In the Hall of the Martian King (14 page)

“I’d rather have a rabid ferret in
my
pocket, sir.”

“I’ll give you no argument. Nonetheless that was the game we intended to play, however unwisely. We also know that like any
smaller ally associated with a greater one, Greenworld needs to penetrate the Hive and to exert as much influence as possible
within our politics. This brings me to my real reason for wanting you to stay in close connection with Her Utmost Grace, and
you won’t like it at all.

“Whatever we may think of Clarbo Waynong, he is in the right position in the right branch in the right generation of his family
to be the prime minister of the Hive in another few decades, and what we who know him think of him will not matter. All that
will matter is that he is acceptable to patricians and marketable to the average voter. So I want to leave you in place to
soak up attention that the Princess might otherwise put into Waynong, because he is already showing signs of infatuation with
her, and he is going to be the prime minister, sooner or later, after holding portfolios like Defense, Diplomacy, Wager Orthodoxy,
Energy, and Transportation—very likely after holding
all
those portfolios. He is a perfect target for the Princess; if she gains significant influence over him, the tail will have
gained the power to wag the dog. You, on the other hand, are merely a very promising young agent of the type whose deaths
we risk constantly. Your sanity against the independence of a future prime minister looks like a good bet. But it is not a
very nice thing to do to you.”

“Toktru,” Jak said. “Toktru masen.” He could think of nothing to say that would not make the situation worse. “And there’s
no problem with a complete idiot being the prime minister?”

“Jinnaka, I’ve done tours at headquarters. Working down the hall from the PM’s office. Not only is it not a problem, it’s
nearly a qualification. The PM is really just the spokesperson for the staff that runs things, and there’s only a dozen families
that can produce an acceptable PM—the voters want that chin and those eyes and that confidence.” The kobold looked down for
a moment. “We will try to push things along with Clarbo Waynong so that this mission doesn’t last too much longer, and anyway
Myxenna Bonxiao will be there to take over in nine days. I will transmit a new deconditioning protocol, and then I suggest
that you get some extra sleep. Besides being your controller, I am a neuropsychiatrist, and you’ve had a series of nasty shocks.
A good rest is more than called for.”

* * *

Jak awakened when his purse said, “Incoming message from a high priority person.” He stretched. “What time—?”

“Twenty-two oh eight, local.” Jak had had a three-hour nap. “Put it on a screen on the ceiling, no camera, display modesty
notice.”

“Coming up.”

A white square appeared on the ceiling. Dujuv grinned at him. “Hey, old pizo, if you’re in the tub or banging Princess Slut
or something, finish quick and catch a Pertrans into Magnificiti, tell it you want to go to the Wednesday Rug Café. Kawib
and I are going there to split some pizzas and wine, and you know we can always use another old tove to help us split the
bill.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can—just have to dress—the Wednesday Rug?”

“There was a fad here a few decades ago for naming businesses after any two random nouns. It’s all there in the educational
and informative guide file,
One Thousand Reasons Why Magnificiti Is to All the Cities of the Solar System What the Splendor of the Splendiferous Chrysetic
People Is to All the People of Mars.
Which is right there in your orientation materials. Of course, what with having a major diplomatic function to attend, you
probably didn’t have time to properly peruse it, old tove, whereas Shadow, Pikia, and me got up to reason three hundred twelve
reading it together. Then Shadow and Pikia went off to see a museum over in Freehold—it’s only eighty kilometers away. She
had some independent study thing she could finish for school by doing that, the museum was in the anything-goes part of that
city, and Shadow suggested that she needed a bodyguard more than you or I did. (I think Shadow on the Frost is pretty badly
bored, and he’s hoping to use her as bait.)”

Jak laughed aloud at that. “I’m sure that’s it.”

“Well, it’s just as exciting for all of us while the elite hold their ceremonies. Kawib, of course, got to spend his day making
everyone repolish all the stuff that was already polished. I bumped into him in the cafeteria, and we started to talk, and
we discovered that we like shared boredom better than isolated boredom. And so, to recover from all of this excitement and
stimulation, we’re going to go stupefy ourselves on wine and pizza … see you there?”

Jak was still laughing; it was good to have something normal and sane happening. “All right. Diplomatic receptions aren’t
exactly lively either.”

“Attending them is usually about half the time I spend on my job, Jak. That’s how I specked you wouldn’t mind a little recreation,
either. See you there?”

“Toktru masen.”

“No need to hurry. We’re going to be there for a long time. No reason to be up early. If you haven’t checked the docket lately,
apparently tomorrow Waynong and Prince Cyx are going golfing with Shyf, and the rest of us are hanging around.”

Jak shuddered. “Tell me they aren’t going to be looking for a fourth.”

“Possibly the King.”

“Nakasen be praised.” On Mars golf was a mania, because it was more challenging than on Earth; low gravity meant long drives
but sticky air meant shots curved more easily and the lightest of breezes had a profound effect. A slightly off shot that
might have cost a stroke on Earth was a disaster on Mars. “I’ll get dressed and be right with you.”

Jak took the surface, scenic route rather than shooting through the subsurface tunnels. The Pertrans car glided through Magnificiti,
a pretty little town that looked like a random collection of European architectural ideas from all the prespaceflight centuries;
towers and spires, pseudotemples with friezes, rows of statues, balls on plinths, and cathedrals with imposing fronts, all
packed around a star-shaped pattern of boulevards.

Twilight was still lingering. Since Mars’s atmosphere was so thick so far above the surface, sunset was followed by a very
slow dimming, bluing, and purpling of the sky that went on for more than two hours before full night fell. The stars twinkled
more here than anywhere in the solar system, but the air dimmed them less than it did on Earth; the effect was of a great
scatter of glinting diamonds on an imperial purple cloak.

At their table on the patio at the back of the Wednesday Rug Café, Kawib and Dujuv had two large pizzas surrounded, one partly
and one mostly consumed. Kawib was ignoring the partially eaten piece in front of him in favor of his wine. Dujuv was rolling
a slice lengthwise, his usual method for eating one in the minimum number of bites.

“Playtnaglazfya,” Dujuv said, pointing to his left with his thumb at the plate and glass waiting. Jak pulled out the chair
and sat, dropped a napkin onto his lap, filled the glass, and grabbed a piece of the pizza. He was surprised at how good his
appetite was.

With a mighty gal-
lulp!
Dujuv bolted the rest of his gigantic mouthful of pizza, and washed it down with half a glass of wine. “We’re just getting
started.”

“Er, actually,
I’m
finished, with the food, anyway,” Kawib said.

“With Duj figured into the average,” Jak assured him, “ ‘we’ll’ be just getting started for hours yet to come. How have you
been?”

Kawib Presgano was wearing a plain, unornamented coverall, appropriate for military or security people in foreign territory.
He was still slim, tall, a long-and-lean natural athlete who had stayed in training, just as he had been three years ago when
Jak and Dujuv had first met him.

Jak, Dujuv, and Shadow had witnessed the Princess’s way of operating firsthand: like all Karrinynya, to appoint her most dangerous
rivals and opponents to positions of great trust, so that the moment they failed her in the slightest regard, they could be
executed for treason or sedition. Jak had been there the night that an agent of Hive Intelligence, in a “mistake” arranged
by Shyf, had shot and killed Seubla Mattanga, Kawib’s fiancée and a potential pretender to the throne in her own right. He
had seen the things Shyf had put Kawib through as commander of the Royal Palace Guard. And now he was her personal officer
for intelligence and security … charged with keeping her safe and liable to be killed as soon as his efforts did not seem
quite perfect. “If it’s painful, you don’t have to tell me.”

“Well, it’s been pretty much what you would have guessed. I watch everything. I look for anything that might look even a little
suspicious. I get reconditioned twice a week, and I don’t get to take a break the next day. It’s all a silly, weird game,
Jak. I try not to make a mistake, since I’ll die for the first one … and I wait for the first one to come.” He shrugged, drained
his wineglass, filled it again, and took another sip. “It’s good to have a leave and people to spend it with.”

“Glad we can help you,” Dujuv said, carefully rolling the next piece of pizza. “Nakasen’s hairy bag, what a waste of talent,
Kawib. You could have been anything. It’s a pity you didn’t run away when you were sixteen, before she ever came to Greenworld.
I take it there’s nowhere you could run now?”

“Sooner or later a bounty killer would come and get me. I suppose I could live free for a while, maybe in the Jovian League
somewhere—if I didn’t mind living in a police state—or maybe assume a name and go to Triton or Mercury like any bankrupt or
petty crook.”

“You could do worse than Mercury,” Dujuv commented. “Like I was telling you before Jak got here, they’re decent people. Poor
and beaten down and everything else, but if you joined up in a quacco, you’d have toves who would die for you and a place
where you were needed.”

“For what?”

“They can always use another strong back there. Better still, you’re educated. You could read and write for the adults who
can’t, help with the technical side, even teach the kids. And nobody in your quacco would rat you out. You wouldn’t have to
watch your back, and you might get a chance to quietly go sane.”

“Recover from the conditioning.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“You know that for someone like me that’s years of misery?”

“That’s what they tell you.” Dujuv stretched. “Look, don’t let me get you in trouble. I suggest that you reject whatever I
say, just in case anyone is listening in, masen? But if any of it makes sense, remember it. If you once got to Mercury, with
a few hardchips of currency, what you’d do is throw away your purse and your ID, buy a temporary-on-planet permit from one
of the city governments, under any old name you like, then walk down to the hiring hall and use the rest of your cash to buy
a starter membership in any quacco that needs an educated hand. That’s not traceable. As for the conditioning, hell, yeah,
you’d be in withdrawal. I went through that myself, twice, panths bond naturally and get the same effect. Thought I was going
to die. Thought it wasn’t worth it. Thought I’d never make it through. And when I did make it through, on the other side,
it was. Well, what kind of people end up on Mercury? Trust me, every quacco has a lot of experience with drying out drunks
and detoxing druggies and working the control programming out of various kinds of slaves. They’d take care of you, and you’d
live.”

“As a shattered mess.”

“Maybe an example to make myself clear? While I was at Eldothaler Quacco, we got a new heet in who’d been a professor, once,
and ended up on Mercury because of a little problem with
xleeth.
On
xleeth,
he was happy all the time, just too inept to be trusted to flush a toilet. Off
xleeth,
he was well aware that his IQ was down to about eighty-five, that he’d once been somebody and now he was a shovel propulsion
unit. And his pleasure centers were pretty burned down, so he didn’t enjoy even the simple pleasures much. For some reason,
it was worth it to him to be free, stupid, and sad.” Dujuv hefted the piece of pizza, apparently decided the balance was right,
and took it in three bites. “Look, I’m not your judge and I haven’t been through a tenth of what you have. But people who
really want to be free are free, or dead.”

“And if I’m not free or dead, I didn’t want freedom that much?”

Dujuv swallowed without chewing. “Let’s talk of more pleasant things.”

“Is there anything else much to talk about?” Kawib asked.

“I guess not. Want to just eat and drink?”

“Maybe … Dujuv, how can you be so sure that I’ll be happier on Mercury, or Triton—the choice between broiling and freezing—where
I’ll be nobody but a false name on the right front of my pressure suit?”

“I didn’t say you’d be happier. You’d just be able to use more of your abilities, stop looking over your shoulder, maybe sleep
at night, have stuff to do that mattered. That kind of thing. But being happy? I didn’t say anything about that.”

“But you think I should go.” Kawib drained his glass again.

Trying to lighten the mood, Jak said, “Sometimes I think Duj believes we all should go to those places.”

The thoughtful expression on Dujuv’s face would have confused every bigot in the solar system—a panth obviously lost in contemplation—but
when he spoke again, Jak and Kawib were just as confused. “Oh, I don’t think the really terrible places are good for the people
who are there. I wish they could all get out of there. The
radzundslag
on Mercury has most people only living a bit past a hundred years, and Triton’s a pretty brutal place too. I think I’d go
mad living in a Venerean resource crawler, and I’m not planning to vacation in any of the asteroid mines. No question, decent
schools, and enough rest, and exercise that works your whole body, and food and air without poison are good things—just look
at the people in the Hive and the Aerie, or on Earth or Mars. And most ways there’s more freedom for most people out here
in the good parts of the solar system; I can just open my mouth and say that it’s a disgrace to our species that on Mercury
there’s still slavery and banking, and nothing happens to me. Say that on a street corner in Chaudville or Bigpile and several
private companies will be putting a price on your head within minutes, and some bounty hunter will collect it within days.
No, I don’t think the resource extraction areas are good places and I don’t think everyone should go there.