I thanked her and left. The rain had started. I ran for it, with the wrapped parcel under my arm. My rickshaw was on a side street pointing at the boulevard almost opposite Geiger’s place. I was well sprinkled before I go there. I tumbled into the carriage and activated the privacy screens and wiped the parcel off with my hand. Then I opened it up.
I knew what it would be, of course. An antique media format, bound in clear plastic, the insert printed in garish colours on cheap paper. The label was larded with arty photographs. The photos and disk content alike were a voyeur’s choice of BDSM. Men and women, couples and larger groups, every one bound and gagged, bitten and beaten, penetrated in every orifice with toys and tools and phalluses. The media was not at all new. It probably dated from pre-Exploration days, back on Earth. Dates were printed on a thin slip of paper, in and out dates. A lending library of elaborate, antique smut.
I closed up the case and rewrapped the parcel and locked it up under the seat. A racket like that, out in the open on the boulevard under seventeen kinds of surveillance seemed to mean plenty of protection. I sat there and poisoned myself with cigarette smoke and listened to the rain and thought about it.
Part 2