Had to get into edits on GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND first before I could work on this.
We all had wandlights, but Jim was the first one to activate his. “Wow,” he said as a ball of light blossomed over his head. “Is this an Old American ruin?”
I casually looked at the ceilings and walls. “No,” I told him casually. “This is all twenty-fourth century work, using contemporary materials. See the mosaics on the wall? The colored inlays are salvaged plastic, and have a Sonoran influence. Besides, this part of the continent was technically part of a different country before the Discovery.”
“Technically?” Le asked. Unless it was Ev. Down here it was dark enough to make telling the two apart difficult. “I thought the Old Americans ruled from the Pole to the Canal.”
“It’s complicated,” I admitted. “They directly ruled the middle part of the continent, but the countries north and south of them were technically independent. Imagine the regional hegemony the Imperium Orci has over its client-states and you won’t go far wrong.”
“Good bit of casualness in that 2nd paragraph”, A Cat said, lazily.
Mew
Yeah, yeah, I would have caught it in the review. Probably.