“How did you land that job, anyway?”
“I applied.”
“No, seriously.”
“I am being serious! I spent some time over there, made friends with a few of the ladies, got them to vouch for me, and the bar manager gave me a uniform.”
“Some uniform.”
Amity smiled and narrowed her eyes at me. “You liked seeing me in that uniform, didn’t you?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“What part did you like most, Mister Pennington?”
“That’s enough,” I said, hoping that my tone of frustration might have couched the likelihood of my uncontrollably blushing were she to continue. “What about your credentials?”
“I provided them,” she said. “Not legitimate ones, but they’re airtight. I know a guy who set me up.”
“The catch, though, is that Ganz knows a lot of guys. Ganz ownsa lot of guys.”
“I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t careful.”
“I trust you. But I have to tell you, Amity. In a story such as this, as exciting as it can be—and I need to admit that I’m a little caught up in it myself—there’s just not a lot to be gained by working it from our end.”
“So whose end works it? Starfleet? Tim, they are involved.”
“Well, one or more individuals may be involved. But don’t go into this thinking you’re going to tug on one string and unravel an entire conspiracy with the Orions. I think we are better off delivering what we know to Starfleet security as an internal matter and moving on to another story.”
“What weknow? This is my story.”
I sensed an understandable edge of defensiveness creeping into her voice. “Of course it is. I get that.”
“And as you have pointed out, we don’t really know anything. So let me make you a deal.”
“You’re all about this deal-making.”
She smiled. “Let me see this through long enough to get some real evidence on this guy. Let me do my reporting my way and then we take it to the authorities.”
I weighed the option Amity proposed, but not against my concerns for her continued involvement on board the Omari-Ekon,which were bolstered by Quinn’s reactions as well as Ginther’s apprehension. I weighed it against my agreeing with her choice and her continuing to inform me of her activities versus my refusal and her going ahead with her investigation but leaving me totally in the dark. In the end, I simply did not want her in this by herself. “Okay. So what’s your next step?”
“Hmm,” she said. “The next step is for me to tell you why I picked this location in the first place.”
“I’m listening.”
Amity answered not with her voice but with a subtle nod of her head toward my right. I waited a moment, then shifted in my chair so a sideward glance might be a little less noticeable. I looked just in time to see an impassioned and lingering kiss between a strikingly beautiful and totally bald woman and the subject of last night’s surreptitious recording, Adan Chung. It was simultaneously uncomfortable to watch and impossible to turn away from.
“Now I see what you mean by totally compromised.”
“See? Just like clockwork,” she said. “That’s Aurelie, and she’s Deltan.”
“And you’re suggesting Aurelie is a woman who isn’t adhering to her people’s oath of celibacy in regard to humans in Starfleet?”
Amity simply looked at me. “ Please.”
“So they come here for dinner? Breakfast?”
“If they come here for food, I’ve never seen it. They kiss, sometimes they’re even more involved than they were today, make their swap, chat a bit, and leave.”
“Make their swap? What? I didn’t see them swap anything. Well, a few germs, perhaps.”
“That’s exactly it,” Amity said. “You watched the kiss. Everyone watches the kiss. I watched her palm something he slipped into her hand.”
“I sure as hell missed that.”
“Mm-hmm. So, who are we following?”
“Pardon?”
“Who are we following? I’ve never figured out where they go when they leave.”
“Right. Well, his activities would likely be traced through records on Starfleet computers, and hers might not be recorded anywhere. If she really did take something from him, my guess is that she’s heading directly back to the Omari-Ekon,but I’m all for tailing her if for nothing else than to satisfy our curiosity.”
Amity scooted back from the table and practically leapt from her chair to dash toward the patio doorway into the café. “We’ll cut through the— Watch out!”
My body tensed with adrenaline at Amity’s shriek as she roughly collided with a server carrying a tray filled with plates of food. Amity screamed again as it became clear that the server would not be able to recover the teetering tray, which showered its contents loudly onto the brick patio. Metal plate covers, china serving dishes and the various meals they contained, all of it smashed and clattered to the ground amid cries of alarm from several nearby diners.
I looked to Amity as she lay on the ground spattered with bits of food, then I snapped my head up toward the Deltan—only to discover her staring right into my eyes. I felt time expand uncomfortably in that moment, each of us caught searching the face of the other in what certainly was a mere moment but felt like an eternity. I regained my presence of mind as soon as I saw Amity start to rise from the ground.
“Stay down!” I implored in a stage whisper that must have struck anyone overhearing it as very odd in the moment. Amity began to reposition herself but thankfully did not rise from the ground right away. I looked up again to see the Deltan woman had disappeared. “Okay, it’s okay now. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Humiliated, but that’s not new.” As she rose, she turned to share a sour look of embarrassment with me before reaching out to the server she had toppled. “I am so, so sorry. Please tell me what I can do.”
The server, who by this time was joined by several other members of the café staff, responded with grace and told us all would be set to rights shortly. Amity turned to me, her clothing soiled to the point of ruin, smiling seemingly in the hope of making a joke out of the situation to defuse her anxiety over causing a scene. I took her hand and led her away from the clamor.
“Your friend, Aurelie.”
“I know. I don’t even know what to say about that.”
“No, listen,” I said. “She saw me, and I mean she took a really hard look at me while all that was happening.”
“Do you think she saw you or she saw Tim Pennington?”
I shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing. It may be nothing. Maybe it was just the kind of look you give to a passerby when you share a strange moment. I’m sure I’m simply reading too much into this. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“You’re just being cautious, and it’s cute. I’m fine.” Amity leaned into me, completely unconscious of a smudge of some sort of sauce on her face, and softly kissed me on the cheek. “But I need to go home and get ready for work.”
“Is that really such a good idea?”
“How about this? I go tonight. I get a feel for my own comfort level while I’m there and we talk about it again tomorrow.”
“I can live with that.”
“Good,” she said, and smiled. “I’ll give you a call then. Oh, and one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Be a dear and pick up our tab, would you?”
12
Either the stench was less oppressive than I had experienced the night before, or I had been spending way too much time on the Omari-Ekon.
However, in all fairness, I should have accounted for all of the differences that separated that particular moment on the Orion ship from my visit the previous night. First, it was a different time of day for me to be there. Upon my arrival home from the café, I had showered, had recorded a number of notes from the day before they slipped my mind, and had laid myself down for a nap. Thus, while I previously had met Amity near the beginning of her shift, tonight I arrived near what I assumed might be the conclusion of it. Yes, she had offered to contact me following her shift as a cocktail server, but I found myself not wanting to wait. I wanted to speak with her as soon as possible.