Eros Ascending: Book 1 of Tales of the Velvet Comet Read online

“Pity,” he said.

  “You disapprove?”

  “Not at all,” said Redwine. “I just liked it better when I thought I was the only one who felt that way.”

  “Well,” she said, turning to him, “I don't imagine you're here to talk about chess tables.” She gestured toward a couch. “Won't you sit down?”

  He did so, and she walked around the chrome table and seated herself on the opposite couch.

  “Can Suma get you a drink before she leaves, Mr. Redwine?”

  He turned to Suma. “I'll have a whiskey, no ice, no water.”

  “And the usual for me,” added the Leather Madonna.

  Suma quickly poured his drink and then set about mixing some concoction for the Madonna in a long-stemmed crystal glass. As he waited for her to finish, Redwine turned his attention back to the Leather Madonna and tried to estimate her age. It was more difficult than he anticipated, and he finally concluded that she was in her late thirties, give or take a decade.

  “Thank you,” said the Leather Madonna when Suma finally handed her an iced, bluish drink.

  “Come back in about two hours.”

  Suma nodded, gave Redwine his glass, and left the room.

  “I don't think we'll have two hours’ worth of things to discuss today,” offered Redwine.

  “I quite agree,” she replied. She took a small sip of her drink, and placed the glass down on the tabletop.

  “I trust everyone has treated you courteously since your arrival?”

  “Absolutely,” said Redwine leaning back and extending his arms along the top of the couch. “It's been the most courteous runaround I've ever experienced.”

  She smiled, unperturbed. “Well, you must admit that your particular needs are not those we're used to serving.”

  “Lady, I'm just an accountant trying to do my job.”

  Her green eyes scrutinized him for a long moment.

  “You're too modest, Mr. Redwine,” she said at last. “Somehow I feel you have many other talents.”

  He shrugged noncommittally. “Well, maybe one or two,” he replied, wondering exactly how much she knew about him. “But one of the talents I seem to lack is the ability to gain access to the material I need.”

  “I thought you might be tired after your trip,” explained the Leather Madonna. “Otherwise, I would have had everything ready and waiting for you.”

  He gave her a look of open disbelief.

  “You seem dubious, Mr. Redwine,” she noted.

  “True. But I'm willing to be shown the error of my ways,” he said. “I'll expect complete access to the computer's data banks by tomorrow morning.” He paused. “And I'll want a tour of the facilities.”

  “Somehow I was sure that you would,” said the Leather Madonna.

  “Look,” said Redwine reasonably. “We seem to be getting off on the wrong foot, and there's no reason for it. We both work for the same company, and we both want your operation to make as much money as it can. We have a lot more in common than you might think.”

  “Mr. Redwine,” she said, “I run the finest brothel in the galaxy, and you spend all your time counting other people's money. What could we possibly have in common?” She finished her drink, then shrugged and smiled courteously. “Still, there's no reason why we can't work together in relative harmony.

  You'll be given access to the material you need tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What about tomorrow morning?” he persisted.

  “I thought you wanted a tour of the ship.” She noticed his empty glass. “Can I offer you a refill?”

  “Well, as long as I'm not working tonight, why not?” he said amicably.

  She pressed a section of the tabletop, and a moment later a tall, bronzed, blond man, heavily muscled and wearing nothing but sandals and a loincloth, entered the room.

  “Mr. Redwine will have another whiskey, without ice or water,” said the Leather Madonna.

  He nodded and went over to the bar. She turned back to Redwine and was about to say something when the top of the chrome table glowed with a dim phosphorescence and suddenly came to life, displaying the image of a middle-aged man in formal attire.

  “Yes?” said the Leather Madonna.

  “We have a counter at the blackjack table,” said the man.

  “Who is it?”

  “Esteban Fuentes.”

  “How many decks are you using?”

  “Two.”

  “All right,” said the Leather Madonna. “Use five decks. If he can keep track of them, he deserves to win.”

  The tabletop went blank.

  “I thought the casino was out of your bailiwick,” remarked Redwine.

  The Leather Madonna sighed. “Mr. Redwine, while we keep time aboard the Velvet Comet as a matter of convenience for our customers, in point of fact there isn't any day or night up here. We're an around-the-clock operation, and even our pit boss has to sleep every now and then. The man working the current shift is new to the job, and still unsure of himself in potentially awkward situations. Now, Mr. Fuentes is a very good customer of all our facilities, and one doesn't offend a very good customer when it can be avoided—or do you think we should have forbidden him to gamble until the pit boss wakes up and has breakfast?” She paused. “I realize that the company has its own ideas concerning our chain of command, but we're dealing with people here, not figures in one of your ledgers—and no matter how much money the casino brings in, it's still an adjunct to our main business. And I don't propose to let them offend my patrons.” She watched him carefully for his reaction.

  “I'm not here to tell you what to do or how to do it,” said Redwine, noticing that she seemed to relax slightly as the words sunk in. “I'm just here to observe.”

  “I thought you were here to audit the books.”

  “And to appraise and evaluate the business,” he added.

  “And how many brothels have you appraised and evaluated in your long and varied experience?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “Not a one,” he admitted. “In point of fact, I've never even been in one before today.”

  “Then please feel free to call on me for any assistance you may require.”

  “I just may do that,” said Redwine, wondering if she had just propositioned him, and deciding to ignore it rather than make a fool of himself in case it had been a totally innocent remark.

  The young blond man walked over, handed Redwine his drink, and looked questioningly at the Leather Madonna.

  “That will be all,” she said.

  He inclined his head slightly, then left the room.

  “Does he ever speak?” asked Redwine.

  “When he has something to say,” replied the Leather Madonna with a smile.

  “We could use someone with that attitude back at headquarters,” he commented dryly.

  “How long have you been with the Vainmill Syndicate, Mr. Redwine?” .

  “More than twenty years, in one branch or another,” he replied. “And you?”

  “About ten. Have you been to Deluros?'’

  “I've been stationed there for the past three years,” said Redwine, feeling a bit of the tension between them easing away as they moved on to other subjects.

  “It's a hell of a world. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Republic move its headquarters there one of these days. Earth's a little too far from the center of things.”

  “I've been there once,” she remarked. “That's where they should have constructed the Velvet Comet: in orbit around Deluros.”

  “They'd have had to pay off too many politicians.”

  “Prostitution and gambling are legal in the Deluros system,” she pointed out.

  “I know,” answered Redwine. “But orbital space is at a premium. They must have ten thousand spaceship hangars and customs stations circling the damned planet. It costs a lot of money to put something in orbit there, more than the Comet can afford.”

  “Not more than we could afford if we were there,” responded
the Leather Madonna, and Redwine heard a note of defensiveness creep into her voice.

  “Maybe you're right,” he said agreeably. “I suppose seven billion bureaucrats must have a lot of excess time and money on their hands.”

  “Not that we aren't very successful right where we are,” she added quickly. “It's just that Deluros is ... well...Deluros.”

  “The biggest of the big apples,” nodded Redwine.

  “Exactly. We're the biggest and the best, so we ought to service the biggest and the best.”

  “You'll get no argument from me,” he replied pleasantly. “However, I don't make the decisions. I'm just a two-bit bookkeeper.”

  “So you keep saying,” commented the Leather Madonna. “By the way, what does ‘two-bit’ mean?”

  “It's a holdover, from before we converted to credits.”

  “And what was a two-bit?”

  He shrugged. “I haven't the slightest idea. I gather it was pretty trivial.”

  The tabletop came to life again, this time displaying a young woman's face.

  “We've come up with a minor scheduling problem,” announced the woman.

  “The Gemini Twins again?”

  The woman nodded.

  “I'll get back to you in a minute,” said the Leather Madonna, and the screen went blank. She looked across the table at Redwine. “I don't mean to be rude, but is there anything further we have to discuss that can't wait until tomorrow morning?”

  “No,” said Redwine, rising to his feet. “I certainly don't want to keep you from your work.” He walked to the door, then turned to her just as she was reaching down to activate the screen. “Ah ... there is one thing, I'm afraid.”

  “Yes?”

  “I'm lost.”

  She smiled, walked to the secretary, uttered the word “Map,” and received a piece of paper an instant later. She then crossed the room to where Redwine was standing and showed it to him.

  “You're here,” she said, using a pen she had withdrawn from the secretary and indicating a tiny rectangle on the incredibly complex map. “If you'll follow this line I'm drawing, it will take you to the elevator banks leading to your suite. You do know the number, I trust?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Then that's all there is to it,” she concluded, handing the map to him. “If you decide to dine in one of our restaurants instead of using room service, just sign your name to the check; you have an unlimited line of credit, except at the casino and the shops.”

  “What about an occasional companion for the evening?” he asked.

  “As I said, you have an unlimited line of credit.”

  “Much appreciated,” he said. “I'm rather surprised that I don't feel like a kid turned loose in a candy shop. I guess that reaction sets in later.”

  “I really couldn't say, Mr. Redwine,” she relied, as the tabletop came to life again. “And now, if you'll excuse me, I really must get back to work.”

  “See you tomorrow,” said Redwine, walking out of the room and staring at the map.

  As he passed one of the restaurants he decided that he could do with a meal after all, and shortly thereafter he was dining on a sumptuous feast of real meat, sautéed in a white wine sauce that he couldn't identify but decided on the spot to order again before he left the ship. Finally, when he had finished his flaming dessert and a superbly-blended after-dinner drink, he withdrew the map from his pocket and found his way back to his suite with less difficulty than he had anticipated.

  He checked the tiny device he had attached to the back of the commode, and was not surprised to discover that both his room and its computer terminal were still being monitored. He entered his darkened closet, made a show of getting out a change of clothes, and managed to remove his skeleton card from his briefcase and slip it into the formal jacket that he would shortly don. Then he stepped back into the brightly-lit bedroom, opened his briefcase again, seemed to check its contents, nodded with satisfaction, locked it, and placed it back in the closet.

  This done, he shaved, showered, dressed, and left his suite, ostensibly to enjoy a few hours in the casino, where formal wear seemed to be de rigueur He strode down the corridor, entered the elevator, and ascended one level.

  When he got out he found himself in a corridor almost identical to the one he had just left, waited until he saw a middle-aged woman and a handsome young man emerge from a suite about eighty feet away, and walked toward their door, pacing himself so that he reached it after they had entered the elevator.

  He pulled out his skeleton card, inserted it in the lock, and entered the suite's elegant parlor an instant later. Wasting no time, he walked directly to the computer's holographic screen and held the card up.

  “Activate.”

  The screen flickered to life.

  “This is Harry Redwine, Identification Number 00345, code name Fixer. Please scan my card and identify my retina pattern.” He waited a moment, then continued. “Once you've ascertained my identity, compare it against my Access Authorization under the code name Fixer. Let me know when you're done.”

  The computer flashed a completion message a few seconds later.

  “Has my skeleton card activated this room's security system?”

  The computer gave him a negative response.

  “Is this terminal currently being monitored?”

  Negative again.

  “All right. Institute Priority Code 03G6673H2.”

  The computer winked in acknowledgement, and Redwine rattled off four more multi-digit codes in order.

  “Now, computer, I want you to prevent anyone from monitoring or interfering with this terminal for the next 300 seconds, and then I want you to wipe all trace of these 300 seconds from your memory banks.”

  Five minutes, he had decided was about as late as he could be and still claim unfamiliarity of the ship as an excuse.

  “Now please bring up your Personnel File on Harry Redwine, Identification Number 00345.”

  The computer did as it was instructed, and the Fixer set out to discover just how much anyone on the Velvet Comet actually knew about him.

  Chapter 2

  Redwine was just finishing his breakfast when he looked up and saw the Leather Madonna approaching him.

  She was wearing a different jumpsuit, composed of small strips of beige, tan, and dark brown leather in a chevron pattern. Her gauntlets and knee-high boots were both tan, though the boots possessed gold heels that matched her golden belt. Again she wore no jewelry except for a very simple pair of earrings.

  “Good morning, Mr. Redwine,” she said pleasantly, sitting down opposite him. “Did you enjoy your breakfast?”

  “It was delicious.”

  “And your suite?”

  “All the comforts of home,” he replied. “Plus a few dozen that home never had.”

  “I'm told that you didn't avail yourself of the most enjoyable of them.”

  “It was a long, tiring day. Besides,” he added, “I'm not quite sure of the procedure.”

  “Just use your intercom and tell the person at the other end what you want,” she said. “Or, if you prefer, let me know and I can arrange it for you.”

  “Much obliged,” said Redwine. “Shall we get down to business?”

  “I was talking business,” laughed the Leather Madonna.

  “My business, not yours.” He pulled out the map she had given him the previous day. “Before we start, I've got a couple of questions.”

  “I'll do my best to answer them.”

  “When my ship approached the Velvet Comet, I noticed that it was shaped kind of like a barbell,” said Redwine. “Now, I gather that the section we're in is called the Resort.”

  “That's right.”

  “And this long section here”—he pointed to the map—“which looks like the bar of the barbell, is called the Mall.”

  “Yes. That's where we have all our shops and boutiques.”

  “Right. But I can't seem to find the other bell on t
he map.”

  “It's called the Home,” she explained, “and we don't include it on the patrons’ maps for the simple reason that it's off limits to them.”

  “And to me?” he asked.

  “Of course not. You have run of the entire Comet, Mr. Redwine. In fact, I'll be taking you to the Home during your tour, since you'll want to see our security headquarters. Also, I have an auxiliary office there which you can work in, if it meets with your approval.”

  “The Home also holds the crew's quarters, I presume?”

  “Among other things. It also houses most of our technical equipment, our staff infirmary, our administrative offices, and various lounges and other recreational facilities for off-duty personnel.” She paused. “Did you have any other questions?”

  “I'll ask them as they come to me,” he said, rising to his feet. “Shall we begin?”

  They spent the next hour going through most of the restaurants and lounges. The Madonna answered each of his questions pleasantly and thoroughly, and he noticed that the previous day's coolness and undercurrent of tension seemed to have vanished.

  Finally, when they had gone through the sixth and last of the kitchens, the Leather Madonna removed her ornate belt buckle, turned it over, and touched a certain spot on it. A series of tiny lights blinked in a repeating pattern, and after staring at it for a moment, she replaced the buckle on her belt and turned to Redwine.

  “It seems that all of our fantasy rooms are in use for the next hour or so. I can either show you some empty suites which are very similar to your own, or we can take the slidewalk past some of the shops.”

  “I suppose if you've seen one million-credit suite you've seen ‘em all,” said Redwine with an attempt at levity that elicited a polite smile. “Let's take a look at the shops.”

  She led him out through one of the restaurants and past the huge reception foyer. They received a number of stares along the way, but he couldn't decide whether it was due to the fact that the madam herself was showing him around the ship, or simply because of the striking contrast between her own brilliant outfit and his businessman's gray-on-gray.

  Finally they reached the Mall, the two-mile-long store-lined bar that connected the two bells of the Comet. The domed ceiling was about thirty feet high, and try as he would, Redwine couldn't spot the source of the indirect lighting.