[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Eurasians were flying SSTs. If he took the early flight to Odessa, he could
get an SST connection direct into Semipalatinsk by early afternoon, even with
the four-hour time difference; but the fare was high compared to the subsonic
alternatives, and Roxy hadn't been kidding when she warned him that Western
currency wouldn't stretch very far. He didn't want to use his credit cards
-because of the risk of giving anyone with the right contacts or access
procedures an audit trail of his movements despite superficial East-West
differences, he didn't know what arrangements might exist between security
agencies. And it was still only December 3. The launch that Ashling was
scheduled on wasn't until the sixth. Samurai still had plenty of time.
The Air Moldavskaja flight tomorrow afternoon would get him into Odessa at
5:00 p.m. local time, with a connection later that evening to Volgograd. From
there, a long Aerospaceflot night flight would arrive in Novosibirsk at the
ungodly hour of 4:40 a.m., from where an early morning flight south to the
Kazachskij Republic got into Semi-palatinsk at 8:30. That would be on the
morning of the fifth, still giving him a full day to locate Ashling. Of the
two morning flights to Odessa, the first was too early, and a quick study of
the connections showed that the second wouldn't gain him anything.
Accordingly, he booked a seat on the afternoon flight. Any misgivings that he
might still have had about being traceable from passenger lists were quickly
dispelled: the ticket carried flight details only, without requiring a name.
Tomorrow morning, he decided, could usefully be spent shopping to replace the
clothes and other things that he'd left with his bag in the police building at
Zittau.
* * *
A branch of the local rapid transit system, running -every two minutes through
a glass-walled flyover, connected the terminal to a hotel complex by the
airport approaches. From the view out of the car as it passed above traffic
ramps and parking lots, much of the surroundings seemed to be still under
construction, with concrete being poured under arc lights into huge steel and
timber forms, and cranes working into the evening. But the hotel section
itself, when he got there, was more or less complete, even if still lacking in
some of the finishing touches of comfort and decor, and Samurai had no trouble
getting a room for the night.
Page 220
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The room came with bathrobe, disposable slippers, and a complimentary kit of
toilet articles, he discovered, so at least he would be comfortable until
morning. On a less salubrious note, an automatic dispenser offered candy,
alco-hol, coffee, tobacco, and a selection of drugs, right there in the room.
The local business and entertainments directory included with the hotel guide
listed sexual companionship straight, gay, male, female, or both alongside
where to shop, places to eat, music and shows, and the old city's museums and
medieval churches. Guns were advertised openly, and there was a school of
erotic moviemaking. The police even ran an ad giving a get-you-home-safe
number that drunks could call to avoid driving. Farther on, Samurai was
astounded to read that a private investigative agency in the city included
"legally sanctioned homicides" in its list of professional services.
But at least there was some comfort in the thought that self-destruction
would inevitably overtake such a society before it could proceed too far with
the destruction of everything else. He could see why many of the West's
analysts had concluded that eventually the solution would have to be a
military one.
He ate later in the hotel restaurant. The food was ample and varied, but
irresponsibly nonselective. Service, although efficient, was performed with a
presumptuous familiarity that bordered on insolence. The host who showed
Samurai to a table joked about American "neurotics" as if there were something
wrong with being educated about dietary risks, and then added insult by
referring to the U.S. -Bureau of Environmental Control as the Green Gestapo.
Later, the waitress, as she was clearing the dishes, asked Samurai if he was
on his own here. When he replied that he was, she murmured that she finished
her shift at ten and could stay an extra hour "for half the rate you'll get in
town."
A big, bearded man dining at the next table overheard and cautioned Samurai
not to have anything to do with it. "It's a rip-off. She'll talk the money out
of you ahead of time, then no-show. By the time she gets back on her next
shift you'll be a thousand miles away. She wouldn't try it on us, but
Westerners get taken every time."
Samurai was outraged. "Why doesn't someone tell the management about it?" he
demanded.
"They already know."
"What! And they don't do anything?"
"What should they do?"
"Well, get it stopped. Fire her or something."
"Why? Whose rights are being violated?"
Page 221
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Samurai gestured helplessly with a hand and shook his head. "But hell, their
staff, their room?"
"She's not 'theirs.' She works the hours for them that she contracts to,
that's all. And so long as you're paying the charge, it's your room."
It still didn't sound right to Samurai. "Well, if it's a rip-off, doesn't the
hotel figure its customers have a right to be protected?" he said.
The bearded man thought about it. "Maybe," he conceded. "But they probably
figure they're doing them a bigger favor by letting them learn not to be
stupid."
After dinner, Samurai wandered into the bar and permitted himself a vodka
with tonic. The place was raucous and noisy with what looked like engineers
and construction crew from the work going on all around the area, and a lot of
what Samurai assumed were local women. He left and wandered around a few more
parts of the complex that were sufficiently finished to be open for business,
but found them much the same. The atmosphere didn't appeal to him, so he
returned to his room and retired early.
* * *
More of the vicinity was visible the next morning. The airport adjoined what
was virtually a new industrial city springing up separate from the older,
historic capital of Transylvania, which dated from fortifications first
recorded in the thirteenth century and had been largely preserved as a
cultural center. The constructions that Samurai had seen from the plane lay
beyond the far edge of the airfield, and revealed themselves now as just one
end of a line of massive structures in various stages of completion extending
away for what must have been one to two miles, with tangles of service roads,
pipe runs, and latticeworks taking shape between them.
He asked about it at the hotel information desk and learned that the new city
was being developed as a spaceport and would become the region's principal
link to the Offworld independencies. Similar things were going on in Latvia
and the Belorussian Republic. The Eurasians, it seemed, regarded the
Consolidation as a temporary affair that was destined to fall apart, and the
westernmost FER states were vying for the Western European space business that
they expected to materialize when the Green Curtain came down.
Samurai didn't bother disagreeing. It was depressing enough to watch so much
effort and material being misdirected into pipe dreams. But the more chilling
thought was the ease with which such facilities could be converted for
military use when the orgy of profligacy ended and the FER was forced to turn [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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Eurasians were flying SSTs. If he took the early flight to Odessa, he could
get an SST connection direct into Semipalatinsk by early afternoon, even with
the four-hour time difference; but the fare was high compared to the subsonic
alternatives, and Roxy hadn't been kidding when she warned him that Western
currency wouldn't stretch very far. He didn't want to use his credit cards
-because of the risk of giving anyone with the right contacts or access
procedures an audit trail of his movements despite superficial East-West
differences, he didn't know what arrangements might exist between security
agencies. And it was still only December 3. The launch that Ashling was
scheduled on wasn't until the sixth. Samurai still had plenty of time.
The Air Moldavskaja flight tomorrow afternoon would get him into Odessa at
5:00 p.m. local time, with a connection later that evening to Volgograd. From
there, a long Aerospaceflot night flight would arrive in Novosibirsk at the
ungodly hour of 4:40 a.m., from where an early morning flight south to the
Kazachskij Republic got into Semi-palatinsk at 8:30. That would be on the
morning of the fifth, still giving him a full day to locate Ashling. Of the
two morning flights to Odessa, the first was too early, and a quick study of
the connections showed that the second wouldn't gain him anything.
Accordingly, he booked a seat on the afternoon flight. Any misgivings that he
might still have had about being traceable from passenger lists were quickly
dispelled: the ticket carried flight details only, without requiring a name.
Tomorrow morning, he decided, could usefully be spent shopping to replace the
clothes and other things that he'd left with his bag in the police building at
Zittau.
* * *
A branch of the local rapid transit system, running -every two minutes through
a glass-walled flyover, connected the terminal to a hotel complex by the
airport approaches. From the view out of the car as it passed above traffic
ramps and parking lots, much of the surroundings seemed to be still under
construction, with concrete being poured under arc lights into huge steel and
timber forms, and cranes working into the evening. But the hotel section
itself, when he got there, was more or less complete, even if still lacking in
some of the finishing touches of comfort and decor, and Samurai had no trouble
getting a room for the night.
Page 220
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The room came with bathrobe, disposable slippers, and a complimentary kit of
toilet articles, he discovered, so at least he would be comfortable until
morning. On a less salubrious note, an automatic dispenser offered candy,
alco-hol, coffee, tobacco, and a selection of drugs, right there in the room.
The local business and entertainments directory included with the hotel guide
listed sexual companionship straight, gay, male, female, or both alongside
where to shop, places to eat, music and shows, and the old city's museums and
medieval churches. Guns were advertised openly, and there was a school of
erotic moviemaking. The police even ran an ad giving a get-you-home-safe
number that drunks could call to avoid driving. Farther on, Samurai was
astounded to read that a private investigative agency in the city included
"legally sanctioned homicides" in its list of professional services.
But at least there was some comfort in the thought that self-destruction
would inevitably overtake such a society before it could proceed too far with
the destruction of everything else. He could see why many of the West's
analysts had concluded that eventually the solution would have to be a
military one.
He ate later in the hotel restaurant. The food was ample and varied, but
irresponsibly nonselective. Service, although efficient, was performed with a
presumptuous familiarity that bordered on insolence. The host who showed
Samurai to a table joked about American "neurotics" as if there were something
wrong with being educated about dietary risks, and then added insult by
referring to the U.S. -Bureau of Environmental Control as the Green Gestapo.
Later, the waitress, as she was clearing the dishes, asked Samurai if he was
on his own here. When he replied that he was, she murmured that she finished
her shift at ten and could stay an extra hour "for half the rate you'll get in
town."
A big, bearded man dining at the next table overheard and cautioned Samurai
not to have anything to do with it. "It's a rip-off. She'll talk the money out
of you ahead of time, then no-show. By the time she gets back on her next
shift you'll be a thousand miles away. She wouldn't try it on us, but
Westerners get taken every time."
Samurai was outraged. "Why doesn't someone tell the management about it?" he
demanded.
"They already know."
"What! And they don't do anything?"
"What should they do?"
"Well, get it stopped. Fire her or something."
"Why? Whose rights are being violated?"
Page 221
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Samurai gestured helplessly with a hand and shook his head. "But hell, their
staff, their room?"
"She's not 'theirs.' She works the hours for them that she contracts to,
that's all. And so long as you're paying the charge, it's your room."
It still didn't sound right to Samurai. "Well, if it's a rip-off, doesn't the
hotel figure its customers have a right to be protected?" he said.
The bearded man thought about it. "Maybe," he conceded. "But they probably
figure they're doing them a bigger favor by letting them learn not to be
stupid."
After dinner, Samurai wandered into the bar and permitted himself a vodka
with tonic. The place was raucous and noisy with what looked like engineers
and construction crew from the work going on all around the area, and a lot of
what Samurai assumed were local women. He left and wandered around a few more
parts of the complex that were sufficiently finished to be open for business,
but found them much the same. The atmosphere didn't appeal to him, so he
returned to his room and retired early.
* * *
More of the vicinity was visible the next morning. The airport adjoined what
was virtually a new industrial city springing up separate from the older,
historic capital of Transylvania, which dated from fortifications first
recorded in the thirteenth century and had been largely preserved as a
cultural center. The constructions that Samurai had seen from the plane lay
beyond the far edge of the airfield, and revealed themselves now as just one
end of a line of massive structures in various stages of completion extending
away for what must have been one to two miles, with tangles of service roads,
pipe runs, and latticeworks taking shape between them.
He asked about it at the hotel information desk and learned that the new city
was being developed as a spaceport and would become the region's principal
link to the Offworld independencies. Similar things were going on in Latvia
and the Belorussian Republic. The Eurasians, it seemed, regarded the
Consolidation as a temporary affair that was destined to fall apart, and the
westernmost FER states were vying for the Western European space business that
they expected to materialize when the Green Curtain came down.
Samurai didn't bother disagreeing. It was depressing enough to watch so much
effort and material being misdirected into pipe dreams. But the more chilling
thought was the ease with which such facilities could be converted for
military use when the orgy of profligacy ended and the FER was forced to turn [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]