A cure was sought, but to no avail. The Warden organism, it seemed, so changed the host’s body chemistry that the host could no longer live without the Wardens there—but the Wardens required more, something else, something not dear. When you removed a Warden-infected person from the Diamond, the organisms died—and so did its unfortunate host.

The mutation was so complete that those on one Warden world could move from world to world, but could not move outside the system—ever. Humans could live, work, and build in the Warden Diamond, but once there, they could never leave.

It became the perfect prison for those master criminals.

So first bad come the scientists, then the criminal elite. Over two hundred years a large indigenous human population had arisen on the four worlds as well—by far the majority. But the criminal element was the elite and the rulers. They hated the Confederacy for what it had done to them, and thanks to the Wardens within them, no longer felt human but something quite apart, alien, having no loyalty or kinship to the civilized worlds. Quickly they established control over then* worlds, and quickly, too, they took advantage of interstellar communications to reestablish contact with their far-flung criminal empires and even with the Confederacy itself. They were quick to realize that the Warden Diamond not only kept them in, it also kept the Confederacy out. They controlled the fate of all sent to the Warden Diamond, and even the best Confederacy agent not only was at their mercy but was also, like them, changed and trapped there forever.

It usually took ^very little time for such agents to realize on which side their bread was buttered.

Their old cronies Outside in the rest of the Confederacy were quick to note that, except for Lilith, one could steal the Mono Lisa and by remote courier could leave it in the Diamond in plain sight—and no one could touch it, let alone recover it But since the Mono Lisa was made of natural pigment and canvas, and was inanimate, it could not “die” should the thief ask for its removal, retrieving it beyond the range of Warden life.