Heris Serrano (119 page)

It had been easy to say that, but in real life—in practical terms—she wondered what difference it might make. Cecelia clipped the blue-and-silver ring to her ear and grimaced into the mirror. It felt like the first time she had worn a competition number, all those decades ago: she was declaring herself part of something she didn't understand. Although she had a much better idea of what competitive riders were like than she had of her fellow Rejuvenants. She didn't know what kind of reception she would get—if anyone else would notice.

"Ah . . . Lady Cecelia." The bank officer's gaze had snagged briefly on the ring; she noticed that he had two, one in each ear. "And how may we assist you today?"

"I'm going to be traveling to agricultural research worlds, picking up equine samples for my breeding farm on Rotterdam," Cecelia said. "I may be out of touch for extended periods, and I wanted to be sure that there were no problems with my line of credit."

"I wouldn't expect any," the man said. "So far the political situation has had no effect on commerce; certainly our institution is stable—"

"I wasn't doubting it. Only my travel advisors pointed out that some of the worlds I want to visit are served only by ansible, for anything beyond a system transfer."

"Ah . . . do you have a list of these worlds?"

"Yes—" Cecelia handed it over. "Ordinarily, I could deal with an agency that specializes in equine genetics, but I'm looking for something I can't really define. I'll know it when I see it—"

"Yes . . ." He didn't sound interested; he probably wasn't. Then he looked up. "I think the best thing would be a batch dump to the local systems' registered financial institutions. That way, they'd have your references when you arrived, and your line of credit would be established at both ends. Can you estimate your needs?"

Cecelia had that information as well, and he fed it into his desktop. "We're leaving Zenebra shortly," she said, as she waited. "Can you give me an estimate of clearance times?"

"Unless your yacht is faster than anything I ever heard of, your local approvals will all be waiting days before you arrive, milady. And—may I say it's good to see you back in competition. I hope you find the right mount for next year's trials."

The assumptions took her breath away, but she merely nodded her thanks and returned to the ship. The ring in her ear felt huge, heavy with responsibilities she didn't want.

Ronnie knew perfectly well he'd been dismissed. His aunt wouldn't listen to him; Heris Serrano, while she might have had good advice, wouldn't help him directly. And Raffa wouldn't answer his calls. He went to George, and poured out his troubles. George's solution, which would have been adequate a year before, now seemed childish.

"I don't
want
to make Raffa jealous," he said. "I don't care about singers, or dancers, or . . . or anything else."

"Then take the bold captain's advice and go do something brave and wonderful, and impress Raffa. She'll come around." That in the confident voice of a young man whose heart had never been shaken.

"It's easy for you," muttered Ronnie. George was perilously near to odiousness again. As far as he was concerned, he had been plucked from life's tree to lie sodden in the gutter, a dead leaf.

"Tell you what," George said. "I'll go with you. It
is
dull, with no more Royals to play games, with no regimental ditties for dancing. Let's go explain to Bunny and my father how useful we can be, if they'll just give us the appropriate errand for two handsome, talented, brave young men."

"You're ridiculous," Ronnie said, but his heart lifted a little, a dead leaf still, but one that might blow where the wind sent it. He let George make the call, and the appointment.

"And don't tell your parents," George said after he had named the day and hour. "It's all their fault, remember, and you're furious with them."

He wasn't, really. It wasn't their fault; they had tried, and Aunt Cecelia had simply gone off like fireworks. But he understood George's point. It was hard enough to have them lurking around trying to cheer him up about Raffa; if they knew he was about to go do something, they'd hover even more.

Ronnie let George explain that they both felt they could be of use to the new government—that they had unique talents which should be exploited. He halfway expected Lord Thornbuckle and George's father to laugh at them and send them away. But instead, they exchanged significant looks.

"You're serious," Lord Thornbuckle said. "You would be willing to go anywhere and do anything?"

"Well . . ." George looked at Ronnie. "Perhaps not
quite
anything. I mean, if you had in mind sweeping streets in some benighted mining village, I'd rather not. Be a waste of our abilities, anyway."

"And you see your abilities as?"

"Discreet, loyal young gentlemen of the world, able to take care of themselves, strong, healthy, the usual. Intelligent enough, ingenious—" That did get a laugh, from George's father.

"Ingenious, yes. That's how you nearly got yourself killed, wasn't it? But we might have something suitable for two young wastrels, at that."

"It's fairly complicated," Lord Thornbuckle said. "And it's extremely confidential. If you were still on active service, we could not possibly share this with you." That sounded serious enough. Ronnie tried for an expression of intelligent interest. To his surprise, Lord Thornbuckle started by talking about rejuvenation.

"Most people now use the Ramhoff-Inikin method, which allows serial rejuvenations—"

"Up to how many?" George asked.

"I don't know," Lord Thornbuckle said. "Anyway, the pharmaceuticals used in this process are manufactured in the Guerni Republic, or under their license in a few other places. Most are imported from the Guernesi, simply because of their known quality. They developed the process; they know it best. And, of course, it was originally illegal in the Familias, so people had to go there to have it done."

"Why was it illegal?" George asked.

"It's a long story that doesn't concern you," Lord Thornbuckle said. "It's not illegal now, but most of our supply still comes that way. Now. You know that Lorenza was involved in the distribution of illicit pharmaceuticals, right?"

"Like what happened to George and the prince," Ronnie said, nodding.

"Yes. And others—some we know, and some we suspect. Lady Cecelia's medical reports suggest that some of these drugs are very similar to variants of the rejuvenation drugs. We are concerned that our supply of Ramhoff-Inikin drugs might be adulterated at some point between the manufacturer and the user. The Guernesi ship by commercial carrier, and something Heris Serrano said made us wonder about the security of those shipments. If the Compassionate Hand wanted to cause us real trouble, adulterating those drugs—perhaps contaminating them with mind-altering components—would be a good start."

"So," Kevil Mahoney said, before George could interrupt, "it would be very useful to us if you could take a sample of these drugs back to the Guerni Republic and have them analyzed. Are they still what we paid for? If not, what would be the effects of using them in the rejuvenation procedure? What symptoms should we look for in multiple Rejuvenants that suggest a misuse of the drugs?"

"You want us to go—with some drug samples?" George sounded insulted.

"It would be helpful, yes. And the data we've collected so far. We'd been wondering whom we could trust to hand-carry these things; it's not something we want to risk to ordinary shipping."

"You've got perfect cover," Mahoney pointed out. "Young men, rich and fun-loving, the sort who would ordinarily be running off to distant places for the fun of it. Everyone knows Ronnie and Raffaele Forrester-Saenz broke up; everyone suspects the reasons. What's more natural than fleeing from the constraints of home? Especially since your aunt had been there, and you might have legitimate questions about her medical treatment."

"I might?" Ronnie felt humiliated enough to hear older men discussing his lack-of-love life.

"Of course. She came back and sued your parents; you might be questioning whether her rejuvenation—which did not involve suspect drugs, since it was done there—had influenced her mind, or whether the original attack did."

"Oh."

"How are we going to keep the samples from being stolen?" asked George. They had adjourned to George's suite at his father's house, where they could be reasonably sure they were free of intrusive recorders.

"Why would they be? If no one knows we're carrying them—"

"But if someone suspects—"

"Look—you heard what they said. I've got the perfect excuse for going to the Guerni Republic. My aunt was rejuvenated there, and her doctors asked for clarification of the records—"

"They won't let you look at her records!"

"How do you know? They have different laws—maybe their laws don't say anything about medical confidentiality. Besides, I can ask—they don't have to answer."

"I suppose that makes sense." George reached out and took a handful of tawny grapes. "These are good—I wish we were traveling with your Aunt Cecelia. I've never forgotten the food her gardeners and cooks put on the table."

"Which brings up how we will travel. It will be too obvious if we take a private yacht."

"We're going
commercial
?"

"Yes, and not even a major line. Your father suggested a mixed-cargo vessel."

George wrinkled his nose. "Blast him. He's afraid we'll get into trouble on a big passenger liner. He should know better by now."

Ronnie shrugged. "Well, unless you want to pop for the ticket yourself, we haven't much choice." His parents, faced with a lawsuit from his aunt, were busily divesting themselves of assets, trying to lessen the blow. That meant his usual generous credit line had been pared down, if not to the bone at least well beneath its usual cushion.

"No. My father says this is no time for us to show off our wealth, and I'm not in the Royals anymore, so I don't need that size allowance. I think he's trying to get me to go
do
something with my life. You know?"

"I know." Ronnie stared at the wall, took a deep breath, and intoned, "It's time you made something of yourself young man, and when I was your age I had already—that speech."

"He doesn't say it like that, but he's hinting. At least he's not pushing me to take classes at the University."

"Brun had fun on a mixed-cargo ship," Ronnie said. "We should be able to survive."

Survival won out over fun, when they discovered that there were no—absolute zero—eligible girls on the
Sekkor Vil
. No eligible anythings, in fact; the other passengers were bored middle-aged middle managers on business trips. Once they discovered that Ronnie and George were Chairholders' sons, and not active in any corporation, they went back to their handcomps and ignored them. Ronnie spent hours with the Guernesi language tapes, because it was better than listening to George complain about the way the cards fell when they tried to play a hand.

Finally they arrived in the Guerni Republic and transferred to a local line for the run to Music. At last there were other passengers, not only Guernesi, and not all over forty. Ronnie had no trouble enacting the rich young man, and although he missed Raffa, he had to admit that evenings spent dancing in the passenger lounge were more restorative than those spent lying in the bunk wishing she were there.

On Music, they delivered their samples, and the datacubes, to the pharmaceutical industry's combined quality control laboratory. "We'll have the preliminary results in a day or so," the director said. "But you'll want more precise tests, if anything shows up. If these were not manufactured here, for instance, I presume you would like some idea where else they might have been made."

"Well . . . yes." Ronnie hadn't known that was possible.

"You're not a chemist or pharmacist," the man said. It wasn't a question at all.

"No," he said. He hated to admit he was nothing but an ignorant errand boy, but that was the truth.

"I understood that you had the . . . er . . . confidence of your new prime minister or whatever you call him." That with a doubtful look, as if he might have fabricated the whole thing.

"Yes . . . that is, he's a good friend of our family."

"Mmm. Well . . . we'll be in touch. If you'll just give me your local address." Clearly a dismissal. Ronnie looked at George and shrugged. Whatever the man thought, they
were
the Familias in this matter, and when he viewed the cube he would probably feel differently about it. In the meantime, they had a world to explore.

Naturally, they spent that evening discovering the many ways in which young people of the city amused themselves.

"Let's not stay too long anywhere," George said, as he watched two stunning women stroll out of the bar they were just entering.