Doorman Saul's proved to be a hole-in-the-wall hidden beneath a set of thick, garish red-and-green felt curtains. Inside was a long, dark, dank tunnel that smelled wonderfully of garlic and peppers. No tables, just a long wall-mounted bar with no stools. This was a stand-as-you-eat place, almost empty, the pale, red LEDs creating the illusion of swimming through bloody stars.

  Made it wonderfully anonymous though. Our junior clerk wasn't stupid.

  She came in a few minutes after us, long enough for me to consider ordering something, read the menu, salivate, and consider what the prices would do to my limited store of helion. Ten grams for two bowls of soup suddenly seemed cheap.

  "What's wrong with this place?" I muttered, leaning against the bar next to Hao.

  The clerk stopped. I hadn't intended for her to hear. In the dim, red light, I couldn't make out her reaction.

  "The station," I mean. "Prices are insane."

  "Inflation," the clerk said. "Your fault."

  That surprised me. I was feeling more and more like a bit player in a star-spanning epic drama, where everybody but me had read the script.

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  "I just got here," I said.

  "Your kind," the clerk explained, holding out her hand for the vanilla bribe. I held up the jar, but didn't hand it over.

  "What kind?" I said. Maybe they didn't like small traders on Rimont. A consortium manipulating the market and causing runaway prices sure would explain it.

  "Bullhorns," the clerk said. It meant little to me. Horn I knew, and bulls were genetically designed meat animals, but I didn't think they had horns. I tapped a quick access button on my com, starting a recording. I might need it to decode what the clerk was saying.

  "What's a bull horn?" I said.

  "You," she answered. "Oh, you've had some kind of reconstructive surgery, but it still shows. Meat-eaters can't hide from the scanners."

  She raised her hand, placing it just beneath the jar of vanilla. I pulled it back.

  "Not so fast. You still haven't answered my question. What's wrong with eating meat?"

  I could see the tension in her clenched jaws.

  "Think you can scam me?" she said. "I'll have the secs on you so fast you'll wish you'd never heard of Rimont station."

  Which was something I was already feeling. But I needed supplies and to get supplies I needed money.

  "Just one more thing and it's all yours," I said. "Who will buy my cargo?"

  The clerk blinked rapidly, looking up at the ceiling of blood-red dots.

  "Montar," she said after a while. "That off-station crudmucker's crazy enough to do business with anyone. Maybe Riathen, but I doubt it. Someone on the lower levels at any rate. No reputable trader will touch a bullhorn."

  With that, she snatched the vanilla, jerked her head in a dismissive manner as if challenging me to dispute her, and fled the eatery.

  Moments later, I and Hao did the same.