by Chris Bunch
“The favor I need,” Garvin said, “is your help with our navigational files. I would like for our tour to finish on Centrum.”
“Ambitious,” Ganeel said, sounding impressed.
“Perhaps,” Garvin said. “But I … and the rest of my troupe … would like to find out what happened, why our worlds are out of contact with the Confederation.”
“You, too,” Ganeel said. “Have you seen our thriving starship ‘industry,’ for want of a weaker word? And all the ships contracted for by the Confederation, but never picked up or paid for.”
“I’ve seen them,” Garvin said. “Why haven’t you sent salesmen out looking for new customers?”
“Our contracts were almost always with the Confederation,” Ganeel said. “We’ve sent a few ships out, with but one returning from an outer system, and that one reported chaos, with no one having the Confederation credits to do business with us.”
“That’s pretty much what we’ve found,” Garvin said. “And we’d like to do what we can to maybe start opening communications again.”
“A circus?” Ganeel said, with a bit of incredulity. “Admirable, but isn’t that a bit romantic?”
“When I said ‘we,’ ” Garvin explained, “I meant some of the worlds we come from, or have visited. If people knew what had happened, why the sudden collapse, perhaps there’s something that could be done to prevent a total interregnum.”
“I can explain one part of the fall,” Ganeel said, “being a bit of a historian before my father died early and gave me the throne.
“The collapse didn’t happen as quickly as most think. Rather, the Confederation was held up long past its time by force of arms … the remarkably efficient military the Empire had … plus the fact many planetary governments could lay off their problems on the distant Confederation.
“But the final, real reason was that all too many of the Confederation’s citizens wanted the Confederation to be there, even while they were unwilling to participate in its government, reluctant to pay taxes or provide service. Because they imagined it was immortal, the Confederation was able to stumble on for years, decades, perhaps a century even, a walking corpse.
“And then, one day, something happened, and the corpse stumbled over a twig and fell.”
“What?” Garvin asked.
“I wish I knew,” Ganeel said. “Because then, as you suggest, it might be possible to reanimate the body.”
He shrugged. “I do not know. I simply do not know.”
They admired the Chinese acrobats for a moment, walked on.
“I don’t either,” Garvin said. “Which is what I’m trying to end. I want to find out what happened. Which is why I need a favor of you.”
“You may ask.”
“I’ve found out that Cayle provided many of the security apparati of the Confederation.”
“We did,” Ganeel said reluctantly.
“If the Confederation has collapsed, some of those machines and posts may be still manned and dangerous, or roboticized and even more deadly. I would like to borrow … or purchase if I must … your files, so I can access these machines and convince them I’m friendly when, or rather if, we’re able to reach the Capella system.”
“They were highly classified,” Ganeel said.
“They were. Ten years or more gone.”
Ganeel looked vaguely frightened.
“I don’t know,” he said, then brightened. “But in any event, I wouldn’t be able to provide them, since those data were not state secrets, but rather held by the manufacturer.
“That would be Berta Industries,” he said. “Some say,” and he faked a laugh, “that, at their peak, they were the real rulers of Cayle. Perhaps so, perhaps no.”
“Would you be willing,” Garvin asked, “to forward my request, perhaps with your approval, to whoever heads Berta Industries? In return, if I reach Centrum, I’ll happily provide you with what I’ve found out, as I return.”
“Berta Industries,” Ganeel said, and a look of mild fright crossed his face, then he firmed his lips.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’ll do that. That woman can’t kill me, after all.”
Garvin noted the emphasis. Ganeel changed the subject, asked why there were no primates — other than human. Garvin explained that he’d always hated the smelly, flea-bitten, dangerous apes that seemed to echo all the worst habits of man.
“Indeed,” Ganeel said. “I’ve always been interested in them, although I admit I’ve seen nothing but holos. The last Earth monkey died almost four hundred years ago in our zoo, and somehow was never replaced.”
“Look at this,” Monique stormed, pointing to a boxed poem on the inside page of a holo.
“There’s a legend about
That her legs, arms, hands
Are wrought iron
Like we build ships from
She’s a woman of miracles
Of strength and skill
Our Monique, our Monique.”
“Damn,” Ben Dill chortled, “it surely is nice to be around someone famous.”
“Famous my left tit,” Lir growled. “You show up tonight, and see what kind of famous I am.”
Ben did.
One entire stand, directly in front of center ring, where Monique did her rope walk, was packed with women, all cheering for Lir.
Monique tried to ignore them, couldn’t, especially when Garvin made her do a curtain call directly in front of those women. Dill saw that many of them were dressed in fashions more characteristic of the men of Cayle.
He thought the matter exceedingly funny, suggested that Lir should start associating with her fan club more.
Monique told him, quite explicitly and obscenely, to shut his yap.
“I don’t see why you’re taking that attitude,” Njangu said reasonably. “Look at it this way. You always had admirers who were men, right? Now you’ve just doubled the available talent who want to kookookachoo you under the chin.”
Monique growled incoherently, climbed high into the big top, and worked out her discomfort doing endless planges, swinging over and over, one hand and wrist in a loop.
• • •
“I could stand a beer,” Maev said. She and Njangu had gone into Pendu with a couple of quartermasters on a larder-restocking run.
“As well as not,” Yoshitaro agreed. “They’ll be haggling over flour prices for another two hours in there. ‘Sides, investigating them barrooms is a big part of our exciting life as intelligence operatives, right?”
Two blocks down, they found a store that, from its signs, would sell something in bottles.
From the midday sun they went in, blinking into the darkness inside. Maev’s eyes adjusted first.
“Uh-oh.”
Then Njangu could see.
“Indeed uh-oh.”
There were only two or three men of the thirty or so people in the bar. The women all wore costumes, various changes on ancient schoolgirl uniforms.
And all of them were smiling their most inviting best.
“I think,” Njangu said, backing toward the door, “I just found out what a slab of meat feels like when Sir Douglas tosses it into the cats’ cage.”
“Strange planet, this,” Darod managed.
“Yeh,” Njangu agreed, breathing a sigh of relief as they went back outside. “Looks ‘kay on the outside, but …”
“Maybe a little strange?” Maev suggested. “Or do all men have the secret desire to boff kids?”
“Not one of my kinks,” Njangu said. “Maybe it’s something peculiar to Cayle. Look. There’s a bar with tables outside. That’ll give us running room in case we mess up again.”
• • •
Njangu inquired, found out from a local they’d just wandered into the Rot District, one of the larger ones in Pendu. “Anything, I mean anything, can be found there,” the Caylean said enthusiastically. “Or, since you seem interested, you can also com and they’ll come to you.
“Some of us were wondering
why your circus hasn’t offered such entertainment.”
“Uh … ‘cause we’re shy folks,” Njangu managed.
• • •
The pair of midgets caught Darod as she came off the hidden antigravs and spun her up just as her horse trotted by.
The band changed tempo, and the horse began dancing, quick little steps in time to the music.
The faces in the seats beyond were blurred as she concentrated on keeping balance and moving with the animal. She felt the world, whatever was going on with Garvin, swirl away, and let herself be lost in the moment.
YOU AND A COMPANION ARE INVITED TO DINNER AND, ON THE FOLLOWING DAY, A TOUR OF HER ESTATE AND WORKS, BY LADY LIBNAH BERTA, SIX DAYS HENCE. TRANSPORTATION WILL BE PROVIDED. REPLY COM 34532
“Graav Ganeel came through. So I abase myself, and beg access to her records, right?” Garvin asked.
“Exactly,” Njangu said. “About time we got some real Intel work out of you, instead of you just prancing about in your formal and snapping that stupid whip.”
“I guess Darod’ll be thrilled,” Garvin said.
“Uh, no,” Njangu said. “I want you to take Kekri Katun.”
“Why?”
“We shook her once,” Njangu said, “and found giptel shit. I want to do it again, and have her out of the picture long enough to do a thorough job,” Njangu said.
“You aren’t making my life any easier,” Garvin said.
“If that’s true,” Yoshitaro said, “why are you smiling? Masochism?”
“Guess that’s what it must be,” Garvin said.
• • •
“I am never going out on this stupid planet again without a bodyguard,” Monique Lir snarled. “Two bodyguards. Both hairy and male.”
“Why?” Darod asked. “What happened?”
“I accept an invitation to be interviewed by this journoh, or anyway I thought she was a journoh. Turns out, she’s the one who wrote that stupid goddamned poem about me.”
“Oh,” Darod said.
“Yeh,” Monique said. “Name was Lan Dell. Wore a leather jacket and smoked this big tube of some kind of weed or something that stank up the whole lift.
“She says she’s more comfortable in a club than an office, and so we end up in this bar. Filled with nothing but women, and this woman says they’re my fan club.
“Fan club, in the name of Loki’s pizzle! And so instead of being interviewed, I’m given this mike, and everybody’s throwing questions at me.
“And the questions get real personal.
“And Dell starts stroking my knee, under the table.”
“What’re you so upset by?” Montagna said. “Can’t be the first time someone as pretty as you got hit on by another woman.”
Monique looked perplexed.
“Yeh. ‘Course you’re right. Hell, I can even think of a couple of female officers in the Force who’ve been concerned about me sleeping alone. And I surely know how to handle men.
“I dunno. It can’t be because we’re in a strange place … I grew up all over.”
She thought about it for a bit.
“Maybe,” she said slowly, “maybe it’s because I felt, with that Dell woman, like I was in a zoo. Or a circus.”
“You are,” Darod said.
“I know, douche! Not that kind of circus. It was like everybody was waiting for something, for me to be the entertainment, and if I’d gone off with this Lan Dell that would’ve been some kind of victory for them.
“I dunno,” Lir said again, and lapsed into silence.
The circus was half-empty that night. Njangu made a few com calls, and found out there’d been a riot in the city, and transport was screwed up.
“Remember,” he asked Garvin, “there were riots on Centrum when we were passing through, back when we were ree-cruits?”
“I do, and damned if I don’t wish you hadn’t reminded me.”
• • •
Froude came to Garvin the next day, with a stack of printouts.
“How long,” he asked, “do you anticipate our being here?”
“Not long,” Garvin said. “I’ve got a meeting tonight, and hopefully I can find a way to start feeding you the Centrum data we came here for.”
“Good,” Froude said. “This world is not a healthy one, and I’d just as soon be gone.
“I happened to check the books, and things are not at all well.
“We take local currency, like we did back on Tiborg, and then convert it into Confederation credits. Failing that, we’ll take interstellar credit transfers, right?”
“Of course,” Garvin said.
“The bookkeepers had a wad of the local money, and went to change it. No can do, the answer came back,” Froude said. “They don’t seem to have any credits … or, what they do have is being kept out of circulation.”
“By whom?”
“Some say the government. Some say this big industrial firm that’s run by the Berta family.”
“Which I’m seeing tonight,” Garvin said.
“Maybe you ought to try to get the key to their vaults, then.”
“We aren’t on this mission to make money,” Garvin said.
“I’m aware of that,” Froude said irritably. “But I’m also aware we’d just as soon play nice, stable worlds.
“You want some other statistics? I did a little cheap research. Planetary employment is about thirty-five percent. A lot of people have flat given up looking for work and ride on the dole. The government doesn’t seem to have any kind of restraining or any other plan, other than keeping its fingers crossed and hoping, one day, someday, the Confederation is going to reappear, buy all those parked starships, and whoopie do, it’ll be pink clouds and happiness again.
“Not good,” Froude finished. “As I said, let’s get our business done here and get on our way.”
• • •
Garvin looked out the lim window as it climbed over a mountain. Below was a wide valley, with a large town in its center and factories spread out along the river.
He remembered the poem Njangu had quoted as they approached, said, “Surely looks cold out there.”
“But it’s nice and warm in here,” Kekri Katun said. She was absolutely perfect in a gray traveling suit and knee boots, although Garvin thought, purely for propriety’s sake, she could have done up a couple of the blouse buttons.
“Landing in five minutes, sir,” the lim driver’s voice said through the intercom.
“A question,” Garvin said into the mike. “All these factories are part of Berta’s holdings?”
“This valley, including the towns, and four other towns downriver that can’t be seen in this haze,” the driver replied, “are indeed part of the family’s possessions.”
“It must be nice to be that rich,” Kekri said. “I’ve always wanted to be rich. Then there’s nothing to worry about, is there?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Garvin said. “All I know is whether you’re rich or poor, it’s nice to have money.”
He checked his appearance carefully. He hadn’t thought, if Lady Berta was the muckety he’d been told, she would likely approve of his white-on-white-on-white ringmaster garb, and had chosen a conservative dark blue jacket, white shirt, and dark brown pants.
The lim braked, banked left.
Atop a low plateau, just where the town ended, a great mansion rose. It was ugly, a huge, seven-story rectangular box with a flat roof, no attempt being made with architectural niceties. Atop the roof were various antennae and, Garvin was fairly sure, a standard electronics suite for an antiaircraft missile site. Gardens spread around it, all carefully designed and manicured.
The lim grounded in front of the mansion’s steps, the clamshell roof lifted, and the driver was out, offering Kekri a hand.
The mansion’s arched doors opened, and a woman who could only be Lady Libnah Berta came out, unaccompanied by any servants, to Garvin’s surprise.
Berta was a big woman, big all over, easily two
meters tall. She was, Garvin guessed, in her eighties. Her face was lined with the marks of power, and her lips easily pursed in anger. Her hair was pure white, drawn back in a bun, and she wore a long green skirt with red piping and a matching long-sleeved jacket, a frothy white blouse under it.
“Good evening, Gaffer Jaansma … and Miss Katun.”
She looked Kekri up and down once, then turned her full attention to Garvin.
“Please be welcome to my home.”
“I’m grateful for the invitation.”
A wintry smile came, went on Berta’s face.
“Graav Ganeel and I go back some years,” she said. “In fact, I remember … or claim to remember, at any rate, dandling him on my knee when he was a toddler, while I talked to his father, the king.
“When I remind him of that,” she went on, her smile getting a touch broader, “it seems to put him off his stride a bit.”
She didn’t need to add, and therefore easier to do business with.
“Come in,” she said. “There’s a chill in the air. I’ll have someone bring your bags in, and escort you to your chambers. After you refresh yourselves, perhaps you’d join me in the library for a predinner drink.”
As they entered the huge house, Garvin noticed that somehow Kekri’s blouse buttons had been done up.
• • •
The rooms they were shown into on the sixth floor were enormous, and rococo in their decoration.
“I feel like I’ve just dropped back in time,” Kekri said. “Maybe a hundred years.”
“Maybe a thousand for all of me,” Garvin said.
The paintings on the walls were realistic, heroic, soldiers posing bravely in ancient suits, armored and space; there were horned animals at bay, wistful maidens watching their heroes go off to war, the colors starting to brown to match the fading archaic wallpaper. The chairs were soft, overpadded, with tassels at their ends. The tables were dark, highly polished wood, and the wall mirrors trimmed in gold.
The bed …
Kekri giggled.
“What did you tell them when you responded to the invitation?”
“I didn’t tell them anything,” Garvin said truthfully. “They said a companion, and I thought — ”
“One bed? Shame on you, Gaffer Jaansma,” Kekri said. “Bringing me out here in this howling wilderness, planning to take advantage of me, no doubt.”