Primary Inversion Read Online Free

else’s.
           Traders. Six of them had showed up this time, the five we had seen earlier plus a man they were guarding. A man with shimmering black hair and red eyes.
           Aristo.
           As soon as they saw us, the Traders stopped. We all stared at one another. The bartender quit polishing his glass and set it under the counter.
           Don’t you hate them? Taas had asked. Hate was too mild. I saw the Aristo and my brain felt hot with memories of Tarque, the Aristo governor on Tams. Three weeks of torture. This Aristo stared at me with his carnelian-red eyes, his black hair shimmering, and I wanted to break every perfect bone in his perfect face.
           Steady, I told myself. Steady.
           One of his bodyguards leaned toward him and spoke. I didn’t need telepathy to know he suggested they find a bar with a higher class of clientele. But the Aristo shook his head. Then he settled on a stool at the counter.
           “I can’t just sit here while they drink.” Taas was crumpling his menu in his hands. “I can’t.”
           Rex nodded. “Let’s go.”
           Helda stood up.
           “Sit down,” I said.
           They all stared at me. Then Helda sat, her body stiff.
           Rex nudged my mind, but I kept the door closed. My thoughts about Traders were private even from Rex. To say I had no desire to stay at the bar now was a profound understatement. It was also irrelevant. “Aristos don’t come to Delos for vacations,” I said. “He must be here for a reason. Our job is to find it out.”
           A muscle in Rex’s cheek jerked. He’d had that twitch ever since he had seen what Tarque did to me, seen me so rigid with shock, fear, and pain, I couldn’t speak.
           Helda fingered her belt where her holster normally hung. None of us were armed with anything more than hidden knives. Even without a diplomacy mod, I knew how threatening it would have looked for us to stroll along the Delos boardwalk with the mammoth Jumbler guns on our hips. We had come here to rest, not to provoke the local authorities. The Traders hadn’t been armed when we had seen them before, either, but now they all carried burn-lasers, complete with power packs clipped to their belts. It suggested the man they were protecting was high in status even for an Aristo.
           “Watch them,” I said. “See if you can pick up anything.”
           The waitress reappeared and set a glass in front of me filled with amber liquid. I didn’t know much about Earth distillation processes, but I knew liquor. That wasn’t ale, it was rum. My English must have been even worse than I realized.
           I shook my head at her. “We beer have.” I motioned at the others. “Beer. For all.”
           She swallowed. “It’s a—” Her voice squeaked. “The man—he ordered it for you.”
           “What man?”
           She nodded toward the Aristo. “Him.”
           I stared at her. Then I handed her the rum. I had to make a conscious effort not to shove it back in her hands so fast that it spilled.
           Rex stood up and slipped his hand under her elbow. He drew her to the back of the room and out a door that probably led to the kitchen. I understood why he wanted her out of sight; if she was having the same effect on the Aristo that she had made on our group, she could be in trouble. But the Aristo hadn’t even glanced at her. I was the one he was watching. I felt like bugs crawled on my skin.
           Taas twisted his menu, distorting the holos into weird mish-mashes of color. “What do you want us to do?”
           “Note everything you can about them,” I said. “What they’re wearing, how they sit, move, and speak. Store it in your memory. We’ll feed it into the mesh later and see what we come up with.”
           Helda motioned toward some hologames in a corner. “From there