The Third Claw of God Read online

  “I get that a lot. Again, who are you?”

  He glanced at each of the Bettelhines in turn, receiving a nod from Jason and an encouraging smile from the long-silent Jelaine. Then he sighed, placed the staff across his knees, and said, “I’m just a poor academic, you would say ‘Professor,’ adept in a number of fields that would include history and the discipline your own people call ‘comparative religion.’”

  That told me nothing. “I’ve never heard this honorific, Khaajiir.”

  He seemed amused by my shaky pronunciation. “It almost sounds like it could be Bocaian, doesn’t it? But it didn’t originate on my world at all. It’s actually an ancient K’cenhowten title, dating back to the days of their Enlightenment, and referring to the spiritual leaders of the movement that helped to lift their people out of the dark age responsible for originating the barbaric method of execution you almost suffered today. I was so passionate when discussing that particular period in offworld history that some of my students named me that in jest, in part as a pun on my real family name, Kassasir. I gratified my students by liking it, as I like most multilanguage puns, and I’ve worn it for so long that I’m afraid it’s stuck. You may consider it an old man’s affectation, nothing more.”

  “I’ll stick with Khaajiir,” I said. “Might as well stick with whatever everybody else calls you.”

  “Coming from you, it would mean everything to me.”

  It was the first moment of warmth, feigned or otherwise, that I’d received from any Bocaian since the massacre, but I was too intent on following this trail to acknowledge it. “And the assassins used the Claw of God because, used against you, it would represent the renewed ascendance of the forces the historical Khaajiirs—”

  “The plural is Khaajiirel,” he said.

  “—were able to overcome. So. All right. I understand symbolism, even if it’s demented and stupid fanatical symbolism. But you still haven’t explained a damn thing. You haven’t told me who you are and what your business is and what you’re doing here and why a Bocaian hit team would be here trying to kill you.”

  That was met by silence.

  Of the three of them, the Khaajiir seemed the first tempted to break down and tell me, but Jason Bettelhine broke in, his tone regretful but firm. “I’m afraid that much of that is tied up with the reason you’re here, and my father wanted that information to wait until he could brief you himself.”

  I turned back to him. “Your father’s agenda was set before we knew assassins were involved.”

  “He has his reasons, Counselor. I promise you that they’re compelling ones. In the meantime, be satisfied with my assurance that the Khaajiir means you no harm.”

  “Oh, I can see that. But since we’ve established that there are people who wish him harm, and that those people also wish me harm, I’ll be in the line of fire for as long as we’re breathing the same air. Were this Confederate territory, I’d stick around just because protecting him was part of my job. But this is your planet, and your problem. I need a reason I shouldn’t just turn around and go back to New London right now.”

  Jelaine Bettelhine spoke in a voice so soft that she might have been a young mother, urging a cranky infant to sleep. “Please don’t.”

  “I need a better reason than please.”

  “My brother has given you his word of honor. So has the Khaajiir. I now give you mine. There’s a good reason for all of this, one more important than you can possibly guess. You need to stay.”

  The Confederacy includes a number of worlds ruled by royalty, of one kind of another. I’d been to a number, the most recent an industrial hell under a runaway CO2 hothouse atmosphere, where the most venerated figure was supposed to be a direct descendant of an antiquated terrestrial line known as the House of Windsor, ceremonial figures of little real power in a country best known for establishing an empire that had collapsed under its own weight. She’d been, in the most precise medical terms, an obese, insensate, limbless idiot, dependent on constant care from a servant class who considered themselves honored for the privilege. She’d been the worst of a bad lot. Whenever I encountered royalty, most struck me as fussy oafs raised from birth to confuse their whims with the common good. Precious few struck me as intelligent, and fewer still struck me as noble.

  But whatever that final, overused adjective means, Jelaine Bettelhine had it. The conviction in her voice was rich with compassion, understanding, and the sense that she knew more than I’d ever known or ever would know. It was impossible, even for a congenital cynic like myself, to hear that voice, sense that poise, and not want to believe in her.

  That was a dangerous weapon she had. But her veneer of sincerity meant nothing. The primary requirement of a good liar is believing in the fiction, even if only for the few seconds it took to tell it.

  I licked my lips. “I’ll need a quick look at that staff. Just to be sure.”

  The Khaajiir said, “Certainly,” and extended the tip toward me.

  I took it from him, and felt an unexpected pang when my fingers touched it for the first time. I’d been familiar with this wood, during my childhood on his world. A number of my Bocaian neighbors had possessed art objects made of the same material. I’d had a little carved bhakha, a cute, big-eyed local animal more appealing to look at than the real thing had been when I’d had the opportunity to play with one. (The toxic little mucker bit me.) The woodgrain on my carving had been so light and so smooth, that it was almost as friction free as half-melted ice, one good reason why even the richest Bocaians had never been stupid enough to use it for flooring. As a little girl I’d loved touching it anyway. The inanimate carving had possessed an uncanny illusion of life, mostly thanks to the material’s talent for retaining heat, which had often made it feel a few degrees warmer than the surrounding air.

  The staff was just as slippery, which made it an odd choice as spare limb for a sentient of failing strength. What mishap would result if the Khaajiir lost his grip? But further investigation revealed an invisible circular band, about three-quarters of the way up, that exerted the same pull toward the palm of my hand that a magnet has on iron filings. Gripping the staff there, I could not let it go unless I made myself let it go.

  Nice trick. Some kind of imbedded tech, invisible despite the staff’s total transparency. It might contain an entire battalion of nanoweaponry that I’d never be able to detect outside a lab, and I’m useless in a lab. My AIsource masters could probably catalogue everything, if they ever deigned to tell me. But I could see nothing. There were no openings, no hidden compartments, no obvious uses other than as a walking stick.

  I didn’t want to trust it. But I had no cause to suspect it. “It’s fine workmanship.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  I extended the staff back toward him, handle side first.

  He took it by the adhesive band, and once again rested it across his knees. The simulated smile and look of genial warmth never left him. “Do you know, Counselor, that your name is a very ironic one?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Cort, in Mercantile, sounds the same as Court, in the antiquated Hom.Sap language known as English. A Court is a room where legal hearings are held, and thus a splendidly appropriate name for a legal professional like you. Nor is that all. Have your partners here ever informed you of the secret significance of their individual names, Oscin and Skye?”

  It had never occurred to me to wonder. “No.”

  “Oscin and Skye are both members of a pantheon of minor Gods worshipped by a cult on the arboreal colony of Farjanif, from whence I presume they hail. The names of the deities, simultaneously siblings and lovers if my knowledge of the mythology serves, are English puns as well, as they’re near homonyms for that language’s words designating Ocean and Sky. Splendid appellations for a pair with such an, ah, elemental union, wouldn’t you say?”

  I glanced at the Porrinyards, one at a time. They both avoided eye contact with me. Interesting. They’d known and never to
ld me.

  “Porrinyards is also a significant appelation,” he said. “It comes from an extinct dialect known as Hectaish, with some roots in the ancient-Earth romance languages, and it means multiple births. There is a possible secondary meaning if you look up antiquated patronymics among the Cid—”

  “Sir,” I said.

  The Khaajiir did not seem affronted. “Excuse me. I told you I liked multilingual puns. Start me up and I’ll go for hours. But Bocaian and your own Hom.Sap Mercantile are both such inadequate languages for wordplay that I leap at the opportunity to dip into others whenever possible. It’s one of the few pleasures I can still afford at my advanced age. I do hope that making your acquaintance will be another.”

  Maybe he meant it. Stranger things had happened.

  “It’s been a long, hard day,” Jason Bettelhine said. “We’re running late, and we haven’t even begun our descent. We also just received word of another late arrival, one of my brothers, who’ll be docking with us in about twenty minutes. Plus we have the other guests to get situated. It’s a nightmare. So why don’t you three—you two, whatever—repair to your suite, get some rest, make use of the facilities, and meet everybody for dinner three hours after we embark? We’ll make introductions, get better acquainted, and perhaps answer some more of your questions then. Is that fair?”

  Once upon a time, not too long ago, I’d made a policy of never dining with other human beings. I still didn’t like to accept invitations from anybody but the Porrinyards, but they’d loosened me up quite a bit. I could tolerate it for business. “I suppose it will have to be.”

  Jelaine Bettelhine’s eyes twinkled. “I promise, Counselor, we’ll be friends before this journey is done. We have more in common that you can possibly know.”

  Swell.

  I got that a lot, too, and it had never been good news.

  Somehow, the things I have in common with people who like to say so are always their worst qualities.

  W e returned to our suite, feeling less secure than ever despite surroundings so plush that I could have fallen face-first anywhere and not received a bruise upon hitting the floor. I hadn’t noticed, on my first tour through these rooms, but the luxury here extended to the quality of the air. It was not just fresh, free of that tinned quality you find in some orbital environments, but downright bracing, thanks to what may have been an increased percentage of pure oxygen and what may have been some other stimulant, jacking my metabolism in ways that might do a lot to lessen the crash that always followed Intersleep by about twenty-four hours. I tried to build up a nice load of resentment over this and failed, a serious lapse for me given that the Porrinyards say they can track my grudges in geographical strata.

  Maybe I was mellowing, after all. And maybe not all the euphorics in this decadent conveyance were topical and stored in jars. The Bettelhines already seemed willing to go to extreme lengths to keep their guests happy. Maybe their efforts extended to technological means. Subaural suggestives in the hum of the air compressors? Subclinical teem-flashes in the lighting?

  Paranoid? Sure. But I’d never, not even once in my life, been too paranoid, only not paranoid enough. And this was a family that had earned its obscene fortune by developing newer and more brilliant ways to kill great numbers of people.

  But any difficulty I was having maintaining a mad-on could also be a mere reaction to the sheer luxury around me. The Porrinyards, who had thrived in some of the most hostile environments known to mankind, had already demonstrated their own susceptibility to the comforts this place offered. If I was brutally honest to myself I had to admit that I was having some of the same feelings.

  I wondered, not for the first time, just how the obscenely wealthy ever managed to develop thick skin, with everything in their environments so carefully designed to cushion their painless ride through life.

  I also wondered just why I sensed something worse in the background of the young heir, Jason.

  I stood at the transparent curving wall of the suite, looking down on the bright green landscape now greeting the first hours of daylight. “I confess, love, I didn’t read up on this place as well as I should have. Do you know which land-mass we’re looking at?”

  “There are three,” the Porrinyards said. “Ice, a frozen one nobody ever goes to, Asgard, the one that belongs to the Family, and Midgard, the one inhabited by their inner circle of employees.”

  “That’s what I heard. But which one is that, below us?”

  “Think about it.”

  I did, then felt stupid. “Of course. The Bettelhines would never sully their own continent with anything as landscape-defiling as an orbital elevator.”

  “Asgard is more like a nature preserve, I understand. Between the estates, the support staff, and the environmental stewards, its entire full-time population is less than eighteen thousand people. I think they use, actually use, less than one percent of the available land, though they make much of the territory available for scenic and recreational purposes. Not that Midgard is all that spoiled a place to live, either. Three million people, total, from coast to coast, most of them in a tiny handful of cities. If mankind had kept the homeworld that pristine, we never would have left.”

  And all of those people worked for the Bettelhines, either directly or for the infrastructure that made those cities active, breathing communities. With that much space to deal with, that many natural resources to support themselves, even before regular cash infusions from the family trade allowed the importation of anything they preferred not to manufacture locally, the local standard of living went beyond privilege. The poorest of the poor, around here, must have lived in conditions that matched the upper middle class anywhere else. “I wonder how many worlds were reduced to industrial hells, or smoking ruins, so the Bettelhines can afford to live like this.”

  “I could look it up and give you a precise figure,” the Porrinyards said, “but I don’t think any one of us is in the mood for that much higher math.”

  I turned away from the window, and saw them, curled on the huge bed in attitudes that suggested a pair of human parentheses just waiting for me to take my place between them, as the phrase being singled out for special emphasis. Neither had disrobed. They had no need to hurry me along. There was no urging in either set of eyes, just a certain confident patience.

  Oscin spoke alone. “They’re dancing around something.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to recruit me.”

  “That seems likely.” Skye rolled over on her back, faced the infinite spaces of a ceiling that, though only a meter or so above our heads, was designed to look as vast and the skies of heaven. “I would not put it past them; they’ve bought out Dip Corps contracts before. We knew a fellow, back on One One One, who sold himself to the Bettelhines as a high-altitude specialist. But if they offered you a position, would it be anything you’d want to do? Anything that would leave you room for your mission for the AIsource?”

  Oscin added, “And would you want to contribute to any enterprise that has caused so much human suffering on so many worlds?”

  “The AIsource can’t be accused of having clean hands, either.”

  “True. But the AIsource prize you as an implacable enemy. They appreciate you wanting them dead; they would be delighted if you found the means. The Bettelhines, on the other hand, only want to prosper, and would only hire you for some reason that advanced their own fortunes. That’s not you, Andrea. It’s never been you.”

  Comments like that always make me uncomfortable, as if being seen as some kind of moral paragon driven by principle amounts to a guarantee that I’d someday prove a disappointment. “From the hints they dropped, they expect me to embrace whatever they have to say.”

  “The Bettelhines didn’t get where they are by being bad salesmen, even when all they were selling was death. Whatever they want of you, they will make it sound like the greatest offer you ever had.”

  “Present company excluded,” I said.

  The Porrin
yards grinned together. “Quite right.”

  “What do you make of these two in particular?”

  Oscin said, “You did notice that Jason did almost all the talking, and that Jelaine came in only when it was time to seal the deal.”

  “Of course. Do you think she’s in charge of, well, whatever this is?”

  They spoke together again. “My perception of that will depend entirely on how much Hans Bettelhine involves himself. But no. To the extent these two are active players, I think both siblings are in charge, and that each is as formidable as the other. I think Jason’s the face of this business. Whatever hurt him—and I know the way you think, so don’t be surprised, I agree that something has hurt him—may even be the motivating force, in some manner. But I also think Jelaine’s behind her brother, backing up his moves, and picking up the slack whenever his own considerable resources prove insufficient. I think she is, if you allow the phrase, the will that drives his determination. Does that make sense to you?”

  It was much what I’d been thinking, and I usually trusted their shared perceptions over my own when it came to questions of human behavior. But right now their assurances failed to satisfy. I didn’t know what it was, but something about the young Bettelhines reeked of illicit secrets.

  Incest? Maybe. As I’d already noted, the Bettelhines were nothing if not royals on their own ground, and the one immutable element of life as a royal is the way it relegates every other human being to the level of social inferior. No doubt their family kept this in mind, and that the local social season was in large part an exercise in providing these two, and their approximately one dozen siblings, with potential mates of appropriate station. But that would not be enough to prevent all possible infatuations among siblings segregated to a family estate. It certainly fit the bond I’d sensed between them, in those few minutes we’d spent together. But so would any number of sibling conspiracies, such as being of like age and the closest of confidantes when they were raised.