Then I made my way to the study, where I checked messages while I waited for my transportation. There were only a few recent messages—one from Krij asking to confirm that I had indeed filed an emended registry, one from Tony diVeau asking me to reconsider, and one from a Donacyr D'Azouza, requesting I return the vid at my convenience to discuss whether my services would be useful in resolving a particular problem.
The first I answered, to Krij's talking head, in the affirmative. The second I ignored, and the third I deferred. I'd get to it the next morning.
I left the study and headed across the entry foyer and down to the waiting limousine. I had originally arranged for a small special limousine to take me from the villa to Odilia's palacio, but after the day's events, I upgraded it to full-sized, both outbound and on the return. Even given what had happened so far, I'd be relatively safe at the opera—especially with Odilia. Afterward was another matter.
When I arrived at the palacio, the virtie servitor escorted me past the Angkorian temple and to the small formal dining room. This time, Odilia was waiting for me.
I entered and bowed. "Princesse."
"You do look daringly conservative, Seignior." Odilia inclined her head, her lips parted ever so slightly. The blue of her long-sleeved and full velvet gown accentuated the seemingly virginal impression of her impressively narrow waist and small but definite bosom. Definitely a woman figure without fault.
"The better to set off your delicate beauty." I hadn't noticed how large and childlike her eyes were, nor how they showed a shade that could only have been called "innocent blue." Such subtle and effective enhancements were anything but inexpensive.
She half turned, a clear invitation for me to seat her at the table. It was set just for two, but with DiNormand china and Iskling crystal.
As I seated her, all my comms and links went blank. We were surrounded by the kind of privacy screen that usually only showed up in SpecOps high command. My screens at the villa were good, but not that good. Only the city sisters and the very rich could afford screens such as Odilia's.
I said nothing as I slipped into the chair across from her.
"Here are the ground rules, Blaine." The smile was virginal. The eyes above it were not. "While we eat, I'll tell you what I know. You tell me what you know and what you'd like to find out. I'll tell you how far I'll go. After we leave the table, no business, no contracts. I've asked for the pleasure of your company for the evening, and I'd like to enjoy it."
"Agreed." I wasn't surprised. Behind the facade she had the same cupridium-hard mind as her mother Eleyna had had. But there was more than that to Odilia.
"That's one of the things I like about you the most. You're a realist, even if you have a core that's too idealistic for long-term survival in Thurene." She lifted her goblet. "To the evening ahead."
'To the evening ahead."
We sipped. That first wine was so white it was colorless, so smooth that it cut my throat like a razor, leaving the barest hint of lavender and mint-basil behind.
"Do you know why Legaar Eloi is so defensive about his operations?" I began.
"I would imagine that is because his success is based on so many little things. Everyone knows the basics of what he does. Anyone could copy those. Many have, and they all have failed, and not because Legaar has used force against them." Odilia smiled politely. "You are a danger to him. You, of all those who might investigate and research him, have the understanding and wit to discern what those small aspects underlying his success might be."
That might be true, but my understanding of such aspects didn't mean that my clients could ever replicate them. "Do you think that might be why he's agreed to back Judeon Maraniss?"
Odilia took another sip of wine before replying, then waited as an androgynous server placed a small plate before her, a similar one before me, and stepped back outside the privacy screen. "Legaar is successful because he will ally himself with anyone at the most advantageous moment, then leave or dispose of them as soon as practicable."
"What does Maraniss have that Legaar wants?"
"I don't know, except that it must be valuable." She picked up the delicate two-pronged silver fork. "Exceedingly valuable or something that will make Legaar more powerful."
On the small platter was a tiny bird's nest, except it had been infused with Berrigan Brothers honey, and within the nest were three leaves of Constantine Basil. No one had ever been able to describe why that honey, produced by special bees allowed access only to particular flowers, made all others seem either hypocritically sweet or suffused with a bitter aftertaste. When it came to natural organics, even after millennia, the synthesists and nanoformulators still couldn't replicate food well enough that a trained palate could not tell the difference.
I ate slowly, carefully, enjoying the tastes, before finally speaking again. "Maraniss must have some system that Legaar can exploit."
"If it were just a system, he'd merely steal it. Maraniss has something unique. No, I don't know what it is." I misquoted one of the old standards:
"Elysium, heaven I know not where,
except with you, any isle is bliss and fair..."
Watching Odilia, I could catch no trace of a reaction to the word "Elysium," not a single one, and my enhancements were still among the best.
"You should have been a bard, Blaine."
"I'm adequate with words, and very inadequate with music. What do you know about Maraniss that you haven't told me?"
"I did invite him to a ball here last winter. He's good-looking, but his eyes are too blue. He dances well, but he doesn't converse well, except when he's talking about how cities and societies are structured. Aurelia didn't care for him. She said he just wanted to use women." Odilia laughed.
I didn't know Aurelia. "As if both men and women don't want to use each other?" I asked gendy.
"You're a realist, Blaine. Behind their hard facades, most men are romantics. Those who aren't are usually hidden psychopaths."
"Like Legaar?"
"He makes the average darkside psychopath seem helpful and friendly."
"Have you ever had to deal with him?"
"Only when we were both on the Medical Research Board. All he was interested in was the nature of the research and to what commercial ends it could be turned. How it impacted people didn't seem to interest or affect him at all."
Coming from Odilia, who had been known to use a few people along the way, that was a total condemnation.
"Speaking of medicine, do you know anything about Dr. Guillaume Richard Dyorr?"
"The consciousness specialist? I've met him once or twice. Why?"
"I've been asked about him. What's he like?"
"I don't know. He's friendly, in an impartial way. He's brilliant, but doesn't flaunt it. He's not obviously a naming straight or samer." She shrugged. "He wasn't the sort of person I'd be interested in. He seems more immersed in his work even than you."
"What about your neighbor's great-granddaughter—Dr. Marie Annette Tozzi?"
"Didn't I mention her before?"
"Only that she was the only one worth anything."
"I've scarcely seen more of her than of Dyorr. Marie's like her great-grandmother, I think. Charming on the surface, unyielding beyond that, and whatever her private desires are, no one will never know, even any lover she may have."
"She's engaged—or about to be—to Dyorr."
"From what I've seen, they'd make a good couple. Nei-ther's excessively jealous, and they're both consumed by their profession."
At that moment, the servitor appeared and removed the first course, replacing it with the pisces argentia, lighdy poached in cyanth. Their delicate scales still radiated all the lights of the visible spectrum. Each small mouthful set off a cascade of pinlike pricks of anise and dorium across my palate.
"Can Maraniss survive dealing with Legaar?" I'd learned all I was likely to about Dyorr and Tozzi.
"They're well suited to each
other. Maraniss seems to see people as mobile pieces in a puzzle, and Legaar views them as disposable tools."
"You make them sound so charming. Do they have any redeeming qualities?"
"Their absence from any gathering is their best quality."
"Does anyone like them?"
'1 wouldn't know who. Why do you think Legaar started Classic Images? He has a few of the women conditioned to respond to him. He never tells them that before they're biosculpted. The older ones don't tell the new ones because, that way, he spends less time with them. He's probably got a full-clone operation at his Time's End estate."
My initial impressions of Legaar Eloi weren't getting any better. "And you think Maraniss is nearly as bad?"
"He might be worse if he had the wealth and power Legaar has."
"Neither one has a listed residence."
"Legaar has the entire top floor of his Pier One building here in Thurene. It's well over a thousand square meters. That's in addition to Time's End. It's at the foot of the Nord-monts, and he calls it a small place, but it's ten klicks on a side. Part of it is where the restricted Classic Research lab is."
"And Maraniss?"
"Even I don't know where he hides." She stopped speaking and gestured for the servitor.
The next course was salad"—mixed ferns from lower Tropianga, with crushed chazarian nuts and a drizzle of extra virgin olivepalm oil. I could tell that Odilia was emphasizing virginal themes even in the dinner.
After several bites, I persevered. "Have you ever been to Legaar's estate?"
"I had to go once. A benefit. He'd ushered away all the nymphs." She smiled politely. "His security is tighter than around the IS jumpport. More than a few flitters have been downed out there. All the deaths have been attributed to pilot error."
All that was interesting because none of it happened to be in any database I knew. I might be able to verify what she'd told me now that I knew. That's the way it often goes/The pilots made an error in coming too close to his estate?"
"More or less." She smiled again, this time a hard bright expression. "Who's paying you to look into Legaar? Whatever it is, dearest Blaine, it isn't enough."
"It never is."
"You didn't say."
"I don't know. The client used a pseudofront and shielded ID. Made a direct credit transfer. They wanted to know the link between Maraniss and Legaar Eloi. Business has been slow. It sounded interesting."
"Suicide is interesting, but I don't recommend it."
"Who would want that connection exposed, whatever it is?"
"About half the aristos in Thurene, so long as it was embarrassing and would reduce Legaar's power and wealth, and so long as they weren't revealed."
That wasn't exactly a help. "Who most of all?"
"How deep is the ocean? How high the sky?"
With her questions came the servitor with the main course—Agneau de la Reine. Each rack of lamb had been steeped for days in a mint brandy marinade, then grilled so that the outside was not quite black, the inside warm bright pink. With the lamb was a choice of a blackberry mint or a lime rosemary sauce. Crisp green beans almondine circled the rack on the platter before me, each almond slivered precisely and butter-toasted golden. The next wine was a cabernet-merlot, Falconcrest Reserve.
I enjoyed the lamb and wine for a time before speaking. "I would have thought you, of all souls, dear Odilia, would have known more about the infamous Eloi brothers."
She raised her left eyebrow a millimeter. "When the evening is over, Blaine dear, you will know all that I can tell you."
If that weren't an ambiguous statement, I hadn't ever heard one. "In the meantime, what else can you tell me?"
"I understand that Judeon Maraniss likes black-eyed women in black. Legaar likes a greater variety. Interestingly enough, both prefer them teasingly subservient—at least in public."
I didn't believe the disclaimer in the last four words at all.
"Do they have partners or children?"
"Maraniss doesn't. Legaar had a wife years back. She obediently provided two sons, then departed. She lives in the Lamia system, well provided for."
"And the sons?"
"Legaar sent them off to school. I don't know where. I doubt anyone living on Devanta does, either."
Effectively, that was the end of what I learned at the table.
Dessert was a simple creme brfllee, accompanied by a pale amber dessert wine, Toad Hall Reserve. I doubted Odilia served anything that wasn't at least a reserve.
I took a bite of the creme brfllee. Flavor that was part pure vanilla and part cinnamon almost filled my senses, rich without being heavy, light without losing substance.
When we had finished, I looked to my hostess. "An exquisite dinner, Odilia. Truly enjoyable."
"Thank you." She rose from her chair, lifting the other eyebrow, less than a millimeter.
I understood. No more questions about the Elois and Maraniss. I knew a bit more, but not nearly what I'd hoped. Still, finding out anything when so much in Thurene was hidden in plain sight—and still invisible—was useful. Just not useful enough.
"I'll rejoin you in a moment," Odilia said. "You know where the guest facilities are."
I did. I used them, then waited for her.
We walked quietly to the portico, where a pale gold limousine waited. It was large enough to carry eight in the two semicircular couches of black permavelt in the rear compartment, and armored and shielded heavily enough to have held a combat groundcar to a draw. We sat across from each other, but at the far end, so that our knees almost touched.
"I've heard that Carreres Domingo is absolutely marvelous as Saturnus," she said as we were carried out though the cupridium gates.
"I've only seen Hyperion twice before, once with Kherrl Mylnes and once with Mykelj Farinelli."
"Which did you prefer?"
"Farinelli was better on the top, but he minced the role. Mylnes was Saturnus, but that's because he takes himself so seriously all the time anyway."
Odilia laughed. "It's best you don't write consulting reports on the opera."
I agreed with that.
"I would judge that Domingo has Farinelli's top and Mylnes's gravitas."
That might be worth seeing ... and hearing.
Before long, the limousine pulled up at the entrance outside the upper entry foyer, used only by those who had boxes in the royaux row. A footman dressed as one of Apollo's minions held the door as we exited. I was of less import and status. I went first.
Those waiting inside the foyer looked at Odilia without seeming to. A few looked in my direction, less circum-specdy. Two men stared.
"They're jealous, dear Blaine. Don't mind them."
I didn't.
Odilia steered us toward a blond woman in a clinging pale seafoam dress. While the garment covered everything from wrist to neck to ankle, it left little to the imagination. That was a waste of expensive fabric. Why use it like a surface coating? Paint would have done almost as well.
"Sephaniah, you look positively ravished," Odilia said in a honey-sweet voice. "I mean, ravishing. Have you met Blaine Donne?"
Sephaniah smiled at Odilia. "You always look so regal and distinguished. You certainly have managed to capture the look and spirit of the later Victoria, I mean, Victorian time frame." Sephaniah's blond hair was in long, perfect ringlets that curled forward across her shoulders and partly covered her almost nonexistent breasts, to which the seafoam fabric clung like a second skin, revealing every nuance. Clearly, the nymphet look was back. Rather, the nymphets-across-history look was back. Odilia was now merely a more conservative version of what Sephaniah flaunted.
The nymphet turned to me with a warm smile. "I'm pleased to meet you, Seignior Donne. You don't look like either the ancient poetic type or a searcher after truth in the shadows." Her hand almost touched my trousers, and my hip, not quite suggestively.
"I'm limited in both fields. Good poetry and truth are both
difficult to discover," I replied.
"I doubt you're limited in areas where it matters most." She glanced toward Odilia. "Do enjoy the opera. It's said to be charmingly antiquarian." With a sidelong glance, she slipped away toward a tall and well-muscled gladiatorial type in black and gold. Maybe he was meant to be a god, but he looked more like a gladiator posing as one.
Odilia gave an amused laugh. "Sephaniah refuses to admit any intellect in public. She has a long listing of translations from lost languages, and she wrote the libretto for Gilgamesh, based on her own original translation from the Urdu or Sanskrit or whatever the clay tablets were written in. She also wrote the libretto for The Lictor's Sword. Have you ever met Laniel Greyspan? He's right over there."
"I know of him, but I've never had the pleasure." I turned t slightly to see the angular figure talking to a shorter man • and a woman who had clearly modeled herself after Titania. Greyspan had been the financial advisor to the city sisters for generations—and with his haggard face and thin gray hair, he looked it. He was one of the unfortunates for whom nanotech and telomeric therapy worked marginally. He'd had to rely on his own cloned organs to keep going. As his appearance revealed, that process had limits. He would reach them soon.
"Intellectually, it's a pleasure." Odilia left the rest unsaid.
She turned, and I stepped up to her side.
Out of the thousand plus in the opera house, there couldn't have been more than a dozen aristo women who did not look as though they were either nymphs, nymphets, or slighdy older, and not more than twenty men who were not shaped in some semblance of youthful gods. My appearance was definitely on the older side. I hoped I didn't qualify as a satyr. I'd let a few wrinkles stay here and there, on the grounds that my various opponents and nameless enemies might underestimate me.
We walked across the foyer toward the middle, where Odilia had a private box, in the exact center of the royaux row. She extended her hand, and the door opened, keyed by her persona. I stepped forward and gestured for her to enter, since I could not actually open the faux goldenwood door. It closed behind me. I looked down. While I had been in other private boxes, I had not entered Odilia's before. The four seats directly behind the balcony rail were visible to the rest of the audience. That was where one sat to be seen. The second line was blurred from outside, but offered a clear view of the stage and the pit. That was where guests who wished to see the opera but not be seen sat. The two couches on the third level offered a restricted view of the stage, but were totally private.
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