"You really ought not to be doing that."

But Slide was already dressing. "I rationalize it that my need was greater than his."

"From the look of those sunglasses, the belt buckle, and the triangular sideburns, he was a traveler on his way to where the Elvis People are carving that great ridiculous face out of the solid mountain."

"So?"

"So they have religious protection under the treaty."

Slide sighed. He had a few very minor qualms of his own about robbing the religious. There was always the chance that their god might prove real and wreck retribution. "I tell you what I'll do. I'll leave him his thoat, his skivvies, his sunglasses, and also his belt buckle, as a token of his faith. Then, when he awakes, his trusty, eight legged Martian steed would still be with him and, although his clothes, weapon and money will be gone, his underwear should leave him with a modicum of dignity. I sometimes think these religious assholes like being set on and victimized in their devotions."

Even at a distance, Slide could see that the City of Extrosylvania had its own weather; rain showers and Sherlock Holmes fog that struck Slide as an unforgivably profligate use of water on a desert planet, that could only have raised a sullen resentment among the natives, and as they came closer, he saw that it stood under a dome formed by some kind of force field. The Victorians could be close to unbelievable in the way that they felt compelled to make everything resemble their own less-than-precise memories of what they believed they had left behind.

"Once we get close to the city, it would probably be a good idea if we split up and made like we didn't know each other."

With this, Mahdjfb took Slide totally by surprise. Why should the tripod not want to be seen with him? Was it the robbery of the thoat rider? "What did I do now?"

"Nothing except look humanoid. We could run into humanoid groups like the Red Knights of Issus and the Silver Legion who are wholly dedicated to the idea of segregation. Better if, when we come to the walls of the city, you went in one gate, and I went in another."

Extrosylvania was smoothly mediaeval, with a touch of deco-futurism in the way that it was walled and gated, and, confirming what Mahdjfb had said before taking his leave, a group of surly toughs stood hard beside the circular city gate, holding picket signs that read "FYGGLHGIS, DON'T LET THE SUN SET ON YOU, SHELL-BOY!" Having been warned that this might not be the City of Brotherly Love, Slide did not do the obvious and follow the main axial boulevard that led to the eventual hub of the essentially circular city, where the Turquoise Tower, the home of Queen Mina rose to the heavens. Instead, sought the narrow and less than fragrant prole alleys of the outer city. Although a stranger, he recognized these roughneck passages from a thousand other cities of his acquaintance, and knew they were an ideal haven of anonymity. The long Martian night was falling, and the souks were filling with half-shilling doxies, and penny panhandlers, street arabs, ragamuffins and guttersnipes, roughnecks, rowdies and ruffians, all out for the cutter, and maybe some mischief and malarkey on the side. Yobboes in stripped jerseys loitered with plain intent, and slick silk-suited MacHeaths with diamond stick-pins, and Red Martian minders checked on their holding. Fakirs and Therns played their mystic sleight of hand, and through open arches and from behind closed doors, the underworld of the underclass pulsed with the rough rhythms of human weakness.

One blind pig offered absinthe and laudanum, a green door was calligraphed with the universal sign for an opium retreat, while a pub with dirty yellow light behind its windows made its more simple purpose known with a sign that read PENNY DRUNK - TUPPENCE BLIND DRUNK. He heard the roar of the crowd at a bare-fist boxing match where Norm "Pine" Norton was supposedly taking on all comers, and he passed a street corner political meeting at which a whey-faced young man with long lank cowlick and a pencil moustache harangued a hurly of burly totalitarians holding black and silver flags; presumably the Silver Legion of which Mahdjfb had spoken. A certain temptation gnawed at Slide to simply vanish into the namelessness of the lower orders. He could sure as shit hold his own among the footpads and cutpurses, and be relieved not to find himself constantly involved in high designs and conspiratorial machinations, or taking the rap for changes in the historical text over which, in reality, he had absolutely no control. He knew, however, that this was an impossibility. Slide was idimmu through and through and sooner or later he would do something rash and flashy himself framed as a sequel to Jack the Ripper. He had taken the measure of Skid Row, and now it was time to move up the social scale. Being flush with his stolen loot, he tossed a coin to a passing trollop and did his best to sound Victorian. "A moment of your time, my proud beauty."

The trollop, who would have cleaned up quite nicely, assayed the coin of the realm between her teeth and winked. "This here jimmy will buy you a bit more than a minute, guv."

"I just need some directions."

"I've never heard it put like that before."

"What's the toff's top knocking shop in this town?"

The trollop though for a moment. "Sophia's Cabaret is what you might call the class, but you need some real cutter to get in there. And may I ask what's wrong with me, milord? I could show you as good a time as any stuck up tart at Sophia's, and for a quarter the price."

"I'm sure you could, but I have other need's right now."

"Well fuck you too for la-dee-dah."

Slide ignored her pouting. "So Sophie's is the place?"

"Unless you count Mrs Coote's, but that's not really what you'd call a knocking shop. A bit more…what's the word? You know? Pony girls and the like?"

"Esoteric?"

"Esoteric. You're a fucking scholar, guv, and no mistake."

Slide nodded. "Rosa Coote's sounds like the place. How do I get there?"

"Gawd luv ya, that's the easy part. Helium Boulevard to Thark Lane. That brings you to Albert Park, and it's inside the park at the top of the hill. You can't miss it. Whether they'll let you in like that is another matter, though." And thus Yancey Slide arrived at the Establishment of Mrs Rosa Coote, and, after allowing himself a few moments of silent inspection, started up the driveway in the direction of the house that glowed and glittered like a twentieth century Christmas tree, and seemed to attract a passing crowd who indicated that a taste for the trollop had called "esoteric" was highly fashionable among the smart, wealthy, and well dressed of Extrosylvania. He walked in the wake of a short, squat, middle-aged man in top hat, white tie and tails, who walked with a silver topped cane, and sported a young, willowy and extremely expensive brunette on his arm. The couple moved to one side as a pair of pony girls, running under the lash, swept past with their chariot. The willowy brunette watched them go, and then turned to her companion. "I trust you don't desire me to so perform? Perhaps in private, but, out here for all to see…"

The squat man patted her hand. "Of course not my love. Although, inside Mrs Coote's much of what is normally so deliciously private is even more deliciously revealed."

Slide would have listened to their conversation further if two Red Martians, tall, muscular, and totally hairless humanoids, in para-military livery, had not placed themselves in front of him, barring his way.

"Can we help you, sir?"

"Do I present a problem?"

"There is a dress code, sir."

Slide had overlooked how Victorian snobbery was so much a matter of dress and manners. Amid all the eveningwear, he looked as though he had just ridden in from the wilds which, indeed, he had. Slide could only counter with attitude, some hastily palmed sovereigns, and whiff of idimmu suggestion. "I assure you, gentlemen, I do not present myself as a guest. I have urgent business with Mrs. Coote."