A Princess of the Aerie (16 page)

Scaboron raised an arm, extending it toward Sesh. She ignored it, turned her back, and walked off the floor. She hurried,
seeming on the edge of running.

In his left peripheral vision, something raced around the end of the curving staircase on which Jak stood.

The tail of a server’s coat flickered past the farther newel, as the running man turned under the staircase.

When he had first arrived, Jak had noted without thinking that it was open down there. Before he dakked in words, Jak had
jumped over the balustrade, turning to face the space under the stairs.

He misjudged slightly. As his feet planted, the running heet was off to Jak’s left. The man whipped a small black globe up
behind his ear.

Bomb.

Jak sidestepped left, foot closing to foot, not crossing, and as the ball of his right foot took his weight, the attacker’s
arm was already whipping forward, the globe moving with swift certainty from its spot by the man’s ear toward the moment of
release. Not more than five centimeters short of where the bomb would have been released, Jak’s roundhouse kick lashed against
the throwing arm, catching the assassin’s carpal bone with the curl of Jak’s big toe, making the throw go wild and the bomb
sail all the way over the dance floor into the crowd beyond.

Jak cat-screamed as, on a polished floor in the one-third g of Greenworld, he felt his planted foot lose contact. His angular
momentum carried him around. He would fall with his head in reach of his opponent’s kick. He braced—

Dujuv landed beside him, slamming three hard blows into the stumbling assassin, shattering his ribcage and skull and breaking
his neck. As Jak caught his balance, he heard the slec sound slew into a weird gabble as everyone on the dance floor moved
at once and personal bodyguards rushed in from all sides. Then the slec chopped off all at once. One great gasp/shout from
the whole crowd started—

The blast was deafening, but it was a smallish concussion bomb. As Jak rolled to his feet he thought,
Probably a diversion—

A serving chef with a slug-thrower raced toward the dance floor. Jak sprang at him, trying to close the distance. The man
turned. The gun came up at Jak.

With a familiar wild full-throated pulsating shriek, like a dinosaur on fire mixed with a monkey shaken to death, a white-and-black
smear howled through Jak’s vision, throwing the shattered and torn man sideways. Shadow on the Frost was getting into the
fight.

Dujuv leapt, knocking a pistol out of another heet’s hand. Bewildered, Jak looked around. Four attackers had rushed out of
the kitchen just as the bomb burst. Hampered by the crowd, confused by the sudden appearance of a Rubahy and a panth at their
rear, they were perhaps two steps slow, and all over the ballroom, personal bodyguards had time to get their principals down
and under cover.

The two assassins still standing could not see their targets. Turning back to back, they looked around. Jak took two steps
toward them.

Then Dujuv and Shadow, in tandem, bounded onto the two gunmen, arms and legs blurring in a furious assault, shattering faces,
chests, and bellies with more than human speed and strength; both assassins were dead before they skidded backward onto the
floor.

Most people were only becoming aware that anything had happened now that it was all over, screaming because they had turned
to find the person beside them covered with blood, or torn open, or horribly burned.

The world almost came back to normal speed, before Jak heard Dujuv’s battle-scream and the hiss of a laser burning flesh,
just behind him. Jak rushed toward the sound, against a stampede of girls in long gowns. Dujuv stood in a clearing in the
crowd, his hands locked in the kata juji jime grip, holding the dead man up by the neck. The dead man’s head bobbled on his
broken neck; Dujuv must have grabbed deep and put a lot of left hand pull into it.

“Duj, are you all right?”

His friend looked at him with a stricken, sick expression. “A lot of people were running around over here. I just happened
to look when he did it. He must have been trying to use the crowd and the excitement to cover what he was doing. He just pulled
out a military laser and shot her.” Dujuv finally let go, absentmindedly; the corpse slid to the floor like a doll stuffed
with wet sand.

“This is Xil Argenglass,” one woman said. “I saw him with the laser too, but why would he do that? He’s just a businessman
with an import-export franchise. He’s at all the parties because he has money, even though he’s very dull—I guess that he
won’t be at any parties anymore—I mean, I don’t think I should have said that, isn’t there some rule about not saying bad
things about dead people?—well, anyway, I don’t know why he’d even be carrying a weapon, let alone—”

“Shut up, Ania,” the heet beside her said. “I saw it too. We need to leave.” They turned and went.

Jak looked up and saw that there was a body on the floor, perhaps five meters beyond Dujuv, in a pale lavender dress—he ran.

Even with a two-finger-wide charred strip running from ear to ear across the bridge of her nose like a mask, black burned
craters where her eyes had burst from the heat, the dead girl was still unmistakably Seubla.

Jak looked up from her, his eyes stinging with tears, hoping he would not have to be the one to tell Kawib, and saw Myx being
loaded onto a gurney; when had all these medics come in? There must be twenty or so injured by the bomb and stray shots, and
the ballroom was now flooded with medics. Myxenna’s gurney bore the tag for a serious injury that had been stabilized; she’d
be in the second group to go to the hospital.

Jak walked slowly toward her; Dujuv rushed past.

Myx was conscious. The way the blood-drenched sheet draped over the hash of her left leg indicated that she would be spending
the next month in the regeneration tank. She nodded at Jak, then ran her hand over Dujuv’s hairless head, tenderly, firmly,
and said, “Look me in the eyes, Dujy. Don’t look at my leg. Come on, Dujuv, up here, just look at my face. Poor old silly
tove, this might be worse for you than it is for me, masen? The pain block is working, I can’t feel it at all, toktru. Now,
they’re going to take
good
care of me, and I’ll be
fine,
and you did your best. It’s
not your fault.
All right?”

Dujuv’s face was streaked with tears. “All right.”

“Feel better?”

He nodded, unable to speak.

She touched his cheek, made eye contact, and said, very directly, “I am very pleased with you.”

“Thank you.” He sobbed, little squeaks as if he were being punched hard and fast in the belly.

Myxenna looked up at Jak. “He’s a panth, Jak, he needs to know I’m grateful and pleased with him, otherwise he can get severely
depressed or even suicidal. And you’ve been very good, Dujuv. Very, very good. I trust you and I know I can depend on you.”
She wiped his eyes with her hand.

Dujuv covered her small, delicate hand with his big square one, and pressed her palm against his cheek. “Thanks. So stupid,
masen? I feel like a big dog. And you shouldn’t be the one taking care of
me.
”

“Not stupid at all, Dujy. It’s all right. You saved me and a lot of people. And I
am
taken care of; I’m not in any danger now.” She looked up at Jak again. “I saw Seubla fall. Is she—”

“Dead. I saw her die,” Dujuv whispered. “I was only a step away from him. I’d seen him pull the weapon but I couldn’t get
there in time—”

“You did your best,” Jak said, “and Dujuv, without you and Shadow, this would have been a massacre.”

Robots grabbed Myxenna’s gurney and wheeled her out. Dujuv stood there, still weeping and shaking, and Jak said, “Come on,
we have to get ready to report. You were great, Duj. Absolutely the best there’s ever been.” He put his arm around his friend.

Dujuv dragged the back of a huge hand across his face, smearing tears most of the way around his bald head. “I appreciate
how hard you’re trying, but I’m going to feel like shit for a while, masen? It’ll pass.”

Shadow on the Frost stopped by. “Until the Duke is secure, I am not free, but I will visit as soon as I can. Dujuv Gonzawara,
I earned glory here today merely by having helped you. You are a splendid warrior.”

They stayed, not sure what else to do. Kawib came in, learned it was true, and rushed off to see Seubla’s body, and Xabo went
with him, without giving them any further orders. Jak and Dujuv guided people to transportation, called ambulances, started
a table of lost-and-found objects, made sure that the people who seemed to be in shock had someone to escort them home, and
in general helped out like a couple of traffic cops. When almost everyone had gone except the pokheets, who seemed mostly
to be standing in a circle asking each other if any of them had any ideas, a uniformed soldier from the Greenworld Army asked
the two toves to follow him.

He led them to Colonel Mattanga’s office. She sat behind the desk, face blank.

“First of all,” Jak said, “we need to say how sorry we are about the loss of your daughter.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dujuv said. “I tried, but all I could do was avenge her.”

The Colonel smiled, her eyes wet. “Thank you,” she said, “but we have things to do before someone remembers to fire me. I
have no living descendants and my line is barren.” For a moment her lower lip trembled; she wiped her eyes and made herself
go on. “The Karrinynya have no reason to fear me now, so I’m sure they won’t be keeping me. At least it means no more having
to do the best possible job to avoid suspicion.

“Now about your situation. We know that Scaboron was the main target, because thanks to your swift action, and that of Shadow
on the Frost, we recovered much of the data from your opponents’ purses before it could self-destruct. So my successor will
be much better able to deliver a stern warning to the heir.”

“So you speck Princess Shyf is behind this.” Dujuv didn’t sound as if he wanted to argue; just as if he wanted things clear.

“Well, one death was planned and attempted tonight. One was opportunistic. Only one person would have profited by
both
deaths. That person walked out of danger less than ten seconds before the attack began. And, knowing about the major attempt,
she might have whispered a hint to someone about a chance for the minor attempt, as well. That would be my thought about how
things might have happened.” Colonel Mattanga was reasoning just as Uncle Sib had taught Jak to do, the way he had studied
at the Academy. His mind wanted to assent.

But his conditioning made him want to scream and slap Mattanga. He wanted to kick Kawib for making him care that Seubla was
dead. He wanted to punch Dujuv for agreeing so readily. Most of all he wanted to cry in Sesh’s arms because it was an evil
world where his beautiful princess had to have blood on her hands. Not trusting himself to say anything, or even to react,
he tried to sit perfectly still.

“Dujuv, you and I are in somewhat similar trouble. I still don’t know how to thank you adequately, I admire you beyond all
words—you did very well indeed—but I have to say that your bravery and coolness under fire is going to cost you dearly. Xil
Argenglass, the man who killed my daughter and whom you killed, was an agent of Hive Intelligence.”

“What? How could—why would
he
—?”

“Your intelligence service has a principle of ‘assistance to a friendly monarch,’ with which I’m sure you are familiar,” Colonel
Mattanga said. “Obviously, as long as they didn’t get caught ordering it, Seubla’s death was good for the Karrinynya. Now
it will be blamed on a ‘rogue’ Hive agent, as will the assassination attempt, and you two will be heroes—also targets, for
though Hive Intelligence will write off one stringer agent, the Princess will not so easily forgive the two of you for having
foiled the assassination of Scaboron.

“We need to get you out of here. Myxenna should be safe—she didn’t help save the King, just got into the line of fire. But
I’m not going to have my job much longer, and Dujuv, you have done powerful people damage, which they must pretend was a favor—I
can’t imagine a more dangerous situation. Jak, you didn’t actually kill a Hive agent but you were vital in foiling the assassination
attempt, and you saw too much and know too much.

“So what we must do, before I’m discharged from this job, is get you both far away, giving everyone time and grounds to forgive
and forget. I think I have an assignment that will work. Now, we have some private audiences tonight, first with the King,
and then with the Duke. Do you have any questions?”

“I don’t think so,” Jak said. He swallowed hard. “You speck that Sesh—”

“Everyone knows that she’s harsher than her father. The republican underground might try to kill
her,
but never him. There’s a lot of hereditary enmity between Greenworld and Uranium, so I suppose it’s possible that Duke Psim
could have been responsible, but why try it on the one occasion on which he
doesn’t
have an alibi? Theoretically it might have been one of the zybots, possibly Triangle One, or it might have been one of the
other habitats on the Aerie, but that would be very high risk, for very little profit, for any of them.

“But the Princess has made it clear she despises the King. And he doesn’t even try to conceal his distaste for her anymore.
Had he been killed, she would have benefited greatly, and there would never have been any successful investigation.

“You know, Scaboron took the throne late in life—his older sister died childless—and he will be a short-running king for Greenworld,
just twenty-eight years so far. Of my four children, now all killed by the Karrinynya, three died in unprovable murders (but
murders nonetheless) during Scaboron’s predecessor’s reign. I cried when I found I was pregnant with Seubla. None of her siblings
had lived to age six. And yet Scaboron somehow never felt it necessary to take Seubla from me. He has made me really, truly
loyal to my King, against all others. After decades of intelligence work, I’ve known a lot about many high ranking aristos,
and I know how unusual Scaboron is. I am afraid (for your sakes) that Shyf is a much more conventional princess.”