The Crown Jewels

by Walter Jon Williams

  Tvi saw Baron Sinn moving down the set with Countess Anastasia as his partner, and her ears flattened. She pointed an imaginary spitfire at them both. “Boom,” she said. Right between the Countess’s stiffened shoulders.

  The media globe panned down the set past where Nichole and Maijstral were dancing more or less in the center, and then Tvi noticed Amalia Jensen moving up the set, partnered with a slight man in an Imperial-cut coat.

  Her ears ticked forward. Perhaps, she thought, there was a solution here.

  *

  “I am told this bag belongs to Mr. Maijstral. Could you please send it along toward him?”

  “I am Mr. Maijstral’s associate, madam. Let me make certain it is the bag he lost.”

  Roman opened the bag and saw a substantial bundle of cash. He closed the bag.

  “This is indeed what we missed, madam. Our thanks for its return.”

  He looked down the set and caught Maijstral’s eye.

  *

  “General Gerald.”

  “Countess Anastasia.”

  A frigid silence prevailed.

  *

  “Gregor Norman, madam.”

  “Your servant, sir. I say— I have just received this bag, which I am told belongs to Mr. Maijstral. Would you mind propelling it in his direction?”

  “Why not? Give it here.”

  Gregor’s temporary partner was appalled as Gregor ferreted through the bag and swiftly determined that it did, indeed, contain something approximating the correct amount of cash. He looked down the set, caught Maijstral’s eye, and waved.

  The ears of Gregor’s partner went back, and she bared her teeth. This was more than Non-U. It was sordid.

  *

  Paavo Kuusinen received a bag and felt of it before passing it on. A smile began to cross his features.

  *

  “They certainly have very active imaginations.”

  “To be sure.”

  “I have a theory. Perhaps it is the sort only an aristocratic dilettante could arrive at, but let me give you an idea. . . “

  *

  “Your servant, Mr. Quijano.”

  “I thank you. General. Yours.”

  “Things should be over soon, youngster.”

  “Yes. Miss Jensen will be relieved when Captain Tartaglia moves out of her house.”

  “She should have thrown him out.”

  “It was easier for her to seek shelter at my house.”

  The General raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  Pietro flushed. “We’ve been planning our future.”

  General Gerald smiled. His face was not accustomed to it and the result was somewhat more horrific than if he had turned red and yelled.

  “I hope it is a happy one, youngster. I think you’re very well suited.”

  Pietro, mildly paralyzed by the General’s appearance, took some time to react to what the General had actually said.

  *

  “Sir. I have come upon this . . . object . . . which I believe fell from the pocket of Baron Sinn yonder. Would you mind terribly passing it up the set toward him?”

  *

  “They won’t believe that we exist?”

  “We are figments, if you will, of their subconscious. That is what I suspect.”

  “I can’t . . . think . . . of anything that would contradict that interpretation.”

  “If true, it would prove a most illuminating view into their psychology.”

  *

  Maijstral, preoccupied with dancing about Nichole and watching sidelong as the bags and vials progressed in the dance, had been listening to the high, resonant voice for some time before its familiarity caused him to glance toward the short, globe-headed figure on his left. Count Quik.

  Count Quik, speaking Human Standard with absolute coherence. The Count’s usual manner of speech, Maijstral realized, was purely an aristocratic affectation.

  Startled, Maijstral almost missed a step. He recovered and danced on.

  *

  Tartaglia was in a rage. “Can you see it? What the hell is going on?”

  “Maybe we should change the channel, Captain.”

  “Mind your own damned business.”

  *

  “Sir. I believe you reverse here.”

  “Oh. Thank you, ah, madam.”

  Gregor clenched his teeth, jammed the leather bag in his armpit, and ducked beneath his partner’s arm to his correct place. His line took two steps back without him, and just as he caught up they surged forward again. Gregor wiped sweat away and smeared cosmetic on his sleeve.

  Damn this dance, anyway. He hadn’t had enough time to learn it.

  Now, at last, it was his turn to stay still while the third couples made a passage. Mentally counting out eight measures, Gregor reached into a pocket arm and came up with the sterile vial. He turned right on the eighth measure and did a back-to-back with his new temporary partner, a Tanquer in a pince-nez with smoked lenses. This uncovered a view of the pretty girl who would be his temporary partner in about forty-eight measures, and Gregor winked at her. She seemed surprised. Gregor and the Tanquer finished their back-to-back and commenced eight measures of siding.

  “Sir,” he said, producing the vial, “I have just picked up something belonging to Miss Amalia Jensen. Maybe we should give it back. Would you do me the favor of passing it down the line?”

  The Tanquer’s nictitating membranes slid shut, which, together with the smoked glass, produced an odd effect. “Very well, strange young person,” he said, and took the vial.

  Gregor capered back to his permanent partner and blinked sweat from his eyes. Thank God that was over.

  *

  Paavo Kuusinen looked down the set, saw something moving toward him. Looked up, saw something coming that way.

  He thought a few figures ahead, made a rapid calculation. He hooked his arm through the arm of the Khosalikh next to him. swung the man around.

  “Wait. Sir. This is next figure.”

  “No, sir. Now.”

  “Sir.” The voice was pained. Kuusinen had just altered their progression. He and Kuusinen had just changed partners.

  Amalia Jensen gave him a surprised look as the dance swept her away.

  *

  “Baron Sinn.”

  “General Gerald.”

  Gloating. “Try denying now that you’re a spy.”

  The Baron was imperturbable. “I am a private nobleman, trying to do my Empire a service.”

  Hah, thought the General. You think we’re going to get the real artifact, and that you’re deceiving us by letting us think yours is going to be sterilized when it’s not. But I saw your spunk get sterilized, and know all you’re getting is small meaningless coils of dead protein. So there. Hah.

  The plot made the General’s head hurt, but one thing he knew. This was better than whipping the Imperial fleet. More personally satisfying.

  *

  “Navarre will be finishing his business here. The estate auction is in five days.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ve got one more stop on my tour, and then I’m going off to have my feet done. We’ll meet on Fantome, and start making arrangements for the play.”

  “Perhaps”— dancing about her— “I’ll manage to attend the premiere.”

  “The pickings would be good, Drake, but can you do a good imitation of a broken heart? You’d have to, you know.”

  Thoughtfully. “I suppose I could summon a tear or two.”

  “It would have to be more than that. After all, you’re supposed to have engaged in a passionate and desperate romance with me here, all while I was falling in love with the handsome lieutenant. Going to the premiere might be more than your heart could bear.”

  Maijstral considered this while Nichole circled him. “Perhaps you are right. A mere display of manly grief wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Pity we can’t tell the truth. The public would be enraged to discover that you and I were faking a romance in order to pu
rsue our various intrigues— the Diadem’s followers insist on the authenticity of their illusions, and they’d want to pay us back for fooling them.”

  Maijstral reflected on his decision, four years ago, not to seek membership in the Diadem. He had no reason, he concluded, to regret it.

  “I shall have to console myself with a recording,” he said.

  “I will send you one, but only if my performance is good. If I’m awful, I will burn every copy.”

  Maijstral smiled. “I shall consider the recording’s arrival inevitable, madam.” He turned left, Nichole faced the other way. He and Nichole would be separated for a while. This was the marching bit.

  *

  “Mr. Kuusinen, we meet again.”

  “Nichole, ever your servant.” Kuusinen was her new temporary partner. She didn’t trust the man at all. And there was something about his smile she didn’t like.

  *

  “Your servant, Miss Jensen.”

  “General Gerald.”

  “Your Mr. Quijano tells me you are going to join the Pioneers together. Not many people are willing to do the hard work of colonization these days.”

  “Thank you, General.”

  “Your father would have been proud of you, miss.”

  A slow smile spread across Amalia’s features. “General,” she said, “I do believe you’re right.”

  *

  Maijstral was anticipating another attack of his residual childhood terror, but was pleasantly surprised to discover that his heart no longer quaked at the appearance of the Countess Anastasia. Instead it was the Countess who looked uncomfortable, standing stiffly, her shoulders thrown back unyielding as a yoke.

  She looked at him with diamond-chip eyes. “How could you?” she asked.

  How could I what? Maijstral wondered. Wreck her house, shoot at her servants, free her victim, deceive everyone in sight?

  “Sorry, Mother,” he said. “Force of circumstance, you know.”

  *

  The accident wasn’t Nichole’s fault. Maijstral’s plan called for three vials, as he was unwilling to trust to the coincidence of Nichole receiving both vials at the same time. He was being cautious, but he was also wrong.

  The live culture, moving down the set toward Amalia Jensen, arrived first. Nichole smiled, accepted it with her left hand. Her right hand touched her pannier, where the other culture waited, for luck; but this wasn’t the switch yet— she had to reach out with her right hand for Kuusinen, touch fingers, and walk around him. Then caper, then repeat.

  At the end of the repetition, she turned to her right, ready to ask her new temporary partner to pass the vial on.

  But the new partner, a bewildered, elderly Khosalikh with more than his share of muzzle rings, had just received the sterile culture, and was holding it out to her.

  Hands swung together. The vials clattered. The Khosalikh humbled and banged them together again. Terror clutched Nichole as the vials clattered to the floor.

  *

  Paavo Kuusinen watched carefully at the objects tumbling from Nichole’s fingers, perceived the look of horror on her face. Time seemed to stop.

  *

  Maijstral caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and froze in midmovement. The Countess thudded into him and drove her heel onto his instep. He didn’t feel the pain.

  *

  Pietro Quijano stared in surprise as he danced across the set. He could have sworn he’d seen a vial clatter across the floor.

  *

  Baron Sinn saw the accident clearly and bared his teeth. His partner was frightened and took a step back.

  *

  Up and down the line, a sense of catastrophe began to spread. Few knew precisely what had gone wrong, but everyone realized that something had gone awry, and the rhythm of the dance was lost as heads began to crane left and right. Media globes swooped left and right, looking for the source of the turbulence.

  *

  The elderly Khosalikh murmured an apology, bowed, and picked up a vial. He looked at it in puzzlement. It looked identical to the one he’d just held. But was it?

  *

  Maijstral stood stock-still, picturing the Countess with a gun, Amalia Jensen with a gun. Imperial Marines and Constellation Death Commandos, all with guns. The Countess breathed insults at him, calling him an ungrateful wretch, a scoundrel, an incompetent, and no son of hers.

  *

  He wished the latter, at least, was true.

  *

  Paavo Kuusinen stepped forward. “Pardon me, madam,” he said, and bent to pick up a vial at Nichole’s feet. “This, sir, was yours,” he said.

  The elderly Khosalikh looked from one to the other. “It was?”

  Nichole looked from one vial to the other and realized that her call had come. She made her decision; her hand dipped into her pannier and came up with the hidden vial. She took the vial from Kuusinen, made the switch flawlessly, and passed the switched vial to her left. “For Baron Sinn,” she said.

  *

  The Imperial Marines started to fade from Maijstral’s mind.

  *

  Nichole looked at the old gentleman, who was still gazing at his outstretched vial. She took his hand in hers, helped him turn around. “That is Miss Jensen’s,” she said. “Please send it down the set.”

  *

  The Death Commandos began to turn transparent.

  *

  People began to remember their part in the dance. Gradually the lines sorted themselves out.

  *

  “I believe, sir,” said Gregor, “that this is where you reverse.”

  “Oh. I don’t doubt you are correct. Thank you, sir.” Gregor smiled in satisfaction. At least he remembered this part.

  *

  Pietro gnawed his lip as he operated his second scanner. He could hear the murmur of the crowd as, following the dance, they crowded toward the refreshment buffet.

  His scanner rang. Relief flooded his mind. He looked at Amalia and grinned.

  “It’s the live culture. Now we know for certain the sterilized culture went the other way.”

  *

  “Too complicated. I knew this wasn’t going to work.” Lights flickered on the scanner. Baron Sinn rotated the display so that Countess Anastasia could see it.

  “It’s the Imperial Artifact, my lady. Unquestionably.” A certain dismay clamored in the Countess’s mind.

  “Maijstral pulled off his switch, then.”

  “Apparently.”

  She conceded defeat. She squared her shoulders. “Long live the Pendjalh,” she said. Her vice was like a trumpet call. Muted, perhaps, but sincere.

  Baron Sinn echoed her. “Long live the Imperial line.” In reverent tones.

  He put the vial in his pocket and offered the Countess his arm. “Perhaps, my lady, it is time for us to depart.”

  *

  Because, Maijstral thought, he found he could not act any other way. Somewhat to his surprise, there had proven more scruples in his makeup than ever he suspected. Even though he did not want to live in the Empire, or desire an Emperor over him, he could not coldly condemn the Imperial line to death, not when it meant so much to so many billions. If a threat to the Human Constellation resulted— and that was by no means certain— then that threat would have to be dealt with when it occurred. Maijstral could not assume the right to disrupt a millennia-old civilization on the half-chance there might be a conflict years down the line.

  Besides. It was the Emperor’s to begin with.

  Baron Sinn had assured him the matter would be handled delicately. Concubines of good family would be found in the farther reaches. None would be impregnated for several years. None of the heirs would be revealed for decades. When they were placed before the public, rumors would be started; one of the other two artifacts had been discovered, or the Pendjalli had simply cloned poor Nnis in secrecy, against all tradition, and refused to admit it.

  The resolution would be satisfyingly like an old romance. The unkn
own heir, raised as a foster child far away, would become the next Pendjalli, to his own surprise and the surprise of everyone else. And all because of an odd scruple in a thief. It warmed Maijstral’s heart to think about it.

  Was he being sentimental? he wondered. He could not tell.

  “Sir?”

  Maijstral turned to the globe hovering at chest height. It offered a human voice.

  “Madam?” he replied.

  “There seemed to be some manner of intrigue going on during the Pilgrimage, involving people passing things back and forth. Are you aware of the nature of these events?”

  Maijstral shrugged. “No one passed anything to me,” he said. “Perhaps you should ask someone else.”

  “Are you going to be accompanying Nichole for the rest of her tour?”

  Maijstral recollected that he should be suffering intimations of a broken heart by now.

  “That has not been decided,” he said. “Events have rather taken us by surprise.”

  And on that ambiguous note, Maijstral ended the interview.

  *

  Paavo Kuusinen, unnoticed, slipped from the hall. His face bore a smile.

  His stay on Peleng, he decided, had been quite satisfactory.

  He would have a lot to tell his employer. He knew he would see Maijstral again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Captain Tartaglia took careful aim with his disruptor. “Ready,” he called. “Aim. Fire.”

  Fingers tightened on triggers. Silent, invisible energies flooded the darkness of Amalia Jensen’s backyard.

  Somewhere in the darkness, a nightbird called.

  “Cease fire,” said Tartaglia, and looked at the small vial propped on a chair.

  It seemed unchanged. Tartaglia felt vaguely disappointed. I have destroyed you, inhuman scum, he thought, but the thought failed to comfort him.

  Amalia Jensen put her pistol in its holster. She patted the pocket where Tartaglia’s credit counter rested. She’d be able to pay her debts tomorrow. “There’s a shuttle heading to the launching station in two hours,” she said. “You and your people have ample time to book passage.”

  “Two hours?”

  “Time enough, don’t you think?” Amalia took the vial from the chair and held it up to the starlight. “I think I’ll keep this. A souvenir.” She put it in her pocket, then saw his frown and laughed. “I’ve earned it,” she pointed out. “I was the one who was kidnapped.”