And so, as Charette gestured animatedly and waggled his thick, meaty tongue and rubbery wet lips at Honeydew, Remembrance reached up and quietly switched on his own interpreter while their attention was still turned away from him.
As Honeydew spoke, his clicks were translated into an approximation of human speech. The bead was a field-suspended device that tracked the user's movements, always maintaining a set distance. Sound didn't carry very far in the soft and moist environment of the maul-worm's gullet, but it wasn't hard to guess why Honey-dew didn't want Remembrance listening in.
'… your voice down,' Honey dew was saying, 'unless you're really in a mood to become a worm snack.'
'You told me we were safe from raids!' Charette snapped in a half-choked whisper. 'And now you come in here armed. Tell me, what do you think will happen if those soldiers of yours come blundering in here? We'll all die. You, me, them – everyone. Or do you just want to kill us all?'
'We want you to evacuate slowly, and carefully, and do it now,' said Remembrance. The Immortal Light agent glanced at him sharply, but Remembrance ignored him. 'We're only interested in Alexander Bourdain. So is he here?'
'I don't think either of you know what you're getting into,' Charette replied by way of an answer. 'I-'
Sometimes, Remembrance had found, the best approach with members of the species Homo sapiens was the direct one. He reached down and took a firm, hard grip on Charette's reproductive organs through the thin cloth of his gown. It was an approach, experience had taught him, that could generate remarkable levels of compliance.
'We're only here for Bourdain,' Remembrance repeated, as Charette gasped and began to crumple. 'Clear everyone out. I don't care what kind of arrangement you have with Honey dew or Immortal Light, just get them out – except for Bourdain. Now.'
A choked sound emerged from Charette's soft, pale throat. Remembrance twisted harder, and a moment later the restaurant manager was down on all fours on the sticky mat of the maul-worm's tongue.
Remembrance stepped back, noticing the rest of the kitchen staff – all human – staring towards them in shock.
'I meant now,' Remembrance repeated. 'Or I start asking very public questions about why some of your clientele appear to be Bandati. I'm assuming you're aware of the punishment you would be facing if that became public?'
The barely-lit gloom of the worm's interior served to the two agents' advantage. Beyond the kitchens nearby, it didn't appear this little contretemps with Charette had been noticed. Except in one place? Remembrance glimpsed a shadow move close behind one of the screens separating a part of the dining area he couldn't see into. The shadow moved closer, revealing the outline of a cadaverous human skull, pressed up against the thin, semi-translucent material…
Remembrance froze, and the shadow moved quietly away, as if its owner realized he'd been spotted. However, the outline he'd glimpsed triggered memories of a fleeting encounter light-years away, and months in the past.
But that same person had been reported dead in a fire-fight aboard a coreship, not long after the destruction of Bourdain's orbital pleasure palace.
Supposedly.
Charette's breath had become coarse and ragged, and Remembrance wondered if he'd applied too much pressure, for judging the right amount was never easy. Yet after a few moments, the restaurant manager struggled upright, walking carefully back towards the kitchens without sparing either Remembrance or Honeydew a second glance, thereby retaining at least part of his dignity.
Some of the Bandati clientele had finally realized something was wrong. One or two had dropped down from their perches, and stood on spindly, furred legs, chittering nervously and staring over towards the two Hive agents now standing between them and freedom.
Remembrance ignored them for the moment and hugged his shotgun close to his chest, slipping the wire loop attached to its stock over his arm. Honeydew appeared uncertain for a moment, then did the same.
'When was the last time a maul-worm actually killed anyone?' he asked Honeydew, after they had started to make their way towards the cordoned-off area where he had glimpsed a face.
'Two years ago,' Honeydew replied, 'halfway around the world from here. Thirteen died in all, not including any kitchen staff. Apparently they'd been tipped off beforehand.'
'So it wasn't just an accident?'
'Officially, it's because of a lack of appropriate security in an unsanctioned restaurant. Unofficially, someone fired a smart missile from right across the continent. It missed by half a kilometre, but it still triggered an avalanche bad enough to scare the maul-worm into contracting. This sort of business is a risky one to get into.'
They stepped around a sequence of screens and found Alexander Bourdain himself sitting with two human companions at one of several tables that were each large enough to accommodate a dozen seats. Only this one table was occupied, however. Bourdain's companions – a man and woman – were seated directly across the table from him. Remembrance had encountered them before, but even if he hadn't had that pleasure he would still have recognized immediately that they had the careful, watchful look of hired guns.
The woman had deep ebony skin, her face surgically altered to look deliberately artificial and cartoon-like, in a style Remembrance recalled had been in vogue for a while within the Consortium. She was dressed in artificial skin, a thin, permeable body-suit more akin to a symbiote than any article of clothing. Her name, he recalled, was Rachel Kapur.
The other bodyguard, Tobias Mazower, was pale-skinned and much more conservative in appearance.
Something in the posture of all three caused Remembrance to suspect that his presence was not unanticipated. They appeared relaxed, and Bourdain even wore a small smile.
Remembrance glanced sideways at Honeydew and found himself staring down the barrel of the Immortal Light agent's shotgun. In that moment, he realized his initial suspicions concerning the source of the security leak had been correct.
How long, Remembrance wondered, had Bourdain known he was the subject of a deep-cover investigation stretching over years and several star systems? I've spent too long around these creatures, he thought, with a tinge of self-loathing that disturbed him, for sometimes it felt as if he could read humans better than they could read each other. His time amongst them had at least granted him an appreciation of certain of the species' arts, if not of anything else related to them.
Honeydew gestured towards the table with his shotgun. 'Drop your weapon where I can see it,' he demanded, and Remembrance was conscious of a simultaneous translation into human speech.
He ignored the request, keeping his shotgun trained on Bourdain.
'Remembrance of Things Past,' said Bourdain, extending his arms across the back of his chair. 'It's been a while, but maybe not long enough.' He waved one desultory hand towards the weapon aimed at his chest. 'I really don't think that's such a good idea in a place like this, do you?'
The metallic tones of Remembrance's interpreter clashed with the moist clicking of his mouth-parts. 'But, Alex, I'd hate for you to leave when we've still got so much to talk about.'
'Like?'
'Friends. Family. The smuggling of banned alien technology through Bandati-controlled space. The usual.'
'You know, I figured all along you were the one who betrayed me. Someone used a Giantkiller to destroy the world I made, Remembrance, and you were one of those responsible for ensuring that device reached me in the first place.'
'The technical term is "deep cover", Alex. I was only performing my duty.'
'Your "duty" murdered a lot of innocent people when the Rock was destroyed. How does that make you any better than me?'