"They were angry with me for what I did." I growled a little as I said it.
"I'm sure not!" She smiled askance at me, "Though it wasn't exactly what I expected."
"I hate Weasel's," I growled again.
"Why?"
"I don't want to go into it now," I sidetracked. "How many people will be upset by what I did anyway?"
"Not too many. Hobb was the local muscle and had killed at least one person that I know of, and probably several others that I heard about. The police really don't care what goes on up here, as long as they get their cut and it stays off the streets.
"So what got your friends upset?"
"Cause I murdered him plain and simple," I said looking at her.
"It looked like a fair fight to me."
"It wasn't really." I smiled, "If it wasn't for all that beer I drank it would have been even easier."
"You've done this before?" She looked up at me, eyes wide and ears splayed.
"Too many times to count." I reached over and put my hand under her muzzle, "It's what I do." And I leaned over and kissed her.
5
It was still dark when I awoke, Sil was curled up inside my arms with her head against my chest. I looked at the clock on the makeshift nightstand and saw that it was actually after eight. Then I remembered that there weren't any windows down here, hence the darkness.
Sil stirred a little and I looked down at the outline of her head in the darkness, the weak light of the clock more than enough for my eyes. I had to smile, she didn't ask any questions that I didn't want to answer. She just accepted things the way they were and lived with it. No worries, no fears, tomorrow will be a better day. I really appreciated the optimism of youth, and its vigor too! I smiled again when I thought about last night.
I just lay there relaxing with my nose in the fur of her head enjoying her scent and the moment. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have a normal life, living like this. It had been so long since I'd been in main stream society, I don't know if I could ever go back even if I did get the chance.
I felt Sil start to stir, then stretch as she woke up herself.
"Morning, sleepyhead," I grinned in the darkness.
"What time is it anyway?"
"Eight twenty."
"Eight! Boy you really tire a girl out! I'm gonna be late for work." She hopped out of bed and turned on a light.
"Me?" I asked surprised, "You're the one who kept encouraging me!"
"Umm, welllll." Her tail curled down as her ears disappeared in embarrassment.
I laughed at her discomfort. "So where do you have to go?"
"Well, first I need to go up the street to the public bathhouse. We can take a shower there pretty cheap. Then I have to show up at the bar to help with the morning service."
"How many hours you work there anyway?"
"About sixteen a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. I need all the money I can get if I'm going to go back to school next year."
"How's the pay?" I asked getting up and grabbing my coveralls.
"Lousy, but it's the best I can get with the little training I have."
"What do you want to be?" I asked walking up behind her.
"I'm going to be a nurse I guess," She said with a heavy sigh.
I put my arms around her and kissed the top of her head, "But what do you want to be?"
"A doctor," she said simply.
"So why don't you?"
"I can't afford that kind of training, I'll be lucky if I can afford the nurse's courses." She gently freed herself from my arms. "I have to get going, I can't afford to be late Jotun."
"Call me Jo, please" I said following her out the door.
"Sure Jo," she turned and smiled. "So what are you going to do today?"
I thought about that, "I haven't the slightest idea. I don't even know where my friends are, just what day and time to be back at the ship."
"I don't think you'll have too much trouble finding them Jo."
"I don't know if I want too," I admitted putting my arm around her as we headed down the street to the Baths. "I kind of like the present company."
"I have to work Jo,"
"Well, how about a proposition?" I had an idea.
"I'm not a prostitute!" She said hotly and tried to move away.
I dragged her back, "Good, I wouldn't know what to do with one anyway."
"Yeah right," she said.
"Listen up, I'm on my first vacation in longer than I can remember and I don't know the town or what to do even. You show me around, and I'll cover your pay."
We went inside the building and paid the machine for a stall.
"Just as long as you understand you're not buying me." She reminded as I followed her into the same stall.
"I thought you were free!" I laughed and she turned the water nozzle in my face.
"Only to you Jo!" And laughed herself as I sputtered in the spray.
We played around in the stall and cleaned each other off, then headed outside.
"So what do you want to do?" She asked looking me over.
"I don't know, see the city, have fun, whatever. You're the one in charge, earn your pay!" I grinned. I noticed I was doing a lot of smiling lately.
"Okay, what's your budget?"
"I need to hit a bank I guess, but the sky's the limit!"
"Okay then, first a bank, then we get you some clothes. That coverall is just too plain!"
"What? I like it just fine."
"Typical male, no sense of style or fashion at all!" She harrumphed, then led me off to the nearest bank.
I made a withdrawal of some cash on my account. Even though I didn't really have a public identity, I did have a corporate account. They had to pay us, the law said so plain and simple. So while I might not legally exist I had quite a bit of cash. Go figure.
"Think this'll be enough?" I asked showing her the wad.
"Don't flash that!" She growled.
"Why?" I asked putting it in my pocket.
"That's a lot of cash to be carrying around here, that's why! Somebody might decide it would look better in their pocket than yours."
"After last night you think anybody's going to mess with me?"
"Probably not, but not everybody knows about it either. Just how much do you have there anyway?"
"Ten grand, why?"
"Ten grand! What are you planning on buying?" She said surprised.
"What you don't think it's enough?" I asked pulling her leg.
"It's more than enough! Maybe you should put some back, don't you know what things cost?"
Obviously it came off in my hand too. "Don't worry!" I laughed, "I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't come up short, that's all."
"So why not just charge stuff on your ident tag?"
"Cause it's fake, or rather, a company blank. If I use it, they'll know I was doing something I shouldn't have been."
"A company blank? What's that?" I could see the confusion in her eyes.
"I wasn't kidding last night about my job."
"I didn't think you were, not after what you did to Hobb last night," she interrupted.
"Well, I can't have anything that ties me to my company, like a real ident tag, in case I get caught. So they give us ones that they can claim are stolen or forged on accounts of dead employees."
"So if you use it, they'll see a charge where there should be none." She exclaimed.
"Right, and as I'm not supposed to be here goofing off, I can't use it or they'll find out about it."
"So how did you get your money at that bank?"
"Oh, easy. I have a cipher account."
"You lost me again! What's a cipher account?"
"I give them the account number, which is kept secret of course. Then they give me a code that a computer generates based on a cipher that I picked when I opened the account. I simply convert it and give it back. If it matches it proves who I am."
"How do you convert it? I don't see any calculator in you
r pockets."
"In my head, you don't have to pick a tough cipher, just a good one."
"So won't the company track your withdrawal on that?"
"Boy you are a curious one!" I laughed, "No, they don't know about it, I set it up behind their backs." I remembered that incident! They wanted to know where all the money in my account had gone! I told them I was donating it to the widows and orphans fund, as I didn't need it myself. When they investigated they found that I was donating, but they couldn't find out the amount and just assumed I was sending in all of it.
"I had set it up just because I'm paranoid." I admitted laughing, "But now I'm glad I did.
"So let's go shopping!"
She led me off to the stores then, and by noon I had let her talk me into a couple of new outfits. Two of them were just fancy coveralls, which were what I usually preferred. But the rest were the height of local fashion, and I guess I did look good in them. I bought her a few things, so we'd look good together and then took her to lunch at the fanciest place we could find that would allow us to eat there.
"Not bad," I said looking around, "so just what do you think is good here anyway?"
"Hey I don't know!" She giggled, "This place costs more than I make in a week!"
We ordered a lot of different stuff, to the disgust of our waiter I suspect. It was obvious that we weren't the usual type of clientele that they normally got, but after I slipped the waiter a hundred he stopped caring about what we did.
"Hey, this fish is pretty good!" Sil said, as we sampled the different dishes.
"Try some of this Grecc bird," I said trying not to make a mess of my new outfit. "It's delicious!"
She speared a portion off of the plate, "Umm, not bad. What's that over there?" She pointed to another of the plates.
"Defla Beast I think, they really do know how to cook here. This is better than any of the stuff I've ever had back home, and they lay out some good spreads there too."
"Now you know how the bosses eat huh?" She winked at me.
"Guess so! Maybe that's why they never eat with us!" I joked.
We continued to chat while we ate our meal, after we finished I sat back and relaxed.
"So now what, oh great guide of mine?"
"How 'bout a show?"
"Nah, I see enough movies on ship."
"Not a movie, a show - a play! With actors and a stage and such." She said exasperated.
"I've never been to one," I said surprised, "What are they like?"
"Come on and see!" She smiled and stood.
So I paid the bill, complete with a large tip, and followed her outside. She grabbed my hand then and led me off across town.
"What do you want to see?"
"What's playing?" I asked.
"Mostly Shakespeare right now, there's a festival going on. But there's a lot of new stuff here, including Heinrich's latest play from Earth.
"Shakespeare? I've heard of that. Pretty old stuff isn't it?"
She thought a second, "Yes it is, but it's still pretty good. You know, Hamlet is playing, let's go see it!" And she dragged me off.
We got there in time for the show, mostly because I flagged down a taxi when she told me how far away it was. I then asked for the best seats in the house, to the surprise of the Monkey who was working the ticket box.
"You sure?" She asked, "The back row is a lot cheaper."
"Yeah I'm sure, how much?"
"Well, I have to charge you double if you want to sit up there, the management tries to discourage our type from sitting with the Humans."
"That's okay," I assured her. "How much?"
"Four hundred," She said. "each."
"Fine," I gave her the cash and got our tickets.
"Twelfth row, center. Enjoy the show, it's a classic!"
"Thanks!" And we headed in.
"Double for us huh?" I asked Sil as we handed our tickets to a surprised usher who took us down to our seats.
"Well of course, in the theater district many Humans don't like to see us hanging out. They feel we don't appreciate culture, as we don't have our own. And a lot of them still don't like to mingle with us."
"Then how come you're so familiar with the theater then?"
"Mmmm, well" she chuckled, "They don't mind us in the cheap seats. That's the real cheap seats in the balcony! The management needs the money and the actors like the applause."
"But I thought you were saving for training," I teased.
"Plays are my one vice," she admitted embarrassed. "I love the theater, the actors, everything about it."
We arrived at our seats then, and sat down among a surprised group of Humans. I nodded courteously, as did Sil, and we quietly took our seats.
"Ever read Hamlet?" She asked softly as we waited for the show to start.
"No," I admitted.
"You'll like it, lots of corporate type maneuvering and back stabbing."
She quieted down then as the orchestra started and the play began. I sat back and watched curious.
Afterwards we followed out the Human customers and discussed what we had seen.
"That was pretty impressive," I admitted. "That his Uncle could be so ruthless to get to the top, even kill his own brother. And that later he could turn them all against each other, and cause all their deaths."
"Well, he died too. So he wasn't too successful. But that's not the point of the play, it's about Hamlet and the tragedy that befalls him."
"I don't know, he blew it if you asked me. Too trusting of all the wrong people at the wrong time."
"But how could he have known? You have to trust people in life, he must have thought his family would be the ones safe to trust."
"I never had any family being a creche baby and all that, so I wouldn't know," I admitted sheepishly. "But that uncle, he was so like the corporate types I see every day it was chilling. During the Leverage Conflict I saw so much back stabbing going on it was unbelievable! This guy Shakespeare really understood Humans, that's for sure."
"Well of course silly," she laughed. "He was one!"
"Point taken," I laughed back.
But it gave me pause to think, I hadn't read much of Human literature. Mostly I read things that would help me in my job, and about current politics, nothing that probed a little deeper in to the psyche of their behavior. I resolved to read and see a lot more of what this Shakespeare fellow had done so many hundreds of years ago. After all, if it still held relevance today, it must hold some startling truths that I could use in my own self preservation.
Especially as it seemed all of my targets were Humans lately. That in and of itself was a departure from the normal state of affairs, as they had said in the play: 'something was rotten in the state of Denmark', or my corporation.
"What are you thinking about?" Sil asked interrupting my revelry.
"Oh, just that I should read more of these 'classics'," I said and smiled. "Let's go find a party someplace, and not at the Water Hole either!"
"Sure, I know just the place!" And grabbing my hand, she took off again.
We eventually ended up outside a brick building on the edge of the Animen quarter.
"What is this place?" I asked looking in the windows.
"Oh, some kind of art gallery, the place we want is downstairs, follow me." And she led me around the side and down a concrete stairway. There was a large bear at the door, which was closed.
"Who's your friend Sil?" he asked looking me over.
"He's okay Raff, he's with me," she said.
"This the one that beat Hobb?"
I noticed that he was standing in a defensive posture, I wasn't looking for any trouble so I kept my hands relaxed and in the open.
"He didn't start it Raff, Hobb didn't give him any choice."
"That's okay, I never liked him anyway!" He grinned and turned to me, "No fighten' in this place okay? Anyone starts anything, you just back away and the staff'll handle it. We don't like our customers to feel afraid, this is neutral ground.
"
"I can live with that," I assured him. "I'm here to relax."
"Then have a good time," and he opened the door and let us pass.
We walked down a short hall and through another door into a fairly large room. I couldn't help but notice the corridor was actually a man trap, I guess they made a serious effort to keep out the low life.
"Hobb ever come here?" I asked Sil.
"Once, after that he wasn't allowed. They didn't care for him much." she sighed.
"Caused you problems here too, huh?"
"You got that right. Let's change the subject, okay?"
"Sounds good to me," I looked around the dimly lit room, there was some smoke in the air, some of it tobacco, the rest was various types of narcotics. There was a stage at one end with someone speaking on it, and a bar along the entire adjoining wall.
There were also about a half dozen other exits from the room, where they went I couldn't tell.
"What is this place anyway?"
"Just a Club of sorts," she giggled.
"Of sorts?" I looked at the amused expression on her face, then I looked around at the people sitting at the tables. I was shocked to see quite a few Humans in the crowd, and that a lot of the clientele were pretty romantically engaged.
Sil lead me to a table against the wall that was near the stage, I sat down with my back to the wall out of habit, and glanced at the Wolf who was on the stage. He was reading poetry of all things.
"Poetry? From a wolf?" I said to her astounded.
"His own too!" Smiled Sil, "This is where our culture exists, down here out of the sight of the Bosses."
"I notice that there are a few of those Bosses in the crowd." I gestured with my head to some of the Humans.
"Oh, there are some who accept us for what we are and believe that Animen are more than just good workers."
"But they only come and show it here in the dark at night right?" I looked over them, a few noticed. The males wouldn't meet my eyes for more than a moment, and the females didn't want to look away. "You sure they aren't just here for sex and thrills?"
"Most everyone else is!" She laughed, "So why not them? But a lot of them come here for more than that. They listen to what we say and make friends, they come back and maybe start to bring a few others by once in a while. It's slow, but so goes the road to acceptance."
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