It was a delicate situation. Scogil could not, of course, order him around. If it came to a clash of wills, Eron could simply stop communicating and permit his growing mind to overwrite Scogil’s. But the daughter was a different matter. Scogil’s fam carried illegal built-in devices which no one but a three-year-old (or a trusting husband) would accept. Eron was slaved to Petunia as much as if he were one of Cloun-the-Stubbom’s puppets.
Diplomacy was in order.
He had no way of knowing which course of action was best in terms of the greater politics. Neither did Scogil. Ironically the next step in this galactic saga would be determined entirely by trivial personal desires. Scogil was motivated by a need to protect his daughter. Eron was still fascinated by an encounter with the Frightfulperson who had saved his life’s work—and he fully intended to make contact with her again.
Osa prudently investigated the Orelians of which he had no knowledge. Old when Imperialis was an unexplored border system, Orelia was ancient, its denizens of three airless worlds necessarily master builders of sprawling airtight cities. The latter-day Orelians of Splendid Wisdom weren’t really Orelians anymore; they were the descendants of an imported construction crew who had stayed on after the great rebuilding—nostalgic in their lingering memory of a distant home’s wild carnival. They were harmlessly apolitical and glad to let moneyed fun-loving non-Orelians join their masked revelry. The Regulation must be using them as a cover.
By very subtly biasing Scogil’s conversations with Petunia he built up her confidence and simultaneously left her slightly antagonized by her father’s lack of faith in her ability to handle danger. She was an apprentice agent of the Oversee and had done very well on her own under fire and had saved her daddy’s ghoul, thank you. This was the adventure of her life. And so, much to Eron’s relief, this capricious daughter took sides against her father. Nevertheless for diplomacy’s sake, Eron humored every one of his ghoul’s exaggerated fears.
He sent Petunia on a sleepover trip to pick up supplies from an arms cache known to her daddy—illegal weapons that didn’t trigger a police report when activated, very illegal slap-on explosives, plus some antique personal force-shields of a pirated Faraway design and other doodads. She also acquired an edition of the zenoli manuals for burst loading. Eron chose from them the martial utilities he thought he might need, but only the ones his organic mind had once practiced with diligence.
Eron was eager to spread the message of his thesis, subver-sively if that was the only vehicle of expression that the Fellowship would allow. He was still angry at Jars. He and Petunia made the trip ten watches early and settled in at a local faceless hotel. That gave Eron enough time to case the locale, even die layout of the Orelians’ hall in the guise of a potential renter, and to appease Scogil by attending to all possible precautions.
At the hour of the ball, Petunia was stationed at a safe distance, by Scogil’s insistence, her duty to monitor the movements of the Helmarian fam. If tilings went awry, she had her instructions and a ticket off planet arranged by one of Scogil’s fake identities. She was enjoying her role.
Brazenly Eron arrived by pod at the front entrance, his illegal kick and explosives well hidden in his costume. Inside, the pillared hall of many chambers and stairwells was done in gold leaf and inlay. The disguises were everywhere. He found himself eagerly looking for that blue scaled mask with crocodile teeth and plumes—the unnamed Fright-fulperson he couldn’t resist even though she might place his life in danger.
But first, in a nondescript mask of his own design, cognizant of his ghoul’s stem warnings, he checked out the exits of three stories of the hall, forty in all, for possible newly installed obstructions. This was not a place meant to be easily guarded. That was good. The exits led from stairways or gardens, from an administrative corridor or a servant’s chute or a supply tunnel. He left unobtrusive shaped charges primed to open locked exits and hid sensors that had been his favorite tool of surprise during the wild zenoli military games at Asinia. He programmed his fam to optimize a retreat under any circumstance—Scogil being too slow and blind to be trusted with such an enterprise. A pod, illegally brainwashed by Petunia, sat waiting at a siding in charter mode.
These precautions made him wonder at his daring, but Eron Osa was aware that vanity disparaged danger. He was vain. He was proud. Here were men interested in his psychohistorical research after years of working alone! He had become ebulliently enthusiastic for his old cause. Pleasing a luminary like Jars Hanis was no longer a priority. Scogil’s dire warnings did not dampen his zeal. He wriggled his nose at common sense.
And love! At the bottom of a flared stairwell he spotted the crocodile teeth of his Frightfulperson in her simple gown. He turned immediately into an elegant comfort room to change into his black-furred, trihomed, red-eyed mask. Perhaps this time, with fam utilities to assist him, he wouldn’t make such a damn fool of himself in her delightful presence!
Before he could descend the stairs, two gentle fingers and a thumb grasped his wrist. They belonged to a coiffured man of elaborate costume and ebony mechanical mask able to mock all human expressions grotesquely. “Ah, our esteemed speaker for the evening,” said a voice from out of a rhapsodic smile. “You mimic well the Orelian verve.”
“Have we been introduced?”
“No, it is in the nature of my associates to remain invisible, but my elegance betrays me as a Hyperlord. You may address me thus.”
“I was to contact—”
“No, I am your contact.” The gentle pull of his three-pointed grip steered Eron away from the stairs toward the banquet tables. “I have a special interest in your presence. The impetuous mermaid of the Calmer Sea can keep her salty juice in check. You are here by my invitation. But first, the food.”
The tables were covered with exquisite bowls of delicacies, both imported and manufactured, steaming pots with lids and ladles, breads, flowering vines for decoration. A man beside Eron, defaced by a huge papier-mache nose, poured himself soup. They took their food to a dim raised alcove with a convenient teapoy that supplied hot drinks and a stand for their plates.
While Eron kept an eye cocked for his Frightfiilperson, the Hyperlord ate with restrained gusto. “You’re—shall I say the word—a psychohistorian? A rebel on the run?” These were rhetorical questions because the Lord at once produced from his purse a jade ovoid with the five-fingered key pattern that Petunia favored. “This is a bauble I was sold—quite expensive. It casts stars and astrological charts and other such arcane drivel. I was told confidentially that it contains a complete working model of the Founder’s Prime Radiant. But my peddler disappeared with my credits before giving me the codes. Perhaps you have the codes? Or,” he added wryly, “perhaps you can tell me if I am a naive collector of psy-chohistorical memorabilia who has been grievously duped?”
Eron took the ovoid in his left hand and let his mind spell out a rapid message to his blind companion. While he meditated upon the jade, he received his reply. You are talking to Hyperlord Kikaju Jama, He is a danger to you. Leave this place immediately, I was only able to work with one of his motley collection of mathists before the fracas with you interfered, He may be here. Cingal Svene. Avoid him. I was due to meet with Jama the same day the police took to my trail I’m sure the police made the connection. I repeat, assume that Jama is under police surveillance.