“Keep it that way. I’m only going to say this once. Out near the Perimeter is a star system named Talitha — Iota Ursae Majoris in the catalogs. It is a trinary, a little more than fifty lightyears away from here. The main star is stellar type A7 V, about ten times as bright as Sol. The others are a close binary pair of red dwarfs, very dim, only a thousandth as bright as the primary.

“We’ve known all that for quite a while. What we didn’t know, until the probes got there seventy years ago, was about the planetary system around the primary. Three gas giants, six smaller metal-rich planets. The probe reported evidence of life on one of the inner worlds. It was named Travancore. It is small, less than half of Earth’s mass, and it has flourishing native life-forms — vegetation and fungi, at least, and probably animals. The probe didn’t detect any evidence of intelligent life, so there was no great interest in immediate exploration. As a result we don’t know too much about the place.”

“Fifty lightyears away, unexplored. How could you possibly have tracked the Morgan Construct there?’

“We didn’t. The Angels did, and it’s a waste of time any of us asking how they did it. They insist that it’s still there on Travancore, still alive, and hiding down under some sort of continuous canopy of vegetation.”

“Doing what?”

“Doing whatever a Morgan Construct does. You tell me. You now know as much as I do, except for one more thing. The Angels sent one of our smart probes down towards the planet.”

“Bad move.”

“I know. Try explaining that to an Angel. The probe stopped signalling before it reached the surface, and never came back. We have to assume that the Construct destroyed it.”

“And knows it has been discovered.” Lotos leaned back in her chair, sipping tea from a porcelain cup that looked as delicate and fragile as she did. “It will be ready for anything that comes after it. Tough for your Pursuit Teams.”

“I’ll be breaking the news to them — tomorrow.”

“And today? Are you looking for any action from me?”

“I do not ask any. I would suggest that you decide for Dougal MacDougal what his line ought to be when he discusses this with the Stellar Group Ambassadors. And you ought to know what I am doing with your pseudo-Construct. We have the first Pursuit Team assembled and waiting, out on Dembricot: one human woman, one Tinker ten-thousand Composite, one sterile female Pipe-Rilla, and their preferred form of Angel — an experienced Singer carried by a new-grown Chassel-Rose.”

“How’s the pseudo-Construct working out?”

“It is ideal for the purpose.” Mondrian laid his empty teacup on the table beside him. “It is, of course, an Artefact. I assume that Ambassador MacDougal does not know that.”

“He signed the approval for its use.”

“Which is not the same thing at all.” Mondrian stood up. “I have taken enough of your time.”

“One more thing.” Lotos took a slender blue cylinder from a drawer in her desk. “I owe you an information favor, and I may as well try to pay it at once. This contains a new edict from the Stellar Group. It will be officially released in three days, but I took the liberty of a preview.”

“You think it is relevant to me?”

“I know it is. And you won’t like it. According to this ruling, you will no longer outrank Luther Brachis in the Anabasis. The two of you will have equal rank and equal powers.”

Mondrian dropped back into his seat. “That’s crazy — and impossible. You can’t have two people running things. Why would the Ambassadors make a mad change like that?”

“Do you understand Stellar Group Ambassador logic? If you do, you can explain it to me. They make a rule, I just pass it on to you — a lot sooner than you would normally hear it. You will have time to make your own plans.”

“Plans be damned.” Mondrian stared right through Lotos Sheldrake for a few seconds. “When will the new ruling be effective?”

“As soon as it is announced. Three days from now.”

“Not enough.” Mondrian was silent for a longer period. “I can t do it in three days. Lotos, I want something else from you. If you can swing it, you’ll have a big piece of equity with me to trade whenever and however you want to. Does the new ruling divide up duties?”

“Not in detail. That responsibility stays with Dougal MacDougal.”

“Then I want just two things. I want to control access to Travancore. And I want to manage the operation that will destroy the Morgan Construct. Can you arrange both of those?”

“Could be. What do I give Luther Brachis?”

“Anything else he wants. Offer him the rest of the Galaxy, I don’t care.”

“You want it that bad, eh?” The doll’s face was still calm, but the mention of Luther Brachis brought anger to Lotos Sheldrake’s eyes. “Very good. I want something, too. I’ll do my absolute best to get you what you want — if you will do something for me.”

“Name it.”

“It’s not it — it’s her. Do you know a woman named Godiva Lomberd.”

“I’ve met her. She’s a well-known figure on Earth.”

“She’s not on Earth. She’s here. Luther Brachis has entered into a contract with her.”

“You know Luther. He’s had a thousand women. They come and go. Godiva Lomberd is just another one.”

“That was what I thought, when he brought her up from Earth. A month here, at most two, and she would be gone. But this is different. Luther is different.”

“Different, how?” Mondrian wondered how much Lotos Sheldrake knew. Did she suspect that he had been the one who first arranged for Brachis to meet Godiva? The only other person who could have told her that was Tatiana, and she was still locked away on Horus with Chan Dalton.

“Different with me.” Lotos slapped her hand on the desk, rattling cups. “As you said, Luther has had a thousand women. I never gave any of them a thought. They did not affect his personality, or his work — until now. I do not like surprises, and the new Luther Brachis is a surprise. I want to meet this woman. I want to know who she is, where she came from, what she wants from him.”

Jealousy — from a most unlikely source. “1 can’t deliver all that.”

“You will not need to.” Lotos was in full control again, smiling her deadly smile. “You just arrange for me to meet her — and leave the rest to me.”

The facilities on Earth were nowhere near the best in the system. For high-quality storage of living organisms, the perceptive buyer went to Enceladus, or to the Great Vault of Hyperion, where ambient disturbances were less and both bodies and maintenance personnel less corruptible.

But from the purchaser’s point of view, Earth storage provided one unarguable advantage: anonymity. Provided that the rental was paid on time (which meant five full years in advance) no one ever questioned the contents of the pallet. According to rumor, more than three thousand rightful Earth monarchs slept their dreamless storage sleep in the Antarctic warehouses. No one could ever accuse the usurpers of murder; but it would be a long, long time before the real kings and queens would be recalled from slumber to claim their thrones.

The warehouses were kept well below freezing. The two people searching the long files wore heavy clothing, thick gloves, and thermal boots. They cursed the layers of frost that made every identification tag difficult to read.

“Here we are, then.” The short, red-haired man bent over the long box and scrubbed again at the tag for a second look. He nodded to his companion to grab the other end. “This is it. Ready?”

The fat blond woman puffed out a frosty breath. “Let’s do it. I’m tired. Just this one, then that’s it for the day. Up’s-a-daisy.”

The container slid easily onto the moving railway. The man and woman walked beside it at each end, making sure that the ride out was smooth. They emerged at last into a long, white-walled room filled with medical equipment and banks of monitors. Working as an efficient team, they moved the container to one of the lone tables, broke the seals, and hooked in the pumps and catheters. The woman checked the inner identification against the work order that she was carrying.