Free In the Hall of the Martian King by John Barnes Page A

“I wouldn’t let that happen to a tove. We’ve got some undersea excavation to do. You’ll probably
     have to take off some of that hair for the helmet.”
    “Ruined for
two
social seasons! Oh, Xlini, you’re a toktru tove! Good-bye, everyone, welcome to the Splendor!” A small robot limousine glided
     up; Kayadi got in and it whisked her away.
    Dujuv spoke into his purse. “Taxi for seven, bill to the King. To the guest pavilion.”
    “Right,” his purse said. “And notify guest services at the palace?”
    “Please.” Dujuv touched the reward spot, and his purse cheebled merrily. He looked up at the rest of them. “The plan for the
     rest of the day is to do nothing,” he said. “To save up energy for tomorrow, when we’ll be doing nothing with great grace
     and style.”
    Jak worked out three times a week in a full-g centrifuge, and Martian grav is a bit less than 0.4 g, but the difference between
     voluntarily working against weight for an hour, and having weight all the time, is painful and exhausting. Besides, he had
     been in constant motion for thirteen hours. His aching bones and tired muscles cried out for a comfortable bath and early
     bed. He took a muscle relaxant, and set up the conference room in his suite so that everyone could talk half-reclining.
    Jak’s first conference was with Sibroillo and Gweshira. They had been awakened at their hotel on Deimos after only four hours’
     sleep, flown down on a regular commercial launch into Bassoon, and caught a four-hour trip in a sleeper Pertrans car from
     there to Magnificiti, and of course they were both more than a century older than Jak; it was hardly surprising that they
     both looked strange. But there was something else as well.
    Gweshira looked grimly determined. Sib appeared slightly hangdog and defiant, showing more of his bald crown than his face.
     Gweshira said, “Jak, Sibroillo has something to say to you.”
    “Well, it’s Gweshira’s idea, but she’s right, and I’m working my way around to feeling that she’s right. Jak, we’re only stringers
     for Hive Intel. For them we’re strictly mercs, and all that they have officially asked us to do is to make sure that we are
     participants in the process and that Hive Intel’s interests are looked after. It looks to Gweshira and me as if Hive Intel
     is reaching hard for something that it would be better for it not to touch—if they capture that object for their exclusive
     possession, it will cause enough negative blowback to be contrary to Hive Intel’s own interests—if only they had brains to
     see that! So … we will look after their interests by just riding along—unless you appear to be completely crazy or stupid.”
     Sibroillo winced slightly.
    Jak had barely seen the flick of Gweshira’s fingers against his arm. She’d lost none of her speed in all the years he’d known
     her. Sib hastily added, “And we won’t be too quick to make that judgment. Carte blanche, old pizo. I’m swallowing several
     tons of advice right now, you know.”
    “I know, Uncle Sib. I appreciate that.” Jak was touched, overwhelmed really, but his feelings were severely mixed. It was
     good that there was no risk that Sib would snatch Nakasen’s lifelog himself, or take any of Jak’s credit away. Yet at the
     same time, Jak really had not thought about whether it was a good thing for Hive Intel to have the lifelog or not.
    “Well, then,” Gweshira said, smiling brightly, “we’ll be going now—I know there’s forty minutes left in the time for this
     meeting, but if we stayed, poor Sib would compulsively spend that forty minutes finding ways to
not
give you advice.”
    “Thank you, Aunt Gweshira.”
    It was nice that Sibroillo and Gweshira would be letting him run his own show, but on the other hand that also meant he would
have
to run his own show. Oh, well, weehu, Principle 129 said that “The hardest thing to understand about a balance is that both
     sides are equal;