Galactic Empires by Gardner Dozois Read Free Book Online Page A

shut behind them,” Nelson said. “It’ll be a bolt hole for malcontents the Commonwealth over. Everyone is better off afterward.”
    “An old-fashioned pressure valve for hotheads,” Paula muttered.
    “So the Dynasty leaders decided,” he admitted. “It still galls me that the real culprits behind the attacks won’t be brought to justice. But that’s a political price, and it gets set far above our heads.”
    *
    The club was underneath a twenty-second-century retro-Napoleonic building on the Left Bank. It was chic enough, though there were far more expensive places in Paris, but aside from Christabel herself, no one from the Serious Crimes Directorate office could afford an evening partying with the truly wealthy Grand Family members who colonized such establishments-and Christabel never pushed her heritage on anyone. Until tonight.
    It was dark inside the annular vault, a gloom punctured by holographic blobs oscillating with naughty subliminal vibrations. Paula flinched as she walked down the stairs to the floor; the sound system was like a derated sonic weapon. Glass galleries enlivened by violet light ran around the high stone walls at two levels, linked by curving glass stairs. People thronged along them, Paris’s eternal clique of bohemians, wearing clothes of semi-organic fabric embossed with elaborate patterns that merged seamlessly into the vivid OCtattoos on their skin. It was hard to tell what was fabric and what was flesh. Feathers were the current merging trend, curving fronds longer than ostrich quills that sprouted from the spine. Six months ago, it had been membrane petals. Several men displayed their plumage as Paula walked by, having it fan out on either side of their shoulders like wings. One was pure angel white, with a divine body to match. She smiled modestly and walked on, immune to such raffish peacocks.
    Christabel was close to the bar inside the central circle of pillars, knocking back a tall glass of Ritz Pimms. Her lips were microlayered gold. Whenever a hologram floated across her, they sparkled dazzlingly.
    “You made it!” she shouted at Paula. Paula snagged a glass from a waitress. “Cheers!”
    “Is he here?”
    Paula shrugged, pretending not to understand. But there was a specific reason she was wearing a traditional little black dress with a semi-organic hem that swirled about of its own volition. In her newly youthful body, it made her look hot, and she knew it. Several junior investigators were staring in a way they’d never dare back at the office. “Congratulations,” Paula said. “Traitor.”
    Christabel laughed. “I’ve served my time. And I made chief investigator on merit alone. That’s what I needed. For myself if not the Dynasty.”
    “You’ll be a loss to the Directorate.”
    Christabel leaned in a fraction. “The Dynasty is going to need me. Our entire concept of security is going to have to be revised, thanks to our idiot founders giving in to Merioneth. I heard that everyone is now pouring funds into researching personal-sized force-field generators. And they’re all beefing up the defenses on our private worlds.”
    “Typical. So am I allowed to ask what department you’re joining?”
    “Deputy manager EdenBurg protection.”
    “Wow. Big field.”
    “Yeah. Give me a couple of decades and I’ll make it to chief of the division. After that…” She trailed off and drained her glass.
    “You’ll be locking horns with Nelson.”
    “Nhaaa. He’s too smart. We’ll get on, at that level you have to.”
    “Speaking of which-”
    “Of course. We’ll dataswap. Happy to. Unless dear old grandma Heather actually kills someone—then I’ll be helping to cover her arse.”
    “It’s not your Dynasty’s founder I’m interested in.”
    “Oh?” Christabel plucked another glass from the bar.
    Paula thought that she looked defensive. How quickly alliances shift . “If you get the chance to access your Dynasty’s file on the Merioneth Isolation,