Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

"Coinciding almost exactly with the beginning of the Atomic Era, this exquisite concerto immediately received many awards, and remains a durable and lasting piece of work on its own merits-" Wachinski turned. "Ah! Soloist John Kvassny has just come on stage to enthusiastic applause. And now. Maestro Cascora is approaching the podium. . . Ladies and gentlemen-Spellbound."

Grego was beginning to relax, now. He was, after all, accustomed to the public slanders of Hugo Ingermann, but not after a fourteen-hour day of bargaining and dealing to get this cattle drive of a Constitutional Convention going the direction he wanted. What with the Company loaning vast sums to the Colonial Government to keep it on its feet until a Legislature was seated in accordance with a soon-to-be-adopted-it-was-fervently-hoped Constitution, Grego couldn't afford to sit around and let the new government pay him back with money it taxed away from the Company. The Company had to get some breaks in the tax laws, and the best way to do that was for the Company to have its fingers into writing those tax laws. A majority of the stalwart old pioneers on the convention would also be sitting in the Legislature. Now was the time to get them on the Company's side-while it wasn 't too obvious to them that the Company had an axe to grind. If Jimenez and his eggheads could raise just one reasonable doubt about Fuzzies being native to Zarathustra, then they could take it all to court and possibly get the Company Charter back-or a reasonable facsimile of it. Might have to live with a duplex version-a re-chartered Company and a Colonial Legislature. In any case, it couldn 't do any harm to make some influential friends for the Company while the opportunity presented itself.

Grego took a deep breath and let it out slowly at the first soaring notes of the Spellbound Concerto. Spellbound. He was going to have to do something about Christiana, too. She was on his mind more and more these days, and not in her capacity as Chief Fuzzy-Sitter either. Things were going on inside him that he didn't even want to identify, much less actually deal with. But he was going to have to deal with them, and he knew it.

Gwennie 's eyes were the size of saucers as she listened outside Hugo Ingermann's office door. She was certain that the thumping of her heart could be heard all over the building.

She could only catch a phrase once in a while as Laporte and Ingermann talked, but it was still the most astonishing conversation she had ever heard. An entire cave, full of sunstones! That's the news that Ev and Jim brought to Laporte, which sent him streaking to Ingermann's office. It couldn't be true.

It was just-impossible. Surely those two jarheads knew better than to tell a lie to Raul Laporte, just to get out from under their gambling debts. He'd cut their throats and leave them in the street for that. Maybe they were getting ready to ship out and hadn't told her. No, that made no sense. If their unit was leaving Zarathustra, they could just run out on the gambling debts-without

risking the wrath of Laporte. So, it must be true; yet it was unbelievable.

She started as she heard a chair scrape on the floor in the office. Did she have time to get down the corridor and out of sight-before Laporte came out?

She tugged at the doors on a couple of offices. Locked. She tugged at another one. It swung toward her. It was a janitor's closet. She darted inside and pulled the door almost shut behind her, peeping out through the narrow crack, into the corridor-like a mouse hiding in its hole.

Presently, Laporte came out of Ingermann's office, looked up and down the corridor, and sauntered away with his hands in his pockets.

Gwennie jumped out of the closet as soon as Laporte was out of sight around the corner of the corridor. The problem now, was to beat him back to The Bitter End so he wouldn't miss her when he returned. Somewhere along the way, she'd stop and give Chris a screen call.

Hugo Ingermann was just buttoning his jacket over the automatic pistol he had tucked in his waistband as he came out of his office. He stood there a moment, looking at the back of the short blonde who was scurrying away down the corridor. Now, that was odd. There "was never anyone in the building at this hour except himself, his callers, and the cleaning help-and he had never seen the cleaning help move that fast. He frowned, then his eyebrows shot up. He quickly locked his office door and moved off after Gwennie with a speed that was surprising for a man of his bulk.

Gwennie hurried down the esplanade, figuring to go back into The Bitter End by the front door, as was her habit after a fresh-air break outdoors. That would be faster than the twisting route Laporte would have to follow down the back alleys. Besides, Laporte wasn't in a hurry-she hoped.

There was a public screen up ahead, under the light. She stopped there, cleared a channel with her card and punched out a call-number combination. She didn't bother to pull the hush-hood. This part of the esplanade was deserted, with the single exception of a grimy old man who was sitting on a bench and swigging reflectively from a bottle.

No answer. She punched it out again. Still no answer. Chris wasn't at home.

She must be at Grego's penthouse, then. Gwennie hesitated a moment, feeling a little awkward, then punched out that combination.

The music and the brandy were unwinding Victor Grego very nicely from the crushing tension of the thousand things he had been thinking about. Naturally, he grimaced irritably and cursed profanely under his breath when his private communications screen chimed softly.

He savagely punched the access key. The colors swirled and burst, dissolving into the image of a short blonde with touseled, cascading curly hair. "What is it?" he asked brusquely.

Gwen was still out of breath from half-running for several hundred meters along the esplanade. "Is Chris there?" she asked.

"Chris?" Grego said querulously. The only person he called Chris was Dr. Jan Christiaan Hoenveld, and he could not for the life of him even begin to speculate why this rather disheveled and breathless young woman should expect the Company's chief biochemist to be at his residence at this time. "Chris?"

he repeated. "Are you sure you have the right screen combination?"

Gwen saw that he did not understand. "Yes, Chris," she said. "Chris Stone. You

don't know me; I'm her friend, Gwen."

"Oh," Grego said, suddenly catching on. "Christiana. No," he said abruptly, still irritated by the interruption. "No, she is not."

"Mr. Grego," Gwen said, "I apologize for calling you at this hour, but I have to get hold of Chris at once."

Grego looked at the readout above the screen. Why, it was past 2200 hours. But there was a wildness in Owen's eyes that was unmistakeable. He softened his voice. "Have you tried her apartment?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," Gwen said. "She's not there. That's why I thought she might still be at your place."

Not there? Grego thought. She must have stopped to pick up some things on the way home. "Well," he said, "I just had my driver take her home a short time ago. Why don't you try again in a little while."

"/ don't have a little while," Gwen pleaded. "I don't know when I'll get another chance to call. Look, will you do something for me?"

Grego hesitated.

"It's very important," Gwen said intensely.

"What is it?" Grego asked.

"Try to get hold of Chris and tell her I've got to talk to her-tonight. It's about the sunstones on Beta."

Grego's ears pricked up instantly. Sunstones on Beta? "What about the sunstones on Beta?" he asked.

"Oh, no," Gwen said, a look of sick terror coming over her face. "No, please.

Please. Please don't-"

Grego was momentarily confused. Then he saw that Gwen was looking at something beyond the angle of the screen's pickup range. There was the sound of two gunshots. Gwen spun off to one side, out of the pickup's transmission frame.