Nondescript voice aside, I was willing to believe (his was Charlie Kelly. He'd probably just got to his desk at Environmental Perfection Agency headquarters back in the District of St Columba, so of course he'd picked up the phone. Three-hour time difference? They don't think that way in D.StcC. The sun revolves around them, not the other way round. St Ptolemy of Alexandria has to be the patron of the place, no matter what the Church says.

All this flashed through my mind in as much of a hurry as I could muster at 5:07 on a Tuesday morning. I don't think I missed a beat - or not more than one, anyhow - before I said, "So what can I do for you this fine day, Charlie?"

The insulating spell on the phone mouthpiece kept me from having to listen to my imp shouting crosscountry to his imp. I waited for his answer: "We have reports that there might a problem in your neck of the woods worth an unofficial look or two."

"Whereabouts in my neck of the woods?" I asked patiently. Easterners who live in each other's pockets have no feel for how spread out Angels City really is.

The pause that followed was longer than conversations between phone imps would have required; Charlie had to be checking a map or a report or something. At last he said, "It's in a place called Chatsworth. That's just an Angels City district name, isn't it?" He made it sound as if it were just around the comer from me.

It wasn't. Sighing, I answered, "It's up in St. Ferdinand's Valley, Charlie. That's about forty, maybe fifty miles from where I am right now."

"Oh," he said in a small voice. A fifty-mile circle out from Charlie's office dragged in at least four provinces. Fifty miles for me won't even get me out of my barony unless I head straight south, and then I'm only in the one next door. I don't need to head south very often; the Barony of Orange has its own EPA investigators.