Semple selected a barstool and seated herself. She experienced a certain dismay when she saw no other women customers; she’d been hoping to borrow a makeup kit in the ladies’ room with which to fake a makeshift barcode. On the other hand, she hadn’t been instantly ejected, so she seemed to have made it this far without violating any local custom. The only other customer was an overweight man, his unattractive stomach sagging over his skirt. He and the bartender, a slimmer but balder individual, were at the far end of the bar, discussing the up-and-coming public punishment of runaway slaves. Apparently such events were a popular spectator sport. But the revelation that Necropolis was a slave culture could hardly be good news for anyone who was unable, as she was, to prove her free citizen status.
The bartender broke off his conversation and moved toward her. As he sidled the length of the bar, he made a long and undisguised appraisal of her bare breasts. If the bartender was representative, and bartenders usually were, regular exposure to naked tits apparently did nothing to diminish or reduce the average male fascination with them. “So what’s it to be, lady?”
Semple rejoiced. At least she understood the local language. Either the bartender was speaking English or her brain was now rigged for instant translation. She looked around quickly and then indicated the drink the overweight customer had in front of him. “Give me one of those.”
“I ain’t so sure that I should serve you.”
Semple inwardly groaned but readied herself to bluff it out. “Why not?”
The bartender gestured to her forehead as though it were self-evident. “You know why not. No mark. You’re an outlander.”
“Is that a crime?”
Semple immediately realized that she had said the wrong thing. The bartender laughed nastily and called out to the overweight customer, “Little lady here wants to know if it’s a crime to be an outlander.”
As Semple’s heart was sinking without trace, the overweight customer climbed down from his stool and wheezed toward her. “So let’s have a look what we’ve got here.”
Seeing the man standing, Semple had to revise her first impression. He was more than overweight, he was downright fat. He waddled up to her and peered into her face. A chubby thumb and forefinger grasped her chin and he turned her head first one way and then the other. For the moment, Semple didn’t resist, even though, when he spoke, his breath was rank with garlic and something that smelled like cheap gin. “No mark.”
The bartender nodded. “No mark.”
“So give her a drink anyway.”
“How’s she gonna pay for it?”
The fat customer grinned. “I’ll pay for it.”
The bartender looked doubtful. “You could get me into trouble.”
The fat customer was dismissive. “Who’s to know?”
“You could get yourself into trouble.”
“Don’t be so chickenshit. It’s a perfect opportunity.”
The bartender. “It is?”
The fat customer’s eyes were beady and unpleasant. “Sure it is. Have some fun with her before we turn her in.”
As far as Semple was concerned, this had gone far enough. “Hey, boys, don’t I have a say in any of this?”
Both men looked at her in surprise. “You?”
Semple was not only frightened but angry. “Yes, me.”
“You don’t have nothing to say, bitch. You’re an outlander. You better be nice to us.”
“And if I’m not?”
“You think we care? I mean, who you gonna complain to, huh? You can’t exactly go running to the guards, now, can you? You just make nice, and maybe we’ll let you slip away when we get finished.”
Semple tried playing for pity. “I know I’m an outlander, but it was all just a mistake. It was a total accident that I wound up here. You don’t have to turn me in, do you?”
The fatso’s face was wreathed in an oily smile. “That depends on you.”
Now she played dumb. “I don’t understand.”
The fat man waved a finger at the bartender. “Give her a drink.” “It’s your funeral.”
The bartender set a shallow blue glass bowl on the bar and filled it from a bottle with a hieroglyphic label and a metal pourer. He added a dash of something from another, smaller bottle and finally dropped in two things that looked like dried peppers. For a moment, Semple wondered if he was finally going to set fire to the whole concoction, but he didn’t. He simply scanned the fat man’s forehead with something resembling a flashlight. Something else under the bar whistled asthmatically as the data downloaded. Semple recognized the sound of a pneumatic computer. Something was usually amiss with Afterlife cultures that included pneumatic or steam-driven computers.
With the drink concocted and charged, the bartender moved back to a neutral position. The fat man smiled nastily and slid Semple’s dish along the bar so it was closer to her. “Here, girlie, drink up.”
Semple hesitated, if for no other reason than that she wasn’t exactly sure how she was supposed to handle the odd, shallow container. Most of Semple’s experience had been with drinks in tall glasses that came with ice. For all she knew, in Necropolis they lapped their drinks from the saucer like pussycats. She decided, however, that this was a little unlikely. With as much gentility as she could muster, and using both hands, she lifted the dish with her fingertips.
The fat man hissed in her ear, “Down in one, now. Show us you’re a big girl.”
Semple tilted the dish. The stuff tasted like curried creosote, but she didn’t show her distaste and went right on tilting until the liquid was all gone. Anything to defer the inevitable flashpoint. She replaced the dish on the bar. The dried peppers still lay in the bottom. She didn’t know if she was supposed to eat them, like the worm in the bottle of mescal, but she thought probably not. If that had been the case, the fat man would certainly have insisted that she do it right then. He was the kind that wouldn’t miss any chance to humiliate the supposedly helpless. He again gestured to the bartender. “Do her one more time.”
It was about then that the drink hit her. Her throat burned, her stomach cramped, and she gasped for breath as the room made a couple of fast three-sixty circuits. Semple’s eyes watered, her vision blurred, and her head spun. She felt like throwing up and she didn’t quite understand why. In the Afterlife, one didn’t have to automatically respond to stimulants. One was supposed to have a choice. She would have liked to control and even abort the swimming, queasy feeling that currently gripped her, but she couldn’t. Had the rules been somehow changed in Necropolis? All she could do was look quickly at the bartender. “No, not yet. Give me a minute to get over the last one.”
The fat man ignored her. He glared at the bartender. “I said give her another.”
The bartender started the pouring routine, but with an attitude that made it clear the fat man was on his own. When it was done, the fat man leaned close to Semple. “Drink it up, girlie.”
Semple shook her head. “I told you already. I need a moment.”
A fat hand was on her thigh. The fingers were digging into the muscle, tightening their grip until it was hard enough to bruise. “I said drink it, bitch.”
Semple let out a short, angry breath. “Okay, okay.”
The fat fingers relaxed slightly. Again she picked up the dish with both hands and raised it to her lips. Suddenly the fat man’s arm was in the way. His hand clamped roughly on her breast. Semple slowly and patiently lowered the dish, exhibiting every ounce of jaded weariness that she could summon. “Either I drink or you feel my tits. You’re going to have to make up your mind, because to do both is physically impossible.”
The fat man’s face turned beet-red. He came half off the stool, hauled off and slapped Semple hard across the face. Semple was knocked all the way off her stool and the blue glass dish went flying. It spun like a Frisbee and shattered on the far wall. The fat man was breathing hard. “Sewer-mouthed outland whore!”