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Subject: Quanta - February 1991 - Part 1(3)























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    Volume III  Issue 1          ISSN 1053-8496               February 1991

__________________________________________  ___________________________________

Volume III, Issue 1         February, 1991  Quanta (ISSN 1053-8496)  is (c)1991
__________________________________________  by  Daniel   K.   Appelquist.  This
                                            magazine    may      be   archived,
                                            reproduced    and/or    distributed
                 Articles                   freely  under the condition that it
                                            is  left    intact   and   that  no
                                            additions  or changes  are made  to
`Looking Ahead'                             it.   The  individual  works within
                      Daniel K. Appelquist  this magazine are the sole property
                                            of their respective author(s).   No
                                            further   use  of their    works is
`The Physics of Solar Sailing'              permitted  without   their explicit
                       Christopher Neufeld  consent.  All    stories    in this
                                            magazine are  fiction.   No  actual
                                            persons  are  designated by name or
                                            character.  Any   similarity     is
                 Serials                    coincidental.     All  submissions,
                                            requests for submission guidelines,
                                            requests for  back  issues, queries
The Harrison Chapters                       concerning  subscriptions, letters,
                            Jim Vassilakos  comments  or  other  correspondence
                                            should be sent    to  one of    the
                                            following addresses:

              Short Fiction                        quanta@andrew.cmu.edu
                                                   quanta@andrew.BITNET

`Burning, Burning'                          Requests    to    be  added to  the
                                Tom Maddox  distribution list should be sent to
                                            one of the following addresses. For
                                            PostScript subscriptions, send to:
`Black Leaves'
                            Dana Goldblatt      quanta+requests-postscript
                                                      @andrew.cmu.edu
                                                quanta+requests-postscript
`Chasing Unicorn Songs'                               @andrew.BITNET
                               Conrad Wong
                                            For ASCII subscriptions, send to:

`A Subtle Change'                                  quanta+requests-ascii
                           Matthew Sorrels            @andrew.cmu.edu
                                                   quanta+requests-ascii
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`Popping In'
                        Christopher Kempke  Please send mail messages only-- no
                                            files or interactive messages.  All
__________________________________________  subscriptions  are handled by human
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Daniel K. Appelquist                        may be sent to:
                 Editor/Technical Director
                                                      Quanta Magazine
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                       Editorial Assistant    5440 Fifth Avenue, Apartment 60
                                                 Pittsburgh, PA 15232, USA
David Blob
Carina Cornell                              Back issues  may also   be obtained
William Frank (The MAD Proofreader)         from one of  the anon. FTP servers:
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                              Proofreading  EUROPE: lth.se(130.235.16.3)
__________________________________________  ___________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

Looking Ahead

Daniel K. Appelquist
______________________________________________________________________________

   Welcome to a new volume of Quanta.  Before I get to the meat of this
article, let me tell you a little bit about two of the stories I've lined up
for you in this issue.

   Despite the fact that he swore up and down never to write another Teletrix
story, Christopher Kempke is back this issue with `Popping In', a story
starring none other than Martin and June Kendall.  (See the editor's note at
the end of that story.)  Chris says that Gremlins made him do it, but I think
he really just can't bear to part with a set of characters and situations that
really do work for him.  I have a sneaking suspicion we may be seeing more of
Martin Kendall in the future, despite Chris' protestations.

   Secondly, heading up the `short fiction' section, you may have noticed a
story called `Burning, Burning' by Tom Maddox.  This story is actually an
excerpt from Tom's upcoming book, _Halo_, which is due to be published in the
US and Britain sometime later this year, by TOR Books and Century Hutchinson
respectively.  This is the first opportunity I've had to publish something by
an already published and well respected author.  Tom said he decided to send
me `Burning, Burning' in an effort to "support electronic publication in
particular, and alternative modes of publication/distribution in general."

   On that subject, I'm about to do something rather nasty to you.  Those of
you who watch American television may be familiar with the concept of "Public
Television."  Those of you who work with computers may be familiar with the
concept of "share-ware."  Starting with this issue, Quanta is going to
become a fusion of these two concepts.  If you think Quanta is worth money to
you, I ask you to send your donations to keep it going.  Note that, like
public television or shareware, Quanta will continue to be 100% free to all
subscribers, and available for anonymous FTP (see below for current anonymous
ftp sites).  What I'm asking for is VOLUNTARY contributions on your part.

   I'd like to continue producing Quanta way into the future.  I'd like to be
able to pull in more established writers, like Tom Maddox, by enlarging
Quanta's distribution and thereby giving them more incentive to donate
material.  I'd also like to (eventually) be able to pay writers for their
submissions.  Now, up until this point, I've been able to produce Quanta
because, as a student at Carnegie Mellon University, I have access to the kind
of computer facilities that most small colleges only dream about.  This rather
fortuitous boon won't last forever.  Next year, I will have graduated from
Carnegie Mellon and will no longer have access to their facilities.  In order
for Quanta to continue, and to continue to grow, it's going to need capital
(at the very least, a computer with a UUCP feed and a printer).  Donations
will go to a fund which will go specifically toward the purchase of computer
equipment and the expansion of Quanta into the `paper' market.

   If you like Quanta, and you happen to have five extra Dollars (Francs,
Pounds, Yen, etc...), I encourage you to seal them in an envelope and mail
them to the postal address given on the contents page of this issue.
(Obviously, I'm being overly simplistic.  Don't send cash through the mail,
send a check, made out to "Quanta Magazine".)  The point I'm trying to make
is that no donation is too small.  Only have a few dollars to spare?  That's
fine.  Still want to receive Quanta but don't want to pay?  That's fine too.
The donation is entirely optional.  Quanta is and will always remain entirely
free to network subscribers.  (Have I made this point enough?)  I'm really
beginning to sound like a public television announcer now, so I'll leave it at
that.  If you have any questions or comments about this, or anything
concerning Quanta for that matter, feel free to send mail to me via
quanta@andrew.cmu.edu.

   Moving right along, let's talk about FTP servers.  There are now two
servers carrying current and back issues.  One is located in the US (right
here at Carnegie Mellon, actually) and the second is located in Sweden at the
Lund Institute of Technology.  The particulars are as follows:

Site: export.acs.cmu.edu (128.2.35.66)
Directory: /pub/quanta

Site: lth.se (130.235.16.3)
Directory: /Documents/Quanta

For both sites, use `anonymous' as a login name and type your email address as
a password.

   If you're located in Europe, using the site at lth.se would be the smart
thing to do.  If you're located somewhere in North or South America, using the
other site would be better.  Austrailians can take their pick (the American
site would probably be better, actually.)  If you have problems with either of
these sites, please don't bother the administrators of the sites.  Send your
gripes to me, and I'll take check into them.  Note that in both cases, the
files on these servers are stored in UNIX compressed format, so make sure you
set for BINARY transfers and make sure you have a version of DECOMPRESS at
your site.  Please do not over-use these sites.  I'd like Quanta to remain
available on anonymous FTP long into the future.

   Some further news this month on Jason Snell's new magazine now definitely
to be titled `Intertext': Jason's been tinkering with the format, and I think
he's finally got it right, so we may see the first issue of that soon.
`Intertext' will primarilly publish short fiction by amateur authors.  From
the samples that Jason's sent me, it looks good.  If you want to subscribe, or
just want more information, send mail to Jason at jsnell@ucsd.edu.

   And with that, I must say goodbye.  Enjoy this new issue.  If you have
material to contribute, I urge you to do so.  Live in good health.           #

______________________________________________________________________________

The Physics of Solar Sailing

Christopher Neufeld

copyright (c) 1991
______________________________________________________________________________

   A couple of years ago, George Bush charged a committee with planning events
to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus'
departure from Europe for the Americas.  Among the ideas which were
implemented by the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission was
the Columbus 500 Space Sail Cup.  Spacecraft are to launch on conventional
chemical rockets around Columbus day of 1992 and have to go to Mars using only
light pressure.  Among the serious competitors are the Canadian Solar Sail
Project, the Aeritalia Team from Italy, Cambridge Consultants from Great
Britain, and the World Space Foundation from the United States.  There are
also teams from Japan, Israel, and the Soviet Union, though the status of
those projects is less clear.  There are numerous criteria for winning, such
as shortest transit to Mars orbit and the closest approach to the planet.  In
order to be recognized as a winner the sail must receive no government
funding, but may receive money from the Columbus Commission.  The Commission
is subsidizing the efforts of three ships to match the three ships Columbus
took to the new world (there was a fourth, but it had to turn back).  One team
from each of the Americas, Europe, and Asia, will receive whatever money
becomes available.  The World Space Foundation sail is the official Americas
sail, and will receive some of the money, if it ever is granted in the budget.

   One way of looking at the mass-energy equivalence expressed in Einstein's
famous equation, E = m * c^2, is that any time energy moves from one place to
another, it behaves in part as if mass is moving that way.  If a mass is
moving into another body, it pushes on it.  The same is true of light.  The
momentum flux associated with light is very low, equal to the power flux
divided by the speed of light.  At Earth orbit, above the atmosphere, the
solar power flux is roughly 1400 kilowatts per square metre.  This corresponds
to a momentum flux of 4.7 micronewtons per square metre.  If a square metre of
a perfectly absorbing material is put in direct sunlight above the atmosphere,
and the light hits it perpendicularly to the surface, it feels a force of 4.7
micronewtons, or roughly one two thousandth of the weight of a paper clip at
the Earth's surface.  A perfectly reflecting material would feel double that
force.  Compare this to the three space shuttle main engines (SSMEs), each of
which generates 1.67 meganewtons of thrust at sea level, and 2.1 meganewtons
of thrust in vacuum.  Even a 100,000 square metre sail would not generate a
millionth the thrust of a single SSME, though it would be a square as long on
edge as three football fields.

   Solar sailing will almost certainly never be used as a ground launcher,
though a variant, a laser launcher, could be constructed in the next five or
ten years.  Solar sailing becomes attractive as a means of thrust on long
voyages through interplanetary space.  The three space shuttle main engines
and the two solid rocket boosters together provide, very roughly, 8 km/second
of delta-velocity before they burn out after 8.5 minutes.  A shuttle which
masses 2 million kilograms on the pad delivers itself and cargo, about a
hundred thousand kilograms in total, to orbit.  95% of the mass goes out as
rocket exhaust gas, or is dropped into the sea in the form of spent boosters
and empty external tank.  Compare this to a solar sail.  The propellant is
sunshine, there is no fuel, and the thrust is continuous.  The spacecraft does
not have to be made to be 95% fuel by mass.  While it might be fifty percent
or more sail by mass, that material is not expended.  A sail can be reused, or
the material melted down for use at the destination.  If a rocket were used in
a round trip to Mars, and it had to carry its fuel for the return journey, it
would have to be huge at launch.  If the fuel for the engines massed 9 times
as much as the payload, which must include the fuel for the return trip, then
the initial mass of the rocket would be 99% fuel.

   It might seem at first that the optimal configuration for a solar sail is
one in which the light hits the sail at normal incidence (perpendicular to the
surface).  This doesn't turn out to be the case, though.  A sail oriented this
way exerts all its thrust along the line away from the sun.  Because the
intensity of the light from the sun falls off as the square of the distance,
the magnitude of this outward thrust must fall off also as the square of the
distance.  In this way it is exactly like gravity.  In fact, putting the sail
at normal incidence to the sun has the same effect as would have reducing the
mass of the sun.  It places the sail into an elliptical orbit which moves
farther away from the sun for a while, but must return to its starting point
after one complete revolution about the sun.  This is not a particularly
useful configuration.  The only way to avoid this with a sail at normal
incidence is for the solar pressure to exceed the force of gravity, so that
the sail goes into a hyperbolic escape from the solar system.  In order to do
this, for the power output and mass of our sun, the sail would have to mass no
more than one kilogram for every 600 square metres of sail area, including the
mass of payload and electronics.  This is not practical for ground-based
construction.  The sail material for the Canadian Solar Sail Project will mass
about a kilogram per hundred square metres, before putting on structure or
electronics.

   So, putting the sail at normal incidence to the sun is not the best
configuration.  It is better to angle the sail in such a way as to maximize
the component of the thrust which is parallel to the direction of travel.
This turns out to be when the angle between the sun and the perpendicular to
the sail is about 35.3 degrees.  In this configuration the spacecraft is being
pushed along the direction of travel, and so it climbs the gravity well.  In
the counter-intuitive realm of orbital mechanics, the spacecraft slows down
the whole time it is climbing the well.

   Well, if the only important thing is the component of the thrust along the
velocity vector, it can clearly be aligned the other way to oppose the
velocity vector.  This pushes against the direction of travel, dropping the
sail down the gravity well, causing it to speed up the whole time.  A solar
sail, contrary to popular belief, can travel sunward just as easily as it can
travel anti-sunward.

   The travel time to Mars for a solar sail is a strong function of the mass
to area ratio.  It is not unreasonable to manufacture a solar sail which can
be launched in the next two years to arrive at Mars in about another two
years.  It has been suggested that solar sail spacecraft could be used to send
provisions and equipment to Mars ahead of a manned expedition.  This two year
time is not a fundamental limitation of solar sails, but is quite good for
sailcraft launched from the ground.

   If a solar sailcraft is to be launched from the ground and unfolded in
space, the sail must be strong enough to withstand the stresses involved.  For
the solar sailcraft running in the race to Mars in 1992, the sails will be
made of a strong polymer coated with aluminum for reflectivity.  Once the sail
is launched and unfolded, the polymer is just dead weight which has to be
dragged to the destination by the sailcraft.  It would be convenient if the
substrate could be chosen to evaporate in the environment of space, for
instance if the polymer breaks down in ultraviolet light, thus lightening the
sail, and this possibility has been investigated by several teams.

   In the future, solar sails might be manufactured and deployed in space,
allowing square kilometres of very thin aluminum to be tethered to a cargo or
passenger module.  These sails could make an Earth-Mars transit in less time
than a Hohmann transfer orbit.  It has been speculated in science fiction that
a solar sail would make an excellent asteroid surveyor, as it would have
essentially an unlimited fuel supply.

   Solar sails were seriously studied by NASA in the 1960s as possible manned
transportation around the solar system.  In those days of optimism serious
plans were formed for lunar bases by 1975, nuclear launchers and
interplanetary engines, and unmanned interstellar probes.  None of these ever
received serious funding, and they all died on the drawing boards and test
beds by the early 1970s.  Now, twenty years later, we will finally, to quote
Arthur C. Clarke, `sail the wind from the Sun'.


Shuttle Statistics taken from _The Space Transportation Systems Reference_
edited by Christopher Coggon, ISBN 0-920487-00-9
______________________________________________________________________________

Christopher Neufeld is a physics Ph.D.  student at the University of Toronto
and a team member on the Canadian Solar Sail Project, which is an initiative
of the Canadian Space Society.  In his copious free time he reads science
fiction or pushes buttons on his Apple ][GS.

neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca
______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

			       Burning, Burning

				  Tom Maddox

			      copyright (c) 1991
______________________________________________________________________________


   On a rainy morning in Seattle, Gonzales was ready for the egg.  A week ago
he had returned from Myanmar, the country once known as Burma, and now, after
two days of drugs and fasting, he was prepared: he had become an alien, at
home in a distant landscape.

   His brain was filled with blossoms of fire, their spread white flesh
torched to yellow, the center of a burning world.  On the dark stained oak
door, angel wings danced in blue flame, their faces beatific in the cold fire.
Staring at the animated carved figures, Gonzales thought, `the fire is in my
eyes, in my brain.'

   He pushed down the s-curved brass handle and stepped through to the
hallway, his split-toed shoes of soft cotton and rope scuffing without noise
across floors of bleached oak.  Through the open door at the hallway's end,
morning's light through stained glass made abstract patterns of crimson and
buttery yellow.  Inside the room, a blue monitor console stood against the far
wall, SenTrax corporate sunburst glowing on its face; in the center of the
room was the egg, split hemispheres of chromed steel, cracked and waiting.
One half-egg was filled with beige tubes and snakes of optic cable, the other
half with hard dark plastic lying slack against the shell.

   Gonzales rubbed his hands across his eyes, then pulled his hair back into a
long hank and slipped a circle of elastic over it.  He reached to his waist
and grabbed the bottom hem of his navy blue t-shirt and pulled the shirt over
his head.  Dropping it to the floor, he kicked off his shoes, stepped out of
baggy tan pants and loose white cotton underpants and stood naked, his pale
skin gleaming with a light coat of sweat.  His skin felt hot, eyes grainy,
stomach sore.

   He stepped up and into a chrome half-egg, then shivered and lay back as
body-warmth liquid bled into the slack plastic, which began to balloon
underneath him.  He took hold of finger-thick cables and pushed their junction
ends home into the sockets set in the back of his neck.  As the egg continued
to fill, he fit a mask over his face, felt its edges seal, and inhaled.
Catheters moved toward his crotch, iv needles toward the crooks of both arms.
The egg shut closed on him and liquid spilled into its interior.

   He floated in silence, waiting, breathing slowly and deeply as elation
punched through the chaotic mix of emotions generated by drugs, meditation,
and the egg.  No matter that he was going to relive his own terror, this was
what moved him: access to the many-worlds of human experience--travel through
space, time, and probability all in one.

   Virtual realities were everywhere--virtual vacations, sex, superstardom,
you name it--but compared to the egg, they were just high-res videogames or
stage magic.  VRs used a variety of tricks to simulate physical presence, but
the sensorium could be fooled only to a certain degree, and when you inhabited
a VR, you were conscious of it, so sustaining its illusion depended on willing
suspension of disbelief.  With the egg, however, you got total involvement
through all sensory modalities--the worlds were so compelling that people
waking from them often seemed lost in the waking world, as if it were a dream.

   A needle punched into a membrane set in one of the neural cables and
injected a neuropeptide mix.  Gonzales was transported.



   It was the final day of Gonzales's three week stay in Pagan, the town in
central Myanmar where the government had moved its records decades earlier, in
the wake of ethnic rioting in Yangon.  He sat with Grossback, the Division
Head of SenTrax Myanmar, at a central rosewood table in the main conference
room.  The table's work stations, embedded oblongs of glass, lay dark and
silent in front of them.

   Gonzales had come to Myanmar to do an information audit. The local SenTrax
group supplied the Federated State of Myanmar with its primary information
utilities: all its records of personnel and materiel, and all transactions
among them.  A month earlier, SenTrax Myanmar's reports had triggered
"look-see" alarms in the home company's passive auditing programs, and
Gonzales and his memex had been sent to look more closely at the raw data.

   So for twenty straight days Gonzales and the memex had explored data
structures and their contents, testing nominal functional relationships
against reality.  Wherever there were movements of information, money,
equipment or personnel, there were records, and the two followed.  They
searched cash trails, matched purchase orders to services and materiel,
verified voucher signatures with personnel records, cross-checked the
personnel records themselves against government databases, and traced the
backgrounds and movements of the people they represented; they read contracts
and back-chased to their bid and acquisition; they verified daily transaction
logs.

   Hard, slogging work, all patience and detail, and so far it had shown
nothing but the usual inefficiencies--Grossback didn't run a particularly taut
operation, but, as of the moment, he didn't seem to have a corrupt one.
However, neither he nor SenTrax Myanmar was cleared yet; Gonzales's final
report would come later, after he and the memex had analyzed the records at
their leisure.

   Gonzales stretched and rubbed his eyes.  As usual at the end of short-term,
intensive gigs like this, he felt tired, washed- out, eager to go.  He said to
Grossback, "I've got a company plane out of here late this afternoon to
Bangkok.  I'll connect with whatever commercial flight's available there."

   Grossback smiled, obviously glad Gonzales was leaving.  Grossback was a
slight man, of mixed German and Thai descent; he had a light brown complexion,
black hair, and delicate features.  He wore politically correct clothing in
the old-fashioned Burmese style: a dark skirt called a `longyi', a white
cotton shirt.

   During Gonzales's time there, Grossback had dealt with him coldly and
correctly from behind a mask of corporate protocol and clenched teeth.  `Fair
enough', Gonzales had thought: the man's operation was suspect, and him along
with it.  Anyway, people resented these outside intrusions almost every time;
representing Internal Affairs, Gonzales answered only to his division head,
F.L. Traynor, and SenTrax Board, and that made almost everyone nervous.

   "You leaving out of Myaung U Airport?" Grossback asked.

   "No, I've asked for a pick-up south of town."  Like anyone else who could
arrange it, he was not going to fly out of Pagan's official airport, where
partisan groups had several times brought down aircraft.  Surely Grossback
knew that.

   Grossback asked, "What will your report say?"

   Surprised, Gonzales said, "You know I can't tell you anything about that."
Even mentioning the matter constituted an embarrassment, not to mention a
reportable violation of corporate protocol.  The man was either stupid or
desperate.

   "You haven't found anything," Grossback said.

   What was his problem?  Gonzales said, "I have a year's data to examine
before I can make an assessment."

   "You won't tell me what the preliminary report will look like," Grossback
said.  His face had gone cold.

   "No," said Gonzales.  He stood and said, "I have to finish packing."  For
the moment, he just wanted to get out before Grossback did something
irretrievable, like threatening him or offering a bribe.  "Goodbye," Gonzales
said.  The other man said nothing as Gonzales left the room.



   Gonzales returned to the Thiripyitsaya Hotel, a collection of low bungalows
fabricated from bamboo and ferro-concrete that stood above the Irrawady River.
The rooms were afflicted by Myanmar's tattered version of Asian tourist decor:
lacquered bamboo on the walls, along with leaping dragon holos, black teak
dresser, tables, chairs, and bed frame, ceiling fans that had wandered in from
the twentieth century--just to give your average citizen that rush of the
Exotic East, Gonzales figured.  However, the hotel had been rebuilt less than
a decade before, so, by local standards, Gonzales had luxury: working
climatizer, microwave, and refrigerator.

   Of course, many nights the air conditioner didn't work, and Gonzales lay
sweaty and semi-conscious through hot, humid nights then was greeted just
after dawn by lizards fanning their ruby neck flaps and doing push ups.

   He had gotten up several of those mornings and walked the cart paths that
threaded the plains around Pagan, passing among the temples and pagodas as the
sun rose and turned the morning mist into a huge veil of luminous pink, with
the towers sticking up like fairy castles.  Everywhere around Pagan were the
temples, thousands of them, young and flourishing when William the Conqueror
was king.  Now, quick-fab structures housing government agencies nested among
thousand year old pagodas, some in near perfect condition, like Thatbyinnu
Temple, myriad others no more than ruins and forgotten names.  You gained
merit by building pagodas, not by keeping up those built by someone long dead.

   Like some other Southeast Asian countries, Myanmar still was trying to
recover from late-twentieth century politics; in Myanmar's case, its
decades-long bout with round-robin military dictatorships and the chaos that
came in their wake.  And as was so often the case in politically wobbly
countries, it still restricted access to the worldnet; through various kinds
of governments, its leaders had found the prospect of free information flow
unacceptable.  Ka-band antennas were expensive, their use licensed by permits
almost impossible to get.  As a result, Gonzales and the memex had been like
meat eaters stranded among vegetarians, unable to get their nourishment.

   He'd taken down the memex that morning.  Its functions dormant, it lay
nestled inside one of his two fiber and aluminum shock-cases, ready for
transport. The other case held memory boxes containing SenTrax Myanmar group's
records.

   When they got home, Gonzales would tell the memex the latest news about
Grossback, how the man had cracked at the last moment.  Gonzales was sure the
m-i would think what he did--Grossback was dog dirty and scared they would
find it.



   At the edge of a sandy field south of Pagan, Gonzales waited for his plane.
Gonzales wore his usual international traveller's mufti, a tan gabardine
two-piece suit over an open-collared white linen shirt, dark brown slipover
shoes.  His hair was gathered back into a ponytail held together by a silver
ring made from lizard figures joined head-to-tail.  Next to him sat a soft
brown leather bag and the two shock-cases.

   In front of him a pagoda climbed in a series of steeples to a gilded and
jeweled umbrella top, pointing to heaven.  On its steps, beside the huge paw
of a stone lion, a monk sat in full lotus, his face shadowed by the animal
rising massive and lumpy and mock fierce above him.  The lion's flanks were
dyed orange by sunset, its lips stained the color of dried blood.  The minutes
passed, and the monk's voice droned, his face in shadow.

   "Come tour the temples of ancient Pagan," a voice said.  "Shwezigon,
Ananda, Thatbyinnu--"

   "Go away," Gonzales said to the tour cart that had rolled up behind him.
It would hold two dozen or so passengers in eight rows of narrow wooden
benches but was now empty--almost all the tourists would have joined the crush
on the terraces of Thatbyinnu, where they could watch the sun set over the
temple plain.

   "Last tour of the day," the cart said.  "Very cheap, also very good
exchange rate offered as courtesy to visitors."

   It wanted to exchange kyats for dollars or yen: in Myanmar, even the
machines worked the black market.  "No thanks."

   "Extremely good rate, sir."

   "Fuck off," Gonzales said.  "Or I'll report you as defective."  The cart
whirred as it moved away.

   Gonzales watched a young monk eyeing him from the other side of the road,
ready to come across and beg for pencils or money.  Gonzales caught the monk's
eye and shook his head.  The monk shrugged and walked on, his orange robe
billowing.

   `Where the hell was his plane?'  Soon hunter flares would cut into the new
moon's dark, and government drones would scurry around the edges of the
shadows like huge mutant bats.  Upcountry Myanmar trembled on the edge of
chaos, beset by a multi-ethnic mix of Karens, Kachins, and Shans in various
political postures, all fierce, all contemptuous of the central government.
They fought with whatever was at hand, from sharpened stick to backpack
missile, and they only quit when they died.

   A high-pitched wail built quickly until it filled the air.  Within seconds
a silver swing-wing, an ungainly thing, each huge rectangular wing loaded with
a bulbous, oversized engine pod, came low over the dark mass of forest.  Its
running lights flashing red and yellow, the swing-wing slewed to a stop above
the field, wings tilting to the perpendicular and engine sound dropping into
the bass.  Its spots picked out a ten-meter circle of white light that the
aircraft dropped into, blowing clouds of sand that swept over Gonzales in a
whirlwind.  The inverted fans' roar dropped to a whisper, and with a creak the
plane kneeled on its gear, placing the cockpit almost on the ground.  Gonzales
picked up his bags and walked toward the plane.  A ladder unfolded with a
hydraulic hiss, and Gonzales stepped up and into the plane's bubble.

   "Mikhail Gonzales?" the pilot asked.  His multi-function flight glasses
were tilted back on his forehead, where their mirrored ovoid lenses made a
blank second pair of eyes; a thin strand of black fiberoptic cable trailed
from their rim.  Beneath the glasses, his thin face was brown and seamed-- `no
cosmetic work for this guy', Gonzales thought.  The man wore a throwaway
"tropical" shirt with dancing pink flamingos on a navy blue background.

   "That's me," Gonzales said.  He gestured with the shock-case in his right
hand, and the pilot toggled a switch that opened the luggage locker.  Gonzales
put his bags into the steel compartment and watched as the safety net pulled
tight against the bags and the compartment door closed.  He took a seat in the
first of eight empty rows behind the pilot.  Cushions sighed beneath him, and
from the seatback in front of him a feminine voice said, "You should engage
your harness.  If you need instructions, please say so now."

   Gonzales snapped closed the trapezoidal catch where shoulder and lap belts
connected, then stretched against the harness, feeling the sweat dry on his
skin in the plane's cool interior.  "Thank you," said the voice.

   The pilot was speaking to Myaung U Airport traffic control as the plane
lifted into twilight over the city.  The soft white glow from the dome light
vanished, then there were only the last moments of orange sunlight coming
through the bubble.

   The temple plain was spread out beneath, all murk and shadow, with the
temple and pagoda spires reaching up toward the light, white stucco and gold
tinted red and orange.

   "Man, that's a beautiful sight," the pilot said.

   "You're right," Gonzales said.  It was, but he'd seen it before, and
besides, it had already been a long day.

   The pilot flipped his glasses down, and the plane banked left and headed
south along the river.  Gonzales lay back in his seat and tried to relax.

   They flew above black water, following the Irrawady River until they
crossed an international flyway to Bangkok.  Dozing in the interior darkness,
Gonzales was almost asleep when he heard the pilot say, "Shit, somebody's
here.  Partisan attack group, probably--no recognition codes.  Must be flying
ultralights--our radar didn't see them.  We've got an image now, though."

   "Any problem?" Gonzales asked.

   "Just coming for a look.  They don't bother foreign charters."  And he
pointed to their transponder message flashing above the primary displays:

THIS INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT IS NON-MILITARY.
IT CLAIMS RIGHT OF PASSAGE UNDER U.N. ACT OF 2020.

It would keep on repeating until they crossed into Thai airspace.

   The flight computer display lit bright red with COLLISION WARNING, and a
Klaxon howl filled the plane's interior.  The pilot said, "Fuck, they
launched!"  The swing-wing's turbines screamed full out as the plane's
computer took command, and the pilot's hands gripped his yoke, not guiding,
just hanging on.

   Gonzales's straps pulled tight as the plane tumbled and fell, corkscrewed,
looped, climbed again--smart metal fish evading fiery harpoons.  Explosions
blossomed in the dark, quick asymmetrical bursts of flame followed immediately
by hard thumping sounds and shock waves that knocked the swing-wing as it
followed its chaotic path through the night.

   Then an aircraft appeared, flaring in fire that surged around it, its pilot
in blazing outline--a stick figure with arms thrown to the sky in the instant
before pilot and aircraft disintegrated in flame.

   Their own flight went steady and level, and control returned to the pilot's
yoke.  Gonzales's shocked retinas sparkled as the night returned to blackness.
"Collision averted," the plane's computer said.  "Time in red zone, six point
eight nine seconds."

   "What the hell?" Gonzales said.  "What happened?"

   "Holy Jesus motherfucker," the pilot said.

   Gonzales sat gripping his seat, chilled by the blast of cold air from the
plane's air conditioner onto his sweat-soaked shirt.  He glanced down to his
lap: no, he hadn't pissed himself.  Really, everything happened too quickly
for him to get that scared.

   A Mitsubishi-McDonnell "Loup Garou" warplane dived in front of them and
circled in slow motion.  Like the ultralights it was cast in matte black, but
with a massive fuselage.  It turned a slow barrel roll as it circled them,
lazy predator looping fat, slow prey, then turned on brilliant floods that
played across their canopy.

   The pilot and Gonzales both froze in the glare.

   Then the Loup Garou's black cockpit did a reverse-fade; behind the
transparent shell Gonzales saw the mirror-visored pilot, twin cables running
from the base of his neck.  The Loup Garou's wings slid forward into
reverse-sweep, and it stood on its tail and disappeared.

   Gonzales strained against his taut harness.

   "Assholes!" the pilot screamed.

   "Who was that?" Gonzales asked, his voice thin and shaking.  "What do you
mean?"

   "The Myanmar Air Force," the pilot said, his voice tight, face red beneath
the flight glasses' mirrors. "They set us up, the pricks.  They used us to
troll for a guerrilla flight."  The pilot flipped up his glasses and stared
with pointless intensity out the cockpit window, as if he could see through
the blackness.  "And waited," he said.  "Waited till they had the whole
flight."  The pilot swiveled around abruptly and faced Gonzales, his features
distorted into a mad and angry caricature of the man who had welcomed Gonzales
ninety minutes before.  "Do you know how fucking close we came?" he asked.

   No, Gonzales shook his head.  No.

   "Milliseconds, man.  Fucking milliseconds.  Close enough to touch," the
pilot said.  He swiveled his seat to face forward, and Gonzales heard its
locking mechanism click as he settled back into his own seat, fear and shame
spraying a wild neurochemical mix inside his brain--

   Gonzales had never felt things like this before--death down his spine and
up his gut, up his throat and nose, as close as his skin; death with a bad
smell...burning, burning.


                           *          *          *


   As the morning passed, the sun moved away from the stained glass, and the
room's interior went to gloom.  Only monitor lights remained lit, steady rows
of green above flickering columns of numbers on the light blue face of the
monitor panel.

   A housekeeping robot, a pod the size of a large goose, worked slowly across
the floor, nuzzled into the room's corners, then left the room, its motion
tentacles beneath it making a sound like wind through dry grass.



   The cockpit display flashed as landing codes fed through the flight
computer, then the swing-wing locked into the Bangkok landing grid and began
its slide down an invisible pipe.  They went to touchdown guided by electronic
hands.

   The pilot turned to Gonzales as they descended and said, "I'll have to file
a report on the attack.  But you're lucky--if we had landed in Myanmar,
government investigators would have been on you like white on rice, and you
could forget about leaving for days, maybe weeks.  You're okay now: by the
time they process the report and ask the Thais to hold you, you'll be gone."

   At the moment, the last thing Gonzales wanted to do was spend any time in
Myanmar.  "I'll get out as quickly as I can," he said.

   Now that it was all over, he could feel the Fear climbing in him like the
onset of a dangerous drug.  Trying to calm himself, he thought, `really,
nothing happened, except you got the shit scared out of you, that's all.'

   As the swing-wing settled on the pad, Gonzales stood and went to pick up
his luggage from the open baggage hold.  The pilot sat watching as the plane
went through its shutdown procedures.

   `Do something,' Gonzales said to himself, feeling panic mount.  He pulled
the memex's case out of the hold and said, "I want a copy of your flight
records."

   "I can't do that."

   "You can.  I'm working with Internal Affairs, and I was almost killed while
flying in your aircraft."

   "So was I, man."

   "Indeed.  But I need this data.  Later, IA will go the full official route
and pick everything up, but I need it now.  A quick dump into my machine here,
that's all it will take.  I'll give you authorization and receipt."  Gonzales
waited, keeping the pressure on by his insistent gaze and posture.

   The pilot said, "Okay, that ought to cover my ass."

   Gonzales slid the shock-case next to the pilot's seat, kneeled and opened
the lid.  "Are you recording?" he asked the pilot.

   The man nodded and said, "Always."

   "That's what I thought.  All right, then: for the record, this is Mikhail
Mikhailovitch Gonzales, senior employee of Internal Affairs Division, SenTrax.
I am acquiring flight records of this aircraft to assist in my investigation
of certain events that occurred during its most recent flight."  He looked at
the pilot.  "That should do it," he said.

   He pulled out a data lead from the case and snapped it into the access plug
on the instrument panel.  Lights flashed across the panel as data began to
spool into the quiescent memex.  The panel gonged softly to signal transfer
was complete, and Gonzales unplugged the lead and closed the case.  "Thanks,"
he said to the pilot, who sat staring out the cockpit bubble.

   Gonzales stood and patted the case and thought to himself, `hey, memex, got
a surprise for you when you wake up.'  He felt much better.



   A carry-slide hauled Gonzales a mile or so through a brightly- lit tunnel
with baby blue plastic and plaster walls marked with signs in half a dozen
languages promising swift retribution for vandalism.  Red and green virus
graffiti smeared everything, signs included, and as Gonzales watched, messages
in Thai and Burmese transmuted, and new stick figures emerged with dialogue
balloons saying god knows what.  A lone phrase in red paint read in English,
HEROIN ALPHA DEVIL FLOWER.  Shattered boxes of black fibroid or coarse sprays
of multi-wire cable marked where surveillance cameras had been.

   Grey floor-to-ceiling steel shutters blocked the narrow portal to
International Arrivals and Departures.  Faceless holoscan robots--dark,
wheeled cubes with carbon-fiber armor and tentacles and spiked sensor
antennas--worked the crowd, antennas swiveling.

   All around were Asian travelers, dark-suited men and women: Japanese,
Chinese, Malaysians, Indonesians, Thai.  They spread out from Asia's
"dragons," world centers of research and manufacturing, taking their low
margins and hard sell to Europe and the Americas, where consumption had become
a way of life.  Everywhere Gonzales traveled, it seemed, he found them: cadres
armed with technical and scientific prowess and fueled by persistent ambition.

   They formed the steel core of much of the world's prosperity.  The United
States and the dragons lived in uneasy symbiosis: the Asians had a hundred
ways of making sure the American economy didn't just roll over and die and
take the prime North American consumer market with it.  Whether Japanese,
Koreans, Taiwanese, Hong Kong Chinese-Canadians--they bought some corporations
and merged with others, and Americans ended up working for General Motors
Fanuc, Chrysler Mitsubishi, or Daewoo-DEC, and with their paychecks they
bought Japanese memexes, Korean autos, Malaysian robotics.

   Shutter blades cranked open with a quick scream of metal, and Gonzales
stepped inside.  An Egyptian guard in a white headdress, blue-and-white
checked headband, and gray U.N. drag cross-checked his i.d., gave a quick,
meaningless smile--teeth white and perfect under a black moustache--and waved
him on.

   Southeast Asian Faction Customs waited in the form of a small Thai woman in
a brown uniform with indecipherable scrawls across yellow badges.  Her
features were pleasant and impassive; she wore her black hair pulled tightly
back and held with a clear plastic comb.  She stood behind a gray metal table;
on the floor next to it was a two-meter high general purpose scanner, its
controls, screens, and read-outs hidden under a black cloth hood.  Dirty green
walls wore erratically-spaced signs in a dozen languages, detailing in small
type the many categories of contraband.

   The woman motioned for him to sit in the upright chair in front of the
table, then for him to put his clothes bag and cases on the table.

   She spoke, and the translator box at her waist echoed in clear, neuter
machine English: "Your person has been scanned and cleared."  She put the soft
brown bag into the mouth of the scanner, and the machine vetted the bag with a
quiet beep.  The woman slid it back to Gonzales.

   She spoke again, and the translator said, "Please open these cases" as she
pointed toward the two shock-cases.  For each, Gonzales screened the access
panel with his left hand and tapped in the entry codes with his right.  The
case lids lifted with a soft sigh.  Inside the cases, monitor and diagnostic
lights flashed above rows of memory modules, heavy solids of black plastic the
size of a small safety deposit box.

   Gonzales saw she was holding a copy of the Data Declaration Form the memex
had filled out in Myanmar and transmitted to both Myanmar and Thai
governments.  She looked into one of the cases and pointed to a row of
red-tagged and sealed memory modules.

   The translator's words followed behind hers and said, "These modules we
must hold to verify that they contain no contraband information."

   "Myanmar customs did so.  These are SenTrax corporate records."

   "Perhaps they are.  We have not cleared them."

   "If you wish, I will give you the access protocols.  I have nothing to
hide, but the modules are important to my work."

   She smiled.  "I do not have proper equipment.  They must be examined by
authorities in the city."  The translator's tones accurately reflected her
lack of concern.

   Gonzales sensed the onset of severe bureaucratic intransigence.  For
whatever occult reasons, this woman had decided to fuck him around, and the
harder he pushed, the worse things would be.  Give it up, then.  He said, "I
assume they will be returned to me as soon as possible."

   "Certainly.  After careful examination.  Though it is unlikely that the
examination can be completed before your departure."  She slid the case off
her desk and to the floor behind it.  She was smiling again, a satisfied
bureaucrat's smile.  She turned back to her console, Gonzales's case already a
thing of the past.  She looked up to see him still standing there and said,
"How else can I help you?"



   The machine-world began to disperse, turning to fog, and as it did, banks
of low-watt incandescents lit up around the room's perimeter, and the patterns
of console lights went through a series of rapid permutations as Gonzales was
brought to a waking state.  The room's lights had been full up for an hour
when the desynching series was complete and the egg began to split.

   Inside the egg Gonzales lay pale, nude, near-comatose, machine-connected: a
new millennium Snow White.  A flesh-colored catheter led from his
water-shrunken genitals, transparent iv feeds from both forearms.  White
sealant and anti-irritant paste had clotted around the tubes from throat and
mouth.  The sharp ozone smell of the paste was all over him.

   An autogurney had rolled next to the egg, and its hands, shining chrome
claws, began disconnecting tubes and leads.  Then it worked with hands and
black flexible arms the thickness of a stout rope to lift Gonzales from the
egg and onto its own surface.

   Gonzales woke up in his own bedroom and began to whimper.  "It's okay," the
memex whispered through the room's speaker.  "It's okay."

   Some time later Gonzales awoke again, lay in gloom and considered his
condition.  Some nausea, legs weak, but no apparent loss of gross motor
control, no immediate parapsychological effects (disorientations, amnesias,
synesthesias) ...

   Gonzales got up and went to the bathroom, stood amid white tile, polished
aluminum and mirrors and said, "Warm shower."  Water hissed, and the shower
stall door swung open.  The water ran down his skin and the sweat and paste
rolled off his body.

______________________________________________________________________________

Tom Maddox has published stories in _Omni_, _Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine_, and
in anthologies and magazines in the U. S. and abroad, including _Mirrorshades:
The Cyberpunk Anthology_.  The excerpts presented here are from _Halo_, his
first novel; it will be published in November of this year by Tor Books in the
U. S.  and Century Hutchinson in England.

He is currently the writing coordinator at The Evergreen State College,
Olympia, Washington.  On the net, he frequents rec.arts.books, alt.cyberpunk,
alt.postmodern, rec.arts.sf-lovers, and alt.flame; he has been involved in a
few moderately lunatic flame wars.  He plays blues guitar.  He was cited at
the end of _Neuromancer_ as the inventor of ICE.

maddox@blake.u.washington.edu
______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

				 Black Leaves

				Dana Goldblatt

			      copyright (c) 1990
______________________________________________________________________________

   Black leaves falling, all around; last autumn we had gold, orange, brown,
all bright or mottled with green and insect-tasted; now we have black, a shiny
brown-black like eyeliner, on whole and perfect leaves, which refuse even to
decay.  They rule in dark splendor over every lawn with trees.

   And the deciduous do not darken alone.  The evergreens too feel the blight,
if it is a blight.  Whole pine forests are dropping black needles in the
places pines grow; Christmas tree wholesalers are desperate.  The science
section of the newspaper had a long article on the problem, the point of which
was that no one understood what the problem was.  No one even knew about it
before last year; and few believed it to be serious before this September.

   We shall all suffocate slowly, my husband says.  He is referring to the
common belief that it is the world's forests which supply our oxygen.  I do
not trust this.  There are too many other plants for the trees to be so vital,
I think.

   We are going to the woods, he and I, and our daughter, to see something
which may be going out of the world.


   Packing the supplies we need in several boxes and putting those into the
trunk on top of the tent, I am able to stop thinking over and over that this
is the last camping trip I shall take.  I am able to trust my mind while my
hands are occupied.

   Tricia helped me pack for a while but tired quickly and went to take a nap.
Now she will be awake for the ride, which means whining and silly games.  If I
am lucky, Allen will be in a cheerful mood and keep her occupied; otherwise I
will have to do it.  When we return, the leaves will cover the lawn, and we
will not be able to see the grass.

   Allen read an article from the December issue of `Geo Science' on the
train this afternoon.  Photosynthesis has been replaced by a different but
closely related process in trees, which releases ammonia in small quantities,
as well as oxygen and carbon dioxide.  It creates some kind of long chainlike
molecules in the leaves.  Allen says it's like the leaves are a plastic
factory instead of a food factory.

   I told him that was impossible, it would kill the trees.  It is killing
them, he said.  I still didn't believe it, but I stopped arguing.  He'd read
the article, not me.

   Soon we are on our way to the campgrounds.  Tricia plays window Bingo with
Allen while I drive.  The colorful billboards are a contrast to the black
trees.



   We put our tent up yesterday evening at twilight.  When we arrived, there
were at least thirty tents and motor homes; by the time we got our tent
assembled nearly ten had left.

   This morning there were fifteen still here.  Allen and I dressed ourselves
and Tricia and set out on a nature hike.  Spotting a small yellow flower with
dark green leaves, I asked Allen its name, was surprised that he didn't know.
Tricia picked some dandelions.  Except for the lack of brilliant foliage, the
woods seemed the same as on any late October weekend.

   We returned to our tent, Tricia clutching a fistful of dandelions with a
black-eyed susan reigning over the bouquet.  Allen had picked a handful of
leaves off a maple tree which seemed especially afflicted.  Its bark was much
darker than it should have been, according to Allen.  Having scattered the
dandelions on the ground and placed the black- eyed susan on her sleeping bag,
Tricia wandered over to where Allen and I sat talking.  She wanted one of his
black leaves; they were shinier and more attractive to her than the ones on
the ground outside.  Allen gave her one.

   I went to check on her and found her chewing on the leaf.  Snatching it out
of her hand wasn't enough; she'd swallowed some.  Did she feel sick, Allen
asked.  No, she was fine.  I'd taken her leaf away, Tricia said, even though
she always chewed on leaves and grass blades at home.

   I tried to get Allen to take her to a hospital.  You're being hysterical,
he said.  It was just a leaf.  But these aren't just leaves, I said.  They
have ammonia, and plastic, and all that awful stuff in them.  She'll be fine,
he said.  Do you want to upset her? he asked.  But she did get sick.  She got
a terrible stomach ache and vomited until she was exhausted; we left the
campground and arrived home early this evening.  She seems to be completely
recovered.  I hope I will sleep well tonight; I should, since I will be in my
own bed.

   I slept badly last night.  I dreamed Tricia had died; her corpse was black
and shiny.  We laid her out in her coffin, covered her with black flowers and
took her to the cemetery.  Our minister, our friends, my parents all stood
around the grave as Allen talked about long chainlike molecules.  In the
cemetery, there was grass as far as I could see: not one blade was green.

______________________________________________________________________________

Dana Goldblatt never has admitted to preferring science fiction
over other forms of fiction, except when it was cheaper at used
bookstores.  She started writing stories for fun in high school, but
didn't finish any until after she graduated.  When she was an editor
of Brandeis University's literary magazine, _Kether_, she
started writing a lot more often.  Dana is currently a graduate
student in computer science, and is still attending Brandeis.

dana@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu
______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

			    The Harrison Chapters

				  Chapter 4

				Jim Vassilakos

			      copyright (c) 1990
______________________________________________________________________________

   Mike leaned against the wall and squinted into the cool, scented spray as
it stung his face and shoulders and dissolved into a fine, white mist, pools
gathering in clusters and slipping down his aching body to the hexagonal tiles
below. He vaguely wondered what he would tell Linden, trying to rehearse the
words in his mind. "Oh, remember that guy with the android who kidnapped Niki
and bugged your offices and home? Yeah, he's really an okay guy.  I was just
talking to him this morning. He decided not to jettison me out his torpedo
tubes. Isn't that the nicest thing?"

   Robin was in the next room prying about, trying to glean information about
him from every facet of his life. Boss's orders, she explained, but she
approached the assignment with a curiosity beyond mere orders. He hardly knew
her and she was already getting on his nerves.

   "Okay. Dry now." The spray shut off and short blasts of warm air jetted
from the sides of the stall. A clear bowl-shaped device lowered itself from
the ceiling until it surrounded his head. He shut his eyes as hot air jets
whipped around his ears.  In a few moments Mike stepped out of the stall and
looked for the threads. Robin had laid a black three piece suit out for him.
He hated formal wear, but he knew the occasion warranted it. Quickly dressing,
he grabbed a comb and then set it back down as it scratched bare flesh. He
found a formal hat beside the imager.

   Robin, dressed in a long white evening dress, sat on the couch bent over
the Niko camera system with its various parts sprawled across the living room
floor. She had been sifting through pictures in storage and apparently one had
caught her fancy.

   "What're you up to?" Mike approached cautiously remembering the last
night's incident and the pain she could inflict.

   "I didn't know you had another Siri. Who's this one?"

   Mike glanced at the picture on the screen. A young Siri woman, perhaps five
years older than Niki, stood facing a large triangular lake finished in
polished black stone centered around three fountains outlined by the dim amber
light of Calanna's dying red sun. Her eyes, dark and bitter, seemed to cast a
shadow across the black stone tiles upon which naked symbols were etched like
tortured spirits, bonded to the stone for all eternity. Mike remembered the
sacrificial alter for all its beauty and pain; and as if by reflex, he reached
to the monitor and the screen went black.

   Robin looked up startled, "I was just looking."

   "She was an old friend. You wanna go?"

   "There's still another hour. What's your hurry?" She stood up and walked
into the bedroom.

   "Nothin'. What's yours?" Mike packed the camera into its case and continued
to ponder what he would tell Chuck. He walked to the bedroom, pausing before
the door, reflecting what Robin might be doing. He tried to take into account
the fact that she was an android, but with everything that happened, it still
seemed impossible.

   "I always did like a girl who was straight-forward." He smiled at the poor
taste of his comment.

   "Excuse me?"

   Mike entered the room to see Robin hooked up to the computer system via a
thin clear cord leading into the comm-socket from her ear. Suddenly he found
it not so hard to think of her as an android.

   "What are you doing to Cindy?"

   "Talking," she smiled. "You have everything locked up real tight. No access
to private files."

   Mike felt relieved. For a moment he debated inwardly between snapping her
cord or just yanking it out of her ear. The thought made him grin.

   "Cindy, give Robin all the information you have on the Nissithiu."

   "It is done, Michael."

   Robin unplugged and the thin cord automatically retracted into her head.
Mike felt generous, as if he had a choice in the matter.

   Robin stared at him for a moment before speaking. "What makes you so sure?"

   Mike shrugged, "The facts fit. C'mon, let's go see Linden."



   The subway to Greenflower was slower than most since it traveled above the
surface for much of the ride. Mike imagined that its architect preferred
monorails with their visual entertainment of clearings, crop-land, and rolling
hills speeding quickly by the windows to the functional subways which moved a
person tens of kilometers in a matter of a few minutes without anything to
look at except bare earth along the way. True, the subway to Greenflower was
more pleasant than most, but it wasn't really a subway.

   Robin didn't seem particularly impressed, however. She kept studying Mike
and the other passengers, and when she caught Mike watching she even faked a
yawn. It didn't bother Mike, but he didn't like it either. If she was going to
fake a human characteristic, better that she should fake being delighted to
see the trees dashing by or the rushing sound the wind made whenever the
tracks would turn. That was what he liked so much about Niki. She was always
so happy just to experience and be alive. That was what he envied most about
her ever since the day he met her at the Psi Institute on Tizar after his last
return from Calanna. He liked her so much he didn't even bother checking out
the full range of her talents, and when he had found out how limited they
were, Mike still decided to keep her on.

   Niki was not nearly as talented as her predecessor in the picture, but she
was happier all the same, though even that could become irritating sometimes.
Robin on the other hand was either dead or cruel. Mike smiled at the thought,
because he knew he was being too judgemental, but it seemed true all the same.
Robin had her excuse, however; she was an android. Her makers wouldn't program
her so she could have a good time. Anything as state of the art as herself
would have some purpose. Mike, on the other hand, was human. He wondered what
his excuse might be.

   The train pulled into the Greenflower station. The Lion's Den was only on
the neighboring hillside looking down over a bluff onto the inland town. It
was perhaps a twenty minute walk, fifteen if they hurried, two or three if
they took a taxi. Mike felt like walking but realized he wouldn't have a
choice as two men in green uniforms entered the compartment.

   "Galactican security," one drily announced, "Please come with us."



   Every mega-corporation was like a nation state; they all had their own
private police, whether the company specialized in cargo transport, starship
construction, agricultural production, or news gathering and dissemination.
The Galactican was no exception, and on every world under its scope it
recruited from the ranks of the planetary ground command. The people they
invariably got were low quality mercenaries who couldn't cut it in an
interstellar outfit. That knowledge kept the ground cop humble in comparison
with his starlaw counterpart. It was a quality Mike appreciated.

   The two security officers led Mike and Robin to a grav-car outside the
subway. The cool evening air enveloped them as the taller of the men fiddled
with the electronic keypad-lock. The other rested his hand on his holster, his
rough fingers lightly touching the handle of his automatic, while his eyes
stared at the back of Robin's neck. The gun looked like army ordinance.  Mike
guessed that the short clip contained armor piercing bullets.

   Once inside the car, they sped up the hillside toward the Lion's Den. With
variable altitude control, the ride was non- stop; and cars on cross-aisles
sped above or below at intersections. Within two minutes they had settled
outside the banquet hall, the tall statue pillars of the building suggested a
certain elegance of manner which Mike knew would be lacking within. The tall
officer motioned for Mike to follow as he withdrew from the car toward the
white stone building.

   Mike looked over his shoulder as the shorter guard stood blocking the door,
"What about her?"

   "She stays here," the tall one answered.

   Mike followed the security officer into the building, noticing familiar
faces smiling and nodding in every direction. Linden sat at the front table
flanked by the departmental heads. Mike approached cautiously, catching
Linden's eye as he walked toward the table.

   "Mike!" It was Niki. Bill stood behind her, his long dark hair combed back
and knotted. Several heads turned suddenly from the crowd.

   "We thought you might not..."

   "I know," He cut her short. "What did you tell Chuck?"

   "Everything," Bill responded first. "When you didn't come back... what
happened?"

   Mike scowled, "Things are screwed up. I've gotta see Chuck."

   "Hold on a sec..."

   Mike cut through the crowd toward the editor. Linden wore a blue suit and a
confident smile. He stood up as Mike reached the table, and several of the
department heads followed the editor's example, offering their hands to Mike
as the guard took an unobtrusive position in the background.

   "Gentlemen, you know Mr. Harrison."

   "Good to see you again young man, you're doing a great job for the paper."

   "I hear you will be speaking tonight, Mr. Harrison."

   "That was a brilliant piece on Telmar."

   Mike shook their hands and exchanged pleasantries before pulling Linden
aside.

   "Chuck, we have to talk"

   Linden kept smiling, "You bet."

   "Now."

   Once they were outside, Linden dropped his show smile, "Okay, what
happened."

   Mike let out a long breath, taking his hat off as an opener.  Linden
blinked with astonishment at the shaven head and short metal barbs.

   "...what the... you okay?"

   "For starters, I've got to wear these until I get away from our psychotic,
android friend. Clay wants me to take Robin to Calanna to find Fork, and I
don't think he's an Imp."

   "He's not," Linden stopped staring when the hat went back on.  "We checked
over that disk you stole from the Solomon estate. The one you planted on Niki
for us to find."

   Mike nodded, "Anything juicy?"

   "It seems a lot of people were visiting Mr. Solomon that day.  Many are
listed as tourists. Other's as diplomats. We think they may be spies."

   "Azazi?"

   "Draconian Corporation. You stumbled onto something very big."

   Mike tried to puzzle everything together in his head, but none of the
pieces matched.

   "Have you informed the government."

   Linden shook his head, "And blow the story? No way."

   Mike gulped down wondering how long he could go to prison for concealing
information about Draconian spies. He finally looked up, "What do I do?"

   "Take her to Calanna. Get into her programming over there."

   "We can do that better over here."

   "No," Linden stared into the reporter's eyes. "Mike, we've already agreed
that somebody had to get into my office and home to plant those bugs, and that
somebody was probably in security.  If they have and agent in security, they
could just as easily have ten in technical. Get the job done on Calanna. It'll
be more quiet that way."

   Mike looked down to the grassy turf below his feet, "Okay. Get me a ship
and I'm off."



   "Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that more than generous introduction. It is
certainly a pleasure to be here, and to speak to such a distinguished
assemblage of colleagues, employers, and guests."

   There was a titter from the audience as Michael Harrison surveyed the
banquet hall. There were easily over a hundred people present and none who
knew what he was about to say, himself included. Mike tried to concentrate on
what they wanted to hear, but his head was still dizzy from the events of the
day, and he felt a cold sweat beneath the hat as the metal implants began to
itch.

   "As Mr. Jaden pointed out, I've been working for the Galactican for a very
short time, and my work experience often borders on the fantastic, so whatever
advice I have to share with my colleagues, whatever incriminations I have to
send to my employers, and whatever insights I have to give to our guests
tonight, should all be taken with a granule of sodium-chloride.

   "Investigative gathering is a very individualistic effort; everybody in the
business has their own style and way of tackling a case, so be forewarned that
what works fine for me will probably fail miserably for you."

   This time there was laughter from the audience. Mike began to relax and let
the words flow. His trick was just to keep speaking and never really think
about what he was saying. As long as his mouth kept moving, shovelling out the
meaningless phrases stuck together with the pointless glue that was public
speaking, he'd be through with his obligation in no time.

   But underneath the cool exterior his mind began to wander away from the
speech. Being an engaged speaker was what they taught in oral communications.
He remembered the class well enough. He remembered two of his instructor's pet
phrases: "Reach out to your audience;" "speak with them, not at them." Mike
inwardly smiled remembering how he had passed the class: by being disengaged.
Speaking was frightening enough, let alone engaged speaking. Mike always had
an alternate method, for almost everything. He liked to experiment until he
found out for himself what worked best.

   The same was true with investigative reporting. Some guys would read the
morning updates until they found something interesting, and then they'd go and
research a spin-off. Others would carry a team of news-hounds, usually young
people just entering the workforce who were looking for a few extra credits.
Mike decided to rent-a-psyche.

   He could have found John Doe #17 any of the other ways, but the fact was
that Niki found him the day she visited the med-center for a psi-rating test.
She had contacted the institute on Tizar and they referred her to Dr.
Albertus. After the test she was still keyed-up and open to psi-emissions as
they were called. That was the day they brought Fork into D-ward.

   "D" was for Disaster. He had been apprehended in a cafeteria at the
starport with a bloody fork in his hand. It was the real kind, not like the
grav-utensils which couldn't hurt a flee. He must have been from off-world.
There was no record of him anywhere in the planetary directory. And to top it
off, he had no identification what-so-ever. Niki just happened to sense his
total confusion while walking by the two nurses who were transporting a wacko
to solitary, bound in a straight-jacket and tied to a stretcher. It had been
in the updates, any nurse news- hound could have called somebody on the floor,
but as it happened, Niki spotted the opportunity and took it. That's the way
the dice fell, and Mike couldn't say he was any happier for it.

   Fork was messed up, that anyone could tell, but what nobody had known was
that the damage had been the result of a mind- scanner. It took a trained
"psyche" to know that. Even sophisticated medical equipment could miss it. It
was that little bit of knowledge which everyone else had carelessly avoided
that gave Mike a story. To each, his own.

   The mind-scanner was an expensive piece of technology far more advanced
than the sensatizer Mike had so recently experienced. It attempted to do what
any well-trained Siri could do, read the mind of its victim. Victim was the
word to use, because mental damage was often associated with over-zealous use
of the equipment. If someone was well trained at hiding a secret inside their
mind, all that there was to do was kill a few brain cells until such training
departed. And then, sometimes, the scanner wasn't used to get secrets. On rare
occasions, it was used to maim. Mike believed that Fork's was such a case; and
he believed that the Imps were the responsible party.

   But how did the Draconians enter into it? That was the piece of the puzzle
Mike couldn't place. It hinted at something much larger in scope, something
which dwarfed both Mike and Fork and all of Tizar. It was the real itch that
he couldn't yet scratch, until he got to Calanna.

   "Being a reporter for an interstellar news syndicate also has certain
fringe benefits, not entirely immaterial. For starters, nobody wants to piss
you off."

   Mike looked around. Everywhere he saw people laughing. He hoped they were
laughing with him and not at his obvious lies.

   "Another, and this one is just as critical as it sounds, is that often if
there is an important public figure you need to interview, that person will
generally take time out of their busy schedule to get some good press, whereas
if you were working for some two-bit firm out of Arcadia..." he stopped for a
wide if sheepish grin, "I hope there's nobody here from Arcadia tonight..."
The audience was loving it.

   Except for one person. She sat in a corner near the back. Her dark features
were not so stern as they were indifferent, but her eyes were as sharp and
cold as steel. She seemed vaguely unimpressed, and Mike felt his heart skip a
beat as she stared directly through him.

   "The last fringe benefit I can bring to mind, tonight, is that after the
story is written and published and read by the masses, the reporter gets to
speak to a distinguished assemblage of his colleagues, employers, and guests.
That's always a lot of fun."

   The entire audience tilted on the edges of their seats, hands poised in
clapping-position.

   "And with that I'd like to return control of this honors banquet to one of
my most esteemed employers, your friend and mine, Mr. Ray Jaden. Mr.
Chairman."

   Mike hurried away from the lectern amidst raucous applause from a mostly
standing audience, and took his seat next to Niki and Bill. They both
congratulated him with pats on the back, and Mike guessed that the speech went
okay, though he still hadn't the faintest inkling to know what is was that he
said.

   "Nice speech buddy."

   "Thanks Bill."

   "... cept, next time I'd leave out that part about taking a dump outside
the Cubbyhole."

   Mike turned around, "What?"

   "You 'member. When we came back from Telmar and got..."

   "I didn't." Mike felt his mouth drop open.

   Bill's face broke into a grin, "Just kidding, Mike."

   Mike sighed with relief as Walker laughed, "You have to admit, I had you
goin'."

   Bill Walker was one of the few people who really knew how Mike worked. Mike
tried to teach him everything, and in the end he'd taught Bill too much. Now
he'd do his best just to hide things from the younger gatherer.

   Mike looked over his shoulder and saw the woman in the corner.  She was
still focused on him. He turned around but could feel her stare boring into
the back of his skull. Her face was familiar, but he couldn't place it. Some
foreign official, he decided.

   "Bill, who's the woman in that corner in the white dress, nothing over the
shoulders. She keeps looking over here."

   Bill took a half turn using the full extent of his peripheral vision, which
was far better than most people's. Mike figured that he had lots of practice.

   "She's turned around."

   "Well, she was..."

   "Wait. It's Draconian Ambassador Kato. Don't you read the paper? Oh, of
course. Look who I'm talking to. Forget I asked."

   "Don't let it happen again," Mike used his best Draconian accent. It
sounded absurdly frustrated, and Bill laughed.

   "I think she likes you."

   "Shut-up."

   Natasia Uhambra Kato was the permanent Draconian envoy to Tizar. It was
uncommon for her to attend social gatherings unless she was required to do so
