Scavenger Hunt

Chapter 1: Hunt Ball-3

“I certainly do,” she said, taking five steps backward as he took an equal number forward so their backs stayed together. “Because I am going to run the Hunt for him.”

“Oho, now it becomes clear. I was wondering why Bred would come down from his cloud and join the rest of us.” They took three steps to his right, two to his left, then turned so they were once more face to face. “It’s his sister pulling the strings.”

“Since women can’t enter by themselves, I asked Bred to enroll in the Hunt as a favor to me. He agreed, as long as I do the actual work.” They grabbed each other’s wrists and did two long, shuffling sidesteps. “He’s given me temporary command of his ship.”

“And why are you so interested, all of a sudden? You’ve always preferred the parties to the games.”

“There’s always been a—” At this point, the dance called for a momentary exchange of partners. They confronted a nearby couple and did a few light whirls with others before coming together again. “—deVrie in the Scavenger Hunt,” Tyla continued easily. “And we’ve usually won, too.”

Jusser’s smile broadened. “But not the last time.”

Her anger at him doubled. “You needn’t be so ghoulish. If my parents hadn’t died, they would have won. You were lucky.” She was so mad she almost missed a step, but recovered in time and maintained her dignity by making her lapse appear to be an embellishment on the basic step.

“Luck had nothing to do with it, my dear.” They held each other’s hands loosely and walked around in a small circle. “I simply played that like I play everything else—to win. And I did.”

The rigid requirements of the Zolthen now called for an embrace. Tyla put her arms reservedly around her partner, but there was nothing reserved about Jusser’s clinch. “My agents have recently found some exotic new aphrodisiacs for me,” he whispered in her ear, “and I’d be delighted to share my first sampling of them with you.”

They broke from the clinch. The dance here called for each to make one spin on their right foot, then come together again. Jusser spun perfectly. Tyla simply walked away from him, deliberately leaving Jusser standing partnerless in the middle of the floor.

One did not leave one’s partner in the middle of a Zolthen. Such an act was a calculated insult, and Jusser was speechless. What was worse, though no sound had been made, the insult was instantly noticed by everyone in the hall, and the room was instantly abuzz. No one else, however, deviated from the dance.

Tyla’s temper was boiling, but even so a cool part of her mind weighed the alternatives. Deserting Jusser in the middle of the Zolthen was a major insult, but there had to be something more she could do. Walking out of the hall altogether would deprive her of the rest of the party, and wouldn’t be nearly demeaning enough. Tyla deVrie was a noted expert at slipping in the quiet dagger, and no ordinary insult would do.

She walked resolutely over to the lonely figure of the android sitting at a table by itself. It was so busy being dejected that it didn’t even notice her approach. “Would you care to finish this Zolthen with me?” she asked.

The android looked up, startled out of its reverie. “Huh, who, me?”

She repeated the question.

“But we…we haven’t even been introduced. Maybe you don’t know who I am.”

“Is that necessary?”

“Uh, no, no, I guess not. All right, fine, I’d love to.” It grinned boyishly and stood up.

The android looked surprisingly young. Androids came out of their processing plants fully grown and aged very slowly, so they were normally made to appear of a more ripened age—say, sixty or so. This one looked barely twenty years old, more a boy than a man. To fit in with Society it had bought some obviously expensive and well–tailored clothes—but the fashion was last year’s, and the android’s ignorance showed even worse. It had the fashionable shaved part in its hair, but it was barely a centimeter wide. The android was tall and thin, with an overexaggeration of the limbs—gawky, as though built to bring out motherly sympathies in women without alienating men. It looked hopelessly innocent and bewildered, but not without some redeeming boyish charm.

It’s an artificial entity, Tyla reminded herself, created in a test tube and grown in a vat to serve some specific function.

She took its hand and led it back to the dance floor, watching Ambic Jusser’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. It was as good as she’d anticipated. He was not very pleased. Nor were any of the other people at the Ball, who’d worked hard all evening to ignore the android. Now its presence had been acknowledged by one of Society’s most important people and its status had been raised by her invitation to dance.

Tyla could sense the anger and outrage radiating through the hall, disguised though it was by polite smiles and vacuous expressions. And she didn’t care. Her position was stable enough to weather any storm; the important thing was that her revenge on Jusser be as thorough as she could make it. He would not recover quickly from this blow.

As they started to dance it became painfully obvious that the android was as clumsy as it looked. Tyla pretended not to notice, and even did her best to cover up some of the creature’s more glaring missteps. She kept herself aloof and concentrated on the dancing, eyes focused blankly ahead.

“Well, I might as well introduce myself, at least,” the android said hesitantly. “My name is Johnathan R.”

“How very nice for you,” Tyla replied. Circumstances might compel her to dance with this creature, but she needn’t go so far as being polite to it.

The android flushed and missed two steps. “I know you’re Tyla deVrie, because I heard the android announce you at the door.”

“Clever.”

It missed some more steps, and Tyla winced. Did it have to be such a buffoon?

“Mistress deVrie, you are very beautiful and I’m sure you could have danced with any man at the Ball tonight. You obviously don’t like me. Why did you ask me to dance?”

“I’ve never danced with an andie before.”

It stopped completely. “Oh. Well, I’m sure you found it a novel and exciting experience. Now, if you will excuse me, Mistress deVrie, I have some important business to transact back at my table. Thank you very much for the dance.” And it left, turning its back on her and walking crisply to the table it had occupied all evening.

The orchestra stopped playing. Everyone stopped dancing. Conversations ceased. And all eyes focused rigidly on a single spot within the enormous hall.

Tyla could feel, in a remote way, the attention she was receiving, but it took even that much concentrated power to register anything in her brain. Her mind had gone numb. This couldn’t be happening to her, not to Tyla deVrie. How could an android dare to walk out on her—especially after she had condescended to dance with it? Its only repayment for her graciousness had been to belittle her in the eyes of everyone who mattered.

The smile was back on Ambic Jusser’s lips. He had avenged Tyla’s insult without even trying. He started to approach her again. From the far side of the hall, the Barb also started moving toward her, a strangely alien look of sympathy on her face.

But Tyla would not let that happen. At the worst—and as far as she was concerned, this was the worst—she would preserve her honor. With self–control born of years of social training, she lifted her head proudly and marched to the gravtube. The field congealed about her feet as she entered, lifting her gently upward until she reached the mezzanine. She stepped out of the tube and, with dignity, left the hall.

The reporters were still there, unaware of the social cataclysm that had just struck. Tyla deVrie walked regally past them to the call post and raised her left thumb gracefully to its scanner. Moments later her limo pulled up to the curb, its door sliding open to admit her. She stepped inside and the door slid shut again, concealing her from human eyes.

Only then did her emotional shield break down. “Spaceport,” she said in a barely audible voice, and her hands were shaking so badly she had to try three times before she could place her thumb chip over the scanner to verify her ID.

The limo glided off down the darkened street.