crevice, the residents had to beg for each drop of rain given them. There was no natural rainfall that far into the desert. She had heard the representatives of those suburbs beseeching Mayor Lane, as Senior Administrative Officer, to allow a subtle change in the weather satellites' orbit, to give them regular rainfall, but always the answer was the same, a collection of well-used phrases and pseudoscientific 'facts': delicate balance of nature, the possible harm to the eco-system, the necessity of smoothly run business and government interests. She herself chose to believe a more cynical reason - keeping the common populace under control and pampering those with money and power.
A squadron of Police Craft darted overhead, heading towards the outer suburbs. Perhaps there was trouble again. Social unrest was on the increase and Ursa suspected that not all of it was motivated by social anger. There were undercurrents, suggestions of spies, agent provocateur, inciting youth violence, spreading rumours and, in particular, building the already ambivalent feelings towards Leader Carlton's treaty into an explosive renewal of the general hatred of Earth. Although she had no proof, Ursa suspected Mayor Lane's hand somewhere behind it all. He had his vision fixed firmly on the Leader's office.
Thoughts of the suburbs and the current social unrest brought with them, as they so often did, other thoughts and memories of pleasanter days, happier times before her undercover life and the constant stresses forced upon her.
In her time with the Aksian Special Forces she had travelled, posted to ex-colonial worlds favourable towards the Aksian position in either religion or distrust of Earth. Many of those planets were still surprisingly, pleasantly green, the human cities leaving space for grass and trees. Flowers grew naturally, not nurtured in specially maintained public gardens. She could not remember a time when Aks had been anything but urban sprawl.
The central city of Akasian spread over the face of the planet like a cancerous, pollution-oozing growth, devouring other cities in its hunger to expand, until there was only one city stretching across most of the planet’s surface. The buildings stopped only where they met the desert, the one natural area left on Aks, an area of nature that was too hostile to subjugate and populate. An area that was fighting back by slowly but persistently eating away at the outer suburbs, slowly reclaiming parts of itself, a reclamation that was permitted by the Aksian authorities. Aksians living on the edge of the desert relied on their government for their survival. Politicians on all sides could use that to their advantage.
The outer door of her home opened automatically as she approached, scanners implanted in the composite brick and plastic walls identifying her. Such systems were common in the relatively affluent Suburb 12. As she stepped into the alcove, the outer door closed behind her and an unseen but thorough retinal scan verified her identity. This, as far as she knew, was unique in Suburb 12 and, quite possibly, on the whole of Aks. It had been developed by the T.I.C. for its undercover operatives as a second level of security. Ursa was uncomfortable with it. The closing of the outer door sparked distant memories of a youth plagued by claustrophobia, and she would often disable it for weeks at a time before the fear of possible detection overcame the fear of the enclosed space. She waited agitatedly now for the verification to complete, knowing that it took only a second to do but unable to rid herself of the feeling of time stretching out interminably. She breathed a sigh of relief as the inner door swung open, realising only at that moment that her fists had been clenched so tightly that her fingernails had left deep indentations in her palms.
Her thoughts flicked back to her last meeting with her T.I.C. contact, a carefully arranged ‘chance’ meeting in a bar after work in full view
A squadron of Police Craft darted overhead, heading towards the outer suburbs. Perhaps there was trouble again. Social unrest was on the increase and Ursa suspected that not all of it was motivated by social anger. There were undercurrents, suggestions of spies, agent provocateur, inciting youth violence, spreading rumours and, in particular, building the already ambivalent feelings towards Leader Carlton's treaty into an explosive renewal of the general hatred of Earth. Although she had no proof, Ursa suspected Mayor Lane's hand somewhere behind it all. He had his vision fixed firmly on the Leader's office.
Thoughts of the suburbs and the current social unrest brought with them, as they so often did, other thoughts and memories of pleasanter days, happier times before her undercover life and the constant stresses forced upon her.
In her time with the Aksian Special Forces she had travelled, posted to ex-colonial worlds favourable towards the Aksian position in either religion or distrust of Earth. Many of those planets were still surprisingly, pleasantly green, the human cities leaving space for grass and trees. Flowers grew naturally, not nurtured in specially maintained public gardens. She could not remember a time when Aks had been anything but urban sprawl.
The central city of Akasian spread over the face of the planet like a cancerous, pollution-oozing growth, devouring other cities in its hunger to expand, until there was only one city stretching across most of the planet’s surface. The buildings stopped only where they met the desert, the one natural area left on Aks, an area of nature that was too hostile to subjugate and populate. An area that was fighting back by slowly but persistently eating away at the outer suburbs, slowly reclaiming parts of itself, a reclamation that was permitted by the Aksian authorities. Aksians living on the edge of the desert relied on their government for their survival. Politicians on all sides could use that to their advantage.
The outer door of her home opened automatically as she approached, scanners implanted in the composite brick and plastic walls identifying her. Such systems were common in the relatively affluent Suburb 12. As she stepped into the alcove, the outer door closed behind her and an unseen but thorough retinal scan verified her identity. This, as far as she knew, was unique in Suburb 12 and, quite possibly, on the whole of Aks. It had been developed by the T.I.C. for its undercover operatives as a second level of security. Ursa was uncomfortable with it. The closing of the outer door sparked distant memories of a youth plagued by claustrophobia, and she would often disable it for weeks at a time before the fear of possible detection overcame the fear of the enclosed space. She waited agitatedly now for the verification to complete, knowing that it took only a second to do but unable to rid herself of the feeling of time stretching out interminably. She breathed a sigh of relief as the inner door swung open, realising only at that moment that her fists had been clenched so tightly that her fingernails had left deep indentations in her palms.
Her thoughts flicked back to her last meeting with her T.I.C. contact, a carefully arranged ‘chance’ meeting in a bar after work in full view
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