CHAPTER 2It was late when he left the library and what could be seen of the sky was a dull, angry pink from reflected lights, smog and cloud. Above the mess was clean air, the moon and stars and he realised that he had never seen them, not really, only as glittering dots on a television screen. Captain Cosmos, he thought sourly. Sergeant Starflight. Galactic General and the stomach churning Pirates of Pegasus, programmes in which stalwart heroes rescued nubile maidens from slavering monsters with tireless monotony. Writers, he mused. People who turned out stuff like that should be shot. And yet was he any better? Did the pap he plagiarised have any real, greater merit? Beneath the superficial veneer of educated gloss wasn’t he pandering to jaded appetites just as the television writers wer
