Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (25 page)

Because of the high degree of concern over security, there were stories of mistaken arrest, and even one instance where a noble-born prince was misidentified and died from the stress of it. Francella felt strong enough to endure any rigid, probing procedures that the mechanism might put her through, but she hated the thought of wasted time. She had so many important things to do, secret things, and hardly enough time to complete them.

The electronic system emitted a friendly beep, allowing her to pass. The rooms inside the building were a brilliant, almost blinding white, with complex geometric ceilings but few furnishings, as if the contents had not arrived yet, or as if the designer expected to receive additional objects at some later date. But she knew the interior was complete. All of the stations were like this.

In an immense room beneath a glax dome stood one of the ultra-secret, platinum-cased nehrcom transceivers, with chromatic surveillance beams darting in all directions around it. For a few seconds, a rainbow of color washed across her, then moved on. Reportedly Jacopo Nehr, ever paranoid about keeping his priceless business secrets, continually rotated his security systems, to keep potential thieves off balance. This particular apparatus looked the same as the last time she had been here, but she suspected subtle differences.

The platform on which the nehrcom sat resembled a religious shrine, and not by accident, some people asserted, considering the reverence with which the instantaneous communication device was held. Arguably the greatest feat of technology ever conceived by the galactic races, it was second in its impact only to a concoction that was generally attributed to the Supreme Being himself … an entire race of sentient podships.

In a new security upgrade, users of the transceiver were not permitted to touch it or even to go near it, and instead had to remain behind a glowing blue railing that encircled the center of the room. Francella stepped up to the electronic barrier and touched one of the buttons on a panel, indicating that she wanted to pick up a message.

Presently a hatch opened in the floor on the other side of the railing and a platform rose, bearing a nehrcom operator dressed in a black robe with a nebula swirl on the chest. When the mechanism came to a rest he stepped off and approached Francella.

“Here is your message, Lady Watanabe,” he said.

As she accepted a folded sheet of brown parchment it irritated her that she had been required to come here personally to pick it up, but the Doge sometimes made this a requirement when he sent transmittals, even the most innocuous of them. As a rule, nehrcoms were entrusted for delivery to
messagèros
, the bonded couriers who worked for the Merchant Prince Alliance.

While the operator waited, Francella read the Doge’s brief communication. He had consented to the audience that she had requested, and told her what time to appear for it.

“Please inform the Doge I will be there,” she said.

The operator nodded.

As she left and descended the steps outside, one of the CorpOne vice-presidents stopped her, a toothy man with a bald head. “Did you hear about the catastrophe?” he asked.

When she gazed at him blankly, he told her that Earth had been destroyed. “It’s gone,” he said, “with only space debris left.”

“What happened?”

“No one knows. A huge comet, maybe.”

“No matter,” Francella said. “It was only a backwater planet, of little concern to the Alliance.”

With that she hurried away, to complete her scheming tasks.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I care nothing if my people love me. The primary emotion I wish to elicit is fear.

—Doge Lorenzo del Velli, as told by the Hibbil Pimyt

Princess Meghina strolled along a narrow path that overlooked the grounds of the Palazzo Magnifico and its fabulous orange-and-yellow Daedalian Labyrinth. A mini-forest formed in an intricate web of natural mazes around a Minotaur statue, it was a great delight to members of the royal court and to scientists as well, who frequently came to study the plants and take samples of them. The only such forest in existence, it was of unknown origin, and resisted all efforts to transplant it.

Meghina had been on Timian One for two weeks following the disastrous funeral on Canopa. Even though she and the Doge had the most famous open marriage in the Merchant Prince Alliance, there had been tension between them over her long-standing relationship with Prince Saito, and even jealousy on the day of the tycoon’s ceremony. Afterward, the Doge had insisted that she come to the capital for an indeterminate period, and he had been displaying her at state functions, making her remain at his side like a living, ornamental doll. It was childish on his part, but no one could defy him when he really wanted something.

Doge Lorenzo had respected Prince Saito, even revered him for his business acumen. As long as the Prince was alive, the Doge looked the other way and said little about the relationship with Meghina. There were important professional connections between the men, and noble princes never let women come between them. Now that Saito was gone, however, the situation was different.

At dinner each evening, with only Lorenzo and his pretty blonde wife seated at an immense table in the Grand Banquet Hall, he continually harped at her, demanding to know personal details about her affair with the dead man. She tried to answer his questions, but no response seemed sufficient, and he kept snapping at her and digging deeper, asking additional questions.

The Doge had been watching her every move, mostly through his agents but often on his own. At the moment he was attempting to conceal himself on the pathway behind her, thinking she would not notice him if he dressed in the garb of an ordinary court noble … royal blue surcoat, leggings, and liripipe hat. She smiled to herself, but it was more a grimace than anything else.

He could behave so immaturely at times. She didn’t understand the double standard involved here. Well, actually, she did
understand
it as the chauvinistic manner of the merchant princes, but it was not fair. Her husband performed sexual acts with more than a hundred women a year, while her tally was a scant tenth of that, and only with noblemen of the highest stations. The sin she had committed in Lorenzo’s eyes, however, had been to care deeply about one of them without making any attempt to camouflage her feelings.

She missed Saito so much that it hurt, and her husband knew it.

Pausing to catch her breath, she pretended to examine a poppy garden, while actually looking peripherally at her husband, at least fifty meters down trail. He had stopped, and was acting as if he was cleaning something off his shoes with a stick.

Part of her wanted to go back there and confront him, shouting her feelings at the top of her voice. But a proper lady would never conduct herself in that manner. The noblewomen of the Merchant Prince Alliance were all trained in civilized behavior … known as
urbanitas
… from an early age. She needed to comport herself at all times as if she was actually one of those ladies. An uncultured, or
rusticitas
person, was not welcome in court society.

All of her life, going back to the early years in which she had grown up as a Mutati princess on Paradij, the Princess had longed to be a beautiful, elegantly-dressed Human lady, socializing with handsome Human men. She had always considered Mutatis ugly in their natural state, with their rolling mounds of fat, tiny heads, and oversized eyes. She had run away from the Mutati Kingdom in order to live out her fantasy, and for years it had gone well. Meghina achieved all of the wealth and social position that a woman could want, and had enjoyed the affections of a man she loved. But after the death of Prince Saito her fantasy seemed to burst. Everything looked dark and dismal to her now, and she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake when she abandoned her roots.

With a deep and abiding sadness, she picked a bright yellow pollenflower to remind her of her lost love, and continued along the path, away from her observer.

* * * * *

At dinner that evening, as expected, Lorenzo lay in waiting for her. A valet reported to the Princess that the aged Doge had been sitting at the table for more than an hour, drinking wine and getting meaner by the minute. He had thrown crystal glasses and candlesticks at servants, shouted epithets at them, and even threatened to kill one on the spot and use his body as a centerpiece for the table.

His behavior hardly qualified as civilized, but in his position he could do anything he pleased.

As Meghina swept into the Grand Banquet Hall she wore a shimmering gown of metallic blue Sirikan cloth, with golden lace at the bodice that revealed her ample breasts. Above her heart-shaped face, her blonde hair rose in an elaborate structure, with wings at the sides and a ruby tiara gracing the front.

Her husband did not rise for her, and hardly looked in her direction when a servant helped her onto a high-backed chair. She sat on the Doge’s right, not a safe distance away.

“Good evening, Your Magnificence,” she said in a melodic tone. Meghina wore a subtle floral perfume that she knew he liked.

Lorenzo gulped a glass of red wine and glared at her with dark, watery eyes that suggested things he did to Mutati prisoners in one of the gaol’s torture chambers. If he ever discovered her true identity, she had no doubt of her fate.

“Are you my wife or aren’t you?” he demanded. His gaze focused on the scant lace over her bosom.

“I am your wife, Sire … and more. I serve nobility.” It was a rather open-ended response, but one that presented her position to him clearly—she had informed him in the very beginning that she wished to be a courtesan and not merely a wife.

A servant came to pour more wine, but had to duck and run for cover when the old man pummeled him with tableware that crashed and broke on the floor.

“Get out!” Lorenzo thundered to the hapless fellow. “Can’t you see I want peace and quiet?”

When they were alone in the great hall, Lorenzo gripped Meghina’s wrist on top of the table and rasped, “After your lover’s funeral, you ordered the restoration of his mausoleum, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, “but I thought you would want that. He was your friend and an important prince.”

“It is unseemly for you to arrange for the work personally.” He squeezed her wrist tightly. “You see that, don’t you?”

“I had hoped to remove the worry from you, Sire, since you are so busy.”
Busy following me around,
she thought.

A cruel smile cut the features of his leathery face, with a bit of drool sliding from one side of his mouth. “How thoughtful of you,” he said in a low, menacing tone, “toward me and my late friend.”

“I had hoped to be,” she said. Tugging slightly at her wrist, she protested, “You’re hurting me.”

“What?” He looked down, saw his own knuckles white from squeezing, and let go.

She rubbed her reddened wrist to get circulation going again. If she had known how violent Human noblemen could be, she might have taken steps to safeguard herself more after shapeshifting into Human form. Certain protective features could have been concealed in the flesh. As it was now, she could never change back again and was as vulnerable to injury or death as any Human female.

“Is work on the mausoleum finished?” he asked in an annoyed tone. He glanced around, as if looking for an inattentive servant to injure.

“They should be lifting it back onto its foundation about now.”

“And the contractor’s invoices?” He raised his voice. “You aren’t
paying
them personally, are you?”

“I advanced some funds in order to get things going. I was only trying to remove the burden from you.”

“All costs must be born by the state, and not by the wife of the Doge. Have the bills sent to me!”

“As you wish, My Lord. Shall we dine now?” Noting his continued interest in her bosom, she smiled sweetly and asked, “Or would you prefer your dessert first?”

His face provided the answer. Human men were so transparent when they wished to have intercourse. But she would tease this one first, with a sexually-charged dance of bewitchment.

* * * * *

On Canopa, Jimu had been one of hundreds of robots assigned to lift and repair the damaged mausoleum of Prince Saito Watanabe. The mechanical man melted into the background and did as he was told by the Human work bosses.

The structure rested in its proper position now, but the jeweled walls had been fractured, and were undergoing repair by a team of specialists who worked on low scaffolds. The work bosses had described the powerful lightning strike and ground tremor that caused all this damage as a freak act of nature. Jimu didn’t know anything about that. He focused on his assignment, retrieving and listing the priceless gems that were scattered around the site.

At the top of the hill, he added a bucketful of jewels to a growing pile. Security was everywhere, with armed soldiers watching every move that he and his companions made, like the guards for a prison work crew. After a while Jimu peered through a broken wall in the mausoleum. Inside stood a glassy statue of the dead prince, with both arms broken off. Workers were repairing them.

Despite high security, Jimu had the intelligence to circumvent it, and he sneaked away, this time making his way onto a podship bound for the Inn of the White Sun. He had heard about a group of sentient robots that operated a way station there, and wanted to see what it was like for machines to control their own destinies.…

Chapter Thirty-Five

Is there anything larger than the galaxy? And even if there is, what difference does it make?

—Anonymous note, found inside a piece of malfunctioning Hibbil machinery

When Jimu arrived at the Inn of the White Sun, he was astounded by the ingenious architecture of this hivelike way station that had been constructed in an orbital ring. The views of the planet Ignem, far below, were spectacular through bubble windows, and unlike anything he had ever seen before. The world looked like the largest gemstone in the galaxy, and it changed moment by moment, displaying different color combinations in shifting light.