Page 26 of Throwing Fire

“How far?” I ask.

“A klick, I’d guess.”

Too far. Too easy to fall into an ambush in these unfamiliar streets.

“There a taxi service on the Clouds?” I ask.

“Sure, but I’m not wasting money on a taxi to go?—”

“Trust me, this is not a waste,” I tell her.

Kez grumbles but directs me to a stall on the Market whose sign showers chemfire on passersby. When the sparks land on my skin, they don’t burn, but they do spell out the name of the taxi serviceand its K-net code before they fade to ash. Gimmicky, but that’s the Night Market. I memorize the code in case we need it again.

There’s a little two-seater available and it zips us up to the Cloud Palace, a glittering hotel set high above the grimy port and beach. As the floater rises up the cliffs, there’s a great view of Tiv spread out below us. I elbow Kez, but she just nods. She sits back in her seat, sunk in her thoughts.

The entry of the hotel overhangs Tiv. Literally. A massive semi-circular dock projects twenty meters from the cliff face. It’s not lit up the way I’d expect. There’s a soft glow, but no halyon. Understated. Classy. Once our floater docks, an officious bellman hands us out of the little vehicle onto a walkway. The walkway’s some sort of gel, suspended on the surface of a shimmering stream that runs around the arc of the dock. The effect is of a river suspended in mid-air. Walking on water. It’s a clever conceit, I have to admit, but looking down onto the cliffs through the water gives me vertigo. Not the best trick.

Another bellman, even more officious than the first, greets us at the wide, white marble steps up into the foyer of the hotel. This bellman is a ‘bot. It’s not styled to look human – most ‘bots on Kuseros aren’t, except for the very occasional fuckbot – it’s shaped like an egg, with a round golden bottom that hovers a meter off the marble. A black metal tux jacket wraps around the bot’s middle. Its head is a featureless oval.

“Honored Tyng guests,” it gushes. Can a robot gush? Guess you can program the fucking things to do anything.

I wave my hand at it. “Skip to the part where you show us our room. We’ve had a long day.”

“Of course, of course.” It bows, rotating on its wide end like a gimble.

To give it credit, it doesn’t fuck around. We’re installed in the north-facing penthouse suite in less than five minutes. The suite is bigger than my house. Kez’s house. Maybe both our houses put together. Much too big for just the two of us.

Walking into the suite, across a white carpet so deep it swallows my ankles, l try to take it in. If it wasn’t night and the lights weren’t low, I’d be blinded. Everything’s gilded. From the huge, carved pseudowood frame for the oversized, overstuffed bed, to the luggage racks my bags are already sitting on, to the flash-can, tucked away in its own separate chamber. The walls are draped in rich white and gold fabric, and I realize it’s as much to grind the luxury of this place into the viewer as it is to muffle noise so the suite don’t echo. Despite all the padding, and all the amenities, of which there are more than a few, it’s still much too big for Kez and me, and I can tell Kez doesn’t like it by the way she shrinks into herself as she looks around. The fact that she’s still barefoot and slightly soot-streaked is probably not helping.

I draw the ‘bot to one side and give it instructions while Kez wanders through the suite to the ‘fresher. The ‘bot listens to me carefully, bowing a little when I tick off each new requirement. When I hit the end of my list, it gives me a deep bow. When I offer my thumb to tip it, it gently refuses, telling me that everything is included for ‘honored Tyng.’ I guess the Old Man threw a lot of business the Cloud Palace’s way.

After the ‘bot bows a final time and leaves, Kez walks out of the ‘fresher and drifts to the edge of the bed. She sits down and pulls her knees to her chest. Looks out the window-wall at the winking crescent of Tiv far below us. “You were right,” she says. “It’s a good view.”

“Best money can buy in Tiv, according to Myhre,” I say, while I unpack a tingler from my bag. I want to be able to speak freely with Kez, without worrying about who might be listening in. And I want her to say my real name while we’re fucking. Nothing kills my hard-on faster than being called by a dead man’s name. I start the tingler spinning. Tap the control plate to check that it’s doing its job, since the ultrasound generator is outside even my hearing. When I’m confident it’s working, I turn to Kez.

CHAPTER 11

She’s staring out the window-wall, over the panoramic view of city and ocean, her arms wrapped around her legs, her cheek resting on her knees. She looks closed off, pensive, distant, in a way that Kez never is with me. “Are we alone?” she asks.

“Yeah, kitten.” I sit down on the floor in front of her. Pull one of her feet out of the ball she’s made of herself and start rubbing her toes. They’re reddened from the pressure of her heels, cold from the water and still a little sandy, despite her walk around the deep pile carpet and whatever she did in the ‘fresher.

She sighs after the first few strokes. “That feels really nice.”

“You don’t wear heels often,” I observe.

“They’re hard to run in.”

Practical kitten. “What’re you thinkin’?”

“I’m wondering how many towels we need.”

No, she ain’t gonna divert me like that. “Three. Now tell me what you’re really thinkin’.”

“How do you get three?”

“Kez,” I growl.

She rolls her eyes. Turns her head so her other cheek is restingagainst her raised knee, so she’s looking away from me. “I hated what we did to Alb,” she whispers.

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