by Dan Schiro
“Eager, eager,” Dormia said, licking her lips. “But it will only take a moment, and I think you will find Romp’s owner and operator is very generous with his guests.”
Orion couldn’t protest any more without sounding suspicious, so he and his crew followed the statuesque mor. She led them down a mirrored hallway, and they entered a spacious gravity lift where pornographic images appeared and dissolved with liquid grace on the walls, ceiling and floor. Inertial dampeners disguised the lift’s motion as it raced up, left and right through the space station, and soon the doors opened on what Dormia called “Circus Red.”
Orion stepped out onto the gleaming red tiles of a huge oval room with soaring ceilings. Hundreds of rough-looking aliens spread out across the space. Some were members of familiar races like duroks, mystskyns, temba nubu, poxganes and great apes; almost all of them wearing the scars, cybernetics and the tough garb of ether route pirates. Strange humanoids mingled with them, including aliens who were both reptilian and insect-like, bearish brutes, evolved rodent races and creatures his human mind couldn’t classify with a quick comparison. The patrons milled around elevated stages and automated stations serving what must have been the galaxy’s great commonality, alcohol. From what Orion could glean at a glance, it seemed all of the patrons were adhering to Romp’s weapon-free policy. To make sure no one would start trouble with fist or claw, mor bouncers wielding energy whips manned each stage and exit.
Dormia waved them along. “This way,” she said, raising her voice over the thumping beats and keening, sitar-like music. “Siban the Magnificent awaits.”
The aliens parted as Dormia led them through the incandescent room, many respectfully averting their eyes or offering a humble bow when they saw the Hostess Prime. The smoke of unfamiliar drugs drifted beneath the space station’s perfumed air, and wriggling slugs garnished many of the colorful drinks. Light streaming up from the island stages shifted through psychedelic colors as alien performers changed positions and varied their sex acts. Orion considered himself both experienced and open-minded, but what he saw on their walk through Circus Red surprised even him.
When they reached the far end of the oval room, Dormia led them to silver stairs floating on exorbitantly expensive antigravity generators. They climbed a dozen steps to a gilded stage, and met a thin humanoid in a pure-red suit. He sat enthroned on a blown-glass chair, his head bowed so his wide-brimmed red hat shaded his face. A half-dozen young mor men and women lounged near-naked on the velvety pillows around him, slowly passing a long pipe and exhaling blue plumes of fruity smoke. Orion glanced back over his shoulder to get a good look at Circus Red and breathed a sigh of relief. A dozen Briarhearts in rough pirate armor were stepping off the gravity lift, right on schedule.
The man in the red suit stood, slowly lifting his chin to reveal his face. “Welcome, honored guests,” said Siban the Magnificent with a smile.
“Quite a place you’ve got here.” Orion returned a beaming grin of his own to hide his surprise — the master of the interstellar whorehouse was a three-eyed trislav like Zovaco Ralli. “And a fine staff, too,” he added, nonchalantly scanning the fit mor bodies on the pillows.
“I thank you.” Siban blinked his three eyes slowly. “I was eager to meet you when I heard your party would be visiting us.”
Orion chuckled. “My credit score precedes me again?”
“Perhaps a bit.” Siban closed the short distance between them and stood mere inches from Orion. “More than that, I was eager to see a human in person.”
“Oh?” Orion stood unflinching as the thin man inspected his face. “Um… why?”
“You fascinate me,” he murmured as if only half-listening. “Your race is just a few centuries beyond your little jewel of a planet, and yet you intriguing creatures are so… rapacious, so… covetous.”
“Well,” Orion smirked, “on behalf of my people, I hope I don’t disappoint.”
“Not at all,” Siban said as he sniffed Orion with his flat nose slits. “And you’re not nearly as repulsive as everyone says.”
“Thanks.” Again Orion chuckled, stifling his urge to step away from the greasy pimp. “I’ll tell planet Earth you approve.”
“Such potential,” he said, narrowing his gaze. “So regrettable that your people joined the Union.”
Orion pretended to consider his point for a moment. “Is it?”
“Oh yes.” Siban flashed gleaming teeth with a sly smile. “The Union is dying. The cracks have been there for a long time, and now comes the crumbling with a few hammer-blows.” His mouth tightened as his three-eyed gaze wandered past Orion to Dalaxa. “Your gorgeous s’zone pet could attest to that.”
The mention of her destroyed homeworld seemed to jar Dalaxa out of character. “You fu—”
Kangor stepped in front of her, Aurelia clutching his arm in an attempt to hold him back. “A comment in poor taste,” Kangor growled over Orion’s head.
“And what is this?” Siban gasped, sidestepping Orion to approach Aurelia and Kangor. “Such a couple,” he crowed, arms outstretched.
“Yes,” Kangor said, his snout twitching as if he smelled something sour. “We are… a couple. Mates, yes.”
“Ah, a snarling vycart.” Siban turned his chin up and gazed at Kangor for a moment. “Quite a rarity, though not as rare as you might think.”
Kangor took a perfunctory glance around. “Is there another of my kind in this… place?”
“Client confidentiality is assured at Romp, as I’m sure you can appreciate.” He turned his dark, smiling face to Aurelia and doffed his hat, clutching it to his chest. “And you! At first glance you appear to be another dull alien from some backwater planet, but aha, you are not, are you?”
Aurelia glanced at Orion, her brassy eyes half-lidded and smug. “I am not.”
“Oh, what a day, what a day.” Siban fidgeted as if he could barely help but dance. “First I get to meet a human, then a Lady of the Jade Way.” He bowed down, took one of Aurelia’s hands in both of his and held it to his face. “Ah, you are as warm to the touch as they say.” Still stooping, he looked up at her with three wide eyes. “I have long yearned to drink in the beauty of the Green with my own senses, and you — lovely woman — exceed my most vivid dreams.”
“Careful,” grunted Kangor. “Little man.”
Siban the Magnificent straightened with an indignant expression on his face, but Aurelia acted fast to avert the trislav’s rapid decapitation. “My lover is joking, Siban,” she giggled, gently disengaging her hand from the pimp’s. “Our relationship is as open as the sky. What’s the point of coming to all this,” she said with a quick gesture at the psychedelic sexual circus, “if one is not seeking a healthy dose of variety?”
“Quite so,” Siban said with a hungry grin. “Quite so.” He glanced up at Kangor.
“Erm…” the big vycart stuttered, trying to keep up with the implications. “Quite so, yes.”
Joy washed over Siban’s inky face. “If it’s variety you desire,” he said eagerly to Aurelia, “may I invite you into my private company for a time?”
“Oh?” Aurelia hesitated for a moment. “Do you really think there’s anything new you can show one of my age?”
“Perhaps not, but you will find neither my effort nor my imagination lacking.” Siban grinned as if with sudden inspiration and turned to Orion. “Perhaps the human will join us?”
Caught off guard, Orion tightened his hold on Dalaxa’s arm. “Flattering, but… we, um, play together… in very specific, um… scenarios.”
“No judgments,” Siban said, raising his thick-fingered hands. “No judgments here.” He glanced around and spotted his hostess at the edge of the opulent stage. “Dormia,” he barked, snapping his fingers. “See to the needs of Mr…?” he looked up at Kangor once more.
“Kangor,” he said through gritted teeth, “of Clan Kash.”
“See to it that Mr. Clan Kash gets a complimentary orgy,” he told Dormia, snapping his fingers three more times. “Seven of our best girls… or boys?” he added with a sidelong glance at Kangor. “Girls it is then, and make sure they’re the ones with the new neural stimulator implants. Does that sound acceptable, Mr. Clan Kash?”
He, too, glanced at Orion before offering his sheepish response. “That will… suffice.”
“Wonderful!” Siban clapped his hands and turned again to Orion and Dalaxa. “And you two — can I set you up with something special before I abscond with this emerald princess?” He took Aurelia’s hand again, and she feigned a blush. “Perhaps a Fantazy Suite or a couples’ P&P session? I assure you, our dominatrixes are the very finest in this sector of space.”
“No need.” Orion glanced over his shoulder at Circus Red and smirked back at Siban. “You’ve been very hospitable, but I think the two of us would like to explore the delights of your pleasure palace on our own.”
Siban doffed his hat again. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of your natural curiosity, human.” He nodded at Dormia, who was already manipulating her datacube’s holographic interface to see which of her courtesans were free for Kangor. “Simply contact the Hostess Prime if you need anything at all.”
Siban pulled Aurelia toward a secure door at the back of the stage, but before she turned and followed, she shot Orion a sly smile. He offered a questioning tilt of his head, wondering if he should be worried about her or Siban the Magnificent. Then he laughed out loud when he saw the scowl of trepidation on Kangor’s face as Dormia led him away, probably to some garish Fantazy suite. He turned to Dalaxa and gestured to the sprawling sexual celebration below Siban’s stage.
“Ready to work the crowd?” he asked, dropping the playboy mask for an instant.
She groaned. “This is the exact opposite of my idea of a good time.”
“You can do it.” Orion looped his arm through hers and gazed out at the writhing hedonism. “This is all chemistry. Pretend you’re hobnobbing at a scientific convention or something like that.”
She cast a baleful glare at him. “I always hated those things.”
They descended the floating stairs to the main floor of Circus Red and paraded slowly through the thuggish crowd. Aliens writhed on stage, mercenaries catcalled and chugged liquor, and bouncers broke up a minor fistfight with their energy whips. A centaur-like creature unleashed a long string of curses at Orion when he accidentally bumped against his flank. By the time Orion and Dalaxa reached one of the automated drink stations, Orion’s eyes stung from trying to take it all in, and his ears rang from the blaring music.
“Keep your attention on the familiar races,” Orion shouted in her ear as they sipped citrus-flavored alcohol out of clear plastic cups. “Look for Union mannerisms. If they’re here, Typhus’ people will be the group within the group, get it?”
“Understood,” Dalaxa yelled back as she glanced up at a trio of bio-modified mors thrashing against each other on a nearby stage. “But how the hell can that be pleasurable?!”
They continued to mingle, and occasionally they passed a Briarheart gambling, drinking or buying lap dances for other patrons. The false pirates gave Orion knowing looks but said nothing, and Orion and Dalaxa meandered on to investigate other areas of the vast carnal carnival. Minutes passed, then an hour, and soon Orion noticed an uncomfortable tightness in his chest. Despite having enough discipline to sip his watered-down drink slowly, the sheer sensual energy of the place had stirred his worst compulsions. This was all intertwined with feelings that were not his own, but the impulses of his spellblade. The living metal was eager to wreak havoc on every lowlife Orion saw until he got to Typhus the Mad Thinker. He was relieved when his datacube pulsed in his pocket. Aurelia was trying to contact him.
“I’ve got to take this,” he told Dalaxa. They stood at the edge of a crowd watching a show put on by a tentacled lockhovven and a blue-furred temba nubu. “Keep an eye out for anything strange.”
“Stranger than that?” she said with a jerk of her chin at the stage.
Orion dashed to a hallway off Circus Red’s main floor and found a long line of VR cubicles. After quickly transferring the exorbitant fee from his datacube, Orion popped into the bright chamber and closed the opaque, soundproof door behind him. Swiveling the glass visor out of the way, Orion hopped into the sticky chair and deployed his own datacube. “I’m here, AD,” he said, his voice low.
“Finally,” she scoffed, her face fierce in the holographic interface. “You found somewhere private to talk, I assume?”
Orion gave her a curt nod. “I did. What do you have?”
“That stooge gave me everything, of course,” she said with a sleepy smile. “Seems a vycart dressed in vintage regalia made a recent appearance.”
“Typhus.” Hope swelled Orion’s chest. “Is he still here?”
Aurelia shook her head. “He only came to do business with Siban. Seems this grimy whoremonger is also a shady gunrunner. He sold Typhus a few thousand morellian pulse weapons, and Typhus sold off his harem. As part of the deal, Typhus negotiated a week-long stay for about a hundred-and-a-half mercs.”
Orion’s mind raced as he considered the new information. Why sell off your harem, unless you’re at a point-of-no-return? Eyes narrowed, he shook his head. “Something’s happening. But if Typhus’ crew is still here, they’ll have at least one dropship heading back to him.” That dropship was his chance, he had to be on it. “Siban didn’t happen to give you a hangar bay number, did he?”
“I don’t think he handles those kind of details,” Aurelia said with a grimace. “But we had better hurry, the reservation Typhus negotiated expires tomorrow.”
“Of course it does.” With a fist held to his jutting chin, Orion thought for a moment. “We need a lead and we need it now. What about Siban? Is he…? I mean you didn’t…?”
“He’ll live to pander another day,” Aurelia sighed, rolling her brassy eyes. “But the light show I put on should leave him and his bodyguards in a trance for a few hours, unless I’m losing my touch.”
“You?” Orion smirked. “Never. Good job, AD. Find Kangor, quietly, and meet Dalaxa and me on the main floor.”
She smiled. “Time to start dangling people from windows?”
“Not quite,” Orion said with a dry chuckle. “But we might get there yet.”
Orion exited the VR cubicle and made his way back to the perfumed air and psychedelic lights of Circus Red. His long strides took him smoothly through the crowd, past familiar drink stations and erotic performances that had progressed in pace and intensity since he had stepped away for his chat. After a few moments, he made it back to the stage where the tentacle dance was concluding to the roars of the gathered onlookers. Orion craned his neck to scan the excited throng, but he couldn’t spot the pink scalp speckles of his s’zone companion anywhere. After a few minutes, the stage descended into the floor where it would wait until it lifted up the next act.
As the crowd dispersed, a kernel of cold dread took root in Orion’s stomach. With his eyes stretched wide, he realized Dalaxa Croy wasn’t anywhere on the floor of Circus Red.
Chapter 23
Orion cursed himself as he guzzled the last of his drink, this one an icy ginger-flavored concoction. As the music and lights of Circus Red churned all around him, he wondered — how could he have been so stupid as to leave Dalaxa alone? Orion had wanted her along on the job in case she was able to recognize any of the vycart’s mercenaries. Yet he hadn’t given one thought to the grave danger she would be in if any of Typhus’ people saw through her disguise. Minutes passed, sweat beaded on Orion’s brow, and the alcohol burbled in his stomach. She had not simply run to the bathroom, that much was certain.
He was ready to rally the undercover Briarhearts to search for her when his datacube vibrated in the pocket of his gaudy
color-shift suit. He tossed up the cube and opened a holographic interface, heaving a deep sigh of relief when he saw Dalaxa’s name written in light yellow letters. A heavily captioned map appeared with a blinking light slowly navigating the turns of a highlighted pathway. Dalaxa was pinging him her location on a lower level of Romp labeled, “Encounter Chambers.”
Shouldering his way through the crowd, Orion found the nearest gravity lift and slipped through the doors before they closed. As the red-lit compartment accelerated, he realized he was in a small, locked box with two twitchy, long-limbed mor men. Their breath reeked of strong alcohol, and everything about their posture told Orion they had come to Romp to fornicate or fight, or perhaps both. One of them started trouble in a matter of seconds.
“By the Stalk and Stem,” the taller mor slurred as he leaned into Orion. “What kind of ugly thing are you, pink-face?”
“Stinks too,” added the stocky one. “Like a herd-beast, right?”
The first poked a finger into Orion’s chest. “Ugly prick probably doesn’t even know about the lift fee.”
“Yeah,” said his partner, his dimwitted green eyes glazed by narcotics. “You ready to pay your lift fee, pink-face?”
Orion smirked. “Thanks, guys,” he said, flexing his right hand. “You have no idea how much I need this right now.”
When the doors of the gravity lift opened, Orion straightened his gaudy suit and stepped over groaning green bodies into a wide-open space lit with bright glowglobes. “Pardon me?” he called to a nearby mor male in a purple Romp uniform. He hooked a thumb back over his shoulder at the bloodied mors. “I think they’ve been over-served.”
As the attendant hustled over to the lift, Orion’s long strides took him onto a wide, tiled mall between suites catering to different fantasies. None-too-subtle names like “Jade Way Role Play” and “Savage Land Love” suggested what the adventurous might find inside. He checked his datacube again and saw that Dalaxa’s ping led to a medical-fetish hotel. This particular cluster of fantasy suites called itself “Bedside Manor,” according the syringe-shaped sign over the tinted-glass door.