by C. J. Ryan
“Anyway,” Petra concluded, “we’ve made some progress, but we still have to do a lot more digging. We haven’t even started with Stavros & Sons and B & Q Shipping, but we have managed to find a slew of Dexta material related to that Savoy shipment. We even identified a few Dexta people from that time who are still active, but we haven’t been able to meet with them face-to-face yet. But Gloria, we did learn something that’s pretty interesting, especially in light of current events. The guy who was the Assistant Quad Admin in 3163, and who signed off on the Savoy shipment? It was Cornell DuBray!”
Gloria nodded. “I knew he was Mingus’s assistant at the time, but I didn’t realize he had anything to do with the Savoy shipment. I assumed it was all handled routinely at a lower level.”
Petra shook her head. “From what I’ve seen so far, there was nothing routine about that shipment. It seemed to generate more than the usual amount of paperwork, and people at the upper levels were definitely involved with it. I’ve even seen a couple of memos on the subject that were signed by Norman Mingus.”
“When I talked to him about it,” Gloria said, “he told me that there was so much going on at the time that he didn’t really have any specific memories of that last shipment. But it figures that he would have dealt with it. I just finished reading a history of the war, and apparently the last few weeks before hostilities broke out were a real madhouse, especially on New Cambridge. You know, Savoy is only about seventy-five light-years from here, so this planet was practically on the front lines. Mingus had to make a lot of important decisions on his own, without any direct oversight from Earth. That’s one reason why after the war, when he became the Secretary, he pulled all the Quad Admins back to HQ. He thought Quad Admins shouldn’t have the kind of independent power that he had when he was here.”
“Speaking of Norman Mingus,” Petra said, “you’ll never guess who I met. His daughter! Saffron Mingus Bartholemew.”
“No kidding!” Gloria knew that Mingus had a raft of children from his five marriages; she had even gone to summer camp with one of them when she was eight. But Mingus never discussed his personal past, and Gloria had been unaware of Saffron’s existence.
“You can sort of see the resemblance, once you know,” Petra said. “She’s probably in her eighties and still looks great. Pug says she grew up here on New Cambridge when Mingus was Quad Admin. She was a buddy of Pug’s mom in school. These days, she seems to be a wealthy widow with a wayward son. Pug says she hates her father.”
“Really? Norman’s coming to the Quad Meeting. I wonder if they’ll get together? I know he’s estranged from some of his family; but it’s such a big family, and with five marriages, I suppose something like that is inevitable. Still, it’s kind of sad. He’s so isolated. I don’t think he really has anything in his life now except Dexta.”
“And you?” Petra ventured.
Gloria thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “I think he views me as a harmless indulgence of his old age, but he won’t let it go beyond that. I don’t think he’s truly very close to anyone, and probably prefers it that way. After the life he’s led, I suppose that’s not surprising. Petra, until I read that book, I don’t think I really appreciated what a great man Norman Mingus is! We might not have won that war if it hadn’t been for his leadership in this Quadrant. He’s probably one of the four or five most important men in the history of the Empire.”
“And his daughter hates him,” Petra added.
“I suppose,” said Gloria, “that it’s hard to pay the proper amount of attention to your family when you’ve got an empire to run.”
“Yeah,” said Petra. “Family and career.” She looked pensive for a moment, then turned and stared Gloria in the eye. “Gloria? Are you going back to Charles?”
“Spirit! Does everyone know about that?”
“Pug’s great-uncle Benedict knew. He’s an Imperial Governor out on the Frontier, and he wants Pug to come work for him. First as an Undersec and a Thirteen, and then within a year he’ll move up to ImpSec and a Twelve. He also said that he might be able to find another Undersec slot for me.”
“I see.”
“Pug hasn’t decided. I mean, I think he wants to stay with OSI, but I know there will be a lot of pressure on him from his family. And, well…if you’re going back to Charles…”
“Petra, I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. He offered me real power as Empress, and with everything that’s happening with the Quad Admins, I admit it’s tempting. But for now, I intend to fight it out at OSI. I hope you and Pug will want to stay. But I understand the situation. Whatever you decide, you know you have my blessing.”
“And you have mine, Gloria,” Petra said.
THE SKIMMER TAXI DEPOSITED PETRA AT THE specified address in the Old City, near the harbor. After her visit to Gloria, she had decided to spend the rest of the afternoon checking out B & Q Shipping. But now that she was here, she wondered if maybe she should have waited until Pug was available. The neighborhood was seedy, the buildings were in disrepair, and the people watched her with avaricious interest.
Gusty winds from the harbor did dangerous things with her brief miniskirt and her unbuttoned shirt. Being nearly naked at the ball or at Elba’s was one thing, but it felt risky to be parading her bare breasts and bottom in a place like this. And yet…there was something oddly delicious about it, too, and she realized that risk was part of what made it fun. Anyway, she knew some Qatsima now. She had even thrown Gloria! Petra smiled at the dangerous-looking denizens of the street as she passed them, and made no attempt to cover herself.
A faded sign on the exterior of the brick building told Petra that she was at the right location. She entered the front door and found herself in a dusty, mostly deserted complex of glassed-in office space. Glancing at a sign, she learned that B & Q Shipping was on the top floor; another sign informed her that the elevator was not in service. With a weary sigh, Petra assaulted the five flights of stairs. The surface gravity of New Cambridge was 1.06 G, and the difference was enough to give her sore feet.
Panting slightly, she arrived at the top floor and saw that here, most of the office space was unlit, and the only sign of life was an old man with ragged gray hair sitting at a console, staring at images of nearly naked women. Petra discreetly cleared her throat, and the old man looked up abruptly. His alarm quickly turned to delight as he focused on the living, breathing, nearly naked woman standing before him.
“Well, hello there, cutie,” he said, breaking into a grin. He was a centenarian, at least, Petra figured, maybe even 120. It was hard to tell because at around the century mark, the effectiveness of the antigerontologicals began to decline, at rates that varied from individual to individual.
“Good afternoon,” Petra said, smiling. “Is this B & Q Shipping?”
“You’re lookin’ at it, sweetie pie. I’m the ‘Q.’ Jamie Quincannon.” He pushed himself up to his feet and held out his hand. Petra took it in hers.
“I’m Petra Nash, from Dexta, and I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Quincannon.”
Quincannon’s left eyebrow rose slightly. “Dexta, you say? Yeah, I heard they were havin’ their big convention here. You lookin’ for a room, sweetie? Do a little real estate on the side, y’see, and I just happen to know where I could get you a furnished apartment for the length of the convention. Prime location, just up the coast in Overlook. Only fifteen minutes from the Transit.”
“Uh, thank you, Mr. Quincannon, but I already have accommodations.” She suppressed an urge to point out the window at the Ellison compound looming high on the cliffside above Central. “What I need is to talk with you, or someone, about a shipment B & Q made about fifty years ago. I’d also like to look at your records.”
“My records? Y’got a warrant?”
“No. I could get one,” Petra told him, “but you don’t want to make me go get a warrant, do you?” She smiled again and leaned forward a bit to give Quincannon a better view of her small,
round breasts.
Quincannon noticed and smiled back at her. “Naw,” he said. “Say, you bein’ from Dexta, would you know if that Gloria VanDeen is comin’ to the convention?”
“She’s already here,” Petra said, her smile taking on a slightly rueful complexion. Even here, in the midst of vamping a dirty old man, she was overshadowed by Gloria. Quincannon proceeded to emphasize the point by turning back to his console and tapping a few keys to bring up an image of a very naked and stunningly beautiful Gloria.
“Damn, she sure is somethin’! Hope I get to see her while she’s in town. You wouldn’t happen to know her, would you, sweetie?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I was her assistant?”
Quincannon’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t be pullin’ an old man’s leg, would you, cupcake?”
“Not a bit of it. In fact, I’m here to work on an assignment for Gloria. We need to learn all we can about a B & Q shipment in September 3163. It was the last shipment to Savoy before the start of the war. Were you here then, Mr. Quincannon?”
“Told you I was the ‘Q,’ didn’t I? Sure, I was here. Remember the shipment, too. Why do you want to know about it all of a sudden?”
“Mr. Quincannon, weapons from that shipment have turned up in the hands of terrorists. We need to find out what really happened to that shipment. We don’t think it ever reached Savoy.”
Quincannon took a heavy, rasping breath, almost a sigh. “Terrorists, you say?” He shook his head slowly, like a judge confirming a sentence. “Told Bart. Told him. Knew it would come back to bite us. But did that stiff-necked son of a bitch listen? Did he ever?”
“Bart?”
“My late partner. The ‘B.’ Died three years ago. Now there’s only me here, give or take his son. Junior’s got other fish to fry, but he keeps the office open. When he needs a special shipment for one of his other businesses, he leases a freighter through B & Q, which means that I lease one and pass it on to Junior at twenty percent under cost. Tax deal. Junior makes more money when B & Q takes a loss, y’see. But it gives me somethin’ to do once in a while. Y’know, cutie, we used to own—own!—twenty-three freighters. Whole building used to be B & Q offices. Now, we got one office, one employee, and no freighters. Anyway, that whole shipment was Bart’s deal. Didn’t want to touch it, myself.”
“The insurance company paid you for your missing freighter, though,” Petra reminded him.
Quincannon grinned suddenly at the memory, then resumed his usual slightly suspicious countenance. “Yeah,” he said, “they did. Bart’s deal again. Knew how to play both ends against the middle, my partner did.”
“And what actually happened to that freighter, Mr. Quincannon? It didn’t go to Savoy. Where did it go?”
Quincannon shook his head with a bit of vigor for emphasis. “Told ya, it was Bart’s deal. Far as I know, that freighter got blown to shit by the Ch’gnth.”
“I see,” said Petra, frowning. “In any case, I’m going to have to look at your records. We’re particularly interested in getting a cargo manifest.”
Quincannon pointed to another console on the other side of the room. “Help yourself, honeybunch. Bart’s dead, and I don’t give a rat’s ass, so go ahead. Download any damn thing ya want. Just don’t tell the kid I let you do it, okay?”
“The kid?”
“Bart’s son. Whitney Bartholemew, Junior.”
“Oh,” said Petra. “That kid.”
GLORIA, PETRA, JILL CLYMER, ALTHEA DANTE, Elaine Murakami, and Brent Rostov and Darren Mogulu, two of OSI’s bright young men, huddled in a corner of the immense room where the reception was being held following the opening session of the Quadrant Meeting. More than five thousand Dexta representatives and interested onlookers from throughout the Quadrant, having endured three hours of speeches and platitudes at the famed Central Opera House, were now jammed onto the floor of the city’s main sports arena, where food, drink, and important people were freely available. Norman Mingus had not yet arrived on New Cambridge, but Cornell DuBray was somewhere in the room, accepting the obsequies of the toiling Dexta masses who worked for him.
“Try to avoid DuBray,” Gloria instructed. “I don’t want any big, ugly scenes—at least, not this early in the conference. Plenty of time for that. Meanwhile, keep circulating around your assigned area and schmooze every breathing soul, except the waiters. I don’t want anyone to leave this conference without having had face time with someone from OSI. I want us to be noticed!”
There was little doubt that they would be, since among them, the five women wore enough fabric to decently clothe no more than two or three of them. Althea Dante, the petite, alabaster-skinned, raven-haired Imperial Coordinator, whose reputation within Dexta was even more notorious than Gloria’s, wore nothing at all except for some oversized gems depending from golden chains around her neck and hips. The other women were at least partially covered, if not exactly concealed. For her part, Gloria wore a swooping, deep purple toga-dress, held together by diamond brooches at her right shoulder and left hipbone, leaving her left breast, leg, and buttock entirely bare. Brent and Darren, meanwhile, were decked out in their Imperial finest, as handsome as the women were beautiful.
“And remember our message,” Gloria said. “OSI is here to help one and all, to be an advocate for the bureaucratically disadvantaged. Our one and only goal in life is to make Dexta function like a well-oiled machine for the benefit of all concerned. We are a threat to no one and a friend to all.”
“And if that doesn’t work,” Althea added, “I’ve staked out a utility room over there where you can screw their brains out.”
“Purely optional,” Gloria assured the others. “Everyone got their pin-pads?” Pin-pads were tiny receivers linked to their personal computer pads, and each woman was equipped with one. “Make plenty of notes—in fact, do it after every conversation, if you can. We are going to follow up each personal contact with a letter that will make reference to your conversation, so be sure to record some specifics. The personal touch is vital. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, go do your stuff.”
Petra, Jill, Elaine, Brent, and Darren turned and walked off to their designated quadrants of the Quadrant, while Althea lingered to discuss some details concerning the OSI reception. She had already handed out a small fortune in bribes to cooks, caterers, musicians, staff, and managers in order to secure a workforce for the date she had chosen. But finding a suitable venue not already booked proved to be a problem that resisted her largesse.
“Gloria,” she said, “it’s hopeless, unless you want to rent an alfalfa field and put up a circus tent. Aside from the six Sector receptions and all the Big Twelve receptions, you’ve got a hundred and twenty-odd Divisions, and each of them is throwing a reception. Every theater, auditorium, museum, hockey rink, and barn has already been booked.”
“I may have a solution,” Gloria told her. “Pug Ellison’s family owns that neo-Gothic monstrosity up on the cliff. The Ellisons are here tonight, and Pug’s going to introduce me to them. Maybe I can arrange something.”
“Gloria, darling, that would be marvelous. I’m off, then.”
“Althea?”
“Yes?”
“You were kidding about that utility room, weren’t you?”
Althea’s violet eyes widened in innocent surprise. “No,” she said, “I wasn’t.”
JILL CLYMER CAUGHT SIGHT OF ALTHEA DANTE emerging from an unmarked doorway on one side of the hall, a languid smile on her face. Jill laughed to herself, amused by her OSI colleague’s dedication to the cause. She saw no need for such extreme measures, but didn’t mind putting on a bit of a show for the sake of OSI. Considering the public image Gloria had imparted to the OSI, she could hardly have done less.
She could hardly have worn less, at any rate. Her microns-thick smart-fabric dress, featuring random starbursts of silver and gold flashing against an inky backdrop, was cut low to reveal impressive cleavage, both fore and aft. She had never been shy ab
out her physical endowments, but since joining OSI she had come to feel downright dowdy next to Gloria and Althea and, lately, even Petra. Jill had always considered herself to be in the Lion category, but she had to admit that there were advantages to Tiger stripes.
Schmoozing, in any case, was an art she had been practicing since she was six. Her father had been in Parliament for a while, and Jill had grown up at gatherings like this one, where the most important and self-important people in the Quadrant stood around with drinks in their hands and sneers on their faces as they sized up the competition. Jill chatted them up with skill and confidence and made, she felt, a good case for OSI.
She was glad she had accepted Gloria’s offer to join OSI permanently following the Sylvania mission. She liked and respected Gloria and believed that OSI could play an important role in Dexta and the Empire. Like her father before her, she believed in good, clean, and efficient government; Dean Clymer had been hounded from office and into an early grave because of that belief, and Jill had entered Dexta in an attempt to carry on the good fight.
She had just finished dictating some notes to her pin-pad when she was approached by a tall, strikingly handsome man decked out in his “Imperials”—black knee boots, tight white trousers, and deep blue tunic, the standard garb for men at formal affairs like this one. Jill had never met him before, but recognized him immediately—Eli Opatnu, the Sector 19 Administrator. He was, she knew, that rarest of animals in the Dexta menagerie, a male Tiger. Rumor had it that he possessed genetic enhancements that allowed him to pump out pheromones on demand, although his confident good looks, trim body, and tighter-than-necessary trousers all suggested that he didn’t really need them. He smiled at her, and Jill had to catch her breath.
“Ms. Clymer, I presume?” he asked, extending his hand. Jill nodded and shook it.
“Good evening, Mr. Opatnu,” she said. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise. I hear very good things about you, Ms. Clymer.”