Rock of Ages Read Free

He had come to Earth to attend-the wedding of two acquaintances and sometime employers, Amalia Jensen and Pietro Quijano, and he was staying on as a tourist. He didn’t want to steal anything on this trip, but it seemed as if no one was willing to take his word for it.
    “Perhaps their visit will be brief,” Roman comforted.
    Maijstral took a few deep breaths and tried to dispel his pique.
    “Stay in the room, will you,” Maijstral said, “and make sure the cops don’t steal anything.”
    Roman, ever the perfect servant, bowed.
    “Very good, sir,” he said.
    *
    Dinner was not delayed, though it was disturbed somewhat by the sound of heavy police boots tramping up and down the halls. The local police commissaire, a bushy-whiskered old soul named Przemysl, was invited to join Maijstral and Lord and Lady Huyghe, and sat down just in time for the soup course.
    “Sorry about this,” he apologized, speaking precisely in Khosali Standard. “Were it up to me, I wouldn’t interrupt you till after dinnertime; but orders come from on high, you know. When they unified the police forces, I knew this sort of thing would happen.” He brandished his spoon. “‘Listen,’ I told them, ‘those bureaucrats in Beijing won’t care a stick about the feelings of the local gentry. They’ll have me interrupting people at mealtimes, or dragging them out of their beds when you might just as well wait till after they’ve had breakfast.’ And see if it hasn’t happened.” He turned his eyes piously to Heaven. “The Virtues only know what will happen if the Security and Sedition Act is passed. Then none, of us will be safe.”
    “What exactly was taken from the Louvre?” Lord Huyghe asked.
    Przemysl cast a knowing glance at Maijstral. “A painting undergoing cleaning and restoration,” he said. “Titian’s Man with a Glove .”
    “Ah yes,” Huyghe said. “I’d marked its absence.” Bootheels clicked on the dining room floor as a tall, frowning police officer stalked into the room. She was human, with blondish hair tucked, somewhat unsuccessfully, into a gleaming black-visored helmet more suitable to the Dread Squad of the Constellation Death Commandos than to a public servant approaching a person of distinction at his dinner. Her face was chiseled. Her manner was correct, but curt. Her uniform was of black leather and had many gleaming buttons. The others rose as she marched to Lord Huyghe’s elbow. She saluted.
    “Sir,” she said, speaking Human Standard, “I am Colonel-General Denise Vandergilt. I would like to request permission for police to inspect the paintings in your gallery in order to make certain that the stolen picture is not hidden beneath them.”
    Lord Huyghe frowned and spoke in his normal booming conversational tones. Maijstral had to offer-reluctant congratulations to Vandergilt for the fact she didn’t leap back, flinch, or assume she was about to be assaulted and draw her pistol.
    “What means do you intend to use?” Huyghe roared.
    “For the inspection? Passive broadband fluorocameras. No injury to your canvases is possible.”
    “Ah. Very well.” Huyghe waved his napkin, a signal for the other diners to resume their seats. “As you like, then.”
    Vandergilt’s expression grew abstract for a moment as she pulsed silent commands to her troops through her in-the-helmet scrambler.
    Lady Huyghe lowered her spoon and pricked her ears forward. She was a quiet woman, perhaps as a result of her husband shouting at her all these years, and when she spoke it was generally to the point.
    “Colonel-General?” she said. “I don’t believe that is a rank in the local constabulary, is it?”
    “I am a member of the Constellation Special Services Corps, ma’am,” Vandergilt said.
    “The Colonel-General came here specially from Beijing,” Przemysl said. His expression invited sympathy from the diners.
    “And what precisely,” Lady Huyghe asked, “does the Special Services Corps do