Victor started to frown—so did Du Havel—but Walter pressed on. "No, no, I understand. We Erewhonese have our faults, but we're no lousy Solarian League, bleeding its colonies like a leech. There'd be no 'brain drain,' Victor. We'd have to devote a fair amount of our own resources to make Congo livable and attractive. Incentives for people to go back, after they got an education here. Still—"

Du Havel grunted. "It'd work, Walter. If you're smart and think in the long term, anyway, instead of being stupid-greedy. And it's not just the Mfecane worlds, either. There are still Scrags scattered here and there all over the galaxy. Most of them are attached to Mesa, sure, but Lieutenant Palane's already shown that some of them can be broken loose. Another group of outcasts—and there are still others. Plenty of them. It's a big galaxy."

The head of the Imbesi family turned his head away slightly, eyeing Victor out of the corners of his eyes. The way a man will, trying to gauge every side of a thing.

"And that's what you've been angling for, isn't it?"

Victor shrugged. "Mostly—no surprise—I'm trying to break Erewhon's allegiance to Manticore." He snorted. "From what she's said, Princess Ruth has certainly figured that much out by now! And, if possible, I want to lay the basis for an alliance with my own star nation, of course. But nobody—certainly nobody on Erewhon—is going to make that kind of decision simply based on a little secret-agent razzle-dazzle. The thing has to end—has got to end— with an objective situation that satisfies everybody. You don't just need a Congo that's been pried loose from Mesa, Walter. You need a Congo that's three other things as well."

He gave Du Havel a long, considering look. "I'd be interested to hear your opinion, Professor." Then, Victor began counting off on his fingers.

"First, strong. Or, at least, tough as a nut to crack. A system that will fight tooth and nail on its own against any possible would-be conqueror."

"Agreed," said Du Havel.

"Second, prosperous and stable on its own terms—or that wormhole junction won't do Erewhon much good at all. Nobody wants to depend on a shipping route that passes through an area that's not only dirt-poor but, as usually happens, rife with instability and piracy."

"Correct," said Du Havel. "Keep going, young man."

"Third—this follows from the first two—a system that is an independent star nation. On close and friendly terms with Erewhon, of course, and with lots of objective reasons to stay that way. But not an Erewhonese colony or puppet. That has the further advantage, by the way, of making those wormholes an even less attractive attack route to Erewhon—because any enemy of yours would have to violate Congo's neutrality."

"That's been done before," countered Walter, "often enough in history." But there wasn't much force to the words. The tone was more that of a man playing devil's advocate.

Du Havel shook his head. "No, Cachat's got it right. Of course, it's certainly true that small and neutral nations have been trampled. Poor little Belgium, to use an example from ancient history. But—" Du Havel's grin was almost as wolfish as Victor's. "Belgium wasn't a nation founded by the Audubon Ballroom, much less with a heavy influx of immigrants from places like the Mfecane hell-worlds and the leftovers from Ukrainian bio-labs."

Imbesi grunted, acknowledging the point. He was as well educated in ancient history as biology. "More like Switzerland, then. A neutral nation with strong natural borders—Congo's swamps and jungles to the Swiss mountains—and whose men had been Europe's most feared mercenary soldiers for centuries. So nobody messed with them, because it just wasn't worth the grief."

Victor nodded. "There are other examples, and no historical analogy can be stretched too far in any event. But... yes. That's the deal, Walter." He gave Du Havel another long, considering look. "And I think you'd better start applying your mind to the matter also."

Imbesi smiled thinly. "I'm not running the show here on Erewhon, Victor."

"You will be soon enough, unless I miss my guess. Back in the middle of things, anyway. But it doesn't matter—and you know it. If you make the deal, Walter, and I come through with my end of it, then the families that are running the show won't renege."

It was the perfect place for a stiletto, and Victor didn't miss it. "Sure, they're a little too cautious. But they aren't the Baron of High Ridge and Elaine Descroix and the Countess of New Kiev, either."

Walter scowled. "Pack of scoundrels. A deal's a deal, dammit. It binds a whole family—a whole people—even if the one who made it was a screwball and you have to slap him down hard in private."

He and Victor studied each other for a moment. Then, Walter struck out his hand. Victor clasped it, and the deal was made.

When their hands fell away, Walter smiled. It was a sardonic expression.

"Of course, all of this depends on whether your Amazon can keep the, uh, not-princess alive. I'm only guessing, but I'm pretty sure your whole scheme depends on that."

Victor's returning smile was on the pained side. "More than just my scheme, actually. Probably my life. Sooner or later, you know, Anton Zilwicki is going to be back. And if he finds out I got his daughter killed in the course of a political maneuver..."

Victor glanced down at Abraham Templeton's shattered skull and grimaced. "Did you know that Anton Zilwicki still holds the record in the Manticoran Games—in his weight class, anyway, which is plenty big enough—for almost all the weight-lifting events? Leaving aside the fact that he was their champion wrestler, three games running."

Du Havel chuckled. But the sound was more gloomy than humorous. "Oh, yes, I've been thinking about it myself—given that Anton Zilwicki will be none too pleased with me either. Not more than a day after he left the girls in my so-called 'care'—ha! But you neglected to mention the rest, Mr. Cachat. And he's got the brain of a Machiavelli himself, and he's got the soul of a Gryphon highlander vendettist. If his girl dies—even gets badly hurt—our ass is grass."

At the moment, Lieutenant Thandi Palane was feeling more like a fish in a can than an "Amazon." Yes, the ventilation ducts were big enough—just barely—for her to crawl through. No, she didn't exactly suffer from claustrophobia. But the whole experience was still enough to leave her exceedingly unhappy.

So were the women behind her, judging from their grumbles.

"Shut up," she hissed. "You'll warn the Scrag we're after him."

The moment the term left her mouth, she regretted it. She could sense, in the sudden silence behind her, hurt feelings as well as obedience.

She sighed. Then, decided to break her own command.

"All right, I'm sorry." Then, after a pause, hissing: "No, dammit, I'm not sorry. The pig is nothing but a 'Scrag.' That doesn't mean you are, but it does mean we need to come up with a different name. For you, I mean. I can't keep thinking of you just as 'my Amazons.' "

Yana's voice drifted up from behind her. "What does 'Amazon' mean, anyway? You used the word once before."

Thandi explained. When she was done, she could hear a low rumbling chuckle in the duct, coming from several throats.

" 'Amazon' it is, then," pronounced Yana firmly.

Thandi frowned. "Not sure," she whispered. "There might be a decent male ex-Scrag coming along one of these days, you know. Decent enough, anyway."

"So what?" replied Yana. "No problem. He can be an Amazonette."

"Amazonix," countered Raisha.

"Amazon-boy," offered Olga.

The burst of laughter which echoed down the tube then would have been enough to waken the dead, much less alert a Scrag. But Thandi discovered that she didn't really care, any more.

Yeah, that's right, superman. The super-bitches are hot on your tail. Which means you are dog food.

The Scrag did hear the noise, in fact, but he'd already known he was being pursued by someone. His hearing was very acute, and he'd picked up the sound of bodies scuffling their way down the ventilation duct behind him some time earlier. At first, he'd assumed that was his own people coming to his assistance. But eventually, from subtle details in the soft sounds which he couldn't analyze consciously, he'd understood that the people behind him were women.

That could only mean that, somehow, Abraham Templeton had been brought down. And that, whoever the women were following behind him, they were no friends of his. The fact that the recent loud burst of laughter had contained a confident edge—even a savage one—made him certain they were bitter enemies.

So, as he continued his pursuit of the princess, he began thinking about his own options. He was almost certain there was really no point, any longer, to continuing that pursuit. He'd never really known what the Templetons had in mind when they planned this operation—this utter fiasco—but whatever their scheme had been, it was all a moot point now.

For a minute or so, he considered breaking off the pursuit and simply trying to make his own escape. He was almost sure he could do so, at least as far as breaking through one of the duct covers and getting back into the main corridors of the space station. The princess had passed them by, because she wasn't strong enough to just kick the covers loose. But he was sure he could, with his genetically enhanced muscles.

Whether he could then manage to escape the station itself...

Probably not. But he found that he didn't really care, anyway. Like so many Scrags, the one crawling through the ducts of The Wages of Sin was not entirely sane. Or, it might be better to say, the twisted history of his subculture gave him a death wish which resembled those of the ancient Norse berserks or the hardcore Nazis. Better to die heroically, in a glorious final battle, than to whimper away into oblivion in a universe ruled by sub-humans.

All the more so if he could flaunt his contempt for the sub-humans before he died. Templeton and his religious fetishes be damned. Here at the end, the Scrag would return to his own faith. He'd raped women before, but never a princess. He could think of no better way, under the circumstances, to make the appropriate obscene gesture from his funeral pyre.