Anywhen Read Online Free Page B

that's standard, too."
    Simon shrugged. "Be convincing, then," he said. "I have already said that this project will be dangerous; presumably, you didn't become a traitor solely for sweet safety's sake."
    "No, but not for suicide's, either. But I'll abide the course. Where are the documents?"
    "Give me access to your Prince's toposcope-scriber and I'll produce them. But first—twenty riyals, please."
    "Minus two riyals for the use of the Prince's property. Bribes, you know."
    "Your sister was wrong. You do have style, in a myopic sort of way. All right, eighteen riyals—and then let's get on to real business. My time is not my own—not by a century."
    "But how do I reach you thereafter?"
    "That information," Simon said blandly, "will cost you those other two riyals, and cheap at the price."
    CHAPTER FIVE
    The Rood-Prince's brain-dictation laboratory was very far from being up to Guild standards, let alone High Earth's, but Simon was satisfied that the documents he generated there would pass muster. They were utterly authentic, and every experienced traitor had a feeling for that quality, regardless of such technical deficiencies as blurry image registration or irrelevant emotional overtones.
    That done, he set himself in earnest to the task he had already been playing at, that of cataloguing the Rood-Prince's library. He could hardly run out on this without compromising Da-Ud, as well as drawing unwanted attention to himself. Happily, the chore was pleasant enough; in addition to the usual pornography, the Prince owned a number of books Simon had long wanted to see, including the complete text of Vilar's The Apples of Idun, and all two hundred cantos of Mordecai Drover's The Drum Major and the Mask, with the fabulous tipped-in Brock woodcuts, all hand-tinted. There were sculptures by Labuerre and Halvorsen; and among the music, there was the last sonata of Andrew Carr . . . all of this embedded, as was inevitable, in vast masses of junk; but of what library, large or small, might that not be said? Whether or not the Rood-Prince had taste, he certainly had money, and some of it, under some past librarian, had been well-spent.
    In the midst of all this, Simon had also to consider how he would meet Da-Ud when the game had that much furthered itself. The arrangement he had made with the playwoman's half-brother had of course been a blind, indeed a double blind; but it had to have the virtues of its imperfections—that is, to look as though it had been intended to work, and to work in fact up to a certain point—or nothing would be accomplished. And it would then have to be bailed out of its in-built fatalities. So—
    But Simon was now beginning to find it hard to think. The transduction serum was increasingly taking hold, and there were treasons taking place inside his skull which had nothing at all to do with Da-Ud, the Rood-Prince, Druidsfall, Boadacea, the Green Exarch, or High Earth. Worse: They seemed to have nothing to do with Simon de Kuyl, either, but instead muttered away about silly little provincial intrigues nothing could have brought him to care about—yet which made him feel irritated, angry, even ill, like a man in the throes of jealousy toward some predecessor and unable to reason them away. Knowing their source, he fought them studiously, but he knew they would get steadily worse, however resolute he was; they were coming out of his genes and his blood stream, not his once finely honed, now dimming consciousness.
    Under the circumstances, he was not going to be able to trust himself to see through very many highly elaborate schemes, so that it would be best to eliminate all but the most necessary. Hence it seemed better, after all, to meet Da-Ud in the Principate as arranged, and save the double dealing for more urgent occasions.
    On the other hand, it would be foolish to hang around the Principate, waiting and risking some miscarriage—such as betrayal through a possible interrogation of Da-Ud—when there