The convertible roaded out, turning west on the boulevard, which forced my bot to make a U-turn, the manoeuvre barely causing a ripple in the automated flow of the traffic. I was two block behind the convertible before my rickshaw driver got into the groove. I hoped Geiger was on his way home. I caught sight of him two or three times and them made him turning spindle-wards into Axis Canyon Drive. Half-way up the grade he turned left and took a curving ribbon of wet concrete which was called Lunar Terrace. It was a narrow street with a high bank – part of the dome foundations – on one side and a scattering of large low houses built down the slope on the other side, so that their roofs were not very much above road level. Their front windows were masked by hedges and shrubs. Sodden trees dripped all over the landscape.
I nudged the rickshaw robot to speed up and passed him as he turned, picked off a house number as I went by and turned at the end of the block. He had already stopped. The convertible's lights were tilted at the garage of a large house with a square box hedge so arranged that it masked the front door completely. I watched him come out of the garage with his umbrella energised and go in through the hedge. He didn't act as if he expected anyone to be tailing him. Lights went on in the house. My bot drifted the rickshaw down to the next house above it, which seemed empty. I parked, told the rickshaw bot to shut down, had a drink from my bottle, and sat. I didn't know what I was waiting for, but something told me to wait.
Another army of sluggish minutes dragged by. Images of Carmen Sternwood ran though my mind, her mouth massaging my dick, taking my whole length as if it were nothing. Inevitably, I grew hard again. Then I thought about Mrs Vivian Sternwood's tits, smooth and round and just begging to be touched. I jerked myself off in a few swift strokes, finishing the job the girls had started, imagining spurting on Vivian’s breasts. My head thumped once on the padded seat of the rickshaw.
Two ground-cars and another rickshaw came up the hill and went over the crest. It seemed a very quiet street. At a little after twenty-nine more bright lights bobbed through the driving rain. It was pitch black by then. A ground car dragged to a stop in front of Geiger's house. The door opened and a woman got out. A small slim woman wrapped in a transparent force-field rain-shield. She went in through the box maze. Behind her, the soft voice of non-sentient house automation, a closing door, silence.
I found a focussed light source under the seat and stepped out of the rickshaw, went down-grade and looked at the car. A maroon ground car, nice condition. A standard systems interrogation burst revealed it was registered to Carmen Sternwood. I went back to my rickshaw again and sat and sat. The fabric top dripped on to my knees and my stomach burned from the whisky. No more cars came up the hill. No lights went on in the house before which I was parked. It seemed like a nice neighbourhood to have bad habits in.
Part 1