Burning Bright

He kept clean clothes in storage here, and there was a small but comfortable bath suite tucked into one corner of the space. He showered and shaved, washing away salt and sweat and with it the last holiday feeling of freedom, took two hangover capsules, and dressed quickly in the shirt and trousers and short jacket that he found in the storage cell. He spent a little extra time coaxing his thick mane of hair into a kind of careful disorder; he was vain about his hair, thick and naturally gold-streaked brown, and the fact that it looked good long did something to make up for the way the fashionable long coats sat lumpishly on his thin body. Willowy was good, scrawny was not, and he was forced to dress accordingly.

He returned to the inner office, and settled himself at the apex of the chevron-shaped desk. The smaller secretary globe—really just an extension of the larger machine in the lobby—chirped softly at him, and he swung to face it.

“Well?”

“You have mail in your urgent file.”

“Well, isn’t that pleasant,” Damian said. “How many items?”

“Two.”

“Print them.” Damian Chrestil ran his hand over the shadowscreen to light the various displays set on and in the desktop, then leaned back in his chair as the tiny mail printer whirred to life. It buzzed twice, chuckled briefly to itself, and spat a sheet of paper with an all-too-familiar pattern. Damian took it, scowling down at the dark-blue border marks of a formal Lockwarden complaint sheet, and scanned the sharp printing. Roscha, it seemed, had excelled herself—or had she? He read the complaint a second time, more carefully, then set the sheet aside, frowning. The complainant’s name was unfamiliar, but he was a journeyman member of the Merchant Investors’ Syndicate, and the MIS was particularly hostile to C/B Cie. It would be nice to know just what, or even who, had persuaded the man to file a formal complaint: the threat to throw him off the cliff face was not, on balance, a likely cause, at least not in a bungee-gar bar like the Last Drop. He fingered the shadowscreen again, putting the complainant’s name into a basic inquiry program, and glanced at another screen, this one filled with the running reports from the factors working on the cargo they’d collected the night before. Roscha would have to learn better, however; for a start, she could pay her own fines.

“Na Damian,” the secretary said. “Jafiera Roscha is here.”

Damian paused, flicked a spot on the shadowscreen to mute the various displays. “Send her in.”

The door opened almost at once, and a woman stood for an instant outlined against the lobby’s buttery light. She was tall, and exquisitely built, her waist narrow between perfectly proportioned breasts and hips. Snug trousers and a dock-worker’s singlet only emphasized that perfection; the light jacket that trailed from one hand was a shade of indigo that matched her eyes. Damian had forgotten—he always forgot, remembered again each time he saw her—just how striking she was, and despite the previous night felt a stirring of interest in his groin. Roscha came forward into the light, the corners of her wide mouth drawn down in an attempt neither to smile nor frown, and Damian slid the complaint across the desktop at her.

“What the hell was this?”

Roscha took it warily, studied the printed message, her eyes flicking back and forth between the paper and the other’s face. Somehow, despite the hours she spent on the Water, she had kept her skin dazzlingly fair, the color of coffee cream; her red hair flamed against her shoulders, held out of her eyes by a strip of black ribbon. More black bands—braided ribbons or strips of leather—circled each wrist, and Damian recalled himself sternly to the business at hand.

Roscha set the paper carefully back on the edge of the desk. “I guess I had too much to drink last night.”

“I guess you should be more careful where you drink,” Damian answered.

Roscha shrugged, looking rather sullen. “There were a bunch of us, celebrating, and enough of us making noise. I don’t know why they picked on me.”

“Just accident-prone, I guess,” Damian said.

Roscha looked away, not quickly enough to hide the flash of anger. “I just got carried away. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t pay my people to get carried away,” Damian Chrestil said. “I pay you to do your job, and do what I tell you. Not to go around collecting complaint sheets.” He glanced down at the slip of paper again. “Do you even know this man?”

Roscha looked at the intricately patterned carpet, visibly mastering her temper. “By sight, mostly, and I know the name—he’s in the Game, I’ve seen him playing on the nets. I did know he works for the MIS.”

“Do you know what he does for them?”

“Works for one of the factors, I think,” Roscha answered. “Computer jockey.”

“Ah.”

In spite of his best efforts, there was enough satisfaction in Damian’s voice that the wary look in Roscha’s eyes faded to something more like curiosity. Damian glared at her, and she met his stare with a stony face.