Ivan Vorpatril, read the name on his credit chit. Also with a Vorbarr Sultana home address. Not just a Barrayaran, then, but one of those Vor-people, the conquerors’ arrogant privileged class. Even her father had been wary of-she cut the thought short.

“Do you wish to include a note?”

“Naw, I think it’ll be self-explanatory. His wife’s a gardener, see. She’s always looking for something to stuff her poisonous plants into.” He watched her slide the foam block into its outer container and affix the label, adding after a moment, “I’m new in town. Yourself?”

“I’ve been here a while,” she said neutrally.

“Really? I could do with a native guide.”

Dotte closed out the scanners and turned off the lights as a broad hint to the laggard customer. And, bless her, lingered by the door to see Tej safely free of the shop and him. Tej gestured him out ahead of her, and the door locked behind them all.

The oldest human habitation on the surface of Komarr, Solstice Dome had a peculiar layout, to Tej’s eye. The aging initial installations resembled the space stations she’d grown up in, with their labyrinths of corridors. The very latest sections were laid out with separate, street-linked buildings, but under vast, soaring, transparent domes that mimicked the open sky the residents hoped to have someday, when the atmospheric terraforming was complete. Middling areas, like this one, fell between, with much less technologically ambitious domes that still gave glimpses of an outside where no one ventured without a breath mask. The passage that Swift Shipping fronted was more street than corridor, anyway, too broad for the persistent customer to easily obstruct her.