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"I'm glad you decided to join me," he said.
"Me too." She just hoped she wouldn't regret it later.
The aerial shot into orange light of the afternoon.
Ven pushed the com and typed in the number. A man's face appeared on the screen: masculine, intense, with harsh grey eyes. His hair was almost blue black.
Recognition flooded the man's eyes. He smiled and became a different person - warm, welcoming. "There you are. We expected you earlier."
"I'm on the way to you," Ven said. "Celino, I'm bringing a guest."
"What kind of a guest?" a female voice cal ed off screen.
"A young female one," Celino said. "She is a co-worker."
"Oh!" the woman off-screen said. "I better make desert."
*** *** ***
Celino and Imelda Carvanna lived in a beautiful two-story structure with cream wal s and a wrap-around balcony shielded by a green roof. Surrounded by orchards and trees, the house drowned in a vast garden, and as Claire walked next to Ven down the twisted path from the aerial landing pad, a sea of dahlias bloomed on both sides of her: peach, orange, yel ow, blood-red, deep purple, blue fringed with white, some large, some smal , some with wide petals, some with narrow frayed florets, others a mere single ring of petals around a flat disk in the center. It was as if someone had taken a rainbow, put it into a blender, and tossed the result out.
"Anemone," Ven pointed out different varieties.
"Waterlily. Bal . Starburst."
"I didn't know you were a botanist," she said.
"I'm not. Growing dahlias is like a national sport. I remember one year a neighbor somehow bred one that was indigo and wouldn't let anyone have any tubers. Almost started a feud. I think someone got stabbed over it."
Claire laughed.
"It's not funny," Ven said, smiling. "Dahlias are serious business."
Celino and Imelda waited for them on the porch of their house. On the ride over Ven had told her most of the details. Celino's family and his had been neighbors. Celino was twelve years older than Ven, forty-five to Ven's thirty-three, and the two of them didn't pay much attention to each other until Celino, who had become a financial shark and accumulated a huge fortune, decided to retire. He required bionet protection for his rather large fortune and business interests, and so he looked up an old neighbor. They soon became close friends.
Looking at Celino Carvanna now, Claire could barely see the traces of the ruthless financial magnate. He seemed perfectly amicable. Charming even.
"This is Claire," Ven said. "She works with me. Claire, this is Celino and that's Meli."
Celino smiled wide and nodded to her. "Welcome!"
"Thank you."
Celino slapped Ven's shoulder. "I have news for you. Come."
They went into the house.
Meli Carvanna smiled at her. She was short, dark-haired, with a big br**sts and wide hips, and beautiful brown eyes on a tan face. She looked as if she belonged on the porch of this house, in the garden of dahlias, on this planet. This is what the women Ven grew up with looked like, Claire realized. Standing next to her, she felt at once awkward and inadequate. She would never be like this.
She shouldn't have come.
"No matter how much time Celino spent in the city, he's stil a man of the provinces," Meli said. "Men retire to discuss Important Business, and we women are expected to entertain ourselves by cooking. Since I already finished dinner, I say we revolt and drink wine on the balcony instead."
"Very well."
Claire fol owed Meli through the house to the balcony, where they sat in the padded chairs, a smal table with two glasses and a bottle of wine between them. Meli poured the wine into two glasses. The golden liquid fil ed the glasses.
"You must excuse them," Meli said. "Knowing Ven, the Sangori problem is driving him up the wal . There is nothing he hates more than being made to look foolish. He detests it. Always did, since he was a child."
"You knew him when you were children?" Claire kept her face careful y neutral.
Meli nodded. "We all grew up in the same area. Ven's cousin dated my youngest brother. Did I say something unpleasant?"
Claire looked at her. She was sure none of her emotions had reflected on her face.
"I'm trained to assess minute facial expression," Meli said. "Yours was one of distaste."
"Why would one require such a training?" Claire said.
"I'm an assassin," Meli said. "Or I was, rather. For many years. It's considered prudent to rapidly identify emotions in my line of work." She smiled. "It keeps you breathing longer. So why distaste?"
Claire looked at the flowers. "You reminded me that I am an outsider."
"Oh? Where are you from?"
"Uley."
"So how did you and Ven meet?"
"He hired me." Claire closed her mouth, hoping to leave it at that, but the older woman watched her with a rapt expression. Silence stretched.
"It started with the war ending," Claire said. "I worked as a secretary, so I was viewed as civilian..."
Twenty minutes later, when she was done explaining, Meli smiled. "I'm glad you and Ven found each other. Celino and I married late by kinsmen standards and Ven is almost as old as Celino was when we married. ."
Claire looked into her empty wine glass. "I think you might have an incorrect impression. Ven and I are not a couple. I'm his admin."
Meli sipped her wine. "I see. There go my hopes. It's impolite to listen in on a conversation that doesn't concern you."
Claire drew back. Something rustled in the garden below. A smal tan hand clasped one of the wooden columns supporting the roof. The second hand joined the first and a child pul ed himself up on the balcony rail. He was tan, with Celino's grey eyes and Meli's chocolate brown hair. A streak of dried blood marked his temple and his left forearm sported a long knife cut.
"How did it go?" Meli asked.
The boy raised his face. "I kicked his ass."
"Good. Go wash up. Your father will expect ful account at dinner."
The boy ducked inside.
"Neighbor kid problems," Meli said.
"Yours is a strange culture," Claire said. "Beautiful, vibrant, and passionate, but also savage."
Meli stretched "It's the planet. It heats our blood and makes us do crazy things. Resistance is futile, Claire. It will claim you as its own sooner or later."
The bionet jungle flashed in Claire's mind. "I think it already has."
