“Never been used,” his buddy boasted.
“Newly boosted,” the girl added hopefully.
Faith took a disinterested drag, shifting her purse to the far side of her body. Turning toward Tiffany, she kept watch on the Jutes out the corner of her eye. No wonder she had worry lines. The disaster overtaking the double system was not even Faith’s most pressing problem. A lot of folks would never live to see doomsday.
Both boys got up and sauntered over, leaving the girl to watch their loot. She was leashed to the slidewalk by a chrome chain. Faith’s free hand slid inside her purse.
“You could have fun with a top of the line synthesizer,” the first Jute suggested. He wore broad black and green vertical body stripes, matching his half-tights and black leather codpiece.
“We could all have fun,” his buddy added. He passed a hand through Tiffany and both of them laughed. “Your friend can watch.”
Tiffany felt helpless. All she could do was watch. She was a trained diplomat, but appealing to their better natures seemed pointless, especially when she talked like a half-wit. Distance and speed-of-light lag made her reactions impossibly slow. Like living in slow mode, with the signal of f-sync. Looking about, she saw the slidewalk rapidly empty—aside from the huddled family, who clearly had nowhere to go. Kids peeked out from behind their elders, staring wide-eyed at what was about to happen. Police protection had become wildly intermittent. Faith had to field this on her own.
The Jutes edged in. “Look, if you are saving yourself for someone better—don’t bother.”
“It’s now or never.” His buddy patted a spitshined codpiece. Belt City had gone way beyond being a waking nightmare, becoming the adolescent dream come true—no jobs, no cops, no future, school out for good, and everything free for the taking.
A black-green hand seized Faith’s sleeve, “Let’s see what’s holding up that jacket.”
Faith sighed, took a last drag on her dopestick, then flicked the butt in the nearest Jute’s face. He staggered back. Her hand came out of her purse holding a professional-strength repellent can. Thumbing the nozzle to wide-angle spray, she doused them both.
Instantly they doubled up, gagging and writhing, eyes clinched in blind agony. Two steel-toed kicks sent them sprawling. Limbs spasming, they flopped about doing dry heaves, weeping and coughing on the slidewalk. Holding a hand over his face, one struggled to his knees, waving her off. “Shit, lady. It was just a suggestion.”
“Then take that as a no.” Faith kept the can between her and them. The girl left with their goods laughed out loud. Except for the leash, and a ring in her navel, she dressed just like the boys who owned her—minus the codpiece. Pert young nipples showed through her paint.
Tiffany whistled softly, “Well done.” Unsure how she would have handled the two thugs, she felt frightened at what she was getting into. Diplomatic training made her too diffident. Too willing to see the other side. It was not too late to back out. She was still only a holo.
Faith shrugged. “I’m trying not to make a career of it.”
They got off at the first spoke. A lift took them to the Belt’s low-g hub. The insystem side of the hub seemed deserted, especially compared to the packed starport. Faith thumbed a rental locker. The door sprang open, and she exchanged her purse for a vacuum suit. Suiting up, she told a nearby lock to cycle.
Tiffany entered the lock as is. Being a holo, she was not concerned about lack of oxygen, or drops in pressure. The lock cycled, and Faith stepped out onto the outside of the hub, telling her boots to grip.
So far Tiffany had seen and heard through sensors built into the fabric of Belt Cit—the same holocams and readouts that projected her moving image. Beyond the lock lay empty space. She could still hear through Faith’s suit comlink, but cams were few and far between. Her image flickered out as soon as Faith left the lock.
Fortunately, the vast empty void outside never changed much. Even from aboard the Nightingale, a light-second away, Tiffany knew what Faith was seeing. She saw it herself. Orion 3645A sat at the ragged edge of a dense star cluster. Suns blazed down from all directions, backlit by the Orion Nebula, great neon fingers of gas stretching across the light years. Inside them, yet more stars were being born.
Upsun from the hub hung the lesser half of the double system, Orion 3645B, a red dwarf. The biggest star in the sky was a white giant, Orion 4673, rushing insystem at phenomenal speed. In less than two standard years, this speeding giant would slam through the double system, tearing it apart. Projections showed that the white giant would strip away Orion 3645A’s planets and companion. Giant and red companion would spin off in one direction, forming a new double system, Orion 4673AB. Orion 3645 would ricochet away at a right angle, becoming a lone G-type star.
By then, Belt City and every other habitable part of the double system would be torn to pieces by tidal forces. Anyone who could not get away would be spaced or fried.
Faith strapped herself into a chemical scooter sitting by the lock. Plugging her suit connections into the seat back, she engaged the gyros, adjusted engine attitude, then fired the thrusters. The scooter surged off toward the sea of stars.
“Following me?” Faith asked.
“Five-by-five.” Tiffany did not have to project a holo image to keep track of the scooter.
Down orbit from the hub lay a ship graveyard—everything from gutted hulks to perfectly good low-boost ships, abandoned because they could not get outsystem ahead of the maelstrom. The stellar deviation that doomed the double system had been discovered long ago. But when doomsday was centuries off, few had cared. Only when it was decades away did people start to panic. By then it was clear there would never be enough ship-space to evacuate everyone. Even with death hanging over their heads, people reproduced faster than ships could be built.
The scooter passed ship after ship, huge mass-drivers, little one-seat fliers, spider-like landers, spherical cargo ships, and orbital shuttles. Anything with a hope of making it outsystem was long gone. Faith decelerated. Drawing even with a fancy low-boost orbital yacht, she gave a last tap with her thrusters, bringing the scooter to a stop. Archangel was stenciled on the sleek hull.
“Turn on the sensors,” Faith signaled. “We’ve got a guest.” She docked the scooter, and entered, Tiffany’s holo image materializing beside her in the lock. The inner door opened.
Opulence was Tiffany’s first impression. The Archangers saloon-galley had the look and smell of tooled leather, reflected in infinite depth by deck-to-ceiling mirrors. Picasso pen-and-inks were spaced around the upholstered bulkheads—strong simple line drawings of women and bulls. Not prints or holos, but originals brought across a thousand light years, preserved under glass since the late pre-Atomic.
Beneath one of them sat a small black-haired young woman, with her back to the leather covered bulkhead. She had an alert look in her dark lively eyes. Leaping up as they entered, she laughed and asked, “Who’s the holo?”
Faith unsealed her suit. “Her name is Panic. Tiffany Panic. She’s not as slow as she seems—just a ways off.”
Tiffany gave an apologetic shrug. Being a holo was harder than it looked. Stripping off her v-suit, Faith grinned, “Tiffany, meet Miko.” She gave the suit to Miko, getting a kiss in return.
Miko had a round smiling face, long black hair hanging down to her hips, and white soft-looking skin. Barefoot and nearly naked, she wore broad stretch fabric bands at the breasts and hips, dark material that moved with her, molding to her tiny body. A body so small she had to stand on tiptoes to reach Faith’s lips. She hung the v-suit in the empty lock.