Theo Bethany and the...
There's something to be said for living a few planets, at a minimum, away from your ex-wife. This was not a new thought, nor one I particularly enjoyed because I couldn't do anything about it. But when I keyed open the door to the bar, stepping from the cool hallway into the neo-tropical heat of the evening rush, I saw the faces.
Artie's face is usually plastic, so he doesn't emote well, but the combination of body language and the expression of the unusually sober Greinoul sitting at the bar told me what was up.
"Bit late to be sober, isn't it, Greeny?" I asked as I passed behind the bar, stepping around the metal block Artie had chosen to wear as a body today. Modular sounds good until you realize it doesn't come with any fashion sense or sophistication, I started to say out loud, when I realized it was probably a direct quote.
Greeny chittered something in his birdsong native tongue, which I had no way of understanding, but I didn't really need to. The way he looked to his left as he squeaked it out gave me the hint I needed.
"Emmaline, a pleasure," I blatantly lied as I stepped out from the bar to the little table where she sat alone. Almost every other table had a mix of crewmembers from the ships in port, enjoying their evening, but there was a muted bubble around the lanky woman in dark robes.
"Theo," she said, "I know you do not approve of the priests of Upenjaytoyu entering, after some of our brethren were hostile here last year."
"Someone shot Artie in the leg and Posey nearly cracked her beak biting through the chains they cuffed her with," I clarified.
She gave a nod of her head and a little wry smile, followed by the understanding tilt that meant she was listening, per Pastoral Studies 101 or whatever she took back in the day after she ran off. Her green eyes were almost a smoky brown in the bar's dim light and her hair was both longer and darker than in her spacer days. "Of course. But I have come to you because I have nowhere else to go."
"There are a lot of other bars on Deck 5 you could try," I pointed out.
The smile, the nod, the tilt. "The church's payroll transport is missing. I can give you a tenth of the cargo if you can find it for me."
I sensed many things very wrong about her coming to me, after so long, and wanting help. I sensed even more things wrong about talking to her, period, after our history.
"20%," I said instead, holding out my hand to shake.