Nova Swing

"Vic, she could swallow you with a glass of water. Behave! You should see what they did to her reflexes."

"I know I'd be impressed."

The woman lifted one side of her mouth at Vic and went back round to the driver door. "You're like dogs, you young people," Aschema

"That's very interesting," Vic said.

Aschema

"Is that what they say?"

"It is. So I'm pleased with my progress. Maybe I'll retire happy."

Serotonin held the Black Heart bottle up to the light.

"I must be doing well too," he said. "I've seen something like that at the bottom of every one of these."

Aschema

"You're too clever for me. But look!" He used the stem of his pipe to indicate the Kefahuchi Tract, which lay draped across the night sky of Saudade like a string of bad jewels. "I used to dream of that," he said with a shudder. "Night after night, when I was young. You can't get change less ordered. Look at it, so raw and meaningless! The wrong physics, they say, loose in the universe. Do you understand that? I don't." He tapped Vic's forearm, as if he thought Vic hadn't got the point, or as if he wasn't entirely sure he had Vic's attention. "Now it's loose down here too. We have no idea what goes on in the event site. But whatever comes out," he said, "/ have to deal with the consequences."

Vic couldn't think how to answer, so he said nothing.

This only seemed to confirm whatever the detective was thinking, because he shook his head, turned his back and got into the Cadillac, where he sat fussing with his raincoat and pipe. "Do me a favour, Vic," he asked in a remote voice, "and shut this door for me." When Vic had done that, he went on, "You're a tour operator, that's fine. Unless you force it under my nose I can't be bothered with a little traffic of that kind." He shrugged. "Under normal circumstances, get in bed with Paulie DeRaad and that's your loss too. It's between you and him; why should I be interested? But whatever you and Paulie are up to at the Cafe Surf is new."

Vic had never heard of the Cafe Surf.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Vic, if you're smuggling out some new kind of artefact it will be the end of you, I promise."

"I never heard of this place!" Vic said.

But Aschema

"Hey, Vic?" Aschema

"Well then, what do you think?" Aschema

They sat in the warm faux-leather smell of the car, streetlight flickering regularly across their faces. Her hands rested on the wheel. Her feet rested on the pedals. She had a purposive ma

"You know him better than I do," she said at length.

"It's clever of you to see that. Is there more?"

"If anything, he seemed surprised."

"That's our Vic," the detective said, "always surprised."

"I don't know what you mean by that." She looked ahead at the empty street. Aschema

"You know he could have hurt you," he said.

It was her turn to smile. "You shouldn't worry about me," she assured him. A career in Sport Crime, she said, gave you access to chops the civilian tailors never saw. That was just one of the professional benefits it conferred.

"Go by Rosedale Avenue," Aschema

All the streets in that part of town were overlooked. The interstellar cruise ships towered over everything-PanGalactic's Jayne A

Aschema

"All our troubles come from up there," he said.

"I thought they all came from the site."

This went too far, perhaps, because he changed the subject. "I looked in at the Semiramide last night. Who do I see there but Vic's friend Fat Antoyne, drinking that foul stuff he likes. There was a Mona on his arm."

"There's your co

To her it was bankable: Serotonin to Antoyne, DeRaad to Antoyne, Antoyne to the Cafe Surf. But Aschema

Something had caught his eye, a movement, a shadow, at the chainlink fence of the tourist port. It was gone next time he looked. It could have been a figure climbing in or climbing out. "Go on," he said. "Nothing is there." He had no faith in the tourist port fences. "Or any fence for that matter," he told his assistant. The ports attracted outlaws and psychic cripples, but that wasn't why he disliked them. They were just another co

"Vic Serotonin's no threat to anyone but himself. But perhaps it's time we had a proper talk with Paulie."

Serotonin stood in the rain after they had gone. A rickshaw shushed past, trailing softly coloured butterflies. Two doors down from The World of Today, light poured out of the display window of an Uncle Zip franchise, exciting everything it fell on with the promise of immanence and instant transformation. He spent a minute or two on the sidewalk, staring at its open catalogues- emblems, brands and smart tattoos, loss-leader holograms offering to mod you with the qualities of the great men and women of the past: the genius of Michael Jackson, the looks of Albert Einstein, the nourishing spiritual intelligence of Paul Coelho- wondering if now was the time to make some changes to his self-presentation then leave for another planet. He didn't want Paulie DeRaad in his life. He didn't want Aschema