PETRA AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING TO THE sound of her beeping wristcom. “Yeah?” she mumbled.
“Petra Nash?”
“I think so.”
“Good morning, Petra Nash. This is Whit Bartholemew. How are you today?”
That was a question Petra was not prepared to answer just yet. She felt too awful to be able to calibrate precisely how awful. The only response she could manage was a weak groan.
“Sorry I missed you at the reception last night, but I was called away on business,” Bartholemew said. “I was truly looking forward to seeing you. I hear you were the toast of the Quadrant.”
“I was?”
“So they say. But I would prefer not to rely on mere gossip. I’d much rather see for myself. Would you consider having lunch with me today?”
“Uh…”
“Wonderful. I’ll send a limo for you, say, about noon?”
“Uh…” Petra looked around for the first time and realized that she was not at the Ellisons’. She seemed to be in a bed in Gloria’s suite at the hotel. “I’m at the Imperial Cantabragian,” she said.
“Yes, I know. Noon, then?”
“Uh…yes, noon is fine.”
“See you then, Petra Nash.”
Petra tried to get up, didn’t quite make it, but managed to swing her legs around and sit on the edge of the bed while the room gradually stopped whirling around her. She took a few deep breaths and noticed her pad on the bedside table, glowing orange to announce a message. She reached out and keyed it.
“First things first,” Gloria said brightly. “There are some No-Regret tabs in the bathroom. Elaine and I are off to the committee venues. I got a call from Pug, who says he hopes you’re feeling better and that he’ll be checking out Stavros & Sons today. He says he’ll see you tonight at the Ellisons’. I don’t know what you had planned for today, but if you need to take the day off, go ahead. Oh, and Elaine says you’re welcome to borrow some of her clothes. Have a great day, and I’ll talk to you later.”
Petra made her unsteady way into the bathroom, found the pills, and swallowed two of them. Then she stepped into the shower, hoping she would be lucky enough to drown. She didn’t, and by the time she turned the shower off, the pills had taken effect and she was feeling marginally human, if not exactly chipper. She remembered most of what had happened last night and gave the bottle of pills a skeptical look. “No regrets, huh?”
She supposed that she had not completely disgraced herself, but she had probably come pretty close. Prancing around in the nude in front of all the Dexta bigwigs of Quadrant 4 might not have been a prudent career move, now that she considered it. On the other hand, with Gloria there, it was possible that no one had even noticed. Gloria was like a black hole, sucking in light and energy from the minor bodies that orbited her, and sometimes it was impossible for Petra not to resent her. Still, Gloria couldn’t help being what she was, any more than Steffany Fairchild could help being a tall, blond, big-titted bitch. Petra, fated to be cute and little, felt that she had to resort to extreme measures in the presence of such overpowering competition.
If Pug thought he could take her for granted and cuddle up to Steffany while Petra labored away for Dexta and OSI, maybe he needed a little reminder that Petra Nash was nobody’s doormat. Whit Bartholemew seemed to think highly of her, at least, even if nobody else on this fucking planet did. He’d missed the show she put on last night? Okay, she would put on the same show for him today. She didn’t bother with borrowing something from Elaine, but found her black-and-gold pareu and knotted it recklessly low on her hips. Just the thing for a casual lunch.
Petra ordered coffee from room service, and while waiting for it to arrive, she rummaged around in Gloria’s room until she found the inevitable package of jigli. She lit up one of the potent cigarettes and settled comfortably in a chair to smoke and stew. By the time the coffee arrived, she was tingling all over with sexual arousal and righteous indignation.
THE LIMO DRIVER EXPLAINED TO PETRA THAT she would be having lunch in Bartholemew’s office rather than a restaurant. That was probably just as well, Petra reflected, as she got out of the limo in front of the Bartholemew Building in downtown Central. The provincials of this two-crown world didn’t seem to be used to the sight of sophisticated Manhattan ladies striding past them at high noon, bare-breasted and practically nude. Come to think of it, this would have been pretty extreme even for Gloria. So be it; Petra Nash, Dexta Tiger, didn’t care.
She arrived at the top floor (the elevators in this building, thank the Spirit, were working) and was quickly ushered into Bartholemew’s private office by a secretary who kept giving her disapproving sidelong glances. Whit Bartholemew greeted her with a wide smile and wider eyes.
“I didn’t have a chance to change after last night,” Petra explained as Bartholemew kissed her extended hand.
“Why change perfection?” Bartholemew said as he focused his gaze on her pert breasts and sensuously bared belly. Petra felt a surge of jigli-fired tingles.
Bartholemew took her hand and led her on a short tour of his palatial, fiftieth-floor office as he explained that Bartholemew Enterprises, of which he was president, was really a holding company that managed fourteen different concerns. They ranged from the moribund but occasionally useful B & Q Shipping to a financial company that underwrote construction projects throughout the Quadrant. “My father, of course, is the one who built this overweening enterprise,” he said. “And through no fault or merit of my own, I now sit in his big chair and crack the various whips that keep the serfs busy and productive.”
“You sound as if you regret it.”
“Endlessly. I tell you, Petra Nash, if not for the disadvantages of my birth, I might have amounted to something in life.” He led her to a small table, where wine and a salad course were waiting for them.
“Well,” Petra said as she sat down, “it’s not too late. I mean, you could still just chuck it all and go…do what? What would you have done with your life if you hadn’t been burdened with wealth and position?”
“Interesting question, that,” Bartholemew said as he poured the wine. “Poet? Politician? Proctologist? In a way, I’ve had to be all of those things anyway. Especially the last one. You wouldn’t believe how many assholes I have to deal with.”
Petra smiled. “Me too,” she said.
“I shouldn’t doubt it. Tell me, whatever possessed you to join that gang of fascist file clerks?”
“Oh, it’s not that bad. Dexta’s just another bureaucracy, with all the faults of any bureaucracy. I joined because I wanted to make something of myself and help run the Empire. Maybe do a little good in the galaxy. Why are you and your mother so down on Dexta, anyway?”
Bartholemew sipped a little wine and leaned back in his chair. “You’ve met my grandfather?”
Petra shrugged. “Not really. But Gloria knows him well and thinks he’s a wonderful man.”
“Gloria, no doubt, would. Actually, I barely know the man. I’ve only met him three times in my life, and the last time was over twenty years ago. But I know what he is, what he’s done. He’s a tyrant, nothing less. He absolutely controls our pathetic self-indulgent, milksop Emperor, and has the goods on everyone in Parliament. I tell you, Petra Nash, no one can be trusted with power, let alone absolute power. Least of all, Norman Mingus.”
“His power is hardly absolute,” Petra pointed out. “He has plenty of trouble just controlling Dexta, from what I hear. As for the Emperor and Parliament…well, we do have an Imperial Code, don’t we? Dexta is just one part of the balance of powers.”
“Right out of the textbook. Is that what they taught you back at dear old Alexander Hamilton High School in lovely Weehawken? Odd that they should name the place for a man who was killed there, don’t you think? Why not Aaron Burr High School?”
“You’ve been checking up on me,” Petra said with some annoyance.
“From the moment I met you,” Bartholemew agreed. “You intrigue me, Petra Nash. You are intelligent, witty, charming, and beautiful in a way that your famous boss could never be. You’re a real person. I like real people. I’ve met so few of them in this charade I call my life.”
“Why are you so bitter?”
“Better to ask why everyone isn’t that bitter,” Bartholemew said. He drank some more wine. “Everyone certainly has cause to be in this benighted Empire of ours. Why aren’t you bitter, Petra Nash? You certainly have cause to be, after all the miserable cards you’ve been dealt. Absentee father, shrew of a mother, egotistical, self-absorbed boss, weak-kneed, two-timing boyfriend…”
“Now, wait a minute!” Petra felt a hot flush of anger burning her cheeks. “Ever since I got here, you’ve been going out of your way to insult me, my job, and all the important people in my life. What the hell gives you the right to set yourself up as the Universal Judge?”
“Nothing,” Bartholemew admitted. “You’re quite right. I’m no more qualified for that job than anyone else. And that’s my whole point. My contempt, I assure you, is not directed at you, or Gloria VanDeen, or Pug, or even Norman Mingus. It’s a purely impartial contempt, aimed at one and all—Whitney Bartholemew, Junior, not excepted. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Yes, you are. There’s some color in your cheeks. And your exquisite nipples are so stiff, they look like gun barrels aimed straight at my heart.” Bartholemew clasped his hands over his chest in mock agony.
Petra laughed, in spite of herself. She took a sip of wine and stared at the man across the table from her. She didn’t think she’d ever met anyone quite like him. If he was obnoxious and hurtful, he was also brutally honest. There was something to be said for that. Bartholemew seemed to be a man who was determined to live without illusions—or maybe he just preferred the illusions he created for himself.
Bartholemew hit a button on his wristcom, and an instant later a wheeled robot dumbwaiter came in and served the main course of fish, rice, and vegetables. The robot departed, and Bartholemew poured more wine.
“As long as I’ve already provoked your pique,” he said, “allow me to annoy you even more. I must confess that I didn’t invite you here simply so I could insult you and stare at your lovely face and that splendid little body—which, by the way, I am extravagantly grateful to you for revealing so completely. No, I have another motive, entirely. I understand that you paid a little visit to that old fart Quincannon.”
“Yes. I needed some information about B & Q Shipping for an investigation I’m doing. I didn’t know that you owned the company.”
“But now you do know it. And much more. You downloaded all of the company’s files, sixty years of them.”
Petra nodded. “I needed to find out about a B & Q shipment in 3163. I didn’t want to spend hours looking for exactly what I needed, so I just downloaded everything.”
“So I gather. That nitwit Quincannon apparently didn’t realize that something like that would immediately show up in our master computer. I would never have approved letting you do that, had I known.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered whether you approved it or not,” Petra told him. “I’m investigating a possible link to terrorist activity. I didn’t have a warrant, but I could have gotten one easily enough.”
“Possibly. That’s neither here nor there. If you are investigating something that happened in 3163, you hardly need all of B & Q’s records, do you?” Bartholemew offered her a friendly smile.
“I told you, I didn’t have the time to do a specific search. But once I’ve downloaded everything from my pad to the office computer, I’ll be able to find the stuff I need.”
“Fine. And what of the stuff you don’t need?”
Petra shook her head. “I have no interest in that.”
“In that case, before you dump all of that information into the maw of Dexta’s computers, would you be kind enough to separate the wheat from the chaff, then permanently dispose of the chaff?”
“Why? I told you—”
“Yes, I know, you have no interest in that. But someone else might. That’s my problem. You see, some of the material that is of no interest to you contains information that could be, shall we say, embarrassing, to B & Q Shipping and Bartholemew Enterprises and to me, personally.”
“Look, if you have some skeletons in your corporate closet, don’t worry about it. I couldn’t care less. The only thing I’m concerned with is that shipment to Savoy in 3163, and Pug and I are the only ones who are going to be using that data. Your secrets, whatever they may be, are perfectly safe.”
“I wish I could be certain of that. But the ugly truth is that it’s not simply a matter of a few skeletons in a closet. Apparently no one has told you about my father.”
Petra frowned. “What about him?”
Bartholemew drank some more wine, then sighed. “You see,” he said, “the fact is that my sainted father, Whitney Bartholemew, Senior, spent his entire adult life working in and for the zamitat. Those records, Petra Nash, do not constitute a few skeletons in a closet. They constitute an entire fucking boneyard.”
“Oh,” said Petra.
“Indeed. So you can understand my reluctance to let you drop the whole sordid mess into the hopper. It’s not simply that I would be embarrassed. I’m not even in their damned cartel. But if the zamies ever got wind of it, there could be some unpleasant consequences for everyone concerned. Me, Quincannon…possibly even you and Pug. You unwittingly downloaded a time bomb into your little pad. For my sake, and for your own, it would be wise of you to get rid of all that information as quickly and quietly as possible.”
“I see,” Petra said.
“You’ll do it, then?”
“I’ll have to think about it. What you’re asking is, in itself, illegal. I mean, just asking me to do that is a felony. Actually doing it…Spirit, I just don’t know.” And she didn’t. Petra had never been confronted with anything like this and didn’t have a clue how to deal with it. The zamitat? What had she gotten herself into? She felt a sudden chill up and down her bare back.
They finished their lunch in relative silence. Bartholemew opened another bottle of wine, poured some more, then led Petra to a corner of the vast office that appeared to be a small library. He put his arm around her back and gently massaged her right shoulder.
“You needn’t be afraid of me,” he said.
“I’m not. But I am curious. Your mother married a man in the zamitat. Mingus must have known. Is that what went wrong between them? Did he object to her marriage?”
To her surprise, Bartholemew erupted in a genuine laugh. “Object? Hardly! He arranged it. Or more precisely, he forced her into it. More precisely still, he sold her to that fucking thug I am pleased to call my father.”
Petra looked up into his eyes. “But why?” she asked him.
Bartholemew shrugged. “It suited his needs. My grandpa needed something from my daddy, so he gave him my mommy, and everyone lived happily ever after. Heartwarming, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand. Why would she go along with a thing like that?”
“I can see that you don’t understand power. I mean serious, enduring, political, economic, and societal power. Stay with Pug a while, and maybe you will.”
Petra thought about it for a moment and nodded. “I think I see what you mean,” she said. “I’ve seen the kind of power the Ellisons have. I mean, I don’t think Pug really wants to take that job on Pelham, but…”
“But he will,” Bartholomew said with flat confidence. “Just as my mother married old Bart. She was in love with another man at the time—and that, too, had been arranged by my kindly old grandfather. But then his needs changed, so he redirected his daughter’s life. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been Whitney Bartholemew, Junior. I’d have been Cornell DuBray, Junior.”
“DuBray?”
“None other. He was Mingus’s assistant at the time, and it must have seemed an obvious and convenient match. But then, events intervened. Mingus made DuBray break off the engagement, then delivered his innocent young daughter into the waiting and eager arms of the biggest bastard in the Quardrant. And Mother went along with it, because what choice did she have? None, really; no more than those ancient princesses who were bartered off to unholy wedlock with foreign kings and potentates because it suited someone’s needs. The needs of power.”
“I can understand the marriage, I guess,” Petra said. “But why did she stay with him all those years?”
“You don’t divorce a man like Whitney Bartholemew, Senior. And, in time, a bond developed between them. Call it love, if you like. My mother was beautiful, glamorous, and well connected; my father was handsome, powerful, and domineering. She made him look respectable, and he made her feel needed. But she never forgave her father for what he did to her.”
Petra looked up at Bartholemew. “It must have been difficult for you,” she said.
“Compared with what?” Bartholemew shrugged. “It was the only life I knew. I suspect that it was actually pretty easy compared with, say, growing up in poverty in a broken home in Weehawken, New Jersey.”
“Oh, that wasn’t so bad, either. Not really. It was the only life I knew.”
“And yet now, you seem to be prepared to embark on an entirely different sort of life. Consort, or perhaps wife, to the scion of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the Empire. Are you sure that’s what you want, Petra Nash?” Bartholemew raised his right hand and stroked her gently under her chin with his index finger. She looked up into his dark eyes.
“I…I’m not sure,” she said. “I love Pug, but…”
“And I’m reasonably sure that Pug loves you, as well, as far as he is able. And yet, at this very moment, he’s with Steffany Fairchild.”
Petra pulled away from him. “No, he’s not,” she insisted. “He’s busy with Dexta work.”
“He was, this morning. Now, he’s with Steffany.”
“I don’t believe you. How could you know that?”
“Because he told me. I called him this morning when I was trying to find your commcode. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you call him yourself?”
Petra almost did, but thought better of it.
“Pug is with Steffany,” Bartholemew said, “and you are here, with me. Don’t try to tell me, Petra Nash, that you came here dressed like that just to have a social luncheon.”
Bartholemew gently ran his hand over Petra’s bare breasts, toying with her nipples. Petra’s breath came in short, tense gasps as her jigli-enhanced nerves tingled in spasms of intense pleasure. His hand moved downward, probed her belly button, then slid on across her belly and down to where her pubic hairs curled over the top of the knot in her pareu. He paused there for a moment, then deftly unknotted the pareu and cupped her groin with his palm.
Petra tilted her head back as he stroked her and finally breathed, “You’re right. I didn’t.” She reached for him, pulled him down to her, and kissed him.
GLORIA’S FEET HURT. SHE DIDN’T LIKE HIGH-GRAVITY worlds; humans weren’t designed for them. But humans were nothing if not adaptable, and they lived on Empire planets with gravitational forces ranging from .1 G to 1.7 G. In time, evolution would sort things out, but that thought was no comfort to her as she roamed the corridors of the Convention Center on her high heels and aching feet. She had sat in, briefly, on a few of the many committee meetings, but most of the day had been spent schmoozing in the corridors, selling the delegates on the benefits and potential of the OSI.
A gaggle of media reps had trailed her, off and on, but she mainly ignored them and concentrated on buttonholing Dexta people and chatting them up. She wore a sheer-to-the-point-of-invisibility white blouse with a wide, deep neckline, a matching skirt slit to the hipbone, and a businesslike dark blue blazer. Everyone could see everything she had, but she still managed to look brisk and efficient. It was a combination she knew worked well for her and somehow symbolized the image she was trying to promote for OSI. We’re open and friendly, we have nothing to hide, and we get the job done.
Last night, she knew, had been a triumph. Jill, Althea, Elaine, Petra, and the guys had put a personal, smiling face on OSI for hundreds of Dexta delegates who would otherwise have known it only from rumor and reputation. Oh, Althea may have overdone it a bit, as usual, and Petra had been too drunk to function by the end of the evening, but overall, they had accomplished everything she had hoped for. And she hadn’t done badly herself.
And afterward…Eli Opatnu and Forty-eight! The new drug was everything it was said to be, and more. Gloria closed her eyes for a second and shivered at the memory of the fantastic sensations that had coursed through her for what seemed like hours. Spirit, that was powerful stuff! And Eli was pretty powerful stuff, too; he had more than satisfied Gloria, Elaine, and Althea in the null-room. It was a shame that Jill had declined the opportunity and Petra was too far gone to participate. They might have learned something from the experience.
Eli, Gloria realized, was her opposite number, her mirror image. He was concentrated sexual energy in a package of stunning beauty. Perhaps her reaction to him was the female equivalent of what men felt with her. She felt no desire to form a lasting relationship with him; that, she was certain, would destroy them both. Like Forty-eight, Eli Opatnu was a transcendental treat, but not something you’d want to take with breakfast every morning. But there was no reason they couldn’t continue to see each other from time to time and delight in each other’s gifts.
“Ms. VanDeen?” Gloria was roused from her reveries by a trim-looking, dark-haired woman standing in front of her.
“Yes?” she said, smiling pleasantly.
“I’m Harriet Graves, Level Eleven, Sector 24 Social Services Coordinator.”
“Pleased to meet you, Harriet.”
“Ms. VanDeen, I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re a disgrace!”
Gloria raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“You’ve cheapened and degraded yourself and Dexta. You’ve harmed every woman in the organization with your narcissistic display and self-indulgent theatrics. As if women had nothing to offer but sex!”
“Well,” said Gloria, “you’re entitled to your opinion. But I think the record shows that I’ve offered a lot more than just sex. I’m sorry if my personal style offends you, but, you know, the OSI has a great deal to offer Dexta. We’ve been able to solve problems that the traditional Dexta structure was incapable of dealing with, and as the Office expands, we’ll provide new opportunities for creative and flexible resolution of—”
“Oh, don’t give me any of your OSI garbage, Ms. VanDeen! I don’t care a fig about your Office of Strategic Intervention, and the truth is, neither do you! All you care about is making a spectacle of yourself and getting every man in the Empire to lust after you!”
“And what would be wrong with that?” Gloria asked with a bemused smile. “Do not deny yourself joy, Ms. Graves, it’s the wellspring of—”
“And don’t give me any of your Spiritist crap! I’m a decent, God-fearing Christian woman! Avatar of Joy, huh? Hmmpf!” Ms. Graves whirled around and stomped away in high dudgeon.
A small crowd had gathered during the confrontation. Gloria turned to the onlookers and said, “Well, you can’t please everyone, but I think—”
She was interrupted by a loud, sharp crack-boom! The unmistakable signature of a plasma discharge came from somewhere down the corridor. Gloria turned to look, but before she could see anything, two of Arkady Volkonski’s Bugs lifted her off her feet and whisked her away. Volkonski himself was suddenly there, directing them through an unmarked door and into what appeared to be a supply closet crammed with janitorial robots, jugs of cleaning fluid, and an array of mops. Volkonski dashed off, slamming the door behind him.
Before Gloria could say anything to the two Internal Security men sharing the closet with her, the door opened again. Two more Bugs herded their charge into the tiny room. Gloria suddenly found herself face-to-face with Cornell DuBray.
They stared at each other in awkward silence for a few moments, then DuBray turned to his security men and gave a subtle nod. They opened the door and departed. Gloria gave a similar nod to her own Bugs, and they left the room and closed the door behind them.
“I hear you’ve been busy, VanDeen,” DuBray said.
“Just showing the flag for OSI,” Gloria replied.
“Showing a lot more than that,” DuBray said. “I heard your little exchange with that Graves woman. She’s not alone, you know. For every slavering man you win over with your charms, you probably alienate two women.”
“Not by my count. Most of the women I’ve met here seem to think I’m a positive influence. They like to see a woman succeed on her own terms and not have to kowtow to anyone who happens to have a Y chromosome.”
“Perhaps. In the end, it won’t make any difference. The Quadrant Administrators and most of the Sector Administrators are still adamantly opposed to the whole concept of the OSI.”
Gloria nodded. “I’m sure that’s true. But the thing is, DuBray, Dexta consists of tens of thousands of men and women who are not Quadrant or Sector Administrators. I know you think you run the organization, and maybe you do in a formal sense. But the reality is that Dexta couldn’t function without all those lowly Nines and Twelves and Fourteens that you think don’t matter. They are Dexta.”
“That’s a romantic and unsophisticated view, VanDeen. The fact is, when I give an order, those Nines and Twelves and Fourteens obey it. Even glamorous, self-important Tens will obey it, if they know what’s good for them.”
Gloria shook her head and smiled grimly. “You know what your problem is, DuBray?” she asked him. “You’ve been so high for so long that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to breathe air that isn’t rarefied. You never come in contact with anyone who isn’t intimidated by you. But all those faceless Dexta drones are people, with their own hopes and aspirations and agendas. Their own lives. They aren’t just names in organizational charts. They respond to forces that have nothing to do with bureaucratic imperatives raining down upon them from the heavens above. They like me, DuBray—and they don’t like you.”
“Perhaps not,” DuBray conceded. “But they fear me.”
Gloria crossed her arms and cocked her head at a defiant angle. “I don’t,” she said.
“Then you’re foolish.”
“Oh? Why, is Erik Manko out of the hospital?”
“This has nothing to do with Manko. That was just a little warning shot across your bow, VanDeen. You should have taken heed. Much worse things can happen to you.”
“Well here’s a little warning shot of my own, DuBray. My people have established that you signed off on that missing shipment to Savoy in 3163. And I also know that there was zamitat involvement. If I can establish a connection…”
DuBray’s bodily reaction was so sudden and sharp that Gloria was certain that her warning shot had, in fact, scored a direct hit. He stiffened, arched his back, and scowled at her.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with here, VanDeen. None! Take my advice, and—”
Gloria never found out what DuBray’s advice would have been because Arkady Volkonski abruptly opened the closet door. “You can come out now,” he said. “Excitement’s over.”
Giving DuBray a frosty parting glance, Gloria stepped out into the corridor. “What happened?” she asked Volkonski.
Volkonski shook his head in disgust. “Two undercover Security men,” he said. “Each thought the other looked suspicious. So they shot each other. The surprising thing is that it doesn’t happen more often.”
“Were they seriously hurt?”
“They’ll recover. One of them will need a new arm, the other a new ear. Fortunately, their incompetence extended to their marksmanship.”
DuBray and his two Security men brushed past them and started down the hallway. Gloria watched him go, feeling a subdued thrill in her gut. She knew now, as surely as she was standing there, that she was going to bring that son of a bitch down.