Hostite Fieddi, Swordmaster and troupe leader, bowed to the Chairman's box, then to either end of the Grande, where the notable guests of state and industry were seated, and finally, that cold chill down the spine which this required movement always brought, turned his back on the most dangerous man in his universe to salute the mortal representative of that Holy One who was even more dangerous, having dominion over all universes.
Protocol, he thought sourly, was invented by the devil, for the ensnaring of innocent hearts. Not that his was innocent; he had been debriefed by his superior in the Order, and had still to face confession. In between . . .
Trumpets blared, the old curled rams' horn trumpets, and from the corner of his eye, Hostite saw the doors open in each corner, dark mouths. In each, a gleaming figure poised in one of the Attitudes. A low drumroll . . . the first figure in each doorway stalked forward, and behind it a second.
Eight now, each demonstrating one of the Attitudes, a Full Square. The drums shifted to a subtle beat, step and step; the figures moved forward, in toward the open space where Hostite waited. Four were female, four were male. Four belonged to the Sun: pure gold, copper-red, rich bronze, and brass. Four belonged to the Moon: silver, steel, lead, platinum. And he, the dance's Shadow, gleamed obsidian in the light.
Sabre dancing had its roots in ancient days, long before the first men left Earth. More than one sword-bearing culture had its sword and knife dances, and more than one had used them as training. More than one had also the spectacle, where the rich and powerful watched as their servants danced and bled for their amusement. There had always been, for some, the heady linkage of lust and danger.
But not until the Benignity had the old threads wound into such a line of life and death as this. Hostite smiled behind his mask. Here was the imperial circus, and here were the holy warriors, and here were the dancers . . . and here he ruled.
The gleaming figures had formed the circle, with him in the center . . . the Spanish circle, he knew from his studies, with its elaborate figures. He turned slowly, enjoying as much as the Chairman, he was sure, those fine-tuned bodies beneath the gleaming paint. Unlike his mask, theirs were transparent—invisible, to all but those who knew exactly where to look. Instead, their faces—biosculpted to be as beautiful as their bodies—gazed back at him with impassivity.
Tonight's music, chosen by the Chairman, was Imetzina's "Quadrille for Evening by the Sea." The Chairman beckoned; the opening phrase began. Hostite signalled Four and Seven, brass and lead. So much was tradition, and the Dance began with what might seem dullness.
Gracefully, yet with a severity imposed by the weapons, Four and Seven stepped out of the circumference, into the circle. In practice, they danced naked but for wrist, elbow, and knee guards, but here—in formal performance, with Someone certainly watching from behind the curtain—Four wore the small, metallic-scaled breast medallions, the pleated metallic-scaled skirt that hung from her hips and swirled when she moved. Seven wore the loincloth that was hardly more than a codpiece strapped in place.
The blades were all steel, but coated to match the dancers' colors. Hostite's blade alone was not steel, but true obsidian, brittle but sharper than any other.
The traditional quadrille required each dancer to face each, first in the pairs, and then by fours. Hostite worried a little about Four—this was her first performance in the Grande, and though she had seemed completely solid in rehearsal, he knew that the excitement of a first performance could cause a fatal misstep. But Caris, who usually danced the Four, had hyperextended her knee while instructing a junior class: some careless student—not a student any longer—had left a lump of wax on the floor.
Pelinn should have had another half-year in the second company, Hostite thought, but she was very talented and very dedicated, the best of the understudies. He hoped she would not be marked badly tonight.
The music brought the dancers together, blade against blade, and whirled them apart. Four moved perfectly in time to the beat, and as the figures followed one another, including the difficult change of hand during pirouette, Hostite relaxed a little. Even though brass and lead danced the false art, a much less dangerous design than the true, they could mark each other permanently if they erred.
Eight and Two followed Four and Seven: platinum and copper, the maximum contrast of color, and the minimum of gender—both were women. Genetic twins, differentiated only by makeup and costume. Hostite smiled indulgently to himself. They were at the height of their powers now, and after all the years of training together, they always produced a spectacular show. Whirling, leaping, throwing kicks as well as rapid thrusts and sweeping strokes, it seemed they must slice one another to bits—but they never did.
Bronze and steel next, Three and Six, this time both males. Not twins, nor matched in height or style. Steel Six had four centimeters on Bronze Three, with a corresponding reach—but Three, born of a family of acrobats, matched him easily in the dance. Their corded muscles stood out; their weapons rang ever more loudly—and always on the beat.
Hostite signalled for the pairs next: One and Five would dance alone at the end, but for now joined Four and Seven. Gold and brass, lead and silver . . . the false art and the true danced both with and against each other. For many patrons, this was the best part of any dance, with its interlocking symbolism, but for the Master it was always a problem. In the finale, One and Five must be capable of the most difficult movements, which meant they must not suffer injury now—and yet they must demonstrate the True, and its superiority to the False. Hostite worried again about Four; she must be shown to be inferior, without injuring Five, or being too badly hurt.
Again he was reassured by her steady, even rhythm under the spectacular moves required. She had the true dramatic temperament; when pressed by the true art, she grimaced, leaned back, seemed on the point of imbalance—but never quite fell. The few thin lines of red on her skin were only enhancements, not serious injuries that would take time from her training or performance.
The dance continued, with the other pairs replacing those: Two and Eight opposing Six and Three. Here, where Hostite expected no problems, Six missed his footing in a turn—perhaps the floor was sweat-slick there, or perhaps he lost concentration. Whatever the reason, his left foot slid sideways as his weight came on it, and Two—they were in the second figure by then—opened his leg across the knee from the lateral thigh to the posterior calf, exposing bone at the joint, just before the gush of brilliant blood that proved an artery had been severed. A gasp, almost a moan, came from the watching seat. Hostite ignored that, and gestured to his dancers. Three and Eight moved aside, without missing a beat; Two backed away and knelt, weapon outstretched. Hostite looked at the Chair's box. Which would it be?
A hand outstretched: the music stopped, mid-phrase. The dancers stopped, held their poses. Silence, then, but for Six's harsh breathing. He lay where he had fallen, in a widening pool of blood, struggling not to make a sound. Hostite knew already it was a crippling blow. He might live, and walk, but he would never dance again, even if the joint held.
"Steel," the Chairman said. "Our thanks for your service. It is ended."
Before anyone else could move, Hostite moved, his obsidian blade slicing through the air and Six's throat. He bowed to the Chair's box.
"Continue," the Chair said. Hostite returned to his place; the music resumed mid-phrase where it had paused. Two still knelt, having no partner. Three and Eight moved with the music, dancing, avoiding both Two and the dangerous bright blood. It honored the honorable dead, to dance before them, around them.
At the end of that figure, the Chair gestured again, and again the dance paused. Now Hostite closed the dead eyes, and made the gestures and said the words that sent Six's soul on its way. Servants came, rolled the body into a sling, and carried it out, to a soft drumbeat; others cleaned and dried the floor.
The last figures were as beautiful as anything Hostite had ever seen; the final pairing of Silver and Gold, Sun and Moon, surpassed art and entered the realm of spirit. Above death, above life, were the eternal fires, and so the dancers moved.
Afterward, in the Dancers' Hall, they all knelt to honor the memory of Steel, and with the edge of a keen blade each added a drop of his or her own blood to the winding sheet. Pelinn looked pale, and no wonder after such a first night; Hostite gave her a hug, and held her until her body quit shivering. "You did well," he whispered. "You did very well."
Goonar Terakian and Basil Terakian-Junos had the combined investigative skills of any newshound in history, and more than three times the discretion. Their profits came not from revealing information, but concealing it. It had not taken them overlong to figure out that the drunk who'd accosted them back on Zenebra Main Station had been a New Texas Godfearing Militia member, and that the New Texans (as the Terakians privately referred to them, as opposed to the Texans of the Lone Star Confederation, who were perfectly respectable, if unfailingly sneaky, at "doin' bidness") were engaged in terrorism against the Familias Regnant.
Since Goonar and Basil had reported to their respective fathers as soon as they were back aboard Terakian ships, the Terakian family had a head start on the Familias Regnant's Fleet when it came to planning. They had followed, from a discreet distance, every evidence of Fleet's rescue of Brun Meager . . . and the more obvious evidence of her father's mental instability.
Now Goonar and Basil had met again, this time on the family's private resort on Caskadar. Their distant cousin Kaim, the only family member presently serving in Fleet, had taken leave due and was now sprawled on a couch on the wide veranda of Sea Breeze, glaring at the rain that poured steadily, as if from a vat overhead.
"My only leave in four years and it has to be raining!" Kaim had never been patient.
"It's autumn," Goonar said. "It's just the fall rains . . ."
"I hate planets," Kaim said. Goonar glanced at Basil, who shrugged. He looked almost as sulky as Kaim.
"You chose the time," Goonar said, with more asperity than he intended. "You know about the climate—"
"I know more than that." Kaim sighed, stretched, and beckoned to the other two. "Listen—what have you heard about rejuvenations going bad?"
"Well . . . there was always that story that the Patchcock-made stuff was tainted somehow. A Benignity plot, I heard, with a spy found right in the factory, wasn't it?"
"That's just bad drugs," Kaim said, waving aside what had been 27% of the market share, and the disgrace and financial ruin of a Family with more than a dozen Seats in Council as if it were nothing. "What I have is evidence that the primary process may be faulty. Nothing hard yet. They're still blaming it all on something wrong with that batch of drugs. But according to my sources, some of the first repeat Rejuvenants are showing mental deterioration. Lord Thornbuckle, for example."
"I don't see that," Basil said. "She was his daughter; there's nothing induced in his reaction." Basil's own daughter, just three now, had left that smear of jam on his chest. Goonar pitied her future suitors.
"I know I'm not a parent," Kaim said. "But still—risking the security of the entire Familias—"
Goonar grunted, and put out a hand automatically to tap Basil's shoulder. Kaim had been almost bragging about not fathering any children, as if he wanted the family to investigate his reasons. Basil had attitudes. That left Goonar to play peacemaker, as usual.
"Thing is," Goonar said, "if it's a matter of some drugs being bad, that's very different from the process itself being flawed. Kaim, haven't some of the Fleet's senior officers been rejuved?"
"Yes, but only once. None of them have had multiples, unless one of 'em's had it done privately, not through Medical Branch. All the first ones were volunteers, done forty or more years ago, when there'd been enough civilian experience. It wasn't made standard with flag rank for another twenty years. Then they started giving senior NCOs rejuv about ten years ago."
"So . . . seen any crazy admirals lately?"
"There's always Lepescu," Kaim said. He had reported to the family about Lepescu before.
"He was born mean," Goonar said. "That kind existed before rejuv."
"I know that." Kaim shifted uneasily. "Look—this is still very, very classified."
"Yeah, right," Basil said. He crossed his heart elaborately and spat to the left.
"It's not the admirals—at least, I haven't seen any crazy admirals, not that I see that many. But there's a medical directive out on senior NCOs . . . anyone rejuved in the past ten years is being called in for immediate evaluation. And I have solid data that at least eight master chiefs have had negative performance evals in our sector alone, in the past half standard year."
"Sounds like a bad drug batch to me," Goonar said.
"Yeah—if the admirals, who've been rejuved longer, haven't gone loopy, why would you think it's anything else?" asked Basil.
"Mostly Lord Thornbuckle," Kaim said. "I just cannot fathom a man of his caliber—his supposed caliber—getting us involved in a war to save that brainless twit of a daughter."
Goonar reached out for Basil's arm again, and found it, as he expected, knotted with angry muscle. "Trust us," he said mildly. "Fathers are like that. Even yours."
"But it could also be intentional," Kaim said. "If someone wanted to ruin Fleet, making master chiefs nuts would be a good way to go."
"And who would be doing this? Who would have access?"
"Across the whole organization—if it is that widespread—it would have to be sabotage in procurement, or upstream from them. Another traitor . . ."
Goonar shrugged. Kaim's father, if not Kaim, had always had a thing about conspiracy theory, and that's why his son had had to go into Fleet, because he had ignored profit for politics too long and couldn't afford to launch his son as a family member should, with his own ship-shares.
"All organizations have some traitors," Goonar said.
"Yes, but . . . what the NCOs are worried about is that it was a plot to start with, so that they could justify not giving rejuv to enlisted personnel. I don't see that myself—admirals cost more and do less; everybody knows the senior NCOs are more valuable—but it's spooking 'em. And having 'em spooked would suit our enemies. The Benignity, I can see them doing something like this, through agents of theirs. Fleet brass is worried about more traitors in the operational end, like Garrivay and Hearne, but why wouldn't the Benignity suborn procurement as well?"
"I suppose." Goonar was much less interested in who might be a Benignity agent than in how such information could be turned for profit. "So . . . either they're going to find out it was a bad batch, and the price of any remaining Morrelline/Conselline stock will drop through the floor, and the whole combine will be bankrupt, or they'll find the basic process is flawed and all rejuv-related products will go down?"
"You lot!" Kaim glared at him. "Is profit all you care about? Doesn't it mean anything to you that if all the master chiefs go bonkers, we can't possibly stand against a Benignity or NewTex invasion?"
"New Texans are amateurs," Goonar said absently. "That silly drunk—"
"Isn't the whole story. Just as you said, any organization has traitors, and any organization also has fools that get drunk."
"Still," Basil said, with a silky tone that alerted Goonar. "Still, I do not see that finding your traitors—assuming you have them—is our responsibility. We do, on the other hand, have a responsibility to the family which, by paying taxes, pays your salary too, Kaim, so I wouldn't be so smug about your moral purity."
Goonar spread both arms. "Stop it, both of you. None of us wants to see the Familias fall to invasion, and none of us wants to see the Terakian family go broke. We're one blood." Which might, in a few minutes, be mingled on the porch floor, if the other two didn't quit posturing.
"Daddy!" Basil's daughter burst through the door from the dining room, leading her mother by a good ten feet. "Found you!" Basil scooped her up, and the child flashed a wide grin at the other men. "Lunch time!" she announced.
"Sounds good to me," Goonar said, pushing himself up. "Come here, little one, and let your father get up." The child bounced from her father's lap to Goonar and he lifted her slight weight to his shoulder, where she crowed in delight. "Don't forget to—"
"Duck," she said, leaning over his head. Inside, her mother shook her head.
"Sorry, Goonar. Lydia's Jon had put something down the toilet in the children's bathroom, and we were coping with the overflow. Jessie got away from us."
"Good timing," Goonar said in an undertone. Berish was almost as pretty as little Jessie, and he envied Basil at times like this, remembering those first years of marriage, when the children were sweet lumps of brown sugar and a wife was an inexhaustible cavern of enchantments. He'd thought of remarrying, but the pain of losing Sela and the children still stabbed; he could not risk that again. He swung Jessie down, and followed the others to the great dining table.
After lunch, the rain stopped for a while, and Goonar chivvied the men into a walk along the shore, past the orange squares of fish pens. Here, with the distractions of uneven footing and a breeze freshening into a blustery wind, Basil and Kaim were less inclined to quarrel. Kaim opened his mind, like the net of a fisherman, spilling a mixed lot of information which Goonar knew he and Basil would pick over at leisure. By dinnertime, when the wind had blown the clouds south for a time, Kaim was clearly enjoying the once-hated planet.
Goonar himself wanted nothing more than to be back aboard one of the Terakian family's ships, preferably one with the new decryption algorithms, that could intercept transmissions via the financial ansibles. He tried to settle calmly to the after-dinner word games, but he couldn't concentrate. After the third time that Kaim crossed his entry with a 10-point bonus, he gave up.
"I'm fuzzed," he said. "I'm going up to bed."
"To bed?" Basil asked. "It's not that late."
"No, but I'm that tired." Goonar yawned, and climbed the stairs to his tower room. Basil undoubtedly knew what he was going to do, and could be counted on to keep Kaim out of the way. The problem was that no security system could really keep his communications clean, not down here. He opened a line to the family headquarters on Caskadar, requested a data dump of the past two days of market reports, and told the duty operator he'd be in the next day to put something in the batch for the ansible.
"By midday, local, Ser," the operator said. "It goes off at 1300, and we have to have all the data encrypted."
"I'll be there by 1000," Goonar promised.
When Basil came up, hours later, Goonar was still picking through the data dump.
"I thought you were fuzzed," Basil said.
"I am." This time the yawn was genuine. "But I'm also worried. There's something going on with the Consellines—look at this—"
"Not now. In the morning. I had to ply Kaim with more brandy to keep him downstairs, and if I don't sleep now I'll be very sorry in the morning."
"You'll be sorry longer if you don't look at this. I'm serious, Bas. Something's going on, and it's big. Look at the fluctuations in the rejuv index."
"It's been volatile ever since the Patchcock mess," Basil said. "Took it six months to recover at all, and every little rumor shakes it like a windchime."
"So quit talking and look," Goonar said. He tapped the chart.
"Oh." Basil pushed his lips out and back in. "What about the raw—"
"Over the top," Goonar said, shuffling through the pile to find what he wanted. "There—I can't be sure without getting a hook in one of the big lines, but I'd bet that's from the Conselline plants; they're the only single source big enough to draw those resources this fast."
"And they'd lost market share, and . . . damn, cuz, I wish we could access the employment figures."
"So—we tell—"
"The Fathers," Goonar said. "And we don't tell Kaim. I'm preparing an ansible load for tomorrow."
"Today. What time does it have to be in? You want help?"
"Just keep Kaim out of my way."
Goonar's line of command ran through Basil's father, not his own—typical of the Terakian family's organization. So he was surprised when the next message came from his father.
"Goonar—tell Basil to keep Kaim onplanet another 48 hours, without fail. Then get yourself on the next shuttle up."
"As God wills," Goonar said, with both piety and practicality: the family code for "What's going on?"
"In his grace," said his father and signed off.
So he had put his finger on the lion's eyelid. Well, now to convince Basil to trap Kaim and let him run off.
The shuttle ride to the orbital station seemed to take forever, though he knew it was the standard flight time. When he arrived, he went directly to the Terakian Shipping offices, where staff were bustling around as if a ship were arriving.
"Who's coming?"
"We just got word by ansible. Flavor is on her way through, fast-transit, with something urgent. If you want a lift, I'm sure they'll have room for you."
Favored-of-God, nicknamed Flavor, was the Terakian's fast courier . . . and the family's most advanced recon vessel, loaded with the best scan equipment money or influence or trickery could obtain. "There she is—" one of the techs said, pointing to the display board. A bright splash on the screen meant something had come through the jump point at max vee, and the color shift meant she was making a dangerously fast approach.
So whatever it was, the Fathers were willing to let everyone know they had some urgent chore in hand. Usually Terakian ships moved in the same stately arcs as any other commercial carrier, never showing all their capacity unless they ran into trouble.
"What's his ETA?" Goonar asked.
"At this rate? Under twenty hours."
Twenty hours . . . so why had his father told him to leave downside immediately?
So he would be gone before word of Flavor's arrival got to the surface? So perhaps Kaim wouldn't connect the two? So there would be no transmissions to the surface which Kaim might intercept?
Goonar sighed. While the station had a perfectly comfortable lodging house for transients, and he had more than enough credit to use it, he knew—without even asking—that his father expected him to stay in the office. In the off-duty bunkroom for low-level staff, with its hard narrow beds.
"I'm going over to Spotted Lamb for lunch," Goonar said. "If anyone wants me."
He was almost through with dessert—honeyed figs stuffed with chopped bitsai nuts—when the call came. A tightbeamed packet for him from Flavor.
Adhem, the office manager, gave him a look, which Goonar had no trouble intepreting. He wasn't that senior in the family; he was just another of the young men moving up through the ranks . . . so why was he suddenly in the office at just the right time for the appearance of Flavor on a fast run, and why was he getting this packet, instead of someone more senior? He was moving up, not down or sideways, because he knew better than to give Adhem any information at all.
Flavor's commander met him at the hatch and threw her arms around him. Laisa, Basil's sister, had the same dangerous energy as her brother. As Goonar's chain of command went through his uncle, so Laisa's went through Goonar's father.
"You're coming with us," she murmured in his ear.
"That's nice," Goonar said, detaching himself. "Basil says to give you his love."
"We're fuel-and-go," Laisa said. Goonar nodded, and went through the hatch ahead of her.
In the next few hours, he briefed her on what he thought he had learned from Kaim and the more accessible data channels.
"Here's what you don't know," Laisa said, when he was through. "There was a distant family member captured with the Elias Madero—a young girl, Hazel Takeris. Some seventy years ago, a Terakian boy fell in love with a Chapapas girl—"
"A Greek!"
"Yes, from Delphi Duetti. Of course both families disapproved, so they changed their names—called themselves Takeris. Had lots of children, in defiance of everyone, including six boys, who continued the habit of defying parents by becoming perfectly ordinary merchant crewmen who married late and had few children. This girl is his great-granddaughter—her father was a son of the second son—and his wife died young, leaving him with one daughter. He was killed by the NewTex that boarded Elias Madero, and the girl captured."
Goonar listened, trying to find some connection with the news he'd brought from Kaim. Laisa went on.
"At the time we heard about the ambush, we didn't know that. The original connection's name was off our books. Then Aunt Herdion saw a news report and thought the newsie had misspelled Terakian. You know what she's like—she got on the com, all ready to chew bones. They gave her all the information they had, just to get her off their backs. Shortly after the rescue, when the newsies reported Hazel's survival, she barged into the remaining Takeris family discussion of Hazel's future, and insisted on having a say. In fact, she was all set to adopt the girl herself. They're not too happy with her, but they're also not rich, so her offer to pay for Hazel's education sweetened the deal."
"Yes, but what does this have to do with rejuvenation drugs and rejuv psychosis?"
"Not much—but you need to know that, to understand some recent decisions by the Family Council, which will affect everything from the contracts we take to the way we select crew. The Family Council hadn't paid much attention to your report from Zenebra about the NewTex saboteurs there, but now they consider that the NewTex forms a possible serious threat to Terakian Shipping specifically, because of the way we have been casual about picking up replacement crew. And because you and Basil caught that agent on Zenebra. There's also concern about spies in shipping agents' staffs. They're convinced that the raiders knew about the Elias Madero's deviation from its filed flight plan."
Goonar snorted. "I'd say half the merchanters who work in that area know about that shortcut."
"No more. At least, not Terakian ships. We're restricted from anything but green-lined routes—"
"That'll put paid to our fast-courier service—"
"Yes, but we won't be subject to piracy. At least not that kind of piracy."
"So—what about this rejuvenation stuff? I still think we need to suck some data off the financial ansibles—"
"We have. I'm not sure what it all means, though." Laisa handed him several cubes. "That one's from Benedictus, and this one's Caskadar three weeks ago. We'll suck it again on the way out."
"Where are we going?"
"Where God and the Fathers will. I haven't been told yet."
Goonar settled down to data analysis. While the price of rejuv drugs had bounced up and down with every rumor of contamination or scarcity, the price of the raw materials had been growing . . . slowly at first . . . since the Patchcock mess. Somebody was buying the stuff, in quantity. Rejuv drugs used some of the same raw materials as many other pharmaceuticals, but some were unique to that process. He highlighted them—the prices rose steadily. So . . . somebody was buying, and presumably using the raw materials to make the finished drugs, for which they had—or expected to have—a market.
He kept digging, paused to eat, slept awhile, and woke to Laisa's call. "We have the new squirt."
He rubbed his eyes and groaned. "And a destination, O beauteous one?"
"Marfalk."
Marfalk. An obscure world; he'd heard the name but knew nothing about it. "How long?"
"Eight days, about."
"I'm going back to sleep."
But he didn't sleep; the new data he hadn't seen kept him awake. Finally he rolled out of the bunk, muttering curses in four languages, and punched it in.
"You didn't tell me you intercepted a memo," he said to Laisa over the shipcom.
"You were sleepy," she said.
"Not now." It had been encrypted, but Flavor's systems were designed to handle all the standard commercial encryption schemata. Under the first level of encryption was another—as usual, simpler. The decryption machine made short work of that, too. Then, finally, the code. Goonar looked at it, and let his mind freewheel. Whose code was it? Something about it looked familiar . . . then it came to him. Conselline senior family branch. His breath came short. "Laisa . . . do we have a code chip for Conselline senior branch?"
"Not on board. Is that what you think you've got?"
"Looks like it. We can start running it past the other chips, but I'm betting on that one." He tipped his head one way, then the other. The Conselline memo looked almost readable as it was, but he knew that was deceptive. Nothing was ever that simple. Then the pattern popped out at him, as if someone had outlined words in red ink.