“There it is now!” Cassandra chirped, interrupting my concentration.
The place she had selected was easy to spot. It had a line of customers out front that stretched to the corner and around it. It also, however, had a strong force line running right over it, which made me much more willing to agree to it as a relaxing stop on our tour.
“Darn it!” my date said, slowing slightly. “I was afraid this would happen, what with us showing up so late and all. How are you fixed for cash, Tiger? A little palm grease could cut our wait time a bit.”
“Well, all I have is a couple hundred in gold,” I said hesitantly. “If that’s not enough, we can always …”
“Whoa!” Cassandra stopped in her tracks. “Did you say a couple hundred!”
“That’s right,” I nodded, letting go of her hand to reach for my belt pouch. “I wasn’t sure how much …”
“Don’t show it around here!” my date gasped, quickly stopping my hand with her own. “Geez! Do you want to get mugged? What are you doing, carrying your whole bankroll around with you? Don’t you believe in banks?”
“Sure I do,” I said, a little hurt. “This is just mad money. I wasn’t sure how much this evening was going to cost, so I brought a long a couple hundred . . . that and a credit card.”
“Really?” she said, obviously impressed. “How much do you . . . never mind. None of my business. Vic never said you were rich, though. I’ve never even known someone with a credit card before.”
I had only recently acquired my credit card while looking for Aahz on Perv, and hadn’t had a chance to use it yet. (Frankly, except for a few dimension travelers like my colleagues and me, I don’t think anyone on my home dimension of Klah has even heard of a credit card. I know I hadn’t until I hit Perv.) If anything, I had tended to down play it, since it seemed to upset Aahz. My partner wasn’t here, though, and my impressionable date was. If nothing else over the years, I’ve learned to go with the flow.