‘Do you think you could get him to talk to Aneka?’ Ella asked. ‘She’s the most important woman in the universe and she refuses to believe it.’
Anne laughed. ‘I warn you, he’s expensive. Here we are.’ She opened a door on their left and stepped into what Aneka would have definitely described as a ‘boudoir.’ The walls were a deep red colour and there was thick, russet carpet on the floor. Crimson drapes hung from the ceiling to partition the cabin up into sections, but the one at the forefront, and immediately visible, contained a big, circular bed with a curtain around it. ‘We’re not at full occupancy at the moment, so this one’s free. The one we passed is free too, and then you’ve got Lisa on the other side. Brandon’s normally across from you, but he’s the only one that can keep Kitty quiet at the moment so he’s in her room.’
‘Oh wow,’ Ella breathed. ‘I think I could really get to like this.’
Aneka sighed. ‘I can see us having to redecorate at home.’
~~~
The habitation area of the Serai was laid out kind of like a traditional brothel. Down the corridor from their room, Aneka and Ella found an open area with access to a second hangar bay which was used for customer docking. The room was laid out with couches and a chaise longue, there was a large window on one side looking out into space, and it was clearly a room where the staff could make themselves available for selection by visiting clients. With no clients, and no chance any would turn up, it became a communal lounge.
Someone Aneka took to be Lisa, a petite, pretty blonde, was doing what appeared to be yoga exercises in the middle of the floor wearing nothing but a smile, but the other occupants of the room were in casual clothes. The twins really did seem to be twins, identical blondes who sat on a couch reading. Which left Magda and Beth as the other two women, one with black hair, the other a lustrous chocolate brown, but which was which was not clear. There was also a lean, handsome, young-looking man playing chess with the black-haired woman. He had to be Saint.
The brunette looked up as the couple entered the room, giving them a broad smile and putting down the tablet she was reading from. ‘You must be Aneka and Ella. I’m Beth,’ she grinned, ‘the empathic one. You’re a bright one, Ella. I’m just getting good vibes from you. You can stay as long as you like.’
Saint chuckled. ‘Beth always likes the happy ones. Good evening, ladies, I am Philip Jacobs, but everyone calls me “Saint.” My companion here is Magda.’
‘The illusionist,’ Magda added.
‘Evening,’ Aneka said.
‘Uh, hi,’ Ella put in; she was watching Lisa with rapt fascination.
‘That’s Lisa,’ Beth said. ‘She doesn’t talk much when she’s concentrating.’
‘She’s good,’ Ella replied. ‘My mother can manage stuff like that; I never practised enough.’ Lisa gave her a grin and a wink.
Beth was looking at Aneka. ‘You I can’t get anything from. It’s like you’re not there.’
‘Telepaths can’t read her either,’ Ella said quickly. ‘She was in nanostasis for a long time. They think it did something weird to her brainwaves.’
‘Twenty credits, Saint,’ one of the twins said.
‘Yes, Farah, I’ll have it transferred to your account.’ Aneka looked at him, raising her eyebrows. ‘Farah said you were that Aneka Jansen, and I didn’t believe you could be.’
‘Afraid so,’ Aneka said. ‘The woman from Old Earth and all that.’
‘It’s a shame Kitty’s locked in her cabin with Brandon,’ Beth said. ‘She’s from out that way, originally.’
‘Oh?’
The empathy nodded. ‘Sad story. She’s a transgenic. There were various modifications made out there, some of them more successful than others. The Felix was one of the successes, but she was more or less a slave. Escaped and ran this way, hopping freighters and the like until she ran into Eddie and he took her in.’
‘We’re all a little like that,’ Saint supplied. ‘We’re all waifs and strays Eddie’s collected, both the staff and the crew.’
‘I guess we fit the mould at the moment,’ Aneka said. ‘We’re on the run, anyway.’
‘Everyone’s running from something, hun,’ Beth said. ‘Come and sit down. When you’re running, taking a minute to sit down is the best thing you can do.’
~~~
Something about the evening gave Aneka the impression that the residents of the Serai were putting on a bit of a show for their guests. Eddie, dressed in a crisp, white suit and a stylishly cut shirt, but no tie, had invited the couple to his room for dinner, escorting them from their room to his, one on each arm. Aneka had half-expected this to be a seduction attempt, but they were eating with Alice and also Pat the pilot. The latter was a moderately short Jenlay, fit, very lithe, with a long blonde ponytail, and a small-breasted, narrow-hipped body on display thanks to a tube-gown of white Bi-weave, which covered her, barely, from chest to ankles. Alice was also in a gown, a floating affair, which seemed to be made from loosely bound scarves. Even if the women’s dresses were not exactly covering, Aneka and Ella felt a little underdressed without evening dresses to wear.
Anne and Trudy, the other maid on the ship, were still dressed in their black cut-out dresses as they served a fairly light, beautifully crafted meal. There was wine which did not really taste like it had ever seen a grape but was described as a ‘fruit wine’ so Aneka could make allowances. Their waitresses were perfectly trained, it seemed, the company congenial. The food, however, drew Aneka’s attention.
‘This… Is this wild duck?’ she asked, frowning at the dark, succulent meat on the end of her fork.
‘Alphonse has his sources,’ Alice said. ‘There’s a world on the Old Earth side of the Rim which was once a nature reserve of some sort. Someone seeded ducks there. Mallards, I think.’
Aneka grinned. ‘Haven’t had roast duck in… Mmmmm.’ She chewed for a few seconds, letting the meat slide down her throat before saying, ‘But seriously, Alphonse?’
Pat giggled. ‘He’s actually Albert, but he thinks Alphonse makes him sound more authentic.’
‘I don’t think,’ Ella said, ‘that he needs anything other than his food to be authentic.’
‘We’re all misfits here,’ Alice replied. ‘If Albert wants to pretend to be some Old Earth Chef de cuisine, complete with something of a fake accent, then as long as he doesn’t attack us with knives we’re fine with it.’
‘This whole place reminds me a little of an old French brothel,’ Aneka commented. ‘Not that I’m that old, but it’s got the same feel as things I’ve seen in films.’
‘I notice,’ Alice replied, ‘that you qualified your age, but not your attendance in a brothel?’
‘Never been in a French one. German, yes. Once for pleasure, once to drag a friend out by his hair. Thailand, yes. Never a French one.’
‘Brothels weren’t like they are now back then,’ Ella said. ‘They’d have been illegal…’
‘Not the German ones,’ Aneka interrupted. ‘They legalised brothels like the Dutch did.’
‘They were more taboo though,’ Ella countered.
‘I’ll grant you that. More so for a woman. I wasn’t exactly going in for sex any of the times. I wasn’t into women at the time, not really anyway, and our brothels were not places to find male prostitutes. Not that I ever used one.’
‘I can’t see you having to spend money to get a partner, no,’ Eddie said, ‘but it can be worth it for the skill.’
Aneka laughed. ‘I’m sure that’s true of Saint and Brandon, but in my time you’d be paying for looks at best. Maybe staying power. No genetic enhancement, no genital modifications, and most men didn’t know much about what they were doing anyway.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘That may be a little unfair. Depended on the guy, I think.’
Alice chuckled. ‘Ella is an improvement over your previous lovers?’
Aneka looked at Ella. ‘First one I’ve ever had who actually loves me,’ she replied. She turned her gaze on Ed
die as Ella blushed. ‘How long’ve you known Winter?’
‘A long time,’ he replied. ‘A very long time.’
‘I know she’s older than she looks. So are you.’
‘Yes… You remember I said I was making up for past misdeeds? Winter showed me the errors of my ways. Saved my butt at the same time, but that was kind of incidental to her handing me my ass. But I never looked back, and I help her now and again, when she needs something special doing.’
‘Like this?’ Ella asked.
‘Oh, my dear, no, nothing like this. We were in the area anyway and this is more like a treat.’
Which begged the question, what could Winter do with a floating brothel? Aneka did not think she was going to get the question answered though, so she did not ask.
7.8.527 FSC.
Daniel Waters was the ship’s electronics technician, and he looked like he came from the Rim, or even beyond it. He was thin, almost scrawny, with a mess of ash-blonde hair, and blue eyes hidden behind spectacles. He lacked the body-confidence of people from the core worlds, but he knew electronic systems, and he was in Aneka and Ella’s cabin because Ella’s eyes needed to be checked over.
‘It’s overdue,’ Ella said as he prepped his equipment. ‘We went out of the system and when we got back everything went to gopi so I didn’t have time to get it done.’
Waters checked one of his displays. ‘These Clarion May models are pretty resilient. And they’re pretty new…’
‘I had them fitted last year.’
‘Yeah… There shouldn’t be any problems, but we’ll run through the tests anyway.’ He tapped a screen and the display on it was replaced with some sort of test grid. ‘Just stare at that and the computer will do its stuff.’
Aneka grinned as Waters’ eyes returned to their examination of Ella’s chest. ‘Where did Eddie find you, Daniel?’ she asked.
‘Call me Dan, everyone does. Uh, I was working in the spaceport on a planet called Gillina Four. Dead-end job on a dead-end planet, but I’ve always been good with electronics. I fixed the Serai’s tachyon comms and Eddie asked if I’d like to join the crew.’
‘I don’t know that world,’ Ella commented.
‘No, it’s not part of the Federation. We come from all over. The Minskys are from outside the Rim too, and there’s Kitty. She’s from… wow, it’s like the other side of the galaxy or something.’
The grid pattern shifted to various colour gradients as the software cycled through tests. It all seemed to be pretty automated. Delta had said that Aneka could learn to do them; maybe she should.
‘Beth said Kitty was running from some sort of slavery,’ Aneka said.
‘Yeah. She told me some of it once. Some bunch called the Pinnacle. Not what you’d think. I mean, she’s a really sexy girl and you’d think it was some sexual thing, but she said they don’t do that. They won’t even rape other races. They think it’s like bestiality or something. They used to use her for hunting. Hunting other people.’
Ella winced. ‘Wasn’t Pinnacle the name of that group that attacked Old Earth, Aneka?’
‘Uh-huh. I guess they didn’t get wiped out.’
‘Not the way Kitty tells it,’ Dan said. ‘They’ve got some sort of empire out way beyond the Rim.’ There was a bleep from the equipment and he turned to check the results. ‘Like I said, no problems. You’re good to go.’
Ella grinned at him. ‘If you want, I can just sit here and you can stare at my breasts a while longer. I don’t mind.’
Dan blushed and started closing down his computers. ‘Uh, no, it’s okay. You’d think I’d see enough breasts on this ship, but new ones are always fascinating.’
Ella giggled. ‘Aneka, get your shirt off.’
Odanari.
The shuttle dropped them off on one of the many islands dotted over the surface of Odanari, and they waved as it lifted off again, heading back into orbit. Eddie had told them they had a number of clients on the planet, and it was going to be a busy couple of weeks for the Serai’s staff and crew. Aneka wondered whether Stephen Teldarian was one of those clients. His island was a couple of thousand kilometres west of the one they were on.
It was small, very small. Just the very peak of an undersea mountain, maybe half a kilometre across, with just enough flat ground on one side to land the shuttle. The entire northern side was a hill of white rock with a few scrubby trees and brushes decorating it. And there was a house set into the cliff at the bottom of that.
Standing in the doorway of the Plascrete building was a woman, tall, slim, attractive, of course, with short black hair, clear blue eyes, and narrow, kind of cute, features on a rounded face. There were even freckles visible across her nose through her slight tan. She was dressed in a simple, black mini-dress and kitten heels, and she stood with her ankles together and her hands clasped in front of her.
‘Aneka Jansen and Ella Narrows,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘I am Justine Nivalis, please call me Justine. I run this house for Winter. Please, come in and I’ll explain the rules.’
‘There are rules?’ Ella asked.
‘It’s a safe house,’ Aneka said. ‘There are going to be rules to make sure it stays safe.’
‘Precisely,’ Justine agreed. ‘I don’t think you’ll find them too onerous, however.’
They walked in through the door and she closed it behind them. Aneka heard locks engage. Inside was a fairly large room, which indicated that the building had to extend a fair way into the cliff. This room was a lounge with several large comfortable-looking sofas around it. To their right was an open doorway into a kitchen and ahead of them was a closed door, which led further into the hill.
Justine indicated that they should sit and waited for them to do so before she began speaking. ‘First, there are no long-range communication systems here. We are “off the grid,” so to speak and we want to keep it that way. When the danger is over, a ship will be sent to collect you. Until then no one is going to know where you are.
‘Second, you can go outside unless I indicate otherwise. If I say you need to stay in, there is a good reason for it. Please do as I ask. We have passive sensor arrays on the hill monitoring for ships and satellites in orbit any of which could be spying on the surface. There’s a solarium with a pool in the back which can be used at any hour so you may find that going outside is not necessary. Some people prefer really fresh air to artificially fresh air, however. It is possible to get up onto the hill. If you do, try to stay under cover.’
She gave them a smile. ‘I’d ask that you follow any security suggestions I make. There will be good reason for them. Aside from that, you’re free to do as you wish. The file servers here have an extensive list of films, music, and literature. Aside from that, if you need anything, I am here to service any requirement you may have.’
Ella looked at her and licked her lips. ‘Any requirement?’ Aneka winced.
Justine, however, was not in the least bit fazed. ‘Yes, Miss Narrows, but might I suggest we get you settled in before I take my dress off?’
8.8.527 FSC.
The view from the top of the peak behind the house was both spectacular and boring. They were surrounded by calm ocean. There was little in the way of flat land to the island; the hill fell into the sea on the other side from the house. The ground between the sea and the house did a good impression of being roughly flat, though Aneka knew you could land an aircraft on it quite safely. There was little in the way of cover anywhere on the island. Some scrub, a couple of stunted trees, and that was about it. They were on a rock.
Aneka had left Ella in bed with Justine to walk up the hill. The housekeeper had opened her eyes as Aneka slipped out from under the sheets, nodded, and then closed them again. Aneka was at least thirty per cent sure that the two would be having sex again when she got down. She was not really worried, nor did she care. They had had a good meal, Ella had got fairly drunk, and then the sex had started. First it had been the lounge, and then they had progressed through t
o the bedroom, ending up falling into sleep huddled together. If it started again once Ella woke up then that was fine. Of course, it was also possible she would get down to find Justine feeding Ella painkillers.
Grinning, Aneka turned and headed down the slope on the east side. Fifteen metres down she came across a second set of sensors hidden under a bush which was not really a bush.
‘More of the same sort as on the other side,’ Al commented. ‘Phased array of sensor heads. Quite capable of detecting objects in high orbit.’
‘No emissions at all?’
‘None. The sensors are connected through to the house via shielded cables. Almost entirely undetectable unless you know where you are looking.’
‘Hopefully we’ll see anything that might come.’
‘Not if they have Xinti stealth technology.’
‘Would that work in an atmosphere?’
‘Slightly less effectively against visual sensors, but it would be effective at stopping most forms of detection.’
Aneka continued downward. ‘Let’s hope they don’t come at us with one of those frigates.’
‘That assumes they even come. This location is secret. I suspect it is one of those level-eight secrets Truelove mentioned. Even the Agency does not know where it is.’
‘First rule of being on the run, Al: never assume your position is safe.’
High Yorkbridge, New Earth, 9.8.527 FSC.
The black car was armoured, heavily armoured, and it carried in its passenger compartment a contingent of seven Federal Security Agents in combat armour carrying both side arms and rifles. It was the state of the art in protective transport, staffed by experts in protection.
Unfortunately, it was in use because Winter was making an entirely unplanned and unscheduled trip to the central Administration building in Yorkbridge to give a confidential briefing. There had been no time to do the normal security sweeps the agents would have liked to have carried out. The only advantage they had in a situation like this was that would-be assassins had little time to plan their operation as well.
The Winter War Page 20
