Fortunes of the Imperium (27 page)

“Thirteen fifty,” she said. “I think that’s fair, don’t you?” She reached for the boxed set and tried to pluck it out of my fingers. I extended my arm over my head, well out of her reach.

“Fourteen,” I said. “I should think that is even more fair.”

Jil glared daggers at me. Marquessa leaned in for another round of advice.

“You know,” Jil said, her expression now as mild as a doll’s, “we only have to enter Uctu space to purchase these years’ worth of the show, and you will be out of luck on this sale, Mr. Doyobe.”

The trader clucked his tongue.

“Ah, but even there these are strictly limited, madam. There hasn’t been a fresh issue of the earliest seasons for a long while, maybe thirty years. I think they’re waiting for the next centenary. They’ll publish millions of legit copies then.”

“That’s too long to wait,” Jil said, leaning closer so her personal perfume wafted around the trader’s nostrils. “I want
this
one.” She hoped to convince him by main force of personality. I knew what she was doing, even though she didn’t. Commoners had a genetic predilection to being persuaded by the nobility. I tried not to trade upon that, as I considered it bad sportsmanship. If I could not win outright by force of wit, then I did not deserve to win.

“Angie,” I said, “bartering is a thirsty game. Would you dispense beverages for us? From my personal supply, if you please.”

“Of course, Lord Thomas,” said the voice of the LAI. “Gentlemen, please consult your viewpads for a menu.”

Doyobe took his personal device from his pocket and ran his eyes up and down the list. His silver brows ascended.

“If the way to my heart wasn’t through my wallet, you would have won me over right there, my lord,” he said, heartily. “Real Boske wines?”

“I have a connection,” I said modestly. “That ten-year-old green is very good. Effervescent without being too intoxicating. I wouldn’t want your senses muddled. Boske green for all, Angie.”

“Of course, Lord Thomas.”

A serverbot under Angie’s control trundled out to us, clinking with filled glasses. I served the ladies, then offered wine to the visitors before taking any myself. Jil pushed the proffered glass away. The ’bot scuttled back out of reach. She glared at Doyobe.

“All right! Fourteen fifty.”

The trader sipped from his glass. The wine was cool enough to raise a mist of condensation on the exterior of the crystal. He let out a sigh of appreciation.

“It’s a fine offer,” he said. “One I’d be proud to accept.”

“But not as fine as fifteen,” I interjected, lifting my glass to him.

“Ah, are you sure, my lord?”

“Of course. I would not have said so otherwise.”

“No!” Jil pleaded, then steeled herself. I knew she didn’t want to let a prize like this one get away from her, but we had reached the point of pain. “Fifteen one.”

“Fifteen two,” I countered.

“Three!”

“Four.”

But, sometimes withdrawal was the only way to counter superior forces. Jil reached for the glass of wine and sipped it with deliberate delicacy.

“And if I keep going?” she asked me, her green eyes flashing dangerously.

“I will follow, a credit at a time,” I said, in what I knew was a maddening tone. Her frustration almost made up for all the times she had irked me aboard the
Bonchance
. In fact, the pleasure of seeing her so cross began to wipe out annoyances dating back further into our early lives. She was my cousin and a close friend, but that did not mean we didn’t irritate one another almost to the point of producing pearls among our soft tissues.

“Five,” she said, though she had to grit it out. I saw that the drawing out of the process would continue until she was unfit to live with for the remainder of our journey. Better to pull out the loose tooth than to continue to wiggle it.

“Fifteen,” I said.

It was enough. Jil goggled at me.

“I won’t say, Thomas, that I’ve never been so insulted in my life, but this comes close.”

“How? Because my pockets are deeper than yours?”

“I’m surprised that you can even think of spending the money,” Jil said, with insulting nonchalance, “since you have yet to pay off the damages to the Empress’s statue. And one would think you would hesitate to indulge yourself following your most disgraceful behavior on the warship. Aunt Tariana was most pained about it.”

“I
knew
you sent the transcript to my mother,” I crowed, and had the satisfaction of seeing those golden cheeks flush dark red. “Well, I will spend the money, even if it requires dipping into reserves for the damages, and I will make amends to my mother later on, but I can console myself watching the very first three seasons of
Ya!
” I turned to Doyobe. “Do we have a deal, captain? Fifteen fifteen?”

“Seventeen’s the lucky number in the Autocracy, sir.”

“True,” Redius said, from his safe distance. I nodded.

“Seventeen it is. Fifteen hundred and seventeen credits.”

By now, the rest of the crew was watching us as though we were an ongoing drama featuring the descendants of great houses stretching back many centuries, which, in justice, we actually were. Parsons hung back in the shadows of the kitchen unit, perhaps ready to wheel out as though he were one of the more efficient serverbots.

“Lady, over to you,” he said, with a persuasive smile. “Wouldn’t you like to reconsider?”

Jil’s face seemed to swell with frustration, but a subtle sign passed to her from Marquessa. She stepped back, her expression one of aching sweetness and regret. If I had not been her cousin and companion of more than two decades, my heart might have broken from the sorrow of it all. But I knew her better than that.

“I renounce my claim, Captain,” she said. “I want to save as much of my money for shopping on Dilawe 4. Keep it, Thomas. I know you’ll lend it to me once in a while.”

I smiled.

“I know you think so, cousin.” I drew forth my viewpad and activated a transfer of credits. Instantly, I received a receipt.

Doyobe read the screen of his pocket device then patted it. His round face wore the broadest of smiles. “Anything else you want? I’ve got it all!”

I offered my hand and received a firm shake.

“You have fulfilled my wildest dreams, sir,” I assured him. “Who would know that out here on the outskirts of the Imperium, that I should encounter that most fleeting, most legendary of collectible objects, the first three seasons of
Ya!
?”

“Well, now you don’t need to go into the Autocracy,” the captain said, putting his device into his handiest pouch.

“We have to go on to Way Station 46 and beyond,” I insisted. “People are depending upon us.”

Doyobe’s broad cheeks drooped.

“Well, it was nice knowing you, my lord. I hear these days ships who go into Uctu space don’t come out. It’s a death trap. Wasn’t like that under the old Autocrat, harsh as he was. This new one is a killer. Honest, people are getting desperate.”

“I will do something about that,” I insisted.

“Meantime, why don’t you browse, my lord? You never know, there might be a small delight you haven’t noticed yet?”

“You never know,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. I had obtained what I wished for. I sat down at a nearby table with my wine and my treasure.

It appeared that my shipmates were also pleased with their finds. Nesbitt glanced up at me with a wordless expression of bliss on his face. He held a plastic plaque full of tiny tools, some ordinary routing heads, some with glowing laser tips, others with esoteric-looking devices I had never seen before. I knew Nesbitt indulged in the working of miniatures, but I had not yet persuaded him to allow me to see any of the fruits of his hobby. Plet held an opaque, flat plastic envelope against her side. Its soft drape suggested the contents were clothing. Oskelev was positively festooned with new harnesses over her official uniform straps. And the ladies had bags, boxes, parcels and envelopes. Only Jil had nothing to show. She noticed my scrutiny and made a face at me.

“I will see the visitors out,” Parsons said. “Gentlemen, this way, please.”

The traders departed. The elder Doyobe slapped his viewpad happily. His account now held a large sum of money from nearly all of us. His visit had been more than worthwhile.

I held onto my prize greedily, wondering when I should watch the first episode. What ambience would be best to view it? Depending upon the synopsis, what beverage should I pour? What lighting would be suitable? It would be my one opportunity to watch two surviving episodes of Season four in my Uncle Perleas’s home, and the production grades of several centuries ago were nothing as sophisticated as they had become in current years. Should I allow my digitavid system to fill in the deficiencies, or to view it as the historical object that it was? I sipped at my wine and allowed cheerful thoughts to filter through my mind.

A golden stormcloud appeared at my elbow. I was just in time to prevent lightning bolts in the form of two slim hands from crashing down upon my prize. I swept it out of reach.

“You must share with all of us!” Jil insisted. “Let me borrow it.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “This box is not leaving my sight. It would disappear into the fastness of that collection of storage lockers you call your luggage, and I will never see it again.”

“That’s not true!” Jil protested, perhaps a little too fervently. I elevated one eyebrow in disbelief. That had been her favorite tactic for gaining possession of something that belonged to one of us over the years. Her suite in the compound was filled with cupboards, closets and enormously heavy pieces of furniture just made for squirreling away treasures. Like the squirrel, a creature that had made its way with humankind from our original home on long-lost Earth, I fancy she had forgotten much or most of what she had stored away in these fastnesses.

“After the way you behaved on the
Bonchance
, I shouldn’t even let you handle the box,” I said.

“Lord Thomas, it would be such a marvelous treat,” Banitra said, sitting down beside me and putting a gentle hand on my other arm. “No one I know has ever seen the missing seasons. They’re almost legendary!”

I felt myself relenting. How could I not, when faced with such persuasion? But I recalled Jil’s scorn and amusement at my expense. “Perhaps later.”

“Now!” Jil insisted. “I want to know how the Reftilius family came into their original fortune. It had to be ill-gotten. Oh, please, Thomas?” she said, nestling her head onto my shoulder. The rest of her ladies moved in like vultures to a fresh kill. It was hard to remain obdurate.

“I have to decide,” I said. “The
feng shui
must be respected. After all, this is like welcoming honored ancestors into our home. I am not simply going to slap the crystals into the player as though they were the latest variety show. This is an
occasion
.”

Jil made a face at me. “Oh, all right. As long as I get to see them
sometime
.”

“We will see,” I said. “It depends upon whether you can put yourself out to be considerate to me for a while. You were appalling on the
Bonchance
, and your behavior has universal consequences. Karma, you know.”

For answer, she punched me in the chest. As she was wearing a jeweled ring on each finger and her thumb, the effect was that of being jabbed by a multi-headed hammer.

“Ow!” I protested. I rubbed the injured ribs. “That seals your fate, my dear. You will now have to wait until we get home to Taino to see any of these episodes.
If
then.”

Majestically, I rose and stalked back toward my cabin. We were only a day or so outside of Way Station 46, and I had files to review. If I allowed myself to be immersed in the pleasures of my new prize, I should get nothing else done.

“Huh!” I heard Jil exclaim as I departed. “If I’ve lived this long without seeing them, then I don’t ever want to!”

Sour grapes
, I thought smugly.

“An excellent find, captain,” Parsons said, as he escorted the Doyobes into the hold. He reached into his belt pouch and drew from it the sound deadener. Doyobe’s nephew stepped politely out of range of their conversation and began to load what was left of their goods into the shuttle. The skid load had been greatly reduced, as Parsons had assumed it would.

“The find of a lifetime, commander,” Doyobe said. “After you asked, I was sure I had a copy in one of my caches. Glad to see I was right. I am delighted it’s going to such a good home. I could have gotten three times the price for it on the open market.”

Parsons refused to allow himself to be baited on such an easily disproven statement.

“The price you received was more than fair. It was nearly twice the auction price for an authenticated copy.”

Doyobe smirked.

“Weeeeel, I suppose that’s all right. I do owe you a few favors. Are you sure you don’t want me to tell the boy you commissioned me to locate it for him?”

“Not necessary, captain,” Parsons said. “He had rather a traumatic experience recently. I believe this will assuage the damaged feelings.”

“Very nice,” Doyobe said. “You’re a good guy, commander, if you don’t mind my saying so. Mr. Frank always says the same. Oh, by the way!” The beefy trader’s hand reached into one of the myriad pockets on his suit front and emerged with a slip of crystal no bigger than a fingernail. He placed it carefully in Parsons’s palm. “This is for you.”

“A full manifest of the ships coming and going from Way Station 46? Dating back how long?”

“Fifteen months. I just took over the vigil four months back. Kung Won on the
Bargain Hunter
swapped his files over to me when I came in. We’ll be here just one more month unless you need us.”

Parsons shook hands gravely with Doyobe. The silver-haired trader was an old and trusted colleague.

“I hope I will not have to call upon you.”

“Hope not,” Doyobe said, as Parsons put the cube away in his pocket. “But you can if you need to. It’s been nice profiting off all of you, my friend.”