" 'Scuse me." Sammy tapped the nearest constable on the shoulder. " 'Scuse me." He slipped through the ranks of his protectors.

The proprietor could see that someone tall was coming through. He reached toward his desk.Lordy. If he trashed the databases he had distributed across the net, they'd get nothing out of him.

But the fellow's gesture froze. He stared in shock at Sammy's face. "Admiral?"

"Um, ‘Fleet Captain,' if you please."

"Yes, yes! We've been watching you on the news every day now. Please! Sit down. You're the source of the inquiry?"

The change in manner was like a flower opening to the sunlight. Apparently the Qeng Ho was just as popular with the city folk as it was with the Forestry Department. In a matter of seconds, the proprietor—the "private investigator," as he called himself—had pulled up records and started search programs. "...Hmm. You don't have a name, or a good physical description, just a probable arrival date. Okay, now Forestry claims your fellow must have become someone named ‘Bidwel Ducanh.' " His gaze slid sideways to the silent constables, and he smiled. "They're very good at reaching nonsense conclusions from insufficient information. In this case..." He did something with his search programs. "Bidwel Ducanh. Yeah, now that I search for it, I remember hearing about that fellow. Sixty or a hundred years ago he made some kind of a name for himself." A figure that had come from nowhere, with a moderate amount of money and an uncanny flare for self-advertisement. In a period of thirty years, he had gathered the support of several major corporations and even the favor of the Forestry Department. "Ducanh claimed to be a city-person, but he was no freedom fighter. He wanted to spend money on some crazy, long-term scheme. What was it? He wanted to..." The private investigator looked up from his reading to stare a moment at Sammy. "He wanted to finance an expedition to the OnOff star!"