The Elysium Commission

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Just past one, I checked my gear and shields, then stepped out of the villa and down the wide and gray granite steps to the limousine. The blue-green sky was clear. Mostly. There were clouds to the north of Thurene, over the Malmonts. That was true of most days. That rain was what fed the Nou-velle Seine.

  The car looked like every other small limousine. The driver was a woman. Autovirtie drivers were also verboten for all hired vehicles. Drivers for the special limousine re­quired additional qualifications. I flashed the ID and code, and got the confirmation back. The rear door opened. I eased into the seat.

  "Seignior Donne, to the Palacio Ottewyn?"

  'The same. You're to wait."

  "Confirmed on full alert."

  I nodded. The service organizations were among the few one could trust. Rigorous impartiality was a necessity for them to remain in business. Expensive as they were, they were far cheaper than betrayal. Especially in Devanta, where one of the unspoken rules was that the habit of secrecy was both politic and moral.

  The driver eased out through my plain iron gates, simple vertical bars, nanite-reinforced, and down Cuarta Calle to Le Boulevard. She drove the left-hand side of the Pare du Roi, then took Maiden Lane through the Boutique, rather than Vallum through La Banque. In Thurene, at times more credits passed through the fashion lanes than through the financial center.

  At the far end of Maiden Lane, she entered the traffic cir­cle and came out on Boudicca, less than a half klick from our destination. The limousine stopped at the gatehouse to Odilia's palacio. The gatehouse was half the size of my villa. It was also twice as ugly. I'd never voiced that to Odilia. The limousine went through the full surveillance array—tags, snoops, and sweeps. There were some I could sense, but not identify. That was one problem with going civvie. I'd kept up as well as I could, but the best personal technology was still IS and, to a lesser extent, Garda.

  "Blaine Donne for Princesse Ottewyn."

  "You are expected." The virtie guard nodded, her dark eyes never leaving the driver.

  Unlike some in positions of power, Odilia did not make her guests climb a flight of stone steps from the portico to the main entrance. My guests had to, but that hadn't been my choice, and I wasn't about to rebuild my villa. Odilia's rotunda was covered and less than ten meters from the arched and columned entrance to the palacio.

  That entrance was a facade. Behind it was a long, marble-paved walkway, also flanked by golden stone columns. Beyond the columns on either side was an interior courtyard garden, a jungle representation of fallen temples from ancient Earth. Someplace called Angkor. Beyond the courtyard garden was the receiving hall. The floor was polished pale blue marble. This year. The last time I had been in the palacio the marble had been rose. Black granite columns— shot with golden streaks—formed two semicircles, split by the entry archway through which I had entered and by the grand staircase. The staircase was also of the gold-shot black granite. The columns soared ten meters to the base of the dome, whose surface displayed a changing iridescence created by the millions of nano-tubes that picked up the sun and shifted the light according to some pattern I'd never been able to analyze. The hall was a good thirty meters across and empty of all furnishings. There were no hang­ings between the columns or the pale white marble walls behind them. Not a single work of art was visible anywhere. The intent was to diminish anyone who called, although I knew that fountains, furnishings, and art could appear within minutes.

  I waited a good quarter stan in that starkness before Odilia made her way down the grand staircase. Then I bowed.

  "With such a poor excuse for respect, I should have made you wait longer." Odilia curtsied. Despite the full antiquar­ian skirt, she made it look graceful. This year, she was petite, black-haired, with a heart-shaped face and an impos­sibly slim waist. Last year, she'd been blond, better en­dowed curvaceously, and with a wholesome and slightly oval face. "You always look the same, Blaine, year after year. Depressingly unchanged. The same black hair that looks almost dark gray. The same military gray trousers, the black jacket, and silver blouse ... accouterments of the shadows."

  "Shirt. I don't wear blouses." I did bow more deeply. "You've decreed that this year the fashion must be Imperial?"

  "It has been a while, and Imperiale is formal upon the surface and decadent beneath." She raised her right eye­brow not quite imperceptibly. And are we not most decadent here in Thurene? That came by flashcode, virtually impos­sible to intercept as close as we stood, unlike sound waves.

  "Surfaces are most important. They conceal or reveal what is desired." And you conceal most revealingly and charmingly.

  "And what is it that you desire, Seignior?" Since you never come to see me unless you want information. With the words came the slightest hint of very feminine pheromones, but ones I'd have called virginal lust, not that Odilia was anything close to virginal.

  "You, most certainly. Why else would I throw myself at your feet?" You'd never want to see me if I didn't, dear Odilia. It makes you feel valued and important—which you are—or I wouldn't be here.

  "That is the most eloquent you have been in years. Do you know that the ancient Tarot is the new fashion?"

  "I had not heard. I'm not one for changing fashion, as you have pointed out." Judeon Maraniss—what have you heard?

  "Do you think more highly of the Fisher King or the Hanged Man?" He's rather dull. The only thing interesting about him is the rumor that he's connected with Legaar Eloi.

  "I doubt that any would wish to suffer the real death, Principessa." In what fashion?

  "Imperiale suggests 'Princesse,' Seignior Donne." Some disgusting commercial venture . . . Judeon needed financing for a project, but he refused to provide proprietary information to La Banque de Thurene... or the First Commerce Bank, so I was told. So he went to Legaar.

  I ignored the fact that Odilia's considerable fortune was based on sordid commercial dealings by her late mother. Eleyna Ottewyn had maintained that she'd never lifted a finger to deal in commerce. She hadn't. It had all been done in flashcode. Sometimes on her back, it had been rumored. However she had accomplished it, Eleyna had made certain that her daughter was powerful and well-off.

  "I apologize, Princesse." I bowed again. What kind of project?

  "I will consider accepting your apology." She lifted the left eyebrow. "If you are suitably contrite." Something that mixed civic planning and entertainment, probably taking the worst from each.

  "How could my most sincere contrition be other than suit­able?" How many creds? Do you know what Legaar Eloi asked in return?

  "Your contrition is always so heartfelt, Blaine, even when you don't mean it. That's what makes you so charming." Several score million, I understand, and a minority interest close to a majority.

  "I'm only charming to you, Seigniora. You're the only one who deserves it." What sort of project would a specialist like Maraniss have that cost that much?

  "You also lie charmingly, Blaine." I don't know. No one I know does either.

  "What else can I do? The truth would not be gracious enough, and grace itself not truthful." I'm also looking into a Dr. Guillaume Richard Dyorr. He's attempting to wed one Marie Annette Tozzi. I understand she's the granddaughter of one of your neighbors.

  "There is more than one meaning to grace, as you well know." Seldara was a contemporary of my mother's. She's the only one who cares about the great-grandchildren. Everyone else just waits for her to die. They'll wait decades. Marie Annette is the only one of the lot worth worrying about. I haven't heard anything.

  "All meanings of grace apply to you. How could they not?" Can you tell me anything else?

  "With such eloquence, you simply must accompany me to the opening of Hyperion this coming Vieren." Perhaps then I'll know more.

  I bowed. An invitation to appear in public with Odilia was not to be missed. Not in my line of work, but not for the reasons most people thought. I also might learn more. "I would be honored." Thank you.

 
; The faintest smile appeared on that beautiful heart-shaped face. "I will see you here at even-six of Vieren. Good afternoon, Seignior." Don't spend too much time as the knight of shadows.

  "Your wish is my command." If not me, then who? Old lines, contrasted, but perfectly acceptable. I bowed again before making my departure.

  The sun had dimmed close to thirteen percent by the time I returned to the limousine. The solar screens beyond the atmosphere had adjusted to the solar variability. The variability had not been that obvious more than a millen­nium before when the planoforming of Devanta had been completed and colonization begun.

  Once outside, before stepping into the limousine, 1 tried a system-link back to Max. The first reason was to have him schedule the engagement with Odilia. The second was sus­picion.

  Personal security caught the linktrace in nanoseconds, before I even flashlinked. I made the link anyway. Max, re­serve the evening this Vieren, from five-even on.

  Yes, Seignior.

  Max... detect alpha one.

  He didn't respond to me. That was the confirmation.

  Odilia's gates were cupridium thorn-olives that shim­mered even in low light and radiated enough in normal light to make it hard to look at them without retinal adjustment. They were strong enough to remain intact under any energy flow short of a nova. The driver eased out through them and went the other way onto Vallum. Halfway into La Banque area, she turned right and took Swift Alley into Dauphine Drive. The hazalean trees were still flowering, cascading blossoms onto the blue-green turf of the Pare. Each one re­leased a flash of purple as it touched the grass. It wouldn't be that long before the long autumn turned to winter.

  In minutes, we were headed back up Cuarta Calle, and I went to passive mode, listening. I did pulse the gates, and they opened. The driver eased the limousine to a stop at the foot of the stone steps.

  From out of what most would have received as white en­ergy, the implant pulled Max's transmission. Simulacrum at your 330. Range Amorphous energy concentration at your 217.

  Before exiting the limousine, I calculated the angles, then eased to the door behind the driver. "I'll be getting out this side."

  "Yes, Seignior." The driver stiffened.

  I could sense all the limousine's defense screens and shields. That was fine with me—exactly what I wanted.

  I put my own nanoshield on full, stepped out, turned, and... dropped to one knee.

  Energy coruscated off the limousine and its shields.

  The driver reacted, and a fine-line particle beam took out the "amorphous" energy source. It also left a large hole in Soror Celestina's outer vallum. She'd complain to the Sorores Civitas, but since the transport company had been fired on and responded, there was little recourse against me. Much neater that way. Also much less on my dossier with the Garda. There was already too much there as it was.

  "Thank you," I told the driver.

  She smiled. "It comes with the service, Seignior Donne. There will be a surcharge."

  "Of course."

  I maintained my nanoshield only so long as it took to climb the steps and enter the villa. I was sweating and over­heated anyway. A shield strong enough to divert even moderate energy will cook the user in five minutes—sometimes less. That's why they're usually pulsed. Pulsing doesn't work against high continuous energy discharges, and those are what anyone serious uses. Except on my forays in the shadows on my own, I usually only encountered serious users. With all its limitations, a nanoshield still had its uses.

  When the doors of the entry foyer closed behind me, I direct-linked with Max. The patterns the system had observed and recorded didn't reveal much more than I'd calculated in the backseat of the special limousine.

  Now the question was who was after me. I doubted seri­ously whether a fortune hunter like the good doctor would have known I was tracing him—or how to put together a team that could bring that much energy to bear in a matter of a day or so.

  Had Seigniora Reynarda commissioned me merely to get rid of me, or to get me irritated enough to take on Legaar Eloi and Judeon Maraniss? Or to see if I were able to do so? Or to get me vanished later on so that an official investiga­tion by the Garda under the instigation of the Civitas Sorores would reveal whatever connection she wished raised? That certainly would be cheaper than paying me what it would cost. It also had downsides, because there was always the possibility that it might reveal who or what was behind the mysterious seigniora.

  I spent the rest of Miercen afternoon finishing up my for­mal report to Lewiston Asian, U. I'd finished his dark mate­rials investigation two weeks earlier, and I'd briefed him at the time. That was one where I'd had solid inklings of what lay beneath it all from the first, unlike whatever it was that Seigniora Reynarda wanted. Asian had still wanted formal documentation. Behind that bluff leonine facade, he was more than a little parochial. I hated formal reports, but I wouldn't get the last ten percent of my fee without the re­port. My dislike of leaving creds on the table was far greater than my distaste of perfunctory documentation of what I'd done and found. So I gathered everything together, added the summary of my activities and findings, and sent it off. One encrypted version through the net, and a hard copy conveyed by Thurene Secure Couriers. At least the dark materials investigation hadn't been as bad as the Kung Chuo lost station problem. When someone inverted power nodes into spinspace, it got messy. After that one, it had taken the best reconstructive surgeons on Devanta to restore me. Krij had been less than pleased about that. It still hadn't been as bad as the complete regen that had required my medical retirement from SpecOps.

  Then, after a light supper on Mercien evening, I accessed the complete system archives—the ones for which I paid an exorbitant sum every time I used them—rather than just the planetary archives, to see what else I could discover about Maraniss and Eloi. Elysium was a total loss. The word itself meant so many different things to so many people—and had for so many millennia—that even with maximum sort, full analysis, and minimalist definitions, the processing time on the amount of information would have taken months—and the cost would have been far in excess of what Seigniora Reynarda would have paid.

  The complete archives didn't produce much more in the way of usable information on either man. About all I learned new was that Judeon Maraniss had first taken a doctorate in some obscure branch of physics. He'd gotten into a disagree­ment with senior academics at L'Institut Multitechnique be­fore turning his skills to obtaining additional degrees in more humanistic areas. Those records were sealed. That was an indication of system security, and that didn't happen often on the access level I was employing. Maraniss had been a professor at the Father Roger College at the University of Cluny until a decade earlier, when he'd established himself as an independent academic. He had multiple degrees and certifications in almost every branch of population studies and societal and sociological analytics. His studies were netsys-accessed enough that he probably made a decent liv­ing off those alone, and that didn't count whatever he might be providing in studies for governmental organizations, in­stitutes, foundations, or corpentities.

  The detailed record on Legaar Eloi was broader, shal­lower, and even more shadowed. He'd been trained as an advocate and actually practiced as a public advocate for a time, a good ten years. Then he'd dropped out of public view for several years. There wasn't any mention of him in any records. The next reference to him was as one of the partners in something called Classic Images. I'd tracked that down as well. Classic Images provided private escorts—men and women—based on classical images. Did the Directeur of Dorchan Delite wish to spend an evening with Helen of Troy or Dian duBlandeis? Did Madame Directeur prefer an evening with Don Juan or Genji le Shinto? Contact Classic Images.

  From there, Eloi's tastes declined as his fortune mounted. The one question that came to my mind, right from the be­ginning, was where he'd gotten the credits to launch Classic Images. He'd needed a few millions for the biosculpting and psyche sets for his li
ving images. And if he'd used clones, he'd have needed far more—either to buy the legal variances from the Civitas Sorores or to pay off the Garda. Or both. The record didn't even have any hints in that direction, and that suggested even more millions from unknown backers to encourage reticence on the part of the Swift Street media types.

  Besides a too-sketchy background, I also got sets of pic­tures, dating farther back in time than the recent vid-clips I'd already studied. They didn't add much.

  The scattered images of Maraniss all looked the same over the past fifteen years—black-haired, broad-shouldered, square-chinned with deep blue eyes, and clean-shaven. An image-boy for academics. Funny thing was that he'd looked that way all along.

  In his first images, Legaar had started out as a tall and lanky figure, with dark red hair cut short and a narrow face under a broad forehead. His eyes were brown. Over the years, he'd let his hair grow a shade longer, and had a bit of work done on his ears so that they didn't protrude as much, and he'd added just enough weight to shift his image from one of lankiness to one that was imposing.

  Those current images were subject to change, based on whim and credits. I didn't think either was the changing type. Not when neither had shifted appearance in years. Physical bodies indicate more about people than they think. If they're unchanged, then they're based on their genetic background. Those who don't alter their bodies signifi­cantly, either genetically or cosmetically, when they have the resources to do so, exhibit various kinds of pride and ar­rogance. Makes them harder to deal with. Both Maraniss and Legaar Eloi looked to be that kind.

  I fell somewhere in the middle. I'd opted for casual hand­someness close to my genetic appearance, along with high muscle mass, but optimized for my bone structure, so that I appeared solid, but not overmuscled, with a lot of fast twitch muscles. Black hair, a shade that was really deep dark gray, call it shadow gray, and light green eyes. Totally unremarkable. It fit my persona. I knew I didn't wish to be re­membered for being physically striking, one way or the other. If I were remembered, it would be for what I'd done. That was vanity as well, but I knew it. No one is remembered for long after they've vanished. Especially those who work the shadows. Even the greatest leaders and artists are re­membered as images molded by culture to depict psychic and political necessities.