A server brought their order, temporarily halting their talk. Once the food was tasted and proclaimed acceptable, Ara managed to steer further conversation away from Kendi and keep it light and meaningless, laughing at any even vaguely witty remark Fen made. She drew the line, however, at batting her eyelashes. When the timing felt right, Ara dropped her little bombshell.
“I need another favor,” she said.
Fen cocked an eyebrow, and Ara supposed he meant to look archly seductive. She sighed internally and wished Pitr or Trish could slip into his mind from the Dream and dampen his attraction to her. Fen, however, was Silent, if only half-trained, and would notice even subtle tampering.
“I need information on a woman named Vidya Dasa,” she said. “I’ve looked in the nets and can’t find anything on her but an address and the name of her son. Can you dig deeper?”
“I suppose,” Fen said. He pulled a computer pad from his shirt pocket. “What’s the son’s name?”
Ara gave it, along with Vidya’s address. “Thanks, Fen. Anything you can get will be a big help. It’s worth a dozen lunches and a big box of chocolate.”
“I don’t do this for the paybacks, Ara.” His fingers edged toward her side of the table. Ara picked up her fork and took a salty bite of plankton so he wouldn’t try to take her hand. The motion seemed to effectively spoil the moment for Fen and he reached for his water glass instead.
“What do you need to know for?” he said.
Ara leaned forward conspiratorially. “It’s a secret. I can’t tell you right now, but I promise I’ll explain later.”
Gretchen would have rolled her eyes at the melodrama. Kendi would have made a smart remark. But Fen merely nodded pliantly. Ara began to understand why he had never been promoted.
The rest of the lunch passed without incident. Pleading a business meeting, Ara paid the bill and left before Fen could ask her to dinner. Lunch was business-like. Dinner had romantic implications Ara would rather avoid.
“Mother Ara,” came Jack Jameson’s voice over her earpiece, “I need you back at the ship for a minute. The buyer I’ve been negotiating with has agreed to a price on the dark chocolate and we need you for the finalizations.”
“On my way,” she sub-vocalized, flagging down a cab. It seemed like she was always involved in commerce of some kind or other. If she wasn’t dealing in information or humans, it was chocolate.
Ara had to admit she preferred the chocolate.
Kendi sucked up the last sweet noodle and thrust the bowl back at the vendor. “Again.”
The food seller gave him a wary look. “That was your third one,” he said. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“I’ll decide when I’ve had enough. Just fill the bowl.”
“If you throw up, do it somewhere else,” the seller warned. But he filled the bowl.
Kendi slurped up the sweet, floppy confection. Still more sugar rushed into his system and he was starting to feel like a hummingbird on caffeine, but he didn’t care. He had started lunch with three sticks of beef shishkebob and followed them with grilled hot peppers, a plate of tangy red kelp, and two cups of plankton-in-broth. His stomach was aching and bloated, but he ignored it. He also ignored the little internal voices that told him he wasn’t acting a proper member of the Real People, who practiced balance and moderation in all things.
We knew of the Dream long before Irfan Qasad and her ilk, they said, and we knew of it because we lived in balance.
Kendi stared down at the bowl, then left it on the noodle seller’s counter and walked away. The sounds and smells of the market rushed around him like a dirty wind. Sejal was not his nephew. Utang was not on Rust, had never been on Rust. He had failed to find his family again, Ben remained distant, and Ara was still keeping him in the dark about something. Kendi wandered through the market, sugar singing through his veins, rebukes of his ancestors ringing through his head. What could happen next?
Naturally at that moment his implant flashed and outlined Sejal ahead of him in the crowd. Like Kendi, Sejal was wandering through the market, hands thrust into his ragged pockets. This time, however, no excitement thrilled through Kendi. Sejal was an intellectual exercise now, a puzzle to solve. Some instinct told Kendi to hang back and watch instead of approaching Sejal directly. Obeying it, Kendi faded back and followed.
“Post Script,” Kendi sub-vocalized. “Are you there?”
“Communications are currently unmonitored,” answered Peggy-Sue. “Do you wish to alert someone or leave a message?”
“No. End communication.”
Kendi continued shadowing Sejal. This time, however, he paid less attention to where Sejal was going and more attention to how Sejal interacted with his environment. The boy earned admiring glances from several people and a look of open greed as he passed the stall of Mr. M, the man who had the long row of slaves in his basement. There was no denying Sejal was handsome, with those blue eyes that contrasted so sharply with his black hair and brown skin. His clothes were a bit small for him, and they showed off a well-shaped body that would continue to develop as Sejal drew closer to adulthood. If Sejal was aware of his looks, however, his walk didn’t show it. He stayed hunched into himself, ignoring everything around him. Kendi slid through the crowd of shoppers. Sejal paused at a corner, then took up a position against one wall. Kendi moved out of the people stream to observe him.
Sejal underwent a minor transformation at the corner. He stood straighter and a look of cool indifference dropped onto his face. A slight smile stole across his lips, and he hooked a thumb in his pocket. Kendi furrowed his brow and halted between two stalls. What did Sejal do on the corner all day? And what had the goons in the alley been after him for? Wasn’t Sejal afraid they’d come back?
Most of the passers-by ignored Sejal, as he ignored them. But finally a man who looked to be in his late forties approached Sejal. They conversed at length, and Kendi’s heavy stomach tightened. This was how the encounter in the alley got its start. This time, however, Kendi didn’t see any heavies moving in.
Sejal and the man walked up the street together and Kendi followed, more curious than ever. Eventually the pair entered a seedy building Kendi recognized as a cheap hotel. Kendi, in fact, had brought rent boys here to establish underworld “credentials,” and the place rented rooms by the hour for those who were so inclined.
The implications for Sejal’s presence there were obvious.
“He can’t,” Kendi whispered. But even as he said it, he knew Sejal could. It explained the too-small clothes and the time spent posturing at the corner. The alley goons must have been representatives from the local houses wanting to “discipline” a freelancer who was moving in on their territory. Kendi stared at the hotel in shock, wondering how he could have missed something so obvious. Why hadn’t Ara told him? He couldn’t imagine she didn’t know. Maybe she’d figured Kendi already knew about it or had forgotten to mention it after his arrest. A lot had happened and it may have slipped her mind.
Abruptly Kendi’s gorge rose, and he barely managed to make it to an open sewer grating before the contents of his stomach came up. The crowd made a hole around him but kept on with business.
After the nausea passed, Kendi hauled himself to his feet and managed to stagger to a spot on the sidewalk where he could watch the hotel. He still felt a little sick. He also felt a great deal of outrage.
Balance, he thought. Balance and moderation. Anger will not help here.
And why was he so angry? What was it to Kendi? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen this sort of thing before. He had paid for rent boys himself.
Yes, but they had been adults, consenting and willing. And they had been before Kendi’s arrest and his sentence to time in the Unity Kendi pushed the thoughts away. According to the Unity records Ben had conjured up, Sejal was sixteen, old enough to be considered an adult on many worlds. The man had not forced Sejal into the hotel, and Sejal was, presumably, being paid.