The Crown Jewels (17 page)

Roman worked deftly and quickly, and within a few seconds had a window cleared of alarms and sliced open. Pietro watched as the disconnected pane of glass floated gently skyward, then hung in midair, unaffected by the slight breeze. Then, with a start, he realized Roman had entered the building, and that he should follow,

Pietro’s image-intensified view of the drawing room was devoid of texture— everything looked bright and without perspective. He dropped to the floor, soft carpeting absorbing his weight without a sound. Light was entering under both the door that led into the corridor and the other door that led to the circular library. He could hear voices from somewhere, but wasn’t certain of their origin.

Roman was still floating, hovering by the door to the corridor. Quijano recollected he was supposed to block the library door and began looking for heavy furniture. There were two long couches, several chairs, a desk. He moved toward the desk and began to drag it over the deep pile carpet, tugging it toward the door. Roman’s subvocal came in his ear.

“Don’t. They might hear.” Pietro froze in front of the library door.

“Wonder what’s in here?” a voice said, from right on the other side of the door. Pietro turned toward the door, wondering what in heaven’s name he could do. His heart boomed louder than the sound of the voice. This wasn’t in the plan. He reached out with the idea of physically holding the door shut.

The door opened.

Bix’s face gazed toward him in amiable curiosity. Pietro reacted instantly. He completely forgot the weapons at his belt, forgot that his darksuit made him difficult to see. He simply lashed out with a fist, his whole body behind it.

The fist mashed Bix’s nose and knocked him back against the landing’s metal rail. Bix rebounded and Pietro lashed out again, catching him more by luck than design on the point of his jaw. Bix fell unconscious. Pietro stepped back into the drawing room and slammed the library door. He turned to Roman, who had drawn a weapon and would have used it if Pietro hadn’t been in the way. Severe pain pulsed in Pietro’s knuckles.

“We’re in for it now,” Pietro said. And then he clapped his hands over his mouth. He’d said it out loud.

*

Khotvinn’s ears pricked at the sound of a voice. “We’re in for it now.”

You certainly
are
, my lad, he thought. He spun, drew his sword with his left hand and his chugger with his right, and charged the door. He roared as he came. Khotvinn the brave! Khotvinn the majestic! He was going to carve the intruders like cheese.

*

Chang watched as Bix was knocked unconscious by a figure only dimly seen. He watched without surprise— Chang did not have enough imagination to possess much in the way of expectation, and therefore was never surprised when his expectations failed to come true.

The Very Important Personage, Chang decided, had a mean punch and a savage regard for his own privacy. He was
not
going to enjoy apologizing to the Countess for Bix’s intrusion. Then he heard a bellow and the sound of firing, and decided something was wrong.

He went to the service plate and touched the ideograph for “General announcement.”

“This is Chang in the library,” he said. “There’s a fight going on upstairs.”

Then he went for his guns.

*

Roman heard Pietro’s voice and felt at once the onset of dismay. He knew his action would have to be fast. And so he stifled the dismay swiftly and spun to the door that led into the corridor, wrenching it open, his gun ready. He observed a seven-foot-tail, red-haired puppet, a magic wand in his hand and a happy and slightly mischievous grin fixed to his face, leaping toward him, hanging in midair with one foot outthrust.

Roman stepped aside. The puppet was balanced to encounter a door and failed to hit one, and so flailed and came to a crash landing inside the drawing room. Pietro stared at the apparition. Roman fired his stunner and saw a coruscating energy pattern spatter bright colors across both the puppet and Pietro. Roman had known Pietro’s screens could deal with the attack, but apparently the puppet’s could as well.

Hell. Roman slammed the door behind him and looked for something to hit the puppet with.

The puppet leaped to his feet, striking blindly in the unlighted room, unable to see his opponents in their darksuits. His grin was blinding. “Prepare to die, human scum!” he roared. He fired his own gun randomly. Explosive bullets blew furniture apart.

“
Ronnie Romper
?” said Pietro.

*

Maijstral got the a-grav harness around Amalia Jensen and put the proximity wire around her neck, and then his heart gave a lurch at the sound of Khotvinn’s howl and the subsequent battle. “This way,” he said, and arrowed straight for the window.

Standing on the porch outside. Baron Sinn glanced up in surprise at the ruckus, then drew his gun and sprinted for one of the outside stairways connecting the front porch with the balcony overhead, switching on his shields as he ran. He saw the cutaway boards that surrounded Amalia Jensen’s window, then saw the visual quality of the window shift as Maijstral sliced through it in his darksuit. Sinn fired, his spitfire blowing flaming chunks out of the building.

Maijstral, completely by instinct, reversed himself and flew back through the window. Once inside he cursed himself for an idiot— he could have got clean away— then drew his own spitfire and blew more pieces out of the window, just by way of suggesting Baron Sinn not enter that way.

Amalia Jensen was floating in midroom, looking startled. Without adequate protection, she could not leave via the window. “Beg pardon,” Maijstral said. He opened the door. “This way,” he said.

*

When the fighting started, Gregor was admiring— and mentally pricing— a Basil vase sitting atop an eight-hundred-year-old hand-carved bureau of Couscous marble. He was therefore a little late in wrenching open his door and sticking his nose and gun into the corridor, arriving just in time to see the door to the southeast drawing room slam shut. There was no one in the corridor. Then Baron Sinn’s spitfire began blasting bits out of the wall behind him.

Gregor concluded his stunner was a little inadequate to the occasion, put it away, and drew his disruptor.

The door to Amalia Jensen’s room opened. “
This
way,” said Maijstral’s voice. A woman unfamiliar to Gregor floated out in an a-grav harness, followed by Maijstral, who was backing out, firing behind him.

“What’s happening, boss?” Gregor asked.

Maijstral nearly jumped out of his skin.

*

Sergeant Tvi was eating dinner alone in the servants’ kitchen when Chang’s voice on the house intercom alerted her to fighting on the top floor.

Tvi to the rescue
! she thought brightly. Her heart lifted at a mental picture of herself in the fight, charging to the last-minute salvation of the Imperium in a swell of dramatic music.

She switched on her darksuit, drew her gun, and flew at top speed up the servants’ stair.

*

Savage joy filled Countess Anastasia as she heard Chang’s announcement. She stepped to the nearest service plate and thumbed the ideograph for “general announcement.”

“Kill them!” she shrieked, and then prepared to run for the sporting rifles in her private study. Then, as an afterthought, she touched the ideograph again.

“Be firm now,” she added. Firmly.

The Countess’s action may serve as an interesting comment on human nature. It is sometimes odd how, in times of stress, training takes hold. The Countess could have made her announcement simply by telling the house to do it for her, but in High Custom it is simply not done to turn and start yelling at inanimate objects, particularly when there are other sentients present. A graceful stroll to the nearest service plate, followed by a low-voiced command, is considered apropos for all but the most dire situations. The Countess Anastasia, even when urging her friends to battle, remained a lady. Even if she found it necessary to involve herself personally in the slaughter, one may be certain she would somehow stay above it all, and do her best to avoid getting too much blood on her gown.

Noblesse is not inborn; it is learned, and it takes a long time. But once learned, it is hard to unlearn— it’s fully as good as instinct. Thus does training triumph over circumstance.

Allowed Burglary furnishes another illustration. One steals— very well. But one steals with style and grace, and people forgive you, sometimes even hold the door for you as you step into the night with swag in hand. Training in politesse can hold up under the most amazing provocations, theft among them.

All one can hope for is that thief and victim will be playing by the same rules.

*

Things were well and truly afire in Amalia Jensen’s former room. The closet door opened and a simpleton robot, whose usual job was to make certain clothing was hanging properly, extruded a long mechanical arm and began spraying fire retardant.

*

“
Ronnie Romper
?” Pietro asked, then clapped his hands over his mouth again as the giant red-haired pixie spun toward the sound of his voice and raised his magic wand. Pietro concluded the wand wasn’t about to transport him to the Magic Planet of Adventure, where kindly Auntie June and crusty-but-softhearted Uncle Amos would offer him sage advice between bouts with prehistoric beasts or renegade aliens, but instead would probably cut him in half. He gave a yelp and dove at top speed behind the couch. The sword whistled as it sliced cushions.

Roman, standing behind Khotvinn, raised a metal chair and smashed it precisely into the side of Ronnie Romper’s head. Ronnie yowled and spun, the magic wand scattering fairy dust in a glittering arc. A woman’s voice on the household intercom promised death and firmness. Ronnie swung again, and Roman raised the chair to intercept. The sword cut halfway through the chair, then stuck, quivering. Roman gave the chair a wrench, tore the sword from Ronnie Romper’s hand, and flung it into a comer.

“
Flower lover
!” Ronnie Romper roared. His fixed smile never moved.

Roman realized that Ronnie Romper was the one who had uprooted Amalia Jensen’s flowers. Rage filled him.

“Barbarian,” he said, and gave Ronnie Romper a solid punch in the nose. Ronnie swung wildly in retaliation, not coming close. Roman punched again, connected, kicked Ronnie in the midsection, then spun and kicked Ronnie square on the forehead. Khotvinn collapsed, stunned.

“Lout. That’ll teach you,” said Roman firmly, and he dusted his hands and reached for the hallway door. (Politesse, politesse. Here’s training again.) On opening the door, Roman saw Gregor, Maijstral, and Amalia Jensen in the hall.

“This way, sirs and madam,” he said, and bowed with a flourish.

*

Tvi reached the top of the servants’ stair. Through her sensory enhancements and the triumphant mental music she was playing as accompaniment to the video in her mind, she heard a strange Khosali voice, “This way, sirs and madam,” and then the sound of people moving. There seemed to be a lot of them. She recollected suddenly that she had only a stunner and that real thieves disdain violence. She also realized that if she moved out of the door she would be unable to avoid any unfortunate consequences, just as she had when she had been halfway through Jensen’s window.

She decided to wait awhile.

*

Baron Sinn realized his spitfire was running low on energy, that he had no reloads on him, and that he’d have to do something fast. He commended his soul to the Emperor and to the Sixteen Active and Twelve Passive Virtues, then sprinted forward and dove headfirst through the torn window into Amalia Jensen’s room, hitting the floor and rolling, his gun ready.

The room was lit by flame, clouded by smoke. His eyes smarted. Vaguely, he saw a hand and a gun protruding from the closet, and with three wild shots of his spitfire he blew into fragments the simpleton robot that had been trying to put out the fire.

“Thagger,” he said, realizing his error. And began to wheeze. The room was filling with smoke.

*

Pietro rose from his hiding place behind the cushions. Amalia Jensen was floating through the door after Maijstral. “Miss Jensen!” he said, delighted. He stepped out from his hiding place, tripped over Khotvinn’s sword, which was still jammed halfway through an overturned chair, and crashed to the floor.

Amalia Jensen, hearing the crash, glanced in his direction. “Oh, Hullo, Pietro,” she said.

*

Chang listened to the crashing and thumping from upstairs as he struggled into his shield belt and reached for his disruptor rifle. He looked up, frowned as he contemplated Bix’s unconscious body, and decided that the direct approach, up the spiral staircase, was fraught with danger. He opened the French door onto the small east porch and glanced up at the windows of the southeast parlor. One of them seemed to have a neat hole in it. This was clearly the escape route for the wicked.

He smiled. He had them trapped, bigod!

He batted ferns out of his vision as he crouched behind a metal planter, then sighted in on the window. A more imaginative individual might have actually waited for the enemy to try to leave, then picked them off as they came out, one by one. Chang, as has already been observed, possessed no imagination.

The air sizzled as he fired.

*

Roman picked up Khotvinn’s chugger, checked it for loads, and readied it for action. “This way,” said Maijstral, pointing to the open window, and just as he was about to fling himself over the sill, warning lights began to blaze on his darksuit displays, indicating invisible disruptor bolts crackling through the window. Maijstral checked, glanced around, and saw the library door. He realized he was growing tired of being the first through an exit. He pointed. “
That
way!” he said.

*

Tvi took a micro media-globe from her belt and let it look around the corner for her. She had to look carefully in order to see a single person, his presence marked only by the odd shimmery distortion of his darksuit. He stood in the drawing room door, apparently the rear guard. The rest had filed into the drawing room.