Sula looked at him and held his gaze. "You're right," she said.
Casimir gave a huff of breath and drew back. Cushions of aesa leather received him. "Why don't you drink?" he asked.
"I grew up around drunks," she said. "I don't want to be like that, not ever."
Which was true, and perhaps Casimir sensed it, because he nodded. "And you lived in Riverside."
"I lived in Zanshaa City till my parents were executed."
His glance was sharp. "For what?"
She shrugged. "For lots of things, I guess. I was little, and I didn't ask."
He cast an uneasy look at the dancers. "My father was executed, too. Strangled."
Sula nodded. "I thought you knew what I meant when I talked about derivoo."
"I knew." Eyes still scanning the dance floor. "But I still think derivoo's depressing."
She found a grin spreading across her face. "We should dance now."
"Yes." His grin answered hers. "We should."
They danced till they were both breathless, and then Casimir moved the party to another club, in the Hotel of Many Blessings, where there was more dancing, more drinking, more money spread around. After which Casimir said they should take a breather, and he took them into an elevator lined with what looked like mother-of-pearl, and bade it rise to the penthouse.
The door opened to Casimir's thumbprint. The room was swathed in shiny draperies, and the furniture was low and comfortable. A table was laid with a cold supper, meats and cheeses and flat wroncho bread, pickles, chutneys, elaborate tarts and cakes, and bottles lying in a tray of shaved ice. It had obviously been intended all along that the evening end here.
Sula put together an open-faced sandwich – nice Vigo plates, she noticed, a clean modern design – then began to rehearse her exit. Surely it was not coincidental that a pair of bedrooms were very handy.
_I've got to work in the morning._ It certainly sounded more plausible than _I've got to go organize a counter-rebellion._
Casimir put his walking stick in a rack that had probably been made for it specially and reached for a pair of small packages, each with glossy wrapping and a brilliant scarlet ribbon. He presented one each to Sula and Veronika.
"With thanks for a wonderful evening."
The gift proved to be perfume, a crystal bottle containing Sengra, made with the musk of the rare and reclusive atauba tree-crawlers of Paycahp. The small vial in her hand might have set Casimir back twenty zeniths or more – probably more, since Sengra was exactly the sort of thing that wouldn't be coming down from orbit for years, not with the ring gone.
Veronika opened her package and popped her eyes wide – that gesture was going to look silly on her when she was fifty – and gave a squeal of delight. Sula opted for a more moderate response and kissed Casimir's cheek.
There was the sting of stubble against her lips. He looked at her with calculation. There was a very male scent to him.
Sula was about to bring up the work she had to do in the morning when there was a chime from Casimir's sleeve display. He gave a scowl of annoyance and answered.
"Casimir," came a strange voice. "We've got a situation."
"Wait," Casimir said. He left the room and closed the door behind him. Sula munched a pickle while the others waited in silence.
Casimir returned with the scowl still firm on his face. He was without a trace of apology as he looked at Sula and Veronika and said, "Sorry, but the evening's over. Something's come up."
Veronika pouted and reached for her jacket. Casimir reached for Sula's arm to draw her to the door. She looked at him. "What's just happened?"
Casimir gave her an impatient, insolent look – it was none of her business, after all – then thought better of it and shrugged. "Not what's happened, but what's going to happen in a few hours. The Naxids are declaring food rationing."
"They're what?" Sula's first reaction was outrage. Casimir opened the door for her, and she hesitated there, thinking. Casimir quivered with impatience. "Congratulations," she said finally. "The Naxids have just made you very rich."
"I'll call you," he said.
"I'll be rich, too," Sula said. "Ration cards will cost you a hundred apiece."
"A hundred?" For a moment it was Casimir's turn to be outraged.
"Think about it," Sula said. "Think how much they'll be worth to you."
They held each other's eyes for a moment, and then both broke into laughter. "We'll talk price later," Casimir said, and he hustled her into the vestibule along with Veronika, who showed Sula a five-zenith coin.
"Julien gave it to me for the cab," she said triumphantly. "And we get to keep the change!"
"You'd better hope the cab has change for a fiver," Sula said, and Veronika thought for a moment.
"We'll get change in the lobby."
A Daimong night clerk gave them change, and Veronika's nose wrinkled at the smell. On the way to her apartment Sula learned that Veronika was a former model and now an occasional club hostess.
"I'm an unemployed math teacher," Sula said.
Veronika's eyes went wide. "Wow," she said.
After letting Veronika off, Sula had the Torminel driver take her within two streets of the Riverside apartment, after which she walked the distance to the building by the light of the stars. Overhead the broken arcs of the ring were a line of black against the faintly glowing sky. Outside the apartment she gazed up for a long moment until she discerned the pale gleam of the white ceramic pot in the front window. It was in the position that meant "someone is in the apartment and it is safe."
The lock on the building's front door, the one that read her fingerprint, worked only erratically, but this time she caught it by surprise and the door opened. She went up the stair, then used her key on the apartment lock.
Macnamara was asleep on the couch, with a pair of pistols on the table in front of him, along with a grenade.
"Hi, dad," Sula said as he blinked awake. "Junior brought me home safe, just like he said he would."
Macnamara looked embarrassed. Sula gave him a grin.
"What were you planning on doing with a grenade?" she asked.
Macnamara didn't reply. Sula took off her jacket and called up the computer that resided in the desk. "I've got work to do," Sula said. "You'd better get some sleep, because I've got a job for you first thing in the morning."
"What's that?" He rose from the couch, scratching his sleep-tousled hair.
"The market opens at 07:27, right?"
"Yes."
Sula sat herself at the desk. "I need you to buy as much food as you can carry. Canned, dried, bottled, freeze-dried. Get the biggest sack of flour they have, and another sack of beans. Condensed milk would be good. Get Spence to help you carry it all."
"What's going on?" Macnamara was bewildered.
"Food rationing."
"What?" Sula could hear the outrage in Macnamara's voice as she called up a text program.
"Two reasons for it I can think of," Sula said. "First, issuing everyone with a ration card will be a way of re-processing every ID on the planet… help them weed out troublemakers and saboteurs. Second…" She held up one hand and made the universal gesture of tossing a coin in her palm. "Artificial scarcities are going to make some Naxids very, very rich."
"Damn them," Macnamara breathed.
"We'll do very well," Sula pointed out. "We'll quadruple our prices on everything on the ration – you don't suppose they'd be good enough to ration tobacco, would you? – and we'll make a fortune."
"Damn them," Macnamara said again.
Sula gave him a pointed look. "Good night," she said. "Dad."
He flushed and shambled to bed. Sula turned to her work.
"What if they ration alcohol?" she said aloud as the thought struck her. There would be stills in half the bathrooms in Zanshaa, processing potatoes, taswa peels, apple cores, whatever they could find.