A Voyage To Dari by Ian Wallace

Author:Ian Wallace
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2016-05-10T05:00:00+00:00

“I assume,” quietly said green-eyed ash-blond Freya, “that we will not be in the Starlight Lounge at eight.”

The glowing rings of Djinn-Saturn swept toward them; their couple table nestled, with several other favored tables, in the bulge of the largest picture viewport in the casino of Saturninn—now, in 2506, the hard-established sin mecca of this galaxy.

The broad smile on the craggy-handsome face of auburn-haired Pan was merry-mocking, but the blue eyes were deep only in hue and otherwise shallow. “We’d miss entertainment if we didn’t go,” he told her. “He runs the Emperor, remember? And she’s his second cousin.”

Freya considered him moodily, chin palmed, long fingers tapping a cheekbone. She said then, “Until now, during ten years I have not been paid.”

“We do not know that his game is you—or that her game is me. We do know that he will stake one-tenth of his one-year income. Have you tried totting up what that would be?”

“Purely for the information, what would it be?”

“Just the interest would build and operate a hundred Saturninns. Looking at it another way: with a tenth of his one-year income between us, you and I could buy what we needed in order to become the fourth- or fifth-wealthiest people on Moudjinn. Which is to say, our wish would be our command, forever. Monte Cristo, move over.”

She said, “Between us there is a candle.”

“Well?”

“Put it out. And don’t pinch or blow.”

The candle went out, apparently all by itself. Cool, Pan queried, “Well?”

“See those Saturn rings? I’m tired of their pale pink. Make them gold.”

“No. What are you getting at?”

“But you could make them gold. And with powers like that, why do you need to play gigolo for any amount of money?”

“We don’t know that this is the game, I said.”

“I’m betting on it. And that’s only the most distressing development in a spate of developments. Here’s this inn, which is, you should excuse the puritanical phrasing for which there is no substitute, an iniquitous den of flimflam piracy.”

“Freya, we don’t hurt anybody except established masochists . . . ”

“. . . and your own fraternizing with the clientele, an unbrotherly fraternizing that is more like a permanent floating con game with erotic fringe benefits.”

“All I do is to cheat millionaires of one sort of thing and husbands of another sort of thing. Let’s go, Freya; we’re due in the Starlight Lounge.”

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