Burning Bright

“Easily enough done,” Damian Chrestil said. “But I’m willing to make a deal.” He did something with controls that were out of her line of sight; an instant later, the view within the communications space widened, so that she was looking into a comfortably furnished room. The wall behind him was black—not a wall at all, she realized abruptly, but the same kind of shutter that covered Ransome’s windows. Lioe tugged at the edges of her view, expanded it so that she could see the details more clearly. Half a dozen men and women waited at a polite distance, all in dockers’ clothes, tough-looking people who looked like older, less beautiful versions of Roscha. The Visiting Speaker stood a little apart from them, feet planted wide apart, arms crossed on his chest, the fingers of the one visible hand working restlessly. A tiny, pretty woman— Cella, she realized—sat on the arm of a chair to the hsaia’s right. Ransome was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair, just outside the pool of amber light from an overhead lamp, but as she watched, he pushed himself to his feet and came to stand by Damian Chrestil. Damian looked over his shoulder, his fine eyebrows drawing together in a frown, but he did not order the other man away.

“Yes, this concerns you, Ransome. Join the party, why don’t you?”

“Thanks,” Ransome said, and smiled.

Damian Chrestil looked back into the display space. “Since you’re not a political animal, Na Lioe, I would assume you don’t really care whether or not the lachesi gets through to my buyers in HsaioiAn.”

“Or even about your chance of being governor,” Ransome said gently, his eyes fixed on Lioe as though he wanted to convey a message.

Lioe nodded. “All I care about is your goons off my back, a job to go back to, and Ransome’s freedom. That’s pretty simple, Na Damian.”

“I can perhaps do better,” Damian Chrestil said. He paused, not looking back over his shoulder toward the Visiting Speaker, but the hsaia straightened anyway, both hands now poised to display claws and wrist spurs.

“We have an agreement, Damian Chrestil,” ji-Imbaoa said. “If you fail to honor it—”

Damian turned on him. “You haven’t yet done what you and I agreed. I’ll fulfill my contracts, all right—this time—but you can go to hell.” Behind him, the flat-faced giant made a gesture, and the dockers shifted position suddenly, so that they encircled the Visiting Speaker and his staff. Cella slipped easily from her place, out of the armed ring. The jericho-human made an abortive grab for a weapon hidden under his coat, and a thin woman leveled her palmgun at him.

“Enough, Magill,” ji-Imbaoa said, and looked at Damian. “Very well. I have no choice. But I will ruin you for this. You and yours will never do business in HsaioiAn again—”

Ransome said something then, in hsai, not tradetalk, and the Visiting Speaker was abruptly silent, hunching into himself as though into feathers. Ransome looked back into the communications space. “As I said to him, Chauvelin may be able to offer other connections, Na Damian. You see, I’m willing to negotiate, too.”

“But will Chauvelin?” Damian Chrestil asked.

“Ask him,” Ransome answered.

There was a little silence, and Lioe, still held in the chair’s gentle embrace, the nets wound around her like a cocoon, held her breath. If this could work, if they could come up with a bargain —

“Be my guest,” Damian Chrestil said, and gestured to the controls.

“Traitor,” ji-Imbaoa said, almost conversationally, and turned his back on them all.

Ransome grinned, and reached for the control spaces. Static fuzzed a tiny circle at the edge of Lioe’s viewing volume. She winced, and looked away from it, but did not adjust her own controls. An image formed, slowly at first, then flicked completely into adjustment. Chauvelin looked out at them, one eyebrow raised in arrogant question, and Lioe tugged at the image until it was as large as the other.

“Na Chauvelin,” Damian Chrestil said, with a fleeting and twisted smile.

“Na Damian,” Chauvelin acknowledged. “What interesting company you keep.” He looked at Ransome. “I’ve been looking for you, I-Jay. I trust you’re well?”

Ransome nodded. “Well enough.”

Damian Chrestil cleared his throat. “I think we’ve achieved stalemate,” he said. “Each of us has something the others want, and, thanks to you, Na Lioe, we have a time constraint as well.”

“How so?” Both of Chauvelin’s eyebrows rose.

“I’ve put a new Game scenario onto the nets,” Lioe said bluntly. “In four hours—less than that, now—it’ll be released, and every Gamer on the nets will want a copy. It’s a jeu a clef, Ambassador, based on Na Damian’s deal with the Visiting Speaker. If Damian Chrestil doesn’t back off, guarantee my safety and let Ransome go, I’ll let it run.” She paused, couldn’t resist adding, “I do think it will play.”

Chauvelin was silent for a moment, his face expressionless, then looked at Ransome. “Will it work?”