"Mmm... possibly. Let's go talk it over." She turned. "Get back in your hide-away, Thorby, and be careful. I may have to go out for a while."

Shortly before curfew the next day a large sedan chair left Joy Street. A patrolman stopped it and Mother Shaum stuck her head out. He looked surprised. "Going out, Mother? Who'll take care of your customers?"

"Mura has the keys," she answered. "But keep an eye on the place, that's a good friend. She's not as firm with them as I am." She put something in his hand and he made it disappear.

"I'll do that. Going to be gone all night?"

"I hope not. Perhaps I had better have a street pass, do you think? I'd like to come straight home if I finish my business."

"Well, now, they've tightened up a little on street passes."

"Still looking for the beggar's boy?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. But well find him. If he's fled to the country, they'll starve him out; if he's still in town, well run him down."

"Well, you could hardly mistake me for him. So how about a short pass for an old woman who needs to make a private call?" She rested her hand on the door; the edge of a bill stuck out.

He glanced at it and glanced away. "Is midnight late enough?"

"Plenty, I should think."

He took out his book and started writing, tore out the form and handed it to her. As she accepted it the money disappeared. "Don't make it later than midnight"

"Earlier, I hope."

He glanced inside the sedan chair, then looked over her entourage. The four bearers had been standing patiently, saying nothing -- which was not surprising, since they had no tongues. "Zenith Garage?"

"I always trade there."

"I thought I recognized them. Well matched."

"Better look them over. One of them might be the beggar's boy."

"Those great hairy brutes! Get along with you, Mother."

"Hail, Shol."

The chair swung up and moved away at a trot. As they rounded the corner she slowed them to a walk and drew all curtains. Then she patted the cushions billowing around her. "Doing all right?"

"I'm squashed," a voice answered faintly.

"Better squashed than shortened. I'll ease over a bit. Your lap is bony."

For the next mile she was busy modifying her costume, and putting on jewels. She veiled her face until only her live, black eyes showed. Finished, she stuck her head out and called instructions to the head porter; the chair swung right toward the spaceport. When they reached the road girdling its high, impregnable fence it was almost dark.

The gate for spacemen is at the foot of Joy Street, the gate for passengers is east of there in the Emigration Control Building. Beyond that, in the warehouse district, is Traders' Gate -- freight and outgoing customs. Miles beyond are shipyard gates. But between the shipyards and Traders' Gate is a small gate reserved for nobles rich enough to own space yachts.

The chair reached the spaceport fence short of Traders' Gate, turned and went along the fence toward it. Traders' Gate is several gates, each a loading dock built through the barrier, so that a warehouse truck can back up, unload; the Sargon's inspectors can weigh, measure, grade, prod, open, and ray the merchandise, as may be indicated, before it slides across the dock into spaceport trucks on the other side, to be delivered to waiting ships.

This night dock-three of the gate had its barricade open; Free Trader Sisu was finishing loading. Her master watched, arguing with inspectors, and oiling their functioning in the immemorial fashion. A ship's junior officer helped him, keeping tally with pad and pencil.

The sedan chair weaved among waiting trucks and passed close to the dock. The master of the Sisu looked up as the veiled lady in the chair peered out at the activity. He glanced at his watch and spoke to his junior officer. "One more load, Jan. You go in with the loaded truck and I'll follow with the last one."

"Aye aye, sir." The young man climbed on the tail of the truck and told the driver to take it away. An empty truck pulled into its place. It loaded quickly as the ship's master seemed to find fewer things to argue about with the inspectors. Then he was not satisfied and demanded that it be done over. The boss stevedore was pained but the master soothed him, glanced at his watch again and said, "There's time. I don't want these crates cracked before we get them into the ship; the stuff costs money. So let's do it right."

The sedan chair had moved on along the fence. Shortly it was dark; the veiled lady looked at the glowing face of her finger watch and urged her bearers into a trot.

They came at last to the gate reserved for nobles. The veiled lady leaned her head out and snapped, "Open up!"

There were two guards on the gate, one in a little watch room, the other lounging outside. The one outside opened the gate, but placed his staff across it when the sedan chair started to go through. Stopped, the bearers lowered it to the ground with the right-hand or door side facing into the gate.

The veiled lady called out, "Clear the way, you! Lord Marlin's yacht."

The guard blocking the gate hesitated. "My lady has a pass?"

"Are you a fool?"

"If my lady has no pass," he said slowly, "perhaps my lady will suggest some way to assure the guard that My Lord Marlin is expecting her?"

The veiled lady was a voice in the dark -- the guard had sense enough not to shine the light in her face; he had long experience with nobles and fumed. "If you insist on being a fool, call my lord at his yacht! Phone him -- and I trust you'll find you've pleased him!"

The guard in the watch room came out. "Trouble, Sean?"

"Uh, no." They held a whispered consultation. The junior went inside to phone Lord Marlin's yacht, while the other waited outside.

But it appeared that the lady had had all the nonsense she was willing to endure. She threw open the door of the chair, burst out, and stormed into the watch room with the other startled guard after her. The one making the call stopped punching keys with connection uncompleted and looked up... and felt sick. This was even worse than he had thought. This was no flighty young girl, escaped from her chaperones; this was an angry dowager, the sort with enough influence to break a man to common labor or worse -- with a temper that made her capable of it. He listened open-mouthed to the richest tongue-lashing it had been his misfortune to endure in all the years he had been checking lords and ladies through their gate.

While the attention of both guards was monopolized by Mother Shaum's rich rhetoric, a figure detached itself from the sedan chair, faded through the gate and kept going, until it was lost in the gloom of the field. As Thorby ran, even as he expected the burning tingle of a stun gun bolt in his guts, he watched for a road on the right joining the one from the gate. When he came to it he threw himself down and lay panting.

Back at the gate, Mother Shaum stopped for breath. "My lady," one of them said placatingly, "if you will just let us complete the call --"

"Forget it! No, remember it! -- for tomorrow you'll hear from My Lord Marlin." She flounced back to her chair.

"Please, my lady!"

She ignored them, spoke sharply to the slaves; they swung the chair up, broke into a trot. One guard's hand went to his belt, as a feeling of something badly wrong possessed him. But his hand stopped. Right or wrong, knocking down a lady's bearer was not to be risked, no matter what she might be up to.

And, after all, she hadn't actually done anything wrong.

When the master of the Sisu finally okayed the loading of the last truck, he climbed onto its bed, waved the driver to start, then worked his way forward. "Hey, there!" He knocked on the back of the cab.

"Yes, Captain?" The driver's voice came through faintly.