CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

"I don't think I understand your reasoning, Sir." Lieutenant Jasco shook his head and gestured around the sumptuous quarters the officers had been given. "They certainly seem friendly enough."

"So does a spider, Lieutenant," Pahner replied. "Right before it eats a fly."

The room was paneled in blond wood, the pale grain cut to expose abstract swirls. The floor was covered in cushions a shade or two darker than the wood, most of them piled to one side, and the single window revealed a breathtaking view of the city and the river, with a glimpse of Pasule and the vast stretch of cultivated land beyond.

All in all, it was a pleasant place. Now if they could just decide whether or not it was a prison.

"We've been dealing with Mardukans for a while now," Roger said. "They're not the gentlest people in the galaxy, but they have more regard for life than we saw this morning."

"Roger is correct," O'Casey said. "This town, the whole local culture, appears atypical. And the focus of that would seem to be Radj Hoomas." She fingered the silken cover of the pillow on which she sat. "Dianda. Everywhere you look, you see this flaxsilk. All the fields, throughout the citadel. I bet if we peeked behind doorways, we'd find that everyone is weaving the stuff."

"Well, okay," Jasco said. "But that doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong. There have been plenty of societies where everyone was a weaver, or whatever. It doesn't make this culture evil."

"No, but it does make it dangerous," Pahner said definitively. "We need to back off from thinking like Marines and start thinking like bodyguards again."

Cord nodded in a gesture he'd picked up from the humans.

"A monarch like this Radj cares only about himself and his needs. And this atul has obviously been in power long enough to put his stamp on the entire kingdom."

Pahner nodded back at the shaman and looked at Kosutic.

"What are the major assassination methods?"

"You think he's going to try to assassinate Prince Roger, Sir?" Jasco asked. "Why?"

"Maybe not Roger," the sergeant major rasped, "but if he thinks there's some profit to be made from killing the guards and taking Roger hostage, he might try." She looked at the ceiling and began ticking methods off. "Poison, bomb, hand, knife, smart-bot, close-shot, long-shot, heavy weapon, weapons of mass destruction."

"This society has hand, poison, and knife," Pahner said. "So we need to concentrate on those."

"We already have analyzers," Roger pointed out, "they'll pick up poisons."

"If they come at us with swords, we respond with guns," Jasco said.

"And if they come at you with knives?" the sergeant major asked with a grim smile. "En masse, from every side? What then, Lieutenant?"

"Exactly." Pahner turned to O'Casey. "You're going to be handling point on the negotiations again. Make sure they're aware that Roger has to have," he paused and thought for a moment, "seven guards at all times. Seven is a mystic number to us humans. Not to be trifled with. So sorry if that's a problem."

"Okay," Eleanora said, making a note on her toot.

"I don't trust him as far as I could throw Patty," Roger said.

"Why not, Your Highness?" Jasco asked, perhaps just a trifle more dismissively than he really ought to have spoken to the Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man. "They've given us everything we wanted on a silver platter, and no wonder. I mean, obviously, they're happy they'll be getting the Voitan trade back. Look at the slums we passed through on the way up."

"That's exactly why," Roger said quietly. "Look, I might have been a clotheshorse. Well, still am," he amended with a chuckle, looking down at his stained chameleon uniform. "But," he continued seriously, "it wasn't the same as this place. Right down the hill from us there's crushing poverty. In case you didn't notice, most of those kids were literally starving. And the guy who should be working on fixing that is sitting on his ass at the top of the heap, sucking on fruit, having his horns inlaid, and cutting peasants' heads off. And there are all these fields where food could be grown, but it isn't. They're being planted in flaxsilk. So the people are starving, and I don't think that that's the farmers' plan. I think it's the plan of the son-of-a-bitch we're about to have a `Victory Dinner' with." The prince's jaw flexed in anger, and his nostrils twitched as if they'd scented something foul. "So that, Lieutenant, is why I don't trust that Borgia son-of-a-bitch."

"Seven guards, Chief of Staff, Sergeant Major," Pahner said emphatically. "Fully armed. Especially at this `Victory Party.' And extra especially," he added dryly, "after all the trouble `our friend' the monarch went to making sure we came here."

"Yeah," Roger said. "A `tinker.' "

"You caught that, too?" Eleanora observed with a smile.

"I wonder what he really is?"

"You succeeded, Kheder Bijan," the king observed. He took a nibble out of a kate fruit and tossed the remainder on the floor. "Congratulations, `Scout.' "

"Thank you, O King," the commander of the Royal Scouts replied. The Scouts actually did some scouting, especially when meeting with the informants they maintained among the surrounding tribes, but he was in fact the commander of the Marshad secret police.

"Once again you have avoided having your head lopped off," the monarch added with a grunt of humor. "One of these days, you won't be so lucky. That day will be a great pleasure to me. A day of comfort."

"I live to serve, O King." The spy knew he was on the edge of the knife, but that was what gave the role spice.

"Of course you do." The king gave a disbelieving chuckle. "It is a well-known fact, is it not?"

He turned to the commander of the Royal Guard. The commander had been nothing more than a common mercenary before being given his position, and the king had been careful to ensure that plenty of hatred was directed at him. It was one way to ensure the Guard's total loyalty, for if the king fell, so would the Guard.

"We will continue with the original plan."

"Yes, O King," the guard commander replied with a brief glance of fury at the spy. "The forces are at your command."

"Of course they are," he whispered. "And with Our mighty army and the power of these humans, We shall rule the world!"

Roger took another bite of the spiced meat. He'd run an analyzer over it and gotten all the usual warning about alkaloids, but it wasn't poisonous. It just tasted that way.

The locals used a spice that tasted exactly like rancid fennel, and it was apparently wildly popular, because it was in every dish. Roger picked a bit of the purple leaf off the meat and checked. Yep, that was it. He surreptitiously spat, trying to get the rotten taste out of his mouth, then gave up. At least there were only fourteen more courses to go.

The diners were seated on cushions, arranged in pairs and trios around low, three-legged tables. The courses were borne in by silent servants, and the empty platters were borne back out picked over or finished off. Most of the diners were members of the Marshad court, but there were also some representatives from other city-states. They were neither exactly ambassadors nor simple visitors, but seemed to occupy some place in between.

Roger was seated with two such representatives near the king. He had initially engaged them in desultory conversation, but they'd rapidly dropped into a complex discussion of trading futures that drifted first out of Roger's interest, and eventually out of the local dialect. Since then, the prince had occupied himself picking at his food and observing the dinner party.

He looked over at Pahner. The captain was seated on a cushion, legs crossed as if he'd been born to this society, calmly chewing and swallowing the horrible food and nodding as if he actually heard every word his seat mate was saying. As always, the Marine was the perfect diplomat, and Roger sighed. He was never going to be that good.

Eleanora had stopped eating after only a couple of mouthfuls, but she could excuse that on the basis of the steady conversation she'd been maintaining with both her table mates. The chief of staff was doing her usual job of probing every nuance of the local culture, dissecting it as a biologist would dissect an invertebrate.

He didn't look over his shoulder, but he knew the Marines were standing at the ready. They lined the wall at his back, weapons at low port and ready for instant use if it dropped in the pot.

He felt mildly naked without the additional presence of Cord, but the shaman lacked the nanites of his human companions and was still recovering from the terrible shrapnel wounds he'd taken in Voitan. Whatever might happen, the shaman would have to ride it out from a pile of cushions in the visitors' quarters.

Everyone was still as nervous as cats in a roomful of float-chairs. Including, unless he was much mistaken, Radj Hoomas.

The king sat at the head of the room, with his back to the large double doors leading into one of his many throne rooms. He was surrounded, literally, by guards and hard to observe through the obscurement of the armored behemoths. From what Roger could see of him, however, he, too, was picking at his food, speaking occasionally with the armored commander seated beside him and glancing nervously around the room. It might be a victory party, but the host didn't look very victorious.

"The Prince isn't eating!" the king whispered angrily.

"He's eaten enough," Mirzal Pars responded. The old mercenary clapped his hands and grunted in humor. "They're so smart, but they don't even recognize miz poison. It may be tasteless, but you can see the leaves clearly. Everyone knows about it . . . except these humans." He grunted another laugh.

"But will it be enough?" Radj Hoomas demanded. The plan had to be executed flawlessly, for the power of these humans was terrifying to contemplate. Holding onto it would be like holding an atul by the tail.

"It will be enough. They've all eaten more than a large enough dose. If we withhold the antidote, they'll die within a day."

"And the guards are ready?"

"Assuredly," the commander chuckled. "They look forward to it."