Part 68 (1/2)
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rolling cart with a bright green box atop. The Commissioner prodded it and it extruded a sheet of translucent lime green, covered with Seti script. Then another, and another.
”This is for the human amba.s.sador, and this for your admiral, and this, o luckiest of humans, is your authorization to take pa.s.sage in a human-safe compartment aboard the Grand Luck to human s.p.a.ce. To attend a meeting of the Grand Council, in feet. You will have the great advantage of enjoying the superiority of Seti technology first-hand, an unprecedented opportunity for one of your ... ah ... luck.”
It reached out, with the sheets and Dupaynil took them almost without thinking, wondering how he was going to get out of this.
”My good fortune abounds,” he began. ”Nonetheless, it is impossible that I should be honored with such a gift of luck. A mere human to take pa.s.sage with Seti? It is my destined chance to travel more humbly.”
A truly wicked chuckle interrupted him. The Commissioner leaned closer, its strong breath sickening.
”Little man,” it said, ”I think you will travel humbly enough to please whatever G.o.d enjoys your crawl through the Tunnel of Cowardly Certainty. With choice, always a chance. But with chance, no choice. The orders are in your hand. Your prints prove your acceptance. You will report to your amba.s.sador, and then to the Grand Luck where great chances await you.”
Chapter Eleven.
Private Yacht Adagio Ford woke to an argument overhead. It was not the first time he'd wakened, but it was the first time he'd been this clear-headed. Prudence kept his eyelids shut as he listened to the two women's voices.
”It's for his own good,” purred Madame Flaubert. ”His spiritual state is simply ghastly.”
”He looks ghastly.” Auntie Quesada rustled. He couldn't tell if it was her dress or something she carried.
”The outward and visible sign of inward spiritual disgrace. Poison, if you will. It must be purged, Quesada, or that evil influence will ruin us all.”
A sniff, a sigh. Neither promised him much. He felt no pain, at the moment, but he was sure that either woman could finish him off without his being able to defend himself. And why? Even if they knew what he wanted, that should be no threat to them. Auntie Quesada had even seemed to like him and he had been enchanted by her.
He heard a click, followed by a faint hiss, then a pungent smell began to creep up his nose. A faint yelp, rebuked, reminded him of Madame Flaubert's pet. His 174.
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nose tickled. He tried to ignore it and failed, convulsing in a huge sneeze.
”Bad spirits,” intoned Madame Flaubert.
Now that his eyes were open to the dim light, he could see her fantastic draperies in all their garishness; purples, reds, oranges, a flowered fringed shawl wrapped around those red tresses. Her half-closed eyes glittered at him as she pretended, and he was sure it was pretense, to commune with whatever mediums communed with. He didn't know. He was a rational, well-educated Fleet officer. He'd had nothing to do with superst.i.tions since his childhood, when he and a friend had convinced themselves that a drop of each one's blood on a rock made it magic.
”May they fly away, the bad spirits, may they leave him safe and free ...”
Madame Flaubert went on in this vein for awhile longer as Ford wondered what courtesy required. His aunt, as before, looked completely miserable, sitting stiffly on the edge of her chair and staring at him. He wanted to rea.s.sure her, but couldn't think how. He felt like a dirty wet rag someone had wiped up a bar with. The pungent smoke of some sort of a floral incense blurred his vision and made his eyes water. Finally Madame Flaubert ran down and simply sat, head thrown back. After a long, dramatic pause, she sighed, rolled her head around as if to ease a stiff neck and stood.
”Coming, Quesada?”
”No ... I think I'll sit with him a bit.”
”You shouldn't. He needs to soak in the healing rays.”
Madame Flaubert's face loomed over his. She had her lapdog in hand and it drooled onto him. He shuddered. But she turned away and waddled slowly out of his cabin. His great-aunt simply looked at him.
Ford cleared his throat, more noisily than he could have wished, and said, ”I'm sorry, Aunt Quesada . . . this is not what I had in mind.”
She shook her head. ”Of course not. I simply do not understand.”
”What?”
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”Why Seraphine is so convinced you're dangerous to me. Of course you didn't really come just to visit. I knew that. But I've always been a good judge of men, young or old, and I cannot believe you mean me harm.”
”I don't.” His voice wavered, and he struggled to get it under control. ”I don't mean you any harm. Why would I?”
”But the BLACK KEY, you see. How can I ignore the evidence of my own eyes?”
”The black key?” Weak he might be but his mind had cleared. She had said those words in capital letters.
His aunt looked away from him, lips pursed. In that pose, she might have been an elderly schoolteacher confronted with a moral dilemma outside her experience.
”I suppose it can't hurt to tell you,” she said softly.
The Black Key was, it seemed, one of Madame Flaubert's specialties. It could reveal the truth about people. It could seek out and unlock their hidden malign motives. Ford was sure that any malign motives were Madame Flaubert's, but he merely asked how it worked.
His aunt shrugged. ”I don't know. I'm not the medium. But I've seen it, my dear. Sliding across the table, rising into the air, turning and turning until it ... it pointed straight at the guilty party.”
Ford could think of several ways to do that, none of them involving magic or ”higher spirits.” He himself was no expert but he suspected that Dupaynil could have cleared up the Black Key's actions in less than five minutes.
”One of my servants,” Auntie Q was saying. ”I'd been missing things, just baubles really. But one can't let it go on. Seraphine had them all in and questioned them, and the Black Key revealed it. The girl confessed! Confessed to even more than I'd known about.”
”What did the authorities say, when you told them how you'd gotten that confession?”
Auntie Q blushed faintly. ”Well, dear, you know I didn't actually report it. The poor girl was so upset and, of course I had to dismiss her, and she had had so many troubles in her life already. Seraphine said that the pursuit of vengeance always ends hi evil.”
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