Perhaps hewould examine the society reports, at least as far as studying the guest list. It would be interesting to speculate who had rated an invitation and who hadn’t, and why.
Martinez, for example, hadn’t received an invitation, despite being one of Lord Ngeni’s clients. Ngeni and his clan represented the Martinez clan’s interests here in the capital.
But Lord Ngeni was absent. The Ngeni clan head had taken up the governorship of Paycah, leaving clan affairs in the hands of his son, Lord Pierre Ngeni. It had been Pierre’s party that filled the palace the previous night.
Martinez followed the palace majordomo through the courtyard—filled with orderly rows of greenery and larger-than-life statues of Ngeni ancestors—to Lord Pierre’s office. There were several individuals in the waiting room, not all of them human, not all of them respectable-looking. Martinez was not made to wait.
At least he ratedsome consideration.
Pierre Ngeni was a broad-shouldered, round-headed young man with a resonant baritone voice and the jaws of a mastiff. Like his father, he wore the dark red uniform that marked him as a convocate—a member of the Convocation, the body that provided the empire’s top administrators, and which was permitted to “petition” the Shaa. (When a petition was accepted by the Shaa, it changed its status to that of “law.”) The Convocation would have charge of the empire when the last of the Great Masters finally ended its life.
Lord Pierre’s uniform was well-tailored, but not the extreme epitome of style. At least he was not a glit. Quite the contrary, he was a serious man, dry, who always gave the impression of being busy. His desk was covered with orderly stacks of papers, and two secretaries sat in the room to take notes or dictation, as he required.
“My lord,” Pierre said, rising from behind his desk.
“Lord Convocate.” Martinez briefly braced himself military-style, tilting his chin high, a salute to the other man’s senior status.
“Please sit down.”
Martinez sat in a straight-backed chair clearly designed to discourage people from taking up too much of the lord convocate’s time. Lord Pierre’s chair was a more comfortable one, and its cushions sighed as it took his weight. Pierre tilted his chair back at a generous angle and evaluated Martinez with his mild brown eyes.
“I’ve seen you in the news,” he said. “That rescue you helped engineer—that’s been well spoken of.”
“Thank you, Lord Pierre.”
“A pity you couldn’t bring back Blitsharts alive, or at least the dog.” Zanshaa, or at least the Terran parts of it, were displaying extravagant mourning for the dog Orange, more than they seemed to show for his owner.
Martinez gave a shrug. “I’m afraid that wasn’t up to us,” he said.
“I suppose it wasn’t.” There was a moment’s pause, then Pierre, businesslike, inclined himself and his chair forward. “How may I help you this morning?”
“I was hoping you might be able to arrange another appointment for me.”
Lord Pierre seemed taken aback. “As I recall,” he said slowly, “my father went to some effort to recommend you to Lord Commander Enderby.”
“And I’m very grateful to him, my lord.”
Pierre’s look turned accusatory. “But it hasn’t worked out? Enderby has taken some dislike to you?”
“Not that I know of,” Martinez hedged. “The problem is that Lord Commander Enderby has decided to follow the last Shaa into eternity.”
Lord Pierre’s eyes flickered in surprise. “Ah. I see.” He stroked his heavy jaw. “Mostinconvenient, after all we’ve done. And you have no indication whether his deathbed petition will recommend you for promotion?”
“I can’tcount on any such recommendation,” Martinez said carefully. His hands twitched at the creases of his trousers. “He’s arranged for me to take a post as communications officer on theCorona. It’s more or less the same job I’m doing now, but it’s a small ship under a junior commander, and—”
“A far less prestigious post than aide to the commander of the Home Fleet,” Pierre said.
“Yes.”
“It’s almost as if he were going out of his way to demote you,” Pierre said. The accusing look reentered his eyes.
“He probably thinks it’s time I had ship duty,” Martinez said weakly.
“I will see what I can find,” Pierre said. “The problem is, I have very little influence in the Fleet at the moment—my great-aunt’s retired, and no one in the service owes us any favors right now.” He frowned and lowered his voice, almost speaking to himself. “If you wanted a post in the civil service, I’d stand a greater chance of finding you something.”
“I’d appreciate anything you can do, my lord,” Martinez said. “And perhaps my…recent celebrity…may be of some assistance.”
Lord Pierre tilted an eyebrow at this thought, then his hands reached for the arms of his chair, as if he were about to rise and dismiss Martinez from both his office and his thoughts. But he seemed to think better of it and settled back into his seat.
“How are your lady sisters?” he asked. “I’ve seen them here and there, since they made their introductions here, but I haven’t had a chance to speak to them.”
“They’re well,” Martinez said. “Very active in the social life of the capital.”
“Have you made marriage plans for them?”
The question took Martinez aback. “Ah—no,” he said. “No plans.”I wouldn’t dare, he added silently.
“I have a cousin,” Lord Pierre said, “who I believe would be improved by marriage. His name is Pierre also, though we call him PJ.”
Martinez blinked. “Which of my sisters did you have in mind?”
Lord Pierre shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose, so long as she brings a competence with her. And I assume your lord father can find employment for PJ on Laredo…?”
Warning bells clanged loud and long in Martinez’s mind. “Perhaps you can tell me a little more about PJ,” he said.
Lord Pierre’s answer made much of Lord PJ’s sunny personality and winning ways. He was a popular fellow, apparently, beloved by all who knew him. Under Martinez’s careful questions, it was revealed that PJ had not quite finished university, and had never entered either of the two career courses traditional for Peers, the civil service or the military. He had never, in fact, had a career at all.
By the time this was revealed, anger had begun to simmer dangerously in Martinez’s veins. Lord Pierre had a useless glit cousin who had dissipated his inheritance and/or embarrassed everyone with his behavior, and the Martinez family was to take him off the Ngenis’ hands—and begrateful, presumably, for the chance to marry upward. The reference to a “competence,” and to finding PJ employment off in the provinces, made it clear that the Martinez clan would be expected to support this character once he connected himself with them.
Martinez badly wanted to shove the offer back between Lord Pierre’s perfect white teeth, but instead he said, “Well, I’ll talk to my sisters, but I don’t think they’re contemplating matrimony at present.”
Lord Pierre offered a little frown. “Surely you don’t leave it up to them?”
The answer that came to Martinez was,If you were their brother, you would too. But what he said was, “It’s my father’s choice in any case. I’ll write to him with the particulars, if you like.”
“Oh—perhaps we should just contrive to introduce PJ into their circle. They entertain frequently, I suppose?”
“Among their set,” Martinez said.
If Lord Pierre thought he was going to drag this PJ person to one of his sisters’ parties, he was very much mistaken.No, he thought,you’re going to have to invite us here, which so far you have conspicuously failed to do.
Lord Pierre’s little frown deepened, but whatever answer he intended was interrupted by one of his secretaries.
“Lord Convocate,” the man said, “beg pardon for interrupting, but I just received a signal that the Convocation is commanded to meet this afternoon, in three hours’ time.”
Both Martinez and Lord Pierre unconsciously straightened in their chairs at the announcement. There was only one entity that couldcommand the Convocation to meet, and that was Anticipation of Victory, the last of the Great Masters.
“Cancel the rest of my appointments,” Lord Pierre said. He turned to Martinez as he rose from his chair. “I beg your pardon, my lord…”
Martinez rose also. “I understand.”
There was only one reason to summon the Convocation at this time, and that was to announce the hour at which the last Great Master would kill itself.
Once outside the palace, Martinez turned uphill, toward the Commandery. He knew he would be needed there.
“Forty-one days,” Martinez told Cadet Sula. “Enough time for the news to reach the farthest corners of the empire, with twenty or so days left over to make preparations.” And forty-one, a prime number, was a significant number for the Shaa, who loved primes and multiples of primes. Martinez’s look darkened. “Forty-one days for me to find a better appointment than the one Enderby’s stuck me with.”
Amusement trickled through Sula. The woes of her superior officers rarely stirred her sympathy.
At least Martinezhad an appointment, even if it wasn’t one he particularly wanted. She, on the other hand, had no prospects at all once she delivered Blitsharts’s yacht to the yards on Zanshaa’s ring station. Her few acquaintances in the Fleet had been left behind onLos Angeles, and she knew no one on Zanshaa other than Martinez, whom she’d never met in person. She could be assigned anywhere, or nowhere, on the whim of the service.
Sula didn’t reply to Martinez. She was still over fifteen light-minutes from Zanshaa, and it was impossible to have anything resembling a regular conversation. Instead, Martinez’s transmissions were more in the nature of video letters, skipping from topic to topic at his whim. The replies she sent tended to be much shorter, as her days generated very little in the way of news or interest.
Martinez’s expression changed, turned a little sly. “If you have any idea of the nature of the air leak onMidnight Runner, you might want to send me a follow-up report to the one you’ve already filed. Or if you’re feeling a little ambitious, you might suit up and try to track it down. There has already been some litigation filed in regard to Blitsharts’s estate.”
Oh really? Sula thought. She found herself leaning forward in her couch, her mind already working on the possibilities.
“It seems that Blitsharts was bankrupt and heavily in debt,” Martinez said. “He was betting on races, apparently, and not just his own, and he wasn’t very lucky either way. His creditors were getting ready to file for the seizure ofMidnight Runner, ” and this might have been his last race. His creditors have now filed a petition for the Fleet to turnMidnight Runner over to them—“Fat chance, Martinez’s expression seemed to say, the Fleet wasn’t about to hand over a choice piece of salvage to private interests—”and his insurance company has filed a petition to examine the boat, a petition Lord Commander Enderby has been pleased to consider. If it can be shown that Blitsharts sabotaged his own boat in order to commit suicide, the insurance company won’t have to pay off. But the creditorswant the company to pay off so the settlement will go to them, so unless there’s clear physical evidence one way or another, the question of how Blitsharts died will be decided in court.“
Interesting, Sula thought. Blitsharts’s last long acceleration burnmight have been calculated to take him out of range of any rescue, and the erratic tumble that followedmight have been intended to make any docking impossible. His actions could certainly be interpreted as an attempt to hide a suicide attempt.
But if Blitshartshad killed himself, the case would be difficult to prove. The sabotage could have been done very subtly, a loose connector here or an overlooked fastening there. Unless Blitsharts had done something blatant, like drilling a hole in his hull with a hand laser, there would be no evidence of intent.
“Blitsharts’s friends are up in arms about it, of course,” Martinez went on. “The centerpiece of their argument is the claim that Blitsharts would never have deliberately done anything so cruel as to murder his dog.”
Sula’s answer to that was a wolfish smile. If Blitsharts was a sufficient egotist—and there was nothing to indicate that he wasn’t—he might have thought of Orange as merely an extension of himself. In which case he would have sacrificed Orange without a second thought.
Martinez paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Well,” he said, “maybe you can find something that will solve the mystery.”
Sula knew there was no way she was ever again going on board that ship of the dead, no way short of a direct order, and she would resist even that. She had climbed out of one dark
