“Yes, I did.”
“Then please accept my apologies. Our head of security will be with you shortly: Meanwhile, the Grand Imperial Hotel Ariel is pleased to upgrade you to the Grand Imperial Suite at no extra cost, if that will be satisfactory?”
The rest of the day passed in something of a blur.
The Grand Imperial Suite—on the lowermost subsurface deck of the hotel—was suitably impressive, with both dry and wet accommodation, its own controlled entrance, and a sufficiency of rooms and passages that I could easily have become lost in it if I had not first asked for a map upload. The head of hotel security was, in her own person, also suitably impressive: a former colleague of the police inspector, now working to ensure that the hotel’s more illustrious patrons would encounter no untoward embarrassments during their stay. And the SystemBank was indeed more than willing to send a branch manager (not a mere clerk) to assist me in negotiating the sale of one of my carefully hoarded dollars. This latter process took some time (it is necessary first to countersign the dollar with a checksum derived from one’s soul, then arrange for a formal transfer of title notice to be transmitted to the beacon station for onward confirmation by way of the issuing bank—which in the case of New California was more than twenty light-years away). As I anticipated, the conversion rate on offer for a negotiated transfer was little short of usury—I lost nearly 90 percent of the value of the dollar in fees and discounted interest and insurance policies—but left me with the best part of a million Argos Riyals in hot, fast, anonymous cash, most of it sitting in SystemBank Taj’s accounts for now.
I hated having to do this but could see no alternative. In all probability, Ana had been abducted and slain by a hideous crime syndicate or some other nightmarish stupidity. My mission to retrieve her was a complete and utter failure, and my life would probably be in danger if I stayed here. Furthermore, my stalker from the chapel would be arriving shortly as that vehicle entered orbit. So I must look to my personal safety, regardless of the expense, and it is easier to buy safety if one is a prominent foreign millionaire than an anonymous local pauper.
My plan was to hide here for a while—no point in not giving Inspector Schram the benefit of the doubt, and an opportunity to make whatever use they could of my assistance—but eventually I would have to leave. And I had every intention of chartering a private yacht and hightailing it to Taj Beacon, there to beam out-system. Whether to Shin-Kyoto to continue my pilgrimage—pretending to be unaware of my lineage mater’s disapproval, waiting for me back home—or to pick another destination at random, I had not yet decided. It’s the sort of decision I have never been good at making.
Having reduced my assets by a not-insubstantial amount, and having determined to stay here for at least ten days, I set about spending some more money. My shipboard free-fall suit was both elderly and unfashionable: Moreover, it was far from waterproof and had become embarrassingly moist over the past day. A faint aroma clung to it, and I feared that it was beginning to degrade. So with the concierge desk’s help I arranged for a visit from a tailor—one suitably cleared by the hotel-security staff—and commissioned a brace of wet and dry suits.
Other needs were less easily taken care of. “I need to consult a body shop,” I told the concierge. “One who specializes in adapting visiting land dwellers for subsurface life.” Not because I planned to spend any great time underwater but because if I should find myself in such a situation, I would be in considerable trouble: my gas exchangers—lungs, in Fragile terminology—were not designed to extract dissolved oxygen from water, and I only held a couple of hours in reserve. Nor were my fingers and toes appropriately webbed for mobility, and my auditory equipment and attitude sensors would need adjusting. (Forget venturing below the two-hundred-meter line; that would require more drastic, invasive upgrades to my ’cytes’ programming. Not to mention replacing my legs with a taiclass="underline" and, as I told the travel agent on Taj Beacon, I am unaccountably attached to my bipedalism.)
“We can arrange for you to have a visit from the hotel doctor,” said the concierge. “However, it will not be possible for you to receive extensive modifications without visiting an external clinic. We can arrange security for such a visit, but I believe we will require advance notification, and additional charges may apply.”
“That’s acceptable.” I waved it off. “If you can send the doctor up—”
“Excuse me.”
“I beg your pardon?” I feared I had missed the concierge’s words.
“A visitor in reception is asking if they can see you, Ms. Alizond. They identify themselves as Count Rudolf Crimson-50. They are unaccompanied. Would you like us to pass on a message or indicate that you are not to be disturbed?”
“No! Wait!” I clutched my head. “He’s on his own? Send him up here. Wait, check him for weapons first? No, he’s not stupid enough to— Wait, do you have a conference room available? If so, send him there. I’ll meet him, then see the doctor afterward.”
Rudi was waiting for me in a small conference room two levels below the lobby, unaccompanied and clearly unarmed, just as the concierge had indicated. He looked smaller and somehow less threatening under these changed circumstances: His wing membranes drooped heavily in the planetary gravity, and his fur formed bedraggled tufts. But his gaze was as sharp as ever, and his manner as controlled as if he were still in control of the board of his own vehicle.
“Ah, Krina.” He grinned at me, baring sharp incisors. “Thank you for making room for me in your doubtless busy timetable: We’ve been combing the city for you for days! We were extraordinarily worried, you know. Out of curiosity, may I ask how you evaded me at the port offices? And why?”
“You’d have to ask Her Majesty. It wasn’t intentional on my part, I assure you.”
“Her Majesty?” His voice rose to a squeak: “What does she have to do with this?” I could almost believe that Rudi was concerned for my safety. His sarcastic, abrasive exterior disguised a sentimental streak, as I had discovered over the past year. I would have found it cute if I had not been so obviously in his debt, or under his power. But now the tables were turned. I dropped into one of the chairs positioned to either side of the window. It looked out onto the sunlit subsurface, a rippling silver ceiling just above our heads that was toning toward emerald in the near distance. Occasional human or vehicular traffic drifted past, crossing the wide-open well that separated the hotel’s outer wall from the other dangling tentacles of the floating city core. “I followed you and Dent into immigration and was promptly hauled up in front of her and arrested,” I told him. “Was it your doing?”
“Eh? No! Absolutely not.” Rudi managed to look guilty and worried simultaneously. “What did you tell them?”
“They seemed to be interested in Ana’s disappearance. I believe I’m not allowed to say any more. There is a police investigation in progress. They let me go after I told them everything I knew—and after giving me a warning about not interfering in a criminal investigation.” I shivered slightly.
“The investigators think she was abducted or killed?” Rudi stared at me in unconcealed dismay. “I had hoped—” His expression of frustration involved complex nose-wrinkling and ear-twitching—“for something better. Feh. Abducted or killed, and they don’t even know which.” Another edgy twitch. “Feh.”
“It’s all right for you,” I pointed out. “I’ve lost a close relative!” And my six-month study collaborator. Not to mention the person to whom I was supposed to be delivering—but I wasn’t supposed to even think about that. The less remembered the better. “You’re just out by one insurance policy!”