The school was a couple of kilometers inland, so it was an easy downhill walk to the marina for her. On rainy days she would take the trams that ran through the major boulevards, but today the afternoon sun continued to shine through a clear sky. She strode easily along the sidewalk, making sure she kept under the broad shop awnings: she was wearing a light dress, and at half past four in the afternoon the sun was still strong enough to be avoided. The route was familiar enough, and she was on nodding terms with several people on the way. So very different to her first days in the city, when she jumped every time a car's brakes squealed, and more than five people gathered together made her claustrophobic. It had taken over a fortnight before she was comfortable just going into one of Memu Bay's plentiful cafes and sitting there with friends.
Even now she wasn't quite used to the triads she saw together out on the street, though she made a point of not staring. Memu Bay was proud of its liberalist tradition, dating right back to the founding in 2160. The city fathers, having left an Earth that they considered to have encroached upon personal freedoms, were determined to encourage a more relaxed and enlightened atmosphere on their new world. Communes were prevalent during the early days, along with cooperative industrial enterprises. Reality had gradually eroded this gentle radicalism; collective dormitory halls were slowly refurbished into smarter individual apartments and shares were floated and traded to raise capital for factories to expand. The most prominent leftover from all this early social experimentation was the trimarriages, whose popularity continued long after other hippie chic traditions lost their bloom. Though even that wasn't as popular as it used to be. Trendy liberalism and those first youthful hot randy nights of threesomes tended to deteriorate and sour when middle age approached, inevitably accompanied by mortgage payments and domestic demands with their three-way arguments. And trimarriage divorces were notoriously bitter, scarring a lot of children who swore blind they wouldn't repeat the mistake. Certainly less than a quarter of registrations at City Hall were now trimarriages, and most of those were of the one-male, two-female variety. Gay and lesbian trimarriages were an even smaller percentage.
Car traffic eased off as Denise entered the Livingstone District behind the waterfront; the streets here were narrower and clogged with bicycles and scooters. This was the city's primary retail zone, where quirky little shops alternated with clubs, bars and hotels. As this was where the tourists flocked, the city planners had re-created the look of an old-style Mediterranean town. Small windows and slim balconies overlooked squares full of cafe tables that were shaded by citrus trees. At first the streets had confounded her, as if they were deliberately laid out in the most confusing maze possible. Now, she slipped through like a native. The marina itself was packed with sailing yachts and pleasure craft. Farther along the shore, jetskis and windsurfers curved through the water, weaving round each other with curses and elaborately obscene fist gestures. Passenger boats were bringing divers and snorkelers home after a day exploring the reefs. Several of the archipelago islands were visible out toward the horizon, tiny cones of native coral clotted with a tangle of vivid terrestrial vegetation. They looked superb, motes of paradise scattered on an alien ocean. In fact, the gamma soak had killed the coral down to three meters below the surface. Civil engineering teams had gone out and capped the islands with concrete to stop them from breaking up. Sand was laboriously dredged up from their surrounding lagoons to form the exquisite white beaches, and desalination plants watered the vegetation through a buried irrigation network. It was all done for the benefit of the tourists. The living coral in deeper waters was spectacular enough to attract thousands of visitors each year, while the marina catered to watersports enthusiasts. Those physical activities combined with Memu Bay's reputation for an easygoing lifestyle made the city a premier lure for Thallspring's younger element, intent on having a fun time away from the capital and other sober cities.
The Junk Buoy was right on the waterfront, a popular tavern for tourists on the way back to their hotels and chalets. Not particularly smart, nor expensive, but it was the place where boat and dive instructors hung out as the day wound down, which gave it a big boost of kudos. Tourists could sit out under thatched awnings, watching the sun set behind Vanga peak as they drank cocktails with saucy names served up in long iced glasses.
Denise pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead as she walked in. Several young men watched her move across the room, smiling hopefully for her to join them. Denise ignored the come-ons as she made her way over to the far corner of the tavern, where she knew her colleagues would be. The nightly meat market had begun. The tourists were all in swimware or small tight T-shirts, casting eager curious glances at each other. Over half were wearing Preferred Sexual Acts bracelets. Some of the devices were flashy gold Aztec charms or mock-high-tech strips encrusted with blinking LEDs, while others preferred to use discreet black bands, or simple readouts incorporated into their watches. They would tickle the wrist unobtrusively when someone else with the same PSA loaded in their bracelet was within ten meters, and conversation would dip as directional displays were suddenly checked with avid enthusiasm.
She was aware of some bracelet wearers checking their directional graphics anyway, seeing if they matched her position. The anything-goes set, not unsurprisingly those with the most flamboyant bracelets.
One-night stands Denise could live with, not that she ever would for herself. But it was the coldness of the PSA system that she resented. It took everything that was human away from what should be the most enjoyable part of a relationship, the discovery of someone else.
Raymond Jang and Josep Raichura were sitting on their usual stools. Also as usual, they had a pair of girls with them, young and impressionable, wearing swimsuits and sarongs. Ray and Josep didn't need PSA bracelets. For them, this part of the mission was heaven-sent. When they arrived in Memu Bay, they immediately signed up as diving gill instructors with one of the big leisure companies, which brought them into daily contact with a parade of girls in their teens and early twenties. Diving instructors were universally slim and fit, but Ray and Josep now had perfect mesomorph physiques, tanned to a golden sheen. These days Denise had to think hard to remember the two awkward little boys she'd grown up with in Arnoon, one all gangly, the other who hardly ventured out of doors. Now the dweebs were babe magnets, and relishing every second of it. Even better for them—and worse for Denise—they were supposed to develop casual relationships. It would be essential for the next stage of the plan.
The four of them were having such a good time together that Denise almost felt guilty for butting in. She cleared her throat to attract their attention. The two girls instantly looked her up and down with hostile eyes, working out if she was competition or not. They decided not. Denise was the same age group as their catches, with the kind of slim healthy build that could mean she was a fellow gill instructor, and her impatient expression clearly marked her down as a no-fun person.
"Hello?" one of the girls said, her voice rising an octave with mild derision. "Were we friends in a former life?"