Tal inclined his head. Duke Peter stood and tightened the sash of his silk robe. The terrier was back at his feet again. “I’m afraid Tanya and I have a lot of work to do, cyr. Good morning.”
With a liberal use of yen, Tal was able to persuade his I driver to stay behind in the Residence garage and amuse himself. Baret Two used Wender Corporation groundcars, | with only minor differences between these and those he’d grown up with on a world a long way from here. He had several appointments in Everun that day, and no wish to risk missing the final one in the Fortune River Bar.
He met with Keylinn’s fortune-teller, and found that someone named Belleraphon had set up a number of small businesses in the capital about six years previously. A fortune-teller, a brothel, a manufacturer of technical components, a boat-builder—there seemed no common thread. Whether it was his own Belleraphon or someone using the name was impossible to tell. It came as no surprise to Tal that there were no witnesses, no one who claimed direct physical contact with the man.
Why would anyone use the name Belleraphon, including the person he was searching for? Except possibly out of ego. Tal had small hopes of turning up his quarry this way; the more likely outcome, if he was ever successful, would be that Belleraphon would hear that someone was asking for him, and make himself known.
Or not. It was a long and disheartening day. He parked on the outskirts of Lankio Quarter; the wilderness of buildings on the slopes of that neighborhood had no pattern of streets to speak of and no room to maneuver anything larger than a handcart. He passed a gambling hall on the way to the Fortune River Bar, and saw there was a fight going on outside. He glanced with little interest through the shoulders of the crowd.
Spider was getting the crap beaten out of him.
As far as Tal was concerned, there was a lot in Spider that could use beating out, but should it be necessary Tal would do it himself. He pushed through the crowd, lifted the man who was smacking Spider’s bloody face, and threw him a good five meters. A sigh of disappointment came from the bystanders—Spider and Tal were foreigners, after all. The man showed an inclination to get up again, so Tal kicked him on the chin and he lay still. Then Tal picked up Spider and started walking him away. He seemed to require a fair amount of support.
When they reached the car, Tal let him down in the dirt and went to open the door. He pulled a canteen from inside, walked over to Spider and poured it in his face.
Spider’s arms started moving in a phantom parody of a fight, his fists clenched. He snarled. Tal poured more water down.
Spider became aware that he was horizontal, and someone was standing over him. Tal.
“Forget our tranquilizers today? Get in the car.” Tal made no move to help him up.
He pulled himself into a sitting position, not without pain. Tal walked back to the car, opened the door, and slid into the front seat. “Seven-four-one-two,” he said. Spider got slowly and shakily to his feet and tottered over to the other door. He tried the handle, screwing up the lock combination. He hit the buttons again and fumbled with the handle. Nothing happened. He looked expectantly toward Tal, who sat unmoving in his seat. “Like Patience on a bloody monument,” muttered Spider. On the third try he got it. He let his body down carefully onto the cushion and turned to Tal. “You could make an effort, you know.”
“I’m making an effort now not to take you up to the Diamond and leave you on H deck with your hands and feet tied. You can avoid this by telling me just what you were doing all day. Start with when you got up.”
“Well,” said Spider after a moment, “I wasn’t actually on official business all the time.”
“Really.”
“You see, it’s like this—”
“Spider, I’ve seen you lie valiantly when unexpected trouble hit. I’ve also seen you make a mess of it when you’ve had time to think. You have a really extraordinary talent for deceit—”
“Thank you.”
“—but it only seems operational when you’re with strangers, or under the pressure of improvisation. In this regard, I’d like you to bear in mind that any question I ask you now I will also ask you tomorrow. In the cold, rational light of preparedness. Do you follow me?”
“Ah.”
“Feel free to take a few minutes to get your thoughts together.”
Taking a few minutes to get his thoughts together was fatal to Spider’s cause. He gave up. “It’s not like I’ve been doing anything terrible.”
“It’s only terrible if it affects me.”
“Yes, I know, that’s what I meant. I have a friend—”
“Whose name is—”
“Whose name is Eustace O’Connell. You know how we get a lot of overstocked items sometimes in Inventory. Well, it seems a shame to just store them when there are people who can use those items.”
“So you and your friend help balance this inequity.”
“I sell to G and F decks and he sells below G and to the ghosts. Anyway, that’s what we’ve been doing. Lately I expanded a little bit to bring in some people on Baret Station—”
Tal sighed. Spider said, as though in answer to a protest, “We have things they really want!”
“I’m sure. May I take it that this fight had something to do with your trying to expand your territory a little further?
