Ties Of Blood And Silver Part 6

That again. She always managed to bring that up. "No. I wish... but I can't." And not only for Marie's sake-although G.o.d alone knew what he'd do to her if I left-for my own. "He'd let my real father know who I am. The Elweries-"

"Elwereans."

"Elweries don't like to let their b.a.s.t.a.r.ds live. Even if I had enough money to buy Gate pa.s.sage, I wouldn't dare. They all have so much money; hunting me down even offplanet wouldn't faze one of them."

"True." She nodded. "So what is it?"

"You remember Amos van Ingstrand's brooch being lifted?"

Her face went pale. "You?"

"Me. Don't look so surprised. I've gotten better since the time you caught me."She set down her gla.s.s and lay. "You'd better have. You know-" She stopped, and went into a feigned fit of coughing.

You know what the reward is, she was going to say. You know that you're worth at least a hundred thousand pesos to van Ingstrand. But that would bring up the subject of how much more money she could have made off me, and that the reason that she hadn't was that she cared about me, and that was something she couldn't say.

"-how badly he wants you," she finished, leaving the unspeakable unsaid.

"I know." I pulled her closer to me. And I know that you won't turn me in, I thought, wis.h.i.+ng that she could read my mind. "Which is why I'm worried. Guess who Carlos took the brooch to?"

She shrugged. "My father's silence is legendary."

It runs in the family, I thought. "And so is his cheapness."

I don't know when or how or why Benno kicked his daughter out; that's another thing I've never been able to bring up. The only hints I ever had were things Gina would mumble in her sleep, the few times that I could get the money and the chance to spend the early morning, the sleeping part of her day, with her.

She'd talk to herself in a little-girl voice in her sleep, mumbling promises that she'd be better, if only he'd give her another chance.

"So." She shrugged. "You're safe."

"No. Carlos took it to Elren Mac Cormier."

She was silent for a long minute. "That's bad, no matter how she ends up playing it. Elren doesn't like to break things; she might try to move it offworld."

"Which would be fine."

"Yes, but it's unlikely." She shook her head. "Don't count on it. She's much more likely to sell it back to van Ingstrand, along with some information. Which could be a problem. Carlos was awfully good in his younger days, but one hand makes him conspicuous.

"Then again, the rumor is that old Amos is furious. He might decide to treat her as an accessory, and pry information out of her." She smiled. "And I think Elren is smart enough to work that out. She's likely to let him cool off for a while, even if she decides to go that route. Then she'll talk."

I shrugged. "She couldn't tell him much."

"True. But maybe Carlos' name or description would be enough."

"And maybe Amos wouldn't believe her, maybe he'd decide that she was in on it from the start. He just might-"

"Kill her, just for being involved. That could be very bad."

I shrugged. "Elren Mac Cormier isn't a friend of mine."

"You're missing the point. If Amos touches her, the rest of the exchangers are going to be down on his head. They generate too much money to be trifled with. Collectively, they've got enough to bring in some offworld mercenaries, people good enough to take on the Protective Society. Could be b.l.o.o.d.y." She sipped her water. "For everyone in Lower and Middle City.""I don't want that."

"Don't lie to me, David." She stared deeply into my eyes. "You don't really care. You're an emotional cripple-"

"Wait a-", "It's not your fault, but you're not capable of caring about anyone, anything." She spoke quietly, gently, each word a stab. "You never really had a childhood, did you?"

"Sure, I-"

"How old were you when Carlos first set you to work?"

"Twenty-five, maybe thirty. I don't remember."

She nodded. "That's what I meant. Childhood is when you're supposed to learn a lot of things. Like caring-not stealing. I don't blame you, brought up the way you've been, but you really don't care. Not about anyone."

"That's not true!"

"And does shouting make it true?" Gentle fingers stroked my brow. "Tell me, how would you prevent all this bloodshed?"

I shrugged. "If she doesn't have the brooch, she can't try to sell it to Amos; no reason to take the risk of talking to him, not if she had the brooch, and then lost it."

"So?"

"I'd better steal it, hadn't I?"

She drained the last of her water. "You'd better think that over for a long while. Sounds awfully risky.

But..."

"Well?"

"Not doing it sounds even riskier. That'll be ten pesos. Now."

"How'd you like to try for eleven?"

She smiled. "I could always use the money."

I met Marie at the mouth of the tunnel. She was sitting cross-legged on a rock, fondling the pouch on her lap, squinting at the setting sun, murmuring to herself.

"Well?" She drummed her heels impatiently against the rock. "How did you do down at the 'port?"

"Not too bad." I tossed her my pouch. "I picked up just short of two hundred pesos, plus a bit of schrift jewelry." That sounded lame. More specific-"A gold beltclip; sold it for another hundred. How about you?"

"Not very well. Only seventeen and a half."I took my flash out of my pocket and lit it as we entered the tunnel.

"Money is still tight, David, eh?"

"Yes, it is," I answered absently, scanning the floor of the tunnel for tripwires and triggers as we walked homeward.

The problem still was how to handle it. Maybe Elren would just take a sure profit and keep her mouth shut; possibly the whole mess would just blow over. That way, we could go back to Carlos' original plan: hole up, let me continue to study Elwerean behavior, then, when I was ready, start to work Elwere. Just a few runs through Elwere, and I've have enough to last me the rest of my life.

And what then? What do you do when you're rich?

I chuckled. That wasn't a problem I'd ever had.

So, it came down to two choices: either forget trying to steal the brooch back and hope; or steal it back, hide it, and expect Elren to keep her mouth shut.

But maybe she'd already talked. Or, at least, given out some free hints to Amos van Ingstrand as a foreshadowing of what was to come.

Maybe, maybe, maybe-you can live your whole life on maybes.

"Hold on a second." I stuck my arm out in front of Marie.

I knelt on the floor of the tunnel. This close to home, we set our traps very carefully, hiding them well.

When Carlos and I had set this one, we'd carefully dug a shallow trench for the tripwire, then buried the wire, the charges, and some sc.r.a.p steel, marking the spot with two pebbles on either side of the buried wire. If anything ma.s.sing more than thirty or forty kilos stepped on the wire, it would pull the pins from the charges, setting up a loud hissing as the noisy igniters burned away; a scant ten seconds later, the plastique would go off, filling the air with thousands of killing fragments.

This trap was by way of a final, possibly deadly warning; it was intended to announce firmly that proceeding farther was not wise.

The marking pebbles were still there, but they overlapped their own impressions in the dust. I leaned over and dug a finger into the ground. The dirt was too loose; it had been freshly repacked.

Marie looked up at me, her face a ghostly white in the light of my flash. "There's been somebody here."

I nodded. This looked bad. Very bad. n.o.body other than ourselves had been in our area of the warrens for years.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "It's nothing."

She considered that for a moment. "No, it isn't. David, you're going to have to do something. Please."

I nodded. "I will. Just give me until the day after tomorrow. Okay?"

She c.o.c.ked her head to one side. "Okay."

THIRD INTERLUDE:Miguel Curdova and His Secretary On the morning of an afternoon, Miguel Ruiz de Curdova always ate little; at noon, he would eat nothing.

It was better to be ravenous after the duel than to risk being logy at the wrong moment during one. Even a first-blood affair could result in death-although that was rare-and second-blood affairs often did. A third-blood affair always resulted in death, of course, even if the seconds had to raise an unconscious loser from the mat and hold him still for the final, fatal thrust.

With, at last count, two third-blood duels to his credit-as well as forty-three second-blood ones, and more first-blood affairs than he could keep track of-Curdova made his preparations with the practiced ease of a bourgeois mechanic.

He toyed for a moment with the remnants of his breakfast kippers, then turned to the delivery box at his elbow and brusquely ordered himself a fresh pot of coffee. Idly, he reached across the Irish-linen tablecloth and picked up an unused silver b.u.t.terknife, examining his face in its mirror-bright surface.

He was pleased with what he saw. Even after one hundred fifty-eight years of a busy life, his face was only slightly lined, the wrinkles around his eyes much less prominent than the thin dueling scar that curved, snakelike, around his right cheekbone. The dark eyes and thin smile held more than a trace of menace, but no hint of weariness.

Work and exercise, that was the secret. The sheep often remarked how the delegates to the Cortes Generale didn't age properly, and it was true. Busy people didn't have time to grow old. Let the rest of Elwere bask in the wealth that valda brought-somebody had to take the responsibility of seeing that the source of that wealth was properly maintained.

Delegate Miguel Ruiz de Curdova accepted that responsibility as his duty, and his right. He surely could have become Presidente of the Cortes, had he been willing to work toward that, but he preferred members.h.i.+p in three of the more powerful committees.

It was the work that counted, the responsibility. Not the t.i.tles. t.i.tles were dross; the work was gold.

The delivery box opened with a quiet hiss; he reached in and pulled out the silver coffeepot. He poured himself a cup, not bothering to notice how the balance of rich Alsatian beans, heavy cream, and Randian sugar suited his palate. If it had been wrong, he would have been furious, but it wasn't in his nature to notice when things went his way; he was too used to that.

He sipped his coffee. Enough dawdling. It was time to get to work. He sighed hypocritically; getting to work pleased him. Lighting his first cigar of the day, he sat back in his chair, drained the cup, then thumbed his phone and raised it to his lips.

"Good morning, senhor," his secretary said. Her voice was a rich contralto, one that should have belonged to a lovely young woman. That amused him. Actually, Doris Reinholt was almost his age, half again his weight, with a face like a pig, and a small mustache.

But she was competent. Which was what counted in a secretary.

"I've a minor affair with Delgado this afternoon," he said. "Reschedule the meeting of the Trade steering group for this evening. Delgado will likely protest-if he is in any shape to-but do not acknowledge.

We'll let Andresen smooth his feathers. The same for Almada; he's getting crotchety in his old age."

"Yes, senhor. I'll inform their secretaries.""Good. And I'll want those projections on Th.e.l.lonee's usage. Either the wars are heating up more than the news reports show, or they're stockpiling." If they were stockpiling valda oil, that would have to be nipped in the bud. "What is the next major contract coming up for review? Rand?"

"No, senhor. Metzada. The present one terminates at the end of the year."

Metzada was going to be a problem. d.a.m.n that Tets...o...b..r-El... "In that case, forget about working through Andresen's secretary. You'd better make an appointment for me with Andresen-dinner, if he's free. Include my sister; he likes her. I'll probably have to straighten him out about Metzada. Again."

Andresen took the Scandinavian part of his heritage too seriously. The time of conflict between the descendants of the Spanish sherry barons and those of the Scandinavian fieldhands was over; now, they were all Elwereans, sharing equally in the wealth that valda oil brought in.

Sentimentality about s.h.i.+mon Bar-El's world was inappropriate; after all, s.h.i.+mon the Liberator had been dead for centuries.

But I can straighten him out. "The report from Wells/Puro was due yesterday."

"Mmm... just in this morning, senhor. Some problem with the courier-I'll look into it. Do you want me to send the report to you, or will a summary do?"

"Summary, for now." We'll see, he thought. No point in hearing a several-thousand-word pointless report. "No luck, I a.s.sume."

"They're sorry to report that there is still no sign of your son. With all due respect for the resources and abilities of Welles/Puro and a.s.sociated agencies, they-"

"You may delete the honorifics."

"Yes, senhor. Captain Tlkau respectfully repeats his recommendation that you terminate the search. He included a new mathematical a.n.a.lysis of the problem; present half-life-to-success is ninety-eight point three Orogan years, at present levels of effort."

"What happens if we double the effort?"

"It won't do much, senhor. Wells/Puro can't-"

"Won't."

"-won't put more agents on the problem. As it is, their Th.e.l.lonee branch is overloaded. Their estimate on hiring Intertec for a similar effort only brings the half-life down to eighty-nine and a fraction years-and, if I may say so..."

"You may."

"I think their a.n.a.lysis is too generous, if anything. No matter how much they open their records, Intertec would still end up spending a lot of time and effort going over the same ground."

"They're doing close to all that's doable, then."

"Yes, senhor. He does offer another option-to reopen the local search. It's conceivable that the boy is still on Oroga."