Investments by Walter Jon Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

reassured,” Terza said. She had just come from her dressing room, where she’d prepared for bed: her black hair had been brushed till it glowed and then tied with ribbon, and her face was scrubbed of cosmetic and softly sheened with health. Over her nightgown she wore a bed jacket that crackled with gold brocade.
    After Shon-dan’s astronomical exhibition they’d retired to their suite, glossy light behl wood paneling veined in blood-red, a video screen in a lacy Rakthan frame, a bathtub hacked out of a single block of chocolate-brown marble and which— to avoid gooseflesh on entering— was warmed by hidden heating elements of a vaguely sonic nature.
    “My father could have worse hobbies,” Martinez pointed out. “Racing pai-car chariots, say.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll try to keep that in mind, too.”
    Twenty days on the small vessel had, perhaps, begun to unravel slightly the serenity that Terza carried with her, the unearthly tranquility that Martinez had come to admire as her greatest accomplishment. He rose from his chair and stood behind her, his big hands working through the crisp silk of her jacket to loosen her shoulder muscles. She sighed and relaxed against him.
    “You miss Gareth, don’t you?” he asked.
    “Yes. Of course.”
    “So do I.”
    They had not spent so much time apart from the boy since he had been born.
    “This has got to be dull for you,” Martinez said. “Maybe we should have left you on Laredo.”
    “Dull?” Her tone was amused. “Reviewing contracts in hopes of discovering hidden felonies? Surely not.”
    He smiled. “Won’t it be exciting if you actually find one?”
    “But I won’t find one. Not in the contracts. Lawyers have been all over the contracts to make sure no hint of impropriety will be found. If there’s anything to be found, it will be in interpretation and practice.”
    He hadn’t been able to obtain any of the contracts that the Cree Company had signed with their prime contractor— neither he nor Terza nor Roland were officers of the company. But in his capacity as Lord Inspector he’d acquired the entire file of the dealings the Meridian Company had with the Fleet, for building Fleet installations on Cree and in Cree orbit. But Martinez hadn’t enough experience to understand the contracts particularly well, and so Terza had been pressed into the job.
    “Escalator clauses are always suspect, and the contracts have plenty of them,” Terza said. “On a big job there are always a thousand places to hide illegitimate expenses, and this job is literally as big as a planet. Meridian is allowed to revise the estimates if unexpected conditions cause their own costs to rise, and there are always unexpected conditions. A little to the right, please.”
    Martinez obliged. “Surely they can’t jack up their expenses forever,” he said.
    “No. In the case of the Fleet contracts, the local Fleet representative has to agree that the rises are justified.”
    “According to the records she almost always did,” Martinez said. “And now she’s received her captaincy and has been posted to the Fourth Fleet, so I won’t be able to ask her any questions.”
    Amusement returned to Terza’s voice. “I’m sure that if you saw her, she would of course immediately inform you of any unjustified cost overrides that she’d personally approved. I think you’re better off with the new commander. He won’t be obliged to defend his predecessor’s expenses.” She stretched, raising her arms over her head, torquing her spine left and right. Martinez could feel the muscles flex beneath his fingertips.
    He left off his massage as she bent forward, flexing her spine again, pressing her palms to the deep pile carpet. She straightened, sighed, turned to face him.
    “Thank you,” she said. She put her arms around him, pillowed her head on his chest. “This could still be a pleasant vacation, you know.”
    I’ve been on vacation for three years, he wanted to say.