But Desoix had some personal priorities as well, and . . . .
There was traffic up and down the central staircase—servants and minor functionaries, but not as many of them as usual. They had an air of nervousness rather than their normal haughty superiority.
When the door of the small meeting room near the elevator moved, Desoix saw Anne McGill through the opening.
Desoix strode toward her, smiling outwardly and more relieved than he could admit within. He wasn't the type who could ever admit being afraid that a woman wouldn't want to see him again—or that he cared enough about her that it would matter.
The panel, dark wood placed between heavy engaged columns of pink and gray marble, closed again when he moved toward it. She'd kept it ajar, watching for his arrival, and had flashed a sight of herself to signal Desoix closer.
But Lady Anne McGill, companion and confidante of the President's wife, had no wish to advertise her presence here in the rotunda.
Desoix tapped on the door. He heard the lock click before the panel opened, hiding Anne behind it from anyone outside. Maybe her ambivalence was part of the attraction, he thought as he stepped into a conference room. There was a small, massively built table, chairs for six, and space for that many more people to stand if they knew one another well.
All the room held at the moment was the odor of heavy tobaccos,so omni present on Bamberia that Desoix noticed it only because he'd been off-planet for two weeks . . . and Anne McGill in layers of silk chiffon which covered her like mist, hiding everything while everything remained suggested.
Desoix put his arms around her.
"Charles, it's very dangerous," she said, turning so that his lips met her cheek.
He nuzzled her ear and, when she caught his right hand, he reached for her breast with his left.
"Ah . . ." he said as a different level of risk occurred to him. "Your husband's still stationed on Two, isn't he?"
"Of course," Anne muttered scornfully.
She was no longer fighting off his hands, but she was relaxing only slightly and that at a subconscious level."You don't think Bertrand would be here when things are like this, do you? There's a Consistory Meeting every morning now, but things are getting worse. Anyone can see that. Eunice says that they're all cowards, all the men, even her husband."
She let her lips meet his. Her body gave a shudder and she gripped Desoix to her as fiercely as her tension a moment before had attempted to repel him."You should be upstairs now,"she whispered as she turned her head again."They need you and your major, he's very upset."
"My call unit would have told me that if I'd asked it," the UDB officer said as he shifted the grip of his hands. Anne was a big woman, large boned and with a tendency toward fat that she repressed fiercely with exercise and various diets. She wore nothing beneath the bottom layer of chiffon except the smooth skin which Desoix caressed. His hand ran up her thigh to squeeze the fat of her buttock against the firm muscle beneath.
"Then don't be long . . ." Anne whispered as she reached for the fly of his trousers.
Desoix didn't know quite what she meant by that.
But he knew that it didn't matter as he backed his mistress against the table, lifting the chiffon dress to spill over the wood where there would be no risk of staining the fabric.
Chapter Seven
"Captain Tyl Koopman,representing Hammer's Regiment,"boomed the greeter, holding the door of the Consistory Room ajar—and blocking Tyl away from it with her body, though without appearing to do so.
"Enter," said someone laconically from within. The greeter swept the panel open with a flourish, bowing to Tyl.
Machines could have done all the same things, Tyl thought with amusement; but they wouldn't have been able to do them with such pomp. Even so, the greeter, a plump woman in an orange and silver gown, was only a hint of the peacock-bright gathering within the Consistory Room.
There were twenty or thirty people, mostly men, within the domed room above the rotunda. Natural lighting through the circumference of arched windows made the Slammers officer blink. It differed in quality (if not necessarily intensity) from the glowstrips in the corridors through which he had been guided to reach the room.
The only men whose garments did not glitter with metallic threads were those whose clothing glowed with internal lambency from powerpacks woven into the seams. President John Delcorio, in black velvet over which a sheen trembled from silver to ultraviolet, was the most striking of the lot.
"Good to see you at last,Captain,"Delcorio boomed as if inassurance that Tyl would recognize him—as he did from the holograms set in niches in the hallways of the Palace of Government."Maybe your veterans can put some backbone into our own forces, don't you think? So that we can all get down to the real business of cleansing Two for Christ."
He glowered at a middle-aged man whose uniform was probably that of a serving officer, because its dark green was so much less brilliant than what anyone else in the room seemed to be wearing.
John Delcorio was shorter than Tyl had assumed, but he had the chest and physical presence of a big man indeed. His hair, moustache, and short beard were black with gray speckles that were probably works of art: the President was only thirty-two standard years old. He had parlayed his position as Head of Security into the presidency when the previous incumbent, his uncle, died three years before.
Delcorio's eyes sparkled, and the flush on his cheeks was as much ruddy good health as a vestige of his present anger. Tyl could understand how a man with eyes that sharp could cut his way to leadership of a wealthy planet.
But he could also see how such a man's pushing would bring others to push back, push hard . . . .
Maybe too hard.
"Sir," Tyl replied, wondering what you were supposed to call the President of Bamberia when you met him. "I haven't been fully briefed yet on the situation. But Hammer's Slammers carry out their contracts."
He hoped that was neutral enough; and he hoped to the Lord that Delcorio would let him drop into the background now.
"Yes, well," said Delcorio. The quick spin of his hand was more or less the dismissal Tyl had hoped for."Introduce Major Koopman to the others, Thomas. Have something to drink—" There was a well-stocked sideboard beneath one of the windows, and most of those present had glasses in their hands. "We're waiting for Bishop Trimer, you see."
"How long are you going to wait before you send for him, John?" asked the woman in the red dress that shimmered like a gasoline flame. She wasn't any taller than the President; but like him, she flashed with authority as eye-catching as her clothes. "You are the President, you know."
It struck Tyl that Delcorio and this woman who could only be his wife wore the colors of the Easter factions he had seen at daggers-drawn in the plaza. That made as little sense as anything else in Bamberg City.
"Major, then, is it?"murmured a slender fellow at Tyl's elbow, younger than the mercenary had been when he joined the Slammers. "I'm Thom Chastain,don't you see, and this is my brother Richie. What would you like to drink?"