"Code out Dean Hsiu for me, will you, Rax?" she sighed.

She was seated at the phone by the time the older man's holoimage appeared in front of her. "Ah—

Ms. Panya," Hsiu beamed. "Thank you for returning my call. I hope I didn't disturb you?"

"Not at all, sir," Danae told him. "I'm afraid I was helping some friends celebrate their graduate assignments last night and it got a bit late."

"Well, you'll just have to call them all back tonight to return the favor," the other smiled. "Your own assignment request has just come back in—" he paused dramatically—"marked approved."

Danae felt her mouth fall open. "You mean... Triplet?"

"Triplet it is," Hsiu nodded. "Threshold, Shamsheer, and Karyx—you've been approved for all three worlds. And to the best of my knowledge this is the first time anyone from Autaris has been so honored. My heartiest congratulations to you."

Danae started to breathe again. "Thank you, sir. It's... a lot more than I expected myself."

"Yes, I can tell," the other said, a twinkle in his eye. "But you've got a lot of work ahead of you, so get your heart restarted and get to it. First of all, you'll need to get a full high-retention mnemonic treatment; after that'll come a three-week language course. Then—let's see—then you'll have another three-weeker on the cultures of Shamsheer and Karyx; and finally, there'll be a lab on voice commands and the more common spells."

"Yes. Right. Uh, was there anything about the Courier I asked for?"

"Courier? I didn't realize you'd made a specific request..." Hsiu peered somewhere off-camera. "Oh, yes, here it is. Most experienced Courier... name given here is Ravagin."

"Am I getting him?"

Hsiu frowned slightly. "It's a little hard to tell from the wording... but it looks like if he agrees to it Triplet Control itself is willing. He a friend of yours?"

"Never met him. But getting the most experienced Courier is important to the project proposal I made."