Enough was enough. This was Khotvinn’s department. Tvi flew down the hallway to the living room and unlocked the roof entrance. The amplified scent of flowers warred with pain in her skull— the place was full of plants. Khotvinn came slowly down the a-grav elevator, a robot arm in one hand.
“What took you so long?” he snarled.
Tvi willed her hologram projectors off and pointed numbly toward Jensen’s bedroom. “That way,” she said. Khotvinn flung the robot arm into a corner— there was a crash that echoed endlessly in Tvi’s skull as the arm destroyed a porcelain planter— and then the giant began to lope at a ground-shattering trot toward the bedroom.
Unfortunately Jensen had changed position. She came flying out of a connecting bathroom, a green-and-white striped towel blossoming from one hand. The towel draped nearly over Khotvinn’s head just as Jensen’s foot planted itself in his midsection. The air went out of Khotvinn in a rush.
There followed a good deal of confused thumping and thrashing. Jensen was aided by another small household robot that clung to Khotvinn’s knees and tried in a fairly incompetent way to harm him. Tvi wasn’t certain what she was watching, not being an aficionado of the martial arts— a proper burglar disdained violence— but it seemed as if honors were about even. Both fighters were breathless and bloody before Jensen broke off the combat and retreated back into the bathroom. Khotvinn, ignoring the clawing robot and a bottle of shampoo that bounced off his chest, marched in pursuit.
Tvi leaned against an overstuffed chair, holding her head. “Hey,” she said as the thrashing started again, “use your stunner, why don’t you?”
The household robot came flying out of the bedroom door and smashed into bits on the opposite wall. Amalia Jensen, crouched low, followed the robot out of the door— apparently she’d just ducked from the bathroom into the bedroom— and began backing toward Tvi. Tvi reached for her stunner.
Then Khotvinn appeared, brandishing a towel rack. Jensen reached for a flowerpot and let fly. Tvi lowered her weapon. The wide-beam stunner would get them both if she fired it.
The combat demolished most of the living room. Tvi floated up near the roof in her a-grav harness, trying to get in a clear shot, but Khotvinn kept blocking the way.
“Earth slime!” Khotvinn bellowed.
“Inhuman scum!” Amalia Jensen retorted through bloody lips.
Fate of the Empire, Tvi thought resignedly, and wondered how well her black boxes were doing without supervision.
Do something.
She floated over Khotvinn, grabbed his scruff with one hand, and yanked back, turning her a-grav up to max. Khotvinn flew backward, his arms windmilling, and landed on a glass table that shattered with a sound that rattled in Tvi’s head like snapping thunder. Jensen cackled triumphantly and prepared her coup de grace. Tvi, now having a clear shot, fired and dropped Jensen in her tracks.
“No!” Khotvinn roared. He was having trouble disentangling himself from the table frame. “She was mine!”
“Idiot,” Tvi said. Her skull was splitting. “You were just supposed to stun her. Pick her up and let’s go.”
“No fair,” Khotvinn muttered sulkily.
Fate of the Empire, Tvi thought as chimes clanged in her skull. Next time the Empire offered her its fate, it could jolly well go hang.
CHAPTER FIVE
Roman flew alone in Peleng’s ruby morning sky. He found it encouraging that he hadn’t been followed today— perhaps the two Khosali tags were thrill seekers after all, and had got bored.
He had spent the previous evening being a decoy, trying to give the impression that he and Maijstral were having an ordinary evening. He had taken a bouquet of flowers to Nichole at her residence. It had been delightful seeing her again, as she was one of Maijstral’s friends of whom he could actually approve. At Nichole’s, Roman had left word with the household robots to expect Maijstral later that night, laying a false trail just in case the small female Khosalikh who had been following Roman all evening should ask. . . . Roman had then ordered a meal for three from Chef Tso’s Exquisite Mesa Catering, and picked up the laundry. At some point during these more mundane errands, Roman’s tail had vanished, just dropped from sight.
This morning Roman had performed various evasions and escapes just in case, but he’d become certain before very long there was no one after him. Buoyed by the knowledge, he finished his evasions anyway, for form’s sake. He hoped the rest of the day would be as free from aggravation.
Seen through the viewscreen of his flier, Peleng City’s low pastel buildings, all surrounded by bright ornamental trees and blossoms, resolved from an early morning mist. Roman’s heart gladdened. He put the flier on a landing spiral that would place it on the flat roof of Amalia Jensen’s small white house. His ears turned down as he thought of Humanity Prime, and then his diaphragm spasmed once in resignation. If Maijstral was going to engage in an irregular occupation, he would inevitably deal with irregular people— Roman could only wish there were more like Nichole and fewer like Jensen and her friends.
The flier settled on the roof like a leaf on a spotless green lawn. The edge of the roof was decorated with planters and bright blossoms. Roman felt buoyed; he liked having living things around him. Enjoying the plants in spite of himself, Roman got out of the flier and headed toward the roof entrance. The first thing he saw was a dead robot. Suspicion hummed in his nerves. He checked that his gun was loose in its holster and wished he had brought some of his darksuit attachments that would allow him to see behind his back.
Carefully Roman examined the robot. The machine had been torn apart— arms and legs ripped off, command unit excavated and thrown across the roof. The destruction was wanton, far more than would have been necessary to disable the machine. And whoever had done it had been very strong.
Indignation began to gather. There was an offense here, and not to Amalia Jensen, but rather to the honor of Maijstral’s employer. Roman drew his gun and clicked its setting to “Lethal.”
The green light on the roof elevator showed it wasn’t locked. He stepped to the elevator and pressed the down button.
The living room was a mess. Furniture was overturned, papers scattered about, planters were smashed. Bright blossoms lay dying on the carpet. Roman’s nostrils flickered in disapproval.
In the hallway another robot lay in pieces. One of Jensen’s shoes lay in a corner, its mate nowhere to be seen. There was some blood on a heavy vase, evidence it might have been used as a club. Roman looked closely. There was short, dark hair on the vase that seemed consistent with Khosali fur.
Roman stood for a moment in the midst of the devastation and pondered events. He had come to tell Miss Jensen that her commission had been successful, if a bit messy, and to make arrangements for the sale and the delivery of the artifact. Getting involved in vandalism and violence was not a part of his job.
But something had happened here, something that possibly was related to Maijstral’s commission. He decided he should try to find evidence of this, one way or another.
He had barely commenced his search when he heard the sound of a flier dropping to the roof. His gun at the ready, Roman slipped into the kitchen, where he could get a view of the elevator -
The elevator went to work silently, its a-grav field, bringing the passenger down. Roman, his ears pricked, heard Pietro Quijano’s voice.
“Miss Jensen? What happened to Howard? Oh.” Howard, Roman presumed, was the name of the robot on the roof. He clicked his pistol to “Stun,” then put it back in its holster. “Miss Jensen?”
Quijano almost jumped out of his skin when Roman glided silently out of the kitchen. Hoping to ease his mind, Roman smiled at him, tongue lolling from his long muzzle. Quijano glanced anxiously to the elevator and door, looking for a place to run.
Quijano spoke Human Standard through clenched teeth. “Who are you? What happened here?”
“I was hoping,” Roman said, moving closer, “you would be able to tell me the answer t
o that last question.”
Quijano looked relieved. “Are you police? Is Amalia— Miss Jensen— is she all right?”
“I don’t know.” Roman glided closer to Quijano, his feet moving noiselessly across the rubble. “It looks as if she has been abducted. Would you have any idea why?”
Several complex expressions passed through Pietro Quijano’s face. From these, Roman gathered, Quijano had, first, a very good idea what might have happened, and secondly, that he had no intention of conveying this information to anyone he didn’t know and trust, even someone he assumed to be a policeman. Perhaps especially a policeman.
“No,” Quijano said. His eyes were darting toward the exits again. “I— I don’t think— I don’t know at all.”
“Are you sure?” Roman said.
Quijano looked at Roman sidelong. He took a breath and braced himself, apparently taking heart from the fact that Roman hadn’t actually attacked him. He stood with his arms akimbo and looked belligerent. “Say. I don’t believe I know you. And if you’re from the police, shouldn’t you show me your identification?”
Roman gave a passable imitation of a human sigh as he tried to put the young man at ease. “You’re right, sir. I’ve been neglecting the formalities.”
He might as well admit he had run out of ideas.
Roman reached inside his jacket, brought out his gun, and shot Quijano at close range, terribly overstimulating his nerves. Roman caught the unlucky man before he fell, then slung him over his shoulder and carried him to the elevator. Once on the roof, Roman told Quijano’s flier to head home on autopilot, then dropped Quijano into the back seat of his own machine.
Quijano looked up at him glassily. He seemed terribly disappointed at the way the cops were behaving.
Roman had decided to let Maijstral handle this. That’s what criminal masterminds were for— to deal with the big picture.
*
“They stole what?” Lieutenant Navarre gazed in bemused surprise at the insurer and the man from the auctioneers’.
The auctioneer flipped through his catalog. “Here it is, sir. ‘Engraved silver cryonics container, with power source, Imperial seal, functional, c9, wt 16sm, 18xl7ng.’ “
Navarre still felt bemused. He took another few steps into the large room. ignoring the trophies and battleflags, his gaze moving from one object of interest to the other— open skylight, stunned robot, empty niche. Skylight, robot, niche. Again, looking for some reason behind the thing. Skylight, robot, niche. Fixing everything in his mind.
“What was it worth?” he asked.
“We were, hm, going to start the bidding at twelve novae and hope to get, hm, sixteen or eighteen.”
“It wasn’t worth much, then.”
The auctioneer’s voice was defensive. “Sir. It was probably the most valuable, mm, single object in the house. The militaria is worth more as a collection, which is why we’re selling it in large lots, but none of the single items are remarkable. The fact of the container’s being loot from the imperial quarters might have increased its value to some collectors.”
“It’s not exactly beyond the reach of collectors, either,” Navarre said. “Sixteen or eighteen novae— the disruptor that was used to knock out the robot probably cost at least five, and the black boxes we found were worth more, maybe even eight or nine.”
“They had an, hm, a homemade look, sir. They may have cost nothing if they were made from scratch.”
The Khosalikh from the insurance company glanced over the room, taking in the racked weapons, the decorations, the flags. “It may have been stolen by a traditional Imperialist,” she pointed out. “The artifact came from the sacred precincts— selling it at auction would pollute it.”
“Really?” Navarre was vaguely annoyed at himself for not thinking of this on his own— he liked having things in order. He fixed the fact firmly in his mind. Then he glanced up at the overhanging banners. “They why didn’t they steal the Imperial battleflags? They’re loot from the sacred precincts as well.”
“Perhaps, sir,” said the Khosalikh, “the thief did not have time. The alarm seems to have been given fairly early.”
“Perhaps.”
“Drake Maijstral is on planet, sir.” The auctioneer’s tone seemed to hang the fact in the air, like one of the flags, without bothering to interpret it.
Navarre frowned. “This hardly seems in his class.”
“True, sir. True. It had occurred to me that you might know him. I conceived it might be personal.”
“It shouldn’t be. I just met him the other night.”
“Yes, but there is also . . . well, his family history, and yours.”
Navarre frowned. “I shouldn’t think so. He didn’t seem to be the sort to hold a grudge that way.”
The insurer sighed. “I’m sure you, hm, know best, sir.”
Navarre walked to the skylight and squinted out into the bright yellow sky. Then he turned to look at the niche again, then the robot. Perhaps a different perspective would serve to clarify matters. Skylight, niche, robot. No help.
He realized he was standing between two portraits of his uncle: the young hostage-taker over the mantel facing the older Admiral Uncle Jack in his decorations and frown. Both looked fierce and determined, each in his own way. Navarre had always hoped his look of concentrated energy was as ferocious as Admiral Uncle Jack’s.
A thought struck him. He turned his energetic scowl on the auctioneer. “By the way,” he said, “was there anything in this container?’’
The auctioneer hesitated. “We, uh, didn’t, don’t know. We didn’t know how to open it.” Navarre looked at him. “That’s what the, hm, ‘c9’ in the description meant, sir. It’s our code. It means there was a complicated lock on it, and it didn’t come with a key, so we didn’t open it for fear of damaging it.”
Navarre intensified his scowl. “Suppose someone knew what was in it? That it was valuable, I mean.”
“A cryonics container? What could there be in it?”
“Genetic material? Drugs? A piece of supercooled processing hardware?”
“Old wine.”
“An antique, or perhaps a memento,” the Khosalikh offered. “Something perishable that the Imperial family wished to preserve for sentimental reasons, such as the heart or other organ of one of the deceased household pets.”
“Oh.”
“The clever little foreclaws of a clacklo, for example,” the Khosalikh went on. “I often wished I could preserve the claws of my little Peejee when she died, but I was young and my parents were afraid of the expense.”
“You have my sympathies, ma’am,” Navarre said.
The insurance investigator’s eyes glowed. “You should have seen the little ways Peejee would invent to steal food. She would lay brilliant little ambushes around the refrigerator. She was so smart you could swear she was almost Khosali.” Her nostrils dilated with emotion. “How I wish,” she sighed, “I could have preserved at least some of her parts.”
“I’m sure that would have been a consolation,” Navarre said. He looked back at the empty niche. “But somehow I have a hard time believing that there are very many Imperialist animal lovers with the wherewithal to steal my uncle’s silver jug.”
“Quite, sir.” The auctioneer frowned around him. “Perhaps we should increase security here, in case the thief or thieves return. It might be that the perpetrators were after something else, and only picked up the container on the way.”
“Perhaps we should.” Navarre did not like ambiguities, and the thought that there was still something here that someone might want made him uneasy. He glanced at the portrait of his uncle, the young man in tattered uniform holding a businesslike spitfire rifle on a startled-looking Emperor, the latter hiding in the harem and dressed as one of his wives. (That was the human version of the story. The Khosali version had the Emperor stunned and overcome while leading the defense in the uniform of an Honorary Life Guard colonel).
“Blast it all,�
�� Navarre said. “What could have been in the thing?”
*
Roman’s nerves sang of anger as he flittered through the sky. Wrongs done, insults given, actions demanded.
Maijstral, he knew, was careless in matters of honor, But he could scarcely ignore this. Roman’s blood boiled on behalf of the Maijstral family.
This was an insult not to be borne.
*
The cool country air stirred Maijstral’s unbound hair as he lay on his bed beneath the window of the old country cottage. The place was safe: Roman had rented it under a false name, and Maijstral felt free to relax and spend his morning in bed watching an old Western. He nibbled a bit of fleth and allowed the household robot to refill his champagne glass. “Thank you,” he said, and began his third champagne of the morning.
Lying on the bed were a number of data sheets that Gregor had given him. He really should have been working on them, planning his next job.
The next series of thefts would be easy. Two nights ago, Maijstral’s presence had been splattered across every media broadcast in Peleng. Nervous owners of famous art treasures and gems, knowing his name, would naturally want to increase security while he remained on the planet.
That was why Gregor had been on a breaking-and-entering mission that same night— he had been planting microtracers on the equipment of Peleng’s major security consultants. When the householders increased their security, the tracers would now lead Maijstral straight to their valuables. They would also make the job easier, since Maijstral would know in advance what manner of gadgets had been installed. Gregor had spent much of the previous day following his microtracers around Peleng and making note of their locations.
For a thief, knowing where to go was at least as important as knowing how to get there.
But instead of plotting his next job, Maijstral sipped champagne and watched his Western. Perhaps he was lazy. But he had been working late the night before.
The vid was one of his favorites. Riders of the Plains. He’d had a sentimental liking for it ever since he’d seen it for the first time at the age of seven.
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