Rock of Ages (23 page)

The intruder flew to the second floor and began peering in windows. Maijstral restrained the impulse to huddle into the holographic camouflage of his darksuit. He was perfectly well screened from anything the intruder was likely to be carrying with him—energy detectors for the most part, intended to locate alarm systems.

Ram me with a submarine, will you?
Maijstral snarled in silence.

The intruder located Maijstral’s room without difficulty—some of Maijstral’s gear had been left in plain sight to make it easy—and then the window alarms were neutralized swiftly with a black box. The window glass was sliced out and floated skyward on antigravity repellers. The intruder entered, darksuit automatically pulsing out minute compression waves that canceled the minute compression waves caused by a body floating through the air.

Set me up to get killed, will you?
Maijstral demanded.

The intruder floated into the center of the room and hovered, apparently making a survey. Then floated toward the wardrobe that stood in the corner.

Sending a mental command from the proximity wire in the collar of his darksuit, Maijstral triggered his ambush.

Hidden force-field generators slammed invisible walls across the windows, blocking the escape route. The intruder could neutralize them, but it would take time, more time than Maijstral planned to give him.

Roman lunged from the wardrobe, where expert devices had been concealing his body heat, respiration, and very existence. He had a stunner in one hand and a spitfire in the other. He used the stunner first. Energies splashed off the intruder’s shields.

More doors crashed open. Micromedia globes deployed in formation, recording everything for scrutiny later. Roberta, Kuusinen, Tvar, and Drexler opened fire. Maijstral slid through his door somewhat less promptly, wary of stray bullets.

“Surrender!” Maijstral commanded, and opened fire with his Nana-Coulville spitfire rifle.

The intruder’s form, outlined by blazing energies, bounced around the room as if buffeted hither and thither by the blasts of its attackers. Maijstral’s detectors showed that its shields were clearly weakening.

“
Surrender!
” Maijstral shouted, firing as fast as he could.

The outside detectors showed that the intruder’s assistant was soaring across the back lawn, zooming to the rescue of his employer, setting off a lot of alarms in the process.

The intruder seemed to gather itself as if to spring, then flew swift as an arrow straight for the open window. The arrow hit the shield headfirst with an awesome, meaty thud, then bounced back and drifted toward the floor as if stunned. Drexler, stray fire bouncing from his shields, leaped forward and slapped a palm-sized energy vampire onto the form.

The vampire began sucking energy from the intruder’s darksuit and equipment. The holographic camouflage began to shimmer, vanish in places.

“We surrender! Don’t shoot!”

The voice came from outside, from the intruder’s assistant. Kuusinen sensibly turned his attention toward the newcomer, pointing his heavy chugger toward the window.

The last of the camouflage drained away, revealing the glassy-eyed, twitching form of Laurence, the actor.

*

“We wanted to teach you a lesson,” Deco said, “after you were so mean to us.”

“I
was?
” Maijstral said in surprise.

“You
ignored
us,” Deco said. “You said you’d never even seen Laurence play you on video—and that
had
to have been a lie. A deliberate insult. What sort of person wouldn’t watch himself on video?”

Maijstral tried to remember whether he was ever rude to Laurence and Deco, and came up blank. “I never saw the other fellow either,” he said. “Anaya.”

“It’s as if we didn’t
exist!
” Deco said. “And you wouldn’t even introduce us to Nichole!”

“I wouldn’t?”

Maijstral tried hard to remember. He couldn’t recall anything about Laurence and Deco at all, other than the fact he’d spoken to them briefly once or twice in the Underwater Palace.

Actors! he thought. They were each a universe unto himself, invincible little egos oblivious to anything but their own boundless need.

“And then,” Deco continued, “Laurence called a news conference, announced that he believed in you, and publicly offered to stand as your second for your duels—and what did you do?
You forgot his name!
You didn’t even call us!”

Laurence, stripped of his gear and searched for weapons—he hadn’t been carrying any—was lying miserably on the carpet in Maijstral’s suite. Deco, his assistant, knelt next to him, vocal as his friend was silent. The others stood about them, weapons still in hand.

“It’s just that kind of indifference that made us angry,” Deco said. “So we decided to teach you a lesson!” He looked at Laurence. “It was my idea, actually. ‘Why don’t you just sneak into Maijstral’s room and steal something?’ I said. ‘Show him that you exist! Show him that you’re
important!’
” He nodded toward Laurence, then looked at Maijstral again. “That’s what I said, and that’s what we did.” His expression turned resentful as he looked up at Maijstral. “You weren’t even supposed to
be
here!” he said.

Kuusinen, sitting on the scorched divan with his chugger across his knees, frowned at them both. “Are you claiming,” he clarified, “that you aren’t responsible for the robberies in Tejas and Quintana Roo?”

At this suggestion, an angry growl emanated from Roman. Deco and Laurence were aghast at this sound, but Deco soldiered on.

“Maijstral is to blame for those!” he insisted. “They were his robberies, and they went wrong,” he nodded primly, “just like ours.”

“
Confess!
” Roman roared. “You were jealous! You tried to get Mr. Maijstral killed!” He seized Laurence by the collar and flung him into the air like a rag doll. He caught the actor before he hit the ground arid shook him vigorously.

Deco, protesting, jumped to his feet and tried to grab Roman’s arm, but Roman only seized him with the other hand and shook him, too, then banged his two captives together.

Maijstral, entranced, believed that he could watch this forever.

“Fine, fine!” Laurence shouted, speaking at last. “I confess! We did it!”

“But we
didn’t!
” Deco protested.

“I confess!” Laurence affirmed. “Let us go!”

Roman dropped them both to the floor at once. “Details!” he demanded. “And make them convincing.”

“Whatever you want,” Laurence said, a huddled picture of misery and defeat.

At this moment there came the chime of a communications system, and a voice.

“Gleep,” it said, somewhat muffled. “Fnerg.”

Maijstral listened in puzzlement. He couldn’t quite make out the identity of the caller, or the meaning or import of the words.

“Snerk. Yibble.”

Roberta, eyes wide, leaped up from her seat “
Batty!
” she cried, and ran for the door.

Maijstral, following at a run, felt his heart sink. Somehow, he knew, it had all gone wrong again.

He was right. When he ran to Batty’s room, he discovered the old Khosalikh lying on the rug, floored by a stunner blast. The padded supports that had held the late Duke of Dornier’s coffin were empty.

Maijstral’s, father, the late Duke of Dornier, had been kidnapped, and his coffin with him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Colonel-General Vandergilt was pleased, so pleased that a half-dozen loose strands of hair had escaped her helmet without attracting her notice. A victorious smile played about her lips as she watched a team of Memphis police collecting forensic evidence from Aunt Batty’s room.

Aunt Batty herself had been taken to the hospital by Roberta. Stunner blasts could have unfortunate consequences for the elderly.

“It looks as if your gang is falling apart under the pressure,” Vandergilt said.

“I don’t have a gang,” Maijstral pointed out.

“You’re connected to all of these people that you’re accusing. Laurence glorifies your crimes on video. Alice Manderley is a fellow professional.” A superior look crossed her face. “Criminal gangs fall out—it happens all the time.”

“Nevertheless,” said Paavo Kuusinen as he frowned at Vandergilt, “a crime has been committed against Mr. Maijstral. Do you intend to investigate?”

“Of course,” Vandergilt said. She noticed her dangling locks of hair and began methodically stuffing them back into her helmet as she spoke on, her voice cheerful and matter-of-fact.

“We’ll do everything possible. Search the room for forensic evidence, put out an alert for the coffin and its, ah, contents. But of course, if we don’t find the coffin by tomorrow midnight, it will legally become the property of the thief.” Vandergilt looked at Maijstral and smiled. “An element of the current law which I believe you have, often used to your advantage, Mr. Maijstral.”

“But it isn’t as if my father was a painting or a statue or a piece of jewelry,” Maijstral said. “He’s a
person
. There’s no statute of limitations on kidnapping.”

Vandergilt considered this. “Your father was declared dead, was he not?”

“Ye-es.” Reluctantly. “Almost two years ago.”

“Well then, he’s not a person. He’s inanimate—an
it
.”

“He may be in a box,” Maijstral said, “but he still talks. Thinks, after a fashion. Isn’t he a dependent, like a child?”

“I’m afraid not,” said attorney Kuusinen. “The Constellation follows Empire law in this regard. After being declared dead, the elderly are considered keepsakes—like Lady Scarlett’s liver, downstairs. Otherwise there could be no Imperial succession—no one could be crowned Emperor if his predecessors still retained their legal existence.”

“Admirably put, Mr. Kuusinen,” Vandergilt said with a thin smile. Her eyes glittered as they turned to Maijstral. “Another of those archaic Imperial laws causing trouble for you, Mr. Maijstral. What a pity that the Constellation Practices Authority hasn’t got around to fixing that yet—but with the Burglars’ Association putting up such resistance to the Authority’s efforts to remove protections from Allowed Burglary, their other vital work has been delayed.”

Another lock of hair was working its way from under the shiny brim of Vandergilt’s helmet. Maijstral wanted to grab it and yank it out by the roots.

“Perhaps,” Kuusinen said, perceiving perhaps the dangerous look in Maijstral’s eye, “we should let the authorities do their work.”

Maijstral withdrew, his blood simmering. Stealing his
father!

It wasn’t as if he’d exactly miss Gustav Maijstral if the late Duke dropped out of his life once and for all. But the theft itself was as vile an insult as he’d ever experienced. It wasn’t as if Maijstral’s father was in any way valuable property. The entire theft had been aimed at Maijstral himself.
Take this
, the theft said,
and suffer
.

The necessity for action coursed through Maijstral’s veins. In another type of personality—the Prince of Tejas, say—the action might be to stand in fair combat on a distant beach, dire staff in hand.

Maijstral’s character demanded another form of action.

He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to get
even
.

“We need a council of war,” Kuusinen said.

“Yes,” Maijstral said.

“Perhaps at the hospital. Miss Batty may be able to give us some clues.”

Maijstral could have said that she wouldn’t—the most she would have seen would have been the vague outline of a darksuit against the window before the stunner blast rendered any perceptions unreliable—but he assented anyway.

He needed to get away from Colonel-General Vandergilt while he was still master of his passions.

It wasn’t as if he would ever assault Vandergilt, but on the other hand the mental image of Vandergilt’s home—a home stripped of all furniture, all clothing, all possessions—was floating insistently before his mental eye. But robbing Denise Vandergilt would be a very, very dangerous thing to do.

And it wouldn’t help a bit with recovering Maijstral’s father.

*

Where am I?

A sinister laugh.
Welcome to . . .Hell!

I don’t recall being on a planet called Hell. I was—it was Earth, wasn’t it? Yes, I’m almost certain it was. I was going to have cocoa.

There’s no cocoa in Hell, Dornier!

Isn’t there? We must be in the provinces. I will have some nice warm milk, then.

You can’t have milk, Dornier. You’re dead!

Oh . . . You’re right. I forgot.

You won’t forget it anymore, Dornier. You’re in Hell—the afterlife designed for punishment.

Oh . . .? Really . . .? That sounds like a most unpleasant place.

It is. It’s
meant
to be unpleasant.

Take me home at once. No—not home, take me to Earth.

You’re in Hell, Dornier!

There was some reason why I was on Earth. I forget.

Hell
, Dornier!
Hell!

I forget so much these days.

I said you’re in
Hell!

Yes, you keep repeating that. I wish you wouldn’t. I heard you perfectly well the first time.

You ’re going to be here forever and ever! You’re going to undergo eternal punishment!

Are you . . . Jacko?

Jacko! Of course I’m not Jacko!

Oh. I thought perhaps you might be. I thought I heard his voice.

I’m not Jacko, and this is Hell!

My dear fellow, I wish you wouldn’t keep repeating that. You’re becoming quite a tiresome person really.

You’re going to be here forever and ever. Your punishment will never end!

Gracious, you do go on.
Beat.
I don’t suppose you’d know if I could get a nice cup of cocoa, could you?

*

“Stealing Drake’s father was a particularly malicious touch,” Aunt Batty said. “I suspect we are looking for a person who is not entirely rational in his hatreds.”

“Well,” Maijstral wondered. “Who is?”

Batty was propped up on pillows and seemed reasonably comfortable in her hospital bed; Roberta’s servants had brought her an embroidered nightdress and cap from her own wardrobe. The cap had two holes in it for her pointed ears.