The Elysium Commission (2 page)

Judeon Maraniss was next. I'd heard the name but hadn't been able to place it. He was a specialist in population dynamics and had his own consulting operation somewhere in Thurene, physical location confidential.

The numbers of references to Elysium were staggering. I had no idea how many hotels, resorts, consulting firms, and unrelated operations had decided that the ancient classical name was their codebloc to success. On the other hand, there were no links between Elysium and either Maraniss or Eloi Enterprises. I hadn't expected there would be, but it's better to eliminate the obvious when you can.

There was no Elisabetta Reynarda. That didn't surprise me. In fact, I would have been surprised if she had been listed anywhere. There were no current Reynardas anywhere in Thurene or anywhere else on Devanta. The name wasn't proscribed, but it had been abandoned after Marshal Reynardo's execution two centuries earlier. Even the escapades of the Fox a century later had not revived the surname except as a whispered epithet, when no other hero would light a lamp.

I still had to wonder on whom the Seigniora Reynarda body and persona had been modeled. There was
something
there. That had been intended. The fun of attempting to beat Cartiff and the ladies Selemez at their own profession would have to wait. I needed to set up a more targeted data approach and then talk to some people. In person.

I also needed to finish reading the material on Marie Annette Tozzi and Dr. Guillaume Richard Dyorr and set up the initial scan searches on them.

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.

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.

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.

Skip
. I didn't need to know about art exchanges.

Skip to Devanta news
. Saint missionary efforts were worse than art exchanges.

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.

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.

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.”