But not now.
Not with a Bocaian in the room.
I said, “Stay right where you are.”
The Bocaian cocked his head. “Forever? That would be tiring.”
“I have as much time as you do, sir.”
The haggard young man stepped away from the Bocaian and held both his hands out palm-first, in a placating gesture. “Counselor Cort? I’m Jason Bettelhine. This is my sister, Jelaine. I believe we can straighten this out, if you’ll just calm down and let us explain.”
I laid on the chill. “This is calm, sir, and an explanation is exactly what I was about to demand. Your Mr. Pescziuwicz just turned Layabout upside down looking for Bocaians. He said that the two who attacked me were the only ones he’d ever seen. Now you waltz in here with another. Was your Mr. Pescziuwicz lying or incompetent?”
“Please,” Jelaine Bettelhine said, her voice so soft that only breeding and immense personal will could account for the way it commanded the room. “Can we at least sit down while we discuss this? The Khaajiir hasn’t been well. He shouldn’t be forced to stand for too long.”
I hadn’t taken my eyes off the Bocaian, but I assessed him again with this claim in mind, and took special note of his tight grip on that staff. He rested as much weight on that as on his own two legs. This didn’t remove him from consideration as a special threat; I’d known a petty criminal, once, who could barely walk but whose arms were deadly weapons. But neither could I see any pressing reason for the Bettelhines to drag me all the way to their world, if all they wanted was to place me in the same room with such an unlikely assassin. “Very well.”
The Bettelines escorted the Khaajiir to the nearest sofa, which was rich enough and plush enough to make me feel somewhat safer, as even the most able-bodied human being might have had to struggle for a few seconds to escape from its decadent comforts. The cushions beneath him whooshed with escaping air when he surrendered to local gravity. He rested the staff itself against his knees with a comfort that suggested years since the last time he’d allowed himself to be parted from it.
The Bettelhines saw to his well-being with a solicitousness surprising for royalty of any kind, then parted to settle in a pair of high-backed easy chairs bracketing his sofa. Their attitudes as they sat were so complementary that they might have been rehearsed for my benefit. Jelaine leaned back, tucked her long legs underneath her, and allowed the chair to envelop her like a protective parent, the ripples and folds of her gown bunching up around like additional pillows. She held a warm half-smile, beneath understanding eyes. Jason sat, too, his eyes imploring even as they bled pain from past traumas.
Only when they were seated did I relax and take an easy chair opposite the Khaajiir. The Porrinyards, following their own instincts, remained standing at either side of me, alert for any betrayal.
Jason did not urge them to sit. “Your friends are a linked pair?”
“Yes.”
“I knew a linked pair once. Two women, working on a project for one of my many uncles. They used to visit the Central Estate quite a bit. I had a serious crush on them, when I was twelve.”
I radiated chill. “I’m so delighted for you.”
Jelaine curled her delicate pink lips in the tiniest of all possible amused smiles.
Jason fluttered his hands in wry surrender. “We expected this to be difficult, Counselor. Even before today’s unfortunate incident, we knew you’d be upset by the Khaajiir’s presence. Given the circumstances, we’ve asked the other guests to remain in the shuttle, while we make sure you’re okay with this.”
“They can wait. Right now I want you to finish explaining how your crack security chief, Mr. Pescziuwicz, could miss the presence of another Bocaian aboard this station.”
“Pescziuwicz is good at his job,” Jason said. “But he operates under certain limitations he may not have made clear to you. He only knows about registered travelers passing through Layabout. He doesn’t receive information about those who bypass Layabout using Family visas.”
“‘Family visas,’” I repeated.
“The Inner Family enjoys a full exemption from all local travel restrictions. For instance, down on the surface, we’re the only ones allowed personal intercontinental aircraft. It makes for a cleaner sky. Within this system, only Inner Family members, their guests, or employees bearing the Inner Family crest are allowed to take direct flights to and from Xana without using Layabout. And when this carriage is docked, we can transfer from it, to our own orbital shuttle and back, without ever passing through the terminal.”
“Without going through customs?”
“It’s our planet,” he reminded me. “Our customs.”
“That must be convenient. Institutionalized smuggling.”
Jason winced. “Please, Counselor. It’s not smuggling if it breaks no laws, and we break no laws if we make the laws and have the power to give ourselves exemptions. Besides, it’s not like we don’t police ourselves at all. We had an out-of-control cousin once. She was caught bringing in narcotics on my family’s no-no list. My father downgraded her status in the Family and banished her for life. The same thing happened to our aunt Lillian, for political reasons. There was another uncle, a few generations ago, who broke more serious laws and was handed over to the local legal system. He did prison time. This is all part of the local historical record.”
“You’re still able to come and go without official notice.”
“Exactly,” Jason said. “And I agree, that would be wrong if this world wasn’t, in addition to being the home of millions, also private property and the headquarters of a major interstellar corporation. Is it your position, Counselor, that families aren’t allowed to keep secrets on their own ground? That heads of State, and the leaders of major corporations, aren’t required to keep some of their activities out of the public eye, just to protect their own proprietary business?”
“That does sounds a lot like talk I’ve heard about other ‘family’ businesses.”
“Criminal families, Counselor. I understand you probably think the description applies to us as well, but I’ll let that pass so we can move on to the main point, which is that the Khaajiir, here, is a personal guest of my father, traveling under the Family exemption. He’s never been through local customs, and never set foot on Layabout. Pescziuwicz wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect his presence aboard the carriage.”
I still wasn’t sure I bought his defense of a planetary policy that rendered the Bettelhines above the law on a world where their actions affected the daily lives of millions, but he was right: it was time to move on. “You had to have heard about the two Bocaians involved in the attempt on my life. Why didn’t you tell Pescziuwicz about the Khaajiir, then, just to make sure he had all the facts?”
“Nobody’s supposed to know about the Khaajiir except the people in this carriage, my father, and a few associates of my father. And now, you. And your associates—associate, if you prefer.” For just a moment, parsing the plural, he seemed frazzled, and I empathized with him; it sometimes amazed me, how many simple sentences became labyrinths when they referred to linked pairs like the Porrinyards. After a moment, he recovered and said, “The bottom line, Counselor, is that his presence here is entirely peaceful, his intentions toward you entirely benign.”
“But still,” I said, my voice still radiating chill, “not entirely unrelated to what happened in the concourse.”
Jason didn’t flinch. “No. Probably not.”
On either side of me, the Porrinyards coughed. “I’m afraid you’re a little ahead of me, Andrea.”