SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 37:

The entertainer who called himself Elemere sat at the rotated astrogator’s console of the Princess Cecile, facing the gathered officers. He was drinking brandy that Hogg’d borrowed from a spacer just back from liberty. Adele didn’t suppose the liquor was of the best quality, but Elemere wasn’t complaining. He held his mug in both hands, huddling over it and taking frequent drinks. He was shivering and seemed on the verge of going into shock.

“I have a galactic reputation,” Elemere said. “I’ve sung to the rulers of a score of worlds. My family’s of the Pleasaunce nobility, you know.”

It seemed odd to Adele that the fellow didn’t sound as though he were bragging. He must’ve repeated the lie so often that in a crisis his brain went back to it by rote. Adele had tapped a background check in the files of Waddell House, showing to her satisfaction that Elemere had been born Albertus Mintz on Planchett, a minor planet. Nobody on Planchett qualified as ‘noble’ by the standards of Pleasaunce, and Albertus’ father had been a watchman at an open-cast copper mine.

“Bennaria wasn’t on the planned tour,” Elemere said, “but Bestin, the owner of the Diamond Palace, caught my act on Pellegrino. He offered us a bonus for a one-week engagement. I said this place is already Hell’s sewer but Lonnie said, ‘Come on, kid, for this kinda money we can hold our breath a week.”

His eyes shut; he was crying. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “Lonnie’s dead.”

Woetjans was on shore. Vesey, the two midshipmen–Cory wide-eyed, Blantyre stern but lacing and unlacing her fingers–and Pasternak listened with Adele and Daniel; Hogg and Tovera had left the ship on business they considered important; Adele was willing to accept their judgment.

“Go on,” said Daniel, standing at Parade Rest with his hands crossed behind his back. That Elemere would be shaken was only to be expected, but Adele didn’t recall ever seeing Daniel in such a state as he was at present. His torn uniform showed he’d been in a fight, but in the past that’d exhilarated him. Now he looked as though he were ready to chew through the pressure hull.

“We took the offer,” Elemere said in his dead voice. He paused to empty the cup. Pasternak held the bottle ready, but the entertainer didn’t signal for a refill. “It was Lonnie’s idea but I said, ‘Sure, why not? At worst it’ll make Cranston look good.’ Cranston was the next stop on the tour. A stinking place. They process wood pulp there.”

Adele glanced at her display, shifting and sorting. Elemere was no nobleman, but he really did have a reputation. The accounts of the Diamond Palace indicated his salary was 40% of the theater’s talent budget for the week.

Elemere shook his head in despair. He’d worn a hooded cloak when he boarded the Princess Cecile, but he’d taken it off inside. Now his hair, blond and as fine spiderweb, fell to his waist.

“So the first two nights were all right,” he said. “Good houses and the theater, well, I’ve played worse.”

He raised his mug and found it empty. Pasternak made a slight gesture to call attention to the brandy bottle. “Yes!” said Elemere, holding out the mug. “Yes, for God’s sake!”

He drank deeply again. “After we closed the second night,” he said, “there was a man waiting for me–Councilor Waddell. I could tell by the way Bestin treated him that he was a big deal–on Bennaria. Which is a mud puddle, is nothing. But I was polite and when he asked me out to his country estate, I said I’d talk to my manager and let him know. Oh God.”

Elemere’s hands began to shake, spilling a little of the brandy. He leaned forward to set the mug on the deck, but he’d have dropped it if Daniel hadn’t squatted beside him and taken the mug.

Daniel held the brandy. His face was that of an angry statue.

“I’ve had arrangements like that in the past,” Elemere said. “It’s a matter of how good the money is. Waddell was a fat pig, but that’s not unusual either.”

He looked around the compartment, obviously prepared to respond to an expression of disapproval. I, with as many lives as I have on my conscience, should judge you? Adele thought; and perhaps the others had similar reactions. At any rate, all the faces were still.

“But Lonnie checked with people,” Elemere said. “Not just Bestin. Bestin said it was a wonderful opportunity, that Waddell would bring me back and forth in his aircar, but others–there were whispers that some of the people Waddell took to his estate didn’t come back at all. Some men, but women too. And when he came to me the next night, I told him no, that I didn’t want to go.”

Elemere reached out for the mug; his hands were steady again. While he drank, Daniel said quietly, “I’ve met Councilor Waddell. Perhaps I’ll meet him again when I’m not representing the Republic.”

“He got… threatening,” said Elemere. “It worried me. I think it worried Lonnie too, though he said it was just the usual thing, the sort of business we’ve shrugged off a hundred times. You know. But Lonnie said he’d get us passage off-planet tomorrow night, that’s tonight. We’d go before the last show, and if Bestin didn’t like it when he learned, well, he had the second half of my fee to console himself.”

The entertainer drank, paused, and drank again before lowering the mug. “I cut my last performance tonight and went straight to the harbor,” he said. “Lonnie was supposed to be waiting with a boat. We’d pay off the car and attendants that we’d hired here and go straight over to the Varta. She was a tramp. She’d make two more planetfalls in Ganpat’s Reach, but she was leaving tonight. I just wanted to get off Bennaria.”

He lowered his head. “Oh God,” he whispered. Tears were running down his cheeks. “Oh God.”

Vesey turned to Daniel and said in a quiet voice, “The Varta lifted for San Felipe an hour ago, sir.”

“Yes?” said Daniel. He shrugged. “Chances are their captain was the one who informed Waddell anyway. Nobody who trades regularly to Bennaria is going to want to get on the wrong side of Waddell.”

“Lonnie wasn’t at the waterside,” Elemere said thickly. “Nobody’d seen him tonight. I turned around and came back. I thought maybe he’d gotten confused so he was waiting back at my dressing room.”

“They brought him back,” Daniel said. His tone was quiet but not calm. “I believe they expected to find you there. They waited when you weren’t since they knew you didn’t have anywhere else to go. And found ways to occupy their time.”

“Sir, I’ll stop liberty,” Vesey said. “Should I call the port watch back, too?”

“Yes,” said Daniel. He rubbed his forehead with both hands. “They recognized my accent, though they probably don’t know it was me in person. Waddell’s likely to decide that grabbing a couple Cinnabar spacers as hostage’ll convince us to give him Elemere.”

The entertainer looked up from his chair. “Will you…?” he said. His voice rose to a squeak that choked off any additional words.

Daniel stared at Elemere. “No,” he said, enunciating clearly but not raising his voice. “I won’t. I’ll burn this city down before I do that.”

The private security force patrolling the Charlestown entertainment district hadn’t had time to make a written report on the murder in the Diamond Palace, but Adele’d made a text crawl of their excited calls to their supervisors. She looked up from reading how the manager had been mutilated.

“Yes,” she said, speaking very distinctly. “We will.”

“Blantyre and Cory?” Daniel said. “Take our guest to your quarters and show him how to lock the hatch. You’ll bunk with your watches until further notice.”

Adele noticed that he wasn’t pretending Vesey was really in command any more. Vesey had the active cancellation field up around the command console, but that didn’t affect Adele’s ability to overhear, of course. She was sending armed parties ashore to roust the spacers on liberty back to the Sissie.

Cory helped Elemere to his feet. As they shuffled to the hatch, Pasternak held out the brandy bottle. Blantyre turned toward Daniel with a worried look; he nodded. She took the bottle before closing the hatch behind them.

Pasternak let out a deep breath and knuckled his ear. He was flushed; his rosy scalp clashed with the color of his thinning red hair.

“Look, sir,” he said, looking at the floor. “The hull’s my business. What you want to do with it’s yours, I know that. But I swear sir–”

He met Daniel’s eyes with a shame-faced expression.

“–if that fellow’s aboard any length of time, there’s going to be trouble. I’m not saying it’s his fault, but… bloody hell! You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Daniel said heavily. He seated himself at the console that Elemere had vacated; he looked very tired. “That’s one of the problems I’ll be working on until I get it solved.”

“Sir?” said Vesey. “You and Mistress Mundy were planning to go to the Council meeting tomorrow morning? Maybe that isn’t safe now.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s safe, Vesey!” Daniel said. “It’s our duty so we’ll do it.”

Adele didn’t let the frown reach her forehead; Daniel wouldn’t have spoken like that–his tone more than his words–under normal circumstances. He was remembering the manager’s body.

“I believe we’ll be safe, Captain,” Adele said, bending her lips into a smile as she looked at Vesey. She tapped her tunic pocket. “At any rate, we’ll be safer than the first twenty of Waddell’s men who try to hold us.”

With the words came a rush of what Adele could only describe as bloodlust. Her forced smile became quite real.