CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 3
Pentire
Farant smoothly phased Allenson’s carriage into the Continuum. Manzanita monochromed and faded away to be replaced by a sea of colored streamers. The predominant background tint was deep indigo. The calm Continuum conditions provided Allenson with at least a quantum of consolation.
He hated traveling by carriage. He would much rather have used a one-man frame but social position restricted his choices. Carriages rocked and corkscrewed cyclically in any sort of Continuum energy disturbance. Too small to crash through the waves and too big to ride over them, carriage travel caused Allenson dreadful motion sickness. One of the most irritating truisms about the things was that the driver at the front got the best ride. The pampered owners at the back suffered an exaggerated pendulum effect.
Carriage design was just another of life’s inefficiencies that a gentleman was obliged to endure. Allenson toyed with having a novel design of carriage constructed that reversed the positions of passenger and driver but shrank from the amusement it would cause. He already had an unwelcome reputation for eccentricity over such matters as the absurdly high living standards he supplied to his indentured servants. He actually paid them reasonable wages. As it would be intolerable to his conscience to adopt the norm in matters involving his personal honor, he felt obliged to be conventional on less important issues of mere personal comfort. It was, he thought gloomily, just another example of his moral cowardice.
Trina broke the silence.
“Do you wish that we were going home?” she asked.
“We are going home, aren’t we?” Allenson asked, puzzled.
“You know what I mean,” Trina said, allowing a measure of exasperation to enter her voice. “Going with the Destrys to the Home World across the Bight—going home to Brasilia. You recall where that is?”
“Yes, sorry, the question took me by surprise.” He considered. “I suppose Brasilia’s truly home for the Destrys but it wouldn’t be for us. You have never been there and neither have I. We don’t know anybody in Brasilia. What would we do there? How would we live?”
“I just wondered,” Trina said.
“We’d be mad to leave Manzanita. Everything we’ve built and worked for is here. I don’t want any other home.”
“I’m glad, neither do I.”
Trina slid across and squeezed his hand. He was forgiven for his poor mood.
Allenson managed a smile for her.
“But it’d be nice if Brasilians treated Streamer gentlemen as equals. I’d like us to receive the respect due to our social rank and achievements and not be regarded as colonial flunkies fit only to carry bags.”
“You’re thinking of Destry’s Brasilian nephew?” Trina asked, with a grin.
“Yes, among others,” Destry replied.
The eighteen-year-old nephew in question had made free with his opinions about colonials on a visit to Pentire. Allenson put up with sneers and condescension from this sprig of Brasilian nobility for Royman’s sake. Matters came to a head when he caught the chinless twit attempting to cane a serving girl for rudeness.
The nephew wasn’t having it all his own way as the girl was putting up a spirited defense. She had already bloodied his nose. Allenson was a large fit man whose notoriously short temper had been pushed as far as it would go. He seized both cane and nephew. Holding him face down over a table with one hand, he vigorously applied corporal punishment with the other.
The boy’s humiliation was complete when Royman Destry flatly refused to call the Proctors to arrest Allenson. Instead Destry offered the opinion that the boy was lucky Allenson abhorred dueling. Royman apologized profusely for the lout’s behavior and promised to write to his father. But then, Allenson reflected, Destry had always been first and foremost a gentleman in his dealings with others.
“Of course, there’s always an upside to every bad decision,” Allenson said. “If Brasilia weren’t so short-sighted, the colonies would probably be preparing to fight one another over conflicting claims in the Hinterlands. Instead we’re gathering in Paxton to discuss a common response to Brasilian demands. There’s nothing like having a common enemy to inspire political unity.”
“Enemy is surely an unnecessarily emotive word,” Trina said. “Brasilia is our Home World so how could it be an enemy?”
“Of course you’re right, my dear,” Allenson replied in a conciliatory tone. “There’s no point in inflaming the situation. I should have used a more measured term.”
A scintilla of doubt wriggled in his mind like a worm in an apple. Trina was absolutely right. “Enemy” was a word better suited to a demagogue than a gentleman so why had he used it?
“The Destrys will be allright on Brasilia,” Trina said doubtfully, breaking his train of thought.
“Of course. As I said it’s their home and they’ve family there.”
Privately Allenson had his doubts. Royman Destry represented a very big fish in the little pond of Manzanita society. Few equaled him in rank and he had no superiors this side of the Bight. All that would change when they went home. In Brasilia he would just be an impoverished cousin from the back of beyond. Sarai would not react well to being patronized as the daughter of a colonial who was “in trade.”
A chime indicated that the driver wanted to communicate.
“Connect,” Trina said without turning around to the screen.
“I’ve a lock with your private beacon ma’am. We’ll be phasing over Pentire shortly.”
“Thank you, Farent, carry on,” Trina said. “Cut link.”
The carriage locked onto an auto that would land it next to Trina’s private entrance to their complex. The villa autos would guide all other demesne traffic out of the way to ensure a speedy arrival.
The Continuum decolorized as the carriage phased into reality. Allenson leaned out to observe Pentire. From the sky he obtained a panoramic view that displayed the estate to a single sweep of the eye allowing him to properly appreciate its balanced proportions. The carriage phased in slowly. Phasing could be near instantaneous but the sharper the change the more disconcerting it could be to human physiology. Farent prided himself that his passengers got as smooth a ride as technology could provide.
Pentire appeared like a monochrome blur from an old memory. The image hardened, sharpened and saturated with primary color before decohering into the subtle shades of nature. Allenson stiffened. For a moment he thought he could see an unnatural line running through the red-lime bushes planted on the reverse slope of a hill. He quickly waved his datapad over the edge of the carriage. The line disappeared when the full complexity of the real world was revealed.
He considered ordering Farent to phase in and out again so that he could check the observation. A glance at Trina dissuaded him. She was tired and deserved to get home without him mucking about. She wouldn’t protest or complain at any delay. That only made it more necessary that he anticipate her needs to give them proper priority. Nevertheless the memory of that line irritated like an attention-seeking child plucking at its mother’s skirts. The thought of the line spoiled the enjoyment he normally found in his demesne.
A rectangular three story house formed the heart of Pentire Villa. Communication equipment and three point-defense lasers filled the flat roof. He chose to have three lasers because one was sometimes hors de combat while they waited for spares to be shipped in from Brasilia. All too often a tube failed after a short burst. Of course each laser had three independent tubes firing in sequence but . . .
The potent defense system was generally considered to be another example of his eccentricity. Manzanita hadn’t seen an enemy in living memory. Allenson was inclined to agree that the lasers would probably never be fired in anger but he had seen war. He had inhaled the choking smoke, heard the screams and smelled the burning flesh. The merest, slightest whiff of an outside chance that this might happen to his household was all the incentive he needed to dig deep into his pockets.
Allenson had added two-story wings at right angles to the house. A high back wall enclosed a wilderness garden in the center. The children he planned to have with Trina could have safely played and explored there. Another thought best tucked away and forgotten.
Traditional red brick hid the villa’s syncrete walls. Similarly, a veneer of natural wood covered the exterior surfaces of the window frames and doors. Allenson reproduced the texture exactly when he expanded the structure, including artificial weathering. The villa sat at one end of a small village of cottages where the estate servants and employees lived. He provided a club, school, health clinic and meeting hall for their social and other needs.
His neighbors shook their heads at such wasteful extravagance. Indeed, some took the view that Allenson risked undermining society and the natural order by indulging the lower orders so generously. He tried explaining how a content workforce was a productive workforce. Monies invested in a comfortable life for the demesne staff repaid themselves many times over.
Mere facts were as raindrops against the armor of fixed opinion. Why this should be so was a mystery to Allenson. He tended to change his mind if new data suggested he was wrong. Apparently, this was another mark of his eccentricity.
The protective hedges around the Pentire living quarters kept unwanted visitors out, not the servants in. An indentured servant had not run from the complex for many years. The last case had a love affair at root. Allenson solved the problem by buying the contract of the other party in the affair, finding them both a position on the estate. It was not unusual for servants to request to stay on at Pentire as employees when they had worked off or bought out their contracts.
Beyond stood the utilitarian warehouses and barns required by a working agricultural demesne. The Fleek paddocks occupied an isolated position, located suitably upwind to the prevailing weather.
Only one entrance pierced the gunja plants forming the hedge around the buildings. An angled and narrow approach restricted and slowed access. The reinforced gate stood open to allow estate vehicles in and out. It could quickly be shut, sealing off the compound. Two men in the green and white livery of Pentire Demesne stood each side of the gate, lasercarbines slung on straps from one shoulder. Allenson was pleased to see them upright and hence reasonably alert.
Two similar armed guards stood by the low wall running around the roof of the main house. All four watched the carriage descend into the formal garden. Farent hopped out and opened a carriage door so Trina could alight. Trina’s maid hovered at the entrance to the east wing where his wife had her apartment, alerted to her arrival by the automatics. The new wings were more comfortable than the old building and the rooms cozier if less impressive.
“If you’ll excuse me, my dear, I need to pop up to my office to check something.”
“You go ahead,” Trina said. “Eight convenient for dinner?”
“Eight, right,” Allenson replied. That didn’t give him long as it was already late afternoon, Pentire local time. He went into the old building and ran up the back stairs two at a time to the first floor where he had an office. Shrugging off the uncomfortable formal jacket and loosening his necktie, he tossed the datapad onto his desk and turned it on.
In the room the pad could draw on the greater analytical capability of his desk. He put up a solid hologram that showed the view of the estate from the air as the carriage phased in. He ran the video backwards and forwards, changing the mix of frequencies from ultraviolet to microwave until a linear shadow across the red-lime bushes clearly showed up.
One had to be a little careful of overanalyzing pictures. One could easily create artifacts but unfortunately he had no doubt this was real. He overlaid a schematic of the new drainage system fitted last year to this part of the estate. One of the pipes ran directly under the shadow.
Allenson swore softly under his breath. The damn pipe was leaking something that affected the plants. It might not be particularly toxic to red-lime but that wasn’t the point. He had paid premium price for inert long-life ceramic pipes imported from Brasilia. The blasted things were breaking down in the Manzanita soil after only a year: so much for the manufacturer’s guarantees.
It might just be an unfortunate and unforeseeable chemical interaction but it was more likely that his Brasilian supplier had dumped second-grade stock on him at first-grade prices. In theory, he could sue but—all the way across the Bight—in a Brasilian commercial court?
Fat chance!
He thought he might as well check through his letters and skim through the various reports accumulating in his in-tray. As usual, there was more than he had anticipated. Well not anticipated, make that more than he hoped for.
Time passed.
A cough from the doorway caught his attention. Allenson groaned inwardly at the sight of Bentley, Trina’s majordomo. Bentley was bald and middle aged. He had probably been born middle aged but that was no excuse for being bald. Appropriate genosurgery was hardly expensive and, God knows, Trina paid the man enough.
“The mistress asked me to remind sar that dinner is at eight,” Bentley said.
“What time is it now?” Allenson asked.
“Seven, sar.”
“Then I’ve plenty of time so go away.”
Bentley failed to disappear.
“Was there something else?” Allenson asked.
Bentley coughed again.
“I’ve run sar’s bath and laid out suitable evening clothes,” Bentley said. “The mistress was most insistent that I should remind sar of dinner in good time so sar did not have to rush sar’s toilette.”
“Tell me Bentley, do I smell?”
“No, sar.”
“Then I do not need a bath, rushed or otherwise.”
“If you say so, sar,” Bentley said with a carefully blank expression.
The majordomo left, shutting the door behind him.
The blank expression worried Allenson. He could live with Bentley’s disapproval but a blank expression raised alarm signals.
“Bentley!”
Allenson crossed the room in two strides. He flung open the door, to find himself nose to nose with the servant. Clearly Bentley expected him to have second thoughts.
“What is it you know that I don’t?” Allenson asked.
“I really couldn’t say, sar, since I don’t know what sar doesn’t know,” Bentley replied.
“Bentley, stop pissing me around. You only put on that blank expression when you think I’m about to make some dreadful social cock up. So what don’t I know?”
Allenson spelled out each word of the last sentence slowly.
Bentley unbent.
“Possibly sar has forgotten that sar’s sister-in-law is dining here tonight.”
“What, Linsye?”
“Lady Destry, yes sar.”
“Dining with us?”
“Yes, sar.”
“She’s here?”
“Obviously, sar, or she could not dine with sar,” Bentley said patiently, as if explaining teetotalism to a drunk.
“Why did no one tell me?” Allenson asked.
“I put it in sar’s social diary some two weeks ago myself,” Bentley replied.
“Ah,” Allenson said.
He had erased the social diary from his desk after it had interrupted his work with a reminder about something of such monumental unimportance that he just could not recall what it had been about. It was not impossible that it had been about Linsye’s visit.
“Possibly I should dress for dinner,” Allenson said.
“Yes, sar,” Bentley replied.
“And you’ve put something out?” Allenson asked.
Bentley’s eyes gleamed.
“On the mistress’s instructions, sar, your blue dinner suit with lilac ribbons and accessories including your lemon ruffed shirt and stack-heeled two-toned boots.”
“Oh dear God!”
“I look like the doorman of a second rate brothel with upmarket pretensions,” Allenson muttered.
He examined himself in the mirror with something akin to horror. This year’s fashionable colors in Manzanita society were, if anything, even more garish than usual. The suit tied across the top with a complicated white silk loop. Allenson experimented in fixing it in various ways, settling eventually for a granny knot at the base of his throat. At least he would be fashionably clothed for his funeral if he choked on the damn thing.
A discreet cough sounded at his elbow.
“Did you cough, Bentley?”
“Yes, sar, if I may assist.”
Without waiting for a reply, the majordomo retied the ribbon in a complex flat bow and positioned it over Allenson’s right breast. Actually it did look better. Now he could pass as the doorman to a first rate brothel.
“And your campaign medals, sar?”
“I think not.”
Allenson shuddered. Medals reminded him of war and of people more heroic than him who had failed to return to wear any. Bentley looked crestfallen.
“I suppose you spent half the afternoon polishing them?” Allenson asked.
“Not quite half the afternoon,” Bentley replied carefully.
“Very well, just this once,” Allenson said.
Bentley brightened up immediately and carefully arranged the medals to hang over Allenson’s left breast. They were such innocuous looking little ceramic and crystal rods in the Manzanita colors of purple and gray shot with gold threads, recreating symbols of Old Earth. Each one represented blood, pain and sacrifice. The medals held no more glory than the battles they represented.
He made his way along the corridor to Trina’s dressing room. She stared thoughtfully at herself in a full-length mirror, turning to left and right to check the folds in her rose-colored dress. A necklace of polished chromite and serpentine crystals from one of the Hinterland worlds set it off. Her maid fussed with her hair but she already looked wonderful. Trina had taste. She knew what to wear and how to wear it. She knew how to blend colors for best effect. By the standards of Streamer gentility, she dressed with understated elegance.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Perfect, as always,” he replied truthfully.
“You look very distinguished as well,” she said, lying politely. Or perhaps love really was blind.
He held out his hand and escorted her out of her apartment and into the formal dining room main building. They stopped in the atrium to wait for their guest. Bentley served wine fortified by plum brandy in small crystal glasses.
Linsye arrived in the atrium at exactly the prescribed four minutes after her hosts. A tall, rather gaunt woman, she was striking rather than beautiful. Her clothes were expensively tailored, probably Brasilian imports, but chosen for convenience rather than fashion. People like Linsye set the fashion rather than follow it. When she could be bothered, that is.
Bentley bowed deeply as he held the door for her, far deeper than he would for Allenson, who only paid his wages. The majordomo raised snobbery to a fine art and Linsye was a full Destry-by-blood. Allenson and Trina represented mere colonial gentry only related by marriage to true Brasilian nobility. Hence Bentley’s determination that Allenson should be at his best. It came to something, Allenson reflected, when your clothes were chosen to please a servant’s sense of propriety.
Linsye kissed Allenson lightly on the mouth, the appropriate greeting for an in-law of the opposite sex.
“How are you Allen? My you look dashing tonight.”
Allenson replied appropriately
Linsye continued. “May I introduce my son, Todd? He arrived home in the same ship that Royman and Sarai left on.”
Todd stood to one side, arm outstretched. Allenson hadn’t seen his nephew since he had been sent away to be educated in Brasilia at his Uncle Royman’s old prep school and college. He would have been what, twelve?
Allenson looked at Todd in shock. The boy was named after his father, Allenson’s older brother. Subconsciously Allenson expected a younger version of Todd senior or at least an Allenson. But Todd junior was a Destry. No. More than that; he was the spitting image of the young Royman Destry when Allenson first met him on his arrival at Port Clearwater. History seemed to be repeating itself.
Todd bowed deeply and looked at Allenson, waiting for his host to say something. Allenson gaped like a rube at the country fair.
He pulled himself together. “Welcome indeed, Nephew. You are quite the young man now.”
Todd replied with a smile. “Age tends to do that to one, Uncle Allen.”
“Ah, yes, I suppose it does,” Allenson said. “Shall we go in?”
The dinner ritual normally demanded fifteen minutes of drinks and small talk in the atrium. However, Allenson needed a moment to order his thoughts and the walk into the dining room would allow that. He indicated to Bentley that they would go straight in. Protocol demanded he escort Linsye while Todd offered his arm to Trina.
Left to Bentley the four would dine on a full table so far apart that they would have to converse by datapad. Allenson laid it clearly on the line how far he was prepared to go even when dining with his aristocratic in-laws. He demanded that most of the grand dining room be shut off by a folding wooden screen. The demesne carpenter had crafted it from highly polished alternating strips of amber and vermilion-colored wood logged from a forest on a Hinterland world that had not yet been named.
The material imparted warmth, reinforcing the mellow atmosphere that Allenson preferred. Many of his guests commented favorably on the effect. Allenson considered experimenting with a crop of the trees on the estate.
He sat Linsye on his right in the lady of honor’s place. Todd looked after Trina. Bentley positioned himself behind Todd’s chair where Allenson could catch his eye. The man was in his element. He devoted his life to perfecting a series of complicated rituals that Allenson thought as tedious as they were pointless
To be fair, Bentley was invaluable when Allenson hosted political dinners. The skills of a majordomo went unnoticed by the more sophisticated guests from the Manzanita Upper House. They would nonetheless have noticed their absence fast enough. Bentley’s talents usefully impressed members of the Lower House. In Allenson’s experience, the more a politician claimed to be a “man of the people” the less they wanted to be treated as one. One of life’s depressing little truisms.
Allenson nodded and Bentley touched his thumb and forefinger together triggering a communication switch concealed in his white gloves. A new maid with an apprehensive expression entered via the kitchen door with a tray of appetizer. She glanced in Bentley’s direction before presenting the tray to Linsye, who selected a couple of items without looking at her.
Social convention insisted that Trina and Todd were served next with Allenson last. Trina murmured a polite thank you and Todd gave the maid a wink that elicited a pretty blush. He had Royman’s easy manner so different from the Allenson dourness.
When the maid left Bentley went round the table with a bottle of a light blue alcoholic liquid. He started with Allenson who duly tasted it although he never quite knew what he was supposed to be checking for. Allenson nodded approval and Bentley proceeded anticlockwise.
Linsye held her glass up to the central light over the table, swirling it to examine the contents before carefully inhaling the vapor.
“I suppose this is one of your experiments,” she finally said.
Allenson smiled. “In a way, we grow the juniper fruit here on the estate and I have an industrial chemist in Port Clearwater interested in the fermentation process.”
“I see,” Linsye said.
Allenson had a policy of serving Streamer produce at his dinners, preferably from his own estate. His neighbors considered this one of his more harmless eccentricities. Brasilian grape strains could not be successfully cultivated on any of the Stream worlds. At least not well enough to produce anything drinkable.
Allenson prompted Linsye.
“Why don’t you try it and give me your opinion.”
His sister-in-law displayed the expression of a woman going to the stake. Nevertheless, she tasted the contents as was proper for a guest enjoying hospitality. She rolled it around her mouth and then drank deeply.
Allenson awaited her verdict. His sister-in-law was familiar with the very best vintages from the Home Worlds. She often expressed herself robustly on the subject.
Linsye gave her judgment.
“At least it’s not a concoction of fruit juice, alcohol and sugar. I taste a light crisp flavor reminiscent of an acceptable white table wine, albeit a young vintage. It’s not going to win any awards, of course, but it is palatable. I believe I will have another glass.”
Praise indeed. Allenson started to signal Bentley but the majordomo was already off the starting blocks, bottle at the ready.
Todd downed his glass in three drafts.
“Mother’s a little harsh. This’s actually very refreshing.”
Bentley shot around the table to refill his glass as well.
“I’m glad you like it.” Allenson said. “I will have a case loaded on your carriage when you depart.”
“Thank you, Uncle.” Todd inclined his head politely. “I’ve brought a small gift for you back from Brasilia. This seems an appropriate moment to present it.”
He handed Allenson a small wooden box that lay lightly on the hand. Inside were three slides, carefully stowed in slits in the velvet lined interior, and a modern black plastic cube. Allenson gently pulled out one. It was archaic, mineral stained by its time underground, and chipped on one corner.
“Are these originals?” Allenson asked in wonder.
“Absolutely, Todd replied. “They turn up every so often. A friend of mine was looking through an unsorted collection for his thesis and found these. I knew of your interest in the Third Civilization and thought you would like them.”
Allenson held the slide up to the light.
“Very much, I like them very much indeed. Thank you, Nephew, can they be read?”
Todd pointed to the black cube.
“I included a decoder in the box as I wasn’t sure you would have the right tool to hand.”
Allenson replaced the slide and examined the black cube.
“Thank you, Third Civilization records are stored in such a strange way. All dots and dashes don’t you know.”
“Indeed,” Todd said. “The slide you looked at is particularly interesting, a collection of fine resolution video stills of ordinary Third Civilization life by some ancient called Paul Weimer. Some are only document records.”
“A delightful gift,” Allenson said, wondering what he had done to earn it.
Todd waved a hand languidly, brushing aside the praise as if it were cobwebs.
“I would have thought that someone would have produced suitable vine strains to grow wine grapes in the Stream by now,” Todd said, changing the subject.
“It wouldn’t be impossible,” Linsye agreed, “but the genosurgery is apparently tricky. We don’t have sufficient technical infrastructure to spare so the work would have to be done in Brasilia.”
Allenson grimaced. “Where’s the incentive? Why should a Brasilian wine merchant set up competition? Much more profitable to flog us the finished product at a hefty mark up.”
The appetizer plate vanished under Allenson’s left arm to be replaced by a dish containing soup. Left to his own devices Bentley would have paraded around the table with a bowl ladling out soup to each guest individually. Allenson killed that notion. He wasn’t all that bothered what was in his soup but he did like it hot and the host got served last.
Linsye dipped her spoon, holding it just clear of the plate to cool.
“I could tolerate the mark up if one was sure of getting what was on the label.”
Trina stirred her soup.
“Surely wine labelling is tightly controlled?”
Linsye sighed.
“In theory, but half the time the vintage is substituted for something cheaper.”
She waved her spoon for emphasis.
“The Carinas served Pinot Chaasuar last time I dined at their demesne. It may have been a Pinot but it had never been closer to the Chaasuar than the nearest chemical laboratory.”
Todd winced.
“Did you feel the need to point that out to them?”
“Well, obviously,” Linsye replied, clearly wondering why he asked such a stupid question. “They needed to know that they had been cheated.”
Todd looked sorrowfully at Allenson.
“Generally, I only escort Mother somewhere twice—the second time to apologize.”
Even Linsye laughed.
The dinner progressed with the usual small talk. When Allenson was young he had considered such conversation to be a waste of time. Experience and Trina taught him how useful gossip could be. People revealed details in dinner conversations. Details that when put together provided invaluable information about the shifting political and commercial alliances within the Stream—insofar as the two could be separated.
Bentley presented the platter of the main dish to Trina for her approval, which was duly given. Allenson forced down the urge to scream. Wine to him, meat to Trina, what an utter waste of time? His life used to be so much simpler when he was young.
“Wildfowel in jaffa sauce,” Linsye exclaimed in delight. “One of my favorite dishes.”
Trina smiled: the choice of menu was always tailored to the tastes of the honored guest. One had to be careful praising a dish too highly in company or you could find yourself served it at every dinner party for the next year or so.
“The jaffa fruit is from your own demesne,” Trina said. “Your estate manager flew a crate over last harvest.”
Jaffa was a Streamer crop in demand in Brasilia where it fetched ridiculous prices. Home World farms grew the crop but wealthy aficionados declared the taste inferior to imports from the Cutter Stream.
“I hope the wine is real?” Allenson asked. “It cost me enough.”
Trina frowned at him. Bentley’s expression went professionally blank. It was not done to discuss the cost of such things over dinner.
Linsye rolled it around her glass and inhaled the bouquet before tasting.
“Quite genuine,” she pronounced. “Perhaps a little past its best but we can forgive that as the bottle has traveled far to grace our table.”
“Oh good,” Allenson said. “I won’t have to shoot my supplier.”
Todd looked at his uncle quizzically as if trying to work out whether he was joking or not.
“Ignore him, Nephew,” said Trina, shooting Allenson an exasperated look. “My husband has a peculiar sense of humor. He wouldn’t really shoot his wine merchant.”
Linsye said, “Quite right, sister-in-law.”
She tapped her finger on the table for emphasis.
“Shooting is too good for a wine fraudster.”
She definitely wasn’t joking.
They applied themselves to the meal.
“Tell me, Linsye?” asked Allenson between courses. “Were you not tempted to join your brother and go back to Brasilia?”
Linsye cocked her head to look at him.
“I thought we covered this a long time ago on Paragon. In my opinion there is no future for my children and grandchildren back in Brasilia. That is why I chose a marriage alliance with a promising local family even if they were social inferiors.”
Todd coughed into his hand at this point. Linsye ignored him.
“My children do not carry the Destry name. Even if they did, there is nothing more pathetic than impoverished relatives living off the charity of other members of a Great House. Their gens association would be a curse, not a benefit.”
Trina asked, “You think Royman has made the wrong decision?”
Linsye hesitated.
“My brother must do what he feels is best for his situation,” she replied delicately.
“You refer to Sarai?” Trina asked, pushing the conversation to the edge of what was acceptable.
Linsye half nodded before canceling the gesture.
“Not entirely, Royman does not, I think, possess the appropriate skills and interests for life across the Bight but as this is a private family gathering then, yes, I refer to his marriage.”
Of course, there were servants present as well. Linsye like most Manzanitans of “the better sort” tended to regard them as part of the house fittings, forgetting that they were furniture with tongues.
Allenson tried to remember where he had heard that expression. It may have come from the slave economies of Old Earth. The destroyed bureaucratic Third Civilization had left such copious records in so many different formats that vast amounts of data about their doomed world was extant. Much of it had never been properly collated and put into context even to this day. However, enough was known to outline their history and culture. Such a bold and self-confident society—and so blind.
His train of thought drew an uneasy comparison between the indentured servants of Brasilia and the slave economies. The comparison, he assured himself, was not apt. Indentured servants were not slaves. They were people with legal rights albeit restricted ones. Their contracts could be bought and sold but the people were not property. They could hope to buy out or work off their debt. An irritatingly rebellious component of his mind reminded him that even the old slave economies had the concept of Freedmen.
There was no doubt though that the indentured servant system used by Brasilia to dump its unwanted population on the colonies displayed all the wastefulness and inefficiency of a slave society. Not that Brasilia’s colonial problems were unique. The harsh realities of Terran society ensured an excess of convict labor making their colonies just as shambolic.
Trina deftly changed the subject. She engaged Linsye on the subject of a play she had seen in Manzanita City by a promising new avant-garde playwright.
Linsye asked, “How did you find the work, Allen?”
Trina had insisted on her husband escorting her to the theatre.
“Most, ah, stimulating,” Allenson replied.
Trina cut in. “Really, I thought you dozed off.”
“Just resting my eyes to concentrate on the dialogue,” Allenson replied.
“I see,” Trina raised an eyebrow. “Are you aware that you have developed the habit of snoring when resting your eyes to concentrate?”
“I sympathize, my dear,” Linsye said. “His brother was just the same. Todd declared that the word culture always made him want to reach for a laserrifle.”
Wasn’t that another quote from some ancient philosopher, Allenson wondered? No, it couldn’t have been. Their strange superstitions about the physical nature of the universe precluded them developing the technology for laserrifles.
Allenson turned to Todd to include him in the conversation. “How did you find school and college on Brasilia?”
“Oh it had its ups and downs but I fitted in tolerably well,” Todd replied.
“You weren’t bullied at all because of your colonial background?”
“There’s always a degree of good natured banter, Uncle,” Todd said without further elaboration.
Allenson struggled on.
“How did your studies go? Let me see, you read . . .”
Allenson’s memory balked at divulging the necessary information.
“Politics, history and anthropology.”
Todd deftly lifted Allenson out of the hole he’d dug for himself.
“I took a degree but barely scraped a third. I regret that I’m not academic material unlike Uncle Royman.”
“Much good it did him,” Linsye remarked somewhat sourly.
“It did all of us a great deal of good against Terra,” Allenson said, perhaps rather more tartly than he had intended, but Royman had stood his ground with his comrades. “Indeed, Royman’s contribution as intelligence officer made him possibly the one indispensable man in our army.”
Todd said, “Praise indeed especially coming from you, Uncle. Most people have suggested to me that you were the indispensable man.”
“Most people are ignorant,” Allenson replied, without heat.
Todd raised his glass.
“Well then let’s drink to Uncle Royman’s new life in Brasilia.”
So they did, which neatly changed the mood at the table. Trina conferred a smile of approval on her nephew’s tact.
Allenson put down his glass and examined him.
“You look rather well on university life.”
And he did. Todd was not particularly tall but wiry without a gram of excess fat on his body.
“I won a racing dark blue,” Todd said.
Blue Horizon athletic teams wore dark blue uniforms.
Allenson was impressed.
“Indeed?”
Todd added diffidently, “I rowed power wheel on the University Eight against the light blues.”
Blue Horizon’s main rival, were the light blues. These, the two oldest and most prestigious colleges of Freelanding University on Brasilia, held an annual frame race. As most of the ruling families were educated at one or other of these institutions the race received media attention more suited to a major sports event. The whole world watched. A great deal of money and prestige depended on the result. Competition for a seat on one of the two frames was accordingly intense. You either had to be well connected or very, very athletic—preferably both.
Allenson asked, “How did your team do?”
“Not too badly, uncle,” Todd replied.
Linsye said with a mother’s pride, “They beat the light blues by five lengths.”
“I see, congratulations,” Allenson said, raising his glass once more but in Todd’s direction. “What do you intend to do now?”
Todd opened his mouth but Linsye cut into the conversation before he could speak.
“I thought he could be your aide.”