Read Online The Crown Jewels by Walter Jon Williams - Free Book Online Page B

the reflective surface. He, too, was smoking, the cigaret hanging from the end of his muzzle. It was a vice he normally avoided, but which he indulged in for Anastasia’s sake, an old-fashioned courtesy she seemed to appreciate. “I have only two personnel,” he said. “Maijstral has servants here, and connections. If he has the Imperial Relic he’s probably gone to ground.”
    “Damn him, anyway. Why didn’t he take the bribe?”
    “Perhaps he does not share his father’s convictions.”
    Anastasia sneered. Smoke streamed from her nostrils in elegant little white traceries, and she admired the effect in the glass. “He simply takes pleasure in being wayward,” she said. “That’s why he took up burglary and that unspeakable Nichole woman, just to annoy the family. I always told his father to be firm with the boy.”
    “Too late now, my lady.”
    Her lip curled. A bit of tobacco, she noticed, was adhering to one bright tooth. “It’s never too late for firmness, my lord Baron,” she said. It was one of the rules by which she lived, but the maxim was spoiled by her having to pick the tobacco fleck off her smile.
    Sinn remained silent.
    “That Nichole,” Anastasia told the glass. “Nichole and the Diadem. The height of Constellation culture. People whose sole profession is to be gossiped about. Can you imagine it?”
    Sinn moved the cigaret to the comer of his mouth with his lolling tongue. “We were speaking, Countess, about Maijstral and this Jensen woman.”
    “Firmness,” she said, remembering her earlier tack.
    Neuralgia stabbed her neck. “If Maijstral is in the public eye, and might be missed, Jensen is not. If Maijstral has no one to deliver the Imperial Relic to, then . . .”
    “Quite so.”
    Baron Sinn looked at the human woman and restrained his diaphragm from an irritated spasm. She was an ally, he reminded himself, and even if she was a grotesque crank she was a rich grotesque crank who had personally financed Imperial Party activities here in the Constellation. . . .
    He dropped his cigaret into an ashtray. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll have to call Khotvinn into it. We’ll pick up Jensen as soon as she’s alone. She seems to be entertaining someone named Navarre right now— he’s in the service and we don’t want complications.”
    Anastasia stalked to him and put her arm through his, her palm stroking the smooth dark hair on his upper arm. “Lovely,” she said. Her mouth open, her tongue lolled: Khosali good humor. The glitter in her eyes was appalling. “Firmness at last.”
    Politics, the Baron quoted to himself, oft consists in ignoring facts.
    He considered himself a practical person and rarely resorted to maxims. It was a measure of how she strained his nerves that he was thinking in clichés at all.
    *
    Lieutenant Navarre thought of Amalia Jensen as his flier arched across the night sky. An interesting woman, he decided. Dedicated to preserving the Constellation in her own chosen fashion, and with the facts and intelligence to back up her opinions, she’d proved a most stimulating companion for the evening. Head of a political organization, a third degree black sash in pom boxing, an expert conversationalist... Odd, given all that, she’d turn out to be a garden person. Her house was filled with plants and flowers, all lovingly tended.
    Still he was a bit uneasy about turning down an invitation from Nichole. How often did a man, particularly an officer from Pompey, get a chance to be photographed with a member of the Human Diadem? Unfortunate that he’d not been in a situation in which he could escape the commitment with grace.
    The communicator on his flier gave a discreet chirp, and he frowned. Who would be calling at this hour? He pressed a button and answered.
    “Navarre.”
    “Sir? This is Officer Pankat of the Peleng Police. Apparently your late uncle’s house was broken into tonight.”
    Navarre was astonished. “Really?” he asked. And then, “ But