[LMB] SP: New Miles book, another version

[Nancy L. Barber]

My notes from the reading of the first 2 chapters of the new Miles 
book, with some additions and corrections from Michael Bernardi...but 
there are things neither of us are sure about.  Mike thought we got 
at least part of Chapter 3, for instance...

Warning: only 4 chapters have been completed, so all material is very 
much subject to change.

Room was packed--after putting the TSK reading and the GOH speech in 
spacious rooms, this was in a 'normal' panel room.  In the GOH 
speech, Lois commented that this book has all these chickens, and 
that she's not sure what's going to happen with them.  Quick-acting 
Steve Salaba showed up with a brown chicken hand puppet to sit on the 
table during this reading.

Warning on my notes: my hearing is not great, the room acoustics are 
not great, and Lois's voice has been on the edge of going throughout 
the con.  I missed almost all unfamiliar proper names, for one thing. 
And of course,  I could well have other things confused.  Corrections 
and additions from others who were there are welcomed.  I just dug 
some of the Japanese names out from the list suggestions a while 
back...but might have gotten those wrong...

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The chapter opens with Miles recovering from being drugged and having 
visual hallucinations of streaming angels. As in a previous 
experience of forced drug ingestion, he had had an atypical reaction. 
It quickly comes out that he was kidnapped after some sort of mob 
scene at a cryonics conference, the captors didn't anticipate his 
reaction to the drug, and he escaped and has been wandering in a maze 
of corridors of an abandoned cryochamber facility underground. He's 
only been on planet 5 days when this happens, which he remarks isn't 
even a record.

Miles is still under the influence of the drug, and is having a hard 
time telling what's real.  Plus he's wandering in the dark and trying 
to get to safety.  He finds his way to the outside and emerges in an 
alley of sorts, where two....personages come across him.  In his 
hallucinations, what he sees is a Tau Cetan beaded lizard and a 6 
foot tall butterbug walking together.  He actually finds this 
somewhat reassuring, as he's sure that the butterbug at least must be 
a product of his hallucinations.

The butterbug and the beaded lizard are suspicious of this bloodied, 
drugged-out little man, and though he asks for water and help, they 
leave him and he falls asleep.  However, the beaded lizard, Jean?, 
returns and offers to take him to his, Jean's, hideout.  This is a 
rooftop area between heat exchanger towers (Miles sees the setting as 
a castle), where Jean keeps 3 chickens (Twig, Speck, and ___), a 
brood of Twig's chicks, a 3-legged cat (Lucky), a bird of prey, 
terrapins, and some black-and-white rats.  Jean gives Miles water and 
leaves him to sleep.  Oh, part of this is Miles's viewpoint, the 
other part is Jean's.

Chapter 2 opens in Roic's viewpoint.  He's been drugged, too, and is 
chained in some sort of musty hotel-room-looking area. We get a 
little backstory--Miles is on a case which begins with something on 
Komarr involving the empress.  Laisa points Miles at  a  cryo revival 
conference on the planet New Hope II (also given in Japanese 
(Shinkibo?) for leads. There's a comment that most places here have 2 
names--the city they were in is North Bridge and it's Japanese 
equivalent, which I can't find in my back email.

Roic is courting Pym's daughter.  The twins Sasha and Helen are about 
5, and Ekaterin is said to be (among myriad other activities), riding 
herd on 4 children under the age of 5.  Miles is using a cane these 
days.  Miles gets his first break in the case when someone tries to 
bribe him.  Sidelight on bribes from Miles: in a mercenary fleet, one 
takes the bribe, reports it, and does what one was going to do 
anyway.  In Covert Ops, one does all that plus tries to follow the 
'strings' as far as possible...there are always strings.  The offered 
bribe in this case is stock in the White Chrysanthemum (shiragiku ?) 
cryonics corporation.

Last bits of background I noted was that this planet has a large 
number of people who have been frozen at death, or near death, and 
are being kept in  facilities like those cryochambers Miles wandered 
in. The 'dead' can vote (by proxy) and apparently the current living 
aren't all happy with this situation--Miles sees graffiti that says 
"Burn the dead", Roic's captor (well, the minion who appears to feed 
him) is from the "New Hope Legacy Liberators" and wants to fight the 
"dead hand of the past",  says "the dead own everything in sight", 
and similar sentiments.

The viewpoint moves back to Miles, who has woken up free from the 
drugs (except the hangover).  Jean makes them breakfast of 3 
fresh-laid eggs, boiled. Miles then gets ready to go looking for a 
comconsole he can use.

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