“Of course,” Chauvelin said, in his most colorless voice. Twice in one day–that’s twice someone’s threatened me, and it’s not yet midmorning. Not one of my better days.

“I am sure,” ji‑Imbaoa said, and gestured polite dismissal. Chauvelin bowed his thanks, and let himself out into the hallway.

He made his way back to the breakfast room through corridors that were slowly filling with people, responding mechanically to the respectful greetings of his household. Three things, he thought, three things I have to do. Find the weaknesses in ji‑Imbaoa’s household so that I can counter his threats, find out who leaked this report of mine, and then find out why Damian Chrestil wants Ransome back in the Game. And why it should worry ji‑Imbaoa so much. Which means I will have to talk to Ransome: it doesn’t do to have him keeping secrets from me. He paused in the door of the breakfast room, mentally reordering his list, then went in to give orders to the waiting steward.

Day 30

High Spring: Canal #291, Fisher’s

Isle District, Burning Bright

Damian Chrestil woke to sunlight and the steady sway of the john‑boat against the forward mooring. The stern tie had parted in the night. He was certain of it even before he stopped blinking, and moved his head out of the thin bar of sunlight that shone in through the gap between the snuggery’s canvas top and the side of the boat. He was angry even before he remembered what lay next to him in the bunk. It was his fault, the stranger’s–he had been the one to place the stern tie–and he propped himself up on one elbow to study the situation, and the body beside his. He couldn’t remember the stranger’s name, nor very clearly why he had picked him up the night before; whatever had been interesting or endearing had vanished with his clothes. Slumming, certainly–and the stranger turned over onto his side, dragging the thin sheet with him. That was quite enough, especially now that the inevitable headache was starting behind his eyes. Damian kicked away the rest of the sheet and reached for his discarded clothes, wriggling awkwardly into briefs and shirt and trousers. The stranger– whoever he is–was lying on top of the storage compartments. There was nothing useful in them, not in a borrowed boat, but Damian added the extra inconvenience to his account anyway, and crawled out of the snuggery to deal with the stern tie.

Luckily, he had had the sense to pick a quiet lay‑by. The john‑boat was swinging only sluggishly, the soggy impact of the hull against the piling barely audible over the gentle slap of the water, not even enough to bruise the paint. He made his way aft along the sun‑warming decking, and as the boat swung in against the pilings, caught the dangling ring and made the tie fast. He stood there for a moment, balancing automatically against the deck’s gentle heave, and blinked up at the sky and the white‑hot light. The john‑boat lay at the bottom of a blue‑toned canyon. Shadowed factory buildings rose six stories high along either bank of the canal, their unlit windows showing only blank glass. This was not a deliveryway; there were no lesser docks or vertical line of gaping doors beneath an overhanging cranehead. It was just a traffic alley, not much used–it might even once have been a natural stream, by the gentle curve of its banks. The rising sun was pouring down from the near end of the channel, a wedge of almost solid light that turned the murky water to liquid agate. No one was moving on the narrow walkways that ran alongside the factories; no one else was tied up to the mossy pilings, or tucked under the cool shadow of the piers. He made a face–the heavy sun was doing nothing for his headache–and went forward again, shielding his eyes from the shards of light that glinted off the water.

The stranger was still asleep in the snuggery, face now turned to the empty pillow beside him. Damian Chrestil squatted in the entrance to the cavelike space, staring into air turned honey‑gold by the worn cover, and felt a detached malevolence steal over him. Why should hesleep, when Damian himself was awake, and feeling unpleasing? There was nothing in the round face and showily muscled body that aroused the least compassion; his thin mustache was intolerable. I must give up slumming, he thought, and leaned sideways to release the lock that held the cover’s frame erect. He caught the nearest hoop as the wind took it, guiding it down onto the deck. The frame folded neatly, as it was supposed to, with only a soft creak from the well‑oiled mechanism, and the cover collapsed into a rumpled U‑shape at his feet. The stranger slept on.

Damian stood for a moment longer, glaring down at him, automatically tugging his own thick hair into a neat queue. He remembered perfectly well howhe’d acquired the stranger–he was a bungee‑gar, and C/B Cie., the holding group that managed the Chrestil‑Brisch import/export interests, had successfully received a shipment of red‑carpet, the fungus that fed the family distilleries. Red‑carpet was expensive enough on its own, especially on a world that had few native sources of alcohol, valuable enough to justify employing bungee‑gars, but it had also served to cover the two capsules of lachesi that had traveled with the declared cargo. Oblivion was made from lachesi, and Oblivion was legal inside the Republic, but the Republican export taxes on drugs were deliberately high. Evading those duties not only increased his own profits, but allowed him to do favors for two important parties, one in the Republic, the other in HsaioiAn. And that was how Burning Bright had survived free of control by either of the metagovernments: the web of favors given and received that made it entirely too dangerous for strangers to interfere in Burning Bright’s internal politics. It was never too early to start collecting favors, either, not when he intended to be governor in five years.

The stranger shifted uneasily against the mattress, drawing Damian out of the pleasant daydream. His head was really throbbing now– Oblivion and bai‑red rum, not a wise combination–and he wondered again why he’d invited the stranger aboard. He was decent‑enough looking–a dark man, young, canalli dark, with coarse waves in his too‑long hair, heavy muscles under the skin, and buttocks Damian could vaguely remember describing as “cute”–but not cute enough, not with that silly mustache shadowing his full mouth. He hadn’t been that good a fuck, either: if the previous night’s performance had represented his sexual peak, his future partners were in for some serious disappointment. Damian slipped his foot under the sheet, flipped it nearly away. The stranger rolled over, groping blindly for it, mumbling something that sounded regrettably like darling, and fetched up with his shoulder resting on the edge of the boat. Damian Chrestil smiled slowly, and stepped onto the bunk beside him, his feet sinking only a little way into the hard foam of the mattress. He dug his foot under the stranger’s rib cage, saw him start to roll away automatically. The stranger’s eyes opened then, a sleepy and entirely too cocksure smile changing to alarm as Damian tipped him neatly out of the boat. Instinct kept him from yelling until he surfaced again.

“What the hell–?”

“Rise and shine.” Damian smiled, some of his temper restored, and turned his attention to the mess in the snuggery.

The stranger trod water easily, shaking his hair out of his eyes, but knew better than to try to climb back aboard. “What’d I do?” he asked plaintively, and pushed himself a few strokes farther down the channel, out of reach of the cargo‑hooks racked along the gunwales.

Damian paused, the stranger’s clothes in one hand. He had them all now, except for one crumpled shoe, and he found that almost in the instant he realized it was missing, tucked in between the mattress and the bulkhead. He rolled them all together into a compact ball, and tossed it, not into the canal as he’d intended, but up onto the walkway between the pilings. It was not, after all, entirely the stranger’s fault.