Eros Ascending: Book 1 of Tales of the Velvet Comet (8 page)

“Well,
that's
a relief.”

“Don't you understand what I'm telling you?” demanded Redwine. “Somebody's put a plant on board.”

“One of the whores?” asked Bonhomme.

“It could be anyone: a prostitute, a technician, even a customer.”

Bonhomme lowered his head in thought for a moment, then looked up and smiled. “It doesn't make any difference,” he said at last. “Whoever it is can't do a damned thing to stop you as long as you've got that card.”

“I don't like it,” said Redwine.

“I don't blame you,” chuckled Bonhomme. “Still, what harm can it do?”

“I don't know, but I thought we'd better talk it over before the Security chief figures out how to listen in on us.” He paused. “I think we should postpone the operation for the time being.”

“No way, Harry,” said Bonhomme. “You were sent there to cook the
Comet's
books. You'd better start putting them in the oven today.”

“What if I refuse?”

“You won't,” answered Bonhomme, amused. “Oh, you'll
threaten
to quit, just like you've threatened to quit four or five other times. But we both know you won't, so why don't you save both of us a lot of aggravation and just go to work?”

“Damn it!” snapped Redwine. “I swear to you, Victor, this is the last time!”

“Until the next time.” Bonhomme smiled at him. “Face it, Harry, this is what you're good at. You'd go crazy sitting around in an office just auditing records and finding still more tax breaks for the Syndicate. You may bitch like hell, but you
like
getting out in the field.”

“Industrial espionage isn't exactly the usual definition of ‘getting out in the field,'” muttered Redwine.

“Come off it, Harry. I think you even like the danger.”

Redwine snorted caustically.

“And I know you like the money,” continued Bonhomme.

“I've got enough to retire on right now.”

“You'd die of boredom in two years’ time.”

“You wouldn't care to bet on that, would you?” snapped Redwine.

“I already have. Nine different times, to be exact—and I've never lost.”

“Yeah? Well, don't push your luck. I'm getting pretty fed up with you, and with whoever it is I'm really working for.”

“But you'll keep working for us, just the same,” said Bonhomme. “We've got a lot of good accountants in the Syndicate, Harry. What makes you the best isn't the way you balance the books—it's the way you
fix
them. Sabotage is your forte, so why fight against it?”

“There's a hell of a lot of difference between sabotage and subversion,” said Redwine. “If I'm such a great master spy, why don't you ever send me out to ruin the Bello Conglomerate or the Reeling Corporation? Why am I always undercutting Vainmill?”

“Because Vainmill's the biggest of them all, and that's the prize we're playing for. You know that, Harry.” He paused. “We're working for a very bright, very ambitious person, you and I. Instead of feeling angry, you ought to be grateful. Look at where we were when we started; then look at how far we've come.”

“Over the corpses of nine Vainmill subsidiaries,” replied Redwine sullenly.

“Vainmill will survive,” said Bonhomme patiently.

“Look, you know the Old Woman is retiring next year. When the person we work for surveyed the situation, there were half a dozen likelier candidates for the job. Now there's only one: Rubikov of Entertainment and Leisure. He fought for the
Comet
when no one else wanted it, so all we have to do is do a job on the books and we've eliminated the last stepping stone.”

“
Then
will I know who I'm working for?”

Bonhomme chuckled. “Then the whole fucking Republic will know who you're working for.”

“I still don't like it.”

“The artistic temperament,” remarked Bonhomme sardonically.

“When this job is through, our man is definitely in?”

“Our
person
is definitely in,” Bonhomme corrected him carefully.

“Then why do you think you're going to send me out to do more of this stuff ?”

“Because our employer recognizes your true value, Harry. You don't belong cooped up in an office.”

“Yeah? Well; that's my fee for putting our person of indeterminate gender into the catbird's seat:

I want an office of my own, I want the job I was trained to do, and I never want to hear from you again.”

“You'll be pounding on my door two months later, begging me to rescue you from a life of boredom.”

“Don't you be too goddamned sure of that!” snapped Redwine. “Maybe I'm getting a little older and a little more tired than you think. Maybe, just once in my career, I'd like to do something
con
structive.”

“Maybe,” agreed Bonhomme. “But I doubt it. Don't forget, Harry—you practically begged me for those first two assignments.”

“I was hungrier then.”

“It took us ten months to transfer you to Entertainment and Leisure and place you where we wanted you. How come I never heard a whisper about your moral qualms during all that time?”

“Because I wasn't working on a ship that had a plant who knew about us!”

“Don't carry on so, Harry. Even if they can connect us, so what? I've been an officer in four of Vainmill's five divisions. It would be decidedly odd if we
hadn't
run into each other somewhere along the way.” He checked his chronometer. “You've wasted almost twenty minutes, Harry. Hadn't you better be getting back to work?”

“If they catch me I'll tell them everything I know about you,” promised Redwine.

Bonhomme chuckled. “If they catch you, you'll bluff and lie and bluster your way out of it. That's why you're the only man I trust.”

“Well, you'd better find someone else after this job is over.”

“Come to Deluros when you're through, and we'll talk about it, Harry,” said Bonhomme, touching a section of his desk with a long forefinger and breaking the connection.

Redwine stalked over to the kitchenette, found a bottle of Alphard brandy, looked for something stronger, couldn't find it, filled up a glass with the brandy, and downed it in a single swallow. He poured another glass, then walked over to the sofa and sat down.

The frustrating thing was that Bonhomme was right: he'd probably go stark staring crazy if he had to go back to working full-time in an office. Espionage wasn't much—certainly no honor or pride of accomplishment accrued to it—but it was all he had.

He sipped his drink, more slowly this time, and wondered if this emptiness he felt was unique to him, or if it was common to everyone. Many times he had wanted to ask someone about it, but part of the emptiness was caused by the fact that he had never found anyone he could really talk to. Certainly not his ex-wife, though their parting had been relatively amicable.

Not his three daughters, who were pleasant and cordial enough, but whom he understood about as well as he understood a six-legged chlorine-breathing native of far Teron. Not his fellow employees, who felt that the Good Life consisted of a portfolio, two homes, three mistresses, and four pension funds.

The funny part was that he had really
tried.
He had worked hard at being a good husband and a good father and a good accountant, and he still didn't know what had gone wrong, or why he had jumped at the chance to start working for Bonhomme. Certainly it wasn't from any sense of moral commitment; he didn't even know who his employer was. He had told himself originally that he was doing it for the money, but that wasn't true: his needs and tastes were simple, his only luxury was his book collection, and he had been well-paid long before Bonhomme ever came along.

He guessed that it was the excitement and the danger, which provided him with the certain knowledge that he was alive when he had been absolutely sure that he was just passing time, alone and isolated, from the womb to the grave. And because he cherished the knowledge that he
mattered,
even if only to someone whose identity was a mystery to him. So he mastered his new craft of destroying companies as competently as he had mastered his old craft of auditing them. Better, even.

Which led to still another question that he had nobody to ask: was
everyone
better at destroying things than fixing them, or was it just him?

He had the sinking feeling that he was unique, and he had a strong suspicion that those people who would think of him as a dashing and romantic figure if they knew what he really did were the same ones who currently considered him to be a fulfilled and successful man. Redwine sighed. He would be happy to settle for either description, instead of the one that was true: a hollow man, who had been lonely and empty for so long that he was half-convinced that this was the natural order of things.

He looked down at the pin he always wore, tried to envision the bright, hopeful young man who had earned the right to wear it, and wondered exactly how he had come all the way from
there
to
here.

He stared at the pin for a long time. Finally he shrugged, finished his drink, and walked over to the computer.

“Activate,” he said wearily, and a moment later he was going through the financial data banks of the
Velvet Comet
, hard at work at the only thing in his life at which he seemed able to excel.

Redwine was leaning back in his fur-covered contour chair that evening, reading his copy of
The Inferno,
when his computer came to life. A moment later he was confronting a full-sized holograph of the Leather Madonna.

“Harry, is this some kind of joke?”

“Absolutely not,” he assured her. “I'm just following your instructions.”

“
My
instructions?” she repeated.

He nodded, amused. “You're the one who said I should just activate the intercom and put in my request for a companion, aren't you?”

“Yes, but —”

“I don't think this particular companion has been reserved for the night—or could I be mistaken?” he asked with a smile.

“This particular companion isn't in the companion business any longer.”

“Nonsense,” said Redwine. “You're in
charge
of the damned business. Besides, didn't you tell me that you still ... ah ... met with an occasional customer?”

"Patron,"
she corrected him. “And you aren't a patron; you're an employee. Now stop playing games and request a suitable companion.”

“You're the one I want,” said Redwine, pleasantly but stubbornly.

“You're serious, aren't you?”

“Absolutely.”

She smiled a bit awkwardly. “I'm flattered, Harry, truly I am. Especially since you've already seen Suma and some of the others. But it's out of the question.”

“Look,” said Redwine, suddenly serious. “You don't have to sleep with me if you don't want to. Just stop by and visit for a while. You're damned near the only woman on the
Comet
who won't make me feel like a child molester.”

“I'll assume that's a compliment,” she said dryly.

“It is.” He paused. “I like you.”

“I like you too, Harry, but if you can't come up with a reasonable alternative, I just may send the Demolition Team down to your suite.” She smiled. “They'll tire you out so much you won't be able to work for a week.”

“Just half an hour,” he urged her. “I promise I'll sit on the opposite side of the room the whole time.”

“This is ridiculous. You've got the whole ship to choose from, and I've got work to do.”

“I don't
want
the whole ship,” he persisted. “And when you come, bring your book.”

“Book? What book?”

“The poems from Canphor VI.

“You're really interested in reading it?” asked the Leather Madonna, her expression softening just a bit.

“You recommended it, didn't you?”

“If my recommendation is all it takes to pique your curiosity, why won't you let me recommend a girl for you?”

“Because I'd prefer a woman,” replied Redwine.

She laughed. “You've got a pretty good line for a guy who's supposed to be out of practice.”

“It's not a line. I mean it.”

“I know. That's what makes it so unusual in a place like this.”

“Will you come?”

“I'll come. Give me a few minutes to take care of some loose ends here and hunt up the book.”

True to her word, the Leather Madonna entered Redwine's room some twenty minutes later.

“Here you are,” she said, handing him a book. “As promised.”

“Thanks,” he said, setting it down on a table. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yes, but maybe you'd better let me make it,” she answered, walking to his wet bar. “What'll you have, Harry?”

“Whatever you're having,” he replied.

“You might not like it.”

“If you can come to my room, I can try one of your drinks.” He smiled. “We'll both live dangerously.”

She pulled out a pair of long-stemmed glasses, and went to work.

“You look very lovely tonight,” said Redwine.

“Harry, I'm a madam. You don't have to try to flatter me.”

“It's true.”

“This is the same outfit I was wearing this morning,” she pointed out.

“You looked lovely then, too.”

“I thought we were just going to talk,” she remarked with a smile.

“That's what I'm doing.”

“Harry, I wish you wouldn't sound so damned sincere. I'm not used to it.”

“Or with people wanting to talk to you?”

“Or with people wanting to talk with me.”

“What a waste.”

“I've always thought so, too,” she agreed.

She finished making the drinks and handed one to Redwine. He stared at it, sniffed it, then took a sip.

“What is it?” he asked at last.

“It's called a Blue Polaris, and I'll thank you to stop looking like you've just been poisoned.”

“Bitter,” he said at last.

“I like bitter drinks. Would you rather I poured you glass of whiskey?”

He shook his head. “Maybe this'll grow on me.”

He took another sip and tried very hard not to make a face. “Stop hovering like a worried mother.”

She shrugged and sat down on a small loveseat.

“Well, is the office acceptable to you?”