Page 31

T he Tyngalings know how to party, I’ll give them that.

It’s not the naked beach rave that Kez and her friends favor.

Or the shots-on-a-plank piss-up I used to have with the other grunts in my squad on the rare occasion we were all in the same place at the same time.

But it’s a definite party, and despite the formality of it, there’s plenty of skin, and plenty of booze.

I make a slow circuit through the party with Kez on my arm.

Myhre’s team of party planners – three Pan-Asian girls who probably aren’t related but have been vacced and polished to such an identical aesthetic ideal that they look like triplets to me – have used the black-marble and glaz atrium of Tyng Tower as a backdrop for their theme: time.

They’ve hung huge replicas of antique timepieces from the twelve-meter ceiling.

The central pool’s been topped with a sundial fountain, complete with an artificial sun.

Even the plates on the round tables are chronos.

Milling around under these ticking reminders of corporate productivity are maybe three hundred people.

Many more than were invited, and the guest of honor hasn’t even arrived yet.

Some are dancing already on a raised floor at the far end of the atrium.

The triplets wanted the dancefloor to be outside, under the stars, but I vetoed that.

Too exposed. So they’ve brought the stars inside.

Constellations wink and twinkle over, around and somehow between the dancers.

More than one dancer pauses in their movement to admire the play of starlight on their skin.

I’ll admit it’s a pretty effect, and when I spot one of the triplets, I glance at the dancefloor and nod approvingly.

She smiles as much as her perfect bow mouth will allow.

The rest of the party guests mingle on the huge expanse between the dancefloor and the seating area. Even with so many people in it, the atrium doesn’t feel crowded. Tyng really did build large.

We’re about to start a second circuit, after I finish a crunchy mouthful of fried tegli that one of the circulating wait-bots has brought, when Myhre arrives.

I hear the swish of silk before I see her through the crowd.

Smell her hot jasmine scent. She’s wearing a traditional silk kimono .

Pink cherry blossoms, spattered with silver hourglasses like water droplets.

Her midnight hair hangs to her waist, framing the vivid silk.

The kimono’s cut conservatively, but her curves still fill it out.

It’s not obvious when she’s wearing her corporate uniform, but Myhre’s got a serious body on her.

I nod, in part because I don’t want to register any reaction to how good she cleans up in front of Kez, and in part because I’m still annoyed at her.

Myhre comes straight to me. She goes up onto the toes of whatever she’s got under the kimono – and I don’t think it’s zori – and plants a kiss on my cheek. When she steps back, she flicks my cheek with her thumb, wiping off whatever mark her bright red lips have left.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” she says. “You must be feeling better.”

“Yeah.” I don’t brush off my cheek or anything so obvious, but I don’t give her any approval, either in my expression or my tone.

Her red-red mouth firms. “I’m glad. Now we can get back to work. I got your plex. I’ve left you several reports, but I can summarize?—”

“Later, Ree,” I say, using her nickname to soften the brush-off. “Enjoy the party.”

“Really.” Her dark eyes search mine, flick to Kez and then back to me. “We’re just socializing tonight?” she asks slowly.

“That’s right.”

She looks incredulous. Watches me for a moment; shrugs it off with a flick of her head. “Then you can dance with me later,” she says. Her smile shows too many teeth. “Excuse me, I see the Hemos Rae. I’ll see you later.” She dips on her high heels. “Kezra.”

With a rustle of silk and sway of her impressively molded backside, Myhre walks away.

“Jeez,” Kez says softly.

“What were you sayin’ about sending her and Chi somewhere?”

Kez chuckles. “Think the Clouds is far enough away?”

“I don’t think Caix is far enough away,” I say, naming one of the more distant Colonies.

“We can’t afford to alienate her,” Kez reminds me.

“Think breakin’ a toe or two while we’re dancin’ will alienate her?”

Kez knocks my shoulder with her cheekbone. “Snow.”

My perfect kitten, who never forgets. I put my arm around her, clasp her nape in my hand and tilt her head back.

“Rather be dancin’ with you.” I give her a kiss on that soft pink mouth.

No artificial color on Kez’s mouth. I’ve always liked that.

I give her a little heat, but no tongue, since we’re in public.

Brush my lips over hers instead of letting her go right away.

Enjoy her touch and the lack of overpowering scent.

The little monster stirs appreciatively.

Kez curves one long, pale arm up and over my neck. Licks her full lower lip. Grins up at me. “I thought you were supposed to be convalescing.”

“I’m better.” And I am. I feel stronger, more steady and sure, with each passing hour. Doc Gray did a first-class patch-up job on me, and my own modifications are mopping up the rest of the damage. “Definitely better enough to play tonight.”

Her eyes light up like supernovas.

“Christ, would you two get a room?”

I turn my head toward the voice. Find Ape and Chiara a few steps away.

Ape’s wearing a black monkey-suit with a silver shirt and tie.

With his stocky build, ruddy skin, and blond crew-cut, he looks like an old Earth orangutan.

Chiara cleans up better in a long, black gown that bares one whole side of her newly toned body.

She’s got something fancy on her head, sparkly with feathers, topping a pile of curls that are black to Kez’s moonlight.

Probably the height of fashion. All I can think is that I’d want her to dump them if she had to run.

The heels and curls and feathers make Chiara taller than Ape. At two meters, I’m not insecure about my height, but it would bother me if I had to look up to Kez.

I nod to acknowledge them. Kez turns slightly in my arms so she can smile at her brother and his fiancée.

“You look gorgeous,” Kez says to Chiara.

Chiara blushes. Then she smiles ruefully. “You look dangerous. Both of you. Snow, is that a sword?”

“Yup. Badge of office.”

Kez sniggers.

I flick her on the ear.

While I’m playing with his sister, Ape snags a wait-bot, who surrenders two tall bulbs of bubbling argenté .

Kez and I take bulbs of still, clear liquid: T-White, the highest quality water Tyng produces.

Zero saline, zero mercury. Zero taste, if you ask me.

I like my water with a mineral edge, so I usually buy mine from the mountains.

Kind of ironic that we have an endless supply of high-quality water that I don’t like.

Kez tips her chin at the argenté , which is seriously potent. “Take it easy tonight,” she says to her brother.

He rolls his eyes. “Worried I’m going to embarrass you? ”

“It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” Kez says.

Over her shoulder, I glare at her brother. Infant.

Chiara breaks the tense moment by leaning in and kissing Kez on the cheek. “See you later, sweetie.” She puts her arm through Ape’s and leads him firmly away towards the clustered tables. Mike, all but invisible in a conservative unisuit, nods to me before he trails them at a discrete distance.

“She’s learning,” I remark to Kez.

She nods. “Too bad Ape isn’t.”

“Hard to be the Prince Consort,” I say. I don’t have much sympathy for Ape, but it can’t be easy to have his whole life dictated by his girl’s family.

“He made his bed.” Kez finishes her bulb and hands it back to a circulating ‘bot.

“Yeah? How’s that?” I’ve never heard the story of Ape and Chiara’s courtship.

Kez tells me as we make another circuit of the party.

I take it in in snippets as we greet Tyngalings we know, get introduced to their significant others, mothers, brothers and great-aunts-once-removed.

They’ve all brought everyone they fucking know. No wonder the party’s so packed.

Ape comes off as the aggressor as Kez tells me the tale: pursuing Chiara from the time they met on the Liquid Circuit, which is an underground club scene Kez and her crew frequent.

That Chiara was with someone else when they met didn’t seem to bother Ape, nor did installing her at Kez’s house before her ex was even an ex.

“The kid camped out in front of my house for a week, trying to win her back,” Kez tells me in a lull between a high-level Xec from Jielt who introduces himself only as ‘B’ and shakes my hand a little harder and longer than necessary, and a Secretary of Something from Nock and her nine adult kids.

Fucking political pack. “It got so bad I let him sleep in the greenhouse. Helas bit him on the ear the fourth night. Poor guy woke up screaming. I think that’s what finally drove him off. ”

“Blood shouldn’t be a deterrent.”

Not if you really want a woman. Never has been for me.

Kez giggles. “Would you have stayed?”

“Would? I fucking have.” Helas has bitten me a few times. Never hard enough to draw blood. The day she draws blood will be the last time that bunny ever bites anyone.

We both look up at a series of silvery chimes from the clocks hanging over our heads. They’re announcing the hour: twenty-hundred. Some of the clocks also spark and rain a silvery message down over the crowd.

Please take your seats.

The triplets at work.