"A horse broke his foot when he was a boy, and then he cracked some ribs falling off into rocks

trying to keep up with Bunny. He thinks horses are large smelly abominations, a drain on the

income-which they are, actually. We've never made money off the horses."

"Miranda-you're distracting me with horses, and I'm not that foolish. Did you kill Pedar on purpose?"

Miranda gave her a long, silent look. "Do you think I would do something like that?"

"I don't know anymore what people will and won't do. I didn't think Lorenza would poison me and gloat over me while I lay helpless. I didn't think Kemtre would drug his own sons, or connive at

cloning. I didn't think Bunny's brother would terrorize an old lady into giving up her shares. Or that Pedar would have Bunny assassinated to get a Ministry."

"We're not answering each other's questions," Miranda said. "And I think that's probably wise. But

I will remind you of that old, old rule."

"Which one?"

"A lady is never rude . . . by accident." Miranda put a dollop of honey in her cup, then sipped the tea. "I needed that."

"Sticking a blade into someone's brain and stirring goes beyond mere rudeness." Cecelia felt grumpy. She was sure she knew what had happened-or part of it-and yet Miranda wasn't reacting as she should.

"That's true," Miranda said. "But the rule applies in other situations as well. Cecelia, if you're going to make a fuss, please do so."

"You're not even asking me not to . . ."

"No. Your decisions are yours, as mine are mine."

"What are you going to tell your children?"

"That Pedar died in a fencing accident. They have brains, Cecelia, and imagination; they will put on it what construction they please."

Cecelia ate another jam-filled tart, and stared out the window again. After a long silence, she said, "I suppose it sends a message to Hobart . . ."

"I hope so," Miranda said.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Esmay scowled at the message strip the clerk handed her.

They'd had it all arranged, she thought. Why meet in a private room, and not in the restaurant?

She scanned the lift tubes, looking for the right range. Thirty-seven to forty . . . odd. Most tubes served at least ten floors. She tapped the access button.

"Room and name, please?"

What was this? If Barin had been there, she'd have whacked him in the head, but he wasn't. "3814,"

she said instead. "Lieutenant Suiza."

The lift tube access slid open, with the supporting grid glowing green for up. Esmay stepped in, and found herself in a mirrored cylinder that rose smoothly, with none of the exuberance of most lift tubes. Her ears popped once, then again. It was only thirty-eight floors-what was happening here?

She stepped out into a green-carpeted foyer, the walls striped in subtle shades of beige and cream. The pictures on the wall . . . she caught her breath at the bold geometric. Surely that was a reproduction-she stepped closer. No . . . the thick wedge of purple, that cast a shadow in every reproduction, cast a different shadow here, lit as it was by a pin spot on the opposite wall.

Genuine Oskar Cramin. Then that might be a real Dessaline as well, its delicate traceries refusing to be overborne by the Cramin's almost brutal vigor. Quietly, with the confidence of greatness, the little gray and gold and black Dessaline held its place.

She shook her head and looked around. Beyond the foyer, a short hall had but four doors opening off it, and one was labelled SERVICE. Barin must have spent a fortune . . . 3814 was the middle door. She moved into its recognition cone, and waited.

The door opened, and she was face to face with . . . a middle-aged woman she'd never seen. Before she could begin to stammer an apology, the woman spoke.

"Lieutenant Suiza! How good to meet you-I'm Podjar Serrano, Barin's mother."

Barin's mother. Panic seized her. She had been prepared for Barin, for a few stolen moments of privacy . . . a chance to talk before she met his mother.

"Come on in," Podjar was saying. "We're all dying to meet you."

We? What we? We all? She could hear a low hum of voices, and wanted nothing more than to run away.

Where was Barin? How could he lead her into this?

Podjar had her by the arm-Barin's mother; she couldn't just pull away-and led her inside, to a room that seemed as big as a planet right then.

"Here she is at last," Podjar said to someone else, a short thickset man who had Barin's grin but nothing of his grace. Brother? Father? Uncle? "This is Kerin, my husband," Podjar said. Esmay hoped that meant he was Barin's father, because otherwise she hadn't a clue.

Farther into the room, her stunned wits began to register additional details. Not only was the room big, and arranged for entertaining, but it was comfortably full of people who all seemed to know each other. Barin's family?

"Esmay!" Her heart leapt. That was Barin, and he would get her out of this, whatever it was. He came toward her, clearly gleeful and full of himself. She could have killed him, and hoped he understood steel behind her fixed smile.

"I'm sorry I wasn't at the lift to meet you," he said. "I had an urgent call-"

Esmay couldn't bring herself to be polite and say it didn't matter. "What is this?" she said instead.

Barin grimaced. "It got out of hand," he said. "I wanted you to meet my parents, and they were coming through here on the way home. Then grandmother-" he waved; Esmay followed the gesture to see Admiral Vida Serrano at the far end of the room, surrounded by an earnest cluster of older people. "-Grandmother wanted to talk to you about something, and thought this would be a good opportunity. And then . . . they started precipitating, falling out of the sky . . ."

"Mmm." Esmay could not say any of what she was thinking, not with his parents standing there smiling at her a little nervously. "Are we . . . going to have a chance to talk?" By ourselves she meant.

"I don't know," Barin said. "I hope so. But-" His gaze slid to his mother, who quirked an eyebrow.

"Barin, you know it's important family business. We must confer."

Great. The only leave she'd been able to wangle, in the current crises, and it looked as if she'd be spending it conferring with his family instead of hers.

"How was your trip, Esmay?" asked Barin's father. He had lieutenant commander's insignia, with a technical flash.

"Fine, though we lost a day at Karpat for unscheduled maintenance procedures." She couldn't keep the edge out of her voice.

"Mmm. That's typical." Barin's father nodded across the room. "Let me show you to your room."

"My-"

"Of course you have your own room here. We may have descended in force, but we're not entirely uncivilized. You have to stay somewhere." Across the room, through another door, into another corridor . . . Esmay was by this time beyond astonishment when he showed her to a small suite, its sitting room wall showing a view of the station's exterior. "This is yours-and I'm sure the staff are sending up your things."

"I have only the carryon," Esmay said.

"Well, then. Come out when you're ready." With a smile, he turned away and closed the door behind him. Esmay sank down onto one of the rose-and-cream-striped chairs. What she wanted to do was put her head in her hands and scream. That wouldn't be productive, she was sure. But what was going on?