The Prior entered the chamber accompanied by Valentina, half a dozen acolytes, and a pair of spacers. They walked toward the couch, hidden behind drapes made by hanging gray robes from a frame of plastic piping. The spacers guarding Count Klimov watched with grim expressions.
“Let’s join them,” Adele said. There were grunts of pleased agreement from the Sissies about her. An oracle was a novelty in itself. Even if they were convinced of the need to stand guard the way they’d been doing, it was numbingly boring work.
Adele had another reason for her decision. If the Count had gotten the answer to his question, he’d probably want to leave New Delphi immediately. She needed to be present to represent the Sissies, and to represent herself.
The Prior was waiting; the girl Margarida supported his arm. He bowed to Adele, then pulled open the screen with his free hand; other acolytes set to removing the structure completely. Valentina walked to where her husband lay, sleeping with his mouth part open. Adele could hear the Count snoring softly.
“Speak quietly,” the Prior directed her. “You can touch him, but do so gently.”
“Georgi?” Valentina said. She bent over the couch and took the Count’s hands in hers, chafing them lightly. “Wake up, dear one. It’s morning.”
The Count opened his eyes. He started to lift his torso. His wife put her arm around him to help, but he seemed fit enough.
“I dreamed,” he said in a tone of bright wonder. “I remember. The Institutions, Book Ten, Caput Three. But I don’t know what it means.”
“It’s a book citation,” Adele said. She stepped back to the console; she’d downloaded the index files to her handheld, but at the moment it was simpler to use the console already displaying the data rather than sitting on the floor with the little unit on her lap.
She scrolled, searched, and repeated the search. Twelve hits, titles including the word Institutions, and none of them likely to have any bearing on the Earth Diamond.
She looked at the Prior; he’d almost fallen when the Count spoke. Margarida was supporting his whole weight with an expression of terror.
“Sir,” Adele said. “Where are The Institutions shelved?”
Her voice wasn’t loud, no louder than the snick of the folding knife opening in Hogg’s hand. He’d come in a moment ago, haggard from a day and night of searching on his own. Windblown grit clung to his hair and clothing.
“Mistress . . . ,” the Prior said. His face was waxen. He nodded toward the Count but he didn’t take his eyes from Adele. “Your excellency. There’s been a mistake, I don’t know how. We will refund your fee immediately, Count Klimov—”
“Where’s the book, you fat whoreson!” Hogg shouted, grabbing the Prior’s fine white hair and tilting his head slightly so that the point of the knife just pricked his throat beside a carotid artery.
Margarida screamed and tried to claw Hogg’s eyes. Tovera—how had she moved so quickly?—clubbed the butt of her sub-machine gun across the girl’s temple, dropping her where she stood. As if that were a signal, Sissies grabbed or knocked down the other acolytes present.
The man at the end console rose and started to run toward a doorway across the chamber. A spacer fired his stocked impeller, missing the fellow but blowing his console apart in a crash and shower of sparks. The running man screamed and threw himself to the floor.
“Cease fire!” Adele ordered, her ears ringing from the Whack! of the powerful weapon discharging in an enclosed space. Her own pistol was in her hand, pointing toward the ceiling till she had a better target. “You! Prior! Where are The Institutions?”
“I can’t!” the Prior said, dangling from Hogg’s grip in obvious pain and terror. “Only senior acolytes are permitted to read it, please!”
Hogg threw the man to the floor and squatted astride him. “I’ll get it out of him, mistress,” he said in a guttural voice. “You maybe want to look away for a bit.”
“No,” Adele said; and then, because Hogg had shifted his knife to the Prior’s left eye, “No, Hogg! Not unless I can’t find it myself!”