The Crown Jewels (7 page)

The thing went quickly. Zah called out “One, two, three,” and dropped a handkerchief. Julian’s pistol fired before Maijstral’s mind could entirely absorb the meaning of the falling white lace. Behind him, Maijstral heard a crack as the explosive bullet detonated against the garden wall.

Maijstral looked in surprise at the startled figure over his sight. Julian’s face was red; his jaw worked. Maijstral remembered the way Julian had looked when issuing the challenge, and murder entered Maijstral’s heart.

He tried very hard to determine how his front sight was off so that he could kill Julian, but he wasn’t very good with the weapon and his bullet blew a small crater in the stonework of the old chapel. Then Asad was pounding Maijstral on the back, and Julian was wiping blood off his chin where he’d bitten through his lower tip.

Maijstral reversed the pistol and handed it to Asad. “Give Joseph Bob my thanks,” he said. He tried to smile. “Would you like to see a new card trick? I learned one last night.”

“Damned cool,” Asad said, and rushed him away.

Relatively few people have such a firm grasp of their own nature as Maijstral on his seventeenth birthday. He was a coward and knew it. High Custom did not allow for cowards— thieves, yes, and confidence men— but Maijstral had a good idea of how to cope with it. He had to know High Custom inside and out; he had to be able to manipulate it to his own advantage. He had to glide smoothly through the High Custom world, frictionless, wary of traps. “
Any fool can die in a duel
.” That was the Khosali proverb. Maijstral was determined not to be that kind of fool.

CHAPTER FOUR

General Gerald was prepared to repel boarders. Crouched in battle armor in the comer of his living room, he smiled at his own strategy, his own cunning. Remote sensors in various parts of the house fed data through his armor and into his optical centers. He scanned them with chill, happy obsession. Maijstral might win— the General was willing to concede that possibility— but he would know he’d been in a fight. Maijstral was going to be in for the battle of his life.

He knew that no thief of Maijstral’s caliber could possibly resist the gauntlet the General had flung in his face. He had threatened Maijstral with death knowing that Maijstral couldn’t possibly pass up that kind of challenge. Hah, Maijstral would think, this old fogey thinks he can tell me what to do. And then Maijstral would decide to teach the old man a lesson and sneak into his house to steal something.

Little did Maijstral know that Gerald was ready for him. He had anticipated his enemy’s reaction and was going to spring an ambush.

It was General Gerald’s misfortune to have spent forty years as a warrior without a war. He had never once been in combat. For decades he had practiced for the inevitable Imperial resurgency, honed his skills, studied enemy tactics, waged endless campaigns for funding and battled the Empire only in simulation and exercises . . . and overnight, it seemed, General Gerald found himself facing retirement without the cowardly Imperial fleet having once shown up for the long-awaited Armageddon. It was more than a patriot could stand.

So now the General waited in his old armor, surrounded by weapons laid out in a semicircle, smiling as he scanned the remotes and felt the suit blowing cool air on his brow. He pictured Maijstral’s entry in his mind, the thief moving in through windows or doors or even through the chimney, unaware that the General had just spent a fortune on detection apparatus and confident that his darksuit would hide him from the avenging ex-marine crouched in the corner. General Gerald would open the conflict with a snare rifle, try to catch the thief in its coils. Maijstral’s darksuit could probably make itself frictionless and thus slip the bonds, after which the thief might well strike out with a chugger or a stunner, which the General’s armor would, of course, repel . . . and then the battle would broaden, higher and higher energies brought into play, disruptors and mappers and spitfires, and then maybe it would even come down to hand-to-hand at the end. General Gerald with his trusty cutlass against Maijstral and his stiletto.

The General pictured his victory, Maijstral prostrate, the General triumphant, the room flaming (what the hell— the house was insured). The first time Maijstral had ever been caught and apprehended, a first-class thief brought down by the General’s foresight and cunning.

Maijstral, the General thought. The Allowed Burglar wasn’t quite the Imperial Admiral of the Fleet, but in the latter’s absence he would just have to do . . .

*

Peleng wasn’t any fun at all.

Sergeant Tvi of His Imperial Majesty’s Secret Dragoons looked at her communications display in speechless despair. The Scholder manse was calling for help. Unmistakably. The Imperial Relic would not be reclaimed tonight.

Tvi’s diaphragm gave a spasm of irritation. She banked her Jefferson-Singh speedster and rose high into the traffic lanes, imitating an ordinary commuter. She glanced over her shoulder at her darksuit and equipment and considered tossing them.

No, she decided. She might yet get a chance to show what she could do.

Sergeant Tvi was, to be blunt, a scapegrace. Her parents had been stodgy Imperial servants, existing in perfect descent from long lines of other Imperial servants, each priding himself on his exemplary dullness. Tvi’s childhood had been a tedious one, full of boredom and fantasy. If she hadn’t had a good imagination she might well have died of ennui. Trapped in one Imperial backwater or another, her horizons limited by the acidic atmosphere of Vanngrian or the endless bleak deserts of Zynzlyp, Tvi had followed the burglar standings, the confidence-racket broadcasts, the exploits of the Human Diadem, biographies of Elvis . . . if only, she’d thought, if only she had the chance, she’d show Geoff Fu George or Baron Drago a thing or two.

Her career as a burglar, unfortunately, had not been graced with success. Two standards ago, she’d had the misfortune to get caught on her first job, and her only refuge from Imperial law had been the Secret Dragoons.

As she had contemplated the service from her prison cell on Letharb and listened to the reproaches of her parents, the new work had sounded interesting, even attractive— the chance to visit far-flung worlds, participate in intrigue intended to further the designs of the Empire, find Romance, Excitement, Danger. Instead, however, she’d been assigned as a junior security officer at various consulates in the Human Constellation, a job that consisted for the most part in dealing with various human cranks. Imperialists mainly, who insisted they knew of plots against the Empire and exactly what she should do about them. Countess Anastasia was yet another in a long line of maladjusted human contacts, and Tvi had begun to despair of the whole race. Were these the same people who had produced Mad Julius and the incomparable Soderberg Vampyre?

After Baron Sinn had claimed her for a special mission, her chances had seemed a bit brighter. The situation had been promising. She would be engaged in a race against the clock with the Fate of the Empire at stake, and her competition was none other than Drake Maijstral— he was in the top half of the standings, and furthermore had style and promise. And now it appeared that Tvi had arrived too late.

Damnation. Now things would most likely be turned over to that unspeakable mug Khotvinn, and she’d find herself playing second fiddle in some sordid job of skull-tapping or breaking-and-bashing.

Drat. Peleng was no fun at all.

*

Behind Sergeant Tvi, Paavo Kuusinen’s matte-black speedster rose into the sky. The Khosali commando’s flier was a clear blip on his screens.

Kuusinen had followed Nichole’s advice and got a new jacket cut in the local style, the better to blend in. He was, as he had told Nichole, a student of human nature; he was also, as he told Maijstral, visiting Peleng on business.

That afternoon he had been combining both occupations— he was trying to follow Maijstral. To his surprise he’d discovered that Maijstral was being followed by someone else, the Khosali female. Maijstral had dutifully given her the slip earlier that evening, losing Kuusinen at the same time, and Kuusinen had since been following the Khosali in hopes she’d locate Maijstral again. Instead, the small female had gone off on a pointless excursion into the outback only to turn around abruptly and head back to Peleng City.

Did these people have any idea what they were doing? Kuusinen was beginning to suspect not.

The whole situation was quite bewildering. All he wanted to do was keep an eye on Maijstral, and to his amazement half the Imperial Diplomatic Service seemed to be engaged in the same errand.

There was clearly a mystery here. And, Kuusinen decided, he was just the man to unravel it.

*

Countess Anastasia contemplated her stiff-shouldered image in the reflection of her apartment window. She was dressed in a soft black dress that left her shoulders bare, and billowed around her ankles in a cascading wave of darkness. She touched the skirt, picked at an imaginary bit of lint— how
dare
common detritus adhere to her clothing. Neuralgia danced in her spine, and consequent irritation whispered in her mind.
Maijstral
, the whisper said, and her ears flicked downward. She really did disapprove of the man.

“That Gregor person was asking about Jensen and her cohort. Maijstral’s given us the slip. Your burglar Tvi reports that alarms are going off all over the Scholder house. How much more do you need in order to act?”

Baron Sinn’s sharp-faced silhouette appeared next to hers in the reflective surface. He, too, was smoking, the cigaret hanging from the end of his muzzle. It was a vice he normally avoided, but which he indulged in for Anastasia’s sake, an old-fashioned courtesy she seemed to appreciate. “I have only two personnel,” he said. “Maijstral has servants here, and connections. If he has the Imperial Relic he’s probably gone to ground.”

“Damn him, anyway. Why didn’t he take the bribe?”

“Perhaps he does not share his father’s convictions.”

Anastasia sneered. Smoke streamed from her nostrils in elegant little white traceries, and she admired the effect in the glass. “He simply takes pleasure in being wayward,” she said. “That’s why he took up burglary and that unspeakable Nichole woman, just to annoy the family. I always told his father to be firm with the boy.”

“Too late now, my lady.”

Her lip curled. A bit of tobacco, she noticed, was adhering to one bright tooth. “It’s never too late for firmness, my lord Baron,” she said. It was one of the rules by which she lived, but the maxim was spoiled by her having to pick the tobacco fleck off her smile.

Sinn remained silent.

“That Nichole,” Anastasia told the glass. “Nichole and the Diadem. The height of Constellation culture. People whose sole profession is to be gossiped about. Can you imagine it?”

Sinn moved the cigaret to the comer of his mouth with his lolling tongue. “We were speaking, Countess, about Maijstral and this Jensen woman.”

“Firmness,” she said, remembering her earlier tack.

Neuralgia stabbed her neck. “If Maijstral is in the public eye, and might be missed, Jensen is not. If Maijstral has no one to deliver the Imperial Relic to, then . . .”

“Quite so.”

Baron Sinn looked at the human woman and restrained his diaphragm from an irritated spasm. She was an ally, he reminded himself, and even if she was a grotesque crank she was a
rich
grotesque crank who had personally financed Imperial Party activities here in the Constellation. . . .

He dropped his cigaret into an ashtray. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll have to call Khotvinn into it. We’ll pick up Jensen as soon as she’s alone. She seems to be entertaining someone named Navarre right now— he’s in the service and we don’t want complications.”

Anastasia stalked to him and put her arm through his, her palm stroking the smooth dark hair on his upper arm. “Lovely,” she said. Her mouth open, her tongue lolled: Khosali good humor. The glitter in her eyes was appalling. “Firmness at last.”

Politics, the Baron quoted to himself, oft consists in ignoring facts.

He considered himself a practical person and rarely resorted to maxims. It was a measure of how she strained his nerves that he was thinking in clichés at all.

*

Lieutenant Navarre thought of Amalia Jensen as his flier arched across the night sky. An interesting woman, he decided. Dedicated to preserving the Constellation in her own chosen fashion, and with the facts and intelligence to back up her opinions, she’d proved a most stimulating companion for the evening. Head of a political organization, a third degree black sash in pom boxing, an expert conversationalist... Odd, given all that, she’d turn out to be a garden person. Her house was filled with plants and flowers, all lovingly tended.

Still he was a bit uneasy about turning down an invitation from Nichole. How often did a man, particularly an officer from Pompey, get a chance to be photographed with a member of the Human Diadem? Unfortunate that he’d not been in a situation in which he could escape the commitment with grace.

The communicator on his flier gave a discreet chirp, and he frowned. Who would be calling at this hour? He pressed a button and answered.

“Navarre.”

“Sir? This is Officer Pankat of the Peleng Police. Apparently your late uncle’s house was broken into tonight.”

Navarre was astonished. “Really?” he asked. And then, “
But why
?”

*

“Upon the success of your actions in the next few hours,” Baron Sinn declared, “may depend the Fate of the Empire.”

Well, thought Sergeant Tvi, how much better than this can it ever get?
The Fate of the Empire
— her heart beat faster as the words rang in her mind like bells. This was a definite improvement on spending one’s life in the civil service, gazing out the window at the endless deserts and intractable inhabitants of Zynzlyp. Even Khotvinn’s dark, looming presence— he was a head taller even than Sinn— seemed less than its usual sinister self.

“Khotvinn will be under your orders,” Sinn went on. “If there is trouble, he is trained to get you out of it.”