Eros Descending: Book 3 of Tales of the Velvet Comet Read Free

let them try,” he replied. “Make a ten-million-credit contribution to the Church of the Purity of Jesus Christ every day, and I'll be up here to hand out a trophy to the owner of the winning horse every day. Make it twenty, and I'll take the Lodin XI ambassador's place at the raffle and draw the winning number.”
    “I would have thought you'd frown upon such unclean money,” remarked the Steel Butterfly.
    “The uses I put it to will cleanse it.”
    “Then you should be the happiest man on the Comet .”
    “My dear woman,” he said, “I don't underestimate your intelligence; please don't underestimate mine.” He paused to take a deep breath. “Do you think I don't know that you have half a dozen cameras trained on me as I stand here speaking to the most famous madam in the Republic, or that my followers won't be subjected to numerous holographs of me surrounded by Vainmill executives and suggestively-clad prostitutes?”
    He drew himself up to his full height, a look of contempt crossing his face. “Does Vainmill think they've bought me off? Do they really think my people can't see through this ruse as easily as I can? I arrived in a state of Grace, and I will leave in a state of Grace. A little humiliation is a small price to pay for the good that that money can do. Jesus, too, walked among sinners; I can do no less.” He paused, and seemed to relax. “So I'll preside at your horserace, and I'll distribute your money to the needy, and I'll let Vainmill prove their virtue by shutting down the Velvet Comet —and I'd love to see Plaga's face when he hears my sermon next Friday.”
    “Just a moment,” said the Steel Butterfly. “What was that you just said about shutting down the Comet ?”
    “I said that it won't do them a bit of good,” he replied firmly. “The Comet is just a symptom; Vainmill is the disease.”
    “Has someone actually told you that they plan to close the Comet ?” she persisted, lowering her voice as she became aware of the curious stares she was attracting from a number of nearby patrons.
    “Not directly—but it's Vainmill's logical next step, after giving the money to my church doesn't work. After all, this is the one Vainmill business that makes no bones about reveling in sin.”
    “Kill the Comet , just to shut you up?” she said incredulously. “You have an awfully inflated opinion of yourself, Doctor Gold!”
    He stared calmly at her and made no comment.
    “I don't believe it,” she continued.
    “What you believe is immaterial,” he said with a shrug.
    “It sounds like one of Gustave's idiot ideas.”
    “Plaga is just a flunky.”
    “He's the president of the Entertainment and Leisure Division,” said the Steel Butterfly.
    “I told you: I'm not after a division. I'm after Vainmill . Whether the Comet survives a month or a year or a decade is a matter of complete indifference to me—except, of course, that it's an abomination that ought to be terminated for its own excesses.”
    “Has it occurred to you that this abomination employs more than eight hundred people, and that killing the Comet would throw them out of work?”
    “I am not such an egomaniac that I believe shutting down the Comet will eradicate all sin everywhere,” replied Gold. “I have no doubt that all your beautiful young men and women will be employed within a week—though I'll certainly do my best to prevent it.”
    “You won't prevent it,” she said.
    “Probably not,” he admitted.
    “But what you will do,” she continued, “is send them out onto the streets of Deluros VIII and other worlds, where they'll require the consent and protection of the criminal element to ply their trade, where their working conditions will no longer be under the control of skilled medics, where —”
    “Are you trying to tell me,” he interrupted with a sardonic smile, “that only prostitutes who work aboard the Velvet Comet receive medical attention?”
    “Doctor Gold, more than four hundred venereal