Imperial Stars 1-The Stars at War (48 page)

Make Ready Jones was lying low with the dogniks aboard a sunken houseboat in Kelmet Old Dock when his finger first began to ache.

He showed it to his dognik friend, Fide O'Reilly. The tip of his index digit had swollen. The skin was black, shiny, and angry-looking.

Fide sniffed the offending object. Dogniks were normally short on hygiene, but Fide knew about the septic. He cocked his head on one side, whining. "Did you prick it on anything dirty?"

Make Ready screwed up his face, trying to recall past events. One day ran unrecognizably into another. He scowled his frustration. "Can't remember." He glared at the offending digit. "It scares me, Fide."

Fide laid back his ears. The dognik was fond of this hairless whelp who had taken shelter with the pack. He growled deep in his throat. "You ought to let the medsin see it. It could be the gangreeny."

Make Ready held the finger to his nose. "It don't smell bad."

Fide showed his canines. "I wouldn't risk it, M'kreddy. If that black skin spreads, your finger's a goner . . . maybe your whole hand . . . your arm." Fide rolled his eyes. "Even . . . you!"

Make Ready surveyed the houseboat's canting desk, the rotting bulwarks, the black Kelmet river scummed with effluent from the chemplant upstream . . . and sighed. Life was too pleasant to hazard recklessly. He said, "If I go to the medsin . . . who pays?"

Fide O'Reilly scratched a flank with blunted talons. "Healer Grumm don't charge much if you're short of frons. And he comes this way, regular."

Make Ready had seen Healer Grumm . . . a near-standard man, sharp of tongue, but tolerant with orphan dogniks. Perhaps the man could be wheedled into a ringer inspection in exchange for a few errands?

The click of rowlocks and the splashing of an oar floated over the water. They leaped together for dry land.

Fide yelped. "It's Healer Grumm. He's sculling in." The dognik waved his arms. "Chuck us a line, Messer Grumm!"

Make Ready caught the healer's rope. Together they took the strain, holding the boat against the current, then hauling it towards the pilings. When Grumm's craft bobbed below them, Fide threw a hitch around a bollard and made fast.

Healer Grumm tossed up a bag of clinking instruments, then climbed the rusting ladder to the dockside, the scabbard of his short sword clinking against the stonework. He grunted, "Thanks, lads. I ran out of mazoo halfway over the river. Would've had to walk back from Garbage if the current had got me."

They clucked in sympathy. The sea-dump where Kelmet's rubbish went was a three hour walk downstream.

Make Ready grabbed the medsin's bag. "Carry your tools, Messer?"

Grumm took the bag from him. "I can manage it, lad." His eyes narrowed. "What you done to your finger?"

Make Ready put the hand behind his back. The healer's interest embarrassed him. "Tain't nothing, Messer Grumm."

The healer extracted a shiny dixer from his pocket. He spun it in the sunlight. "I suppose you want a tip for pulling me in?"

Make Ready stuck out a ready palm.

"T'other one!" Grumm commanded. "Or the dixer goes back in my pocket."

Make Ready's left hand crept from concealment. Grumm inspected the swollen digit. "How long it's been like this?"

"Three—four days."

"Can you move it? Bend it?"

Make Ready tried to curve his finger. "Only at the bottom knuckle."

Grumm gripped his wrist. He took the swollen digit between thumb and forefinger, and squeezed gently. "Does that hurt?"

Make Ready winced. "I can stand it."

"You got any other symptoms?"

Make Ready looked blank.

Grumm gave him back his hand—with the dixer. "Better come up to my dispensary. I'll take a proper look at it."

Startled, Make Ready glanced at Fide. Going with Grumm meant abandoning the pack. Would they let him back afterwards?

Fide wagged his tail. "Go with the healer, M'kreddy. He'll fix that finger."

Make Ready tarried. "Can I come back, after?"

Fide O'Reilly whined. "I'll speak for the others. It'll be okay."

Make Ready sighed. He flicked the dixer to Fide, then turned and followed the medsin.

At Haut Chateau on the Mont des Chênes above Kelmet, court officials packed a labour room to witness the birth of Dame Dimsina Persay's second son. Present by ducal edict, were the court's annalist, lyricist, geneticist, priest, police chief, tutor, strangler, a wet nurse, and the midwife.

Of Dame Dimsina's husband, Duke Corwen Persay, Grand Maitre de Marécage, Marechal de Haut Barbarie, there was no sign. Rumor had it that his lordship was out shooting corbies in the chateau woods.

Clem Gamble, obstetrician, elevated a syringe to squeeze out a drop of fluid, murmuring to the midwife, "Pray for a paragon, Martha. If his little lordship's anything less than perfect, the duke will have us flayed."

Bregonif, court tutor, undersized and wizened, scuttled back and forth behind a forest of legs, trying to catch a glimpse of the event. Only that very morning, the duke had promised, "If the boy satisfies Greville, you can have another fifteen years." Bregonif badly wanted those fifteen years.

Larry Greville, genetist, and a man who required no admonition from his master, stood before the witnesses, and watched the child slide into the world. Without emotion, he noted one head, two arms, two legs and a penis—all in their proper places. His back straightened. In appearance, the child was a true paragon. There remained the tests. Greville snipped a microscopic sample from the squawling infant's left heel, and hurried to his laboratory.

Annalist Clippy Cummins noted the time of birth, the sex, color of eyes, number and disposition of limbs, and waited for the midwife to announce the weight.

Genevieve Demain, lyricist, and Hector Garman, chef de police, were silent, absorbed in their own thoughts. Genevieve with rhymes for a sonnet to the new heir, Garman with plans for the heir's security.

On the bed, Dame Dimsina gave drowsy thanks to the Double Helix for a safe delivery. Having now doubly secured the succession, the duke might permit her a daughter. There was little fun in dressing boy babies.

The Duchess of Mary Cage went to sleep sucking her thumb.

James Laporte, strangler, folded his arms and waited. The geneticist's approval was required before he could leave the chamber.

But Larry Greville returned to the delivery room shaking his head. He made a sign to Laporte, then left. Gently, Laporte removed the child from the wet nurse's arms . . .

And Formal Crowfoot, the duke's confessor, knelt to mutter a prayer, tears running down his cheeks. The Double Helix gave, but High Barbary took away.

Hector Garman, who combined a spy's role with that of chief of police, began composing a message for transmission to his other master on a distant world: a message reporting that the latest heir to the Duchy of Marécage was inadequate and . . . unsatisfactory.

Healer Grumm's dispensary occupied one room of his home in the upper branch of a live timber shopping mall in downtown Kelmet. The dispensary overlooked a short order caff run by ophids. Grumm's shingle vied with a luminous sign advertising the caff.

Make Ready followed Grumm inside to discover a nest of carpetted and furnished rooms. Since Make Ready's more recent pieds-a-terre had included a disused pig-stye, a rubbish-choked cellar, a dockside packing case and an empty tomb in St. Diennay's churchyard, Grumm's home seemed palatial. He tried to conceal his feeling of awe.

Grumm said, "You don't have to tip-toe about, lad. The tree won't collapse if you breathe." Grumm shed his jacket, revealing a pair of muscular arms, and a down-covered chest. He hung his sword-belt and weapon on the back of the door, grinning. "Must get meself plucked, soon. Plumes ain't good for business. Folk like to believe their medsin's a near-paragon. Them vermy fugers in partic wouldn't let me near 'em if they knew I grew feathers."

Make Ready's eyes grew saucer-shaped. A feathered healer was a long way from standard. He said, "If you let them grow—could you fly?" Fide O'Reilly, with a yard of canine DNA in his genes couldn't urinate on demand.

Grumm flapped his elbows. "Guess I'm more of an osprich or an emug. Too much ballast for flight." He studied the silent youngster. "Not funny? Never mind. Don't suppose you'd say no to a spot of dinner before I check that finger?"

Make Ready shook his head. No adult had addressed him so civilly for years. And no dognik ever refused food.

Over bacon and eggs, Grumm continued. "And what's a lad like you doing with those dogniks? You in trouble with the flix?"

Make Ready wagged his head again, mouth full of delicious food.

Grumm raised his eyebrows. "Not the recruiters, is it? You ain't old enough to be took for the militia."

Make Ready lowered his eyes. He had fled the tomb in St. Diennay's churchyard when his smouldering fire attracted the attention of Duke Corwen's impress sergeant.

"I'm near seventeen," he muttered.

"But you don't fancy carrying a pike against the chelonians, eh?" Grumm's voice was jovial. "Not that I blame you, lad. They say as how Colly Caswell's turtles cut themselves a slice of Mary Cage last month, up Whernmoor way."

Make Ready cleared his mouth of food. He set his jaw. "Why should I fight for the duke? He ain't never fought for me."

Healer Grumm brandished a fork approvingly. "True, lad. I don't suppose our duke even knows you exist." He cocked his head. "Though perhaps Messer Garman's men might be happy to make your acquaintance?"

Make Ready shrugged. "They'll be lucky to catch me."

"So?" The healer smiled. "How do you dodge them?"

Make Ready grinned in reminiscence. "Over the side of the houseboat—with breathing straws."

Grumm mopped his plate with a wedge of bread, unimpressed. "In that scum?"

Make Ready filled his mouth again. He recalled Rexy Donovan emerging from a skulking session foamy as a toothpaste ad. Make Ready sniffed. "It ain't always scummy. Weekends, it's clean."

They finished eating, and Grumm took him into the dispensary. The healer boiled a panful of water over a gas jet, and put in some instruments to sterilize. He dabbed stinging antiseptic on Make Ready's blackened finger.

Make Ready bit his lip, and made no sound.

Grumm took up his forceps, gripped a fragment of epidermis, and tugged.

Make Ready screamed.

Unperturbed, Grumm put down the forceps. "Tain't ready yet, lad. You'll have to come back tomorrow."

Make Ready nursed the tender digit. "You ain't going to chop it off, then?"

The healer packed away his instruments. He whistled a little tune. "What's your dad's name, lad?"

Make Ready stared hard at his finger. What had his father's identity to do with a possibly gangreeny finger? He said, "My mère told me he was called Messer Jones."

Grumm nodded, as though comprehending more than he had been told. "And your mère? What's she called?"

"I don't remember much about her. She was a Lonten Franchy called Semmy Laduce. They let her out of prison to come here."

Grumm latched his bag, and stowed it under the table. Lontaine France still used Omkrit III as a combined rubbish dump and penal planet. He decided not to ask what crime Make Ready's mother had committed. He said, "Did your mère work as a chamber maid at the Castle on Rue des Percées?"

Make Ready's mouth hardened. The healer was getting far too warm. He mumbled, "Don't remember no Castle."

In Make Ready's memory, the Castle Hotel's domestic quarters had been a warm nest. He had lived there with his mother until old enough to be wished onto a band of roving chip smugglers.

"Well, where did you live?"

After the Castle, where? The smugglers had been like gypsies, wandering the realms of Arcadia, from Mary Cage to Montynose, to Entendy, to Varek, to the Far Nighlands and then round them all again. He had stayed with them, absorbing the illicit mysteries of electronics, until, weary of the surreptitious life, he had run off with a gang of street thieves in Kelmet, his home town.

He muttered, "We shifted around a lot." Grumm stared at him, eyes calculating. "Do you know that your father might—just might—have been a paragon!"

Make Ready ignored the bait. The mère had always insisted that his DNA was out of the top drawer . . . as if it mattered. Personally, he didn't care if his genes came off a second-hand stall. The dogniks hadn't queried his ancestry.

Grumm persisted. "But don't let that bother you, lad. There's a deal more unrecombined DNA about on Omkrit III than folk credit." He paused. "You don't know where your mère is?"

Make Ready fidgeted with his sore finger. What had all this to do with whether Grumm chopped it off or not? He said, "I haven't seen her for years."

Grumm's expression softened. "We'll manage without her. If your father was who I suspect, you could be an aristo." The healer scratched his head. "Maybe you'd better stay the night here. We can try that finger again tomorrow."

Make Ready's suspicions grew into convictions. Grumm was too interested in parents. A real dognik growl rumbled in his throat. "What do you know about my father? Do you know who he was?"

Grumm ignored the warning signals. "I might, lad. I'm just not sure enough to call 'em facts. You kip on the sofa tonight. We'll talk some more in the morning."

Duke Corwen Persay was told the news of his child's inadequacies when he returned from shooting. He stared, haggard, at the geneticist. "Is it me?"

Greville faced him, eyes expressionless. "No, sire. The infant's DNA was defective. The finger code was impaired."

"Well, if the fault's not mine—whose is it?"

Greville's face was impassive. "I have long had doubts, sire. I feel we were fortunate with Lord Mardy's conception. Perhaps Dame Dimsina should not be permitted to breed again."

The duke was silent for a moment. "Very well. And the child?"

"I gave it to Laporte, sire."

The duke heaved a convulsive sigh. He pulled off his gloves and shooting jacket. The fingerstall on his right hand had come loose. He retied the knot. "Please tell Lord Mardy I would like a word with him."