Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [43]
“We can’t,” said Riker. Not if we’re to keep Norayan’s secret, as I promised.
“We can’t?”
“No.”
Lyneea’s brow wrinkled. “Why not?”
“Trust me,” he told her. “We just can’t.”
Her eyes narrowed. “There you go again, Riker. Keeping things from your partner.” A little muscle in her jaw began to twitch. “If you’ve really got a good reason to keep this kind of information from the first official of Madraga Criathis—the man to whom I’ve sworn my loyalty—then I want to hear it.” She pointed a gloved finger at him. “But I’m telling you in advance—I don’t think there’s a reason in the world that’s even halfway good enough to make me do that.”
Riker started to object and then realized it was no use. There was only one thing he could say at this juncture that would keep Lyneea from going to her superior.
The truth.
Forgive me, Norayan.
He didn’t hold anything back. He related the whole story, just as Norayan had related it to him. And by the time he was done, Lyneea’s expression had lost some of its hardness.
“Well,” she said at last, “that does put a different face on matters. Norayan is a great asset to Criathis. Mind you, I don’t approve of what she did. But her exposure could only hurt the madraga.”
Riker breathed a sigh of relief. “Then you’ll keep Norayan’s secret?”
Lyneea frowned. “Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “I’d hoped you’d see it that way.”
“But if we are to handle this ourselves, Riker, we must be careful. Very careful. We can’t afford to let Rhurig know of our investigation, or we could find ourselves sharing a pit with your friend.”
“I agree,” he said, shutting out her image. He held out the emblem. “Is there something we can do with this?”
She thought for a moment. “Yes,” she decided. “There is. Every madraga member’s emblem is just a little different from any other—a vanity that seems to pervade Impriman society. You or I might be hard-pressed to tell whose tunic that came from, even if we had another of his tunics lying right beside it. But there is one man in Besidia who can identify it at a glance.”
“And that is?” he asked.
“His tailor,” she told him.
Chapter Eight
PLUNK.
There was something immensely soothing about repetition, Picard noted. Automation has relieved us of the need for it, but perhaps that is not all good. For at least the hundredth time in the last half hour, he lunged.
It was an easy, graceful motion—one he had been taught long ago at Salle Guillaume, on the Rive Gauche in Paris. In fact, his old fencing den had provided the inspiration for this dark, hardwood environment he’d created here in the holodeck.
He could almost hear the gibes of his fencing master: “Like a cat, not like your plodding old grandmother. Watch me now, Jean-Luc!”
First the point, as if it had a will of its own, an energy independent of the fencer himself. Then the arm, pulled by that headstrong point, and finally the rest of him, until his right leg had no choice but to fly out and catch his weight.
Head held high, left shoulder back. Trapezius muscles relaxed to permit maximum extension. Balance, always balance.
Of course, none of this really mattered unless the ultimate goal was reached, the ultimate test met and passed. Everything depended on that hard black rubber ball hanging by its meter-long cord just a few feet in front of him.
Plunk.
If it swung straight back, he had succeeded. If it bounced or shot off in an oblique direction, he would know that his mechanics had been off, that perhaps he had not been as graceful as he’d thought.
It swung straight back.
For good measure, he held his lunge until the ball returned. Just as he would have in a match, in anticipation of a counterattack.
Plunk.
Once again he caught it on his point, but it didn’t swing out nearly as far this time. Then, shifting his weight back onto his left leg, he withdrew and retreated to an en garde position to wait for the ball to