The Third Claw of God

by Adam-Troy Castro

  14

  THE FOURTH BETTELHINE

  S kye locked the Fire Snake inside the suite’s stasis safe. Paakth-Doy finished treating Wethers and Skye for their own injuries. Even as we shed all external evidence of the Fire Snake’s attack, the four of us agreed to keep the incident a secret for the time being, both to avoid panicking the others and provide the culprit, whomever that might be, more opportunity for accidental exposure. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was something.

  Then Mendez called to let us know that there’d been another development outside the carriage.

  This time everybody followed him belowdecks, to share the news carried by the air lock monitors. This time we all faced the little monochrome holos as they cycled between exterior images of the carriage and relayed images of a gathering storm.

  The Stanley clinging to the cable above us was no longer our only company. Another one, no doubt dispatched from Anchor Point, clung to the cable below, more predator at bay than rescuer waiting for the right moment to approach. At least fifty other spacecraft, from single-occupant fliers to troop carriers capable of carrying hundreds, had formed a fresh perimeter surrounding us on all sides. Dozens of smaller dots of light, impossible to resolve in any image panoramic enough to capture the scale we were dealing with, came into focus when Mendez zoomed in. They were soldiers; all faceless in their free-fall maneuver suits, all carrying precision weapons with black, hungry barrels.

  The very immobility of the tableau was what made it so frightening. None of the vessels moved in relation to one another. None of the soldiers shifted position. The most the machines and people did to prove themselves a living system capable of action at a moment’s notice was flare with light every few seconds as their respective propulsion systems fired to prevent them from drifting out of formation.

  It had only been a little more than an hour and twenty minutes since the first Stanley dispatched from Layabout had aborted its rescue mission. The powers that ruled military response on Xana had deployed this armada in less time than it would have taken the authorities on some Confederate worlds to put on their boots. This was a fine testimonial to Bettelhine efficiency, and a somewhat less sterling omen when it came to our own chances of survival.

  I much preferred the security that came with being trapped with a single murderer, or even a handful of conspirators, to the dubious comforts of knowing that an entire fleet was fixing its guns on my position. Granted, the commanders who gave the orders were all Bettelhine employees themselves and therefore unlikely to relish the idea of killing three members of the Inner Family. But we now owed every moment we still drew breath to the continuing calm and stability of men and women who knew that their own lives might depend on recognizing a sudden attack. If it came to the final extremity, we wouldn’t be the first hostages to die because some recruit, dripping sweat behind the nice anonymous mirror of his helmet’s faceplate, returned an attack that was only a glint of sunlight reflected off steel.

  Jason’s grin became a black grimace. “We’re running out of time, brother.”

  Philip seemed surprised to be included. “I know.”

  “That’s a siege.”

  “I know.”

  “Our own people.”

  “I know.”

  Jason bit his lip. “The thing is, a formation like that, I would normally expect them to send an envoy, or attempt some other form of contact to let us know what they want. Dictating terms of surrender, that kind of thing. But they’re just waiting. It’s like they’re scared to come in.”

  “Or,” Jelaine said, “like they’re waiting for the right moment to attack.”

  Philip raised a hand, hesitated for a moment, as if he didn’t know what to do with it, and then clasped Jason on the shoulder. It was about as awkward an expression of filial love as any I’d ever seen, and it must have felt awkward as hell until Jason returned it.

  When Philip spoke again, his voice trembled from more than just fear. “All right, everybody. This is a one-time-only offer directed either at the unknown party responsible for our situation or for any allies who might be aiding and abetting. Whoever you are, if you step forward and assist us in ending this madness right now, I will personally guarantee freedom from prosecution, secure passage to the world of your choice, and enough money to guarantee a life of extreme wealth. This offer gives you a free pass for your involvement in the murder of the Khaajiir and will be payable in full the instant everybody aboard this carriage is safe. Let this offer pass and I assure you with equal seriousness that the same resources, and more, will go to plunging you into hell every day for the rest of your life. This is a one-time-only offer that expires ten seconds from now.”

  When Dejah Shapiro stepped forward, I imagined her about to admit guilt and accept the offer. But no, she just added, “I’ll back that promise if he doesn’t.”

  In the silence that followed I searched the faces of the assembled for the uncertain half-starts I would have expected of any tempted culprit.

  After a few seconds, Philip said, “Time’s up.”

  Dejah flashed a grin. “It was actually up half a minute ago, dear. But nobody wanted to say so and maybe cut off a killer still trying to make up his mind.”

  Jelaine covered her own half-smile with her fingers. “I’m sorry, people, but I’ve been watching the digital timer on the console over there. It was more like forty.”

  Philip nodded. “Determined bastard, whoever he is.”

  The Porrinyards agreed. “A genuine asshole.”

  As was only to be expected, Dina Pearlman took it a step too far. “I don’t mind saying, I’ve been trying to figure out some way I could claim the prize. For an offer like that, I’d have killed the Khaajiir twenty times over.”

  Dejah spared her only the briefest of glances. “Yeah, well, killing the Khaajiir would take an offer like that. He was worth something. You’re only alive today because nobody’s ever come up with spare change.”

  There were smiles at that, even a grudging one from Mrs. Pearlman. For the moment, at least, these were not bickering people with competing agendas, not frightened prisoners waiting for outsiders to come and rescue them, but a united front against an unknown and dangerous enemy.

  I had no faith in the truce lasting as long as our shared predicament. But I knew it would help in the short run when Philip said, “Well, Counselor? What’s next?”

  Farley Pearlman spoke before I could, an unwitting favor to me as it covered my own temporary bankruptcy of ideas. “Is there a reason we can’t just evacuate? That’s what we did, earlier today. Sure, we don’t have a shuttle. But it’s not like there’s a shortage of vessels out there eager to rescue us.”

  Dejah bit her thumbnail, a gesture so close to a habit that had plagued me for years that I felt a twinge at the reminder of what it must have looked like. “I wouldn’t advise anything like that until we know why we have all those weapons pointed at us.”

  Philip said, “Do you really think they’d fire on us?”

  Dejah gestured at the image. “Look at them. As you said, that’s a classic siege formation. Rescuing us, or at least the family members aboard, must still be a priority, unless there’s been a coup we don’t know about, but their first concern seems to be a show of force, aimed at…somebody. Can you imagine what they might do if we go EVA and they don’t think it’s any of us, but instead only our murderer trying to escape?”

  “And why wouldn’t they just intercept without deadly force?” Philip asked. “They’d have to, if the alternative means risking harm to Bettelhines.”

  “Again,” Dejah insisted, “that’s only as far as we know. Without direct contact, we don’t know what’s been happening on their side of this standoff. We don’t know why they’re keeping their distance. For all we know, the threat’s bad enough to be considered a planetary crisis.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Philip said. “I can’t imagine any circumstance bad enough to render three members of the Inner Family expen
dable.”

  My mental paralysis eased. “I can.”

  Every face in the room turned toward me.

  “Understand, please, that I’m not calling this the only possible explanation. There are others that fit the available evidence. But are you all really forgetting that our fellow passengers include one of the people who helped to engineer Magrison’s Fugue? If Mrs. Pearlman wanted to, she’d find an orbital vantage point like this a perfect place to infect the atmosphere with that or any other weapons she might have developed in the meantime.”

  Dina’s already cold features went even more rigid with anger. “I knew this would come around to blaming me.”

  “Forgive me, madam, for treating your words like last year’s toilet paper: unwanted, unpleasant, superfluous, and old. I did say that it was just one of several possible explanations, but the fact remains that the economy of the world below us is entirely based on the munitions trade, and there are any number of such weapons, your obscene Fugue among them, sufficiently dangerous to Xana as a whole that, in any siege situation, the Bettelhines in command would have to consider the loss of a few trapped Inner Family members a small price to pay for the common good.”

  “That’s not a bad point,” Philip said. “It’s just as likely, probably more likely, that you’re part of this and using doomsday scenarios to scare us out of doing the easiest thing.”

  I took no offense. “Based on the data you have, exactly right. I could be. The only constant here is uncertainty. Either way, Dejah’s right. We can’t take precipitous action until we make contact and determine what those forces are doing.”

  The various prisoners of the Bettelhine Royal Carriage stewed in a shared uncomfortable silence.

  Then Mendez cleared his throat, with a dry deference that carried with it an apology for intruding on the business of his superiors. “May I offer a suggestion?”

  “For God’s sake,” Jelaine told him, “if you have something to say, just come out and say it. Don’t start asking permission to speak now.”

  “That’s very kind of you, miss. I was just saying that if I suit up and go outside, I might be able to toss an airtight container with a message apprising the troops of our concerns and sharing our eagerness for any information they might be able to impart in return. It won’t require any great feats of precision on my part, as there are so many soldiers out there that any container thrown in any random direction will inevitably be intercepted by somebody.”

  Jason shook his head. “And if Counselor’s right, and they blow your head off the moment they see you’re throwing something?…”

  “I will do my best to establish with body language that my intentions are benign.”

  Jelaine said, “That’s putting an awful lot of trust in your talent for pantomime.”

  “In a space suit, yet,” Jason said. “No thank you, my friend, but I think Dejah and the Counselor are right. Until we know what the military’s doing out there, and what they think we’re doing in here, I’m not about to allow you to risk your life by recklessly throwing things at them.”

  There was another moment of silence before I said, “Maybe he doesn’t have to.”

  M y plan almost failed because nobody could find anything to write on. Cut off from the hytex network, we now found that none of us had anything as antiquated and as fragile as paper, let alone implements capable of marking it. Jason grumbled that it might be a good idea, in the future, to stock the various suites with a nice supply of paper, Bettelhine-crest stationery. A twinkling Jelaine snapped back, yes, of course, because it goes without saying that this exact situation comes up all the time.

  In the end, wincing from the necessity, Philip opened a display case in the parlor and ripped two blank pages from a Bettelhine family history, commissioned decades earlier by some great-grand uncle or twentieth cousin or other ancestral somebody, and provided its most recent home on the carriage because it carried the whiff of royalty the Bettelhines wanted to display. The search for a writing implement might have been an equal headache had Dejah not reached into her pocket and produced a glittering golden cylinder that she identified as a personal weapon, but which was at its lowest setting capable of creating hairline chars on paper.

  By this point nobody was in any mood to scold her for smuggling weaponry past Layabout Security.

  Vernon Wethers, who claimed the best handwriting, inscribed the letter in a cursive so elegant that it managed to impart beauty to the blocky Mercantile alphabet. He prefaced it with a series of symbols, all three Bettelhines identified as Inner Family codes, that the recipients would be able to use to confirm that Bettelhines had a hand in composing everything that followed.

  To Colonel Antresc Pescziuwicz: We are the surviving passengers and crew of the Bettelhine Royal Carriage. One among us, the Bocaian academic known as the Khaajiir, has been assassinated by parties unknown, utilizing a K’cenhowten Claw of God. A preliminary investigation has been authorized by the three Bettelhine siblings on board and is being led by Counselor Andrea Cort, of the Hom.Sap Confederacy, now an honored guest of Hans Bettelhine. We have yet to identify the culprit or discover any direct connection between this incident and the previous one aboard Layabout. We are all together in the cargo bay and keeping our eyes on the exterior monitors. If there’s anything you need to tell us that might increase our chances of survival, now’s the time.

  Philip Bettelhine

  Jason Bettelhine

  Jelaine Bettelhine

  Monday Brown

  Vernon Wethers

  Dina Pearlman

  Farley Pearlman

  Paakth-Doy

  Dejah Shapiro

  Andrea Cort

  Oscin Porrinyard

  Skye Porrinyard

  Loyal Jeck

  Colette Wilson

  Most of the words were mine, but the Bettelhines had inserted various corrections, the most notable being Philip’s, when he insisted that I refer to myself as his father’s “honored” guest.

  “Good catch,” Jelaine said. “I should have spotted that myself.”

  I finally registered the special emphasis that phrase had been given all day and night. “What am I missing?”

  Philip flashed the startled look of a man who had just been reminded that he had yet to come to terms with my presence. “You don’t know? Nobody’s ever bothered to tell you what it means?”

  “It’s not like I haven’t been asking.”

  “No, I’m not talking about the reason you’re here, which as I’ve said is still a mystery to me. I’m talking about our various levels of guest protocol.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  He glared at Jason and Jelaine. “How could you not let her know?”

  Jelaine’s hand fluttered to her mouth. “We were keeping things low-key. Until Father had a chance to talk to her.”

  Philip shook his head in disbelief, then turned to me and said, “Here’s what they haven’t told you. For the past four generations or so the Family’s used rankings to denote the levels of hospitality afforded our visiting dignitaries. Special Guests and Corporate Guests are both offered privileges greater than those we provide the average run of visitors, and they’re both far below Personal Guests, who are offered the full hospitality and friendship of the Inner Family. We’ve never bestowed those rankings lightly. To put this into full perspective, Counselor, Dejah here is one of the most powerful industrialists in the history of human civilization and one of the most distinguished visitors that even this world has seen in quite some time. And yet, in protocol terms, it was judged unnecessary to declare her, or the Khaajiir before her, any more important than a Personal Guest.”

  I felt the weight of all eyes upon me. “Then what’s an honored guest?”

  “Somebody who’s entitled to all the privileges and courtesies afforded any member of the Inner Family, including a full share of Inner Family earnings while on Bettelhine soil. It makes you a temporary Bettelhine. Right now my father’
s the only one authorized to declare such an honor, and as far as I know, he’s only done it twice, each time under extraordinary circumstances.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, then shot a glance at Jason and Jelaine, who were both nodding. Once again, I registered something greater than mere affection or admiration in the way they two of them looked at me. But now I saw what it was: love.

  Through the blood pounding in my ears, I heard Philip conclude, “I still don’t know what this is all about, Counselor, but making your status clear in this document is the procedural equivalent of telling those troops that they should count not three Bettelhines aboard, but four….”

  W ethers completed transcribing the letter, then read the entirety out loud in case anybody wanted to add a postscript. There were no further amendments.

  Dejah, who’d been watching me closely in the several minutes since Philip’s bombshell, remarked, “I’ve got to hand it to you, Counselor. That’s a pretty formal document for a distress signal. Do you ever let your hair down, even for a moment?”

  “Yes,” the Porrinyards said.

  Wethers blinked at them for several seconds before processing what they’d meant and turning a bright shade of scarlet. “Oh.”

  Jelaine took the document from him and slipped it into the vessel Philip had provided. It was an insulated airtight cylinder shielded against magnetic flux, temperature extremes, and most scanning technology; it was normally used to safeguard delicate recording media in transit from orbit, and would survive atmospheric reentry without any measurable damage to its contents. According to Philip, a magnetic charge in its base would be sufficient to secure it to the hull as long as we remained motionless outside the atmosphere. The combination lock was, in this circumstance, superfluous. We could activate the seal and still allow easy access to anybody who retrieved the container.

  My idea, an improvement over Mendez’s offer to throw the container, was to let the forces surrounding us decide it was safe to retrieve it.