“If I needed what?! He was standing in the middle of your mucking warehouse. How am I supposed to—”

Zia slapped her hand on the counter, then stabbed for emphasis on one of a dozen ID facsimiles pressed beneath the laminate. “Any 10-year old on this planet knows: No badge, no deal! I don’t care if your promissory voucher came from the Prophet himself. If you can’t give me a valid badge number, I can’t give you a tithe receipt.”

Michael had sunk beyond anger, beyond frustration. Now he was plumbing despair. His face was ashen. His voice caught on every word.

“TCM tithe collectors are booked into my House for the night. Tonight. My House. If I can’t show them a tithe receipt—” and then his shoulders collapsed. He stood vacantly for a moment, and then paced to a seedy chair next to the grimy window overlooking the sidewalk. He sank into the hard, cracked seat. He stared out at a row of rusting signpost stumps, and muttered, to no one; to anyone: “I’m ruined.”

Zia had crossed a line herself. Detached, disembodied, sick to death of the scam she knew full well had happened. An illicit cargo. A midnight rendezvous. A dark warehouse. An efficient, knowledgeable buyer. The conversation: “Of course, we can’t issue commodity scrip Mr. Van Zandt. Not for this cargo. What we can do is give you a for services promissory voucher. Just exchange it for tithe receipts at the Saint George office. Safer for you, anyway. Full value, right? Even if the price fluctuates? Better all ‘round, eh?” And then twenty-two kilos of prime opal meerschaum just—ceased to exist. And Michael Van Zandt left holding the Stick. No scrip to exchange for company stores; no tithe credit to settle the TCM books.

Yes, any ten-year-old from New Utah would have known that score. But Michael Van Zandt wasn’t a ten-year-old, and he wasn’t from New Utah. She looked at him, slumped in the rickety chair, languid and patrician in his Bonneville whites, trying so hard to look the part, but New Utahan he definitely wasn’t. She looked beyond him, to the window, grimy and yellowed because water could not be spared to wash it. Through the window to the filthy, littered sidewalk, until her eyes, too, came to rest on the rusting stumps of signposts. And came to a decision of her own.

“Myneer Van Zandt.”

He looked back at her, sharply.

“Perhaps we might come up with some more—creative—clerical arrangement.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Perhaps I could issue a receipt for this year’s tithe, against your promise of future deliveries to that value.”

Michael shot to his feet. “Now look here! I’ve already delivered twenty-two kilos at current prices. You know full well —”

“That prices are about to drop? Yes. That’s the gamble, isn’t it? The price rises, and then it drops. And we both know why. The difference is, I know someone who knows exactly when.”

“Why should I care? I already——”

“You already fell for a sucker’s deal, Myneer. Consider it a sunk cost. Think about it. I know someone who can tell you exactly—exactly—when the next shipment will flood the market. And exactly—exactly—when it will dry up again. Surely you know someone who knows what to make of that? How to recoup your losses?”

“And how do I know that you will keep that promise?”

“A time-honored tradition, Myneer Van Zandt. Hostages.”

Michael looked confused. Zia smiled.

“If you agree to what I’m about to do, you will move me, and my family, into your House in Bonneville.”

“I do not need any more household help in Bonneville.”

“Oh, you’ll find us useful, Myneer Van Zandt. But it goes with the deal. Because if I do this, I’ll have no choice.”

Michael shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. The TCM collectors are already there by now. At my House. They’re probably already at my House.”

“Well, there’s where you’re in luck. As it happens, I’m making a depot run. Today. To the Bonneville warehouse. FairServ hop leaves in an hour. Two seats left.”

“FairServ? But that would cost—”

“Next to nothing.” Zia grinned. “Remember? Not-for-profit. TCM-registered, TC-sanctioned charity. With any luck, we’ll be home for dinner. Tithe certificates in hand.”

And they were.

Blaine Institute, New Caledonia

At first, it seemed inevitable that Ali Baba would return to the so-called East India Group. But Ali Baba was past nursing; there was no nutritional need, and Lord Cornwallis herself, Ali Baba’s sire-turned-dam, seemed strangely indifferent. The Motie Engineer nursemaid who had born the pup had no voice in the matter. The pup’s closest remaining relationship was that to Omar: Omar the “Bury Educator;” Omar, the Motie shadow to Bury himself. It was eerie, even now, to round a corner and hear the dead man’s voice, complete in every pitch, timbre, and sub-tone. It still made even Glenda Ruth start.

From the human perspective, it seemed a strange relationship: on First Contact in 3017, Motie Mediators were assigned as fyunch to humans, and to humans, that pairing still seemed the “natural” one. But of course, as they’d learned during that horrific dash through the Mote system last year, many Mediators were assigned to learn from other Mediators, and many more were assigned to no-one at all. Motie Masters had learned that lesson early on: choose fyunch targets wisely. From the Motie perspective, the gulf between Motie pragmatism and human innovation—well, some human innovation—was just too wide. Mediators could be made “insane” by the effort to learn, internalize, and emulate every thought and action of their subjects. They played their parts too well. They started acting in terms of what should be, instead of acting in terms of what is. But not “Bury Moties”—those educational descendants of that first Bury fyunchÂ. They were pragmatic in the extreme. They were also extremely valuable.

When Bury named him in his will, Ali Baba’s real troubles began. S/he was coveted, reviled, or both by nearly everyone.

First came the status issue. Was a Motie a person under the law? Whose law? Could a Motie be adopted? That point was moot. Bury’s family wouldn’t have him. Cynthia couldn’t take her. Even the pronouns were a problem.

At stake was not semantics, but inheritance: Under Imperial, or Levantine, law, could a minor Motie hold property? As a person, or as some other legal entity? As nearly everyone pointed out, Ali Baba now held the swing vote in any possible Imperial Autonetics shareholder alliance (human, Motie, or otherwise). In the end, an injunction held: all or none. The Empire could not maintain a second blockade of the Mote System without the cooperation of the Motie Trader groups endowed by Bury’s will. For their part, they would not cooperate unless the terms of that will were deemed valid. A legal battle, framed against the Empire itself could bankrupt even Imperial Autonetics. The will held. Bury’s fyunch descendants had learned their lessons well.

So, with this decision, the Little Prince(ss) was crowned, and the struggle for its allegiance began. To whom would Ali Baba be assigned? Who would be neutral, but qualified? Where would Ali Baba even be safe? In the end, as Bury’s executor, Renner was appointed Ali Baba’s guardian. Omar was retained as Ali Baba’s “Bury Educator.” When Renner traveled, Ali Baba stayed with Glenda Ruth in the Blaine Institute compound in New Caledonia.

But Ali Baba was re-assigned as fyunch to no-one, because Ali Baba was adamant on this point. Everyone by now knew the watch phrase that presaged a tantrum: “I belong to myself!” Where did this temper come from? From Bury? Bury was gone. From Omar? Mediators were not given to angry outbursts, and Omar least of all. From Glenda Ruth herself? Her mother had said it, laughing: “that sounds just like you, as a little girl. You would put up with anything, but you never could stand injustice.”