Arketta - er, Turai Fett - chuckles over Robin/Haaj's suit vox as the procession follows Mohawk and Phlegmy back out into Khalkiota's main chamber. The cavorting nobles once again assail your ears and eyes. If anything, the main floor has become more crowded with the onset of dusk. Segal Iyuzo's table's staggeringly intricate chandeliers of food and drink somehow stays upright as the nobleman's entourage jokes and laughs and snorts and eats and quaffs. The Iyuzo lord himself gets up at Zaef's approach, which prompts a sluggish and haphazard response from the entourage as they eventually follow suit.
"Champion Zaef Utari!" Segal addresses Zaef with a deep, bombastic voice. "I wager it has been too long since you were treated like the Arena favorite you are!" A quick, vulgar hand motion from Mohawk fetches a grin from Iyuzo. "Or perhaps it has only been a few minutes... please! Sit, eat, drink, sate the rest of your appetites here with me. Honored protectors of our Imperium," Segal says to Robin, Hugh, and Arketta, "Join us as well, and we will speak of days past and days yet to come." His emphasis on the latter half of his invitation is unmistakable.
What he says: "I'm sorry, Sir, we must decline. The prisoner is potentially dangerous and we're on duty."
What he oh-so-very-clearly wants to say: "You've got the equivalent of my net worth in stims and food on your table, you entitled prick, so fuck you. I just had to watch this asshole get laid and we're all stuck with this shitty detail for an Expansion agent I wouldn't mind stabbing in the throat a few times. Fuck my life."
Haralin finishes his scrofa and sunburst and takes a new draw from his freshly-refilled bowl. "I think it's time to take a walk along the observation area," he says. The Dropchief noble stands up, taking his patches and bowl with him. "Coming, Tanakta?" It's much more a request than a question.
What he says: "I'm sorry, Sir, we must decline. The prisoner is potentially dangerous and we're on duty."
Zaef shrugs at Segal. "I apologize for the Samal's behavior, I don't know why he has a spink up his ass today-"(here Zaef allows himself a little smirk)"-and why he thinks he speaks for me. I would be honored to join you."
Segal looks back and forth between Zaef and his keepers with a 'you're no fun' pout. "Out of all the gentles at Khalkiota, you three are the only ones who aren't enjoying yourselves," Segal says to the three Turai arrayed before him. "I do not worry about potential dangers. And duty?! You have a duty to yourselves greater than any prisoner! Sit with me here and we can speak of how useful such devotion to duty can be to me, and how lucrative it can be for you."
Did Segal Iyuzo just blatantly ask you to be his dirty cops?
With a look of exasperated relief on her face, Robin abruptly sits down between two individuals of Segal's retinue, and, before the one on her right can react, she snatches a luminescent drink from his hand and downs it.
Mani Swao gets on the vox with Haralin to cover his ass.
"Sir, we've got another invitation for Utari. Wine and dine with Sir Segal Iyuzo. Utari's behaving himself...barely." We should throw him into the next cage and forget what the word 'key' means.
Haralin replies swiftly and annoyedly. "He is here to promote our project, Samal Swao. Are you attempting to interfere with our duties here?"
"Not at all, Sir." After all, you're the one whose ridiculous ideas of promotion are making it completely fucking impossible for me to not be the punchline to the joke of keeping Utari safely as our prisoner.
"Your job is to make sure no harm comes to Utari, not second-guess my orders, Samal. Segal Iyuzo is an important player in Akis, you will let Utari spend as much time with him as he pleases. Is that understood?"
"Crystal-clear, Sir." I hope you choke when you suck on the next hooker's tits.
"Sit your ass down already, Utari," Swao says. He then turns to his two fellow turai, casting a withering glance at Haaj to get her ass back up off the seat and stand guard. "You two, perimeter safety. Nobody comes close to this table that we didn't call for."
With the security aspects out of the way, Swao allows himself to relax his stance a little. With a very explicit move, he turns his vox off. Not standby. Off. He then takes an offered seat across from Segal.
"If you want to bribe me," Swao says, meeting Segal's barely veiled attempt with an even crasser response, "tell me what you want and what you're offering. I will negotiate for my subordinates to be paid accordingly. Package deal, no single contracts. If anybody at this table tries to involve Dropchief Arakuna, they'll be dead within the hour." He casts a look around the table from behind his visor. "There's not a soul at this table who has less to lose than I do. Plan your next moves accordingly."
Swao's clearly thought about this. An opportunity to get out from under Arakuna's thumb - but not to fall under the sway of another master. No. Swao's ready, almost desperate, to fight through every last motherfucker between him and an exit from his situation.
He's better at this than I thought Robin thinks, appreciating Hugh's directness.
Upon receipt of her orders, she hands the emptied glass back to the barrel-chested man it belonged to. She pats him on the shoulder dismissively and advises "next time, get a man's drink, eh?" as she gets up. A tap to the side of her helmet drops her visor, and it polarizes almost immediately. A confident stride has her quickly in place, surveying the crowd.
Alright boys, blood's in the water. Time to act like fucking sharks she thinks, her senses trained on Hugh and Zaef.
Segal's a little taken aback at the speed that they've reached this level of negotiation. He quickly recovers and nods. The decadence in his eyes fades and is replaced by cunning focus. "Very well, Samal. I want to know what Arakuna is up to. Why is he tooling around Khalkiota with a famous champion and terrorist on his arm? I want to know if the Bloodwraith's particular talents are for sale. And since you've made it obvious, I want to know what kind of grievance you have with the dropchief. Answer these to my satisfaction and..." Segal waves one hand casually around, accompanying his answer. "I'll pay each of you a thousand lats." Hugh and Robin glance at Arketta for a reaction. Sure enough, the ex-Turai can't help but be impressed at the offer.
"It's nothing more than answers I want right now," Segal reiterates. "But if you're open for more lucrative tasks, I know that a trin of fully-trained Turai has got to be worth more than Arakuna is paying."
"That's acceptable," Swao says, continuing his bald-faced tell-all style. "In order: Arakuna wants to build a new Arena on this planet, using our prisoner Utari here as a PR stunt which I'm sure is already working swimmingly for the bastard. His problem is that he doesn't have as much pull and resources as he pretends to have, so he's looking to get in bed with someone local who he can talk into bankrolling the whole thing. You know? This thing is a license to make money, once it's up and running. Whoever runs it, Arakuna will get his cut - obscene amounts of money, enough for - I don't know. A lot. But he needs an investor to get started. That's what he's fishing for here. Zaef Utari's his ice breaker, his conversation piece. On the subject of Utari - hey, Utari, the man wants to know if you still pay for your stims with blood."
Swao takes Utari's glare in stride.
"Depends," Swao says. "Arakuna likes keeping our boy here happy. But you can see it in his eyes, can't you? He knows it won't last, not with Arakuna. He's got to get while the getting is good. I'm sure he'll listen to anyone who offers a better deal. Won't you, Utari?" Swao grins. "But that's not my business."
Swao pauses before continuing. "My own grievance...my own grievance...he knows too much about me. I can't exactly tell you without putting you in the same position as him. He is the only one who knows, and he knows he can kill me with it, any time he chooses to. I want nobody to know. When he forgets, I will be free of it. And of him, the noxious little shit who thinks he can treat me like his slave for the rest of his life."
Segal slurps down a vaguely calamari-looking bite of salad - God, you hope that wasn't Cyllan - and thinks. "Tor, pay them."
Tor (the mottled man who approached you earlier) starts counting out a great deal of money with a great deal of trepidation.
"Why not kill him?" Segal asks. "He is in a private chamber right now, a stranger to this world. I can bankroll this miniature Arena, I have contacts at every level of the Stewardship, and the Iyuzo command Akis' shipping lanes. Haralin Arakuna need not trouble you much longer, Samal. Take his idea and come with me and we will build temples out of the lats we will make."
Swao's eyes darken. "You can't kill Arakuna. I'll be honest with you, this isn't the first time I've tried to make this deal. The last guy made it all the way into Arakuna's private chambers. That's what Arakuna told me, himself." Swao looks over his shoulder, and his matter-of-fact bluntness takes on shades of desperation. "You know what he did? He took the lats the man had paid me for my information, and he fed them to him. One at a time. And I had to watch it! I had to watch his sick motherfucker, his...bodyguard...slice open the man's belly to get the lats out and do it again. And this time...shit...Arakuna put his stinger to the man's head and said...and he said, You greedy little animal, chew your food."
He pauses for a moment.
"No, Arakuna knows how to deal with assassins. I need leverage. Something that means power over him, so that he'll let me go."
"I begin to understand your predicament," Segal replies. Some of his entourage look a little shaken by Swao's tale; Robin notes that Tor and Mohawk don't mind a grisly story. "But you do realize that you are guarding the very leverage you need, do you not? Champion Zaef Utari is what will bring the masses to this as-yet unbuilt monument. You could... guard him at my estate...." Segal trails off and his attention turns to Khalkiota's entrance, where Keji Iyuzo sweeps into the establishment in a shimmering wide-shouldered cloak of spun quicksilver. His gorgeous arm candy is dressed in violet lightning. Four sharp-dressed but understated servants enter with them, and talk business with the hostess.
Keji scans the main room and spots his brother's huge entourage in a few moments. He smiles - not at all a happy one - and strides through the merrymaking towards Segal's table. He stops short when he spots Swao, Haaj, Fett, and Zaef. He first addresses Haaj/Robin and Fett/Arketta in a honeyed, accented voice.
"I have always thought it a tragedy that our warrior women's helmets hide their faces. And you - " he turns to Zaef next - "I know your exploits better than this cad whose table you grace. Are you somehow back on the fighting-circuit?"
"Friends, this is Keji, my misguided, hidebound, stuck-up, pretentious, naive, drooling fool of a brother," Segal introduces the new Iyuzo.
"And I see you have already met my conniving, pinheaded, spinkdicked, blackmailing, sadistic drain on the family," Keji replies.
Haralin finishes his scrofa and sunburst and takes a new draw from his freshly-refilled bowl. "I think it's time to take a walk along the observation area," he says. The Dropchief noble stands up, taking his patches and bowl with him. "Coming, Tanakta?" It's much more a request than a question.
Tanakta takes a long sip of his drink, making a show of deciding.
"Why not. Seems everything interesting that's going to happen in here already has." Giving a nod to the...bartender...he follows Haralin out onto the observation deck, his eyes gauging anyone else in the area.
The observation deck still gleams with fire from the almost-set Hedion sun. The slightly-too-close horizon soaks up the last remnants of sunlight and mixes it with the deep blues and purples of dusk. There is a fairly good crowd outside, all appointed in similar accoutrements to Haralin and the other nobles you've seen thus far, and they're trickling back inside with their servants and drinks and bowls as the sunset fades.
Haralin, Zakest, and Tanakta don't spot any of the other marks immediately, but then Tanakta sees Gorlan Kesh, Reno's brother, speaking with a Cyllan in a gossamer-thin suit, nowhere near the floating tank that the team encountered on Whiirr. Brilliantly-detailed tapestries hang down from the Cyllan's body, serving to cover the majority of the alien's jellyfish-like tentacles. Gorlan, in contrast, wears a simple clean suit in green and black. It's pretty clear that the younger Kesh is here on business, escorting or possibly negotiating with the Cyllan.
Davis carefully wanders closer to Gorlan Kesh, keeping just within earshot but not close enough to be noticed in the crowd. It's a delicate balance, but that's what tradecraft is for.
"And you - " he turns to Zaef- "I know your exploits better than this cad whose table you grace. Are you somehow back on the fighting-circuit?"
Zaef shrugs. "It's possible you'll be fortunate enough to see me fight again; apparently, the one holding my leash has a wonderful sense of humor and a deep love for irony." He says the whole thing straight-faced and without a single glance, gesture, or shift towards Swao, making it obvious to the new arrivals that the Samal is not the one who is ultimately responsible.
"...wish to do here, or shall I call the transport?" Gorlan asks the Cyllan. They turn away from the balcony and don't give a second glance to Haralin, not among the Mardi Gras floats that pass for other clubgoers.
The alien responds in a smooth synthesized voice with a distinct male quality to it, although with Cyllans you don't know if the voice matches to ganglia, so to speak. "I appreciate your industrium's hospitality, but I would return to my ship for the evening. It has been a long day inside this suit."
"I understand completely, Vortala. Come, we will get you home and I'll see you early tomorrow to smooth out those details?" Gorlan falls in step with the alien's gliding impellers.
"Of course. I think that my Shapers will be pleased with our arrangement, just..." Vortala falters.
"Yes?"
The mismatched pair start heading off the observation deck. Vortala adds, "These new travel restrictions are..."
Gorlan chuckles. "Restrictive. I know. It's the price we pay for safety. There has been too much strife as of late, but at least it's been confined to sparsely populated planets. Don't worry, we can assist you with any bureaucratic matters."
They reach the entrance back to Khalkiota's upper floors and turn to head presumably for the vehicle that will take the Cyllan Vortala back to its ship.
---
Down on the main floor, Keji inclines his head to Zaef and the Turai. "A sense of humor and irony? Well, you're not talking about Segal then." He sharks a mischievous smile at his brother, who returns an identical expression. "That means you're not his easily-discarded saps yet. If you want to make money and live long enough to spend it, you'll talk to me." Keji takes his date's arm once again, smiles at Robin and Arketta, and turns to rejoin his servants and the hostess waiting to direct him to his table.
Admiral Duck Sauce
