and frowned at the holo-unit.
“Was that the Sun?” he asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“That isn’t what I asked,” he said, his professional senses alerted. “Why do you have a holograph of the Sun?”
“Would you like a drink? Are you thirsty?”
“Why are you nervous?” he asked.
She shook her head, her lips firming.
“Put the hologram back on,” he said.
Something he hadn’t seen before swirled in Ah Chen’s eyes. It looked like determination or stubbornness. Just as quickly as it came, however, it disappeared. Demurely, she lowered her head. If she had been wearing sequins and nothing else, the motion would have been very erotic.
As it was, Quirn licked his lips in an obscene manner. “Hurry,” he said, in a husky voice. “Put it up. Let me see what you were looking at.”
Ah Chen weighed the clicker in her tiny hand. Everything about her was petite and pretty. She glanced up at Quirn. It was so artfully done. She bobbed her head in acquiesce and pressed a button.
The living room’s lights dimmed. The Sun hologram returned.
Quirn frowned as he examined it. “I don’t see—” No, wait. There was a dot, several dots in fact in front of the Sun. “Give me greater magnification.”
Reluctantly, Ah Chen pressed the clicker several times. Each click produced a larger Sun hologram. Soon, it encompassed the entire living room. Now the dots had become mirrors. Since they appeared to be very close to the Sun, the mirrors must be gigantic.
“What am I looking at?” Quirn asked.
“That is what I am attempting to learn,” Ah Chen said.
He stared at her, at the blank look on her face. “You’re lying,” he said. “Tell me what I’m seeing.”
She hesitated a moment longer. Then she said, “It is a prototype, I believe.”
“Of what?” asked Quirn. “What are you trying to hide?”
She lowered the clicker. “I am being reassigned in several weeks.”
Quirn hid his dismay. It wouldn’t do to let her know how much he needed these times with her. That could possibly give her an advantage over him. “Where—” He studied one of the mirrors. “Are you going there?”
She nodded.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “You’re a deep-core engineer. You work with magnetic forces…” He turned back to the Sun mirror. His gaze tightened. Without looking at her, he said, “You work with the great temperatures of the core.” He pointed at the dot, the mirror. “What is that exactly?”
“I believe it is a weapon,” she said.
Quirn shook his head. He didn’t understand.
“What if one could focus the Sun’s energy into a single coherent beam?” asked Ah Chen.
“Those mirrors can do that?”
“I cannot see how. Yet I think the Highborn are setting up mirrors to focus some of the Sun’s heat and energy. Perhaps such a beam could reach the Earth.”
“Tell me why that matters,” Quirn said.
“I am not a military person.”
“Neither am I,” Quirn said. “But you are an engineer. I think you have an idea of why it’s important. In fact, I’m certain you do.”
“I have an idea, yes.”
“What?”
“We’ve all read news-blog releases of the incredible range of the Doom Stars.”
“One million kilometers,” Quirn said. He’d watched an illegal Social Unity show on it, and the incredible victory at Mars. The show had highlighted the impossibility of facing the Highborn and surviving.
“The Sunbeam should easily be able to outrange a million kilometers,” she said.
“By how much?” asked Quirn.
“That is what I’m trying to determine.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re taking such an interest in it.”
Ah Chen dropped the clicker and let a smile appear. “I’m tired, Quirn. I need to go to bed early tonight.”
He laughed. It was an ugly sound. As he advanced upon her, he said, “I have a different idea. Take off your clothing, and be quick about it.”
She hesitated a moment. Then she began to strip. Their couching was short and vigorous, at least Quirn’s part of it was. He became red-faced and shouted at the end, his hands clutching her smooth skin.
Afterward, as they lay on the sofa, Quirn began to talk. He rambled after his sessions with Ah Chen. Sleepy- eyed, he complained about Molly, going on and on about her many faults. He even told Ah Chen how he hated Molly speaking about Marten Kluge. Then Quirn lapsed into a moody silence.
“Would you like a drink?” Ah Chen asked. “I have brandy.”
He nodded. She got up. He loved looking at her slinkiness. She was so trim and fit. He could spend hours devouring her with his eyes. She poured brown brandy into a snifter and returned with the glass.
“Make yourself one,” he said. “Tonight, you will drink with me.”
She nodded, returning with brandy for herself.
They drank for two hours as Quirn steadily became drunker. He failed to notice that Ah Chen only took the tiniest of sips from her glass. He began to ramble about Marten Kluge, telling Ah Chen what he’d seen on the holo.
“Marten Kluge is on Earth?” she asked.
“He’s in the enemy capital,” Quirn said. “Nancy Vance was giving him a live interview. Can you believe that they’re calling him the Jovian Representative?”
She blinked at him.
“I was monitoring the Nancy Vance Show for my superiors,” Quirn muttered. “It is one of my duties.”
Ah Chen waved that aside. “What does it mean that Marten is a Jovian Representative?”
“I guess that he has his own spaceship. Our Marten Kluge has gone a long way since leaving Sydney.”
“That is very interesting,” Ah Chen said.
“Why?” Quirn asked, his small eyes shining with malice. “Why do you find that interesting?”
She laughed easily. “It shows how foolish the other side is. We have made the right choice in following the Highborn.”
“Yes,” Quirn said with a sharp nod. “You’re a smart girl,” and he slapped her butt.
He left the apartment ninety minutes later. She helped him get his coat on. Then he staggered home, showing his pass three different times to curfew guards.
He went to his bedroom and found Molly snoring on the cot. In disgust, he retreated to his den. He sank into his favorite chair and put his hand in his coat pocket. With a frown, he withdrew his packet of dust.
His fingertips were very sensitive. It was one of the reasons he enjoyed Ah Chen’s smooth skin so much and found Molly’s lumpiness so disgusting. It felt as if someone had tampered with the paper.
Carefully, and with a critical eye, he unfolded it and examined the dust. He had expected some to be missing. Instead, it almost seemed as if there was more. Maybe if he’d been sober…he was still drunk and still desiring a dust-dream.
One of the wonderful things about dust was that it was just as powerful when taken sober as when drunk.
With a slobbery grin, Quirn brought the dust to his nose and inhaled deeply. Then he sank back into his chair. Before he entered the dream haze, however, the poison so recently added to the dust began its nefarious task of murdering Chief Monitor Quirn. He went into seizures nine minutes later and cardiac arrest three minutes after that. His days of monitoring for the Highborn and enjoying women like Ah Chen were over.
That morning at first lamplight, Ah Chen left her apartment. She carried several money cards, but otherwise
