Valhai (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 1)

Chapter Six

Chapter 6

GRACE WAS DEEP into the interscreen that Vion had sent her as promised when the tridiscreen flashed. It was her brother’s wife, Amanita, calling with her weekly punctuality.

The thin face which came up on the tridi looked at her though beady, bird-like eyes. “Grace,” she said. “How are you?”

“Fine. Busy.”

“Busy? Busy doing what, if I may ask?” Amanita was instantly suspicious.

Grace back-tracked hastily. “Oh, just … this and that … you know  …” Then she hit on a reasonable activity. “Cataloguing the artifact rooms, actually.”

The sharp face in front of her relaxed. “An acceptable occupation. I myself have always thought it best to catalogue each acquisition as it comes in. Certainly a most necessary job.”

Grace thought of the stack of things that were heaped higgledy-piggledy around their artifact chambers. Her mother had never got around to even taking most of them out of their crates, let alone detailing size, value, source. Xenon 48 had delighted in collecting beautiful things from all over the system – a passion Grace had not inherited. It was the way all Sells invested their money. But Cimma herself had found most of the things they bought rather sterile. She had loved the vibrant paintings of the Xianthan lowlanders, for example… slashes of deep colour layered onto thin magmite blocks and full of movement. But they were not valued highly in the rest of the binary system, and Xenon had criticized her for bringing one back to Valhai. Her mother had told Grace his words.

“Really, Cimma, we can’t clutter up the skyrise with inferior quality art like this. We simply don’t have the room for it. You must only buy artifacts with a cost-to-bulk proportion of over 5000 to 1. And this”—he had jabbed a finger in the direction of the painting—“probably isn’t even up to 300 to 1.”

Her mother had sighed, hidden her find on the 10th floor, and let Xenon think she had done as he asked. It had been an uncharacteristic defiance on her part.

Amanita was still regarding Grace, strangely. Grace wondered how long she had been sitting there with a silly look on her face. “Did you want anything, Amanita?”

Her sister-in-law gave a thin smile. “Just a duty visit, Grace. To make sure you are all right.”

“Well of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be?” She knew she sounded guarded and regretted it immediately. Ask a silly question, she thought.

“Well, with Cimma in the state that she is,” Amanita said.

“She is perfectly all right!”

“Hardly that. She looked like a mad woman the other day on the tridi screen. And waving that knife around! Really!”

“She will get over it. She just needs a bit more time.”

“She is the talk of all Sell. It will have to stop.”

“She is still in mourning. It is her way of expressing grief.”

“I do hope she is not going to hurt anybody with that knife.” The older woman sniffed. “It would reflect back most badly on Xenon, you know.”

“It has nothing to do with Xenon,” Grace said firmly.

“I beg your pardon, it has everything to do with Xenon. He is head of the family, after all. Now go get your mother. She will want to talk to me.”

“That’s what you think!” muttered Grace between her teeth.

“What was that, Grace?”

“—Be with you in a blink!” Grace gave the wall a growly look. It would be improper to show Amanita directly what she thought of her. She went to look for Cimma.