"I do," I said. "I'll make you a small wager it's smack-dab in the middle ofthat glow."

"And why would you think that?"

"Because Arno Cameron himself was in town tonight. Offering me a job."

Ixil's squashed-iguana face turned to look at me. "You are joking."

"Afraid not," I assured him. "He was running under a ridiculous alias—

Alexander Borodin, no less—and he'd dyed that black hair of his pure white, which madehim look a good twenty years older. But it was him." I tapped my jacket collar.

"He wants me to fly him out of here tomorrow morning in a ship called the Icarus."

"What did you tell him?"

"At three thousand commarks for the trip? I told him yes, of course."

Pix sneezed again. "This is going to be awkward," Ixil said; and then addedwhat had to be the understatement of the week. "Brother John is not going to bepleased."

"No kidding," I agreed sourly. "When was the last time Brother John waspleasedabout anything we did?"

"Those instances have been rare," Ixil conceded. "Still, I doubt we've ever seen him as angry as he can get, either."

Unfortunately, he had a point. Johnston Scotto Ryland—the "Brother" honorificwas pure sarcasm on our part—was the oh-so-generous benefactor who had bailedIxil and me out of looming financial devastation three years ago by adding theStormy Banks to his private collection of smuggling ships. Weapons, illegalbodyparts, interdicted drugs, stolen art, stolen electronics, every disgustingvariety of happyjam imaginable—you name it, we'd probably carried it. In fact, we were on a job for him right now, with yet another of his secretive littlecargoes tucked away in the Stormy Banks's hold.

And Ixil was right. Brother John had not clawed his way up to his exaltedposition among the Spiral's worst scum peddlers by smiling and shrugging offsudden unilateral decisions by his subordinates.