“Loyal was once a favorite of a Bettelhine cousin Melinda. Melinda fell out of favor and hasn’t been aboard for a couple of years. He doesn’t talk much; I think she liked the silent type, and he misses her. I don’t know about Paakth-Doy. She’s an emergency replacement, and hasn’t attracted anybody’s attention yet.”
“But if she impresses somebody,” I said, “she’ll be given a permanent assignment?”
Skye muttered, “Not if I have a single fucking thing to say about it.”
Colette’s fixed smile wavered only a little as she turned her attention to the passenger who had just shown anger without warning. “Is there a problem?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Come here. There’s something I want to do.”
She stood and approached me, stopping when she was closer than she truly had to be. Sitting as I was, I found myself looking up at her breasts. They were firm, impressive, and likely, at least in part, artificial. From my position underneath those curves I could have slipped my arms around her, and pulled her toward me, had that been what I wanted. Instead, showing a sudden anger I did not need to work very hard to summon, I stood and slapped her cheek with a force that made Skye wince from sympathetic pain.
Colette’s reaction was more puzzlement than anger or hurt. “Why did you do that, Counselor?”
“In mathematical terms, I’m affirming the corollary to a proof. Aren’t you angry at me? Don’t you want to hit me back?”
She did the worst thing she could have done at that moment.
She tittered again.
“No. You’re an honored guest.”
“Oh,” I said, “in that case I forgive you.” And I slapped her again, this time harder than I intended, enough to feel the impact halfway up my arm. I could have hit her again and again, because I wanted to; the only thing that kept me from doing it was the knowledge, so deep inside me that my belly lurched from the weight of it, that if I started I wouldn’t stop until it became an out-and-out beating, more brutal by far than anybody but Bettelhines deserved. “That one’s because I felt like it. If you work for me, it will probably be the first in a very long series. I’m unpredictable that way. It’s what I enjoy. I especially like breaking bones. Will you come to enjoy that, and look forward to it, when we’re all together in our shared quarters, at Hans Bettelhine’s estate?”
Colette’s eyes had gone dreamy. “I’ve always wanted to visit the main estate. They say it’s beautiful.”
I slapped her again, but even that was not enough to dispel my disgust at what had been done to her, what she had allowed to be done to her, so I found myself casting about for a fresh outrage, something that would rob her of any dignity that still remained. I snapped, “Would you—”
Skye cried, “That’s enough!”
It was the angriest cry the Porrinyards had ever directed at me, either as individuals or as linked pair: a sharp burst of pure revulsion that forced me to see myself through their eyes and brought me back from the edge of the abyss.
I was left blinking, as disgusted by myself as she could have been from what she’d just seen in me.
When Skye stood, there was a coldness in her eyes I’d never seen there before. “I’m sorry, Andrea. But you’ve made your point.” Then she turned to Colette. “Please go back downstairs, miss. Tell the others we’ll be contacting them again in a few minutes.”
Colette seemed wholly unable to comprehend why the seduction she still perceived as friendly had just gone so awry. After a moment she said, “All right,” and went to the door, stopping just long enough to cast an eye over her shoulder and said, “It’s all good, Counselor. From where I sit, it’s good to feel happy.”
The door closed.
Skye and I stared at each other from across the elegantly appointed room. She opened her mouth as if to say something else, something that might have come out filled with venom. A second passed before she decided to put it off, her reticence more about keeping us both focused on the issue than dismissing the side of me she’d just seen.
I wanted to go to her, wrap her in my arms, and weep that I wasn’t part of this, that this was Bettelhine corruption, that I was still me. But there was no point, because it would have denied the nature of the problem.
I was who I’d always been.
And I had to be fair. Even if this did turn out to be their saturation point, the Porrinyards had already lasted far longer than anybody else could have ever imagined.
I said, “We’ll talk about this later.”
Skye nodded and looked away, not quite ready to answer.
I cleared my throat, and spoke in a voice unexpectedly thick. “In any event, we now know at least part of what Mrs. Pearlman does for them….”
16
JASON AND JELAINE
According to Skye, reporting what she’d seen through Oscin’s eyes, the three Bettelhines were surprised when I had him send them all up.
They were also disturbed when Oscin specified that the Bettelhines were to come without Monday Brown or Vernon Wethers along to vet their answers and safeguard their interests.
Brown and Wethers both raised serious objections to that, but then Oscin—acting on a suggestion I’d relayed through Skye—asked, “Aren’t three Bettelhines capable of looking out for themselves?”
It was about as transparent a gesture of psychological manipulation as any I’d ever attempted. The Bettelhines had to recognize it. But it worked regardless. The Bettelhines ordered Brown and Wethers to stand down, and came upstairs alone and unescorted in what must have felt like the latest leg of a journey with no destination in sight.
When the siblings arrived in the suite, they chose seats that reflected the uneasy rivalry between two parties. Philip and Jason sat facing each other, Philip wary and Jason wearing a sad mask that may have been either a put-on or a genuine reflection of his regret that things had to be so tense between them. On her own, Jelaine took a seat outside the circle and against the wall, a gesture that did not abdicate her place in this imminent confrontation between brothers so much as provide her strategic control over the battlefield. There were tears at the corners of her eyes, but I couldn’t tell whether they’d been of hope, or sadness, or stress and exhaustion. Nothing about her suggested that she felt she’d lost her control of the situation, not even when she said, “Are you all right, Counselor? You look grimmer than I’ve ever seen you, which is saying a lot.”
Skye would still not look at me.
I said, “You’re very perceptive, Jelaine. I am grimmer. You’ve been saying that you want to make friends, but then some of the things I’ve found out about your stinking, despicable family in the last few hours have made me even more disgusted than I was when I only knew you as abstractions.”
The knowing smile never left her face, nor did the quiet confidence on Jason’s. They continued to present a united front, a stance that had long since ceased to impress me.
Philip, who had indicated grudging respect for me in some of our more recent conversations, now flashed fresh anger. “Watch it, Counselor. We’ve given you license up until now, but it isn’t unlimited.”
I charged him with a speed that made him flinch and stopped only when we faced each other from across a gulf of inches. “You should be. If I had my way the lot of you would be lined up on the side of the road and confronted, one at a time, by an endless parade of everybody you’ve ever hurt. You’d get one fifteen-minute break every hour to wipe the spit off your face, but only so the next hundred people in line could enjoy an unsullied target. Do you see the look in my eyes, Philip? It’s what I think of your goddamned irrelevant license.”