Walter Williams - The Praxis

He told Alikhan to lay out a small cold buffet for later and to chill a bottle of sparkling wine. Alikhan, not unaccustomed to these sorts of commands, nodded without speaking. Martinez shaved again, then changed into the civilian suit with the braided collar and cuffs and the elastic stirrup that ran under his glossy shoes at the instep—accessories that saidfashionable without quite sayingglit — then summoned a cab to pick up Amanda at her warrant officers’ quarters. She wore a gown of russet material quietly stuffed with all the by-products of modern materials science: it supported her lush figure in all the right places, while tucking her in elsewhere. In front, the gown modestly covered her to the throat, but there was no back at all. Her chestnut hair had been pinned up by long golden needles topped by walnutsized chunks of artificial ruby—cheap stuff, but deployed massively and to great effect—while rubies and gold also glittered on her fingers and at her throat.

Her smile was brilliant as her jewelry. “It’s not too formal, is it?” she asked.

“Not at all.” He put a hand on her naked back and helped her to the cab.

He took her to the Penumbra Theater for a comedy, a sex farce of the sort that humans loved and that other races found incomprehensible. Amanda laughed in all the places where Martinez could have hoped she might have laughed.

After the show, he took her to a restaurant in the High City for supper—not one of the absolutely first-class places, which tended to be too starched and formal, but a large, noisy restaurant with overhead galleries, smiling, busy waitrons, and with what Martinez had been assured was excellent food. Ari Abacha was drinking in the bar as Martinez entered, and silently raised his glass at the sight of Amanda. Martinez ate modestly, watched Amanda tuck into her bison steak, and thought how pleasing it was to meet a girl with such unconcealed appetites.

Afterward he took her to a club for dancing, then to his apartment, and then to bed. When he drew off her gown, her abundant flesh seemed to leap into his hands. She was as much fun as he expected, a gloriously healthy young female animal who took what she wanted with both generosity and laughter.

The evening would have been perfect if he hadn’t kept picturing Sula, her image and eyes, her voice, and imagining her scent, some fanciful combination of clean skin and lilac and arousal.

Sula, meanwhile, alone in her sour-smelling cockpit, wondered why Martinez hadn’t sent his usual evening message. She had gotten used to hearing his voice two or three times every day, and now that the voice hadn’t come, she realized how much she missed it.

She decided that his commander had him working late. She opened the file on Earth porcelains and spent the hours gazing at one image after another, of vases and bowls and jugs, all ancient and unbelievably rare and precious. In her mind she touched the lovely objects, stroking surfaces glossy or crackled or smooth, her fingertips caressing the unreachable creations of those immeasurably skilled, unknown, long-dead hands.

“He’s old. I hate him.”

Sempronia’s fierce whisper hissed in Martinez’s ear. He looked at his youngest sister with sympathy.

“Sorry, Proney.”

“He keeps following me around the room. What if he wants totouch me?”

“You’ll have to endure it. Think of the family.”

Sempronia narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “Iam thinking of the family. I’m thinking ofyou — because this whole scheme is allyour fault.”

“Ah—here you are.” PJ Ngeni materialized at Sempronia’s elbow, a drink in either hand. “I thought I’d bring you another cocktail.”

Sempronia turned to PJ with a brilliant smile. “Why, thank you! How very thoughtful!” She put down her untouched drink and replaced it with another.

Martinez had to admire her skill under pressure. Sempronia was so good atplaying a vivacious young thing that he sometimes had to remind himself that shewas a vivacious young thing, at least most of the time. He could only tell the difference between a performance and the genuine article by the slight tensing of the muscles around the eyes.

PJ didn’t seem the type to much care about whether Sempronia’s conduct was genuine or not. His own behavior was clearly a performance of some sort, in his case that of an attentive and considerate cavalier. He was a tall, thin, elegant man with arched, amused eyebrows and a little mustache. He lacked the cannonball head and large jaws of most of the Ngenis, and the hair was beginning to recede atop his long skull. Though suspicious, thus far Martinez had found nothing in the man he could object to save the bracelets and lapel braid made of bleached and woven human hair, a typical glit affectation.

PJ looked at Martinez. “Such a shame about Blitsharts,” he said. “Too bad you couldn’t rescue him.”

“I rescued him, all right,” Martinez said. “The pity is that he was dead by then.”

PJ’s tented brows arched even higher and he gave a laugh. “Blitsharts was a good fellow,” he said. “Witty. Like you. I won quite a lot, betting on him in the old days.” He shook his head. “Not so much lately, though. He wasn’t lucky.”

“Are you a gambler, then?” Sempronia asked, her eyes clearly asking,Is this why you need my dowry?

PJ shrugged. “I have a flutter now and again. A fellow has to, you know. It’s expected.”

“What else is a fellow expected to do?” The brilliant smile across Sempronia’s face, Martinez knew, was intended to mask the vengeful glimmer in her eyes.

The question took PJ aback. “Well,” he said. “Dress well, you know. Mix with people. Have nice things.”

Sempronia took his arm. “There must be more to it than that. Please tell me simplyeverything. ”

Martinez watched as Sempronia drew him away with the clear intention of ferreting out his every vicious secret. PJ, he decided, was going to pay dearly for his family’s marital ambitions.

Martinez, for his part, was enjoying himself. Lord Pierre had added the Martinez clan to a dinner party already on his schedule, which meant that he would soon be sitting to supper with the sort of people normally out of his reach, in this case three convocates, a judge of the High Court, the commander of the Legion of Diligence for the Metropolis of Zanshaa, a fleet commander on the retired list, and a captain and a squadron commander who weren’t.

Martinez wore his uniform, something he normally didn’t do on a social engagement, and it contributed to his being recognized. The captain and the squadron commander asked for details on the Blitsharts rescue, and Martinez was pleased to oblige. He was just getting to his description of how he had used the virtual simulation to work out howMidnight Runner was tumbling when the dinner gong rang. “I’ll go into the rest later,” he promised.

Particularly the part where he expressed admiration for Lord Commander Enderby’s decision to terminate his life, and happened to mention that as a result he was lacking a posting.

Martinez gave his arm to a lady convocate and led her from the tapestry-lined parlor to the dining room done in parquetry, tens of thousands of slivers of various kinds of wood jigsawed together in the form of portraits of prominent Ngenis of the past. Lord Pierre had only been doing his duty when he placed Martinez between the lady convocate and the retired fleet commander, a short, leathery-skinned woman.

Servants in livery began putting down plates of soup, and the scent of onions and tomatoes rose in the room. The retired fleetcom—she was Lord Pierre’s great-aunt—turned to Martinez and looked him up and down. Long white hairs clustered on her chin. “You’re the Martinez who got Blitsharts back, aren’t you?”