Rock of Ages (2 page)

Drexler turned in his chair and looked at Maijstral over his shoulder. He-was a Khosalikh, having just reached maturity with his first molt. He was a little shorter than average—which made him about the size of a tall human—but was built very stoutly, as if for the long haul.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but you shouldn’t have done a job on a place like the Louvre without proper support.”

“I didn’t,” Maijstral said. “Someone else timed a robbery to coincide with my visit.”

Drexler’s ears flattened. “I hope this doesn’t turn into another Silverside Station situation,” he said.

“I devoutly hope not,” Maijstral said. “But if anything in your bag of tricks is illegal in Western Ukrania, or wherever it is we are, then please make it disappear for a bit.”

“Absolutely,” Drexler said. He put his work in a foam-lined case, put the case in a tough canvas drawstring bag, and tossed the bag in the air, where it stayed. At a (verbal) command, the window opened, and then at a (silent, electronic) command from the proximity wire in Drexler’s collar, the drawstring bag flew out.

“I’ll put it in a tree a few kilometers away, all right?” Drexler said, and his tongue lolled in a Khosalikh smile.

“Fine. Thank you.”

“I didn’t have anything actually illegal, but if the police confiscated it, it might be a while before it was returned, and then it might come back damaged.”

“Very good.”

“These things have been known to happen.”

“Quite so. Thank you.”

Maijstral returned to his dressing room, silently contemplating the problem of Drexler.

Drexler, like Maijstral, had experienced the madness of Silverside Station firsthand, but from an opposing vantage point. He’d furnished technical support for Geoff Fu George, and had been up to his muzzle in the mad contending scramble for loot that marked Silverside’s social debut. Fu George’s retirement had coincided with Maijstral’s own tech leaving his employ, and Drexler had then offered his services to Maijstral. Maijstral hired him, albeit provisionally. Thus far the arrangement had worked well enough, though Maijstral hadn’t precisely put Drexler’s abilities to the test, as he hadn’t done any major jobs for the last few months.

But something, Maijstral thought, was missing. Maijstral had no complaints with Drexler’s performance or abilities—Fu George wouldn’t have hired anything but the best—but there was an intangible something that kept Maijstral from feeling entirely at home around Drexler. . . .

It bothered him. It wasn’t that he disliked Drexler, it was just that he never found himself at ease around the Khosalikh, and he didn’t know why. The fact that Drexler was a Khosalikh was not at issue, either, since Maijstral was perfectly comfortable around Roman.

Chemistry, he supposed. Regrettable, but there you are.

Maijstral finished dressing. Roman silently offered him his weapons, and Maijstral stowed them away. Distantly, Maijstral heard the booming of the dinner gong.

“Will you be needing anything else, sir?” Roman asked.

The room darkened as if a mass of ravens had flown beneath the sun. Maijstral looked out the window to see a phalanx of shiny black police fliers settling onto Lord Huyghe’s lawn. Irritation crabbed at his nerves.

“What did I tell you?” he demanded. “They’re not going to leave me alone for a blasted second on this blasted planet!”

He really
was
on vacation. He had come to Earth to attend-the wedding of two acquaintances and sometime employers, Amalia Jensen and Pietro Quijano, and he was staying on as a tourist. He didn’t want to steal anything on this trip, but it seemed as if no one was willing to take his word for it.

“Perhaps their visit will be brief,” Roman comforted.

Maijstral took a few deep breaths and tried to dispel his pique.

“Stay in the room, will you,” Maijstral said, “and make sure the cops don’t steal anything.”

Roman, ever the perfect servant, bowed.

“Very good, sir,” he said.

*

Dinner was not delayed, though it was disturbed somewhat by the sound of heavy police boots tramping up and down the halls. The local police commissaire, a bushy-whiskered old soul named Przemysl, was invited to join Maijstral and Lord and Lady Huyghe, and sat down just in time for the soup course.

“Sorry about this,” he apologized, speaking precisely in Khosali Standard. “Were it up to me, I wouldn’t interrupt you till after dinnertime; but orders come from on high, you know. When they unified the police forces, I knew this sort of thing would happen.” He brandished his spoon. “‘Listen,’ I told them, ‘those bureaucrats in Beijing won’t care a stick about the feelings of the local gentry. They’ll have me interrupting people at mealtimes, or dragging them out of their beds when you might just as well wait till after they’ve had breakfast.’ And see if it hasn’t happened.” He turned his eyes piously to Heaven. “The Virtues only know what will happen if the Security and Sedition Act is passed. Then none, of us will be safe.”

“What exactly was taken from the Louvre?” Lord Huyghe asked.

Przemysl cast a knowing glance at Maijstral. “A painting undergoing cleaning and restoration,” he said. “Titian’s
Man with a Glove
.”

“Ah yes,” Huyghe said. “I’d marked its absence.” Bootheels clicked on the dining room floor as a tall, frowning police officer stalked into the room. She was human, with blondish hair tucked, somewhat unsuccessfully, into a gleaming black-visored helmet more suitable to the Dread Squad of the Constellation Death Commandos than to a public servant approaching a person of distinction at his dinner. Her face was chiseled. Her manner was correct, but curt. Her uniform was of black leather and had many gleaming buttons. The others rose as she marched to Lord Huyghe’s elbow. She saluted.

“Sir,” she said, speaking Human Standard, “I am Colonel-General Denise Vandergilt. I would like to request permission for police to inspect the paintings in your gallery in order to make certain that the stolen picture is not hidden beneath them.”

Lord Huyghe frowned and spoke in his normal booming conversational tones. Maijstral had to offer-reluctant congratulations to Vandergilt for the fact she didn’t leap back, flinch, or assume she was about to be assaulted and draw her pistol.

“What means do you intend to use?” Huyghe roared.

“For the inspection? Passive broadband fluorocameras. No injury to your canvases is possible.”

“Ah. Very well.” Huyghe waved his napkin, a signal for the other diners to resume their seats. “As you like, then.”

Vandergilt’s expression grew abstract for a moment as she pulsed silent commands to her troops through her in-the-helmet scrambler.

Lady Huyghe lowered her spoon and pricked her ears forward. She was a quiet woman, perhaps as a result of her husband shouting at her all these years, and when she spoke it was generally to the point.

“Colonel-General?” she said. “I don’t believe that is a rank in the local constabulary, is it?”

“I am a member of the Constellation Special Services Corps, ma’am,” Vandergilt said.

“The Colonel-General came here specially from Beijing,” Przemysl said. His expression invited sympathy from the diners.

“And what precisely,” Lady Huyghe asked, “does the Special Services Corps
do
?”

Vandergilt noticed that a disobedient strand of hair had drooped out from under her helmet, “We maintain the political security of the Human Constellation against foreign and domestic threats, ma’am,” she said, stuffing hair into her helmet with one efficient black-gloved hand, “and investigate those deemed worthy of special interest to the Administration.”

“Gracious,” Lady Huyghe blinked. She turned to her husband. “Do you suppose there might be anyone of that description at our table?”

Vandergilt frowned. “If you won’t mind an observation, ma’am, I am surprised that the owners of a select art collection such as yourself and, ah, Mr. Huyghe, would have as your houseguest a person whose profession it is to steal.”

“Ha!” Lord Huyghe said abruptly. Vandergilt gave a little start, as if a pistol had just gone off near her ear. A strand of blond hair fell in her eyes.

“Maijstral’s father and I were at school together,” Huyghe said. “It’s natural to offer hospitality to the son of an old friend.”

“And of course I wouldn’t steal from my host,” Maijstral said. “That would be rude.”

“And the name’s Behrens, by the way,” Huyghe added. “Anthony Behrens. Huyghe’s just the title.”

“Thank you, Mr. Behrens,” Vandergilt said. She tried, arid failed, to stuff the strand of hair back in her helmet. “I appreciate your reminding me that the title is, in the Constellation, only a courtesy.”

Lady Huyghe frowned gently. “I believe,” she said, “that
courtesy
is the operative word.”

Vandergilt flushed. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Lord and Lady Huyghe, and, watching her, Maijstral suspected she would be opening a file on them the second she returned to Beijing. Maijstral’s father had been a notorious Imperialist, and now it seemed likely that Gustav Maijstral’s school chum and his wife were about to suffer a case of dossier-by-association.

“Flattered as I am by the attention,” Maijstral said, “I wonder how I merit it. How does being an Allowed Burglar—an occupation perfectly legal under Constellation law—somehow merit this, ah,
special interest
of nothing less than a full Colonel-General?”

“We do not believe,” Vandergilt said, “that an inhuman sport like Allowed Burglary will be legal for long. And even Allowed Burglary permits me to arrest you if I catch you in the act or shortly thereafter.”

Maijstral’s ears flattened. His green eyes glittered under his lazy eyelids. “I hope I shall be able to offer you and your people sufficient exercise,” he said.

Przemysl beamed at him from across the table, and Maijstral sensed approval from Lord and Lady Huyghe. No doubt, he thought, they were anticipating Maijstral’s leading this officious officer in a merry chase from vault to hideout and back again.

Maijstral knew he did not deserve the credit granted him by his fellow diners. He was damned if he was going to steal anything while a leather-clad fanatic like this was lurking about, just waiting to drag him off to Beijing and drop him in a lightless dungeon, no doubt one equipped with fetters, damp straw, rats, and other traditional paraphernalia…

Vandergilt drew herself up. She knew a challenge when she heard one. “We have no intention, you see,” she declaimed, “of allowing a notorious character such as yourself to plunder the heritage of the Human Constellation for his own aggrandizement.” Her black-gloved hand rose, hesitated.

“Would you like a pin, dear?” Lady Huyghe asked.

“No. Thank you. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Behrens?”

She turned on her heel and stalked off. Lord Huyghe gave a sigh. “Thank the Virtues,” he said, “she was only here for the soup course.”

*

The police withdrew just as the meal got to its brandy-and-cigars stage, something that disappointed old Przemysl, who had only got halfway through his Monte Cristo before he had to leave.

“I like the fellow, you know,” Huyghe said as he settled back into his chair, “but I’m rather glad he’s gone. There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you, Drake, if you’ve no objection.”

“None at all,” Maijstral said. “By the way, is that a Jasper in the corner?”

Huyghe smiled. “It is indeed. An atypical piece—you have a good eye.”

“I didn’t know you collected moderns.”

Lady Huyghe tapped ash from her Cohima and contemplated the brandy in her snifter. “My taste, actually,” she said. “The piece struck my fancy years ago, and Tony bought it for my birthday.”

“How thoughtful,” Maijstral said.

“I was wondering, Drake,” Huyghe said, “if you’d be interested in any commissions while you’re here. There are some pieces in private collections that I’m itching to get a look at, but their owners are quite reclusive, and I’m afraid the only way I’ll ever see them is if I arrange for them to . . . “ He tapped cigar ash. “To appear in my own collection,” he finished.

“I’d love to oblige,” Maijstral said, “but my stay on Earth already suffers from an overfull programme. Perhaps I can give you an introduction to someone in the burglar line who will be able to accommodate you.”

“I’d appreciate that very much.” A light glowed in Huyghe’s eyes. “I imagine you’ve got quite a few surprises planned for that Vandergilt character, eh?”

Maijstral smiled thinly. “Ye-es,” he drawled. Not the least of which, he considered, was the fact he wouldn’t be stealing anything at all while he was here.

Later that evening, Maijstral politely sniffed Lord Huyghe’s ears and Lady Huyghe’s wrist, then returned to his chambers determined to order Drexler and Roman to get rid of all the burglar equipment for the length of time they stayed on Earth. No point in getting arrested for carrying gear he had no intention of using, and which might be technically illegal in some jurisdiction or other.

Maijstral opened his door and told the room to turn on the lights. He looked up and his heart gave a leap of terror. He stared at his dresser and only managed to avoid gibbering because he was speechless with fear.

Atop his dresser, fresh from cleaning and restoration, was Titian’s
Man with a Glove
.

CHAPTER TWO

Sweat prickled on Maijstral’s scalp. He was being set up. He pictured Colonel-General Vandergilt kicking in the door with her heavy black boots, smiling an evil smile as she raised her mapper and squeezed the trigger. Caught red-handed, she’d say, too bad he tried to escape…

Maijstral turned to the service plate, intending to summon Roman and have his servant somehow get the painting away.

“Hallo,” said a voice. Maijstral spun around and winced as a brass doorknob punched his kidney. In an upper corner of the room, colors shifted as the holographic projectors of a darksuit turned themselves off to reveal a small woman, hand raised in a cheerful wave.

“Sorry if I startled you,” she said. She floated to the floor a few feet in front of Maijstral. “I just wanted to show you my bag from the Louvre.”