Daniel gave her a slow smile. “Hello, Adele,” he said. “We don’t have to go to Radiance to learn about the Alliance base after all. It’s been complete for almost a month. Seven hours ago an Alliance fleet of eight destroyers, a heavy cruiser, and two battleships landed there.”
CHAPTER 24
Daniel sat up very carefully because his euphoria disconnected him. All existence spun through his mind—only in flashes and sparkling, now, but that was still enough to lift him high above present existence.
He looked at those about him, his friends, his fellow humans—every soul of them, not only the Sissies and the Klimovs but also the robed acolytes. Their hands were wired and their expressions terrified, but they were Daniel’s friends because their action had brought him to this exaltation. It was good he’d returned, though, because he had his duty.
Count Klimov bent to massage his right calf while looking at the long line of root-wrapped mummies, the hundreds of Intercessors of previous generations. “Will we never find the Earth Diamond, then?” he said to his wife, his tone peevish with disappointment and the pain of his leg muscles. Which was nothing to what he’d be feeling after climbing back up those 815 steps, the pragmatically human part of Daniel’s mind noted.
“Your excellency?” Daniel said. Spacers were crowding about him; he looked through their legs to see the Klimovs ten feet away. “I’ll give you the Earth Diamond for a price.”
The Count didn’t hear him in the general bustle, and the surrounding Sissies didn’t pay any attention to his words. Adele understood, though, and said sharply, “Back away from the captain! Give him room! Woetjans, give the captain room!”
“Right, move your asses back!” Woetjans shouted, jerked into action by Adele’s command. When Lamsoe didn’t straighten quickly enough, she grabbed him by the back of neck like a puppy and deposited him an arm’s length away.
“Count Klimov!” Adele said. She didn’t shout the way the bosun had, but nobody could ignore the note of aristocratic command in her crisp tones. “If you will come here, Captain Leary is offering to find the Earth Diamond for you.”
“What?” said Klimov. “What do you—?”
He took an abrupt step toward Daniel. A muscle in Klimov’s groin cramped; he toppled forward. Valentina grabbed her husband, but he would’ve hit the floor if Lamsoe—headed in the right direction because of Woetjans’s shove—hadn’t caught him.
Daniel blinked. During the instant his eyes were closed, the universe flared back into his mind with almost the same crystalline glory as he’d felt when it and he and the Tree were one. He opened his eyes, smiling on those around him and reveling in life and existence.
The recall plate had fallen to the floor when Daniel’s hands opened; it lay between his legs. He picked it up and rubbed it between his palms. The physical connection with a familiar object was part of the process by which a human being became the Intercessor, the connection which translated between the Tree and each human querent.
The Count was speaking, but his words were merely variations on, “What do you mean?” Daniel found it a wonder to hear sounds again instead of being the vibrations himself.
“Count Klimov,” he said; Klimov fell silent with his mouth open. “I need a vessel, your vessel. I’ll trade you the Earth Diamond for the Princess Cecile, and I’ll carry you and the Countess to Todos Santos. There you’ll be able to take ship anywhere you wish. Back to Novy Sverdlovsk with your treasure, I would expect. Do you accept my offer?”
“He bloody well—” Hogg started to say, but Adele touched his lips with her right index finger. Hogg gulped back the remainder of the threat and grimaced contritely, first to Adele and then to the Count himself.
Klimov met Daniel’s eyes. The smile appeared to bother him, but Daniel couldn’t help it. Life in its profusion and in its detail was a wonderful thing, an entrancing thing.
“Captain Leary,” the Count said, formal and far more impressive than he’d generally been since Daniel met him. “You know that I paid three hundred thousand florins for the Princess Cecile. She is a fine ship, no doubt, but the Earth Diamond is unique. There are those who would pay twenty times as much for it; I would pay so much if I were able to do so. Why do you make this offer?”