There’s a sameness to streetlife. On every world I’ve ever been, the same underlying patterns play out, flaunt and vaunt, buy and sell, like some distilled essence of human behavior seeping out from under whatever clanking political machine has been dropped on it from above. Bay City, Earth, most ancient of civilized worlds, had won itself no exemptions. From the massive insubstantial holofronts along the antique buildings to the street traders with their catalog broadcast sets nestling on shoulders like clumsy mechanical hawks or outside tumors, everyone was selling something. Cars pulled in
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