The Summer Thieves Read online

  Johrun shot to his feet. “This is ridiculous! The planet not ours? How could any such huge discrepancy have gone undetected for generations? We have to straighten this out at once!”

  Landon gripped his son’s arm and tugged him back into his seat, saying, “Yes, yes, of course. What do you think we’re doing? We’ve sent all the relevant digital documents and testimonies by drone, and are just awaiting a response. But you should be warned that all of us might have to travel to Bodenshire in person to resolve this vital matter—that is, if our transmitted credentials are deemed insufficient or flawed.”

  Johrun’s excitement dissipated and he grew sober. “It’s a question of your âmago then, I take it.”

  “Yes, that’s precisely it,” said his mother.

  That same ineffable quality, amago, that distinguished real herple meat from fabbed herple meat applied to humans as well. In a time when one could produce fakes and forgeries, living and inanimate, that were indistinguishable on most levels from the originals, there still resided a numinous quality in the originals that could be discerned on certain quantum levels and validated by complex interrogations. Thus the live, in-person testimony of a human or chimera, backed up by brain transcriptions and other subtle biometric data, would take precedence over any secondary documents or information, however authentic seeming. So by appearing on Bodenshire and subjecting themselves to deep vetting, the family could potentially put an end to all doubt about the validity of their claim, by notarizing the data with their authentic experiences.

  Johrun asked, “Why must you all go to testify? Wouldn’t just Grandpa Xul and Grandpa Brayall, as the founders, be enough?”

  Grandma Chirelle explained with her knowledge and authority as keeper of forms and accounts. “It’s the fact that all eight of us constitute the current ownership of Verano. The Brickers need to interrogate us all, to make sure that we are not, say, seven dupes and one malefactor. But you and Minka are exempt, since we have not yet officially enrolled you as co-owners. That new status, not inherent at your birth, was to be one of our wedding presents to you.”

  “And when would this journey have to take place?”

  “That’s what we can’t say, until we hear back from Bodenshire. Maybe it won’t have to happen at all. Our documents might be deemed sufficient. But if the Brickers do summon us, we’d have to go at once. We cannot let a potentially mortal wound like this fester.”

  “And so the wedding might have to be postponed?”

  “That’s the worst possible outcome, yes.”

  Johrun stood up, feeling suddenly weary and hopeless. His incipient marriage to Minka seemed cursed and doomed. But he tried to put a game face on. “If so, I will certainly need to take advantage of that offer of a warm armful of chorines from the Sarzanan casinos.”

  Landon stood also and clapped his son’s shoulder. “That’s the spirit, lad. Buck up and don’t worry about a thing. It’s just a bump in the road, after all. Don’t sweat it, enjoy this time off from the cares of the ranch. I can’t imagine many of our guests would object to staying a few extra days in the lap of free luxury here, while we make a quick jaunt offworld and back. If we have to subsidize their losses back home, we will. What better use of our vast riches, eh?”

  Johrun walked toward the door, still confused and despairing. Minka’s father, Arne, called out.

  “No need to burden Minka with this affair, Joh. We were trying to spare both of you. But I think you’ll agree that since there’s nothing she can do, it would just be an extra worry for her.”

  “I agree. I won’t say a word.” Johrun did not add that he doubted if Minka, in her current condition, would even care.

  Leaving, Johrun noted that no one else in the conference room got up to go. Plainly there were yet more aspects of the trouble to discuss which they saw fit not to encumber him with.

  Out in the public areas of the lodge, amidst the unconcerned and happy clients of an enterprise they did not realize was built on quicksand, Johrun ambled about aimlessly, his thoughts in an awful muddle. Some of the wedding guests attempted to engage him in conversation, often with offers of sharing a drink or a snack or a quick game of bag toss in the games loggia. But Johrun fobbed off all the potential distractions with as much grace and charm as he could muster, still aware of the necessity of maintaining a facade of happiness and ease. He did not encounter Minka and her crowd, nor Lutramella, and was disinclined to actively seek them out. Perhaps talking with Lutramella about this blow might have softened it, or given him confidence in a good outcome. He did want to confide in the trusted splice, as he had so often done in the past. But although he had not been specifically enjoined to secrecy, he felt that the matter was not his to share with anyone outside the immediate family circle.

  Eventually, whether by semiconscious intention or mere chance, he found himself following a flagstone path away from the main buildings. After a few minutes’ walk across the verdant sward dotted with tiny low primula flowers, the path terminated at a monument. In the center of a flagstone circle rose a tall plinth, atop which was the model of an old-fashioned braneship, a beat-up replica familiar to Johrun since birth: the Jangalo one-person explorer named Bumming Around. The plinth bore this inscription:

  DROWNE’S LANDING

  HERE HONKO DROWNE FIRST

  TOUCHED THE LOVING SOIL OF VERANO AND CLAIMED IT FOR HIS OWN—ALTHOUGH HE WAS NOT TO HOLD IT FOR LONG

  THANKS TO THE GOOD FORTUNE OF THE SOLDEVERE AND CORVIVIOS CLANS

  In the light of what he had just learned, the words that had always seemed slightly mocking of Honko Drowne now seemed to direct their gibes in a much more intimate direction.

  CHAPTER 5

  The luxurious outdoor pool at Danger Acres, situated just a little ways off from the main lodge, remained open to the skies year round, taking advantage of the perfect clime of Verano. Surrounded by rambling patios and terraces at several levels, both sunken and elevated, the area also hosted many tables and upright chairs, along with comfortable ergo-squirm loungers, all of the seating capable of being sheltered under large umbrellas checkered in the orange and grey of the establishment, should clients wish shade or should a sudden short rain shower manifest. Bars overflowing with drinks stimulating and soothing, carefully tended fire pits where a dozen delicious dishes roasted (the distinctive smell of barbequed herple prominent), changing cabanas with soft towels—all features were predicated on a deft indulgence of the customers.

  The main in-ground pool was proportioned for a stadium, with long sloping shallow end and a much deeper back half. Side pools, some heated, some chilled, some turbulent with jets, offered more sedate bathing than the active pool where both children and adults roughhoused and frivoled, away from the designated lanes for swimmers clocking their laps.

  Had this been the totality of the facilities, no one would have felt unfulfilled. But the Soldeveres had aimed for an even more dramatic and enticing attraction.

  Above the in-ground pool floated a noncontinuous ziggurat of unboxed water.

  The lowest floating slab of water, whose undersurface hovered about four meters above the pool, conformed to the length and width of the water below it, and was itself some four meters deep. The slab above that was spaced at an equal interval, but was about half the linear dimensions, and centered. There was a third and finally a fourth watery mesa as well, in similar ratios and alignments.

  A floating fifth-force projector at all eight corners of each water brick kept the liquid mass aloft. In event of catastrophic failure, a most ingenious system was in place to prevent the people on the ground from being crushed by tons of liquid. The entire falling bulk of water would be instantly flashed away into an adjacent brane by concealed dimensional engines. The normal imperfections and hazards attendant on such teleportation from a planet’s surface did not apply, since the water cared not for any unachievable destination; it was a one-way trip.

  Theoretically, any swimmers unfortunate enough to be present in th
e floating slabs at the time of such an unlikely catastrophe would be excluded from the expulsion by a type of Maxwell’s Demon filter that recognized their vambraces and shielded them from the forced transit. The hapless individuals would then of course fall from a maximum height of thirty-two meters, if in the top tier, sustaining commensurate injuries. But given the state of medical intervention provided by the Pollys, their fate would be trivial, compared to being banished to another inhospitable universe.

  The upper pools were accessed by a mechanism elegant and easy to use.

  At the edge of the whole pool complex closest to the lodge, a series of partially railing’d floater plates circulated slowly through the air like the seats of an otherwise invisible Ferris wheel. When a plate reached the nadir of the circuit, ground-level, a person stepped on and was lofted upward. Each slab of water featured an adjacent floating platform onto which the rider could step from the moving plate. From there, diving into each floating slab was trivial.

  One final feature added to the fun. The suspension mechanism also recognized the presence of a vambrace, and would allow a swimmer to force themselves out the bottom skin of each water brick and plummet to the next one.

  This aspect allowed for massive games of tag across all four floating levels and into the ground-based pool, with players exiting and entering the levels and employing the floater discs in a wild rumpus which sometimes got so out of hand that intervention by the lifeguards was mandated.

  Such a scene was underway when Johrun emerged from the lodge with Minka by his side.

  Amazingly, he had found his fiancée waiting in her room at noon as he had stipulated. Her noxious chums were nowhere about.

  Johrun had arrived still anxious about the bad news conveyed by his family council, and worried about making a slip and disclosing the troubles to Minka. But when the door to her room opened and he saw her in an absurdly tiny swimsuit fashioned of scaly yellow lizard skin mottled with iridescent crimson blotches, he forgot everything except his desire for this woman, and their long separation.

  Johrun plunged into the room, swept Minka into his arms and sent the door slamming shut with a rearward kick. He snatched her up and hurtled toward the bed. Minka seemed nowise averse to this impetuous siege, and in fact had wrapped her legs around Johrun’s hips and her arms around his neck. Her signature bottled scent of sea pine and orris filled his nostrils. He toppled with her onto the unmade bed. Dressed in a fluffy white belted robe, swim trunks, and biopoly scuffs, Johrun was soon bare. Having less clothing to remove, Minka outpaced him, and without any foreplay they were instantly engaged in sex.

  At one point Johrun had both hands around Minka’s waist, thumbs pressing her supple belly, and he thought to feel something anomalous beneath her skin, a lump or submerged sac or organ suddenly adrift. But amidst the sensory deluge flooding in from elsewhere he could not be sure he had felt anything, and a moment later the impression had dissipated.

  Minka’s lovemaking matched Johrun’s in intensity, and in fact she exhibited rather more facility and innovation than the last time they had connected—about six months ago. Johrun tried not to think about what such educational developments betokened.

  When they had finished, and after Johrun had recovered some portion of his senses, he anticipated an interval of tenderness and cuddling. But upon reaching out to stroke Minka’s face, he found her staring at the ceiling, her cheeks wet. He levered himself up on one elbow.

  “Minka, darling—what is it? What’s wrong?”

  Her voice was stony, almost possessed, as if emerging from the end of a long tunnel. “Nothing is as it seems. We can’t know anything. And nothing lasts.”

  “Yes, of course, of course. Philosophy 101. If that’s all you learned at Fontessa and Kuno, Uncle Arne should ask for a refund. I mean, come on, we all acknowledge those harsh truths. Life’s meaning is hidden, and our span all too short, a mere two centuries or so. But these stern realities are not for this moment, Minka. Not while we are young, and on the eve of our marriage. Right now they can still be ignored or postponed or even mocked. And we should do so.”

  Minka got up with a sudden and almost violent spastic movement, before assuming her normal graceful stance. She reclaimed her suit and then added her own robe and scuffs. Perplexed, Johrun was bound to follow her lead. When both of them were dressed she turned to him. Inexplicably, her face showed nothing but the same slightly daft and reckless glee she had flashed on and off since her calamitous arrival. It was as if her intense despair of just a minute ago had been wiped clean from her memory.

  “I’m so eager for a swim, Joh! Let’s go! It won’t be as private as Lake Yusaima, but it’ll be much more fun!”

  Biting back all his incoherent confusion, Johrun accompanied Minka out of her room.

  In the corridor, he asked, “Where’s your gang of reprobates?”

  “Oh, Anders and the others couldn’t wait to get in the water, and I was still enjoying a croissant and mocambo I brought back to the room. He’s such a big child sometimes. So I told them just to go ahead. I hate to be rushed, you should know that.”

  “Of course. And I’m very glad you stayed behind.”

  Minka did not see fit to return Johrun’s enthusiasm.

  Exiting the lodge with Minka, Johrun quickly observed that her estimation of her fellows’ eagerness to play had not been overstated.

  The five graduates were dominating the various pools with a boisterous game of multilevel tag. They jostled others boorishly and hogged the water, but the lifeguards did not intervene, perhaps in deference to their status as favored wedding guests of the owners. Their ruckus was replete with much shouting and many catcalls, gibes, and challenges issued whenever their heads emerged from the water.

  “You’re slower than Tullian loris!”

  “You couldn’t catch your grandmother if she were wearing a glitchy mechasuit!”

  Johrun spotted a familiar figure reclining on a lounger: Lutramella. The freed splice wore a modest one-piece swimsuit in blue and white that revealed her gracile limbs and short pelt with its subtle gradations of several colors. She did not boast a waist per se, nor hips nor bust, but seemed all of a solid, flexible roundness. Two empty chairs to one side of the splice beckoned. Johrun ambled over, Minka following.

  “Lu, you look the most relaxed I’ve ever seen you.”

  The splice smiled. “Tensions I hardly knew I was harboring have vanished with this.” She held up her arm with its vambrace.

  Minka frowned. “What is that creature doing with an instrument so far above its station?”

  Johrun realized that he had not had a moment to tell Minka about Lutramella’s manumission, so he explained.

  Minka sniffed. “If she takes her illusory new freedom to Vinca’s Ebb to be with her own kind, I won’t mind. But otherwise . . .”

  Johrun sighed inside. So much for his dream of a future household on Verano that would offer his old nursemaid a pleasant end to her days. But he couldn’t worry overmuch about that, with other crises on his mind.

  Johrun took the chair beside Lutramella, and Minka occupied the one furthest from the splice. She clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Oh, Anders, don’t take that! Get him!”

  Anders Braulio appeared to have just been nominated “it,” and the game apparently called for anyone he tagged to retire from the field.

  Currently at ground level, he heaved himself from the water and rushed to the circulating aerial discs. He hopped on one, but did not wait for its slow ascent. He leaped upward to the next disc, catching its rim and hauling himself onboard. In a succession of such risky leaps he caught up with Ox Nixon hesitating on the third-level platform. The giant man’s reaction time seemed to match his bone-headed namesake, and he was instantly tagged. From there Anders dived into the penultimate water brick and caught up with a frantically flailing Trina Mirid, quickly disposing of her. Anders slipped from the underskin of that level and flashed through the intervening air like a bird of prey
and into the second layer with barely a splash. Here he had more of a contest with the slippery and wily Viana Salp, but in the end she too was nabbed. This left only Braheem Porter, who proved the most elusive. The two men conducted a wild wet chase that eventually involved all four floating levels before Braheem was ultimately retired.

  As the contestants were eliminated and returned to poolside, they spotted Minka and came to cluster around the bride and groom, standing and heedlessly dripping over everyone while they chatted. Johrun had his first chance to observe Minka’s friends in near-nude condition. Ox’s body featured heavy dorsal and ventral plates like those on a pangolin, riding atop incredible musculature. The voluptuous Trina seemed a confection of whipped cream and spongecake. Viana’s figure, although boyish, hinted at reservoirs of sensuality. To match his giveaway symbolical facial hair, Braheem’s dark skin crawled with the golden glyphs associated with the Obligates of Cofferkey.

  Just moments after the last-named arrived, they were quickly joined by the victor, Anders Braulio. Buff and potent at the high end of the baseline human spectrum, without obvious sartorizations, Anders seemed not even winded by his exertions.

  “Ho, girl, did you catch all that chase?”

  Minka said, “You were marvelous!”

  “I could do it all over again. But I think I’ll sit for a while. Ox, fetch me one of those delicious bloodmelon shandies from the nearest barista.”

  Anders turned to Lutramella. “Up, khyme, and let a weary human have your seat.”

  A red scrim dropped in front of Johrun’s vision. He was about to speak out boldly when Lutramella, with a meaningful glance, forestalled him. Rising neatly, she said, “I was just about to take a swim. The chair is yours.” She began to walk away.

  Anders flopped into the seat. “Go and paddle about then. But beware of the deep end. Many a swamp rat has met a nasty fate when venturing over their head.”

  Lutramella stopped. “I can take care of myself, thank you. I enjoy the water.”