Brewster called Sig over to him. “Where are those two good-for-nothing brothers of yours?”
“They don’t feel like eating tonight, sir.”
Brewster didn’t seem surprised. He nodded as though he had expected that answer, glared down at his newly washed boots, and said, “Very well. Go and tell Hagen and Alberich that they can be excused from dinner, but only if they come here now. They must take part in a celebratory toast to the success of our efforts at the Avernus Fissure.”
His last words were almost drowned by a crash of falling pans at the other end of the room.
“Sorry, sir.” It was Winnie Carlson, rising flustered from beside the autochef. “They were empty, I knocked them over by accident. But everything is ready. Would you do me the honor of taking the first bite?”
Brewster was clearly more interested in making sure that Sig returned with his brothers. He was glancing frequently at the door, and at the same time lining up half-filled glasses in preparation for the toast. He frowned at Winnie as she approached carrying a small tray.
“First, the blini and caviar by itself, sir, to establish the flavor.” She stood in front of him and held out the tray. “Then, we add the sour cream.”
Brewster gave a curt nod. He sat down and helped himself to a small, flat blini pancake about the size of a half-dollar. The caviar formed a small, dark heap at the center. He nibbled the edge, just enough to sample the caviar, and his eyebrows rose.
“Why, this is excellent.” He put the rest of the blini into his mouth and chewed vigorously.
“I told you that it would be, sir. The blinis just melt in your mouth. And you’ll find they’re even better once I add the rest.” Winnie took a spoon and dropped a great dollop of smooth yellow cream on top of another blini and caviar. She lifted the whole thing onto the spoon and held it out. “Here you are, sir. Open wide.”
Brewster didn’t need urging. He put his head back and allowed Winnie to slide the pancake off the spoon and into his open mouth. He started to chew with a look of total bliss on his face.
The enjoyment lasted until the mouthful was completely swallowed. And then, slowly, his expression changed.
First the dark eyes began to fill with tears. Brewster’s face darkened and his mouth opened. He put his hands to his throat and made a horrible gargling sound.
“He’s choking!” Sapphire cried. “Give him something to drink.”
Amethyst reached out to put one of the glasses readied for the toast to Brewster’s mouth. He knocked it away and rose to his feet, watering eyes bulging out of his head. He turned on Winnie Carlson.
“Aah-ll-hh… Aah-ll-hh.” He panted like a dog, and tried again. “The cream. Aah-ll-hh—”
He advanced on Winnie Carlson, towering over her. She stood her ground and looked up at him. “Mr. Brewster, I’ll put up with most things. But if there is one thing I won’t stand, it’s somebody criticizing my blinis with caviar and sour cream. I expect an apology from you, right now.”
“A-a-apology!” He was drooling so much he could hardly speak, and at the same time panting desperately. His face had turned fiery red. “Aah-hhh, aah, you—”
“An apology,” Winnie said firmly. “But since you clearly refuse to give one…”
She put down the tray, lifted the bowl of yellow cream, and pushed it into Brewster’s face.
He gave a great roar of rage, and rushed at Winnie. He was on her before anyone else had time to move.
One twist from those great hands would be enough to break her neck. But at the last moment Winnie somehow swayed her head and upper body to the left, just a few inches, while her hips remained in the same position. As Brewster’s momentum carried him up to her, she gripped him by the left arm and the right side of his shirt. She seemed to fall backward and he followed. But instead of landing smack on top of her he left the ground completely, turning in midair to fall headfirst onto the hard dining-room floor.
He was still conscious and cursing loudly, but before he could move again Winnie was on her feet and crouched behind him. Her fingers grabbed his thick neck and probed. For a few seconds he continued to try to stand up. He managed to reach his hands and knees, still straining upward, then toppled forward again onto his face. This time he did not move.
Winnie didn’t give him another glance—not even to confirm that he was unconscious. She looked at the startled trainees and spoke in a commanding voice nothing like her own: “Don’t drink from those glasses! Not one drop. Don’t even touch them.”
She jumped to her feet to make sure everyone was obeying. As she did so, Sig Lasker entered the dining room with his two brothers.
“Shit on skates.” Sig’s mouth opened as wide as Sol Brewster’s. “What’s the hell’s going on here?”
“No need for cussing,” Winnie said curtly. “Or if there is, I’m the one should be doing it. Lock that door behind you.” She was moving around the room, gathering each glass and making sure that it had not been drunk from. “I’m pretty sure the excitement’s over for the moment. I have one or two more things to do, then we can all relax. Don’t touch that, either!” Amethyst had been reaching out an experimental fingertip to the fallen bowl of sour cream. “It won’t kill you—not like the toast—but it will make your mouth and skin burn for days. I used the hottest spices in the known universe. Sol Brewster isn’t going to enjoy the feeling when he wakes up, but I guess soreness will be the least of his worries.”
“Kill us?” Sapphire had latched onto that one word. “Are you saying that if we’d drunk his toast, we would have died?”
“I’m saying exactly that. Of course, I’ll have to test it and make sure. But I believe that Brewster was planning to poison the lot of us tonight. He had found what he wanted, and we were no more use to him.”
“But what did he want?” Josh asked, as Sig, Rick, and Hag gathered round the fallen Brewster. Hag said in awed tones, “Did you all gang up on him?”
“No.” Sapphire pointed at Winnie Carlson. “She did it—all by herself.” Then Saph asked the question everybody wanted to ask: “What’s going on around here?”
“Too many things.” Winnie bent over to take another look at Sol Brewster, and apparently didn’t like what she saw. “Give me a minute to take care of this. Then I’ll explain all I know.”
“Are you going to make him wake up?” Amethyst asked.
“Definitely not.” Winnie was over at the cabinet containing medical supplies. “I’m going to make sure that he doesn’t.”
She applied an injection spray to the side of Brewster’s neck, raised one of his eyelids, and checked his pulse. “Good enough. He’ll be out for the rest of the night.”
She gestured to them all to sit down. “You want to know what’s going on here? That’s a fair question. I’ll tell you, but I’m not sure where to begin. I realized what was going on bit by bit, but it’s too confusing if I tell it that way. There are an awful lot of pieces. Let me start the way I started, with questions, things that worried me and maybe you, too. Number one: Where are the other people, the forty-odd who ought to have been on Solferino when you arrived? I gather you never saw any of them.”
“They’re at the medical center,” Rick said.
“I heard that, too. But did you notice, Brewster hardly mentioned it after I arrived? I thought that was significant. Question number two: Why did Sol Brewster drop everything, without warning, and take us all to the camp in the Barbican Hills, almost as soon as we had arrived on the planet? And the second part of that question, why did he then leave us there, and fly back to the compound and the main site of the settlement?”