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want -- even less than the whorehouse.
    Mouth tight, she slapped the door with her
palm, unnecessarily hard, and stepped out into the storm.
    She hesitated then, at the
side of the door, considering her best route. Her first day, her
first purchase, save The Hooper-imitated meal, was a set of maps:
Port map, city map, country map, world map. The disorientation she
had felt, disembarking from the ship, the understanding that she
knew where nothing in this city was situated, nor the three best routes to gain
them. Then, at that moment, she had almost carried out the
Council's first judgment, that her delm had appealed and fought and
argued until Vertu had her life back, but not, never again, on
Liad.
    The moment had passed, and she had
resolutely gone forward, trying to feel out a new life -- a life
without clan -- on this strange and bitter world. There were
moments -- of course there were moments, of doubt, and of
loneliness. Those things she endured, as befit one who had once
been Wylan Herself.
    Now though, just this instant, staring out
into the skirling snow, and the street near empty of traffic --
gods, how she wanted her cab, to feel the controls in her hands,
and the seat that knew her form, and the whole of the Port in her
head, as familiar as the face of a lover.
    The snow swirled, wrapping her in
impenetrable whiteness, then parted, revealing -- a cab.
    That it was not her cab was quickly and
painfully apparent, yet it proceeded as a cab should, businesslike
and foursquare down the snow-filled street, the yellow ready-light
set atop it turning the dancing flakes into gold.
    Breath-caught, Vertu watched its progress,
the driver a silhouette inside the cabin. She watched until it had
passed her and made the turn at the end of the street, left --
toward the port proper.
    Only then did she breathe, looking down to
find her coat growing a second coat of sparkling flakes, and
realized that she was cold.
    Flourpower, she thought, thinking of warmth
and companionship and food. Before they closed, she would go there,
and spoil herself with new food. After all, she thought, setting
out with a care for the slippery walk, today she had almost found a
job, and that was already better than yesterday.
    *
    Vertu's mug sat, steaming, before she'd had
her coat off. The coat-racks were full since the room, too, was
almost full, so she laid the snow-rimed coat beside her on the
bench seat she'd ended up with, back in the colder corner, away
from the kitchen, near the sealed and covered side-window -- so
dealing with the coat had taken time. Her order of soup of the day
was acknowledged with a wave, and promised as up in a minute.
    It was good to see the room so full, and the
sound level elevated. Good for this hour, at least. She'd probably
not want so lively a place early in the wake-up time of the day.
Granita deserved a good day if the morrow was going to be a
snow-mess, and talk was of little else.
    ''I ain't putting a screen in, Lesker. No, I
am not! You wanna keep up, that's for you. But folks come here to
eat, not to stare at sat-pics of show-tops. Just 'cause they got
themselves a weatherman don't mean I gotta do one thing about
him.''
    Well, they did have a weatherman, and
apparently Surebleak hadn't had one before -- they being the so-called Road Boss,
the Delms Korval -- and now there was real-time forecasting and
interpretation, too, instead of the antiquated six spot condition
reports that the Port had been using the last fifty Standards to
approximate how a day might shape.
    Delms or delm, Korval they still were to
Vertu, no matter the mythic transition that had, for Surebleak,
made the prime yos'Phelium into his cousin's little brother, and
gained him a new title. Korval still lived under Tree, which was
well enough, and from spot and spot around the city she was pleased
to see the crown or more of that great Tree, and still -- as light
or cloud formation drew her eye to it -- she bowed to it from time
to time as she