Not that Aikman needed much prodding. "We have a fair number of emigres from Bridgeway," he countered harshly. "They haven't forgotten what darMaupine nearly did there. Neither have the rest of us."
"That was over twenty years ago," Randon pointed out coolly. "Mr. Benedar was all of eleven years old when darMaupine's experiment in theocracy was brought down."
"I'm not responsible for his age," Aikman said, the first hint of caution beginning to break through the anger as he abruptly seemed to remember who this young man was he was arguing with. "I'm also not responsible for the concept of guilt by association. I merely state the relevant facts."
"Then I take it you've not forgotten the most relevant of those facts, Mr. Aikman," Randon shot back. "I'm in charge of this man... and the Carillon Group is in charge of HTI. Which means I make the decisions on this trip."
Behind his lips, Aikman clenched his teeth, and for a second some of his hatred for me shifted to Randon...
"Excuse me, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos," I spoke up, before Aikman could find a response he might later regret. "If you wouldn't mind too much, I'd rather stay here this evening. I'd appreciate the opportunity to get a good night's sleep in real gravity."
Randon turned to eye me, the sense of him one of approval. He'd made his point—had boldfaced his authority for the others—and now was perfectly ready for me to make my excuses and back out. "Yes, I remember you never slept very well aboard ship," he commented. "All right, then, you're excused." He shifted his attention back to Aikman and DeMont, who were looking as if we'd just pulled the rug out from under them. As we had, of course, just done... and even though I knew I shouldn't, I couldn't help enjoying their discomfiture just a little bit. "My apologies, gentlemen," Randon continued briskly, "but it appears it'll just be you two and me after all. Well, then. Give me a few minutes to change into something more appropriate and I'll be back. Oh, and I will take those records, I guess—my financial expert may find himself bored tonight."
Tight-lipped, Aikman reached down and pulled a cyl from the computer. His hand was shaking noticeably with emotion as he did so. "We'll see you in a few minutes, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos," he said, his voice fighting hard to remain civil as he handed the cyl over.
Randon nodded and we left. In the elevator, several floors from the lobby level, he finally turned to me. "Quite a show, Benedar, eh?" he said with a smile.
I swallowed. "Indeed, sir. I really don't think it was a good idea to bait them the way you did, though."
He dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. "The fastest way to get through a corporate mask is to give the person wearing it a good, hard push," he told me off-handedly. "I'm sorry if you felt offended in there, but you have to admit you're a very convenient lever to push with."
A tool with useful properties. "I'm also reasonably capable of reading people without the need to push them," I reminded him, annoyed despite myself. "The whole purpose of me being here—"
"Is to use your wonderful powers of observation to spot things that I miss," Randon cut me off with a patient sigh. "Yes, I know. I've heard my father go on and on about your vaunted Watcher mind-reading tricks."
"It's not mind-reading—"
"So then let's have it, eh? What did you see down there that I missed?"
I clenched my teeth. "They don't like you," I told him. "They aren't sure yet whether you're a clever manipulator or a pompous fool, but they're prepared to dislike you either way."
"That one's pretty obvious," Randon snorted. "Also obvious is that Aikman, especially, dislikes you even more than he dislikes me. I was thinking more along the lines of something a bit more subtle. Are these really the full records for the Whitecliff shipping route, for instance?" He waved the cyl.
I thought back over the conversation, over the shifting senses of the two men during it. "There was no lie in either of them," I told Randon. "Whatever you have there, it was given in good faith."
"I'm sure it was," he shrugged. "Also self-evident, I'll point out. Falsifying records isn't a job given to middle-levelers like those two. Not if the corporation's smart, anyway."
"How do you know they're middle-levelers?"
"You don't think HTI would waste any of their high-level people running back and forth playing zombi escort, do you?" he snorted. "Come on, Benedar—that's simple logic."
My stomach tightened. Zombi. Dehumanizing with a label. "Yes, sir."
He gave me a hard look. "You're not going to go all queasy on me when we reach the Cloud, are you?"
"I'll be all right by the time we reach Solitaire," I assured him.
I hadn't exactly answered his question. He noticed, but let it pass. "I hope so," he said instead. "If HTI's going to try and obstruct us, it'll be the people running the Solitaire office who'll be behind it. I'll want you running at full power by the time we face them."
I gave a neutral nod, hearing the anticipation in his voice. He grew into a young lion; he learned to tear his prey; he became a man-eater. The nations came to hear of him; he was caught in their pit; they dragged him away with hooks to Egypt... "Yes, sir," I murmured. "I'll be ready by then."
—
I learned the next morning that Randon's baiting of Aikman and DeMont hadn't ended with my departure, but had merely changed its form. From the bleary eyes of the two shields he'd taken along I gathered that they'd returned to the hotel considerably after local midnight; from the fact that Aikman and DeMont dragged their way to the Bellwether nearly an hour after we'd arrived I gathered that Randon had employed one of his father's old gambits. Lord Kelsey-Ramos had been notorious in his youth for the technique of celebrating his opponents into a frazzled mess, and it was clear that Randon had inherited both the stamina and vodkya tolerance required to play such a game.
A dangerous and rather childish game, to my way of thinking... and yet, in retrospect I can't help wondering if perhaps there was more behind it than Randon's grim determination to be in control. Because if Aikman and DeMont hadn't been late—if I hadn't already been in my stateroom preparing for departure when they arrived—I almost certainly would have been right there at the gatelock when they and the spaceport authorities arrived.
They, the authorities... and the two human sacrifices they delivered to the ship. Our two zombis.
Chapter 3
It was the middle of ship's afternoon two days later, and I was playing singleton chess in a corner of the crew lounge, when we reached the Cloud.
Without warning, oddly enough, though the effect sphere's edge was supposed to be both stationary and well established. But reach it without warning we did. From the rear of the Bellwether came the faint thunggk of massive circuit breakers firing as the Mjollnir drive spontaneously kicked out, followed an instant later by a round of curses from the others in the lounge as the ultra-high-frequency electric current in the deck lost its Mjollnir-space identity of a pseudograv generator and crewers and drinks went scattering every which way.
And then, abruptly, there was silence. A dark silence, as suddenly everyone seemed to remember what was about to happen.
A rook was drifting in front of my eyes, spiraling slowly about its long axis. Carefully, I reached out and plucked it from the air, feeling a sudden chill in my heart. We were at the edge of the Cloud, ten lightyears out from Solitaire... and in a few minutes, up on the bridge, someone was going to die.