The Treasure of Lei Fong Wu

Chapter Thirty Eight

When Inara found out that they were coming to Athens, she was very pleased.

She liked Athens. It didn’t really have a super-rich client base, but the clients in the register it did have were well-mannered, cultured, and interesting men – and a few women.

She liked this world. It was pretty. The beautiful skylines gleamed with white marble mountains and rolling green hills. The air was sweet with the smell of grassland. The sky traffic was light, though greater than she remembered, and mostly confined to the commercial region around Acropolis. That was where the heart of the industrial section was, mile after mile of factories surrounded my mile after mile of low-cost housing. The smog around the city was starting to be a problem, she noted. She had checked the cortex as a matter of course before she entered atmo. The crime rate was increasing, the unemployment rate wasn’t great, and picketers and protesters of one sort or another haunted the Forum in front of the Archon’s Palace.

But Inara wasn’t going to Acropolis.

In the wide blue expanse of deep blue water known as the Posidenic Sea, just off the province known as Arcadia, was a beautiful archipelago known for artist colonies and scenic vistas. A number of small, semi-independent communities had sprung up on these islands, communities that attracted the cultured intelligentsia. One of these islands was New Lesbos.

It was a feminist community almost entirely populated by women who preferred the company of other women. A town of the same name stood on the eastern end, rising out of the sea dramatically. It had a beautiful main plaza full of quaint shops and boutiques, incredible bistros, and intriguing galleries. In the center was a Classical Greek temple in (what else?) white marble, in which resided a fifteen-foot tall statue of Sappho, the famous and infamous Greek poetess who had become the icon of female love and lesbian sexuality. The Temple dominated the town. It was a