by C. J. Ryan
“He was, this morning. Now, he’s with Steffany.”
“I don’t believe you. How could you know that?”
“Because he told me. I called him this morning when I was trying to find your commcode. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you call him yourself?”
Petra almost did, but thought better of it.
“Pug is with Steffany,” Bartholemew said, “and you are here, with me. Don’t try to tell me, Petra Nash, that you came here dressed like that just to have a social luncheon.”
Bartholemew gently ran his hand over Petra’s bare breasts, toying with her nipples. Petra’s breath came in short, tense gasps as her jigli-enhanced nerves tingled in spasms of intense pleasure. His hand moved downward, probed her belly button, then slid on across her belly and down to where her pubic hairs curled over the top of the knot in her pareu. He paused there for a moment, then deftly unknotted the pareu and cupped her groin with his palm.
Petra tilted her head back as he stroked her and finally breathed, “You’re right. I didn’t.” She reached for him, pulled him down to her, and kissed him.
GLORIA’S FEET HURT. SHE DIDN’T LIKE HIGH-GRAVITY worlds; humans weren’t designed for them. But humans were nothing if not adaptable, and they lived on Empire planets with gravitational forces ranging from .1 G to 1.7 G. In time, evolution would sort things out, but that thought was no comfort to her as she roamed the corridors of the Convention Center on her high heels and aching feet. She had sat in, briefly, on a few of the many committee meetings, but most of the day had been spent schmoozing in the corridors, selling the delegates on the benefits and potential of the OSI.
A gaggle of media reps had trailed her, off and on, but she mainly ignored them and concentrated on buttonholing Dexta people and chatting them up. She wore a sheer-to-the-point-of-invisibility white blouse with a wide, deep neckline, a matching skirt slit to the hipbone, and a businesslike dark blue blazer. Everyone could see everything she had, but she still managed to look brisk and efficient. It was a combination she knew worked well for her and somehow symbolized the image she was trying to promote for OSI. We’re open and friendly, we have nothing to hide, and we get the job done.
Last night, she knew, had been a triumph. Jill, Althea, Elaine, Petra, and the guys had put a personal, smiling face on OSI for hundreds of Dexta delegates who would otherwise have known it only from rumor and reputation. Oh, Althea may have overdone it a bit, as usual, and Petra had been too drunk to function by the end of the evening, but overall, they had accomplished everything she had hoped for. And she hadn’t done badly herself.
And afterward…Eli Opatnu and Forty-eight! The new drug was everything it was said to be, and more. Gloria closed her eyes for a second and shivered at the memory of the fantastic sensations that had coursed through her for what seemed like hours. Spirit, that was powerful stuff! And Eli was pretty powerful stuff, too; he had more than satisfied Gloria, Elaine, and Althea in the null-room. It was a shame that Jill had declined the opportunity and Petra was too far gone to participate. They might have learned something from the experience.
Eli, Gloria realized, was her opposite number, her mirror image. He was concentrated sexual energy in a package of stunning beauty. Perhaps her reaction to him was the female equivalent of what men felt with her. She felt no desire to form a lasting relationship with him; that, she was certain, would destroy them both. Like Forty-eight, Eli Opatnu was a transcendental treat, but not something you’d want to take with breakfast every morning. But there was no reason they couldn’t continue to see each other from time to time and delight in each other’s gifts.
“Ms. VanDeen?” Gloria was roused from her reveries by a trim-looking, dark-haired woman standing in front of her.
“Yes?” she said, smiling pleasantly.
“I’m Harriet Graves, Level Eleven, Sector 24 Social Services Coordinator.”
“Pleased to meet you, Harriet.”
“Ms. VanDeen, I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re a disgrace!”
Gloria raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“You’ve cheapened and degraded yourself and Dexta. You’ve harmed every woman in the organization with your narcissistic display and self-indulgent theatrics. As if women had nothing to offer but sex!”
“Well,” said Gloria, “you’re entitled to your opinion. But I think the record shows that I’ve offered a lot more than just sex. I’m sorry if my personal style offends you, but, you know, the OSI has a great deal to offer Dexta. We’ve been able to solve problems that the traditional Dexta structure was incapable of dealing with, and as the Office expands, we’ll provide new opportunities for creative and flexible resolution of—”
“Oh, don’t give me any of your OSI garbage, Ms. VanDeen! I don’t care a fig about your Office of Strategic Intervention, and the truth is, neither do you! All you care about is making a spectacle of yourself and getting every man in the Empire to lust after you!”
“And what would be wrong with that?” Gloria asked with a bemused smile. “Do not deny yourself joy, Ms. Graves, it’s the wellspring of—”
“And don’t give me any of your Spiritist crap! I’m a decent, God-fearing Christian woman! Avatar of Joy, huh? Hmmpf!” Ms. Graves whirled around and stomped away in high dudgeon.
A small crowd had gathered during the confrontation. Gloria turned to the onlookers and said, “Well, you can’t please everyone, but I think—”
She was interrupted by a loud, sharp crack-boom! The unmistakable signature of a plasma discharge came from somewhere down the corridor. Gloria turned to look, but before she could see anything, two of Arkady Volkonski’s Bugs lifted her off her feet and whisked her away. Volkonski himself was suddenly there, directing them through an unmarked door and into what appeared to be a supply closet crammed with janitorial robots, jugs of cleaning fluid, and an array of mops. Volkonski dashed off, slamming the door behind him.
Before Gloria could say anything to the two Internal Security men sharing the closet with her, the door opened again. Two more Bugs herded their charge into the tiny room. Gloria suddenly found herself face-to-face with Cornell DuBray.
They stared at each other in awkward silence for a few moments, then DuBray turned to his security men and gave a subtle nod. They opened the door and departed. Gloria gave a similar nod to her own Bugs, and they left the room and closed the door behind them.
“I hear you’ve been busy, VanDeen,” DuBray said.
“Just showing the flag for OSI,” Gloria replied.
“Showing a lot more than that,” DuBray said. “I heard your little exchange with that Graves woman. She’s not alone, you know. For every slavering man you win over with your charms, you probably alienate two women.”
“Not by my count. Most of the women I’ve met here seem to think I’m a positive influence. They like to see a woman succeed on her own terms and not have to kowtow to anyone who happens to have a Y chromosome.”
“Perhaps. In the end, it won’t make any difference. The Quadrant Administrators and most of the Sector Administrators are still adamantly opposed to the whole concept of the OSI.”
Gloria nodded. “I’m sure that’s true. But the thing is, DuBray, Dexta consists of tens of thousands of men and women who are not Quadrant or Sector Administrators. I know you think you run the organization, and maybe you do in a formal sense. But the reality is that Dexta couldn’t function without all those lowly Nines and Twelves and Fourteens that you think don’t matter. They are Dexta.”
“That’s a romantic and unsophisticated view, VanDeen. The fact is, when I give an order, those Nines and Twelves and Fourteens obey it. Even glamorous, self-important Tens will obey it, if they know what’s good for them.”
Gloria shook her head and smiled grimly. “You know what your problem is, DuBray?” she asked him. “You’ve been so high for so long that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to breathe air that isn’t rarefied. You never come in contact with anyone who isn’t intimidated by
you. But all those faceless Dexta drones are people, with their own hopes and aspirations and agendas. Their own lives. They aren’t just names in organizational charts. They respond to forces that have nothing to do with bureaucratic imperatives raining down upon them from the heavens above. They like me, DuBray—and they don’t like you.”
“Perhaps not,” DuBray conceded. “But they fear me.”
Gloria crossed her arms and cocked her head at a defiant angle. “I don’t,” she said.
“Then you’re foolish.”
“Oh? Why, is Erik Manko out of the hospital?”
“This has nothing to do with Manko. That was just a little warning shot across your bow, VanDeen. You should have taken heed. Much worse things can happen to you.”
“Well here’s a little warning shot of my own, DuBray. My people have established that you signed off on that missing shipment to Savoy in 3163. And I also know that there was zamitat involvement. If I can establish a connection…”
DuBray’s bodily reaction was so sudden and sharp that Gloria was certain that her warning shot had, in fact, scored a direct hit. He stiffened, arched his back, and scowled at her.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with here, VanDeen. None! Take my advice, and—”
Gloria never found out what DuBray’s advice would have been because Arkady Volkonski abruptly opened the closet door. “You can come out now,” he said. “Excitement’s over.”
Giving DuBray a frosty parting glance, Gloria stepped out into the corridor. “What happened?” she asked Volkonski.
Volkonski shook his head in disgust. “Two undercover Security men,” he said. “Each thought the other looked suspicious. So they shot each other. The surprising thing is that it doesn’t happen more often.”
“Were they seriously hurt?”
“They’ll recover. One of them will need a new arm, the other a new ear. Fortunately, their incompetence extended to their marksmanship.”
DuBray and his two Security men brushed past them and started down the hallway. Gloria watched him go, feeling a subdued thrill in her gut. She knew now, as surely as she was standing there, that she was going to bring that son of a bitch down.
PETRA SULLENLY SOAKED IN THE TUB IN HER rooms at the Ellison mansion, staring at the ceiling. A mural here, too: water sprites and mermaids. Did the Ellisons control the aquatic mammal franchise on this planet, too, she wondered?
They seemed to control practically everything else. Mainly, they controlled their son. She was certain now that Pug would take the Pelham job. How could he not? Whit Bartholemew might be a cynic, but he was perceptive. Like Saffron Mingus long before him, and countless others, Palmer Ellison would wind up doing what was expected of him. Enduring dynasties like that of the Ellisons did not permit their substance to be frittered away by independent offspring. Even Whit, for all his contempt and bitterness, had wound up running the family business.
She could see the future as clearly as she could see the water sprites on the ceiling. Pug would become Imperial Secretary under Uncle Benedict, spend a few years on Pelham, then move onward and upward in Dexta until he was, probably, about thirty. He’d have stalled at about an Eleven or Ten by then, or at least, failed to advance to the higher levels as quickly as his family would prefer. They wouldn’t let him waste more than a few years in Dexta before they pressured him back into the family orbit. By the time he was thirty-five, Pug would be a senior vice president in the Ellison empire, and eventually, he’d take the reins from his father, just as Whit Bartholemew had.
And she could be right there beside him. If that was what she wanted.
Unless Pug decided that Steffany Fairchild would make a more appropriate companion on such a journey.
Not for the first time, she wished they had never come to this goddamn planet. Ever since Sylvania, it had been just the two of them, and it had been wonderful. Now, Steffany Fairchild and Whit Bartholemew had materialized in the midst of their lives, complicating and confusing everything.
She wasn’t sure if she had simply been getting even with Pug or whether she felt something deeper for Bartholemew. He was a fascinating but frightening man. Petra was flattered by his attentions and couldn’t deny that she had enjoyed making love with him—more than she ever had with Pug, frankly. Maybe it was just the jigli, or the delicious tang of naughtiness, but there was something about Bartholemew that reached a part of her that Pug had never touched. Nor had any other man.
Petra got out of the bath, stepped in and out of the stato-dryer, then paused in front of a full-length mirror. She spent a long time standing there, staring at her naked reflection, wondering just who that person was.
A rap at the door roused her from her meditations. She threw on a robe, went to the door, and found Standish, one of the Ellisons’ omnipresent butlers, waiting there. “Dinner in ten minutes, Miss Petra,” he said.
“Would you make my apologies to the Ellisons, please? I’m not feeling well. Do you suppose I could be served here in my room?”
“Certainly, Miss Petra.” Standish departed, Petra closed the door, and slumped down on the immense bed. She didn’t feel like having to deal with the Ellisons this evening. Let them think she was still hungover. Let them think whatever the hell they wanted.
PUG CAME IN MUCH LATER AND FOUND PETRA staring at vid coverage of the Quadrant Meeting. He watched over her shoulder as their boss gazed into the imagers, smiling and sexy, and gave her standard OSI spiel. Gloria seemed to be getting more than her fair share of vid time, but the coverage eventually moved on to other matters. “Makes you proud to be in OSI, doesn’t it?” Petra said without looking up from the screen.
Pug didn’t rise to the bait. “I checked out Stavros & Sons today,” he said. “No Stavros, no sons. They were absorbed years ago by a division of Trans-Empire. Apparently they purged all the old files. I didn’t get anything because there was nothing left to get.”
“Took you all day, did it?” Petra turned her head and looked up at him.
Pug looked back at her. “Some of it,” he said at last. “And how was your lunch with Whit?”
“We had fish,” Petra told him. “What did you and Steffany have?”
“Make you a deal,” Pug said. “You don’t ask me about Steffany, I won’t ask you about Whit.”
“Sounds reasonable to me.” Petra got to her feet and stared at Pug. “Why didn’t you tell me Whit’s father was in the zamitat?”
“I didn’t see that it was relevant.”
“I was investigating B & Q Shipping, and you didn’t think it was relevant?”
“I didn’t realize B & Q was a Bartholemew company. If I had, I would have told you. But speaking of B & Q, have you deleted those files yet?”
Petra opened her mouth, then closed it again without having said anything. She turned sharply and marched over to a dresser, seized her pad, and held it up for Pug to see.
“It’s all in here,” she told him. “I haven’t deleted anything, and I’m not going to.”
“Petra, you have to—”
“Don’t tell me what I have to do! First Whit, now you! What the hell is this, anyway?”
“Look, Petra, be reasonable. All you need is the files from 3163.”
“I don’t know what I need because I haven’t looked at it yet. Spirit, Pug, how can you ask me to delete information from an official Dexta investigation? Don’t you realize what you’re asking?”
“What I realize,” he said evenly, “is that you inadvertently downloaded information that could be very damaging—and dangerous. Do you have any idea what could happen if the zamies ever found out what you’ve got?”
“Why would the zamies find out? Whit certainly isn’t going to tell them. Or is there something I don’t know? Maybe something else you didn’t think was relevant? Is your father in the zamitat, too?”
“Of course he’s not!” Pug glared at her from across the room. “My family’s business is entirely legitimate. Or as legitimate as any bus
iness ever is.”
“Then why are you so upset about this? What difference does it make to you if I accidentally stumbled across something about the Bartholemews?”
Pug walked toward her, stopped halfway there, then turned and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Petra,” he said, “you know my mother is very close to Saffron Bartholemew. Our two families are…well, close. Over the years, my father and Whit’s father have had converging interests in a number of matters. It could hardly have been otherwise. There have been times when the Ellisons were able to do favors for the Bartholemews, and vice versa. For Spirit’s sake, Petra, that’s how things work in this galaxy! There’s nothing underhanded or illicit about it; it’s simply the way things get done.”
“One hand washes the other?” Petra smirked.
“Yes!” Pug ran his hand through his hair and breathed heavily. “Look, Petra,” he said, “I don’t expect you to understand this, because you haven’t had the…the background. Among families like mine and Whit’s, there are certain mutual relationships, certain understandings…”
“Which I couldn’t possibly comprehend because of my…background?”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Pug said. “Honestly, Petra, I’m just trying to explain why you should delete those files. Don’t try to turn this into class warfare, all right? I know what you think of my family and my friends, but I’d appreciate it if you’d try to be a little more understanding. I mean, I put up with your mother, didn’t I?”
Petra had no answer for that. She put the pad back on the dresser and went to sit down next to Pug.
“You’re taking the Pelham job, aren’t you?” It was more a statement of fact than an accusation.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said.
“But your parents have. And that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Just another one of those understandings that families like yours have, right?”
Pug abruptly rose to his feet. “Give me a break, would you?” He turned and looked down at her. “You think this is easy for me? You think there aren’t times when I want to tell my father to take his fucking empire and shove it?”