“Really?” Frank switched on his shit-eating grin: There’s going to be trouble. “How strange, I hadn’t noticed. This is a public bar, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The matter stands. I do not intend to inhale your vile stench any further.” The kid’s nostrils flared.
Frank took a full mouthful of smoke and allowed it to dribble out of his nostrils. “Hey, bartender. Would you care to fill laughing boy here in on shipboard fire safety?”
“Certainly.” It was the first thing he’d heard the bartender say since he arrived. She looked like the strong, silent type, another young woman working her way around the worlds to broaden her horizons on a budget. One side of her head was shaven to reveal an inset intaglio of golden wires; her shoulder muscles bulged slightly under her historically inauthentic tank top and bow tie. “Sir, this is a general intoxicants bar. For passengers who wish to smoke, drink, and inject. It’s the only part of this ship they’re allowed to do that in, on this deck.”
“So.” Frank glared at the fellow. “What part of that don’t you understand? This is the smoking bar, and if you’d like to avoid the smell, I suggest you find a nonsmoking bar — or take it up with the Captain.”
“I don’t think so.” For a moment square-jaw looked mildly annoyed, as if a mosquito was buzzing around his ears, then an instant later Frank felt a hand like an industrial robot’s grab him by the throat.
“Hans! No!” It was one of the women from the table, rising to her feet. “I forbid it!” Her voice rang with the unmistakable sound of self-assured authority.
Hans let go instantly and took a step back from Frank, who coughed and glared at him, too startled to even raise a fist. “Hey, asshole! You looking for a—”
A hand landed on his shoulder from behind. “Don’t,” whispered Svengali. “Just don’t.”
“Hans. Apologize to the man,” said the blonde. “At once.”
Hans froze, his face like stone. “I am sorry,” he said tonelessly. “I did not intend to lay hands on you. I must atone now. Mathilde?”
“Go — I think you should go to your room,” said the woman, moderating her tone. Hans turned on his heel and marched toward the door. Frank stared at his back in gathering fury, but by the time he glanced back at the table the strength-through-joy types were all studiously avoiding looking in his direction.
“What the fuck was that about?” he demanded.
“I can call the purser’s office if you’d like an escort back to your room,” the bartender suggested. She finally brought both hands out from below the bar. “That guy was fast.”
“Fast?” Frank blinked. “Yeah, I’d say. He was like some kind of martial arts—” He stopped, rubbed his throat, glanced down at the ashtray. His cigar lay, half-burned, mashed flat as a pancake. “Oh fuck. That kind of fast. Did you see that?” he asked, beginning to tremble.
’Yeah,” Svengali said quietly. “Military-grade implants. I think my friend here could do with that escort,” he told the bartender. “Don’t turn your back on that guy if you see him again,” he added in a low conversational tone, pitched to avoid the other side of the room.
“I don’t understand—”
“This drink’s on me. One for you, too,” Svengali told the bartender.
“Thanks.” She poured them both a shot of rum, then pulled out a bottle of some kind of smart drink. “Sven, did my eyes fool me, or did you have some sort of gadget in your hand?”
“I couldn’t possibly comment, Eloise.” The clown shrugged, then knocked back half the glass in one go. “Hmm. That must be my fifth shot this evening. Better crank up my liver.”
“What was that about—”
“We get all types through here,” said Eloise the bartender. She leaned forward on the bar. “Don’t mess with these folks,” she whispered.
“Anything special?” asked Svengali.
“Just a feeling.” She put the bottle down. “They’re flakes.”
“Flakes? I’ve done flakes.” Svengali shrugged. “We’ve got fucking Peter Pans and Lolitas on the manifest. Flakes don’t go crazy over a little cigar smoke in a red-eye bar.”
“They’re not normal flakes,” she insisted.
“I think he’d have killed me if she hadn’t stopped him,” Frank managed to say. His hand holding the glass was shaking, rattling quietly on the bar top.
“Probably not.” Svengali finished his shot glass. “Just rendered you unconscious until the cleanup team got here.” He raised an eyebrow at Eloise. “Is there a panic button under the bar, or were you just masturbating furiously?”
“Panic button, putz.” She paused. “Say, nobody told me about any ersatz juvies. How do I tell if they come in my bar?”
“Go by the room tag manifest for their ages. Don’t assume kids are as young as they look. Or old folks, for that matter. You come from somewhere that restricts life extension rights, don’t you?” Svengali shrugged. “At least most of the Lolitas have a handle on how to behave in public, unlike dumb-as-a-plank there. Damn good thing, that, it can be really embarrassing when the eight-year-old you’re trying to distract with a string of brightly dyed handkerchiefs turns out to have designed the weaving machine that made them. Anyway, who are those people?”
“One minute.” Eloise turned away and did something with the bar slate. “That’s funny,” she said. “They’re all from someplace called Tonto. En route to Newpeace. Either of you ever heard of it?”
There was a dull clank as Frank dropped his glass on the floor.
“Oh shit,” he said.
Svengali stared at him. “You dropped your drink. Funny, I had you pegged for a man with bottle. You going to tell me what’s bugging you, big boy?”
“I’ve met people from there before.” He glanced at the mirror behind the bar, taking in the table, the five clean-cut types playing cards and studiously ignoring him, their quasi-uniform appearance and robust backwoods build. “Them. Here. Oh shit. I thought the Romanov was only making a refueling stop, but it must be a real port of call.”
An elbow prodded him in the ribs; he found Svengali staring up at him, speculation writ large on the off-duty clown’s face. “Come on, back to my room. I’ve got a bottle stashed in my trunk; you can tell me all about it. Eloise, room party after your shift?”
“I’m off in ten minutes, or whenever Lucid relieves me,” she said. Glancing at him, interestedly: “Is it a good story?”
“A story?” Frank echoed. “You could say.” He glanced at the table. A flashback to icy terror prickled across his skin, turned his guts to water. “We’d better leave quietly.” The woman, Mathilde, the one in charge, was watching him in one of the gilt-framed mirrors. Her expression wasn’t so much unfriendly as disinterested, like a woman trying to make up her mind whether or not to swat a buzzing insect. “Before they really notice us.”
“Now?” Svengali hopped down off his stool and got an arm under Frank’s shoulder. He’d had rather a lot to drink, but for some reason Svengali seemed almost sober. Frank, for his part, wasn’t sober so much as so frightened that it felt like it. He let Svengali lead him through the door, toward a lift cube, then from it down a narrow uncarpeted corridor to a small, cramped crew stateroom. “Come on. Not much farther,” said Svengali. “You want that drink?”
“I want—” Frank shivered. “Yeah,” he said. “Preferably somewhere where they don’t know it’s my room.”
“Somewhere.” Svengali keyed the door open, waved Frank down at one end of the narrow bunk, and shut the door. He rummaged in one of the overhead lockers and pulled out a metal flask and a pair of collapsible shot glasses. “So how come you know those guys?”