Victor is a jazz piano, a xenomorph fallen upon hard times — a stringed instrument with heart, and a head, and arms, from a period when authenticity was in vogue. These days improv is unfashionable, running counter to the tastes of the mannered elite. The wrong type of melody can be taken as a criticism; aristos are quick to anger and quicker still to defend their honor. So Victor works in atmospheric maintenance by day shift and runs a movable acoustic feast in the service tunnels by night. Such places have been with us always, since the time when my True Love’s kind stalked old Earth, and we who remember them maintain the traditions. (We even drink aqueous solutions of ethanol, though not for the same reasons.)

I find Victor’s node in a pendulous vapor trap under one of the great extractor circuits that leaches sulfates out of the inner atmosphere of the oxidizing zone. He’s plated the walls with carbon black, grown an array of colored lights, and caused the floor to extrude foam pads that divide it up into soft-floored booths. The dive is quiet tonight, and Milton — Victor’s sometime waiter and partner in crime — is polishing the bar top lackadaisically. “Where’s the boss?” I ask, pausing beside him.

“Boss is in back, twinkle-tits.” Milton affects a malfunctioning voice, rasping and choppy. “What can I fetch ya?”

“A liter jug of the special. Hold the PEG.” Lots of serious drinkers like to add a shot of polyethylene glycol to their brew, but it makes it too sweet for my tastes.

“It’s your poison.” Milt shrugs with one pair of shoulders and serves up a pitcher. “That’ll be five centimes.”

I sign his note and carry the pitcher over to the boss man, who is sitting in a cozy niche against one wall and tapping away at his keyboard with one hand, surrounded by an appreciative audience of underemployed dustbusters. “Spare a moment, Vic?” I sit down opposite him.