“That will do very well,” Harlis said. “What are your provisioning options?”
“Well, there’s the basic package, but for a gentleman of your rank we usually recommend at least the gold level—”
“Fine. I’ll be over shortly to sign and make the deposit. Put us down for the departure queue, would you?”
“Of course, Ser Thornbuckle.”
Now it was Harlis’s turn to sit back and look at his new employee. “Six hours, and she’ll be ready,” he said.
“Good,” the man said. “By the way, my name’s Taylor. I’ll go get the crew together; you get that information you said you could find, and meet me at the Allsystems office at—” He looked at his watch. “At 2100.”
It occurred to Harlis that his employee was giving him orders and very little information.
Brun turned away from the shuttle terminal with a sigh. “Well . . . I’m glad she’s going back where she belongs, but we sure have a mess to deal with here. And I don’t really have a clue where to start.”
Kate grinned that brassy grin, and said, “You might want to start by helping me finish up my mission, so’s I can get home. With that Conselline out of the way, and a new foreign minister, we ought to be able to get those trade restrictions lifted, and those assets unfrozen, don’t you think? And this would be a real smart time for the Familias to make nice to its neighbors.”
“You’re leaving too?”
“Well, hon, I can’t stay here forever, and I figure I’ve given you folks about all the advice I can, without asking for a salary.”
Brun laughed. “I’ll miss you. But yes, we should be able to get your government’s needs attended to. Though since my mother killed the former foreign minister, you might do better without my help.”
“Let’s just see,” Kate said. “I’ll meet you for lunch, why don’t I, and let you know how it went. The town house?”
“Fine,” Brun said. Kate waved, and turned away. Brun started to offer her a ride, but realized that the Ranger was more than capable of finding her own way. Brun glanced aside, to be sure her security detail was in place, and then walked tamely to her own transport.
At the town house, she kicked off her shoes as she entered the small but comfortable library. It had been her father’s . . . his father’s, too, she presumed. Now it was hers—at least, when she was here alone. She sank into one of the big armchairs, propped her feet on the hassock, and closed her eyes. She couldn’t hear street traffic from here, but she could hear a gardener complaining to another about a shipment of bedding plants.
She heard the distant burr of an incoming call and ignored it, closing her eyes a moment. But the soft swish of footsteps coming down the hall brought her upright. “For me?” she said, as the housekeeper came to the door.
“Yes, sera. Viktor Barraclough.” Viktor! What could he want? “I’ll take it in here,” she said.
“It’s on the secure line,” the housekeeper said.
Which meant using the privacy booth in the hall. Brun fitted herself into the booth, put her hands on the ID plate and looked into the scan mask. When the light turned green, she sealed the unit, then spoke.
“Viktor? It’s Brun—how may I help you?”
“Brun, Stepan wants to meet with you.”
The head of the Barraclough sept wanted to meet with her? Her heart started pounding, and questions raced through her mind. She asked the only useful ones. “Where and when?”
“He would prefer that you come to his attorney’s office—and is Kevil Mahoney well enough to come along?” What was going on?
“I have a lunch meeting,” Brun said. “But I’ll contact Kevil and see—I’m assuming he wants to meet today?”
“If possible, this afternoon at three—if not, tomorrow.”
“I see.”
“And—it’s Family and sept business, which we would prefer to be kept private. I know you have that woman from the Lone Star Confederation with you—some kind of law officer?”
“A Ranger, they call it. Yes—she was helpful when Harlis was fighting Dad’s will.”
“So I understood. If you believe her to be discreet, Stepan would not object to your letting her know where you are, but not anyone else.”
“Fine, then.”
She called Kevil, now home from the rehab center, from the same booth and waited while he made the secure connection.
“What are you up to now?” he asked.
“Viktor Barraclough,” Brun said. “He called to tell me Stepan wants to see me—and you, if you’re up to it—on Family and sept business, this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon.”
Kevil pursed his lips a moment. “That’s . . . very interesting. Have you been following the news the past couple of days?”
“No—we’ve been getting Esmay back to Fleet and off to her new command. Why?”
“The Consellines are bruiting it about that your family colluded with the Benignity to arrange the deaths on Patchcock, Hobart’s assassination and Pedar’s death.”
“My,” said Brun. “That’s ingenious—how do they think we did it?”
“Well . . . apparently Oskar Morrelline came up with the idea that the Benignity spy in their Patchcock pharmaceutical facility was planted there by your family—to ruin the Morrellines’ reputation, you see.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Brun said.
“Paranoid in high degree,” Kevil agreed. “Unfortunately, however, Ottala, Oskar’s daughter, must have told her father unflattering things about you, from your school days together, because he’s convinced that you all had a grudge against the Morrellines.”
Memories of schoolgirl pranks rose in Brun’s mind—the time she had . . . the time Ottala had . . .
“She was fairly poisonous,” Brun said, “but I didn’t do anything worse than she did.”
“That’s not how he heard it. He’s almost got himself convinced that this spy was not only planted by your family, but that Ottala was on the spy’s trail and about to expose him when he killed her.”
“Ottala couldn’t have trailed a paint-dipped cat across a white carpet,” Brun said, the old resentments flaring up. “She was impenetrably self-centered.” Kevil said nothing, and she felt herself going hot. “Of course, so was I—so were we all, except maybe Raffaele—but Ottala wasn’t just spoiled and rich and selfish . . . she wasn’t overbright, besides.”
“Whatever the facts,” Kevil said, “what people believe is something else. Oskar got a little of his influence back under Hobart, and he’s making the most he can of Hobart’s death. He’s convinced the Benignity ambassador is lying—that the Benignity wouldn’t really have someone killed just because of their beliefs about rejuvenation—and besides, Hobart wasn’t a rejuvenant.”
“So the Consellines are painting us black,” Brun said. “Our immediate family, or the whole sept?”
“The whole sept.”
“I suppose Stepan wants me to be the sacrificial lamb,” Brun said. “In Council, in front of everyone.”
“I doubt it,” Kevil said. “Stepan respected and liked your father—he’s very old, you know, and he’s never rejuved. I suspect he wants you to do something, and we’d better find out what.”
“Can you make it this afternoon?”
“Of course. Three? I’ll be there. And I would bet you, if you were a gambler, that if I call his attorneys right now, someone will ask me to lunch, and then we’ll go back to their offices around two, chatting about how to get my business back in shape . . . and I just might still be there at three, when you arrive.”
“Deviousness,” Brun said.
“Yes. And if you think you and Stepan will be pulling up to the door at the same time, think again. Three this afternoon gives him plenty of time to arrange staggered arrivals for everyone he wants to have come and not much time for leaks. Look worried, Brun, when you arrive—look like someone who’s expecting a scolding or even to be denied her Seat. And it wouldn’t hurt if you called Buttons and asked what he thought of the Morrelline rumor mill, without mentioning Stepan.”