“How many times each day do you shower?” he asked.
“Not enough,” she said, and grinned. “Though I will share my shower on request.”
“I made you breakfast,” he said and gestured toward the teapot and a tray of pastry.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Since you pointed out that I’ve always had servants and might be lacking in basic skills,” Martinez said, “I’ve learned to make coffee and tea.”
“For the first,” Sula said, “you pour beans into the hopper and press a button. And for the second—well, we’ll see.”
She sat on his left and poured tea into a delicate Vigo hard-paste cup. She lowered her head to the cup and gave a delicate sniff. “Well,” she said, “it smells like tea.”
“Probably tastes like it, too.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
She held the pot of cane syrup over the cup and began the long, slow, delicious pour. She glanced at the messages on the wall display. “Anything new?” she asked.
“Conyngham’s reported Division One as complete and ready for action,” Martinez said. “But then we were expecting that.”
“That leaves only Division Two.”
“Which has essentially completed repairs, though there’s still some paint to slap on and brass to polish,” Martinez said. “That’ll be done in a couple days.”
“And then?”
He took a deliberate sip of his coffee, then looked at her. “We go to Zanshaa,” he said. “It’s been delayed too long.”
Sula had only been urging that course of action for the last eighteen days, since Roland’s arrival.
“What changed?” she asked.
“The last dispatch from Zanshaa, where they said it was impossible to summon the Convocation for three days on either side of the Equinox Festival because the convocates were visiting their districts. Their government is so clearly stalling that I’ve decided it’s time to send them an ultimatum.”
“An ultimatum in the form of warships.”
“Absolutely.”
She poured the last golden drop of syrup, then stirred her tea. “If I weren’t so thirsty,” she said, “I’d kiss you.”
“You can kiss me later.”
“After you’ve shaved,” she decided. She sipped from her cup and was modestly surprised that it tasted like tea.
Experimentally, Martinez rubbed the bristle along his jawline. “No time for a shave,” he said. “I’m about to see Roland to tell him we’re shipping out for Zanshaa.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Would you like me to come with you? You might need a one-two punch.”
“If punch one fails,” Martinez said, “I’ll release your punch two. But I don’t want Roland to feel outnumbered.”
“Oh?” Sula said. “You mean the way we’ve felt since the beginning of the war?”
“Yes. That.” He bent to kiss her cheek, which was thankfully left unscratched by his bristle, and left, buttoning his tunic.
“Fortune attend you,” Sula said and reached for a piece of pastry.
Her mind buzzed with questions of procurement and logistics. Lord Nishkad had quietly put out the word that Naxids with military experience were welcome to join the forces of the Restoration. The response had been such that she thought she would have enough Naxids to crew every single vessel on Zarafan’s ring and send it off to Harzapid—or perhaps to Laredo, to provide crew for Lord Martinez’s new cruisers. Or both. And she could pack the ships with recruits, trainers, and supplies.
Sula hadn’t told Martinez or his brother what she intended. She decided that she would present them with a fait accompli, just as she’d done at Harzapid when Michi was on medical leave.
Do the thing well, she thought, and you wouldn’t even have to ask permission.
Martinez had expected Roland to put up more resistance, but even Roland was seeing the point of the Fourth Fleet taking action. “We can pressure the Convocation to meet,” he said.
“We can pressure them to do more than that,” Martinez said.
“Please not,” said Roland. “I’d like them to be able to claim that getting rid of Tu-hon and her claque is their idea.”
“If it was their idea,” said Martinez, “they’d have done it a long time ago.”
Roland was in his room at the Violet Harmony Hotel, standing in shirt and stockinged feet on thick carpet the color of smoke. Light shone through beige window blinds, and an unfinished breakfast sat on his polished table. Martinez stood before him in his undress uniform, with the disk of the Golden Orb around his throat.
“We’ve taken over the relay station at Wormhole One, both the one here and on the other side,” Martinez said. “They won’t see we’re on the way until we’re out of the system, and then it will be six days before we appear in Zanshaa’s system.” He grinned. “If they have any ideas of unseating Tu-hon, they’d better move quickly before we get there.”
Roland pushed his fingers back through his dark hair. “I hope this—Well, never mind.” He walked to the tray. “Want some coffee?”
“I’ll pass. I’ve got about a thousand orders to issue by the end of the day.”
“I imagine you do.” Roland filled his cup from a silver pot. Steam rose, along with the scent of coffee. Roland frowned in the direction of his cup, then looked at Martinez.
“I’ve been hearing stories about you,” he said. “You and Lady Sula.”
“I think,” said Martinez, “those stories aren’t your business.”
“Depends.” Roland sipped his coffee. “Depends on how badly you plan on blowing up your life.”
Martinez felt his hackles rise. “Not blowing up,” he said. “More of a controlled demolition.”
Roland looked thoughtful. “Lord Chen would be of limited use to us in the future,” he said. “But when Terza inherits, she’s going to be formidable.”
“You can talk to her after the war,” Martinez said. “My marrying Terza was your idea, anyway.”
Roland seemed on the verge of saying something, then apparently decided not to. “I’ll do my best,” he said finally.
“I’ll see you in Zanshaa,” Martinez said and made his way out.
He really did have a thousand orders to give. He sent Conyngham and Division One orders to depart the ring at the earliest possible moment and head toward Wormhole One and Zanshaa. To Division Two, he gave positive orders to leave within two days. To the rest of the Fourth Fleet, which was distributed in discrete packets between Zarafan and Wormhole One, he gave orders for them to form into a single unit and prepare for heavy acceleration. He ordered the large cargo craft and the big immigration ships to prepare to move on to Laredo, but he delayed giving orders to the new recruits to embark until he could better calculate where the recruits were needed, and how best to make use of the small number of veterans suitable for use as training officers.
When he finally looked up from his work it was late afternoon. The remains of his lunch sat on his desk next to a cold pot of coffee, but he couldn’t remember eating the lunch, or what it had tasted like. He rose from his chair, stretched, and decided that his workday was over.
Martinez went to his lodging, showered, shaved, and splashed on aftershave. He donned clean clothes. His heart felt lighter by the minute, and he imagined himself and Sula on Los Angeles, soaring in orbit above Zanshaa.
He glanced out the window and saw the florist’s shop in front of his residence, and his heart lightened again. He left the residence, nodded to the two armed guards on the gate, and crossed the Boulevard of the Praxis to the florist, where he was greeted by the Cree proprietor. Zarafan’s ring had no seasons as such, and it was autumn in Zanshaa, but Martinez decided that he wanted to live in springtime and bought a vast bouquet of white and purple lu-doi blossoms. He returned to the residence, took the covered passageway to the courtyard behind the residence, and turned toward Sula’s apartment.
The gentle scent of the lu-doi floated through his sen
ses and merged in his thoughts with Sula’s Sandama Twilight scent. Things were back on track, he thought. And once they got to Zanshaa, everything would change.
“Well, Earthgirl,” said Lamey as he prowled through Sula’s door, “at last I found out where you live.”
Sula, sitting in an armchair working on a book of mathematical puzzles, put her book and pencil on a table and squared the book so its lines were parallel with those of the table.
The air was scented with the dinner, sitting under covered dishes on the table, that Sula’s cook had delivered. Two portions, one bottle of wine, one bottle of Citrine Fling.
“Lamey,” she said, “what do you want now?”
He was the peacock again, blazing in gold and burnt orange, lace gouting from his sleeves and throat. He no longer looked like the hunched, beaten figure who’d lurched off the shuttle, but a thinner version of himself—restless, calculating, with a smoldering energy. His blue eyes were chips of ice.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said. In a few strides he crossed half the distance between them, sending alarm sizzling along Sula’s nerves. She stood to face him before she found him looming over her chair.
“Do you have anything new to say?” Sula said. “I’m not in real estate sales, I really can’t help you with your development project.”
“But you can introduce me—”
“I don’t know anyone here!” Sula said. “Go to Roland—he knows everybody.”
Lamey gave a sigh, and his shoulders slumped a bit. “He won’t talk to me anymore. He insists his money’s all tied up on Rol-mar.”
Sula suppressed a laugh. “When none of your friends want to talk to you, maybe you should reconsider your message.”
He glared. “My message is just fine!”
“Or maybe it’s just you, Lamey,” Sula said. “Nobody knows who you are, exactly. When the Chee Company started its planetary development, they got Lord Mukerji to be the face of the company. People knew him, they were comfortable with him.” She waved a hand. “Surely you can find some well-connected aristocrat who lost his money in the crash and could use a job talking people out of their cash.”
“I did. I had Lord Mehrang. The problem is that he’s a complete shit and nobody likes him.” His eyes narrowed. “Besides, why should I find a new Peer,” he said, “when I’ve got you?”
This time she couldn’t stop a laugh from bubbling past her throat. “You want me heading your sales department? For all’s sake, Lamey, I’ve never won awards for popularity. I can’t talk people into anything, that’s why I have to do everything for myself—”
“I’m betting you can talk Gareth Martinez into a lot,” Lamey said.
Cold anger filled her. “He doesn’t have the kind of money you need,” she said.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Lamey grinned. “Everyone says the two of you are very close these days. But it isn’t Gareth I’m interested in, or Roland either, but their father.”
She laughed again. “Lord Martinez? I don’t know him, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t make all his money by turning to his son’s friends for investment tips.”
He stepped closer to her. Alarm sizzled through her veins. “There’s some urgency involved here, Earthgirl,” Lamey said. “A friend of mine on Harzapid says Mehrang is sending some of his friends after me. And you know what his friends did, right? On Esley?”
“Wiped out an intelligent species,” Sula said. But Yormaks and Lamey seemed in widely different categories, and she felt skepticism where Lamey’s threat of extinction was concerned. “So now he’s sending those people after you?”
“He’s sending people to get his money back. And what’ll happen to me when I can’t give it?” He snarled. “Nobody told me that Peers behaved like linkboys, right? Especially now it’s war, and nobody knows up from down or right from left.”
“I think you know how to stay alive.”
A grin twitched at a corner of Lamey’s mouth. “Yes, I surely do. I’m going to get a big investor on my fishing line, and that investor’s going to be Lord Martinez.”
“I don’t know him, and—”
He took a long step toward Sula and sank his fist into her solar plexus. The air went out of her in a rush, and she bent over. Tears came to her eyes as an impotent rage stormed in her head. She’d been through the Fleet Combat Course, and the White Ghost had lived with danger for months, but all of that had proved useless against Lamey’s unexpected attack, and now here she was as helpless as she’d been when she was a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, and Lamey the soft-spoken gangster in charge of a pack of linkboys.
“I think you should listen for a change, Earthgirl,” Lamey said. “I said listen. So here’s what’s going to happen.”
Sula coughed as she tried to drag air into her lungs. The terror of asphyxiation rose, and she fought it down.
“See,” Lamey said, “I could tell people about Spannan, and your real name, and how you stepped into a dead girl’s place. But—as you pointed out—you’re valuable to people here, and they might not believe me or they might be able to protect you.” He laughed. “I made you a convocate, Earthgirl! I was the one who gave you all the power you think you have! But that doesn’t mean you can stand up to me!” He laughed again. “But no, I thought about it, and I know who would be interested in hearing what I have to say.”
He reached out, touched her jaw, and brought her head up so that he could look at her. Her skin crawled at his touch. “See, I’m not going to talk to anybody here. All your friends are here, and so is your boyfriend. But I can message Terza Chen, because I think she’ll be very interested in my information.” His breath warmed her cheek. “You think Terza won’t fight you? And when Terza calls her husband to heel, what happens to Earthgirl’s dreams then? So you’d better do the best sales job you’ve ever done in your life when Gareth comes, and get him on your side when the two of you lean on the old man for funds. Because . . .”
Sula’s sidearm cleared the holster, and she pressed the pistol to Lamey’s chest and fired twice. Somewhere glass shattered. Lamey’s eyes widened, and he tried to take a step, but his legs failed him and he fell to the ground. His blue eyes looked at her for a long, startled moment, and then they faded.
Sula let the pistol hang like a lead weight at the end of her arm, and then she coughed and reached with her free hand to the side table for her tea. Porcelain clattered, and half the tea spilled before she got it to her lips, and then she had to cough again and sprayed tea on Lamey’s gold-and-orange suit. Her stomach queased. She put a protective hand to her midsection and forced herself to straighten.
There was a knock on the door, and Martinez came jauntily in with a vast bouquet of flowers. He stopped dead in the entryway, his eyes shifting from Sula to Lamey lying pale on the carpet, and then back to Sula again.
Angry rebukes pursued one another through Sula’s head. She had been fooling herself. She thought she’d been in charge of her own fate, and Martinez’s as well. She thought she could forget that Lamey would want repayment for his favors. She’d thought she’d maintained a supremacy over Martinez and had been guiding their relationship to where she wanted it.
Until Lamey had threatened Martinez. And then she laid Lamey out at Martinez’s feet, like a cat dropping a dead bird at the feet of her master.
She watched as the lu-doi blossoms fell from Martinez’s nerveless hand and tumbled to the floor. She straightened and folded her arms.
“So,” she said, “are you going to help me hide the body?”
Chapter 20
Martinez went through the cleanup like a sleepwalker. Hector Braga’s body was rolled up in the carpet he lay on, and the carpet was secured with strapping tape. A thin, small puddle of blood remained on the tile floor. The bullets had passed through Braga’s torso, then hit a pier glass in the entry hall and shattered it. The pistol rounds were caseless, so there were no casings to match to Sula’s weapon; but all firearms were test-fired at the factory, and a record
of striations kept on file in case there was ever a need to find a weapon used in committing a crime. Martinez found the two flattened bullets embedded in the mirror’s backing, and he plucked them out and handed them to Sula without a word.
The smell of propellant stung the back of his throat. Seared forever in his mind was the image of Sula standing, arms folded, over Braga’s body, her pale face frozen, her eyes disdainful, the smoke practically rising from the barrel of the pistol. Are you going to help me hide the body?
Yes, he would. And then he would arrange never to see her again.
A person who knew his way around an antimatter-generation ring wouldn’t have any trouble finding a place to hide a body, but getting it out of Celestial Court was more problematical. Carrying Braga out through the Lord Commander’s Residence was impossible, and the barred gate behind the court was in plain sight of anyone traveling the lane, or in the small park beyond. Yet that seemed the only exit.
“Can you check a van out of the motor pool?” Sula asked.
“Why don’t you do it?” Martinez said. He saw no point in having his name on any incriminating records.
“Because I’ve got an idea of how to move Lamey to the gate.”
“Right then.” He activated his sleeve display, then looked at the carpet. “Has he got anything that will identify him?”
Sula gave a wordless snarl. They unrolled the carpet, confiscated Braga’s hand comm, identification, and his rings, and then rolled him up again. Martinez left for the motor pool feeling as if he were staggering under five gravities.
Walking away from the Celestial Court, Martinez sensed a ponderous oppression lift, as if gravity had faded to a single gee, and he felt as if he were breathing in the wind of liberation. He thought about walking away, locking himself in his quarters, and leaving Sula to deal with the body herself.
He had no idea why she’d killed Hector Braga. He knew the two of them had a past when they were both young on Spannan, but he’d never imagined anything that could lead to Braga lying dead at Sula’s feet.
Fleet Elements Page 39