ah, elemental union, wouldn’t you say?”
I glanced at the Porrinyards, one at a time. They both avoided eye contact with me. Interesting. They’d known and never told me.
“Porrinyardsis also a significant appelation,” he said. “It comes from an extinct dialect known as Hectaish, with some roots in the ancient-Earth romance languages, and it meansmultiple births . There is a possible secondary meaning if you look up antiquated patronymics among the Cid—”
“Sir,” I said.
The Khaajiir did not seem affronted. “Excuse me. I told you I liked multilingual puns. Start me up and I’ll go for hours. But Bocaian and your own Hom.Sap Mercantile are both such inadequate languages for wordplay that I leap at the opportunity to dip into others whenever possible. It’s one of the few pleasures I can still afford at my advanced age. I do hope that making your acquaintance will be another.”
Maybe he meant it. Stranger things had happened.
“It’s been a long, hard day,” Jason Bettelhine said. “We’re running late, and we haven’t even begun our descent. We also just received word of another late arrival, one of my brothers, who’ll be docking with us in about twenty minutes. Plus we have the other guests to get situated. It’s a nightmare. So why don’t you three—you two, whatever—repair to your suite, get some rest, make use of the facilities, and meet everybody for dinner three hours after we embark? We’ll make introductions, get better acquainted, and perhaps answer some more of your questions then. Is that fair?”
Once upon a time, not too long ago, I’d made a policy of never dining with other human beings. I still didn’t like to accept invitations from anybody but the Porrinyards, but they’d loosened me up quite a bit. I could tolerate it for business. “I suppose it will have to be.”
Jelaine Bettelhine’s eyes twinkled. “I promise, Counselor, we’ll be friends before this journey is done. We have more in common that you can possibly know.”
Swell.
I got that a lot, too, and it had never been good news.
Somehow, the things I have in common with people who like to say so are always their worst qualities.
We returned to our suite, feeling less secure than ever despite surroundings so plush that I could have fallen face-first anywhere and not received a bruise upon hitting the floor. I hadn’t noticed, on my first tour through these rooms, but the luxury here extended to the quality of the air. It was not just fresh, free of that tinned quality you find in some orbital environments, but downright bracing, thanks to what may have been an increased percentage of pure oxygen and what may have been some other stimulant, jacking my metabolism in ways that might do a lot to lessen the crash that always followed Intersleep by about twenty-four hours. I tried to build up a nice load of resentment over this and failed, a serious lapse for me given that the Porrinyards say they can track my grudges in geographical strata. Maybe I was mellowing, after all. And maybe not all the euphorics in this decadent conveyance were topical and stored in jars. The Bettelhines already seemed willing to go to extreme lengths to keep their guests happy. Maybe their efforts extended to technological means. Subaural suggestives in the hum of the air compressors? Subclinical teem-flashes in the lighting?
Paranoid? Sure. But I’d never, not even once in my life, been too paranoid, only not paranoid enough. And this was a family that had earned its obscene fortune by developing newer and more brilliant ways to kill great numbers of people.
But any difficulty I was having maintaining a mad-on could also be a mere reaction to the sheer luxury around me. The Porrinyards, who had thrived in some of the most hostile environments known to mankind, had already demonstrated their own susceptibility to the comforts this place offered. If I was brutally honest to myself I had to admit that I was having some of
I glanced at the Porrinyards, one at a time. They both avoided eye contact with me. Interesting. They’d known and never told me.
“Porrinyardsis also a significant appelation,” he said. “It comes from an extinct dialect known as Hectaish, with some roots in the ancient-Earth romance languages, and it meansmultiple births . There is a possible secondary meaning if you look up antiquated patronymics among the Cid—”
“Sir,” I said.
The Khaajiir did not seem affronted. “Excuse me. I told you I liked multilingual puns. Start me up and I’ll go for hours. But Bocaian and your own Hom.Sap Mercantile are both such inadequate languages for wordplay that I leap at the opportunity to dip into others whenever possible. It’s one of the few pleasures I can still afford at my advanced age. I do hope that making your acquaintance will be another.”
Maybe he meant it. Stranger things had happened.
“It’s been a long, hard day,” Jason Bettelhine said. “We’re running late, and we haven’t even begun our descent. We also just received word of another late arrival, one of my brothers, who’ll be docking with us in about twenty minutes. Plus we have the other guests to get situated. It’s a nightmare. So why don’t you three—you two, whatever—repair to your suite, get some rest, make use of the facilities, and meet everybody for dinner three hours after we embark? We’ll make introductions, get better acquainted, and perhaps answer some more of your questions then. Is that fair?”
Once upon a time, not too long ago, I’d made a policy of never dining with other human beings. I still didn’t like to accept invitations from anybody but the Porrinyards, but they’d loosened me up quite a bit. I could tolerate it for business. “I suppose it will have to be.”
Jelaine Bettelhine’s eyes twinkled. “I promise, Counselor, we’ll be friends before this journey is done. We have more in common that you can possibly know.”
Swell.
I got that a lot, too, and it had never been good news.
Somehow, the things I have in common with people who like to say so are always their worst qualities.
We returned to our suite, feeling less secure than ever despite surroundings so plush that I could have fallen face-first anywhere and not received a bruise upon hitting the floor. I hadn’t noticed, on my first tour through these rooms, but the luxury here extended to the quality of the air. It was not just fresh, free of that tinned quality you find in some orbital environments, but downright bracing, thanks to what may have been an increased percentage of pure oxygen and what may have been some other stimulant, jacking my metabolism in ways that might do a lot to lessen the crash that always followed Intersleep by about twenty-four hours. I tried to build up a nice load of resentment over this and failed, a serious lapse for me given that the Porrinyards say they can track my grudges in geographical strata. Maybe I was mellowing, after all. And maybe not all the euphorics in this decadent conveyance were topical and stored in jars. The Bettelhines already seemed willing to go to extreme lengths to keep their guests happy. Maybe their efforts extended to technological means. Subaural suggestives in the hum of the air compressors? Subclinical teem-flashes in the lighting?
Paranoid? Sure. But I’d never, not even once in my life, been too paranoid, only not paranoid enough. And this was a family that had earned its obscene fortune by developing newer and more brilliant ways to kill great numbers of people.
But any difficulty I was having maintaining a mad-on could also be a mere reaction to the sheer luxury around me. The Porrinyards, who had thrived in some of the most hostile environments known to mankind, had already demonstrated their own susceptibility to the comforts this place offered. If I was brutally honest to myself I had to admit that I was having some of
Similar Books
