SEARCH THE
SKY
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DECAY.
Ross stood on the traders’ ramp, overlooking the Yards,and the word kept bobbing to the top of his mind.
Decay.
About all of Halsey’s Planet there was the imperceptiblereek of decay. The clean, big, bustling, efficient spaceportonly made the sensation stronger. From where he stood onthe height of the Ramp, he could see the Yards, the spiresof Halsey City ten kilometers away—and the tumble-downgray acres of Ghost Town between.
Ross wrinkled his nose. He wasn’t a man given to brooding,but the scent of decay had saturated his nostrils thatmorning. He had tossed and turned all the night, wrestlingwith a decision. And he had got up early, so early that theonly thing that made sense was to walk to work.
And that meant walking through Ghost Town. He hadn’tdone that in a long time, not since childhood. Ghost Townwas a wonderful place to play. “Tag,” “Follow My Fuehrer,”“Senators and President”—all the ancient games tookon new life when you could dodge and turn among crumblingruins, dart down unmarked lanes, gallop through saggingshacks where you might stir out a screeching, unexpectedrecluse.
But it was clear that—in the fifteen years between childhoodgames and a troubled man’s walk to work—GhostTown had grown.
2Everybody knew that! Ask the right specialists, andthey’d tell you how much and how fast. An acre a year, astreet a month, a block a week, the specialists would t