Trickster

Gretchen ran her finger around the rim of her champagne glass. 'It's kind of embarrassing. I sort of work more for him than with him and it would be… awkward running into my boss. I didn't think he'd come here two nights in a row. Please don't mention you saw me, would you?'

'Of course not,' Kellyn soothed. 'Though you wouldn't need to be embarrassed.'

'Does he come here a lot?'

Kellyn gave a smile full of dazzlingly white teeth. 'I'm afraid I can't gossip about the individual habits of my customers.'

Gretchen nodded, though she already knew quite a bit about Jeung's habits. Ben, Lucia, and Gretchen had spent a great deal of time reading old news stories, striking up casual conversations with patrons, and once even interviewing a soul who had quit working for Kellyn to open a flower shop. The latter had been extremely talkative, especially about Dr. Ken Jeung.

'Well I can gossip,' Gretchen said, still hoping to winkle a bit more information out of Lady Kellyn. 'Like I said, I've overheard him talk about this place. He said you're always hiring new people-souls-and he likes to get first crack at them.' She sniffed. 'I had a boyfriend like that once. Never wanted to do the same thing twice.'

'Perhaps you should have brought him here,' Kellyn said with a smile of her own.

'Is it true that Dr. Jeung's always first in line for someone new?'

'That would be telling,' Kellyn replied. 'Do you see anyone you find enticing, my dear?'

A pointed change of subject. Gretchen gave an inward sigh. She had been hoping for confirmation of the information she had already gathered, but it was clear Kellyn wasn't going to give any. 'Let me look,' Gretchen hedged. 'I'm new to all this.'

'Of course, no pressure,' Kellyn said. 'And if you see no one who appeals, we have two new souls who will be starting soon. However, I do have to tell you that drinks and the buffet are included in the price of an hour's pleasure time. If you elect not to share pleasure time with one of my souls, I'm afraid we have to charge you for what you imbibe.'

Gretchen nodded acknowledgment. Kellyn pressed her arm briefly and moved away to speak to someone else. After a decent interval, Gretchen wandered up the marble staircase. A tall woman accompanied by a hairy, bear-like creature passed Gretchen on their way down. At the top of the stairs she could go either left or right into a corridor lined with doors. She went left until she was standing directly under the small security camera positioned on the ceiling and she stayed there until the tiny camera mounted on her lapel pin had taken several holos of the empty hallway. Then she did the same thing with the other corridor and headed down the stairs again.

In the main mingling area, Gretchen hung around long enough to make it seem as if she were waffling between a soft creature that reminded her of a baby seal and a thing with a beak and wicked-looking talons, then headed for the front door, where a pudgy human in an honest-to-god tuxedo stood behind a small podium. Some sort of maitre d', Gretchen assumed, responsible for collecting money.

'You saw nothing to your liking tonight?' he asked solicitously as he presented Gretchen a bill for the champagne.

Gretchen settled the check, trying to look as if she paid half a day's stipend for a single drink all the time. 'Nothing grabbed me. Lady Kellyn says you're getting two new souls soon?'

'Yes, madam. They will have finished their training by the day after tomorrow. I'll be sending out a notice to everyone on our Honor Roll once they're available.'

'Really?' Gretchen put her hand on the pudgy man's podium. When she removed it, a hundred-freemark coin glittered in the soft light beside a small address chip. 'I hope I'm on that Roll.'

The pudgy maitre d' swept the chip and the coin into his pocket. 'Of course, madam. You will be among the first to hear.'

'I'd like to be the very first, even if it's only by a few minutes.'

'That can certainly be arranged, madam.'

Gretchen thanked the man and swept out into the false night.

'A hundred freemarks?' Kendi spluttered. 'Gretchen! We have a big budget, but isn't that extravagant for a simple bribe?'

'It didn't even include the champagne,' Gretchen added with a winsome smile. 'Do you want to hear what I got or not?'

Kendi took a deep breath and closed his eyes to get himself under control. It was only money, and the Children had never stinted when it came to buying, begging, or stealing Silent into freedom. It was just the way Gretchen went about it, so smug and irritating.

They were in Ben and Kendi's quarters, with its half-messy living room. The faint smell of old coffee hung on the air. Behind Kendi on Ben's desk sat holographic displays of the plain corridor leading to the Collection's part of SA station. Ben and Lucia had managed to get close enough to the Collection entrance to release a pair of tiny spider cameras that had crawled up to the ceiling and planted themselves. One of them had wandered too close and shorted out, the victim of some sort of jamming device, but the other had hung back and was transmitting a clear image. At the moment, the display showed nothing but an empty corridor that ended in a door fitted with an hand-level scanner for checking prints. Dozens of people passed through that door every day, presenting an identification holo and submitting to a quick print scan before being admitted. Kendi burned to know what was on the other side of that door, but had to be content with having his team shadow the various department heads to learn more about them.

'All right,' he said at last. 'What did you learn?'

'The maitre d', or whoever he is, takes bribes. I didn't try it with Lady Kellyn. I didn't think it would work.'

'Right, right. What else?'

'Jeung has a thing for sex with non-humans-we knew that from our other research-and he does get bored fast. Whenever they get someone new, Jeung's on her faster than a spacer on… well, you know.'

Kendi tapped his fingers on the arms of the desk chair, a habit he had picked up from Ara. 'Anything else?'

'You betcha. I gave the maitre d' guy a mail drop and bribed him to let me be the very first to know when a new soul is ready to start working. He said there'll be two more coming up by the day after tomorrow. I'll bet a year of your stipend-'

Kendi snorted as he usually did when Gretchen made this remark.

'— that Jeung will be there and he'll be heavily occupied for quite some time.'

'In other words, we'll have a time and place of his next assignation,' Kendi said. 'Along with a built-in distraction.'

'Astute,' Gretchen said. 'No wonder you were promoted to Father.'

Kendi ignored this comment and thought for a long moment, then rose. 'We'll have to put a twenty-four hour monitor on that mail drop. And be ready to spend the evening with a hooker. I need to go find Ben.'

' The message came in, troops,' Kendi said. ' Go! '

Gretchen acknowledged the transmission, left a few SA company chits on the restaurant table, and hurried out the front door. The lights and sounds of FunSec swirled around her in a cacophony she had come to hate over the last day and half. Ignoring all of it as best she could, she picked her way across the street to Lady Kellyn's establishment and let the attendant get the door for her.

Because Silent Acquisitions had been originally started by humans and the station originally built with humans in mind, SA Station kept a twenty-four hour clock and work schedule. However, Silent Acquisitions itself was open twenty-four hours a 'day,' meaning FunSec establishments could expect customers at any time as people got off work at all hours. Lady Kellyn's was therefore busy, despite the fact that it was barely six-thirty in the evening.

Another fact Gretchen had learned in the last day and a half was that Lady Kellyn did not accept reservations from anyone but preferred-read, regular and wealthy — customers. On the surface it was an attempt to seem gentile and old-fashioned, but Gretchen suspected that too many people had called for reservations and then broken them, either because the customers chickened out or they didn't bother to inform the brothel of a change in plans. People who had to go through the trouble of making reservations in person, Gretchen imagined, rarely broke them.

Gretchen approached the maitre d', still pudgy in his tuxedo. 'I just happened to be in the neighborhood when I got the news,' she said breathlessly. 'You have two new souls?'