The Third Claw of God (33 page)

“No, it’s not possible. Not with the Bettelhines involved. Not with everything else I know about them, not with what I intend to demonstrate to you when we finally get that sparkly slut of a bartender in here. There’s not an atom of instinctive benevolence in them. There must be something else, maybe in some of the other materials Jason suggested.”

“I’m sure there is. Alas, it took some time to get past the Khaajiir’s history, and I’ve yet to find any galvanizing connection.”

“What about this Lillian Jane Bettelhine Jason mentioned?”

Skye took the staff from my hands and walked away, spinning it absently as she contemplated the best route into whatever followed. “I think she may be one of those wastes of time I mentioned.”

“That bad?”

“That dull. She appears to have been one of the reform-minded relatives Dejah talked about; she caught the pacifism bug early and argued that the family needed to become a more positive force in human civilization. Her sentiments, as far as I can tell, were just standard Utopianism: not far from the Khaajiir’s in tone, but far inferior in depth.”

“Give me a sample,” I said.

“From an essay she wrote at nineteen, one that could not have gone over well with her private tutors:‘I can’t look at the way we do business without seeing that our affect on the rest of the human species is toxic. We spread like a sickness, our very presence poisoning the wells that others drink from, our trade inspiring entire worlds to turn upon themselves like starving rats chewing off their own limbs. It is not enough for me to declare that I won’t be part of the corruption myself, if I still live life sharing in the profit. I have to do more. I need to do more. I ache to be an anti-Bettelhine: if not in the sense of warring on my family, then at least in some smaller way, proving by example that we can replenish some of the hope we’ve stolen.’”

“That sounds like more than typical adolescent rebellion.”

“You would think so. In truth, she was always very careful to separate her love for her family as people from her rejection of everything they stood for. Unfortunately, she was as naïve as she was idealistic, and so it never occurred to her that her statement of principles, mild as it reads to us, could get her into trouble with Mom and Dad. Not long after she penned those words she was deemed a disruptive force, useless for all corporate purposes, and subjected to internal exile at one of several estates the Family maintains for that purpose—hardly, as Dejah indicated, the first or last time something of the sort had happened. I doubt she wanted for anything in her life but freedom.”

“What happened to her?”

“The Bettelhine genealogy lists her as deceased, not many years afterward. I don’t know whether she remained in Internal Exile or left Xana, but she was certainly never a corporate force.”

I refrained from scolding Skye, even in jest, for this gap in her intelligence. Allowing for all the extreme compression required of them, the Porrinyards must have already gleaned more data from the Khaajiir’s files than I could have found given weeks to work with. But Lillian Jane Bettelhine’s scandalous opinions didn’t fill in a missing piece of the jigsaw so much as establish the existence of an entirely new region of the puzzle. I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “There’s got to be a connection, love. Do you think Jason intends to model himself on his late aunt?”

“That would be a step back for him. He’s hooked up with his sister and consolidated a substantial power base that threatens Philip’s role as heir apparent. Lillian Jane said a few intemperate things before being shuffled off to some cozy family gulag where she wouldn’t disturb anybody by causing uncomfortable silences at parties. On a global level, there was nothing to emulate about her but for a few principled words.”

Skye’s determination to minimize Lillian Jane at any cost was beginning to get on my nerves. “Words have been known to move mountains.”

“And mountains,” Skye said, “are easier to move than empires. Trust me, Andrea. I understand the natural impulse to paint Lillian as a great visionary, but there’s no indication that she ever had any truly revolutionary ideas capable of affecting more than her own personal conduct. You can translate everything she wrote up to that point as the bland self-serving declarationI will be a good person , devoid of any additional context or detail. I don’t think she ever presented a real threat to the Bettelhine status quo, at least not as much as Jason and Jelaine seem to.”

I had noticed the careful use of the phraseup to that point. “And yet Jason said she’s important. How?”

Skye spun the Khaajiir’s staff in her hands, not so much plumbing its data as distracting herself with baton twirls. The lights it reflected spun around the walls like glowing coins. “Not to the problem at hand.”

I waited for her to offer something else.

But the answer to that question, if it existed, remained locked in the crystal staff. Part of me wanted to continue looking. I could feel something tremendous lurking in that direction. But the Porrinyards were correct about one thing. Right now, all other questions paled against the identity of the individual who had placed the Claw of God against the Khaajiir’s back. If Skye was so certain that the travails of Lillian Jane Bettelhine were irrelevant to that question, then it was time to leave her behind and start setting off bombs.

Especially since I was already juggling several that remained undetonated. I could feel a special kind of anticipatory anger, the kind that would give me strength for the confrontations to come, welling up inside me as I told Skye, “All right, then. Have Oscin send that annoying little quiff up here.”

“I’m already bringing her,” Skye said, her voice deepening to indicate Oscin’s. Then, in her own softer tones: “I could tell you were ready from the look in your eyes.”

Colette Wilson sat, puzzled but as obliging as always, in the suite’s most comfortable chair, offering several attempts at a tentative half-smile that only grew broader as I obliged her with a kind, encouraging look of my own. Her spirit and vitality had been depleted not at all by the stress of the hours since the Khaajiir’s death; though she’d been willing to take the chair, she perched at its very edge, her back straight and her eyes round as she awaited her opportunity to answer any questions I might provide. At some point in the last hour she’d washed up and replenished her makeup, providing a thin touch of eyeliner to accentuate her bejeweled eyes and bring her gamine look back into sharp relief. Her electric hair remained inactive, thank Juje. Either she continued to find its display programs too grim for the occasion, or she knew that they rendered any undistracted conversation with her almost impossible. Now that she was alone with us and away from the Bettelhines, she revealed a simmering fascination for Skye, asking her if she really remembered everything Oscin had said and done since the two had been apart.

Skye said, “You want to know what he’s doing right now?”

Colette colored, glanced at me, then hid her little grin with a fan of her fingertips. Not hidden at all, the fanning gesture as expressive as the grin itself had been. Like most people enjoying their first encounter with a linked pair, she could not help thinking about the erotic possibilities. I sensed how easy it would have been to like her, if I allowed myself. If I didn’t consider her obscene.

Skye wasn’t fooled by my gentle demeanor as I told Colette my questions would be no more than routine, and apologized again for snapping at her before dinner. But she remained silent, merely backing me up with smiles and nods and occasional leading questions that followed my leads. What followed was, for most of its length, by design one of the dullest and least informative interrogations I’ve ever conducted.

Any pretense that I might have considered Colette an important witness faded as I exhausted substantive matters and steered toward fripperies, such as the important people she’d hosted in her years on the carriage, and her favorite places to spend her time off. She told a funny but respectful story about Arturo’s fussy behavior. I made a little scandalous joke about Philip Bettelhine. She tittered and found the nerve to ask how long the Porrinyards and I had been together. I told her, offering a cute and slightly risque detail for lagniappe. More laughter.

We had a great time. We became good friends.

By the time another twenty minutes had passed, it was all one great big fucking party. At which point, I shook my head to deny the most recent burst of gentle laughter, shot a sharp glance at Skye, and repeated, “You know, I really do need to apologize again for the way I treated you during dinner. I was out of line and I apologize.”

She fanned her fingertips over her lips again. “You don’t have to keep doing that, Counselor. I understand. It’s not the first time I’ve ever had to deal with a stressed-out client.”

“Thank you,” I said, with dripping sincerity. “Because it’s really become important to me that we get along.”

“Thank you. I feel the same way.”

“That’s good, because you’ve impressed me so much with your vivacity that when—not if, but when—we reach Xana, I’d like you to take some time off and stay with my companions and me. We’d like you to be our personal valet.”

Never had eyes been so bright, or a smile so ingenuous. “I’d like that.”

Skye began to see it, realization just beginning to turn her own amiable expression into the beginnings of a scowl. “You do understand, this invitation means you’d be sharing our bed.”

Now Colette seemed incandescent with happiness. “Oh, of course.”

I said, “It also means that you’ll make yourself available whenever we wanted you. You know that this is important business we have with Mr. Bettelhine. There are times when we’d have to leave to tend to important company matters, and might not be back for weeks. You’d have to confine yourself to whatever quarters we’re assigned, occupying yourself however you can until we get around to making our way back. During this time you’d also have to refrain from any contact with your own friends or family. That is, if you have any friends and family. This situation might last, oh, I don’t know, a year or two. Maybe three. Do you have any problems with that, Colette? Any problems at all?”

She said, “Not as long as it was cleared with my Bettelhine sponsor.”

“Which Bettelhine is that?”

“Magnus.”

“We haven’t heard of that one.”

“He’s one of the uncles,” Colette explained. “He’s a much younger brother of Hans. Not much older than Philip really.”

“Uh-huh. And he’s the one who hired you?”

“Yes, Counselor. He’s the one who gave me this opportunity. I wouldn’t want to be unavailable for him if he needed me for a trip up to Layabout.”

“Yes,” I said, with a pleasant twinkle, “I’m beginning to understand how your orbital station got its name.”

Colette tittered, the fingertips fanning her lips again.

Skye, who was beginning to look ill, said, “Where did he find you?”

The bartender crossed her legs, arching her back to emphasize the curve of her breasts, her entire manner now more about flaunting her sensuality. Even her voice had become throatier, more of a seductive whisper. “I was one of the researchers at a Bettelhine facility in the outer system. We were charged with reverse-engineering an intelligent guidance system the Cid developed for the mass-driving planetary defense grid.”

“Sounds like tough work,” I said, shaking my head at the impossibly complex world of high-level weapons research. “It’s certainly overmy head!”

The haunted Skye managed a version of my own impressed laughter, but there was no amusement in her eyes. “What level of education do you need to merit a position like that?”

Colette grinned. “I received my second doctorate when I was nineteen.”

“And when did Magnus meet you?”

“When I was twenty-five. I’ve always looked younger than I am, and he’s seen to it that I’ve had some rejuvenation treatments since I took this position.”

“How long ago was that?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, as Colette did the necessary arithmetic in her head. “Ten years.”

“Were you involved with anyone when he found you?”

“I was engaged to be married, Counselor.”

“What was the lucky guy’s name?”

“Erik Descansen. He was my lab partner.”

“Did you ever get married?”

“We stay in touch. He understands that this is an important assignment. He knows that we’ll see each other again someday.”

Skye was now covering her mouth with her hand. It was one of the occasional drawbacks of having two minds in one: twice as much empathy. Get past their horror filters and they feel it twice as much as anybody else.

I, on the other hand, pride myself in my ability to play cold bitch, and hadn’t allowed my predatory smile to waver a millimeter. “So let’s review, shall we? It’s been ten years since you voluntarily abandoned your education, your research career, your fiancé Erik, and your plans for your future to work full-time aboard the Royal Carriage as Magnus Bettelhine’s bartender and concubine, where you will if requested also make yourself physically available for the sexual entertainment of any other guest who wants you.”

“Yes.”

“Arturo Mendez was recruited from a beach resort, the closest thing to the homeworld he’d been missing his entire life, to serve as ‘companion’ to a ‘lonely,’ elderly Bettelhine named Conrad. Was making himself sexually available to Conrad among the terms of his employment?”

“Oh, yes. I remember Conrad. He was a kind and generous man. And he loved Arturo so much. He died a while back. Arturo still mourns him.”

“I seem to remember Arturo expressing a personal preference for women. Is he bisexual?”

“Not in his private life. But Conrad was Inner Family.”

I pressed further. “What about your fellow stewards, Paakth-Doy and Loyal Jeck? Are they also expected to perform a similar range of duties?”

“Loyal was once a favorite of a Bettelhine cousin Melinda. Melinda fell out of favor and hasn’t been aboard for a couple of years. He doesn’t talk much; I think she liked the silent type, and he misses her. I don’t know about Paakth-Doy. She’s an emergency replacement, and hasn’t attracted anybody’s attention yet.”