Orpheus’ idea
of a joke, because while Virtue MacKenzie was a lot of things good and bad,
virginal wasn’t one of them.
He met her just once, out by the
Delphini system—which was as close to the worlds of the Democracy as he ever
tended to go—and she made quite an impression on him. She was drinking and
playing cards at the time, and she wasn’t even aware of his presence; but when
she accused a fellow journalist of cheating and backed it up with a couple of
swift kicks to his groin and a whiskey bottle slammed down on top of his head,
she guaranteed herself a couple of verses in his ongoing epic.
In point of fact, she didn’t even
know she’d been written up until some months later, and then she was furious
about the name he’d saddled her with—but after a couple of weeks she cooled
down, right about the time she decided that being in Black Orpheus’ song just
might open a couple of doors for her out on the Frontier.
It did, too. She had to wait until
the balladeer’s disciples and interpreters figured out that Virtue Mackenzie
and the Virgin Queen were the same woman and started disseminating the
information across the Inner Frontier, but once the word got out it helped her
get into a couple of previously inaccessible places on Terrazane, where she
found out about Socrates, and it got her Socrates’ address from a trader on
Jefferson III.
It hadn’t done her much good here
on Pegasus, but this was the Democracy, not the Frontier, and Black Orpheus
wasn’t much better known here than the outcasts and misfits that he sang about.
She and Cain had traded their information in Socrates’ apartment three weeks
ago, each holding back a couple of tidbits—at least, she assumed Cain had
withheld some information; she knew that she had—and
it was decided that Cain was better equipped to track down a professional
assassin like Altair of Altair, whereas Virtue knew her way around the
Democracy better than he did and would begin her hunt among the Democracy’s
older, more established worlds.
She had spent the better part of a
week searching for Salvatore Acosta, one of the four black marketeers who had
delivered Santiago’s goods to the Sargasso Rose, and had found out from her own
sources that he had been murdered on Pegasus two months earlier.
Pegasus was a former mining world,
rich in gold and fissionable materials, which was now a heavily populated
member of the Democracy. It had been named for the planet’s dominant herbivore,
a small horselike animal that possessed a pair of fleshy protuberances just
behind its withers. (They had never been used for anything other than balance,
but they looked remarkably like vestigial wings.)
The planet itself was one of those
odd scattered worlds that seemed Earth-like, but wasn’t truly habitable in the
normal sense. It possessed oxygen, nitrogen, and the various inert gases that
Men needed, but they existed in the wrong quantities, and twenty minutes’
exposure to the atmosphere left one breathless and panting; an hour could be
fatal to anyone with a respiratory problem; and even the healthiest settlers
couldn’t breathe the air for two hours.
But for some reason—possibly it
was the view, for Pegasus was a gorgeous world, with snow-capped mountains and
literally thousands of winding rivers, and was possessed of gold-and-brown
vegetation that made the landscape look perpetually crisp and autumnal; though
more likely it was the location, for it was midway between the Spica mining
worlds and the huge financial center on Daedalus II—the planet became a very
desirable piece of real estate. The original miners had lived underground,
artificially enriching their air while protecting themselves from the extremely
cold nights; but once the world started drawing crowds of permanent residents,
construction began on a domed city, then five more, and ultimately a seventh
that was almost as large as the first six combined. All of the cities bore
Greek names; the newest
of a joke, because while Virtue MacKenzie was a lot of things good and bad,
virginal wasn’t one of them.
He met her just once, out by the
Delphini system—which was as close to the worlds of the Democracy as he ever
tended to go—and she made quite an impression on him. She was drinking and
playing cards at the time, and she wasn’t even aware of his presence; but when
she accused a fellow journalist of cheating and backed it up with a couple of
swift kicks to his groin and a whiskey bottle slammed down on top of his head,
she guaranteed herself a couple of verses in his ongoing epic.
In point of fact, she didn’t even
know she’d been written up until some months later, and then she was furious
about the name he’d saddled her with—but after a couple of weeks she cooled
down, right about the time she decided that being in Black Orpheus’ song just
might open a couple of doors for her out on the Frontier.
It did, too. She had to wait until
the balladeer’s disciples and interpreters figured out that Virtue Mackenzie
and the Virgin Queen were the same woman and started disseminating the
information across the Inner Frontier, but once the word got out it helped her
get into a couple of previously inaccessible places on Terrazane, where she
found out about Socrates, and it got her Socrates’ address from a trader on
Jefferson III.
It hadn’t done her much good here
on Pegasus, but this was the Democracy, not the Frontier, and Black Orpheus
wasn’t much better known here than the outcasts and misfits that he sang about.
She and Cain had traded their information in Socrates’ apartment three weeks
ago, each holding back a couple of tidbits—at least, she assumed Cain had
withheld some information; she knew that she had—and
it was decided that Cain was better equipped to track down a professional
assassin like Altair of Altair, whereas Virtue knew her way around the
Democracy better than he did and would begin her hunt among the Democracy’s
older, more established worlds.
She had spent the better part of a
week searching for Salvatore Acosta, one of the four black marketeers who had
delivered Santiago’s goods to the Sargasso Rose, and had found out from her own
sources that he had been murdered on Pegasus two months earlier.
Pegasus was a former mining world,
rich in gold and fissionable materials, which was now a heavily populated
member of the Democracy. It had been named for the planet’s dominant herbivore,
a small horselike animal that possessed a pair of fleshy protuberances just
behind its withers. (They had never been used for anything other than balance,
but they looked remarkably like vestigial wings.)
The planet itself was one of those
odd scattered worlds that seemed Earth-like, but wasn’t truly habitable in the
normal sense. It possessed oxygen, nitrogen, and the various inert gases that
Men needed, but they existed in the wrong quantities, and twenty minutes’
exposure to the atmosphere left one breathless and panting; an hour could be
fatal to anyone with a respiratory problem; and even the healthiest settlers
couldn’t breathe the air for two hours.
But for some reason—possibly it
was the view, for Pegasus was a gorgeous world, with snow-capped mountains and
literally thousands of winding rivers, and was possessed of gold-and-brown
vegetation that made the landscape look perpetually crisp and autumnal; though
more likely it was the location, for it was midway between the Spica mining
worlds and the huge financial center on Daedalus II—the planet became a very
desirable piece of real estate. The original miners had lived underground,
artificially enriching their air while protecting themselves from the extremely
cold nights; but once the world started drawing crowds of permanent residents,
construction began on a domed city, then five more, and ultimately a seventh
that was almost as large as the first six combined. All of the cities bore
Greek names; the newest
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