Skagettes sang in it as they worked, arrhythmic, off-key harmonies that spoke of half-forgotten oases among the high deserts of home. The Ogron matrons chanted sadly for their poor lost boys, the sons and sister sons that vanished long ago with the metal gods. Such songs were strictly illegal throughout the Empire, but the matrons sang them all the same.
The street children slept on, comfortable among the familiar rubbish of the streets. They knew that the long ten-hour morning was the time for sleeping. Work would come later in the afternoon or evening when the high-capacity transmats disgorged their cargoes of soldiers. Occasionally one of them twitched in his or her sleep, dreaming, like an animal, of the chase or some other bloody encounter in an alleyway or cul-de-sac.
Roz parked herself at one of the food stalls that encrusted the pavement. Opposite was the entrance to the Yellow Oasis, registered owner Tsang Mei Feng. The woman had obviously paid money to someone, because there was no trace in the records of her ever being a commander in the Exploration Arm of the Imperial Space Navy.
A cheap and nasty job, but very thorough. The Doctor’s machine had a hard time tracking her through the layers of cutouts and missing data, but even erased data leaves a trace.
Born on Spaceport Six Overcity, graduate in geophysics at SP5
University. Sponsored by the local baron for the officer corps of the ISN. The sponsorship spoke of political connections. Officer training at the Tethys deep-space school, first assignment, the exploratory cruiser Redoubtable . A fast-track but otherwise unremarkable career until she arrived in the Agamemnon system two years previously, just as the war on Orestes got going in earnest.
The inner moons of Clytemnestra had been largely ignored after colonization, but the ISN and Landsknechte couldn’t believe that the Ogrons, of all races, could mount a serious challenge to Imperial authority without outside help. Tsang was given command of an in-system cutter and sent off to look for secret bases.
51
On 4 June 2980 the cutter dedocked from the ISN carrier Catherine the Great and set off for Iphigenia at ten gees. And that was where the official record ended.
Except that a Tsang Mei Feng was the registered owner of a bar called the Yellow Oasis, city of Fury, Aegisthus. Roz’s job was to find out whether it was the same woman, get a medical scan of her head, and give it to the Doctor.
At noon the whores emerged to do their shopping. Slender Skagettes with skins as black as coal dust, their faces modified by surgery or make-up. Riban boys with hormone-retarded bodies, pygmy Ogron Maidens with grafted hair, elegant Argolins and bad-tempered girls from Segonax.
They set off to spend their two-per-cent cut of the previous night’s ceiling work on new working clothes, or perfume, or a gram or two of bliss to make it all go away. Or even, though this was rare, to take their money to the IMC bank on the Piazza Tereshkova to be zapped by hyperwave back to their families.
All of them were dressed up and made over in human fashion because looking human was back in style these days, especially among the humans themselves.
None of them matched her hard-copy likeness of Tsang Mei Feng.
Roz checked her watch – it was time for the ten-cent tour.
‘And this is the main press,’ said the robot tour guide. ‘Here, the molybdenum was compressed into blocks of two hundred thousand tons, prior to being shipped to orbit.’
The tour of the old foundry complex cost six schillings. Roz was amazed that some of the tour party were civilians carrying simcord recording gear. There were a smattering of ISN officers in pristine white uniforms with ship flashes on their shoulders.
The rest were enlisted soldiers, mostly young, with that well-scrubbed and innocent agro-colonist look. No doubt they had taken the tour in order to avoid the temptations of the wicked city. Their parents would be proud of them.
The
The street children slept on, comfortable among the familiar rubbish of the streets. They knew that the long ten-hour morning was the time for sleeping. Work would come later in the afternoon or evening when the high-capacity transmats disgorged their cargoes of soldiers. Occasionally one of them twitched in his or her sleep, dreaming, like an animal, of the chase or some other bloody encounter in an alleyway or cul-de-sac.
Roz parked herself at one of the food stalls that encrusted the pavement. Opposite was the entrance to the Yellow Oasis, registered owner Tsang Mei Feng. The woman had obviously paid money to someone, because there was no trace in the records of her ever being a commander in the Exploration Arm of the Imperial Space Navy.
A cheap and nasty job, but very thorough. The Doctor’s machine had a hard time tracking her through the layers of cutouts and missing data, but even erased data leaves a trace.
Born on Spaceport Six Overcity, graduate in geophysics at SP5
University. Sponsored by the local baron for the officer corps of the ISN. The sponsorship spoke of political connections. Officer training at the Tethys deep-space school, first assignment, the exploratory cruiser Redoubtable . A fast-track but otherwise unremarkable career until she arrived in the Agamemnon system two years previously, just as the war on Orestes got going in earnest.
The inner moons of Clytemnestra had been largely ignored after colonization, but the ISN and Landsknechte couldn’t believe that the Ogrons, of all races, could mount a serious challenge to Imperial authority without outside help. Tsang was given command of an in-system cutter and sent off to look for secret bases.
51
On 4 June 2980 the cutter dedocked from the ISN carrier Catherine the Great and set off for Iphigenia at ten gees. And that was where the official record ended.
Except that a Tsang Mei Feng was the registered owner of a bar called the Yellow Oasis, city of Fury, Aegisthus. Roz’s job was to find out whether it was the same woman, get a medical scan of her head, and give it to the Doctor.
At noon the whores emerged to do their shopping. Slender Skagettes with skins as black as coal dust, their faces modified by surgery or make-up. Riban boys with hormone-retarded bodies, pygmy Ogron Maidens with grafted hair, elegant Argolins and bad-tempered girls from Segonax.
They set off to spend their two-per-cent cut of the previous night’s ceiling work on new working clothes, or perfume, or a gram or two of bliss to make it all go away. Or even, though this was rare, to take their money to the IMC bank on the Piazza Tereshkova to be zapped by hyperwave back to their families.
All of them were dressed up and made over in human fashion because looking human was back in style these days, especially among the humans themselves.
None of them matched her hard-copy likeness of Tsang Mei Feng.
Roz checked her watch – it was time for the ten-cent tour.
‘And this is the main press,’ said the robot tour guide. ‘Here, the molybdenum was compressed into blocks of two hundred thousand tons, prior to being shipped to orbit.’
The tour of the old foundry complex cost six schillings. Roz was amazed that some of the tour party were civilians carrying simcord recording gear. There were a smattering of ISN officers in pristine white uniforms with ship flashes on their shoulders.
The rest were enlisted soldiers, mostly young, with that well-scrubbed and innocent agro-colonist look. No doubt they had taken the tour in order to avoid the temptations of the wicked city. Their parents would be proud of them.
The
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