I showered and changed clothes, then took my bonus money and descended to the gambling floor. If the hotel was a temple to money, the casino was the Holy of Holies and I went right to the altar. I didn’t have to wait long to get a seat at a poker table, and after three hours walked away with seven grand more than I’d started with. The people I’d skinned were all guests, just like me, and took their losses with good grace. Given that most were wearing big, blocky rings studded with enough gems that I’d have had trouble lifting one, much less buy one with my nest egg, they could afford it.

I retreated to my room and dressed for the evening. The store in Manville had done a great job with the suit. While I was certain there would be people in the room who would recognize it was not custom made, they would know it had a designer label. One could decry such shallow behavior, but it made those folks pretty easy to peg and, subsequently, manipulate.

As I dressed I found myself smiling just imagining what Janella’s appearance at a party like this would do. Her beauty and elegance would get her noticed right away, of course. Her being nobility and from Fletcher would have caused a bit of a stir. Her being a Knight of The Republic, however, that would be serious stuff. People would be all over her, wanting to know what The Republic intended for Basalt, for Emblyn and, hopefully, themselves.

And if they knew what I was, well, I’d not be there if anyone knew what I was.

I took the lift to the top floor and actually gasped as I stepped out. The entire ceiling and three of the walls had been made of glass, affording a wonderful view of the night sky. On Basalt that meant we’d be able to see a stunning display of lightning. The clouds were gathering to deliver it, and part of me wondered if Emblyn hadn’t managed to arrange things that way.

I joined a line of people snaking past Emblyn at the entryway. An aide standing well back behind him had a noteputer which she consulted as we entered. She subvocalized and an ear-bud microphone transmitted her words to Emblyn, who smiled and greeted everyone by name. He shook hands heartily, asked little personal questions, and laughed at the replies. I took it as a very good sign that no ethnic segregation had been done to the guest list, and Emblyn seemed equally at home with everyone.

He really did look every inch the successful businessman he was purported to be. Unlike Jacob Bannson, Emblyn was tall and slender, with his thick black hair brushed perfectly into place and his deep brown eyes wet with sincerity. As I came up, his smile grew just a bit broader than it had been with the elderly couple before me. “Mr. Donelly, so pleased you could make it.”

“I appreciate the invitation, Mr. Emblyn.”

“Call me Ring. Everyone does.”

“And I’m Sam.”

He shook my hand heartily. “I understand you won a little bit of money at poker this afternoon.”

“A little bit depending upon who is doing the accounting.” I smiled, impressed that his people had been watching me. I’d spend the rest of my stay watching for the watchers, though I knew the casino’s security system would make surveillance child’s play. That meant I’d also be very careful. “Should I feel guilty that they were your guests?”

“Not at all.” He leaned in closely. “They’ll just drop more in an effort to reverse their bad luck, so take all you want.”

I laughed. “Spoken like the master of ten-percent rake.”

He nodded and let me go. “Please, enjoy yourself.”

Thus released I moved into the room. A person in hotel livery found me and handed me a small chit. “You will be sitting at table twenty-seven, right over there. The bars are to your right and left, appetizers at the stations. You will be seated in an hour.”

“Thank you.” I pocketed my chit and wandered to one of the bars. While I waited in line I studied the selection and found they had my favorite Irish whisky. My mouth immediately started to water, but I held back. Emblyn’s people had pegged me as a Diamond Negro man, and I didn’t want to give them too much to think about. Moreover, anything, no matter how innocent, that could link me back to my old self was to be avoided. For all I knew, someone in here could have spoken once with Victor Steiner-Davion and heard him mention that whisky, and bits would start to be flipped here and there until someone decided there was something interesting to learn about me.

Once I had my beer, in a great big pilsner glass with the Emblyn logo emblazoned on it, I started toward the hors d’oeuvres table. Yes, normally at a party this impressive there would been a small army of servers circulating with silver plates full of these things. Most of them were, in fact, wandering with flutes of champagne. The appetizers, though, all arrayed on twenty-five linear meters of tabletop, made for an exhibition that was as much art as it was food. Things had been color coordinated so the produce from one world resembled the planetary banner, or items from a particular corporation were spread out to look like its logo. The centerpiece, however, was a collection of things that were the picture of the hotel itself, as if shot at dawn from the shoreline. The help could have been carting all that around, but they would have been hauling pieces of a puzzle that no one could have put together.

The display was breathtaking and, I’ll admit, I’d just started to drift unconsciously past, trying not to drool on myself. I was not paying attention until I felt a hand on my right elbow. It jerked me back just as a behemoth that, in his evening clothes, looked like the biggest penguin ever seen, slashed right past me and went straight for the hotel. Clutched under his arm was a tiny dog that graced me with a growl as they slipped by.

I turned and looked at my savior. “Thank you.”

She smiled, her blue eyes full of fire that matched the sapphire at her throat. “Just returning the favor.”

“Pardon?”

“Never get between a man and his snack, remember?”

I blinked. “That was you?”

“Yes, and that was him, too. Perason Quam, the food critic for the Manville Journal.”

I glanced at the broad back and wavering hips as huge holes appeared in the mural. “That’s his name, Quam, not yours?”

“Yes.” She frowned very slightly. “You’ve not been on Basalt long, have you?”

“Not long enough to know him, nope. You, on the other hand…” I slowly smiled, buying another second or two for my brain to start working. In the blue, off-the-shoulders gown she wore, she looked much more elegant than she’d been on the shuttle and, yes, it came to me. She was far more elegant than she’d been in Tri-Vid reports on the sewer disaster. “You are associated with some of the private shelters that took people in last week. I remember you, but only caught the middle of a report. I didn’t get your name.”

“So you had no idea who I was on the shuttle?”

“No, just being kind. Would it have made a difference?”

“To some, yes.” She offered me her hand. “I’m Bianca Germayne. I’m Count Hector’s daughter.”