She put her hands on her hips. “And I’m the Summer Queen. Come on, shorty, I know what that eye burned into his palm means. The Source doesn’t brand his chiefs.”
Niburu opened his mouth to answer her, but Ananke put a hand on his arm, with an urgent grimace. Niburu let his breath out in a sigh, and muttered, “Have it your way, Tor.” He shrugged and finished his drink in one swallow, wiping his mouth. A branded hireling of some underworld cartel wasn’t much better than a slave. She supposed her comments about Kullervo had hurt Niburu’s pride by association; he probably wanted her to think his boss was something better because that made him something better too. “The Queen doesn’t have to lose sleep over Reede, anyway. Because he’s not sleeping with her daughter.”
Tor stared at him. “Then what the hell are they doing in one of my private rooms almost every night?”
Niburu shrugged. “He says they talk.”
Tor made a rude noise.
“He says they talk about the mers. They share an interest. That’s all.”
“You believe that,” she said. Not a question.
He nodded. “She isn’t his type. His wife was Ondinean.”
“Wife?” she asked. “Was?” Thinking that Reede Kullervo hardly looked old I enough for that much history.
“She died… in an accident.” He looked down. “Since then I’ve only seen him with Ondinean women. Even here. And never with the same one twice.”
Tor felt herself frown again; with concern this time, because the longing look she had seen in Ariele’s eyes had nothing to do with a need for stimulating discussion. “Well,” she said at last, “I don’t know if that’s good news, or bad news… . But all I can say is, much as I care about that girl, I never thought of her as a spellbinding conversationalist.”
“It is kind of unusual, Kedalion,” Ananke said, glancing away into the room. “We’ve been in here practically every night for a couple of weeks straight, now. He’s never done anything like that before.”
“That’s true.…” Niburu nodded thoughtfully.
Ananke picked up the quoll, which had surfeited itself on seeds and begun to wander beyond reach. He tucked it back into the sling at his side. “You want to play the tables?”
“In a while.” Niburu waved a hand at the action. “You go ahead; I want to finish my drink.”
Tor glanced at his glass, which was empty. She saw Ananke glance at it too; a smile twitched the corners of his mouth as he looked up at her. He shrugged and started away, losing himself in the crowd.
Tor looked back at Niburu, and caught him looking down her cleavage. She straightened up, with a wry smile pulling at her own mouth, and casually ran her hands down the silken curves of her gown. Niburu raised his eyebrows, and she supposed she should be glad the light was dim, and that at her age she still had anything somebody wanted to look at. “Refill?” She gestured pointedly at Niburu’s empty glass.
“Yeah, thanks.” He grinned sheepishly.
“Pollux!” She stood back while the servo came, and watched it refill the drink. It moved away again without speaking, to take another order down the bar. “Well, it does the job, anyway. At least it’ll give me a break when I want to talk to the customers. Everybody wants to talk to the bartender. …” She took a drugstick out of the box below the counter and lit it, inhaling the spice-scented smoke that curled lazily from its tip.
“Yeah,” Niburu said again, still smiling. “I know.” He lifted his drink to her, and glanced away along the bar. “I hear you used to have a restaurant. … I like to cook,” he added, with a shrug.
“What kind of cooking?” She looked at him with genuine interest.
“Home-style. Plain but filling. A lot of spice—” He looked up again, into her eyes.
“My partner was the creative one. …” She smiled at what she saw in his gaze. “I just like to eat. But I got tired of his cooking; too complicated.” Her mouth quirked. “I find running a club more satisfying, these days.”
“I like your style,” Niburu said. “Yours is the only place in the Maze where a real person does anything personal. It’s a nice old-fashioned touch. Customers feel like maybe you enjoy their company as much as you like their credit.” He looked at her as if he hoped she’d tell him it was mutual.
“Thanks.” She rested her elbows on the counter again, letting him have another look down her cleavage as the drug smoke began to make her feel good. “Nice of you to notice.… I used to have a real bartender when I ran a place for the Source. It always seemed to work out.”
He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t believed that she’d known what she was talking about, when she’d named the Source before. “You really worked for Jaikola? Here?”
She nodded. “As a front, in the old days. Not now. Never again …” She glanced at his hands; she couldn’t see his brand. She looked at her own unmarked hands, feeling perspiration prickle her palms.
“It must be nice to have a choice,” Niburu muttered, and one of his hands made a fist.
“How’d you get to be a brand?” she asked, feeling a sudden empathy as she looked at him.
“It was a package deal. Me and Ananke, with Reede. We worked for him before he worked for the Source. I’m his ferryman,” he said, with a kind of stubborn pride.
She raised her silver-dusted eyebrows; knowing common brands didn’t have personal ferrymen, even if they worked for the Source. Only a chief rated that kind of service. She wondered if it was actually possible that Niburu had told her the truth, and hadn’t simply been trying to impress her with big talk. And she wondered what motive the Source could have had for mutilating one of his top men like a common vassal, humiliating him like that and still expecting loyal service from him. She shook her head, never doubting for a second that the Source was capable of any cruelty, whatever his reasons were for ordering it done. “Look, I don’t want anything to do with the Source anymore, you understand me?”
“Perfectly.” Niburu nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. … So anyway,” he said, taking a deep breath, shaking off the mood, “what are you doing after you close up for the night?”
Her mouth twitched; she straightened up again. “Sleeping.”
“Alone—?”
She looked at him. “Yeah, if that’s any of your business.”
He lifted his hands. “I wondered if maybe you might want some company.”
“Why me?” she asked suspiciously. There were plenty of other available men around, younger and prettier, amateurs and professionals.
“Because I only sleep with women I like.”
“I could be your mother. Almost.”
“You look nothing like my mother.”
“What about your wife?”
“I’m not married. Never been married.”
“Why not?”
“I travel too much. What about you?”
“I stay in one place too much,” she said, beginning to get impatient. “I called you ‘shorty’—”
“I’ve been called worse.” He shrugged. “Besides, where I come from that’s a
compliment.”
“Look,” she murmured, flattered in spite of herself, “you’re too short for me.”
He leaned back on his stool. “You mean you’re too old for me.”
She flushed. “I’m not old where it counts.”
“I’m not short where it counts.”
She grinned, in spite of herself, and knew the cause was lost. “All right,” she said. “Why the hell not? The place closes at three. If you’re still around here then, we’ll see what happens.…”
Tammis Dawntreader entered Starhiker’s alone; sleepless, aimless like the crowd around him. He scanned the faces he passed as he wove his way deeper into the labyrinth of hallucinatory illusion, illusory pleasure, where seduction and destruction coexisted in a delicate balance. He searched for anyone he knew; ready to escape again into anonymity before they could call his name.