ENTOVERSE

Gina pulled a face as she recalled Sandy’s squid-slit sandwiches at PAC. “Scrambled eggs with corned-beef hash, sausage pate, and a side order of fries,” she murmured, staring wistfully at Murray’s wall poster of San Francisco.

“Eggs over medium, bacon, mushrooms, and fried tomatoes,” Hunt sighed.

“Yeah. . . it does kinda get to you after a while,” Murray agreed. “I might have a few cans of stuff from home left out back. Let me go take a look.”

As he got up and moved to the door, the chime sounded from the panel again, and Lola’s voice said, “Osaya is calling from upstairs.”

“Okay,” Murray said. A female Jevlenese voice came on, sounding excited, and Murray said something in reply. While they were talking, Nixie appeared in the doorway. “What’s she saying?” Murray asked her. “Something about a hat with a window?”

Nixie talked to Osaya. “Oh, eprillin!” she announced, spotting his problem.

“I thought that was a hat,” Murray said.

“Yes. But also it means a kind of fish.”

“So what’s the hell’s she talking about a fish with a window?”

“She says there something that look like fish, up there outside window.”

Murray shook his head. “Have they been smoking funny stuff up there, or something?

“I go see.” Nixie exchanged a few more words with Osaya, then left.

Murray went into the kitchen, and the others heard him open a cupboard and begin rummaging. Then came the sound of hard ob­jects being thumped down on the floor. “Say, waddya know!” his voice called through the doorway. “Genuine ham . . . And how about some Boston beans?”

“I’ve never heard of fried tomatoes,” Gina said to Hunt. “Is that something else weird that the English do?”

“Delicious,” Hunt said. “Especially on a slice of fried bread, with the juice soaking in. But what you really need to finish it off is a bit of black pudding.”

“What’s black pudding?”

“I rather think that the wise adage about sausages and politics applies even more in this instance,” Danchekker advised.

At that moment Nixie’s voice came from the panel. “Murray, come see here. Bring Vic up.”

Hunt sent Danchekker and Gina a puzzled frown, then rose. Murray stuck his head back through the doorway. “What is it?”

“Come see,” Nixie’s voice said.

Murray shrugged and withdrew. Hunt followed him out through the front door.

They went up two flights and entered another apartment, situated on the opposite side of the stairwell. The interior was an orgy of feminine extravagance and brilliant colors, with fluffy pink floors that looked like cotton candy, couches and chairs finished in a variety of white, lilac, and red down, outrageously erotic murals, and black walls glowing with constantly changing Mandelbrot patterns. Inside was the tall girl whom Hunt had met before, apparently off-duty at the moment in a simple shirt with pants. She beckoned and led them through a room with an enormous bed, built-in Jacuzzi, and mirrors everywhere, to where Nixie was standing at a window framed by long, silky drapes. Hunt and Murray peered out.

Below and to the sides was a jumble of interconnected roofs, with parts of various walkways and lower parts of the city visible in the spaces between. A roof enclosed the whole area above, with a web of transportation tubes and lighting installations hanging beneath, and two of the vast channels that cut across the city to carry airborne traffic receding into the distance. Whether there was more of the city above that, there was no way of telling.

Hanging motionless in the air above an open area maybe a couple of hundred feet away was a drop-shaped, silver-gray object about the size of a small car. It was featureless except for a couple of ribs that flared into rudimentary fins at the tail end, and a cylindrical device on a retractable metal pylon, which seemed to be nodding inquisitively in their direction.

“Ain’t never seen nothing like that before,” Murray said, staring at it, nonplussed.

“Is police thing? Come look for us?” Nixie asked nervously.

Hunt shook his head, and a faint smile softened his features. “It’s looking for us, but it’s not the police,” he said. “That’s one of the Shapieron’s reconnaissance probes. They must have figured out where we are.”

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