traditional."

She had seen the ambassador before, while running security at the Cattlemen's Association Ball

three years before, but she'd been in uniform then, her hair slicked back into a neat French braid. He didn't remember her, she could tell that. All the better.

"Now I realize y'all are concerned that we might have some connection to those NewTex nuts-"

"Concern was expressed," the ambassador said. "Not by me; I've tried to reassure the Grand Council

that you all . . . er . . . you . . . here, the Lone Star Confederation . . . are not part of that

group."

"Heavens, no," Kate said. "I'd like to see anyone making us wear clothes like that! And bare feet-shoot, I was as tomboy as they come, but you don't see me shuffling around in bare feet." She pointed a long, elegant foot clad in a feminine version of the Texas style: high-heeled, but not a boot.

"It's the new government," the ambassador said. "We have a new Speaker and a new Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense; one doesn't like to say it's inexperience, but they're just not listening to me. You've travelled in Familias space before, Sera . . . er . . . Ranger .

"Kate," she said again. "No, not me. I've been to Bluebonnet and West and Panhandle, but not to Familias. It'll be fun."

At the border, Kate found she had an escort at the end of the docking tube.

A trim young man with a face like carved bronze. "Lieutenant Junior Grade Serrano," he said.

"Ranger Briarly, your luggage will be transferred-"

"Oh, call me Kate," she said, smiling. He didn't smile back.

"You're to come aboard Gyrfalcon," he said. "It's the fastest route to Rockhouse Major, where the

task force has reassembled-"

"Are you arresting me?" Kate asked. She glanced around the docking lobby, decorated in what struck

her as bland and chilly colors, muted blues and greens, and noted two men and one woman in R.S.S.

uniform lurking by the entrance.

"No, ma'am," the young man said. "Just transporting you, ma'am."

Kate cocked her head and considered him. In her experience, young men his age melted with only one

smile, and he hadn't. Well, his preferences might lie elsewhere, but still . . . "Fine," she said.

"Let's go." He turned as quickly as she moved, and walked beside her through the entrance, where the others lined up after them, and then guided her across the wide passage to what the sign said was a dropchute. Kate stopped short.

"I'm not going in there," she said. "I've heard about those."

"You don't have them?"

"No-we like floors in our elevators. No one's looking up my skirt-"

"Fine-then we'll take the cross-station tram." He led her to the station, plugged some kind of datawand into a port, and the next tram stopped, doors opening exactly opposite them. Kate was impressed, and said so. He still wasn't melting. She looked him over again. He couldn't be a mango; she had known lots of mangos and they had a certain . . . feel. So either he really hated Texans, or . . . he was resisting her because he had a girl.

Her first meal in the officers' mess gave her a chance to do more than mutter polite greetings.

"Have you ever visited Familias space before, Ranger Briarly?" asked the executive officer, on one

side of her. She was not sure what an executive officer did, but she had memorized the insignia, and knew he was a lieutenant commander.

"No-and I hope I'm going to see more of it than the inside of a transfer station and this ship."

"What would you like to see?"

"Oh-all those sights the tourist brochures have. Langsdon's ice falls. Chuzillera's cloud forests.

The Grand Council Chamber on Castle Rock. I'd like to have seen your king while you still had one."

"Why?"

"It's so romantic," Kate said. "All those dramacubes, set in misty Vaalonia or-what's that place where they go running around on horses chasing after a fox? We just have ordinary people doing ordinary things-" She didn't really believe that, but wanted to see their reaction.

"The storycubes you people export are extraordinary enough. Those lawnhorns . . ."

"Longhorns," Kate said. "And the stories are old-last century's revival of Wild West-"

"Annie-that women in fringes with all those guns-?"

"Stories," Kate said firmly. "Not real history. And that's what I'm here for, to talk about real

history."

"But you're a . . . Ranger . . ." No doubt about it, they were twitchy about that word. With reason, though the reason was a lie.

"I'm a Ranger," Kate said firmly. "They weren't. They were a bunch of maniacs with no legitimate

connection whatsoever to real Rangers."

"So you say," said one voice down the table. Kate leaned forward.

"So I say. Are you calling me a liar?"

The air seemed to congeal around her. She smiled; the silence lengthened. The officer at the far

end of the table cleared his throat.

"Mr. Chesub, that was rude; apologize."

"I'm sorry, Ranger Briarly," a young man said. "I'm not accusing you of lying." But by his tone he

still wasn't convinced.

Kate let her smile soften. "We have had just as many freaks and nutcases as any other culture,"

she said. "But the people who stole your Chair's daughter are not ours. The Lone Star Confederation wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior. We Lone Star women wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior." Nervous chuckles. "Not that we're . . . however you say it . . . hostile to men or anything . . ."

"Well, you don't look like the pictures of their women-but you're all from Texas originally, right?"

"Not really." Kate settled into lecture mode. "The Lone Star Confederation was organized for space exploration back on Earth, and most of its members then were North Americans-many of them from the exact region then known as Texas. But most of the people in Texas came from somewhere else, all over North America. Sure, there were some hard-shell Texans among them-people whose families had been in Texas just about forever-but a lot of them weren't. And Lone Star has always welcomed immigrants who share our philosophy-"

"Which is?"

"Fear God and nobody else, ride tall, shoot straight, never tell a lie, dance with who brung you, and never renege on a handshake."

Another silence, this one slightly shocked, but responsive.

" 'Dance with who brung you?' "

"Another way of saying honor your earlier obligations-don't just look at current profit."

"Interesting."

"And your philosophy?" Kate asked.