The door opened with a bang. Behind the figure at the door, rain was blowing at such a high rate that it seemed horizontal. This was, of course, normal weather on New Tokyo, but the gaijin standing at the portal wasn't used to so much water on a planet.
The dark man stepped into the establishment and pushed the door closed behind him. Throwing back his cone hat, he attempted to shake as much water out of his cloths as possible, failing miserably. Giving up, he sloshed up to the KNF Lieutenant and, in his best Kusari accent, ordered a drink.
"Saki, cold." Were all the words necessary to give him a drink and a tab.
Serving gaijin ... Ha! I used to serve the Grand Admiral of the Kusari Naval Forces in this room! And to think, I would be reduced to this...
The gaijin gulped his Saki and ignored the obviously senile barkeep. He took out a pad and began to cycle through his messages, checking on the status of his transport. He was leaving Kusari space tonight, not tomorrow, he wrote a message to a lieutenant in the Kusari Police indicating this point, and the fact that he was a sitting target.
He then put away his pad and ordered some tea.
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
