The lighting was mostly blue and green, shifting slowly, and the smoke came not only from the customers, but also from a small burner on the end of the bar nearest the door. It was mostly just for scent and effect, but I thought I could smell a little cannabis in the haze, and maybe a few synthetics, as well. I assumed that the psychoactives came from the customers; it didn't look like the sort of establishment that would give anything away for free.

The place wasn't exactly tasteful, but it seemed okay. I stepped down to the floor and crossed to the bar, but didn't take a stool; after all, I only had a few minutes. I leaned my elbows on the bar and watched the show for a moment. The woman was still licking. The man was even more obviously bored than before.

Behind me, someone snapped, "Hey! You can't come in here!"

I turned and saw the spy-eye hanging in the doorway, and the man behind the bar holding an ancient jammer.

"You get the hell out!" the man said. "This is private property, and we won't have any damn machines harassing our customers!"

The spy-eye hesitated, looking in my direction.

"Out, or I fry your circuits!" the man said, lifting the jammer.

The spy-eye retreated, and I smiled to myself.

I hadn't really counted on that, but it was a nice side-effect. Without wasting a minute I marched on through the lounge and out into the hotel lobby.

I knew that the spy-eye would try to catch me coming out, but where would it expect me to come out? Did Big Jim have other spy-eyes on hand that he could use to cover all the exits?

Not bloody likely. He had a hell of a lot more money than I did, but he was still just a free-lance detective, not a goddamn casino owner. He wouldn't have a whole flock of eyes in the air-not unless something was up I didn't know about, and even then, unless he'd gone completely berserk, he wouldn't have a whole flock looking for me. I wasn't worth it.

So I only had to worry about one or two exits being covered, at most.

The logical exits were the way I came in, the main entrance, and the casino's back door on the far side of the block. If I were trying to be obvious about losing someone, I'd use a service entrance-except those were all in Trap Under, at least one level down.

I shrugged. Trying to outguess a machine when you don't know a damn thing about its programming is pointless. I'd just have to pick one at random and hope I got lucky.

I headed for the gate where the shuttles to the port loaded, squeezed out past a waiting shuttlecar, and then took a long, rambling route back to the Epimethean Commerce Bank, cruising through the crowds with one eye on the overhead traffic.

I hit the corner of Third and Kai on the dot of 17:00, and there wasn't a sign of the spy-eye in sight.

A moment later Mariko Cheng stepped out the side door of the bank, and I looked up at her and smiled and said, "Mis' Cheng! Fancy meeting you here!"

CHENG WATCHED THE SHOW WITH A SORT OF PUZZLED amusement. Blue-green light rippled across her face in time to the music.

She hadn't bothered to act surprised when I greeted her at the bank. She had said hello, and after a little chat about the weather I suggested that, as old friends bumping into each other by chance, a celebratory drink might be in order.

She agreed, and I suggested the Manhattan Lounge at the New York.

That did surprise her a little, I think, but she agreed again, and there we were. The spy-eye hadn't yet spotted me again, so far as I could see.

"Is it really worth the cost of a zero-gravity field in here just for that?" she asked, pointing at the floor show. The woman was bent almost double, the man behind her pumping away. It wasn't the same couple that had been in there when I first checked the place out, but the act was the same.

"No," I said. "It's not. I'd bet you anything you like that that's not a zero-gravity field."

She looked at me. "No? What is it, then? Or what do you think it is?"

"It's a holo," I said. "A really top-quality one, and those two lovelies are in orbit somewhere, transmitting down here on a closed-circuit beam. It's a lot cheaper than any sort of zero gravity they could make at ground level. That's why the performers always exit through the top or bottom of the field when they go to clean up, and never come out through the audience. You can tell it's not taped, because they'll react to the audience sometimes-I guess it's a two-way hook-up-but those two are in orbit. Literally."

She looked back at the cylinder of white light and stared for a moment, then flicked a hand in front of her face.

"You're right," she said. She watched for another moment. "It's a good one, though. Look, you can see every hair."

I nodded without looking, and our drinks finally arrived, delivered by floater instead of through the table. I suppose it had something to do with the "olde Earthe" motif. Maybe the slow service did, too.

I sipped mine; it was decent enough. Cheng sipped hers and glanced back at the show.

"Mis' Cheng," I said. "I was hoping you could tell me something."

"Hm?" she said, as she turned back. "Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Listen, call me Mariko." She smiled.

I smiled back. "Call me Hsing," I said.

That startled her, I think, and she looked at me a bit more closely, but didn't ask anything.

I appreciated that. I like my first name just fine, but I don't want it used lightly-and I don't much like discussing it, either. It's just a quirk of mine. I have plenty. Ask anyone at Lui's. They call me Hsing there, and we don't discuss it.

I like Lui's; they don't discuss anybody's quirks there.

"Hsing," Cheng said. "All right." Her tone might have been a shade hostile, but I still didn't want her calling me anything but Hsing.

I smiled. "I was hoping, Mariko, that you could tell me something about Westwall Redevelopment. Anything at all."

She studied my face for a moment, so I tried to look sincere and harmless-which I hope I'm not, but at times it's a good way to look. Then she glanced around at the neighboring tables.

I had picked a quiet corner; the only human within natural earshot was an old man wearing an antique videoset, and with the plugs in his ears and patches on his eyes he wasn't going to be listening to us. He was leaning back in his chair, up against a black upholstered wall, and from the look on his face he was watching himself battle monsters in some classic thriller. I could see his hands twitch.

He could have been acting, I suppose, but if so he was damn good. And of course, any number of machines or synthetics or cyborgs could have been listening, but that's true just about anywhere.

Cheng apparently decided it was private enough. She turned back and looked at my face again.

"You don't know who they are?" she asked.

"Nope," I said. "They've made a pretty good job of staying low."

She nodded. "I don't really know, either," she said. "But I handled the sale for the bank, so I talked to them. I don't suppose you've ever bought real estate, have you?"

I hadn't. My family owned a place once, just north of the Trap, and after it went for unpaid taxes the city couldn't find a buyer, so my brother still lived there when he wasn't working, and I was still nominally welcome there, but I'd never bought any myself. I shook my head.

"Well, the law says that only humans can buy land. Nothing artificial. If it's a corporation, then it's got to be a human officer that carries out the final transaction and accepts the deed. No software, no machines, no genens, no cultured biotes, nothing modified from other stock, just human. I mean, it can be cyborged or customized from here to Cass B, and we don't care if it was born or micro-assembled, but it's got to be human within the legal definition of the term."