"Thank you, but I believe that I must continue a-foot. Please do not hold yourselves back on my account. I do ask that the pilot," he bowed gently to Natesa, "continue her careful course. There are cats about which are connected to our neighbor's estate, and I have promised him that no harm will come to them through us."

"Yes," Natesa said composedly. "That provision is also in the contract."

"Ah, I had thought that Mr. Shaper was a man of sense! It is good to have my judgment vindicated." He stepped back off the road, and moved his hand, indicating that they should pass on.

"I'll walk with Uncle Daav," Shan said suddenly. "No slight to Natesa's driving, but I believe I could do with a little less lurching."

"Understood," said the driver, solemnly. "If it would not inconvenience those who come after, I might be tempted to abandon the car here and have us all walk in."

"And so you make the sacrifice for the greater good!" Shan gave her a grin, before turning to the rear of the car. Nova had already reentered, the door shutting behind her.

Shan raised a hand. "Until soon."

The car moved off.

"There is, you know, not the slightest need to stand my guard," Daav said, as they watched the dust sift through the chilly air. "I am quite capable of defending myself."

"I never doubted it. But, Uncle Daav, you make such a good excuse for getting out of that car!"

He laughed. "So that was candid, was it? Come along, then, but I'll warn you that this is no pleasure-walk."

"It isn't?" Shan considered him, slanted brows slightly raised. "Are we hunting rabbit?"

"Indeed we are not. The delm wished to have eyeballs on this road-- an image I counsel you not to contemplate too closely-- and saw no reason not to make one errand into two."

"That sounds like Miri." He looked around, shaking his head. "They call this a road?"