The Crown Jewels

by Walter Jon Williams

  Gregor concluded his stunner was a little inadequate to the occasion, put it away, and drew his disruptor.

  The door to Amalia Jensen’s room opened. “This way,” said Maijstral’s voice. A woman unfamiliar to Gregor floated out in an a-grav harness, followed by Maijstral, who was backing out, firing behind him.

  “What’s happening, boss?” Gregor asked.

  Maijstral nearly jumped out of his skin.

  *

  Sergeant Tvi was eating dinner alone in the servants’ kitchen when Chang’s voice on the house intercom alerted her to fighting on the top floor.

  Tvi to the rescue! she thought brightly. Her heart lifted at a mental picture of herself in the fight, charging to the last-minute salvation of the Imperium in a swell of dramatic music.

  She switched on her darksuit, drew her gun, and flew at top speed up the servants’ stair.

  *

  Savage joy filled Countess Anastasia as she heard Chang’s announcement. She stepped to the nearest service plate and thumbed the ideograph for “general announcement.”

  “Kill them!” she shrieked, and then prepared to run for the sporting rifles in her private study. Then, as an afterthought, she touched the ideograph again.

  “Be firm now,” she added. Firmly.

  The Countess’s action may serve as an interesting comment on human nature. It is sometimes odd how, in times of stress, training takes hold. The Countess could have made her announcement simply by telling the house to do it for her, but in High Custom it is simply not done to turn and start yelling at inanimate objects, particularly when there are other sentients present. A graceful stroll to the nearest service plate, followed by a low-voiced command, is considered apropos for all but the most dire situations. The Countess Anastasia, even when urging her friends to battle, remained a lady. Even if she found it necessary to involve herself personally in the slaughter, one may be certain she would somehow stay above it all, and do her best to avoid getting too much blood on her gown.

  Noblesse is not inborn; it is learned, and it takes a long time. But once learned, it is hard to unlearn— it’s fully as good as instinct. Thus does training triumph over circumstance.

  Allowed Burglary furnishes another illustration. One steals— very well. But one steals with style and grace, and people forgive you, sometimes even hold the door for you as you step into the night with swag in hand. Training in politesse can hold up under the most amazing provocations, theft among them.

  All one can hope for is that thief and victim will be playing by the same rules.

  *

  Things were well and truly afire in Amalia Jensen’s former room. The closet door opened and a simpleton robot, whose usual job was to make certain clothing was hanging properly, extruded a long mechanical arm and began spraying fire retardant.

  *

  “Ronnie Romper?” Pietro asked, then clapped his hands over his mouth again as the giant red-haired pixie spun toward the sound of his voice and raised his magic wand. Pietro concluded the wand wasn’t about to transport him to the Magic Planet of Adventure, where kindly Auntie June and crusty-but-softhearted Uncle Amos would offer him sage advice between bouts with prehistoric beasts or renegade aliens, but instead would probably cut him in half. He gave a yelp and dove at top speed behind the couch. The sword whistled as it sliced cushions.

  Roman, standing behind Khotvinn, raised a metal chair and smashed it precisely into the side of Ronnie Romper’s head. Ronnie yowled and spun, the magic wand scattering fairy dust in a glittering arc. A woman’s voice on the household intercom promised death and firmness. Ronnie swung again, and Roman raised the chair to intercept. The sword cut halfway through the chair, then stuck, quivering. Roman gave the chair a wrench, tore the sword from Ronnie Romper’s hand, and flung it into a comer.

  “Flower lover!” Ronnie Romper roared. His fixed smile never moved.

  Roman realized that Ronnie Romper was the one who had uprooted Amalia Jensen’s flowers. Rage filled him.

  “Barbarian,” he said, and gave Ronnie Romper a solid punch in the nose. Ronnie swung wildly in retaliation, not coming close. Roman punched again, connected, kicked Ronnie in the midsection, then spun and kicked Ronnie square on the forehead. Khotvinn collapsed, stunned.

  “Lout. That’ll teach you,” said Roman firmly, and he dusted his hands and reached for the hallway door. (Politesse, politesse. Here’s training again.) On opening the door, Roman saw Gregor, Maijstral, and Amalia Jensen in the hall.

  “This way, sirs and madam,” he said, and bowed with a flourish.

  *

  Tvi reached the top of the servants’ stair. Through her sensory enhancements and the triumphant mental music she was playing as accompaniment to the video in her mind, she heard a strange Khosali voice, “This way, sirs and madam,” and then the sound of people moving. There seemed to be a lot of them. She recollected suddenly that she had only a stunner and that real thieves disdain violence. She also realized that if she moved out of the door she would be unable to avoid any unfortunate consequences, just as she had when she had been halfway through Jensen’s window.

  She decided to wait awhile.

  *

  Baron Sinn realized his spitfire was running low on energy, that he had no reloads on him, and that he’d have to do something fast. He commended his soul to the Emperor and to the Sixteen Active and Twelve Passive Virtues, then sprinted forward and dove headfirst through the torn window into Amalia Jensen’s room, hitting the floor and rolling, his gun ready.

  The room was lit by flame, clouded by smoke. His eyes smarted. Vaguely, he saw a hand and a gun protruding from the closet, and with three wild shots of his spitfire he blew into fragments the simpleton robot that had been trying to put out the fire.

  “Thagger,” he said, realizing his error. And began to wheeze. The room was filling with smoke.

  *

  Pietro rose from his hiding place behind the cushions. Amalia Jensen was floating through the door after Maijstral. “Miss Jensen!” he said, delighted. He stepped out from his hiding place, tripped over Khotvinn’s sword, which was still jammed halfway through an overturned chair, and crashed to the floor.

  Amalia Jensen, hearing the crash, glanced in his direction. “Oh, Hullo, Pietro,” she said.

  *

  Chang listened to the crashing and thumping from upstairs as he struggled into his shield belt and reached for his disruptor rifle. He looked up, frowned as he contemplated Bix’s unconscious body, and decided that the direct approach, up the spiral staircase, was fraught with danger. He opened the French door onto the small east porch and glanced up at the windows of the southeast parlor. One of them seemed to have a neat hole in it. This was clearly the escape route for the wicked.

  He smiled. He had them trapped, bigod!

  He batted ferns out of his vision as he crouched behind a metal planter, then sighted in on the window. A more imaginative individual might have actually waited for the enemy to try to leave, then picked them off as they came out, one by one. Chang, as has already been observed, possessed no imagination.

  The air sizzled as he fired.

  *

  Roman picked up Khotvinn’s chugger, checked it for loads, and readied it for action. “This way,” said Maijstral, pointing to the open window, and just as he was about to fling himself over the sill, warning lights began to blaze on his darksuit displays, indicating invisible disruptor bolts crackling through the window. Maijstral checked, glanced around, and saw the library door. He realized he was growing tired of being the first through an exit. He pointed. “That way!” he said.

  *

  Tvi took a micro media-globe from her belt and let it look around the corner for her. She had to look carefully in order to see a single person, his presence marked only by the odd shimmery distortion of his darksuit. He stood in the drawing room door, apparently the rear guard. The rest had filed into the drawing room.

  Tvi considered this. Dramatic music began welling in
her mind. Tvi the Silent, Tvi the Thief, would creep up on this bunch from behind and bag them one by one! If she played this right, they wouldn’t even know she was behind them.

  *

  Roman charged through the library door, saw motion below him, and, with three well-placed shots of Khotvinn’s chugger, utterly demolished the robot that, per Chang’s earlier request, had just arrived with a large selection of beer. Foam flooded the carpet. Roman felt a pang of regret.

  “This way,” he said, and flung himself over the railing, gliding to the first floor on a-grav. Maijstral, Amalia Jensen, and Pietro followed.

  *

  Tvi crouched, readied herself, then flung herself at top speed toward the shimmering figure in the door. Gregor’s first bolt went wild and there wasn’t time for a second. Tvi crashed into Gregor, driving him into the doorframe. The breath went out of him and he sagged to the ground. Tvi, seeing stars herself, groped for Gregor inside the darksuit screen, located his neck, reasoned there was a head above it somewhere, and lashed out with the butt of her stunner. The weapon connected and Gregor flopped to the floor.

  Tvi grinned invisibly behind her holographic shroud. Things were looking up for the Fate of the Empire.

  *

  Khotvinn groped his way toward consciousness through a blaze of stars. A dozen puny humans hiding behind their darksuit screens must have set about him with clubs. But Khotvinn wasn’t finished yet— he was sure he must have chopped five or six at least, and the rest couldn’t have much fight in them. He climbed to his feet, groped for his sword, then dragged it out of the metal chair. He felt better immediately. Where were the stinking redbellies?

  There was someone in a darksuit apparently engaged in a wrestling act in the corridor, and in the clear light of the library Khotvinn could see Amalia Jensen, her ankles stilt bound, beginning her descent to the first floor.

  Light! Once he could see his foe, nothing could stop him! If the traitors hadn’t turned out the lights, he would never have been overcome.

  Roaring, Khotvinn raised his blade and charged. Action at last! Death to traitors!

  *

  Warbling, Countess Anastasia raced down the corridor for the library, cradling her new Nana-Coulville custom mapper with the folding para-assault stock and Trotvinn XVII sights. Her little song was simple: “Kill, kill, kill . . . firmness, firmness, firmness . . .” But it was in High Khosali, in which each word made a comment on the word before, and it was heartfelt. She was singing with all her soul. Not even the great Sebastiana would have put more feeling into a lyric.

  The simple pleasures, one is constantly reminded, are oft the best.

  *

  “Say,” Pietro Quijano said, remembering to subvocalize for once, “shouldn’t we wait for Gregor?” He was standing on the second-floor library landing to one side of the door, watching Amalia Jensen as she dropped down the center of the room toward the splatter of smoking robot and streaming beer that stained the costly carpet. And then Pietro heard a howl to freeze his blood. Ronnie Romper, he realized, was coming to chop Miss Jensen to bits!

  Pietro’s mind seemed to work, in that instant, with amazing clarity. He dropped to the landing and stuck his foot into the doorway.

  Roaring, Ronnie Romper charged through the doorway, tripped over the foot (roaring), made an architecturally perfect arc (roaring) as he soared over Bix’s unconscious form and the wrought-iron rail, and fell twenty feet (still roaring) to the library floor.

  Ronnie landed and the mansion trembled. Beer fountained as high as the crystal chandelier. Amalia Jensen, who had been missed by inches, looked up in surprise.

  Feeling a bit squeamish, Pietro gazed delicately over the rail. Ronnie was sprawled in an X below him, his never-altered grin beaming mischievously upward. Pietro felt his stomach turn over.

  “Well," Amalia said. "So much for him.” She looked from Pietro to Ronnie and back. “Thank you, Pietro,” she said.

  “You’re welcome. Miss Jensen.” In that bleak instant Pietro realized, sick at heart, that he would visit the Magic Planet of Adventure nevermore.

  *

  Tvi crouched in the doorway and watched in stunned amazement as the giant Ronnie Romper charged across the drawing room, a hoarse bellow issuing from behind the perpetual smile. There followed a crash, one that shook the entire house, but no shots, no sound of struggle. It was time to do some more sneaking up, she decided.

  *

  Baron Sinn, commending his soul, etcetera, half overcome by smoke, charged into the corridor amid a gush of fire-generated camouflage. He could barely see, and he staggered as he lunged toward the southeast drawing room.

  What he did see through his streaming eyes was a figure in a darksuit in the drawing room door. Obviously a miscreant. Sinn raised his spitfire and fired.

  *

  Tvi yelped as the spitfire blew away the wall just over her head. Her darksuit had given her a view of the corridor behind her, and she’d been thankful Sinn was there to back her up. Instead of offering to assist, her boss, without even a declaration of enmity, had gone and shot at her.

  This, she concluded, was totally unfair. She did not think to wonder why the Baron had opened fire. The point uppermost in her mind was the doubt that her darksuit screens could handle spitfires.

  Tvi flew like hell for the servants’ stair. Another spitfire round blasted the wall as she ran.

  *

  Baron Sinn, gasping for breath, staggered in pursuit. Here was one he wasn’t about to let get away

  *

  Maijstral considered the French door onto the east terrace long enough to realize that whoever was firing disruptor bolts into the second story could as easily cover the east terrace from his position. He pointed at the door into the interior of the house.

  “That way,” he said. “Then north.”

  Roman flung open the door and lunged through it, colliding with the Countess Anastasia and knocking her sprawling, “Beg pardon, my lady,” he said promptly, and, after relieving the Countess of her Nana-Coulville, gallantly offered to help her stand.

  A deep X of anger marred Countess Anastasia’s brow. “Die, redbellied wretch!” she barked, and batted Roman’s hand aside.

  Even well-trained politesse has its limits.

  Roman stiffened. He bit back the comment that came to mind at this churlish display of unladylike behavior. “Good evening, my lady,” he said in sepulchral, indignant tones, “Your obedient servant.” He strode in high dudgeon toward the back of the house.

  *

  “Hey,” said Pietro Quijano, “what about Gregor?” He was still on the landing, listening to the spitfire bursts from the corridor where, so far as he knew, Gregor was standing alone against the Imperial hordes.

  Maijstral did not, apparently, hear, since he was on his way into the corridor. The spitfire bursts came to an end.

  “Gregor?” Pietro subvocalized, and heard a groan in reply.

  He peered into the drawing room and saw Gregor’s form sprawled in the doorway, a smoking spitfire hole in the wall over his head.

  There seemed to be no enemies about. Pietro slipped back into the drawing room, got Gregor in a fireman’s carry— easy, since Gregor on a-grav was virtually weightless— and hastened after the others.

  *

  Maijstral, on hearing Pietro’s plaintive inquiries about Gregor, reflected on first thought that henchmen were, after all, expendable, and on second thought that Pietro was too. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t volunteered.

  Thus cheered, he floated near the ceiling to avoid the Countess— he was tempted to say something savage in passing, but decided to stay well to windward— and instead increased his speed, heading for the back of the house.

  The party encountered nothing but a robot rushing for the servants’ stair with a fire extinguisher, and then burst out of the back door and accelerated over the smooth croquet lawn. On the way they passed Tvi, who had jumped into Bix’s flier and was trying to peel the lock and get it movi
ng before the Baron drew another bead on her.

  Maijstral called for his fliers to meet him at a rendezvous a mite ahead. Tvi got her Dewayne Seven started and raced away.

  *

  Baron Sinn burst out the back, waving his spitfire. Blinded by tears, he put a foot down on his kibble-colored croquet ball and crashed to the sward. Through his streaming eyes he could see nothing but a scatter of empty stars.

  *

  The first thing Bix smelled was beer. He put a hand to his wounded jaw and staggered to his feet. Stars flooded his vision. He swayed and clutched the wrought-iron rail. As his eyes focused, he saw Ronnie Romper sprawled amid a massive puddle below, surrounded by robot parts.

  “Hey,” he said. “Did I miss something?”

  The Countess entered, back rigid, fists clenched. Furiously she kicked a robot part across the room. “Swine!” she remarked.

  Bix decided to keep out of sight. He had obviously done something wrong by opening the drawing room door.

  In careful silence, he drew back into the drawing room and shut the door behind him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mr. Paavo Kuusinen was on the wrong side of the building to see much of what occurred at the Countess’s mansion.

  He was resting under his tree, his arms pillowing his head, when suddenly he heard the sound of spitfires barking back and forth, accompanied by bright explosions from the front of the building. Kuusinen sprinted across the knoll to his flier and jumped in without bothering to open the door. He rolled back the canopy to get a better view and set the flier on a long banking curve to the south so that he could watch the building from a safe distance. He saw that the upper right front of the mansion was definitely on fire, but could see nothing else of interest. He continued to orbit, swinging wide around the back, and saw a figure leaving the back of the building. Kuusinen focused his longfinders and saw Amalia Jensen floating at great speed over the lawns and ornamental gardens behind the estate. If there was anyone with her, Kuusinen didn’t spot him, but whatever the case, this looked like a clean getaway.