She opened a space, but did not drag the connect codes into it, staring at the static‑filled volume for a long moment. Then, reluctantly, she reached into the directory, rifling its files for Damian Chrestil, or the family’s summer house. She found a code for the latter, and dragged it into the communications space before she could change her mind. There was a long pause, while codes streamed across the space–unusually long, nearly thirty seconds–and then the codes vanished, to be replaced by a man’s head and shoulders. It was an unfamiliar, ugly face, white‑skinned and broad‑featured, and for a crazy instant Lioe thought of giants in the story tapes she’d viewed as a child.

“Can I help you?” the giant asked, in a voice as heavy as his features, and Lioe dragged herself back to the present.

“I want to talk to Damian Chrestil,” she said. “My name’s Lioe.”

The giant closed his mouth over whatever he had started to say, and looked down at something out of the camera’s vision. “Just a minute, Na Lioe. I’ll see if he’s free.”

“If you’re trying to set up a trace, don’t bother,” Lioe said. “I’ll tell you where I am. I’m in Ransome’s loft, and I’ve found what he found. You can tell Damian Chrestil that, too.”

The giant’s expression did not change. “I’ll do that, Na Lioe,” he said, and his face vanished, to be replaced by what was meant to be a soothing hold pattern.

“You heard that,” Lioe said over her shoulder, and Roscha answered quickly.

“Yeah. But I haven’t heard anybody in the entrance yet.”

“If I take too long–” Lioe began, and stopped abruptly. If he doesn’t come to talk, decides to send his people after us instead, what then? I suppose if he doesn’t show up in a couple of minutes, I can cut the connection, we can head back to the port, try again from there–

The communications space cleared abruptly, and she found herself looking at Damian Chrestil. She’d only seen him once before, at Chauvelin’s party, and was surprised again at how young he was. No older than me, if as old. Let’s hope I can play this as well as he has.

“Na Lioe,” Damian said. “I’m glad to finally get to talk to you.”

“I didn’t think talking was what you had in mind.”

Damian Chrestil shrugged. “If you’d come quietly… But that’s old business. What can I do for you?”

“You’re holding Ransome,” Lioe said bluntly, and hoped she was right. “I want him back.”

“You want him?” Damian’s face creased suddenly into an urchin’s grin. “I didn’t think he was yours, too.”

Lioe sighed, ostentatiously refraining from an answer.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible right away,” Damian went on. “I have business in train which I don’t intend to see interfered with. Na Ransome will stay with me until it’s finished.”

“I don’t think so,” Lioe said. “If he’s not released–and if you don’t call off the goons you’ve got chasing me–I will spread this entire business deal onto the nets, Republican as well as Burning Brighter, and into HsaioiAn if I can manage it.”

There was a little silence, and Damian Chrestil said slowly, “I know the nets. I can kill this before it starts.”

Lioe shook her head. “Not on the Game nets. The Game nets run different protocols, different rules, they serve a different clientele. I’ve put a new scenario in motion, Na Damian. It’s a merchant‑adventurer’s variant, primed for release in four hours, and it’s based on what you’ve been trying to do, from smuggling the lachesi to the high politics.” She reached into her working space, dragged another copy into the communications space, peeled back the shell to reveal the tiny, perfect–and perfectly recognizable–characters contained in its center, held by the red webbing of the scenario’s outline. “All this has to do is come to someone’s attention in C‑and‑I, or, I would imagine, in the Lockwardens or the governor’s office, or even back in HsaioiAn, and you’re screwed. And there are enough Gamers in all those places that it’s bound to happen.”

Damian Chrestil shook his head. “Not necessarily. I admit, we may not be able to break that shell, but my people can contain the scenario as soon as it’s open. It won’t get that far, certainly not far enough to cause me trouble. So let’s talk reasonably.”

“Once the scenario’s opened, you’ll never stop the spread,” Lioe said. “You know how Gamers are, we copy things. We share variants we like, sessions we’ve played, work by people we admire. And my name means something in the Game. Once that shell opens, half the Gamers on the nets will have made a copy for their own use–once they realize it’s a jeu a clefeven more of them will want it. How are you going to stop that, Na Damian?”

There was a little silence, and in it Lioe could hear a kind of choked laughter. Ransome, she realized, and hid her delight.

“All right,” Damian Chrestil said. “I’m prepared to negotiate. You’re not invulnerable, Na Lioe, you crewed the ship that brought the lachesi, and that could be made to look bad for you.”

“Possibly,” Lioe said.

“Easily enough done,” Damian Chrestil said. “But I’m willing to make a deal.” He did something with controls that were out of her line of sight; an instant later, the view within the communications space widened, so that she was looking into a comfortably furnished room. The wall behind him was black–not a wall at all, she realized abruptly, but the same kind of shutter that covered Ransome’s windows. Lioe tugged at the edges of her view, expanded it so that she could see the details more clearly. Half a dozen men and women waited at a polite distance, all in dockers’ clothes, tough‑looking people who looked like older, less beautiful versions of Roscha. The Visiting Speaker stood a little apart from them, feet planted wide apart, arms crossed on his chest, the fingers of the one visible hand working restlessly. A tiny, pretty woman– Cella, she realized–sat on the arm of a chair to the hsaia’s right. Ransome was sitting in a comfortable‑looking chair, just outside the pool of amber light from an overhead lamp, but as she watched, he pushed himself to his feet and came to stand by Damian Chrestil. Damian looked over his shoulder, his fine eyebrows drawing together in a frown, but he did not order the other man away.

“Yes, this concerns you, Ransome. Join the party, why don’t you?”

“Thanks,” Ransome said, and smiled.

Damian Chrestil looked back into the display space. “Since you’re not a political animal, Na Lioe, I would assume you don’t really care whether or not the lachesi gets through to my buyers in HsaioiAn.”

“Or even about your chance of being governor,” Ransome said gently, his eyes fixed on Lioe as though he wanted to convey a message.

Lioe nodded. “All I care about is your goons off my back, a job to go back to, and Ransome’s freedom. That’s pretty simple, Na Damian.”

“I can perhaps do better,” Damian Chrestil said. He paused, not looking back over his shoulder toward the Visiting Speaker, but the hsaia straightened anyway, both hands now poised to display claws and wrist spurs.

“We have an agreement, Damian Chrestil,” ji‑Imbaoa said. “If you fail to honor it–”

Damian turned on him. “You haven’t yet done what you and I agreed. I’ll fulfill my contracts, all right–this time–but you can go to hell.” Behind him, the flat‑faced giant made a gesture, and the dockers shifted position suddenly, so that they encircled the Visiting Speaker and his staff. Cella slipped easily from her place, out of the armed ring. The jericho‑human made an abortive grab for a weapon hidden under his coat, and a thin woman leveled her palmgun at him.

“Enough, Magill,” ji‑Imbaoa said, and looked at Damian. “Very well. I have no choice. But I will ruin you for this. You and yours will never do business in HsaioiAn again–”

Ransome said something then, in hsai, not tradetalk, and the Visiting Speaker was abruptly silent, hunching into himself as though into feathers. Ransome looked back into the communications space. “As I said to him, Chauvelin may be able to offer other connections, Na Damian. You see, I’m willing to negotiate, too.”