Lady Scour strode by the warrior, ignoring him. She offered her three left hands to Ran above the palanquin poles. "Come," she said. "We'll eat first, and then we'll have entertainment."
She laughed again. "And then," she said, "we'll have entertainment."
The fine fur on Rawsl's face and bare limbs stood out like the quills of a porcupine. The muscles of his arms were as rigid as the blades of the bloody swords he held.
* * *
"Good evening, Abraham," Marie Blavatsky called to the lone passenger she'd spotted amid the transparent bulkheads and real fish of the Undersea Grotto. "I'd have expected you to be out on the town tonight."
Abraham Chekoumian rose from his chair with a lazy smile. "Szgrane is an exotic place to the other passengers, even the crew, Marie," he said. "Myself, I import from Szgrane; I travel here ten times a year on buying trips. Sometimes I come twice a month."
Chekoumian stretched. He held a hologram reader in one hand and in the other—as Blavatsky expected—the slick blue spacemail envelope of one of his fiancee's letters.
"Today," the importer continued, brandishing the envelope, "I am going home to marry my Marie—not to do business. I don't need to see Szgrane this trip. The part of their society which they show humans is—"
He shrugged.
"—dirt. And the rest of it, the way the Szgranians themselves live, that would appeal even less to me if I had to be here for any length of time."
The section of wall behind the importer was stocked with benthic species from the depths of Ain al-Mahdi, patterns of slow-moving dots which fluoresced rose and warm yellow. Occasionally two patterns merged in sluggish dance that ended with one partner progressing down the tooth-fringed maw of the other.
Considered merely as a light show, it was a soothing background.
Chekoumian gave Blavatsky a little grin to show that he knew he was being floridly bombastic. "Trust me, little Marie," he said. "Szgrane isn't a place for humans. And it isn't a place for Szgranians either, except for the one who's on top of each community's pyramid."
"Oh, of course I trust you, Abraham," Blavatsky said brightly. "I was just surprised to see you here, is all."
In fact, Blavatsky had been surprised to learn from Bridge that the importer was still aboard when her watch ended—but she'd been ninety percent sure that she'd find him in the Undersea Grotto when she strolled past. Bridge noted that Chekoumian had ordered a drink only ten minutes before.
"Marie's telling me about her sister's wedding," Chekoumian said, waggling the letter again. "That's her sister Irene, the younger one. But please, sit down! You're off duty, are you not? You can have a drink."
He signaled for a steward as he gestured Blavatsky to the contoured chair beside his own.
"Well, maybe a little wine . . ." she agreed shyly. Abraham was aware of her duty hours.
"Irene's the young one," Chekoumian added with a frown. "Marie—my Marie, little Marie—"
He dropped the letter on the circular drinks table to pat the back of Blavatsky's hand.
"Marie's bothered by that, I know, though she doesn't say it," he continued. His broad face brightened like an equatorial sunrise. "But won't she be thrilled when I sweep up to her door in the most expensive limousine I can rent on Bogomil?"
"Sir and madam?" asked the steward who paused at their table.
Chekoumian and Blavatsky looked up. On the wall behind the bar, the brilliant denizens of a coral atoll on Tblisi wheeled in tight patterns. "Could I have something from your homework!?" Blavatsky asked. "Tblisi has wines, doesn't it?"
"Wonderful!" cried her companion. "Yes, of course. Bring us a carafe of Evran with two glasses—and take this away."
Chekoumian thrust his part-finished screwdriver across the table. "The vintage is from gene-tailored grapes," he explained to Blavatsky. "We're very up to date on Tblisi."
"A carafe of Evran," the steward said to the bartender. Both men were natives of New Sarawak; and both had been aboard the Empress of Earth since her maiden voyage.
The bartender glanced toward the only occupied table in the lounge. The passenger had switched on his hologram reader to project plans of the house he intended to build. He was pointing out details of the widow's walk to the Staff Side rating beside him.
The bartender raised an eyebrow.
The steward, out of sight of the couple at the table, hooked the first and middle fingers of his left hand. He jerked them upward, as though they were a gaff landing a prize fish.
* * *
Three court ladies sang the 17th-century Terran ballad about Clerk Colville, who'd gone to tell the mermaid who'd been his mistress that he intended to marry a human female. A fourth of Lady Scour's companions provided the lute accompaniment in the dining room paneled in richly-carved woods and ivory. She deliberately used only two hands to achieve the delicate fingering.