CHAPTER FOUR

An armed man in the crimson livery of the Dyson family waved. His helmet speakers boomed, "All right, clear to land."

The air car sagged gratefully into the courtyard of Slade House. The vehicle's bright caparisoning had been stained by spray and perhaps a storm in its journey from one of the more distant of the Council Islands—baronies, in effect—of Tethys. There were more shouted orders from the man in crimson. The driver lifted minusculely and slid the car sideways. It joined the line of other cars parked along the courtyard's southern wall.

More than a score of Councilors had already arrived. Teddy Slade did not recognize the trappings of this vehicle, nor could he place the youngish man who got out of it with his entourage of flunkies.

"Wasn't used to be like this, Teddy," rasped Coon Blegan. The old man shifted on the skirt of the gun drone to take some of his belly's pressure off his belt. "If your great grand-dad'd learned a Dyson was giving orders in the compound, he'd have reached for his boat gun. And their tarted-up bully boys running things at Slade House, well . . . ."

Blegan morosely scratched his left armpit. Thomas Slade had ordered Blegan to stop wearing his illegal shoulder holster when he appointed the old retainer as servant to his son Edward. Increasingly since Master Thomas had died, the old man had felt the lack of a burden he had thought he had forgotten. "Didn't call the old man Devil for nothing, you know," Coon went on. "Devil Don. Always wondered how it came they named your uncle after him, Teddy. Wouldn't have thought there was any way to know how a little baby like that was going to grow up."

The youth's control was born of a lifetime's experience with Blegan. He said, "Perhaps Uncle Donald had a chance to grow into a perfectly decent, useful human being like Father, Coon. Only he heard too much talk by old farts about the grand days of the Settlement, when a Slade could shoot a man for looking cross-eyed. I'd be obliged if nobody tried to repeat the experiment with me."

Three more cars were approaching over the perimeter wall; the Rices and the Mortons, trailed by a larger van carrying additional retainers for Madame Morton. Even when everyone arrived, however, the most noticeable livery would be crimson. The Dysons shared Main Island with the Slades—and the Port, which was supposed to be neutral ground for all the Councilors. Even if Beverly Dyson had needed to bring his men in from half across the planet, however, they would have been here in strength for the present occasion.

"It was never like that, Teddy," Blegan said.

"Via!" the youth shouted. "All the rest of the world can remember to call me 'Edward', Coon—at least part of the time. How come you can't?"

Blegan looked at young Slade reproachfully. "Perhaps I didn't think the rest of the world knew you the way I do, Master Edward," he said. "But I'm an old man and ready to be cut up for bait, I'm sure."

"Oh, Lord and Martyrs, Coon," Teddy muttered. He squeezed Blegan's hand. "What's a word matter? But I wish . . ." He looked up. A supply truck was balancing awkwardly in the air, waiting for landing permission from the man in crimson. The truck's color was weather-beaten blue-green, Slade Blue. "But I wish . . . ." the youth repeated, and he let his voice trail off again.

"Things were hard during the Settlement, they tell me," Coon Blegan said. He did not look at Slade, just squeezed the lad's hand and released it. "I'm not that old, not even Coon, but they told me. These—" he patted the skirt of the gun drone. For all the old man's apparent flabbiness, the metal rang with authority. "These weren't for men, they were for the orcs and the knife-jaws. I know you don't believe it because they steer clear of Council Islands by now, but I myself saw an orc come right over this wall."

Coon waved toward the three-meter perimeter barrier, then back up at the gun of the drone the pair of them leaned against. "Ten centimeter bolts cooked her just fine, same's they did during Settlement when the orcs came in packs."

"Those days are over, Coon," Slade said quietly as he watched liveried hangers-on rumaging through the provisions truck. They were squabbling, each of a dozen parties trying to snare any special delicacy for the Councilor whom they served.

"Ooh, aye," Blegan agreed, "and glad I am, too, an old man like me doesn't need excitement." He paused. "But I didn't need to carry your father back dead from the Port, either, with a knife through his belly and half his ribs. He'd not have gone there alone had he an ounce of sense, not the way things are now."

Teddy swung in front of the old servant and took him by the hands. "Don't you see, Coon?" he demanded. "It won't make this a better world to live in if people like us help tear down civilization the way the thugs at the Port do. We need order here, but we won't get it by the two of us buckling up like vigilantes and getting ourselves killed too. If the only way to keep decent men from dying in the street was to make Beverly Dyson the President, then—I'm glad of that too."

"That one," said Coon Blegan, but he smiled and did not spit as young Slade had expected. The youth did not recognize the smile any more than he had recognized Coon's gesture toward his armpit for what it was.

Blegan was watching the crowd around the truck. A knife had flashed, then gone sailing through the air as a coda to the crack of wood on bone. Men cheered as the group broke apart. Durotige, a big man in Slade coveralls marked as well with a crimson stripe, roared triumph. He was swelling in the congratulations of liverymen who stayed clear of his artfully-spinning nunchaku. Durotige fed the chain-linked batons in a figure-8, between his legs and over his shoulders alternately.

His opponent of a moment before wore shabby green and scarlet livery. He was hunched over, holding a right forearm that was probably broken. The injured man backed and cursed as the outward arch of the nunchaku snapped just short of his nose. Durotige had been a Slade Under-Steward a month before. That his constituency had now changed was shown by the stripe on his trousers—and by the enthusiasm with which the crimson Dyson claque supported him.

"Beverly Dyson," the old servant repeated grimly. "That one wants to piss with the big dogs, but I don't think he can raise his leg high enough. One of these days Master Donald'll come home . . . and there'll be some to learn why your Uncle was nicknamed what he was."