He sighed. "You've seen the test results. I'm tired, Corah. Just tired. I've been shuttling people through the Tunnels for sixteen years now—thats two to three years longer than any other Courier you've got, and a year longer than the supposed maximum."

"You're good at what you do," Lea said. "Damned good. We wouldn't have finagled the rules so hard to keep you on this long if you weren't."

"I appreciate the compliment," he nodded. "If I wasn't so good at it I'd have left long ago with or without your help."

She snorted wryly. "Not much for false modesty, are you?"

"False modesty is for politicians," he shrugged.

There was a moment of silence. "Well," Lea said at last. "Is there anything I can offer that might change your mind? You did mention extra money and vacation time."

He smiled. "Not unless you've got some kind of magic salve for the terminally burned-out psyche."

"Sorry—all the technological miracles are down the Tunnel a ways in Shamsheer. I don't suppose...?"

"If they had something like that, I would have used it long ago," he said dryly. "Probably. Was there anything else?"

"As a matter of fact, there was." The neutral expression was back in place, with a twinge of discomfort hovering at its edges. "I've had a... let's call it an unusual request come down from an unnamed source—unnamed because no one will tell me where the hell it came from, either. It asks specifically that our most experienced Courier be assigned to take a female graduate student from the University of Autaris into the Hidden Worlds for her field assignment."

Ravagin frowned. "A single student? One?"

"That's what it says."

"What the hell do they think we're running here, a personal guided tour service?"

Lea shrugged. "I don't know any more than I've just given you... except that there are distinct hints that pressure is going to be brought to bear on your neck if you don't agree to take her in."

"Whoa—freeze that frame, huh? What does this have to do with me? I'm leaving, remember?"

"Maybe, maybe not." Lea took a deep breath. "It isn't like we can pretend someone else is more experienced than you are—it's an on-record fact we can't hide. The higher-ups have already made it clear they want you to stay on for this one last trip. If you don't... it's entirely possible your leave of absence might not be approved."

"Well, I'm sure that's a triumph for some branch of human stupidity," Ravagin snorted. "I presume you offered my last med/psych test results for their reading enjoyment?"

"And I told them you were suffering the entire Courier burnout syndrome," she sighed. "None of it did a scrap of good. Most experienced is what they want, most experienced is what they're determined to get."

"All right, then. If that's how they want to play I'll quit outright. Then I'm out of their grasp entirely."

"Yeah. Well..." Lea looked acutely uncomfortable. "I would presume, though, that you're not ready to retire at the ripe old age of thirty-eight."

Ravagin felt his eyes narrow. "Are you suggesting," he said slowly, "that they might blackmark my records if I refuse to roll over for them?"

Lea spread her hands. "I don't know what they've got in mind upstairs—God's truth. All I know is that I haven't seen everyone this nervous since the Proloc of Vandahl ignored all the warnings and horror stories and demanded we take his children into Shamsheer to ride the flying carpets."

Ravagin felt a shiver run up his spine. "Just who the hell is this grad student, anyway—the Presidio's daughter?"

"All I've got is a name: Danae Panya. Currently on Autaris; no other data given. Mean anything to you?"

"Not a thing." He didn't add that the politics and business affairs of the Twenty Worlds were somewhat outside his usual field of interest.

"Not to me, either." Lea twisted her mouth sourly. "Look, Ravagin, I know you probably hate giving in to pressure about as much as I do... but, really, would it be so bad? Really? It would be only a single person—"

"An inexperienced kid."

"They're all inexperienced—that's what we need Couriers for, remember? So it's a single person, not one of those group zoos you all hate, and on a university field research assignment besides. Which means a short trip, and she'll be out of your hair puttering around on her own most of the time, anyway. And she won't be here for several more weeks, which'll give you a good stretch of rest/rec time to get ready for her."

"Oh, it's just a Courier's fondest dream," Ravagin said sardonically, a sudden thought souring his mouth. "Tell me, Corah: what are they threatening you with if you don't talk me into this?"

Her eyes slipped away from his gaze. "That's irrelevant. It's also none of your business."

"Uh-huh." In other words, if he cut out she'd wind up bearing the full weight of this official elephant by herself. Damn them all, he thought bitterly. It took a particularly low class of vermin to hit a man through his friends... and a particularly stupid class of man to give in to such tactics.

A class of which he was, unfortunately, a member. And there were times he hated himself for it.

"All right," he sighed. "I'll do it—not for your boss, and sure as hell not for this Panya kid and her political connections. I'll do it as a personal favor to you, Corah... and you're to damn well make sure they know it. Understand? They owe you a Big One."

Lea nodded, trying not entirely successfully to keep the moisture out of her eyes. "I understand, Ravagin. I'll make them pay it back, too, in some way that'll benefit the entire Corps. Count on it."

"Yeah." He got to his feet. "If that's all, then, I still have a report to fill out."

"The hell with the report," she said. "It's a beautiful day out there—go out and enjoy it while it lasts."

He pursed his lips. "All right. Yes, I think I will."

She attempted a smile. "It's the least I can do. And Ravagin... thanks. They owe you a Big One, too."

"Sure." A Big One, he knew, that he would probably never get around to collecting. But it was the thought that counted. "Talk to you later. Bye-and-luck."

Triplet, on first impression, was a distinct disappointment.

The minor-class starport they came down at was bad enough, in Danae's opinion; haphazardly designed and stuck twenty-five kilometers away from the nearest real city like an architectural leper.

But the nearby buildings of Triplet Control that were visible through the starport lounge's window were even worse. She'd seen military camps before, but even by those dubious standards this one didn't measure up. The main Triplet Defense building was a massive chunk of masonry that looked like it had been thrown together under combat conditions. A half kilometer further north, the Crosspoint Building was a little better; but any improvement in design was more than made up for by the fenced-in perimeter surrounding it...

Involuntarily, Danae shivered. The three-hundred-meter-wide defensive ring around Threshold's Tunnel was called the Dead Zone, and was allegedly the most airtight perimeter anywhere in the Twenty Worlds. She didn't know any of the details... and gazing at the oddly indistinct view beyond the Dead Zone's outer fence, she decided she didn't want to.

"Ms. Danae Panya?"

She started, shifting her eyes from the window to the two men approaching from behind her. "Yes?" she acknowledged cautiously.

"Welcome to Triplet," the older of the men smiled. "I'm Liaison Director Hamen DorLexis. I must say, you caught us a little by surprise, coming in early like this."

She relaxed a bit. "I had a chance at an earlier flight than I'd originally planned," she explained, striving to sound offhanded about it. In truth, it had cost her a run through Hell's own bureaucracy to get her flight switched at the last minute. "I thought I could use the extra time to look around Threshold a little."