“Crendon,” the man replied almost without thought and hurriedly added, “Sergeant Crendon of Galactisafe Security Services.”
“Right Sergeant,” Lyssa was surprised how much disdain Haynes was able to fit into a single rank, “get me your supervisor.”
“I am the duty ranking officer,” Sergeant Crendon said, offended.
Haynes sighed heavily. “All right, if I can’t get a real person then I’ll talk to you. I’ll keep the explanation simple so that you can understand it, but if it takes longer than your dinky little countdown allows then certain prominent members of your community will terminate your employment for sure, not to mention a few bodily functions such as breathing.”
“If you hold your position, I’ll pause the countdown and hear you out,” Crendon decided after a moment’s consideration. “If you’re wasting my time I’ll reset it to zero and let the defences fire at will.”
“Fine,” Haynes said exasperatedly, making it quite clear just how far from fine it was. To the computer, he ordered, “Cut engines, hold station. Satisfied?”
The security man nodded.
“We’re still locked and now represent the most sitting duck that there ever was,” the computer reported, “but the energy levels aren’t spiking any more. The defences must be on hold.”
“You promised an explanation,” Crendon reminded. “One that I hope comes with attached entry codes and properly actioned manifest sheets.”
Haynes ignored the implied threat, “In about thirty seven hours Abner Millward is going to be throwing what he expects to be the biggest party of the season. You do know who Abner Millward is don’t you?”
It was Crendon’s turn to ignore him, “All guest transports have logged IDs and all service providers have been supplied with full entry accreditation.”
“Do you see the two ladies with me, Sergeant Crendon?” Haynes inquired.
Crendon nodded, his eyes lingering on the barely-clad figures a little longer than was strictly necessary for simple acknowledgement.
“Do they look like the kind of girls whose services are accredited and logged on properly authorised manifests, not to mention order forms or invoices?”
“Mr Millward has, of course, appraised us of some of the less, how do I say it, high-profile entertainments that he will be offering and arrangements have been made to provide for them, arrangements from which you have deviated,” the security man said.
“These girls are not being provided by Mr Millward, they are being provided for Mr Millward,” Haynes said quickly, sensing that he was starting to lose his audience. “Surely you know that Mr Millward has been desperate to host the parties considered to be the most important social events of the galactic calendar, but has been constantly thwarted by the Duke of Terra Nova 3.”
Crendon nodded, but seemed less sure of himself here.
“No, well I guess that security sergeants don’t get invited to such important events. In any case, the good Duke has got wind of some of the surprises that Mr Millward intends to spring at the party and has decided to spring one of his own. That’s where we come in, or don’t since you have us sat here in kicking our heels in empty vacuum.”
“Even if this were true...”
“It is true.”
“Even if this were true,” Crendon insisted more forcefully, “the Duke could access the same privileges as Mr Millward.”
“Oh yes,” Haynes replied with heavy irony, “and have Mr Millward’s spies passing on the same information about his plans that his spies passed on about Mr Millward’s? I don’t think so, do you? Still, I suppose that you can always check. A quick vidcall to the Duke will sort it out. Of course that means broadcasting our plans in the open and even call transcripts incriminating the Duke in activities that many people frown upon (myself not being one of them), but I’m sure that he won’t mind.”
On screen, Crendon looked suddenly like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a million tonne stratotrain.
“I have heard that his Grace is a very forgiving man,” Haynes turned the screw a little more.
Finally, the security man bowed under the pressure and cracked, “All right, you can come in. Planetary security can deal with you.”
“Sergeant, you may well have just started what I believe will be a rapid climb up the rank ladder,” Haynes congratulated him. “I am especially impressed by your thinking to hold a special weapons drill just to make sure that everything was working.”
“Weapons drill? Oh yes, I understand.”
Haynes killed the connection before the security man could change his mind. “Computer, head for the third planet at a pleasant, unhurried speed.”
“I wasn’t sure that he was going to buy it,” Keely said in a very relieved voice, slumping into one of the acceleration couches. “Is this how you got all your money?”
“Safer than robbing banks,” he told her, “but there’s still a long way to go yet.”
“Now I know why all those gossip feeds were already bookmarked in the computer,” Lyssa said, also impressed.
“Research is 80% of success,” he told her.
“What’s the other 20%?” Keely asked.
“Luck and having the balls to try it in the first place,” he informed her. “Next target is the house and that’s going to be a much tougher proposition.”
“You wanted sights,” Haynes said with theatrical brio as he and Keely emerged from the groundport into bright, golden sunshine, “and I give you sights. Behold the floating palaces of Bliss 3.”
Keely looked up, shading her eyes against the glare. She clucked her tongue disappointedly, “Just looks like a bunch of squares to me.”
“Well of course,” he masked his irritation, “but you’re looking at them from the bottom. Plus you’re on the surface, so these aren’t decorated. The ones higher up have some of the most amazing paintings on them where people lower down can see them. Some of them are so beautiful that they are works of art in their own right.”
“You sound like someone who’s been here before,” she hazarded.
“Or who’s read the travel guide,” he offered as an alternative.
Lyssa emerged up the ramp behind them, her step measured and determined, her chin set. “Am I to understand that you just offered us to that security official in there?” she demanded to know hotly.
“We were just looking at the...”
“Flying houses, I know. Big deal,” she dismissed the sight without even looking up. “Did you or did you not tell the guard that when we were finished up there we’d come back and start down here?” she pressed. “Free of charge?”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” Haynes asked. “The price?”
“You promised him that we’d...provide services,” her glare could have been harnessed for extra wattage.
“What does it matter what I promised if we’re not going to be around afterwards anyway?” he asked her.
“Have you ever told anyone the truth?” she asked after considering his words.
“Lying is a matter of necessity. I try to get by without it. For one thing it’s hard remembering which lie you told to whom,” he informed her sharply. “Normally I’d have months, if not years, to plan and execute something like this and I’m doing the best I can, all right?”
“But the houses,” Keely commented dreamily. “They float in the air.”
“Simple manipulation of the magnetic field,” Lyssa explained.
“What’s more impressive is the fact that the air density is the same at the highest house as it is down here ,” Haynes commented.
That caught Lyssa’s attention and distracted her. She considered the engineering challenges involved. “Wow! That’s...”
“Extremely expensive,” he finished the thought for her. “Now the shuttle’s coming. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Keely murmured at the same time that Lyssa muttered, “Not really.”
He ignored them both.
As it was for th
e hired help, the air shuttle was a standard model that ran to seatbelts, but not, apparently, to padding on the seats. It wasn’t long before half the passenger manifest were squirming where they sat.
“Look,” Keely pointed out of the glaz porthole that was too small for anyone else to see out of, “I can see the paintings on the underside.”
“It’s just another way of showing how much money they’ve got,” Haynes told her sourly. “One of them felt sorry for his neighbour below who had to look at the underside of his palace, so he had a mural painted to improve the view. It quickly became a contest to see who could come up with the most extravagant, beautiful and expensive design.”
“Who won?” Keely wondered.
“The Duchess of Esperon. She put a huge viewing screen on the bottom and a camera on the top so that the people below see what they would if her house wasn’t even there.”
“Now that’s classy,” Keely decided.
“Was that in the travel guide as well?” Lyssa challenged.
“Well, there are travel guides and there are travel guides.”
The shuttle crested the apex of its parabolic flight and fell gracefully towards a landing pad located just below the sightline of the target palace. The slight impact of landing jolted up through the seats.
The passengers filed off the shuttle and were directed to their assigned tasks. A man with a thick white moustache that made him look like a walrus didn’t even blink an eye when Haynes explained what tasks he and the girls were to carry out. A knowing glance and they were passed through into the lower tiers of the palatial residence.
“Another bribe?” Keely marvelled.
“Another promise.”
“Another lie,” Lyssa clarified.
Haynes opened the folded flimsy he had been handed and then rubbed it quickly between the palms of his hands. The friction caused it to burn away in a puff of smoke that immediately dissipated.
“This way,” he threaded his way through the chaos that is any big social occasion in preparation to one of the service lifts. He ushered the girls inside and tapped out a code on the keypad. The lift rose smoothly through the tubes, changing to horizontal directions a couple of times before finally coming to rest. They exited into a small room lined with the kind of panelling that could bring whole forests to volunteer their wood. A pair of richly decorated boxes lay on ornately carved armchairs.
“Put those on,” Haynes said, tapping another code into the lift’s keypad and sending it on his way.
Keely lifted the lid of one of the boxes and gasped, “Oh my goodness, it’s gorgeous.”
Lyssa followed suit.
“But I thought...” she fingered the outfit that she was (barely) wearing.
“That was just to get us inside the house,” Haynes explained with a grin. “Not the most elegant option, but the most likely to work in the time available. Now we have to go and work the party and for that you have to be equal to duchesses, ladies and concubines. I trust that you can both be refined if called upon?”
“You need to turn around,” Keely told him, holding the dress, a shimmer of gold, against her.
“Why? In that outfit I’ve seen just about everything there is to see.”
“But what you haven’t seen is pretty important,” Lyssa pointed out. “It’s a case of turn around or go no further.”
Haynes turned. When he turned back, he was confronted by two of the loveliest visions he had ever encountered (and he had been in some places where the cultivation of beauty was not just art, but art, science and a whole way of life).
Lyssa’s dress was not quite the exact shade of green as her eyes, but he had not had time to have the dress dyed and was pretty sure that she would not have agreed to have her irises coloured. Producing a locked box from within one of those that had held the dresses, he tapped in a code and produced gold and emerald jewellery to perfectly complement the dresses.
“Tell me again why we are chasing after this man when you still have money enough to buy this out of petty cash,” Lyssa asked, slipping a necklace that could have bought a dozen or so of the floating palaces against her breast.
“Money like that is never petty,” Haynes replied, “and it’s a matter of principle.”
“Ah yes,” she nodded in mock understanding, “he shouldn’t have stolen the money that you had already pinched. It’s unethical.”
“Let’s not have this discussion again,” Keely complained. “Let’s get to the party.”
“All right,” Haynes agreed, running through the next stage of the plan. “Circulate around and find the access to the inner sections of the house. It’s the only part that will be guarded and the guards will be discreet. It will probably be on the upper level. We’ll meet by the chocolate swimming pool in forty five minutes.”
Holding out his arms for them to link theirs through, he pushed open the doors at the far end of the small room and entered the party.
No expense had certainly been spared in the preparation of Abner Millward’s party. The combined talents of the Galactic Philharmonic Orchestra and the Central Worlds’ Choir was providing the musical background from a stage hovering a dozen yards or so from the garden area where the revellers were enjoying delicacies so rare that the animals supplying them had been thought extinct before and were certainly that now. The most talented barmen for hire were preparing drinks so difficult to mix that they required access to near absolute zero freezers and non-gravity rooms to produce successfully. Off one side of the mansion, members of the exclusive Cirque des Soleils were carrying out feats of acrobatic skill that brought polite applause and occasional murmurs of approval that, in these rarefied circles, could be translated as standing ovations.
Keely placed a couple of small hors d’oeuvres from a passing waiter’s tray into her mouth and felt them almost evaporate from her tongue. The sensation, and the taste that was left behind, was thrilling, especially after weeks of space rations.
“Wow that’s good! I have got to get myself some more of that.” She looked vainly for the waiter, but the crowd opened up for a moment and revealed the buffet table to her instead. She swept towards it, coming to a disappointed halt when she realised that she did not recognise anything that was on any of the exquisitely hand-painted gold and glass platters.
“Perhaps I may be of service to you,” a young man, dressed in far too many ruffles than was good for anyone, asked kindly, stepping up beside her.
“Are you one of the waiters?” she asked innocently.
“Well hardly,” the young masked his irritation quickly and smoothly. “You just looked a little lost. It’s not surprising considering there’s food from a hundred planets here, and only the rarest of delicacies at that. I thought I might offer myself as a guide.”
“You?” she asked without thinking. With all the ruffles he didn’t look much like the desert guides of Hochnar.
“To the food on the table,” he clarified, again smoothly masking his irritation at her tone. “I’m Gervais, by the way.”
“Kee...,” Keely caught herself giving him her real name and grasped at the first alias she could think of, “..Lyssa.”
“Keelissa? Unusual name,” Gervais frowned slightly before smiling widely, “but lovely. Much like the owner herself.”
“Why would I need a guide around the table anyway? It’s only food,” she popped three different delicacies into her mouth together to prove her point and then had to pause whilst her taste buds sorted out which of the exquisite flavours to revel in first.
“Only food?” Gervais appeared equally horrified and impressed by this attitude. It was either a sign of the most terrible ignorance or the most incredible indifference. The prospect of it being the latter made his own mouth water. “There are delicacies here from worlds that don’t even exist anymore. One or two of them have even been outlawed on some planets. Not this one, of course.”
“Of course not,” Keely agreed, not really listening, searching out the next new tast
e extravaganza.
“Please, you should be careful,” he warned, failing to intercept another handful of morsels on the way to her mouth. “Some of these are for extremely rarefied tastes. They can have varied effects on the unprepared and mixed together...”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” Keely waved away his concern, managing to slur her aspirants as well as her sibilants.
“Perhaps you would care to sit down,” Gervais offered attentively.
“Good idea,” she agreed and did so before he could catch her.
“I did mean on a chair,” Gervais muttered, wondering whether this one was worth the effort. There was something about her, though, that was compellingly fresh.
He was interrupted in the thought by a man appearing at his elbow.
“You haven’t seen a girl around here have you?” Haynes asked, “About so high, gold dress, probably looking out of place. I thought I saw her over this way.”
Gervais indicated the floor.
Haynes looked. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing!” Gervais declared, offended by the insinuation. “She mixed her canapés.”
Keely waved to them both.
“Oh well that’s just great,” Haynes snapped, more angry at himself for not guarding against this possibility than at her. He eyed the buffet table thoughtfully, “although that does give me an idea. Get her up.”
Together, they gently lifted Keely to her feet. Haynes looked across the selection of food and then quickly caught her before she slid back to the floor again. “Will you keep hold of her for heaven’s sake.”
“This is nothing to do with me,” Gervais complained, but held her arm anyway. “I don’t even know her.”
“But I know you, or your type anyway,” Haynes responded equably. “I tell one person here that you took advantage of an innocent girl under the influence of food and you’re finished. For good.”
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