The Third Claw of God (6 page)

I may have been answering the Porrinyards, but I kept my eyes focused on Jason Bettelhine. “It’s simple. That cute little theory I spat out in Pescziuwicz’s office? The one about secondary targets? I had it upside down and backward. Those thugs weren’t lying in wait for me. Just as I said, there was no way for anybody originating on Bocai to find out our travel plans and beat us here, with or without any ridiculous ancient weapon in hand. But a security breach could have alerted them to the Khaajiir’s presence on Xana months ago. They would have had plenty of time to put their pieces in play. Even to get their hands on at least one Claw of God, possibly more, before they came.”

Jason now sported a half-smile identical to the one that had been stamped on his sister’s face since the beginning of the conversation. “That was, of course, before you showed up.”

“Exactly.” I found myself grimacing with equal wry amusement. “I may be the only woman ever born who could travel to another solar system on the spur of the moment, arrive unannounced, and by sheer luck stroll right into the line of fire of an assassination team waiting for somebody else who just by coincidence happens to hate her even more.”

The Porrinyards emitted identical exasperated sighs. “You have a gift.”

I turned my attention to the Khaajiir, who had been watching the entire exchange with rapt fascination.

“As for you, sir, the Claws of God have no special significance in my life, and as far as I know no special significance to anybody but the K’cenhowten, but their presence in the hands of your fellow Bocaians might make a great deal more sense in this context once you tell mewho the hell you are .”

The Khaajiir shifted, his long, bony fingers lightly spinning his staff in place. “You live up to your reputation, Andrea Cort. You are a most impressive human being.”

“I get that a lot. Again,who are you ?”

He glanced at each of the Bettelhines in turn, receiving a nod from Jason and an encouraging smile from the long-silent Jelaine. Then he sighed, placed the staff across his knees, and said, “I’m just a poor academic, you would say ‘Professor,’ adept in a number of fields that would include history and the discipline your own people call ‘comparative religion.’”

That told me nothing. “I’ve never heard this honorific,Khaajiir .”

He seemed amused by my shaky pronunciation. “It almost sounds like it could be Bocaian, doesn’t it?

But it didn’t originate on my world at all. It’s actually an ancient K’cenhowten title, dating back to the days of their Enlightenment, and referring to the spiritual leaders of the movement that helped to lift their people out of the dark age responsible for originating the barbaric method of execution you almost suffered today. I was so passionate when discussing that particular period in offworld history that some of my students named me that in jest, in part as a pun on my real family name, Kassasir. I gratified my students by liking it, as I like most multilanguage puns, and I’ve worn it for so long that I’m afraid it’s stuck. You may consider it an old man’s affectation, nothing more.”

“I’ll stick with Khaajiir,” I said. “Might as well stick with whatever everybody else calls you.”

“Coming from you, it would mean everything to me.”

It was the first moment of warmth, feigned or otherwise, that I’d received from any Bocaian since the massacre, but I was too intent on following this trail to acknowledge it. “And the assassins used the Claw of God because, used against you, it would represent the renewed ascendance of the forces the historical Khaajiirs—”

“The plural isKhaajiirel ,” he said.

“—were able to overcome. So. All right. I understand symbolism, even if it’s demented and stupid fanatical symbolism. But you still haven’t explained a damn thing. You haven’t told mewho you are and what yourbusiness is and what you’re doinghere andwhy a Bocaian hit team would be here trying to kill you.”

That was met by silence.

Of the three of them, the Khaajiir seemed the first tempted to break down and tell me, but Jason Bettelhine broke in, his tone regretful but firm. “I’m afraid that much of that is tied up with the reason you’re here, and my father wanted that information to wait until he could brief you himself.”

I turned back to him. “Your father’s agenda was set before we knew assassins were involved.”

“He has his reasons, Counselor. I promise you that they’re compelling ones. In the meantime, be satisfied with my assurance that the Khaajiir means you no harm.”

“Oh, I can see that. But since we’ve established that there are people who wish him harm, and that those people also wish me harm, I’ll be in the line of fire for as long as we’re breathing the same air. Were this Confederate territory, I’d stick around just because protecting him was part of my job. But this is your planet, and your problem. I need a reason I shouldn’t just turn around and go back to New London right now.”

Jelaine Bettelhine spoke in a voice so soft that she might have been a young mother, urging a cranky infant to sleep. “Please don’t.”

“I need a better reason thanplease .”

“My brother has given you his word of honor. So has the Khaajiir. I now give you mine. There’s a good reason for all of this, one more important than you can possibly guess. Youneed to stay .”

The Confederacy includes a number of worlds ruled by royalty, of one kind of another. I’d been to a number, the most recent an industrial hell under a runaway CO2hothouse atmosphere, where the most venerated figure was supposed to be a direct descendant of an antiquated terrestrial line known as the House of Windsor, ceremonial figures of little real power in a country best known for establishing an empire that had collapsed under its own weight. She’d been, in the most precise medical terms, an obese, insensate, limbless idiot, dependent on constant care from a servant class who considered themselves honored for the privilege. She’d been the worst of a bad lot. Whenever I encountered royalty, most struck me as fussy oafs raised from birth to confuse their whims with the common good. Precious few struck me as intelligent, and fewer still struck me as noble. But whatever that final, overused adjective means, Jelaine Bettelhine had it. The conviction in her voice was rich with compassion, understanding, and the sense that she knew more than I’d ever known or ever would know. It was impossible, even for a congenital cynic like myself, to hear that voice, sense that poise, and not want to believe in her.

That was a dangerous weapon she had. But her veneer of sincerity meant nothing. The primary requirement of a good liar is believing in the fiction, even if only for the few seconds it took to tell it. I licked my lips. “I’ll need a quick look at that staff. Just to be sure.”

The Khaajiir said, “Certainly,” and extended the tip toward me.

I took it from him, and felt an unexpected pang when my fingers touched it for the first time. I’d been familiar with this wood, during my childhood on his world. A number of my Bocaian neighbors had possessed art objects made of the same material. I’d had a little carvedbhakha , a cute, big-eyed local animal more appealing to look at than the real thing had been when I’d had the opportunity to play with one. (The toxic little mucker bit me.) The woodgrain on my carving had been so light and so smooth, that it was almost as friction free as half-melted ice, one good reason why even the richest Bocaians had never been stupid enough to use it for flooring. As a little girl I’d loved touching it anyway. The inanimate carving had possessed an uncanny illusion of life, mostly thanks to the material’s talent for retaining heat, which had often made it feel a few degrees warmer than the surrounding air. The staff was just as slippery, which made it an odd choice as spare limb for a sentient of failing strength. What mishap would result if the Khaajiir lost his grip? But further investigation revealed an invisible circular band, about three-quarters of the way up, that exerted the same pull toward the palm of my hand that a magnet has on iron filings. Gripping the staff there, I could not let it go unless I made myself let it go.

Nice trick. Some kind of imbedded tech, invisible despite the staff’s total transparency. It might contain an entire battalion of nanoweaponry that I’d never be able to detect outside a lab, and I’m useless in a lab. My AIsource masters could probably catalogue everything, if they ever deigned to tell me. But I could see nothing. There were no openings, no hidden compartments, no obvious uses other than as a walking stick.

I didn’t want to trust it. But I had no cause to suspect it. “It’s fine workmanship.”

“Thank you,” he said.

I extended the staff back toward him, handle side first.

He took it by the adhesive band, and once again rested it across his knees. The simulated smile and look of genial warmth never left him. “Do you know, Counselor, that your name is a very ironic one?”

“How’s that?”

“Cort, in Mercantile, sounds the same asCourt , in the antiquated Hom.Sap language known as English. ACourt is a room where legal hearings are held, and thus a splendidly appropriate name for a legal professional like you. Nor is that all. Have your partners here ever informed you of the secret significance of their individual names, Oscin and Skye?”

It had never occurred to me to wonder. “No.”

“OscinandSkye are both members of a pantheon of minor Gods worshipped by a cult on the arboreal colony of Farjanif, from whence I presume they hail. The names of the deities, simultaneously siblings and lovers if my knowledge of the mythology serves, are English puns as well, as they’re near homonyms for that language’s words designatingOcean andSky . Splendid appellations for a pair with such an, ah, elemental union, wouldn’t you say?”

I glanced at the Porrinyards, one at a time. They both avoided eye contact with me. Interesting. They’d known and never told me.

“Porrinyardsis also a significant appelation,” he said. “It comes from an extinct dialect known as Hectaish, with some roots in the ancient-Earth romance languages, and it meansmultiple births . There is a possible secondary meaning if you look up antiquated patronymics among the Cid—”

“Sir,” I said.

The Khaajiir did not seem affronted. “Excuse me. I told you I liked multilingual puns. Start me up and I’ll go for hours. But Bocaian and your own Hom.Sap Mercantile are both such inadequate languages for wordplay that I leap at the opportunity to dip into others whenever possible. It’s one of the few pleasures I can still afford at my advanced age. I do hope that making your acquaintance will be another.”

Maybe he meant it. Stranger things had happened.

“It’s been a long, hard day,” Jason Bettelhine said. “We’re running late, and we haven’t even begun our descent. We also just received word of another late arrival, one of my brothers, who’ll be docking with us in about twenty minutes. Plus we have the other guests to get situated. It’s a nightmare. So why don’t you three—you two, whatever—repair to your suite, get some rest, make use of the facilities, and meet everybody for dinner three hours after we embark? We’ll make introductions, get better acquainted, and perhaps answer some more of your questions then. Is that fair?”

Once upon a time, not too long ago, I’d made a policy of never dining with other human beings. I still didn’t like to accept invitations from anybody but the Porrinyards, but they’d loosened me up quite a bit. I could tolerate it for business. “I suppose it will have to be.”

Jelaine Bettelhine’s eyes twinkled. “I promise, Counselor, we’ll be friends before this journey is done. We have more in common that you can possibly know.”

Swell.

I got that a lot, too, and it had never been good news.

Somehow, the things I have in common with people who like to say so are always their worst qualities.

We returned to our suite, feeling less secure than ever despite surroundings so plush that I could have fallen face-first anywhere and not received a bruise upon hitting the floor. I hadn’t noticed, on my first tour through these rooms, but the luxury here extended to the quality of the air. It was not just fresh, free of that tinned quality you find in some orbital environments, but downright bracing, thanks to what may have been an increased percentage of pure oxygen and what may have been some other stimulant, jacking my metabolism in ways that might do a lot to lessen the crash that always followed Intersleep by about twenty-four hours. I tried to build up a nice load of resentment over this and failed, a serious lapse for me given that the Porrinyards say they can track my grudges in geographical strata. Maybe I was mellowing, after all. And maybe not all the euphorics in this decadent conveyance were topical and stored in jars. The Bettelhines already seemed willing to go to extreme lengths to keep their guests happy. Maybe their efforts extended to technological means. Subaural suggestives in the hum of the air compressors? Subclinical teem-flashes in the lighting?

Paranoid? Sure. But I’d never, not even once in my life, been too paranoid, only not paranoid enough. And this was a family that had earned its obscene fortune by developing newer and more brilliant ways to kill great numbers of people.

But any difficulty I was having maintaining a mad-on could also be a mere reaction to the sheer luxury around me. The Porrinyards, who had thrived in some of the most hostile environments known to mankind, had already demonstrated their own susceptibility to the comforts this place offered. If I was brutally honest to myself I had to admit that I was having some of the same feelings. I wondered, not for the first time, just how the obscenely wealthy ever managed to develop thick skin, with everything in their environments so carefully designed to cushion their painless ride through life. I also wondered just why I sensed something worse in the background of the young heir, Jason. I stood at the transparent curving wall of the suite, looking down on the bright green landscape now greeting the first hours of daylight. “I confess, love, I didn’t read up on this place as well as I should have. Do you know which land-mass we’re looking at?”

“There are three,” the Porrinyards said. “Ice, a frozen one nobody ever goes to, Asgard, the one that belongs to the Family, and Midgard, the one inhabited by their inner circle of employees.”