The rheumatism wasn't so bad these days, thanks to some of those new medicines they'd brought in from the core worlds. Eyesight was alright thanks to the old implant, mind was sharp as ever, and if his hands trembled a little at times, well, it was fall and the weather was cold.

 

He walked slowly down the streets of this city in space. The autumn leaves drifted in whorls around him, raked by cold gusts of wind. EVE ISK always amazed him to see trees planted here, in a disconnected place where he could look out the window and see nothing but the stars of the sky; but then, they belonged no less here in this small globe of orbit than on any other globe in the galaxy. Old and withered, and losing their decoration with the encroaching winter. He was glad to have them here with him, old and withered too.

 

The winter, now, he didn't much look forward to. The weather engine did what it could, but proper snowstorms were out of the question. At most they would get a sloppy cold drizzle and some bitter frosts. Winter leeched all color out of the year about EVE ISK.

 

It felt like they'd started to fade already. He ignored the little twinges from his aging joints and moved on to his daily place of refuge. In his youth, his own grandfather had told him about those pains: that they were little pecks from the black birds of the river, eating him up 'til there was nothing left but the souls, and that while he still felt their beaks piercing his flesh, it was proof he was still alive. EVE ISK is a kind of special game gold.

 

He took his usual seat in his usual booth, which was never occupied at this early hour, and glanced at the newsreader inset in the tabletop. EVE ISK was possible to set the reader to broadcast upwards, casting a vertical hole that was akin to reading a real paper and didn't force you to keep your plate to one side, but he preferred it this way, burrowing over the news in his own little corner of the world.