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He has… had first-rate security.’
    ‘Right… Well,
if there’s video from the security system to point at someone,
Brownlow will nab him. Otherwise… No, he’ll put it down as a crime
of passion thing. Possibly a lover’s tiff that got out of
hand.’
    ‘That’s stupid.
Felix didn’t have lovers, just people like me. He made do with
meeting the physical need because he couldn’t fill the emotional
one with anyone else.’
    Fox sighed.
‘I’m sorry. Dispatch screwed up assigning him to the case. I’d try
to do something about it but, as he pointed out, I’m not a
cop.’
    ‘Shame. You
were a damn good cop, but then you were wasted on NAPA.’
    Fox shrugged as
they started up the slideway to the maglev station above
42 nd Street. ‘I didn’t feel wasted. Let’s just hope this
isn’t the start of feeling useless doing the new job.’

Part Two: The Moon’s a
Balloon
    Luna City, 16 th March 2060.
    Fox opened her eyes and
watched the Earthrise projected onto the ceiling above her head. It
was not that long since she had seen the same view in another hotel
room. This time she was in one of the corporate suites MarTech
maintained in the city, which was an improvement. Okay, so she was starting to feel like her new job was going to be a
waste of whatever talent she possessed, but she was wasting away in
style.
    Slipping out of
the big bed that occupied one of two bedrooms in the suite, she
padded into the attached bathroom and stepped into the shower,
which was already running and at the right temperature. ‘Thank you,
Kit.’
    ‘My pleasure,
Fox,’ Kit replied, audio-only: it had been determined that a visual
avatar in the shower was disconcerting. ‘Would you like the daily
news summary and your schedule?’
    ‘Sure.’ Her old
virtual assistant had been less interactive about that kind of
data, displaying it as soon as Fox woke up because that was how it
had been programmed and Fox had never thought to change it. Kit had
determined that her owner did not always want to see it all on
waking and changed the pattern herself.
    ‘Luna City’s
safety board have sealed off a portion of Quadrant Three due to an
atmospheric processing problem.’ Kit also gave the report verbally
rather than throwing up text. ‘The area is posted with virtual
signs. There will be an interruption in space traffic in and out of
the port between zero one hundred and zero six hundred tomorrow
morning for a navigation system upgrade.’
    ‘People nearer
the surface are going to be happy about that.’
    ‘Quite
possibly. There will be some disruption to travel, but it should
not affect your plans. We will be meeting Miss Martins for
breakfast in thirty-two minutes. She will be escorting you out to
Jenner Research Station tomorrow morning.’
    ‘Uh-huh. What
are we doing today?’ Fox noted that ‘we’ would be meeting Terri,
but she would be escorting Fox to the other facility. Kit tended to
think of her creator as more than just a programmer and knew that
the breakfast meeting would include them both.
    ‘We are meeting
the Palladium personnel in Luna City. Nothing stressful. MarTech
prefers its staff to get a day to acclimatise on arriving at, or on
returning from, an off-planet facility.’
    Fox gave a
grunt as she washed shampoo from her red-orange hair in the
slow-falling water stream. ‘Ten hours’ flight time, most of that in
some gravity and luxury quarters with nothing to do but read. I had
all last night to acclimatise. It’s a wonder they ever get anything
done in this company.’
    ‘Lowered
gravity can result in a loss of coordination–’
    ‘I’m aware of
that, and it takes a lot longer than a day to accustom yourself to
the difference. I’m not fond of placebos. We’ll go meet Terri and
hopefully she can cheer me up.’
    ~~~
    Teresa Martins, Terri
to her friends, took after her mother, a quite stunningly
beautiful, black woman who had been a gifted psychologist up until
the time of her death. Terri had