They drew attention inevitably, as they trudged back through town, joking and laughing and dripping water. A trio of young men even came up and asked whether they were okay, whether they’d had an accident, whether they were hurt. Flapping faintly in the warm breeze, the tall red flag of the Realm, flying high above the town with its yellow-gold star in the corner and its stylised white lotus, seemed almost to watch them too, reminding them of the Chinese authorities’ vigilant eyes up

Jìngqiáng Maier (
迈尔

静

强
) stepped out of the white domed spaceport and onto the ochre, resin-bound stone pathway outside. He looked around, at the residential houses lining the street, similar to one another in design and about two hundred years old now. Like most buildings over on Earth, they were the result of construction by nanotech, and pleasantly scen

The moonlight scintillated on the river Seine, and glistened faintly on the damp pavement. It had been raining, and the paving stones were wet, up here beside the road and down below, on the flat stone riverbank. The grey clouds were drifting away now though, fading like distant mist into the overall darkness of the night sky. The street lights shone their artificial glow over the wetness the rain had left behind.

Linda woke up with a
slight headache, feeling groggy. That in itself, though unpleasant,
was not particularly worrying.
She also woke up
wet, with
water pressing round her chest and legs, and something hard pressing
into her back. And that –as her conscious mind re-emerged to take
stock– was
worrying.
She opened her eyes
fully, and wide. And shivered; she felt quite cold. Where…?
What…?
The slightly tall,
very pretty young woman, with her long blond wavy hair, looked round,
and down. To