Ngenet? Gods, she couldn’t talk to him now, not like this. Why the hell does he pick the worst times, why does he even bother any more?
“And Inspector Mantagnes is here to see you.”
“Put the call on my line.” But what will I say? What? “And tell Mantagnes to—” She clenched her teeth. “Tell him to wait.”
She heard storm static crackle from the speaker, and the familiar distortion of a familiar voice. “Hello? Hello, Jerusha—”
“Yes, Miroe!” Remembering with a sudden rush of pleasure what it was like to hear a human being speak to her willingly, gladly… realizing suddenly how much more than simple humanity his friendship gave her. “Gods, it’s good to hear from you again.” She was smiling, actually smiling.
“Can’t hear you… reception’s lousy! How’d you… come out to the plantation again… day or so?… of a long time since we’ve had a visit!”
“I can’t, Miroe.” How long had it been? Months, since she had accepted an invitation, even spoken to him — months since she had spent a day or an hour selfishly on something that made her smile. She couldn’t, she couldn’t afford to.
“What?”
“I said, I— I…” She saw herself reflected in the wall, the face of a jailer, the face of a prisoner in a cell. Panic touched her with a dun ringer. “Yes! Yes, I’ll come. I’ll come tonight.”
22
“All right, suckers. You’re on your own again.” Tor moved back, hoping for sinuous grace, hoping against hope. Inadvertently revealing more flesh than she had intended to, she bowed her way out of the eerily glowing obstacle course. Hologrammic coin ships and a meteor swarm tangled intangibly in the golden crocheted cap that held her midnight wig under control. The drapery of her silken overalls flashed the blue flame-color of a welding torch; the expanses of skin they left uncovered were a deathly lavender against the darkness.
Whistles and protests followed her in a crowd; she had been gambling with the patrons, as ordered, losing just enough, winning back just enough more to convince them that the games were honestly run. Suckers. The games were honestly run, for the most part-much to her surprise. They were simply so complicated that the ordinary human being couldn’t hope to outwit them. When she thought about the hours and the money she had thrown away, as wantonly and stupidly as any of these drugged-up boobs, she shook her ebony-frizzed head in disgust. Still, it wasn’t so bad now; now that she knew the codes that let her secretly control the outcome of the plays.
No, it wasn’t so bad at all, not any of it: running a casino, taking care of business as the front woman for the Source’s own on-planet interests. She was the Hostess, the titular owner, of Persipone’s Hell, unquestionably the finest gambling hell in Carbuncle. And on the side she tended to whatever other discreet dealings the Source — the head man of the off world criminal subculture on Tiamat — told her to tend to. It was a part of the Queen’s policy to provide capable Winters to act as a screen for off worlder illegalities, so the vice lords themselves could operate with virtual impunity, free of harassment by the Hedge’s police. She had been picked up four times by the Blues as she was working her way into the Source’s favor; but they had had to turn her over to the Queen’s guard, who had simply let her go.
“Hey—” She squinted through the dance of shifting bodies, saw more clearly the off worlder who had just come through the curtain of tiny, shimmering mirrors with a zombie in tow. “Pollux!” She pressed the caller on her bracelet as a secondary summons as she shouted into the throbbing music around her. Pollux appeared at her shoulder with the reassuring solidness of steel. “That pervert who just came in the door; show him out again. We don’t need his business.” She pointed, trying not to see whether the zombie was male or female, or any detail of its form. The very sight sickened her, and the sight of a man or woman who enjoyed using a living body that way.
“Whatever you say, Tor.” Pollux moved away with single-minded inevitability. He made a better bouncer than any of the humans who worked in this place; she had bought out his rental contract for the duration.
It had all worked out so perfectly… funny how it had. Even Herne… She turned back, leaning an elbow on one end of the coal-black, curving bar. The strange light-absorbing material sucked the warmth out through her skin; she shivered and straightened up. Farther down the way Herne sat in command of the banks of automated drink and drug dispensers, an outrageously popular anachronism. Putting him in charge of the bar, where customers gathered to lose their inhibitions along with their good credit, had been her most inspired move. They spilled their guts to each other, and better yet to him; and she fed what he learned to Dawntreader, who still lapped it up like an addict after all these years.
Who would ever have dreamed, that day in Fate’s alley when Dawntreader had nearly strangled her, that his bad temper would lead her to this? But between Herne ’s savvy and Dawntreader’s contacts with somebody up the line, she had risen higher and faster than she had ever dreamed of doing.
“Hey, Persipone, baby, the Source wants you.” Oyarzabal, one of the Source’s lieutenants, was abruptly behind her. His hands settled on her waist, got dangerously personal under the bib of her sensuous evening suit.
She controlled the unsubtle urge to dig an elbow into his ribs. She had learned tact and sophistication of a sort, painfully, since leaving the loading docks; getting mauled came with the territory. “Careful. You’ll set off my burglar alarm.” She pushed his hands away, but not too far. Oyarzabal was a jerk, proven by the fact that he seemed to prefer her to his choice of the easy, chic women who flowed through this place; but she didn’t work too hard at discouraging him. He was a onetime farmboy from somewhere on Big Blue, and attractive in a loutish, overgrown sort of way. She had gone to bed with him a few times, and hadn’t been too disappointed. She’d even toyed with the idea of getting him to marry her before the final departure, and getting off Tiamat for good.
“Hey, sweeting, how about later on you and me—”
“Tonight’s taken.” She started away before he could get his hands on her again; glanced back, relenting a little, enough for a smile. “Ask me tomorrow.”
He grinned. His teeth were inlaid with rhinestones. She turned away again, shaking her head.
She made her way through the crowd, through the forbidden door that led her to the Source’s private suite of offices and guarded meeting rooms — guarded not only by hidden human eyes, but also by the most elaborate anti snoop devices money could buy. When she had learned that Herne was a Kharemoughi, she had asked him about the possibility of using his legendary technical prowess to let her eavesdrop on the Source’s private dealings. But he was no match for the electronic guards, and she had finally realized that all Kharemoughis weren’t born knowing how a turn ore into computer terminals. So she had had to be content with noticing who called on the Source, and when, and only suspecting why.
She didn’t much like being the caller herself. The door to his office opened as she reached it, with the prescience she had learned to expect, and let her in to her audience. She blinked compulsively and slowed as she entered; the room was dark to the point of blindness for her, as it always was. Incense clogged the air with an overwhelming sweetness. She lifted a hand to rub her eyes, stopped it just short of ruining the perfect flowers painted over her lids. She let her hand drop again, resigned, as a dark form began to coalesce against a dimly reddening background: the Source, in silhouette, the only way she had ever seen him.
She had been told by Oyarzabal that the Source had some disease that made his eyes unable to stand the light. She didn’t know whether to believe it, or just to figure that he liked to keep his face hidden. Sometimes, as she adjusted slowly to the dull wash of red from the wall behind him, she thought there might be a distortion about his face. But she could never be sure.