"Sorry, ma'am," I said. "I just wanted to use your telephone. I was packjacked,
and I need to call the police."
The bartender turned back to her soap opera. "Go peddle it somewhere else,
sonny. The phone's for customers only."
"Please," I said. "My father's an ambassador, from 1898? I don't have any money,
and I'm stuck here. I won't be a minute."
The spacer looked up from his drink. "Get lost, the lady said," he slurred at
me.
"I'll buy something," I said.
"You just said you don't have any money," the bartender said.
"I'll pay for it when the police get here. The Embassy will cover it."
"No credit," she said.
"You're not going to let me use your phone?" I said.
"That's right," she said, still staring at her vid.
"I'm a stranger, an ambassador's son, who's been robbed. A kid. Stuck here,
broke and alone, and you won't let me use your phone to call the police?"
"That's about the size of things," she said.
"Well, I guess my Pa was right. The whole world went to hell after 1914. No
manners, no human decency."
"You're breaking my heart," she said.
"Fine. Be that way. Send me back out on the street, deny me a favour that won't
cost you one red cent, just because I'm a stranger."
"Shut _up_, kid, for chrissakes," the spacer said. "I'll stand him to a Coke, if
that's what it takes. Just let him use the phone and get out of here. He's
giving me a headache."
"Thank you, sir," I said, politely.
The bartender switched her vid over to phone mode, poured me a Coke, and handed
me the vid.
#
The policeman who showed up a few minutes later stuck me in the back of his
cruiser, listened to my story, scanned my retinas, confirmed my identity, and
retracted the armour between the back and front seats.
"I'll take you to the station house," he said. "We'll contact your Embassy, let
them handle it from there."
"What about the kids who 'jacked me?" I asked.
The cop turned the jetcar's conn over to wire-fly mode and turned around. "You
got any description?"
"Well, they had really nice packs on, with the traffic beacons snapped off. One
was red, and I think the other was green. And they were young. Ten or eleven."
The cop punched at his screen. "Kid," he said, "I got over three million minors
eight to eleven, flying packs less than a year old. The most popular colour is
red. Second choice, green. Where would you like me to start? Alphabetically?"
"Sorry, sir, I didn't realise."
"Sure," he said. "Whatever."
"I guess I'm not thinking very clearly. It's been a long day."
The cop looked over to me and smiled. "I guess it has, at that. Don't worry,
kid, we'll get you home all right."
#
They gave me a fresh jumpsuit, sat me on a bench, called the embassy, and forgot
about me. A long, boring time later, a fat man with walrus moustaches and ruddy
skin showed up.
"On your feet, lad," he said. "I'm Pondicherry, your father's successor. You've
made quite a mess of things, haven't you?" He had a clipped, British accent,
with a hint of something else. I remembered Mr Johnstone saying he'd been in
India. He wore a standard unisex jumpsuit, with his ambassadorial sash overtop
of it. He looked ridiculous.
"Sorry to have disturbed you, sir," I said.
"I'm sure you are," he said. "Come along, we'll see about fixing this mess."
He used the station's teleporter to bring me to his apartment. It was as
ridiculous as his uniform, and in the same way. He'd taken the basic elegant
simplicity of a standard 1975 unit and draped all kinds of silly trophies and
models overtop of it: lions' heads and sabers and model ships and framed medals
and savage masks and dolls.
"You may look, but not touch, do you understand me?" he said, as we stepped out
of the teleporter.
"Yes, sir," I said. If anyone else had said it, I would have been offended, but
coming from this puffed-up pigeon, it didn't sting much.
He went to a vid and punched impatiently at the screen while I prowled the
apartment. The bookcase was full of old friends, books by the Frenchman, of
course, and more, with strange names like Wells and Burroughs and Shelley. I
looked over a long, stone-headed spear, and the curve of an elephant's tusk, and
a collection of campaign ribbons and medals under glass. I returned to the
bookcase: something had been bothering me. There, there it was: "War of the
Worlds," the book that Mr Adelson had given me for Christmas. But there was
something wrong with the spine of this one: instead of _Jules Verne_, the author
name was _H.G. Wells_. I snuck a look over my shoulder; Pondicherry was still
stabbing at the screen. I snuck the book off the shelf and turned to the title
page: "War of the Worlds, by Herbert George Wells." I turned to the first
chapter: