"Keeps the files from gettin' musty. You got anything else?"
"No. How did you find out about Honeypeach anyhow?"
She spat, ritually, without moisture. "Two dumb stall cleaners at the stables here in Splash One, yakkin' about stuff while they should be shovelin' shit. Didn't see me in the stall fixin" Tinkerbell's leg. Both of 'em son of Crystallites. Not the hard core kind, but the hangers-on. Well. One of 'em has a brother, and he says his brother's been sent with some other guys off to Northwest. To do in some Explorer knight, so he said. They were all paid a good bit to go. Said the knight would be sent out on a mission and they could kill her when she was on her way back, because the Governor's wife wanted her dead." She spat again. "I told Thyle and he called you and Jem for a meetin'. You were late, but you heard the rest of it. We guessed it was Don Furz, she bein' the only one much in the public eye up there, but we didn't know 'til I called the Priory it was all goin' to happen so soon."
"I may be able to find out a little more, as I'm not known around here yet, and nobody but the four of us knows I work for the PEC. Are you getting anywhere?"
"We're puttin' two and two together."
"According to Jem there seem to have been two attempts on the Explorer's life in the past, plus the one yesterday," Gentry mused. "What made Jem suspicious that somebody tried to kill Furz before?"
"Jem's got a birdy over in BDL Exploration Division."
"Birdy?"
"A little spy. Somebody low down in the ranks, somebody no one pays any attention to. Probably some data clerk or communications expediter. Jem didn't say who, and we didn't ask. Well, the birdy says the orders sending Furz out to Redfang the first time weren't to standard. Somebody's approval missin', something not right. And Jem found out today the orders sending her out there this last time weren't any more legitimate than the first ones. Both sets were boggled."
"Boggled?"
"Faked! Some wallmouse creepin' out at night to boggle orders. Who do you suppose? The Explorer King? I'd put my chits there. Easy enough to tell, Gentry. You've got the connections. Find out whether Chase Random Hall has accounts on Serendipity. If he's got money there, it's nine times sure he's your wallmouse, sendin' his own Explorer off to get killed. " Her face writhed briefly at the thought of this betrayal.
Rheme Gentry made a quick note. "Don't count on my being able to find out anything, Gereny. Mail to Serendipity's being censored or just lost, even the diplomatic stuff from Government House. BDL controls the ships, and except for a few odds and ends, messages aren't getting through."
"Now how do you know that?"
"I had acknowledgment signals worked out, things to be planted in the system news, outside the BDL net, and they aren't showing up. Jubal's getting zipped up tight, Gereny. I'll see what I can find out about Hall, but I wouldn't fasten on him too quickly. It could be someone else. Hall's a little conspicuous. I'd bet on someone less noticeable."
"Poor Donatella," Gereny mused. "Nice gal. Met her three or four times, always pleasant. No snoot to her, like some of those Explorers. Hope she's all right."
"Well, we'll hope Tasmin Ferrence got there in time to help her out. Jeshel said he sent four ruffians, but if they were the quality I saw hanging around in the Crystallite quarter, the stun rifle should have increased the odds in our favor. Those two attempts before bother me, though. Brother Jeshel claims no part in those …
"Even if it is the Explorer King, I'll bet he's not acting on his own. I'd like to know who's giving the orders."
Price Zimble sat at the feet of the Explorer King, gently stroking the King's knees and calves. Chase Random Hall, while relishing the sensation, affected not to notice this intimacy.
"Then what did you do?" the King asked. "After Donatella got back from Splash One?"
"I hung around," said Zimmy. "I've been hanging around for days."
"She hasn't asked for you since?"
"Not once."
"You've been through her room?"
"Over and over again. There's nothing there, Chase. A few odds and ends of papers and things she's working on, and her own things. That's all."
"No messages?"
"None that aren't ordinary. You know. Ralth asking her to have dinner, or Martin inviting her for a drink, or something like that. A thank you note from her old cousin down in Splash One."
"It could be code."
"Code! For heaven's sake, Randy. It said, 'Dearest Donatella, thank you so much for the nice lunch. Do give my best to your mother. Love, Cousin Cyndal.' If you can make code out of that … "
The King made an irritated moue, his mouth twisting unattractively. "Nothing more about the man down in Splash One, the one that died in the Chapter House?"
"Nothing. No one knows who he is or who sent him. Unless you do."
"Don't be silly, Zimmy. Justin sent him. Who else?" His voice was not as sure as the words.
"What do you want me to do now?"
"In the unlikely event she comes back from this Redfang trip … "
"Unlikely event?" Zimmy opened his eyes very wide in ingenuous surprise.
"Somebody saw to it she got sent, idiot, and it wasn't me. I saw the orders! They were boggled. Why did the powers that be send her off into the Redfang anyhow? There's nothing there that really needed doing."
"Powers that be?" Zimmy was all innocence.
The Explorer King sounded irritated. Parts of the puzzle didn't fit. He, the King, had been told not to do anything to Don Furz. But someone was doing something to Don Furz. Who? And why? He didn't look closely at Zimmy. If he had, he might have surprised a glimmer of amusement in Zimmy's eyes.
"Don't ask questions, Zimmy. The less you know the better off you are. And if she does come back, be there and don't look surprised."
"Well, of course, Randy," said Zimmy with a hurt expression. "I have better sense than that."
Maybelle Thonks listened to her stepmother singing and cringed inside. Honeypeach only sang when in the ascendency, and Maybelle hated to guess whose bloody and recumbent bodies her father's wife must be currently and unmelodically stomping over.
"Problem?" asked Rheme Gentry. He had just come out of the Governor's office with a stack of papers, which he placed on his desk. "Anything the Governor's aide can do to help?"
"Honeypeach is singing."
"Ah?"
"It probably means she's just killed somebody."
"May Bee." It was said softly, but unmistakably as a warning.
"Well, it does."
He whispered. "It may, but we are not going to say so. Not inside Government House. Not anywhere where we might be overheard. Are we?" He took her hand and led her out onto the wide terrace, which extended along two sides of the house, well away from concealing shrubbery or roof overhangs.
When they were clear of the building, she said, "Rheme, how do you stand it?"
"Well, I confess I was somewhat dismayed when I arrived to take the job as your father's aide and learned exactly what his wife thought that entailed."
"How did you keep out of her clutches?"
"I told her I had picked up a virulent and sexually transmitted infection on Rentrée Four, that it was currently in remission but still quite communicable, and that the symptoms of the disease in women included complete atrophy of the breasts and other genitalia."
"Rheme! Did you really? You did. My God, I never would have … how marvelous."
"I further told her that she needn't worry about her stepdaughter because I found women of your type unattractive. I told her I disliked light brown hair and hazel eyes because they reminded me of my evil aunty, the scourge of my youth."
"You beast."
"As a result, she has not worried, and you and I are allowed to be much together. Of course, she may be watching you eagerly for signs of atrophy. One doesn't know."
"You didn't answer my first question. How do you stand it? You know what daddy's up to."
"I do, indeed. He is up to making a very large f
ortune for himself before the bottom falls out here on Jubal. He is taking money from the Crystallites with one hand and from BDL with the other. When BDL does whatever it is planning to do, which I haven't totally figured out yet, there will be big trouble, following which there will probably be an inquiry. In advance of the inquiry your father will resign to enjoy his retirement on Serendipity or Eutopia or New Havaheh or some such place."
"It's dishonorable."
"Not a word that your father has used much, Maybelle. One thing I confess that I don't understand is why you are as you are while he is what he is."
"Because I had Mother around for over twenty years. And he's had Honeypeach. She corrupts people. Not that daddy needed much corrupting. He's had her since she was fifteen. Can you believe that? Her son, Ymries Fedder, is really my father's son, too. It's why Mother left him, when she finally found out about it."
"And you are here only because your mother died."
"I'm here because I had nowhere else to go. Mother's family disowned her when she married the honorable Wuyllum. The honorable Wuyllum was sending support for me, but he quit when Mother died. She and I were living on Serendipity, but as an off-worlder I couldn't even get a work permit there."
"You could work here."
"Doing what?"
"Your father could put in a word with BDL. There should be some kind of registered job available."
"He won't. I've begged him. He doesn't want me to have any resources at all except what he provides. He's a terrible man, Rheme. He possesses people. Mother had told me some things, but I didn't have any idea what he's really like until I got here. He doesn't do anything much with people, but he likes to own them. Every now and then he'll twitch the chain, just to be sure it's still attached." She turned away, biting her lip to keep the tears back.
"You could marry me."
"Yes, I could. The idea is a very attractive one, too. But it would be the end of your job here, believe me. We'd have to leave."
"That wouldn't be the end of the universe, May Bee."
"Not if we got away. We might not, Rheme. I know you think I'm overstating things, but things happen to people who don't do what Daddy or Honeypeach want them to do. Sometimes they have accidents and die. Sometimes they just disappear."
"Ah," he said again, not arguing with her. After his interview with Brother Jeshel, he no longer doubted her—not that he ever had.
"I get so … so angry. I love this place—not Government House, but Jubal. I met an explorer, Donatella Furz, at one of the receptions. I told her I'd never seen the countryside, and she took me out into the crystal country. It's beautiful, very strange and mystical. It's obvious what's going to happen to it. It's going to be destroyed. By my father. By BDL. I keep thinking there must be something I could do."
"Thou and I," he mused, looking back into Government House through the door they had left open behind them. Honeypeach Thonks was standing in that doorway, staring at her stepdaughter with the look that a hungry gyre-bird might fasten on some bit of tasty carrion. Rheme bowed in her direction, a bit more deeply than custom required. When he got his head up again, she was gone. "Yes," he mused softly, so that only Maybelle could hear. "We're going to have to do something."
On the roof of the Crystallite Temple in Splash One, just to one side of the high mud brick, plastic gilded dome, there was a comfortable apartment reached by a twisting stair hidden in one of the massive pillars that supported the vaulted ceiling. It was accessible only to a few servants and the three residents: Chantiforth H. Bins, Myrony Clospocket, and Aphrodite Sells, these three being both the heart and soul of the Crystallite religion on Jubal. It was the place they spent most of their time between services, except for infrequent and well-disguised forays into the less savory night life of Splash One.
"Jeshel's stirrin' up the fuckin' rabble again," remarked Myrony, his bald pate gleaming in the light of the late afternoon sun as he put down the corn-control and moved toward the glass doors that opened on a spacious roof terrace. "Our man over in BDL reports he assaulted some fuckin' Tripsinger a few days ago. I wish you'd sit on him, Bins. You're the High Pontiff, and that's the only one he listens to. He's goin' to provoke Thonks to do somethin' foolish before we're ready."
The multitudes would have been surprised to see their High Priest at home, Myrony's shiny pate unwigged, his sonorous voice fallen into the vulgar accents of his youth. Myrony had been born and reared in a scum-pocket on Zenith, an entertainment world known more for its depravity than for its devotion to theology. That he had risen so far into godliness from this beggarly beginning spoke volumes for his tenacity and ruthlessness, if not for his conscience.
"Old Sweet Wuyllum won't do anything until we're ready," murmured Aphrodite through perfect teeth and lips, which pursed into a kiss as she peered into the mirror and preened over the glitter of the new firestone necklace. She had been Myrony's associate on a dozen worlds, and she knew him better than anyone still living. "Thonks knows whose hand stuffs his pocket."
"Not necessarily so, Affy," Chantiforth Bins corrected her in comfortably avuncular tones. Though his association with the other two was more recent than theirs with one another, he had long ago adopted a familiar and confidential tone with them both. "The Governor could be forced to move. Myrony's right. We need to sit on Jeshel unless Wuyllum tells us he needs an incident. And then we need to do a quick sunder and be off-planet by the time it happens."
"Harward Justin's not going to let anything happen to us," the woman remarked, stretching luxuriously while stroking the gem-stones. The necklace was a gift from Justin, and Aphrodite had her own reasons for believing the BDL boss would take care of them. Her ego was so strong that she had never considered any other outcome of their relationship. Though she didn't realize it, her complaisance was a personality trait that Justin much appreciated, since he felt it made her totally predictable. He would have been reinforced in this opinion by her remarks. "Justin likes the good job we've done for him," she said, smiling at her own reflection and giving the gem one last pat. She did not enjoy remembering the earning of the gift, but having it made up for that. "It's the first time we've ever hired out to start a religion, you know that? It's been what you might call interesting."
"Given the free hand we had, it wasn't bad," Chantiforth admitted.
"It wasn't workin' worth shit until Justin brought in those shiploads of trash from Serendipity," Myrony remarked. "Didn't have two converts to rub together until then. You have to hand it to Justin. He knew the kind of people would go for it. Jeshel and his bunch are just right."
"Jeshel and his bunch are going to scream contra-tenor when they get interned with all the rest," Chantiforth objected. "Justin may be sorry he's got them on his hands then."
"Let Jeshel scream. Let him say anything he likes. He has no idea who we really are, and less than no idea where we're going to be. The army'll take care of Jeshel." Chantiforth Bins rose and crossed to the high windows that looked out over the city. "I'm going to miss this place."
"Not me," Aphrodite said. "The food's lousy, the noise never lets up, and the only music they have is that damn Tripsinger howling. Me for the Spice Coast on 'Dipity."
"I think we all agree it was worth it though." Bins turned from the window with a smile, rubbing his fingers together suggestively. "Biggest one we've done together. Didn't all those pilgrims bleed money?"
Aphrodite puckered her forehead. "Pity there won't be anymore pilgrims when BDL crashes everything. And you're right, Chants. We need to do a sunder well ahead of the shutdown. No telling what some PEC flunky might end up doing. There might be some kind of a last-minute shift that could leave us where we're not supposed to be. Whenever that CHASE Commission gets here, we need to start moving. Couple of months? Or maybe sooner, from what I hear. And we need to watch our money, too. Even though it's on Serendipity, something could go wrong. There's about six million now. Split three ways, Chants-love, that's two million for each of us. Which is not to
o utterly threadbare for three years' part-time work."
"More than three fuckin' years total," growled Myrony. "Chanty and me had to set up the Jut Massacre, remember? That was a little iffy. I didn't like bein' that close to those fuckin' Presences. And there was some rumor-mongerin' even before that."
Aphrodite shrugged. "It didn't exactly take your full time, My. You and Chanty managed to get in on that Heron's World slash-up in between. You guys made me real mad on that one, you know! I'm some kind of shredded settler's brush, you couldn't cut me in on that?" She stood up and drifted lazily to the window, looking out over the low parapet to the snarling hubbub of the city.
"You weren't around," Myrony snarled, giving her a nasty look. "You were busy. Seems to me there was something I heard about some diplomatic papers that disappeared."
"Never mind," she said, turning to wave her hands at him, shushing him. "I don't want to be reminded."
Below them in the vaulted sanctuary, a bell rang repeatedly, the measured dong, dong, dong seeming to tighten the very atmosphere around them.
"Evening services," said Chantiforth, rising and moving toward the rack where his robe and crown were hung. "Damn. I'm getting tired of this. It was kind of fun at first, but I've had it to my back teeth."
"All you have to do is look impressive," Myrony objected. "It's my night for the sermon."
"Mine for dispensing revelations," Aphrodite remarked. "I think I'll wear that new mantle with the blue feathers. What'll the message from the Presences be tonight?"
"Work for the fuckin' hour cometh," Myrony suggested with an unpriestly sneer as he reached for the full white wig that stood on a stand by the door.
"Repent for the day is at hand," sniggered Chantiforth. "What'd'you think they really say?" she asked, stretching. "The Presences? Y'ever thought about that?"
The two men, tall, white haired, benevolent looking as saints, gave her equally empty stares, as though wondering if she had gone mad.
"No," she sighed. "I guess you guys never thought about that."
Tepper,Sheri - After Long Silence Page 18