“It’s him!” he hissed. Half a dozen heads at the back of the line turned. Flammarion stared again, to make absolutely sure. The man in the chair was big, solid, and somehow menacing. “He’s changed a hell of a lot, bigger and broader, and he looks funny with that hat on. But that man in the chair is Chan Dalton.”

“Excellent.” MacDougal’s growl turned more heads, of everyone except the woman at the front of the line. “We’ve found him. Now I can do my part.”

“I hope you can.” Kubo flinched at the Ambassador’s glare and went on, “It might not be so easy. See that hat? He’s not just Chan Dalton any more. He’s a top enforcer for the Duke of Bosny — boss-man of this whole shooting-match. Down here, he doesn’t follow the rules. He makes them.”

* * *

It was a miracle, at least from Flammarion’s point of view: Dalton remembered him.

They had to wait until the whole line of supplicants had been attended to before they could approach Chan Dalton. But when they did get near, even before Kubo or Ambassador MacDougal could speak, the man in the chair removed his hat, grinned, and said, “Why, Captain Flammarion. It’s been a while.”

“It’s been over twenty years!” Kubo recalled Chan Dalton as a young Adonis, lithe and slim and golden-haired. The man before him now was thick through the middle and had a scarred, weary face. Had Kubo himself changed as much? “Do you really remember me?”

“Of course I do. You were sent to see me when I was stuck on Horus, out in the Egyptian Cluster. Typical — you were the one they used to dump all the shit on, weren’t you, when anything unpleasant had to be done? Things have changed, I hope.”

“Well. Maybe.” Kubo coughed and glanced uncertainly at Dougal MacDougal. “This is the human Ambassador to the Stellar Group.”

“Oh yes?” Chan offered MacDougal a polite, distant stare.

“He has come all the way from Ceres to talk to you.”