We had an entire day together, so I tried to make the best use of my time. I told Willow about the schematics I’d found, and all the booby traps on the ship, hoping to get some more information from her.
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Everything is gencoded. I’m allowed to do just about anything on this ship except administration. So, before you ask, no, I can’t add your gencode into the system.” She smiled wickedly. “So, you better do everything I want, or I’ll lock you out of the ship.”
I laughed nervously. “Okay, what do want me to do?”
She looked away, blushing. “Nothing.”
***
After breakfast, we took turns showering and instacleaned our clothes, since neither of us had the foresight to bring along a change of clothing.
After dressing and reading the rest of the schematics on the ship, I decided I needed a break and found her in the social quarters to continue our previous conversation. “I found some interesting comlink codes, for coded messages.”
“My, my,” she said, while sipping something shockingly green. “Haven’t we been a naughty boy, peeking into Noir’s private things?” She giggled and offered me some of the green liquid.
I declined. “I couldn’t help it. They were there. I had to look. Anyway, what do you know about them?”
Her face turned serious instantly, which looked out of place. “Noir sends comlinks to Hunter and his men sometimes. They come in with weird codes I’ve never seen. I think they’re probably what you found. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what the messages are, because I’ve never seen them decoded. Sorry.”
Maybe it was just the forced intimacy, but I was beginning to think I’d been silly thinking she was involved in the murders. The only way I could see her as part of the heir-reducing scheme was if she was on the hit list.
She headed off to the galley suddenly, after her stomach growled loudly, and I followed. I offered to make lunch, but she insisted on making it herself, and it was delicious.
Small talk was the lunch order, but it was with good company, so I didn’t mind.
I spent the bulk of the afternoon exploring the ship some more, poking into each of the cabins, breaking into every computer I found, looking for any clue I could find to help me figure out the comlink codes and their uses.
At one point, one my second pass through the cabins, I realized I’d overlooked the obvious. I went back to Noir’s computer and looked for encrypted messages stored there.
Nothing.
I looked at the delete trail and reconstructed several routine messages in volatile memory space before I found one that was encrypted using one of the special codes. It took me a few minutes to decode it manually, since I didn’t want to leave a telltale pathway in the delete trail. Unfortunately, it didn’t tell me anything important, other than it being addressed to Prince Vere.
“Emperor expects your arrival in New Rome by Monday latest. Willow expected as well.”
That was it. Concise and factual. It seemed to refer to Prince Vere’s arrival in New Rome, prior to the other heirs. Why was it encrypted? Why would Noir care if anyone else saw that message? Was it the timing of the message? Was Noir worried that the other heirs would find out Prince Vere was preferred? They already knew that.
I was still puzzling over the message when Willow popped her head in the door. “There you are. What’re you doing?”
“Nothing much.” I canceled the decrypted message and walked to the door.
Willow smiled and hooked my arm when I got there.
“What’s in the center of the ship?” I asked, suddenly aware that it was the one place I hadn’t checked yet.
“Star drive, maintenance. Nothing else, really.”
As I suspected. “Can I see it?”
Willow shrugged. “Sure, why not.”
She opened the door to the star drive with her gencode and I climbed down the stairs into the belly of the ship. The door shut behind me, and I suddenly realized that if I was wrong about Willow, I’d die down there. Anxiety got the best of me, and I found it difficult to concentrate on what I was doing. Sweating, I raced back up the stairs and pounded on the door.
Willow opened it immediately. “Anything wrong?”
I mopped my brow and shook my head. “No,” I said, “it’s nothing. Just my imagination.”
“Are you sure?” Willow looked worried about me.
I was touched. “It’s okay.”
I descended again, the door closing behind me.
That convinced me. If Willow were involved in the murder plots, she could have taken me out of the picture easily just by not opening the door. I was relieved, and set to work.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I tramped back up the stairs after several minutes and pounded on the door for Willow to let me out.
There was no answer.
I pounded again and yelled for Willow.
No response. I was trapped.
The star drive area closed in on me. My heart pounded in my ears and I felt myself starting to black out. I leaned against the door and slid down to sit on the top step.
Why did I trust her? She was the murderer, I could see that now. And I’d fallen right into her trap. My life was over in an instant. One wrong decision, and that was that.
Ninth Euclid. “He was too trusting.” That’s what they’d put on my gravestone, if they ever figured out I was dead.
I banged my head against the door, because I didn’t know what else I could do.
The door swung open and I fell backward into the hallway at Willow’s feet. She gasped. “You’re white! Come on!”
She dragged me to my feet and pulled me to the captain’s cabin as quickly as she could, making mother hen comments the whole way.
I was so shocked I didn’t say anything. I just let her push and pull me as she wanted, and eventually I ended up on the bed. She loosened all my clothes, which I knew was standard procedure for shock victims.
“Euclid,” she said, shaking my head. “What happened down there? What’s wrong?”
“Door,” I said, with some effort. “Locked ... trapped ... scared.”
“Oh,” Willow said, understanding. “I’m so sorry. I had to go to the bathroom. I’m so sorry.”
She patted my head lightly, soothing me, muttering her apologies over and over. After a while, she stopped, her hand resting on my ear, and tensed at a clearly troubling thought.
Clambering to my feet, I rocketed out the open door, heading for any other room. The feel of her hand on me was anything but relaxing.
***
I was sure it was time for dinner. For several hours I’d avoided Willow, my heart pounding every time she came into a room and my heart stopping at seeing her disappointed expression when I’d rise to leave soon after. We’d settled into a fairly consistent, if uncomfortable, pattern by now, because I couldn’t trust myself to be in a room with her alone. At least she took it in stride, shrugging off my inexplicable behavior, but not questioning it.
Checking the time, I saw that I was right. It was time for dinner. We both cooked, since we couldn’t agree on whose turn it was after we each cooked a meal and we only had time for one more meal before arriving at Oasis.
We ate in silence, primarily because I was exhausted from our little game of hide-and-avoid. Even the relay ladies at the Oral Olympics Stadium back home didn’t keep me this busy. I longed for our arrival at Oasis, just so I could get some rest. I found myself giving thanks for the extra-fast speed of Noir’s Raven; I wasn’t sure I could have lasted for a longer journey.
After dinner, I went back to Noir’s computer, to resume looking for encrypted comlink messages. We only had a couple of hours left before our arrival, and I wanted to take another crack at the files. I poked around for an hour before finding another encrypted message, but it was as useless and routine as the previous one I’d found.
I kept looking, though, half afraid that Willow would decide to talk if I weren’t busy.
<
br /> Eventually, Willow poked her head in and informed me cheerfully that she had contacted Oasisis jumpport, and we’d be there in a few minutes.
“By the way,” she added, “I’ve told the computer to hide any recordings of you, as well as references I’ve made. That includes from the time I boarded to an hour from now.”
In answer to my puzzled look, she explained, “The ship automatically records everything. I can’t tell it what to record — that’s administration — but I can mark things as private to my account. I didn’t think you’d want my husband to find out we’ve been alone together. He might get the wrong idea.”
I shuddered after Willow left to pilot us in to Oasisis jumpport. I missed the recording in my scan of the Raven’s schematics. What else had I missed? Were the schematics even up to date? Thinking of what would have happened to me without Willow aboard made my blood turn to ice.
Once again with this starship, I’d been skating on thin ice without even realizing it. I couldn’t wait to leave the ship.
I was just about to abandon my search for more encrypted messages when I found another. I decrypted the address, and found that this one wasn’t bound for Prince Vere, but one of his personal guards. Working feverishly, I decrypted the short message before joining Willow.
I stared at the message for a minute, mulling over the contents, then killed the volatile memory copy, then backed out of Noir’s computer without leaving any traces.
I didn’t need an eidetic memory to remember this message.
“Sumter at the hunt. Oswald’s arrow. Don’t fail.”
Chapter 14
Calming Redwing
AS WILLOW PREPARED FOR PUTTING IN TO THE OASISIS JUMPPORT, I was still anxiety-ridden over the shocking message. Licking dry lips, I squeezed my eyes shut to think.
It was clear that the encrypted message implicated Lord Noir in Lord Sumter’s murder, as well as framing Lord Oswald for the crime. But I couldn’t use the message at court, or anywhere in public, for that matter. I found it only after stealing Noir’s starship and breaking into his private correspondence, neither of which was legal or ethical. And, even then, I had to reconstruct the deleted message.
Which highlighted a bigger problem, anyway. Being a transitory medium, messages had the disadvantage of lacking proof of origin. How could I prove that I didn’t fabricate the message to support my claim of foul play? Or, worse, faking the message just to clear my Lord’s name — at the expense of an innocent? After digging into Noir’s secrets aboard his ship, I certainly wasn’t inclined to think of him as innocent under any circumstances, but that didn’t mean that the rest of the emperor’s court would agree with me. Unfortunately, the Imperial Senate, corrupt as it was, probably wouldn’t even agree with my accusations. Noir was the ranking senator, after all.
And I was just a secretary. What chance did I have to be believed? It would be my word against Noir’s — and Noir was better regarded by the emperor than I ever would be.
Eyes snapping open at the footsteps outside the open doorway, I saw Willow poke her head in the doorway and smile. “Coming? We’re in Oasis orbit, and I just got permission to land at Oasisis.”
I smiled in return, our disagreement apparently forgotten. “I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t wait.”
Willow turned and sauntered back for the pilot’s controls, swinging her hips seductively.
I stared at Lord Noir’s personal computer, still wondering what to do. Deciding it was at least worth the attempt, I fumbled in Noir’s effects for a blank datadot to save the message on. I found a container full of the tiny spheres, their bright green color indicating they were available for use, and dropped one into the dotslot.
I restarted his computer and found the message again, then decided on a new approach. After saving all his messages, not just the damning message, I retrieved the sphere, colored now the bright red of a used datadot, and pocketed it, hoping Noir didn’t count his dots. On second thought, I decided to make another datadot, just in case one got lost. If Noir didn’t notice one missing dot, he probably wouldn’t notice two.
Backing out of his computer again, I made sure there was no trace of my entry, then I joined Willow at the pilot’s console.
“What took so long, big guy? We’re almost at the jumpport now.” She grinned, but kept her eyes on her controls.
“I found a message,” I said grimly, fingering the datadot in my pocket. I decided that, after the secrets we’d shared, Willow and I were past the point of mincing words, so I just told Willow the truth. “Noir ordered one of your husband’s men to kill Sumter with Oswald’s arrow.”
Willow jerked her head around to stare at me. Her eyes registered shock for only a few moments before her pupils narrowed with anger. “I knew it!” she shouted. “Damn Noir! I knew he was behind the killings. Hunter will take the fall, of course, before I can concei—”
I was about to suggest that she really needed to avoid more killings by crashing into Oasisis jumpport when she looked away from me suddenly and glided into a hangar bay, just missing the skeletal remains of the Mallard in the process.
Willow turned back to me, her eyes deadly serious. “Earlier, you asked what I want you to do to keep my favor?” She clenched her teeth, furious. “Help. Me. Make. Noir. Pay.”
I nodded gravelly. “I’ll do my best, Lady Willow. I promise.”
She nodded once with a steely resolve I’d never before seen in her eyes. Pure, unadulterated rage, not unlike the women Angels. My respect for her raised dramatically in that moment.
We disembarked and were met at the hatch by the port master, who smiled at me politely and looked past me, eyes searching for my Lord.
“The prince isn’t with us,” I said, more bluntly than I’d intended, judging by the look on the port master’s face. “He’s still in New Rome.”
“It’s a bad time right now,” the port master said, nodding as though I’d asked his opinion, unlikely as that seemed.
“I can see that,” I said curtly. “Why hasn’t that wreckage been cleared out yet?” I flipped a hand back at the Mallard angrily. I was sure the port master wanted to discuss the Lord’s detainment in New Rome further, but I just didn’t want to talk about it right now. Finding Lady Redwing was more important.
“It should be out of here in a couple of days.”
“See that it is. You don’t want Prince Oswald to see that when he returns from New Rome, do you?”
A glimmer of panic flashed in the port master’s eyes.
Looking around the bays, I spied the Phoenix, parked across the hangar from the Raven.
“The Phoenix?” I asked the port master, nodding at the starship. “When did she come in?”
“The ship or the lady?” he said, grinning.
I wasn’t in a joking mood. I kept a straight face and glared at the port master.
His grin faded quickly. “She arrived only a couple of hours ago. Lady Redwing went directly to her rooms to rest.” The port master leered at Lady Vere. “And who is this lovely lady with you?”
Willow smiled sweetly and curtsied as if she were at court, wearing a frilly dress instead of her utilitarian jumpsuit. “Princess Willow Vere. And you are...?”
Her emphasis on her rarely-used title wasn’t lost on the port master, who went pale and bowed deeply while stammering through an introduction. “I-I’m sorry, Princess,” he continued, his face still downward. “I didn’t recognize you without ... the Prince.” He glanced up to see her reaction.
Willow sniffed and muttered to me caustically, “He means my dress.” To him, she said, sweetly, “Well, you might try paying more attention to my face next time, then, instead of my assets.” Sensing the port master could be counted on for his discretion, she turned to me and smiled devilishly. “It’s been nice, Euler; I’m glad we came here together. If you ever need a ride, you can count on me.”
I cocked an eyebrow in admiration for her passing knowledge of Old Earth mathematicians — a subject I
researched because of my namesake, but hardly expected of others — and in delight at her double entendres, intentional or not, and fought an overpowering urge to kiss her goodbye. Instead, I swallowed my desire and fired back with one of my own. “Thank you for doing it, Princess Pillow,” I said, and bowed deeply.
She turned on her heel and sashayed away, disappearing behind the closing hatchway. I thought I heard her giggle just before the hatch sealed shut.
I stared after this remarkable woman for an extra heartbeat before I realized what I was doing, then turned to the port master, hoping he hadn’t noticed the verbal foreplay. “See that the princess gets clearance to leave immediately,” I said sternly. “And tell nobody that she was here.”
The port master nodded and scurried off.
I headed for Lady Redwing’s rooms, shaking inappropriate thoughts of Willow from my head. The palace hallways were deserted, a condition I found somewhat distressing. I was used to a fairly constant hustle and bustle in the palace. I saw one of the staff briefly from a distance down the hall, but I was too tired to pursue him.
The deeper I strolled into the palace, the more it seemed like a tomb. Finally, I reached Lady Redwing’s suite. I knocked on her door and waited for her maid to answer.
Lady Redwing opened the door herself, just enough for her head to poke around the barely open door hiding her. “Euclid,” she said, surprised. “How’d you get here?” She peeked into the hallway and looked around.
“He’s not here,” I said. “I came alone.”
She threw open the door. “In that case, come in.” She turned and headed for her bed. She was wearing a long silk robe, the same one she’d worn when I got trapped in her closet on the ship. From the few seconds I’d seen the front of her robe, before she turned away from me, I was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing anything else. The familiar scent of roses floated away with her.
If it weren’t for Willow’s recent memory, Lady Phoenix would have had more effect on my desire. As it was, like this lady’s moniker, my longing began to rise from the ashes of Willow’s smile.
Ninth Euclid's Prince Page 17