The Dasihari Lounge catered to the full range in the complex organism that was the United Nations. At the bar, young pages and clerks leaned into the light, laughing too loud and pretending to be more important than they were. It was a mating dance only slightly more dignified than presenting like a mandrill, but endearing in its own fashion. Roberta Draper, the Martian Marine who’d shat on the table that morning, was among them, a pint glass dwarfed by her hand and an amused expression on her face. Soren would probably be there, if not that night, another time. Avasarala’s son would probably have been among them if things had gone differently.
In the center of the room, there were tables with built-in terminals to pipe in encrypted information from a thousand different sources. Privacy baffles kept even the waitstaff from glimpsing over the shoulders of the middle-range administrators drinking their dinners while they worked. And in the back were dark wooden tables in booths that recognized her before she sat down. If anyone below a certain status walked too close, a discreet young man with perfect hair would sweep up and see them to a different table, elsewhere, with less important people.
Avasarala sipped her gin and tonic while the threads of implication wove and rewove themselves. Nguyen couldn’t have enough influence to put Errinwright against her. Could the Martians have asked that she be removed? She tried to remember who she’d been rude to and how, but no good suspect came to mind. And if they had, what was she going to do about it?
Well, if she couldn’t be party to the Martian negotiations in an official capacity, she could still have contacts on an informal basis. Avasarala started chuckling even before she knew quite why. She picked up her glass, tapped the table to let it know it was permitted to let someone else sit there, and made her way across the bar. The music was soft arpeggios in a hypermodern tonal scale, which managed to sound soothing despite itself. The air smelled of perfume too expensive to be applied tastelessly. As she neared the bar, she saw conversations pause, glances pass between one young fount of ambition and another. The old lady, she imagined them saying. What’s she doing here?
She sat down next to Draper. The big woman looked over at her. There was a light of recognition in her eyes that boded well. She might not know who Avasarala was, but she’d guessed what she was. Smart, then. Perceptive. And f**king hell, the woman was enormous. Not fat either, just … big.
“Buy you a drink, Sergeant?” Avasarala asked.
“I’ve had a few too many already,” she said. And a moment later: “All right.”
Avasarala lifted an eyebrow, and the bartender quietly gave the marine another glass of whatever she’d been having before.
“You made quite an impression today,” Avasarala said.
“I did,” Draper said. She seemed serenely unconcerned about it. “Thorsson’s going to ship me out. I’m done here. May just be done.”
“That’s fair. You’ve accomplished what they wanted from you anyway.”
Draper looked down at her. Polynesian blood, Avasarala guessed. Maybe Samoan. Someplace that evolution had made humans like mountain ranges. Her eyes were narrowed, and there was a heat to them. An anger.
“I haven’t done shit.”
“You were here. That’s all they needed from you.”
“What’s the point?”
“They want to convince me that the monster wasn’t theirs. One argument they’ve made is that their own soldiers—meaning you—didn’t know about it. By bringing you, they’re showing that they aren’t afraid to bring you. That’s all they need. You could sit around with your thumb up your ass and argue about the offside rule all day. It would be just as good for them. You’re a showpiece.”
The marine took it in, then raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t think I like that,” she said.
“Yes, well,” Avasarala said, “Thorsson’s a cunt, but if you stop working with politicians just for that, you won’t have any friends.”
The marine chuckled. Then she laughed. Then, seeing Avasarala’s gaze on her own, she sobered.
“That thing that killed your friends?” Avasarala said while the marine was looking her in the eye. “It wasn’t one of mine.”
Draper’s inhalation was sharp. It was like Avasarala had touched a wound. Which made sense, because she had. Draper’s jaw worked for a second.
“It wasn’t one of ours either.”
“Well. At least we’ve got that settled.”
“It won’t do any good, though. They won’t do anything. They won’t talk about anything. They don’t care. You know that? They don’t care what happened as long as they all protect their careers and make sure the balance of power isn’t tilted the wrong way. None of them f**king care what that thing was or where it came from.”
The bar around them wasn’t silent, but it was quieter. The mating dance was now only the second most interesting thing happening at the bar.
“I care,” Avasarala said. “As a matter of fact, I’ve just been given a very great deal of latitude in finding out what that thing was.”
It wasn’t entirely true. She’d been given a huge budget to implicate or rule out Venus. But it was close, and it was the right frame for what she wanted.
“Really?” Draper said. “So what are you going to do?”