Текст книги "Burning Bright"

Автор книги: Melissa Scott

Соавторы: Melissa Scott
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Lioe glanced curiously at her, wondering if she really had heard a double invitation, and what she would do about it if she had. Roscha was a striking woman, there was no doubt about it, the strong sexy curves well displayed by the plain workcloth trousers and the thin knit shirt beneath the worn jerkin. More than that, though, she was something familiar, a kind of Gamer Lioe knew and understood, and all of a sudden she was hungry for just that familiarity. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll take you up on that.”

Roscha’s smile in return was dazzling. “It’s the least I can do. You gave me a great character.”

I didn’t choose you, unfortunately, Lioe thought, and Africa’s pretty conventional. She mumbled something in answer, and looked around for Aliar Gueremei. The older woman was standing with a group of Gamers on the far side of the room. Lioe lifted a hand to catch her eye, and started toward her, but Gueremei waved her away, her expression at once amused and approving. Lioe waved back, and turned toward the door. Roscha followed her from the room.

The hallways were less crowded than they had been, but players still clustered in the courtyard, busy at the food bars and in the lobby. A few of them called congratulations; Lioe nodded back, called polite responses, and felt the sense of satisfaction growing in her. She had done well, and she deserved the praise. Outside Shadows, the street was quiet, only dimly lit by the cool spheres at each intersection, and Lioe checked in spite of herself. The food shop seemed all but deserted, the orange light behind its open door like the glow of a banked fire. Music no longer spilled into the street, and even the bouncers had disappeared.

“The club’s down toward the Straight,” Roscha said, and Lioe jumped a little.

“How are the streets, this late?” she asked.

Roscha shrugged, looking rather surprised at the question. “Not bad–not in this quarter, anyway.” She tossed her head to send her thick hair tumbling back over her shoulders. “Come Storm, of course, everybody will be out all night, but I don’t know if that makes you any safer.”

True enough, Lioe thought, true on any planet. But I wonder if your definition of “safe” matches mine. “That’s the Carnival, right?” Keep her talking, and see what it is she wants. Since I think I could want her too.

“Yeah. The winds have already shifted, you can feel it, but the weather people aren’t predicting anything yet. There’ll be fireworks tomorrow night–the Syncretist Congregations are sponsoring that–and a big display on Storm One, that’s day after tomorrow. There’s a lot going on–people have scheduled stuff for the whole three weeks.”

There was an amusement in her voice that Lioe couldn’t translate. Was it because the city had scheduled events for the whole period, as though there was a chance that nothing would happen? Or was it just that she thought Storm was funny? Vaguely, she remembered reading stories of floods and damage, docks and whole waterfront neighborhoods washed away. Burning Bright City nestled inside the circling islands as if it lay in the bottom of a bowl; let a storm into that confined space, and wind and water would wreak havoc. She shivered, thinking of Callixte’s summer storms, the blue‑black clouds marching along the horizon, lightning striking fires to scour the central plains. She couldn’t quite imagine that force unleashed on a city–a crowded city–or with the force of the sea behind it. Maybe all you can do is laugh.

“The Syndics parade is tomorrow night,” Roscha went on, and Lioe dragged her attention back to the conversation. “That’s on the Water.”

“Parade?” Lioe asked.

“Yeah. They run barges–the big, flat‑bodied ones, set up pageants on them.” She grinned again, a look of pure mischief, and Lioe wondered just how young she was. “They do all the fittings outside of Mainwarden Island–that’s the big island, sits astride the southern end of the Water?”

Lioe nodded.

“They try to keep the presentations a big secret,” Roscha said. “When I was a kid, we used to sneak out there, try and see them ahead of time. It’s Beauties and Beasts this year–that’s the theme. You should get yourself a costume, if you go.”

“I’m not much one for dressing up,” Lioe said doubtfully, and Roscha sounded a little subdued when she answered.

“I could recommend a good costumer.”

Lioe looked sideways at her, and Roscha looked away, as though she’d said something wrong. “Thanks,” Lioe said, but the other didn’t answer. Lioe sighed slightly. She wasn’t much one for costume, had never really learned how to play those games: Carnival wasn’t part of Callixte’s heritage, and Foster Services hadn’t wanted to offend the Neo‑pagans by encouraging its client‑children to mask at Samhain.

They walked on in silence, through the dimly lit streets, passing from the pool of light that marked each intersection to the brief edge of almost‑dark where the first light ended and the next did not quite reach, then into the light again. The neighborhood was not very different from the one where Shadows lay, the same flat‑fronted, oddly decorated, anonymous buildings that could be shops or houses or factories; the same tiny parks and gardens, half hidden behind grillwork and brick walls; the same sudden bridges arching over an all‑but‑invisible canal. Lioe found herself concentrating on them anyway, trying to drown her sudden awareness of Roscha walking next to her. The cold, blank walls with their cryptic patterns, bands of lighter stone against the dark main body, were no help at all; she imagined she could feel the heat of the other woman’s body, a subtle radiance in the night air. She looked up, looking for the stars, for that distraction, but the star field was drowned in the city lights. A moon showed briefly over her right shoulder, an imperfect oval just past or not quite full; ahead–to the north, beyond the Straight and the Junction Pools–a shuttle rose like a firework from Newfields, a familiar and comforting flare of light and almost invisible cloud. She was not surprised when Roscha’s hand brushed her own.

She closed her hand around Roscha’s fingers, felt calluses under her touch, calluses across Roscha’s palm and on three of the fingertips, all sensed in a single rush of sensation, and then she slipped her hand, still awkwardly twined with Roscha’s, into the pocket of her trousers. Roscha’s knuckles rested against her thigh; the sudden movement pulled Roscha sideways a little, so that she stumbled, and made a small noise like a laugh, and their shoulders touched. Lioe smiled, said nothing, too aware of the warmth and weight of the other’s touch to speak. Then Roscha’s hand wriggled in hers, loosened and shifted its grip to shape a familiar code. Sex? the shifting fingers asked, and Lioe moved her own hand to answer, Yes.

Plain or fancy?

Either.

Latex?

Nothing oral without it. Lioe felt Roscha pull away slightly, knew her own answer had come too quickly, and looked sideways to see Roscha looking at her with an expression that hovered between amusement and irritation. “Well, you don’t know where I’ve been, either,” she said aloud, and Roscha’s anger dissolved in a shout of laughter. She flung her head back, the light from the intersection gleaming in her hair, and Lioe couldn’t help laughing with her.

“Your place or mine?” Roscha asked, after a moment, and Lioe shrugged.

“I’m staying in a hostel in the Ghetto,” she said. “You’re welcome, but it’s a long way.”

Roscha laughed again, more quietly. “I live on my boat. I drive a john‑boat for C/B Cie., deliveries and stuff. The tie‑up’s not far–as long as you don’t mind a boat.”

“Your place, then,” Lioe said, and they walked on. Roscha freed her hand from Lioe’s pocket, slipped it around the other woman’s waist; a heartbeat later, Lioe did the same. She was very aware of the gentle pressure of Roscha’s hand against her skin, and at the same time the texture of Roscha’s stiff jerkin under her hand. It felt a little like thick leather, but the surface was oddly patterned, like scales. She squeezed Roscha’s waist, trying to feel her body under the jerkin, and felt Roscha’s fingers tighten in answer against her shirt. It was not satisfactory, to be touched, and to feel so little in return; she squeezed Roscha’s waist again, and then released her, sliding her hand and arm up under the skirts of the jerkin so that her hand now rested directly against the thin shirt. Its weave was loose; she prodded experimentally at it, working one finger into the fabric so that she could feel warm skin, and Roscha jerked and gave a stifled giggle.

“That tickles.”

“Sorry,” Lioe said, and stopped poking, but she did not take her hand away.

They reached the edge of the Straight at last, a broad stretch of road, quiet now, only a few bicycles and a single flatbed carrier visible along its length. The Old Dike loomed in the distance, towering over the housetops. The noise of the carrier’s engine echoed oddly between the housefronts and the water; a bicycle whispered past, tires singing against the pavement. Lioe caught a glimpse of the rider’s face stern with concentration as he flashed under the nearest streetlamp. They crossed the trafficway cautiously, mindful of bicycles, and Roscha stepped up onto the wide poured‑stone ledge that edged the river. Lioe copied her, more cautiously, and looked down to see the water black beneath her, shadowed from any glint of light by the stone wall that was its bank. Bollards, low iron things with rounded tops like fantastic mushrooms, sprang up at regular intervals along the wall, one or two with a coil of bright yellow safety line looped around them. Roscha led the way along the ledge, Lioe following a little more slowly–the wall was broad, but the black emptiness beside and beneath her, and the low rush of the water, were enough to encourage caution–and stopped beside a bollard that carried a double loop of safety line around its base.

“Here we are,” Roscha said, and nodded at a rope ladder that was hooked into two of the holes drilled into the bank. Lioe looked down rather dubiously, was reassured to see the soft glow of a steering lamp. In its dim light, she could see most of Roscha’s boat, a long, narrow shape, blunt at both ends, with an arched section at the bow that vanished into the shadows. The deck glowed gold directly under the lamp, and a solar strip glittered softly. Roscha frowned absently down at the boat, one hand buried in a pocket, and a few seconds later Lioe heard the faint double chime of a security system disarming itself. “I’ll go first,” Roscha said, and let herself down the ladder without waiting for Lioe to agree.

Lioe lifted an eyebrow at that, but waited until the other woman had reached the deck before easing herself onto the unsteady ladder. It took her a moment to find her balance, but then she had it, and lowered herself cautiously onto the deck. Roscha was waiting to steady her, and Lioe accepted the support for a few seconds, until she caught the rhythm of the boat in her feet and legs. She nodded to Roscha–the boat moved less than she had expected, but it was a jerky movement, unpredictable–and Roscha released her, moved forward to the shelter and crouched on the deck to release a hidden latch. A section of the deck came up in her hand, revealing a short ladder and a dim, red‑toned light. Lioe grinned, even though she knew perfectly well why any boatman– or pilot, for that matter–kept red lights in the sleeping quarters, and came forward to join her. Roscha smiled and said, “After you.”

The cabin space was mostly bed, a thin mattress on top of a good‑sized platform that probably concealed storage space. Lioe sat on the edge of the mattress–there was no room for two to stand in the narrow stairwell, and the arched ceiling kept her from standing upright except in the very center of the cabin–while Roscha secured the double‑doored hatch behind them, and turned at last to face her. One hand was in her pocket still: the security system chimed again, resetting itself, and the red light strengthened slightly. In the comparative brightness, Lioe could see more details, the crumpled blankets and the cases of disks, Rulebooks and session supplements, mounted on the bulkhead just above the bed. Roscha slipped out of her jerkin, hung it on a hook mounted beside the hatch, and seated herself on the mattress beside the other woman. Lioe smiled and reached for her, and Roscha reached back. They kissed, lips meeting and parting, slow and awkward until they’d settled on who would lead. Lioe leaned into Roscha’s strong embrace, let herself be held and touched, Roscha’s callused fingers fumbling under her clothes to free her breasts, pinching her nipples into stiffness. And then they were scrambling with clasps and zippers and catchtape, struggling to get all the way onto the bed without letting go, either one of the other, until they were lying nearly face to face, legs tangled, thigh to crotch. Lioe leaned back a little to let Roscha’s hand between her legs, to let the deft fingers slide between her labia, circling and searching and teasing in the thick wetness until she found the right stroke. Lioe buried her face against the other woman’s shoulder, riding her hand and the rhythm of the boat until she came. Roscha came a few minutes later, driving her crotch against Lioe’s thigh, and they lay tangled, breathing hard, until finally Lioe shifted her shoulders so that she could lie flat, displacing most of Roscha’s weight sideways onto the mattress. Roscha mumbled something, already half asleep. Lioe craned her neck awkwardly to look at her, caught between amusement and chagrin– no particular sense of prowess, I didn’tdo anything–but it was late, and there was no place she needed to be. She shifted again, freeing herself from the uncomfortable parts of Roscha’s embrace, and let herself relax toward sleep.

Part Three

« ^ »

Early Morning, Day 31

High Spring: The

Chrestil‑Brisch

Palazze, Five Points

It was very late by the time Damian Chrestil came home to bed, a bored helio pilot lifting him from the Junction Pool helipad up and over the light‑streaked mass of the Old Dike to the Chrestil‑Brisch compound on the headland that was the third of the original Five Points. Most of the lights were out in the narrow buildings, only faint security lights glowing behind the arches of the first floor. The second and third stories, solid walls of dark stone broken by unlit slit windows, looked ungainly, top‑heavy, without light to give them balance. Only the ring‑and‑cross of the landing pad glowed blue through the darkness, and the helio pilot landed them with the rotors barely moving, balancing the weight of the passenger pod against the gas in the lifting cells. Damian nodded his approval– no need to wake everyone in the house–and let himself in through the security ring, raising his hand in greeting to the single human being sitting sleepily at the center of the glowing banks of controls. Like all the Five Points families, and most of the other groups that dominated Burning Bright’s commerce, the Chrestil‑Brisch had good reason to employ a private police force. It was a matter of pride that theirs was smaller than many. The guard nodded back, and said, “Na Damian, there’s a visitor waiting in your suite. She’s on your admit list.”

Damian lifted an eyebrow at him. The only woman the guard would describe as a visitor whom he would let into his rooms was Cella, and he couldn’t imagine what she would be doing here. Her regular nights were the fourth, fourteenth, and twenty‑fourth. “Is there a message?” he asked, and the guard shook his head.

“No, sir. She just asked to be let in.”

“How charming.”

Damian turned away, made his way down the echoing corridors toward his own suite of rooms. The palazze’s floors were seamarble, quarried from the uninhabited, and uninhabitable, Midseas Islands; his footsteps sounded hollow on the green‑veined stone, and he found himself stepping lightly, trying not to wake the distant echoes. The automatic lamps lit at his approach, fretted globes held in fantastic sconces, and closed down again after he had passed, so that he walked in the center of a moving tunnel of light. His private rooms were at the northwestern corner of the palazze, where short domed towers sprouted like mushrooms, looking out over the old city toward the rising mass of the Landing Isle and Newfields. As he approached them, the security board outside the main door lit, and chimed softly for his attention. The lights glowed green and yellow among the wide leaves and thick clustered fruit of the frieze of sea grape carved around the doorway, spelling out a familiar pattern. Even so, Damian Chrestil slid his hand into his pocket, curled his fingers around the familiar shape of his household remote, feeling for the control points by instinct. He trusted Cella as much as he trusted anyone, but it was as well to be prepared. He palmed the device, cutting off the system’s programmed announcement of his presence, and let himself into the suite.

Cella was waiting in the reception room, as he’d known she would be, in the corner of the room under the arches that held up the main tower. Moonlight poured in through the window on her left, draping her with the shadow of the fretwork tracery outside the window, drawing blue fire from the seabrights scatter‑sewn across her fractal‑lace overskirt. Behind her, the Old City was spread like a faded carpet, the regular lights of square and street broken by the darkness of the distant reservoirs and the unlit lines of the Straight and the Crooked rivers and the velvet texture of the parklands. She was wearing a violet bodice above the lavender and silver lace, dyed raw silk cut close to her full breasts, rising and sweeping outward to expose her shoulders; braids of the same clear violet were woven into the glossy black of her hair. The double light, the moonlight and the city lights behind her, rounded even further the lavish curves of her body. Damian Chrestil caught his breath as she turned to smile at him, and saw the faint pulsing light of an orbiter rising over her shoulder from the pens at Newfields. It was perfectly timed, it had to have been timed, and he knew he should laugh, tease her for it, but the effect was too perfect, good enough to convince even him. Then she took a step forward, and he saw from the look on her face, the uncalculated, crooked grin so different from her usual cool smile, that effect was the last thing on her mind. He blinked, but touched the remote to light the wall lamps and opaque the windows, and said aloud, “What brings you here, Cella?”

Her grin widened. “You told me,” she said, “you told me you wanted Ransome back on the nets, and by the very God, he’s back.”

“So?” Damian was suddenly very tired, not in the mood for games or the Game. “So you’re good. I knew that, it’s what I pay you for.”

Cella tilted her head at him, still smiling, but turned away toward the sideboard bar. She ran her hands across the carved border of lions and deer, fingers working deftly on the disguised controls, and then extracted bottles and two ice‑lined tumblers. She poured two drinks, ardentecut with the sweet‑and‑sour syrup distilled from sugarwort, and brought one across to him. The ice in the tumblers cracked sharply as the warmed ardentehit it. She said, over the random noises, “But I didn’t do it, Damiano. He came back on his own.”

Damian lifted an eyebrow at her, and settled himself on the long, low chaise, deliberately stretching out his legs to keep her from sitting beside him. Cella smiled, not the least put out, and seated herself demurely in a willow‑work chair opposite him. She might, from her expression, have been the perfect salarywife greeting her corporate husband.

“I’ve been trying to lure him in, get him interested–I even botched a scenario on his account–but he’s been too damn careful.” She grinned suddenly, lopsidedly, an expression as unexpected as her attempts at respectability. “Or at least too busy with those story eggs of his. I was beginning to think you’d do better to commission one, Damiano.”

“But he came back,” Damian said. “Do stick to the point, Cella, I’m tired.”

One eyebrow flickered up in mute but pointed question, but Cella said only, “That’s right. He came back because there’s a new notable in town, and she had the temerity to play one of his Grand Types. And she did it well, too. So I think Na Ransome will have his mind on the Game for at least a week–that’s how long this woman is going to be here. Or maybe longer. When I left, he was buying Rulebooks, and I haven’t heard of him doing that in years.”

“So.” Damian sipped at his drink, considering her news, and slowly allowed himself to smile. The Game, or at least the new notable, would keep Ransome busy in the Game nets, and he could slip the lachesi quietly into the system, and ship without interference from the Republic, local Customs, or Chauvelin. It seemed that ji‑Imbaoa’s interference hadn’t roused anyone’s suspicions after all. “Tell me about this new notable.”

Cella shrugged, a calculated indifference. “I don’t know much. She’s a Republican, union pilot–from Callixte, or at least she plays out of Callixte’s nets. Her ship’s supposed to be in dock‑orbit for repairs, and she’s planning to spend the time gaming. Decent‑looking woman, if you like them thin and stern. And a damn good session leader.”

“Find out about her,” Damian said. “Politics, background–whatever.”

Cella nodded. “Ransome was really interested,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in a club in years, he won’t let it rest at just one session. He’ll be busy with this scenario for the rest of Storm, at least.”

“Not bad,” Damian Chrestil said, and allowed his approval to color his voice. He considered the invitation that he knew was waiting in his files, added, “Are you working tomorrow–I mean, tonight?”

Cella frowned slightly, slipped a hand into the folds of her skirt to consult a scheduler hidden somewhere out of sight. “Tonight, no. Why?”

“Chauvelin is having his annual night‑before‑Storm party,” Damian said. “I’d like you to accompany me.”

Cella paused, shrugged slightly. “All right. Our usual arrangement, I assume?”

“Of course.”

“All right, then.”

“Excellent,” Damian said.

“Not bad,” Cella answered, “not bad at all.” She set her now‑empty tumbler aside, and came to sit next to him, pushing his legs out of her way. “All things considered, I think I have every right to be pleased.”

“For whatever it was you did,” Damian said. He eyed her almost warily, recognizing the mood. It was neither drink nor drugs, but the solid high of an unexpected success, and he would reap the benefits of it, whether he liked it or not. She smiled down at him, well aware of her own excitement and his lack of immediate response, and ran two fingers up the inside of his thigh. It was a touch that rarely failed to rouse him; he laid one hand flat against her breast, and felt her nipple already stiff against the palm of his hand, easily discernible through the rough silk. She had done the job he wanted, however she’d done it, and her choice of coin was sex: sex of her choice, for her pleasure, at her whim. He caught his breath as her hand moved higher, brushed past his groin, and came to rest flat against his lower belly, a steady, urgent pressure. Not that it was a difficult payback– a hard one, maybe–but it was unavoidable, if he wanted to keep their tacit agreement. Cella’s smile widened, as though she’d read his thoughts, and she slid an expert hand under his clothes, ending all possibility of protest.

He woke in his own bed the next morning, to sunlight and the steady shrilling of an alarm. He swore, wondering for a bleary instant why Cella let it sound, then reached across the empty bed for the remote. The time was flashing on the far wall, the red numbers almost drowned by the bright sunlight: almost the ninth hour. He had slept through at least two earlier wake‑ups. No wonder Cella hadn’t waited. He sat up, wincing–he wasn’t hung over, but he functioned badly on fewer than six hours’ sleep–and touched the remote again. His fingers slid clumsily over the rounded surface. It was a pretty thing, shaped like a wide‑web node with a single broad leaf wrapped around it, carved from a brown stone so dark that it looked almost black except in direct sunlight, but this morning the carving distracted him. He found the proper control points at last, launched the program that displayed his schedule on the far wall below the chronometer’s numbers. The ninth hour was given over to the weekly breakfast meeting with his siblings.

He swore again, checked the time–less than a quarter hour, barely enough time to shower and shave and dress, much less find a wake‑up pill–and forced himself out of bed. Neither the shower nor the pill Cella had kindly left for him helped much, but he managed to dress with reasonable care, and made his way to join the others. He was not the last to arrive, and Chrestillio–Altagracian Chrestil‑Brisch, the family pensionary and titular head of the family by virtue of being firstborn–nodded at him from his place at the head of the long table. Bettisa Chrestil‑Brisch, known as Bettis Chrestil, the family’s representative to the Five Points Bank, did not look up from the workboard where the night’s downloaded trade figures were playing.

“Good morning,” Damian Chrestil said, keeping his voice suitably subdued, and crossed to the sideboard to pour himself a cup of coffee from the intricate silver brewer. The coffee was cut half‑and‑half with milk from the Homestead Island farms–even the Chrestil‑Brisch couldn’t afford to import coffee in bulk–and he added a toffee‑colored crystal the size of his little fingernail from the sugar bowl. Sugar was expensive, too–most of the sugarwort crop went to the distilleries–but there was no point in being stingy this morning. He collected breakfast as well, a wedge of soft, mild cheese, a few thin, chewy slabs of docker’s bread, and a spoonful of sour preserved fruit. There was fish sausage as well, and a bowl filled with half a dozen hard‑boiled eggs, their shells painted with swirls of dye, but he ignored them both, and seated himself opposite Bettis Chrestil. The sunlight, mercifully, was behind him; it streamed into the room, casting shadows across the polished and inlaid tabletop and onto the olive‑and‑gold paneling. The carnival scenes that filled the central medallion of each panel looked bleached in the strong light.

“Has anyone seen the weather?” Damian asked.

Bettis looked up from her board. “About what you’d expect, this time of year. There’s a depression to the southeast, but there’s no saying if it’ll strengthen, or come this way.”

Chrestillio said, “The street bookmakers are saying it’s at forty‑to‑one to hit at all, at any strength, but I hear that’s dropping.”

And the street bookies would know, Damian thought. They know as much and more than the weathermen, but then, they have more to lose. The canalli bet on the weather with the same passion that he himself played politics.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” a new voice said, and Damian looked up to see the last of his siblings standing in the doorway. She came fully into the room, a broad‑shouldered, broad‑hipped woman in the grey‑green coveralls that anyone wore to visit the distillery, and a whiff of the mash came with her, a sour odor almost thick enough to taste. Damian winced, and Calligenia Chrestil‑Brisch finished stripping out of the heavy coveralls and dropped them in the hallway outside the door. She closed the door behind her, leaving the clothes for a household cleaner, said, “I got caught up in some stuff at the plant.”

“Problems?” Chrestillio said, and Calligan Brisch shook her head.

“Not really. We were doing preliminary slow‑down for Storm, and there was a minor hassle with one of the big vats. About what you’d expect, this time of year.”

Chrestillio nodded, satisfied, and Damian took a cautious sip of his coffee, trying to drown the last of the smell.

“Did you get that shipment in, Damiano?” Calligan went on, and turned to the sideboard. She filled a plate–a little of everything, cheese, sausage, bread, a couple of the eggs, a healthy spoonful of the preserved fruits–and came to take the final place at the table. Looking at her, at all of them, Damian was struck again by the resemblances between them. Not that they precisely looked alike, beyond a general similarity of coloring–Chrestillio and Calligan Brisch had both gotten their mother’s build, big, broad‑shouldered people, while he and Bettis Chrestil took more after their slimmer, fine‑boned father–but there was a certain something, the shape of the long nose and the quirk of the wide mouth, that marked them unmistakably as siblings. He shook himself out of the reverie, and made himself answer her question.

“Yes. There was some minor spoilage in one of the batches of red‑carpet–TMN again.”

“I think we ought to cut ties with them,” Calligan Brisch said, and reached for a saltcellar. Bettis Chrestil slid one across to her, still not taking her eyes from the workboard.

“We probably should,” Damian agreed. “Unless they give us a real break on the next few batches.” And anyway, he added silently, they’ve served their purpose. I’ve got enough information on their codes to fake a shipment from them, and that will help the lachesi get through.

“What I’d like to know,” Chrestillio said, “is why the Republicans have been sniffing around our warehouses again.”

“Not here, surely,” Bettis said.

“No,” Chrestillio said.

“On Demeter, right?” Damian said, with all the innocence he could muster. “I think it was TMN they were after–another reason to drop them, I guess.”

“You heard about it, then?” Chrestillio asked.

“I got your message yesterday,” Damian said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you, but I did have time to look into the matter, and from what our factor tells me, they were looking for something in the TMN shipment that came through yesterday.” Was it only yesterday? It feels as if it were years ago. He shook the thought away. Republican Customs‑and‑Intelligence had certainly been tipped off to the lachesi that had traveled with the red‑carpet; the only real question was, by whom, and the factor would deal with that. But C‑and‑I had no proof; it would be safe enough to begin the next stage of the transfer. In fact, the sooner the better.