“Thank you,” she said, sourly. She had been to formal balls before, when her mother had been trying to introduce her to suitable young men, but none of them had had anyone much above her own social level. Here, she might as well be an insect for all the attention she’d get from the others at the ball. “What should we do inside?”
“Just chat to anyone interested in chatting to you, and dance,” Fitz told her. “I would suggest that you don’t let any of them get too close to you. They might not have your best interests in mind.”
The sound of music grew louder as they approached Lady Mary’s mansion. Someone had opened up all the rear doors, allowing the music to drift out while the party itself spilled out into the lawn.
Fitz took their arms and led them towards the stairs leading into the ballroom itself, pausing in front of a man wearing an over-decorated uniform and passing him a neat, handwritten card. The man cleared his throat as he stepped to the top of the stairs and addressed the crowd below.
“The Honourable Lord Fitzgerald d'Anconia Narragansett Grytpype-Thynne, with Mariko and Mai Wakabayashi,” he said. Mariko felt herself flush and fought hard to control it. She had never had anyone announce her formally before, certainly not in front of a crowd far more aristocratic than she could ever hope to be. “Give them great honour, as they deserve.”
A number of male aristocrats raised their glasses in their direction, but apart from that there was nothing. Fitz didn't seem to be particularly offended, however; he led them down the stairs and onto the dance floor. Instantly, he was surrounded by a handful of well-wishers, some more sincere than others. He chatted briefly with them as he allowed a younger aristocrat to take Mai for a dance. The music kept playing, changing frequently, but never stopping. Some of the dancers had clearly not been fashionably late. Mariko felt her breathing grow faster as she lost sight of Mai, even though she trusted that Mai would be reasonably safe in this environment. Fitz’s reputation would protect her from serious harm.
“Come on out and dance,” Fitz said, finally separating himself from the well-wishers. A number of more senior aristocrats had already started forming small groups by the tables, taking to one another in low voices. “There isn't much else to do here.”
Fitz was a good dancer, Mai discovered with some surprise. He didn't tread on her toes, nor did he try to peek down her dress while she moved. She didn't know all of the steps, but the dances were simple and she picked them up very quickly. A couple of young women attempted to cut in and take Fitz from her, but he seemed to prefer to dance with Mariko. If the young women talked like they giggled, Mariko recognised, he might have had a point.
Eventually, Fitz grew tired and led her over to a small table, where they sat down. A handful of aristocrats, whose names and faces were unknown to her, came over to chat briefly with Fitz, but none of their conversations seemed to make any sense. Some of them seemed to want Fitz to support them in political deals; others just seemed inclined to have a friendly chat. But the way they talked suggested that there were hidden knives in the dark just waiting for them.
“Fitz, dear boy,” a voice said. Mariko looked up to see a handsome young man with very old eyes. “I haven’t seen you in years!”
“This is Lord Kay,” Fitz said. He hadn't introduced any of the others, suggesting that Lord Kay was more important than he seemed. “He used to be my mentor when I was a child.”
He looked up at Lord Kay and smiled. “I came here for the hunting,” he said, openly. “What did you come here for?”
“Oh, this and that,” Kay said. He sounded friendly, but his smile never touched his eyes. “I never saw the point of shooting dumb animals. It’s much more fun to shoot at people who can shoot back.”
“It’s testing yourself against the animals,” Fitz said, without apparent irritation. “Can a human, with senses that are so limited compared to a dog’s senses, shoot a wild animal before the animal gets him? Can brains and equipment make up for an animal’s natural advantages in teeth and claws? And can you trick an animal into a position for the perfect shot?”
“Seems like an excuse to play at being a great hunter.” Lord Kay snorted. He waved a hand towards the far wall, which was decorated with a number of animal heads. Some were alarmingly humanoid. “The man who designed this planet was mad, and should have been shot as soon as he was captured.” He nodded at Mariko and left the table.
“He never approved of hunting animals,” Fitz muttered to Mariko. “But he does like hunting girls. There are always hundreds of desperate aristocratic girls at these gatherings and he wants to see how many he can lure into his bed.”
Mariko blinked in surprise. “And the girls let him have them?”
“You would be amazed how accommodating some people become when given a hint that he might take them as his wife,” Fitz said, rather cynically. “We wouldn't have half so many bastards if people like him didn’t set out to seduce people who want to be seduced.”
He looked up as Mai came over, red in the face.
“He tried to put his hand down my dress,” she protested, angrily. “What sort of manners do they teach people here?”
“They teach them that they can take whatever they want,” Fitz said, as an angry-looking young man stumbled out of the crowd. He had a nasty looking bruise on his cheek where Mai had slapped him. “Ah, Sir Hugh. What can I do for you?”
Hugh was spitting with rage, much to the amusement of the rest of the crowd.
“You can hand that bitch over to me for a proper whipping,” he snapped. “Doesn't she know better than to refuse...?”
“She was under strict orders to go no further than dancing,” Fitz said, in a pleasant tone that fooled no one. “I suggest that you walk away before something...unfortunate happens.”
Sir Hugh glared at him for a long moment, and then stalked off.
“It’s going to be unpleasant for his people tonight,” Fitz remarked, reluctantly. He held out a hand to Mai. “Would you like to dance?”
Mariko watched them on the dance floor until another young aristocrat invited her to dance, allowing her to move from partner to partner. The aristocrats didn't seem interested in anything apart from dancing, which was something of a relief. But then, they'd know that she wasn't a noblewoman and couldn't really make any deals with them. By the time she returned to their table, she found herself almost enjoying the party.
Then a hand tapped her on her shoulder.
“Miss Wakabayashi,” a steward said, “my mistresses would like the pleasure of your company at their table.”
He nodded towards a table on the other side of the room. Two girls, barely older than Mai, sat there. They were almost identical, with dark faces, long dark hair and wearing the same white dresses that looked almost like wedding gowns. Their faces seemed pleasant enough, but there was a look in their eyes that Mariko wasn't sure she liked. Fitz seemed to have some sense of responsibility, even if it wasn't one that she really understood. These two looked as if they enjoyed playing games purely for the hell of it.
But she didn't seem to have any choice. “I would be delighted,” she said, rising to her feet. The twins smiled at her as she walked over to them. “You wanted to speak with me?”
One of the twins smiled. “I am Clarissa and that is Marissa,” she said, indicating her sister.
“No, I am Clarissa and that is Marissa,” the other twin said. Her smile seemed slightly different, although Mariko realised that she could be exaggerating the differences between them. “You have to keep us straight in your mind.”
Mariko glanced at them. They were almost completely identical. “I think I’ll just call you both Jane,” she said, picking the most common name in the Imperium. “Would that help me to keep you straight?”
The twins burst into identical giggles.
“So funny,” Marissa said. Or was it Clarissa? “Tell us about your master?”
“Lord Fitzgerald?” Mariko asked. “Why do you want me to tell you about him?�
�
“Because we’re interested, dummy,” Clarissa said. Her twin had another fit of the giggles. “We want to know all about him.”
Mariko understood, suddenly. The twins must want to marry – or at least seduce – Fitz. And that bothered her for some reason. Not because she was jealous, but...why did it bother her? She looked at the girls, with their perfect faces and bodies, and understood. They looked perfect, but they were shallow, too shallow for anyone to endure for very long. Fitz had even said as much, back when he’d been talking to Lady Mary. They were just too irritating for anyone to enjoy their company. She wondered, in a fit of sudden amusement, if they giggled in bed? Or did they share their bed with a single man?
“He’s a good man,” she said, finally. And she was telling the truth. A nastier man could have taken advantage of their powerlessness, or of Mai’s crush on him. “But that’s about all I can tell you.”
“What a shame,” the girls said, in unison. “And where did you come from?”
Mariko briefly considered telling them the entire story, before dismissing the idea and cursing herself for being an idiot. She’d known enough girls like them when she'd been a little girl, growing up on Edo. Stupid, self-obsessed bitches, clinging together and stabbing their friends and enemies in the back. They simply could not – ever – be trusted. Any secrets shared with one of them would be public knowledge by the end of the day. And they would do anything to marry the right person so they didn't have to work to earn a living.
“I’m just a retainer,” she said, finally. She sighted Fitz heading back to their table with Mai in tow and stood up. “Thank you for your time.”
Fitz gave her a concerned look when she returned to their table and sat down. “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” Mariko said. Mai looked flushed, but happy. The dancing had been good for her, at least once she’d danced with someone decent. “How long do you want to stay here?”
“No longer,” Fitz said. He stood up and headed towards the open windows leading out into the lawn. “Come on. We’ll go back and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a tedious day.”
***
He’d been right, Mariko decided, midway through their second day on the planet. There was very little to do except swim, play games or brush up on one’s hunting skills while waiting for the final guest to arrive for the safari. To add to her concerns, Fitz seemed occupied all day, leaving them to explore the complex alone and enjoy themselves. No one seemed rude enough to tell them to buzz off, but the aristocrats either ignored them or stared until they went away. Sir Hugh must have been busy spreading his own version of why Mai had slapped him around the complex.
The only interesting part was a long series of lectures – complete with holographic images – about the type of creatures they might encounter in the jungle and precisely how dangerous they were. Tuff had bent the laws on genetic modification, and had created creatures right at the limit of what was allowed. Several species could actually cross-breed, producing new and interesting combinations. Some of them were large and bulky, so large that they might not realise that they had been shot even if a bullet went through their brains. Others were so fast that they were extremely difficult to see until they were already on their targets, trying to kill them. And, just as Fitz had warned, some looked like hairy humans, complete with disturbingly human faces. The speaker commented that it had been the neo-apes that had sealed Tuff’s fate when he’d been hauled in front of the Emperor. They were just too human to be taken lightly.
The more she heard, the less keen Mariko felt to go out on safari. Space was dangerous, and often unpredictable, but she was used to it. The jungle, on the other hand, was a vast unknown; the speaker freely admitted that they hadn't really catalogued all of Tuff’s creations, let alone the cross-breeds produced by several different races blended together. He’d taken samples from a hundred worlds and dropped them on his creation just to see how they’d survive and adapt to their new environment. The tiny crab-like creatures with poisonous claws, the social spiders who aggressively attacked each and every creature that entered their territory, the rock snakes from Anderson’s World...they’d all made niches for themselves on Tuff. It had become a teeming biological maelstrom of life forms, all fighting and mating with each other.
“I’m not sure that I am very keen on this either,” Mai said, when Mariko raised her concerns, “but they wouldn't really let people get hurt, would they?”
“They have,” Mariko pointed out. Since Tuff had become the greatest safari planet in the galaxy, seventy-four people – including some quite high-ranking aristocrats – had died trying to hunt the various creatures that infested the planet. There was even a joke that the monsters had become intelligent and were keeping it to themselves to lure new food packets to their planet. “I think we just have to be careful and avoid the more dangerous expeditions.”
Fitz didn't seem to agree, nor did most of the other young aristocrats. They’d signed up for safaris that would take them dangerously close to the spider cities or the steaming lava pools that apparently hid some of the planet’s nastier monsters. He didn't seem to mind that the girls were reluctant to go with them; in fact, Mariko suspected that he viewed it as a positive bonus. The real hunters would go out, leaving the more timid aristocrats behind, and they’d bring back plenty of carcasses to show off and then eat. Some of the animals on the planet were dangerously inedible, thanks to Tuff, but the remainder should be safe to eat. Mariko just hoped the cooks knew the difference.
“Get plenty of sleep,” he advised them, after a brief dinner in the smaller dining room. He’d managed to beg out of the large dinner being hosted by Lady Mary, much to Mariko’s relief. “You will really want to be fresh for tomorrow.”
Mariko scowled. She wasn't sure that she wanted to be fresh for anything.
“Come on,” Mai said, when Mariko expressed her doubts out loud. She’d been reading about some of the more interesting exploits carried out on Tuff. “It might just be fun.”
***
Mariko lay in her bed, trying to sleep. It wasn't easy; the heat was still an omnipresent sensation, a mocking reminder that the planet was unpleasantly hot for baseline humans, despite the air conditioning. Tuff might have eventually intended to engineer humans specifically for his world; certainly, it had been one of the charges levelled against him at his trial. She was still tossing and turning when she heard someone walk through the next room and open the door. Slipping out of bed as quietly as she could, she peered into the darkness and saw Fitz’s dark form slipping into the jungle. Mariko remembered all the horror stories about what lurked inside the jungle and shivered. He had to be out of his mind. Surely no one would be insane enough to go on safari in the middle of the night.
She hesitated, and then picked up her pistol and protective bracelet before hurrying outside and looking around for him. He was briefly visible against the jungle before he vanished, heading north towards the Lava Pools. They’d been warned that the Lava Pools were among the most dangerous parts of the planet, utterly unsuited for human exploration without proper equipment and an escort of trained specialised. And yet Fitz was going on his own! She couldn’t leave him alone, even if it risked them both being killed by the monsters lurking in the shadows.
After a moment, Mariko started to follow him into the jungle.
Chapter Eight
Five minutes after following Fitz into the jungle, Mariko was already regretting her decision. The heat kept growing stronger and she could feel the insects buzzing around her, invisible in the darkness. Even the slight illumination provided by the first of the planet’s moons rising in the distance didn't help her to keep track of Fitz. He seemed almost invisible, moving from place to place as if he moved only when she wasn’t looking. There were clearly layers to him that he kept well hidden.
Sweat poured down her body as she heard the sounds of animals moving in the distance. Most of the dangerous animals, they had been assured at th
e briefing, slept during the night, but many of the creatures they hunted were nocturnal. She found herself glancing back, only to realise that she’d completely lost track of the cabin where they’d been staying. If she turned back, there was no guarantee that she would manage to get back to safety. In hindsight, walking out in the woods alone might have been her most dangerous mistake since she’d come to the Sumter Sector – and that included fighting Carlos and his goons.
She turned...and cursed as she realised that she had lost track of Fitz. He seemed to have shimmered into the darkness, to have vanished completely. She stumbled forward, staring around her, but she saw nothing. He was gone, and she was lost. She didn't even have a beacon she could use to find her way back to the cabin.
At least Mai wasn't with her, she told herself as she came to a halt, trying to decide what to do. She’d be safe back at the complex even if Mariko was eaten by Tuff’s homemade monsters. Maybe she should just try to walk back, or start screaming for help. But screaming would probably attract the monsters long before it attracted anyone human.
On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus) Page 7