by neetha Napew
That came out with a touch more force than he’d intended, but it seemed to convince the fellow that he was sincere. The man’s face did not change but he could feel a subtle lessening of tension.
“Well. I suppose I can introduce you to the Seti Commissioner of Commerce. That’s a cabinet level position in the Sek’s court. It’ll know where else you should go.”
“That would be very kind of you,” said Dupaynil. He never minded handing out meaningless courtesies to lubricate the daily work.
“Not at all,” the other said, already looking down at the pile of work on his desk. “The Commissioner’s a bigot of the worst sort, even for a Seti. If this is a plot of your worst enemy at headquarters, he’s planning to make you suffer.”
The conventions of Seti interaction with other races had been designed to place the inferior of the universe securely and obviously in that inferior position and keep them there. To Seti, the inferior of the universe included those who tampered with “Holy Luck” by medical means (especially including genetic engineering), and those too cowardly (as they put it) to gamble. Humans were known to practice genetic engineering. Many of them changed their features for mere fashion— the Seti view of makeup and hair styling. Very few wished to gamble, as Seti did, by entering a room through the Door of Honor which might, or might not,
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drop a guillotine on those who passed through it ... depending on a computer’s random number generator.
Dupaynil did not enjoy his crawl through the Tunnel of Cowardly Certainty but he had known what to expect. Seated awkwardly on the hard mushroom shaped stool allowed the ungodly foreigner, he kept his eyes politely lowered as the Commissioner of Commerce continued its midmoraing snack. He didn’t want to watch anyway. On their own worlds, the Seti ignored FSP prohibitions and dined freely on such abominations as those now writhing in the Commissioner’s bowl. The Commissioner gave a final crunch and burp, exhaled a gust of rank breath, and leaned comfortably against its cushioned couch.
“Ahhh. And now, Misss-ter Du-paay-nil. You wish to ask a favor of the Seti?”
“With all due respect to the honor of the Sek and the eggbearers,” and Dupaynil continued with a memorized string of formalities before coming to the point. “And, if it please the Commissioner, merely to place the gaze of the eye upon the trade records pertaining to die human worlds in Sector Eighteen.”
Another long blast of smelly breath; the Commissioner yawned extravagantly, showing teeth that desperately needed cleaning, although Dupyanil didn’t know if the Seti ever got decay or gum disease.
“Ssector Eighteen,” it said and slapped its tail heavily on the floor.
A Seti servant scuttled in bearing a tray piled with data cubes. Dupaynil wondered if die Door of Honor ignored servants or if they, too, had to take their chances with death. The servant withdrew, and the Commissioner ran its tongue lightly over the cubes. Dupaynil stared, then realized they must be labelled with chemcodes that the Commissioner could taste. It plucked one of the cubes from the pile, and inserted it into a player.
“Ahl What the /umum-dominated Fleet calls Sector Eighteen, the Flower of Luck in Disguise. Trade with human worlds? It is meager, not worth your time.”
“Illustrious and most fortunate scion of a fortunate
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family,” Dupaynil said, “it is my unlucky fate to be at the mercy of admirals.”
This amused the Commissioner who laughed immoderately.
“Sso! It is a matter of luck, you would have me think? Unlucky in rank, unlucky in the admiral who sent you? But you do not believe in luck, so your people say. You believe in ... What is that obscenity? Probabilities? Statistics?”
The old saying about “lies, damn lies, and statistics” popped into Dupaynil’s mind, but it seemed the wrong moment. Instead, he said “Of others I cannot speak, but / believe in luck. I would not have arrived without it”
He did, indeed, believe in luck. At least at the moment. For without his unwise tapping of Sassinak’s com shack, he would not have had the chance to find the evidence he had found. Now, if he could just get through with this and back to FedCentral in time for Tanegli’s trial . . . That would be luck indeed! Apparently even temporary sincerity was convincing. The Seti Commissioner gave him a toothy grin.
“Well. A partial convert. You know what we say about your statistics, don’t you? There are lies, damn lies, and ...”
And I’m glad I didn’t use that joke, Dupaynil thought to himself, since I don’t believe this guy thinks that it is one.
“I will save your eyes the trouble of examining our faultless, but copious, records regarding trade with the Flower of Luck in Disguise. If you were unlucky in your admiral, you shall be lucky in my support. Your clear unwillingness to struggle with this unlucky task shall be rewarded. I refuse permission to examine our records, not because we have anything to conceal, but because this is the Season of Unrepentance, when no such examination is lawful. You are fortunate in my approval for I will give you such refusal as will satisfy the most unlucky admiral.”
Again, a massive tail-slap, combined with a querulous squealing grunt, and the servitor scuttled in with a
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rolling cart with a bright green box atop. The Commissioner prodded it and it extruded a sheet of translucent lime green, covered with Seti script. Then another, and another.
“This is for the human ambassador, and this for your admiral, and this, o luckiest of humans, is your authorization to take passage in a human-safe compartment aboard the Grand Luck to human space. To attend a meeting of the Grand Council, in feet. You will have the great advantage of enjoying the superiority of Seti technology first-hand, an unprecedented opportunity for one of your ... ah ... luck.”
It reached out, with the sheets and Dupaynil took them almost without thinking, wondering how he was going to get out of this.
“My good fortune abounds,” he began. “Nonetheless, it is impossible that I should be honored with such a gift of luck. A mere human to take passage with Seti? It is my destined chance to travel more humbly.”
A truly wicked chuckle interrupted him. The Commissioner leaned closer, its strong breath sickening.
“Little man,” it said, “I think you will travel humbly enough to please whatever god enjoys your crawl through the Tunnel of Cowardly Certainty. With choice, always a chance. But with chance, no choice. The orders are in your hand. Your prints prove your acceptance. You will report to your ambassador, and then to the Grand Luck where great chances await you.”
Chapter Eleven
Private Yacht Adagio
Ford woke to an argument overhead. It was not the first time he’d wakened, but it was the first time he’d been this clear-headed. Prudence kept his eyelids shut as he listened to the two women’s voices.
“It’s for his own good,” purred Madame Flaubert. “His spiritual state is simply ghastly.”
“He looks ghastly.” Auntie Quesada rustled. He couldn’t tell if it was her dress or something she carried.
“The outward and visible sign of inward spiritual disgrace. Poison, if you will. It must be purged, Quesada, or that evil influence will ruin us all.”
A sniff, a sigh. Neither promised him much. He felt no pain, at the moment, but he was sure that either woman could finish him off without his being able to defend himself. And why? Even if they knew what he wanted, that should be no threat to them. Auntie Quesada had even seemed to like him and he had been enchanted by her.
He heard a click, followed by a faint hiss, then a pungent smell began to creep up his nose. A faint yelp, rebuked, reminded him of Madame Flaubert’s pet. His
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nose tickled. He tried to ignore it and failed, convulsing in a huge sneeze.
“Bad spirits,” intoned Madame Flaubert.
Now that his eyes were open to the dim light, he could see her fantastic draperies in all their garishness; purples, reds, oranges, a flowered fringe
d shawl wrapped around those red tresses. Her half-closed eyes glittered at him as she pretended, and he was sure it was pretense, to commune with whatever mediums communed with. He didn’t know. He was a rational, well-educated Fleet officer. He’d had nothing to do with superstitions since his childhood, when he and a friend had convinced themselves that a drop of each one’s blood on a rock made it magic.
“May they fly away, the bad spirits, may they leave him safe and free ...”
Madame Flaubert went on in this vein for awhile longer as Ford wondered what courtesy required. His aunt, as before, looked completely miserable, sitting stiffly on the edge of her chair and staring at him. He wanted to reassure her, but couldn’t think how. He felt like a dirty wet rag someone had wiped up a bar with. The pungent smoke of some sort of a floral incense blurred his vision and made his eyes water. Finally Madame Flaubert ran down and simply sat, head thrown back. After a long, dramatic pause, she sighed, rolled her head around as if to ease a stiff neck and stood.
“Coming, Quesada?”
“No ... I think I’ll sit with him a bit.”
“You shouldn’t. He needs to soak in the healing rays.”
Madame Flaubert’s face loomed over his. She had her lapdog in hand and it drooled onto him. He shuddered. But she turned away and waddled slowly out of his cabin. His great-aunt simply looked at him.
Ford cleared his throat, more noisily than he could have wished, and said, “I’m sorry, Aunt Quesada . . . this is not what I had in mind.”
She shook her head. “Of course not. I simply do not understand.”
“What?”
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“Why Seraphine is so convinced you’re dangerous to me. Of course you didn’t really come just to visit. I knew that. But I’ve always been a good judge of men, young or old, and I cannot believe you mean me harm.”
“I don’t.” His voice wavered, and he struggled to get it under control. “I don’t mean you any harm. Why would I?”
“But the BLACK KEY, you see. How can I ignore the evidence of my own eyes?”
“The black key?” Weak he might be but his mind had cleared. She had said those words in capital letters.
His aunt looked away from him, lips pursed. In that pose, she might have been an elderly schoolteacher confronted with a moral dilemma outside her experience.
“I suppose it can’t hurt to tell you,” she said softly.
The Black Key was, it seemed, one of Madame Flaubert’s specialties. It could reveal the truth about people. It could seek out and unlock their hidden malign motives. Ford was sure that any malign motives were Madame Flaubert’s, but he merely asked how it worked.
His aunt shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not the medium. But I’ve seen it, my dear. Sliding across the table, rising into the air, turning and turning until it ... it pointed straight at the guilty party.”
Ford could think of several ways to do that, none of them involving magic or “higher spirits.” He himself was no expert but he suspected that Dupaynil could have cleared up the Black Key’s actions in less than five minutes.
“One of my servants,” Auntie Q was saying. “I’d been missing things, just baubles really. But one can’t let it go on. Seraphine had them all in and questioned them, and the Black Key revealed it. The girl confessed! Confessed to even more than I’d known about.”
“What did the authorities say, when you told them how you’d gotten that confession?”
Auntie Q blushed faintly. “Well, dear, you know I didn’t actually report it. The poor girl was so upset and, of course I had to dismiss her, and she had had so many troubles in her life already. Seraphine said that the pursuit of vengeance always ends hi evil.”
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I’ll bet she did, Ford thought. Just as she had probably arranged the theft in the first place, for the purpose of showing the Black Key’s power, to convince Auntie Q.
“As a matter effect,” Auntie Q said, “Seraphine felt a bit guilty, I think. She had been the one to suggest that I needed another maid, with the Season coming on, and she’d given me the name of the agency.”
“I see.” He saw, indeed. What he did not know yet was just why Seraphine perceived him as a threat—or why his aunt had taken in Madame Flaubert at all. “How long has Madame Flaubert been your companion?”
Auntie Q shifted in her seat, unfolded and refolded her hands. “Since . . . since a few months after . . . after ...” Her mouth worked but she couldn’t seem to get the words out. Finally she said, “I ... I can’t quite talk about that, dear, so please don’t ask me.”
Ford stared at her, his own miseries forgotten. Whatever else was going on, whatever Auntie Q knew that might help Sassinak against the planet pirates, he had to get Madame Flaubert away from his aunt.
He said as gently as he could, “I’m sorry, Aunt Quesada. I didn’t mean to distress you. And whatever the Black Key may have intimated, I promise you I mean you no harm.”
“I want to believe you!” Now the old face crumpled. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “You’re the first—the only family that’s come to see me in years—and I liked you!”
He hitched himself up in bed, ignoring the wave of blurred vision.
“My dear, please! I’ve admitted my father was wrong about you. I think you’re marvelous.”
“She said you’d flatter me.”
Complex in that were the wish to be flattered, and the desire not to be fooled.
“I suppose I have, if praise is flattery. But, dear Aunt, I never knew anybody with enough nerve to get two Ryxi tailfeathers! How can I not flatter you?”
Auntie Q sniffed, and wiped her face with a lace-edged kerchief. “She keeps telling me that’s a vulgar triumph, that I should be ashamed.”
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“Poppycock!” The word, out of some forgotten old novel, surprised him. It amused his aunt, who smiled through her tears. “My dear, she’s jealous of you, that’s all, and it’s obvious even to me, a mere male. She doesn’t like me because . . . Well, does she like any of the men who work for you?”
“Not really.” Now his aunt looked thoughtful. “She says . . . she says it’s indecent for an old lady to travel with so many male crew, and only one female maid. You know, I used to have a male valet who left my ex-husband’s service when we separated. Madame Flaubert was so scathing about it I simply had to dismiss him.”
“And then she found you the maid who turned out to be a thief,” Ford said. He let that work into her mind. When comprehension brightened those old eyes, he grinned at her.
“That . . . that contemptible creature!” Auntie Q angry was as enchanting now as she must have been sixty years back. “Raddled old harridan. And I took her into my bosom!” Metaphorically only, Ford was sure. “Brought her among my friends, and this is how she repays me!”
It sounded like a quote from some particularly bad Victorian novel and not entirely sincere. He watched his aunt’s face, which had flushed, paled, and then flushed again.
“Still, you know, Ford, she really does have powers. Amazing things, she’s been able to tell me, and others. She knows all our secrets, it seems. I ... I have to confess I’m just a little afraid of her.” She tried a giggle at her own foolishness, but it didn’t come off.
“You really are frightened,” he said and reached out a hand. She clutched it, and he felt the tremor in her fingers.
“Oh, not really! How silly!” But she would not meet his eye, and the whites of hers showed like those of a frightened animal.
“Auntie Q, forgive my asking, but . . . but do your friends ever come visit? Travel with you? From what
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my father said, I’d had the idea you traveled in a great bevy, this whole yacht full to bursting.”
“Well, I used to. But you know how it is. Or I suppose you don’t. In the Navy you can’t choose your companions. But there were quarrels, and upsets, and some didn’t like this, and others didn’t like that . . .”
“And some didn’t
like Madame Flaubert,” Ford said very quietly. “And Madame Flaubert didn’t like anyone who gat between you.”
She sat perfectly still, holding his hand, the color on her cheeks coming and going. Then she leaned close and barely whispered in his ear.
“I can’t ... I can’t tell you how horrible it’s been. That woman! But I can’t do anything. I ... I don’t know why. I c-c-can’t ... say ... anything she doesn’t . . . want me to.” Her breathing had roughened; her face was almost purple. “Or 111 die!” She sat back up, and would have drawn her hands away but Ford kept his grasp on them.
“Please send Sam to help me to the ... uh ... facilities,” he said in die most neutral voice he could manage.
His aunt nodded, not looking at him, and stood. Ford fek bis strength returning on a wave of mingled rage and pity. Granted, his aunt Quesada was a rich, foolish ok) lady, but even foolish old ladies had a right to have friends, to suffer their own follies, and not those of others. Sam, when he appeared, eyed Ford with scant respect.
*Tou going to live? Or make us all trouble by dying aboard?^
“I intend to live out my normal span and die a long way from here,” Ford said.
With Sam’s help, he could just make it up and into the bath suite. The face he saw in the mirror looked ghastly, and he shook his head at it.
“Looks don’t loll,” he said.
Sam gave an approving nod. “You might be getting ttnse. You tell Madam yet the real reason you came to
*Tve hardly had a chance.” He glared at Sam, with-