Free Hot Sleep by Orson Scott Card Page A

see what would happen, hoping perhaps to interject some witticism that might turn the incident to their favor — some clever remark that might get them invited to another, grander party on their next waking, or the one after.
    "Did you like Fritz's little costume?"
    "Very clever," Jazz said, smiling and accepting the drink. "How is it done?"
    Fritz Kapock, who had followed Arran, smiled and said, "I'll never tell."
    "He told me," Arran said, tossing her head prettily, "that it's oxidation."
    Fritz laughed. "Of course. That much is obvious."
    "Oh, and now Fritz is telling everyone how stupid I am," Arran pouted.
    What a great act, Hop thought. Billions of loopwatchers, seeing this scene, would nudge each other and say, "See, there's Arran Handully, pretending to be dumb. She'll get ‘em in a minute."
    Fritz Kapock awkwardly denied her accusation. "Of course I'm not."
    "It's still a dazzling effect," Jazz said, and Hop was pleased that Jazz was making an effort to be pleasant company, even without being on contract.
    "That calls for a drink," Arran said, taking a glass out of the hand of a servant near her.
    Kapock held up his glass and said, "To Arran Handully, who managed to upstage my small effort by wearing a costume far more beautiful — her lovely self."
    "What a poet," Arran whispered, and then she brought a gasp from everyone by stepping toward Jazz Worthing and putting her own glass to his lips. A declaration of intent, and everyone waited for the completion of the ritual, Jazz sipping and then placing his own glass up to Arran's lips.
    He didn't do it, though. Instead, he stepped back, rejecting the offer, and raised his glass into the air. "And let me add my own toast to her courage — who else would dare to try to murder me at her own party?"
    It took a moment for the words to sink in. And then the guests murmured as Arran protested, using her body coquettishly in a reflexive attempt to disarm and win over all watchers. "What a thing to say, Captain Worthing. There are politer ways to say no to a girl."
    "You mean you deny it? Then take a drink from your own glass, my dear."
    "After I've been refused? I could almost wish it were poisoned."
    "Really? And so could I," Jazz said. "Shall we see if your wish is fulfilled?" He stepped toward her abruptly, taking the glass from her hand, seizing her by the hair with his other hand, and putting the glass to her lips. No one intervened. Let the action flow, as they all said. However things turned out, this would sell a billion loops.
    "Take a drink, sweet Arran Handully, from the glass you offered me," Jazz said, smiling.
    "What an actor you are," she said softly, and Hop was sure now that he saw terror in her eyes. For the first time it occurred to him that somehow Jason might well have uncovered the very murder plot he had been warned against. But how? They hadn't left each other since he disembarked from the ship.
    Jazz began to tip the glass up to pour over her smiling mouth. Suddenly she writhed away, knocking the glass on the floor. It broke; the liquid splashed.
    "Don't touch it," Jazz commanded. "It's now time for at least one of our kind and watchful observers to show himself and take a fragment of glass for analysis."
    Suddenly several women moaned in disappointment, punching at the buttons on their loop recorders. A grim–faced man came up, holding a suppressor, and the moans stopped. Mother's Little Boys could do whatever they liked — including cutting out a choice scene from a lifeloop. The man knelt down by the fragments of glass and in a very businesslike way mopped up a sample of the liquid and took four pieces of glass, dumped them into a small bag he pulled from his pocket, and then, nodding to the company, left.
    Arran was sitting down, shaking.
    Fritz Kapock looked at Jason Worthing in hatred. "That was incredibly crude, doing a thing like that," he said.
    "I know," Jazz agreed, smiling. "A more courteous man would have drunk, and died gracefully."