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hour later he was only slightly
better informed, but somewhat more curious. Albrecht sat on a park
bench in front of the library complex, under some local tree
sporting fat leaves like green hands with too many fingers. It made
for a complex, mottled shade, which he rather enjoyed, despite the
stale incense odor.
    Well-groomed people strolled by in
the pale pastel kilts and blouses which were the local fashion for
those with money to shop. None of them looked at Albrecht, which
was fine with him. He had time to think and relax a little in the
shade before heading down to the reeking chaos of the market to
make his day’s nut.
    Strangely, the keel number
had traced to a Coatimundi -class fast freighter.
Civilian hull type, which argued that the codelock key had been
repurposed from its original Naval application. Odd, but not
unheard of, especially by people who ran fast and loose at the
fringes of the world of certified, inspected, insured
commerce.
    That class used the old Group
7 c-drives, with the cockeyed Lyne arms that never lasted more than
twenty percent of their rated duty cycle without an overhaul – or
worse. The keel his codelock key had come off of was originally
commissioned as the Jenny’s Diamond
Bright out of Panshin, a system in the
Karazov sector almost two hundred lights rimward, halfway across
the Empire. Another curious aspect of this business was that Jenny was reported lost
about twenty baseline years past, in transit between Velox and
4a-Rho Palatine. Also in the Karazov sector. He wasn’t up to
accurately converting Imperial baseline to local sidereal in his
head, but Albrecht figured that couldn’t be more than forty years
ago local. Thirty or forty years later, an essentially undamaged
codelock key shows up in a market two hundred lightyears distant
from the ship’s last port.
    He turned it over in his hand. This
key didn’t look like it had survived a disaster.
    Albrecht knew insurance fraud when
it bit him in the ankle. Not that it was his business. No one in
authority on Halfsummer cared what he had to say about anything
anyway. He just found himself wondering how it all worked.
Intellectual curiosity was one of his few remaining
luxuries.
    That was when two men in the dark,
bulging kilts and leather coats of Public Safety stopped in front
of his bench.
    “ Been using the
library, friend?” asked one of them. He
looks like the smart one , thought Albrecht
– his eyes were more than a thumb’s width apart. But in Albrecht’s
experience, no one who used the term “friend” that way had ever
actually acted like they meant what they said.
    “ Yes sir.” Albrecht smiled his
dimmest smile. “Checking my mail.”
    “ You get mail, bunny boy?” That
was the piggy-eyed one. “From who?”
    Albrecht figured he was in for a
bad cop-bad cop routine. It seemed a bit much for just sitting on a
park bench. “Mail from my copious friends and admirers, okay? Look,
I got an appointment. Is there anything else I can do to help you
gentlemen?”
    “ Gentlemen, he says.” The smart
one glanced at piggy. “Yeah. Come on over to the Public Safety
Offices with us. Watch commander wants a word with you.”
    “ Am I under arrest?” It was
stupid, he knew, but this was broad daylight in the nice part of
town. They weren’t likely to beat him senseless in front of the
consuming classes strolling the sidewalks.
    Piggy snorted. “Not
yet.”
    “ Then I think I’ll be going.” He
stood up, smiled, and tried to shoulder his way between the two
cops. That lasted about two paces, then Albrecht was on the ground
with a shock stick humming in his ear.
    “ So kind of you to agree to assist
us in our investigations,” said piggy, leaning over into Albrecht’s
limited and pain-hazed line of sight. Someone’s pastel boots
stepped over his outstretched arm without pausing.
    ‡
    Golliwog: Powell Station, Leukine
Solar Space
    Golliwog arrived at Dr. Yee’s
office door at 05:54 hours. It had been an