WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(17)

"Yes, thank you for your courtesy, sir," she said as she rose with Markos to trade places. She could deal with whatever lay beneath the surface of the fellow's offer when it appeared. For now, the important thing was that Adele no longer sat next to the merchant, whose invitation had evidently been bartered for the food. Adele had begun to doubt that even a free meal would be worth another five minutes of the Kostroman's rambling boredom.

Adele sat down. Servants were already removing the settings for this course, so there was no need for her and Markos even to trade flatware.

She heard her former neighbor address a question in his inevitable nasal whine. "I'm sorry, sir," Markos said in a loud voice. "I'm deaf in my left ear and I can't hear a word you say."

When Adele had gotten the new data console running three days before, she'd tested its connection to the palace net by accessing the guest list for the banquet to which she'd just received an invitation. The information was protected, but what passed for protection on Kostroma was child's play for Adele with an extremely powerful processor at her service. She had a talent for information retrieval and had trained at the most advanced center for the purpose in the human universe.

Markos was not an invited guest at the time she'd checked the list. The Alliance delegate at table four was supposed to be Captain Crowell, a female ground-forces officer; and she should have been two seats down from the Cinnabar bureaucrat.

An ensemble of Kostroman flautists playing both straight and transverse instruments stood on an internal balcony at second-floor level. Their music echoed as a high, insectile overtone in the huge room. Adele found the effect surprisingly pleasant when mixed with conversation and the clink of the dinner service.

A light-skinned, tow-haired servant, a native of one of the impoverished northern islands, set the next course in front of Adele. It was minced something on a bed of lettuce. Kostroman lizard was her best guess, but some of the planet's insect equivalents got very large also.

Beggars can't be choosers, and the tiny portions hadn't yet managed to slake the fires of three weeks of hunger. Adele took a bite and found the meat tasteless but the sauce intriguingly spicy.

"Do you keep in touch with Mistress Boileau, mistress?" Markos asked pleasantly.

Adele's head jerked sideways. Markos took another forkful of food, his attention apparently focused on his meal. He glanced toward her with a bland smile.

Aloud Adele said, "I haven't as yet. When I settle in"—she suppressed a grim smile—"I'll let her know how things are going."

She cut a wedge from the mince, noting with pleasure that the fork didn't tremble in her fingers. "You haven't been on Kostroma long, Mr. Markos?" she added. She turned to look at him again, her lips wearing the muted smile of strangers talking at a dinner party.

Markos's expression didn't change, but shutters closed behind his eyes. Adele chewed with tiny movements of her jaw. The food was sawdust now.

He's deciding what to say. Whether to tell the truth or to lie, and if a lie—which one.

Oh, she knew the type very well. They came to the Collections not infrequently—and trembled since they couldn't use a system so complex without help, but they feared to ask for help because their questions could become weapons to use against them. They were folk to whom the truth was always a thing to be determined on the basis of advantage, never spoken for its own sake.

"Only a matter of hours, mistress," Markos said with a tinge of grudging approval in his tone. "I arrived on the Goetz von Berlichingen this afternoon. Perhaps you saw us land? The dispatch vessel."

"I was busy in the palace all day," Adele said truthfully. "I have no interest in anything that takes place beyond the library. Not that I could tell one ship from another anyway."

She went back to her meal, wishing that she could taste it. Markos had proved he knew her background to see how she'd react; she'd reacted by showing that she knew things about him also. Because of the sort of person he was, Markos would twist like a worm on the hook of how much Adele Mundy knew about him. It should keep him from picking at her during the remainder of the dinner.

In fact Adele knew almost nothing, and certainly she didn't know the answer that mattered most to her. It was inevitable that the Alliance delegation would include a high-level intelligence agent.

What Adele really wanted to know was why the agent had arranged to be seated next to her.



The latrine was in the apartment building's courtyard, adjacent to the kitchen facilities. Daniel opened the latrine door and stepped out, feeling a great deal easier than he had a few moments before. He'd had a strong temptation to walk onto his suite's minuscule balcony to save himself a trip down the unlighted stairs.