Glancing at a fork, I check the other five forks next to it and wonder what is so special about this one anyway. Six forks, seven knives, four spoons and three glasses. All made from silver.
Apart from the glasses, obviously.
They’re milled from blocks of natural crystal.
In front of me sits a roundel of beef. At least that is how it’s described on the menu. The beef is thin as tissue and wind-dried on the shores of a small sea two systems away. Wind-drying the beef seasons it with rare salts. And yes, it says that on the menu too.
‘Begin at the outside,’ says Paper. ‘Work your way in.’ She is talking about the forks. When I reach forward to pick up the beef with my fingers, she rests her hand on my wrist. ‘Don’t,’ she says.
And when I scowl, she adds, ‘Please.’
Imperia is the oldest restaurant in Farlight. It sits in a narrow street five back from Zabo Square and looks like someone’s house. Obviously, everyone in Farlight has heard about it except me. Even Angelique is impressed. Although she is less impressed when she discovers who’s asked me to supper.
As for Shil, she just slams a door on her way out.
A limousine hover picks me up from Golden Memories.
Actually, it doesn’t. Paper thinks it does, but the driver she hires knows he’ll be robbed blind before he gets halfway there. So he puts in a call and I agree to meet him halfway.
Don’t think I am what he’s expecting. Might be the uniform, might be the dagger at my hip. Might be the fact my SIG-37 takes one look at the smoked-glass windows and chrome grille on his hover and laughs.
‘So,’ says Paper. ‘What do you think?’
Looking at my plate, I realize I have eaten the lot.
‘It was all right,’ I say.
She sighs.
Our only conversation so far was brief. And Paper’s been frowning ever since. All I asked was whether she had visited an area north of Karbonne where the ancient dumps are. She asked me which planet. When I told her, she said no, she didn’t think so.
A waiter delivers a plate of Sabine ice fish. It’s caught by hand, gutted immediately and packed in freshly fallen snow. Imperia guarantees that any ice fish served in the restaurant has been caught within the last twenty-four hours. Given the distance between Sabine and Farlight, I’m impressed. I didn’t know cargo ships could travel that fast.
Mind you, we only have the menu’s word that this is ice fish. It could be anything. Personally, I like food I can recognize.
When the waiter has gone, Paper leans forward. Here it comes, I think.
‘Must have been tough.’
‘What, Hekati?’ Seems like a reasonable guess to me. Paper Osamu shakes her head. ‘Growing up in the desert. Living with the soldiers who killed your family.’
‘Troopers,’ I tell her. ‘We call them troopers.’
She looks at me.
‘Paper,’ I say, ‘I don’t think about it.’
The U/Free ambassador nods sympathetically. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I can understand that.’
I could say, No . . . I simply don’t think about it.
But what’s the point? So I clear my plate and wipe it clean of melted snow with a chunk of bread. There’s something nagging me. So I decide to get it out of the way. ‘Why are we here?’ I ask.
Raising her wine glass, Paper says, ‘To celebrate your safe return.’
‘But the mission was a failure.’
‘Sven,’ she says.
‘For the U/Free.’
Paper Osamu looks puzzled. ‘For us?’
‘The treaty,’ I say. ‘The one that would have folded OctoV back into the mind of the Enlightened and Uplifted, ended the war and bound us by treaty to the United Free . . . You must be upset.’
She puts down her glass.
‘Unless, of course, you didn’t really want it signed at all . . .’
‘You know,’ she says, ‘I’m not sure what you heard when you were staying with us in Letogratz. But I think you might have misunderstood what was said.’
‘I might?’
Nodding, she touches my hand. ‘Diplomacy can be complicated,’ she says. ‘Particularly for . . .’
‘Savages?’
Her mouth sets in a tight line.
This isn’t the way our dinner is meant to go. We both know Paper has taken a suite at a hotel near the cathedral, while her embassy is redecorated. Imperia is less than a minute from the hotel. We have the whole night ahead of us and she’s wearing a dress cut so low I can see her nipples every time she leans forward.
So can the waiter who delivers our food.
Another three courses of fancy food and we can stumble our way to bed, via a fuck against an alley wall if that excites me. I’m ruining the atmosphere. But that is fine, because I’m going home when this is over. Although I’m not sure Paper realizes that yet.
‘Sven,’ she says. ‘Have I upset you?’
Behave, General Jaxx told me. So I do. Sitting back, I say Of course not.
After all, it could be someone else at the dump. Another U/Free with Paper’s face watching while a squad from the Legion slaughter the Junkyard Rats, kill my sister and burn my village. And what’s a dead auxiliary between friends? Even if Franc was better with a knife than anyone I know, except me.
The sky’s dark and Zabo Square deserted as I cut around the cathedral, make my way under an arch and through a public garden where a Death’s Head major once tried to put a flechette through my head.
He’s dead and I’m alive, for now.
It is late and Farlight’s boulevards are quiet. A man smokes a cigar in the upstairs window of an ornate mansion. I can smell the richness of burning tobacco. Although maybe that’s just my imagination.
In a doorway a girl freezes, watching me over a boy’s shoulder as I pass.
A security guard moves forward to challenge me a few minutes later, sees my uniform and turns his challenge into a salute. The Death’s Head colours do that to people. If he wonders what a lieutenant is doing heading for a barrio on the upper edges of Calinda Gap, he has the sense to keep that question to himself.
‘Night, sir,’ he says.
‘Which regiment?’
He served with the XI Legion Etrangere. His name’s Paulo, he wants to know how I knew about the Legion. I tell him it leaves its mark on people.
Taking the coin I offer, he sees it’s gold.
‘Knew someone in the Legion,’ I tell him. ‘A good man.’
‘What happened, sir?’
‘He died.’
The security guard nods, as if that’s the obvious answer. And it is. We both know that.
Returning his salute, I head uphill until I reach a street I recognize. A cable car runs through here day and night. Aptitude told me about it. But I prefer walking anyway.
At a cafe below the landing fields, I stop for a coffee and a brandy. The cafe is small, used by people unloading cargo or working the repair yards. A man looks up briefly, looks up again and mutters something. A woman opposite slides me a glance, and then quickly looks away.
‘Brandy,’ I say.
So nervous is the young woman behind the counter that the entire room hears her rattle the bottle against my glass. She slops my coffee delivering it. And spends a full minute apologizing.
Time was, I’d ask her name. Ask what time she got off. Maybe ask if she has a sister who would like to join us for a meal. Either I’d get my face slapped or we would all end up in bed. The uniform works against this.
Finishing the brandy, I leave my coffee undrunk.
Golden Memories is in darkness as I work my way round the side of the landing field at Bosworth. Must be late, I think. Then check the sky and realize it is almost morning.
The front door is locked and bolted from the inside.
A metal grille closes off the rear entrance and all the windows are shut. Nothing for it: slamming my elbow through a pane of glass, I reach inside and have my wrist grabbed. Neen discovers you can’t nail a burglar to a wall with a knife if his hand is metal. ‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘Boss?’
‘Yeah. Me.’
Opening the door, Neen waves me inside. ‘Thought you’d be-’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Well, I’m not.’