Well, not quite. The auburn mop over the brain case between the two necks is supposed to show caste once you learn to discount variations of mere style. To do that, you have to be a puppeteer. Instead of admitting my ignorance, I asked, «Did that dossier say I was a spendthrift?»

«You have spent more than a million stars in the past four years.,

«And loved it.»

«Yes. You will shortly be in debt again. Have you thought of doing more writing? I admired your article on the neutron star BVS-1. 'The pointy bottom of a gravity well … 'Blue starlight fell on me like intangible sleet. Lovely.»

«Thanks. It paid well, too. But I'm mainly a spaceship pilot.»

«It is fortunate, our meeting here. I had thought of having you found. Do you wish a job?»

That was a loaded question. The last and only time I took a job from a puppeteer, the puppeteer blackmailed me into it, knowing it would probably kill me. It almost did. I didn't hold that against the regional president of We Made It, but to let them have another crack at me — «I'll give you a conditional maybe. Do you have the idea I'm a professional suicide pilot?»

«Not at all. If I show details, do you agree that the information shall be confidential?»

«I do,» I said formally, knowing it would commit me. A verbal contract is as binding as the tape it's recorded on.

«Good. Come.» He pranced toward a transfer booth.

The transfer booth let us out somewhere in Jinx's vacuum regions. It was night. High in the sky, Sirius B was a painfully bright pinpoint casting vivid blue moonlight on a ragged lunar landscape. I looked up and didn't see Binary, Jinx's bloated orange companion planet, so we must have been in the Farside End.

But there was something hanging over us.