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After his first tour of responsibility, Henry returned to Santa Fe, New Mexico — his hometown — and walked its streets. He famous what number of eating places had closed or had modified names or cuisines, artwork galleries changed by sweet outlets or vacationer traps, streets transformed to pedestrian use solely. Every part appeared each acquainted and unusual. He had change into a person out of time, or somebody out of sync. He tried to make an appointment together with his favorite barber, however learnt she had died ten years in the past.
He stopped at Soiled’s, a bar the place he had as soon as been an everyday, and ordered a margarita.
“Arduous or comfortable?” requested the bartender, his head down, specializing in cleansing glasses within the sink.
“Excuse me?”
“With tequila or teqnista?”
“What the hell is teqnista?”
The bartender appeared up and seen Henry’s Area Power insignia. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t understand … freshly again, are you? Teqnista is cultured agave, vat grown. That’s why we name it comfortable. Simple tequila, not the soil-grown stuff. It’s cheaper, however then, you’ll be able to most likely afford the true stuff.”
“Hell yeah. Some Patron or Don Julio. Make it a double.”
Henry had 4 earlier than he handed out. He wakened the subsequent morning again at Kirtland SFB. He had meant to spend his total go away in Santa Fe, however ended up not going again earlier than it was time to house out once more.
*****
He spent the second tour even farther away from Earth and when he returned, Henry hardly acknowledged Santa Fe in any respect. The town ordinance limiting heights on buildings had been lifted, and though some retained their Previous World stucco, many had sprouted up 10–15 flooring. The auto dropped him off two miles from downtown, and he initially thought he must stroll your complete method till he noticed others utilizing a round disc to whisk them alongside the routes. He checked his comm and received directions on discover one among these and function it.
Soiled’s had disappeared, changed by a lodge. However the lodge had a bar and he determined to have a drink in it, for previous time’s sake.
“Margarita?” he requested.
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The lovable waitress laughed. “You’re old style, spacer! Find it irresistible, love you.” He swore he noticed her eyes mild up, then felt embarrassed when she winked at him and turned away. He had been looking at her. He felt responsible, then questioned why. Sure, he had most likely been born a number of many years earlier than her, however chronologically they had been most likely solely a yr or two aside. His reference factors had modified, although.
She positioned the drink earlier than him with a flourish. “Thanks in your service, this one’s on the home.”
Henry took a sip. It didn’t style like a margarita in any respect. He thought of complaining, however that they had comped him. He completed it and left a tip for the waitress.
Afterwards, he wandered round downtown, by no means fairly getting his bearings, stunned when he acknowledged one thing, something.
*****
He thought of going again, however as an alternative averted Santa Fe following his third, fourth and fifth outings, deciding as an alternative to go someplace new, someplace he didn’t know up to now, the place he wouldn’t acknowledge the buildup of years. He had a manhattan in Manhattan, the place he caught a Broadway musical and didn’t perceive any of it. He had shoyu and sushi in Kyoto and even tried fugu, now that it might be grown with out the toxins.
“What’s it like?” requested a civilian sitting subsequent to him on the Raffles lodge. Henry had ordered the Singapore sling as a result of it was conventional, nevertheless it sat untouched.
“Area?” replied Henry.
“No. Coming again right here, after being on the market, when many years have handed. Is it unusual?”
Henry stared into the cocktail in entrance of him, liquid the color of a crimson dwarf topped with a cherry and orange-slice satellite tv for pc. “Yeah. Every part adjustments.” Together with your reference factors, he thought, realizing he by no means would have seen the cocktail in that method earlier than spacing out.
*****
On his sixth return, he went again to Santa Fe and walked its streets like a vacationer, admiring how trendy nanocultures had reworked the buildings into Ancestral Puebloan-like cliff dwellings. Santa Fe had canyons now, with buildings as excessive as 20 storeys or extra, however the stucco was again by fiat to be able to return the town to one thing like its previous, and this made it unusually a mixture of previous world and new world. The one factor lacking was the wood ladders between flooring.
At his bar cease, the bartender requested, “What’ll it’s, spaceman? I can do all of the classics: margarita, martini, mojito, daiquiri, cosmo.”
Henry pointed to what appeared like a fireball in entrance of a drinker down the bar. “What’s that?”
“The latest factor, spacer. I name it a phoenix, after my hometown. I invented it a few month in the past and it’s going supernova.”
“I’ll strive that.”
The drink got here in a versatile bulb like they utilized in house, however translucent, so you could possibly see the liquid inside churning, altering hues from pink-to-red-to-purple-to-blue, as if burning, endlessly recreating itself, however nonetheless the identical.
“To hometowns,” Henry mentioned, toasting the bartender, then sipping his phoenix and letting it heat him completely. It felt good to be again dwelling.
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