Double Helix 06_ The First Virtue - Michael Jan Friedman [2]
The Indarrhi also had rudimentary empathic powers. Or so it was said of them in the empire.
Spotting an unoccupied table, the governor pulled out a chair and sat down. Then he sat back and watched the Thallonian and the Indarrhi.
“Drink?” asked a gruff but feminine voice.
Thul turned and looked up at a triangular face with a single bifocal eye in the middle of its leathery forehead. A Banyanan, he mused. And this one had even fewer manners than most.
He considered the question that had been posed to him. “Thallonian ale,” he decided. “Room temperature.”
The waitress grunted. “Room temperature.” She sneered, as if it were not very likely his request would be met. Then she turned her angular body sideways and made her way back through the crowd.
Halfway to the bar, she passed the young Thallonian. Winking at the Indarrhi, he grabbed the Banyanan around the waist and drew her to him. But the waitress was stronger than she looked. With a push, she freed herself and continued on her way.
It didn’t anger the youth in the least. In fact, it might have been a game he had played with the female before. Laughing out loud, he clapped his companion on the back and lifted a mug to his lips.
The contents, a frothy liquid as dark and scarlet as blood, dripped down the youth’s chin and spattered the table below. Wiping himself with the back of his hand, he swung his arm around the Indarrhi’s shoulders and whispered something into his friend’s rounded ear.
Yes, Thul thought disapprovingly. The Thallonian had definitely had too much to drink.
Suddenly, the youth thrust the Indarrhi away and laughed even more loudly. His companion smiled, appearing to enjoy the joke-but not with the fervor of the Thallonian. The governor frowned.
The youth was a misfit-an embarrassment to his species. Whoever had raised him had done a stunningly bad job of imparting Thallonian manners to him. Were it not for his ruddy skin and his size, one might have wondered if he was Thallonian at all.
“Thallonian ale,” said a by-now familiar voice.
Thul glanced at the serving woman as she put his drink in front of him. Then he reached into his pocket and produced an imperial disc. “This should be enough,” he said.
The Banyanan eyed it, then plucked it from the governor’s hand. “It should at that,” she responded. Then, with her overly generous payment in hand, she disappeared again.
With the waitress gone, Thul returned his attention to the youth. He was just in time to see the fellow thrust his leg out in the path of a green-skinned Orion trader.
The Orion, who had a mug in his hand, never saw the danger. With a curse, he tripped on the Thallonian’s foot and went flying. So did his drink-into the lap of another Thallonian, a brawny specimen with a scar across the bridge of his nose.
Outraged, the victim rose from his seat and seized the Orion’s shirtfront in his fists. With a surge of his powerful muscles, he lifted the trader off the floor.
“Orion scum,” he spat.
Releasing the trader with one hand, the Thallonian drew it back and struck the Orion in the face. Thul heard a resounding crack as the trader’s head snapped back. A moment later, it lolled on the Orion’s shoulder, and the Thallonian let him drop to the floor.
When the trader woke, the governor mused, he would have a headache. A rather considerable headache.
“Damn you!” bellowed the youth, leaping to his feet. “That was my friend you bit!”
The Thallonian with the scar glanced at him warily. “The fool spilled his drink in my lap!”
“Only because you tripped him with your big, clumsy feet!” the youth roared at him.
It was anything but the truth, Thul noted inwardly. But, of course, the fellow with the scar had no way of knowing that, and neither did anyone else in the establishment.
“Who are you calling clumsy?” the man with the scar snarled.
“You!” the youth snarled back. “Why? What