Read Saturn's Children for Free Online Page B

guide, however out of date. Plus, a hotel sounds like a good idea on general principles. I feel like shit. That’s not surprising, given what I’ve just been through; ionizing radiation doesn’t cause the same kind of damage in us that it causes in old-fashioned biological organisms, but most of my nonrigid tissues are mechanocytes, and high-energy particles can disrupt their internal control systems. Mechanocytes may be more robust than biological life, but they don’t have the magic replicative and repair abilities of pink goo; if you off-line enough of them, the superorganism has a problem. I can repair a handful of faults myself, but right now I’m down about 4 percent below normal—which will take time to fix—and if I let it slide below 10 percent I’ll have to look for medical help. (And won’t that be fun, with my depleted savings?)
    So. A hotel it is.
    I don’t ask for much—privacy, a door I can lock, molten water on tap, pressure, and oxygen. But swift-footed Mercury is at the bottom of a very deep gravity well, eleven kilometers per second below even rosy-cheeked Venus, and not many people come to visit. Those who do are evidently rich, or they’re indentured miners, and there’s barely anything between the swank and swag of the Cinnabar Paris and an unpressurized bag hanging from the underside of a conveyor feedline. In the end I check my schedule and discover that the gap between my arrival and the departure time Ichiban mentioned is only about six days (Earth, not local), so I bite the numb patch that’s appeared on my lower lip and go wheedle my way into the cheapest the Paris has to offer.
    The huge vaulted dome and polished olivine floor notwithstanding, the Paris is a recent construct; it’s oriented around the needs of aristos and mercantiles, heavy-element brokers and jewelers. “We have a room for madame,” insinuates the front desk, “but alas, it is not cheap.”
    “How not cheap?” I ask, leaning close to his plinth. He’s just a disembodied head on a box—the hotel is his body—but he’s a handsome head, properly proportioned, and his elusive smile is quite charming.
    “Nine Reals.” That would cover the rent on my little room for a month. “That’s per twenty-four hours,” he adds.
    “Can you do any better than that?” I ask, raising an eyebrow and trying not to look desperate. If Ichiban’s friends are paying me, I can afford it, I speculate. But if they aren’t, I’ll be in hock up to my tits, and that’ll mean indenturing myself or borrowing from my sisters, and I really don’t want to do that. I may be poor, but at least I own all my own assets. “For five days?”
    “You’re one of Rhea’s line, aren’t you?” He positively purrs. “One of your sibs stayed with us a few years ago. A lovely guest, delightful company. If you can find her memories, perhaps I could lose your bill?”
    Well! So the hotel has a traditional body fetish? I run my finger along the line of his disembodied jaw, then blow him a kiss, racking my brain for clues as to which of my more dissolute sibs might have tarried here. Yelena? Or Inga? Juliette, perhaps? I know Inga had a habit of staying with high-class hotels, milking them for as long as she was welcome, but Juliette’s the one who traveled around a lot. Came to a bad end, I gather, but if she knew Paris, it’s worth trying. In any case, I haven’t worn her soul yet, so I might as well make a start on her. “What was her name?” I ask bluntly.
    “Juliette. Was she one of yours?”
    “Oh, yes.” In truth I am not moodful for this game, especially after Lindy’s torrid embrace. But I’m certain Juliette’s soul is in my graveyard, and I can let her handle Paris. (Unless she’s one of those idiots who pulled her own chip while having sex, out of a misplaced desire for posthumous privacy.) “Perhaps we can do a deal, depending on your fixtures and . . . fittings. What have you got for me?”
    “I’ll show you.” He