Tovera closed her case and bowed slightly. Her complexion was ordinarily so pale that only one who knew her well would realize that she'd gone even whiter.

"I'll deliver the chip as you direct, mistress," she said quietly. "Shall I await your return here at Chatsworth Minor?"

"Yes, unless there's a reason for you to do otherwise," Adele said. "I'll leave that to your judgment."

Tovera smiled faintly in acknowledgment of the conciliatory words. "Mistress," she repeated. She went out the door like a wisp of cold air.

Adele shrugged to loosen her muscles. Her left hand had been in the pocket of her tunic, gripping a little pistol. She hadn't expected to shoot it out with her servant, but in times of tension her subconscious took her hands to one machine or the other: the personal data unit or the pistol. She was rarely without both.

"A playhouse, mistress?" Rene Cazelet said. He stood unusually straight; she wondered how much he'd understood of what'd just happened.

"Yes, Master Cazelet," Adele said, crooking a finger toward the doorman. He opened the panel which'd been carved out of wood from the Mundy country estate of Chatsworth Major. "We're going to a play. It's calledThe Conquest of Dunbar's World, and I'd very much like how it describes that business."

CHAPTER 2: Xenos on Cinnabar

Though the staff at Chatsworth Minor wore Mundy livery, they were actually employed by The Shippers' and Merchants' Treasury. The bank rented the townhouse for clients and clandestine meetings during the long periods in which the owner and her other tenant, Commander Leary, were off Cinnabar. Daniel hadn't been told of the connection, because the bank's major partner was his estranged father, Corder Leary.