Juggler of Worlds (11 page)

“My man Bey doesn’t much like the execs at General Products,” Ander continued. “Funny as hell listening to Beowulf talking about them. The regional president on Jinx was—”

“Why Jinx?” Sigmund interrupted. He could no longer hold back the question. “Why did this expedition launch from Jinx?”

“The short answer: I don’t know. Shaeffer doesn’t know.” Ander scratched his long nose, considering. “Beowulf was told the GP shipyard on Jinx had idle capacity when it was needed. The Puppeteers weren’t eager to fly an experimental vessel, so the new drive was assembled in Human Space, counting on getting a human test pilot. Bey assumes GP approached him because he happened to be there and was in corporate files from the BVS-1 incident.”

“Purely hearsay and speculation.”

“For sure,” Ander said cheerfully. “You know, all this talking makes a man hungry. I’m told the crème brûlée here is excellent.”

Churning mind. Roiling stomach. “Not for me, but go ahead.” Sigmund waited for the waiter to take and return with Ander’s order. “So perhaps the choice of Jinx has meaning. How can we know?”

Ander tore into his dessert, leaving Sigmund alone again with his thoughts. Truthfully, he saw no reason for Puppeteers to conspire with Jinxians. Or Beowulf to conspire with either.

Shaeffer fit in—somehow. Of that, Sigmund was certain. But
he
had picked Shaeffer back on We Made It. What was he missing now? “Might the mission to the core have flown from Jinx simply because that’s where Shaeffer happened to be?”

“Maybe. A ship that can go to the core goes across Known Space in no time flat.” Ander blotted his lips with his napkin. “With absolutely no data to back me up, I bet you’re right. I know about Beowulf’s blackmail scam because you told me, but there’s no hint he ever told anyone. He certainly said nothing to me when I ghostwrote the BVS-1 saga. Since Puppeteers consider blackmail a normal business practice, GP probably considers him reliable.”

They finally left the café, Ander a noticeably wealthier man than when he entered. Sigmund walked Ander to a transfer booth, then settled onto one of the benches at the end of an old wooden dock.

He stared out to sea. The waves shattered the moon’s reflection into a million pieces. An enormous jigsaw puzzle, it taunted him.

Like Puppeteers, Jinxians, and Beowulf Shaeffer.…

A sharp tap-tap made Sigmund look up. Andrea Girard, grinning, stood just outside his office.

He wondered why she was so pleased with herself. “Come in. What have you got?”

“Surprise!” Andrea said. She shut the door behind herself and sat. “Beowulf Shaeffer is here on Earth.”

Sigmund felt gut-punched. “How? When?”

Andrea, oblivious, cracked her knuckles. “He arrived on a commercial liner from Jinx a week ago last Thursday. The passenger manifest listed Shaffner, comma, B. Wolf. The name-correlation software at Customs didn’t recognize that as a person of interest. My AIde just flagged it.”

She held up her pocket comp, projecting a surveillance shot. A shock of snow-white hair leapt from the image, on a head that jutted high above the crowd. Red eyes glared from a tanned face. “Outback Spaceport. Feature matching says that’s your buddy, at better than ninety-nine percent confidence. He’s apparently using tannin pills, not necessarily as a disguise. He would need those just to go outside.”

That was Shaeffer, all right. “Barely enough of a name change not to trigger our entry protocols,” Sigmund said. Also, plausibly deniable as an honest mistake. It sounded too subtle for Shaeffer. “Jinxian connivance?”

Andrea shook her head. “What do Jinxians know of Old English epic poems? My grandma always says, ‘Never attribute to malice what can be as easily attributed to stupidity.’”

Sigmund guessed her grandma wasn’t an ARM. He got up from his chair, planting both hands flat on his desk, in what Feather called his let-me-explain-this-to-you-in-words-of-one-syllable-or-less stance. “Andrea, think about it. This task force worries about Puppeteers. Where they went. What it means. We don’t know many things for sure.

“One is that the Puppeteer disappearing act
hurt Earth
. Another is that Beowulf Shaeffer is a serial accomplice of Puppeteers. He’s possibly the
cause of their flight from Known Space. Third, there’s but one Puppeteer known to be left on Earth. Nessus claims to know me from the General Products building on We Made It. Shaeffer was there at exactly the same time.

“Andrea, tanj it, you
should
have been tracking Shaeffer at this task force’s top priority level. This has nothing to do with—not that it’s any of your business—my past interest in Jinx.” He glowered at her. “Are we clear?”

She had the good sense to stay quiet.

Sigmund sat back down. He took several deep, calming breaths. “That’s water under the bridge. Where is Shaeffer now?”

She looked down. “It’s unclear. There’s no record of him since a few hours after he arrived.”

“Come
on
, Andrea.” A vein throbbed in Sigmund’s temple. “Follow the money. Hotel, transfer booths. This is basic.”

“I
know
, Sigmund. I tried to trace it. Honest. Shaeffer made an Earth friend on the ship. I traced Shaeffer to the friend’s home. If the friend has been picking up the tab, it’d explain Shaeffer disappearing from the grid.”

She’s here because you wanted to train her, Sigmund reminded himself. “Judging from my experience, he’d also be off the grid if he were conferring with Nessus. Shaeffer’s situation isn’t ‘unclear,’ Andrea. Tanj it, you’ve lost him.”

“Aren’t you curious about the friend?” Andrea asked. Was that a trace of a smile? “It’s Gregory Pelton.”

Sigmund watched aliens, human and other, not his fellow flatlanders. Pelton was a common-enough name, and it took a moment to click.
“The
Gregory Pelton?”

“The very same.” Andrea reclaimed a trace of her former bravado. “One of the richest men on the planet.”

SIGMUND FLOATED, exhausted, a wild-eyed Feather draped across him. He’d once come across an odd saying: “Make love, not war.” Feather tended to split the difference. Tonight was one of those nights.

“How is she?” Feather said abruptly.

“She?”

“Andrea. Surely your little protégée has made it all better after her lapse.” A hand snaked up his bare thigh, lest he be obtuse. “Better.”

He jerked, and not only because of her hand. “Hardly.”

“Hardly?” Feather rolled onto her back, stretching luxuriously. “Because you don’t play with your co-workers? Somehow, that seems weak.”

How about because Andrea was a dumb kid, a century younger than him? No, that also pointed out how much younger Andrea was than Feather. “Drop it, please.”

Her hand remained, more personal than ever. “You know, that’s too bad. There’s always room for one more.”

She resumed a state of intimate hostilities without waiting for an answer.

PELTON’S VESTIBULE was a good five meters tall, with a bigger footprint than Sigmund’s entire home. The personal transfer booth, which for most people who could afford one was a token of wealth, seemed lost in a corner. Sigmund admired the decor while he waited for Andrea Girard. Massage chairs. Pale, plush carpet. Holo art. Gourmet synthesizer. Two-story, polished brass doors dominated one wall.

Andrea stepped from the transfer booth. She almost managed not to gape. “I guess he believes his booth address is private.”

Pelton was rich enough, and connected enough, that Sigmund hadn’t dared pull his teleportation records without a subpoena. Half a century earlier, Pelton’s great-great, et cetera, grandmother had invented the transfer-booth system. Gregory, as far as the public record showed, was a ne’er-do-well enjoying her money.

Perhaps no one was home. Sigmund had not called ahead. If Pelton were there, he could have been gone, and Shaeffer with him, given any warning.

And
if
Pelton was inside, he was now on the wrong side of the Emerald City-sized doors from his transfer booth.

A flatscreen intercom was flush-mounted in the wall near the brass doors. Sigmund showed it his ARM ident. “I’m here on official ARM business to speak with Mr. Gregory Pelton.”

“Someone will be right with you, sir.” The unctuous tone sounded like an AI butler program. The flatscreen remained dark.

A brass door soon opened. Two women stood inside, wearing robes. One was short and petite, with a red dye job to her skin and improbably silver hair flowing to her waist. The other was taller and, if only in comparison, stocky, with elaborately dyed, highlighted, and coiffed hair. Sigmund wondered inanely what Nessus would think of that hair.

“I’m Dianna Guthrie,” the shorter woman said. Her hand remained on
an ornately carved door handle. “This is Sharrol Janss. We’re friends of Ele… Gregory. What is this about?”

“I’m Agent Ausfaller.” He tipped his head at Andrea. “This is Agent Girard. We’d like to speak with Mr. Pelton. Also, Beowulf Shaeffer, if he’s still here.”

The taller one, Janss, started at the mention of Shaeffer. Only Guthrie’s name had popped out of the computer as a Pelton associate. Janss must be Guthrie’s friend.

“Are they here?” Sigmund prodded.

“Sorry, no.” Guthrie stepped forward, pulling the door closed behind her. Perhaps not coincidentally, she closed Janss inside. “What’s this about?”

Sigmund shrugged inwardly. You never knew what might be lying out in plain sight at someone’s residence.

“We’re with the ARM task force investigating the so-called Puppeteer Exodus.” Sigmund stopped, waiting to see if Guthrie filled awkward silence with anything interesting.

No such luck. She settled into a chair. “I don’t see how that involves Gregory.”

Sigmund took out his pocket comp to try again. Note taking also rattled some people. “Beowulf Shaeffer, your friend’s companion, knows several Puppeteers. Mr. Pelton spent a great deal of time with Shaeffer on their recent flight from Jinx.”

“And you thought Gregory could tell you Bey’s whereabouts.” Guthrie adjusted the position of a holo art frame on a teak side table. “Yes, Bey was here.”

Was?

Andrea cleared her throat. “Dianna… may I call you that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Why was Gregory on a commercial liner in the first place?”

Andrea was supposed to just listen—but that was an interesting question. Pelton had a
lot
of money.

Guthrie said, “Gregory has his own ship, as you would expect. He calls it
Slower than Infinity
. He’d planned to take it to Jinx. He was having it refitted for the trip. The overhaul ran slow, I think because of a parts shortage. Yes, that’s it. I remember now. A big supplier went bankrupt. Some key parts were hard to come by. It might have been a result of the Puppeteer Exodus, if that matters. Rather than rush the overhaul or postpone his trip, Gregory flew commercial.”

Sigmund made a show of taking notes. “What was his urgent business on Jinx?”

Guthrie stiffened. “I don’t see that it has anything to do with missing Puppeteers, but I’ll tell you. He’d made plans to go on a Bandersnatchi safari. He wasn’t about to miss that for anything.” She misunderstood Sigmund’s reflexive shudder. “I agree. I’m the world’s biggest flat phobe.”

Sigmund knew all about Bandersnatchi. The white, slug-like Jinxian creatures were the ultimate big game, bigger than brontosauruses. The Bandersnatchi were also intelligent, and hunting licenses were their main source of hard currency. The covenants that governed the safari trade restricted hunters’ weapons to those that gave the prey a fair chance.

Roughly 40 percent of hunters didn’t make it back.

Pelton must be crazy. “Let’s go back a bit,” Sigmund said. “You say Shaeffer was here. Where is he now? With Pelton?”

Guthrie shrugged. “I assume they’re still together. Where are they?
That’s
a more difficult question. Gregory dragged Bey on to another adventure.”

Andrea leaned forward confidentially. “Dianna, it’s important that we speak with Mr. Shaeffer. How can we get in touch with them?”

Guthrie seemed to wrestle with how much, if anything, to share. “I’m a flatlander. I see nothing wrong with that. Futz, I take pride in it. But Gregory? That’s another story.