Declassified

“Yeah, I’m fine. Humiliated, but that’s not new.” As she rose, she turned to share a sour look of embarrassment with me before reaching out to the server she had toppled. “I am so, so sorry. Please tell me what I can do.”

The server, who by this time was joined by several other members of the café staff, responded with grace and told us all would be set to rights shortly. Amity turned to me, her clothing soiled to the point of ruin, smiling seemingly in the hope of making a joke out of the situation to defuse her anxiety over causing a scene. I took her hand and led her away from the clamor.

“Your friend, Aurelie.”

“I know. I don’t even know what to say about that.”

“No, listen,” I said. “She saw me, and I mean she took a really hard look at me while all that was happening.”

“Do you think she saw you or she saw Tim Pe

I shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing. It may be nothing. Maybe it was just the kind of look you give to a passerby when you share a strange moment. I’m sure I’m simply reading too much into this. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“You’re just being cautious, and it’s cute. I’m fine.” Amity leaned into me, completely unconscious of a smudge of some sort of sauce on her face, and softly kissed me on the cheek. “But I need to go home and get ready for work.”

“Is that really such a good idea?”

“How about this? I go tonight. I get a feel for my own comfort level while I’m there and we talk about it again tomorrow.”

“I can live with that.”

“Good,” she said, and smiled. “I’ll give you a call then. Oh, and one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Be a dear and pick up our tab, would you?”

12

Either the stench was less oppressive than I had experienced the night before, or I had been spending way too much time on the Omari-Ekon.

However, in all fairness, I should have accounted for all of the differences that separated that particular moment on the Orion ship from my visit the previous night. First, it was a different time of day for me to be there. Upon my arrival home from the café, I had showered, had recorded a number of notes from the day before they slipped my mind, and had laid myself down for a nap. Thus, while I previously had met Amity near the begi

And what a difference my timing made not only in the breathable atmosphere of the ship but in the overall mood of the place as well. While there were noticeably fewer patrons at the gaming tables, the overall noise and raucousness about the place seemed even greater, owing to the relative per capita intake of alcoholic beverages, no doubt. Wins seemed less frequent at this time of night, but they were celebrated with even more fervor.

Something else that seemed to come on with a little more fervor was the waitstaff. Not only did they seem more enthusiastic about plying the patrons with alcohol, I began to wonder whether the servers—males and females alike—were offering themselves for the taking. If that happened to be the typical situation among workers of the late shift, or something of an expectation placed on them by managers or even Ganz himself, it was a detail that Amity spared me. More likely, at least in my mind, was the possibility that management turned a blind eye to ambitious or entrepreneurial employees who chose to seize an opportunity to turn a profit from an inebriated or wi

I had been on board awhile at that point, but not long enough for Amity to have traded sections of responsibility for the bar area. Besides, she had not been keeping a lookout for me among the patrons, as she had no way of expecting my arrival. I had hoped that would be the case, as it afforded me a better chance to observe her without being seen. I must admit that my first glimpses of her in the skimpy costume worn by all the female servers did flatter her body to the point that I found myself paying much closer attention than I had intended. But that night’s visit was much more to put my mind at ease rather than get it spi

I noticed her fending off drunken advances and juggling a myriad of drink orders. I saw her working behind the bar as well as on the floor in the ma

I was caught up in the rhythm of the electronically driven music, absently staring beyond a series of multicolored spotlights and into the void, when a sharp rap shook my tabletop. I glanced down to see a full glass tumbler grasped by a slender-fingered hand. My gaze quickly followed that hand up an arm and into the eyes of the Deltan woman, Aurelie. I felt myself flinch just a little, and I hoped it was something I could easily dismiss as being startled by her arrival more so than her identity.

“Whoa! I’m sorry, I wasn’t quite here when you arrived.”

“I understand, and I take no offense, sir,” said the lithe, bald-headed woman I knew as Aurelie. I had to remind myself, however, that she had no inkling that I knew her at all.

“And I’m sorry, but I didn’t order this. It’s some kind of mistake.”

“Oh, not at all. I noticed you were dry and so I had the bartender make this for you,” she said. “It might take the edge off your bad afternoon.”

I decided to play dumb. “Bad afternoon? I’m not sure I understand you.”

“Today, at the outdoor café? I saw a man get caught in an awful accident with a dropped tray of food. I could have sworn it was you.”

“Right! Of course! You were there, too?”

“Oh, I was passing by when it happened but it would have been impossible not to notice,” she said, and smiled coyly. “I remember it was you because you looked right at me.”

I laughed in a way that I hoped did not sound too forced. “Oh, I’m sure I did. The whole thing happened so fast that all I can really remember was the noise.”

“I may never forget that crash,” she said. “So, relax. Have a drink. It’s nothing heavy but it’s very relaxing.”

I played along and raised my glass as a toast and took a drink. She was right about its being of light flavor and consistency. The only place I even tasted its potency was on the tip of my tongue and, oddly enough, my gums. “Thank you. This isn’t something I’ve had before.”

Aurelie laughed softly, at least relative to the ambient noise of the place. “I’m sure it’s not. It’s an Orion infusion, something you don’t find just anywhere. So, you’re here at Vanguard on business?”

“Sure,” I said, figuring it was just as easy to feed off of her cues as it was to try and fabricate a story on the fly, especially considering that I had now started to feel the action of the day begin to weigh on me. “I’m helping to install an upgraded communications array for the station. It’s a job that will keep me here awhile.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said, seeming to look at me a little more closely in that moment.

I took a second sip from my drink and felt an u

“What’s in this, anyway?” I managed to ask.

“It’s special for you, sir. A house blend.”

“Well, I hope you’re ready. By the time I’m finished with this, I’m going to be incredibly charming.”