“Offworld? Where’d you go?” The excitement in his voice was unmistakable, barely held back by the ghost of breeding. The Glimmer system has no habitable planets apart from Harlan’s World. Tentative terraforming down the plane of the ecliptic on Glimmer V won’t yield useful results for another century. Offworld for a Harlanite means a stellar-range needle cast, shrugging off your physical self and re-sleeving somewhere light years distant under an alien sun. It’s all very romantic and in the public consciousness known needlecast riders are accorded a celebrity status somewhat akin to pilots back on earth during the days of intra-system spaceflight.

The fact that, unlike pilots, these latter-day celebrities don’t actually have to do anything to travel the hypercaster, the fact that in many cases they have no actual skills or stature other than their hypercast fame itself, doesn’t seem to impede their triumphant conquest of the public imagination.

Old Earth is the real jackpot destination, of course, but in the end it doesn’t seem to make much difference where you go, so long as you come back. It’s a favourite boost technique for fading experia stars and out-of-favour Millsport courtesans. If you can just somehow scrape up the cost of the ‘cast, you’re more or less guaranteed years of well-paid coverage in the skullwalk magazines.

That, of course, doesn’t apply to Envoys. We just used to go silently, crush the odd planetary uprising, topple the odd regime, and then plug in something UN-compliant that worked. Slaughter and suppression across the stars, for the greater good—naturally—of a unified Protectorate.

I don’t do that any more.

“Did you go to Earth?”

“Among other places.” I smiled at a memory that was getting on for a century out of date. “Earth’s a shit-hole, Plex. Static fucking society, hyper-rich immortal overclass, cowed masses.”

He shrugged and poked morosely at the sushi with his chopsticks.

“Sounds just like this place.”

“Yeah.” I sipped some more whisky. There were a lot of subtle differences between Harlan’s World and what I’d seen on Earth, but I couldn’t be bothered to lay them out right now. “Now you come to mention it.”

“So what are you. Oh, fuck!”

For a moment I thought he was just fumbling the bottleback sushi.

Shaky feedback on the holed synth sleeve, or maybe just shaky close-to dawn weariness on me. It took me whole seconds to look up, track his gaze to the bar and the door, make sense of what was there.

The woman seemed unremarkable at first glance—slim and competent looking, in grey coveralls and a nondescript padded jacket, unexpectedly long hair, face pale to washed-out. A little too sharp-edged for sweeper crew, maybe. Then you noticed the way she stood, booted feet set slightly apart, hands pressed flat to the mirrorwood bar, face tipped forward, body preternaturally immobile. Then your eyes went back to that hair and—