"Blaine, how you can use such crude language with antecedents such as yours is a matter that even the ancient gods with their all-too-human foibles would scarcely have tolerated." His appearance was Old Earth courtly, with gray sideburns. That was an affectation. So was his language.
"How are you faring in the conduct of your most ancient and plutocratic profession?"
"Scoffer."
He was right about that. "I admit it. I need some information. I'll add to your coffers if you can tell me. As always, if it involves a client of yours, it's off-limits."
"Remuneration would be acceptable." He beamed from behind the wide mahogany desk that was a virtie superim-position.
"Have you ever heard of something called the Elysium Project?"
"Alas, I must confess that there are many, all rather sordid, although the only one with which I have had any contact was an establishment in the nether reaches of Thurene. That would have been the Elysian Pleasure Fields, but it was renamed three years ago after it suffered some damage from unexplained causes."
"Competition for the Classic enterprises of the Elois?"
"Far too sordid, I fear, to even approximate competition, Seignior Donne."
"So it wasn't owned by the Elois?"
"No. The proprietress was originally from Nantes. I assisted her in pursuing recompense. Once she received it, she divested herself of the enterprise to another individual."
"Not Eloi?"
"No ... I now believe it is operated as an institution professing to deal with less intimate bodily functions—mere massage and the like."
"Anything else about Elysium?"
"I have disclosed all that I can recollect."
"What about a Judeon Maraniss?"
"A most obnoxious and arrogant example of an individual whose intellectual capabilities have convinced him all others are so far beneath him that they merit less than condescension."
"Do you know him?"
"Not in the slightest. I have encountered him upon a handful of occasions, all of them passing, and none of them pleasant."
"If you hardly know him, why do you dislike him so much?"
Jay spread his hands. "I admit to a totally visceral and intellectually unfounded immediate detestation."
"Another case. A Dr. Guillaume Richard Dyorr."
Jay snorted. "An expert. A pain-in-the-ass expert Solid and friendly."
"I take it he was an expert against one of your clients?"
"He was. We lost. Nothing more to say."
With his tone, I wasn't about to pursue Dyorr. Besides, he'd told me the important stuff.
"Different case. Stella Strong and Maureen Gonne. Same person, different names."
"My knowledge of either appellation or the personage behind either is nonexistent."
"Astrid Forte or Charlyse Forte?"
"Likewise..." Jay shook his head. "No... Charlyse Forte was a mysticist, I think. I met her at a friend's party near Vannes years ago. Heard she died a while back. Only encountered her in passing. Attractive woman, though. I know nothing more and have never since encountered her or her appellation."
'Terrie McGerrie, or variations on the name?"
"Ah ... I do have some minimal knowledge. That is the pseudonym of a professional who has authored a number of dramas. She is and has always been female, and is currendy creating—albeit it at a less prolific rate—under the pseudonym of Carey Douglass."
"Do you know her personally?"
"I have never met the lady, even in a virtual sense. The information came to me through my accounting compliance auditor."
"Who might that be?"
"Corey Richarde."
Once I finished with Jay, I tried a vidlink to the accounting compliance auditor.
All I could say about Corey Richarde was that her virtie appearance was best described as glittering in a shifting silver jacket and trousers, yet imperially slim.
"Blaine Donne, for Corey Richarde."
The holo flickered, and a slightly different image appeared. This time, the jacket and trousers were glittering gold. "Seignior Donne. You must be pursuing information.
With your sister handling your compliance affairs, you scarcely would need my services."
"I am. I'm trying to find the personage behind the names of Terrie McGerrie and Carey Douglass."
She nodded. The virtie shifted slightly. The gold was a superimposition. "I can only tell you that the personage is alive and doing well. Other than that..."
"Client confidential?"
She laughed. 'To admit or deny that would provide you with more information than I should."
"I understand. What about the names Stella Strong and Maureen Gonne?"
She shook her head.
"The Elysium Project?"
"That sounds less than savory, but I've never heard of it."
"Judeon Maraniss?"
"He's a civic planner of some sort. I met him briefly at a Civitas Sorores hearing a number of years ago. Briefly was too long."
That was all I got from Corey Richarde.
I made three more vidlinks before Max flashed me.
Incoming fmm Theodore Elsen.
Accept.
Elsen was angular and spare, with short disheveled brown hair. He didn't look all that big either. He didn't even offer a greeting. "What are you chasing down, Seignior Donne?"
"Medical research. I've been asked to evaluate a research proposal."
"And you're looking for dirt and inside expertise. You always do. You think you know how things work, but you've got a lot to learn."
"What do you think about the state of consciousness research?"
"It's still fortune-telling based on the alchemy of quantum biological effects that may not have any impact on brain function at all."
"Why does it get funded, then?"
"Why does anything get funded? It isn't enough to be a good scientist and outstanding medical researcher. You've also got to be personable, friendly, persuasive, and well-connected."
"By planned marriage?" That was a gamble, but I thought he might react.
"By whatever works. Medical centers want docs to produce. We either do high-credit and high-visibility medical procedures or glamorous research. Some have found that glamorous research doesn't have to be all that rigorous scientifically."
"Like consciousness research?"
"Draw your own conclusions, Donne. I drew mine a long time ago. Even the best scientist in the field can always use more friends, family, and credits."
"What else can you tell me?"
"Your report won't change a thing."
"Then why did you return my link?"
"I just wanted to see what a knight looked like in person. You're better in the shadows."
With that he was gone.
For personal charm, Theodore Elsen was right up there with Legaar Eloi and Judeon Maraniss. But he had told me a few things in passing. While he didn't like Dyorr, he gave him grudging respect. He also had implied that Dyorr wasn't just fortune hunting.
So why did Seldara Tozzi think so?
I went back to trying to contact people.
I made seventeen more vidlinks and got nothing I didn't know already. I got less than nothing because I'd used up goodwill and access to no good end.
After that, I used my system links to do a virtie search of the city records for building and construction permit requests, but there was nothing there about either Elysium or Maraniss, and the Eloi and Classic permits over the past ten years were for minor alterations or additions—all but one. That was the Classic Research center at Time's End. Construction had begun on that slightly over three years before.
In the end, Maraniss's words suggested a linkage between him and Elysium. The timing of the building of the new research center suggested a link between Maraniss and Legaar Eloi, but I still had nothing that remotely resembled proof.
By then it was time to drive to my appointment with An�
�gelique deGritz. Traffic was light. It always was, what with the taxes and usage fees.
The First Commerce Bank was located on the east end of the Left Bank, three long blocks from the river. The building was a brownstone with a design far more appropriate for a city in the Columbian sector of the Assembly. The receptionist was not a virtie, but real. She could have once been a special operative or an IS commando. I'd have bet commando.
"Kinnal Galwaie. I have an appointment with Angelique deGritz." I proffered the perfectly legitimate alternate identity card.
She scanned it, then pulsed the commnet. My implant systems could detect the energies but not decrypt the protocols.
'Take the ramp to your left. Her office is the second door on the left on the lower level."
"Thank you."
The ramp was only fifteen meters long. The doorways beyond were close together. The second door slid open as I approached. I stepped through.
Angelique deGritz looked up from a small console in an office not much larger than my desk. Her hair was a luminous mahogany flame, but her eyes were emerald-metal hard. They bored through me. "You're not Kinnal Galwaie. You're Blaine Donne. You're not here to set up a trust. If you can't explain quickly why whatever you want is both legal and in the Bank's interest, I suggest that you leave— immediately."
Her words were sharp enough to draw blood. Whether she'd actually recognized me or whether she had a comparator system that had identified me didn't matter.
"I've been retained to locate a woman. I've been told that she may be the heir to a bequest that is administered by the
Bank, and I was given your name as the contact, once I located her, but I frankly don't want to spend time chasing down someone under false pretenses."
"That's rather general. It sounds legal, but we cannot offer any names." The sharpness diffused into boredom. I didn't believe it.
"I'm told that the bequest is from a Clinton Jefferson Wayles to children he had with women who were not his wife. I've been commissioned to find a Stella Strong. She supposedly also went by the name of Maureen Gonne."
Angelique nodded politely. I could sense the links.
"I can only confirm there is a bequest from the estate of one Clinton Jefferson Wayles. The terms of the bequest cannot be made public, nor can the identities of the beneficiaries."
I had to frown at that. "I thought bequests, once registered, were public documents."
"They are, Seignior Donne. They cannot be officially registered until the identity of the beneficiary is known, confirmed, and certified. Was that not why you were retained?"
"Why couldn't the beneficiary just appear before you and certify her identity?"
"Such an individual certainly could. It would be far easier for everyone."
"If there is more than one beneficiary, and only one appears and is certified," I asked cautiously, "are the terms of the bequest made public at that time?"
"No. We have to make public that such a bequest exists, but in the case of multiple or contingent beneficiaries, none of the beneficiaries' names are made public until all primary beneficiaries are certified or otherwise accounted for."
"Otherwise accounted for meaning deceased."
"Usually. Or legally ineligible, as in the case of felons who might benefit from a crime."
"Offspring who murder to get the inheritance? That sort of thing?"
"That's one class of ineligibility. The others are listed in the Codex."
Cold and precise as she was, there was no sense of deception about her. That meant she'd offered no untruths but left much undisclosed. That was the way angels lied, I figured. Assuming there ever had been angels.
"You don't hold off disbursing until everyone is found? If they're not, that could be a long wait," I pointed out "Hundreds of years."
"The maximum is three centuries and a year, the minimum fifty years. We disburse what is possible as soon as the legalities are satisfied."
"Assuming I find this woman, what do you need to certify her?"
"Her proper Gallian identity, her birth record, and gene-certified record of parentage or, if she is not genetically related, the legal record establishing equivalency of parentage."
I nodded politely. Angelique had as much as confirmed the bequest did go to children.
"Did you ever know a Terrence or Therese McGerrie?"
"The dramaturge? Not personally or professionally. I've seen one or two of her works."
"Carey Douglass?"
"No." Angelique smiled coldly. "I think there's little more for us to discuss, Seignior Donne. Good day." I left I'd never even had the chance to sit down.
22
Bartered bastard bride of dead suns bares her beauty while hot blood runs.
Legaar stood in the doorway to the suite, looking almost disappointed that I was unaccompanied by one of his nymphs, but I've never had much use for sycophants, especially for sexual sycophants. Magdalena was compliandy understanding, not falsely flattering, and there was a difference between the two.
Yet sometimes, I wondered about Magdalena. Should I have let her loose? Was indeed everything spoiled by use?
"I want to see the projections." Legaar's words weren't a request because he never requested anything when he could order someone around. His brother Simeon was just the opposite, and the more quiedy Simeon requested something, the angrier and more dangerous he was. Legaar was bullying and dangerous all the time.
"What about the shadow knight and the Fox?" I didn't really care about either, but Legaar did. Besides, it was a way of keeping him off-balance, and that was necessary with his calculating and predatory personality. "Has the Garda found the trails your agents planted from Jerome to Donne?"
"The Garda's still looking into the matter. They'll have trouble with the time displacement." Legaar frowned. "We should have taken care of Jerome when you first realized the application of his work."
I'd suggested that, but Legaar had thought Jerome wouldn't even notice the use of one modified jump-generator out of the thousands in use across the Galaxy. I wasn't about to remind Legaar that I'd warned him. "What about the shadow?"
"The shadow's been quiet ever since you shook him up. Hasn't even been haunting the back streets or the South Bank. This will tie him up further. Nothing new on the Fox. That could just be a rumor or a false lead for us."
"Is that from your friends on the Garda?"
"And some others."
"Do you want me to try with the field again?"
"No. It's too complicated and uncertain planetside. And it's slow. Besides, the local Assembly IS agents found out about the anomalies and the energy use, and they've beefed up satellite and local EDI surveillance. Now, they might be able to pinpoint the source. Unless the shadow comes out after us directly and without shields, it's better not to use the projection field. The shadow can't do that much anyway, but I don't want the Assembly sending in a fleet. Our ... allies might disassociate themselves if that occurred."
"How are the defenses?"
"We got more RPFs. They'll take care of anything local." Legaar waved his arms. "We're set. Stop chewing the air and show me the projections."
I called up the first projection, positioned so that the entire system hung between us, with Devanta a point of green, and the sun reddish orange. "The nodes are the fuchsia points. They're really MDLs."
"Stop using all your acronyms." Legaar snapped. "They're just glorified knots in underspace."
"Overspace. They're multidimensional loci."
"They have enough twists that they're knots. Call them that."
Before he agreed to the project, Legaar wouldn't have known an MDL from a Hawking wormhole or sintered black hole or white hole. His interests lay in the credits produced from much shallower and more mundane depths and darknesses.
"Voltaire's the fulcrum," Legaar said. "Do you have all the vectors and field positions calculated?"
That was another stup
id statement followed by an even stupider question. I'd already reported that the calculations were as complete as they could be until the field was operational. For the system to work optimally, the sun and the target moon had to be on opposite sides of Devanta, and we couldn't make all the adjustments at the last minute. That's why as much as possible was precalculated. I'd told him that at least three times.
"Wipe that condescending look off your face, Maraniss. Unless you want to finish this operation as a brain-conditioned nymph."
"I wasn't being condescending, Legaar." I smiled politely. "I was just thinking about what was coming to the sisters." Legaar's words were a bluff. After the operation ... then it would be a real possibility ... except that I wouldn't be anywhere that Legaar could reach. Matters were so far along that I could complete the project—if necessary— without the Hawking complex, but it would be messy, and the inflation would be less than ideal, not that it would matter in any lifetime I had. It would also leave traces of the methodology, and I didn't want to leave anything for the thoughdess and ungrateful Assembly.
Or for the Elois, except they wouldn't find anything.
The Civitas Sorores and all those who fawned over the sisters wouldn't get all that they deserved, but they'd get enough, and it would probably be sufficient for reformulation— assuming that there was anyone left to be governed. In any case, total revenge had to be secondary to my success. Legaar and Simeon would get their rewards as well, and that, too, would be as it should be, for a process in the weather of the world would blow the moon into the sun, figuratively, of course, and worlds would hang on the trees of time and gape, unable to act
"It's not about revenge, Maraniss. It's about creds and power. Those are what count."
I nodded. He was half-right.
"The next projection, frig it! Get moving."
I called up the stress lines that would extend all across the Gallian sector. At this point, the projection went to modified scale, but that was good enough for Legaar to study and gloat.
"Bastards on Dreyfus ... they'll get theirs, too."
That was indubitably true, assuming one meant dying a slow and lingering death was "getting theirs." The other systems in the Gallian sector were too distant for more than minor disruptions to their heliospheres.
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