The last drop was a long one, down a curving chute that expelled them into a vaulted chamber, hundreds of meters across. The smoothed rocky roof was studded with powerful sun-simulators that lit the whole enclosure. The chamber’s volume was enormous, and crammed full. The newcomers were surrounded by a baffling jumble of stalls, corridors, partitions, tents, and guy-ropes. And development was not confined to two dimensions. Slender support columns ran from floor to roof at twenty meter intervals. Their steel pylons supported shish kebabs of ramshackle multi-level platforms, many of them open-sided, with rope ladders hanging down to the ground beneath.

The floor of the chamber was not rock, but rich black earth. Bright-blossomed flowers thrived everywhere, growing profusely along the zigzagging walkways and festooning every wall and column.

“Bozzie’s imperial court,” said Tatty. “As you can see, he’s a flower buff. Stick close to the King, now. If you get lost down here I don’t know if you’d ever find your own way back.”

The human population of the Gallimaufries was packed as densely as the plant life, and no less colorful. Gaudy jackets of saffron, purple and vermillion were favored, trimmed with sequins and piped with blue, silver, and gold. The clothes were all dirty, and the smell — to a spacer’s nose — appalling. King Bester s costume, garish and grubby-seeming when they had first seen it, now appeared clean, modest, and conservative.

The first impression was of continuous noise and clashing color. And then the submerged second element of the Gallimaufries slowly emerged, in quiet counterpoint to the vivid brawl. Mingled in with the eye-catching bright clothes and bustling movement, and almost invisible among them, were the others. Like pale lilies hidden among orchids, people sat in small groups on benches, or walked slowly through the alleys. Their clothes were simple, monochrome tunics of white or grey. They did not seem to speak, even to each other.

“Commoners,” said Tatty. She had followed Luther Brachis’ look, to a group of three women dressed in plain ivory tunics. “The raw material for your Pursuit Teams, if you can make the deal. Bozzie has contract rights over almost everyone here in grey or white, like those women.”

“But they get nothing out of it? They’ll never agree to go.”

“They can’t say no. Bozzie owns their contracts. Anyway, some of them might be glad to get out of here, no matter how bad your deal sounds. Take a look. I’ll go find Bozzie and bring him back to you.”

She ducked under a guy rope, rounded a tent, and headed for the edge of the chamber. Her height allowed them to follow her progress for the first thirty meters, then she was lost in the tangle of people and buildings.

Brachis turned to Esro Mondrian.

“Want to change your mind about that wager? If not, I’m ready to go ahead with it.”

“I don’t know. It depends if I can find someone suitable here.”

“Hey, you’re weaseling out. Come off it, Esro. You know you’ll never find someone suitable, not when nothing good has come out from Earth in three hundred years. They’re all losers, every one of them too decadent and spineless to do anything right. You didn’t talk about ‘someone suitable’ before — you said you could train anyone to be acceptable as a Pursuit Team member.”

“I can. I’ll make the bet. Just name the terms.”

Even though Brachis had been pushing Mondrian again, he was surprised by the rapid acceptance. But he was too experienced to let it show.

“All right, then. Let’s keep it simple. You select any pair of candidates that you like. You do it today, and you do it down here. You train them any way you want to. In a reasonable time — say, six months? — you get them accepted as Pursuit Team members. You do it, you win. You fail to do it, for anything short of candidate death, you lose. Simple enough?”

“Simple enough.” Mondrian paused. “What about stakes?”

“I’ll stake my personnel monitoring system against yours. Don’t pretend you haven’t got one. You’ve been tracking my people for years, same as I’ve been tracking yours.”

“Right. Accepted. In front of witnesses.” Mondrian turned to Bester and Kubo Flammarion. “I will select two people. Here, today. I will train them. When their training is complete, they will be accepted — ”

“Both be accepted. One won’t do.”

“ — both be accepted as Pursuit Team members. Commander Brachis has my hand on it.”

Brachis shook Mondrian’s hand for only a split-second, then turned to examine the bustling court around him. He made a big point of holding his nose. “There they are. Take your pick. White or grey, Princess Tatiana said, and I’m glad you’ll be doing the training, not me — I couldn’t stand the smell.”

The courtiers were all grubby energy and extravagance. By contrast, the commoners were listless and subdued. A team of three was passing Brachis as he spoke, leading an odd-looking beast on a steel chain. Its muzzle was blunt and its forehead low, but the animal stared around with sparkling hazel eyes, and showed more interest in the scene than its keepers did. It paused by Flammarion and sniffed at him inquiringly.

“No danger,” said King Bester — Flammarion seemed ready to dive away into the crowd. “It’s quite harmless. I’ve seen things like that a hundred times.”

“What is it?” Flammarion flinched away as the creature turned its head toward him, opened a mouth full of jagged teeth, and offered him a spiky smile.

“No name, squire. Just an Artefact, something from the Needler labs.” Bester snapped his fingers. “Hey, like to visit one? I can arrange it easy.”

Flammarion shook his head, but Bester was too experienced a salesman to miss the sudden strong interest shown by Luther Brachis. He was interrupted before he could follow up on it. Running along the path, dodging in and out of the bustling courtiers, sped a young man. He was about twenty years old and carrying a garland of flowers. He was closely followed by a young girl. “Not fair, Chan,” she was crying. “No fair. That was cheating. Give it back.”

The man paused close to Mondrian, turning to shake the flower posy teasingly at her. She was slight, thin, and olive-skinned. Moderately attractive — but nothing compared with the man. He was an Adonis: golden haired and tall, with a loose, agile build and sculptured good looks. If the people he was running among were aristocrats, his face pronounced him their undisputed emperor. Both the man and the woman were dressed in the plain ivory tunics of commoners.

Unworried by the presence of the Security men in their dark uniforms, he dodged behind them to escape. Mondrian took one look, then moved forward to grab the man by the arm. The youth stared at him, mouth open. The woman moved to their side, and put her own hand in turn on Mondrian’s. The courtiers stopped their promenading to stare at what was happening.

“You.” Mondrian moved forward, tightening his grip as the woman tried to pull his hand free. “Both of you. Are you under contract to Bozzie?”

The man stared back impassively, but the woman thrust herself between him and Mondrian. “No business of yours! Let go!”

“No, listen for a moment. There might be a position for you — something good. If you’re contracted to Bozzie, I’ll make sure you get a good offer — ”

She batted Mondrian’s hand away from the youth’s arm, screamed “Chan! Follow me — right now!” and threw herself away into the crowd. The youth gave one wide-eyed glance at Mondrian and went after her. In a few seconds they were twenty yards away, heading for the shelter of a covered arcade.

“Those two,” cried Mondrian. “Stop them — there’s a reward for anyone who does.”

The courtiers did not even move. Flammarion began a half-hearted pursuit, but found they were running away at a speed that he had not even attempted in a quarter of a century. They were ducking into the arcade when Luther Brachis acted. He pulled a palm-sized cylinder from his pocket and pointed it at the pair.