“Not as efficient as a riccardi, I suppose.” Her voice was cold.
“It will have to do. I need to know when things get close. I need to know if it looks like the Cities are ready to pull out. It should take a while—they should need time to close out their deals with the Station, pull in their workers, all the things they need to do before Blackout. But they might panic and go too fast, so I’ll need to know.”
“You could just come uphill.”
“But since I’m not going to do that, you’re going to keep me informed on this little communications chain.”
She put one firm hand on his arm, as though somehow to stop him from falling through this hole, and he was suddenly back behind a truck full of fresh apple pies in an entirely separate net of confusion. She said, “Whatever this note is, I don’t think it means you any good.”
“Very likely,” he agreed.
“Then why go against the percentages? It isn’t like you.”
“It’s too late now,” he said simply, as though it were an explanation, and maybe it was. Somewhere in that sentence were a score of star systems and an endless assembly line of worlds full of hostile and unknowable humans, and a goal that might or might not be reached. If the sixteenth, the fourth hour, alone, were the answer, how could he not look?
She dropped her hand and turned back to the group. He pulled her back. “Am I in violation of Graykey contract?” he demanded.
“Do you think you took advantage of me? You’ve been on the Diamond too long.”
“Answer my question. Don’t give me ‘Graykey truth.’ ”
She shook off his grip. “It was a tense moment. We were both running on nerves. We’ll let it pass, this once. Don’t try it again, or I’ll have to act.” Her hair was falling down again, and she pushed it back angrily. “I’ve stated my judgment. So be it.”
She sat down beside Spider and began braiding her copper hair with tense, white fingers. Tal walked to the glass wall, where he saw the out-system ship had finally received clearance to leave. It lifted off from its grid, away from the mess this planet had become, toward home and freedom.
Chapter 43
“ Yes, ”I answered you last night;
“No, ”this morning, sir, I say:
Colors seen by candlelight
Will not look the same by day.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Keylinn:
“Why does he do these things?” asked Adrian. He closed the malachite box and placed it in Tal’s vault.
“I don’t know, sir,” I answered. “I’m a Graykey, not a telepath.” My voice was as devoid of emotion as I felt. I was losing track of where that weary barrenness came from, whether exhaustion or pride or good sense; I would have been able to produce it from my exercises, but there had been no need to try. Perhaps it came from simple self-preservation.
Two members of the Diamond council stood against the wall, witnesses to the receipt of the crown and its delivery to the vault.
Adrian hesitated over the lock. “I don’t want to do anything wrong,” he told me. “Perhaps you’d better watch. I want to set it for Thursday at two; that’s when the City of Pearl said their Oracle would be here.”
“You’re doing it properly. Hit the blue and then the red when you’re done; that’ll seal it to Tal’s program.”
Adrian did so. He pushed the button to close the vault door; it was as thick as his hand and made of durasteel, and when it shut, there was no line between it and the wall. He smiled. “All as it should be, Miss Gray?”
“At least according to my instructions, sir.”
He motioned for the councillors to precede them from the room. In a low voice he said to me, “Please let me thank you again. I don’t think you’ll be displeased to hear that the Lord Cardinal and his friends sounded terribly put out when I announced the Crown’s arrival.”
It was a charming image. I felt a grin breaking the surface of my empty lake; he caught it, answered with one of his own, and went on, “I thought Amo would have a str—”
His voice cut off as he saw Lord Muir and his son Harry waiting in the corridor outside.
“Adrian!” said Lord Muir. “They thought you might be here. Never been in this part of town, myself.”
“Sightseeing?”
“Ha! Sightseeing! Isn’t that rich, Harry boy?”
Harry boy, I thought. That child has a lot to put up ! with.
“No, no,” went on Lord Muir jovially. “We’re here to j congratulate you on winning the Sawyer Crown. Word’s all over the ship.”
The councillors looked somewhat alarmed at that, but Adrian appeared not to care. He said, “Thank you. That was very thoughtful.”
“It was Harry’s idea, actually. He suggested it as soon as we heard.”
Harry was the picture of a son dragged unwillingly along in the fulfillment of parental obsession.
“Thank you, Harry, how kind of you.”
“You’re welcome,” said Harry, in a kind of despairing tonelessness.
So this, I thought, was the famous Harry Muir. He looked his age of eighteen, no more nor less, and just at the moment he did not appear to be the picture of a potential security minister. He seemed more like a young man at a large party who’s drunk too much and is wondering abstractedly if he’s about to throw up on a potted plant.
Adrian smiled. “Perhaps we could walk together to court level and you could tell me your ideas for ship’s security.”
I thought: Adrian, you’re too cruel. The elder’ Muir looked ecstatic. Harry looked close to physical illness. I would have liked to do something, but it was not my place to interfere with
