The Third Claw of God

14 THE FOURTH BETTELHINE

S kye locked the Fire Snake inside the suite’s stasis safe. Paakth-Doy finished treating Wethers and Skye for their own injuries. Even as we shed all external evidence of the Fire Snake’s attack, the four of us agreed to keep the incident a secret for the time being, both to avoid panicking the others and provide the culprit, whomever that might be, more opportunity for accidental exposure. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was something.

Then Mendez called to let us know that there’d been another development outside the carriage.

This time everybody followed him belowdecks, to share the news carried by the air lock monitors. This time we all faced the little monochrome holos as they cycled between exterior images of the carriage and relayed images of a gathering storm.

The Stanley clinging to the cable above us was no longer our only company. Another one, no doubt dispatched from Anchor Point, clung to the cable below, more predator at bay than rescuer waiting for the right moment to approach. At least fifty other spacecraft, from single-occupant fliers to troop carriers capable of carrying hundreds, had formed a fresh perimeter surrounding us on all sides. Dozens of smaller dots of light, impossible to resolve in any image panoramic enough to capture the scale we were dealing with, came into focus when Mendez zoomed in. They were soldiers; all faceless in their free-fall maneuver suits, all carrying precision weapons with black, hungry barrels.

The very immobility of the tableau was what made it so frightening. None of the vessels moved in relation to one another. None of the soldiers shifted position. The most the machines and people did to prove themselves a living system capable of action at a moment’s notice was flare with light every few seconds as their respective propulsion systems fired to prevent them from drifting out of formation.

It had only been a little more than an hour and twenty minutes since the first Stanley dispatched from Layabout had aborted its rescue mission. The powers that ruled military response on Xana had deployed this armada in less time than it would have taken the authorities on some Confederate worlds to put on their boots. This was a fine testimonial to Bettelhine efficiency, and a somewhat less sterling omen when it came to our own chances of survival.

I much preferred the security that came with being trapped with a single murderer, or even a handful of conspirators, to the dubious comforts of knowing that an entire fleet was fixing its guns on my position. Granted, the commanders who gave the orders were all Bettelhine employees themselves and therefore unlikely to relish the idea of killing three members of the Inner Family. But we now owed every moment we still drew breath to the continuing calm and stability of men and women who knew that their own lives might depend on recognizing a sudden attack. If it came to the final extremity, we wouldn’t be the first hostages to die because some recruit, dripping sweat behind the nice anonymous mirror of his helmet’s faceplate, returned an attack that was only a glint of sunlight reflected off steel.

Jason’s grin became a black grimace. “We’re running out of time, brother.”

Philip seemed surprised to be included. “I know.”

“That’s a siege.”

“I know.”

“Our own people.”

“I know.”

Jason bit his lip. “The thing is, a formation like that, I would normally expect them to send an envoy, or attempt some other form of contact to let us know what they want. Dictating terms of surrender, that kind of thing. But they’re just waiting. It’s like they’re scared to come in.”

“Or,” Jelaine said, “like they’re waiting for the right moment to attack.”

Philip raised a hand, hesitated for a moment, as if he didn’t know what to do with it, and then clasped Jason on the shoulder. It was about as awkward an expression of filial love as any I’d ever seen, and it must have felt awkward as hell until Jason returned it.

When Philip spoke again, his voice trembled from more than just fear. “All right, everybody. This is a one-time-only offer directed either at the unknown party responsible for our situation or for any allies who might be aiding and abetting. Whoever you are, if you step forward and assist us in ending this madness right now, I will personally guarantee freedom from prosecution, secure passage to the world of your choice, and enough money to guarantee a life of extreme wealth. This offer gives you a free pass for your involvement in the murder of the Khaajiir and will be payable in full the instant everybody aboard this carriage is safe. Let this offer pass and I assure you with equal seriousness that the same resources, and more, will go to plunging you into hell every day for the rest of your life. This is a one-time-only offer that expires ten seconds from now.”

When Dejah Shapiro stepped forward, I imagined her about to admit guilt and accept the offer. But no, she just added, “I’ll back that promise if he doesn’t.”

In the silence that followed I searched the faces of the assembled for the uncertain half-starts I would have expected of any tempted culprit.

After a few seconds, Philip said, “Time’s up.”

Dejah flashed a grin. “It was actually up half a minute ago, dear. But nobody wanted to say so and maybe cut off a killer still trying to make up his mind.”

Jelaine covered her own half-smile with her fingers. “I’m sorry, people, but I’ve been watching the digital timer on the console over there. It was more like forty.”

Philip nodded. “Determined bastard, whoever he is.”

The Porrinyards agreed. “A genuine asshole.”

As was only to be expected, Dina Pearlman took it a step too far. “I don’t mind saying, I’ve been trying to figure out some way I could claim the prize. For an offer like that, I’d have killed the Khaajiir twenty times over.”

Dejah spared her only the briefest of glances. “Yeah, well, killing the Khaajiir would take an offer like that. He was worth something. You’re only alive today because nobody’s ever come up with spare change.”

There were smiles at that, even a grudging one from Mrs. Pearlman. For the moment, at least, these were not bickering people with competing agendas, not frightened prisoners waiting for outsiders to come and rescue them, but a united front against an unknown and dangerous enemy.

I had no faith in the truce lasting as long as our shared predicament. But I knew it would help in the short run when Philip said, “Well, Counselor? What’s next?”

Farley Pearlman spoke before I could, an unwitting favor to me as it covered my own temporary bankruptcy of ideas. “Is there a reason we can’t just evacuate? That’s what we did, earlier today. Sure, we don’t have a shuttle. But it’s not like there’s a shortage of vessels out there eager to rescue us.”

Dejah bit her thumbnail, a gesture so close to a habit that had plagued me for years that I felt a twinge at the reminder of what it must have looked like. “I wouldn’t advise anything like that until we know why we have all those weapons pointed at us.”

Philip said, “Do you really think they’d fire on us?”

Dejah gestured at the image. “Look at them. As you said, that’s a classic siege formation. Rescuing us, or at least the family members aboard, must still be a priority, unless there’s been a coup we don’t know about, but their first concern seems to be a show of force, aimed at…somebody. Can you imagine what they might do if we go EVA and they don’t think it’s any of us, but instead only our murderer trying to escape?”

“And why wouldn’t they just intercept without deadly force?” Philip asked. “They’d have to, if the alternative means risking harm to Bettelhines.”

“Again,” Dejah insisted, “that’s only as far as we know. Without direct contact, we don’t know what’s been happening on their side of this standoff. We don’t know why they’re keeping their distance. For all we know, the threat’s bad enough to be considered a planetary crisis.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Philip said. “I can’t imagine any circumstance bad enough to render three members of the Inner Family expendable.”

My mental paralysis eased. “I can.”

Every face in the room turned toward me.

“Understand, please, that I’m not calling this the only possible explanation. There are others that fit the available evidence. But are you all really forgetting that our fellow passengers include one of the people who helped to engineer Magrison’s Fugue? If Mrs. Pearlman wanted to, she’d find an orbital vantage point like this a perfect place to infect the atmosphere with that or any other weapons she might have developed in the meantime.”

Dina’s already cold features went even more rigid with anger. “I knew this would come around to blaming me.”

“Forgive me, madam, for treating your words like last year’s toilet paper: unwanted, unpleasant, superfluous, and old. I did say that it was just one of several possible explanations, but the fact remains that the economy of the world below us is entirely based on the munitions trade, and there are any number of such weapons, your obscene Fugue among them, sufficiently dangerous to Xana as a whole that, in any siege situation, the Bettelhines in command would have to consider the loss of a few trapped Inner Family members a small price to pay for the common good.”

“That’s not a bad point,” Philip said. “It’s just as likely, probably more likely, that you’re part of this and using doomsday scenarios to scare us out of doing the easiest thing.”

I took no offense. “Based on the data you have, exactly right. I could be. The only constant here is uncertainty. Either way, Dejah’s right. We can’t take precipitous action until we make contact and determine what those forces are doing.”

The various prisoners of the Bettelhine Royal Carriage stewed in a shared uncomfortable silence.

Then Mendez cleared his throat, with a dry deference that carried with it an apology for intruding on the business of his superiors. “May I offer a suggestion?”

“For God’s sake,” Jelaine told him, “if you have something to say, just come out and say it. Don’t start asking permission to speak now.”

“That’s very kind of you, miss. I was just saying that if I suit up and go outside, I might be able to toss an airtight container with a message apprising the troops of our concerns and sharing our eagerness for any information they might be able to impart in return. It won’t require any great feats of precision on my part, as there are so many soldiers out there that any container thrown in any random direction will inevitably be intercepted by somebody.”

Jason shook his head. “And if Counselor’s right, and they blow your head off the moment they see you’re throwing something?…”

“I will do my best to establish with body language that my intentions are benign.”

Jelaine said, “That’s putting an awful lot of trust in your talent for pantomime.”

“In a space suit, yet,” Jason said. “No thank you, my friend, but I think Dejah and the Counselor are right. Until we know what the military’s doing out there, and what they think we’re doing in here, I’m not about to allow you to risk your life by recklessly throwing things at them.”

There was another moment of silence before I said, “Maybe he doesn’t have to.”

My plan almost failed because nobody could find anything to write on. Cut off from the hytex network, we now found that none of us had anything as antiquated and as fragile as paper, let alone implements capable of marking it. Jason grumbled that it might be a good idea, in the future, to stock the various suites with a nice supply of paper, Bettelhine-crest stationery. A twinkling Jelaine snapped back, yes, of course, because it goes without saying that this exact situation comes up all the time.

In the end, wincing from the necessity, Philip opened a display case in the parlor and ripped two blank pages from a Bettelhine family history, commissioned decades earlier by some great-grand uncle or twentieth cousin or other ancestral somebody, and provided its most recent home on the carriage because it carried the whiff of royalty the Bettelhines wanted to display. The search for a writing implement might have been an equal headache had Dejah not reached into her pocket and produced a glittering golden cylinder that she identified as a personal weapon, but which was at its lowest setting capable of creating hairline chars on paper.

By this point nobody was in any mood to scold her for smuggling weaponry past Layabout Security.

Vernon Wethers, who claimed the best handwriting, inscribed the letter in a cursive so elegant that it managed to impart beauty to the blocky Mercantile alphabet. He prefaced it with a series of symbols, all three Bettelhines identified as Inner Family codes, that the recipients would be able to use to confirm that Bettelhines had a hand in composing everything that followed.

Most of the words were mine, but the Bettelhines had inserted various corrections, the most notable being Philip’s, when he insisted that I refer to myself as his father’s “honored” guest.

“Good catch,” Jelaine said. “I should have spotted that myself.”

I finally registered the special emphasis that phrase had been given all day and night. “What am I missing?”

Philip flashed the startled look of a man who had just been reminded that he had yet to come to terms with my presence. “You don’t know? Nobody’s ever bothered to tell you what it means?”

“It’s not like I haven’t been asking.”

“No, I’m not talking about the reason you’re here, which as I’ve said is still a mystery to me. I’m talking about our various levels of guest protocol.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

He glared at Jason and Jelaine. “How could you not let her know?”

Jelaine’s hand fluttered to her mouth. “We were keeping things low-key. Until Father had a chance to talk to her.”

Philip shook his head in disbelief, then turned to me and said, “Here’s what they haven’t told you. For the past four generations or so the Family’s used rankings to denote the levels of hospitality afforded our visiting dignitaries. Special Guests and Corporate Guests are both offered privileges greater than those we provide the average run of visitors, and they’re both far below Personal Guests, who are offered the full hospitality and friendship of the Inner Family. We’ve never bestowed those rankings lightly. To put this into full perspective, Counselor, Dejah here is one of the most powerful industrialists in the history of human civilization and one of the most distinguished visitors that even this world has seen in quite some time. And yet, in protocol terms, it was judged unnecessary to declare her, or the Khaajiir before her, any more important than a Personal Guest.”

I felt the weight of all eyes upon me. “Then what’s an honored guest?”

“Somebody who’s entitled to all the privileges and courtesies afforded any member of the Inner Family, including a full share of Inner Family earnings while on Bettelhine soil. It makes you a temporary Bettelhine. Right now my father’s the only one authorized to declare such an honor, and as far as I know, he’s only done it twice, each time under extraordinary circumstances.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, then shot a glance at Jason and Jelaine, who were both nodding. Once again, I registered something greater than mere affection or admiration in the way they two of them looked at me. But now I saw what it was: love.

Through the blood pounding in my ears, I heard Philip conclude, “I still don’t know what this is all about, Counselor, but making your status clear in this document is the procedural equivalent of telling those troops that they should count not three Bettelhines aboard, but four….”

Wethers completed transcribing the letter, then read the entirety out loud in case anybody wanted to add a postscript. There were no further amendments.

Dejah, who’d been watching me closely in the several minutes since Philip’s bombshell, remarked, “I’ve got to hand it to you, Counselor. That’s a pretty formal document for a distress signal. Do you ever let your hair down, even for a moment?”

“Yes,” the Porrinyards said.

Wethers blinked at them for several seconds before processing what they’d meant and turning a bright shade of scarlet. “Oh.”

Jelaine took the document from him and slipped it into the vessel Philip had provided. It was an insulated airtight cylinder shielded against magnetic flux, temperature extremes, and most scanning technology; it was normally used to safeguard delicate recording media in transit from orbit, and would survive atmospheric reentry without any measurable damage to its contents. According to Philip, a magnetic charge in its base would be sufficient to secure it to the hull as long as we remained motionless outside the atmosphere. The combination lock was, in this circumstance, superfluous. We could activate the seal and still allow easy access to anybody who retrieved the container.

My idea, an improvement over Mendez’s offer to throw the container, was to let the forces surrounding us decide it was safe to retrieve it.

Jason said, “I should go.”

Mendez, who had suited up, the flexfabric of his Bettelhine-manufactured space suit forming a seal over everything but his unhelmeted head, winced at the very suggestion. “And just how would I justify allowing that, sir?”

Philip said, “I’d like to hear that explanation myself.”

Jason seemed to come up with about three or four potential answers, rejecting them all as insufficient, before coming up with a lame, unpersuasive, “I rebel at the thought of requiring other people to risk their lives for me.”

“Welcome to modern civilization,” said Dejah. “Let alone life as a Bettelhine. People have been risking their lives for yours since the day you were born.”

“Nevertheless.” Jason leaned in close and addressed Mendez eye to eye. “Arturo, you may think you owe us your allegiance, but you don’t. We forged that debt. Do you understand? It’s all us. You don’t have to do this.”

“It’s my duty, sir.” Mendez took the helmet from his hands, and pressing it to the contact ring at his shoulders. The flexfabric around the seal bubbled, flowed, and solidified in place over the neck joint, rendering the seam as invisible as the face behind the silver mask. I saw his chest expand as he took an experimental deep breath. Then he took the cylinder from Jelaine’s hands, and stood, moving toward the air lock.

Oscin, who was standing behind me, lowered his lips toward my ear. “This is wrong.”

“I know,” I whispered back. “But I don’t know why.”

“Neither do I.”

It felt more than wrong. It felt dark, corrupt, and dangerous. But the reason eluded me. Even as Mendez entered the air lock and the doors slid shut behind him, I searched the faces of the others, hoping for the epiphany that now seemed just beyond reach. Most didn’t seem to notice any underlying currents beneath the obvious drama of the moment. Jason and Jelaine wore stricken expressions, their strong resemblance now even more overt as they watched the Chief Steward’s departure with identical grimaces of guilt and displeasure. Dina Pearlman seemed darkly amused, Dejah as puzzled as I was. Vernon Wethers and Monday Brown were as unreadable as they usually were. Loyal Jeck just stood by, a stolid, charisma-challenged lump. Colette Wilson moved closer to Philip, resting her hand on his upper arm and taking a subtle calm from the gentle contact. The elder Bettelhine didn’t acknowledge it. He just watched the air lock cycle, and took an involuntary deep breath of his own as the other door opened to space and Arturo began to climb the access ladder to the carriage roof.

I felt the warm touch of the Porrinyards on my back, massaging my shoulders. Did I really look that pale?

Arturo was already on the roof and placing the cylinder in plain sight. The magnetic seal held it in place. In a few seconds he’d be back inside and the Stanley would be free to investigate, if so inclined.

I’d be over this uncharacteristic fear, if that’s what this was.

I knew it wasn’t.

The plan would work. Mendez would survive his brave climb in the face of all those brandished weapons. The Stanley clinging to the cable above us would descend and retrieve the message. The forces charged with protecting the Bettelhines and their guests, whether personal or honored, would break through the wall of silence that had so far cut off the explanation for how this thing that had happened to us.

My sudden trembling had come from a deeper place, the place that connected to my conscience and my humanity.

It was not fear. It was horror.

I suddenly knew why Brown and Wethers had no family beyond the Bettelhines, and why Mendez had given up his dreams.

I made eye contact with the strange siblings, Jason and Jelaine: Two people I had imagined I was beginning to understand, but the little I’d been so proud of myself for figuring out was nothing compared to this. If they had anything to do with the truth underlying this moment, they were everything I despised about their rapacious, world-destroying family, cloaked in smiles and good intentions. And if they were innocent…then they were guilty of being willfully blind.

This was evil, all right. But not a fresh evil. It had been going on for a while.

And I knew exactly what it was.

The voice of the AIsource, silent for hours now, chuckled inside my head. Excellent thinking, Counselor.

I almost cried out, but managed to keep my answer subvocal. Fuck! I thought we were cut off from you!

Don’t be foolish. The parties responsible for this crisis may have managed to interfere with local connections to the hytex network and with the Bettelhines’ other communication systems, but no technology currently possessed by human beings can sever the link we share with you. No, we were simply taking a step back and allowing you to begin working out these problems for yourself.

Either help or get out of my head!

You may leave our employ at any time, Andrea. You will have the opportunity to do so, before this business is done. The biggest question after today is whether you’ll want to.

Somebody handed me a cup of water. Paakth-Doy. I don’t know where she went to get it; the parlor was levels above us. It was cold and it tasted like sweet honey, cutting through the acidic taste in my mouth.

How can the fate of billions depend on this? It can’t be the people of Xana. There are only a few million down there. And besides, you said an alien race.

Humanity would suffer greatly in the aftermath. But you are correct. We do not mean the people of Xana.

Then who?

Telling you would be against the rules of engagement.

“Counselor?” It was Philip, once again the voice of confident authority now that I’d obliged him with this moment of weakness. “He’s back inside. You can stop worrying now.”

“I wasn’t… worried about… him.”

Concerned, frightened expressions bobbed around me, Dejah, Jason, and Jelaine, the most stricken among them. I avoided meeting their concerned eyes. Let them wonder. I wasn’t ready to use what I knew, let alone pursue the many things I didn’t.

Are the Bettelhines going to start this genocide you’ve been talking about? Is that what you’re telling me?

The answer is subtler than that, Andrea, and is tied to you living long enough to make your choice. Be patient. It is still coming.

The air lock hummed as atmosphere returned. The holo monitor displayed a businesslike Arturo Mendez waiting for the process to run its course.

Mrs. Pearlman mentioned the ability to control the behavior of entire enemy populations. Does that have something to do with this? Does it have something to do with what happened in Bocai?

An indulgent tone entered the AIsource’s voice. The tragedy on Bocai was the last thing any Bettelhine would have wanted.

The holo image cycled, revealing a multilegged vehicle proceeding down the cable at full speed. It was the Stanley from Layabout, descending to retrieve Arturo’s message.

When it wrapped a probing tentacle around the cylinder, the cargo bay echoed with the gasps of passengers who only now realized that they’d been holding their breath.

It picked the cylinder up.

Hesitated, as if receiving further orders.

Then tightened, crushing the cylinder into wreckage.

Heedless of the cries of “No!” and “You Bastard!” that erupted from our throats, it then retreated up the line, rejecting our attempts at communication.

By the time the Stanley was just a bright light in the firmament above us, some of those cries had become wails. Philip Bettelhine, who had shown the most faith in the orderly nature of his family’s ability to deal with any crisis, was among the loudest, yelling, “Come on! Dammit! What’s wrong with you people?” Paakth-Doy was almost as frantic, falling into Colette Wilson’s arms and receiving an oddly detached, perfunctory hug as the bartender wept tears that creepily failed to disturb the perpetual smile on her face. Dina Pearlman was just pissed off, screaming, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Her husband just punched the bulkhead multiple times, a portrait of loss untouched by compassion on the part of anybody else. Dejah Shapiro seemed lost in concentration. Monday Brown just looked comically dazed. Vernon Wethers and Loyal Jeck said nothing.

Mendez emerged from the air lock, his helmet in his hands, expecting pats on the back for his swift and efficient action, only to find a tableau of runaway anger and despair. “What’s wrong?”

Dina’s voice, which had transformed from syrup to acid in the short time I’d known her, now completed its transformation to venom. “The fucks are leaving us to die.”

He said, “What?”

I’d had enough of this. I turned to Skye. “Come on.”

She nodded, grabbed the Khaajiir’s staff, and began to follow me out the door, Oscin staying behind to keep an eye on the others.

Philip saw us departing. “Counselor?”

I whirled on him, unable to keep the fresh disgust out of my voice. “I am going back to work, sir. In the meantime it is my suggestion that the rest of you remain down here and near this air lock, for the time being. We may all need access at a moment’s notice, and the parlor isn’t exactly the most comfortable place aboard anymore, not with the Khaajiir so busy flavoring the air up there. In the event this winds up being an extended siege, we can all take shifts sleeping in the crew quarters, taking expeditions to our respective staterooms if there are any personal items anybody really needs. Don’t worry, though. I believe it won’t be long before you hear from me again.”

Philip was left blinking. “B-but… who do you want to speak to next?”

I gave him a look of raw contempt. “First the corpse,” I said. “Then the bartender. I’ll let you know when to send her up.”

We turned and left, the voices behind us rising even before we reached the stairs.