I'd decrypted his puzzle easily enough. He'd left it in Zykovski six-gen, a function he knew I could deconstruct, and the pages of slipbeacon data that unfolded had led me here: an abandoned energy plant on another mined-out rock somewhere in the cold backstretches of Imperial space.

Pretty soul! She durst not lie / Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.

I hated all creepy crawly things, whether bugs, spiders or snakes and had no desire to look down at the creeptacular scene below us.

an easement in gross, a hereditary office held in gross