‘Donatella?’ Randy laughed, a brittle cackle with no mirth in it. ‘How can you say such a thing? She’s a charming woman. Very lovely. Bright. Dedicated.’
‘You dislike her, don’t you?’ the Planetary Manager said again, still amused.
‘My dear Justin,’ Hall sneered. ‘However did you guess?’
Harward Justin showed his teeth, an expression that the Explorer King knew far too well. When he spoke again, it was with ominous softness. ‘Don’t let your dislike override your good sense, Hall. I’ve explained that I don’t want anything awkward happening to her just now. Spider Geroan still works for me. You wouldn’t want to forget that.’
The Explorer King smiled. It took every ounce of self-control he had to create that smile. He had met Spider Geroan only once, had seen Spider Geroan’s handiwork only once. He never, never wanted to see either again.
7
His excellency Governor Wuyllum Thonks was at ease with his wife and child in the little retiring room of Government House, having dined well and drunk better yet.
‘Wully,’ Lady Honeypeach Thonks addressed him, tapping the table with her jeweled nail protectors while perusing a printed list, ‘do I have to invite that awful Vox woman to the soirée? She smells like horses.’
‘It wouldn’t be politic to leave her out,’ said a quiet voice from across the room where Maybelle Thonks looked up from her book to continue the admonition. ‘Not if you’re inviting all the rest of the BDL higher echelon.’
‘The rest of them don’t smell. And it’s really none of your business, Mayzy. You usually don’t even show up.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call me Mayzy, Peachy. I really hate it.’ Maybelle frowned and returned to the printed page. Twitting Honeypeach, her so-called stepmother, was a dangerous occupation, and Maybelle kept resolving not to do it. Still, she did it. It was like a scab she had to pick at. Damn the woman!
Her stepmother raised one foot and did not answer. The foot was being groomed by a kneeling servitor, and its condition seemed to be of paramount interest. ‘I don’t like that color polish, girl. Try the pinky one.’ She bent forward to stroke the outer edge of a big toe. ‘Still a tiny bit of callus there. Rub it a bit more.’ She returned to the list. ‘I’ve invited Colonel Roffles Lang for you, Mayzy.’
‘He’s at least fifty. Why not one of the younger officers, if it’s for me?’ Actually, Maybelle had already made arrangements for an escort, although it would be extremely dangerous to say so.
‘I have to invite him anyhow.’
And you want the younger ones for yourself, Maybelle thought, returning to her book. Some people said that Maybelle’s father, the Governor, was an expert in masterly inaction, which was code for being well paid to do nothing. Certainly in the case of his wife his inaction was legendary. Maybelle wondered if it were masterly. Perhaps he enjoyed watching Honeypeach lying in wait for her quarry? Or did he enjoy it when she finally caught them? Was he there, watching, at the kill? Maybelle shuddered and tried to bury herself in The History of the Jubal System, Chapter Two, ‘Serendipity and Jubal, the Sister Planets.’
‘Would you like me to invite some of the Explorer knights, Wully?’
‘That pretty one from Northwest,’ he grunted. ‘You know.’
‘Donatella Furz?’ Honeypeach smiled sweetly, again examining her foot and giving approval of the color varnish being applied to her nails. ‘Anybody but, love. She killed my sweet Limmie, that one did.’
‘Oh, honestly.’ Maybelle put down the book and rose to the bait. ‘She did not. Lim Terree died on the Enigma, singing a new score that Don came up with, that’s all. He wasn’t a Tripsinger, for God’s sake. He should never have tried it. He was drugged up and he got himself killed. Don had nothing to do with it. I know her, and she’s great.’
‘Where did you get all that?’ her father asked, something threatening in his unexpected attention, as though some mighty and slumbrous reptile had come angrily awake. ‘All that about Terree? That was private information from the Grand Master’s office to mine. I didn’t release that information.’
‘Well, your whole staff was talking about it,’ Maybelle replied, refusing to be cowed. ‘They were naturally interested. All of them know that Lim Terree was one of Honey’s protégés.’
Which is, she concluded to herself, a euphemism to end all euphemisms. Though, come to think of it, Terree had seemed to keep his distance. Unlike some others. Chantry, for example. Chantry was going to be eaten alive. There would be nothing left of him but his teeth. Men that strolled into Honeypeach’s lair came out as carrion.
The Lady Honeypeach noted the word protégé and made a mental tally in her get-even book. Maybelle had quite a number of such tallies after her name. But then, so did others. Donatella Furz among them. ‘I won’t ask Furz,’ she told Wuyllum. ‘I don’t like her. She killed my Limmie and she was rude to me at the PEC reception. But I will ask those new people. The ones who had the Mad Gap password.’
‘If you mean the Tripsinger and acolytes from Deepsoil Five, you’re too late,’ murmured Maybelle. ‘They’re leaving for Northwest today.’
Honeypeach made a face. From the Governor’s palace, she often used the scope to look right into the courtyard of the citadel. The blond Tripsinger had looked a lot like her poor Limmie. All that mass of silvery hair, that narrow, esthetic looking face, and those long, straight legs. Very edible. Very, very edible.
8
Tasmin and the acolytes decided to transport their mules to Northwest. Riding the animals was not sensible. It would take six to ten days for
