Her duty done, she went to play Colonial, which meant shore leave and drinking. Ostensibly, she thought it might help her mission to get to know Idris’s crewmates, although Kris Almier was distractingly eye-catching. The dark woman had peeled away to sit at the bar with a decidedly fancier drink than anyone else, and had been doing something technical with a slate. Solace saw it was some kind of game – bright, visually simple and yet deceptively difficult, like a lot of Colonial culture.
‘So what’s your story, precisely?’
Kris started as Solace sat down. ‘What’s it to you, soldier?’
‘Crewmate,’ Solace corrected without acrimony.
‘Not really sure what you are.’ Kris tucked the slate away, as though the game contained the secrets of creation. ‘Except Idris is weird around you.’
‘We’re old friends,’ Solace said easily, signalling for a drink.
‘What are the odds, huh?’ Solace could tell that Kris was wary of her, yet the woman still squared her shoulders pugnaciously and added, ‘If you cause trouble for my client – just be aware I’m up on Hegemonic law as well as Colonial. I can protect him from you wherever the hell we go outside your space. And Rollo and Kit know better than to take a job within reach of the Parthenon.’
Solace’s instinct was to hint darkly that the Parthenon’s reach extended everywhere, including right here, right now. A moment later, the words unsaid, she felt deeply unhappy with herself.
‘We’re old friends,’ Solace repeated, less glibly now. ‘We were at Berlenhof. And yes, no coincidence running into him. I was sent. But . . . I’m not going to just stuff him in a sack and run off. I have an offer for him, when he’s ready to hear it.’
‘And if he says no?’
‘Then it’s no, of course.’ Until I get an order that it has to be ‘yes’。 ‘Who are you, Kris? Never heard of a shipboard lawyer before.’
‘Keristina Soolin Almier, certified advocate out of Scintilla.’ The words were smart enough, but one of her hands twisted her bright scarf. Shimmering gold, this one; Solace hadn’t seen her wear the same one on two consecutive days yet.
‘Iceball,’ she noted, trying to remember anything else about the planet. They were crazy there, she recalled. Rich, educated, rigid society, weird customs. It was on a list of Colonial planets where any Partheni insertion was flagged as dangerous. ‘Would have thought you could do better than this,’ she noted. ‘And I’m not trying to cast shade, just saying.’
‘Outside the Parthenon, we don’t always end up where we expect,’ was Kris’s answer to that.
‘You could come too, if Idris accepts my offer,’ Solace said frankly. In the unlikely event he lets me even make it. ‘Add Partheni regulations to your legal portfolio. You’d be in great demand. Precious few Colonials know their way around them.’ She lifted her eyebrows enquiringly.
‘You think winning me over’s the way to get him to play along?’ Kris asked her. ‘Or . . .’ She frowned abruptly. ‘Are you coming on to me, Myrmidon?’
Solace had a moment of being taken equally by surprise at the thought, then shrugged. ‘Well, you Colonials can be funny about that kind of thing but, if you were up for it . . .’
Kris goggled at her, and Solace waited to see if she had retained her settled-world prejudices, or if she’d picked up a spacer’s more liberal mores. It was page one of the Partheni playbook that Colonials were weird about sex, in a hundred conflicting ways, and you shouldn’t ever get into this sort of conversation. But Kris had brought it up . . .
In the end the woman coloured and looked away, fiddling with her scarf again. ‘Well, I . . . it’s not my normal thing but . . . I guess I’m flattered.’
Solace grinned despite herself. ‘Offer’s there.’
‘I guess it is just women, for you people?’ Kris went on slowly, in what Solace felt was an encouragingly intrigued manner.
‘At home. When you get sent out, you experiment . . .’ And without meaning to, she glanced across the bar at Idris. When she looked back, Kris was staring at her, wide-eyed.
‘Idris? Seriously?’ she said.
For a moment Solace thought she was jealous or horrified, but the woman’s expression had resolved into something like mischievous glee. Solace found herself entirely wrong-footed, because she’d meant to keep that firmly under wraps. Apparently one drink was all it took to unshell her. She was saved from having to give further details when a large man pushed his way to the bar. He sat so close to Kris that he almost shoved her off her stool.