Surface Detail

Veppers looked round at Jasken, standing braced behind him, Oculenses on, holding on to a handle set into the bulkhead behind, his other arm still in its cast and supported by the sling. “Jasken, why don’t you come and show us how it’s done while I talk to Miss Crederre here.”

“Sir.”

“Lehktevi,” Veppers said, “why don’t you go and see how our pilot’s doing?”

“Certainly, sir.” Lehktevi swung out of her seat, long legs flashing beneath a short skirt, massed dark hair tumbling as she pivoted to disappear though the doorway leading to the aircraft’s main cabin.

Jasken sat in her seat. He pushed the Oculenses up his head, switched on the laser rifle in front of him and cradled it, one-armed. He got a shot off almost immediately, nailing a young blackbird in a detonation of indigo feathers. It fell back to the coppery foliage rushing past beneath.

“Aren’t you worried your mistress will distract the pilot?” Crederre asked Veppers. “This thing does fly awfully low, and she is, well, distracting.”

“Wouldn’t matter if she did,” Veppers said, nudging a button to bring his seat and Crederre’s closer together. Motors whined; the girl’s brows rose a little as she watched the gap between their seats shrink to nothing, padded armrests touching. “It’s all done automatically,” he explained. “Pilot’s redundant, almost irrelevant. Most critical operation they perform is punching in the destination coordinates. There are five separate terrain-following systems making sure we stay just above the scenery, without becoming part of it.”

“Five? My,” she said quietly, sounding conspiratorial and dipping her head towards him, her long straight blonde hair nearly touching the soft material of his shirt. Was she trying to flirt with him, or being sarcastic? He found it hard to tell the difference with young women sometimes, despite all his experience. “Why so many?” she asked.

“Why not?” he countered. “Always best to have lots of redundancy with something so critical. Doesn’t really cost, either; I own the company that makes them – makes the whole aircraft,” he said, glancing about them. Jasken blasted another blackbird, then another. “Actually, the pilots are there more for legal reasons than anything else.” He shrugged. “I blame the unions. Bane of my life. Though,” he said, tapping the girl on her bare forearm – she wore a knee-length, short-sleeved, soft-looking dress which appeared plain but expensive at the same time – “I should point out that Lehktevi isn’t a mistress.”

“More of a whore?”

Veppers smiled tolerantly. “She’s staff; a servant. It’s just that her duties are principally sexual in nature.” He looked thought-fully at the door she’d gone through. “Dare say there’s a union for her profession too.” He looked back at Crederre, who appeared not to be following all this. “I don’t really hold with unions, not amongst the staff,” he explained. “Divided loyalties. Does mean I have to pay more for her services though.”

“How terrible for you,” she said.

He heard her stepmother, Jeussere, in the remark. She’d been one of his lovers, once. Too long ago for Crederre to be his, though.

“I know, isn’t it?” he said. He’d decided: it might be quite amusing to bed the girl. A sort of continuance. Jeussere might even have been intending it. She’d been a young woman of slightly odd and exotic sexual tastes in her time – who knew? “I have this frighteningly tiresome hearing this afternoon,” he said as Jasken fired again, downing something large and copper-coloured, “but I’m free this evening. Let me buy you dinner. Is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to go?”

“That’s very kind. I’ll let you choose. Just you and me?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling at her again. “Private room, I’d suggest. I’ll get my fill of crowds at the hearing this afternoon.”

“A court hearing?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Why, have you done something terrible?”

“Oh, I’ve done many terrible things,” he confided, leaning over close to her. “Though probably not what I’m being accused of today. Well, possibly not. It’s hard to say.”

“Don’t you know?”

He grinned. “Honestly, I don’t.” He tapped his temple. “I am the most frightfully old man really, you know.”

“One hundred and seventy-eight, is that true?”

“One hundred and seventy-eight-ish,” he agreed. He held out his arms, looked down at his fit, taut, muscular frame. “And yet I look, well; you tell me. What would you say?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, looking down modestly. “Thirty?”