"Yes. I can show them to you. They're at my Chesapeake Bay estate."

"In the basement storage or the library?"

"I forget. But I can show you."

"No matter. We'll get them, now that we know which of your homes they're in. That's all I needed. Anything I can give you besides your life?"

"Nothing," said Lippincott on the hope that if only his life would do for a favor, his life he might get.

"Don't you want to know the answer to your research about the breakup of the great Loni Empire?"

"I want my life."

The voice ignored him. "The Loni Empire," it said, "broke up because it put its faith in outsiders. It hired people to do what it should have done itself. And they grew soft and weak, and finally the Hausa just pushed them over, as if they were soft, fat children."

Despite his predicament, Lippincott was interested. "That's too simple," he said. "To build a great empire takes character. The Loni must have had it. They would not just roll over and play dead."

"No, you're right," the voice said. "They would have fought. But something got in the way. Your family's accursed slave trade. So the best of the Loni wound up shipped away to grow cotton for you. But I'll tell you a story. The Loni are going to return to power again. I hope that makes you feel better."

"It doesn't," Lippincott said, "but suppose you tell me how. Right now, the whole Loni tribe couldn't build a shoebox."

"Simple," the voice said. "I'm going to lead them back to power." He paused. "Really horrible thing you did to that girl. Not that it matters, Lippy. Not that she matters or that you matter. You'd have to pay a long time before the Lippincotts and the Forsythes ever got even. It doesn't matter. What matters is in the mountains."