The Pillars of Eternity

Romrey began pulling on some garments. Boaz turned to the woman. ‘And what can your man Obsoc contribute?’

‘Him?’ She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Money. He’s rich. He’s got his own big yacht orbiting up there, and it’s armed, pretty heavily. Probably it could even take on that government cruiser that’s coming.’

‘Can you arrange a meeting with him?’

‘If he thinks you can do him any good.’

Boaz nodded. Events had changed rapidly for all three of them in the past few minutes, he thought. But people were used to fast transitions, in this modern world.

Radalce Obsoc was a tall, stooped man with bulging eyes. His nose was small and hooked, exactly like an owl’s beak, and his thin-lipped mouth was equally small.

His appearance was in curious contrast with the red-haired sensuous-looking Mace Meare, as Boaz had come to know her. Their relationship, however, was not hard to fathom. She was a paid pleasure girl, on permanent contract.

The pleasure, it was undertood, was to be hers. Obsoc himself was not a sensuous man: he was a collector, his passions cerebral, who required to have among his possessions a beautiful woman who could plumb the depths of erotic delight. Silicon bones gave Mace that, and Obsoc’s enjoyment was the voyeur’s one of watching her attain the transports of that delight – with whom, or what, or by herself (Obsoc had a complete collection of sexual appurtenances) did not matter. Boaz doubted if he ever actually touched her himself.

Obsoc collected many things, but his real passion was for jewels. He practically raged at Boaz when he spoke of them. He possessed, he said, specimens of all but one of the nine thousand and thirty-four known gem classifications, including the largest natural diamond ever found, weighing over half a ton (this was a mere curiosity, since single-crystal diamonds of up to twenty tons had been synthesized). His cold store contained the complete range of low-temperature gems, including rare varieties of ice of surpassing beauty, produced only under the freak conditions of isolated sunless planets (and far exceeding his half-ton diamond in value). He had an impact technetium sapphire – one of the only two specimens ever found. No price could be put upon his collection; it was unique. He had stipulated that it was to remain intact after his death, and he doubted if any individual would be wealthy enough to buy it. It would, perhaps, become a trust to the glory of the econosphere.

‘There is but one gem, sir, that I do not possess,’ he said in almost ferocious tones to Boaz, ‘and that is a time-gem from Meirjain the Wanderer. The lack of it makes an intolerable gap in my collection, and I am determined to repair it. Furthermore, the fewer are in circulation the better pleased I shall be. Present circumstances, therefore, meet with my approval to some extent – if all goes well.’

‘You’d like it better if you could be the only one to land on Meirjain, I suppose?’ Romrey interjected.

‘You grasp my meaning quite correctly. But you need fear no treachery on my part. I have an unbending sense of probity, and will deal loyally with all members of our little party.’

They were in the main cabin of Boaz’s ship. He strongly disliked entertaining strangers, or indeed anyone, within this, his private domain (it was like inviting someone into his own body), but the proposed exercise called for it.

He sat next to Romrey at the small circular table. To his left was Mace, and opposite him was Obsoc. Romrey was expertly shuffling his cards. ‘Are you ready, Captain?’

Curtly Boaz nodded.

‘Then we must all concentrate. You especially, Captain. Concentrate on what it is we’re looking for.’

For Boaz that was easy, despite his feeling slightly ridiculous about the proceedings. He had been obliged to swallow his scepticism in order to make the experiment, which consisted of marrying the cards’ reputed function with his ship’s special data-gathering ability. Also, he had been obliged to divulge something of that ability. The other three now had some idea – though not a complete one – that it was the ship that kept Boaz alive.

Romrey made a brief salutation, raising his hand perpendicular to his face in a cryptic sign. ‘To the force that orders events.’

Slowly Romrey began to lay down cards, speaking as he did. ‘This deck was issued by the Carborundum Order, which I don’t think exists any more. Anyway I was never a member of it – I’m a straight sort of alec, really. I don’t even know what carborundum means.’

‘It is a carbon compound once used for polishing,’ Boaz supplied quietly. ‘The Carborundum Order taught a technique they termed “polishing the mirror”. The mirror being the mirror of mind.’

‘Is that so? Well, to get down to it, in the Carborundum deck the four suits stand, among other things, for the four points of the compass on planets that have a magnetic field. So we ought to be able to locate which part of the city to look in.’

‘If our man is in Wildhart at all,’ Mace pointed out.