Seccies were very much what their name implied—second-class, or lower, members of Mesan society, thoroughly excluded from the "respectable" professions and employment generally. The majority of them eked out their existences doing casual day labor, and they were generally non-persons as far as Mesa at large was concerned. Some of them, however, had amassed considerable personal fortunes from their positions as slave sutlers—who frequently also served as loan sharks, drug pushers, etc., servicing the "gray economy" of the slave community. Some of these seccy sutlers, especially the richer ones, even had silent freeborn partners.

Naturally, some of the seccies had been co-opted into the Mesan security apparatus. In general, the authorities ignored the activities of the sutlers (which, accordingly, were not taxed), and in return, the sutlers were expected to help defuse tensions in the slave community—and to inform the authorities if they saw something in danger of getting out of hand. In fairness to them, one of the reasons seccies played the informant role as often as they did stemmed less from the rewards they received for it than their recognition that any sort of organized slave revolt on Mesa would be not simply totally futile but guaranteed to produce stupendous numbers of dead slaves. For all that they were frequently venal, it was still true that seccies identified more closely with their still enslaved brethren than they did with the rest of Mesa.

It was that large class of seccies and the inherently complex and disorganized life they led that would be the key to open Mesa to Cachat and Zilwicki, if they decided to go. Hugh knew none of the details, and didn't want to, but he was certain that the Ballroom had connections with many seccies on Mesa. Given the amount of traffic going in and out of the Mesa System, it really wouldn't be that hard for Cachat and Zilwicki to disembark openly—as members of a freighter crew, perhaps—and then quietly vanish into seccy society. As long as they watched their steps—and the two were experts at this work—there really wasn't much chance they'd be spotted by Mesa's security agencies.

As long as they didn't do anything, that is. But the moment any alarms were triggered, the gloves would come off and Mesa's ruthless and brutal security forces would come down on the seccy ghettos like a hammer. The real trick would be getting off the planet and making their escape afterward.

Hence the tramp freighter and its Butre clan crew. They'd have absolutely no connection to Cachat and Zilwicki at all, so far as anyone on Mesa would be able to determine. Even if the security forces went so far as to do a DNA analysis of the crew—quite possible, actually—they'd not find anything to arouse their suspicions.

Hugh started rubbing his chin again.

Jeremy recognized the gesture, of course. He'd known Hugh since a frightened and bewildered five-year-old boy who'd just lost his entire family came off a Beowulfan warship and was greeted by a Ballroom contingent who took him and the few other survivors under their wing.

"I knew you'd see the light of day," he said cheerfully.

Hugh smiled. "I'm still not available as a consort."

"Oh, come on. One date. Surely a fearless commando—gorilla commando, at that—won't shy away from such a paltry thing. The girl's barely twenty years of age, Hugh. What could be the danger?"

Hugh brought up his memories of the queen from their one brief encounter. A plain-looking girl, really. But Hugh wasn't impressed by such things. He'd been struck by her eyes.

"Don't play the fool, Jeremy. You know the answer perfectly well, or you wouldn't have made her your queen in the first place."

Chapter Twenty-Three

"What's on your mind?" Harper S. Ferry asked, when Judson Van Hale came into his office. The former Sphinx Forestry Service ranger was frowning and the treecat perched on his shoulder seemed unusually somber as well. "You're looking disgruntled this morning."

Van Hale gave him a quick smile, but there wasn't any humor in it. "Whatever happened to the background check you were going to do on Ronald Allen?"

"Ronald who?"

"He was one of the ex-slave immigrants who arrived here about two months ago. Genghis thought his mental—'taste,' he calls it—was a little wrong. I brought the matter to your attention and you were going to do a more thorough background check."

"Yeah, I remember now. Hm. Good question, actually. I'd forgotten about it. Let me see what Records has to say." Harper began keying entries into his computer. "Spell the name, would you? The last name, I mean."

"Allen. A-L-L-E-N, not A-L-L-A-N." Judson drew a memo pad from his pocket and thumbed the entry he'd pre-selected. "Here. This is what he looks like."

Harper glanced at the screen in Van Hale's hand and saw a tall man in a brown jumpsuit. Going by his appearance, he was probably one of what Manpower called its "general utility lines," which they designated either D or E. That was a fancy way of saying that they hadn't bothered to do much in the way of genetic engineering.

A screen came up on Harper's computer. After studying it for a few seconds, he hissed in a breath.

Judson could feel Genghis tensing on his shoulder. The treecat was picking up the emotional aura Harper was emanating as a result of whatever he'd seen on the screen. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"God damn all business-as-usual clerks," Harper said. "This should have been flagged and brought to my attention immediately."

He swiveled the screen so Judson could see it. The screen read:

"Oh, hell," Judson said. "Where's Zeiger? And what happened to Allen?"

Harper S. Ferry was working at the keyboard again. After a moment he said: "Zeiger'll be easy to find, thankfully. He's a resident of Beacon"—that was the name the ex-slaves had bestowed on Torch's capital city not long after the insurrection—"and, better still, he works for the Pharmaceutical Inspection Board. He's a clerk, too, not a field agent, so he ought to be right here." He gestured at one of the windows. "Well, just a few blocks away. We can be there in five minutes."

"And Allen?"

Harper keyed in some final words. "Oh, wonderful. He also works in the pharmaceutical industry, but he's a roustabout. He could be anywhere on the planet."

"Which company does he work for?"

"Havlicek Pharmaceutics. One of the Erewhonese firms."

"Well, that's a break. They'll have good personnel records, unlike most of the homegrown outfits—and you didn't hear me cast that aspersion upon our stalwart native entrepreneurs."

Harper chuckled, and pulled out his com unit. "I'll see if I can track down Allen's whereabouts, while I'm pulling up the scanning records. Meanwhile, trot over to the PIB and see what's up with Zeiger."

Judson headed for the door.

He was back in half an hour, with a stocky, balding, middle-aged man in tow. "This is Timothy Zeiger. Tim, meet Harper S. Ferry. Harper, his number checks out."

Without being prompted, Zeiger stuck out his tongue. Ferry rose from his desk and leaned over. There, quite visible, was the number at issue: D-17d-2547-2/5.

Harper glanced at the treecat. "What does Genghis say?"

"He thinks Tim's kosher. A little apprehensive, of course, but that's to be expected. Mostly, he's just curious."

"I sure as hell am," said Zeiger. "What's this all about?"