Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

“Why?”

“Why? Because she’s a bleeding Salamander, that’s why. No Sally would do gadgeting, it’s beneath them.”

“Can you tell me how to find her?”

“I could, but I’m not going to.” The man sat down suddenly. “I’m going to sit here and pass out. Get your friend Leaping Lizzy to take you. She’ll take you all right! Just look at her.”

Danny turned to find Alice beckoning him from the tiny dance area. Her face was aglow, the top fastening of her dress was undone, and her body swayed and undulated to some inaudible rhythm.

The things you did for your friends. I ought to have gone to Europa and let Chan come here . But Danny waved back to her and moved forward. As he crossed the threshold of the dance area the music and the thumping rhythm, focused on the dance floor and inaudible everywhere else, filled his ears.

If you could use the word music for such a cacophony. Danny’s tastes went back to a far earlier era of minuets and waltzes. He came up to Alice, was grabbed, swung around like a feather, and pulled close. He shouted into her ear, “Do you know how to find Fireside Elsie?”

“Now why would you be interested in a Sally woman?” Alice put her arms around his waist and squeezed him until he couldn’t breathe. “Looking for something hot. Too cool for you, am I?”

“The investor I was telling you about. Fireside Elsie may know him.”

“Phooey. You told me I could keep that diamond.”

“You can.” God, she was strong. It was Danny’s misfortune to find physical strength highly attractive in a woman. He struggled to take a breath and gasped, “But I need to talk to her.”

“Next stop but one you’ll see Fireside Elsie — provided you treat me nice, I’ll show you where. Come on, Jack, let yourself go. Have some fun.”

Her breasts pushed into his chest. Her perfume filled his nostrils. As Danny put his arms around her, he thought, What the hell, you only die once. It might as well be tonight.

An hour later that prospect no longer seemed so fanciful.

Danny had heard the usual rumors about the Salamanders. They were said to be Artefacts, a prize creation of the Needler lab run by the late Margrave of Fujitsu. The DNA mix in a Salamander was unknown. What was known was that they bred true, unlike any other Artefact, and the body of a dead Salamander was always burned to ashes. Self-immolation was the standard act for any Salamander threatened with capture and inspection.

Danny knew all this, and he had seen pictures; but the real thing was a different matter.

Alice had dropped him off at a dark and airless cavern with a casual, “Here you are. This is the Fireside. I’ll collect you in half an hour. Will that be enough time?”

“Should be. But what are you going to do?”

“Make sure we have a place to sleep.”

“I already made a reservation at the Crystal Gate.”

“Forget it. That’s for old people.”

Keep this up, and that’ll be me. “But Alice, don’t you think you ought to come in with me? I don’t know anyone in there.”

“Phooey. You’ve got a tongue.” She stuck hers out at Danny. “One like this. Use it.”

And she skipped away.

Danny stepped forward into the gloom. There were lights, he realized, but they were down close to the floor. They were also weak, red, and flickering. They couldn’t possibly be actual fires, flames wouldn’t burn right without a bigger gravity gradient to encourage convection; but they were highly plausible imitations.

A woman was approaching out of the shadows. Not a woman, a something. No, he had been right the first time. It was a woman.

“Sallies only in the Fireside,” she said in a husky, musical voice. She was close to naked, wearing nothing but wisps of black cloth across her chest and hips. They emphasized her powerful build and the ribbed muscles of her abdomen, but that was not the thing that puzzled Danny.

It was her skin. It displayed a granular texture, like a layer of silver paint over a pattern of fine scales. Nobody had skin like that. “Sallies only,” she said again when he did not move or speak. “Out.”

“I don’t want service. My name is Jack Eckart. I’m looking for Fireside Elsie.”

“You found her. This is my place.” She held out a hand. Her grip was strong but the fingers were ice-cold, like the hand of a corpse. She went on, “Who gave you my name?”

“I don’t know. He was a tall black man, back at the Golden Goose. He seemed about ready to pass out.”

“Louie Lucas. Why’d he tell you about me?”

“I’m looking for a friend of mine, Bunnyfat Ramble. He was an expert in … certain kinds of equipment. Last time we heard from Bun he was on the Vulcan Nexus. Louie Lucas thought you might be able to help me.”

They examined each other closely. Her face had a thin, prominent nose and a near-lipless mouth. Danny could see her eyes now. They were black and lifeless.

At last she said, “Can you pay for information?”

“Some. I have trade crystals. How much do you want?”

“Not for me. You make your own deal. Come this way.”

She led him into the smoky interior of the Fireside, along an aisle bordered by a dozen small tables at which silver-skinned Salamanders sat cross-legged. The air held a curious aroma, like burning cinnamon and sulfur.

At the far end a little cubicle sat tucked away out of sight of the main room. The light was much brighter inside. She gestured to one of the cubicle’s benches with an arm that bent and flexed as though it had no bone within, and said, “You wait right there. You can’t get service, so don’t ask.”

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. But I have to make a call.”

She walked away with an oddly sinuous grace. Danny thought of a snake, then changed his mind. The Salamanders were more complicated than a simple human/snake splice. For one thing, the eyes were wrong. The limbs also had that curious flexibility, as though the skeleton was not bone but cartilage.

Could it be a human/snake/shark triplet? The Margrave had been a genius, and Danny had heard of stranger combinations.

Fireside Elsie was coming back, weaving her way past the tables. She was holding two tall beakers of black volcanic glass.

“He’s on the way,” she said. “Don’t ask his name. And here’s a Fireside special. You can’t ask for service and get it, but I can give it.”

She handed him one of the beakers and drank deeply from the other. Danny could not see what was inside, but as he took a first sip he comforted himself with the thought that she had no particular reason to poison him. He needed that thought, because the thick liquid coursed down his throat like a train of fire. He could feel it as the drink reached each separate inch of his oesophagus. His eyes began to water. He saw a blurred image of Fireside Elsie as she turned and walked away.

He wiped at the tears with the sleeve of his jacket. A Salamander who found it necessary to undertake self-immolation wouldn’t need rehearsals, not with drinks like this available as practice.

But he was no Salamander. Danny placed the beaker carefully on the low table in front of him. He peered into the dimlit room, wondering when Anonymous would arrive and where he was coming from. After ten minutes he was considering taking a second sip from the beaker out of sheer boredom when a bulky figure appeared from the shadows and slid onto the bench opposite.

“You looking for somebody?”

Apparently they would dispense with introductions. That was fine with Danny. He said, “A friend of mine, Bunnyfat Ramble. Do you know him?”

Dead eyes stared into Danny’s. Fireside Elsie was a model of geniality compared with the newcomer. “Depends. You say you’re a friend of his. Who are you?”