Esmay handed over the message that had finally arrived, tied and stamped formally. "The Landholders are upset. Can you read Kurlik script? Basically it says that it is unacceptable for a Landbride to marry offworld at all, and particularly to marry a foreign military officer."

"But we're not foreign," Barin said.

"I know that. You know that. But Altiplano-"

"I don't want to take away anything you have," Barin said. "You've explained about being Landbride-it's a wonderful thing-"

"It's a nuisance," Esmay said. She straightened. "I never expected to be Landbride, and I thought I'd lost you . . . and . . . anyway, I accepted it in a time of crisis, but that's past. My father realized very early that I might resign in favor of a legitimate heir. It's not done often-" It had never been done except in cases of insanity or other permanent disability or extreme old age.

She didn't like to think of marriage as equivalent to insanity or permanent disability. "But there is a ritual procedure. The hard part is going to be getting leave to go there. I can appoint a stand-in, but that's not the same thing as the next Landbride. My father says if I marry you, even though I've appointed someone, the Landmen's Guild could challenge, and intervene in our family affairs. And that would be bad."

"I can see that." Barin shook his head. "And we still haven't figured a way around the Fleet regulations; even if you do resign as Landbride, you can't quit being a sector commander's daughter. Does it seem to you that this is a lot harder than we thought it would be?"

"Yes. if it were this hard for everyone, nobody would get married."

They stared gloomily at each other for several minutes. Then Esmay sat up. "Let's not waste it. We have four hours-or rather, three hours and forty-two minutes."

"I don't suppose we could get married in three hours and forty-two minutes?" Barin said wistfully.

"Maybe an hour to get married, and two hours to enjoy it?"

Esmay laughed. "It takes a lot longer; we couldn't possibly. But we can do something cheerier than sit here eating bad food in a noisy place."

"Right. But you'll have to pay. I'm flat broke." For some reason, this struck both of them as funny rather than annoying, and they thoroughly enjoyed their dinner.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

J.C. Chandler, President of the Lone Star Confederation, watched the newscube with his lower lip tucked under. This was trouble with a big T, and he didn't know how he was going to deal with it. They had had problems enough with the Familias Regnant, over the years, without this kind of nonsense.

"Looks bad, J.C.," Millicent said.

"There's always crazies in the world," Ramie said, leaning back with his hands folded over his belly. "It's not our fault they call themselves Texans."

The two obvious responses, J.C. thought, and neither of them useful right now. He said nothing while the newscube ran through the whole summary, then turned off the reader and put his hands on the table. Time to talk seriously.

"That new administration has closed the border to Lone Star citizens," he said without more preamble. "They say they can't guarantee our safety, and they did send this to explain why. And they haven't withdrawn their embassy staff."

"But it wasn't us," Millicent said. "Those idiots are all the way across Familias space-"

"More like the length of it," Ramie said, not moving. "If you look at the actual geometry-"

"What matters," J.C. said, "is that they've done it-closed the border. Frozen our assets in their banks, too-"

"They can't do that-" Ramie said, sitting up so suddenly that his chair rolled back. "The Treaty of Poldek clearly states-"

"They've done it." J.C. tried not to enjoy interrupting Ramie again, but it was hard-the older man was so annoyingly difficult to get a rise out of, and here he'd actually made Ramie sit up.

"But I moved most of the family's liquid capital into Goodrich & Scanlon only a year ago; it's not reasonable-"

"They claim we might be financing our 'countrymen' as they call them, even if we aren't personally involved. They want to be sure what our money's doing."

"Making more money, just like theirs." Ramie huffed his reddening cheeks out. "What do they take us for, ignorant rubes?"

Probably they did, J.C. thought, but that wasn't at issue right now. "What I want to do," J.C.

said, "is tell the Cabinet and Congress that we're sending some investigators to help 'em out."

"Help them? Help them what? Steal us blind?"

"No-help them with specifically Texan issues. They seem to be blundering around not knowing the difference between those idiots and the rest of us. We could help."

"They've got a scholar, they said. That Meyerson woman."

"Milly, why do you call her 'that Meyerson woman'? That won't help our image."

"I liked Professor Lemon," Millicent said frankly. "He used to send me the nicest notes . . . all right, it's not fair. You're right. We should help them-even Meyerson-if they'll let us."

From sheer force of habit and a fondness for tradition when it didn't get in the way, the Lone Star Confederation had retained the term "Rangers" for its internal security forces. This hadn't bothered anyone-not even the Familias Regnant with their hoity-toity attitudes-in centuries, but obviously, the Familias Regnant had a reason to react badly to the title now. The abuse of the same word by the New Texas Godfearing Militia nuts made real Rangers wish they'd trademarked the name somewhere back down in history.

Still, it wasn't the fault of the Lone Star Confederation. Rangers had the right training to pursue an investigation-and they weren't about to change their names just to satisfy a twitchy Familias Regnant. They'd send a Ranger.

Which Ranger then became the issue . . . but not for long, because Katherine Anne Briarly was the obvious best choice. A woman like Katie Anne, and they'd know that Lone Star's Rangers weren't like those others in any way, shape or form. Especially shape.

And besides, it would get Katie Anne out of everyone's hair for a few months. She had been getting a mite big for her britches, though not in a physical way, ever since her uncle Beau got appointed to the Supreme Court. She'd taken to being even more Texan than the Texans could stand.

Ranger Katherine Anne Briarly arrived at the Familias Regnant embassy wearing a red two-piece suit that emphasized every asset she had except brains, which-in Kate's view-couldn't be put on view anyway without making someone puke. A tumble of ash-blonde hair swirled over her shoulders; her bright blue eyes twinkled at the R.S.S. marine guards by the gate. Neither twinkled back.

"Hi," she said, holding out her ID case. "I'm Kate Briarly, and y'all are expecting me."

The gate opened behind the motionless guards, and she was facing a squad of them. The leader or whatever came out and took her ID case, then looked from the image inside to her.

"You're Ranger Katherine Anne Briarly?"

"Yup. But that's an official picture, in uniform, and I didn't see any reason to get gussied up in uniform for just a friendly visit. I figured y'all'd have an ID scan unit anyway."

"Quite so. If you'd come this way." She followed the young man toward a portable booth set up in the courtyard, ignoring the scrape of feet as the squad fell in behind her. This was going to be

fun.

She was who she said she was-retinals, fingerprints, voiceprints, the whole shebang-and in another ten minutes she was upstairs waiting to meet the ambassador.

"Sera-Ranger-Briarly-"

"Oh, just call me Kate," Kate said, widening her smile. He blinked.

"It's irregular," he murmured.

"I know," Kate said. "But who's to tell on you? Not me."

"I have received permission for two Rangers to enter Familias space and help with inquiries-"

"You don't need two," Kate said. "I'll just go by myself, thanks."

"But-"

"It'll be simpler," Kate said. "Less cost to you, too, keeping track of just one. Besides, it's