House of Shards by Walter Jon Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

insisted on clothing that was difficult of access: it demonstrated the need for servants, or at least for cleverly programmed robots. Roman took the jacket and placed it on a hanger. Maijstral flexed his arms, rotated them, then stripped off his empty shoulder holster, sat down on a chair, and held up his feet. Roman drew off his buskins and trousers.
    “We shall have to alter our schedule, gentlemen,” Maijstral said. He planted his feet on the floor, dug his toes into the carpet. “Tonight's plan may proceed, but we should postpone our plans for tomorrow.”
    Gregor had strapped on goggles that allowed him to perceive energy field formations. He looked up at Maijstral with silver insect eyes. “Something has come up, sir?” The hi-stick bobbled in his mouth as he spoke.
    Maijstral paused, enjoying the suspense. “The Eltdown Shard is onstation,” he said. “Tomorrow night we're going to steal it.”
    There was a moment of silence, filled only by the whisper of air through the vents.
    Roman folded Maijstral’s trousers, the creases sharp as a knife. He put the trousers on a hanger.
    “Very good, sir,” he said. Which was Roman all over.
    *
    “With both of them in this small a place, what do you think of the possibility of a duel?”
    “Miss Asperson, I hope they blow their brains out.”
    *
    Paavo Kuusinen, pursuing the scent of mystery, followed Geoff Fu George and Vanessa Runciter to their suite. He walked past their door, stepped down a side corridor, and paused a moment, frowning. His cane tapped in time to his thoughts.
    The period immediately following a theft by a registered burglar was the most dangerous for the thief: if he could hang onto his loot past midnight of the second day, it became his legal property; but in the interim he could be arrested for stealing. Furthermore, he had to keep the take in his possession, at his residence or on his person.
    What would Fu George do with the pearl? Kuusinen wondered. Keep it in his room, or on his body?
    A Cygnus Advanced Object, its black carapace reflecting each overhead spotlight as it glided down the hallway, lowered a covered tray before Fu George’s door, politely knocked with its force fields, then moved on down the hall. Kuusinen ducked down his side corridor and sensed, rather than saw, the robot cross the corridor behind him. He heard Fu George’s door open, then close.
    Kuusinen hesitated, tapping his cane on the carpet. The robot had gone into a dead-end corridor, and he wondered why. Then he turned and retraced his steps.
    He couldn’t help himself. He was in the grip of a compulsion.
    Paavo Kuusinen was the sort of man who was nagged at by irregularities. It wasn’t that he disapproved of them, precisely: he didn’t care whether or not things were irregular; he just wanted to know why. In this regard he was unlike, for example, Mr. Sun, who would in the same circumstances have done his best to make things regular again. But making discoveries was a compulsion for Kuusinen. Sometimes his compulsion aided him in his work; sometimes—as now— it was purely an interference.
    He looked around the corner. An access panel was open in the wall of the dead-end corridor. The robot had obviously gone inside on some errand. Perhaps the access tunnel connected to another corridor somewhere.
    Mystery solved. Kuusinen shrugged and began walking toward his own room. It was time to change for dinner.
    It wasn’t until he saw three uniformed security guards rushing up the corridor, each with hand on gun, that Kuusinen began to wonder.
    Robot, he thought. Guards. Secret doors in the walls. Fu George and a covered tray.
    Kuusinen sighed. He was beginning to get that nagging feeling again.
    *
    The soft sounds of a Snail concerto hung suspended from soft aural bands, filling the room. Another yellow light blinked on one of Gregor’s boxes. He smirked. “Another Advanced Object in the walls,” he said. This was the third light blinking on the box, the third