Vortex (Sten #7). Allan Cole

tellin’ y’ wha’s goin’t on, when deep down, y’ ken already?”

      Without waiting for a response, Kilgour blanked the screen. Clotting men, Cind thought.

      Clotting . . . and then she deciphered Kilgour’s brogue. Love? You an’ Sten, emphasis Sten? Of course she probably was in love with him, assuming love was something that made you not sleep well at night, build entire castle complexes in the clouds and then move into them, and behave generally, if you didn’t watch yourself, as if you had just injected an opiate.

      But . . .

      But Sten? Love?

      Clot men, she decided, was a safer and more productive way to think.

      At least now she knew how to dress.

      * * * *

      Cind’s outfit was a whisper of sensuality, a simple collarless garment with a deep V dip on the neckline, a close-fitting waist, and a slight flare just above the knees. There were no buttons, zips, or velk to suggest how it stayed together. The waist had a plain belt-tie. Of course, like all “plain, simple, well tailored” garments, it had cost Cind a quarter of her last proficiency bonus.

      What made it special, besides the cutting, was the fabric itself. Mantis Section — the ultraelite operational section of Imperial Intelligence — wore the ultimate in camouflage uniforms. They were phototropic, changing colors to match the background the soldier was next to.

      A civilian had bought marketing rights to this fabric and then modified it. The material remained phototropic — but it reflected the background of five minutes earlier. The color recorder and time delay were part of the garment — the belt, on Cind’s dress. It also held a strip computer with a simpleminded color wheel that could override the phototropic commands so the wearer would not suddenly find herself wearing a pink dress against an orange background. The belt further contained sensors that muted or increased the color response to match the current light level. On a random factor, it sent strobe images to certain panels and, just to make sure the garment’s audience stayed interested, occasional real-time flashes of what lay beneath, when panels would go transparent for eye-blink flashes. Those transparencies could be programmed to match the wearer’s modesty. Or, in Cind’s case, to never show the knife sheathed down her backbone or the mini-willygun in the small of her back.

      Cind met Sten dressed to kill, in several ways.

      And for once the male animal didn’t screw up. Sten not only noticed and complimented her outfit, but asked intelligent questions — as if he were really interested — about how the cloth worked.

      Still better, he brought a complementary flower.

      Flower was not quite the right word. Aeons earlier, an Earth-orchid grower, exiled from his native tropics, had developed the ultimate oncidium orchid — many, many tiny little blossoms on a single stem, crossbred with a native chameleonlike and highly adaptable plant form. The result produced a living bouquet — a necklace — that exactly matched its wearer’s garb.

      She gave Sten a moderate kiss and a hug in thanks. And, as she pulled away, she allowed her little fingernail to trail across his neck and down his chestline.

      She did not want him to think, after all, that she was a total virgin . . .

      * * * *

      The bar-restaurant was secreted in an industrial cul-de-sac not far from Prime World’s Embassy Row. Sten missed the turnoff and had to bring his rented gravsled — he had politely rejected the garish official transport he’d been offered — back for another approach. The building sat by itself, isolated in gloom, almost impossible to see. But as the gravsled grounded, bright lights flared.

      Cind blinked in the glare. The lights seemed less intended to illuminate the path than to allow those inside to see approaching visitors. There was a very small sign halfway up the curving walk: The Western Eating Parlor. Number Two.

      “Not a very exotic name,” she observed. Sten grinned. “There are wheels within wheels here. Supposedly this joint started back on old Earth, way, way back. Like pre-Empire back. Outside a city called Langley. It catered to an exclusive clientele, the story goes. Which hasn’t changed in all these centuries.”

      “Okay, I’ll bite. Who’re the customers?” She raised a hand before Sten could answer. “Don’t tell me. But give me a hint.”

      “Okay. Take the first letter of each word in the name: T-W-E-P.”

      Twep,” Cind sounded.

      “Make it a long E” Sten said.

      Oh. Like in the old archaic term “Terminate With Extreme Prejudice.” Cind had heard the term used by elderly intelligence types. It meant officially sanctioned murder.

      Inside, the restaurant was a hush of real leather, murmured conversation, and skillful service.

      The maitre d’ was a horror.

      Half of his face was gone, replaced by a plas mask. Cind wondered how long he must have been without medhelp — it was very rare to see, at least in what passed for civilization, someone whom reconstructive surgery did not take on. He didn’t notice Sten and Cind for a moment. He was supervising two busboys, who were covering a large blast hole in the paneling. Then he greeted the newcomers as if they were strangers. “May I help you, sir?”

      “She’s clean, Delaney.”

      Delaney grinned with the half that remained of his face. “Indeed she is. I have an upstairs snug, Cap’n. An’ your friend’s at the far bar. I’ll bring her up.”

      “You’ve been here before?” Cind whispered as Delaney led them through quiet luxury.

      “No. Delaney and I go back a ways.”

      Delaney’s hearing was very sharp. He paused. “FYI, the captain lugged me off a mountain once. A real big mountain. During a bad time. When I wasn’t computin’ real well.” His fingers touched where his face was.

      “I had to,” Sten said. “You owed me money.” A bit embarrassed, he changed the subject. “What happened to the wall?”

      “You ever operate with an octopots with a service name Quebec Niner Three Mike? Called herself Crazy Daisy? Kinda cute if you go for cephalopods.”

      Sten thought, then shook his head.

      “She retired as OC, outa Mantis 365,” Delaney added helpfully. “Mostly out of NGC 1300 Central?”

      “Must’ve been before my time — wait a minute. Was three-six-five the guys who stole the sports arena?”

      “That’s them.”

      “Okay. Know the team. Never met her. But isn’t she on some renegade list?”

      “You must be thinking of somebody else,” Delaney shrugged. “She’s clean-up with anybody here.”

      “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

      “Anyway, she was in this afternoon. Celebrating something. Kept climbing out of her tank and floppin’ up and down the bar. Gettin’ nasty. Pourin’ down shots of jenevercut with dry ice. Anyway, she’d bought herself a toy. Old projectile weapon she’d had made up. Called it a goose gun. Anyway, she decided she wanted to show it around. I maybe shoulda said something, but —

      “At any rate, she showed off how it loads — she’d had some special rounds built up for it — and then she says it’d put a hole in the wall you could throw a human through.

      “Guy down at the end — ex-Mercury REMF Analysis, shoulda stayed quiet — says drakh. So Daisy blew a hole in the wall ‘n started throwing the guy at the hole. He was right, and the hole wasn’t big enough. But Daisy kept trying. I had to tell her to knock it off and go home after three, four tries.”

      Cind hid her giggle. Delaney led them into a small room and seated them.

      “You’ll