Shadow of the Warmaster

VII

1. Three months std. after the meeting on Telffer.

Helvetia.

It took the usual day and a half to work through the Helvetian perimeter fortifications and stash Slancy Orza in the parking grid; there was also the usual argument over leaving Kinok and the current Kahat on board, but everyone knew the idiosyncrasies of the Sikkul Paems, so the objections were perfunctory; I bought an exception permit and that was the end of that. Getting onto Helvetia’s surface is tedious, tiring and at times humiliating, but nobody complains; in a chaotic universe where currencies are wildly various and often of dubious value, Helvetia offers a means of assessing and balancing values plus the register circuit for contracts and other services no single government or group of governments can provide. Access to Helvetia is sometimes vital and at all times useful to anyone trying to trade beyond the borders of his/her local hegemony. If you want Helvetian services, you play by Helvetian rules.

Whistling snatches of songs I’d picked up here and there (a habit of mine that Kumari never appreciated, but she wasn’t there at the moment) I ran through Slancy’s defenses, making sure she was thoroughly buttoned up before I left her. Even with Helvetian security watching the grid and Kinok nesting down in the driveroom, I wasn’t going to underestimate the talents of the types Bolodo could afford to hire. Especially after watching Adelaar work over those defenses on the way here. Like most of us she found insplitting a complete bore and preferred to have something to occupy her, so she was paying part of her fee ahead of time. What I was getting at, after watching her I wasn’t as happy as I wanted to be, anybody with her talent could peel my poor Slancy like an overripe orange. Given time. Which I hoped Security wouldn’t give them. So, having gone completely round the circle, there I was playing with what I’d got. I was finishing up when Adelaar came onto the bridge. I looked over my shoulder and smiled when I saw the rapier she’d buckled on; no fancy ornament, it had a used and useful look. “You’re well prepared,” I said.

“I’ve been here before.” She touched the bone hilt of the sword. “And had to use this before.”

Helvetian rules. No weapons except knives or swords allowed downsurface, they catch you with a gun, a lightlance, whatever, you’re fined and it’s no fleabite, they catch you again and you go to work on one of the farms or in the mines. Never heard they caught anyone three times. Result of all this is it’s a dueling society, the little daytime clerks become nighttime rogues and swaggerers living out byzantine fantasies with an edge of real danger to them. Outside the trucegrounds you’d better hire a bodyguard or be able to defend yourself. The Faceless Seven who run the place refuse responsibility for anything that happens to idiots who should know better. Colorful place.

I rather enjoy my visits here. They take me back to my first body when I was earning my living with a two-handed broadsword my daddy gave me. Actually he made it for the local lord’s braindead whelp, but when I had to hit the hills to keep my neck in one piece, he booted my backside for old time’s sake and gave me the sword to remember him by. Which is by way of explaining that the sword I take downsurface is a two-handed broadsword with a pora-ini stressed crystal edge bonded onto the lightweight byttersteel alloy. Not that I’m challenged much these days. After I acquired this body and Slancy and had been trading in this and that for a year or so, time came I had business on Helvetia. I knew how things worked there so I went to an acquaintance who was a metalsmith in his spare time (with highly irregular access to some very special alloys), and had him make most of Harska (I named her Harska after an old old sometime friend); I did the bonding myself, a little trick I picked up from the R’Moahl. And I fixed up a sheath that could hold her so I wouldn’t slice my butt off if I had to do some dodging. That was Kumari’s first trip with me and we went out celebrating after we finished business. When she’s dressed for playtime, she’s beautiful in her eerie way, she’s got no more figure than a teener boy, but what there is of her is elegant. Some local hotshot decided he was the answer to her dreams and wouldn’t back off when she informed him she wasn’t interested. So she told him in a voice that cut like Harska’s edge that he had the intelligence of a sea slug, that she wouldn’t be interested in him or any other man since she belonged to another species and was neuter besides and even if she weren’t, he smelled bad. I wasn’t going to interfere; I’d seen her in action a couple of times with the dozen or more small knives she has tucked away here and there about her body; she was willing and more than able to handle that character herself though she looked fragile as thistledown, but he wouldn’t have it that way, probably didn’t suit his self-image; he challenged me instead. I took his arm off and an ear with it in the first thirty seconds of that duel; one of his friends tried to cry foul, but there was nothing in the rules about fancy touches like that edge. It said sword and sword she was. And sword she is.

Kumari came in. She raised her brows. “Not dressed yet?”

She meant Harska. I grinned. “Just making a last go-through. Got us on a shuttle?”

“Twenty minutes on, so don’t waste time primping. The next opening is six hours from now. There’s a bubble in the lock, ready for the transfer. I’ve booked us into an ottotel trucehouse and set up a tentative appointment with O-nioni tomorrow to get the contract working and settle the escrow. Ti Vnok wants to talk to you tonight. If possible. He says a shielded room at the Treehouse and come blankshield. Which means Pels and I will be there ahead of you working the house. If you think it’s worth the trouble.”

“Let’s see what’s waiting first. We might have to do some tailcleaning.”

“Right. If Pels’ nose is as sharp as he thinks.”

Adelaar clicked her tongue, a sharp impatient sound. “What are you two talking about?”

“Pels thinks we have ticks on our tail. Followed us in after we surfaced out beyond the Limit.”

“I see.”

“Must have guessed we were heading here and messaged ahead.”

“No doubt.”

“Right. Kumari, take our client to the bubble, I’ll collect Pels and my gear and meet you, five minutes, I swear.”

“Right.” Kumari drawled the word, turning it into a sarcastic comment. “Have you ever noticed, aici Arash,” she touched Adelaar’s arm and nudged her toward the exit, “how much men talk about women dawdling and how long it takes them to get themselves together?”