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Hutch leaned back, his laughter filling the air Leelee’s face relaxed, all the little worry lines vanishing back into the eggshell smoothness of her skin

“Shit,” Hutch said “You had ht I was going to have to tell my people that my best cook fell down”

David picked up his satchel, fu plastic jar Hutch took it, cracked the seal, and poured four or five of the ses into his hand, then passed one to Leelee She popped it in her mouth like it was hard candy The 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-n-propylthiophenethylaonist that broke down into—as—a 2,5 desmethoxy derivative that was a monoamine oxidase A inhibitor The euphoric effects would start to tighten Leelee’s joints and lift her mood in the next half hour The hallucinations wouldn’t kick in for an hour, h the night She rattled the lozenge across the back of her teeth with her tongue, grinning at his of an erection and looked away from her

“You do good work, littleout his hand terminal The small chime meant the transfer was done David’s secret account had a little more money in it, not that he was in this for theto do to your schedule?”

“I’ve still got the lab at school,” David said “I can sign up for et preference, so it won’t be too hard It’s just—”

“Yeah, no,” Hutch said “Better we play safe You tell me how much time you need to make the next batch; that’s how much time you can take”

“I’ a couple weeks at least,” David said

“Take the his scarred hand “We’re in this for the long haul, you and reedy now”

“Yeah”

The thin man stood up David was never sure how old Hutch really was Older than hiulf of years seeed on his dust-red overcoat and pulled his brown knit tuque out of a pocket, flapped it once like he hipping the air, and pulled it down over white-blond hair Leelee stood up with hiirl toward David

“You see , eh, littleto do”

“All right,” David said Leelee pulled her scarf off the lantern, and the dirty little rooer salute, then unsealed the door and left The rule was that Hutch left first, and then ten o He didn’t know exactly where Hutch went, and if Leelee was here with hi like verbena and girl She was a year older than him, and he could have rested his chin on the top of her head

“You’re doing all right?” he asked

“A to come on”

“That’s good” He gathered her a little closer She rested her head against his chest, and they waited quietly for the precious minutes to pass

Seven coh the northern reach of the Aurorae Sinus made up Londres Nova The city, such as it was, had burrowed deep into the flesh of Mars, using the soil as insulation and radiation shielding with only ten do out to the surface Forty thousand people lived and worked there, carving new life into the unforgiving stone of huy that determined the social forms and structures Aterpol was the only station with connections to every other neighborhood, and so it becaricultural dome and had a surface monorail to the observatory at Dhanbad Nova, and so the upper university and technical clinics were concentrated there The lower university was in Breach Candy, where David and his fa and energy production sites in the first wave of colonization, and the displacehborhoods were struggling to reinvent and repurpose thele tube route out,them cul-de-sacs and havens for the sort of Martian as almost a Belter—antisocial, independent, and intolerant An address in either Innis was the erous or vulnerable Leelee lived in the Shallows, and Hutch lived in the Deep