Frank put his glass down. “The revue,” he said. “That damn cabaret act that keeps spamming me with invitations. Is that anything to do with you?”
Svengali looked disturbed. “Don’t blame me,” he said. “It’s official company Ents policy to rape the nostalgia market for all it’s worth. Consider yourself, a business traveler who can use his time productively on the journey: you’re an exception to the general rule, which is that most travelers are bored silly and can’t do anything about it. People travel to arrive at a destination. So, why would they want to stay awake through weeks of boredom, eating their heads off in an expensive stateroom when they could be tucked up in a vitrification pod in the cargo bay? Deadheads in steerage consume no oxygen, don’t get bored, and buy no expensive meals or entertainments en route. So the company has to lay on diversions and novelties if they are to extract the maximum revenue from their passengers. Do you realize that the Ents manager on this ship outranks the chief engineer? Or that there’s an unofficial revenue enhancement target of 50 percent over the bare room and board tariff per waking passenger?” He nodded slyly at Frank’s refilled glass of rum. “For all you know, I could be a revenue protection officer and this glass of mine is drinking water. I’m here to keep you drinking in this bar until you collapse under the table, to the greater glory of WhiteStar’s bottom line.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Frank said with a degree of magisterial assurance that came from three shots of cask-strength rum and a finely tuned bullshit detector. “You’re a fucking anarchist, and your next drink’s on me, right?”
“Um.” Svengali sighed. “You’re making presumptions on my honesty, and I’ve only known you for five minutes, but I thank you from the bottom of my bitter and twisted little ventricles. What kind of blogger are you, to be giving precious alcohol away?”
“One who wants to get drunk as a skunk, in company. Hard fucking editorial, the copy fought back, and there are no politicians to go beat up on until we get wherever it is that we’re going. My momma always told me that drinking on your own was bad, so I’m doing my best to live up to her advice. Really, you won’t like me anymore when you get to know me; I’m heartless when I’m sober.”
“Hmm, I may be able to help you. I’ve got the heart of an eight-year-old boy; I keep it in a jar of formaldehyde in my luggage. Er, please excuse me — if that’s funny I’m supposed to bill you.”
“Don’t worry, it was dead on arrival.”
“That’s all right then.”
“Make mine a Tallisker,” said Frank, turning to the bartender. “What cigars have you got?”
“Cigars, you say?” asked Svengali: “I’m fresh out of bangers.”
“Yeah, cigars.” In the far corner the clean-living crew began singing something outdoors-ish and rhythmic in what sounded to Frank’s ear to be a dialect descended from German. Much thumping of beer glasses ensued. Svengali winced and took two fat Havanas from the offered humidor, then passed one to Frank. “Hey, you got a light?” Svengali shrugged and snapped his fingers. Flame blossomed.
“Thanks.” Frank took an experimental puff, winced slightly, and took another. “That’s better. Whisky and cigars, what else is there to life?”
“Good sex, money, and the death of enemies,” said Svengali. “Not right now, I hasten to add: experience and honesty compels me to admit that mixing shipboard life with sex, money, and murder is generally a bad idea. But once I get off at New Dresden — end of this circuit, for now, for me — I confess I might just indulge in one or the other preoccupation.”
“Not murder, I hope.”
Svengali grinned humorlessly. “And what would a simple clown have to do with that? The only things I murder are straight lines.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Frank took another puff from his cigar and let the smoke trickle out in a thick blue stream. He pretended not to notice the bartender surreptitiously inserting a pair of nose plugs. “Did you ever run into any refugees from Moscow?”
“Hmm, that would be about, what, four years ago indeed?”
“About that,” Frank agreed. “The event itself happened” — he paused to check his watch — “about four years and nine months ago, normalized empire time.”
“Hmm.” Svengali nodded. “Yes, there were outlying stations weren’t there? I remember that.” He put his cigar down for a moment. “It really bit the flight schedules hereabouts. Every ship had to stand to arms for rescue missions! Indeed it did. However, I was working for a most malignant circus impresario at the time, groundside on Morgaine — a woman by the name of Eleanor Ringling. She had this strange idea that clowning was in the nature of unskilled labor, and used us harder than the animals. In the end I actually had to escape from that one, false papers and cash down for a freezer ticket off planet because she was trying to tie me up in court over an alleged bond of indenture she’d faked my spittle on.” He snorted. “Think I’ll stay on the rum, what?”
“Be my guest.” Frank puffed on his cigar, which, while not on a par with his private supply, was well within the remit of various arms control committees and definitely suitable for a public drinking establishment. “Hmm. Ringling. Name rings a bell, I think. Didn’t she turn up dead under peculiar circumstances a couple of years ago? Caused a scandal or something.”
“I couldn’t possibly comment. But it wouldn’t surprise me if an elephant sat on her — the woman had a way of making enemies. If I’m ever on the same continent, I think I’ll make a point of visiting her grave. Just to make sure she’s dead, you understand.”
“You must have got on like a house on fire.”
“Oh we did, we did,” Svengali said fervently. “She was the arsonist and I was the accelerant: her predilection for being tied up and sat on a butt plug while being beaten with sausages by a man wearing a rubber nose was the ignition source. We—” He stopped, looking at something behind Frank.
“What is” — Frank turned round — “it?” he finished, looking up, and up again, at the silent and disapproving face of one of the youths from the other table. He was blond, lantern-jawed, and built like a nuclear missile bunker. He was so tall that he even succeeded in looking over Frank.
“You are poisoning the air,” he said, icily polite. “Please cease and desist at once.”
“Really?” Frank switched on his shit-eating grin: There’s going to be trouble. “How strange, I hadn’t noticed. This is a public bar, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The matter stands. I do not intend to inhale your vile stench any further.” The kid’s nostrils flared.
Frank took a full mouthful of smoke and allowed it to dribble out of his nostrils. “Hey, bartender. Would you care to fill laughing boy here in on shipboard fire safety?”
“Certainly.” It was the first thing he’d heard the bartender say since he arrived. She looked like the strong, silent type, another young woman working her way around the worlds to broaden her horizons on a budget. One side of her head was shaven to reveal an inset intaglio of golden wires; her shoulder muscles bulged slightly under her historically inauthentic tank top and bow tie. “Sir, this is a general intoxicants bar. For passengers who wish to smoke, drink, and inject. It’s the only part of this ship they’re allowed to do that in, on this deck.”
“So.” Frank glared at the fellow. “What part of that don’t you understand? This is the smoking bar, and if you’d like to avoid the smell, I suggest you find a nonsmoking bar — or take it up with the Captain.”
“I don’t think so.” For a moment square-jaw looked mildly annoyed, as if a mosquito was buzzing around his ears, then an instant later Frank felt a hand like an industrial robot’s grab him by the throat.
“Hans! No!” It was one of the women from the table, rising to her feet. “I forbid it!” Her voice rang with the unmistakable sound of self-assured authority.
Hans let go instantly and took a step back from Frank, who coughed and glared at him, too startled to even raise a fist. “Hey, asshole! You looking for a�
��”
A hand landed on his shoulder from behind. “Don’t,” whispered Svengali. “Just don’t.”
“Hans. Apologize to the man,” said the blonde. “At once.”
Hans froze, his face like stone. “I am sorry,” he said tonelessly. “I did not intend to lay hands on you. I must atone now. Mathilde?”
“Go — I think you should go to your room,” said the woman, moderating her tone. Hans turned on his heel and marched toward the door. Frank stared at his back in gathering fury, but by the time he glanced back at the table the strength-through-joy types were all studiously avoiding looking in his direction.
“What the fuck was that about?” he demanded.
“I can call the purser’s office if you’d like an escort back to your room,” the bartender suggested. She finally brought both hands out from below the bar. “That guy was fast.”
“Fast?” Frank blinked. “Yeah, I’d say. He was like some kind of martial arts—” He stopped, rubbed his throat, glanced down at the ashtray. His cigar lay, half-burned, mashed flat as a pancake. “Oh fuck. That kind of fast. Did you see that?” he asked, beginning to tremble.
’Yeah,” Svengali said quietly. “Military-grade implants. I think my friend here could do with that escort,” he told the bartender. “Don’t turn your back on that guy if you see him again,” he added in a low conversational tone, pitched to avoid the other side of the room.
“I don’t understand—”
“This drink’s on me. One for you, too,” Svengali told the bartender.
“Thanks.” She poured them both a shot of rum, then pulled out a bottle of some kind of smart drink. “Sven, did my eyes fool me, or did you have some sort of gadget in your hand?”
“I couldn’t possibly comment, Eloise.” The clown shrugged, then knocked back half the glass in one go. “Hmm. That must be my fifth shot this evening. Better crank up my liver.”
“What was that about—”
“We get all types through here,” said Eloise the bartender. She leaned forward on the bar. “Don’t mess with these folks,” she whispered.
“Anything special?” asked Svengali.
“Just a feeling.” She put the bottle down. “They’re flakes.”
“Flakes? I’ve done flakes.” Svengali shrugged. “We’ve got fucking Peter Pans and Lolitas on the manifest. Flakes don’t go crazy over a little cigar smoke in a red-eye bar.”
“They’re not normal flakes,” she insisted.
“I think he’d have killed me if she hadn’t stopped him,” Frank managed to say. His hand holding the glass was shaking, rattling quietly on the bar top.
“Probably not.” Svengali finished his shot glass. “Just rendered you unconscious until the cleanup team got here.” He raised an eyebrow at Eloise. “Is there a panic button under the bar, or were you just masturbating furiously?”
“Panic button, putz.” She paused. “Say, nobody told me about any ersatz juvies. How do I tell if they come in my bar?”
“Go by the room tag manifest for their ages. Don’t assume kids are as young as they look. Or old folks, for that matter. You come from somewhere that restricts life extension rights, don’t you?” Svengali shrugged. “At least most of the Lolitas have a handle on how to behave in public, unlike dumb-as-a-plank there. Damn good thing, that, it can be really embarrassing when the eight-year-old you’re trying to distract with a string of brightly dyed handkerchiefs turns out to have designed the weaving machine that made them. Anyway, who are those people?”
“One minute.” Eloise turned away and did something with the bar slate. “That’s funny,” she said. “They’re all from someplace called Tonto. En route to Newpeace. Either of you ever heard of it?”
There was a dull clank as Frank dropped his glass on the floor.
“Oh shit,” he said.
Svengali stared at him. “You dropped your drink. Funny, I had you pegged for a man with bottle. You going to tell me what’s bugging you, big boy?”
“I’ve met people from there before.” He glanced at the mirror behind the bar, taking in the table, the five clean-cut types playing cards and studiously ignoring him, their quasi-uniform appearance and robust backwoods build. “Them. Here. Oh shit. I thought the Romanov was only making a refueling stop, but it must be a real port of call.”
An elbow prodded him in the ribs; he found Svengali staring up at him, speculation writ large on the off-duty clown’s face. “Come on, back to my room. I’ve got a bottle stashed in my trunk; you can tell me all about it. Eloise, room party after your shift?”
“I’m off in ten minutes, or whenever Lucid relieves me,” she said. Glancing at him, interestedly: “Is it a good story?”
“A story?” Frank echoed. “You could say.” He glanced at the table. A flashback to icy terror prickled across his skin, turned his guts to water. “We’d better leave quietly.” The woman, Mathilde, the one in charge, was watching him in one of the gilt-framed mirrors. Her expression wasn’t so much unfriendly as disinterested, like a woman trying to make up her mind whether or not to swat a buzzing insect. “Before they really notice us.”
“Now?” Svengali hopped down off his stool and got an arm under Frank’s shoulder. He’d had rather a lot to drink, but for some reason Svengali seemed almost sober. Frank, for his part, wasn’t sober so much as so frightened that it felt like it. He let Svengali lead him through the door, toward a lift cube, then from it down a narrow uncarpeted corridor to a small, cramped crew stateroom. “Come on. Not much farther,” said Svengali. “You want that drink?”
“I want—” Frank shivered. “Yeah,” he said. “Preferably somewhere where they don’t know it’s my room.”
“Somewhere.” Svengali keyed the door open, waved Frank down at one end of the narrow bunk, and shut the door. He rummaged in one of the overhead lockers and pulled out a metal flask and a pair of collapsible shot glasses. “So how come you know those guys?”
“I’m not sure.” Frank grimaced. “But they’re from Tonto, and going to Newpeace. I had a really bad time on Newpeace once…”
THE BULLET SEASON
Newpeace, 18 years earlier
Frank and Alice watched the beginnings of the demonstration from the top of the Demosthenes Hotel in downtown Samara. The top of the hotel was a flat synrock expanse carpeted in well-manicured grass, now browning at the edges. The swimming pool and bar in the center of the lawn was drained, water long since diverted for emergency irrigation. In fact, most of the hotel staff had gone — conscripted into the Peace Enforcement Organization, fled to the hills, joined the rebels, who knew what.
It wasn’t quite Frank’s first field job, but it was close enough that Alice, a tanned, blond, hard-as-nails veteran of many botched campaigns, had taken him under her wing and given him a clear-cut — some would say micromanaged — set of instructions for how to run the shop in her absence. Then she’d taken off into the heart of darkness in search of the real story, leaving Frank to cool his heels on the roof of the hotel. She’d returned from her latest expedition three days earlier, riding the back of a requisitioned militia truck with a crateful of camera drones and a magic box that took in water at one end and emitted something not entirely unlike cheap beer at the other — as long as the concentrate cans held out. Frank welcomed her back with mixed emotions. On the one hand, her tendency to use him as a gofer rankled slightly; on the other, he was slowly going out of his skull with a mixture of boredom and paranoia, minding the shop on his own and hoping like hell that nothing happened while the boss was away.
To get the hotel roof (right on the edge of City Square, empty and untended in the absence of foreign business travelers and visiting out-of-town politicos) they’d had to pay off the owner, a twitchy-eyelidded off-world entrepreneur called Vadim Trofenko, with untraceable slugs of buttery, high-purity gold. Nothing else would do in these troubled times, it seemed. Getting hold of the stuff had been a royal pain in the ass, and had entailed Alice going on a week-long trip up t
o orbit, leaving Frank to mind the bureau all on his lonesome. But at least the agency’s money was buying them the penthouse suite, however neglected it was. Most of the other hacks who’d descended like flies on the injured flank of the city of Samara to watch the much-ballyhooed descent into civil war at firsthand had discovered that they could find accommodation for neither love nor money.
Frank had hung in while his boss was away, hammering out hangovers and human-angle commentaries by day, and descending like some kind of pain-feeding vampire from his rooftop every night to walk the streets and talk to people in the cafes and bars and on boulevard corners, soaking up the local color and nodding earnestly at their grievances. Lately he’d taken to hanging out in the square with a recorder, where the students and unemployed gathered to chant their slogans at the uncaring ranks of police and the blank facade of the provincial assembly buildings. He did this long into the night, before staggering back to the big empty hotel bed to crash out. But not this morning.
“I’ve got a bad feeling, kid,” Alice had told him. She stared pensively out at the square. “A really bad feeling. Look to the back door; you wouldn’t want to catch your ass in it when they slam it shut. Somebody’s going to blink, and when the shit hits the fan…” She gestured at the window, out at the huge poster that covered most of the opposite wall of the square. “It’s the tension, mostly. It seems to be slackening. And that’s always a bad sign.”
Big Bill’s avuncular face beamed down, jovial and friendly as anyone’s favorite uncle, guarded from the protesters by a squad of riot police, day and night. Despite the sentries, someone had managed to fly a handheld drone into the dead politician’s right eye, splashing a red paint spot across his iris in a grisly reminder of what had happened to the last elected President.
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