Below, a man and a woman, each with a boar spear, bowed to the audience, which responded with an applause mainly perfunctory.

"Do you want to wager on the outcome, or the time?"

"Neither," snapped Duran, forcing himself to avoid meeting the cool glance of Helene, who had surveyed his table without seeing him or his sister and mother. "Neither."

"There will be a dance tonight. Are you going?"

"I haven't decided."

"Well," added his sister with a smile that did not hide the cruelty, "Jaim Daeris told Forallie that Helene was going. Alone."

She refrained from saying more as the baroness's cold gray eyes caught hers.

"I haven't decided," Duran repeated. "I haven't decided."

LVIII.

LYR D'MERYON MUMBLED under her breath, touched the screen controls, and surveyed the information again.

"One thousand torps. That was bad enough."

Her finger jabbed at the console controls.

"Now he wants to know about surplus in-system relay stations-and the possibility of simplified designs for both torps and stations. What does he want? His own private message delivery system?"

She brushed a strand of hair back off her forehead, wondering Why she had ever even considered that her mysterious commander-strange how she continued to think of him as a commander-would settle into a more regular pattern after he retired from the Service.

Settle down? Regular? Not only could she never find him in a hurry, but the work load had more than tripled in the last ten years.

And the creds! Everything he touched seemed to generate money. The more he spent, the more it created. Plus the funds from strange names and friends, names and friends that were never explained.

Was Shaik Corso an acquaintance or an alias? She suspected the latter, but the documents were in order, and the foundation's records had to show the latter. MacGregor Corson was so transparent, proper records or not, that she wasn't about to risk an Imperial censure. So "Corson's" contributions and expenses were listed as a subset of Gerswin's.

The commander might complain, but the foundation was going to be run right. Period.

She sighed, and mentally added the thought-as far as she was concerned.

She switched screens again, trying to unscramble the codes on his latest voucher, shaking her head all the time.

Where it would end, she didn't know. If it would end.

The supposedly ancient commander still looked and acted like a man in his standard thirties, but the background she had found indicated he was well over a century old-at least.

She frowned at the thought that he might outlive her, then smiled a wry smile. She had a few more decades, at least, before she even had to worry about it.

"Ms. D'Meryon, can you check out item three on four beta?" asked the on-line tech.

"Hold one."

She transferred screens again, calling up the questioned itern.

"That's an approved transportation item, deductible under 33(a)(1). Note that in the remarks section."

"Thank you."

She returned to screen one. Satellite relay systems? Surplus? Where should she start there?

She frowned once more, then tapped out a number.

LIX.

DURAN STOOD IN the corner, half shielded by the ice sculpture of the rhinoped, and watched the dancers sweeping across the low gray of the dance floor in time to the ancient waltz.

His eyes followed a copper-haired woman in a formal coppered dress that should not have complimented her pale coloration, but did, as the dance ended and as she bowed to Carroll, the elder son of Baron Kellenher, and turned away, leaving the young man standing there with words on his lips left unsaid.

Duran grimaced.

At least she was equally cavalier with others, or some others.

A flicker of black caught his eye, and his head jerked around involuntarily.

The black-haired man skirted the dancing area, brushing the massive forearm of a giant in red, who whirled to confront the slender figure in black.

Duran smiled.

He did not know the giant personally, except that as the younger son of a minor mining baron, Trigarth had achieved a certain notoriety by surviving in the arena and a certain success with women by dropping to the level of combat in the circus and succeeding.

Duran's angular features relaxed as he watched the confrontation develop.

". . . apology . . . ?" asked Trigarth.

The man in black inclined his head politely, but quizzically, as if he could not believe what Trigarth had asked.

"I think you owe me an apology" By now the hall was quiet enough for the words to reach Duran.

"I beg your pardon, but I believe I owe you nothing."

The smaller man turned, his carriage conveying his opinion of the big man, an opinion Duran silently seconded, though he would never have been fool enough to voice it.

Trigarth stepped around in front of the other, blocking his departure.

"I would appreciate that apology."

The smaller man's eyes surveyed the massive two plus meter form of Trigarth. His lips quirked, as if to sneer, then his face cleared.

"Are you trying to insist that sheer dumb mass requires respect?" Duran's mouth dropped, as did a number of others'. Was the mail mad? The wealth of Trigarth's house could pay off any death claim.

"Never . . . have . . . I . . . been . . . so . . . insulted."

"Then you have been extraordinarily fortunate. Now, if volt will excuse me . . ."

Duran caught sight of Helene among the watching dancers. Even from ten meters he could see the unnatural brightness in her eyes ;is she watched the pair.

"I could crush you!" rumbled Trigarth.

The man in black laughed twice. Two cruel barks conveyed a sense that Trigarth was less than the lowest of the low. Then he shook his head sadly, as if to convey pity on the big noble and gladiator, and began to turn.

Duran could see it coming, watched as Trigarth lost all control and launched hands and body toward the smaller man with a speed that caused Duran and others nearer to the pair to draw back.

Duran, his angular features tight again, waited for the stranger's dismemberment, his own reflexes keyed so that the scene seemed to play out in virtual slow motion.

Trigarth's whole body drove toward the man in black, who stood motionless for long instants. Just before hammering arms blasted through him, the smaller shifted, and his hands and body blurred as he moved.

Thuddd!

Duran gaped.

The small man appeared untouched, unmussed, and was again shaking his head sadly, this time at the unconscious figure of the giant on the floor.

Three of the staff guards arrived too late, expecting apparently to rescue the stranger's remains.

"He is unconscious, but you should find that he will be all right, except for a bruise on his jaw where he struck the floor. He must have had too much of something."

The senior guard asked something.

"Merhlin of Avalon, guest of Lord and Baron H'Llory. I will be staying as his guest for at least several days more."

Another question followed.

"I suppose I could claim I was a baron, were I so inclined. Would that make any difference?"

Duran shook his head. So fast . . . so incredibly fast. And so strong. Was the man human? Then he bit his lip.

As Merhlin of Avalon dismissed the security force, a copper-haired woman touched his black-sleeved forearm. The woman's eyes glittered in the light.

This time, instead of dismissing Helene, Merhlin surveyed her coolly, then offered his arm.

Duran gulped the last from the goblet in his hand, choking it down, and ignoring the burning in his throat. He clutched the empty goblet as if he wanted to crush it into powder.

Instead, the unbreakable crystal squirted from his fingertips and struck the ornate floor tiles, bouncing away from him.

Clink! Clink. Clink.

He could see his sister Aermee look up in surprise, and then avert her eyes as she recognized that he had been the culprit. The couple next to him drew back and looked away.

The sound of the bouncing crystal echoed in Duran's mind as he turned away, but he was not quick enough to avoid the smirk on Helene's lips as she swept up the ramp with the man called Merhlin.

Duran swallowed and slowly retracted his steps across the hall. Even people he did not know drew away in distaste as he headed for the exit not taken by Merhlin and Helene, the exit that began the long walk back to the family suite, and, in all probability, toward a quiet talk with his mother, the baroness. Either shortly, or the next morning, when Aermee would have reported her extreme embarrassment at his behavior.

Duran sighed, loudly enough to cause another set of averted faces.

LX.

THE COPPER-HAIRED woman shook her head, tossing the glistening curls back over her bare shoulders, conscious of the effect as she again exposed her breasts. She straightened her back as she reached for the crystal wineglass.

Leaning back against the pillows, she brought the crystal to her lips, first to scent, then to sip.

Gerswin refrained from shaking his head. The hard line of her jaw and the ever-occurring cruel glint in her eyes were so at odds with her slenderness and the softness of her skin.

He whistled three notes, double-toned, more as a test than anything else.

Helene shivered at the sounds, but said nothing and took another sip that became a gulp.

Gerswin paused before beginning another song, forcing himself to keep his face almost impersonal as he watched her reactions.

She raised her eyebrows, arching her back again.

Gerswin began another song, not a love song, for Helene had proved strangely indifferent to the gentle songs, the wistful ones, and had been aroused by his adaptations of the military themes, the ones where he had played hope against force, honesty against betrayal.

'That's right," the woman whispered hoarsely as she set the wineglass aside. "That's right."

Her lips parted, her tongue running over her lower lip, wetting it and retreating. Her breathing deepened as his double-toned notes built toward what he would have called hope and its betrayal.

Her shoulders shifted, her hips beginning to move with the conflict of the song, as she began to lean toward him.

Gerswin could see her darkened nipples stiffening farther as whatever fantasy played out behind her too-bright green eyes intensified with the last notes of the song.

Even before the tones died away, her fingers were digging into first his forearms. Own his back as he in turn drove- into her, directly, brutally, and without finesse or foreplay, knowing that such power was what she wanted, what she expected.

"AaaaaaAAAAHHHHH!"Her cries filled the not inconsiderable expanse of the bedroom as her legs locked around him in a series of thrusts, and as her body arched into him and upward, upward.

Waiting until site, subsided, he did not leave her, but turned his head to start another song, with a more muted conflict theme, drawing her into another series of releases, more gentle than the first, and letting himself go as well, trying to shut out other faces, other places, with a final thrust more brutal than he had intended.

"Ooohhh!"

Helene lay against him only momentarily before easing back onto the bed, propped against silken pillows, a faint smile on her face.