The thing is, Shaeffer knows too much. A man who has seen Julian Forward’s miniature black hole and the tools he used to make it a weapon should not be running loose. (Feather Filip had told me that, but I believed it.) The money is trivial…well, trivial given that it will never be paid. But Shaeffer needs the money; he won’t run away from that.

I watched the eternal show of Fafnir’s sea life for a time in case I was being watched myself I fished my flat portable out—less advanced than Ander’s, purchased locally—and tapped at it idly. Addresses popped up, with transfer booth numbers. Some I filed, filling in a map.

People went in and out of the booths. Maybe one was an ARM planting cameras. Maybe not.

So I strolled into the near booth. Got to kill some time—right, Ander?—or the waiting will drive me nuts. My card in the slot. Look at the wall, watch the advertisements flow past (discreetly small, by city law), and presently tap out a number.

There were places a single might visit. They advertised on the walls of transfer booths. I’d never been in one—honest, Sharrol! But when the booth flicked me in, I didn’t see anything surprising.

It was noisy and close. They were dressed to catch the eye, in those bodysuits with windows, men and women both. The dim light favored them, and holograms of real and fantasy worlds made a distracting magic. Eyes looked me over, judging, not liking what they saw.

On every world some singles nodes welcome the tourist trade; some don’t.

How they knew me I can’t guess, because Shashters are a varied lot. But I was not welcome here. One or two men were preparing to tell me so. I retrieved my Persial January Hebert card, stepped from the booth, and walked straight to the door faster than they could decide, and then out.

Any flatlander who followed me through might well be delayed.

I was hoping to see a restaurant or juice bar, but I didn’t. Around the nearest corner, then, and here was a public booth. I didn’t use the card. I used coins.

My ears felt the pressure drop. What I saw as I stepped from the booth was a patchy cityscape. These were the Disneys, a cluster of ten coral peaks linked to another dozen by slidebridges. It was still night. A shadow blocked a patch of stars: a wedge-shaped dirigible just departing from the Flying Island terminal.

You wouldn’t find more than one dirigible company to an island. Why risk dirigibles floating into each other when any customer can take a booth to the next island over? There were four terminals in the Disneys, all on outlying islands.

From the Flying Island terminal I began walking.