Voices rambled round the table. It was so old-fashioned. So much decorum. Sara couldn’t pretend to understand the nuances of a gaming den yet. She remembered some of the royal dinners when officials had hurled abuse at each other across the table and then sat laughing over the port. There was no such frankness here. There was simply a culture of sanctioned consumption.
The young woman circled him. Ivan remained facing the way he was.
Oksana wore a long gown of yellow silk, with a fur stole, and an ornate headdress of silver wire and jewels. She was almost painfully beautiful and Sara saw cunning intelligence in her perfect face.
Don’t use him! Don’t you dare use him. Sara thought fiercely. She was hugely protective of Ivan. For different reasons. Maybe Nox wanted a friend. Sara thought him vulnerable. She sucked in her breath when she saw that look on Oksana’s face. The look that told Sara Oksana saw Ivan as a brand new toy… a toy that she would use in just the same way as the old ones. Things would not change. It made her ashamed of her coworker.
She swallowed, looked away, then smiled round at Nox. He sipped his beer, disinclined to speak further. Workers adjusted the lamps, refreshed food, then left them alone.
Oksana gracefully poured Ivan a shot of vodka into a crystal glass and handed it to him.
Ivan took it with a nod and then withdrew to Nox and Sara’s couch. Sara looked up at Oksana as Ivan came over and sat down in the large padded sofa against the wall.
Oksana paused. Outrage tried to escape her composed expression. She contained it well. “Drink?” She asked another guest instead, her tone harder.
Though Oskana was lovely, it seemed Ivan had already enough of her superior manner and courtly flirting. Responding to such things could get a man shot.
Sara shook her head and smiled. She wasn’t interested in rivalry. She’d rather cut off her right arm than to get involved in house politics. Too much for Sara. Oksana had a gift for this that quite dazzled Sara. She might eclipse Pan and lead Cafe MIO into the next century. Cafe MIO is large, but there can be only be one famous, lovely idol, can’t there?
She sipped her drink thoughtfully. She was beginning to wonder why Nox had come. It was clear there was a universe of difference between himself and Ivan. What could they have in common?
Sara looked up at Ivan. She had still to get the measure of this powerfully built man, but she liked him. And he and his shorter friend had been the backbone of Sara’s hostess experience.
What did they know of one another? Which one took an interest in the other? An ally, I suppose. She studied Ivan's face. He was serious about this—Nox having fun, and not a lot of intrigue. Leave that to Nox.
She thought about this.
Was there a point to this? Perhaps, perhaps not. She wanted to speak with Nox, get the measure of him. She wanted to understand his inner mind and see if there was any kindred flame there. But she didn’t understand and he wasn’t about to explain it.
Truthfully, Sara had no designs on either Nox or Ivan. Ivan especially. He has lofty ideas and is a generous and honest man. But surely he is also guileless, vulnerable. A crafty person could use him and betray him. It’s happened before.
As for Nox, he smiles dangerously. But he seemed a surprisingly moral creature, but complicated... Simple, honest promises, can Nox make them? Does he live by them?
“Maybe,” smiled Sara, as if the idea was delicious.
“But these games are far above me,” she said honestly.
She took another sip of the drink.
“Walk with me."
With a bouncer trailing at a respectful distance, she led the pair out of the room, along a hallway where the soft, gauzy draperies billowed in a cool breeze and out on a terrace. Sara had retired with Nox, Ivan and the bouncer to a small garden space.
They moved through a grove of white platinum trees heavy with brass oranges, crossing iron lawns that creaked under their footsteps. The bouncer stalked away through the row of bushes with leaves of soft bronze, leaving them alone.
Sara stood back from the pair to admire Pan’s terrace.
The terrace was an ornamental metal garden. Bionic leaves grew and sprouted in ordered beds, and vines self-replicated in zigzag patterns of branches to form the little orchard. Metal bees and delicate copper-winged butterflies whirred through mechanical stems and branches, wire vines and tin blooms; above them rose oil-ripe fruits, swung from artificial plants, sprays of aluminum roses. It pleased Pan to let working machines evolve into natural forms here, with no purpose other than their own...
The terrace projected from the outer wall of the Cafe and was covered by a dedicated shield that kept the warmth in. They were about 4 meters up. Below, the vast sprawl of outer city Moscow spread out to the distant bulk of the wall. For a moment Sara gazed out at the wall—glossed in ice, through the crackling shield. Her gaze swept across the vast complex of houses below them...
A cigarette in hand and her mind full of troubles, Sara looked around. "Got a light?"
Sara