>From: greisman@umbc1.umbc.edu 			Jack Hammer
Subject: the blue cube
Date: 23 Jul 91 18:45:46 GMT
Lines: 74
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4


	The blue cube made Steves uneasy.
	
	Partially, it upset his sensibilities because it:
  was a cubic meter in volume, and quite solid (someone had touched it),
  was an earthly shade of blue that Steves particularly liked,
  had 'walked' into the bar on ameboid limbs that got more ghostly the farther
they protruded from its eight corners,
  was now sitting on a stool at the bar itself--with only the forward edge actu-
ally _on_ the seat... the rest just kinda wavered there.

	The cube _didn't_ bother Steve in that it could be either a mere
hologram, a heavily bod-mod 'd samurai, or one of the lethal ARES constructs
this city was muttering about...  Big or small, the large cube was sitting ten
stools down the bar from Steves, and that was that.
	
	What made Steves sip his drink slowly and quietly, watching the cube's
sides wobble like a thick drum head, and made everyone else in the bar _not_
turn their backs to the bar, was that the blue cube was sitting on a quarter-
inch of dust.  The cube was sitting... somehow... in The Seat.
	In every good tavern there is only one or two places where you can't
sit and watch your back to some degree.  Sams fought over the booths in back
the most often, of course, unless they were confident, dumb, or just hadn't
been obnoxious lately.  The bar stools weren't that bad, what with the new
wave in curved bars and reflective surfaces to let you watch more than the
bartender's bald pate.  With a sinusoidal counter, though, you'll always get
some undefendable peak that noone'll _ever_ be dumb enough to sit in...
Noone was a blue cube, and the Chatsubo tortured itself wondering if noone was
dumb, cocky,  --or smart.

	From his own stool, Steves could see a lone samurai in one of the back
booths-- he could see this guy reflecting on the side of a napkin holder in
front of Steves.  See what I mean?  Ours truly both needed a Sam for a job, and
needed an excuse to move away from the weird geometry disturbing the dust down
the bar from him.  Picking up two mugs of imported (American) ale, Steves
crossed the room slowly and sat down across from the armor glints floating in
webs of darkness --heck, across from the samurai.  You know, these guys are
bats for darkness.  The brown ale looked out of place here.
	"Wau, uh, sir, I need a guard.  I need a loyal guard to protect me from
my employer --and maybe from xenes.  That last got him to look up.
	"Uh, you know about the aliens.  This...eeto...this isn't to leave your
'corders-- Uptown Corp. needs a translator to decipher the xenosspeech and
that's me.  Uptown Corp's the biggest space conglom and noone knows nothin'
'bout the xenos so I figure I need some metalman to watch my ass for me.
The forward Uptown gave me's pretty good, so I figure I can afford you... your
services... uh..."  It's hard for a skinny, scholarly dweeb to effectively
_speak_ to some silent, hulking mass of black alloy armor, spikes, and gun
barrels.
	The xene (sludge for xeno, or alien) ship had dropped into orbit around
Venus two months ago, and barely anyone had blinked except Uptown Corp...
prob'ly cuz Uptown had spent the past ten years ensuring noone else could
budge an eye muscle about anything farther out than commercial orbit.  Space
belonged to Uptown Corp, and that included Earth's first aliens.  Wheeee.
Talking to those aliens belonged to last year's Nobel in Linguistics.  Even
more fun.  No, seriously, the thought of deciphering a completly new, alien
language with perhaps the Earth at stake excites me to no end --but I figure
the street samurai (space samurai, soon) is a good precaution.  Now if only
he'd acknowledge my existence.  Maybe I should flash money at him?
	"Uh, sir?"

	
	Across the room, a nude Jack Hammer sits and wonders where he is.
The room is nothing but a post-avalanche jumble of golden planes, strewn
here and there with large blue cubes.  What really upset Jack was when one
cube rolled across the room, coming to rest next to another blue cube...
	Jack swore to himself, this was the last time he'd indulge in
recreational drugs...



 Dr. Hammer, ksc      ----->Moloko Cabal<-----    Wisdowm and knowledge = (-:
Copyright.  Copyright?  Tell me about copyrights, please, Thenomain!
Jack Hammer and Steves, the translator, are mine; the street samurai is Phyllis'
		Hello!