lower in density than water, alcohol, even many oils. Unaugmented, it would not have supported his weight. He would have sunk to the floor like a stone. Vitamins and other nutrients added to its buoyant properties, like salt added to water. This was more than just a complicated lark. As Master-Practitioner of the Immortal School Poriferitae (or, as envious others upon Homeworld and Hanover had it, a crackpot cult of the same name), he
Spent most of his hours each day permeated by this liquid, sleeping in it, breathing it—save in the line of diplomatic duty, he no longer ate at all in the open air—and sporting with his women.
Begun as a course of emergency therapy in his youth, when he had nearly burned to death in a starport attack, the Practice had kept him fit some 370 years—"thus far," he told himself, for with each passing year he came to love life and detest the idea of death more, although, like many a combat veteran, he no longer feared it. Unlike cryogenous suspension, one was not compelled to sleep through most of his extended lifespan and could take pleasure watching those who called him crackpot wither and die. He had been immersed unconscious the first week. How well he remembered his initiation into the Immortal School, the effort required to overcome fear of taking his first deliberate breath of liquid, when every reflex screamed he was about to drown. Many would-be Practitioners unable to cross that threshold were, not without understanding, rejected by the Immortal Poriferitae. He had heard it claimed that many a death attributed to water drowning turned out to have been by suffocation, sheer unwillingness to take water into the lungs.
Now taking that breath was the easiest thing in the galaxy, accomplished several times a day. Yet it was neither the extension of his hfe, nor any love of swimming, which had attracted him to the Immortal School, nor a desire to imitate aquatic creatures, but the avians. Without machinery or similar aids, he could fly within these rooms, fulfilling an ages-old and, he believed, instinctive desire shared by all humanity since the dawn of time.
Yawning, he made a note to enhance the oxygen level. The little fellow buzzing upon his lap consumed rather a disproportionate amount. He wondered again whether the kitten's life expectancy, like his own, would benefit from application of the Principia Poriferitae. It was a pleasant possibility. He could think of no reason why it should not be so. More oxygen was a good idea for another reason. He had been considering indulging in a third girl. If he could not increase the number of hours he had to spare for pleasure, he would increase their quality. He also made a note to the effect
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that—with the kitten here, a long-haired one at that— circulation filters would have to be inspected with greater frequency.
"Our first chore,'* he told the sleeping kitten, "will be perusal of an information digest, notes from the Hanoverians and other diplomatic missions, supplemented by Intelligence, regarding this proposed truce in the region n'Worb m'Divad." Making slow, smooth movements so as not to disturb the cat, he adjusted the summoner to route a message to his clerk. "Consistent with a practice long since become routine," (if not tedious, he thought), "send a copy of the memorandum I first dictated three years ago straightaway to Homeworld bureaucracy, demanding that explorers accredited by the Empery-Cirot bestow sensible names upon new territories, rather than haphazardly adopting unpronounceable grunts collected from the savages they find there."
He placed the communicator back upon the table, taking care that it could not float way. Where was he? It was no accident that thought of Daimler-Wilkinson had arisen earlier. It was plain to him, and his intelligence staff, that Leupould's henchman was a proponent, if not the source, of the truce offer, whether in his capacity as Drector-Advisory or Executor-General was not clear. It would be worth taking trouble to determine which. He retrieved the communicator and dictated a memorandum to that effect. If the former, the offer was likely genuine, reflecting some necessity upon the part of the Monopolity. If the latter, it was probably a ploy of war and should be addressed with skepticism and appropriate counter-preparations.
The ambassador had reason to hope it was the former, although it would not affect performance of his duties. Despite Ribauldequin's disabilities, Demondion-Echeverria had plans to accept, in his sovereign's behalf, the offered truce gift, for he had learned what form it would take upon a recent visit to the Monopolitan 'Droom. As coincidence would have it, taking pride in a capacity to discern the fullness of the blossom in the promise of the bud, he had for three years, since first coming to Hanover, kept almost a proprietory eye upon this particular flower, seeking m
eans by
which to add her (the thought struck him) to his hydroponic garden.
Thanks to the Immortal School, his was the aspect of a man in vigorous middle age. Even this was mostly cosmetic (he might have been a youth with equal credibility) adopted for politics. He suffered no such shortcoming as drooling Ribauldequin and could make splendid use of the young and tender Loreanna. Word was that she was unbroached, untapped, however euphemism ran these days, which might prove amusing. He had not spread a virgin in a long while and the fancy stirred him. When he had tired of her he would have her lobotomized as a living trophy, or sell her at a profit to the highest bidder. Such calculated insult would hang upon the truce being betrayed by one side or another, but experience told him this was inevitable.
As he perused the notethille pr^ared by his staff the previous evening, Demondion-Echeverria chuckled. By another coincidence, if he was willing to contrive it, the highest bidder might be his first appointment this morning. By appearance a vile proletarian tradesman, he was an acquaintance of long standing, almost a friend. Further, if rumors Intelligence had collected were credited, that the bride-to-be had offered her demurral, none too polite, and would be freighted as punishment to some ceo-forsaken colony, his almost-friend might prove to be of use as upon earlier occasions.
He reviewed what he knew of the man, reputedly Hanoverian although of dubious loyalty to ceo or imperium-conglomerate. He had observed the fellow taking childish delight, like all his trade, in fancying himself a romantic adventurer. Upon another hand, each profession practiced its pretensions; a diplomat had small room to criticize. Officially, the ambassador knew him to be an often-useful double-spy. They shared certain preferences, he and this starsailor. A year or two ago, the man had, in his presence, expressed lustful admiration for the Daimler-Wilkinson girl. It had been some formal occasion, a reception for stiquemen at the 'Droom, if memory served. Owing him a favor, Demondion-Echeverria had obtained for him a copy of an auto-thille he had ordered prepared in stealth, the so-called
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"intelligent" kind which anticipated change and "grew up" with its subject.
Be this as it may, the man was in a mood to reward himself. He had recently returned from an unbelievable ordeal, a prolonged starvoyage in an auxiliary, imposed by direst emergency, word of which had made him something of a celebrity. New found reputation offered practical usages to those prepared to take proper advantage. Like many another public hero, he had not hesitated to augment his notoriety by employing a discreet fame-enhancing agency and had experienced little difficulty obtaining more fresh investors than he had use for, along with a new ship, and was, by all accounts, prepared to sail even now, which well suited the ambassador's plans.
Demondion-Echeverria considered the inconvenience of abandoning his pool of fluorocarbon and thought better of it. Greater psychological advantage might obtain were he to interview the villain as he appeared now. He reached to summon his staff of lobotomized servitors, under supervision of a few deputies he trusted to remain in possession of their minds, to welcome the privateer, then reconsidered. Certain courtesy must be accorded the man if they were to do business with the same cordiality as so many times before. He felt a groan arising unbidden within him, stifling it before it found a voice. However casual his first breath of fluorocarbon had become over the years, his last—or, put another way, the day's first breath of air—was another matter altogether. The ordeal remained, if not utterly impossible (in which case he would have abandoned the Practice), a bother and discomfort.
With a sigh of resignation which he did voice, he lifted the kitten from his lap and hung it, protesting, in the center of the room. He unlatched the belt which held him to the lounger, precaution against drifting in his sleep, discarded his dressing gown, and kicked ceilingward where a pair of colored tabs protruded between plastic-coated mesh-wires. He pulled upon the first. A trapdoor lowered, exposing the mirrored undersurface of the fluorocarbon, broken with wavelets. The second released a pair of tapered plastic cylinders attached to cabelles. He turned a half somersault and slid his ankles into them, tightening straps until he was cer-
tain they would support his weight. Giving the tab another tug, he straightened, head downward, feet pointing at the open trapdoor, arms folded across his chest, counting to himself.
At fifteen heartbeats, he began deep inhalation of the oxygen-charged fluorocarbon. At twenty, cabelles reeled him throujgh the surface of the liquid into the air above. Long practiced at this uncomfortable transition, he exhaled by reflex, hard as he could, clearing his lungs. He inhaled air, coughing once or twice to rid himself of traces of the fluid. The exercise with the cabelles precluded an entire day of coughing. Swinging upon well-trained muscles, he unfastened his ankles, lowered himself to the mesh beside the trapdoor, and accepted a dry robe handed him by a manservitor. Demondion-Echeverria did not like it, but he was again a creature of the land.
He set off* for the spare suite he despised to find clothes, and afterward to greet his almost-friend, Master-murchan Ballygrant Bowmore.
Chapter XXXVI: The Brigantine Pelican
Fresh tachyon breezes and nary a sign of stormy weather.
Bowmore stood upon the quarterdeck of the Pelican, knee-boots braced comfortably against her complex vibration, metal-ended braids swaying, bejeweled hands together at the small of his back, his one good eye upon his officers. The Deep-bom flux thrummed in the rigging of the brigantine, bellying her starsails, filling her entire structure with the music her master loved best. At full strength, the §-field pulsed in visual rhythm with it, for she was running swiftly under all plainsail. He was tempted to set her stunsails as a lark, to see whether his escort had their wits about them. He took a deep breath through his pierced and decorated nostrils, enjoying mesh underfoot again. It was a good feeling
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to be sure, and better yet possessing advanced knowledge of a profitable and diverting voyage.
Upon the maindeck, his marvelous crew were busy at a thousand labors operation and maintenance of a starship required. The plebeians among them scrubbed meshing, an eternal task the doing of which was more important than the having done. Others, careful experts and those they instructed, cleaned and coiled cabelles. Aloft, two hundred seasoned hands and topmen drilled, belayed, cast away, adjusted, readjusted, made and unmade, no fresh meat among them, a fact for which both he and they were grateful. For once attention might be paid to the refinement of mature skills and to coaxing a final increment of smooth performance from the ship. He thought them capable of setting an enthillement for this run, had they not lacked the benefit of a destination. Happy in their ignorance of this, they shouted at one another in time-honored manner, a lyric to the melody the vessel played about them.
The Pelican was as fine a vessel as he had ever had the pleasure of commanding, although, lacking resources any Navy captain would consider indispensable, experience informed him that her condition would deteriorate with time, with never enough hands nor suflftcient hours to see to everything. Preparation for the voyage had been accomplished with unusual, almost military, dispatch, at first owing to his fortuitous notoriety, later to the bargain he had struck with his friend the Jendyne ambassador. Odd fish, that one.
Demondion-Echeverria had proven helpful finding him a crew, always the most difficult arrangement to make before a voyage. Bowmore had found himself required to explain why a shipful of slobbering lobotomites such as infested the embassy would not do as riggers and projecteurs. The man had promised to use whatever power and connection he could boast to assemble a full complement of normals, as near to normal as Deepmen ever got. As good as his word, in due course he delivered 430 with a pink-scrubbed, polished look which told Bowmore they were reassigned from the Jen-dyne Naval Academy. A pity prudence had compelled him to feed their officers to the §-field as they came onboard.
assisted by those he had chosen for himself, crewbeings he could trust because th
ey feared him, recruited from the grimy haunts of Port-of-Hanover. A greater pity he had lacked sufficient time (there was never enough time) to extract whatever secret orders they had been given. The remainder, thirty-odd dozen, lay drugged and stacked below as cargo to the "manufacturers" of Oplytes, which should clear his debt upon the ship.
Underfoot, in a cabin from which he had evicted Mr. Owen, his third officer, his principal cargo was tucked in safe, a sight warmer than she would ever be again, were her voyage to funereal Baffridgestar completed. Thanks to the ambassador and himself, it would never be, although, like the crew, she was as yet unaware of it, nor was she likely to thank them for the detour.
"A drugged girl is a damaged girl," Demondion-Echeverria had insisted. "This, so I am informed, is the attitude of the more refined elements, among which I number, if not my sovereign, Ribauldequin XXIII, then his advisors in the *Droom of the Jendyne Empery-Cirot."
They sat in the ambassador's spacious, comfortable office. Relieved of his thrustibles at the entrance (he had been minded to cancel the appointment; still, enduring it again was likely to win him a handsome profit), Bowmore had accepted the hot drink offisred him. Outside, the sky voided itself of the half-frozen slush-gobbets which seemed unique to the capital world. The drink, as well as the intoxicant of which it largely consisted, was welcome. The ambassador, pleading that he had just broken fast, partook of occasional draughts from an engraved inhaler. Over Demondion-Echeverria's shoulder, behind the enormous desk, Bowmore could see, through curtains slightly parted as if by an oversight, what appeared to be a large aquarium built into the wall. Idly curious, he wondered what sort of animals the ambassador kept.
The man had already apprised him of Lx)reanna's steadfast refusal to submit to the marriage her uncle had planned for her. Bowmore, possessing many fewer scruples than "the more refined elements" regarding "damaged girls" or any-
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