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Hi, Boss, Mack said to him, and though he smiled there might have been a
bit of rebuke in his tone. For he still ran Murskitectura, the company Conrad
had started in the early years of the colony. And he ran it alone.
Hi, Mack. How s business?
The smile became a smirk. How do you think? The population s not expanding,
there s no free capital for discretionary building, and your damned
masterworks will last five thousand years if they last a day. We re getting
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margin work: adding a new housing wing here and there, in your name and style.
You cast a long shadow, Boss.
Sorry, Conrad offered sincerely.
But Mack just laughed. Hey, I m only a troll. What do I know, or need to?
He raised Wendy s hand in his own. It s enough that I keep my lady in
diamonds.
This was a joke; diamonds were commonplace in the crust of P2, worth little
more than quartz. But Wendy laughed, and seemed to find it witty.
Welcome, First Architect, she said, waving Conrad toward his assigned
position.
Brenda was seated at Bascal s right, and seemed far more annoyed than
flattered by the attention, while Martin Liss, the doctor from Domesville
hospital, was seated to her right. Farther down the table sat a number of
people Conrad didn t recognize, but then, in the middle, were Robert and Agnes
M chunu, whom Conrad hadn t seen in ages but who, by all reports, had made
quite a good show of things after deciding to get married. They were light
farmers or something, tending solar collectors and capacitor banks and selling
power on the open market, but they also grew and sold vegetables. Conrad had a
hard time picturing them grubbing in the dirt, although he supposed someone
had to, or half the colony would be living on glucose and protein paste from
crappy waste-disposal faxes.
They didn t need chairs; Robert and Agnes had joined the centaurs long ago.
Galloping across the open countryside was perhaps not as glamorous as flight,
but even so the centaurs were, in some sense, the realization of the angels
dream: speedand strength, with an empty world in which to test them. We re
the freest people who ever lived, Robert had told him once. Now the two of
them sat at the table on four folded legs, with dainty little prayer rugs
under them to prevent their chafing against the wellwood floor. But they were
still colored that same shade of bright, unnatural blue, from head to hoof to
swishing tail. Even among centaurs, they were iconoclasts.
Hello, sir, Robert said to Conrad.
Hi, he returned. You two are looking well.
Healthy as horses, Robert said, then laughed at his own joke. The country
air does a body good, but I think by now you ve learned that for yourself.
Conrad was disappointed, though truthfully not terribly surprised, to find Ho
Ng seated at his own left. With effort, he managed to smile politely at his
old nemesis. Though still a commander in the Royal Barnardean Navy, Ho was
married now, too, and his wife (apparently printed only a few weeks before)
sat at his elbow looking adoring and excited and terribly, terribly young.
If possible, Ho was saying, while his hands sketched cylindrical shapes in
the air, you want to fire along the target ship s longest axis, to rupture
the maximum number of compartments. The Queendom s naval theoreticians have
never fought a real battle, but their analysis is bang on.
Have you fought a real battle? Conrad asked him, surprised.
Two, Ho said, looking him over. Space pirates, out in the Lutui Belt.
Where the fuck have you been?
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Conrad snorted. Nice to see you, too, Commander.
To Conrad s right were a pair of empty chairs, and presently their occupants
appeared in the doorway: Feck the Facilitator and his noble captain, Xiomara
Li Weng. Conrad lit up when he saw them.
Xmary! Feck! So they tazzed you too, eh?
What? Feck said, looking back at him blankly.
Where s Money? Conrad tried.
And Feck answered, Living on Element Pit, if you can believe it. Still
working the bugs out of that neutronium drip-line pump of yours. He s going to
blow that place up, I swear.
Of mine? I had nothing to do with that.
Really? Your name is on the patent. And truthfully, Money s onto something.
Even the Queendom is taking an interest, though of course they re years out of
synch.
Xmary just smiled and sat down beside him. Hello, darling. I heard you broke
your arm.
Oh, that? It was nothing, Conrad assured her. The sound of her voice had
arrested him; suddenly he was seeing nothing but her eyes, her cheekbones, the
happy upward curve of her lips.
That s not what I heard. Someone told me you almost froze to death.
Conrad sighed, then smiled. The world is full of spies, I suppose. Yes, I
caught my shoe in a crack and broke my arm falling; then I had to walk two
kilometers through blinding snow with no direction finder. Are you happy now?
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