by Victor Milán
He frowned slightly. He obviously disliked for his house-guest to trouble herself thinking about her erstwhile "employer."
"I suppose it's because Chandrasekhar represents so much of what's wrong with the Combine," he said. "He's taken advantage of his family name to amass an unbelievable fortune. Yet he so blatantly lacks all the traditional Kurita virtues that he could be a poster boy for decadence."
Cassie nodded, directing her attention to the cat, who expected nothing less. In her experience the only Kurita virtues Uncle Chandy lacked were austerity and a reflex for belligerence. She wasn't here to enlighten young Percy on the subject, however. But she was curious to know just why the Chairman bore her employer such hatred.
"He appears to treat his workers well—upped their pay, shortened their hours, which gave fits to old Redmond, I assure you. But he exploits them, and ruthlessly crushes any dissent. And he's savagely repressed Sumiyama's attempts to organize HTE workers in order to protect their rights."
It was just possible that his Excellency was naive enough not to realize that the Workers' Fraternal Protective Association sponsored by Sumiyama-kai, ostensibly a labor union, was in fact just another yakuza racket to extort money from the long-suffering Laborers. The Combine made much of its Workers' Associations, but of course true independent unions were not allowed; and the associations were inevitably dominated by the local yakuza organizations.
Not only was it possible that Percy was that naive; he was, or so Cassie judged—and Cassie knew her marks. But it wasn't because he was stupid, or merely obtuse. She was finding him a genuinely intelligent man, with a rapid wit and agile imagination.
He was even a minor war hero, a trained MechWarrior who had distinguished himself in action in the early forties during the low-level but incessant skirmishing against both the F-C military and the Free Worlds League which followed the Fourth Succession War. At thirty-five standard years old, he was generally taken for ten years younger.
But like everyone else, he had been shaped by his upbringing. And it seemed that all involved, from his tyrannical grandfather, Rex, whose fierce, white-browed portrait glowered like a guardian demon from the wall, to entrenched local powers like Tanadi and the yakuza, to the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine, had an interest In grooming him to ineffectuality. Percy Fillington had been warped and stunted like a bonsai maple; and Cassie marveled that he could boast even as much poise and personality as he did.
She still couldn't help wanting to like him, a fact that continued to surprise and distress her. He was only a mark, after all. And if a con artist let a mark actually become a person—that was it. You lost your edge, lost your instinct for the jugular, and then you started making mistakes. In her youth Cassie had seen other scammers go that route, and get caught—or wind up getting scammed themselves. She'd vowed it would never happen to her.
"He's been after me constantly since the party, you know," the Chairman said, coming to stand behind her. "He's bombarding me with demands and entreaties day and night. He's all in a fever to get you back. Which I can sympathize with, surely."
Once more she could feel the desire to touch her beating from him like heat from a stove. It wasn't sexual—or not purely sexual. He wanted to hold her, comfort her.
Usually she took the same pleasure in such sensations as an angler took when a fish took his line. This time, Percy's behavior was upsetting and confusing her, even if it was all according to plan.
Master yourself, Guru Johann used to say, and you can master every situation. Fail of self-mastery, and you control nothing.
She turned, still kneeling, grasped one of his hands in both of hers. "Your Excellency is most kind to shelter me."
He pulled her up. "Here, now, don't worry yourself anymore about the monster. Don't even think about him."
She raised his hand, brushed it quickly with her lips, shied back as if terrified by the contact. "I am yours to command, lord," she said in her hollowest waif voice, keeping her fake emerald gaze downcast. "I am your humble servant."
He drew in a breath that shuddered like a sapling at the impact of a heavy body. She was skating the edge now. She felt an artist's fierce unalloyed pleasure as he raised a hand to touch her, advanced it, then stopped it as if Cassie were surrounded by an invisible force field. She was playing him now the way the long-dead musicians whose music filled the room played their instruments.
He dropped his arm like a dead thing. "You musn't talk that way," he said. "You're not my servant. You're—"
He frowned, searching for words. "You're someone who is becoming rather important to me. You're, ah, my friend."
"Your Excellency does me too much honor."
"Not at all."
She raised her face to his. "I am most grateful to my lord. But I am pained to be here, surrounded by such luxury, while my mother and brother suffer."
He raised a hand in an agitated gesture, let it fall again. "I'll see to that," he said. "I promise."
He turned, walked several steps away, turned back. He let his eyes travel down her slim body, which the loose gown alternately accentuated and hid in intriguing ways. For a moment she felt a thrill of fear, wondering if she had overplayed her hand.
He took a deep breath, gathering himself. "I must retire now, Jasmine. But, please, stay up as long as you wish. If there's anything you need, the servants will see to it."
He bowed and quickly left. She stood there a moment, tingling with accomplishment. And yet, down in the deep of her was a cold, unwelcome trickle of feeling, one she'd long been familiar with—but never in this setting.
I'm ashamed, she realized in a rush of anger and fear. She closed her eyes, rubbed them with the heels of her hands.
I'm losing it, she thought, wishing miserably that this mission was over. She had fought the battle for self-control so long and hard. To lose it here, in the midst of an assignment vital to the Regiment, her surrogate family, would be a punishment worse than any penalty of discovery.
She went to the bed chamber and locked the door. For half an hour she lay on her back in the dark, staring sleeplessly at the ceiling. When she realized she was actually missing the horrid pink stuffed bear Kali had given her, Cassie rolled over and surrendered to tears.
30
Masamori, Hachiman
Galedon District, Draconis Combine
30 October 3056
The drum of her horse's hooves on tide-wet sand filled Cassie's body with wild rhythm. The surf, whipped on by a storm invisible out across the Shakudo, pounded bass accompaniment. Clumps of tall, purple-tinted beach grass, bent by the wind, whipped her legs as she rode past.
In a thunder of hooves Percy Fillington's bay caught up and passed her—establishing the point at which normal Kurita attitudes took over from ancient Western chivalry. He reached the agreed-upon finish line, which was even with the main-mast stump of a long-foundered freighter a few hundred meters offshore. Wheeling his horse, he made the animal rear up to mark his triumph, then leaned over his neck, patting him as Cassie rode up on her dapple-fannied gray Arab mare.
"You're a quick study," he told her. "Already you're riding as if you'd been doing it for years."
"I've always been good with animals, your Excellency," said Cassie, who had been doing it for years. The once thoroughly urban street-trash girl had learned to ride a variety of more or less domesticated beasts in her pursuit of scout mastery. But it was a rough-and-ready form of riding, far from polished. Horsemanship was a prized skill among the Combine's upper classes; it was an appropriate pastime for warriors, it smacked of tradition, and, besides, there were plenty of planets within the Combine on which horses were the prime source of motive power. The Planetary Chairman rode better than Cassie, and had won without any help from her.
They continued down the beach at a sedate pace, feeling their mounts' sides pump like billows between their legs. The air was cool, but not chill; they were enjoying a final unseasonable spasm of warmth. Hachiman's larger moon, Y
oshitsune, hung pink and swollen above the distant black serration of the Trimurtis. The last of the day lay like a spill of liquid fire on the opposite horizon. The smell of salt and wet sand and decaying sea-life and the endless, ageless surge of ocean wrapped them like blankets. Late season crickets trilled in the dunes above the beach. Nightgaunts seemed to brush their faces with soft-furred wingtips as they wheeled through the gloom, seining tiny insects in through widespread mouth-funnels and uttering dismal hoots. For the moment, the riders were content in one another's silence.
Which was either a good sign or a very bad one. That she could not be sure showed exactly how off-center Cassie was. Percy had been away tending to affairs of state for three whole days while she fretted and played mahjong and poker with Yoritomo, whom he had left to keep an eye on her. Knowing that somewhere a clock was ticking—that somewhere the red-haired man was preparing his next onslaught against Uncle Chandy and the Regiment—she had begun to feel trapped and hopeless. By the time Percy got back that afternoon it felt like her nerve ends had begun to curl up out of her flesh like twists of flayed skin.
Yoritomo had been a sympathetic if unobtrusive presence. There was a knowing quality to the way he looked at her, and she had just about concluded he was the Mirza's plant in Stormhaven. Or one of them, anyway, and most likely the one who periodically left her hidden messages.
They rode a transverse trail up a steep hill, then followed the cliffs rising toward the manor's dark mass up on its promontory. Lights were just coming visible from within. Percy told her soft-voiced stories of official foolishness and noble pomposity as they rode, making Cassie laugh, readily and genuinely. He had a good way with an anecdote.
Down the hill from the big house they handed their mounts off to solemn-faced grooms with bare brown feet, then walked up a trail of crushed seashells. "I rather missed you, I must admit," the Chairman said.
"I missed your Excellency as well."
He stepped in front of her, tucked a crooked finger beneath her chin and raised her face to his.
"Isn't it time you started calling me Percy?" he asked.
He kissed her. For a moment Cassie stood, accepting. Then she broke away and ran up the path.
He came pelting after, laughing. She found herself laughing too. His pursuit did not threaten her. She considered, briefly, letting him catch her.
At the top of the path she stopped dead. A small helicopter with obvious weapon trays bolted to the sides squatted in the midst of the broad, immaculate front lawn. The intrusion was like a blow to the face.
The Planetary Chairman stood behind her. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, was no longer laughing.
"Perhaps you'd best go in by the back entrance, my dear," he said quietly.
She looked up at him, putting horror on her face. He gave his head a slight shake.
"Don't be afraid, Jasmine. It isn't Chandy. It's just state business."
She nodded, started away, stopped. "Lord—Percy—about my brother ..."
"Later! Later, I promise. And now—off with you."
* * *
"You kept me waiting," Ninyu Kerai Indrahar said when the Planetary Chairman walked into the drawing room. "I was occupied."
"Indeed." The second in command of the ISF was dressed in his customary black. He stood with hands behind his back, studying the portrait of the current Earl's grandfather. He was still obediently cultivating his taste for beauty, though he did not yet grasp just what a sense of esthetics had to do with being an assassin. Here, for once, was something he could almost appreciate. The old Earl had obviously been a warrior, a Draconian to the core, with his intense hawk's eyes and uncompromising brows, his jaw set as if the painter had captured him grinding his teeth with fury at the foes of House Kurita.
Still, Ninyu felt a certain relief, as of a load lifted from his shoulders, when he could turn from art to business.
"Your new toy," he said. "She was Chandrasekhar Kurita's." It was a flat statement, not a question.
The Chairman nodded. He still wore his riding breeches and boots. "She was. And is no longer."
"How do you know she isn't a spy?"
"She shot one of Chandrasekhar's foreign hirelings with a gun belonging to a member of my personal guard. I hardly think even Chandrasekhar would go to such lengths."
"Gaijin mercenaries are easily come by."
"I've investigated her background thoroughly. She is what she seems, a simple victim of Chandrasekhar's appetites."
"I want her questioned."
"No."
Scarred brows beetled over black eyes. "I could take her."
"With respect, Assistant Director, what would be the point? She's not in a position to learn anything here that might benefit the Dragon's foes." He shook his head. "She's been through quite enough, poor child. I won't have her subjected to your interrogation techniques, even at their gentlest. You may take my word for it; she has as little use for Chandrasekhar Kurita as you or I or anyone on Hachiman."
For a moment those black eyes stared into Fillington's, Ninyu's face resembling a mask of scarcely controlled fury. A muscle in the side of the Chairman's jaw twitched, but his gaze did not waver.
Ninyu shook his head as if seizing himself by the back of the neck to do it. "It is of no consequence. I have come to tell you that we are ready to act." A pause, and then reluctantly, "Associate Director Katsuyama informs me that the climate of opinion is propitious."
Percy's smile included a touch of relief. "Capital. When do we move?"
"Tomorrow." The scarred lips sketched something like a smile. "And even if Chandrasekhar Kurita knew every detail of the plan, there would be nothing in this world or any other he could do to stop us."
* * *
Masamori was often described as the City of Bronze Towers. Tallest of its asymmetric Yamato-style skyscrapers was the administrative headquarters of Tanadi Computers soaring two hundred fifty stories above the congested heart of the city.
When a sleek blonde secretary announced the arrival of the Planetary Chairman, the Marquis Redmond Hosoya, Tanadi's Chief Executive Officer, was standing with his back to his surprisingly small office, staring out the window east toward the river—and the vast rectangle of the HTE Compound. Buttery morning sunlight filled the room, lending it an altogether spurious cheeriness.
"Ah, your Excellency," the Marquis said, turning after the carefully calculated insolence of a beat's pause. "So good to see you."
He bowed, then strode forward to shake hands. He was, like his office, compact but immaculately and expensively turned out. His hair, sideburns, and mustache were thick and white as the never-melting snow of the highest Trimurti peaks. He wore a dark suit whose very severity of cut and color was an almost strident statement—and a perhaps deliberate contrast to Uncle Chandy's perpetual scarlet robe.
The Marquis' bow was cursory, but Percy, who after all had been playing this game his whole life, beat him with one that was little more than an inclination of his elegant head. His handshake was solid as brick. For all Hosoya's bearing and costly manicure, there was something in the thick shoulders and barrel chest that suggested the nobleman might not be above trying to crush the Planetary Chairman's knuckles. In fact he knew better than to try; Fillington's slim pale hands had a grip like an Archer.
"Marquis," Fillington said, "permit me to introduce my friend Jasmine Mehta, of the city of Srinagar."
Hosoya's dark eyes flicked over her like the beams of a holovid camera. "She's lovely," he said, in the same tone he might use to speak of a new racehorse or perhaps an imported high-tech wrist chronometer.
He turned his attention back to the Planetary Chairman, and it was as if Cassie had become invisible. "To what do I owe the pleasure and honor of your visit?"
She was dressed as conservatively as the wardrobe selected for her would permit, which was extremely: a dark brown dress to the knee, above darker stockings and shoes, a brown pillbox cap with a hint of net veil clinging to the front of
it, more shading than obscuring her face. It was striking in its way, accentuating the ivory of her artificially pale skin and green eyes, but it was not flashy, not the sort of thing to draw undue attention.
"My friend here, has a brother in Srinagar who, I'm assured, is a graduate electrical engineer of some accomplishment. He finds himself in need of employment. It occurred to me that you might do me the honor of considering taking him on."
"It is your Excellency who does me honor; he is well aware that Tanadi is relentless in its search for talented and dedicated employees. I thank you for your magnanimity."
At a gesture from Percy, Cassie had settled herself in a chair to the side, crossing her ankles primly, in the attentive posture expected from a good Combine consort. The flowery speech was so much white noise, of course; the Marquis would have thanked Percy as profusely for a brass paperweight shaped like a cockroach. As an ornament, "Jasmine" was supposed to look as if everything said held infinite fascination, even if it bored her cross-eyed. Appearance was everything in Drac culture.
She put a little extra spin on it, leaning forward and moistening her lips, playing her role of concerned sister and daughter. In fact, she didn't want to miss anything. It was unlikely either man would let any pearl of intelligence drop, even in front of something as inconsequential as a kept woman. But you didn't get to be the consummate scout by taking things for granted.
Subtly, Hosoya steered Percy away from his consort, toward the window looking off toward the Compound and the river. Most likely it was because he found it distasteful to discuss matters of consequence in the presence of a woman, even if she was little more than part of the decor. Still, there was something in the men's body language as they spoke, voices pitched too low for her to make out what they said, which indicated that something was indeed passing unspoken between them. Whether or not it had to do with what they were discussing now—presumably her mythical brother in Srinagar—they looked as if they were conspiring.