Great North Road (68 page)

“They do indeed. I didn’t know you were engaged. Housden, is it?”

“Yes.”

“He’s a good man. Call him. He deserves to know from you.”

“Right.” She drew down a long breath and told her e-i to place the call she’d been dreading.

It was Prince Matiff’s transnet address management software that responded to her call. “The prince will no longer accept calls from you.”

“I understand. Do you have a message-relay facility?”

“Yes.”

“Message begins: Pray you never meet me again. Pray very hard. End message.” She licked her lips, pleased with how good that made her feel. A hollow threat—or maybe not. She was going to live for a long time.
Thanks to Daddy.
Angela sniffed away the tears before they could properly form.

Housden answered her call straightaway. But then he was always a class act. “I heard,” he said. “The cartel just became the talk of the party. I’m so sorry about your father.”

“That’s very sweet,” she said. “He didn’t suffer. Quite the opposite.”

“Good.”

The silence stretched out. “Housden. Under the circumstances, I’m hardly going to hold you to your proposal.”

“I … I don’t know what to say. If it was just down to me, then of course we’d stay together. But the family …”

“Always the families,” she said with a sad smile. “I know.”

“Perhaps, you would be a mistress?”

Angela laughed, which made the agents stare at her. “Oh, Housden, you really are the best. No, you go and find yourself someone wonderful. Please. For me.”

“I love you, Angela.”

“I like having sex with you, too.”

“It’s more than that, and you know it.”

She held up her hand again, admiring the diamond ring for the last time. The raw diamond it was cut from must have been the size of a duck egg.
Incredible!
“I’m wearing the ring. I’m looking at it right now. It’s beautiful, Housden.”

“It is yours. I had it made for you.”

“You’re really the best. But I can’t keep it—literally. The bailiffs will take it from me and sell it on. I can’t have that. It is the grandest romantic gesture of our generation. You have it back, and give it to your next fiancé. Anyone who deserves you, deserves it.”

“Let me talk to my family. Perhaps I can still make us happen.”

“No, my darling. Don’t do that. It really is better to have loved and lost. You keep on living this life for me, okay?”

“But what will you do?”

Again, that question. What use a New Monaco citizen in the real universe?
“I’ll be fine, don’t you worry. And anyway, I’m a one-in-ten, remember? You and I will probably wind up together in the end. Someday before my thousand years are up.”

“I will count every day.”

“You do that. But right now I want you to call an Agent Matthews. Tell him that the engagement is off, and that the ring is yours. He’ll make sure you get it back, okay?”

“I will. Angela, I really did love you.”

“And I will never forget you. Promise. Good-bye, my darling.” She turned to face the cluster of agents. “Hey, Matthews.”

By the time he was facing her she’d eased the ring off. “Catch!”

The panic on his face as he lunged for the spinning ring was comical.

“You’ll be getting a call from my ex-fiancé in a moment. See he gets it back.”

The agent scowled at her.

Now for the really important call.

“I can’t believe you called me,” Shasta said. “We all know what happened, the cartel and everything. The prince has announced an extra day of partying. It’s going to be fantastic.”

“Really?” Angela growled. “So is he launching an Apollo to celebrate?”

“It’s not appropriate for you to call me anymore. You know this.”

“If you know about the cartel, then you know I could do with a little help right now.”

“There are many transworld charities I give to most generously. My e-i will provide you with a list.”

“No, Shasta. I need help. I need you to get me off this god-awful planet. Today.”

“This planet is paradise. Don’t ever call me again. My e-i won’t allow you access. Good-bye, Angela.”

“Bitch!” Angela spat at the dead connection. That did leave her with a major problem. She’d thought she could rely on Shasta. If the roles were reversed, she certainly would have helped.
Wouldn’t I?

“Everything all right?” Marlak asked.

“I don’t know. Agent Matthews?”

He left the others and came over to her. “Yes.”

“It’s the middle of the night. My father’s committed suicide, and I’m a bankrupt who’s about to be exiled. Do you mind if I go to bed now, please?”

“Of course.”

Angela woke up alone. It was a habit she hoped she could quickly break. At least it was in her own bedroom—which, even though its decor was utterly perfect, designed by some of the best home stylists to be found across the trans-space worlds, today didn’t feel like home at all.

Because it’s not.
Not anymore. It belongs to the banks
.

She took a shower and went into one of her walk-through wardrobes. Simple jeans and a sweatshirt were the order of the day, she decided. She started telling her e-i to summon her maid and hairstylist, then stopped. “Stupid,” she muttered. On quite a few levels.

This was when she had to concentrate. “Is the surveillance still off in my suite?” she asked the e-i.

“Yes.”

“Give me the visual location of everyone in the mansion.” She studied the diagram her netlenses produced, seeing Matthews waiting in the corridor outside her suite. Marlak was in her father’s study with several board officers, who were hardwiring their own systems into the family AI.

She went back into her bathroom and took the jewelry from the pockets of her discarded robe, where she’d left them last night. They were the items she’d removed from her collection, erasing their listings from the AI. She’d chosen five rings and two sets of earrings. Not big pieces compared with some she had, but the gems were all large and flawless. Between them they’d be worth a million and a half dollars US—if you bought them from a store. She was under no illusion that she’d be able to get that price, but it was a start.

Concealing them was more problematic. She looked around the bathroom and finally decided on the soap. A nail file carved out deep slots in the side of a rose-perfumed bar, and she eased each item in carefully, then pushed soap flakes back in around them, sealing up the bar. It went in a washbag along with stuff like her sonic toothstik, and already opened bottles of oil and some makeup. The agents would let her take that without any question, but getting through the gateway was going to be difficult. She’d be searched and scanned. Non-residents traveling out by themselves always were. And she knew they’d be exceptionally thorough with her for precisely this reason. Until last night she’d been relying on Shasta to travel with her. Staff accompanying their employers were waved through every time. It was something she was going to have to work a way around, and fast. Maybe Daniellia would be open to a proposition?

Angela sat in her dressing room and started combing her damp hair out. It took a lot longer than when her stylists did it. She hadn’t imagined that something this basic would be so difficult, but she kept getting the brush caught in tangles. And why were there more of those than usual?

Agent Matthews was ready when she came out of her suite into the main corridor. “There seems to be something wrong with the network in your private quarters,” he said.

“Good morning, Agent Matthews, have you had breakfast yet?”

“We’ll need your AI access codes.”

“No, me neither. Did you keep any cooks on? I suppose I can make toast and boil an egg. How difficult can it be? There must be a one-oh-one instruction file somewhere on the transnet.”

“The codes, please.”

She rolled her eyes and ordered her e-i to send them to the agent.

“Thank you,” he said in his monotonously polite tone. “And I know how to boil an egg. You won’t starve today.”

“You’re very sweet. I think you’re in the wrong line of work.”

“It pays well.”

“Really? Any vacancies? I do have first-class knowledge of the New Monaco finance markets.”

He shook his head in wonder. “I never will understand you people.”

“No, you never will. Poor you.”

Matthews was right, he did know how to cook. She sat in the West Wing kitchen, which she’d only ever visited three times in her life, and let him serve her scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, on thick toasted bread. He showed her how to use the delightfully antique orange squeezer. Forcing the juice out of the halved fruit by pulling down a lever on the side of the chrome-plated apparatus gave her a ridiculous sense of satisfaction. The coffee machine, however, had more controls and flashing lights than a gateway control room. But again, he knew how to operate it.

“I do have a lot of things to get used to, don’t I?” she said reflectively as she held up the espresso cup with its perfectly made contents.

“Quite a few, yes.”

“Any tips?”

“Take a while and work out what you want to do with the rest of your life.”

“And how do I pay for that time?”

“Your father was born in America. That gives you a legal residency claim. They have Social Security. Not much. If you’re young and able, you get shipped out to a new world and given ten acres to grow your own food on. Same with Grande Europe.”

“Shipped out,” she said in distaste. “Maybe I should just have FAILURE tattooed on my forehead.”

“Won’t any of your friends help?”

“Some might. My ex-fiancé. But I don’t do charity, Agent Matthews.”

“The transnet media would probably be interested in your story.”

“Yes. I’m sure they would.”

Matthews frowned and looked up. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked out.

When Angela told her e-i to find out what was going on, it reported that she didn’t have access clearance to the mansion net anymore. “Too late,” she muttered under her breath.

Matthews returned a couple of minutes later. A familiar figure was walking beside him. Shasta’s father, Bantri. Taller than Matthews and getting on for twice as wide. His round face had a full beard, which she remembered from her childhood as space black, but which was now submitting to an infestation of age’s silver threads; and his brown eyes had all the merriness of a serial killer. He wore a dark purple silk suit that tended toward a more Chinese style than Indian. The diamond pinned to the front of his traditional turban would also be large enough to carve a ring out of, Angela decided. But then Bantri did fancy himself a modern version of the old maharajas.

“My dear girl,” he boomed in a bass voice, opening his arms wide—the way she imagined a benevolent uncle would treat her.

She walked over to be engulfed by his embrace. “Hello, Bantri.” It did surprise her that out of everyone, he would be the one to come and offer sympathy and comfort. Acts of kindness didn’t feature heavily in his life. She was already busy trying to work out what kind of advantage he was looking for at the mansion.

“I’m so sorry about all of this.”

“Not your fault, Bantri. We should have been more cautious, and certainly more alert. But the bioil market was always profitable. Ah well, too late now.”

He clasped her hands in his and squeezed tightly. “Your father was a great man. I will miss him terribly.”

“That’s very kind.”

“And you? What of you? I see the parasites have descended on you already.”

“This is New Monaco. Everything is about the money.”

“Of course, of course.” He took a step back and looked at her with greedy admiration. It was an expression that suited him far better than any attempted kindness.

“So you have no money?”

“No, Bantri,” she said coolly. “But you know this.”

“I do. Yes, I do. It is a terrible thing to be poor in the trans-stellar worlds. I wondered if I might help?”

Angela was quite pleased with herself for working out the main reason why he was here before he made the offer. It meant she wouldn’t betray any surprise when—

“You would make a most magnificent acquisition for me,” Bantri continued in a hopeful tone. “I would be honored if you would accept.”

“A six-month contract, and you obtain full Indian citizenship for me, beginning today. I’ll need somewhere to live afterward.”

He blinked at her immediate response. “Eighteen months.”

“Twelve, including a tax-free bonus. And I keep the clothes I want.”

“Fourteen. The bonus. A dozen outfits, but no couture dresses. I know how much you and Shasta spend on them.”

She gave him a nod.

He raised a thick finger that wore several rings, and beckoned.

Angela recognized the man who hurried through the kitchen door. Tariq, Bantri’s senior lawyer; Marlak’s equivalent.

“Tariq will draw up the contract,” Bantri told her. “I’m going to look at the artwork in your library. I feel I might make an offer for some of your Monets.”

“Good choice.”

His smile was unpleasantly triumphant. “Yes. It is.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Matthews said as soon as Bantri left the kitchen. “Not this, not selling yourself.”

“I seem to be short of other commodities. You and the board officers have made very sure of that, Agent Matthews.”

“But this … You haven’t even looked at what’s out there, the possibilities.”

“Oh please, you don’t really think I’m going to squeeze my own oranges for the rest of my life, do you?”

He shook his head, anger dampened by dismay. “Hell, you people.”

Angela got her e-i to review the contract file Tariq formatted. The salient points were all there, not that she cared. Being a part of Bantri’s staff was the goal. If she was going to have sex with a fat older man … well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

She added her certificate to the file and went upstairs to pack. One of the board officers supervised, making sure she didn’t try to slip any of the couture dresses or designer shoes or anything else ridiculously expensive into her one permitted valise. The washbag was never queried.

They left that afternoon, after she buried her father in a grove of newly planted terrestrial oaks, his favorite. On the plane back to Bantri’s estate she made the first elementary mistake, thinking she would be sitting in the forward cabin with him.