Part 36 (1/2)
lenois extended a moist hand to both of them. Lunzie gave it a hearty squeeze in spite of her revulsion and was rewarded by a tiny moue of amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Can we count on seeing the two of you at our little party in five days time?” the merchant asked. ”The Parchandri wish to reignite the flame of our regard in the hearts of our treasured friends and valued customers. Will you brighten our lives by attending?”
”Yes, of course,” Coromell said graciously. ”Thank you for extending the invitation.”
The Parchandri was on his feet now, bowing elaborately. ”Thank you. You restore face to this humble one.” He made a deep obeisance and sat down.
”Must we go to the party of the unscrupulous Parchandri?” Lunzie asked in an undertone as they moved away.
Coromell seemed surprised. ”We do have to maintain good relations. Why not?”
”That unscrup makes me think he'd sell his mother for ten shares of Progressive Galactic.”
”He probably would. But come anyway. These dos are very dull without company.”
”There's something about him that makes me very nervous. He said 'ambrosia.' Did you see him stare at me when I reacted? He couldn't have failed to notice it.”
”He used the word in an acceptable context, Lunzie. You're just sensitive to it. Not surprising after all you've been through. lenois is too indolent to be involved in anything as energetic as business.” Coromell drew her arm through his and led her toward the next amba.s.sador.
”She lied,” Quinada muttered to her employer as she bowed to present a lighter dress tunic. ”I checked with the main office. According to our reports from Alpha Centauri covering those dates, no disabled vessel was towed in. However, numerous beings of civilian garb were observed disembarking from a military cruiser, the Ban Sidhe Ban Sidhe. One matches her description. That places her on Alpha at the correct time, and with a false covering story.”
”Inconclusive,” lenois said lightly, watching Lunzie and Coromell chatting with the Weftian amba.s.sador and another merchant lord. ”I could not make a sale with so weak a provenance. I need more.”
”There is more. The man in the restaurant to whom the dead spy reported had a female companion, whose description also matches our admiral's lady in blue.”
”Ah. Then there is no doubt.” lenois continued to smile at anyone who glanced his way, though his eyes remained coldly half-lidded. ”Our friends' plans may have to be ... altered.” He pressed his lips together. ”Kill her. But not here. There is no need to provoke an interplanetary incident over so simple a matter as the death of a spy. But see to it that she troubles us no further.”
”As your will dictates.” Quinada withdrew.
A live band in one comer struck up dance music. Lunzie listened longingly to the lively beat while Coromell exchanged endless stories with another officer and the representative from a colony which had just attained protected status. Coromell turned to ask her a question and found that her attention was focused on the dance floor. He caught her eye and made a formal bow.
”May I have the honour?” he asked and, excusing himself to his friends, swept her out among the swirling couples. He was an excellent dancer. Lunzie found it easy to follow his lead and let her body move to the beat of the music.
”Forgive me for boring you,” Coromell apologised, as they sidestepped between two couples. ”These parties are stamped out of a mould. It's a boon when I find any friends attending with whom I can chat.”
”Oh, you're not boring me,” Lunzie a.s.sured him. ”I hope I wasn't looking bored. That would be unforgivable.”
”It won't be too much longer before we may leave,” Coromell promised. ”I'm weary myself. The tradition is for the hosts giving the party to toast the guests with many compliments, and for the guests to return the honours. It should happen any time now.”
The dance music ended, and the elderly Ryxi made his way to the front of the room with a beaker in one wingclaw. He raised the beaker to the a.s.sembled. At his signal, Lunzie and the others hastened to the refreshment table. Coromell poured them both gla.s.ses of French wine.
When everyone was ready, the amba.s.sador began to speak in his mellow tenor cheep. ”To our honored guests! Long life! To our fellow members of the Federated Sentient Planets! Long life! To my old friend the Speaker for the Weft!”
Coromell sighed and leaned toward Lunzie. ”This is going to take a long time. Your patience and forbearance are appreciated.”
Lunzie stifled a giggle and raised her gla.s.s to the Ryxi.
”I can't wear the same dress to two diplomatic functions in a row,” Lunzie explained to Coromell over lunch the next day. ”I'm going shopping for a second gown.”
When she had arrived on Tau Ceti, Lunzie had marked down in her mind the new shopping center that adjoined the s.p.a.ceport. Originally the site had been a field used for large-vehicle repair and construction of housing modules, half hidden by a hill of mounded dirt suitable for sliding down by the local children.
The hill was still there, landscaped and clipped to the most stringent gardening standard. Behind it lay a beautifully constructed arcade of dark red brick and the local soft gray stone. In spite of the conservative appearance, the high atrium rang with the laughter of children, five generations descended from the ones Fiona had once played with. Lunzie overheard animated conversations echoing through the corridors as she strolled.
Most of the stores were devoted to oxygen-breathers, though at the ground level there were specialty shops with airlock hatches instead of doors to serve customers whose atmosphere differed from the norm. Lunzie window-shopped along one level and wound her way up the ramp to the next, mentally measuring dresses and outfits for herself. The variety for sale was impressive, perhaps too impressively large. She doubted whether there were three stores here which would have anything to suit her. Some of the fas.h.i.+ons were very extreme. She stood back to peruse the show windows.
In the lexan panes, she caught a glimpse of something very large moving toward her from the left. Lunzie looked up. A party of heavyworld humans was stumping down the walkway, angling to get past her. She recognized the sombre male at the head of the group as the representative from Diplo, whom Coromell had pointed out to her at the Ryxi party. They took up so much of the ramp walking two abreast that Lunzie scooted into Finzer's Fas.h.i.+ons until they pa.s.sed.
”How may I a.s.sist you. Citizen?” A human male two-thirds of Lunzie's height with elegantly frilled ears approached her, bowing and smiling. ”I am Finzer, the proprietor of this fine outlet.”
Lunzie glanced out into the atrium. The party was gone, all except for one female who had stopped to look into one shop window across the corridor. And she wasn't one of the DipIo cortege. It was the Parchandri's bodyguard, Quinada. The heavyworld female turned, and her dark eyes met Lunzie's with a stupid, heavy gaze. Lunzie smiled at her, hoping a polite response was in order. Quinada stared back expressionlessly for a moment before walking away. Puzzled, Lunzie glanced back at the shopkeeper, who was still waiting by her side.
”I'm looking for evening wear,” she told Finzer. ”Do you have something cla.s.sic in a size ten?”
Finzer produced a cla.s.sic dress in dusty rose pink with a bodice that hugged Lunzie's rib cage and a full evening skirt that swirled around her feet.
Two evenings later, she held the folds of the dress bunched up on her lap as she and Coromell rode toward the Parchandri's residence.
”I'm not imagining it, Coromell,” Lunzie said firmly. ”Quinada's been everywhere that I've gone these past two days. Every time I turned around, she was there. She's following me.”
”Coincidence,” Coromell said blithely. ”The area in which the Tau Ceti diplomatic set circulate is surprisingly small. You and Quinada had similar errands this week, that's all.”
”That's not all. She stares at me, with a look I can only describe as hungry. I don't trust that perverse unscrup she works for any further than I could toss him. Didn't you see how his eyes glittered when I said I'd been s.p.a.cewrecked? He's got nasty tastes in amus.e.m.e.nt.”
”You're making too much of coincidence,” Coromell offered gently. ”Certainly you're safe from perversion here in Tau Ceti. Kidnapping is a serious breach of diplomatic immunity, one a man of lenois's status and family position would hardly risk. As for that aide of his, you told me yourself that you have a deep-seated fear of heavyworlders.”
”I do not have a persecution complex,” Lunzie said in dead earnest. ”Putting aside my deep-seated fear, once I got to thinking that Quinada might be following me, I tried to lose her. Tell me why she was in four different provisions stores without buying a thing! Or three different beauty salons! Not only that, she was waiting outside the FSP complex when I finished my Discipline lessons.”
Coromell was thoughtful. ”You're convinced, aren't you?”
”I am. And I think it probably has to do with ambrosia, even if you won't enlighten me on that score.” Coromell smiled slightly at the reference but said nothing, which further annoyed her in her circ.u.mstances. Ambrosia must be a cla.s.sified matter at the highest level, and she was only the envelope which had delivered the letter, not ent.i.tled to know more. Stubbornly, she continued. ”I don't think lenois's reference was as casual as you do, despite his una.s.sailable diplomatic status. In any event, I find his aide's surveillance sinister.”
”On a personal level, there's not much I can do to discourage that, Lunzie. However,” and he c.o.c.ked his head at her, a sly gleam in his eyes, ”enlist in Fleet Intelligence and you have the service to protect you.”
Lunzie cast a long searching look at his handsome face to dispel the unworthy thought that popped into her head. ”To what ends would you go. Admiral Coromell, to get me into Fleet Intelligence?”
”I do want you in FI - you'd be a great a.s.set, and frankly it would be wonderful having you around - but not at any cost. I can't compromise Fleet regulations, not that you'd want me to, and I can't give you any special consideration, not that you'd accept it anyway. The most important thing of all, Lunzie, is that you're willing to join. Even if I could press you into service, that's not the kind of recruit we want. I do know that you'd be ten times better as an operative than someone like Quinada ... if you do decide to volunteer.”
Lunzie hesitated, then nodded. ”All right. I'm in.”
Coromell smiled and squeezed her arm. ”Good. I'll see to your credentials tomorrow morning. There will be a follow-up interview, but I have most of the details of your life on disk already. I hope you won't regret it. I don't think you will.”
”I'm feeling more secure already,” Lunzie said, sincerely.
”Good timing. We've arrived.” The Parchandri mansion lay on the outskirts of the main Tau Ceti settlement. lenois and a group of Parchandri were waiting on the steps to greet their guests in the deepening twilight. Pots to either side of the wide doors swirled heavily scented and coloured smoke into the air. Two servants met each vehicle as it pulled up. One opened the door as the other ascertained who was inside and announced the names to the hosts. Lunzie caught a pa.s.sing glimpse of burning dark eyes in pasty-white faces and gulped. The unexpected appearance of representatives of the same race as the a.s.sa.s.sins in the Alpha Centauri restaurant was unsettling to say the least. The burning eyes, however, held no flicker of recognition. But then, why should they? She was getting overly sensitive to too many coincidences.