Eros Ascending: Book 1 of Tales of the Velvet Comet

by Mike Resnick

  “You make it all sound very simple.”

  “It is,” said Redwine.

  “If it's that simple to fuck around with the Vainmill Syndicate, how come nobody's ever gotten away with it before?” asked Rasputin.

  “Maybe nobody else has known where all the bodies are buried,” answered Redwine.

  “And you do?”

  “Some of them,” nodded Redwine.

  “And you think that makes you safe?” demanded Rasputin with a harsh laugh. “Jesus, Harry—I knew you were a liar and a saboteur, but I never thought you were dumb!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if you know half of what you think you know, your life expectancy once they find out you've double-crossed them is, not to be too pessimistic about it, maybe ten minutes.”

  “I'm taking steps to extend it just a little beyond that,” replied Redwine.

  “Then let me help you,” insisted Rasputin. “Show me you're working to save the Comet and give me what you've got on these people, and I'll hide it on so many worlds that nobody'll ever find it all.” Suddenly he stared intently at Redwine. “Or do you think I'm one of them?”

  “No. I know you're not.”

  “Well, then?”

  “Let me talk about it with the Madonna,” replied Redwine slowly. “Maybe, it's time we let someone know exactly what's going on here.”

  “It's past time, if you ask me.”

  “There'll be conditions,” continued Redwine.

  “Such as?”

  “That you play it our way. You're going to want to jump the gun, and you can't give them time to regroup.”

  “You convince me that you're telling the truth, and I'll play it any way you want.”

  “All right,” said Redwine. “I'll discuss it with her tonight, and get back to you in the morning.”

  “Do you want me to keep an eye on your pal in the meantime?” asked Rasputin.

  Redwine chuckled mirthlessly. “If you can keep an eye on Victor, this is going to be easier than I thought.”

  Rasputin cursed. “How the hell come everyone on this ship has a skeleton card except the Security chief?”

  Redwine uttered a genuine laugh at Rasputin's frustration.

  “You're in the wrong department. They're much easier to come by in espionage.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Being funny doesn't stop it from being true,” noted Redwine.

  “I suppose it doesn't,” admitted Rasputin, walking to the door. “Well, I guess I'll hear from you tomorrow.”

  “One way or the other,” promised Redwine.

  He secured the door after Rasputin had left the office. Then he poured himself another drink, sat back down on the couch, withdrew the small plastic cube from his pocket, and forced all thoughts not pertaining to the Madonna and the farm on Pollux IV from his mind.

  Chapter 16

  “This was a hell of a good idea,” said Redwine, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of cheese and peering down into the lagoon.

  “I had a feeling you might like it,” said the Madonna, reaching into her wicker picnic basket for a golden, grape-like fruit from Gamma Sigma IV.

  “Like it?” repeated Redwine, looking around the fantasy room. “I could spend the rest of my life here!”

  “Not unless you plan to die before eleven o'clock tonight,” she replied with a smile.

  “The Comet's got lots of fantasy rooms,” he said. “Let ‘em use one of the others.”

  “They're using all the others. I really think four hours is about the limit that I can get away with claiming that the Tropical Paradise is getting a maintenance inspection.”

  “Well, I suppose it's better than nothing,” agreed Redwine. “And I've been wanting to come back here since the first day I saw it.” He shrugged. “I guess it's pretty damned silly to bitch about having to leave in three and a half hours. I mean, hell, we just got here.”

  He scanned the artificial horizon, then turned to her.

  “I don't suppose Pollux IV looks anything like this?”

  “I've already told you: no place looks like this.”

  “Well, then I know what I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to,” said Redwine.

  “Oh?” said the Madonna. “What?”

  “Proving you're wrong.”

  “We could see a lot of worlds in the process,” she said. “It might be fun at that.”

  “Why the hell not?” he agreed. “I've always wanted to travel.”

  “I thought you traveled quite a bit.”

  “Yeah, but I'd like to do it without looking back over my shoulder to see who might be gaining on me. There are some pretty interesting worlds out there.”

  “I know.”

  “Ever hear of Vasor?”

  “No.”

  “Small world, out near Aldebaran,” he said. “I've never been there, but I've heard about it. The inhabitants have huge skinny legs, fifteen or twenty feet long, and they spend every minute of the day following the sun over the horizon.”

  “When do they eat or sleep?” asked the Madonna.

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Well, it sounds wrong.”

  “My friend, the romantic,” he said with a mock grimace. “We'll go and see for ourselves.”

  “It's a deal.”

  “Well,” he said, “that takes care of my future. Now, isn't there some world you'd particularly like to see? Maybe take a trip back to old Earth, or go hunting on one of the jungle worlds on the Inner Frontier?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. Once I wanted to go back to Seascape, but that was a long time ago.”

  “Your home world?”

  “Yes. After I'd been madam for a couple of years I tried to arrange a trip there, so I could show everyone how rich and successful I was.” She frowned. “But I cancelled it. Their attitudes about what I do are, well, pedestrian. And over the years impressing people just seemed less and less important.” She shrugged. “Besides, everyone I knew there has probably either died or emigrated by now.”

  “You never mention your parents,” remarked Redwine. “Are they still alive?”

  “No. They died before I left Seascape.”

  “Maybe we'll go back for a week or two, anyway. I've always wanted to see a world named Seascape.”

  “It's called Beta Hydri II,” she replied. “Seascape was just the colonists’ name for it.”

  “Anything with ‘Sea’ in its name holds a certain appeal for me,” said Redwine.

  “That's right,” she said. “You grew up on Delta Pavonis IX, didn't you?”

  He nodded. “Dryest place this side of hell. We had to import all our water.” He smiled ruefully. “The colonists were so damned busy trying to save enough money to get the hell off of Delta Pavonis that they never bothered giving it a nickname.” He paused. “You know, I never took anything but a chemical bath or shower until I was nineteen years old, and it cost me twenty thousand credits to learn how to swim when I got to Binder.”

  “Do you care to put those lessons to some use?” she suggested, rising to her feet.

  “I was afraid you'd never ask,” he grinned, starting to unfasten his tunic.

  A moment later they had left their clothes behind, hers folded neatly next to the picnic basket, his dropped casually on the ground, and had jumped into the water. It was invigorating without being cold, clear without seeming sterile, and they swam and splashed like children for the better part of five minutes.

  Then the Madonna climbed out, and Redwine followed her a moment later.

  “Where are the towels?” he asked, overtaking her just before she reached the basket.

  “Just lie out on the grass,” she replied. “The sun will dry you off.”

  “But that's not really a sun.”

  “I know. It'll dry you that much faster.”

  She walked over to the grassy knoll by the thatched hut and lay down on her back, and he followed her example.

 
; “What time is it now?” he asked suddenly.

  “Harry, we've got hours left,” she said. “The room will tell us when it's time to go.”

  “How?”

  “It'll be twilight in another hour, and then night. When the sun rises again, we've got fifteen minutes to gather our gear and leave.”

  “It's on a four-hour cycle?” he asked.

  “No. You tell the computer how long you plan to be here, and the cycle adjusts to it. I'm surprised you didn't notice it when you used your card to secure the room.”

  “Shit!” he muttered, walking over to his clothes and withdrawing his security card. “I was so excited about being here that I forgot.” He made a couple of adjustments on the card, replaced it, and then lay back down beside the Madonna.

  “Try not to look so upset, Harry.”

  “I don't like being spied on.”

  “They're there for a reason,” she continued.

  “I know,” he said. “Look, in your line of business, you're probably much safer when someone is watching everything you do, but my line of work requires that no one be able to see what I'm doing. It's difficult to adjust.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “It was difficult for me at first, too.”

  “It was?” he asked, curious.

  “Contrary to what you may think about prostitutes, Harry, none of us were brought up to screw in front of an audience. But after a couple of lives get saved because Security sees a problem developing, and after you realize that they're not simply a batch of drooling voyeurs at the other end of the monitors, you come to accept and appreciate them, and after a while you don't even think of them at all.” She paused. “One of the first things a prostitute learns how to do is not think of things, especially while they're happening to her.”

  “You don't seem especially bitter about it,” he remarked.

  “Why should I be? It's work of my own choosing, it pays very well—and if I hadn't been aboard the Comet, I'd never have met you.”

  “I still can't see why you don't aim your sights a little higher.”

  “Because I'm comfortable with you,” she replied.

  “There are lots of comfortable people in the galaxy,” he said.

  “Then aren't you lucky that I haven't found any of them yet?” Suddenly her face became serious. “Harry, if you haven't figured out by now that money and looks aren't important to me, what can I tell you? I've been lonely, and you make me feel less lonely. I've been an object, and you make me feel like a person. I've been asked to do a lot of kinky things, but you're the very first man who ever asked me to talk to him when there was an empty bed in the next room. I have a farm I haven't visited in six years, and suddenly you make me want to settle down there. What the hell else do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing, I suppose,” he replied. “I guess I still can't believe my good luck.”

  “Wait until we visit a world where prostitution is still a dirty word, and somebody recognizes me, and then tell me how lucky you feel.”

  “Then we won't visit any worlds like that,” he said.

  “There are more of them than you might think. That's why the Comet was built in space.”

  “If you can live with a man who throws innocent people out of work I suppose I can live with a woman who makes them happy,” said Redwine. “Now how about changing the subject?”

  “Did you have a particular subject in mind?” she asked him.

  “Well, I had a little talk with Rasputin this afternoon,” he began. “I think it's time we took him into our confidence.”

  “You've been adamantly opposed to doing that for weeks,” said the Madonna. “What changed your mind?”

  “Because I'm probably going to have to leave with Victor,” replied Redwine with a sigh. “Like you said, we can't have him getting suspicious. And once I'm gone, I want to know you've got an ally on the ship.”

  “What do I need an ally for?”

  “I don't know. But I know you're going to have three enemies aboard the Comet—Suma, Gamble, and Lena—and I want to make sure that there's also someone on your side.”

  “It's his job to protect me whether he knows what's going on or not,” she pointed out.

  “True. But this way he'll know who the hell he's protecting you from. It might make a difference.”

  “And how do you know he won't turn you in?” she persisted.

  “To who—Victor?” asked Redwine with a smile. “I think he'll believe me—after all, I can prove what I'm saying to him the same way I proved it to you—but even if he thinks I'm lying, there's nothing he can do about it until long after I'm beyond his jurisdiction.”

  “Do you want me there when you tell him?” asked the Madonna.

  “I don't think it'll be necessary. Knowing him, he'll probably come to you to corroborate what I've said, anyway.”

  “Okay, if that's the way you want to do it—but I can't help feeling that you're over-reacting.”

  “Maybe. But five'll get you ten that Victor manages to talk to Suma before tomorrow morning—and since we've no way of knowing what they'll be saying to each other, I think I'd rather be safe than sorry.”

  Suddenly the artificial sun sank behind the artificial horizon, and Redwine smiled. “Twilight comes fast in the tropics.”

  “It'll get chilly in a few minutes,” replied the Madonna. “Not cold, but the temperature will drop. Would you like to go into the hut?”

  He shook his head. “I'm sure we'll find some way to keep warm.”

  “I take it you've never made love beneath a full tropical moon?” said the Madonna with a smile.

  “I've never made love beneath any moon,” he replied. “One of the drawbacks of a career in accountancy.”

  “Harry,” she said as he leaned over her.

  “Yes?”

  “It just occurred to me: this might be the last time we do this for a few months.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “I'll be here at least four more days.”

  “Victor could change his mind and make you leave tomorrow.”

  “I'd like to see him try.”

  “Just the same, let's make love as if it was the last time—just in case.”

  “You're being silly.”

  “Then humor me.”

  He smiled. “I'll do more than humor you,” he said, lowering his lips to hers.

  And, unlike his session with Suma, this one was truly memorable.

  Chapter 17

  Victor Bonhomme, comfortably ensconced in a form-fitting lounge chair, took a sip of his drink and looked once again at the pornographic entertainment on his holoscreen. A beautiful gold-skinned girl, whom he was sure he had seen earlier in one of the restaurants, seemed intent on setting some sort of record for accommodating the most partners at one time.

  Five young men were safe and snug in various orifices and hands, but the final member of her sextet of lovers seemed unable to find a lodging for himself.

  Jaded as he was, Bonhomme found himself fascinated by the pulsating tableau before him, and actually had to restrain himself from offering suggestions to the life-sized images. He was absolutely sure that the sixth man would eventually make some kind of connection, and he could almost imagine a tote board down in the casino giving odds on where that connection might take place. Probably the Duke would have to appoint a steward to process claims of foul from disgruntled losers.

  Suddenly there was a knocking at the door to his suite.

  “In a minute!” he shouted.

  He stared intently at the seven writhing figures for another thirty seconds, then sighed and deactivated the screen, making a mental note to check the results later.

  “Open,” he commanded the door, after adjusting his skeleton card.

  The door slid back into the wall, and Suma, dressed in one of her more exotic outfits, entered the parlor.

  “And whose little girl are you?” asked Bonhomme.

  “Your boss's,” she replied.

  “Then you m
ust be Suma. Forgive me for being forward, but do you mind if I ask you a very personal question?”

  “Not at all.”

  “How many men can you take on?”

  Suma grinned. “How many have you got?”

  “I mean at the same time,” said Bonhomme. “It's something in the nature of a bet.”

  “With who?”

  “Myself.”

  “Seven,” she answered promptly.

  “Seven?” he repeated, certain that six had to be any woman's absolute physical limit. “Are you sure?”

  “I've done it. In fact, it's probably available on one of the video channels.”

  “Wasn't it...crowded?” persisted Bonhomme.

  “That was half the fun of it.”

  “This is some place, this ship!” said Bonhomme, shaking his head in amazement. “Can I offer you a drink?”

  “Later, perhaps.”

  “A cigarette, then?”

  “I don't smoke.”

  “How about a chair?” he asked, making a sweeping gesture with his arm.

  “Thank you,” said Suma, walking over to a plush, tufted sofa and seating herself.

  “Now, then,” said Bonhomme, sitting down on the lounge chair, “to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

  “We have a number of friends in common,” replied Suma, “so I thought we might have a little chat.”

  “Does this mean you're not going to rip my clothes off and rape me?” asked Bonhomme with mock disappointment.

  “It depends on how our conversation goes,” said Suma with a feline smile. “And we've got a lot to talk about.”

  “Do we?”

  “Oh, yes, Victor, we certainly do. By the way, is this suite secure?”

  “Secure from what?”

  “You know, Victor, the longer you play stupid, the longer it's going to take us to get to bed,” said Suma. “I know Harry has some kind of device he uses to jam the security system. I assume you have one too.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “It's secure.”

  “I thought so, when the door wouldn't open on my command.”

  “I'm just a guy who likes his privacy,” said Bonhomme.

  “Of course you are.” She paused. “I assume one of our mutual friends told you about my message?”