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this small, it was plain that news traveled faster than an ion-driver gone critical.
"Fine," Joss aid at last, knowing when he was beaten. "Let's see the rooms."
Scowling, the man led them through a curtained doorway behind his desk. The doorway gave onto a
corridor lined with more doors. The man opened one, then the one next to it. Joss stepped in and noted
the equipment: one plastic-seated, tube-metal chair, rickety, one single bed made up with dingy grey
linens, and extra Kn-firm the mattress sagged as though it had been used by a herd of elephants one
sink and 'fresher unit, the water meter mounted prominently nearby (where they would have to stare at it
while they were shaving); one desk, composite-topped and cigarette-burnt, its legs well kicked.
Joss glanced at Evan, who had been looking at his own room. Evan shrugged, the yes, what choice do
we have at the moment? shrug.
"All right," Joss said. "The keys, please?"
The man gave them over with ill grace. They were standard reprogrammable cards, of the kind that had
been
SPACE COPS 37
common for a hundred years now. Joss thanked him, pocketing his.
"Is breakfast included?" Evan asked sweetly.
The landlord gave Evan a look that had an infestation of swearing swarming underneath it, the way a rock
has centipedes. "That's all right," Evan said. "We'll manage our own. Be back later." He turned and went
out.
Joss nodded politely at the landlord, bought another cuss-laden look for his trouble, and headed out after
Evan. When they were a safe distance down the hall not that there were safe distances in a place like
this; doubtless the neighbors would run to inform on them in seconds if they overheard something
juicy Joss asked, "Breakfast?"
"Where I come from," Evan said, "people who let out rooms for a living know how to make a proper
breakfast, as a matter of course. But they wouldn't do that here, I suppose." His eyes glinted a little over
the innocent smile. Joss thought he heard a rustling in the walls as they passed. Surely not mice . . .
Evan entertained him for a while with tales of Cumberland sausage and Chester sweet cream butter, and
bara brack all hot from the oven, while they wove and twisted their way through the dirty corridors and
in and out of the occasional dome, where numerous corridors would meet near some living area.
Eventually, Joss, his stomach growling, said, "For a man trying to pick a fight, you do it in some funny
ways."
"Oh?"
"Making fun of their breakfast? Come on. "
"I am just a traveling groundhog," Evan said in a mild voice, but with a sidelong look that had a sly touch
to it, "and if that's how they see me, so much the better. Meanwhile, here's a bar."
They went in. It was in another small dome, not quite as big as the one where their rooming house was.
The bar proper was circular, in the center of the room. At least, what they could see of it was, for the
lighting in the bar was almost nonexistent. There were faint gleams from
28 SPACE COPS
lights on the tables, and a few around the walls; and there were people sitting, leaning, standing here and
there. Other details were hard to make out for someone standing outside in the bright corridor. A sour
smell of spilled beer, cheap gin, and homemade potato vodka came floating out to meet them, along with
more savory cooking smells.
Joss walked in first, because his night .sight was slightly better than Evan's, and because he hated people
to think he was sending Evan in ahead to take the brunt of first looks and assessments. As his eyes
started to accustom themselves to the dimness, Joss found himself wishing they hadn't. The place began
to get quiet, like bars in old western vids when the sheriff walks into the Dry Gulch Saloon. Every eye in
the place was turned on them and their black and silver uniforms. People stopped moving, except very
slightly toward weapons, Joss suspected.
He and Evan made their way to the bar in silence. The barkeeper was a young woman with long dark
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