Hunt shook his head. “Don’t use it. I’ll stick to conventional poison.” He felt in his pocket for his cigarettes.

Murray snapped the box shut and threw it back on the shelf with an approving nod. “Damn right. Awful shit. I never figured it, either.”

Hunt still had not caught up with the turn of events. He pinched his eyes for a moment, then tossed his hand out vaguely. “You were obviously one of the first here…”

“Natch.”

“But not with any of the official parties, I take it?”

“I hitched a ride back on the first Thurien ship that showed up, right after the blowup with the Jevs,” Murray replied. “I guess most people still don’t realize that the Thuriens’ll take just about anyone for the askin’.”

Hunt shook his head in a way that said that many of the things Murray seemed to be taking as obvious were not obvious. “What was the attraction here?” he asked.

Murray tugged at his beard, his gray eyes glittering mischievously. He seemed to be enjoying Hunt’s bemusement. “Nothin’ that I’d ever heard of. It was more a case of having to get out of there. You know how unreasonable the Feds can get about anything they think they’re not getting their cut of.”

“What weren’t they getting a cut of?”

“Oh, a little bit o’ this, little bit o’ that… I was mainly in what you might call the ‘creative import-export’ business. It involved certain psychotherapeutic agents and other substances that aren’t covered by monopoly patents, which you can’t get approval for.”

“I see,” Hunt said, nodding. He should have guessed. “So you’ve been here…”

“It’s getting to be over six months, now.”

“Where from?”

Murray gestured at the Golden Gate picture below the flag. “Born and raised. Hell, where else is there?”

“What do you do here?”

Murray shrugged and looked vague. “Oh, bit o’ this, bit o’ that. Buy and sell, deal and trade in anything there’s a demand for. Jevlen’s a pretty easygoing place that way: not exactly what you’d call restrictive. The Thuriens don’t need a lot of telling to make them act smart and stay in line, so I guess they never thought to set up much of it here, either. Now that the lunatic fringe that were trying to play Napoleons are gone, there’s a lot of opportunity.”

Nixie reappeared carrying a tray with a bottle and glasses, a dish of broken ice, and a bowl of mixed snacks. “When Vic get here Jevlen?” she asked, setting the tray down and sitting by Murray.

“Today,” Hunt said. “An hour ago, maybe less.”

“Today,” Murray repeated, adding something in Jevlenese. “You drink rum?” he asked, looking back at Hunt.

“Sometimes.”

“Local gutrot. Something like rum, but kinda minty. It’s called ashti. Give it a try.” He poured Hunt a generous measure from the bottle, pushed across the ice, then half filled two more glasses for himself and Nixie.

Hunt took a sip neat and found it not bad. He added an inch of ice. “So Vic have no girl here yet,” Nixie said. “We fix. Know plenty girl. Find real pretty one. Good and kinky.”

“Jesus, don’t you ever think of anything else?” Murray grumbled. He lounged back and raised his glass toward Hunt. Nixie took a small case from a side table and began applying a pink cosmetic to her nails. “So what’s your story?” Murray asked Hunt. “Is there a Thurien ship in today?”

Hunt nodded. “I’m part of a group that UNSA sent to have a look at some aspects of Ganymean science. There are going to be big changes.”

“So, is that what you are-a scientist?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“Originally nucleonics. But since the Ganymeans showed up, it’s been getting more general.”

Murray took a gulp from his glass and regarded Hunt quizzically. “So how in hell did you wind up being bounced around in the middle of a Jev banana parade? For somebody who’s been off the ship an hour, that takes real talent. You must have a guidance system that homes on trouble.”

“Not really. The tube in from the shuttle port wasn’t running-”

“Typical.”

“-so we used a bus. Our group will be based at PAC.”

“The old government center. Okay.”

Hunt shrugged. “The bus had to divert and got bogged down in the crowd. The Jevlenese who were with us decided to try and make it on foot. I got separated from the others. And then you showed up.”

“Probably just as well for you, too. They can get pretty wild. Most of them are headworld cases who forgot the difference between cuckoo-land and reality a long time ago-assuming they ever figured it out in the first place.”

“There was something else, too,” Hunt said. “On the way in from Geerbaine we passed an accident.”

Murray pulled a face. “It gets a bit like I-405 sometimes. How bad was it?”

“It wasn’t a pileup. A traffic bridge collapsed-part of an exit slipway.”

“Goddamn turkeys,” Murray muttered beneath his breath. “Anyone hurt bad?”

“It looked like it. And I think one of them was the deputy police chief. Apparently he was driving over it.”

“Oh, shit. Well, I guess we’ll be hearing all about that.”

Hunt looked around the room, tapping his fingertips lightly on the tabletop next to him. His eyes came back to Murray. “Look, I don’t want to be unsociable or anything, and maybe it’s been a long time since you talked to anyone new from back home. But the others will be wondering what’s happened to me. I need to get to PAC. Is it very far from here?”

“You’re right. We can shoot the breeze some other time.” Murray turned to Nixie and said something in Jevlenese. She replied with a stream of chatter, nodded, and said something in a raised voice. Another female voice answered from what seemed to be the room in general.

“That’s Lola, the house computer,” Murray murmured. Hunt nodded.

Nixie exchanged a few words with Lola, and then another female voice came on and entered into a dialogue with Nixie.

“Nixie and Osaya will take you there,” Murray said, turning back to Hunt. “Osaya’s one of the girls upstairs. I’d do it myself, but I’ve got somebody coming here in about fifteen minutes. Business.”

“That would be fine.” Hunt nodded and finished his drink. “That stuff’s not bad.”

“Glad you like it. Don’t forget to come back and have another.” They were silent for a few seconds. Then Hunt said, “That ‘headworld’ that you mentioned a minute ago. What is it? Do you mean JEVEX creations?”

“Yeah. Most Jevs never learned to ask questions, so they believe anything anyones tells ‘em. It’s Madison Avenue’s dream out here. I’m telling ya, if them Thuriens don’t wise up and start limiting the tickets, there’s gonna be every con artist and snake-oil salesman from home comin’ in by the shipload once the news gets around.”

Nixie finished her conversation. She examined her nails, then opened the front of the top she was wearing and began painting one of her nipples.

“So what’s going on everywhere today?” Hunt asked. “Who are these people with the purple spiders, or whatever it’s supposed to be? One of the guys who met us said something about a big guru arriving in town.”

Murray nodded with a weary sigh. “You remember they used to call California the Granola state: full of nuts, fruits, and flakes? Well, I’m tellin’ ya, it’s like a convention of judges and bishops compared to this place. They’ve got every brand you can think of here. Magical forces, mystical dimensions, mind-power, faith-power, psychic messages-if you can think of it, somebody believes it.”

“And the Thuriens were never able to change it,” Hunt commented, drawing on his cigarette.

Murray turned up his empty hand. “That’s the way it is. Anyhow, one of the biggest outfits calls itself something that translates roughly as the ‘Spiral of Awakening’-that’s what the purple spider is. They’re into some kinda reincarnation crap. It’s leader is a guy called Ayultha: a kind of Hitler that’s got religion.”

“Ayultha, he make lots crazy people,” Nixie said, catching the name. “Not good. Terrans not so crazy. Think I go live Earth. Terran men like Shiban girl, you think, Vic?”