House of Shards Page 20

“Didn’t you ask its lordship? You’ve been travelling with Lord Qlp for… how long now?”

  “Since the beginning. And no, I never asked—one doesn’t ask a Drawmiikh why it does anything. If one gets any response at all, one gets an incomprehensible recitation of the latest debate between its five brains, with annotations and second thoughts by each of the brains in turn. Anything a Drawmiikh does is by consensus.” She thought a moment further. “But its lordship never decided the schedule. It always let me choose the itinerary.”

  “Silverside Station was your idea, my lady?”

  “Of course, your grace. I didn’t want to miss the opening of such an exclusive resort, not when I had the means to attend.”

  “So its lordship didn’t come here on purpose to trade for ‘he Eltdown Shard?”

  “No. I didn’t even realize it knew about the Shard.”

  “There was a history of the Shard on the station vid. Did its lordship by any chance catch sight of it?”

  Lady Dosvidern froze. “Yes. It did. I was watching it off the station feed while waiting for the Viscount Cheng to dock. We were sharing quarters at the time and . “ She frowned. “I remember its lordship was very restless I assumed it just wanted to leave the ship.”

  “So that was when its lordship conceived the notion that the Eltdown Shard was the foundation of reality.”

  Lady Dosvidern’s ears flickered. “Is that what it did? I didn’t understand that part.”

  “That’s what it seemed to imply. That the Shard was Perfected Creation, that the alternative to its possession was the pointlessness of existence and planetary… was discontinuation the word, my lady?”

  “Good grief.” Private relief rose in Lady Dosvidern. She and Zoot hadn’t anything to do with this after all.

  “Lord Qlp came here on a search for meaning, and apparently it found what it was looking for. Unfortunately someone stole the Perfected Creation, and now it’s upset.” Roberta considered this notion for a moment. “For which I can’t blame its lordship, I suppose. If someone stole my species’ meaning, I daresay I’d be annoyed.”

  “Yes.” Abstractedly.

  “My lady, if I may make a suggestion, perhaps you should speak to Lord Qlp again and assure it that meaning shall be restored within a few minutes if we’re lucky, and at the very latest a few minutes after midnight.”

  “It’s hard to talk to when it’s in crosstalk.”

  “Perhaps you should try, my lady.”

  Lady Dosvidern’s diaphragm throbbed. “Yes,” she said “I suppose you’re right. Thank you for the suggestion, your race.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  In case Lord Qlp attempted something drastic, Lady Dosvidern had left ajar the door between Lord Qlp’s room and the front room of the suite. She stepped to the door and saw, through the crack, that the vidset was on, set to a schematic of Silverside Station’s power system. Curious, Lady Dosvidern thought, but at least its lordship is at home.

  But its lordship wasn’t. When she pushed open the door, she saw that the door between the private room and the hallway was ajar, and that Lord Qlp was gone.

  ———

  “Miss Runciter, is it?”

  “Yes.” Lighting a Silvertip, looking at him with one eyebrow raised. “Who’re you?”

  “My name’s Dolfuss. I’d just like to say that I’ve seen you on vid often, and I admire your sense of style. All that leather, now—that’s the way I think a woman of your type should dress.” He gave a booming laugh. “You’re my favorite, next to Nichole. I can see why Geoff Fu George keeps you around.”

  Vanessa smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Dolfuss.” To Dol-fuss’s surprise, she put her arm through his. “Would you join me for Maijstral’s program? I have some seats reserved, right up close.”

  Astonished laughter boomed out. “If my friends could see me now! They’d be jealous as anything.”

  “Your friends have taste, I see. Like yourself. Good afternoon, Mr. Kuusinen.”

  “Your servant, madam. Mr. Dolfuss.”

  “I saw that orange number you wore last night,” Dolfuss said. “Made you look like a big pismire bird. You ever seen one of those?”

  “I’m afraid not. You’ll have to tell me all about it.”

  “I think the woodwinds were a little off just now, don’t you?”

  “Not now, dear. Maijstral’s started.”

  “They just didn’t sound as full as they did yesterday.”

  Paavo Kuusinen listened to his neighbors’ conversation with only a fragment of his attention. He was concentrating on working out how Drake Maijstral did the Disappearing Bartender. Here the bartender was, plainly the Khosalikh on duty and not a plant, tugged from behind the bar and asked to mix a road agent while standing inside a roomy felt-covered box. To the sound of the shaking mixer, the box was closed, knocked to pieces with hammers wielded by Roman and Gregor, reassembled twenty feet away, and opened. To enthusiastic foot-tapping applause, the bartender appeared and a road agent was poured from the mixer into a glass held by Drake Maijstral. Maijstral smiled, tossed off the drink, and pronounced it excellent. The bartender was sent back to his duty.

  Kuusinen frowned. How the hell was it done? The White Room had no stage, therefore no trapdoors. The box had been literally taken apart. The sound of the shaker had continued throughout.

  Damnation. Kuusinen had been up all night working on one puzzle, and now here was another, come to torment him.

  The shaker was the key. There had to be a reason why the sound had continued. But what was it?

  But now another illusion commenced. Kuusinen soon figured out how it was done—that wasn’t Maijstral’s hand holding up the screen by its corner; that hand was a clever fake, complete with trademark diamond ring. Maijstral’s real hand was elsewhere, manipulating things. And when Roman walked onstage to give Maijstral a prop that could have been on Maijstral’s table all along, Kuusinen realized Roman had passed Maijstral something he had concealed beneath his coat.

  Having lost interest for the present, Kuusinen glanced the audience. Why, he wondered, had Vanessa Run-citer claimed that insufferable oaf Dolfuss? Normally she ate such people for breakfast. Doubtless, Kuusinen consid-ered this was part of a scheme. Kuusinen craned his neck, looked for Geoff Fu George or his assistants, and failed to see any of them. It seemed likely that Dolfuss was getting his room ransacked right now, with Miss Runciter on hand to alert the thieves should Dolfuss tire of the magic act and decide to stroll back to his suite.

  Pleased with his feat of deduction, Kuusinen turned back to the program.

  One of Kyoko Asperson’s media globes hovered closer, taking a first-row seat for the climax of the illusion. Kuusinen looked approvingly at the arrangement of media globes—in order that the tricks wouldn’t be given away unfairly, the globes had been arranged with careful regard for Maijstral’s sight lines.

  The trick, the one Kuusinen had figured out, was building to a satisfactory conclusion. Kuusinen, because he couldn’t help himself, started counting the media globes again, and received a mild surprise.

  ———

  Khamiss, her feet up, watched the magic show on station vid, broadcast live by Kyoko Asperson’s globes. Not having noticed the phony hand, she wriggled her toes in silent, delighted applause at the production of the live clacklo, wondering how it was done.

  Her phone rang. Feeling too lazy to reach the service Plate, she told the room to record the performance and put foe caller on vid.

  Appearing on her vid unit was an elderly Tanquer Khamiss recognized as a female who worked at the front desk. The Tanquer’s eyes bulged and her whiskers trembled: she looked on the verge of hysteria.

  Tanquers, Khamiss knew, suffered from an unfortunate fact of evolution. In their early history they were prey to a large carnivore that would stalk and kill anything that moved but which would leave a motionless victim alone. Tanquers in a crisis, were therefore subject to a Darwinian tendency to wring their hands, dither, and become
subject to the vapors. As compensation they were masters of orderly procedure; but they tended to unravel in an emergency.

  “You’re with security, aren’t you? I need your help!”

  Khamiss smiled: she was off-duty. “Call security central,” she said. “I can’t—”

  “I’ve tried!” Desperately. “I’ve been trying to reach Mr. Sun, but I can’t get an answer!” The Tanquer made a strangled noise.

  “That’s strange. Perhaps someone’s interfering with communications.” Khamiss perked her ears forward. “What’s the problem, then, ma’am?”

  The Tanquer’s tall, bushy tail swished frantically behind her head. “Someone’s just stolen the hotel safe!”

  “Oh.” Khamiss sat bolt upright. “The entire safe?” she asked.

  “Ye-es!” A wail of perfect despair.

  “Continue your attempts to contact Mr. Sun. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  While she flung on her uniform, Khamiss told her phone to contact as many members of her security detail as possible. She sent some to lurk outside Fu George’s room-she assumed Maijstral, whatever his talents as a magician, hadn’t been doing a live performance and robbing the safe simultaneously—and Khamiss told others to meet her at the location of the hotel safe. Once dressed, she ran flat out for Sun’s headquarters.

  The scent of smoke and the sight of flying robots told Khamiss what had happened before she saw the headquarters door. She was forced to slow to a walk—firefighting robots crowded the hallways, and there was retardant foam on the mothwing carpets. Mr. Sun, purple of feature, lay propped against the wall, wheezing into a handkerchief as bright red smoke poured from the door that led into his blue heaven.

  Moving carefully so as not to slide on foam, Khamiss approached her boss.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  Sun waved his hand feebly. Bronchial spasms reduced him to monosyllables. “Smoke bombs. In the console. Planted.” He rallied enough to make a furious Holmesian declaration. “Game’s afoot!”

  “Someone’s stolen the entire hotel safe.”

  Mr. Sun’s purple tones darkened. His eyes popped. He clutched at his throat, unable to speak.

  “Shall I handle it, sir?” Tactfully.

  Sun gave a frantic nod. Khamiss raced away.

  ———

  “And now—” removing the ring from his hand “—the Disappearing Diamond.”

  ———

  “Your grace. Have you heard from your people?”

  “I’m afraid not, my lady. I don’t know when I’ll be able to retrieve the Shard. Have you located its lordship?”

  “Its mucous trail led to one of the central elevators, but I lost it there. It had been looking at plans for the station power plant, so I ran there, but its lordship never appeared.”

  “Grief.”

  “I don’t know what to do. Do you suppose I should alert station security?”

  “I’ve been trying that, my lady. They don’t answer.”

  ———

  Heavy beam cutters, Khamiss recognized at once. The thief had started in a storage locker, cut a hole in the wall, then cut the entire safe from its cradle. At least a dozen alarms must have been triggered, but Mr. Sun’s headquarters had been filled with smoke and the alarms had been ignored. She picked up a telephone.

  “Contact Mr. Kingston,” she said. “Tell him to search Geoff Fu George’s room at once.”

  ———

  The diamond ring, placed in an envelope sealed with red wax, rose slowly in the air, swooping upward in slow, graceful arcs in response to gentle waves of Maijstral’s hand. The envelope, flaring redly in the light of Rathbon’s Star, rose higher, higher, hovering at last in front of the giant impact diamond.

  There was a startling bang, a gush of red smoke, and bits of the envelope fell in slow charred droplets toward the floor. There were shouts from Maijstral’s audience as they began to realize it wasn’t just the diamond ring that had disappeared.

  Overtaken by sensation at the vanished giant diamond, few of the audience observed the ring that glittered on Maijstral’s finger as he took his bow. Overshadowed by the large effect, Maijstral thought, the reappearance of the smaller diamond proved somewhat anticlimactic. He wouldn’t use it as a finale again.

  ———

  Kuusinen realized, as he stood and tapped his foot in the applause-pattern for “joyous surprise,” why the woodwinds’ sound had been off. The resonance provided by the diamond was missing, which meant of course the diamond had been missing for quite some time, and replaced by an illusion. Maijstral hadn’t stolen it just now: it had been gone at least since morning.

  Pleased with his acuity, Kuusinen turned from the performance to see Roberta’s butler Kovinn walk into the room and do a perfect double take at the sight of Maijstral speaking to a gathering of his admirers. Kovinn fairly leaped for one of the telephones and slammed down an opaque privacy screen.

  Kuusinen’s nerves began to tingle. His walking stick tapping the floor, he moved so as to place himself between Kovinn and Maijstral. Another mystery, he thought resignedly, was clearly at hand. And here he’d planned to have luncheon undisturbed.

  Khamiss appropriated the station’s central switchboard as a poor substitute for Sun’s console, but her hunt hadn’t got very far. The hulk of the safe had been found in a service elevator, neatly peeled, all its contents gone. Fu George’s room had been searched, but nothing had been found, and neither Fu George nor his assistants had been seen.

  What now? Khamiss, marshalling her watsons, was beginning to appreciate what Sun had been going through the last few days. The desk Tanquer’s whiskers were becoming sadly disordered as a result of the unexpected interruption in her routine, and her tail, following its evolutionary imperative, kept wrapping itself around her neck and tightening. Khamiss was beginning to be irritated by the constant sounds of strangulation.

  “Don’t you have a guest to take care of?” she asked.

  More choking noises. “No. I’m just here in case someone needs to send a message offstation. What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  The Tanquer pointed to a light that had just started blinking. “That. An incoming radio transmission from somewhere in the system. We’re not expecting any ships for three more days.”

  “Let’s listen.”

  Khamiss turned on the audio. Incomprehensible bellowing filled the air.

  ———

  “Yes, your grace. Maijstral was in public all this time.”

  “You mean all any of us had to do was look at the station bulletin board and see that his performance was listed all along?”

  “I’m afraid so, your grace.”

  “Hold him there. I’m on my way.”

  “My rover.”

  ———

  “Lady Janetha.” Maijstral took her hand and sniffed her ears, observing to his satisfaction that she wore the emerald earrings he’d saved from Fu George the previous night. “I hope you slept well.”

  “I found the ball and its aftermath so stimulating that I collapsed straightaway into the land of dreams. Yourself?”

  “I slept very well. In fact I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

  “Poor rover, creating a sensation on an empty stomach.”

  “I thought to try Lebaron’s. Would you join me?”

  “Gladly.” She took his arm. “Though breakfasting à deux in your rooms might prove an interesting alternative.”

  “Unfortunately the local watsons are due to sack my suite at any moment. I’m afraid intimate meals might be fraught with inconvenience.”

  Her ears flickered in disappointment. “Lebaron’s, then.”

  “Perhaps we can arrange a dinner later. After the security people have found someone else to harass.”

  “I hope so, Maijstral.” She brightened. “I’ve just heard the most interesting news about Pearl Woman. Perhaps you had something to do with it.”

  ———

&
nbsp; Vanessa Runciter finished her polite applause and reached for a cigaret. Dolfuss looked at her. “I thought I’d take a look at the Casino,” he said. “I haven’t been there yet. Would you like to join me?”

  Vanessa smiled smoothly. “Of course, Mr. Dolfuss. I was heading there myself.”

  Alarms clanged vaguely in Dolfuss’s nerves. Why was Vanessa Runciter being so friendly?

  “Great!” he said. “I’m happy as anything.”

  She lit the Silvertip in its ebony holder. “You do play tiles, don’t you?” It might be fun, she realized, to pauperize this geek in retaliation for having to sit next to him through Maijstral’s performance.

  Dolfuss frowned. “Tiles? I’m afraid not.”

  “Or pasters?”

  Dolfuss shrugged hopelessly. “Sorry. I play cheeseup from time to time, but I always lose.”

  Vanessa brightened. She put her arm through Dolfuss’s. “Cheeseup, then. We’ll have a jolly time.”

  “I’m not certain I can afford the stakes.”

  Vanessa looked at him in mock-indignation. “Mr. Dolfuss, I’m surprised! I thought everyone could afford a nova a point.”

  “A nova a point?” Dolfuss strove to master his shock. “Well, I suppose…”

  “Settled then,” Vanessa said, and smiled.

  Ah, Dolfuss thought, and cancelled his internal alarm. She just wanted to fleece him. Reason enough to be friendly.

  Bellowing still echoed from the receiver. The Tanquer’s fingers danced over her keyboard. “Wait a minute. That signal’s coming from the Viscount Cheng.”

  “I thought she was waiting in the dock.”

  “She is. I think.”

  “Then why doesn’t whoever’s making that awful noise use the telephone? Cheng’s got communication through the station coupling.”

  “Oh, no.” The Tanquer’s tail began to make self-throttling gestures again.

  “Stop strangling yourself,” Khamiss said edgily, her patience frayed entirely, “and tell me what just happened.”

  The voice was a burbling whisper. “Viscount Cheng. It isn’t in dock.”

  Khamiss looked at the Tanquer in shock. “You mean someone’s just stolen a passenger liner?”

  The Tanquer’s eyes were bulging with self-inflicted oxygen deprivation. Still she managed to give an affirmative blink.