The degree of emptiness in life is proportional to the density of the observer.
As with all those who possessed wealth, there was little information on Marie Annette Tozzi. The initial search did come up with a bit more on Guillaume Richard Dyorr. He’d been born in Bretcote, to a fishing family. He’d excelled in racquets and parlayed that expertise into an admission to L’École de Mérite. From there he’d gained a full scholarship to L’Université de Vannes and then another to the Medical College at Vergennes, on the far east coast. He’d graduated second in his class. The honors, research, fellowships piled up. From what I could tell, he’d had no female liaisons of a lasting nature. All of his mentors had been male. Suggestive, but for from conclusive. If anyone would know, it would be Myndanori, when I could reach her.
The Reynarda commission would take even more work, and I’d need to talk to Odilia. Technically, I could have virtied her. I didn’t. Virtual visits were not de rigueur in her circle. So, immediately after the seigniora left, I arranged an appointment with Odilia for Miercen. Then I called the groundcar service and ordered the small special limousine. Anything less, and I wouldn’t have gotten through the gates of the Palacio Ottewyn.
I decided to let matters stew in my subconscious for a bit.
News scan. I prioritized the items, starting with non-Assembly news, then began to run through the items.
“Technarcheologists representing the University of Muriami reported the discovery of the remnants of an alien spacecraft…in an undisclosed location in the Drift region…the craft is estimated to be a billion years old. Because of extensive damage that presumably immobilized the vehicle and the debris that accreted around it, the technology used to propel it is unknown, but the design of the craft is similar to that of existing human jumpships…and contains fossilized remains…no other data have yet been released…”
Every decade or so, someone found some technological artifact that they claimed was of alien origin and represented high science. So far none had. Most were common devices with common purposes from peoples who had come and gone.
“Ahrham Khan, Shiite League legate to the Assembly, informed Premier Ferraro that the League would take whatever steps might be necessary to restrain Frankan expansionism in the Sack area of the Trailing Arm. He repeated that statement in a public statement delivered before the Califya Stellar Traders…”
I snorted. Everyone anywhere close to the Frankan Confederation declared that they would take such steps. So far as I knew, only SpecOps had ever done anything. Most of that had been hushed up, and kept hushed up.
“The art exchange between the Columbian Federation and Chung Kuo has been canceled. No reasons have been given…”
Skip. I didn’t need to know about art exchanges.
“The Republic of Zion has launched another colony ship that will incorporate both jump-generators and suspend systems with the most advanced AI guidance systems. With a target of the ‘meadows’ section of the Greater Magellanic Cloud, the LDSS John Lee will undertake the longest missionary flight ever attempted…”
Skip to Devanta news. Saint missionary efforts were worse than art exchanges.
“The Gallian Sector Four Fleet continued deep-space maneuvers last week, and encountered armed scouts of an unidentified force. One of the scout ships was destroyed. The other escaped…Sources close to the sector command of the Assembly Defense Ministry reported that the scouts’ profiles matched those of either Frankan or Argenti vessels.”
I would have thought that deep-space military scouts were more likely to be Argenti, since the Frankans had backed off after the lower Trailing Arm disaster. Both had targeted the Gallian sisterhood in past centuries. They had felt it was the weakest subsector of the Assembly of Worlds. They’d been repulsed, defeated, and annihilated in successive campaigns. I’d had something to do with the last. Those outcomes had not changed their opinion. Not for long. Sweet reason insisted that worlds ruled by women were better targets.
“Soror Prima Juliana signed an amendment to the Gallian systems charter yesterday that would require mandatory licensing of defense-related technologies to the system or planetary authorities. Full royalties would be paid, but the owner of such technologies would not have the right to prohibit their use. In addition, the government would have the right to prohibit sales of such technology to governments deemed hostile…”
That worried me far more than fleets prowling around the Gallian systems. Any time a government had to compel commonsense measures of those who provided weapons systems, it suggested that short-term greed had won over long-term survival. But then, history was filled with societies that had collapsed because of excessive greed in its various manifestations.
Because of my musings over technology-leasing, I hadn’t been paying that much attention to the other news and missed the lead of the next report.
“…outbreaks of spontaneous crime and violence continued to drop in Thurene and other urbanized areas…population dynamicists note that the decline in such offenses merely mirrors the decrease in the numbers of those members of society most likely to commit such crimes…no explanation for such a population decline. Sister Quinta refused to comment on the report that disappearances are at an all-time high in lower-income quadrants, particularly in Thurene and in Vannes…
“The Sorores Civitas are little more than a feminist tyranny.” That was the latest pronouncement of Josiah Brigham at the annual meeting of the Masculist Forum in Testaverde yesterday. Members of the Forum pledged support to develop a political alternative to the current Devantan government, one more aligned with the best in human tradition…”
I snorted. The Masculists and their female counterpart—the True Traditional Women—wanted to roll back political, economic, medical, and social developments thousands of years in the name of tradition. They didn’t like equality for the sexes or a medical technology that could transform women into men in every aspect or men into women, even to removing the differences in the Adam’s apple, and they certainly didn’t like women running the planetary government.
Krij will be here shortly, Max reminded me. With her partner.
Thank you. I cut off the news feeds.
I could feel myself tightening inside. When my sister visited, I still felt that way. Was it that she was a decade older and had always exhibited superiority, regardless of how matters had changed since we had been children? Had it been the sudden and untimely death of our parents while I’d been in the service that had forced her into that role? Or was it me? I’d tossed those questions over in my mind for years, never satisfied with the results. As always, I pushed them back into the shadows of my mind.
Siendra wasn’t Krij’s partner in the samer sense. They were business partners. Krij had been married to an advocate—once—and I had a niece I saw occasionally. Krij and Siendra were regulatory compliance auditors—not for the Assembly of Worlds or for the planetary government of Devanta, but for wealthy individuals and small corpentities. Those were the people who had the most to lose from failure to comply with the myriad of energy, environmental, accounting, taxation, and employment regulations.
Should I start on the Reynarda commission? Or the Tozzi one?
I decided against either. Krij was always punctual. She was due at the villa in less than ten minutes. Instead, I checked on messages. There weren’t many. There never were.
Antonio diVeau’s smooth face projected into the air before the desk. “Blaine…are you interested in a cataract river ride in Novem? I’ve got space for two…”
I’d turn that down. Tony was the type that professed profound love and devotion to his wife and daughters, then left them for every exotic adventure he could find. He tried to use those adventures to gain clients for his bank—I presumed. We’d never been close, but I didn’t like to alienate anyone for no reason. Not when they might someday need my services. If I’d been his wife—or her brother—I’d have vanished him long ago. But I wasn’t, and he’d married wealth and the kind of woman who’d vanish herself rather than disappoint him. Besides, I wasn’t looking for more excitement. I had enough professionally. Paying for it in my personal life was insane.
Next in the message queue was Lemel Jerome. He was an inventor who fancied that his ideas were always being stolen by others—usually by others who claimed precedents established centuries before.
“My idea for quark-electron regression holo recording and display. I registered that ten years ago, and now the Classic group is looking into that approach. They won’t answer any of my inquiries. I’d like you to look into that…”
Lemmy always wanted me to look into things. He paid, but slow, stingily, and late. I wouldn’t have time to talk to him at the moment. I’d return the vid later. I still could use more credits. I started to call up Myndanori’s message when Max interrupted me.
Krij and Siendra are here.
I stood, then watched as they stepped into the study. Krij turned and shut the door. Siendra stepped to one side to let Krij continue to take the lead.
“Good morning, Blaine.” Krij smiled brightly. She was striking in an understated way—with wide-set green eyes, a patrician nose, shoulder-length jet-black hair, and flawless pale skin that had just enough color to let her eyes and features dominate her countenance. She was slender in a muscular way, but obviously well curved. When she was being professional, as she was at the moment, she suppressed her pheromones to a simple restrained declaration of femininity. So did Siendra, but whether that was because of her inclination or Krij’s direction I didn’t know. I wasn’t about to ask.
I’d never gone in for pheromone manipulation, and I hadn’t had to. Mine were in the acceptable range, and the readings said they made me mildly attractive to women.
In a sense, Siendra was Krij’s opposite. Nothing stood out. Her brown hair was smooth and cut into a bob. Her eyes were somewhere between light brown and hazel. Her nose was neither pug, nor small, nor large, not crooked, but not markedly noticeable. She had a feminine figure that was neither angular nor outrageously curved. Her voice was pleasant.
“Good morning.” I nodded to them both, then gestured to the conference table.
“This won’t take long,” Krij replied, although she settled herself into one of the chairs. “It’s good to get off my feet.”
I hadn’t seen Siendra sit down, but she had taken the chair to Krij’s left and my right.
“We finished the audit, Blaine.”
“And? Am I out of compliance in something else? Besides the supplementary schedules for independent subcontractors?”
“We fixed that. More a technicality than actual noncompliance. But they would have fined you. As for the others…Out of compliance, no. Likely to encourage a sisterly formal audit by the Civitas Sorores, possibly.”
Much as I might joke about the sisters and audits, that was the last thing I wanted. Not when they administered all Devanta, even though they styled themselves merely the Civitas Sorores of Thurene. “With what?”
“Your equipment expenditures. You spend more on equipment than do some corpentities ten times your size.”
Siendra nodded, barely perceptibly. “Your equipment descriptions are on the general side.”
I had the feeling that Siendra had studied me when I wasn’t looking at her. “They have to be. First, most of it’s custom. Second, I’d rather not give a full description.”
“Don’t.” Siendra laughed. It was a warm expression, the first thing about her that had stood out in the five years she’d worked with Krij. “Just give it an official-sounding label. If you have Moore-Jobi build you a special nanite diffuser, call it the MJ Diffuser, Model BD-1 or 2 or 3, whatever number it happens to be. The bureaucrats will accept that more happily than a detailed description.”
“Others build diffusers, and they don’t cost nearly so much,” I pointed out.
“Then add that it has a Special Adapter, Mode 3.”
That would probably work. I wished I’d thought of it, but that was why I’d asked Krij to audit my reports—and why I’d pay her the going rate—or almost. Since she was my sister, she’d give me a thirty percent discount. “Anything else?”
“Get married.”
“What?”
“Men who are married have half the audit rates of those who aren’t.” Krij grinned. “They also live longer.” As usual, she’d given her opinion in her own inimitable way.
“I wouldn’t have to worry about being audited at all. To stay married, I’d have to give up most of what makes credits for me. I wouldn’t be able to afford the villa, or your services, elder sister.”
“I have to give you some advice you won’t take, Blaine. Otherwise, you think I’ve wasted your time and credits.”
She was right about that. She was usually right. I’d learned that years before. Back then, it had irritated me, particularly when she’d told me that I’d be accepted for Special Operations, but rejected for IS pilot training. I still remembered what she’d said.
“The best pilots are at home with boredom. They don’t want excitement. They’ll train and prepare for years to avoid excitement. You can’t live without it.”
I’d protested and taken the tests and exams. When I got the responses, SpecOps had accepted me, and the space service had rejected me. But it wasn’t that I couldn’t live without it. It was more that I wanted to tame it and couldn’t live without that effort. Krij would have called that my own power trip. She would have been right there, too. But I had gotten into piloting through the back door of Special Operations. Small spacecraft and flitters only.
“You won’t waste my credits. That wouldn’t fit your professional self-interest, elder sister.”
That got smiles from both Krij and Siendra.
Then Krij stood. “I’d better not waste your time, either.” She tilted her head in the quizzical expression that was hers alone. “Brunch on Senen? Eleven hour?”
“At your place?”
“Where else?”
“I’ll be there.”
I didn’t see Siendra stand, but she had.
I accompanied them all the way out of the study and through the entry foyer and down the steps to their limousine—small standard gray corpentity transport. Solar-electrofuel-cell, like most models.
Before Siendra turned to follow Krij into the limousine, she smiled politely. Her eyes met mine, but I had the feeling that there was some sort of barrier there. It wasn’t dislike, and it wasn’t fear, but more like the feeling of distance. Maybe it was because she and Krij minimized danger, while I wanted to master it.
I watched the limousine glide out through the gates and the gates close. Then I walked back up the stone steps and across the foyer to the study. When the door closed behind me, the villa felt emptier after they left than before they had arrived. I knew why, but explaining to myself would only have made it worse.
Besides, I had the rest of Marten to dig further into the Reynarda and Tozzi jobs—and to make the changes in the descriptions of my equipment, as well as a cryptic reminder to myself about using model and make numbers for what I purchased.
Then, too, I needed to go through the rest of the messages.
My boredom threshold has always been low. The more mysterious work was always more appealing. That looked to be the Reynarda commission. I set Max to work on two mathematical analyses of possible civic registry keys. The first was based on all the numbers and phrases likely to be common to the Eloi brothers. The second was an improbability analysis, designed to develop uncommon keys, or rather, keys the Elois would think were uncommon. I had Max’s backup cull all public video that could be found of either Eloi and of Judeon Maraniss.
Then I had him do the same for the Tozzi heiress and the doctoral fortune seeker.
After that, I went down below, where I went through a full real-body physical workout. Two solid stans. After that, I cooled down, cleaned up, then returned to the villa’s lower levels, where I put myself through the armed deep-space scout refresher—version three. That was using an actual cockpit interior, with enough virtie assist to make it more real.
After a quiet and very late luncheon or early dinner by myself on the verandah, I girded myself up to study all the vid-shots of my targets and see what associations I could draw from them and the backgrounds. That’s never as simple as it sounds. That and catching up on various odds and ends took the rest of the early evening.