“It was those luddites,” Heldeb grumbled. “They’ve got themselves some new old-fashioned contraption. An impossibly loud one.”
These remarks were directed toward a nebrium-plated breakfast droid, which, detecting Heldeb’s frustration, extended two shiny pseudopods to rub his temples.
By degrees the sunlight reached through an unprismed habi-dome window, illuminating an analog selenometer: Piv, waxing crescent; Hed, third quarter; Fewkalek, waxing gibbous. Then the sun shone on the edge of an old-fashioned bed, with old-fashioned Cadëxial silk sheets over an old-fashioned eidetic foam mattress. Tangled in the sheets were two old-fashioned data enthusiasts.
Radix awoke first.
Vilt landed his ungraceful vessel with a veteran freighter’s careful hand, despite the relative worthlessness of his cargo. It was midnight on the planet Gich.
“Are we there yet?” squawked the cargo. It was a long-outmoded data entry robot, purchased on the interplanetary vintage robot exchange by a pair of Gichian luddite data enthusiasts. Its designation was ¶‡◊.