Crown of Slaves

by David Weber

  And that was, realistically, as much as he could ask for. There was simply no way that security for an informal jaunt by a member of the royal family could come close to the level of security which was possible for official visits of state. Especially when the member in question wasn't even in the line of succession. Such elaborate security measures were extremely disruptive for the normal course of business, after all. If Griggs had tried to push the issue, the Erewhonese would have simply declared the space station off limits for the princess—and he would have had to face Ruth's wrath. That, by itself, he would have been willing enough to do. But he knew perfectly well the princess would simply have overruled him—he was her bodyguard, not her keeper—and he would have wound up facing the same situation anyway, with disgruntled Erewhonese to deal with instead of cooperative ones.

  As they wandered through the gaming halls of the pleasure resort, the princess and her companion were gazing awestruck at the holographic displays on the ceiling whenever they weren't distracted by one or another of the equally dazzling displays at the gaming tables themselves. Griggs ignored it all. Most of his mind was given to the task of studying all the people in the vicinity, looking for any possible danger. The rest was wallowing in tradition. His family treasured the ancient art of the curse.

  —to the third generation. As for High Ridge's great-grandchildren, may each and every one be born with genetic defects—not much to ask, given THAT gene pool—and suffer a protracted and agonizing death. May their corpses be dismembered by wild animals. May their body parts—

  * * *

  As soon as Thandi and her team got off the shuttle and past the initial screen of security guards and scanners, she called Victor again.

  "This place is a maze, and I don't know it at all. I don't see any point to wandering around looking for the Princess. You and Imbesi and your—ah, bodyguards—will have to do whatever you can at the point of initial contact. I think it makes a lot more sense for me to get into position to intercept Templeton after he makes his strike."

  There was a slight pause; then Victor's calm voice came back.

  "Agreed. I should have thought of that myself. Naomi's been with me since I arrived and she knows this place backwards and forwards."

  "I bet she does," Thandi snorted. But she didn't have the throat mike activated when she said it.

  "So I didn't think to consider what it would be like coming into it cold. What do you need?"

  "I need to know where I am in relation to the most likely area—or areas—where Templeton would make his move. Even more important, where he'd be most likely to make his exit from the station—and the fastest way for me to place myself across that route. Or routes, if there'd be more than one."

  "You'll need to give me some time. Five minutes, at least, probably more. Neither Naomi nor Walter will have that information, so we'll have to check with someone else."

  Seeing no point to wandering around any further with no goal in mind, Thandi halted her team with a little gesture. They'd drawn alongside one of the resort station's multitude of little refreshment areas recessed from the corridor, and Thandi led the way into it. Her metabolism was starting to make warning signals, so since she had a bit of time she'd take care of that problem. Quickly, she and her team ordered food and began more or less gulping it down. Thandi's women grinned at her as they did so. Their metabolisms were more ferocious than average also, of course, but nothing compared to hers.

  * * *

  Templeton also found the space station a maze, but he'd had time to prepare for it. So, guided by the holo-guides one of his men had obtained the day before, he and his team passed quickly enough through the corridors toward the main gaming halls at the center of the station.

  He was quite sure his sister would be found there. A moth to the flame. And once he got close enough to begin picking up her chemical traces, the very expensive tracking equipment he'd brought with him would do the rest.

  * * *

  Thandi had just finished wolfing down her food when Victor's voice returned.

  "All right. Here's the best I can come up with. Templeton arrived at one of the more isolated docking bays. Good luck for him, unless he planned it that way—which he very likely did. But he won't return by that route. He's more likely to use one of the maintenance docks—either in Tube Gamma or Epsilon—and seize two or three of the shuttles which are always stationed there for routine work. Those bays aren't guarded since there's no way to enter them from the outside without security codes. Leaving them, of course, is a different matter. That requires codes also, but I'm sure he'll get the codes from the employees working there. They're not trained to stand up under torture."

  "Okay. Where's—"

  "Patience, patience." A trace of easy humor filtered into the relaxed, confident voice. Thandi felt a little stab of passion and suffocated it ruthlessly. No time for that—even if she knew the man!

  "I was just about to tell you," Cachat continued. "Right now, you're in Tube Beta. A bit of good luck for us, since you're much closer to Epsilon or Gamma than Templeton will be when he makes his move."

  "Which will be where?"

  "In the main gaming hall at the center of the station. The Manticoran women are already there, and I'm sure that's where Templeton's headed. I'm heading down there myself, as soon as this conversation is finished."

  "All right. I'll find my way, easily enough. There are holo-guides all over the place." She hesitated a moment. "Take care, Victor. By now, they'll almost certainly be armed."

  "There's no question they are, I don't think. Imbesi just made a call to the docking bay where they arrived, and got no answer. I'm sure they've slaughtered the guards and taken their weapons. Along with whatever they brought themselves. Hopefully, they won't have any military-grade equipment."

  Thandi hesitated again. She'd already considered the methods available for arming her team. They'd brought no weapons at all, since she'd known there was no way the station's security would have allowed them to enter with their weaponry.

  Victor anticipated her thoughts. "Take what you need from the station's guards, when the time comes. But if you can, try not to kill any of them."

  "That'd be hard to do, to be honest. Besides . . . we'll see, once I get a look at the fighting ground. I might be able to get the weapons from Templeton's men themselves."

  It was Cachat's turn to hesitate. "That could be . . . ah, really dangerous, Thandi."

  "Yes, it could. On the other hand"—her lips quirked a little—"I'm really that good, too. We'll make a deal. I won't tell you how to do cloak-and-dagger stuff; you don't tell me how to do mayhem."

  She heard his soft chuckle. "Fair enough. Good luck, Thandi. When I hear anything more, I'll pass it along."

  Thandi rose from the table. The women in her team, scattered at three other tables as well as her own, were on their feet instantly. Glancing around, Thandi saw that they were alone in the little room.

  "We've been warned to be careful," she said cheerfully. "It seems Templeton is dangerous and my—ah, gentleman friend—is a bit concerned for my health."

  That got the reaction she'd expected. All of the women were scowling.

  "Men!" snapped one of them. "Great kaja, you are. Eat them alive."

  Chapter 22

  "That's it, then," said Victor softly, turning to face Naomi and her uncle. The two were sitting in what looked like superbly comfortable armchairs. So Victor assumed, at any rate. All the furniture he'd seen so far in the Imbesi family's private suite in The Wages of Sin looked—there was no other term for it—sinfully expensive and luxurious. That was part of the reason Victor hadn't availed himself of the comfort personally, aside from the fact that he was too full of energy to sit down anyway. For someone of his background and ideological convictions, there was something vaguely distasteful about using a piece of furniture whose price could have fed a poor family for months. It was an irrational reaction on his part, of course—but he was still the person who
lived inside the skin of "Victor Cachat."

  "Do you really think this will work?" Walter asked, frowning a little. "It seems excessively complicated."

  "It is excessively complicated. But I can't see any other way to squeeze the opening we want out of the situation. Just smashing Templeton won't do it. We need to use him like a prybar."

  Naomi's frown was more pronounced than her uncle's. "What I don't understand is why you're so confident that Templeton will even find his sister." She glanced at the door which opened into one of the space station's public corridors. "Victor, I'm not sure you have any real idea just how convoluted those passageways are. Sure, there are holo-guides. But those aren't really all that easy to use, especially for someone who's never been here before—which I'd be astonished if Templeton has, given his theology."

  "She's got a point, Victor," chimed in Walter. "Templeton's more likely to just blunder about. And within two hours or so the alarms are going to go up all over the station. At that point, he'll just get smashed anyway. So why not do it now—and possibly save quite a few lives?"

  "I'm counting on that theology, Walter. At a guess, how many people from either Grayson or Masada do you think ever visit The Wages of Sin?"

  Imbesi chuckled. "Maybe a dozen. Possibly a few more . . . but not many of them, that's for sure. The Graysons don't share the Masadans' more fanatical effusions of 'morality,' of course. They don't have any prohibitions against gambling—within limits, at least—but even for them, this place is pretty much a synonym for 'wickedness.' " He grinned. "I think it has something to do with the female entertainers' costumes. Or lack thereof. Hm. Come to that, most of them are probably just as uncomfortable with the male entertainer's outfits!" he added, transferring his grin to his niece.

  "Exactly," Victor nodded. "And the Grayson-Masadan genetic variant is quite distinct. The equipment needed to pick it up out of stray molecules suspended in the air is extremely costly, true. But the Masadans have piled up a lot of loot from their piracies over the past fifteen years—on top of a pile which was very substantial to begin with. Templeton's not stupid. I can't imagine he would have tried this stunt if he didn't have such a chemotracker."

  Naomi's eyes widened. "I've heard of that sort of equipment. But is it really that good?"

  "Yes," replied Victor firmly. "I've seen the gear in action. In the hands of someone who knows how to use it, it's almost like magic. Mind you, if they were trying to track Zilwicki's daughter in this crowded madhouse, it wouldn't do them any good except at close range. But that's because she's Terran, and her DNA traces would be impossible to distinguish from most people's until they got within a few meters of her. But with the princess, it's a different matter altogether. Especially since Templeton's crew is all male, so they can set the readings to filter out anything but a female from their genetic stock. Closer than that, in fact, since she's Templeton's half-sister and he can use his own DNA to key the settings."

  "All right," said Walter, "that makes sense. But I still don't see why you're so confident you can bring Templeton to ground after he strikes."

  "Genetics again." He eyed the Imbesis for a moment, hesitant to offend them. One of the prominent characteristics of Erewhonese culture—one which Victor himself appreciated, in fact—was that they were ferociously egalitarian. That aspect of their culture was not evident to most foreigners, who saw only the very stratified nature of Erewhon's power structure. But a structure and the individuals who filled its niches were not the same thing. Yes, the Erewhonese had little use for what most people would called "genuine democracy." But they had even less use for the notion that any individual could not aspire to anything he or she could manage. It was standard practice for Erewhon's great families to adopt promising youngsters, with no regard for class or genetic background. In fact, one of the worst insinuations which could be made of a prominent and influential family was that it was too selective in its mating habits—"screwing in-round," to use the crude Erewhonese expression.

  Still, facts were facts, and he didn't think either of the Imbesis—Walter, especially—was all that blinkered by custom. "I don't think you really appreciate how much difference it can make, especially in a hand-to-hand melee, to have people on your side with the genetic make-up of Lieutenant Palane and her Amazon wrecking crew. Especially Palane."

  Naomi made a little face. "Female weight-lifter," she muttered.

  With some difficulty, Victor suppressed his annoyance. Leaving aside his own feelings for Lieutenant Palane, which still confused as well as unsettled him, what made Naomi's cattiness so irritating was that Victor knew there was nothing personal about it in the sense of jealousy about him. It was just the Imbesi woman's ingrained competitiveness toward other females at work.

  "That's the least of it," he said, almost snapping. "Physical superiority by itself doesn't necessarily mean that much. In fact, it can be a handicap if it leads to overconfidence. I once—" He shook his head. "Never mind. Just take my word for it—or don't, as you choose. Palane didn't claw her way out of where she came from simply by using her muscles. She's smart, disciplined, and very well-trained. And while I think the Solarian Navy is over-rated—they haven't fought a real war against a serious opponent in centuries—the Solarian Marines are a different story altogether. Given all the brushfires they're constantly being called on to stamp out, they probably have at least as much combat experience—their best units, anyway—as even Republican or Mantie Marines. So when the time comes, I'll put my money on her."

  Walter Imbesi had been studying Victor in the course of his little sermon. Now, he shrugged and spread his hands wide on the armrests. "And I'm putting my money on you. I've got my doubts, but . . . I learned a lot time ago not to second-guess myself. Okay, Victor, we'll do it your way. And now what?"

  Victor glanced at his watch. "And now I'd say it's time for me and mine to set forth for the fray."

  "What do you plan to do?"

  "Have you ever seen holorecordings of that rather brutal ancient Terran sport called 'bull-fighting'? Or the variant of it they still play in the Solarian League's Nueva Oaxaca sector, using native animals?"

  Walter's eyes widened. "I've seen the Nueva Oaxacan sport you're talking about, though not in person. If you can call that bloody business a 'sport.' "

  "Can't say I approve myself," agreed Victor. "But it's a nice little analogy. I'm counting on Thandi—Lieutenant Palane—to drive in the sword. But the beast needs to be bloodied and weakened first."

  "I can't get you weapons, Victor," warned Imbesi. "Not without tipping off my own place in this scheme of yours—which I can't afford to do. I've stretched my 'plausible deniability' far enough as it is."

  "I wasn't asking you to," replied Victor mildly. He loosened his wide belt and palmed an object nestled into the ornate buckle. "This'll be enough to get me started."

  Naomi stared at the object. "I've never heard of a palm pulser accurate at more than a few meters. I hope—"

  "A few meters will be plenty. And it isn't a pulser. No pulser, no matter how small, could have made it through the security scanners in this place. It's a nonlethal stunning device, inertly powered, and you don't want to know how much it cost to make it detection-proof."

  "But what—"

  Walter was almost scowling. "I certainly hope it's nonlethal. If you start killing security guards yourself, it's going to be impossible to keep you sorted out from the bad guys when the dust settles." He glanced at the four men who were leaning casually against a nearby wall. "Especially given the nature of your own wrecking crew. We're cold-blooded on Erewhon, but not that cold-blooded."

  One of the four men was Donald X. The thickset ex-slave gave Imbesi a thin smile. "Not to worry. Victor's aged a bit since the last time we encountered him. I'm sure he won't run amok the way he did on— Well. Let's hope, at any rate."

  Imbesi sighed. "Damn High Ridge, anyway. Damn him and his children and their children. May—"

  * * *

  Outside,
in the corridor, Donald's smile widened. "Hadn't realized the Erewhonese were masters of the curse."

  "They aren't, really," said Victor, now hurrying. "It's just that they have a serious grievance—and they're not a folk who take grievances lightly."

  * * *

  "Wheeeee!! Way to go, Princess!"

  Lieutenant Griggs winced at the piercing feminine squeal in his ear. He normally found Princess Ruth's voice pleasant enough, but when she was excited like this . . .

  Not, perhaps, all that excited. He noticed that she'd still had the presence of mind to call Berry Zilwicki "Princess" when her companion managed to strike the jackpot again. Of course, from the vantage point of someone born and raised in the Manticoran royal family, the amount of money involved in the "jackpot" would hardly be overwhelming.

  Even Berry didn't seemed overwhelmed, actually. The girl was smiling widely, to be sure, but Ahmed thought that was more due to the pleasure of the game itself rather to any great glee over sudden fortune. Griggs didn't think he'd plumbed the depths of the Zilwicki girl's character on such a relatively short acquaintance. But one thing was already clear to him—Berry Zilwicki just didn't seem to care all that much for any of the small measures of triumph by which so many people gauged their lives. She seemed far more mature than her seventeen T-years would have led him to expect.

  But he didn't spend much time pondering the matter. His eyes were moving steadily across the crowd, checking for any possible sign of danger and making sure his people were maintaining good positions.

  Fat lot of good that'll do them, as much of a madhouse as this place is. With these milling crowds, a damned army could sneak up on us before we'd spot them.

  But the thought was only middling-sour. In truth, Griggs was not really expecting any trouble here that he and his troopers couldn't handle readily enough. There was this much to be said for the space station's persnickety security policies: any assailant would presumably have been disarmed. The worst trouble he'd encountered thus far was an inebriated fellow who'd apparently found "Princess" Berry stunningly attractive. But the girl had fended him off with a couple of witty phrases—and the lieutenant's glare had been enough to send the man stumbling off in search of easier if less nubile prey.