She gasped as, quick as a thief, the Blacklaw raised her hand and kissed it. “Mon plaisir, Madame Saneer. This way I think?” Grasping her waist like a dancing partner, Dominic vaulted past Lesley with a practiced leap, and trotted on down the corridor. “Martin’s scans don’t do justice to the tension of the room, the hum. Exhilarating.”
“Wait!” She chased him. “I still have to verify your clearance personally.”
He flexed his shoulders, basking in the windows’ slant of sun. “You’re welcome to call His Grace President Ganymede, if you want a personal reference.”
Lesley testifies that, given the speed of Dominic’s speech and the thickness of his accent, it took her some time to realize he was using ‘he’ and ‘she.’ “You know the President?”
“Intimately. Have you any enemies?”
The question made her frown. “Are you a sensayer? Or a polylaw?”
“Both,” he pronounced with relish. “I serve at the pleasure of J.E.D.D. Mason.” That he pronounced with greater relish, though, for her sake, he contracted it ‘Jed Mason,’ as so many do. “No enemies? I’ll ask again later. Now, is there any part of the house which it would be inconvenient for me to search first?”
She planted herself in front of him. “Slow down, Blacklaw. I’m the officer in charge right now.”
“In charge of keeping the lifeblood of the world speeding on its course, I understand.” He gave a nod—almost a bow—to Mukta.
That eased Lesley’s frown a notch. “Indeed.”
“And I keep the peace among the gods. I believe we are both officers in charge.”
At this point Lesley strongly considered exercising her legal right to kick an obnoxious Blacklaw in the (there were no nuts) stomach. It was a reasonable impulse. The Blacklaw sash around this visitor’s waist proclaims his choice to renounce all protections of the Law—Hive laws and Romanova’s neutral Gray Laws—and to face the Earth with no protection but his own strength, and the restrictions others’ laws may place upon their use of force. A Mitsubishi or strict Cousin may not, by their own chosen laws, indulge in fists and brawling, but Humanist Law accommodates those who sometimes wish to settle things with fists. Lesley was considering her aim when her eye caught the line of the dueling rapier almost hidden in the pleating of the Blacklaw’s coat.
Dominic smiled as he saw her dark eyes catch upon the sword, and he caressed its black hilt. “When I catch the perpetrator, you can petition to have them tried under Humanist Law, but Black Sakura has already recommended a Romanovan panel. I would go with that, if I were you, their penalties tend to sting much more than yours. Shall I begin downstairs?”
Lesley shook herself to fight off the surreality of it all. “What do you mean you keep the peace among the gods?”
Dominic gave a deeper smile, with a soft sound, almost like a purr, deep in his throat. “I mean that, when the Seven-Ten lists are printed, there will be no name in top seven whose house and office I do not frequent. I mean that your President Ganymede is quick to call me when a crisis needs declawing, and all other Hive leaders do the same. I mean that I am how these sensitive matters are settled, are always settled, and I shall settle this one. Martin is the partner of my labors, but is too gentle to impress on people what it is we really do. We keep the peace among those gods who govern those of you who choose to have a government.” Again he grasped her like a dancing partner, caressing the small of her back and using her weight for his own spin as he bounded toward the steps, lithe as a show horse. “I’ll start downstairs, shall I? Out of your way?”
Lesley charged after him. “Hold on. I need to know exactly what you’ll be doing, step by step.”
He paused on the top landing. “The carpet is torn on this stair. You should have that seen to, someone could trip and fall.”
“What will you be doing? Imaging? Scanning? Viewing files?”
“Sniffing about, I told you. I’m here for the smell and taste of things. Have you any enemies?”
“No,” Lesley answered instantly, then paused. “You asked that before. What do you mean?”
“Anyone who would like to see your lives disrupted for personal reasons, rather than the obvious financial and political ones? A jilted lover? Family of a crash victim who blames you? A hobby competitor, perhaps? Sport? Someone the famous Sniper keeps defeating?”
Sane questions calmed her. “Not that I can think of. No one’s been particularly upset by any crashes in the last few years.”
He darted back up toward her, testing a vent with his fingertip, and in the same motion trapped her between his body and the wall. “No old rivals? No one wronged in an affair?”
Lesley’s eyes went wide, the change exaggerated by their Chinese contours. But something kept her from shoving him back. “No.”
Dominic leaned even closer, caressing the grating above Lesley’s head, his chest not quite brushing hers. “Your spouse is work-obsessed.” He smiled, tasting her breath and letting her taste his. “Have you had affairs?”
Blush bloomed on Lesley’s cheeks. Is it a sin in your morality, reader, for a married person to admire the body of a stranger? Is she less entitled to recognize the beauty of firm buttocks, or the motions of a practiced hand? And, if you do consider it a sin, then am I right that this scene—virile Dominic with Lesley’s small frame pressed against his, breast to breast—is more exciting for you because it is forbidden? Confess, reader. Something in you hungers for transgression here. Show me, Mycroft! Strip that antique costume from the flesh beneath. Show me whether this she-man wears a strap-on, and if so have him use it! This woman Lesley, doomed from childhood to be the prize for rivals Ockham and Ojiro, let her revenge herself on them by cuckolding the victor here. Let them do it against the wall, or upstairs, with Mukta looking on! And, for contrast, throw in limp Eureka and Sidney lounging in the background, blind in their permanent masturbation with the computer! It was in your mind, reader, was it not? Complete with my ‘he’s and ‘she’s which have infected you by now. But feel no guilt. It was in Lesley’s mind as well, placed there by Dominic, who can summon more of the heat of pornography with a single gesture than I could with a thousand words. Like Princesse Danaë, reader, he trains.
I have no time, Mycroft, for these, thine interruptions, thy speculations, thy Patriarch, thy Hobbes. My fantasy is not thy business; give me truth. What did they do?
Lesley pressed herself back against the wall, gaining an inch of breathing room. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”
Dominic’s eyes did not believe. “This is an open bash’, yes? How many of your unmarried ba’sibs date outside the bash’? Any angry ex-lovers?”
Lesley is herself uncomfortable with the fact that her very sensible impulse to kick this Blacklaw in the nuts did not recur. “Cato’s not interested, but Thisbe has some angry exes, yes, and the twins might too. It’s hard to track what the twins get up to, but they’re always dating at least two people between them, usually more.”
“I see.” Dominic shifted his stance, just brushing the side of her thigh with his half-hidden scabbard. “And are there rivalries within the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’?” he asked. “Everyone’s content with who does what work, who takes what shifts, who sleeps with whom?”
“Everyone’s content. Ockham and I monitor it all very carefully.”
His smile widened as he leaned close enough to savor her shampoo. “All nine of you get along perfectly all the time, like little angels?”