His stone-black gaze didn’t waver. “Why don’t you let me make that choice? When do I start? I want to know everything there is about Port Authority.”

She swallowed the last of her stout. “All right, soft meat, I’ve got to go make my rounds. You want to follow along?”

“Lead forth,” he told her, stepping down from the stool.

I’d be safer walking out into the dark with Whitey.

Chapter 28

  28  

Dek and Kylee rolled Fred Han Chow’s two-wheeled cart up to the door of the residential dome and set the braces. Turning to where Falise and her servants followed, he extended a welcoming hand. “This is it,” he called. “You’ll be staying here until Kalico Aguila makes up her mind about where you’ll end up. This one’s for the Lady. Next door, there’s extra beds for what’s left over.”

Falise, her gown now shimmering pearlescent gray—probably in an attempt to look a little less like a navigational beacon—gave the dome a glacial stare. Granted, the place was a little weathered, and way down at the end of the residential district. Across the narrow dirt street, it faced one of the warehouses where tanned chamois, crest, and other hides were stored. The perimeter fence stood less than a meter from the dome’s west wall. Beyond, across the moat, glazed by sunset, the Mishka fields, rich with corn, beans, squash, wheat, cabbage, and broccoli stretched in pastoral splendor to the distant bush where the aquajade and scrub chabacho were haloed in silhouette.

“This is intolerable,” Falise said, expression bitter with distaste.

“Bout the best you’ll find,” Dek told her reasonably. “No one’s been living here for, oh, I don’t know. Probably since Turalon was here last. You can do pretty much anything you want to when it comes to fixing it up. Talk to Hofer about that. But you’ll have to get the SDRs to pay him.”

Falise ignored the horrified look on Ednund’s face as she wheeled on Dek. “If I need advice, I shall ask someone in authority, mister . . . mister?”

“Folks around here call me lots of things.” He grinned, his quetzal vision noting the heat that rose in her face. “Mister is pretty good for an old toilet scrubber like me.”

Kylee was grinning, shaking her head, which earned her a wrathful glare from Falise.

“Well, certainly, there are better accommodations in this pigsty of a town.” Ednund was still wincing as he took in the dome.

“Sure,” Dek said offhandedly, “The finest, of course, is Allison Chomko’s place. Three stories, opulent. Dan Wirth built it before he shipped off to Solar System to wow the fancy wancies with his wealth.” A beat. “But you’d have to dicker with Allison about staying there.”

“Where else?” Falise asked, clearly boiling.