Burning Bright

“So.” Damian sipped at his drink, considering her news, and slowly allowed himself to smile. The Game, or at least the new notable, would keep Ransome busy in the Game nets, and he could slip the lachesi quietly into the system, and ship without interference from the Republic, local Customs, or Chauvelin. It seemed that ji-Imbaoa’s interference hadn’t roused anyone’s suspicions after all. “Tell me about this new notable.”

Cella shrugged, a calculated indifference. “I don’t know much. She’s a Republican, union pilot—from Callixte, or at least she plays out of Callixte’s nets. Her ship’s supposed to be in dock-orbit for repairs, and she’s planning to spend the time gaming. Decent-looking woman, if you like them thin and stern. And a damn good session leader.”

“Find out about her,” Damian said. “Politics, background—whatever.”

Cella nodded. “Ransome was really interested,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in a club in years, he won’t let it rest at just one session. He’ll be busy with this scenario for the rest of Storm, at least.”

“Not bad,” Damian Chrestil said, and allowed his approval to color his voice. He considered the invitation that he knew was waiting in his files, added, “Are you working tomorrow—I mean, tonight?”

Cella frowned slightly, slipped a hand into the folds of her skirt to consult a scheduler hidden somewhere out of sight. “Tonight, no. Why?”

“Chauvelin is having his annual night-before-Storm party,” Damian said. “I’d like you to accompany me.”

Cella paused, shrugged slightly. “All right. Our usual arrangement, I assume?”

“Of course.”

“All right, then.”

“Excellent,” Damian said.

“Not bad,” Cella answered, “not bad at all.” She set her now-empty tumbler aside, and came to sit next to him, pushing his legs out of her way. “All things considered, I think I have every right to be pleased.”

“For whatever it was you did,” Damian said. He eyed her almost warily, recognizing the mood. It was neither drink nor drugs, but the solid high of an unexpected success, and he would reap the benefits of it, whether he liked it or not. She smiled down at him, well aware of her own excitement and his lack of immediate response, and ran two fingers up the inside of his thigh. It was a touch that rarely failed to rouse him; he laid one hand flat against her breast, and felt her nipple already stiff against the palm of his hand, easily discernible through the rough silk. She had done the job he wanted, however she’d done it, and her choice of coin was sex: sex of her choice, for her pleasure, at her whim. He caught his breath as her hand moved higher, brushed past his groin, and came to rest flat against his lower belly, a steady, urgent pressure. Not that it was a difficult payback— a hard one, maybe—but it was unavoidable, if he wanted to keep their tacit agreement. Cella’s smile widened, as though she’d read his thoughts, and she slid an expert hand under his clothes, ending all possibility of protest.

He woke in his own bed the next morning, to sunlight and the steady shrilling of an alarm. He swore, wondering for a bleary instant why Cella let it sound, then reached across the empty bed for the remote. The time was flashing on the far wall, the red numbers almost drowned by the bright sunlight: almost the ninth hour. He had slept through at least two earlier wake-ups. No wonder Cella hadn’t waited. He sat up, wincing—he wasn’t hung over, but he functioned badly on fewer than six hours’ sleep—and touched the remote again. His fingers slid clumsily over the rounded surface. It was a pretty thing, shaped like a wide-web node with a single broad leaf wrapped around it, carved from a brown stone so dark that it looked almost black except in direct sunlight, but this morning the carving distracted him. He found the proper control points at last, launched the program that displayed his schedule on the far wall below the chronometer’s numbers. The ninth hour was given over to the weekly breakfast meeting with his siblings.

He swore again, checked the time—less than a quarter hour, barely enough time to shower and shave and dress, much less find a wake-up pill—and forced himself out of bed. Neither the shower nor the pill Cella had kindly left for him helped much, but he managed to dress with reasonable care, and made his way to join the others. He was not the last to arrive, and Chrestillio—Altagracian Chrestil-Brisch, the family pensionary and titular head of the family by virtue of being firstborn—nodded at him from his place at the head of the long table. Bettisa Chrestil-Brisch, known as Bettis Chrestil, the family’s representative to the Five Points Bank, did not look up from the workboard where the night’s downloaded trade figures were playing.