Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [229]
"Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc," Micaya said formally.
"Um. PTA shipment? I'll sign for it in a minute. Just got to finish this one thing. . . ."
The contact button's resolution wasn't enough for Nancia to read the words on the computer screen, but she recognized the seven-tone response code that chimed out when Blaize slapped his open hand on the palmpad. An interplanetary transmission—no, intersubspace; he had just sent something to . . . Nancia rummaged through her files and identified the code. To Central Diplomatic headquarters? What could they have to do with Angalia, a planet where no intelligent sentients existed? Had Blaize's net of corruption drawn in some of her father's and Forister's own colleagues?
"There!" As the last notes of the code chimed out, Blaize swung round, a seraphic smile on his freckled face. "And what—"
His expression changed rapidly and almost comically at the sight of Micaya Questar-Benn in full uniform. "You," he said slowly, "are not PTA."
"Quite correct," said Micaya. "Your activities have attracted some attention in other quarters."
Blaize's jaw thrust out and his freckles seemed to take on a glowing life of their own. "Well, it's too late. You can't stop me now!"
"Can't I?" Micaya's tone was deceptively mild.
"I've sent a full report to CenDip. I don't care who your friends in PTA may be, they'll have to leave Angalia alone now."
"My dear boy," said Micaya, "haven't you got it backwards? You're the one employed by Planetary Technical Aid. Or rather, you were."
Nancia had been so caught up in the dialogue, she never noticed when Forister slipped out of her central cabin and made his way down the stairs. She was as startled as Blaize when Forister appeared in the doorway of the hut, just on the periphery of her view from the contact button.
"Uncle Forister!" Blaize exclaimed. "What's going on here? Can you help—"
"Don't call me uncle," Forister said between his teeth. "I'm here with General Questar-Benn to stop you, boy, not to help you!"
Blaize went green between the spattering of freckles. He closed his eyes for a moment and looked as if he wanted to be sick. "Not you too?"
"You didn't think family feeling would extend so far as helping you exploit and torture these innocents?"
"Torture? Exploit?" Blaize gasped. "I—oh, no. Uncle Forister, have you by any chance been talking to a girl named Fassa del Parma y Polo? Or Alpha bint Hezra-Fong? Or Darnell—"
"All three of them," Forister confirmed, "and—what the devil is so funny about that?"
For Blaize had all but doubled up, snorting with repressed laughter. "My sins come back to haunt me," he gasped between snorts.
"I don't see what's so funny about it." Forister's own face had gone white and there was a pinched look about the corners of his mouth.
"You wouldn't. Not yet. But when I—Oh, Lord! This is one complication I never—" Blaize sputtered into hysterical laughter that ended only when Forister slammed a fist into his belly. Blaize was still crowing and wheezing for breath when a second blow to the jaw knocked his head back and flung him in an undignified collapse against the rickety table where his computing equipment had been stacked. Blaize's legs folded under him and he slid gently to the floor. Behind him, the table rocked and wobbled dangerously. The palmpad skated to one corner of the table top and hung on a splinter. A shower of flimsy blue hardcopies fluttered down over Blaize in a gentle, rustling rain of reports and accounting figures and PTA instructions.
Forister snatched one sheet as it drifted down and studied the column of figures for a moment, brows raised. When his eyes reached the bottom of the page, he looked tired and gray and showed every year of his age.
"Proof positive," he commented as he passed the paper to Micaya, "if any was needed."
Micaya held the paper where Nancia could focus on it through the contact button. The figures wobbled and danced in Micaya's hand; grimly