The Nebula Harvest Festival on the Cloud-Sea Central Platform was still going strong outside the high windows of the Command Car, where strings of red paper lanterns floated beside glowing purple gas clouds and the smell of deep-fried cumin space-locusts drifted through every air vent. Inside the main planning hall of the [Light-Year Sword-Rail Express], however, the atmosphere was colder than deep space.
SLAM!
A three-inch-thick iron-wood ledger hit the long oak table so hard that three teacups jumped into the air, and Old Yellow—the massive Golden Dragon-Camel napping in the corner with his head resting on a sack of dried turnips—snorted awake and accidentally spat a glob of golden saliva onto General Tie Zhan’s left boot.
“Robbery! Day-light, star-light, galaxy-wide robbery!” Abacus Su roared. His brass-rimmed spectacles slid down to the very tip of his nose as his fingers flew across his golden abacus so fast they left afterimages. Sparks of pure calculation Qi flew off the beads and singed the edge of the galactic star chart spread across the table. “My Lord! Look at this map! Look at the eight hundred solar systems between our Cloud-Sea Granary and the middle belt of the Orion-Jade Spiral Arm! Every single one of them is a crime against honest bookkeeping!”
