Publius grunted. He moved across the rug-covered floor of his public room, and took glasses and a decanter from a cabinet. He poured, offered a snifter of pale lilac liquor to Ruiz. “Well, at least you can drink with me without fear of poisoning. Few can, eh?”
Ruiz nodded and sipped.
“I’m such a bad boy,” said Publius, sitting on a deep-cushioned sofa and gesturing Ruiz to a nearby chair. “Now: escape. Where’s your expensive little starboat? The Vigia, isn’t it? My memory is a wonder!”
“Hidden on a faraway world. I arrived on Sook a stowaway.”
“Somehow that seems appropriate,” said Publius. His eyes had lost some of their customary fey brilliance; he seemed a more ordinary man, for the moment. “And what was your mission, if it’s no great secret?”
Ruiz shrugged. “Not anymore. I was hired to sniff out a poacher on a League Hardworld.”
“And did you succeed? No, a foolish question, eh? You never fail, do you?”
“I know who the poacher is,” said Ruiz.
“You see, I was right.” Publius took a mouthful of liquor and swilled it around noisily before swallowing. “So, let us suppose you get up to the Shard platforms — you then plan to take commercial transport?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. Well, as I said, the pirate lords are hysterical, at the moment. They’ve apparently stumbled across a big secret…. They don’t know what to do about it. Some argue for destruction, others for exploitation. Does it surprise you to learn that I know the secret too?”
Ruiz shook his head.
Publius laughed his odd laugh. “Nothing about me surprises you, does it? Perhaps that’s why I don’t squash you like the insignificant bug you are; you help me to maintain a certain perspective. I’m going to exploit the secret, of course, if I can get my hands on it. Tell me, how does this sound: Emperor Publius, the Emperor of Everything?”
Ruiz hardly knew what to say. “What’s the secret?” he asked, finally.
Publius giggled. “Why, it’s a secret; didn’t you hear me?”
“Oh.”
Publius adopted a businesslike expression. “Now, I don’t say it’s impossible to leave SeaStack now, but it’s exceedingly difficult. Expensive. Dangerous. I might be able to help you — but you must perform a service for me first. No, don’t bother to wave your terrible revelation at me. I no longer care; I’ve outgrown my origins by so vast a margin that it no longer matters what they were.” Publius smiled a rapacious smile. “Such a promising omen, that you should arrive after all these years, just as I need someone exactly like you.”
Ruiz grew suddenly weak with apprehension. “What,” he croaked, “do you want me to do?”
“The simplest thing, for a slayer like you,” Publius said. “I want you to kill a man.”
In the morning, Corean took Lensh and Marmo into SeaStack’s major auction pit — the proctors refused to allow the Moc inside, so she left it outside the security lock.
Flomel was being kept in one of the small independent pens adjacent to the pit, so she went there first, satisfied the ident processor that she was Flomel’s new owner, and opened the door to Flomel’s holding cell.
The conjuror was sitting on his narrow bunk, shoulders slumped in dejection, when the door moved aside. He glanced up, saw Corean.
A range of unexpected emotions slid across his face. She had expected to see terror and abasement, instead he appeared first astonished, then delighted.
“Noble Lady!” he said in glad tones. “I knew you would come.”
Corean was a bit taken aback. Either Flomel was much cleverer than she had supposed, or he had absolutely no grasp of the situation. In either case, she was willing to play along. “Did you?”
“Oh, yes. I knew you wouldn’t abandon me. The others were corrupted by that snake oil vagrant, but not me. I know Ruiz Aw for what he is, a casteless slayer, a thief, a troublemaker. I knew my faith would be rewarded… and here you are.”
Corean smiled. She was willing to accept his cooperation, though she had intended to punish Flomel — if not for any part he might have taken in the theft of her boat, then for his simple presence when the deed occurred. But she could be flexible, she could defer his punishment. She sat beside Flomel, patted his knee. “Tell me all about it,” she said.
Corean required all her meager store of patience to listen to Flomel’s account. The conjuror’s recollections included constant references to the outrages perpetrated on his dignity. Several times Corean had to interrupt before Flomel entirely lost the thread of his narrative. He seemed unable to grasp that she was uninterested in his personal feelings, but she summoned all the forebearance she possessed, and continued to smile and nod sympathetically at appropriate points.
When Flomel told about the judging in Deepheart, her interest quickened.
“He flailed about, convulsing and drooling in a most vulgar manner,” said Flomel. “There he revealed his low origins again. Perhaps he’s dead; he was very still when they took him out, and his face was a bit blue.”
“Wait,” she said. “Try to remember — did they rush him out, or was it a leisurely process?”
Flomel frowned. “What difference would that make?”
She ran out of tolerance. She shot out a hand and gripped Flomel by the throat, squeezed with the augmented muscles of her slender fingers. He tried to speak, could only wheeze. He half raised his hands, as if to claw at her, and she clamped down a little tighter, so that his eyes bulged. “You,” she said, “are my property. You do not ask me for explanations. Do you understand?”
He nodded painfully. She eased the pressure on his throat slightly. “So, tell,” she said.
“Fast,” he gasped. “They took him out quickly.”
She released him, and stood. “Then he’s probably still alive. I think I would feel it if he died — we’re connected now, somehow. Perhaps it’s my need for satisfaction…. What else, Flomel?”
He rubbed at his throat and coughed. “There’s not much else to tell, Lady. They took me to my room, and in the morning brought me to this place. I didn’t see the others again, and you’re the first person I’ve seen here.”
She turned away from him and spoke musingly to Marmo. “I wonder… is he still in Deepheart? What did you find out about them, Marmo?”
“I spent last night hooked into the datastream, but useful information is difficult to come by. They’re a self-development corporation, chartered on Dilvermoon but entirely contained within their facility here. They espouse a cult of sexual diversity….”
“I’m not interested in their philosophy, Marmo. What I want to know is: How well defended is their facility? How difficult to infiltrate?”
Marmo was silent for a moment. “Recall what I said about useful information. But I can infer a probability: They are well defended. In the nearly two thousand standard years since the present facilities were completed, the data-stream records no successful hostile incursions into Deepheart. This is somewhat surprising, since they are reputedly a very wealthy corporation; presumably they would attract the avarice of the pirate lords.”
“Discouraging,” said Corean, thinking. She refused to accept that Ruiz had found a hiding place where she could not reach him. “But we must do what we can, eh, Marmo? Come, let’s visit a friend.”
She turned to Lensh. “Collar the mage and take him to a suitable holding pen; Diamond Bob’s has a good reputation. Then meet us back at the hotel.”
Ruiz leaned back, set his goblet carefully aside. “I’m not an assassin,” he said.