Story: The Glove, XI [Obsoleted]

(Part I , X , XII )

The gossip was unrevealing at first. The cantinas around the kirk were populated by upper class patrons out for dinners with loved ones and families. He spent twenty minutes on a beef salad sandwich and then walked out into the late evening. Edin didn't work the way he had imagined it would; It wasn't a clinical and sterile metropolis, or a heartless machine running endlessly and mercilessly, but a rich and warm place. It reminded him of home far more than he had ever thought it would.

On arriving in Edin some days ago, he had found that the best place for gossip was in the working men's cantinas down by the stock yards and the old space dock, so he walked away from the Kirk, down Angles Boulevard and circled the Obelisk a couple of times before setting off toward the Park. A shadow detached itself from a building and followed him discreetly. The Park Boulevard Omnibus ran directly to the yard square, and just a few minutes later he was in the Square And Round, ordering a draught and observing his fellow solitary patrons. This was the rowdier part of the city. Someone else came in just shortly after him, but he paid them no attention.

Billy the bender hadn't heard of the incident at Canterbury, and was shocked at the idea of bloodshed. Audrey from the paper reclamation plant merely stared silently, not moving a muscle, and Steffan changed the subject quickly. More might come of it later. Then he spent fifteen or so minutes blushing and dealing with some welcome but badly timed attentions from Enid the bored midwife, before leaving and moving on to the Starfarer's Ruin. The Ruin was named to commemorate the crashed first colony ship, an early disaster in the history of Ganymede. Within, some gloomier residents were nursing drinks at the bar and in booths. Steffan ambled up to the bar, and ordered a whiskey and cream, studying the famous mural.

A few minutes later he was joined at the bar by another lady. She looked more tired than seemed possible at that time of night. Some idle small talk followed between the two of them and the man on her far side, and it transpired that she was afternoon supervisor for the monorail lines leaving to the east. Chatter continued and she began to talk about the disruptions of recent days. The other man, a washed up cooper called Sean, got a bit wide eyed when Steffan interjected his own related experience and quickly left while Charlotte merely studied him wearily.

A few minutes passed, and then she suggested that they step outside for a moment. As the doors swung shut behind him, and the fresh air hit him, he wondered at the colossal waste of time at being indoors all night. Then something hard also hit him, on the neck, and suddenly even being inside the Starfarer's Ruin seemed preferable to blackness. The blackness came on anyway.

More shall follow...