The founders, desperate to provide a social structure that would ensure the survival of the colony, had opted for stern laws. But in their wisdom, the First Generation planners had also understood that harsh rules that did not take human weaknesses into account would ultimately fail. Failure of the social structure of the tiny band of desperate settlers would mean catastrophe.

In an effort to deal with basic human foibles, the founders had provided the socially and legally sanctioned marriages-of-convenience to cover many of the traditional and less-than-romantic reasons that drove people into wedlock: family pressure, business, or simple passion. Couples who elected to have children were expected to file for the more formal covenant marriage.

The muted warble and twang of a high-rez rock guitar sounded from the street. Sam crossed the office to the window, made a space between the blinds, and studied the night-shrouded sidewalk.

The Old Quarter teemed with revelers tonight. The heavy river fog that had cloaked Cadence nightly for the past several days had deterred no one. People dressed as witches, goblins, and ghosts—the fairytale sort, not the very real remnants of dangerous alien energy known as unstable dissonance energy manifestations—drifted in and out of the mists. Orange lights came and went eerily in the shadows. As Sam watched, a grinning jack-o'-lantern appeared out the gloom. Someone shrieked in pretended fright. Raucous laughter echoed in the night.

This was Halloween eve, and the noise level was already high. Tomorrow night, Halloween night, would be bedlam. Half of Cadence would flock to the Old Quarter to party. There was no place in town quite as atmospheric at Halloween as the seedy districts adjacent to the ancient walls of the Dead City.

In this part of town, ambient psi energy leaked continuously through tiny, often invisible cracks in the emerald-colored stones.