And then he put his hand on her shoulder.

Tonya shoved his hand away and spun around to face him.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” the man said, and reached for her. Maybe he just wanted to grab at her again, maybe he was taking a deliberate swing at her. His open hand caught her hard across the chin, a hard slap. Trained reflex took over as Tonya dropped back a step or two and gave the man a kick to the head, sending him sprawling.

“Hey!” another voice shouted from behind, giving Tonya all the warning she needed. She heard the one behind her grunt as he lunged for her, and she ducked down to make him hit her higher than he meant to.

He slammed into her from the back, knocking the wind out of her. She grabbed for his collar and pulled him forward, using his momentum to throw him over her shoulder.

He hit the ground with a hard slap. Another Ironhead, all right, but this one in good enough shape not to look ridiculous in the uniform. He was already up, shaking off the impact, heading for her-

And then strong robotic arms were on her, and another robot made a grab for her second attacker. It was over.

Tonya struggled to escape, even though she knew it was pointless.

She hated it when someone else finished what she had started.

Now. Now. Now was the moment. The SSS guards on the door had pulled out twenty-five minutes before, just as Bissal had been promised. Nothing to worry about besides whatever Rangers might be by the door.

Ottley Bissal, hovering at the edge of a crowd of late arrivals, checked his watch for the dozenth time. Now. He pulled his quite legitimate invitation from his pocket, to have it ready in case he was challenged. He stepped into the knot of laughing, happy people and allowed himself to be swept up as they went inside.

Inside. Inside the Governor’s Residence. He was here, he had made it. It was all happening just the way they had promised it would.

He felt a sense of triumph wash over him. But now was not the time for such things. Keep your mind on the task at hand. He had something under two minutes to get where he was going.

Unseen, unnoticed, Ottley Bissal hurried toward his goal.

The first Alvar Kresh knew of the altercation was the sound of it, muffled shouts and cries corning from the great hall as he was waiting to be admitted into the Governor’s private office. He ran back down the hallway, with Donald far out in the lead.

Kresh rushed down the stairs, but stopped three or four stops from the bottom. A remarkable tableau greeted him. The robot Caliban was holding Tonya Welton from behind, keeping her arms pinned behind her and struggling-without much success-to keep her from kicking out with her legs.

Another robot, jet-black and somewhat shorter than Caliban, was doing his best to keep a man in an Ironhead uniform out of range of Welton’s rather well-aimed kicks. As the man was doing his best to break free and rush at Welton, the second robot was not having an easy time of it. Damnation! Now Kresh remembered. The black robot was Prospero, one of the more visible of the New Law robots.

The robots and the humans they were restraining were surrounded by a pack of astonished party-goers, four or five Rangers in waiter’s uniforms clearly on the alert, but not quite sure what to do. The whole room was in a general state of turmoil.

Kresh realized that another Ironhead was out cold, flat on his back, a bit too close to the flailing would-be combatants for anyone to get to him and render aid without risking the receipt of a misaimed punch or kick. Donald, however, had no reason to fear injury from anything a human could dish out, and would not have cared if he did. He rushed between Welton and the conscious Ironhead and got to the man who was down.

“All right, quiet! “ Kresh shouted, with enough authority behind it that the crowd went quiet. Kresh made his way down the last few stairs, and the wall of people parted in front of him. He was tempted to ask what had happened, but he knew damn well that was the best way to get everyone talking and shouting allover again. At least Welton and the still-conscious Ironhead had been distracted enough by his entrance to calm down a bit. Kresh turned to the Ironhead first, still being held by the black robot.

“You,” he said. “You, the Ironhead. What’s your name?”

“Blare. Reslar Blare,” the man said. “She started it. Deam was just corning up to talk to her, and she kicked him in the head!”

“Talk!” Welton said. “He talked to me with a punch in the head.”

“Sheriff Kresh! Sheriff Kresh! “ Kresh turned to see Simcor Beddle pulling at his sleeve, looking rather more flustered and anxious than a short, fat man in a uniform could without looking ridiculous. “These two men are not Ironheads,” Beddle announced.

“Then why are they wearing your damned comic opera uniforms?” Welton demanded.

“They are not Ironheads, I tell you!” Beddle protested. “I know all the men and women entitled to wear uniforms of their rank-and I have never seen these two before! Someone has sent them to cause a provocation and blame us!”

That was nearly plausible, Kresh admitted to himself. Beddle had been trying to move his people a bit closer to respectability in recent months, with more of an eye toward the ballot box than bullyboy techniques.

“All right, Beddle,” he said. “We’ll find out who’s who. ” Kresh turned to Tonya Welton. This could be tricky, damned tricky, if she decided to make trouble. A diplomatic incident and then some. Best to try to smooth her feathers, if he could. “Let her go,” he said to Caliban, careful not to address him by name. Why get the crowd agitated allover again by reminding them which robot this was?

Caliban hesitated. Damnation, Kresh thought. Hard to remember he doesn’t have Second Law. On the other hand, he doesn’t have First Law either. What the devil was he doing breaking up a fight? “It’s all right. I don’t think Madame Welton is going to do anything unwise.”

Caliban let the Settler leader go, and she pulled herself away from his grip without a great deal of good grace.

“Don’t take it out on the robots, Madame Welton,” Kresh said, before she could say anything to Caliban. “ All they did was break up the fight. ”

“Maybe so,” Welton said, “but I don’t have to like it. ”

“No, you don’t,” Kresh agreed. He looked around the room full of staring faces and decided he didn’t want this much of an audience while he was sorting this out. Not unless he wanted a fresh shouting match-or fistfight-to break out. What with a New Law and a No Law robot and allegedly false Ironheads and a Settler mixed up in this already, he didn’t need any further complications.

Just then, three Settler Security Service agents came rushing into the room. They had been dozing somewhere on duty, no doubt, when someone had summoned them. Well, they could be of some use now, just the same. “You three. Take charge of these two men,” he said, pointing out Blare and Deam. “Donald!” Kresh called out. “Front and center!”

Donald was still kneeling by Deam. “Sir, this man is unconscious-”

“Is he in any immediate danger?” Kresh demanded, bullying Donald just a bit. “Will he come to harm if these SSS agents take care of him?”

“No, sir,” Donald conceded. “He is in no immediate danger.”

“Then let someone else care for him and find someplace for me to talk to Madame Welton in private.”

Kresh always assumed that, in the case of a public brawl, witnesses would contradict each other and get muddled about what happened when and who did what to whom.

With luck, he could calm Tonya Welton down here and now, get a coherent story, and find some way to slap her attackers on the wrists without a lot of formalities, and make it all go away by morning. It was, after all, just a brawl, and it did not make much sense for it to take up too much of his time or anyone else’s. He doubted that Tonya Welton would wish to spend much time as a witness in a police court.