Cosmonaut Keep Read Online Free PDF

anyway, but ... "
    She eyes me across the rim of her raised glass. "Okay, cheers."
    We lean against the bar and scan the room as though looking for seats.
    "Bit crowded, too," says Jadey.
    "Uh-huh," I reply. "Odd. It's only six o'clock, and the place doesn't usually get jammed until about eleven, our time. That's when the eastern U.S. hits five P.M."
    "Yes. And?"
    "Well, U.S. office hours are peak time for legacy system problems. Keeps our old guys busy most of the afternoon and evening."
    "Thought programming was a young man's game," Jadey says wryly.
    "That was in the old days," I say, still idly examining the pub's clientele. I hope that's how it looks, anyway. The old crowd are in far earlier than usual, and so are the new crowd, the young managers; and more of each than I've ever seen in the place at the same time. "Still is, in a way, for the sort of stuff I do. But programming as such is so tied up with legacy systems that it's practically a branch of archaeology. Even the new stuff is something you can keep pace with past your twenties. You've heard of Moore's Law?"
    She shakes her head, outstaring some geezer who's looking at her a bit too long.
    "Not surprised," I say. "It was the projection that processing power got twice as fast for half the price every eighteen months. That curve went flat a long time ago." I laugh briefly, taking in the sights. "Just as well, or this lot would be as gods."
    "Scary thought," Jadey agrees. She looks into her pint, looks up. "Can we talk?"
    "Hmm," I haw. The pub's secure, that's its selling point -- they put electronic countermeasures in the dust -- but I'm not feeling very secure myself.
    "You got some reason to be here? Apart from what I want, that is."
    "Yeah, sure," I say, realizing she isn't being paranoid. Tradecraft: Always have a legit cover story. I idly ramble on for a bit about the ESA contract, then --
    "Wait a minute," I tell her. I've finally caught the eye of the guy I seek, and beckon him. Jason, long and lean, black-clad, hottest cardsharp in the city, picks up his drink and sidles over. "Let's get inside a game."
    The three of us amble over to the only vacant games-table and pull on gloves and glasses. The table tunes in and suddenly becomes much broader and a faint, undecided gray. The rest of the pub becomes abruptly remote.
    "What game d'you want?" Jadey asks, fingertips poised over the keypad.
    "Quantum Pool," says Jason.
    Jadey clicks the choice, and the table shimmers to green. The air becomes smoky, layered thick under a low ceiling. Slow light illuminates the pool-table's green baize and colored balls. Outside that light, close by, in a bar that doesn't much resemble the one in the Darwin's Arms, the barmaid is chatting to one of the men who leans or perches at the counter. Somewhere a games-machine jangles, and on a jukebox Jagger sings "Sympathy for the Devil." A little farther away -- if you look along certain angles between gaps in the walls and partitions -- is another bar, another pool-table, other machines and women and men: the place goes on, repeated as though in mirrors. No windows; but there are doors. Beyond one of them, as though through the wrong end of a telescope, is the real bar we're in. Beyond the rest are bars which I hope are fake, but they add to the authentic Old World atmosphere.
    I reach under the table and pull out the Schrödinger box, within which a virtual cat's virtual life is at the mercy of a randomizer linked to a decaying isotope somewhere out there in the real world.
    "Dead or alive?"
    "Dead," says Jason.
    The cat is definitely dead.
    "Your break," I say, closing the box. I slide it into its slot under the table. Jason chalks his cue, leans across, sights along it, makes the break. A couple of greens and pinks collide, and each scatters into six blues.
    Jadey laughs. She's leaning on something, probably the back of a chair, which the virtuality software has painted up as a garish, brassy bar counter. Jason straightens his