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business.”
    He inclined his head. For a moment I expected him to tell me that they didn’t want my business. I wondered if the wanted bulletin for me had already gone out, and if no one, not even the demi-monde, would trade with me. But then Francois looked up and said, “Show me.”
    I showed them. Four of the brooms and about half the burners. I don’t know what it says about their business that they didn’t even ask me where I’d got those highly unusual brooms, or those weapons of such high range of fire, and so completely blank of all identification. Instead, they looked each piece over carefully, noted the dents where I’d disabled the tracking chips, and then old Francois made his bid, higher than I expected, “Five hundred narcs.”
    I was so shocked, as I’d been expecting something closer to fifty, that I almost forgot I was supposed to bid him up, which of course I did. You wouldn’t want to take the first price he offered. You couldn’t, without making him suspect there was another tracking chip in there, one designed to get proof of his misdeeds.
    I bid in at twelve hundred and we settled at eight hundred. I had no idea what prices were like now, but this should allow me to get other clothes, if I weren’t extravagant, and to get myself cleaned, and probably to live for a good week. I doubted I had a week with Father on my trail, but if I were still free by then, perhaps I’d have a better idea of what I could do with myself.
    At any rate I made a mental note that Francois paid a lot more for brooms and weapons than for jewels.
    I half expected to find that the price of the things I needed had crept up and out of sight too, but when I bought a used but in good condition suit from Francois, he charged me only five narcs, despite its being good material and Francois knowing how much I had in my pouch. I kept the boots, which were seawater stained, but in good condition and nondescript. The broomer suit to go over my street clothes was only fifteen narcs, despite being leather and insulated. I rented a cube and fresher in the next building—by the hour, no questions asked, but the fresher was a water-powered one, the soap was good and if the building was mostly used by prostitutes, they were clean prostitutes—the whole cost me only two narcs for the hour.
    The steaming hot shower felt like heaven on my salt-covered body, and I washed as I hadn’t in years. I decided that I didn’t care if vibro fresher sessions made you as clean or cleaner than water, they didn’t feel that way. And I liked feeling clean.
    I opened the sterile toiletries pouch that came with the cube, and got beard-cream, and a comb. There was a mirror just outside the fresher, and for a moment I felt like I was staring at a total stranger. Oh, I’d seen myself before, of course. But not my face. Not face to face. Not to stare myself in the eyes. And seeing my face and my body, facing me, realizing it was me was an odd experience that brought with it a sense of disconnect.
    I hadn’t grown since I’d been in jail. My height was the same, or just about. Everything else was different. I knew my body had changed a lot since then, mostly because of my rigorous exercise program. I’d acquired definition and slabs of muscle, but my mental image of myself was still of a tall, lanky young man who’d grown too fast to fill in. A twenty-two-year-old with ribs you could see through his skin and a thin face with terrified eyes. Which didn’t look at all like the thirty-seven-year-old in the mirror, facing me.
    I’d untied my hair before climbing in the shower, and now, as I combed it free of tangles, I was glad it hadn’t started to recede yet. It had been fifteen years since I’d seen myself in the mirror, and a receding hairline might have killed me. There might be white in the hair, though I couldn’t find any. At any rate, it wouldn’t be too visible among the golden blond mass.
    I found a proper tie for it this time, a scrap