Rand's voice joined him. "Dancers, please join our guests in the foyer and escort them to the reception room. The rest of tonight's concert is canceled."
The tumult of attempted conversation became even louder—but at Martin's physical insistence, they at last began moving away, with Tokugawa in the lead. Rand told Rhea to take Colly back to their suite, and she agreed without argument. Dr. O'Regan and Chief Cruz remained behind. "Who was it?" Cruz asked.
"One of yours," Eva said. "Dunno which—he didn't have his face with him."
Cruz's face darkened. "I know which. Shit. Where'd they take him, the tech hole?"
"I think so." She turned to Jay. "Can you stand another look at the son of a bitch? Chief Cruz needs you to show her what happened."
"Oh sure," he said.
As they left the tunnel, they had to duck around tumbling bodies and a few severed limbs—but fortunately no more horrid trails of blood, as laser amputation tends to self-cauterize. Eva noticed how hard Cruz had to work to ignore the one in Shimizu livery.
* * *
Cruz made them wait briefly outside the tech hole. Two crime-scene technicians and three interns all arrived at once; she and the doctor went inside with them. The security chief emerged with Rand in less than a minute, scowling blackly. The conference took place there in the corridor. Cruz—mortified that one of her own people had been the killer—obviously wanted Eva gone, but did not dare try to chase her out. Eva did not even have to claim status as Jay's attorney of fact; a steely glance was all it took. She and Cruz had taken each other's measure a long time ago.
So she was able to ride herd on Jay. She was fond of the boy, and his raving about the attempted assassination being partly his fault had unsettled her. If Cruz had heard that, the questioning might well have taken place under drugs. At Eva's direction, Jay gave a baldly factual account of what had occurred. She spotted what he had meant as soon as he said it—"I told them to safety their damned weapons and continued on to the hole"—but of course no one else saw any blame in that. It was what anyone might have said in his place. She was glad she had gotten to him first.
"Pity you couldn't have taken him alive," Cruz said, when Jay had finished the story and Rand had added events from his perspective. "I hate to let someone kill a dozen people in my care without asking him who paid for it."
"I was dead," Jay said, "and then Rand gave me a split-second advantage. I didn't think about it. I grabbed his gun hand and made him shoot himself under the chin. I'd do it again."
"Oh, I wasn't criticizing! Do it again, if there's a next time."
Eva snorted at that. If Jay had not gotten lucky, Cruz would have had more dead—and perhaps a dead uip or two as well—and would have been looking for work tomorrow.
"I wish he was still alive too," Jay said. "So I could kill him again. Nika's . . . Nika was special." Suddenly he shook his head with great violence. "Jesus! Did that really happen?" He giggled.
"You've got everything you need for now, right, Chief?" Eva said.
Cruz frowned, but nodded. "I may want to hypno him tomorrow."
"Gotta wait for it to seep into long-term storage for hypno to do any good," she agreed. "Jeeves—"
"Yes, madam?" He shimmered into existence, urbane and unflappable.
"Take Mr. Sasaki home. My place, not his. Bunk him down in my bed and make me a doss in Guest Room Two."
"Very good, madam. If you would be good enough to follow me, sir . . ."
"Half a mo." She motioned Jay close and murmured in his ear. "Want Jacques to join you?"
He blinked at her and struggled with the question. Jacques's job description read, "hedonic technician"—but Eva happened to know that he was more artist than technician, a natural healer and comforter. "No," Jay said, and then, "I don't think so," and then he blushed slightly and said, "Uh . . . yes. Please."
She nodded. "Tell Jeeves. Run along now."
Once he was gone, she turned back to Cruz. "How did you know who the assassin was?"
"Eh?"
"You said, `I know which.' How did you know?"
"Oh. Savannavong only joined the force a month ago. I wouldn't have used him on this job, for that reason—but Hanh came down sick this afternoon and I was stretched thin."
"Savannavong was real good at making people come down sick," Rand said bitterly. "Hanh got lucky."
"So did you two," Cruz said. "You both reacted like trained cops. Either of you ever in service?"
"I did two years with NYPD. Draftee. But that was over twenty years ago, and I never drew my weapon in the line of duty. Jay's never had any kind of combat training, to my knowledge. We just kept making mistakes until the bastard was dead."
"You'd better get home," Eva said. "Your wife still doesn't know the details."
"Chief?"
"Go ahead."
Rand threw her a grateful glance and made his escape.
People were coming and going from the tech hole now, bringing in forensic equipment and taking out corpses. But they gave the glowering Chief Cruz a wide berth; for the moment Eva was effectively alone with her. "Does your thumb hurt, Chief?" Eva asked suddenly.
"Eh? Yes it does—why? How did you know?"
"Because I figure you for an honest cop. The moment that alarm sounded, an honest cop in your shoes would have pushed a button and flooded the whole damn theater and backstage area with sleepy gas."
"I did! Some son of a bitch had—"
"I know. It didn't work, so you kept pushing; that's why your thumb hurts."
Cruz nodded slowly. "I see." She thought some more. "Well, it wouldn't have helped anyway; the bastard obviously had nose filters in."
Eva nodded. "Like you do. But you didn't know that at the time. An honest cop couldn't have."
"But why disable the sleepy gas if he had filters?"
"So he'd have maximum confusion to escape in after he made his kill? Squawking civilians in all directions."
"God dammit, Eva—"
"Relax, Rani—I'm on your side. I know this whole episode makes you look like a horse's ass, but I can't think of anything you could've done better. And I'll tell Kate Tokugawa that, if you like. But if I were you, I'd have Dr. O'Regan document that thumb sprain."
* * *
She left Cruz and went to the reception, curious to see how the ultimately rich responded to a brush with death. Six cronkites ambushed her just outside the door, looking like children who needed to urinate; the first in line named a figure. "No comment," she said. He named a second figure, and when she refused that too, a bidding war developed. She brushed through them grandly and entered the hall. Guards prevented them from following; frustrated, they all jaunted off to file what little they already had.
The party had that slightly forced gaiety which screams of fear just past. But the uips themselves seemed the calmest people in the room—except for Reb, of course. In fact, the only person who still showed any overt signs of fear was Evelyn Martin, grinning and sweating and talking even faster than usual. He spotted her, detached himself and came over.
"Hi, Eva," he said loudly. "So glad you could make it." Sotto voce he added, "Anything else gone wrong out there? Any more assassins come to squeeze my ulcers? Fresh stiffs? Other major felonies? Chief Cruz find out the assassin is a High Council member or anything like that?"
"Good news," she said. "No news." Louder, she added. "Awful to see you, Evelyn. You're looking uglier than usual tonight."
He beamed. "Thank you, dear—-have you met our honored guests? Chen Ling Ho, for instance?"
"Get a grip, Evelyn. I introduced you to Ling. Why don't you go take a trank?"
"I'm at system max now," he said.
"Take stimulants, then. Your voice will rise above the audible range and you won't be so conspicuous." She drifted away, and joined her escort, Dr. Chen. He was chatting with Reb and Victoria Hathaway. Chen introduced her to Hathaway—who regarded her aged features with barely concealed horror.
"Hello, dear
," Eva said. "It's nice to see you again."
"We've met?" Hathaway said, disbelieving but polite.
"I knew your grandmother. You peed on my lap once."
Hathaway gave the only possible reply: dead silence.
Chen intervened. "Eva, have they determined yet who was the assassin's intended target?"
She shrugged. "For all Cruz can tell at this point, he was a good guy, come to take out Evelyn Martin on behalf of all mankind."
That got a laugh; even Hathaway almost smiled. "I assume the man's background is being checked?"
Eva shrugged again. "Sure. But it's a waste of time. The background check you have to go through to get hired for Shimizu security can't be improved on. Serious money went into this." She made sure her gaze was not resting on either Chen or Hathaway. "I will bet cash the person who hired it done is in this room."
Hathaway flinched, but Chen only nodded. "The probability is high," he agreed.
"Was it you, Chen?" Hathaway asked bluntly.
Again Chen looked as if he were remembering what it felt like to smile. "Twelve dead, none of them the right one? I'm offended, Victoria. Can you truly believe me so inartistic?"
"Oh, but you can believe it of me, right?"
"Since you ask, yes. Now we are both offended. Shall we seek another topic of conversation?"
Eva had a mischievous thought. "Unless you'd like me to narrow the list of suspects for you," she said.
"How?" Chen and Hathaway and Reb all asked simultaneously.
"Well, only theoretically. I don't actually expect, uh, people of your caliber to submit to a body search. But I'll bet a dead frog the person who hired that killer is wearing nose filters. He or she knew the killer would be covering his escape with death gas, and might have been forced to flee past his employer. Nose filters that go in far enough to be invisible aren't easily removed."
Hathaway objected. "That wouldn't prove a thing. Any of us might be wearing nose filters out of simple paranoia. In light of events, it would seem an intelligent precaution."
Eva nodded. "But you're probably not all filtered. I said `narrow the list,' not nail it down. Irrelevant anyway; none of you will tolerate a search on principle—and I don't blame you."
"Then why did you bring it up?" Hathaway snapped.
Eva did not answer. But she was already enjoying the mental picture. As the word spread, the five would spend the next hour discreetly trying to peer up each other's nostrils. Victoria Hathaway might actually not look down her nose at anyone for the rest of the night.
* * *
Reb escorted her home. They took double-bulbs of Irish coffee to the window, and sat looking out at Mother Terra in companionable silence for some time.
"Jeeves," she said then, "is Jay awake?"
"He and Master Jacques are both sound asleep, madam."
"Thank you. Let me know if he wakes." He shimmered away again, and she turned to Reb. "That bedroom is soundproof anyhow."
Reb nodded. "Go ahead."
"I need a better cover story for him. About why I'm still using up air. Oh, you did a good job. But I heard his voice, and he didn't really buy it, deep down. I'm afraid I shot my mouth off to him about why I was planning to take a cab. He's not going to be satisfied with what you told him. And I don't know what else to say. The boy knows me too well. And he spent a whole month trying to change my mind: his pride demands a convincing explanation."
"Not just pride, Eva. He loves you."
"So what do I tell him? I can't tell him about—"
"No. I suggest you stall as long as possible. With everything that's happened tonight, he'll be too busy to remember the question for a few days. When he does, you can be unavailable for some additional time. It may be weeks before he has time and opportunity to brace you about it."
"And what then?"
"You tell him I promised you entertaining surprises were still in store for you—and proved it the very next day."
"And if he persists?"
"Let icicles form on your brow and tell him it's personal. A shame to hurt his feelings, of course, but I don't see what else you can do."
She sighed, and sipped her drink. "You're right. I can't tell him."
"No, you cannot. I should not have told you, Eva. But you are my oldest living friend, and I could not see you leave just before everything changed."
She found her eyes stinging, and shut up. They shared more silence for a time.
"Do you think it was Chen?" she asked at last.
"Behind tonight's violence, you mean? I don't know. What do you think?"
"I think an inartistic hit would be a very artistic touch indeed. But it's hard to refute his essential point. If he'd done it, it would have worked, however garishly."
"Apparently it was only by incredible chance that it didn't."
"And I tend to find incredible chance incredible. But I'd bet my life both Jay and Rand are straight." She glanced over her shoulder at the bedroom door. "You know what I mean. They're both honest."
"The gods have blessed us," Reb said cheerfully.
"They have?"
"Of course. How often does life hand you a really good puzzle?"
She blinked, and grinned. "You're right. Not often enough these days. I feel like a sixty-year-old again."
12
Kechar Dzong
Lo Monthang
The Kingdom of Lo, Nepal
12 January 2065
"There was a time," the old monk said above the howling of the late afternoon wind, "when this kingdom controlled all trade throughout the Himalayas. It was the top of the roof of the world."
Gunter Schmidt thought, I will not kill my travel agent. That is far too merciful. I will sue him until he bleeds from the eyes.
"Of course," the old man said with magnificent redundance, "all that was long ago." He underlined the unnecessary words with a sweeping and equally superfluous gesture. Every square inch of the immense fortress-cum-temple within which they stood shouted that the structure had already been a long-abandoned ruin on the day Johann Sebastian Bach died.
From their vantage point on one of its flat rooftops, they could see Lo itself laid out below them in the merciless sunlight of a cloudless December afternoon, a collection of flat-roofed, log-laddered earthen dwellings at the base of the hill on which this crumbling castle of Kechar Dzong stood. Even by Fourth World standards, the Kingdom of Lo was unimpressive. The land was parched, supporting nothing higher than thornbushes; a few carefully nurtured stands of poplar and willow saplings were to be found in the village itself, but wood had been too precious to burn here for centuries. The brief growing season was over, and even the Himalayan vista in the distance could not overcome the bleakness and desolation of the landscape. The kingdom was permitted to exist, semiautonomously with its own king and queen, within the larger kingdom of Nepal—largely because there was nothing here worth arguing over.
"What happened?" Gunter asked, not because he wanted to know, but because he wanted to hear the old monk say something he didn't know already.
"Calamity. The Kali Gandaki moved."
"I hate when that happens."
The old man actually seemed to catch the sarcasm. "The Kali Gandaki was the river from which the strength of Kechar Dzong flowed. It once passed by right there—" He indicated a vague gully meandering through a section of rocky outcroppings no more or less desolate than any other, a few hundred meters downslope. "But when it changed its location at the end of the sixteenth century . . ."
Gunter understood now, and his anger deepened. "And ever since, you have been praying for its return—"
"—in the Tiji ceremony, the elaborate and beautiful ritual I told you of earlier, yes," the old monk agreed happily. "Dorje Jono, the son of the demon who moved the river, repels his father with the power of his magical dancing, and brings water back to the land. The Tiji ceremony takes three full days, and involves every member of the kingdom who is well enough to travel. We summon them wit
h the two mountain horns I showed you downstairs, each of them four meters long. For three days Lo becomes the most magical place in the Himalayas, with damyin music and feasting and dancing and singing and beautiful costumes and pageantry and—"
"In May," Gunter said through his teeth.
His rhapsody interrupted, the old man blinked at the venom in Gunter's tone. "Well, yes, as I said, that is when foreigners usually visit us. We seldom see a European this late in the year."
"Really?" Gunter said, pulling his parka tighter at his throat against the sharp and icy wind. He mentally replayed the conversation with his travel agent, realizing in hindsight that while the man had waxed eloquent about the Tiji festival, he had never specifically said when it was held. He had only seemed to suggest, somehow, that Gunter barely had time to book his passage if he wanted to be there in time. The trip here had been quite arduous. The last fifty kilometers had been accomplished on horseback, following a guide with whom Gunter had no languages in common. So I can't sue the bastard, and killing him is too good for him. Ah, but what about torture?
From somewhere in the far distance to the north came the half-mournful, half-comic sound of a Tibetan mountain horn like the two Gunter had been shown downstairs, a sustained baritone bleat that made him think of a brontosaur dying in agony. It made the mountains ring with echoes. "What's that?" he asked idly. "Call to prayer? Some sort of religious ceremony in another temple?" Perhaps this trip need not be a total loss. Exotic religions were a hobby of Gunter's; having had his mouth set for a grand festive colorful Buddhist ceremony, he was now prepared to settle for the local equivalent of Vespers, rather than go home empty-handed.
But the old man was shaking his head. "I have no idea."
For some reason, this irritated Gunter. "Well, who lives up that way, then?"
The old man looked sore puzzled. "Hardly anyone. There is an old hermit who lives in that general direction . . . and I know he has such a horn, because I have seen it outside his home. But I have never heard him blow it—if indeed that is his horn."
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