I don’t know what the hell to think about all that. I’ll think about it after I’m out. First things first. She hurried to the door as one of the Indowy began to twitch. They’ll be awake any second now. She glanced at her watch again. She’d made up time on being able to just close the drawer instead of reassemble it. Thank God.

After letting herself out of the Darhel’s suite, getting out was a simple matter of taking the elevator to the second floor and schmoozing her way through the party. As with a lot of places, there was a lot more effort put into keeping unauthorized people from getting in, than keeping people from getting out.

The party was the kind of glittering affair that had been attended by national-level movers and shakers back in the twentieth century. It would have had diplomats, politicians, major league bureaucrats, and the occasional celebrity or industrialist. This party still had movers and shakers, but while some of the attendees were officially diplomats, the interests they really represented were one or another Darhel business group. There were a few more celebrities than would have been in attendance before, outside of fund-raisers. As artists had throughout history, they clustered where the opportunities for patronage were. Whatever else they were, the Darhel were not stupid. They understood the value of good public relations. People in the entertainment industry knew the value of a FedCred. As a business arrangement, it generally worked out rather well. In show business, people who didn’t think so tended to be conspicuous by their absence.

Wow. That’s the first time I’ve seen a champagne fountain done in real life. Clever to have floated it over the water garden. Jewels and gold lamé had enjoyed something of a revival. The room was alive with potted trees and draped greenery. Floating lights resembling mythical will o’ the wisps made the ballroom look like something out of a materialistic reinterpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.