“The Flagits encountered active discouragement, of both the official and unofficial varieties. When they tried to use their wealth to overcome the authorities’ resistance they found that they had spent so much of what they had inherited that they no longer commanded the influence their ancestors had enjoyed.”
Piqued, Ermin and Blathe had dropped out of sight for a long while – perhaps a dozen years – and when they next appeared on Old Earth they had developed new interests, largely centered around growing vicious unnatural creatures and setting them against each other. Each brother maintained his own array of recombinative vats from which he produced ever more repugnant and fearsome monstrosities. Though they varied imaginatively in the numbers of their limbs and the arrangement of their claws, pincers and poison sacs, Ermin’s products always bore the face of Blathe, and vice versa.
“In the end,” Opteram said, “they arranged a duel between two of their most lethal and loathsome creations in a sealed arena on the estate. Matters got out of hand, however. The brothers seemed to have gotten too close to the combatants, whether in an attempt to separate them or in their enthusiasm to egg them on – the recordings were inconclusive. What was clear was that the four-armed, sting-tailed brute that bore Ermin’s face tore Blathe into increasingly smaller pieces, while the thick-necked behemoth with Blathe’s features stomped Ermin into an inseparable mixture of sand and gore.”
“Where does Hallis Tharp come into this picture?” Conn said, when the intercessor had concluded.
“Oh,” said Opteram, “I have digressed. He was mentioned in a memorandum that turned up in Flagit Holding’s corporate records when the estate was being evaluated. The bearer deed to a property was found to be missing and since it was last known to be in the possession of Cooblor Tonn, who was nowhere to be found, it was deduced that he had absconded with it.”
“Did no one pursue him?” Gievel asked.
“Apparently not. The brothers had long ago lost interest in the property, having abandoned it when they returned to Old Earth to take up breeding their monsters. They had given no orders so nothing was done.”
“Where do your clients’ interests and those of the Flagit brothers intersect?” said Conn.
“My clients are members of a consortium that has come into control of some of the Flagit assets. Therefore the bearer deed belongs to them.”
“Allegedly,” said Lok Gievel. “It is quite possible that brothers gave the deed to this Tonn or Tharp and failed to make note of it. They were remarkably cavalier as to their possessions.”
Opteram dismissed the objection as irrelevant. “What matters,” he said, “is that your client possesses the object and my clients wish to acquire it.”
“So it is a haggle?” said Gievel.
“In so many words, yes.”
“Then state your offer.”
“My clients will drop the action against your client concerning the indenture contract, thus unfreezing his assets. They will also pay a reasonable price for the bearer deed.”
Gievel tugged at his nose. “One person’s ‘reasonable’ is another’s ludicrous folly,” he said. “What price?”
Opteram named a figure. Gievel snorted. The chaffering began and continued for some time. At times, Opteram placed a palm to his breast and looked up at the sky as if to call down judgment on Gievel. Gievel, for his part held his head in both hands, staring at the ground as if dumbfounded to encounter such irrationality in a brother intercessor. At times, each walked sadly away from the other only to turn after a few paces and come back with an air of compromise. The voices ranged a gamut of emotions from gentle entreaty to justified outrage and back again.
At no time during all of this did Opteram refer to his clients for fresh instruction, nor did Gievel find it necessary to involve Conn in the discussion. The two lords gave the matter no attention. They conversed together quietly as if they were the only two persons present. For his part, Conn watched the aristocrats. It disturbed him not to be able to read their thoughts or feelings in their eyes, and their garments so disguised their natural forms that he was almost equally unable to deduce anything from their stance.
He cleared his throat, more loudly than he had need to. Vullamir made no response but Magratte slightly turned toward the sound. Conn could read nothing in the face above the ruffled collar – it was now no longer an insect’s but that of a noble youth – yet thought he saw even through the exaggerated line of the man’s shoulders an indication of hostility. He coughed again, even more loudly, and now he was sure from the way Magratte’s gloved hands reflexively moved that the aristocrat plainly disliked having Conn’s existence brought to his notice.
Whether the animosity was personal or merely the irritation that the nobly born often feel when thrust into the presence of the lower orders, Conn could not say. But it gratified him to know that he was having an effect on at least one of the two aristocrats, though why he should want to affect them at all he also could not say.
The negotiations reached a crescendo, each intercessor appealing to unseen forces to save him from the impossible rapacity of the other. But the climax was muted: they put their hands together in a complicated way, with some odd motions of individual fingers, and the business was done. Each turned to speak with his clients.
Gievel lowered his voice to include only Conn and Jenore in his remarks and said, “We have agreed upon a price of fourteen million hepts. If you concur, it will be transferred to whatever account you wish this afternoon.”
Conn mentally changed the Olkney currency into Thraisian worths. The sum represented a substantial fortune and was certainly agreeable. But he said, “There is another matter. Who killed Hallis Tharp and tried to kill me?”
“Do you wish to deal with the property matter first then raise these ancillary matters after?” Gievel said.
“I have a presentiment that once the property matter is resolved, no attention will be paid to any question I might put.”
“Very well,” said the intercessor. He took Opteram off to one side and a whispered discussion ensued. Then Opteram approached the lords and there was more whispering, followed by another conclave between the intercessors.
Gievel came back. “Here is what they say: the consortium posted a substantial standing offer for the return of the bearer deed. Many licensed freelance discriminators and a number of unabashed adventurers were motivated to search for it. A while ago a man named Chask Daitoo advised the consortium that he had located Tonn and would soon have the deed. He was able to convince them of the truth of his assertions. Expenses were advanced, he went off-world, and has not been seen since.
“Then you turned up at the Flagit office on Bashaw, flourishing a bearer bead and talking about coming to Old Earth. When the consortium were advised that you had arrived, they launched a legal action against you to make sure they had your attention. And so we are where we are today.”
Conn had listened closely. He said, “At certain points this explanation does not entirely coincide with the facts.”
“Do you wish me to say as much to Master Opteram?” Gievel said.
Conn thought for a moment then said, “No. But tell them I wish to think about their offer. I will contact them through you tomorrow and deliver my response. In the meantime, I wish them to withdraw the action against me so that my assets are unfrozen. I will not be coerced.”
“Very well.”
Gievel relayed Conn’s response to Opteram who took it to the lords. Again, Vullamir remained impassive but Conn saw a reflexive reaction from Magratte. Still, the aristocrats agreed to the terms. It was decided that Conn would contact Gievel in the morning through Eblon Mordene’s integrator.
Conn had expected that some more formal folderol would be required before he could take himself out of the aristocrats’ presence, but such was not the case. The lords turned their backs on him and withdrew to their air yacht. The two intercessors followed, chatting collegially.
Jenore took Conn’s arm
again but her earlier carefree air was gone. “They lied about Hallis Tharp and the attempts on your life,” she said.
“Yes. There is something they do not want me to know.”
“Will you pursue the matter?”
“I do not know.”
She stopped and he must do likewise. “Hallis Tharp was your friend,” she said.
“No, he was your friend. To me he was a partner in a game of paduay.”
Her face had darkened. “He died protecting you and left you everything he owned, money he had saved when he could have spent it on a better life for himself.”
“Yes,” Conn said. After a moment he added, “That puzzles me.”
“It shouldn’t. It is what a good friend would do.”
“All right,” Conn said. “Suppose we were friends. How did we come to be so? He was a mature man and I only an infant when he opened the account for me.”
“Perhaps he was more than a friend,” Jenore said. “Perhaps he was of your family.”
Conn summoned a mental image of the old man. There was perhaps a faint resemblance. Still, he found it hard to imagine that Tharp would have sold his own kin into indenture; he had spent enough time off Thrais to understand that other worlds frowned upon the custom of selling surplus children, and Tharp had been no Thraisian.
“I cannot make the pieces fit,” he said. “I cannot see Tharp as a thief, yet I also cannot see him as having the kind of wealth that allows a man to acquire a private world.”
“Perhaps it was as Gievel said, the Flagit brothers gave him the bearer deed when they lost interest in the planet.”
“Then why did he not just sell it? Why did he hide himself in poverty on Thrais. Why did he sell me to Horder?”
Jenore had no answers.
“I am faced with a choice,” Conn said. “I can take the consortium’s money and leave those questions unanswered. The funds would let me return to Thrais and establish my own sporting house, or go and do where and what I please. Or I can withhold the bearer deed until my curiosity is satisfied.”
“If you do the latter, the consortium will surely try to pressure you into relinquishing the deed.”
“Yes, surely. But if I continue to investigate the mystery of Hallis Tharp I may well discover the answers to his questions and yours: where do I come from, and where do I belong?”
She took his arm again and they walked on, the sounds of the birl match growing louder as they approached the building that contained the robing rooms. As they rounded the corner they saw that Alwan Foulaine was back in his seat. He stared at them a long moment, then turned to say something to Whitlow that intensified the sneer on the thin man’s face.
“He was eavesdropping on us,” Conn said.
“Perhaps,” Jenore said, “but I believe I will adopt your attitude and let him fall behind me, to be lost in the shadows.”
They headed back to where the Mordenes were sitting, skirting the paying area, Conn keeping one eye on the progress of the birl match. The Crabs were romping toward victory, the Incomparables bogged down in hopelessness. He saw a pair of the blues pull off a magnificent pass but the resulting roar from the crowd suddenly changed in mid voice and took on a new note. Conn heard angry shouts and hoots of derision.
In the pool, the birl match abruptly came to a halt, the players standing on the plats or sitting astraddle the rolls. Up in the bleachers, many of the spectators had risen to their feet. They formed knots and clumps of arguing folk. In the middle of one of these was Eblon Mordene. He held one hand raised above his head, and from his fingers hung a cord on which dozens of tokens were strung. One of the young Mordenes – Conn thought it was the boy who considered so many things blatant – was fruitlessly trying to retrieve the necklace while Eblon’s other hand held him at a distance.
Now the old man took his hand from the boy’s chest and brought it up to join the one that held the tokens aloft. With one sharp jerk he snapped the cord. Then he flung the necklace toward the pool, colored tokens flying free of the string and spinning brightly in the sunlight.
A shout of approval rose from some of the crowd. Others sent up a loud protest, not the least of which came from the boy whose tokens had been scattered. In another section of the seating a man with a grizzled beard grabbed for the tokens around a nearby youngster’s neck. The boy dodged but the motion tumbled him back into the arms of a woman who pushed him free. Now everyone around the disputants was on his feet, and a number of tussles ensued.
Most of the spectators had by now taken sides, divided roughly but not exclusively by age. Among the men there were few neutrals, and even among the women there were several who were making their views known. In places, the altercations brimmed on violence.
Alwan Foulaine had risen from his place at the foot of the bleachers in the landward end zone. Conn could not tell from the motions he was making whether he was trying to calm the crowd or urge on the supporters of the Tote.
The brawl now became general. Fists and feet flew where a group of younger men – and a few women – who disdained the Tote had met a crowd of its adherents in one of the lower bleachers. Other objects also began to fly; seat cushions at first, then more substantial missiles – a couple of heavy mugs from box lunches, then someone’s boots.
Conn turned to speak to Jenore. As he did so, something brushed Conn’s shoulder and he heard the sound of solid metal striking wood. He looked down and saw a ferric rod almost as long as his forearm and thick as two fingers rolling out of sight under one of the benches. He stooped and picked it up. It seemed to be a core from which tokens were sliced. He hefted it in his hand, a solid weight of metal. If it had struck his head he would not have avoided injury. If it had struck him end on he might have been killed.
He looked to where Alwan Foulaine stood. A cluster of brawny young men had gathered around the Toteman and Whitlow, protecting them from elements of the crowd who saw in the riot an opportunity to make their opinions forcibly felt. Foulaine regarded Conn with a mildly regretful mien, Whitlow with his habitual smirk. Conn remembered what Iriess had said about the man’s proficiency at throwing knives and hand-axes. There was no doubt about where the rod had come from, nor the intent behind its throwing.
Oplah’s Grotto was less congenial than usual, Conn suspected, although the ale was good and the fritters – various sea creatures unrecognizable under thick coats of deep-fried batter – offered novel and rewarding flavors. Iriess and Jenore and a few others from the Mordene clan had led him across the Ripple, a shelf of rock only a finger’s width beneath the surface of the sea. They had walked barefoot, carrying their shoes in their hands or around their necks.
The birl match had eventually been resumed and completed, although not before most of the older Shorraffis had left the stadium, taking the smallest of the children with them. The Jaunty Crabs had triumphed, the Incomparables simply collapsing in the final frames, but the talk around the Grotto was not of the game or the effects on league standings.
Alwan Foulaine’s adherents pulled together some small tables to form a single large board. They sat around it on chairs and benches, muttering and occasionally raising their voices. Thin-faced Whitlow led the conversation – Conn could hear his high-pitched tone rising above the others – while Foulaine sat erect with arms folded, his heavy features set in an arrangement that bespoke smugness and triumph. But when he glanced toward Conn and Jenore, an emotion that was both hotter and colder glinted in his eyes.
After a while, Iriess left to walk home with friends from another table and Conn and Jenore sat mostly in silence. Others were rising and calling it an early night. Conn had brought with him the rod of metal that had so nearly missed him during the riot. He rolled it back and forth across the wooden table top, evoking a soft but ominous rumble. “I should return this to Alwan Foulaine,” he said after a while.
Jenore put her hand atop his, stopping the motion of the bar. “No.”
“Would it breach some custom?” he asked.
“No. It would just not be... good.”
Again, he was tempted to ask her to define what she meant by the word, but he could sense that she would not welcome the discussion.
“The trouble at the birl match has upset you,” he said.
She looked around the room. “I suppose,” she said, then, “no, it’s more than that. When I was out among the Ten Thousand Worlds, encountering strangeness or nastiness, I would always remind myself that there was a place called Graysands, a place where I belonged. I had a home to go to.”
She gestured to the angry faces and abrupt motions of the young people around Alwan Foulaine. “Now I come back and it’s like this.”
Conn saw Foulaine glaring at them. He had caught her gesture and doubtless concluded that she was disparaging him, that being what the Tote’s creator would have done if their situations had been reversed.
“I believe I should settle matters with that man,” Conn said. “He looks the type to let an injury fester.”
“Please take me home,” she said, then repeated the last word and added a sound that indicated an ironic perspective.
They went. The tavern had largely emptied. Most of those who had wished for a Jaunty Crab victory had already left, their boats and stilt-hacks leaving faint phosphorescent wakes on the dark sea. Conn and Jenore walked in the direction of her home, first across the shallow strait to Five Fingers Key then down the shingle beach to the bridge that led to Graysands. Conn carried the metal rod in one hand, and as they splashed through the shallows he found Jenore’s fingers stealing into the clasp of the other.
They gained the far shore then turned and followed the narrow beach that led to the bridge. They walked in silence for a while. Conn’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and he found there was just enough light from the stars and orbitals overhead, augmented by the natural glow of tiny sea creatures in the water rippling along the shore, to find his way.
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