So, again, death danced through the corridor, stamping out lives under pitiless and iron-hard heel strikes. It took but a few seconds.

Then, Thandi studied the duct into which the princess and her pursuer had plunged. She'd lose almost all her advantages in there, but...

No help for it. That was part of the deal she'd made with Victor Cachat. They needed the Manticoran princess—alive—in order to keep the trap unfolding. Thandi's job was done, almost. But she knew that Victor was trolling for much bigger fish.

Her lips quirked for a moment. A deal's a deal. When in Erewhon, do as the Erewhonese do. And I really don't think I want to piss off Victor Cachat anyway.

Her women, seeing the little smile, grinned back. The expressions made them seem more like she-wolves than ever.

"You lead, great kaja. We'll follow."

For once, there was not even an undertone of mockery in the words. Studying their faces, Thandi understood that she'd sealed their loyalty completely. The exercise hall was one thing, and even broken bones knit soon enough. Whereas this—

Great Kaja , indeed. Death on two feet. The fact that they'd seen those same two feet, now and then, wearing elegant sandals and looking very feminine, only added to their satisfaction.

"Make us their chattel, would they?" snarled one of the women. She glared down at the corpse of one of the Scrags; then, just for good measure, stamped its face into a pulpier mess.

Since Thandi couldn't think of a fancier battle plan than—after them! follow me! —she said nothing. Just stooped, retrieved a pulser from the floor, and wriggled her way into the ventilation duct.

It wasn't until she'd gotten maybe twenty yards in, that the obvious problem occurred to her. She keyed to Cachat's channel, feeling obscurely unhappy that the man was proving to have feet of clay, after all.

"This isn't going to work, Victor. Templeton—both of them, Abraham as well as Gideon—was certainly staying in contact with his men on the Felicia III. It's not as if we're the only ones in the galaxy who have personal communicators."

"Don't worry about it," he replied immediately. "How are things at your end?"

"Oh. Uh, forgot to tell you. Everything's fine. We just took out Abraham and his men. All except one, who went into the ventilation ducts after the princess escaped."

She could hear him chuckle. "Why am I not surprised? And on two counts, I might add. The first count being that you're just as murderous as you claimed to be. But it's like you said: I won't tell you how to do mayhem, you don't tell me how to do scheming. I'm counting on Templeton's men in the Felicia knowing that things have all gone wrong, Thandi. But the key is that they won't know exactly why or how or what. Am I safe in presuming that you didn't give Abraham time to make coherent reports?"

Thandi felt simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. Embarrassed by herself; pleased that the man of her increasingly frequent fantasies—one of them flashed through her mind that very moment, in fact—didn't have feet of clay, after all.

And crawling through a duct in pursuit of a desperate criminal is no time to be having fantasies. You idiot.

"All right," she said gruffly, covering her embarrassment. "What's the second count?"

"Anton Zilwicki up to his tricks. The other girl—the one Templeton left behind in the gaming hall—has gotten over the shock. Mild concussion, maybe, nothing worse. But she's coherent now, I can assure you. And it turns out that she's the Manticoran princess. The one you're chasing after is Berry Zilwicki."

Again, she could hear Victor chuckle. "And let me tell you—I speak from experience—Zilwicki girls can play merry hell in a tunnel. Good luck, Thandi."

And so Lieutenant Palane crawled on, resolute, determined, hand pulser clenched in her fist. No one watching would have imagined that she did so while being distracted by a veritable cascade of florid fantasies.

Except, possibly, for Victor Cachat—who was increasingly uneasy at the effect that mezzo-soprano voice was having on his nervous system. But he had the advantage, at the moment, of facing something quite a bit livelier than a dull, gray-painted ventilation duct.

A Manticoran princess, no less, and one in full and fine fury.

"Don't tell me you couldn't have stopped them! I'm not an idiot, whoever-you-are, and if you could drop all of those bastards around this table like you did—I was under it, you know, watching 'em fall like flies—and quit trying to tell me I'm concussed!—I just banged my head a little!—then you could have taken them all out! Before they killed my soldiers! Before they grabbed Berry!" The next words came in a wail: "The best friend I've ever had!"

Victor decided that diplomacy was pointless. The young woman was practically hopping with rage.

"Sure, I could have. But why should I?" he asked bluntly. Then, nodding stiff-necked: "Introductions are in order again, perhaps. Since you seem to have forgotten—"

"Oh."

The princess' little gasp of shock drained all the anger from her face. "Oh. You're Victor Cachat. I didn't recognize you. You seem... a lot different than you did at the Stein, uh, funeral."

Clearly, though, the princess recovered from shock quickly. Anger seeped back into her expression.

"To be more precise," she snapped, "you seemed a lot nicer man. Than you do now. You cold lousy fish."

Fortunately for Victor, Ginny arrived at that moment. She'd disappeared for a bit, to try to repair as much of the damage as she could to her costume. The outfit, needless to say, had never been designed for use on a battlefield.

"He's the same guy," she announced, smiling. "He just suffers from a bit of a split personality. There's Victor the Sweetie, who's as cute as a teddy bear. And then..."

The smile vanished and Ginny was now inspecting Victor as if he were, indeed, a cold lousy fish.

"Then there's this guy. Machiavelli's Nightmare. The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Face like a stone and a heart that's harder still."

She shrugged. Then, in one of her inimitable lightning changes of mood, smiled sweetly and gave his ribs a little tickle with a forefinger. "What would he do without me?"

She transferred the sweet smile to the princess. "You might want to keep your voice down a little, though. Chew the cold lousy fish out quietly to your heart's content. But if word gets out that the girl in Templeton's hands isn't really you..."

"Omigod!" Princess Ruth's hand flew to her mouth. "I'm a moron. The captain'll wring my neck. If they find out... they'll kill Berry!"

Victor shook his head. "Relax, will you? Your Highness, or whatever people like you get called. In polite society, which I'm not. I do have a plan, you know—and, so far, it seems to be working pretty damn well, for something slapped together at the last minute. Besides, your friend Berry's not a captive any longer." He tapped his earbug. "I just got the word. She escaped from Templeton and his gang and made it into the ventilation ducts. And there's only one of them left to chase after her, because... uh, well. Let's just say the others have been dealt with."

"A plan?" Ruth glared at him, but she did lower her voice. "What kind of idiot plan justifies allowing the murder of my security people? Or letting those murdering bastards get their hands on Berry? You—"

"A plan," Victor broke into her half-hissed tirade with flat, hard-edged assurance, "which will get your friend Berry back alive. And which will take out—once and for all—a crew of Masadan terrorists your intelligence people haven't been able to catch up with in over a decade. And ," he finished as her eyes widened in surprise, "one which will hit Manpower and the entire genetic slave trade where it really counts."

The eyes which had widened narrowed suddenly, with what was obviously mingled suspicion and hard, intense speculation overcoming anger. They didn't displace that emotion, but even though Victor had hoped for a reaction along those lines, he was a bit taken aback by how quickly and powerfully it occurred. He didn't even try to follow the thoughts flashing through her brain, but he could actually see the moment at which the sums suddenly came together for her.

Ginny wasn't the only female around capable of instantaneous mood switches, it seemed. Princess Ruth's face went from anger to keen interest in a split second.

"A plan?" she repeated in an entirely different tone. "Hmph." She thought again for a moment, then nodded sharply. "So you're working with Erewhon, are you? Well, of course. You'd have to be to be standing around hip-deep in bodies without being arrested. So that means..." She grimaced. "If you're talking about hurting Manpower, then you've got to be thinking about Congo. I can see a couple of angles, I think. But if you want my opinion—"

Which she proceeded to give, at some length, despite knowing virtually nothing about the situation. The worst of it, from Victor's point of view, was how uncannily close she often came and how genuinely expert her opinion often was. Anton Zilwicki's influence and training there, Victor was sure of it.

Great. A Manticoran enemy princess with aspirations to being a spy—and some real talent for it, too. Just what I need. Like a hole in the head.

On the other hand...

Victor pondered the other hand for a bit, as Ruth kept talking. He would have labeled it "chatter" and "prattle" and "babble," except it wasn't. In fact, the girl was giving him some ideas.

The clincher came when the security guards who'd rallied to the scene finally started letting in the press. The Manticoran princess, it seemed, could also be a fine actress when she wanted to be.

"Oh!" she cried, half-sobbing into the holorecorders. "It was horrible! They took the princess away!" She clutched Victor's arm. "Would have gotten me too, if this gentleman hadn't come along."

Now it was pure chatter and prattle and babble. Which was exactly what the situation required. When the Erewhonese press, well-trained as always, finally let themselves be led away, Victor whispered into Ruth's ear.

"All right, fine. You want in?"

"Try and keep me out, you cold lousy fish."