touched my hand and pointed to one o'clock. A small air-car flew alongside the Zil in a parallel lane. "Been following her since we took off," he told me.
The Zil decelerated and went down behind the high iron railings of a riverside mansion. "Passy," Claude commented. "Expensive. What now?"
The one-man flier, having followed the woman to base, banked and fired off across Paris.
"Move in, Claude. And when you've dropped me, follow that flier. I want everything you can get on it, okay?"
The mansion was a large square building as old as the revolution. Antiquity, though, was not its most notable feature. Even from a distance of five hundred metres I recognised the colony world flora that was fast becoming the latest sensation with the hopelessly rich.
"Now cut the jets and take us in low. I'm going to jump."
"Phuong-"
"Do as I say!"
He curled his lips and cut the flier across the corner of the extensive grounds at a height of ten metres. I swung the door open, picked my spot and jumped.
I landed bulls-eye in a fungoid growth like a giant marshmallow. I bounced, rolled to the edge and fell from a height of a couple of metres, landing on my backside and jarring my spine.
I was in a xeno-biological jungle. Through a lattice of vines and lianas I made out the lighted windows of the mansion. I picked myself up and began hacking a path through the alien salad. It was hard to imagine I was on the banks of the Seine. I might have been an intrepid explorer trekking through the sweltering tropics of Delta Pavonis IV.
Then I came to the lawn before the mansion and saw the smallship, sitting inside a red-and-white striped, open-ended marquee. The ship was a rusty, ex-Indian Navy cargo ferry, a vintage antique at home in the alien environment of the garden. I recognised its type from the days of my childhood, when I'd skipped college and spent hours at the Orly star terminal; the reversed swastikas and hooked Hindi script brought back a flood of memories. I knew the structural schematics of the ferry inside out, and I was tempted to fulfil an old ambition by boarding the ship through the dorsal escape chute. But I resisted the urge.
Instead I sprinted across the lawn to a long verandah and climbed aboard. I crept along the wall of the mansion, came to a lighted window and peered inside. The room was empty. I moved on to the next window and found the woman.
She stood with her back against the far wall, holding a drink in a long-stemmed glass. She'd changed her mac for a gown, cut low to reveal the scars of her fashionable mutilation. It struck me as sacrilege, like the desecration of a work of art.
She was discussing the merits of various restaurants with someone on a vidscreen. I sat with my back against the brickwork and listened in for perhaps ten minutes, at the end of which I was none the wiser as to the identity of the woman – though I did know which restaurants to patronise next time I had five hundred dollars to blow.
I was thinking about quitting the scene when I noticed a quick shadow beyond the light shed by the room. I thought I recognised the shape of the uniformed chauffeur. I jumped up and ran, but I was too slow. He hit me with a neural incapacitator, and I jerked once and blacked out.
When I came to my senses I found myself staring at a moving strip of parquet tiling, and felt a strong arm encircling my waist. The chauffeur's jackboots marched at the periphery of my vision and I realised I was being carried through the mansion.
I put up a feeble struggle, kicked out and yelled at him to put me down. We came to a large polished door and he used my head to push it open, then marched in with me under his arm like a prize.
"And... what have we got here?" the woman exclaimed.
"I found her on the verandah."
He stood me upright and gripped my elbow, and I played the idiot. I babbled in Kampuchean and made as if stuffing an invisible club sandwich into my mouth with both hands.
The woman glanced at the
The Zil decelerated and went down behind the high iron railings of a riverside mansion. "Passy," Claude commented. "Expensive. What now?"
The one-man flier, having followed the woman to base, banked and fired off across Paris.
"Move in, Claude. And when you've dropped me, follow that flier. I want everything you can get on it, okay?"
The mansion was a large square building as old as the revolution. Antiquity, though, was not its most notable feature. Even from a distance of five hundred metres I recognised the colony world flora that was fast becoming the latest sensation with the hopelessly rich.
"Now cut the jets and take us in low. I'm going to jump."
"Phuong-"
"Do as I say!"
He curled his lips and cut the flier across the corner of the extensive grounds at a height of ten metres. I swung the door open, picked my spot and jumped.
I landed bulls-eye in a fungoid growth like a giant marshmallow. I bounced, rolled to the edge and fell from a height of a couple of metres, landing on my backside and jarring my spine.
I was in a xeno-biological jungle. Through a lattice of vines and lianas I made out the lighted windows of the mansion. I picked myself up and began hacking a path through the alien salad. It was hard to imagine I was on the banks of the Seine. I might have been an intrepid explorer trekking through the sweltering tropics of Delta Pavonis IV.
Then I came to the lawn before the mansion and saw the smallship, sitting inside a red-and-white striped, open-ended marquee. The ship was a rusty, ex-Indian Navy cargo ferry, a vintage antique at home in the alien environment of the garden. I recognised its type from the days of my childhood, when I'd skipped college and spent hours at the Orly star terminal; the reversed swastikas and hooked Hindi script brought back a flood of memories. I knew the structural schematics of the ferry inside out, and I was tempted to fulfil an old ambition by boarding the ship through the dorsal escape chute. But I resisted the urge.
Instead I sprinted across the lawn to a long verandah and climbed aboard. I crept along the wall of the mansion, came to a lighted window and peered inside. The room was empty. I moved on to the next window and found the woman.
She stood with her back against the far wall, holding a drink in a long-stemmed glass. She'd changed her mac for a gown, cut low to reveal the scars of her fashionable mutilation. It struck me as sacrilege, like the desecration of a work of art.
She was discussing the merits of various restaurants with someone on a vidscreen. I sat with my back against the brickwork and listened in for perhaps ten minutes, at the end of which I was none the wiser as to the identity of the woman – though I did know which restaurants to patronise next time I had five hundred dollars to blow.
I was thinking about quitting the scene when I noticed a quick shadow beyond the light shed by the room. I thought I recognised the shape of the uniformed chauffeur. I jumped up and ran, but I was too slow. He hit me with a neural incapacitator, and I jerked once and blacked out.
When I came to my senses I found myself staring at a moving strip of parquet tiling, and felt a strong arm encircling my waist. The chauffeur's jackboots marched at the periphery of my vision and I realised I was being carried through the mansion.
I put up a feeble struggle, kicked out and yelled at him to put me down. We came to a large polished door and he used my head to push it open, then marched in with me under his arm like a prize.
"And... what have we got here?" the woman exclaimed.
"I found her on the verandah."
He stood me upright and gripped my elbow, and I played the idiot. I babbled in Kampuchean and made as if stuffing an invisible club sandwich into my mouth with both hands.
The woman glanced at the
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