“Pardon?”
“Never get between a man and his snack, remember?”
I blinked. “That was you?”
“Yes, and that was him, too. Perason Quam, the food critic for the Manville Journal.”
I glanced at the broad back and wavering hips as huge holes appeared in the mural. “That’s his name, Quam, not yours?”
“Yes.” She frowned very slightly. “You’ve not been on Basalt long, have you?”
“Not long enough to know him, nope. You, on the other hand…” I slowly smiled, buying another second or two for my brain to start working. In the blue, off-the-shoulders gown she wore, she looked much more elegant than she’d been on the shuttle and, yes, it came to me. She was far more elegant than she’d been in Tri-Vid reports on the sewer disaster. “You are associated with some of the private shelters that took people in last week. I remember you, but only caught the middle of a report. I didn’t get your name.”
“So you had no idea who I was on the shuttle?”
“No, just being kind. Would it have made a difference?”
“To some, yes.” She offered me her hand. “I’m Bianca Germayne. I’m Count Hector’s daughter.”
27
A person seldom falls sick, but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.
Emblyn Palace Resort
Contressa, Garnet Coast
Basalt
Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere
9 February 3133
“His daughter?”
“She is, depending upon his mood.” Quam had waded back through the crowd, little orange greasy stains curling down the valleys of his multiple chins. The little dog held beneath his left arm alternately licked at his face and the edge of the plate on which he had created a sagging pyramid of food. “Forgive my intrusion, I am Quam. How are you, my dear lady? Who is your friend?”
Bianca smiled indulgently. “Perhaps we can find out together. He was on the shuttle with us.”
“Oh, the shuttle. I hate it, but Snookums won’t fly, so what can I do.” He smiled, deepening the crevasses in his flesh. “Besides, the Journal need not know what I did with the cash for the fare here.”
“No, they don’t.” Bianca laid a hand on his right arm, the one holding the plate, which engendered a little growl from Snookums. “Thank you, again.”
“My pleasure, child.” Quam glanced at me. “Your name, sir?”
“Sam Donelly. I’m a special projects consultant.” I smiled. I didn’t offer Quam my hand because I figured I’d lose a finger or two, either to him or Snookums. Bianca shook my hand, enfolding it in a strong grip. “If I might ask, what did Quam mean about your father’s moods?”
Quam rolled his eyes. “Not from around here are you?”
“Be kind, Quam.” Bianca smiled softly. “My father rules the planet benignly and well, but holds certain philosophies with which I disagree. He sees The Republic’s requirement of community service in exchange for citizenship as a call for everyone to work. He finds those who fall below the poverty line to be malingerers and sociopaths who would suck us all down into a morass. He thinks they were born evil and have failed to rise above their base nature.”
Quam swallowed a mouthful that was more than I’d eaten in my last two meals combined. “This angel here, on the other hand, believes in the virtue of mankind, and has dedicated her life to helping the less fortunate. She created the Basalt Foundation, which uses private donations to fund shelters, meal programs and the like—for all people, regardless of their backgrounds. Her father thinks she is coddling criminals, though his mood lightens when her efforts are praised.”
Bianca risked a growl from Snookums by patting Quam on the shoulder. “Quam donated his fare to the foundation, and was instrumental in getting restaurants to save leftovers for delivery to the shelters.”
“One does what he can, isn’t that right, Snookums?” The man planted a kiss on the dog with lips so thick that he obscured half the dog’s head.
“It sounds as though you do very good work.” I reached into my pocket and withdrew one of the two five-thousand-stone credit chits I’d been given for my winnings. “Please, take this. I’d like to help as well. I saw all those poor people who were rendered homeless because of the sewer flooding.”
Quam shifted from foot to foot as if his knickers were bunching up and the dog whimpered in sympathy.
Bianca accepted the chit with wide eyes. “Mr. Donelly, this is quite generous. I really can’t… I mean, it will help, but are you sure?”
I nodded. “Not me you should thank, but the inferior poker prowess of that man over there, those two there, the woman there and that red-headed man over there.”
She followed my finger as I pointed, then she snorted. “This is the first donation they’ve made to the Foundation. I will take it, then.”
“Good. If I win any more, I will continue to donate.”
Quam frowned. “You should really join one of the high-stakes games. More money, worse players.”
“You know this from experience?”
He shook his head, and his jowls remained shaking long after he’d stopped. “They don’t let Snookums in the room with daddy, do they. But I watch, I listen. I am a journalist, after all, even if all they value me for is my palate.”
I’d walked past the high-stakes room, and the buy-in started at twenty thousand. “Alas, they won’t let me in there either.”
Quam gave me a long look up and down. “I’ll stake you for a hundred thousand. Half of what you win goes to the Foundation.”
“And if I lose your money?”
He laughed. “My dear boy, I have little need for money. Any establishment I wish to visit on this planet will give me a meal or three, and a room, and lavish gifts on me in the hopes that I will, if not mention them favorably, at least not mention them scathingly. And there are a whole host of companies that create these dreadful packaged meals who hire me at incredible fees as a consultant, specifically so my conflict of interest will prevent me from telling people that consumption of the plastic containers in which the food arrives would impart more nutrition and more taste than the alleged foodstuffs themselves.”
Snookums, having heard that diatribe before, backed it with a chorus of growls.
“You’re most kind, then.”
A harsh voice growled, “That’s the first time that’s been said of this tub of bacon drippings.”
“Better to be the renderings of a noble animal than an ignoble beast.” Quam sniffed and turned away to the buffet table as a tall young man with blond hair and hazel eyes laid a hand on Bianca’s shoulder.
The man looked at me with pure contempt dripping from his sneer. “You are dismissed.”
The sneer I could have taken, but the high-handed attitude and complete conviction that I was something he’d easily crush under a boot heel got to me. I looked slowly at Bianca. “You would know, my lady, if there is a doctor present at this gathering.”
The question surprised her and she blinked distractedly. “I think so. Yes, of course. Why?”
“Because if he does not remove that hand from your shoulder, I will dislocate his elbow in a manner he will find painful and that will require two operations and a year’s worth of physical therapy to mend.”
The icy tones in my voice froze the sneer on his lips. “Do you have any idea…”
Bianca shook her head. “Bernard, Mr. Donelly is new to Basalt. Sam, this is my brother, Bernard.”
I looked him up and down and could see the resemblance. He looked different from the book illustrations, with his hair now lighter and without a beard. I said nothing.