Brian Daley Gammalaw 01 Smoke on the Water v2.0

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his character, Madame Haven, but how that person loses tells all. For losers,
I'd say, they seem to be comporting themselves well."
Dextra narrowed her eyes slightly. "Are you acquainted with my aide, Tonii?"
Quant frowned but limited his response to "I've never met the& individual."
"Then why did you look ready to strike 'erm with that billy club?"
Quant's gaze became polar, and he turned back to his duties.
"I'm not through talking to you yet, Mr. Quant!"
He looked her up and down one last time. "With all due respect, Madame
Hierarch, you are for now. I suggest you direct these questions to your
square-and-schooner Tonii."
* * * *
Dextra told Burning, "I've got to get back to Abraxas. I can't pull any
strings from here."
Kurt Elide was standing by the airlimo, which now held Nike Lightner and her
set along with Claude Mason.
"Captain Hall will see to it you're not bothered; I have an understanding with
him. But keep a tight rein on your people and make no public statements except
what we've discussed."
"Understood."
"Burning, for your own sake, no violence. No incidents at all or you'll play
into LAW's hands."
There was a discreet throat clearing at her elbow. "What's really needed is
someone to serve as liaison with you, Hierarch." Lod, looking well scrubbed
and chivalrously eager to please, had his helmet under his arm. "I volunteer,
since my experience with AlphaLAW Commissioner Renquald on Concordance "
"Makes you indispensable here, Cousin," Burning said, heading him off dryly,
"Where we won't lose track of you."
"That's for the Allgrave to decide, of course," Dextra seconded. Lod showed
only a decorous acceptance.
Dextra took another glance at Burning. It was good that he was sharper-witted
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than his size implied. He was going to need all the edge he could get.
* * * *
What had been a slow news day in Abraxas became one of breaking drama and
looming political spin war as reports gushed in of the Exts' planetfall and
Claude Mason's transfixing plea regarding Aquamarine. Caught unprepared, the
Preservationists were slow getting into action and consequently fast losing
ground. Ignorant of Lightner's hand in the mix, their instant response teams
lacked ammunition or even a compass heading. At the same time leaks about the
suppression of the Aquamarine findings were beginning to surface.
The last straw was an announcement that Cathartoys Inc. would be offering a
line of Ext tie-ins the next day, including games, costumes, and action
simulacrants. Cathartoy's stock was climbing.
In the situation room of his levitating citadel Calvin
Lightner made a jabbing motion at the news holos with an ivory walking stick.
"Kill the audio," he ordered.
Lightner had stopped caring about upset. The only aspect of the whole
imbroglio that continued to interest him was that Dextra Haven had risked
Nike's life to checkmate him. Did Haven think that by doing so she was making
some moral point? Was she offering a cautionary lesson on the perils of
escalating political struggle? If so, she'd been uncharacteristically foolish,
for all she'd done was raise the ante.
Lightner reminded himself that the goal of retribution was seldom advanced by
fixating on rage. He made a summoning motion to Buck Starkweather, Doll Van
Houten, and the select few who had come to La Condition Humaine to celebrate
the Exts' elimination only to bear witness to Calvin Lightner's mortification.
"I'm not sitting still for this," he told them. "I want to review all
contingency files and dark-ops proposals."
Reluctantly, his coconspirators found their way to the room's levi-table for
what promised to be a long council of war. Lightner felt that strategy
sessions were no place for self-indulgence or relaxation, and the chairs were
unyielding and nonadjustable.
"Our first order of business is to silence those involved at the operational
level," Lightner declared. "Especially that bungler Wix Uniday." He looked at
Starkweather. "Buck, that's your job."
While the former Hierarch was trying to blink his bulging eyes back into his
head, Doll Van Houten spoke up. "That's bound to have a rather chilling effect
on current and future hired help, Cal. Uniday's smart and capable, and we may
need him before this is over."
Starkweather managed to find his voice. "Besides, the bloodbath was caused by
the officer in charge of the Manipu-lants. He shouldn't've just attacked like
that."
"That one paid the full penalty in the Damocles's passageway," Hierarch
Lepskaya noted. "LAW will be writing off his death and the deaths of his
troops as a training accident unless anyone here has a better idea." No one
did. "The surviving Manipulants are of course incapable of talking to anyone
outside their unit or Special Troops chain of command."
All Lightner's instincts told him that it was too late to transmogrify the
carnage in the starship into something the Preservationists could use to
crucify the Exts. Any attempt now might even contradict or indict Nike's
conduct and veracity.
"What about deleting the Exts in situ aboard the MatsyaV Starkweather
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