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garb—a dark jacket, tight breeches, boots, and a shirt with a ruff of lace at the collar—but of a subtly unfashionable cut, somehow betraying a lack of appreciation for the minutiae of fashion. Off-world styles, he found, tended to get in the way when trying to establish a working rapport with the locals: but if you looked just slightly odd, they’d sense your alien-ness without being overwhelmed by it, and make at least some allowances for your behavior. By any yardstick, the New Republic was an insular society, and interacting with it was difficult even for a man as well traveled as Martin, but at least the ordinary people made an effort.

    He had become sufficiently accustomed to local customs that, rather than letting them irritate him, he was able to absorb each new affront with quiet resignation. The way the concierge stared down his patrician nose at him, or the stiff-collared chambermaids scurried by with downcast eyes, had become merely individual pieces in the complex jigsaw puzzle of Republican mores. The smell of wax polish and chlorine bleach, coal smoke from the boiler room, and leather seats in the dining room, were all alien, the odors of a society that hadn’t adapted to the age of plastic. Not all the local habits chafed. The morning’s news-sheet, folded crisply beside his seat at the breakfast table, provided a strangely evocative sense of homecoming—as if he had traveled on a voyage nearly three hundred years into the past of his own home culture, rather than 180 light-years out into the depths of space. Although, in a manner of speaking, the two voyages were exactly equivalent.

    He breakfasted on butter mushrooms, sauteed goose eggs, and a particularly fine toasted sourdough rye bread, washed down with copious quantities of lemon tea. Finally, he left the room and made his way to the front desk.

    “I would like to arrange transport,” he said. The duty clerk looked up, eyes distant and preoccupied. “By air, to the naval beanstalk at Klamovka, as soon as possible. I will be taking hand luggage only, and will not be checking out of my room, although I will be away for some days.”

    “Ah, I see. Excuse me, sir.” The clerk hurried away into the maze of offices and tiny service rooms that hid behind the dark wood paneling of the hotel lobby.

    He returned shortly thereafter, with the concierge in tow, a tall, stoop-shouldered man dressed head to foot in black, cadaverous and sunken-cheeked, who bore himself with the solemn dignity of a count or minor noble. “You require transport, sir?” asked the concierge.

    “I’m going to the naval base at Klamovka,” Martin repeated slowly. ‘Today. I need transport arranging at short notice. I will be leaving my luggage at the hotel. I do not know how long I will be away, but I am not checking out.“

    “I see, sir.” The concierge nodded at his subordinate, who scurried away and returned bearing three fat volumes— timetables for the various regional rail services. “I am afraid that no Zeppelin flights are scheduled between here and Klamovka until tomorrow. However, I believe you can get there this evening by train—if you leave immediately.”

    “That will be fine,” said Martin. He had a nagging feeling that his immediate departure was the only thing he could do that would gratify the concierge—apart, perhaps, from dropping dead on the spot. “I’ll be back down here in five minutes. If your assistant could see to my tickets, please? On the tab.”

    The concierge nodded, stony-faced. “On behalf of the hotel, I wish you a fruitful journey,” he intoned. “Marcus, see to this gentleman.” And off he stalked.

    The clerk cracked open the first of the ledgers and glanced at Martin cautiously. “Which class, sir?”

    “First.” If there was one thing that Martin had learned early, it was that the New Republic had some very strange ideas about class. He made up his mind. “I need to arrive before six o’clock tonight. I