The Third Claw of God Read online

  I stood up, folded my arms, and wondered, not for the first or even twentieth time, just what Hans Bettelhine wanted with me. Up until now the closest I’d ever come to dealing with the Family on any substantial basis was a few interviews with distant cousins representing the corporation’s interests in remote outposts, and so far removed from the wealth and power of the Bettelhine Inner Family that they must have felt like human skin cells connected to the organism but superfluous and unconnected to the beat of its huge, cavernous heart.

  But this was the belly of the beast…

  Behind me, the Porrinyards said, “Andrea?”

  I didn’t turn. “What?”

  “You’re obsessing again.”

  I still didn’t turn. “This is going to be a bad one, love.”

  “I would not be surprised. On this corrupt world, with these corrupt people, it could not be anything less. But that’s just an additional reason to face our trials properly refreshed.”

  There was something familiar about their shared tone, something that made me turn.

  They were cuddled together on a nearby love seat, Skye resting her head on Oscin’s shoulder and playing, idly, with the fingers of his right hand. She peered at me from beneath half-closed lids, a special look of hers she’d always used to communicate her boldest invitations. Oscin faced me head-on, his smile so slight that only a curlicue wrinkle at the edge of his lips distinguished it from the one he wore at his moments of greatest concentration.

  Their shared mind meant that they both found me amusing in the same, exact way, but the subtle differences between her smile and his seemed to express complementary attitudes that arrived at the same place by coincidence alone. It was a pose, but one they must have practiced with great care.

  “The main problem with focus,” they said together, “is losing your peripheral vision.”

  I felt foolish. “For Juje’s sake, love, somebody just tried to kill me!”

  Their fingertips traced each other like old friends searching for changes in familiar faces. “True. And it was a catastrophically incompetent attempt, wasn’t it?”

  “So?”

  “So why not celebrate?”

  “Because there’s another assassin out there!”

  They tsked. “That deduction, brilliant as I found it, remains unproved. It’s entirely based on the premise that the actions of sentients dedicated to mad and murderous causes can be trusted to make some kind of consistent internal sense: an idea easily debunked by any look at the history of mad and murderous causes. Tonight, in these spectacular accommodations, I don’t even see a reason to let it ruin our mood. The operative phrase in this place should be, We’ve hit the big time.”

  They patted the couch cushions in unison.

  As always, when the Porrinyards surprised me by seizing the initiative, my cheeks burned. “Now?”

  “Your path is a difficult one, Andrea. You’ll never have a perfect moment, unless you stop from time to time to make one. I see no hypocrisy in suggesting a little wine, a little music, and some time putting that big bed in our suite to some fine recreational use. After all, our next venue might not be even remotely as nice.”

  I remembered my first glimpse of them. They’d been as beautiful as anybody I’d ever seen. Sometimes, faced with pressing problems, I forget. Sometimes they take the time to remind me.

  Oscin’s smile became broad and challenging, while Skye’s became more sly, implying secrets that she and I could find some way to hide from him. This was a transparent fraud, as Skye could no sooner keep secrets from Oscin than I could decide, on a whim, to keep secrets from the right half of my brain. But the pretense had its intended effect. The two of them—dammit, the one of them—had mastered all the skills they needed on me.

  “There’s a shower in there,” Skye said. “Big enough for three.”

  “Water,” said Oscin. “Not sonics.”

  Skye: “I noticed a handy menu of expensive topical euphorics.”

  Oscin: “Some I’ve tried and some I’ve always wanted to try.”

  “Together,” suggested Skye, “and in combination.”

  Oscin said: “We have plenty of time.”

  And then the two of them, together, rising as one: “Why not?”

  There was no point in further resistance.

  “God damn it,” I said, and went to them, lowering my head against the cleft formed by the place where their shoulders met.

  I think I came within a heartbeat of calm, before I felt the sudden tension in their postures. “Andrea,” they said.

  I took a step back and glanced at their faces. Both wore looks equal parts astonishment, alarm, and anger. Oscin was staring over the top of my head at something behind me; Skye had seized my forearm with a grip that prevented me from turning around right away. I gave her a questioning look. She nodded, then gave my arm an extra squeeze, just strong enough to approach but not cross the threshold of pain.

  This could only be a warning to be careful how I reacted when I turned around and saw what they saw.

  I nodded to let her know that I understood.

  She loosened her grip on my arm.

  I turned around and did not overreact at all.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  3

  THE KHAAJIIR

  T he Bocaian licked the edges of his lipless mouth.

  “Andrea Cort. I hope I may take that as an expression of surprise, and not as an appraisal of my character.”

  Bocaians don’t suffer the same problems with worn-out skin elasticity that causes wrinkles in untreated humans of advanced years, and therefore don’t need regular rejuvenation to remain smooth-faced until their advanced dotage. But I had an experienced eye and had no trouble spotting the signs betraying this one’s extreme antiquity, from the paler cast to his skin, to the bent posture that betrayed the traditional complaints of any upright spine suffering from too many years spent arguing with gravity. He rested much of his weight on a staff, taller than himself, that seemed to have been carved from a glassy transparent wood I had seen many times in my childhood; it had been polished to a high sheen, and reflected the overhead lights in a manner that made it look almost as bejeweled as the garish furnishings around us. He wore a loose-fitting hooded tunic with a ruffled ankle-length hem, and a gold medallion bearing a shiny embossed symbol of some kind. There was no ROM disk affixed to the center of his high, hairless forehead: a rarity for the few Bocaians who travel, given that the absence testified to unassisted fluency in Mercantile and the other common languages.

  Damned if he didn’t seem to be smiling. Bocaian evolution hadn’t produced that expression as a way to communicate warmth or amusement, but they knew what it meant to human beings, and could simulate the look when they wanted to. He could just as easily be showing teeth for the other traditional reason. I certainly didn’t like the looks of that staff. Deadly as a Claw of God could be, I wasn’t any more enthused about the prospect of going down to an old-fashioned blow to the skull.

  A pair of well-dressed human beings, in their late teens or early twenties, stood behind him.

  From the young man’s resemblance to the famous Hans Bettelhine, I assumed him to be one of the Bettelhine “youngsters” Arturo Mendez had mentioned. He had a chiseled jaw and an aristocratic nose and a physique so slight it bordered on the unhealthy. I wondered if he’d been ill, or if this was some local affectation I didn’t know about, akin to the one that had once required the royalty of Ancient China on old Earth to grow their toenails and fingernails to a length designed to render them utterly dependent on their servants for everything from feeding themselves to basic hygiene. His attempt at a reassuring smile held back just enough to establish he’d known enough suffering to take a few degrees of warmth off any happiness he’d ever know. You expect to see looks like that on the faces of the poor. When on the rich, it usually evidenced a past that included failed attempts at self-destruction.

  The young woman was a different story. She r
esembled the princess of so many fairy tales, her skin porcelain, her shoulder-length hair a shade of gold that rendered the mere metal a gaudy pretender. She wore a loose ankle-length silver gown, just translucent enough to accentuate the difference between its comfy shapelessness and the shape of the curves underneath. She didn’t look like she’d ever suffered at all, though her concerned glance at the young man I assumed to be her brother suggested that she had been touched, in some way, by whatever had happened to him. There was a story here, one that might reward a closer look.

  But not now.

  Not with a Bocaian in the room.

  I said, “Stay right where you are.”

  The Bocaian cocked his head. “Forever? That would be tiring.”

  “I have as much time as you do, sir.”

  The haggard young man stepped away from the Bocaian and held both his hands out palm-first, in a placating gesture. “Counselor Cort? I’m Jason Bettelhine. This is my sister, Jelaine. I believe we can straighten this out, if you’ll just calm down and let us explain.”

  I laid on the chill. “This is calm, sir, and an explanation is exactly what I was about to demand. Your Mr. Pescziuwicz just turned Layabout upside down looking for Bocaians. He said that the two who attacked me were the only ones he’d ever seen. Now you waltz in here with another. Was your Mr. Pescziuwicz lying or incompetent?”

  “Please,” Jelaine Bettelhine said, her voice so soft that only breeding and immense personal will could account for the way it commanded the room. “Can we at least sit down while we discuss this? The Khaajiir hasn’t been well. He shouldn’t be forced to stand for too long.”

  I hadn’t taken my eyes off the Bocaian, but I assessed him again with this claim in mind, and took special note of his tight grip on that staff. He rested as much weight on that as on his own two legs. This didn’t remove him from consideration as a special threat; I’d known a petty criminal, once, who could barely walk but whose arms were deadly weapons. But neither could I see any pressing reason for the Bettelhines to drag me all the way to their world, if all they wanted was to place me in the same room with such an unlikely assassin. “Very well.”

  The Bettelines escorted the Khaajiir to the nearest sofa, which was rich enough and plush enough to make me feel somewhat safer, as even the most able-bodied human being might have had to struggle for a few seconds to escape from its decadent comforts. The cushions beneath him whooshed with escaping air when he surrendered to local gravity. He rested the staff itself against his knees with a comfort that suggested years since the last time he’d allowed himself to be parted from it.

  The Bettelhines saw to his well-being with a solicitousness surprising for royalty of any kind, then parted to settle in a pair of high-backed easy chairs bracketing his sofa. Their attitudes as they sat were so complementary that they might have been rehearsed for my benefit. Jelaine leaned back, tucked her long legs underneath her, and allowed the chair to envelop her like a protective parent, the ripples and folds of her gown bunching up around like additional pillows. She held a warm half-smile, beneath understanding eyes. Jason sat, too, his eyes imploring even as they bled pain from past traumas.

  Only when they were seated did I relax and take an easy chair opposite the Khaajiir. The Porrinyards, following their own instincts, remained standing at either side of me, alert for any betrayal.

  Jason did not urge them to sit. “Your friends are a linked pair?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew a linked pair once. Two women, working on a project for one of my many uncles. They used to visit the Central Estate quite a bit. I had a serious crush on them, when I was twelve.”

  I radiated chill. “I’m so delighted for you.”

  Jelaine curled her delicate pink lips in the tiniest of all possible amused smiles.

  Jason fluttered his hands in wry surrender. “We expected this to be difficult, Counselor. Even before today’s unfortunate incident, we knew you’d be upset by the Khaajiir’s presence. Given the circumstances, we’ve asked the other guests to remain in the shuttle, while we make sure you’re okay with this.”

  “They can wait. Right now I want you to finish explaining how your crack security chief, Mr. Pescziuwicz, could miss the presence of another Bocaian aboard this station.”

  “Pescziuwicz is good at his job,” Jason said. “But he operates under certain limitations he may not have made clear to you. He only knows about registered travelers passing through Layabout. He doesn’t receive information about those who bypass Layabout using Family visas.”

  “‘Family visas,’” I repeated.

  “The Inner Family enjoys a full exemption from all local travel restrictions. For instance, down on the surface, we’re the only ones allowed personal intercontinental aircraft. It makes for a cleaner sky. Within this system, only Inner Family members, their guests, or employees bearing the Inner Family crest are allowed to take direct flights to and from Xana without using Layabout. And when this carriage is docked, we can transfer from it, to our own orbital shuttle and back, without ever passing through the terminal.”

  “Without going through customs?”

  “It’s our planet,” he reminded me. “Our customs.”

  “That must be convenient. Institutionalized smuggling.”

  Jason winced. “Please, Counselor. It’s not smuggling if it breaks no laws, and we break no laws if we make the laws and have the power to give ourselves exemptions. Besides, it’s not like we don’t police ourselves at all. We had an out-of-control cousin once. She was caught bringing in narcotics on my family’s no-no list. My father downgraded her status in the Family and banished her for life. The same thing happened to our aunt Lillian, for political reasons. There was another uncle, a few generations ago, who broke more serious laws and was handed over to the local legal system. He did prison time. This is all part of the local historical record.”

  “You’re still able to come and go without official notice.”

  “Exactly,” Jason said. “And I agree, that would be wrong if this world wasn’t, in addition to being the home of millions, also private property and the headquarters of a major interstellar corporation. Is it your position, Counselor, that families aren’t allowed to keep secrets on their own ground? That heads of State, and the leaders of major corporations, aren’t required to keep some of their activities out of the public eye, just to protect their own proprietary business?”

  “That does sounds a lot like talk I’ve heard about other ‘family’ businesses.”

  “Criminal families, Counselor. I understand you probably think the description applies to us as well, but I’ll let that pass so we can move on to the main point, which is that the Khaajiir, here, is a personal guest of my father, traveling under the Family exemption. He’s never been through local customs, and never set foot on Layabout. Pescziuwicz wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect his presence aboard the carriage.”

  I still wasn’t sure I bought his defense of a planetary policy that rendered the Bettelhines above the law on a world where their actions affected the daily lives of millions, but he was right: it was time to move on. “You had to have heard about the two Bocaians involved in the attempt on my life. Why didn’t you tell Pescziuwicz about the Khaajiir, then, just to make sure he had all the facts?”

  “Nobody’s supposed to know about the Khaajiir except the people in this carriage, my father, and a few associates of my father. And now, you. And your associates—associate, if you prefer.” For just a moment, parsing the plural, he seemed frazzled, and I empathized with him; it sometimes amazed me, how many simple sentences became labyrinths when they referred to linked pairs like the Porrinyards. After a moment, he recovered and said, “The bottom line, Counselor, is that his presence here is entirely peaceful, his intentions toward you entirely benign.”

  “But still,” I said, my voice still radiating chill, “not entirely unrelated to what happened in the concourse.”

  Jason didn’t flinch. “No. Prob
ably not.”

  On either side of me, the Porrinyards coughed. “I’m afraid you’re a little ahead of me, Andrea.”

  I may have been answering the Porrinyards, but I kept my eyes focused on Jason Bettelhine. “It’s simple. That cute little theory I spat out in Pescziuwicz’s office? The one about secondary targets? I had it upside down and backward. Those thugs weren’t lying in wait for me. Just as I said, there was no way for anybody originating on Bocai to find out our travel plans and beat us here, with or without any ridiculous ancient weapon in hand. But a security breach could have alerted them to the Khaajiir’s presence on Xana months ago. They would have had plenty of time to put their pieces in play. Even to get their hands on at least one Claw of God, possibly more, before they came.”

  Jason now sported a half-smile identical to the one that had been stamped on his sister’s face since the beginning of the conversation. “That was, of course, before you showed up.”

  “Exactly.” I found myself grimacing with equal wry amusement. “I may be the only woman ever born who could travel to another solar system on the spur of the moment, arrive unannounced, and by sheer luck stroll right into the line of fire of an assassination team waiting for somebody else who just by coincidence happens to hate her even more.”

  The Porrinyards emitted identical exasperated sighs. “You have a gift.”

  I turned my attention to the Khaajiir, who had been watching the entire exchange with rapt fascination. “As for you, sir, the Claws of God have no special significance in my life, and as far as I know no special significance to anybody but the K’cenhowten, but their presence in the hands of your fellow Bocaians might make a great deal more sense in this context once you tell me who the hell you are.”

  The Khaajiir shifted, his long, bony fingers lightly spinning his staff in place. “You live up to your reputation, Andrea Cort. You are a most impressive human being.”