The Crown Jewels (16 page)

“And you, boss?”

“I will fly first to Miss Jensen’s window. I want to make certain she’s actually being held there before any of the rest of us make a move.”

Pietro Quijano gave Maijstral an admiring look. The others accepted his plan without a word. Maijstral had his own reasons for wanting to go first, and wanting to be on the second floor balcony where there were no guards and a clear field for escape, and his reasons had nothing to do with a hope that Pietro might admire his bravery.

“We’ll approach from the southeast to avoid detection from that fellow on the knoll, whatever he’s doing there. Keep in cover till I give the signal—”

“
Deus vult
, sir?” offered Roman.

Maijstral smiled. Roman was ever prepared to trace Maijstral’s ancestors far beyond the point that Maijstral found creditable. Jean Parisot de La Valette was, in any case, supposed to be a celibate, and furthermore would almost certainty not approve of his alleged descendant.

“
Deus vult
. Very well. Thank you, Roman.”

Maijstral asked each of his companions to repeat his instructions aloud, making certain he knew what he was supposed to do, and then led them on a brisk hike along the bottom of the ridge, staying out of sight of the mansion, and then through the first tripwire alarm, the hemispheric cold-field that surrounded the building like an invisible bubble. Roman, controlling Pietro Quijano’s darksuit through a proximity wire, showed the young man how to slip through the net.

A brightly lit flier appeared over the western horizon. Maijstral froze, snapping on his darksuit, his heart hammering in a perfectly absurd way. He was glad no one could see the way his hands had begun to tremble. Roman’s darksuit was also turned on, but apparently he had raised his longfinders. “Dewayne Seven,” he said.

An old model, not very fast. Visitors? Maijstral wondered. The flier circled, then landed out back. Not visitors, Maijstral concluded, if they were using the servants’ entrance. Plumbers, cooks, maybe people installing new security gadgets. If the latter, it was time to move quickly.

“This may work to our advantage,” he said. “They will be less likely to do violence if there are outsiders in the house.”

Pietro Quijano looked dubious. He was still struggling with his darksuit, trying to get the night holograms on. Maijstral reached across the gap between them and pressed a stud on his belt.

“Thank you,” Pietro said.

Maijstral did not reply. He was already flying toward the mansion, followed by one of his media globes, both of them keeping close to the ground.

*

Old General Gerald, breathing hard from the exertion of putting on his battle armor, crouched once again in the comer of his living room. During siesta his monitors had shown several overflights of his house, any one of which could have been Maijstral scouting his place. He couldn’t be certain, of course, but he had what amounted to a moral certainty that Maijstral would come tonight.

He grinned a tight-lipped grin as he tracked over the data readouts from the various rooms of his house. He could track individual dust motes as they swirled above his bookshelves. Maijstral wouldn’t have a chance.

This was going to be great.

*

Maijstral drifted across the thick, manicured lawn. The manse ahead of him blazed with floodlights; the planks that scarred the single upper window were an eyesore, an obvious sign of something out of place. Maijstral’s sensors reached out, found and dissected the building’s defenses.

He reversed himself, oozed feet first through a network of flaxes, then reached the generator and silently disabled it. His surrounding hologramatic image— his darksuit was more advanced than Tvi’s— began to take on the lighter tones of the spotlighted walls themselves.

He rose effortlessly to the second floor and neutralized a rank of leapers that Gregory’s miniature beacons had pinpointed for him. He drifted to the window, careful not to touch the balcony with his feet, and peered between the cracks of the rough planks that had been nailed over the window. He could see nothing through the curtain beyond. Maijstral deployed his cutter and sliced a neat circle in one of the planks, then another circle in the window behind.

He popped a micro media-globe through the hole, then guided it so that it peeked delicately beneath the lacy hem of the curtains. The globe’s view was fed into Maijstral’s brain.

Amalia Jensen lay on the curtained bed, eating supper from a tray. There was no one else in the room.

Relief eased through Maijstral’s heart. This might be simple after all.

The matte-black media rolled along the bottom of the curtain, skated along the dark paneling of the room, slid up one of the bedposts, then finally drifted to a point within an inch or so of Amalia Jensen’s left ear. Maijstral could see bruises on her cheek and felt a flash of anger. He spoke, subvocalizing into his throat mike, the globe whispering for him.

“Don’t jump, Miss Jensen. This is Drake Maijstral.”

She jumped anyway, but at least avoided tipping the tray. As her head spun toward the globe, Maijstral received a swift, distorted impression of wide eyes, parted lips, a swirling pattern of bruises, pores like meteor strikes.

“Please whisper, Miss Jensen. Are you being monitored in any way?”

The projection of her moving lips in Maijstral’s mind made them seem as large as Fassbinder Gorge on Newton. “No,” she said. “There’s a guard outside, and they warned me not to touch the window because there are alarms on it.”

Maijstral reduced the scale of the unflattering close-up view and considered a moment. “I have fulfilled my half of the commission. I would like to discuss payment.”

Her answering tone was puzzled. “But you came to get me out, didn’t you? Once I’m free, we can complete the transfer.”

“Miss Jensen, I merely came to make arrangements for the delivery of the artifact and the collection of my payment.”

There was growing anger in Amalia’s voice. “How can you expect me to pay you, Mr. Maijstral? I’m being held prisoner.”

“Please lower your voice. Miss Jensen.” Maijstral smiled behind his holographic screen. “I simply wished to confirm that your estimation of the situation is the same as mine.”

“
Of course
it is! All you have to do is get me out of here, and then I’ll pay you.”

“I was about to mention. Miss Jensen, that I am not normally in the business of rescuing kidnapped persons.”

“You could call the police.”

“I’m afraid they would then discover that you had hired me to steal an invaluable object. I shouldn’t like to get you in trouble, Miss Jensen. And in any case, I make a point of never dealing with the police.”

There was a long silence. Maijstral turned his attention back to the image from his media globe; Amalia was scowling at it. Then, “What do you propose, Mr. Maijstral?”

“I suggest that we agree to cancel our earlier agreement, and reach a new one. For your liberty, I suggest a payment of sixty. After your safe delivery to your friends, we may negotiate for the sale of the Imperial Artifact.”

“You aren’t giving me much choice.”

“On the contrary, the choice is entirely yours. You may accept my offer, or you may arrange for your own deliverance, or you may stay here until such time as your commission expires and I become a free agent.”

“Where will I get the money?”

“You know your own finances best. But you are a member of a star-spanning organization of considerable wealth, and whose interests might well be engaged. I suggest that you contact them.”

Amalia was indignant. “You’re taking advantage!”

Maijstral’s answer was immediate. “Madam, you mistake me. My nature and interest is but to perceive the situation and act upon it. I do not attempt the concealment of facts, for example the value that might attach to the contents of a silver object, or the drastic action some might take to acquire it.”

Her decision, when it came, was quick, and there was steel in her voice. Maijstral suppressed a momentary surge of admiration.

“Done, then. Sixty to get me loose.”

“And our earlier contract voided.”

“Yes.”

“Your obedient servant, ma’am. Please put the tray aside and be ready to move.”

Maijstral made certain that the media globe had recorded the bargain, then shifted to his communications channel and whispered, “
Deus vult
.”

Behind him, on the bare edge of his darksuit’s perceptions, the rest of the party, clothed in night, began moving purposefully across the lawn. Things hadn’t gone badly at all.

*

The Countess lit her cigarette by tapping it twice on the rear portico pillar and looked at her two henchmen, Chang and Bix. Both were brawny and well-muscled, each carrying a small suitcase and a larger satchel containing their gear. Both had removed their hats in her presence and, because their hands were carrying satchels, the hats ended up crushed in their armpits. “The robots haven’t finished making up your rooms,” she said. She spoke Khosali. “Let me show you to the library. You can wait there.”

“Yes, my lady.” Chang was the more vocal of the two, though neither were precisely fluent in any existing language. “We’re happy we could be of use.”

“This way.” She led them past the back study and the small ballroom, then through the billiard room to the library. Leather volumes gleamed in subdued light. She pivoted and gestured with the cigaret. Neuralgia crackled in her shoulders.

“Please feel free to go anywhere on the lower floors,” she said. “You may order anything you like, and the house will bring it. On the upper floor there is a Very Important Guest”—she tried to inflect the capitals, and saw how their eyes flickered to the upper landing—”and it is urgent that our guest not be disturbed. If anything disturbing should occur, I’m confident you will know how to respond.”

“Yes, my lady.” Chang bowed stiffly, and Bix, after a pause, followed suit.

“I’ll have the robot escort you to your room as soon as it’s ready.”

As the Countess left the room, neuralgia walked with needle toes along her arms and shoulders. She repressed an urge to stretch, move her arms. An Imperial aristocrat kept her shoulders back at all times.

She’d just have to schedule an extra session with her robot masseuse. The robot lacked the touch of her human one, but all the live servants had been shuttled to Peleng City as soon as she’d decided to go in for kidnapping.

Never mind. Service demanded the occasional sacrifice. This would, she concluded righteously, do her good in the end.

*

Baron Sinn wasn’t certain he wanted to be recognized by the Countess’s goons, so when their flier landed in the back he decided to take a stroll on the front porch. He stood silently by one of the Corinthian columns and pitched his cigaret onto the lawn. A robot would clean it up tomorrow.

A gust of wind ruffled his lace. He would have to shower tonight to get the smell of tobacco out of his fur. Another little price of diplomacy.

*

A few feet above Baron Sinn, Maijstral’s beam cutter quietly sliced the planks blocking Amalia Jensen’s window, then sliced the window itself. Planks and sheets of glass rose into the air above his head, held by a-grav. Gregor, nearly invisible in his chameleon darksuit, floated behind him and began removing the alarms on the next window.

Maijstral detected an alien scent, then froze. It was tobacco. Was someone smoking just under him? His nerves giving odd little leaps, Maijstral turned up his audio reception and, amid the amplified buzz of insects, distinctly heard Sinn’s movements below. Maijstral gnawed his lip. He realized that all the person had to do was step off the porch and look up in order to notice the planks had been sliced from the window.

“Gregor,” he said, subvocalizing, “there’s someone just under us.” The answer came back without pause.

“Khosali geezer. Gun under his jacket. Smokes Silver-tips.”

Maijstral blinked. Gregor quickly cut his window away and floated into the house.

Good idea, Maijstral decided. He drifted through the curtains.

Amalia Jensen looked at him coldly. “My hero,” she said.

*

“Quite a place,” said Bix.

“Only too, partner.” Chang went to the wall service plate and touched the ideograph for “kitchen.” “Send beer,” he said.

“I’ve never seen so many books.”

“My brother has a few.” Bix dropped his suitcase and satchel, then began moving up the stair, looking at titles as he went. “
Geographic Survey of Rose Territory, Peleng.
Twelve volumes. Who’d want to read that?”

“Phyllis Bertram is from Rose Territory.”

“No, she’s not. She’s from Falkland.”

“That’s in Rose Territory.”

“That’s not true.”

“Is so.”

The pair’s routine, developed over years of close association, was well-honed.

“
Counter-Intuitive Approaches to Condensation Psychology. Complete Works of Bulwer-Lytton
. Where did they
get
this stuff?”

Good question. Except for a few showpiece volumes, the books had been picked up as discards from local libraries, then bound in such a way as to look rare and valuable. Woolvinn Leases, Ltd. had a solid appreciation of the way books vanish into the pockets or luggage of tenants and subsequently migrate to places unknown, and so made certain that most of the books in their exquisitely appointed library were of incomparable dullness, the better to discourage theft.

“Who’s Bulwer-Lytton?” Chang asked.

“No idea, partner.”

Bix had advanced to the landing on the second floor. “There’s more stuff here,” he said. “Old videos. King Lear.” He looked at Chang. “Who was that?”

“Tsanvinn Dynasty. He was the grandfather of the emperor that conquered Earth.”

“That far back.” He reached for the door to the southeast drawing room. “Wonder what’s in here?” he asked.

“Don’t. We’re not supposed to— ”

*

Pietro Quijano followed Roman’s lead up the side of the house to the darkened windows of the southeast drawing room. He was beginning to get the hang of the darksuit, and flipped back and forth from his night image-intensifiers to infrared perception, enjoying, for its own sake, the contrast in viewpoints.