Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  First call to the cops, of course; and then, while he was at it, a call to someone he knew at another studio. Whoever had reworked that graphic up there, it had new possibilities. He’d heard there were plans for a remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  1991

  THE MACHINERY OF LIES

  I.

  Tanya Serafeddin, peering through the forward windows of the ground-crawling shuttle in which she was the only passenger, scanned the flat kilometers of concrete ramp under the endless curve of blue sky striped with bars of varicolored cloud. Within the cloud-bars turbulence made many shapes, suggesting and animating one form after another, some familiar, some fantastic. But Tanya, long accustomed to the show, ignored it. She was trying to see or at least to guess successfully which of the parked interstellar spaceships dotting the broad expanse was the Lady Blanqui’s yacht. The problem was complicated by the tendency of starships of any kind to have basically the same shape. The generic resemblance did not extend to color schemes, but Tanya had no idea of what to look for there. Ahead and on both sides of the shuttle she observed a collection of spheres, or near-spheres, ranging in size from launches and personal craft even smaller than a small house to liners and military ships the size of office buildings.

  Now passing on the right was a freighter which had probably been a month in subspace, voyaging with exotic cargo from some remote world far outside the Tallart Cluster. And there on the left, in the opposite row, a hundred meters from the freighter, squatted a white-hulled Templar warship, bristling with weapons. The fighter would be poised to leap into space, Tanya supposed, as soon as the next rumor reached Malawi of a berserker’s presence anywhere within range of a two- or three-day patrol.

  When at last the automated shuttle stopped and opened its right-side door for its only passenger, Tanya felt vaguely disappointed. The Lady’s yacht, called the Golden Hind, was remarkably ordinary in appearance, and definitely in the small house range of size rather than that of office buildings. Though Tanya did not consider herself expert on space armaments, drives, or detection/astrogation systems, she was able to deduce something in each of those categories from the outward appearance of the craft. And nothing she deduced about the yacht particularly impressed her either.

  Walking briskly across the sunlit, windswept ramp between the shuttle and the ship, carrying her single modest piece of luggage, she ascended a small retractable ramp from ground level to the nearest entry hatch. The hatch was closed, so it was necessary to stand waiting for some person or machine inside to acknowledge her arrival.

  The delay was brief. “Name, please?” inquired a definitely human-sounding voice from an invisible speaker somewhere in the hull.

  “Tanya Serafeddin.”

  A door defined itself in the smooth metal, opening just far enough to let the small man standing inside scan her face to face. Presumably this was only a final inspection, meant to compliment some kind of security matching already accomplished without her being directly aware of the process.

  “Come in, please,” the small man invited a moment later, standing back with a shallow bow as the door swung wide. Not quite as tall as Tanya, he was dark, of indeterminate age, and dressed in a plain dark tunic. His overall appearance and behavior suggested to Tanya that he was a servant rather than a crew member or colleague of the Lady.

  He said to the visitor in a firm voice: “You will wait for the Lady in the lounge. This way, please.” And he gestured down a short passage.

  The lounge was an oval chamber somewhat bigger than Tanya had expected in a ship of the yacht’s modest size; a dozen or fifteen people might have socialized in it comfortably. The center of the room was dominated by an octagonal marble table surrounded by eight chairs of white wood, one taller than the others. The room’s other furnishings were eclectic, looking pleasant and comfortable enough but giving no hint of the awesome wealth that would be at the disposal of any Lady of the Mercantile Worlds.

  This lack of ostentation was Tanya’s first surprise—a rather mild one—on coming aboard. Her second was somewhat greater and slightly more disagreeable.

  For some reason she had expected to be the only passenger besides the lady herself. But the lounge was already occupied, by a chubby, youthful man in casual dress with a coppery glint in his brown hair, who did not look the part of servant or crew member. A traveling bag sat on the carpeted deck beside him.

  On seeing Tanya this gentleman rose politely from his chair. “Welcome aboard!” he boomed out. His expression and tone suggested that he too was somewhat startled to find that he had company.

  “Uh, thank you.” Tanya hesitated, swinging her single piece of luggage in one strong hand. “I was expecting the Lady Blanqui—” she began tentatively.

  “I’m waiting for her myself, but she’s not back from town yet.” The youngish man bowed lightly. “I’m Carl Skorba, and I’ll be aboard at least as far as Damaturu, trying to get in some business discussions with Her Ladyship. Are you an old friend of hers, or—?”

  “Tanya Serafeddin.” Their hands met in the traditional gesture of greeting. “No, I’ve only just met her today. The Lady has said that I can interview her, and invited me along as far as Damaturu.”

  “Oho. Reporter?”

  “No, not exactly. My job’s a little less immediate than that. There’s a book I’m trying to write. But you seem to be equipped to practice journalism yourself.” This was a reference to the media machine Skorba was carrying, or wearing, slung on a shoulder strap. It was a roughly tubular black device as long and thick as a man’s forearm, with lenses clustered at its front and a bewildering variety of controls around the rear handgrip. Tanya had seen similar gear before, and knew its functions would include those of camera, recorder, computer and communications tool.

  The stout young man looked down at the weapon-like thing almost in surprise, as if he might have lived with it so long that he’d forgotten its existence. “Equipped? Well, I do seem to have the hardware. But not otherwise. Not mentally, I’m afraid.” He let himself fall back into his chair. “Help yourself to a seat. Order a drink or a chewie. The steward’s not very conversational, but it has a skilled touch with the comestibles.”

  Tanya unslung her single piece of luggage from her shoulder, dropped it beside a chair facing Skorba’s, and sat down. Catching the steward’s glassy eye—it was a squat robot that had slid half a meter out from the tapestried bulkhead on overhearing a suggestion that it might be wanted—she indicated with a negative gesture that she required no service at the moment.

  Skorba, sitting opposite, was frowning at her thoughtfully. Then he crossed his casually-shod feet and smiled. It was a kind of generic smile, Tanya thought, not revelatory of anything in particular. He suggested: “First names?”

  Tanya thought a moment and returned the smile. “Looks like it’s going to be close quarters for several days. Of course. Carl, I think you said?”

  “I did. Good. Look, Tanya, it is as you say going to be close quarters. And it seems we each have something we want to talk to the Lady about. We don’t want to be getting in each other’s way. Is your interview with her going to be—very extensive? I’m afraid that mine might have to go on through several lengthy sessions.”

  “In my case it’s really hard to say.”

  “Yeah, and also none of my business, huh? You’re right.” Skorba sighed, looked mildly worried, and scratched his head.

  A brief silence fell. Without leaving her chair, Tanya examined what she could see of the lounge of the Golden Hind. What she saw confirmed her first impression. Everything was nice enough, pleasant to the eye and to the touch, nothing really splendid. This yacht had to be far from the most impressive ship that the enormously wealthy Lady had at her command. No, this couldn’t be even the eighth or tenth most imposing. Rather it was a vehicle she’d use when she felt like being inconspicuous.

  Turning to a small set of standard controls beside her chair, Tanya dialed a viewscreen to get a look outside
. There was the next crawler-shuttle, just coming into view in the distance, working its way along the kilometers of parking ramp. Perhaps it was bringing the Lady back from her business in town to join her guests. Except for the shuttle, the sprawling scene at the moment was almost devoid of movement. The only spaceport on the world of Malawi was almost quiet under the strange sky. Nothing like the busier spaceports of the Galaxy’s known portion, the small slice explored and settled by Earth-descended humanity—or at least nothing like the few Tanya had seen.

  Malawi was only a small dot, if that, on most of the computer-expandable travel charts that showed the whole slice. Even the Tallart Cluster of a few thousand suns, in which Malawi’s system lay, was of only minor importance in the overall scheme of Earth-descended civilization. This world’s population had never exceeded a few hundred thousand, and the operations of its only spaceport tended to be rather informal.

  Skorba was still studying her, though not so intently as to seem offensive. Now he spoke again. “How’d you happen to meet our gracious hostess, anyway? If you don’t mind my asking?”

  Tanya shrugged. “There’s no secret about it. I’m a psychologist, working toward an advanced degree at Malawi University. There’s a better job waiting for me once I get the degree.

  “My field, as I say, is psychology. My research specialty is the mechanisms of deception.”

  “Interesting! Verr-y interesting! So, how’d you happen to meet Lady B?”

  Before Tanya could reply, the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a third person into the lounge. This was a youthful-looking man, of dark complexion, powerful physique and stern manner. Dressed in a plain white tunic, he appeared unannounced in one of the two interior doorways. Pausing there, he gazed with a forbidding expression at the two people who were in the process of rising from their chairs to greet him. A moment later, without saying anything, the youth had turned abruptly and disappeared in the direction from which he had come.

  As they slowly resumed their seats, Tanya and her companion exchanged puzzled glances. Skorba asked her: “Any idea who that was?”

  “Not really. Neither a servant nor a member of the flight crew, would be my guess.”

  “Mine too—wait. I’ve heard that Lady Blanqui seldom goes anywhere without a certain young attendant—or friend, or companion—to whom she’s particularly attached. The only name I’ve heard for him is ‘Yero’.”

  “That may be. I really know very little about her, beyond a few obvious things—some of which may not be true, of course.”

  Skorba was giving her a narrow-eyed look, as if he sought some hidden meaning in her words. He asked: “Always on the lookout for deception, hey?”

  Smiling at him, Tanya continued: “Really, eight hours ago I had no idea that I was ever going to meet our gracious hostess, much less be about to ride away in her ship. Someone in town told me that her yacht was sitting in our spaceport, and I hastened to track her down. That wasn’t hard to do; we have only one financial institution of any interstellar importance on Malawi, and I found the Lady talking to its president.”

  “And she invited you to go on a jaunt.”

  “Yes, actually—when I explained to her my reasons for wanting to interview her. She seemed to find my topic interesting.”

  Carl Skorba was nodding thoughtfully. “As for me, I’ve been trying to catch up with her for quite a while. I’ve got a business proposition that I don’t think she’s going to be able to turn down. But I never met the Lady either until a few hours ago, here in your delightful city.”

  A thought had occurred to Tanya. “Perhaps I should make it clear that I’m interested in interviewing Lady Blanqui, not because I think she practices deception—more than any of the rest of us—but because I consider her at least potentially an authority on how to discover it. Anyone of her wealth and standing must be continually beset with people seeking to relieve her of some of her property.”

  “Oh. Oho.” Carl grinned. “Then maybe you’d like to interview me? I’ve promoted a lot of deals in my time. And come across a lot of dirty tricks. They don’t take me in very often, I can tell you.”

  Tanya, who was finding her new companion interesting if not entirely believable, answered non-committally. The conversation shifted to the tourist attractions of Malawi. The strange sky with its peculiar clouds was moderately famous among interstellar tourists. Tanya and Carl were still on the subject when the Lady herself entered the lounge at last, coming through the passage from the main hatch.

  Lady Blanqui was tall and elegantly dressed, lean and gray and undoubtedly elderly, though well-preserved. She had hardly finished greeting her guests, when the dark and glowering Yero silently re-entered the lounge to welcome her with a wordless hug—as if perhaps he had been waiting somewhere just out of sight, listening for her voice. The two of them held each other in a momentary hard embrace, during which Tanya observed that Lady Blanqui closed her eyes.

  Then the pair separated, and the lady made introductions. “My friends, Serafeddin, Skorba—this is Yero, who is my companion. Yero, my dear, these people are traveling with us, as far as Damaturu at least.”

  The grim-looking youth favored each with a silent nod. Then he bowed to the Lady and in another moment he was gone.

  The Lady shifted her attention back to her invited guests, making no explanation or apology on Yero’s behalf. She looked at Skorba somewhat superciliously, and demanded: “Have you any baggage?”

  “Only this. And this.” He raised the small traveling bag from the deck beside his chair, and gestured at the media machine. Tanya in turn demonstrated her lack of any great physical encumbrance.

  “Very well. I assume you can see to the disposal of your things yourselves . . . so, you are both coming along to Damaturu with me.”

  “I certainly appreciate the opportunity,” Skorba put in.

  “Yes, well . . . I’ve decided it’s time I talked to people more.” The Lady inspected him critically. “I make one condition: neither of you are to make any video or audio recordings—of myself, my ship, or anyone aboard—until I give specific permission. Is that agreeable?”

  “Perfectly,” said Tanya. She had brought a small recorder in her bag.

  “Completely.” And Skorba here unslung his media machine from his shoulder, then pushed it a centimeter or two farther from him on his chair, as if to demonstrate his willing renunciation.

  Their hostess appeared satisfied. “We shall be two or three days en route to Damaturu, proceeding unhurriedly. I assume both of you will be able to provide your own passage from there, wherever you choose to go?”

  “Of course, Lady Blanqui.”

  “Of course.”

  “Until dinner, then.”

  With that the Lady retired from the lounge, presumably going to her own quarters.

  A moment later the man who had admitted Tanya to the ship appeared. Introducing himself now as Stanhill, and settling himself more firmly into the character of a servant, he escorted her and her fellow passenger to their respective staterooms, which turned out to be adjoining. The passengers carried their own luggage. Tanya found her cabin expectably small but comfortable. The only remotely ostentatious touch was the bed’s four tall corner posts, actually stanchions running solid from deck to overhead. There was a door connecting with Skorba’s quarters. Tanya made sure that her side was bolted.

  Very shortly after she had reached her cabin, liftoff was announced on intercom, and presently it was accomplished without incident.

  Tanya had lived almost her entire life on Malawi, where she had been born. When she’d heard that the Lady Blanqui’s yacht had dropped in on some kind of surprise business visit, she had reacted swiftly, getting what information she could out of the available data banks on the Lady and the civilization of the Mercantile Worlds from which she came. What she found had confirmed her previous impression, that in those worlds any female of Lady status had something of the status of a princess, and was certain to be imm
ensely wealthy.

  Skorba, meeting his fellow passenger in the lounge again a few minutes after liftoff, was naturally interested in their hostess too. “Just what sort of business was this great person proposing to conduct on Malawi? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “You probably shouldn’t ask. Perhaps more to the point, there’s practically nothing I can tell you. Really, I think the Malawi bankers were as surprised as anyone else by her visit. What she talked about with them I have no idea.”

  Carl ruminated for a time. At last he said: “I can tell you this much. Yours is not the only world she’s stopped at in the Tallart Cluster. I’ve been chasing her across Tallart, trying to catch up with her, for almost a standard month.”

  Tanya nodded slowly. She wondered in passing if the Lady might be even now eavesdropping electronically on what her guests were saying in the lounge. But why should such an eminent person care what they thought? And it served eavesdroppers right if they heard something they didn’t like—that was Tanya’s usual attitude toward such intrusions.

  She speculated: “I wonder where she’s going after Damaturu? And what this long trip of hers is all about?”

  Her companion shook his head. “I wish I knew. If I did I might have been able to intercept her instead of hurrying to catch up. And I’ve got a question for you, too.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Why does she travel in a modest ship like this?”

  “Trying to be inconspicuous . . .oh.”

  “Exactly. Why then does she want to talk to interviewers?”

  Evidently the human crew aboard the modest yacht was small, though possibly some of its members were keeping out of sight. During the first few hours of the voyage, Tanya, exploring the more or less public areas of the ship, caught glimpses of a female flight engineer, an unimpressive male captain—both in rather sloppy uniforms—and one female servant in addition to Stanhill. None of these people impressed her as congenial. None except Stanhill introduced themselves. And none including Stanhill were disposed to converse with passengers beyond a few grudging monosyllables.