House of Shards

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Isn’t this a little overdone,” he said, “just to escape a ten-novae debt?”

  ———

  His mind aswim, Zoot stepped from the airlock into Viscount Cheng’s crew quarters. Khamiss and Pearl Woman, weapons in their hands, glanced fore and aft at the complex pattern of small rooms, then looked at each other. “Where’s a service plate?” Pearl Woman asked. “We’ll ask the ship for a path to the control room.”

  “That way,” Zoot said, pointing aft. He wondered if he should draw his weapon, then decided to keep it bolstered for the time being. He stepped out of the airlock and began moving toward the ship’s stern. Pearl Woman looked at him suspiciously.

  “How do you know?”

  Zoot was offhand. “I’m familiar with the specifications of the Celebrated Noble class.”

  Pearl Woman’s suspicion was undiminished. “How? Do you stay up at night studying ship architecture?”

  “I travelled in the crew quarters of the Baron Marbles once, when I was on the Ottoman expedition.”

  “I see.” Still unconvinced.

  Zoot led them to an elevator and called for it. “The control room’s a short distance from the elevator.” He looked at his companions and a flood of doubt entered his mind. He still had no clear notion what he and the others were doing here. He gnawed his lip, then spoke cautiously.

  “I wonder, ladies, how we’re going to handle the, ah, problem.”

  Khamiss’s tone was worried. “Lord Qlp’s got five brains. It’ll be hard to knock out.” Lord Qlp? Zoot wondered.

  The elevator arrived and the party stepped into it. “If we can catch its lordship by surprise,” Pearl Woman said, “we can put a volley into it. That should probably do the job. My mapper can burn its nerves in a few seconds.”

  Khamiss seemed undecided. “I’d hate to kill it. It’s probably just crazy.”

  “It might well be Lord Qlp or us. Or even Lord Qlp and the station.”

  “I’d still prefer to give it a chance to surrender. Or stun it.”

  Danger to the station? Zoot thought. And then, Lord Qlp?

  “That may not be possible,” Pearl Woman said. “It may be armed. It may also have ordered the ship to dive into the antimatter bottle on oral command—it’d only need a second or two.”

  Antimatter bottle? Zoot thought. He drew his pistol and contemplated both the setting and the consequences of an accident with a large antimatter container. His diaphragm pulsed in resignation and he clicked the setting to “non-lethal.”

  “I would prefer to stun its lordship if possible,” he said. “The three of us should be able to do that, certainly.”

  The elevator doors opened. Pearl Woman looked disgruntled, then bolstered her pistol, which had no nonlethal setting. “Right,” she said. “I’ve an idea.” She stepped out of the elevator, glanced left and right, and stepped through an open office door labelled “Purser.” When she returned it was with a small container.

  “I’ll tell it I’ve got the Shard,” she said. “That should distract it for a few seconds.”

  Shard? thought Zoot.

  “Good idea,” Khamiss said. “Best speak in Khosali— its lordship may not understand Human Standard.”

  The hallway was far more sumptuous than the crew quarters: parquet flooring, hand-woven, sound-absorbent tapestries featuring scenes of festive aristocrats dining amidst exotic splendor. “The command center is just through those doors,” Zoot said, pointing to a pair of doors made of mottled ceramic and decorated with reliefs featuring the high points of Viscount Cheng’s colorful Colonial Service career.

  “Let me check it.” Khamiss stepped forward and deployed her detectors. She found the door locked and alarmed and, moving carefully, she deployed her unfamiliar equipment and took apart its defenses. “Ready,” she said.

  The Shard? Zoot thought. He looked at Pearl Woman and the box. An idea struck him.

  “Here,” he said. “Take one of my lights.” He took a pencil flash from his inner jacket rig and gave it to the Pearl. “Turn it on and put it in the box. When you open it, the interior should glow. It may look as if the Shard is inside.”

  “Thank you, Zoot.”

  Pearl Woman brushed her leonine hair back from her eyes. One of her media globes circled to record her from a more favorable angle. “I’ll go through the right door while you hide behind the left. I’ll use the darksuit to fly across the room. When I’ve got its attention directed toward me, step into the doorway and open fire.” She gave a devil-may-care grin for benefit of the recorder. “Let’s go,” she said.

  Lord Qlp, Zoot mused, and the Eltdown Shard. Antimatter bottles, and a liner apparently stolen. Were things unusually confused right now, he wondered, or had life always been this way and Zoot not noticed?

  “Very good,” he said. Readiness coursed through him. At the worst, he reflected, he’d only kill himself in this adventure, and that was what he’d set out to do in the first place.

  Zoot stepped behind the door and deployed his jacket’s darksuit projectors. They were far less sophisticated than those built into the suits Khamiss and Pearl Woman were wearing, providing only a cloud of darkness that obscured his outline rather than causing it to blend in with the background, but he concluded that it might serve to confuse Lord Qlp even so.

  Khamiss stepped behind him and triggered her own camouflage. She pressed close. Zoot could hear her heart thudding against his backbone.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  “Same to you.”

  Pearl Woman took a breath, stationed her globes for best advantage, and flung herself through the door. Lord Qlp’s sputtering, booming voice, formerly suppressed by the sound screens in the door, was suddenly very loud. Zoot could feel Khamiss jump in surprise at its lordship’s volume.

  “I’ve got the Shard!” Pearl Woman shouted, in Khosali Standard. “Put down the pistols! I’ve got the Shard!”

  Pistols? thought Zoot, alarmed at the plural. For a frantic moment he considered changing his weapon’s setting to “lethal,” decided against it, then stepped into the doorway and braced his own pistol to fire.

  The control room was very large and sumptuously appointed—travellers sometimes stopped by to chat with the captain, and expected the amenities. Pearl Woman floated against the far wall, shouting frantically, waving the bag under her chin. Ghostly light from the flash illuminated her face from below.

  Lord Qlp had disdained the padded captain’s chair and instead was reared up near the communications console at the front of the room. Two of its eyestalks had wrapped themselves around pistol butts and triggers, the eyes laid along the barrels in order to sight them. The guns were both directed toward Pearl Woman.

  Zoot thought fast. Lord Qlp had a mouth at either end, and therefore both mouths should be stunned first in order to end any possibility of an oral command being given. That, unfortunately, would leave the pistols free to fire. Concern for Pearl Woman and Khamiss flashed into his mind. He overrode it with an act of will.

  He fired for the upper end first. Lord Qlp gave a startled belch from its lower mouth and fell forward across the console. One of its pistols went off, and a chugger slug exploded off the wall near Pearl Woman. Khamiss’s stunner crackled and Lord Qlp twitched. Pearl Woman flung the bag at Lord Qlp and commenced a zigzag path across the room while drawing her cutlasses. Explosive chugger rounds blew holes in the ceiling. Zoot fired for the lower mouth. Lord Qlp collapsed. One of its pistols trained toward Khamiss, and alarm flared in Zoot as his next shot missed.

  Pearl Woman gave a shout and flung a cutlass. It sliced the eyestalk neatly and the pistol fell. Khamiss and Zoot fired four or five more times each. Lord Qlp thrashed and lay still.

  Zoot stepped to the navigation console in three fast strides. “Display course plot,” he said. The computer obliged, snowing a trajectory plotted, sure enough, right into the magnetic bottle that held antimatter for the power station.

  “Cancel plotted course,” Zoot said, an
d the plot vanished.

  Pearl Woman gave a triumphant laugh and performed a somersault in the air en route to the navigation console. “I did it!” she cackled. “That cutlass was right on target!” Her exuberance turned to shouts of joy. “Yaaaaaah! Yaaaaaah!” She touched the controls to the video unit and broadcast her image to Silverside Station. The hologram of a wide-eyed Tanquer appeared over the console, with the Cheng’s captain peering anxiously over her shoulder.

  Pearl Woman smiled and turned her head slightly to display the pearl dangling from one ear. She brandished her remaining cutlass. “This is Pearl Woman,” she said. “We have retrieved the situation. All’s well.”

  The Tanquer’s eyes rolled up into her nictitating membranes as she passed out. There was an audible thump as she hit the floor.

  “Send a crew to bring us to dock,” Pearl Woman said to the remaining figure of Cap’n Bob. She peered into the hologram. “And who was that, anyway?”

  “I’m not sure,” said the captain. “Whoever she is, she’s rather odd.”

  Zoot put his pistol in his holster and looked at Khamiss. Khamiss held his gaze for a moment. Zoot felt a glorious moment of internal warmth. Khamiss looked away. Confusion roiled in Zoot’s breast. He turned back to the course plotter and felt something awkward in his breast pocket. He was surprised to remember that it was his suicide note.

  He took the envelope from his pocket and looked at it for a long moment. Then he tore it in half, then put it in the nearest disposal.

  Lord Qlp gave a belch. Pearl Woman looked up, alarmed.

  Its lordship twitched, then spoke distinctly in Khosali. “I’m bored,” it said. “Bored, bored, bored.” Zoot and Khamiss weren’t listening. They were gazing at one another in some surprise.

  CHAPTER 11

  Voices in the White Room were resonating perfectly once again. Five days after its disappearance, the giant impact diamond had been ransomed and restored to its place of honor. “Yes. After all those shots, its lordship was a little scrambled. One of its brains began to babble uncontrollably.”

  “About the Drawmii’s, ah, existential dilemma.”

  “Yes.” Zoot gazed into Kyoko’s hovering media globes. “It seems that the Drawmii’s multiple brains provide sophisticated and subtle modes of converse unavailable to the rest of us. They consider us terribly unsophisticated by comparison.”

  “And their lack of interaction with the Empire was not the result of their alien thought patterns, but because they were, ah…”

  “They found us incomparably tedious.”

  “Right.” Kyoko gave a half-believing smile. “Who could find us dull? I ask you.”

  “The thought is a bit humbling, I must admit.” Zoot frowned at Kyoko’s loupe. “But be that as it may, the Drawmii concluded that if the Khosali and other member species of the Empire were the best the universe could offer them, they might as well destroy themselves before they were all bored to death. Lord Qlp was sent forth as an ambassador, hoping to find some token which might give his species hope.”

  “And he found the Eltdown Shard.”

  “It appears so. Perhaps we’ll never understand its reasons for choosing the Shard; presumably we can all be thankful it found something worth living for. It intended to purchase the Shard with the unique… tokens… that it manufactured in its innards, but the Shard was stolen, and its lordship began to lose all hope. That,” emphatically, “was when Lady Dosvidern became alarmed and contacted me, as an expert in xenobiology. She and I tried for an entire night to make sense of Lord Qlp’s cryptic remarks. Unfortunately I was unable to help her.”

  Kyoko smiled thinly. “That was why you spent the night in her suite.”

  “And why I couldn’t tell you the truth concerning why I was there. Yes.”

  Zoot grinned at her, tongue lolling from a corner of his muzzle. He was pleased to discover that his facial muscles were obeying him this time, not betraying him with twitches and tics. Now that he had a plausible story, there was no reason to do away with himself. He was thankful for that, as by now he had other plans.

  “Incidentally, Miss Asperson,” Zoot said, “I have another pair of announcements. Firstly, I intend to retire from the Diadem.”

  Kyoko’s visible eye widened. “After your greatest achievement? Your ratings are certain to take a leap.”

  Zoot allowed a touch of regret to enter his expression. “I’ve enjoyed my time in the Diadem, of course, but I’m afraid I’ve found that celebrity is interfering with my true business, which is xenobiology. I intend to join the next plotting expedition bound outward.”

  “Well.” Kyoko appeared to be considering matters. “A vacancy among the Three Hundred.”

  “I’m certain it will be filled by someone worthy.”

  “Of course.”

  “Perhaps yourself. When Maijstral and Fu George revealed your covert activities two days ago, it created a sensation.”

  Kyoko gave him a look. “You said two announcements, I believe.”

  “Ah. Forgive me. And the most important announcement of all, too.” Zoot grinned. “I intend marriage.”

  “Congratulations. Do I know the lady?”

  “Miss Khamiss. She will be resigning her security job and joining me in the expedition.”

  Kyoko gave a laugh. “Interesting how the crises in Sil-verside Station have tended to resolve into romance.”

  “Has there been more than one?”

  “Yes. But it would be inappropriate to speak of the other at this stage.”

  “Ah.” Zoot grinned again. “In that case, let discretion reign. By all means.”

  ———

  Baron Silverside still frowned and flushed angrily at the provoking sight of Mr. Sun. Even the sight of Mr. Sun in a robe and cowl, eccentric dress even for a fashionable resort.

  “My resignation, sir.”

  “Accepted.”

  So much for ceremony, thought Mr. Sun. Well. He must atone for his faults. Let the atonement begin now.

  “I have taken second-class passage on the Count Boston,” said Sun. “I will enter a New Puritan monastery on Khorn.”

  The Baron smiled. “Very good, Mr. Sun. You may rest assured that in the ensuing years I will often be comforted by the thought of your cleaning latrines and flagellating yourself.”

  Sun only bowed. Things had come about this way, he was certain, because of some fault within his character. He knew not what the fault was, only that it was there, and that somehow it had put him in dutch with the Almighty.

  Now he would have many years—decades, perhaps—to discover what it was.

  “Miss Khamiss has given notice also,” the Baron said, and frowned. “Despite my offers of a higher salary.”

  “Mr. Kingston is perfectly qualified,” Sun said. “He is a little frivolous in his parts, but I think he is solid enough.”

  Baron Silverside gave him a suspicious look. He was not prepared to accept any of Sun’s judgements at their face value.

  “Very well, Sun,” he said. “If you are finished… ?”

  As he stepped from the Baron’s office, Sun was surprised to feel a blossom of happiness opening in his soul. Atonement, he found, had left him oddly content.

  ———

  “It bothers me that I’ve been contacted about the diamond but not about the other. I’ll increase the offer by a quiller.”

  “Thank you, my lord, but I think not.” Geoff Fu George smiled placatingly at the holographic image of Baron Silverside. “ Maijstral and I seem to have arrived at a delicate arrangement on these matters. I would not care to disturb it.”

  “I wish you would reconsider, Fu George.” Baron Silverside scowled in thought. “It is a very pretty piece of money.”

  “Your lordship’s offer has been kind,” said Fu George, “but I think not.”

  “If that’s your final word.” Gruffly.

  “I’m afraid it is. Your obedient servant.”

  “Yours.”

  Fu Geor
ge turned from the telephone and stepped to his suite, where Vanessa was supervising the packing of his loot. Vanessa gave him a look. The look was odd, but Fu George couldn’t tell whether the oddness was intentional or rather a result of the fact that Vanessa’s face, at the moment, simply looked odd. The bruising had been massive, the nose had been broken, and for the last several days Vanessa had been in seclusion with a mass of semilife forms attached to her face.

  “I wish you had accepted the Baron’s offer,” she said, denasal. She rotated toward him stiffly: the ribs were healing fast under hormone infusions, but were still giving her trouble. “I’d like to see Maijstral lose that art collection.”

  Fu George placed bits of foam packing around the delicate settings of an antique necklace. “I’d rather not try for Maijstral’s loot again. Our working against one another has been fraught with more than the usual amount of hazard. Kyoko used our rivalry for her own ends. I’d prefer not to be rendered so vulnerable again.”

  She lit a cigaret. “Still,” she said, “one last coup seems such a tempting idea. What with the collection and the Shard and that display with the diamond, Maijstral may end up with a lot of points in the next rating. He’s certain to receive a promotion. He may even take first place.”

  Fu George closed the jewel case. “It had to happen sooner or later, Vanessa.”

  “I don’t like the idea of our not being on top.”

  Our? thought Fu George. He sighed and turned to her. “We’ve got all the money and fame we could desire,” he said. “It’s been fun. But sooner or later someone else was going to take first, or I was going to get careless or unlucky and end up in prison somewhere. And very soon the Constellation Practices Authority may well recommend Allowed Burglary be disallowed throughout the Human Constellation, which would substantially decrease the amount of enjoyment to be had from this profession.” He spread his hands. “Perhaps the time has come for a gracious retirement.”

  Smoke curled disdainfully from Vanessa’s nostrils. “And do what, Fu George? Do you want me to spend our declining years on our back terrace, watching the robots trim the hedges while you write your memoirs?”