by Victor Milán
The guards gaped at him. "But your Excellency, she shot that man!"
"He was attacking her." The guards still looked blank; the right of self-defense was not exactly guaranteed to citizens of the Draconis Combine. "He was a gaijin attacking a Hachiman woman."
That smartened them up. Tanin were of course fair game if they stepped out of line. They let Jasmine go, stood and turned to face the mercenaries.
The skinny one was bending over his monstrous comrade, who wasn't moving. Skinny raised a rage-distorted face.
"You killed him, you bitch!" he shouted, so violently Percy half-expected blood and tissue to come flying from his throat and mouth. "You'll pay for this! No matter where you run, you can't hide from us! We'll track you down, we'll take it out of your worthless hide before we let you die—"
If the Earl of Hachiman had harbored any doubts, the psychotic threat-stream dispelled them. "Help me get her into the chopper," he told Yoritomo in a tone that brooked no further debate. Gupta rolled his eyes skyward, and did as he was told.
HTE security troops in powder blue uniforms had begun to spill from the elevator. Several approached at a trot, machine pistols at port-arms.
"Your Excellency," one called, "you must surrender that woman to us. She has committed crimes against a member of House Kurita!"
Percy stood tall before them as Yoritomo bundled Jasmine into the ship. "She is under my protection now. Any man who lays a hand on her, or tries to hinder me, is a traitor!"
The HTE guards looked at each other in consternation. Percy climbed into the helicopter. His guards crowded in after, sidearms still in hand.
"Get us out of here," Percy told the pilot, "before Uncle Chandy decides to see whether his name will get him off for shooting down a Planetary Chairman."
The pilot didn't need to be told twice. The engine screamed, and the helicopter leapt up off the roof and into the night.
* * *
"There, there, child," the Earl of Hachiman told the sobbing girl, patting her shoulders through the cloak he had wrapped about them. "Everything will be all right."
Sitting there in her torn dress with a handkerchief pressed to her face, Lieutenant Junior Grade Cassiopeia Suthorn of the Seventeenth Recon Regiment was not concerned with her prospects for surviving this harebrained mission, nor even whether her allegedly long-term waterproof hair dye and skin tone and extended-duration contacts really were. What she was thinking was, When I get ahold of Cowboy, I'm going to bust his nose again.
* * *
The little group on the roof watched the Chairman's helicopter dwindle into the night, until it was just lights, and then nothing but a hint of throb above the pervasive city sounds.
As a general thing Lieutenant JG Earl Willie "Man Mountain" Carter considered it his life's misfortune to bear an astounding resemblance to the bearded black patriarch who was the trademarked symbol of a chain of barbecue restaurants, originating in fact on the Southwestern worlds, a chain that had spread throughout Marik space to Steiner and Davion territory. In fact, he loathed barbecue. His passion was French cooking; a sizable portion of what he earned as a Locust pilot for Adelante Company went to pay for a video correspondence course from a chef cordon bleu under whom he'd studied during a gig the Regiment had spent on New Avalon.
Tonight, though, his misfortune was to be one of the Seventeenth's people whose appearance seemed most calculated to intimidate Dracs.
With a groan, he climbed to his feet. He felt his expanse of belly gingerly, as if to be certain the red mess the front of his shirt had become was all the product of squib-charges and blood bags, and that none of the three rounds that hit him had actually penetrated his ballistic-cloth vest.
"If it had been anybody but that Cassie girl," he rumbled, "I'd never of gone for this. Lord, I think she busted some ribs."
Cowboy Payson was shaking his left hand in the air and shaking his head. Chandrasekhar Kurita had flatly declined to strike Cassie, so it had fallen to her comrade from Adelante to add the final touch of verisimilitude to her scam. Lieutenant JG Payson had been only too happy to oblige.
"You know what the real bitch is?" he asked ruefully, rubbing the knuckles of his business hand. "That skinny little runt took my best shot, and she didn't even go down."
29
Masamori, Hachiman
Galedon District, Draconis Combine
30 October 3056
The wind that swirled dead leaves across the terrace with a sound like insects skittering over the flagstones caught the sheer white folds of Cassie's muslin nightgown against her legs. The air was bladed with autumn chill, yet the sandstone beneath her bare feet was warm from the morning sun hovering over the distance-blued Trimurtis. She sipped strong native tea from a cup of china so fine you could almost read through it, and stood staring at the surf breaking on the rocks far below.
"Did you sleep well last night, Ms. Mehta?" Percival Fillington's voice asked her from behind her.
For a moment she stayed facing the turbulent sea so he wouldn't see her grimace. She hadn't heard him emerge from the villa. Am I losing my grip?
She turned, then, with appropriately downcast eyes, "Well enough, milord."
His mouth smiled, but his eyes were troubled. Even if her room wasn't bugged—and Cassie had to assume it was, with or without the Planetary Chairman's knowledge—she doubted that the soundproofing on the heavy door Fillington had permitted her to lock behind her was sufficient that he would not know her lie. Her screaming nightmares had, no doubt, been exactly what the young Earl might expect from a recent victim of Chandrasekhar Kurita's lusts.
The problem was, she wasn't acting. The nightmares had returned, the dreams that had haunted her since childhood, dreams of a dark and menacing figure pressing down on her—the dreams of the violated.
She could tell herself it was because she felt insecure being separated from Blood-drinker, locked in her quarters in the HTE Compound, there having been no way Fillington would accept Chandy's innocent play-pretty coming complete with a lethal-looking dagger as long as her forearm. Or that she was denied the meditation-in-motion of practicing her pentjak-silat forms.
Nor was her problem that she was walking unarmed and alone into the stronghold of the enemy, and that if discovered, a quick death would be the best she could hope for. Cassie was accustomed to deadly danger.
Those things helped push her off-center, certainly. But they alone couldn't account for the nightmares.
Rationally or not, she blamed Kali MacDougall. The tall blonde woman had gotten inside her defenses and in so doing had stirred up creatures from the murky depths— dislodged long-submerged fragments to come swirling up toward the surface of her mind, dark things, hidden things.
She felt Percy Fillington's warmth close behind her, smelled the soap he had used that morning, felt one hand poised above the skin of her bare shoulder as if the fingers were heated red. She cringed.
The heat of near-contact hovered, was withdrawn.
"Mmm," the Chairman said. "Yes, my child. Would you be so kind as to join me for breakfast? We shall eat out on the terrace and enjoy what autumn warmth remains to us, if it pleases you."
She nodded, a touch spasmodically, permitted him to hold a white-enameled metal chair for her. She still marveled at the high-ranked Draconians she had met on this world. The world of Hachiman was a noted maverick, permitted to go its own way largely because it produced a significant percentage of what the Combine could boast in the way of positive economic balance, partly because its independent-minded citizens were notable pains in the ass when provoked, even for the dread ISF.
But the three important Dracs Cassie had dealt with most intimately since coming to Hachiman—the Mirza, Uncle Chandy, and now Planetary Chairman Fillington—had all treated her with respect and courtesy. Even on Larsha, where she'd been due consideration as daughter of a well-respected man who had died a warrior's death, the Combine exiles had not treated her as well.
She sat,
then raised her weight again so the Chairman could make a properly gallant show of pushing in her chair. Her shudder of revulsion at his near-touch had only partially been acting, too. She had learned while still on Larsha to suppress that impulse when the scam required it. But only on rare occasions was she comfortable being touched, especially by a male.
The revulsion had diminished over the years. Now, like her nightmares, it had returned full-force.
It was strange, Cassie thought, as the Chairman seated himself across from her while silent servants in immaculate white tunics emerged to refresh their tea and set enamel trays of food on the table. Because, despite herself, she found herself wanting to like Percy. He was handsome enough, but more than that, there was an innocent enthusiasm to him, a little-boy quality, which she found appealing.
What's happening to you? her internal voice demanded. When did you start liking marks? That's dangerous.
And the answer seemed to be, ever since she had permitted herself to start liking Lady K, with her gentle insistent way of probing, of challenging without actually provoking. Not since Patsy had Cassie permitted another so far inside her defenses.
And see what happens? Patsy deserted you by getting her silly self killed by the Smoke Jaguars. And here that blonde bitch is trying to split you open like a steamed lobster!
She became aware of Percy studying her. An expression of sadness shadowed his smile. He reached to touch her hand. She let him.
"You must have been through a terrible ordeal," he said, withdrawing his hand with visible reluctance.
She nodded. "Yes," she said, in the taut tone of one barely keeping self-control. In truth, this was easier for her; she was slipping into her scam. Playing the role rather than dealing with her mark as a person.
"Can you tell me about it?"
She could, of course. Her younger brother was an electrical-engineering student in Srinagar. Their father had died while both were young. Their mother had been forced to make many sacrifices for them.
When she was old enough, Jasmine became a hostess in a bar, where she managed to earn enough to send her brother to school. But recently, with her brother on the verge of completing his studies, their mother had become very ill.
Though women were basically inconsequential in the Combine scheme of things, mothers occupied a special role. Even a samurai acknowledged his debt to the endless sacrifices his mother had dutifully made for him. In this the people of the Combine were much like the Caballeros, especially the norteño s, for whom to make one's mother weep was among the greatest disgraces a warrior could incur.
Jasmine's younger brother had been trapped in a classic conflict of ninjo and giri: duty to the Dragon, which required him to complete his studies so he could serve in that capacity for which he was best suited, and his filial duty to help his mother—which, indeed, was a kind of giri as well.
Enter Chandrasekhar Kurita's boudoir talent scouts, who "discovered" the lovely Jasmine in her Srinagar bar. If she would agree to audition for Uncle Chandy's harem, they would not only employ her but guarantee her brother a position. Their mother, they assured her, would have no further worries.
Mother and brother were, of course, fictional. Yet the Mirza Abdulsattah had assured her that any investigation the Planetary Chairman might mount into her background would substantiate her story—at least, for as long as this mission was going to last; it was to be as quick an affair as possible, in and out, hopefully, before the ever-suspicious Ninyu could take much interest. Cassie knew that criminal investigation and forensic science were much less developed in the Combine than elsewhere in the Inner Sphere; punishment on suspicion was so much less resource-intensive. Besides, she trusted Uncle Chandy's security chief.
Or rather, she trusted his competence.
She stared at her plate. Despite her distraught condition— both real and assumed—she had eaten with her usual appetite. She was hoping the Chairman would chivalrously assume she had an uncommonly strong stomach.
"And now I have failed both my mother and Michael," she said in a lost little-girl voice. "But I—"
She covered her face with both hands and sobbed. "I couldn't bear to be with—him—any longer."
Fillington stared at her, drumming his fingertips on the damask tablecloth, white as a seabird's wing. Then he rose and strode a few steps toward the stone retaining wall around the terrace.
Cassie had a momentary vision of Chandrasekhar Kurita roaring uproariously at the lambent loathing with which she'd spoken of him. She was finding it hard to square her experience of the man with Percy's demonic vision of him. It was possible Uncle Chandy's hands were not as clean as they might be—probable, even. Yet Cassie was coming to suspect something else at work. Somebody had made an effort to inspire the Planetary Chairman with deep hate for his powerfully connected subject. Tanadi likely had infiltrators on his staff; perhaps they had poisoned Percy against Uncle Chandy.
Of course, if it was probable Tanadi had plants in the Chairman's household, it was certain the ISF did. It was only a matter of time before Cassie's arrival came to the attention of the red-haired man. She shuddered.
Fillington happened to glance back at just that instant. He frowned slightly, then nodded; of course, she was feeling another spasm of revulsion at the memory of Kurita.
"You've done the right thing, Jasmine," he said. "Believe me. The Dragon can be harsh, but he does not demand of his children that they degrade themselves for—for monsters."
She bowed her head. "Your lordship is very kind."
"Call me Percy." He crossed to stand behind her. His hands hovered like birds above her shoulders.
"I must go back," she said. "I cannot permit my mother and brother to suffer the consequences of my weakness."
"Nonsense!" he said forcefully. "You're not going back to—back there."
She turned in her chair. "But what of my family?"
He smiled. "I am not without resources, dear girl. Permit me to see what I can do for your brother. The Dragon needs trained engineers in this time of crisis."
"Oh, could you?" She jumped up, squeezed both his hands, and fled.
* * *
Gupta Yoritomo tried to intercept Cassie's tearful dash for her chambers on the villa's second floor, his smooth round face set in lines of concern. Despite his initial concern about his master taking her in, he had become an avid supporter of "Jasmine." Cassie shrugged him off and shut the door on his solicitude.
She turned her back to the heavy carved wood and slid down to sit on the plush carpet. She felt exalted. As long as his Excellency kept taking hints, it looked like maybe this was going to work after all. Cassie was expert at covert hinting—and at nagging, too, if it came to that. They were two among the myriad skills useful for a skinny, brown-legged street girl trying to survive on the fringes of Larsha's all but nonexistent economy.
To take the edge off, in case the Chairman's obvious physical attraction to her overcame his pretensions to chivalry, Cassie was pretending to have her period. She was prepared to keep up the pretenses indefinitely—the Chairman's physicians could tell him, if he didn't know, that extreme stress could produce such a condition. It should keep him backed off. Combine males generally had a horror of "unclean" females.
Cassie had accumulated a bagful of tricks during her scamming days to avoid having to deliver on a mark's sexual expectations. In fact she never explicitly promised sexual favors; that was another of her odd points of honor. The mark's masculine imagination customarily supplied such promises, however, and she didn't discourage them until they tried to collect.
One of Cassie's juvie street criminal friends and sometime accomplices had once called her the only whore she knew who never went to bed with anyone. The remark was made half disparagingly, half admiringly.
Cassie had been provided a lovely, airy little bedroom, decorated all in white and yellow, complete with private bath and a closet full of clothes. The Chairman had radioed ahead from the helicopter the nigh
t before for proper preparations to be made to house his lovely fugitive. He had a good eye for women's sizes.
As soon as she locked the door behind her, Cassie went into the bathroom. It was stocked with the usual necessities, some of which had to be used to maintain her ruse.
She took out a packet from the cabinet next to the sink, prepared to tear it open. A small square of flimsy paper fluttered out. She stopped, stared at it, then stooped to pick it up.
It was a note. We're keeping an eye on you, it read. What you need shall be supplied when the time comes. Watch those close to P. Leave return messages in the same location.
The note had been hidden in one of the few places where even a moderately serious search would not have turned it up. She moistened her lips, swallowed, not without a degree of effort. Presumably it came from one of the agents the Mirza assured her he had on Fillington's staff. But what if it wasn't, what if it was from a provocateur trying to see if she would do the proper thing and turn the note over to the Chairman? She shrugged. She couldn't cover all bets. All she could do was roll the dice.
The note was rice paper, which, aside from being so generic within the Combine as to be untraceable, was readily edible. She crumpled it up, swallowed it, and went on with her business.
* * *
"Why do you hate him so?" Jasmine asked the Planetary Chairman. She was kneeling on a Persian carpet from Terra, dressed in a silken gown patterned in rectangles of wine-red and umber, stroking the Earl's long-haired white cat, Amadeus. The "Autumn" Concerto of Vivaldi's Four Seasons filled the drawing room from hidden speakers, nicely complementing the understated yet comfortable elegance of the drawing room. Besides that, it was, as Percy pointed out, basho-gara: appropriate to the circumstances.
Back from a day wrestling with the problems of administering his unruly planet, Percy Fillington stood dressed in a ruffled-front white shirt and tight indigo breeches, with one elbow on the mantel and a snifter of fine Arc-Royal cognac in his hand—a Lyran import still a favored luxury on Hachiman even though no longer contraband.