"Hmm, you are quite quick, aren't you?"

Clemance laughed and pulled harder. "Come on! I chose this one for you."

They were right up against the scintillating surface. Araminta had not realized how big the ovoid was. It had to reach ten stories above her, though the curvature made it hard to tell. There were no discernible features, certainly no door. The entire base was surrounded by a broad marble path, as if it were resting on a plinth. A couple of thin gold lines had materialized underfoot, which Clemance had followed. She slipped through the torrent of multicolored light. Araminta followed. It was similar to walking through a pressure field or a spore shower. A slight tingle on the skin, a bright flash against the eye, and she was in a bubble chamber with transparent furniture delineated by glowing emerald lines like curving laser beams. Closets and drawers were all empty; chairs and couches contained a more diffuse glow inside their cushions, looking like faulty portal projections. The floor and cupola walls were a duller version of the external scintillations. Only the cream-and-gold sheets on the bed were what she thought of as tangible.

"The house smartnet is offering an operations program," her u-shadow told her.

"Accept it." Her exovision showed her the file opening into a storage lacuna.

Clemance already was sitting on the edge of the bed, bouncing up and down. "Like it?"

"The house's main entrance opens into a guest bedroom?"

"Only when you need it to," the girl said sprightly. "Tell your control program you want to see out."

Araminta did, and the walls on one side lost their luster to show the gardens outside and her capsule with the regrav sled loading cases.

"Now, if you need the bathroom..." Clemance said. The whole room started to slide upward, following the curvature of the external wall. There must have been excellent gravity compensators hidden somewhere below the floor, because Araminta did not feel any movement. Then they were sliding horizontally into the center of the ovoid. Other bubble rooms flowed past them.

Araminta imagined this was the perspective corpuscles had as they raced through a vein. She smiled in delight. "How brilliant; the whole thing is protean."

Her bedroom touched a bathroom, and the wall rolled apart to give her access. The design beyond the new door was more conventional, with a huge pool-bath, showers, and dryer chambers. It was bigger than the living rooms back in the apartments she was developing.

"You want to see someone, or go to the dining room for dinner, or just change the view, tell the house," Marakata said.

"I will," Araminta said positively.

A door opened opposite the bathroom, and Marakata stepped through. Araminta caught a glimpse of an all-white chamber with a long desk and gym apparatus. "I'll see you later," Marakata said, and the door swept shut behind her.

"Was that a threat?" Araminta muttered.

"Oh, ignore her," Clemance said. "She's always shy around new people. She's a lot more fun in bed, honest."

"I'm sure." Araminta turned around, giving the room a more thorough inspection. The drawers began to fill up with her clothes. The process was like watching water bubble up into a glass. "Take me to Likan," she told her u-shadow.

The room closed the door into the bathroom. Curving walls slipped past horizontally, then curved to vertical. "And opaque the walls." Gravity might be perfectly stable, but the sight was strangely disorienting.

Likan's room was huge. Araminta suspected that it didn't move often because everything else in the house would be displaced. It was circular, with a polished oak floor that appeared to be a single giant segment. It had been vat-grown; she had read a file on the process in one of her design courses. The walls were pale pink and blue with a translucent eggshell texture. They slipped into transparency along a third of the length, providing a panorama across the lake.

Likan was walking toward her, dressed in a simple mauve sweatshirt and long green shorts. Small colored symbols were shrinking around him and then vanishing. The walls had to be portals, she thought, which gave them a vast projection capacity. This was probably his office. He smiled warmly, paused in front of her, and gave her a kiss, the kind of kiss that told her what he was expecting from her later.

"Great house," she said.

"I knew you'd like it. The concept is an old one, but we've just gotten the manufacturing process down to an affordable level. Not easy without Higher replicators."

"I'd like to have the Colwyn City franchise."

He responded with a warm, admiring smile. "See, most developers would have made a crack about me putting them out of business. But you see how to adapt and move onward. That's what makes you stand out."

"Thank you."

Clemance scampered over to a new door. "Catch you later."

Likan waved dismissively as he led Araminta over to the transparent wall. "Drink? Food?" he asked.

"I'm good for a few hours."

"Good. The Prime Minister and two cabinet ministers are coming for dinner."

"Are you trying to impress me?"

"They were coming anyway. But it gives you an idea of the life I lead. To get this big you have to delve into politics."

"Colwyn City Hall can be a beast about issuing permits."

"Take the development officer for dinner. Loan your local councillor a high-end capsule. They're all in it for what they can get. Wouldn't be feeding from the public trough otherwise."

"Unless they're in it to clean up the corruption."

"Yeah. Those ones are a problem. Fortunately, they don't tend to last long."

"You're a cynic."

"Pragmatist, if you don't mind. I'm also a lot more experienced than you in every field. So trust me when I say politicians all have their weaknesses."

"What's yours?" she teased.

"One, I'm an easy lay. But you already know that. Two: risk. Risk is my weakness. The sensation when a risk pays off is like nothing else. I always take the risk. I enjoy the reward too much not to."

"So what risk are you taking right now?"

"You're smart; you've researched me. The finance files, at least. Tell me."

"I accessed some background on my way over. Opinion is you're dangerously overextended."

"And those loans have grown significantly in the last couple of years. So why do you think that is?"

"You're going to wipe out property companies with houses like this one? Flood the market."

He grinned. "Small scale. I think big. Besides, it'll take a decade for something like this to become fashionable and then generally accepted. Think. What's the most pressing problem Viotia has today?"

"Living Dream?"

"Kind of. Ellezelin is always looming over us. Rightly so. The Free Trade Zone is a massive market; it's not going away, and it's always growing. Anyone already operating in it has a huge financial and production capacity advantage over some poor little Viotia company. The worry is that when they eventually open a wormhole here, all our companies will lose out to cheap imports. Trade will be one-way."

Her mind went back to Albany, to the sheer scale of the place. "You're going to undercut them."

"Albany is as automated as anyone can be without replicators. I've spent a decade investing in the most advanced cybernated systems we can have to drive production costs down. To do that, to push each unit cost as low as it can physically go, you have to have massive volume production. That's what's killing me at the moment. The factories are barely ticking over. But when that wormhole finally opens..."

"It's not going to be the financial massacre they expect."

"They import. I export. But the quantity of those exports will be ten times greater than they assume."

"You'd need a distribution network."

His smile was triumphant as he turned to face the lake. "Certainly would."

"Wow," she said, and meant it. Likan's ambition was so great, hers wouldn't even register on the same scale. "Why tell me? You can't be trying to impress me into bed. You've already got that."

"Although I have an egotistical opinion of my own ability, I can't actually manage every aspect by myself, even with an augmented mentality. Too many details. For an expansion phase on this level, I need people I can trust in senior management positions, especially offworld."

"That's very flattering."

"Yes and no. You'd be capable management, I think; you have the right kind of drive and mind-set. You don't have the experience to be top rank, but that will come."

She frowned. "Why me?"

"How much research did you really do? On Sheldon himself?"

"None," she admitted. "Just what I picked up in school."

"The old dynasties were just that: family enterprises. The surest way humans have ever come up with to retain loyalty and control. Nigel used his own flesh and blood."

"Ah." It was as if the room suddenly was on the move: downward.

"All the senior positions were held by his own children," Likan said. "That's also what I do."

A memory abruptly rushed to the forefront of her mind. "Debbina?" she said before she could stop it.

Likan actually winced. "What did I ever do to you? No, okay, not my beloved little girl. But a lot of my other children are running sections of my company."

"And how do I fit into this?"

"How do you think?"

"Spell it out for me."

"You become one of my wives. You have my children. They take their place in the company."

"You really know how to romance a girl."

He flashed her a wry smile. "Come on, we're grown-ups. Every marriage today is half business. We'll have a great time in bed. I can afford any lifestyle you want. Your children will grow up being part of the most dynamic company in this section of the Commonwealth. They'll never want for anything, and they'll be presented with virtually unlimited challenges. I know you well enough to know that appeals. Who wants trust fund brats, right? And the same goes for you. Stick with me for ten, fifteen years, then you can either continue with a post in the company, or you cut loose with a huge chunk of money and enough insider knowledge to run circles around everyone else."

"Ozzie's mother! Are you serious?"

"Perfectly."

"It's very flattering, but isn't it a bit sudden?"

"You think Sheldon hesitated when he saw something he wanted? No way. He went out and got it. And this isn't quite that sudden, now, is it? We had a connection back at my symposium; you're not going to deny that, are you?"

"No," she admitted.

"So. There's physical attraction, which just leaves your abilities. I did some research."

"Your fifth assistant's coffee boy did some research."

"Indeed," he acknowledged wryly. "You're the original kid from nowhere. Rejects the cozy family business route. Looking to get out. Failed marriage. Now on the bounce-back curve. You're hungry. And capable. With the experience my organization can provide, you'll flourish." He sidled up close and put his arm around her, kissing her again, more gently this time. "I don't want an answer this instant. This is why you're here. Experience everything you can and you want, then take your time and decide."

Araminta did not wear her own clothes to dinner. That was the first thing she learned about what membership in the harem would be like. A stylist called Helenna was waiting in her bedroom when it collected her from Likan's airy office. She was a jovial woman, close to rejuvenation, whose age meant she had piled on a lot of weight in recent years. Genuinely friendly, she was keen to confide household gossip, most of which made no sense to Araminta, although there was a lot of it. She had been with Likan for fifty years. "So I know it all, honey, seen even more. I don't judge anyone, and nothing you do here is going to surprise me. You want anything special for tonight, you just ask me for it." Araminta was not sure what counted as special. It was tempting to ask what other girls had requested. One thing Helenna was sure of was that "Likan likes his women elegant. So we've got to get you spruced up, ready to stand your own ground against the others."

That took hours. Her bedroom bounded all over the ovoid house to link up with various specialist rooms, the sauna to start with, to clear her pores. There was a massage by a man called Nifran, who was as brutal as he was skillful; afterward she sort of poured herself off the table with loose floppy limbs. Then there was the fitting room-A house that has a fitting room?-where she was measured for her evening dress.

She spiraled dawn to the salon, where Helenna finally was exposed as a sorceress. Layers of cosmetic membrane were applied, yet when Araminta looked in the mirror there was no sign of them. Instead, her nineteen-year-old self looked back at her. It was a nineteen that she'd never known but always wanted, with sharp cheekbones, absolutely no excess flesh, soft long eyelashes, perfectly clear skin, and eyes that sparkled. Another hour saw her hair "repaired," as Helenna disapprovingly termed the first procedure. Then it was extended, thickened, softened, waved, and styled.

Clemance had the chair next to her as it was being done, and another member of the harem, Alsena, took the other side. They chatted comfortably enough, providing an insight into the kind of sisterhood the women had. She was given a rundown of Likan's genealogy with emphasis on the wayward children, a saga for which she needed to open a new file in a storage lacuna so that she could keep track of it.

For all their friendliness, the girls were not quite engaged with the real world. That was a pretty bitchy observation but one that Araminta felt applied. If Likan wanted women like her, what was he doing with the others? They certainly did not aspire to run sections of his corporate empire.

"He likes variety," Helenna told her as the salon rendezvoused with the fitting room.

The classic little black dress had never fallen out of style, and looking at the one the fitting room's apprentice sorceresses had conjured up for her, Araminta could see why. She felt randy just slipping into it, so Ozzie alone knew what effect it would have on any male who crossed her path. It clung disgracefully yet allowed her breasts complete freedom of movement. She blushed the first time she walked in it. Somehow the high hem and silk-gloss microfabric sprayed on her legs made her calves and thighs slim down to that same nineteen-year-old ideal Helenna's spell had blessed her face with for the night.

Predinner cocktails were served to the household and Likan's guests in the music room, which had claimed his office's lake view. Araminta walked in with her head held high, knowing how great she looked. Likan's double take, the smiles from the harem, and Clemance's little bounce as she clapped her hands excitedly were simply the accolades she was due. It all helped buoy her confidence close to levels of arrogance. When Likan introduced her to the Prime Minister and her husband, she was perfectly civil and treated them as if they were almost her equals.

All the while, as she made small talk and sampled weird-tasting canapes, she kept wondering how Bovey would behave if he were there. He enjoyed his culture and could be as snobbish about food and wine as anyone. But the company she mingled with-the world's powerful and wealthy and a few merely famous-she just couldn't get away from the idea of how he would turn his nose up at them.

Yet here I am, holding my own.

The evening did have a downside. The Prime Minister's husband, whom she was seated next to at the dinner table, was fantastically boring. Thankfully, Eridal, one of Likan's older sons, sat on her other side. As smart and charming as Likan, he ran a finance house in Ludor, but he lacked that bullish determination that drove his father. She dutifully tried to not spend the whole evening chatting to him.

When it was all over, after the dining hall had descended to ground level so the guests could walk to their capsules, there was just Likan and eight of his harem left. The door contracted, and the walls resumed their sparkle; everyone gave a spontaneous laugh of release that Araminta joined in wholeheartedly.

Likan gave her a congratulatory kiss. "Damnit, I'd forgotten how awful that dickhead was," he told her. "I wanted to smack him one, and he wasn't even talking to me. Thanks for putting up with him."

Doors were opening into various bedrooms around the dining hall. The harem was vanishing through them. Of all the women at the dinner, they were undeniably the most beautiful, most of them astonishingly so. Despite all Helenna's efforts, Araminta could not help but feel like the poor relation in their presence.

"Go and get ready," Likan told her. "We'll be waiting."

He turned and left through a door into a small darkened room. Araminta stared after him for a moment, then summoned her bedroom. That whole alpha male issuing orders thing just didn't do it for her. For one, he didn't have the charisma to pull it off, not with his dress sense and throwback physical appearance. On the other hand, to have accomplished so much was darkly compelling. She grinned at her own inner argument. What the hell; at least Clemance will be fun.

"Dress me the way he'll enjoy," she told the waiting Helenna. It was a process that turned out to be more elaborate than she had anticipated. For a start it involved Nifran again, who chided her about lack of proper exercise and how he could not relax her enough. What he did with her legs was virtually sex in itself.

Helenna applied some fabulously scented oil that acted in conjunction with Nifran's pummeling to make her flesh glow.

"He's not into sadism or anything, is he?" Araminta asked. The preparations were all very detailed. Her usual idea of getting ready for a hot night was to wear something a man could remove quickly.

"Not to worry, sweetie. He enjoys sex the way he enjoys his women: tasteful."