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CHAPTER TWELVE

With no one left to challenge her authority, Jaka moved fast. After dinner she decided it was time to interrogate Sabbath. She took Solana into the exam room with her and set her to work preparing the tools. “I’ll need some heavy-gauge metal wire, and a heat source. Also a couple of scalpels and a strong piece of carbon rod, about a meter long.”

Once everything was assembled, Jaka took a seat facing Sabbath, with a cold drink handy. She motioned for Solana to stand next to her.

The prisoner, as always, stood calmly against the wall in his restraints. He’d been like that for days, yet Solana had never seen him even relax. He hadn’t slept at all. The only sign that he was actually a biological rather than a mech was the urine on his legs and the floor.

“All right, dear, is the wire hot?”

Solana took it off the resistance heater, using her own tool set to maximum insulation. The ten-centimeter length of wire glowed yellow, and sagged a bit under its own weight.

“Hold it up to his face. Feel that? Feel how hot it is? Do you want to feel it on your tongue, or in your eye? I’m prepared to be reasonable, here. Just tell me what I want to know. What did you come here to get?”

Sabbath shook his head sadly. “I’ve told you the truth. I came here because there’s a killer mech on the station. You’re all in danger. I don’t want any of the stuff here.”

“Solana, touch it to his lip. Now.”

Solana winced almost as if it was her own, but obeyed Jaka’s instruction. The glowing hot metal touched Sabbath’s lower lip and a wisp of white smoke came from the point of contact. It stuck to him and she had to yank it free. The smell of burning flesh was awful.

He didn’t scream. Jaka seemed disappointed. “You’ve got more skin than that, some of it more sensitive. No point in grandstanding.”

“I’m a professional. This isn’t going to work.” His speech was a little distorted by the burn on his lip, but Sabbath showed no sign of noticing.

“Well, eventually you’ll just die. Keep that in mind, because if you don’t tell me anything useful I’ve got no reason to keep you alive.”

“There is a combat mech in this hab, and it’s going to kill you. That’s a very useful thing to know.”

“Liars get punished. Solana, write your initials on his chest.”

She felt tears in her eyes. “Please, don’t make me do that.”

“I’m helping all of us. Besides, you heard the man: he’s a professional. He won’t mind. Indulge me, Solana. Write your initials on him.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, then scrawled a quick SS just over his clavicle. He looked more annoyed than in pain.

“Let’s try this from the other end,” said Jaka. “Who do you work for?”

“Major Gaulteria. She’s based on Juren. I do covert ops for her.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Of course you haven’t. I said covert ops—naturally she keeps a low profile. This is pointless.”

“Not if I find out what she sent you here to get. Why else would you come? Solana, heat up the wire some more, it’s getting cool.” The metal was still visibly red, but Solana obediently put it on the resistance heater again.

“I’m telling you the truth. I’m not here for salvage. I came here to warn you. Hurt me more and I’ll just start making up lies to please you.”

Jaka smiled. “That might be fun.”

“He’s right. You’re wasting time,” said Daslakh from behind her. It was clinging to the wall behind them, just below the ceiling, and had been wearing the same greenish-beige color as the wall panel. No telling how long it had been there. Now it turned deep blue—attention-getting but not aggressive. “He’s obviously had training, and probably some nerve work as well. You can make him into yakitori and he won’t talk if he doesn’t feel like it.”

Jaka glared over her shoulder at the mech. “He’ll never tell us anything if he hears you talking that way.”

“It’s called realism. You’re showing more physical response than he is. Get your jollies when the mission’s over.”

“You weren’t so bossy when you begged me to get you off Scapino.”

“Then, I had a bunch of debt collectors tracking me. Now I’m more worried about this combat mech.”

“Assuming it even exists!” Jaka turned back around and looked at Sabbath with a sulky expression. Then she got up and very deliberately kicked him in the testicles. “Maybe you can ignore the pain, but I can still damage you. Next time it won’t be a hot wire, it’ll be a cutting blade. Understand? Come on, Solana. I’m tense.”


When Solana finally managed to get away, all the biologicals were asleep and Daslakh had vanished into some private universe, like a cat or an odd sock.

She contacted Yanai. “I think I know how to get Pera out of here,” she said.

“The bots haven’t checked in. I’m printing up another one but it will take time. I had to send out one of my maintenance units for some scrap.”

“All we really need is some kind of wheeled cart. I’m sure I can put one together pretty quickly. The others are all asleep.”

“Can you make it with materials from inside the building? Wandering alone outside is too dangerous.”

“Working inside would make too much noise. I’ll stay close by.” She got into her suit slowly and quietly, and remembered to mute the airlock chime when she cycled out.

Without her goggles she had to use a hand lamp to see, and the beam was maddeningly narrow and faint. Being able to see just one cone of light in the darkness of the hab made her very aware of what might be hiding in the places she couldn’t see.

She remembered finding a food vendor’s movable cart with wheels, lying wrecked against a building in the next block. She tried to walk silently—not because she had any illusions about being undetected by a machine which could certainly see her shining in infrared, but so that her own straining ears might hear it approach.

It took her forever to walk half a block, and the lights of the med center looked infinitely far away. Her nervousness kept threatening to bubble over into outright panic. The cart was where she had seen it, and she knelt to take a look. All four wheels were intact, which was a relief. They had actual bearings and were big enough to get over the debris in the street. The frame was made of sturdy carbon rods, but some of the joints had cracked. It was no longer a structure but a mechanism. Putting Pera’s mass on it would flatten the whole thing out.

The first step was to cut away the upper section, the aluminum and ceramic cooking surfaces, the broken fuel tank, and the insulated drawers which had once held farm-grown prawns and peppers but were now lined with mats of mold.

She stopped, suddenly terrified. She could hear a humming mechanical sound steadily approaching. She switched her tool to knife mode and stood up, ready to fight or flee. The humming grew louder, and then she almost giggled as she realized it was above her. Atmin’s travel sphere.

“To be out here alone is madness, courting death or harm. What purpose brought you here when all do sleep?”

“I can make a cart for Pera. You two can get to the spoke.”

“And what of you? I dread whatever Jaka may intend.”

“At least I can help you two. Maybe once you’re away you can do something. See if any of the big habs around Jupiter might intervene. A little obscure group like the Salibi managed to bust up the Kuma operation all the way out in the Kuiper. Surely a giant hab like Juren or Chac could do as much right in their backyard.”

“The life of one mere human, even of a hab like Safdaghar, is not of value to the great. But be assured that I, along with Pera and Yanai, will work unceasingly to find and rescue you.”

Solana felt tears start in her eyes, but just then Anton’s voice came over the common channel. “Atmin, Solana, please check in. Are you all right?”

“We two are well and still in sight of home. You need not fear.”

“Jaka woke up and saw you two were gone. She wants you back here right away.”

Over their private link Atmin said, “This all was my idea. Remember that, and let me deal with Jaka.”

Solana was dreading what would happen when they got back so much that she forgot to be fearful walking in the dark. Atmin was less sanguine, constantly flicking his spotlight around.

Jaka met them in front of the medical building. She had Pera’s engineering laser in her hand with the power pack slung over one shoulder. “Have a nice stroll?” she asked.

“We sought a cart to move poor Pera’s bulk,” said Atmin. “Your summons made us stop that vital work.”

“Mm-hm. I’m getting very tired of everybody trying to lie to me. I start talking about what hidden treasures might be here, and you two sneak away in the middle of the night without telling anyone. It doesn’t take a fourth-level intellect to figure out what’s going on. So: what is it, and where did you hide it?”

“It is a cart for serving food to passersby or spectators at festivals and sporting meets. It lies upon its side, not eighty meters hence, just over there. Its value is too low to count in gigs—or infinite to us, for getting Pera safely out.”

“Then why were you sneaking around? I think getting that dino bitch out of here is a fine idea. You both know that.” Her eyes narrowed inside her bubble helmet. “You’re trying to fool me, but you won’t. I’m smarter than any of you. Solana!” She looked directly at her as she spoke. “You help Tanaca: start lining up the loot right here. And get me a chair. We’re going to find out what the bird is hiding.”

She sprawled in the chair and refused to let Atmin go inside while Solana and Tanaca worked. After about twenty minutes two dozen items stood facing the clinic, spaced a meter apart down the middle of the street.

“That looks good. Now, Mr. Atmin, this is your last chance to stop lying to me.”

“I have not lied to you, nor did I violate the terms agreed. Unlike some people I do not go back upon my word.”

“I wish I could believe that, but I don’t. I’ve looked at all this loot and none of it is worth the trouble of coming down to the rim and searching houses full of mold and corpses. You could make just as good a haul up at the hub.”

“Perhaps we could. My own opinion is that handmade goods hold value greater than mere mass.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can find some idiot with more gigajoule-equivalents than brain cells at Juren or someplace who’s willing to buy these things just because they’re unique. But let me propose an alternative hypothesis, one that fits the facts just as well if not better. I think you know about something, some particular thing here in Safdaghar that’s worth more than a cargo hold full of heavy elements. And, being a clever bird, you didn’t bother to mention it to me because you’re afraid I’ll grab it.”

“I swear to you there is no thing that you could take which I would lie to keep.”

“Yeah, but that’s just what you’d say if you were lying, isn’t it? So instead I’m going to do something called an experiment, to test my model against observed phenomena. It’s a unique opportunity and I’m not going to pass it up. See that statue? The blue glass one?” She took aim with the laser and lit up the statue with a sustained pulse of orange light until it shattered.

“I do not understand what purpose you pursue by vandalism of this kind,” said Atmin.

“How about that ink painting?” Jaka adjusted the laser tuning and then set the paper on fire. They watched it burn for a moment. “See, most of this crap is useless to me. You claim you can find buyers at Juren or wherever, and maybe you can. I’m pretty sure the goons and grifters at Scapino won’t give a pinch of dust for any of it, so even if I get half it’s half of nothing. What’s that thing?” She put a red targeting spot on a rectangular object covered in cloth.

“A book, of paper sheets, with words inscribed by hand and illustrations likewise done. It tells a story, like an entertainment but in text, of conflict in an ocean under ice.”

“Any hot guys in it?”

“There may be one or two.”

“Can you have them fuck?”

“The story has no way to choose. The author did not write it so.”

“Too bad, then.” She played the beam over the book until it blazed merrily. “If an entertainment has hot guys and no fucking, what good is it?”

“I beg you, do not waste these things we have put so much work into retrieving. Although you think they have no worth, I say that you are wrong.”

“I’ll make you a deal: you tell me what you’re really after, and I’ll put away the laser.”

Atmin hesitated, then flapped his wings inside his sphere. “Then hear the truth. I did not tell you this before, but now I will because I cannot stand to see you wantonly destroy these things of beauty wrought by human hands. We came down to the rim to seek a treasure of great price, as you indeed have guessed. A poem, by a Martian bard, unknown to any data net, the last work of a man who died with Safdaghar. His name was Pasquin Tiu—at least, that was the name he signed to what he wrote. The value of a poem from his mind, all new to those who read, might be in petajoules or more. Enough to make it worth our while to search.”

In answer Jaka aimed the laser at a rolled-up handwoven carpet and ignited it. The odor of burning wool penetrated everyone’s filters. “That’s ridiculous. How can anyone tell if it’s real? You could just make up some handful of dust and claim this Pasquin guy wrote it.”

“A baseline mind can analyze the text and style, and greater minds exist which can do more.”

“I bet forgers can, too,” she said. “Nice try, bird, but I’m not buying it—any more than anyone’s buying some poem by a dead guy. Whatever you’re looking for, it’s not that.” She methodically melted the face off of a metal statue. “So where is this poem?”

“My search has failed. If Pasquin left behind a final work, he did not write the words on paper with a brush, as usual for him. I fear it was inside his head, unfinished, on the day when death arrived to silence him for good. Which means each work you burn is one we cannot sell.”

Jaka tuned the laser to infrared, then used it to score the surface of a mirror-finished egg until bits fell off. “You know, this laser’s got preset frequencies that go right through diamond. Minimal energy loss. I could set your feathers on fire and boil your little brain.”

“Remember that Yanai can still avenge her crew. I tell you just the truth. As Sabbath did. Why can you not believe what you are told?”

“Why should I? If I trust him—or you—I come out of here with some craft projects which may or may not be valuable. But if I believe there’s a treasure, something small and priceless, then I’ll keep questioning you and searching. Maybe I’ll find it. You see?”

“This is a waste. A waste of time, of energy, and worst of all a waste of precious things. I will not watch you do this anymore.” With as much dignity as a bird inside a clear hovering bubble could muster, Atmin flew away.

This has to end, Solana thought. I have to stop this. We have to get out of here. But what can I do? I can’t disobey Jaka. I can’t fight her and Adelmar. I can’t do any of those things.

What can I do? she asked herself again.

She followed Jaka inside the medical complex and got out of her suit, even the liner. “Jaka, I had an idea about Sabbath. What if I question him?”

“You?”

Solana stretched in a way that had always affected visitors to Kumu like a dose of current to the brain stem. “What if I can make him want to cooperate?”

Jaka smiled, almost a leer. “Probably won’t work but it’ll be fun to watch anyway. Okay, give it a shot.” She planted her chair just outside the exam room door and flopped down in it. “Hey, Sabbath—take a look at this.”

Solana walked into the room and struck another pose, inviting and seductive.

“See? She’s a Qarina. Ever heard of them? Bred to be the ultimate sex partner. Even better than a virtual experience. She can be yours if you give me what I want.”

His burns were already blistering, he was tired and filthy, and Solana could tell Sabbath didn’t believe a word of Jaka’s promises. It didn’t matter. Jaka was enjoying herself.

“Clean him up and put some foam on those burns. Show him how nice you can be.”

Solana began by smearing him with cleaning goop, then calling it back to the tube. He didn’t react to the touch of her hands, but he did give a little sigh when she rubbed the medical cream onto his burns. (“Work it in all over!” Jaka called out.) Then, since his own arms were still pinned to the wall, she used a squirt bottle to pour broth into his mouth.

“Thank you,” he said after his first long drink. “At the moment that’s the finest meal I’ve ever had. Hunger is the best spice.” He looked into her face. “Are you really a Qarina?”

“That’s right,” she said. “What are your wishes?” She looked him straight in the eye, her expression serious rather than seductive. “What do you want me to do?”

“It has been a bit cold and lonely in here,” he said. “I’d love to feel your skin pressed against mine.”

Solana didn’t hesitate. She flattened herself against him, avoiding the burned places. Behind her Jaka gave a cackle of delight. “See? She’ll do whatever you want. Ready to tell me why you’re here?”

Sabbath nuzzled her ear. As he did, he whispered, “Tell your friend on the wall behind you to open the freezer where my suit is.”

Using the pretext of baring her throat to his lips, she risked a glance over her shoulder and saw Daslakh standing on the opposite wall of the exam room, out of view of the doorway. The little mech’s skin turned safety green, then reverted to a beige exactly matching the wall.

“Please tell the mech to open the freezer. That’s all I need.”

Solana gazed into Sabbath’s face. “Why not me?” she murmured, trying to make it sound like something seductive.

“I don’t want you to be punished if anything goes wrong. That mech seems old and cunning. I figure it’ll be fine.”

She opened a link to Daslakh and passed the message.

“Perceptive little monkey,” said Daslakh.

“Don’t be shy!” Jaka called from where she sat watching the show. “Show him what you can do!”

“Dance,” suggested Sabbath.

Solana took a step back and began one of the routines she had learned during her childhood in Kumu: an utterly sensual display guaranteed to capture the attention of every human in visual range. As she turned and writhed she could see Jaka, completely fascinated. Anton stepped into view behind her, also unable to look away. Even Tanaca showed more interest in Solana than in anything since her arrival at Safdaghar.

The attention was intoxicating. Solana knew it was mostly conditioning and genes making her feel that way, but she enjoyed it anyway. As long as she danced, she was the master. All eyes were on her, and every human watching desired her. Her movements commanded their minds and bodies, and she knew it, and she loved it.

With all of them watching her, nobody had the attention to spare for a little beige mech quietly crawling along the ceiling and out the door.

She took Sabbath’s air of detached amusement as a challenge. She went all-out, bringing her bare body close to his but never quite touching, displaying herself and then turning away, and pantomiming desire and submission. When she saw him reacting, she felt a glow of triumph. She was irresistible, even to a man who could control his own heartbeat.

“Okay,” said Daslakh over their private link. “It’s open.”

She spun closer to Sabbath again, brushing her lips against his and whispering “Open” before pulling back.

“Long sobs of autumn violins,” said Sabbath loudly, in archaic Altok. An instant later Solana heard a loud crash from the kitchen. She didn’t stop dancing.

But whatever was going on had stolen her audience’s attention. Jaka looked alarmed and dove for cover behind a planter, dragging Tanaca with her.

Adelmar hadn’t been watching her performance, having little interest in displays of human flesh. He’d been dozing on a couch but the noise from the kitchen brought him awake at once. He gave a loud snarl and hurled himself at something outside Solana’s field of view. She heard a meaty smack and the chimp went flying across the room and struck the opposite wall with a loud grunt. He slid to the floor, looking groggy.

“You might want to get out of the way,” said Sabbath. Solana flattened herself against the wall as what looked like a two-meter, starfish-colored rescue orange cartwheeled into the room. It leaped at Sabbath, wrapping itself around his body and limbs, forming itself into a suit. The smart matter severed the restraints from the wall and Sabbath stepped forward. The suit completely encased him, and then its surface shifted and changed color. The head and hand coverings turned transparent, while the suit coating his body became a very flattering black formal outfit with gold embroidery at the collar and cuffs.

He looked down at himself and gave a little smile of satisfaction. “Much better. The whole time I was shackled to the wall I was keenly aware of how shabby I must have looked. It was a very painful experience.”

Jaka stood up from behind the planter. “If you try anything I’ll destroy you,” she said.

“No, I don’t think you will. Though I wish it were otherwise, I am not your biggest problem at the moment. We all need to get out of here right away.”

She gave a snort. “What pile of dust are you going to unload now? Why do we have to leave?”

“Sixteen years ago, before his body was destroyed and he had to be borged up, Utsuro came here as part of a team on a mission. He was named Basan back then. The mission failed and he was nearly killed. The other half of the team was a combat mech named Kamaitachi. Not their first pairing; the two of them worked well together. In revenge for Basan being injured, Kamaitachi killed the entire population of Safdaghar. Shot them until it ran out of needles, then sliced them apart or smashed their skulls. You killed him. What do you think it’s going to do?”

“I don’t believe any of this,” she said.

“I don’t care what you believe.” He raised his voice. “We are evacuating now. Suit up and gather enough supplies for a climb to the hub. Call the bird back here. Arm yourselves. I’ll help Pera. No time for delay.”

Solana pulled her suit liner back on and then hurried upstairs for her gear. Jaka didn’t stop her.


Twenty-five years earlier…

It was the party of the year. The Jovian year, to be precise. Every 11.86 standard years, Voskemat Urvakan hosted an elaborate ball at his palace in the giant habitat Juren, which occupied the L1 point between Jupiter and the Sun. Over the course of four centuries Voskemat’s party had become one of the most important social events for the richest and most famous biologicals in the solar system.

Voskemat declared that his thirty-fourth Jovian Year Ball would be an “intimate affair for my most fascinating friends” with a guest list limited to just 1,156 people. This created a social shock wave that destroyed friendships and marriages and sparked one actual shooting war between habs in Jupiter’s Outer Ring. To maintain the “intimate” tone, the host prepared two hundred extremely realistic duplicates of his most attractive body, each fitted with full-sensory telemetry back to the tank where Voskemat’s brain floated in bodiless tranquility. A near-baseline autonomous mind inside each skull could fill in when his attention was elsewhere.

The palace itself was an endless maze of pavilions and arcades sprawling through a square kilometer of gardens stocked with custom-designed plants. The whole thing stood atop a three-story disk holding all the mundane systems and services necessary to keep the place running, which in turn was supported on pylons half a kilometer above the waters of a lake surrounded by other fancy private estates, as if held up for less exquisite beings to admire. During the week before the party the entire structure was surrounded by a privacy shield, a great mirrored bubble to keep snoopers with bots or powerful telescopes from peeking at the guests. Other security measures, less visible but considerably more potent, ensured the safety of the partygoers. The triumvirate of superhuman minds that ruled Juren had a strong and direct interest in maintaining security and took no chances.

As the ball got underway, nobody noticed that there were three extra copies of Voskemat in the palace. Who expects the host to crash his own party? Even Juren’s powerful intelligences couldn’t match Deimos’s ancient agencies for subtlety.

Sabbath Okada took a roasted candyfruit off a hovering tray and smiled at the half-dressed girl reaching for one at the same moment. His implant informed him that she was Arrat Heshtot, currently the acknowledged Ascended Master of the Ninety-Fifth Level of Initiation in the Mysteries of the Hidden Emperor. She had conducted a ten-week sexual affair with Voskemat eighty standard years ago, was three hundred forty years his senior, and was seven hundred million gigajoule-equivalents in debt to the Quantum Bank of Callisto.

He flagged her as potentially useful, gave her a wink, and turned away. That brought the target for the evening into view: Pavo Neskuita, a nice young man who was the avatar of Titan Psychoactives, an autonomous corporation taking human form in order to conduct a dynastic merger with the ruling family of the comet Oterma.

Sabbath, Basan, and Ikkita were at the party to counter a plot centered on young Pavo. Someone among the thousand other guests was secretly an operative of the Trojan Empire, with orders to sabotage the upcoming marriage by engineering a humiliating faux pas for the young man.

Unfortunately, weeks of investigation hadn’t revealed who that Trojan operative was, which meant that Sabbath and the others couldn’t simply arrange for an inconvenient accident or unexpected delay to keep whoever it was away from the party. And for Deimos to reveal an interest in the dynastic affairs of Oterma and Titan Psychoactives would wreck other long-term projects. So the three agents had to accomplish their mission on the scene, in complete secrecy.

Besides, it was more fun that way, Sabbath thought.

At the moment, Pavo was talking biochemistry—and showing genuine understanding and insight—with an elephant-headed man. Sabbath’s implant identified the gentleman with the trunk as Xiu Li, a drug artist from Luna. His origin alone made him worth keeping an eye on. The rivalry between Deimos and Luna was an immutable law of nature. Sabbath pantomimed spotting someone beyond the pair and walked in that direction, pausing as he passed them.

“Enjoying yourselves, gentlemen?” he said, and patted Xiu’s bare shoulder. Voskemat was notorious for making skin contact, which meant it was easy for the sensor web in Sabbath’s hand to check Xiu for anything unusual.

They smiled and nodded and said inconsequential things, he smiled and nodded and said inconsequential things back to them, then edged past Pavo and waved at nobody in particular. Meanwhile Sabbath’s implant processed the molecules on Xiu’s skin. Water, sebum, salts, urea; a whole suite of tailored organisms; a lot of aldehydes—he must be on his second bottle of spiced brandy already; a mild euphoric produced by one of his symbiotic bacteria strains; and the chemical background noise of the room and other guests.

Still, it might be worth intervening. See if Xiu displayed any reluctance to be separated from Pavo. Sabbath didn’t rush, but circled the pavilion on a seemingly random course over the next ten minutes. He bit into a pickled prawn and followed it with a shot of subzero vodka. Nice fringe benefit of this job—actual once-living food and top-quality liquor. Sabbath appreciated the finer things.

By the time he drifted back to Pavo, Xiu had gone off to have a dip in the cold pool, so Sabbath just hung back and watched the young man. Pavo was tall and good-looking. His corporate parent had wisely avoided any of the fashionable faces, instead picking a set of features that made Pavo not just handsome but interesting. People would remember him.

His clothing, of course, was flawless: a classic Titan-style loose tunic with a high collar and turnback cuffs, worn over hose that showed off well-shaped calves. Sabbath could see that the outfit was made by human hands, from cloth combining smart matter and real animal-hair fibers. Exactly right for a young man with enough wealth and status to ignore mere fashion, yet conveying respect for tradition and confidence in his position.

Behind that interesting face was a brain which would be genuinely fascinating to any neuroengineer. Translating an autonomous corporation—which existed chiefly as a set of policies and heuristics—into neurons and glial cells had required building the boy’s brain on a nanoscale scaffolding, training dendrites like the branches of the topiary figures in Voskemat’s garden. Combining that with high intelligence, psychological stability, and the right blend of flawless social skill and controlled aggression had cost Titan Psychoactives about a billion gigajoules. Licensing some of the new techniques had offset that expense, but the royal marriage to Oterma was a prize well worth the effort.

A young woman dressed as a pre-spaceflight Earthwoman with a tricorn and a gold mask stumbled and bumped into Pavo. With hardwired good manners, the young man took her hand to steady her. Their eyes met and both smiled.

Sabbath instantly went on high alert—leavened only by sheer incredulity at how amateurish it was. Would the Trojans actually try something that obvious? He pinged Basan and Ikkita, and hurried forward, as if to help.

“Is this brute manhandling you, darling?” he said, in a flawless imitation of Voskemat’s meta-ironic manner of speaking. “As soon as you give him a good thrashing, I’ll have him thrown out.” He patted her shoulder to see what she might be dosed with. Would it be aphrodisiacs? Hallucinogens? Perhaps a subtle enzyme to interfere with alcohol processing?

“I’m all right. Just learning the gravity here,” she said. Curiously, she gave Sabbath a cheerful wink before turning her attention back to Pavo.

Ikkita checked in. “She’s a fake. Name’s Enkoyito Tifi, but that identity’s only twenty hours old. Can you genotype her?”

His implant was on it. “No matches in Juren.” An anonymous genome was a sure sign of a covert operative. The sensor web on his palm had turned up some interesting results. The young woman’s skin was well-garrisoned with defensive nanobots and tailored organisms, but he couldn’t find a trace of any offensive chemicals. No sign of any intoxicants, either. Elevated estrogen, but within natural parameters for her apparent age and condition.

“How did she get in if she’s got a brand-new identity?” asked Basan. “Maybe we should just tip off Voskemat’s security.”

We got in,” said Ikkita.

“Yes, but we’re the best,” said Sabbath.

Separating the two young humans required all three of them.

Basan homed in on Pavo, feigning brisk concern. “Master Neskuita, a word with you, if I may. There is an autonomous message from Titan asking to be allowed into my house network. It insists it is for you and has an authentication code. Do you know anything about this?”

“Probably junk,” said Pavo. “I’m not expecting any messages. Please ask it to redirect itself to my suite, and I’ll deal with it when the party is over.”

“Normally I would not have troubled you,” said Basan. “People who get messages at parties are generally too dreary to bother inviting. But there was a combination of urgency and mystery about this one that intrigued me. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Pavo. His body was already half turned away, but Basan in his Voskemat disguise wasn’t ready to let him go.

“Have you visited the game room yet? There is a marathon session of Tiedao in progress. You might enjoy playing a few rounds.”

“I’m afraid I don’t gamble,” said Pavo, now looking around in bewilderment. “Do you know where Miss Tifi has gone? I was just talking to her.”

In point of fact, Sabbath and Ikkita had moved to bracket her as soon as Pavo was distracted.

“Come with us. No time to explain,” said Ikkita. They led her to one of the balconies off the salon and set the privacy filter on the window so that it only showed silhouettes. Ikkita guarded the door while Sabbath gently guided the young woman to a chair and stood over her.

“All right, honeytrap. Who are you, really?” he demanded.

She looked puzzled. “It’s me, Uncle Vosko,” she said, and took off the mask. “What’s wrong?”

Sabbath had no idea who she was—but evidently she expected Voskemat to recognize her. Time to be cagey. “I know who you look like, but that could be fake. State your name so my devices can see if you’re lying.”

She drew herself up proudly, sitting straight-backed as if the chair was a throne. “My name is Ausarta Calent, Princess of the House of Buntala, Baroness Entawru, and Heir-Apparent to the ownership and sovereignty of Oterma. Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

Oh, hot dust, Sabbath said to himself. He had forgotten that there was another class of people whose genomes were kept secret, besides spies and operatives: extremely rich and powerful people who had to worry about impostors or personalized viruses.

“Just a passing whim. I am ruled by impulse,” he said in Voskemat’s voice.

“But what’s she doing here?” asked Basan. He and Ikkita were on an open loop, seeing and hearing everything along with Sabbath.

“Yes, what possible reason could she have for coming here and checking out the kid created specifically to marry her?” said Ikkita. “Almost as if she’s hoping their relationship won’t be a loveless legal fiction. How crazy is that?”

“Voskemat must be in on it,” said Sabbath over the private loop. “He’s known her father since they were in school together, before Ezten married Queen Sabela.” To Princess Ausarta he smiled, and said aloud, “Forgive me, my dear. I didn’t recognize you in that outfit at first, and my suspicions got the better of me. I feared you might be some impostor attempting to prey on young Pavo.”

“We’ve been played,” said Ikkita. “Whoever planted that story about the Trojans trying to interfere must have known she was coming and set us up to interfere.”

“Well, no problem, then,” said Sabbath privately, and then, “I hope this brief interruption doesn’t spoil your rapport with the lucky fellow. By all means, go back to what you were doing, and good hunting!”

“Guys? Problem,” said Basan, and let Sabbath and Ikkita see what he was seeing.

Another woman had taken advantage of Ausarta’s absence to claim Pavo’s attention, and she was doing a superb job of it. Her outfit was a swarm of glowing microbots whose movements and color changes were carefully crafted to tantalize, revealing glimpses of a flawless body without being blatant. All coupled with a cloud of pheromone perfume and disinhibitors to prepare the sexual battlespace.

But her real weapon was how she could play to her target. Every movement, every gesture just oozed sexuality. She was mirroring his movements, continually reducing the distance between them, and she kept her eyes locked on his with pupils dilated to display utter fascination. Even if Pavo recognized he was being manipulated, it would still be flattering to see that such an attractive person found him worth manipulating. And the centuries-old Autonomous Corporation mind was incarnate in a human boy in his teens. Not exactly a hardened target.

“Meili Tewu,” said Ikkita. “Ident is ninety-five percent certain.”

“Looks like the Trojan agent story is true after all. Hey, Sabbath, remember that time she poisoned you?”

“Vividly.”

Meili Tewu was a freelancer, an operative clever enough to do the deniable jobs that great powers preferred to use outside talent for—and cunning enough to survive the inevitable tidying-up afterward. They had crossed paths three or four times, including one attempt to tidy her out of existence after a bit of false-flag wetwork.

“How do we get her away from him?”

Sabbath considered his inventory of weapons and other covert devices. He had monofilament concealed in his hair, diamond-edged fingernails, and binary poison glands in his thumbs. One tooth contained a tiny pellet of nitrogen polymer which could blast a hole in armor plate. He knew a dozen ways to kill a human with just his bare hands. “Um…” he said.

Basan took a bowl of ras malai from one of the circulating serving bots, cleared his throat, and announced, “And now I think it is time for an intimate little FOOD FIGHT!” He hurled the bowl with perfect accuracy, hitting Meili right in the face with a mass of sweet spiced cheese in cream.

Evidently Basan had sensed some unspoken zeitgeist in the room, for the other guests joined in with gleeful abandon. Ascended Master Heshtot pelted a chimp in a fabulous lace gown with a berry tart. The angel nuledor Sierra Hal ducked a thrown bombe and swung her shrimp brochette in a wide arc, sending a volley of curried crustaceans into the crowd. A cyborg entertainment-writer, who didn’t even eat, dumped a plate of avocado croquettes inside the trousers of a famous mercenary captain—who responded by smearing a handful of durian marmalade over the diamond sphere holding the borg’s brain.

Sabbath blinked in astonishment as the room devolved into a culinary version of the Sixth Martian Uprising, and then urged Princess Ausarta forward. “Now’s your chance!”

She grinned and charged at Pavo with a plate of jellied escargot. Sabbath went to “assist” Meili, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of his silk toga. “Now, now, my dear. It will be all right,” he said in a loud voice. More softly he added, “Come along or I’ll have to kill you.”

Meili looked at him, then both of them glanced at Pavo and Ausarta, who were trading shots of unagi mousse. When Pavo paused to lick some of it off Ausarta’s collarbone, Sabbath smiled.

“Drat,” said Meili.

“Looks like you’ve failed your mission,” said Sabbath. “I’ve heard the Trojans can be pretty harsh about that. Have you considered changing employers?”

“Not until this minute, but yes.”

“Let’s discuss it while we exfiltrate.”

“Certainly,” she said. “But first—” She snatched a plate of vindaloo from a passing bot and dumped it over his head, blinding him with bubbling-hot sauce and intense spices. By the time he could see again she was gone.

Just then smart-matter hands gripped him very firmly in six places, as a pair of servitor bots lifted him off the floor and carried him over the heads of the crowd. He didn’t break character as Voskemat, waving cheerily at the other guests as several took potshots at him with falafel balls and giant carp eggs.

“Time to fade now,” he told the others, but even as he said it he saw a second Voskemat in the grip of three bots on a converging course.

“Too late,” said Ikkita. No sign of Basan, though. Sabbath hoped he had gotten away.

The bots descended and passed through the door to a private side-chamber—evidently provided for confidential deals and quick sexual assignations. The smart-matter furnishings had all withdrawn, leaving nothing but smooth, soundproof walls and floor.

Six more Voskemats followed them in, accompanied by another bot carrying what Sabbath’s implant identified as a golf bag.

“First of all,” said one of the Voskemats, “I wish to offer the pair of you my genuine and sincere thanks. You have ensured that this party will be talked of for the next Jovian year, if not beyond. Thank you.”

“I’m glad we—” Sabbath began.

However,” Voskemat continued, cutting him off, “for crashing my party and interfering with my guests, I regret that I must break as many of your bones as possible before I throw you out. I’m sure you understand.”

“We’ll call for Juren security,” said Ikkita. “You can’t do this.”

“You are both some kind of covert operatives, and I am entirely confident you have absolutely no desire to attract the attention of Juren security. Feel free to prove me wrong.” Voskemat paused, but when nobody said anything he continued, “In the absence of state justice, I must resort to private vendetta.” The six un-restrained Voskemats took meter-long steel rods from the bag, and five of them advanced menacingly toward Sabbath and Ikkita.

Before the beating began, the lead Voskemat hesitated and frowned. “Wait—” he said, looking at the last clone, who stood calmly by the door with his steel rod held in a defensive posture.

The stray clone smiled, and Sabbath’s implant detected an attack program trying to shut his brain down. But as soon as the software recognized him it stopped—unlike the programs afflicting the other Voskemat bodies and the two servitor bots, all of which stood completely inert, with no more agency than the golf bag on the floor.

“As you said, time to fade,” said Basan. He slapped a smart-matter patch onto his own face and Voskemat’s features were replaced by those of an independent gossip journalist who’d been kicked out of the party twice already. He stuffed his toga into the bag while his tights reshaped themselves into a pricey but obviously mass-market set of mirrored scales. Sabbath and Ikkita busied themselves doing likewise, and the three of them went out of the room via the garden entrance, nodding and smiling to the guests they passed.

They managed to get to within a hundred meters of the edge of the disk before Sabbath heard a swarm of humming servitor bots approaching at top speed. His implant flooded him with adrenaline and endorphins, and the three of them sprinted across the garden at a good fifty kilometers per hour. Beyond the parapet at the edge was a sheer drop half a kilometer to the surface of the lake.

“Why didn’t you get out on your own?” Sabbath said to Basan via implant as they hurdled over the parapet.

“I couldn’t leave you two behind.”

“You’re mad, do you know that?” said Ikkita. “Absolutely mad and I love you.”

As their bodies sliced into the waters of the lake, Sabbath had time to add, “If Pavo and Ausarta aren’t happy together I swear I’m going to kill them both.”


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Framed