“Ma’am?” the Zei rumbled, deep dark eyes looking down at her from a face at least half a metre above her own. The Zei made her feel like a child.
She sighed, nodded, and the Zei let the funny-looking man approach her. Veppers would not expect her to be stand-offish with anybody at an event as exclusive as this.
“Good day. I believe you are Lededje Y’breq,” the old man said, smiling at her and nodding briefly at Dr. Sulbazghi. His voice was real, not synthesised by a translation device. Even more surprising was that his voice was so deep. Veppers had had his voice surgically improved over the years, making it deeper, more mellifluous and rich in a series of small operations and other treatments, but this man’s voice eclipsed even Veppers’ succulent tones. Bit of a shock in someone so patently an old geezer and looking like he was on his last legs. Maybe age went differently with aliens, she thought.
“Yes, I am,” she said, smiling suitably and carefully pitching her voice into the middle of the Zone of Elegance that her elocution tutor kept wittering on about. “How do you do. And you are?”
“How do you do. My name is Himerance.” He smiled, swivelled from the waist in a slightly unnatural way and looked over to where Veppers was talking to the two crab-like aliens. “I’m with the Jhlupian delegation — a pan-human cultural translator. Making sure nobody commits some terrible faux pas.”
“How interesting,” she said, happy not to be committing one herself by yawning in the geriatric’s face.
He smiled again, looked down to her feet and then back up to her face. Yes, just you give me a good long inspection, you old perv, she thought. She supposed it was partly the dress, of which it had to be said there was not much. She was destined to spend her life in revealing clothes. She had long since decided to be proud of how she looked — she would have been a beauty even without the intagliation, and if she was to bear the mark of her family’s shame then she would do that too with all the dignity she could — however, she was still growing into this new role and sometimes men looked at her in ways she didn’t appreciate. Even Veppers had begun to gaze at her as though he was somehow seeing her for the first time, and in a way that made her uncomfortable.
“I confess,” Himerance said, “I am quite fascinated by the Intagliate. And you are, if I may say so, remarkable even within that exceptional category.”
“How kind,” she said.
“Oh, I am not kind,” Himerance said.
At that point, the Zei watching over them stiffened fractionally and rumbled something that might have been “Excuse me”, before swinging away into the crowd of people with surprising litheness and grace. At the same time Dr. Sulbazghi swayed a little and, frowning, inspected the contents of his glass. His eyes looked a little odd. “Don’t know what they’re putting in this stuff these days. Think I’ll sit down, if you… excuse me.” He sidled off too, heading for some seats.
“There we are,” Himerance said smoothly. He had kept his eyes focused on her while both the Zei and Dr. S had made their excuses and left. She was alone with him now.
The truth dawned. “You just did that?” she asked, glancing first at the broad, retreating back of the Zei and then in the direction Dr. S had disappeared. She was not trying to keep her voice politely modulated any more. She was aware her eyes had widened.
“Well done,” Himerance said with an appreciative smile. “A concocted semi-urgent message on the bodyguard’s comms and a temporary feeling of dizziness afflicting the good doctor. Neither will detain them for long, however it allows me the chance to beg a favour of you.” Himerance smiled again. “I would like to talk to you privately, Ms. Y’breq. May I?”
“Now?” she asked. She glanced about. It would be a short conversation; you were — well, she was — never left alone for more than a minute or so at gatherings like this.
“Later,” Himerance said. “Tonight. In your chamber at Mr. Veppers’ town house in Ubruater City.”
She almost laughed. “Think you’ll get invited?” She knew there was nothing planned that evening beyond a meal out with the whole entourage somewhere and then — for her — music and deportment lessons. Then to bed, after getting to watch half an hour of screen, if she was lucky. She wasn’t allowed out without bodyguards and escorts and the idea that she’d be allowed to entertain a man in her private bedroom, ancient and alien or not, was frankly hilarious.
Himerance smiled his easy smile. “No,” he said. “I can arrange my own access; however I wouldn’t want you to be alarmed, so I thought it best to ask permission first.”
She regained some control. “What is this about, Mr. Himerance?” she asked, voice polite and measured again.
“I have a modest proposition to make. It will cause you no inconvenience or harm. It would take nothing from you that you’d miss.”
She changed tack again, trying to unsettle this weird old guy, dropping the too-polite tone and asking sharply, “And what’s in it for me?”
“Perhaps some satisfaction, once I’ve explained what it is I am looking for. Though some other payment could certainly be arranged.” Still without taking his gaze away from her eyes, he said, “I’m afraid I must hurry you for an answer; one of Mr. Veppers’ bodyguards is making his way towards us rather smartly, having realised we have been left alone.”
She felt excited, slightly scared. Her life was too controlled. “When’s good for you?” she asked.
She’d fallen asleep. She hadn’t meant to and she would never have thought she’d be able to anyway, just too fired up by the vague, illicit thrill of it all. Then when she awoke she knew he was there.
Her room was on the second-top floor of the tall town house, which was better guarded than most military bases. She had a big room with a dressing room and bathroom en-suite; its two large windows looked out over the gently lit parterres and formal sculptings of the garden. By the windows, part illuminated in the spill of cloud-reflected city light the shutters admitted, there was a sitting area with a low table, a couch and two seats.
She levered herself up from her pillows with her elbows.
He was sitting in one of the seats. She saw his head turn.
“Ms. Y’breq,” he said softly. “Hello again.”
She shook her head, put a finger to her lips, pointed round the room.
There was just enough light for her to see him smile. “No,” he said gently. “The various surveillance devices will not trouble us.”
Okay, she thought. So the alarm probably wouldn’t work either. She’d kind of been relying on that as her last line of defence if things got iffy. Well, second-last line of defence; she could always just scream. Though if the guy could interfere with the Zei’s comms, make Dr. S feel suddenly dizzy and somehow get himself into Veppers’ town house without being detected, maybe even screaming wouldn’t be on the agenda if he set his mind against it. She started to get a little frightened again.
A light came slowly on near the seat he sat in, revealing him to be dressed just as he had been at the reception earlier in the day. “Please,” he said, gesturing to the other seat. “Join me.”
She put a robe over her nightgown, turning away from him so that he wouldn’t see her hands shake. She sat by him. He looked different: still the same man, but not quite so old; less skeletal about the face, body no longer stooped.
“Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to talk with you in private,” he said formally.
“That’s okay,” she said, drawing her feet up beneath her and hugging her knees. “So. What is it all about?”
“I would like to take an image of you.”