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brow they were not
for show. There was finely toned muscle in her legs and a substantial bicep
stood out when she lifted her arms. Exuberant breasts strained the fabric of
the leotard. I wondered if the body was hers.
    “Yes,”
I called back. “Takeshi Kovacs. I was discharged this afternoon.”
    “You
were supposed to be met at the storage facility.” It was like an
accusation. I spread my hands.
    “Well.
I was.”
    “Not
by the
police
.” She stalked forward, eyes mostly on Ortega.
“You. I know you.”
    “Lieutenant
Ortega,” said Ortega, as if she was at a garden party. “Bay City,
Organic Damage Division.”
    “Yes.
I remember now.” The tone was distinctly hostile. “I assume it was
you who arranged for our chauffeur to be pulled over on some trumped-up
emissions charge.”
    “No,
that would be Traffic Control, ma’am,” said the detective politely.
“I have no jurisdiction in that division.”
    The woman
in front of us sneered.
    “Oh,
I’m sure you haven’t, lieutenant. And I’m sure none of your
friends work there either.” The voice turned patronising.
“We’ll have him released before the sun goes down, you know.”
    I glanced
sideways to see Ortega’s reaction, but there was none. The hawk profile
remained impassive. Most of me was preoccupied with the other woman’s
sneer. It was an ugly expression, and one that belonged on an altogether older
face.
    Back up by
the house there were two large men with automatic weapons slung over their
shoulders. They had been standing under the eaves watching since we arrived,
but now they ambled out of the shade and began to make their way in our
direction. From the slight widening of the young woman’s eyes I guessed
that she had summoned them on an internal mike. Slick. On Harlan’s World
people are still a bit averse to sticking racks of hardware into themselves,
but it looked as if Earth was going to be a different proposition.
    “You
are not welcome here, lieutenant,” said the young woman in a freezing
voice.
    “Just
leaving, ma’am,” said Ortega heavily. She clapped me unexpectedly
on the shoulder and headed back to the transport at an easy pace. Halfway there
she suddenly stopped and turned back.
    “Here,
Kovacs. Almost forgot. You’ll need these.”
    She dug in
her breast pocket and tossed me a small packet. I caught it reflexively and
looked down. Cigarettes.
    “Be
seeing you.”
    She swung
herself aboard the transport and slammed the hatch. Through the glass I saw her
looking at me. The transport lifted on full repulse, pulverising the ground
beneath and ripping a furrow across the lawn as it swung west towards the
ocean. We watched it out of sight.
    “Charming,”
said the woman beside me, largely to herself.
    “Mrs.Bancroft?”
    She swung
around. From the look on her face, I wasn’t much more welcome here than
Ortega had been. She had seen the lieutenant’s gesture of camaraderie and
her lips twitched with disapproval.
    “My
husband sent a car for you, Mr.Kovacs. Why didn’t you wait for it?”
    I took out
Bancroft’s letter. “It says here the car would be waiting for me.
It wasn’t.”
    She tried
to take the letter from me and I lifted it out of her reach. She stood facing
me, flushed, breasts rising and falling distractingly. When they stick a body
in the tank, it goes on producing hormones pretty much the way it would if you
were asleep. I became abruptly aware that I was swinging a hard-on like a
filled fire hose.
    “You
should have waited.”
    Harlan’s
World, I remembered from somewhere, has gravity at about o.8g. I suddenly felt
unreasonably heavy again. I pushed out a compressed breath.
    “Mrs.Bancroft,
if I’d waited, I’d still be there now. Can we go inside?”
    Her eyes
widened a little, and I suddenly saw in them how old she really was. Then she
lowered her gaze and summoned composure. When she spoke again, her voice had
softened.
    “I’m
sorry, Mr.Kovacs. I’ve forgotten my manners. The police, as