Mrs. Pearlman sniffed. “Please. There are less of those than the action-adventure neurecs, so beloved by the common man, would have you think. But again, even if that scenario happened more often than it does, the Fugue’s the last thing you would ever want to drop on an enemy. If you’re fighting for territory, you do not salt the earth you covet and render the land useless to yourself. And if you just wish to destroy the other civilization out of sheer malice, there are other ways to do it, bombs and mass-drivers and the like, that will eliminate their ability to fight back and therefore don’t leave the power for full, automated retaliation still in the hands of vengeful commanders unable to consider regard for your civilian populations even as a distant, nagging abstraction.” She licked her lips, establishing with her slight smile that she found the very image delicious. It took her a moment of dwelling on it, finding pleasure in the very idea, before she was able to continue, fresh scarlet blushing her plump cheeks. “No, Counselor, I’d have to say that the only people who would want to use the Fugue are those agreeing with its philosophical point. The Bettelhines may present some useful opportunities for a woman with my skill set, but they haven’t demonstrated that kind of elevated consciousness. Believe me, I know. I believe in the Fugue. I propose mass-producing it every six months, Mercantile, and the decision-makers here have always given their most emphatic no.”
Thank Juje for small favors. “And that would be who, in your case?”
“First the late Kurt Bettelhine, then his eldest son Hans. Soon, if I live long enough, Philip. He’s been seeing to my needs for three or four years now.”
“Just Philip?”
“I’ve met Jason and Jelaine before. They know about my work, and have required my aid on a couple of past occasions. But no, they did not know of my past connection to Magrison. That, I’ve been encouraged to keep secret.”
So she was not some black project, initiated by some overzealous company man without the knowledge of his superiors. All the Bettelhines knew about her, even if they didn’t all know where she came from. I said, “And that ridiculous situation-comedy personality you put on, earlier?”
“A means of camouflage I’ve developed, over the years. It comes in handy when I must deal with outsiders like yourself.”
I would have some harsh words for her illustrious host Hans, if we ever did manage to stand on the same planetary surface at the same time. “How did you come to work for them?”
“I arrived in my personal transport and sent a message from the outer system. Docking at Layabout would have been easier, you understand, but in those days it was dangerous for Magrison followers to approach armed worlds except under a flag of truce.”
Skye muttered something I did not hear but, doubtless, would have agreed with. I said, “Did you identify yourself?”
“Yes. I gave my resume and offered my services in exchange for protection.”
“Who did you speak to?”
“It went up the chain of command until I found myself speaking to Kurt. He was still in charge, back then.”
“And he just authorized your approach, knowing what you might be carrying?”
“No. He directed me to meet his fleet at Spyraeth, an uninhabited moon in the outer system. They quarantined me there, subject to regular searches and interrogations for almost a year, until they determined that I had no samples of the Fugue, anywhere aboard.”
“And then?”
“Kurt Bettelhine spoke to me again and asked me why he shouldn’t just surrender me to your Confederacy, as a gesture of good faith. He said that cooperating with your authorities on this manner would be a fine way to approve relations between the two powers. I told him that I had a number of ideas he could find profitable, more conservative uses of the techniques that had gone into the creation of the Fugue. After some research, I presented him with additional weaponry capable of managing the behavior of entire enemy populations. Later, I produced more focused uses of the same technology—”
Thinking of Bocai, I had gone rigid at the phrase additional weaponry capable of managing the behavior of entire enemy populations. “Has that…ever been used, Mrs. Pearlman?”
“Not my department,” she said.
And Monday Brown looked irritated again. “Counselor, may I please point out that these questions exist outside your license for exploring corporate secrets? The Khaajiir wasn’t killed with a virus. Nor was he killed from a distance. He was killed close up, with a Claw of God. A weapon that, I should add, existed many millennia before this woman was even born.”
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to beat her until she confessed that the capabilities she’d boasted about had been used on Bocai. But he had a point, damn him. Much as I wanted to know what horrors this woman had produced, on behalf of our hosts, getting those details could take weeks I didn’t have, and an authority I could not claim. “What happened when Kurt Bettelhine agreed to take you on?”
“He installed me in the isolated island facility where I still work today, with a small but dedicated staff of qualified experts in the field.”
“And that ‘installation’ involved an introduction to the man who now poses as your husband?”
“It’s no pose,” Dina Pearlman said. “The damnable union is legal, all right.”
“But you don’t love him, or even care for him.”
Her mouth was just a red slash across a face that had become a caricature of the harmless, dithering one she had worn. “I care for no human being but Peter Magrison.”
“What would the Bettelhines get out of forcing the two of you to live together as husband and wife?”
She shrugged. “Protective coloration. I think he wanted to use me to redeem Farley more than he wanted to use Farley to redeem me. The silly man had gotten himself into some trouble at another installation he managed, when circumstances left him alone with the four-year-old daughter of one of his lead workers. Something like that made him a undesirable executive, even to Bettelhine employees accustomed to suppressing their own moral qualms for the common good. But he was still an excellent leader who always pushed his workers hard and brought his projects in ahead of schedule. Kurt provided the parents with more than enough compensation to make them forget the outrage, albeit perhaps not enough to pay for the damage such a compromise to their parental responsibilities did to their souls, then paired the two of us together in the theory that his two misbehaving beasts would be willing to report on each other in exchange for small rewards. Later, when the idiot was caught attempting to indulge his passions again, we took certain other safeguards preventing him from ever misbehaving in that manner again. If you trust me on nothing else, Counselor, trust me on this. He no longer has to capability to indulge his baser impulses.”
Paakth-Doy ventured a hesitant, “Did you…castrate him?”
The look Mrs. Pearlman gave her then was any number of things: amused, pitying, contemptuous, and superior…but above all proud. “Nothing quite so disgustingly blunt.” Then, to me: “We live as husband and wife. But do not consider our relationship love. We have attempted to sleep with each other a few times out of boredom. But we have never completed the act. He cannot match the transcendent pleasures I was shown by Peter Magrison…and I cannot pass for under five. Have I mentioned, too, his terrible dullness?”
I coughed. “What are you doing here today?”
“My husband and I are well-known, distinguished contributors to the Bettelhine Corporation and must from time to time be trotted out and provided with the kudos that accrue to high producers like ourselves. At such times I make myself the chattering ninny and he pretends to be a man. These are the same personas we use whenever we mix with co-workers and local society, as our positions force us to do often. I don’t know about Farley, but I have grown so used to putting on that personality on a regular basis, that sometimes I forget and almost manage to make myself believe I’m the person I pretend to be.” Her next expression reflected a dozen separate emotions at once: pride, anger, amusement, sadn
ess, triumph and loss, all coupled with deep satisfaction over the repugnance in our faces. “It may not be the person I was before Peter Magrison liberated me, but it is as close as I can fake it now.”
The moment of appalled silence following that statement lasted for several seconds. Even Monday Brown, who had already known what she was, seemed affected by it. I weighed the life she had never had a chance to live against the life she had embraced instead, and did not know what I was going to say until the moment it left my mouth. “Mrs. Pearlman…you’re a disgusting person.”
It didn’t bother her a whit. “I have been told that before.”
“You have not heard it enough. But for what it’s worth, I think you’ve been truthful with me so far.”
“What you think is worth nothing.”
“I have only a few more questions,” I told her. “I warn you to remain candid, because I will be angry indeed if any of the information I receive from the others contradicts your own answers in any way.”
“I’m not intimidated.”
“You would be if you knew me better. Nevertheless. Have you ever seen a K’cenhowten Claw of God before tonight?”
“Once. In a private collection. I don’t know whether it was authentic or a re-creation.”
“Have you ever met the Khaajiir before tonight?”
“No.”
“Have you ever heard of the Khaajiir before tonight?”
“No.”
“Did you have any idea before tonight that Hans Bettelhine was hosting an alien dignitary of any kind?”
“It would not have surprised me. A man in his position has offworld guests all the time.”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Is there any possible way you might benefit from the death of the Khaajiir?”
“No.”
“Is there any possible reason you would want the Khaajiir dead?”
“No.”
“Are you serving any cause outside the Bettelhine organization that would be furthered by the Khaajiir’s death?”
“How many times do you intend to rephrase the same question? No. No. No.”
“Are you serving any cause outside the Bettelhine organization, period?”
“I am allowed no contact with causes outside the Bettelhine organization.”
“Do your privileges as a Bettelhine employee include any means of communication offworld?”
“No. Given my history, my hytex access is read-and-respond only.”
“Is the same true of your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anybody working with you who would send messages on your behalf?”
“No.”
“So it would have been impossible for you to recruit Bocaians as assassins.”
“I am sure I could figure out a way, if the need presented itself. I am a clever woman.”
“But since you did not know of the Khaajiir’s presence until you boarded this carriage, you had no opportunity to abet any conspiracy.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Mrs. Pearlman, all the questions I asked about you and the Khaajiir apply to you and myself as well. Would you have any reason to want my death?”
“Yes.”
Monday Brown rose halfway out of his seat.
I said, “That’s all right. I warned you to be truthful. Let me rephrase. Would you have had any reason to want me dead before this conversation?”
Monday Brown sat down again, mollified.
Mrs. Pearlman seemed to savor the taste of triumph the same way a lizard would have savored a delectable species of bug. “No. I never heard of you before yesterday. I researched you, as I research everybody I expect to meet, but nothing in your past made you a target. I even imagined that as fellow monsters we might even get along.”
“There’s little chance of that,” I told her. “But I’m done with you. Go back to your husband.”
She nodded at me, flashed a predatory grimace at the others, and stood, hesitating just before she reached the door of the suite. “Do you want me to send my husband in?”
“Given a full range of choices, I’d want you to send him out the airlock and leap out after him. But no. I think I’m done with both of you, for the moment.”
She showed teeth again, and left. A few seconds later, following some summons known only to themselves, Brown and Wethers followed, their eyes hiding from mine as if afraid of being punctured by accusations. Paakth-Doy went to the rest room, just as pale as Wethers but not in as much of a hurry.
Skye and I sat staring at each other, the silence providing the perfect soundtrack to the thoughts racing through both our minds. After a while, she said, “Philip’s taken his vassals aside. No doubt they’re comparing notes on all the sensitive corporate scandals you’ll be bringing home when all this is over. I suspect we might be having some trouble leaving Xana once we’re done.”
I’d been thinking the same thing. “I’d give half my disposable income to know what happened to the last Dip Corps envoy who crossed the Bettelhines, this, whatever his name was, Bard Daiken. It might give us an idea what to expect.”
Skye raised an eyebrow. “Would it even help us to expect a consequence we don’t know how to avoid in any event?”
I didn’t know. I suspected not. We’d blundered into a malevolent place filled with trap doors and shadows, where every step took us farther away from an exit that already seemed shut to us. It might have been different had my AIsource handlers been available to provide their usual hints and portents and thus light the path ahead of me. But they remained silent, even as I made yet another attempt to call them back.
Paakth-Doy returned from the bathroom, her eyes glazed and her complexion even paler than the one she’d worn before going in. But she nodded at me as she took her seat again, well prepared for whatever came next.
Skye asked her, “Are you all right?”
Paakth-Doy needed a second to answer. “I must confess that my upbringing among Riirgaans renders me vulnerable to shock at the corrupt potential of my fellow human beings.”
Skye said, “It wouldn’t feel any different if you were raised by your own kind. We’ve all been ashamed of our species, from time to time.”
“I suppose,” she said, with excessive dignity. “But I will do my best to prepare myself for whatever follows. Except, one thing? Counselor?”
“Yes?”
“When you leave Xana…would you take me with you?”
That was about the last thing I expected. “Really?”
“Yes. I would very much like to go.”
“Why?”
She struggled with the words. “When I left the Riirgaans in my midteens, never having met another specimen of my natural species, the family that raised me afforded me my choice of human destinations. I chose to avoid your Confederacy because of the legal gauntlet it requires of humans with nonhuman citizenship who seek repatriation. Employment with the Bettelhines seemed an easier alternative. But after what I have seen, right now, I am no longer certain that I wish to pay the moral price of living here. I now believe that it would be better to face and overcome the bureaucracy of New London. Will you give me a ride? And perhaps a testimonial to my good faith, if required?”
She had an inner strength, that one. There was no way of telling yet whether that would make her a useful ally or an implacable enemy, but there was no point in underestimating her. People who bounce back are dangerous. Still, I warned her, “It might not be possible. The Bettelhines seem to have a problem releasing people who’ve served the Inner Family.”
“True. But I have never served the Inner Family before this descent. Nor am I impressed with my first taste of life among them. If I can still leave this world, I would like to. Please help me.”
I may be an unsympathetic bitch, much of the time, but I’m still capable of being moved. “If it’s within my power, I’ll make it happen.”
She did not thank me for the promise yet to be fulfi
lled. She just nodded and went back to her seat, content to wait for the next of the revelations she had to witness.
Skye, who had watched the exchange without comment, now turned to me. “Who next? Philip? We have some hard questions to ask him right now.”
“No, not yet. I’ll want a little more ammunition before I go after that one.”
“Dejah? Given her prior antipathy toward the Bettelhines, her presence here raises the most questions.”
“I think not.”
“Jason and Jelaine?”
“No,” I said. “I think we’ll hold on to them for a little while, yet.”
“Who, then?”
I bit my lip, considering. And then said, “Mendez.”
10
MENDEZ
W e did not have to send for him. Oscin, who was still outside with the others, knew we needed Mendez the instant Skye did. This time, as per the head steward’s lowly status in the scheme of things, Philip raised no tiresome fuss about including Bettelhine Family counsel in the discussion. Mendez entered alone, his head a little bowed and his lips a little pursed, but his deferential, formal manner otherwise undisturbed by our mutual encounter with violent death. Had he been affected at all by the bloody turn our journey had taken, it manifested only as the thin layer of perspiration turning his forehead into yet another reflective surface, glowing in the presence of Bettelhine riches.
He came in, sealed the door after him, then made his way to the place Dina Pearlman had just vacated, all without urgency, trepidation, or any sense that his mission here might entail more than serving drinks or wiping up spills. He stood beside the ottoman, declining to sit. “Counselor. How may I help you?”
“You can begin by taking a seat.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I’m on duty, and I fear I’d find it improper. Indeed,” he said, his voice rising a decibel or two as he directed withering criticism toward Paakth-Doy, who had been sitting all along, “it is improper for her as well.”
Paakth-Doy turned red and began to stand.
I snapped, “Sit your ass down, Doy!”
The Third Claw of God Page 16