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witnesses. Too many witnesses.
The door closed shut behind Chalice and Fu George.
Maijstral put his gun on the bed and stretched out with his head on the
pillow. He looked up at Dolfuss's empty ceiling.
There was a moment's silence.
"I don't see what else we could have done," Roberta said.
"I'm sorry, sir," Roman said. "It's my fault. Once I closed the door, I should
have returned to help you cover Fu
George."
"If it's your fault," Maijstral almost said, "you fight the man," but he bit
the words back. No purpose would be served by getting his servant and chief
henchman angry at him.
"Don't blame yourself," he said. He felt mild surprise at how well he was
articulating. "I let things get out of control."
"You handled that real cool, boss." Gregor's tones were admiring. Another
savage comment came to Maijstral's mind, and again Maijstral squelched it.
Roberta bent to return her pistol to its holster. When she straightened, there
was a serious light in her eyes. "What weapons?" she asked.
Maijstral's mind curdled as it raced through the appalling possibilities. The
inventory of classical Khosali duelling weapons, developed over millennia, was
impressive. There were weapons for cutting, weapons for hacking, weapons that
shot flame or explosive bolts. There were strangling cords and bludgeons and
sophisticated devices for picking apart the opponent's mind and leaving him a
pain-riven
254 | WALTER JON WILLIAMS
vegetable all the rest of his days. The weapons had one thing in common:
Maijstral had no confidence in his ability to damage Fu George with any of
them.
Why, he asked the ceiling, had he been born in a society that countenanced
mutual slaughter, but only so long as the slaughter was done on what purported
to be a fair basis?
Why was fairness the criterion? Why not cleverness!
If one could cleverly arrange matters so that one's opponent had no chance
whatever of survival, and oneself had every possible chance, why should any
reasonable individual object? Why shouldn't the clever survive over the
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stupid? Wouldn't it improve the breed in the long run?
Maijstral waved an airy hand.
"Chugger," he said. "And let's not use explosive bullets or automatic fire.
Far too vulgar." The point of a chugger duel was that each side got only one
shot. He wasn't going to give Fu George more than one try at him.
"Very well."
"Anything you won't use?"
Everything!
his mind squalled, but instead his voice was calm. "Axes. Clubs. Pole weapons.
That sort of thing. Too
..."
Brutal, he almost said, but corrected himself at the last second. "...
common."
"How about psych-scanners?"
Maijstral thought for a long moment. A psych-scanner in the hands of an expert
could turn an opponent's brain into a mass of toasted cheese. Against a stupid
or slow man, Maijstral would have had every confidence in using a scanner.
Unfortunately Fu George was neither stupid nor slow.
He thought about the long nightmare that might result, with Fu George slamming
at his brain for hours while he gibbered in terror and tried to evade the
relentless psychic blast. No, he decided. Pistols were a lot quicker.
"I'd rather not," he said. "Scanners are an honorable
HOUSE OF SHARDS | 255
weapon, but too often they leave both combatants brain-
dead. I'd prefer one of us survive this."
"Bravo, boss. Only too." Gregor gave a laugh as he beat out a quick pattern on
the bureau.
Maijstral looked at him bleakly. Gregor had been im-
pressed by his chivalry, but Maijstral, to himself at least, meant only that
he intended himself to be the survivor, and to hell with anything else. He'd
rigged a chugger duel in his youth, when he'd been driven into an encounter
during his last year at the Nnoivarl Academy; he wasn't sure he could work the
same trick with a scanner.
"Any feelings about swords?" Roberta asked.
Wrong phrasing, Maijstral thought. He had very clear feelings about swords,
though none of them capable of articulation in this company.
"I would prefer smallswords," he said. "Or rapier and targe." Keep the damage
to a minimum, he thought, with a light weapon. Perhaps he could manage to get
himself scratched on the arm and pronounce honor satisfied.
"I would also prefer," Maijstral said, "that the meeting be postponed for a
few days. I'd like to get to the bottom of this Shard business first."
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"Thank you, Maijstral," Roberta said. "I appreciate that."
"I am at your service, your grace." Delay the thing as long as possible, he
thought, which would give him a greater chance to fix the outcome. Perhaps, he
thought cheerlessly, he could just poison Fu George in the night. Or get him
arrested.
"What shall we do about the Shard?"
"If I were you, I'd try to buy it from Fu George. If you approach him
privately, he may act differently than when he had my gun pointed at his
head."
She looked at him with a frown. "I suppose I should see him as soon as
possible."
256 | WALTER JON WILLIAMS
"Right now, if you like."
"Yes. Thank you, Maijstral. I'll see Kotani as soon as the present crisis is
over."
"Don't hurry on my account," Maijstral almost said.
Instead he said merely, "Your servant."
"Yours."
Roberta bowed and left. Maijstral stared at Dolfuss's ceiling and asked it a
long series of questions. There was no reply.
Viscount Cheng's captain, whom Khamiss was beginning to think of as Cap'n Bob,
gazed in surprise at the uncon-
scious body of the Tanquer.
"Er," she began, "is this somehow related to our prob-
lem?"
"Not really," Khamiss said. She turned to the console.
"Ring the Duchess of Benn's suite," she said. "Then ring the White Room, the
other lounges, each restaurant, the
Casino, and all the shops on the commercial level. Give them the following
message: should anyone see her grace the Duchess of Benn, Drake Maijstral, or
Geoff Fu George, please have them call Khamiss at the central switchboard.
Inform them that this is a serious emergency. End of mes-
sage."
"At your service," said the console.
Kovinn answered the Duchess's phone. "Is her grace in?" Khamiss asked.
"I'm afraid not, ma'am."
"I need to speak with her right away. This is an emer-
gency."
Kovinn's ears twitched. "Very well, madam. I shall in-
form her grace when she arrives."
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' 'My name is Khamiss. I'm at the central communications
HOUSE OF SHARDS | 257
switchboard. Please beg her grace to call .me as soon as she arrives."
"I will give her your message."
"Thank you." Khamiss rang off, then frowned and looked at the console. What
next?
Cap'n Bob provided the answer. "Does Baron Silverside know?"
"No." She turned to the console, an order poised on her lips, and then she
hesitated, a clear picture rising in her mind of Baron Silverside having a fit
of hysterics and tearing out hunks of whisker.
"Let's not," she decided.
"Cheeseup!"
called Dolfuss at the top of his lungs. By this point spectators' heads had
ceased to turn at the sound of his roars, but instead had begun ducking
between shoulders as if caught in an exploding hailstorm of bad taste. Dolfuss
laid down his cards. "And I've got the Emperor in what-
d'you-call-it, and that's ..."
"Cheddar," said Vanessa.
"Right. How many points?"
Vanessa laid down her cards. "Sixty-four."
"Right again." He beamed. "I'm glad you suggested this game. Winning this one
hand I've earned more cash than I
get in sales commissions for a whole year."
Vanessa rose from her seat. "It's been a . . .
unique ex-
perience, Mr. Dolfuss,'' she said. "I regret I must leave you.''
"Too bad." Smirking. "Sorry to see you go. If you could, ah . . . ?" He took
one of the betting chips and handed it to her. He looked at the score. "That's
a total of two hundred and forty-four."
"Yes." She wrote the amount and signed it, then handed the chip back.
Choke on it, she thought.
258 | WALTER JON WILLIAMS
Dolfuss grinned and twitched the lapels of his green-on-
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