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  Still, the feel of their hands and mouths on her body and those long fingers sliding wetly into her…Sadie pushed the memory out of her head and made herself pay attention; she had almost lost Holt as he pushed his way into a sinister looking building made of black concrete block instead of stay-gel. The flickering neon sign overhead read, “Slice of Night,” and it was located near the very edge of the atmosphere dome. She stopped in front of the bar, letting the crowd pass around her in either direction and considered her options.

  She could hear the Overlook-Me chip sizzling with alarming regularity now and she realized she might have less time than she’d thought. If she went inside and her chip failed where Holt could see her she was screwed, but she hadn’t come all this way just to hang around outside and wonder what was happening. She would have to take her chances and try to keep to the shadows, out of the blond detective’s line of vision. Somehow, Sadie didn’t think that would be a problem; The Slice looked like it had shadows to spare in its gloomy interior.

  Taking a deep breath, she marched bravely through the entryway and into the bar.

  10

  The first thing she saw when she entered the crowded, smoky bar was the most enormous Garon she’d ever laid eyes on. It was rare to see an ET at this end of the System, and Sadie took a moment to stare at the odd creature. He was slumped behind the bar, hulking shoulders bowed inward with a morose expression on his flat, scaly face, polishing shot glasses with a limp towel. There was a tiny, frilly white apron cinched around his thick waist and Holt was leaning on the bar, drinking a shot of what looked like Venusian tequila and talking to him.

  The rest of the clientele were scattered throughout the bar at rickety tables, drinking like there was no tomorrow, which, Sadie thought, for some of them there probably wouldn’t be. Ring miners had a high mortality rate. They were drunk enough and rowdy enough for her to be very glad her Overlook-Me chip was still in working order. She wouldn’t stand a chance in a place like this without the protective noninterference field the chip generated. Edging carefully around the crowd at the bar, Sadie was able to find a dark corner by one wall that was close enough to hear the conversation between Holt and the huge bartender over the heavy thump of Jovian Jazz that poured from the speaker grills.

  “…anything about it, Snug?” she heard Holt say. So the monstrous Garon must be Snuggly, Sadie mused to herself. Interesting.

  “I hear nothing,” the Garon replied in a voice like someone gargling with gravel, cutting his one large purple and green eye evasively to one side. Even Sadie could tell he was lying. Holt apparently could as well.

  “Come on, Snuggly, don’t give me that. If there’s anything illegal within a million miles it comes through your bar. The Slice sees more action in one night than the rest of this Goddess-forsaken end of the Solar System does in a year.” Holt drained his glass and shook his head when the Garon made as if to pour him another.

  “Why you always bother me, Holtstein? I got enough problems without you and your partner come around squeezing my balls.” The Garon set down the glass he’d been cleaning daintily and picked up another. “Where is your better half, anyway?” he asked.

  “Working the other end of town,” Holt answered shortly. He fished in the pocket of the beat-up work pants he was wearing and withdrew a fifty credit chip. “I know you know something, Snug. Maybe this will jog your memory.”

  The Garon eyed the chip thoughtfully for a moment, then slid it off the bar and made it disappear into one of the embroidered pockets of his frilly apron. Sadie wondered if he wore it on purpose or if he was so big that no one had the nerve to tell him it was a tad girlie for his massive physique. After pouring a round of shots for a rowdy crew of star-hoppers that had just walked in he went back to Holt, who was leaning against the counter waiting patiently.

  “Okay, Holtstein, I tell you what I know. Only because I like you, though. You and Blakely never fuck me yet. Better not start now.” He glared warningly at the blond detective, his eye going completely purple for a moment.

  “Don’t worry, Snuggly. You’re not exactly our type,” Holt said dryly. “What do you know? It better be good.”

  “Is good.” Snuggly nodded his massive bald head. “Or bad, depending on how you are seeing it.” Holt just raised one blond eyebrow and waited for the Garon to continue. “About a month ago a prostie trader is coming into my bar,” Snuggly said. “And he is how you say? Slick Willie—very smooth talking. He is saying he is representing a new company just set up right here on Iapetus. New kind of prostie-borg that is extra good. Extra cheap.”

  “Did you get a name?” Holt asked casually, although Sadie saw the tension in the set of his well-defined shoulders. They could definitely be onto something here. The Garon shook his massive bald head.

  “No names. He says he is only passing through town, but he will like to make me a bargain before he leaves to sell his borgs on Titan. He says he had extra, would I like to buy.”

  “Did you?” Holt asked, leaning forward on the bar. Sadie found herself leaning forward as well. If the Garon was telling the truth, there was an illegal prostie-borg plant right here on Iapetus. Because the delicate synthetic brains that powered legal prosties couldn’t be shipped off planet until they were hardwired into a tank-grown body, the only legal flesh tanks were located on Mars, where Synthenex, the main manufacturer of the brains, was located. If someone had set up flesh tanks here, they must either have their own synthetic brain manufacturing facility, which was highly unlikely, or they were using black market transplant brains. Real human brains that had been ripped from their living hosts and forced to occupy a body grown in the flesh tanks made for sex. Sadie was so excited by the implications that she nearly missed the huge Garon’s reply to Holt’s question.

  “I am buying,” Snuggly said stolidly. “I am thinking it is good for business, yes? But after Slick Willie leaves, prostie goes bad after only two days. Is rip-off.”

  “Goes bad? What do you mean?” Holt asked. “Did she stop functioning or what?”

  “Stop functioning, you could say this, yes,” Snuggly replied morosely. “She is refusing to service customers, is punching, kicking, screaming, making a scene. I try to throw her out but she won’t go.”

  Looking at his hulking form, Sadie had a hard time imagining any sort of prostie-borg the Garon would have difficulty evicting from his bar. Maybe they were making them super-size now?

  “What happened to her? Where is she now?” Holt stood up straight and looked around.

  “Is in the back room drinking a bottle of my best Flare juice and teasing the daemon.” The Garon cast a morose glance toward the back of the bar.

  Holt whistled under his breath. “Goddess, Snuggly, you still have that thing? Aren’t you afraid it’ll get loose someday and kill you or one of the customers?”

  The huge shoulders shrugged. “Daemon is never leaving dark side of back room and is very good for business. Stupid drunks like to see how brave they are, how long they can stay before they have to run. Slice is the only bar on Iapetus to be having a daemon on the premises.” The Garon sounded almost proud of the fact.

  “Yeah, because you’re the only bar that straddles the dark side line,” Holt said. “How long has the prostie been in there?”

  Garon shrugged again. “Don’t know. Long time. Is very much rip-off. Worst prostie I ever have.”

  “Thanks, Snuggly. I’m going back.” Holt slapped the bar with one hand and turned to make his way through the drunken miners.

  “You are being careful, Holtstein,” the huge Garon called. “Prostie is there a long time. Daemon is getting strong.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Thanks.” Holt waved over his shoulder and continued to press through the crowd. Sadie had no choice but to follow him.

  At the back of the bar there was a long, dim corridor. Holt stepped into it without hesitation but Sadie stopped for a moment to read the warning scrolling tiredly across the holo-loop in twelve languages above her hea