“I’ll have to report it, sir. Confirm your code.”

They knew whohe was. Tap didn’t lie. This time they wanted a code to tell them he didn’t have a gun to his head. He gave it, so as not to bring an armed team in on the situation, just to cap it all. Arrest on his doorstep wouldn’t add glory to Ardath’s résumé or his own reputation.

The last light quit blinking on the alarm console. He reached out distractedly for the physical light switch and moved it to half, a twilight in which his sister descended the last step of the stairs to join him, wrapped in stars, skin flickering with pale blue.

“I’m not sure I like the color,” he said, irritated into a truth he’d never told her, and immediately wished he hadn’t said that.

Blue flicker turned to gold and magenta pink. He liked it less. Pink wasn’t Ardath at all. He doubly wished he hadn’t said anything.

Meanwhile he found a cup and stuck it under the caff spigot, ordering a full cup. “Want one?”

“No.”

“I do.” Dammit, he was wide awake. Adrenaline was pumping. He couldn’t drink another three vodkas to put himself back to bed or he’d have hell’s own hangover when he had to be sharp. He didn’t want to resort to pills because it was 0405h in the bleeding morning. He needed his sleep so he could get dressed in four hours and face the damned ambassador with his wits about him at 0900h.

His nerves were completely jangled. He took his cup to the small, two-seat table and sat down. “Go back to the blue and gold. It’s pretty. I was being a toad. What are you doing here?”

6

“AS IF I’M not welcome,” Ardath said.

“You set off the damned house alarm at four in the morning, for God’s sake. I can think of nicer visits. I’m going to hear from the office about this. Believe me, believe me—tonight’s really not a good time to do this.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you why.” Procyon sipped at too-hot caff, found his sister towering over him. Her face and hands flickered blue and gold in the twilight, her body wrapped in constellations. “Sit down. If you want to talk, at least sit down. I’m getting a knot in my neck.”

“You have one in your head.” She didn’t sit down. “What’s this meeting with the governor? Are you suddenly looking for a job in Reaux’soffice?”

So the rumor had made the street. He wasn’t all that surprised. “I can’t talk about it.”

“You can’t talk about it, but everybody else is talking.”

“That’s not good.” He really didn’t like that idea. But he didn’t know what to do about it.

“You’re my brother! It’s common knowledge you’re in the Project.”

How was thatcommon knowledge? My God, he thought. “I don’t know how it got to be common knowledge, since it’s not true.”

“Oh, come, brother. I know. Everyone knows, but I’ve always acknowledged you anyway and never, ever asked a question if you’re not able to tell me, which I assume you’re not, about where you work, and now you go and do something like this…which just makes us wonder if you’re really a computer tech or into something else I really won’t like. What do you actually do for the Project?”

So he worked for the Project. Whether it was in the civil or science wing was a fifty-fifty choice. Three-quarters of the people in government offices worked for the Project, at some remove.

“I just push keys, is all. I have no choice where I’m sent. I was just running an errand today, a favor for a supervisor.”

“A keypusher runs errands to the governor? Who do you work for? For Brazis?”

“Believe me when I say you aren’t supposed to be here. My apartment’s being watched. You’re into security systems you can’t deal with.”

“Then they already know I’m visiting my brother, don’t they? Who’swatching you? Is it Reaux, or is it Brazis? And you keep ducking the question. What do you dofor the Project?”

She knew he was meeting with the governor. He couldn’t exactly say he was “in computers” anymore. He couldn’t say it was for any ordinary supervisor he’d undertaken that errand. “Ardath, please, if you mess with this, it’s not going to be good.” He weighed another question half a breath. And asked it. “What haveyou heard, and who told you this stuff?”

“I can’t tell you who told me, if you’re being spied on. That wouldn’t be smart of me, would it?”

“It might well be smart of you to tell me. All right, all right, yes, I work for Brazis. I work pretty high up, for Brazis. My office wants to know where you got this information. Don’t play games with them.”

“You know what they say on the street? That you could even be a Project tap. That’s what they say.”

His blood ran cold. He didn’t know how much he needed to tell her to distract her. As much, he decided, as was going to be common knowledge tomorrow, and hope the PO didn’t think it became common knowledge only because he’d told his sister. “I’m meeting the Earth ambassador tomorrow morning. Did your sources say that to you?”

Ardath gathered her constellations around her and sat down in his kitchen chair, eyes wide—glowing slightly as her color patterns retreated. Was that equivalent to pallor? Perhaps the same physiology?

“You’re not!”

“Afraid I am. The same reason I went to the governor, I’m being sent to the ambassador. It’s secret. And it isn’t any damned help with my sister passing along the latest rumors as fast as people come up with them.”

“Is it some stupid politics that’s the matter? Is it some fuss with Earthers?”

“I can’t say, and you don’t want to know, either. That’s why I don’t really recommend you stay for a cup of caff at this point, do you understand me? Don’t do me any favors. I have to do this. That’s not going to change. Just stay out of it before we both get into trouble.”

“Are you a tap-courier?”

Close. A reasonable guess. But a miss. “I can’t say.”

“You know what some people are saying on the street? That my own brother is slinking for the Council. Areyou a slink?”

“No.”

“Then why won’t you tell me the truth?”

“Ardath. I know this may all seem a personal inconvenience to you…”

“An inconvenience! An inconvenience! You won’t tell me the truth, you go and do something like this when I’ve done all I’ve done to make you a good reputation in the Trend—I’ve invested in you!”

Sometimes his sister’s focus was on her own navel. Not a clue that events meant anything outside the Trend. And that short focus was the one thing he really, truly detested in Arden as she’d become. “I really haven’t any choice in the matter.” He was on the verge of real annoyance with her, and he didn’t want that at this hour, not counting the other troubles he had. The rumors she cited were scary. “I’ll breach security this far, just enough to tell you the meeting with Reaux was because of the meeting with the ambassador, a simple briefing, which I conveyed where it had to go, and don’t you dare mention that fact anywhere. This is a test of what I tell you, Ardath. I’m telling you, and if that information turns up anywhere else before I actually have the meeting with the Earther, I’m going to be way beyond mad, because I’ll know who spilled it, and so will my office figure it out. It could be inconvenient for me,if you think about it for two seconds.”

“How am I responsible, if your business is spilling all over the street? Areyou a tap-courier?”