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.Nightgaunts seemed to brush their faces with soft-furred wingtips as they wheeled through the gloom, seining tiny insects in through widespread mouth-funnels and uttering dismal hoots.For the moment, the riders were content in one another's silence.Which was either a good sign or a very bad one.That she could not be sure showed exactly how off-center Cassie was.Percy had been away tending to affairs of state for three whole days while she fretted and played mahjong and poker with Yoritomo, whom he had left to keep an eye on her.Knowing that somewhere a clock was ticking—that somewhere the red-haired man was preparing his next onslaught against Uncle Chandy and the Regiment—she had begun to feel trapped and hopeless.By the time Percy got back that afternoon it felt like her nerve ends had begun to curl up out of her flesh like twists of flayed skin.Yoritomo had been a sympathetic if unobtrusive presence.There was a knowing quality to the way he looked at her, and she had just about concluded he was the Mirza's plant in Stormhaven.Or one of them, anyway, and most likely the one who periodically left her hidden messages.They rode a transverse trail up a steep hill, then followed the cliffs rising toward the manor's dark mass up on its promontory.Lights were just coming visible from within.Percy told her soft-voiced stories of official foolishness and noble pomposity as they rode, making Cassie laugh, readily and genuinely.He had a good way with an anecdote.Down the hill from the big house they handed their mounts off to solemn-faced grooms with bare brown feet, then walked up a trail of crushed seashells."I rather missed you, I must admit," the Chairman said."I missed your Excellency as well."He stepped in front of her, tucked a crooked finger beneath her chin and raised her face to his."Isn't it time you started calling me Percy?" he asked.He kissed her.For a moment Cassie stood, accepting.Then she broke away and ran up the path.He came pelting after, laughing.She found herself laughing too.His pursuit did not threaten her.She considered, briefly, letting him catch her.At the top of the path she stopped dead.A small helicopter with obvious weapon trays bolted to the sides squatted in the midst of the broad, immaculate front lawn.The intrusion was like a blow to the face.The Planetary Chairman stood behind her.He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, was no longer laughing."Perhaps you'd best go in by the back entrance, my dear," he said quietly.She looked up at him, putting horror on her face.He gave his head a slight shake."Don't be afraid, Jasmine.It isn't Chandy.It's just state business."She nodded, started away, stopped."Lord—Percy—about my brother.""Later! Later, I promise.And now—off with you."* * *"You kept me waiting," Ninyu Kerai Indrahar said when the Planetary Chairman walked into the drawing room."I was occupied.""Indeed." The second in command of the ISF was dressed in his customary black.He stood with hands behind his back, studying the portrait of the current Earl's grandfather.He was still obediently cultivating his taste for beauty, though he did not yet grasp just what a sense of esthetics had to do with being an assassin.Here, for once, was something he could almost appreciate.The old Earl had obviously been a warrior, a Draconian to the core, with his intense hawk's eyes and uncompromising brows, his jaw set as if the painter had captured him grinding his teeth with fury at the foes of House Kurita.Still, Ninyu felt a certain relief, as of a load lifted from his shoulders, when he could turn from art to business."Your new toy," he said."She was Chandrasekhar Kurita's." It was a flat statement, not a question.The Chairman nodded.He still wore his riding breeches and boots."She was.And is no longer.""How do you know she isn't a spy?""She shot one of Chandrasekhar's foreign hirelings with a gun belonging to a member of my personal guard.I hardly think even Chandrasekhar would go to such lengths.""Gaijin mercenaries are easily come by.""I've investigated her background thoroughly.She is what she seems, a simple victim of Chandrasekhar's appetites.""I want her questioned.""No."Scarred brows beetled over black eyes."I could take her.""With respect, Assistant Director, what would be the point? She's not in a position to learn anything here that might benefit the Dragon's foes." He shook his head."She's been through quite enough, poor child.I won't have her subjected to your interrogation techniques, even at their gentlest.You may take my word for it; she has as little use for Chandrasekhar Kurita as you or I or anyone on Hachiman."For a moment those black eyes stared into Fillington's, Ninyu's face resembling a mask of scarcely controlled fury.A muscle in the side of the Chairman's jaw twitched, but his gaze did not waver.Ninyu shook his head as if seizing himself by the back of the neck to do it."It is of no consequence.I have come to tell you that we are ready to act." A pause, and then reluctantly, "Associate Director Katsuyama informs me that the climate of opinion is propitious."Percy's smile included a touch of relief."Capital.When do we move?""Tomorrow." The scarred lips sketched something like a smile."And even if Chandrasekhar Kurita knew every detail of the plan, there would be nothing in this world or any other he could do to stop us."* * *Masamori was often described as the City of Bronze Towers.Tallest of its asymmetric Yamato-style skyscrapers was the administrative headquarters of Tanadi Computers soaring two hundred fifty stories above the congested heart of the city.When a sleek blonde secretary announced the arrival of the Planetary Chairman, the Marquis Redmond Hosoya, Tanadi's Chief Executive Officer, was standing with his back to his surprisingly small office, staring out the window east toward the river—and the vast rectangle of the HTE Compound.Buttery morning sunlight filled the room, lending it an altogether spurious cheeriness."Ah, your Excellency," the Marquis said, turning after the carefully calculated insolence of a beat's pause."So good to see you."He bowed, then strode forward to shake hands.He was, like his office, compact but immaculately and expensively turned out.His hair, sideburns, and mustache were thick and white as the never-melting snow of the highest Trimurti peaks.He wore a dark suit whose very severity of cut and color was an almost strident statement—and a perhaps deliberate contrast to Uncle Chandy's perpetual scarlet robe.The Marquis' bow was cursory, but Percy, who after all had been playing this game his whole life, beat him with one that was little more than an inclination of his elegant head.His handshake was solid as brick.For all Hosoya's bearing and costly manicure, there was something in the thick shoulders and barrel chest that suggested the nobleman might not be above trying to crush the Planetary Chairman's knuckles.In fact he knew better than to try; Fillington's slim pale hands had a grip like an Archer."Marquis," Fillington said, "permit me to introduce my friend Jasmine Mehta, of the city of Srinagar."Hosoya's dark eyes flicked over her like the beams of a holovid camera."She's lovely," he said, in the same tone he might use to speak of a new racehorse or perhaps an imported high-tech wrist chronometer.He turned his attention back to the Planetary Chairman, and it was as if Cassie had become invisible [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]