"Officer, could you tell me where the cloth merchants have their booths?"

"Of course," Eskalie Morlin said. She pointed with one handling tentacle across the crowded expanse of well-trampled earth which constituted the Tormin Fall Market. "They are over there, just beyond the Gens."

The woman's three-year-old daughter peeked out from behind her mother's skirt, staring wide-eyed at Eskalie's crisp uniform. The little girl's two older brothers were more enthralled by the heavy, military-style whip wrapped around Eskalie's waist. Then the younger boy got in his brother's way, and was slapped for his impudence. As the two boys began to shove each other, the baby in the woman's arms woke up and emitted an outraged wail.

"Shen!" the woman said, bouncing the infant in a futile attempt to quiet its howls. "Josh, you stop hitting your little brother and behave right now!" she ordered her eldest, without any greater success.

"I don't wanna buy stupid cloth." Josh complained. "Cloth is boring. I wanna see something exciting." He grabbed onto one of his mother's handling tentacles and tried to pull her in the direction opposite the clothing stalls. "I wanna see the bear. Bears are dangerous. They can rip you apart with one swipe of their claws!" He used his free hand to demonstrate, casting his brother in the role of the victim. The younger lad's outraged wail echoed through the market.

Filled with pride in her newfound (if strictly temporary) role as a keeper of the peace, Eskalie bent over to address the rebellious youngster. "Josh, did you know that the Naifels Genfarm display over that way has a Giant Killer Gen?" she asked, pointing across the wide marketplace to a tent on the edge of the Gen section--and not incidentally, right next to the first of the cloth merchants.

"Killer Gens are lots more dangerous than bears," she continued confidentially, as Josh's eyes widened with delighted anticipation. "Why, a Killer Gen can dispatch a full-grown Sime with one snap of its nager!"

Privately, Eskalie doubted that Duffy Naifels' "Killer Gen" could dispatch one of the flies which swarmed over its filthy hide, much less a Sime. Unlike the gullible audience which crowded around its cage, she had actually met the real thing, and was thus in a position to know the difference.

She suspected that Naifels' Gen was a breeder grown too old, put on display in the hopes that some daredevil would pay a premium price to kill the "dangerous Gen." And the greedy fraud might succeed in that, even though the Gen's field isn't particularly strong or interesting, and it looks like the poor thing hasn't had a good meal in months.

But then, most of the Naifels Gens looked underfed this year. Eskalie had heard that the wheat crop in his part of the Territory had been poor, due to a combination of bad farming practices, drought, and an especially virulent strain of rust.

"Let's go see the Killer Gen, Mommy!" the boy demanded, pulling his mother towards the promised attraction. His two younger siblings added their enthusiastic endorsement of this plan.

With a hasty smile of thanks for Eskalie, the harried mother herded her brood in the proper direction.

Eskalie nodded to herself in brisk satisfaction, then continued her rounds through the marketplace, keeping her eyes peeled for pickpockets, obstreperous drunks, straying animals, and other potential threats to the public welfare. She reveled in the attention her uniform was receiving: people actually noticed her as she walked by. It was a new experience for Eskalie, since her face, figure, and nager were so completely average that most people were unable to remember her name five minutes after an introduction.

Annoying as it might be, her anonymous appearance had proved to be an asset in her chosen profession as the junior member of Kirlin Security and Investigations. She had done very well by her partners, Amsil Kirlin and her younger brother Sesfin, in the seven months she had worked for them. They had shared a lot of hard work, and some real triumphs. The most notable of these had been Eskalie's unveiling of a Border Patrol corporal who was quietly arranging for a good portion of the military's Gen supply to be sold to various crooked Gendealers. The pilferage had forced the military to confiscate Gens from the civilian supply when Wild Gens had attacked from across the Border the previous summer, causing shortages in Pens across half the Territory.

The reputation Eskalie had gained by solving that case had proved profitable for both herself and Kirlin Security. Amsil had mentioned that if the increased caseload continued, the agency might even be able to rent a suite big enough for each of them to have a private office.

It was, perhaps, a strange measure of success for someone of Eskalie's lineage. She had been raised in the quiet of Zarokka City's wealthiest neighborhood, except for summers, when her family had retired to their country estate. She had been provided with every luxury money could buy, educated in the finest schools, and carefully groomed to take over the family business: the most profitable, stable bank in the Territory. She had not been able to face a future trapped behind an office desk, though, no matter how artistically carved. Shortly after her changeover, she had run away from home for a life of adventure.

"Get moving or I'll bash your stupid head in, you shedoni-doomed son of a lorsh!" a voice roared from the alley behind the Broken Whip saloon. Eskalie detoured to investigate, but it was only a carter struggling with a stubborn mule. His gutter language marked him as a member of the lower classes more surely than his ragged clothing. Eskalie's father would never have allowed himself to spout obscenities at a dumb animal. With a shrug, she returned to her rounds and her thoughts.

The life she'd found in Tormin had been both more and less than she had expected. It had been harder than she'd anticipated to make her way in the world without the protection of her family's name and money. She had been cold and tired frequently, and had come closer to death than she cared to remember on other occasions. However, the compensations had been equally unexpected: high adventure, good friends, and above all, the knowledge that she had changed the world for the better.

One of the most personally satisfying changes she had made was at her former alma mater, the prestigious Sommerin Academy. In the course of investigating a mysterious series of thefts, she had discovered that the school was selling certain former students which had established to torture-oriented killhouses, rather than taking them to the Border as promised to--and paid for by--the Gens' parents. Eskalie felt a pang of bittersweet sorrow at the memory of the end of that case: the sight of her former best friend Helka heading up the trail to Gen Territory.

Their growing reputation had allowed the three members of Kirlin Security to land their current lucrative contract with the Tormin City Council, as temporary peacekeepers during the chaos of the Fall Fair. This was the city's busiest event of the year: a week of madness when traders from all over the Territory came to exchange their goods. The day before, there had even been a caravan of Householders. They had just made the dangerous journey across the lands of the Wild Gens to bring luxury goods from Gulf Territory. Fortunately, they had only stayed for one day, just long enough to sell some of their goods to traders and exchange others with their fellow Householders.

It's just as well that the perverts didn't linger for this last day of the Fair. The town's famous Gen Market and the two blocks of saloons and killhouses adjoining it were doing a brisk business as the traders celebrated their profits, and even with the extra tentacles, Sheriff Russ and his two permanent deputies were hard put to maintain order. This was the first year Kirlin Security had been picked for the prestigious assignment, and Eskalie was determined that her section of the Market would remain free of unpleasant incidents.

Another flare of outraged anger caught her attention, but this time, it had the "mixed" flavor of several different nagers. She hurried around the intervening carpenter's booth to discover the source of the disturbance in the ambient. When she did, she was hard put to suppress a groan.

What was that I was thinking about the joys of the adventurous life?

Parked in the middle of the street was a large wagon piled with choice goods: fine cloth in bright patterns, farming implements made of scarce metal, several bags of seed wheat, and a heavy ironwood strongbox, reinforced by iron bands and secured by a padlock formidable enough to discourage even professional thieves.

Standing beside the sleek, well-fed carthorses was a young man who in himself would discourage any sane individual from trying to lay a tentacle on the tempting goods. Eskalie recognized him at once: Califf, the young leader of Householding Dar, specialists in the martial arts, particularly hand-to-hand combat. He was tall, with shining brown hair and the good teeth which only came with proper nutrition both before and after changeover. His nager zlinned like a slightly peculiar Sime today, but Eskalie knew that he could project an equally almost-convincing Gen imitation whenever he wished. He wore the blue-green and gray livery of his House with obvious pride.

Confronting the pervert was another young man, radiating the arrogant confidence of the well-born. He was a handsome fellow with long, curly blond hair. His slender body was dressed in the latest fashion from Capitol: an intricately embroidered red and yellow vest over a cream shirt, with tightly tailored black pants and boots of gleaming imported leather.

What's a gay bird like that doing in a Border town like Tormin?

The dandy waved a piece of paper in Califf's face as he insisted, "I've already wasted a day more than I should have on this errand, thanks to my horse's decision to throw a shoe. I'm not going to wait any longer. The wagon and goods are mine, by order of the court. Surrender them immediately or I will be forced to resort to...more strenuous measures. You might not survive that." The four liveried servants behind him grinned and laid casual hands on the butts of their whips.

"If you allow your...associates to attack us," Califf said quietly, "I assure you that you, at least, won't survive the encounter."

The servants chuckled loudly, making their skepticism of the Householder's threat quite clear. It was obvious that they were looking forward to the chance to rough up a pervert, and figured that their numbers and weapons tilted the odds in their favor despite Califf's Dar training.

However, the odds were much less one-sided than they believed. Sitting on the wagon's seat, holding the reins while it watched the situation alertly, was a male Gen with absurdly distinguished streaks of gray accenting its brown hair at each temple. The advanced age that this implied was itself a powerful warning to the knowledgeable, since most Gens were killed shortly after establishment. At its belt hung an innocent-appearing wooden flute case. The creature actually could play the flute inside quite well, Eskalie knew. It was equally adept with the set of lockpicks stored alongside the instrument, the thin wires hidden from casual zlinning by their closeness to the larger metal flute.

Its odd appearance and dress weren't the Gen's most distinctive feature, however. The core of its powerful nager pulsed seductively, obscured by a haze of shallower currents, like the morning sun viewed through a fog bank. As the four servants took a step closer to Califf, the Gen's nager hardened into a bright, deadly warning. It secured the reins by wrapping them around the brake, then scooted to the edge of the seat, ready to leap to its master's rescue.

Eskalie couldn't allow that. For unlike Duffy Naifels' pathetic display, Califf's pet Tallin was a real Giant Killer Gen. She still had frequent nightmares from the past summer, when she had zlinned it lure a Sime into attacking it, and then crush his laterals and discard the lifeless corpse. She hadn't reported the incident for what had seemed like sufficient reasons, in part because she had become convinced that the Gen wouldn't attack a Sime who wasn't a direct threat to itself or its House.

But if attacking the Chief Pervert isn't a threat to Dar, what is? she thought, hurriedly straightening her jacket. Califf had told her that the Gen had sired him, and there were few forces in nature more formidable than an animal protecting its young. She adjusted her hat to the regulation angle, then strode towards the confrontation, radiating as much confident authority as she could.

"What's going on here?" she demanded.

As she had hoped, the four servants backed off at the sight of her uniform. Califf, who had been poised to defend himself, quelled the slight augmentation he had been maintaining. His eyes widened as he recognized Eskalie, and a thread of cautious optimism wound through his nager. He settled back on his heels, obviously willing to let her handle the situation if she could. The Killer Gen's tension also subsided as it saw the decreased threat, although it continued to watch the four Simes alertly.

So far, so good, Eskalie thought.

The blond dandy turned to her, radiating annoyance, then saw her uniform and gave a charming smile.

"Officer, I'm glad to see you," he said with the condescending tone of an aristocrat addressing a member of the lower classes. "I'm Quildon Whilly, son of Keju Whilly, of the Nivet Territory Council."

"Pleased to meet you, Quildon," Eskalie said mildly, in tones as cultured as his own. "I'm Eskalie Morlin, daughter of Rossil and Gretta Morlin, owners of Morlin Bank and Trust in Zarokka City."

If the situation had been less tense, Eskalie would have laughed aloud at the sudden, ill-concealed dismay in Quildon's nager. He had obviously expected her to be over awed at being in the presence of such an exalted and wealthy personage as himself. It was equally obvious that he wasn't sure how to treat a police officer whose parents had enough wealth to buy the Territory government his father helped run...and who frequently did just that.

Eskalie didn't give him enough time to recover. "Now that we've introduced ourselves, perhaps you would explain why you are standing in the middle of the street arguing with this...Householder?"

Quildon's fair skin flushed at the implication that he'd been caught slumming, but he radiated self-righteous conviction. "I am here on my father's business, while he tours West Nivet with the rest of the Council," the young man announced grandly. "Sectuib Califf owes my father a substantial debt, and has refused to pay it. Therefore, I am confiscating his wagonload of goods as authorized by this court order." He handed her the paper he had been waving at Califf.

Eskalie took the document and read it carefully. "This appears to be in order," she said. "However, I admit to some curiosity." She turned to the Householder, who was fairly bursting with unvoiced outrage. "Sectuib Califf, the sum mentioned here is less than the worth of one of your saddle horses. Why have you refused to pay it?"

"Because Dar owes Councilman Whilly nothing," Califf declared forcefully, his nager reflecting his absolute belief in what he was saying. "Even if we did require a loan, we would hardly ask Keju Whilly. This so-called 'debt' is a figment of the gentleman's imagination."

"It does seem a bit unlikely," Eskalie told Quildon. "Your father has a well-deserved reputation as the most anti-Householding member of the Nivet Council." Although there's some truth to that old adage that "politics makes strange bedfellows," she mused, and Whilly's principles are nothing if not flexible, particularly where money is involved. Her parents made use of this trait even as they despised its owner for his lack of anything resembling ethics.

Quildon flicked an indignant tentacle at the court order. "Would a judge have granted that order if the debt weren't legitimate?" he asked rhetorically.

"Judge Lighs would order his own mother executed by attrition if you crossed his tentacles with enough gold, and you know it as well as I do," Eskalie retorted. "I expect he'd be content with silver if the order happened to be detrimental to Householders. He feels even more strongly on that score then your father. Have you any other documentation of this debt with you?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Quildon announced. He pulled another paper from the inside pocket of his embroidered vest and handed it to her with a contemptuous toss of his golden curls. He called her attention to the top of the page with a casual flick of one handling tentacle. "Do you doubt the records of your own parents' bank?"

The paper did, indeed, have the elaborate letterhead of Morlin Bank and Trust. Just to be sure, Eskalie held it up to the light, but the watermark was equally authentic. Of course, paper could be stolen, or the printer bribed to make a few extra sheets for a forger. It wouldn't be the first time.

The text documented that on a certain day, some fifteen months before, a sum of money had been withdrawn from Keju Whilly's account at the Morlin Bank and presented as cash to Sectuib Nilba ambrov Dar, said sum to be repaid with a usurious amount of interest within one year. The phrasing was correct, and the handwriting resembled that of her parents' junior clerk, Jan Yarnan. The document was signed by the principals, and witnessed by Yarnan.

"This seems to be genuine," Eskalie admitted. The nagers of Quildon and his servants fairly glowed with vindicated satisfaction, while Califf and his Gen tensed, ready to defend themselves. "Is this your father's signature?"

"It is," Quildon affirmed.

"And what about this one?" Eskalie turned to Califf, indicating Sectuib Nilba's scrawl with one handling tentacle. "Look at it closely." She zlinned him openly for the faintest hint of intent to deceive.

Califf studied the signature, then shrugged. "I can't say. It could be my mother's handwriting, if she was in a great hurry..."

"But any halfway competent forger could come that close." Eskalie sighed. "Well, was she traveling outside of the Householding at the time?"

"Yes," the young Sectuib admitted. "She was traveling to Householding Sorn. While she was there, Sorn was attacked by a mob, and she was murdered trying to get the children to safety."

"And Sorn just happens to be on the other side of Zarokka City," Eskalie pointed out. "What makes you so sure she didn't borrow the money, and just failed to tell anyone about it before she died?"

"From Councilman Whilly?"

Eskalie groaned. "Your mother is dead, and his father," she nodded at Quildon, "is hardly more accessible. It appears that our only recourse is to consult the third witness." She tapped Jan Yarnan's signature. "Until that confirmation arrives, I can't in conscience allow either one of you to possess the disputed goods. They can be stored in the police barn for safekeeping."

"I would have to insist that a comprehensive inventory be taken. Some of the items in the strongbox belonged to my mother, and I do not want them to be damaged or lost."

"There will be an inventory," Eskalie promised. "The goods will be perfectly safe until their proper disposition can be determined."

"But it will take at least a week to get an answer from Zarokka!" Quildon objected.

"True," Eskalie agreed. "If you or the Householder don't wish to stay in Tormin so long, I am sure arrangements can be made to ship the goods to wherever the proper owner desires."

"It's ridiculous to have to wait so long to take possession of what's already been legally ruled as mine," the young gentleman fumed. "Besides," and his nager darkened with an ugly desire for revenge, "the pervert threatened to murder me. That sort of intimidation is against the law, and I'm pressing charges." Quildon cast a sideways glance at Califf. "Unless, of course, he apologizes and surrenders the goods at once."

The mulish set to the Householder's mouth, matched by the stubborn determination in his nager, showed more eloquently than any words exactly what Califf thought of his accuser's suggestion. His Gen's growing fury was a more immediate cause for alarm.

"I am sure that the Tormin court will be happy to hear your complaint against Sectuib Califf when the issue of this alleged debt has been settled," Eskalie assured Quildon. And if Califf has half a brain, that Gen of his won't be present when the case is heard.

"That's not good enough," Quildon declared. "By then, this pervert will be behind the walls of his Householding, and it would take half the Army to get him out again. As an officer of the law, I demand that you arrest him now!"

The Killer Gen's powerful nager exploded with the desperate, deadly viciousness of a cornered animal. Eskalie was two days before turnover, and Califf was between her and Tallin. Nevertheless, it felt like she had been drenched with a bucket of ice water, and she gasped and doubled over. Two of the servants had the misfortune to be in need, and took involuntary steps in the Gen's direction before Quildon waved them back. The young dandy was much less affected by Tallin's outburst than Eskalie, even though he was past turnover.

But then, she thought a bit contemptuously, judging by that dissipated edge to his nager, he probably tortures his Gens before killing.

Califf, too, was more used to tolerating Gen outbursts than the average Sime. His nager twisted strangely, somehow deflecting the brunt of the assault, and he turned and snapped a brief command at Tallin.

The Gen's nager seemed to collapse into itself for a moment, then the obscuring wisps of fog returned, shielding the Simes from the worst effects of the chaos beneath. Eskalie could zlin how tenuous Califf's control of the Gen was, though, and she dreaded the inevitable next eruption.

For there was no way that she could ignore Quildon's charges, or even postpone acting on them. She had witnessed Califf's threat to murder the young aristocrat, and she of all people knew how likely it was that the Householder (or his Gen) would have succeeded in making good on that threat. While it was true that Quildon had threatened Califf first, no jury was likely to hold that against him, once they learned that he had been attempting to serve a confiscation order on the Householder's property, however dubious its origin.

Quildon grinned maliciously, openly enjoying his chance to force her to act against the perverts she had previously been supporting. And all to protect his miserable hide, if only he knew...

However, Eskalie wasn't quite ready to give up. "If you insist on pressing charges," she said slowly, "then in honor, I must make the arrest." If that Gen doesn't kill me for trying. "But before you decide, you should consider this. Your case against the Householder depends on the word from Zarokka about your claim to his goods. If the debt is not valid, then Sectuib Califf was merely defending his goods against a thief. He could then bring charges against you for false imprisonment."

"I doubt the pervert would be so foolish as to do that, even if he were in a position--or should I say, condition--to do so." Quildon flicked a tentacle in a gesture of dismissal.

The young fashion plate's suicidal tendencies were beginning to irritate Eskalie. Especially since he seems determined to take me with him, she amended the observation silently, as the obscuring haze of Tallin's nager thinned dangerously. So far, Califf's command seemed to be holding the Gen in check, but if its training broke and it went rogue, she doubted that it would spare her because she was simply doing her duty. Not if that duty includes potential harm to its owner.

"I can't speak for Capitol," she told Quildon, "but in this town, we don't allow prisoners to murder their fellows. Not even when those fellows are Householders." The Gen's tension eased a fraction, much to Eskalie's relief.

The young aristocrat shrugged, then waved a dismissive tentacle. "That just leaves more sport in the execution cage, when he's found guilty of threatening an innocent citizen. Now stop stalling and do your duty, "Officer" Morlin! I want to see that pervert behind bars."

Shen, Eskalie thought desperately. She had learned some rough-and-tumble fighting skills from her two colleagues, but she had seen Dar fighters in action.. She was hopelessly outclassed, even if Tallin could be persuaded not to leap to its owner's defense.

However, when she turned to the Householder, he only shrugged and said, "If I have to sit in jail for a few days to get this straightened out peacefully, I will." A storm of unvoiced protest erupted from the Gen. As the Simes winced, Califf hastily added, "Provided, of course, that you are correct about the sheriff's willingness and ability to maintain order among his...involuntary guests."

"Sectuib Califf, I give you my personal assurance as a Morlin that you will leave the Tormin jail as alive and uninjured as when you entered it." It was a safe enough promise: the attrition cages were in the middle of the market square.

The Householder zlinned her deeply, weighing her promise, then nodded. "Very well, then. Shall we go? Father, bring the wagon."

Eskalie held her breath, but the Killer Gen reluctantly settled back on the wagon seat and reached for the reins. It was obviously very unhappy with its owner's decision, but it wasn't actively rebelling--yet.

Thank goodness there's one Sime who can make that Gen obey, she thought, as she led the way down the street. I'd hate to have to try it myself.

Eskalie was relieved that the argument had been settled, albeit temporarily, without any overt violence to spoil her record. However, the whole situation was wrong, making her tentacles itch. The amount of money under dispute, while large enough to fund Kirlin Security for half a year, was small change to both Whilly and Householding Dar. She could understand Whilly sending a lawyer to collect such a debt, but not this personal attention from his son. Califf, too, was far more indignant about the confiscation order than the loss would justify. It made her wonder if there was bad blood between the two.

It was almost a parade: Eskalie and Califf in the lead, followed by Tallin driving the wagon, with Quildon strolling along behind, sizing up its contents. The four liveried servants brought up the rear, keeping a suspicious eye out for pickpockets, stray manure, chamberpots being emptied from second-floor windows, and other threats to their master's well-being.

Eskalie detoured around as much of the crowded marketplace as she could, but they had still collected more than one curious stare by the time they reached the Tormin Jail. This was a large but elderly stone building which had started its life as the town Pen, before the city had outgrown it. The large holding pens in the eastern wing had been converted into a stable, and the former killrooms in the west wing had been outfitted with bars and locks capable of confining Simes. The offices and waiting area in the main part of the building still served the same function for Sheriff Russ and his two permanent deputies, Vill and Norra. Norra also functioned as the jailer.

As Eskalie's procession entered the courtyard, the sheriff himself came out to meet them. He was old for the position, over ten years past changeover. However, despite the sprinkle of white hairs among the black ones, his vision was still keen, and he handled his whip with the expertise of a Freeband Raider. His nager displayed open curiosity--and relief.

To find the cause of the relief, Eskalie didn't have to zlin any further then the man following Russ. The jewel merchant Mon Ergest was one of Tormin's wealthiest and least beloved citizens. He was a twisted, embittered old miser, childless since losing his one daughter to establishment three years before. His main joys in life were getting the best of a bargain with a fellow merchant and arguing with anyone who would speak to him: neighbors, colleagues, servants, and the few remaining townspeople desperate enough to pretend friendship in hopes of inheriting part of his considerable estate when he died. The miser didn't look happy at having his conversation with the sheriff interrupted.

He must be venting his spleen against the quality of Anna's tapers again today, Eskalie deduced, after a glance at the half dozen yellow candles clutched in the man's right handling tentacles. If he wants a brighter light for reading, why the blazing shen doesn't he buy beeswax instead of tallow? He can certainly afford the extra expense.

As a public official, Russ had to endure Ergest's tirades as part of his job. However, he was quite willing to delay a discussion of candles until after he had tended to more pressing official business. There was always the slim chance that the jewel merchant would get bored and leave.

"What do you have here?" the sheriff asked Eskalie hopefully.

Quildon opened his mouth to answer, but Eskalie beat him to it. She briefly introduced the principals and outlined their disagreement over the proper ownership of the wagonload of goods, the resulting exchange of threats, and her proposed solution.

Under other circumstances, Russ might have balked at the paperwork involved in sending an inquiry all the way to Zarokka, simply to confirm the honestly asserted claim of such a well-connected young man to a pervert's goods. However, the only viable alternative was to award the wagonload of goods to Quildon on the spot. The easy victory might well result in the young man dropping his charge of assault, since pursuing it would require him to remain in Tormin until the case could be heard by the circuit judge. Unfortunately, settling Quildon's complaint would free the sheriff himself to listen to Ergest's.

It took Russ less than five seconds to decide that it was his personal responsibility to write the inquiry to Zarokka on the legitimacy of the alleged debt, directly after he had seen Califf settled into his new accommodations.

"But I can't give him a private cell," the sheriff maintained, when Eskalie explained the promise she had made. "With the Fall Market and all, we haven't got an empty one."

The flare of fear in Tallin's field was moderated by the obscuring surface layers of the Gen's complex nager, but it was still strong enough to set Eskalie's teeth on edge, and to attract Mon Ergest's interested attention.

"What about putting him with those two kids Sesfin brought in for snatching purses?" Eskalie suggested hastily. The arrest had won the detective's partner an accolade from the sheriff, since the two were just about the right age for changeover. If they were unable to pay their fines--and the sum was thirty each--they would remain in prison until they reached adulthood. If they changed over, well and good: they would be indentured to some citizen for the price of their fine. If one happened to establish, though, Sheriff Russ would have a Prime Kill to sell or enjoy, as it suited him.

"I suppose he could stay with them," Russ agreed. "He'd have to share a cot, though; there's only room for two in that cell."

Califf shrugged. "I can manage," he said, with the gracious air of an aristocrat condescending to accept the best accommodations available in a poverty-stricken village.

The sheriff gave him a startled look, then hollered for Norra. When the jailer arrived, he nodded at the Householder. "I've got a customer for you," he explained. "Put him in that cell by the back door, with the kids."

Norra looked a little surprised by her boss's choice of cell, but beckoned for Califf to accompany her. The Householder obeyed, Tallin following as if glued to its master's side.

"Hey, you can't bring that fancy Gen along," the jailer objected. "We don't have the budget to feed it. If you need a kill while you're here, you'll be provided with one from the Pen, like everybody else."

"If it is a matter of cost..." Califf began.

"No special privileges, pervert," Russ decided. He flared the resentment any lower-class Sime would feel, confronted by a socially inferior pervert who could easily afford the upkeep and taxes on a premium pet Gen.

The Householder zlinned the sheriff carefully, but there was no hint of flexibility in the older Sime's nager. With a resigned sigh, Califf murmured a soft order to his Gen.

Reeking of reluctance, Tallin halted, watching as its owner followed Norra into the building. The foggy veneer of calm on the surface of the Gen's nager thinned unexpectedly in places, allowing tantalizing hints of the deep-seated worry, fear and anger underneath to escape.

Mon Ergest's laterals emerged from their sheaths as he zlinned the Gen. "Since this Gen's owner has abandoned it," he announced, "I claim it as salvage."

Tallin's head whipped around, and it focused on the jewel merchant with an almost predatory intensity. It started walking towards Ergest, stepping lightly as a cat stalking a careless mouse.

"No!" Eskalie ordered sharply.

She managed not to flinch too obviously as the Killer Gen paused to look at her, its outrage at the unexpected command plain to zlin. It was obvious to Eskalie that it was itching for an excuse to lash out at someone, and it didn't particularly care who got hurt in the process.

"Behave yourself," she told it, in the firm and confident tone of voice she reserved for disobedient animals.

She held her breath as Tallin considered, wondering if she would become the Gen's next victim. However, with Califf gone, she was now the only Sime present who was familiar to it. In the end, the habit of taking orders from Simes won, and it backed down--though not with the speed and precision with which it had obeyed Califf.

With the immediate danger past, Eskalie concentrated on preventing a reoccurrence. "I'm afraid that it isn't possible for you to claim this Gen," she explained to Ergest. "Tallin belongs to the Householding proper, not to any individual person, and it isn't part of the disputed shipment of goods." She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry with nervousness, and continued, "I'll take it back to Sommerin tomorrow."

The Killer Gen looked at her sharply, but it didn't seem inclined to object.

"That seem a reasonable solution." Sheriff Russ nodded in agreement. "Why don't you take it home now? There's still almost an hour before the merchants close their stalls and start celebrating their profits, and we'll require every tentacle then to keep order."

"Fair enough."

Russ's nager assumed a deferential configuration as he addressed Quildon. "Tuib Whilly, if you could tell me how to get in touch with you..." he asked delicately.

"I will be staying with my Uncle Duffy at the hotel," the dandy answered. It wasn't necessary to mention which hotel; of Tormin's three inns, only the Silver Cup came close to meeting the standards of a discriminating gentleman. "However, before I leave, I should like to witness the inventory of the disputed goods. After all, I am accountable to my father for the whole shipment."

Russ's obsequious smile became a little brittle around the edges, and Eskalie deduced that he had probably planned to take a small cut of the goods himself. However, he made no objection when one of Quildon's servants jumped up onto the wagon's seat. Instead, he gave a resigned sigh and followed Quildon and the other three servants to the barn, a curious Mon Ergest trailing behind. Eskalie gave a satisfied nod as she watched them go.

"With all of them watching, at least the inventory should be honest," she muttered under her breath.

"Indeed," a quiet voice agreed, in an accent as cultured as her own.

Eskalie started, zlinning the courtyard quickly to identify who had managed to sneak up on her unobserved. However, it was only Tallin. It figures. Although most Simes discouraged their Gens from speaking, the Householders didn't enforce this custom. The Killer Gen being what it was, it took full advantage of its owner's eccentricity.

She held her ground as it drifted over to her side, suppressing the urge to hide her vulnerable forearms out of reach behind her back. Between Dar combat training and its deadly ability to exploit Sime weaknesses, there wasn't a whole lot she could do about it if Tallin decided to kill her. Apart from running away, which wasn't an option under the circumstances, her greatest chance of safety was to convince it to accept her as a surrogate owner.

"Come on," she ordered, trying to sound as firm, confident, and nonthreatening as she could. "I think we have enough bread and cheese back at the office to make a meal for you."

As she had hoped, the Gen's attention was caught by the lure of food, and it followed her obediently through the jail's gate. As the noise and crowding of the street closed in around them, it closed the distance between them, until it was inches from her left side--and within easy reach of the vulnerable laterals on her left arm. To make matters worse, its attention had fixed on her, in a constant, impersonal fashion that didn't interfere with its continuous scanning of their surroundings. It cast a nageric haze between her and the other Simes around, making them zlin farther away than they actually were.

It was pleasant not to have to work so hard to separate her own feelings from those of the people around her. However, Eskalie would have been able to enjoy it more if the Gen's attentions hadn't resembled so closely the behavior of a Sime in the presence of its chosen kill.

What have I gotten myself into?

The elderly building which housed Kirlin Security's office was on an unpaved side street. What had began as an elegant town house had long since been carved up into small apartments and offices, with a communal outhouse and makeshift shower in back, and storage space in the attic, if one was prepared to risk thieves.

With so much to zlin and do at the Fall Fair, the street was deserted. Even the trio of loafers who often idled away their hours on the corner had found better entertainment elsewhere. Eskalie was glad: they knew she could never afford to buy a Gen with a nager like Tallin's, and she didn't want to argue the validity of her temporary custody where the Killer Gen might take offense. Worse yet, it might decide that her interrogators were right about her assumed authority, and run off on its own.

She fished her key ring out of her pants pocket with one tentacle, then carefully inserted the proper key into the worn lock and gently coaxed it to turn. She pulled the warped door open, having to augment slightly as it stuck against the equally warped doorjamb. Not for the first time, she reflected that the sticky door was probably a greater hindrance to burglars than the ancient lock. The near total absence within Kirlin Security's offices of anything worth stealing was a better deterrent than either.

She closed and locked the door behind them, cutting out all but the dim light that managed to force its way through the tiny, dirt-encrusted window above the door. The stairs, of course, lacked even the inadequate lighting of the entryway, since there was no reason for the landlord to pay to illuminate what his tenants could zlin for themselves easily enough.

"Wait here while I run up and get a lantern," Eskalie told the Gen.

"Never mind," Tallin said. A selyn-rich hand reached out and firmly grasped her shoulder. "Lead the way."

Eskalie had read that the Ancients used trained dogs to lead the blind around, since of course the ancestors of modern Simes had no tentacles and were unable to zlin. This was the first time she'd ever heard of a trained animal attempting to use a person for a similar purpose. However, as she led the way up the rickety staircase to the third floor the Gen stepped out confidently enough, using the movement of her shoulder under its hand to determine when she had reached a turn or a landing.

Either Dar trains its Gens a lot more comprehensively then I dreamed, or Tallin is more infernally clever than any three Gens have a right to be, she mused as they reached the final landing and started down the hall to Kirlin Security's offices.

The lock on the office door was actually good enough that it might discourage a casual burglar. Eskalie suspected that the Gen by her side could get it open using its lockpicks even faster than she could find the proper key. However, Tallin waited politely until she got the door open, then stepped through. She slipped past it and reached for the matches, struck one, and lit the lantern so that the Gen could see where to put its enormous feet. The creature looked around curiously.

The front office was a small room, barely large enough for Amsil's desk, two battered chairs, and a stool with a loose leg which tended to collapse at inconvenient moments. It required some rearrangement of the furniture to clear enough space to open the door to the small storage closet. Still, it was spacious compared with the back room, which she and Sesfin shared with the filing cabinet. Over the past few months, the place had come to feel like home to Eskalie. Looking around at the scrupulously clean but undeniably shabby room, the young detective compared it with her parents' elegant offices at Morlin Bank and Trust, or even Sectuib Califf's office at Householding Dar, and found herself embarrassed by her poverty.

"It's not fancy, but it's ours," she said a little defensively. Why am I explaining this to a Gen?

"It has...character," Tallin said, its nager politely neutral.

Aware of the passage of time, Eskalie retrieved half a loaf of black bread and a lump of cheese from her desk drawer. Amsil's desk yielded an apple, not too badly bruised, and she supplemented these provisions with the last few pieces of candy from Sesfin's stash in the filing cabinet. She knew from their previous encounters that the Gen could easily eat twice as much, but there was nothing more to be had. And I'd better remember to replace what I took, or Amsil and Sesfin will not be happy with me.

"Here's your dinner," she said, presenting her loot to the Gen. "I've got to get back to work, but you should be safe enough as long as you stay in the office. There's a chamberpot in the other room, if you require it, and a bedroll in the closet that you can spread between the desks when you're ready to sleep. The back room's pretty well insulated."

The extra insulation dated from a memorable day when Sesfin's eager perusal of a particularly gripping addition to his definitive collection of cheap thrillers had coincided with his sister's need. On occasion, she and Sesfin had taken advantage of the insulation and the bedroll for things other than sleep.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Tallin said with its absurdly formal courtesy. The Gen seated itself at Amsil's desk and prepared to start its meager meal.

"Just don't go exploring," Eskalie warned again, as she closed and locked the door behind her.

It was only three hours before dawn by the time the last drunken drovers had retired to their bedrolls to sleep off their hangovers. Sheriff Russ dismissed his temporary deputies to their own rest, with praise for a job well done and a sigh of relief that Tormin had survived another Fall Fair with no more than the usual disasters.

The three weary members of Kirlin Security made their way back to the office. Sesfin was eager to explain how expertly he had broken up a barroom altercation at the Crooked Stein, and Amsil was chortling over the new business Russ's endorsement would bring the firm. As a result, neither of Eskalie's partners noticed that she had been strangely silent about her own day's adventures. She wasn't even questioned about the bag of groceries she carried, although it contained more food than all three Simes would normally eat in a week.

Eskalie had hoped to break the news to her colleagues gently, preferably over a nice, relaxing cup of trin tea. However, when they entered the office, she realized that the extra insulation around the back room was woefully insufficient to hide Tallin's powerful nager.

"No," Amsil declared firmly, collapsing into her desk chair with a groan. "Absolutely not. Eskalie, that fancy horse of yours is bad enough, eating its fool head off like it does. We can NOT afford a pet Gen as well."

"Calm down, Amsil," Eskalie soothed. "It's not mine." Quickly, she explained how the Gen had ended up in her temporary custody. "I'll take it back to Sommerin later this morning, as I promised," she ended. "They might even give me a reward."

"Perverts," the older woman said, dismissing the Householding with a contemptuous toss of her head. However, with the Fair contract completed, Kirlin Security's small staff was at leisure. The chance that Eskalie could bring in a small reward from Householding Dar compared favorably to the near certainty that the agency's youngest partner would otherwise be unemployed.

"Oh, I suppose you might as well take the Gen back," she said grudgingly. "But next time you take in a stray animal, don't leave it unattended in the office. There's no telling what it might get into."

"All right," Eskalie promised, guiltily aware that Tallin, with its talent for picking locks, could have caused considerably more damage than Amsil's most pessimistic speculation.

With the Gen occupying the bedroll, Amsil and Sesfin decided to go out in search of a mug of good trin. Mindful of her promise, Eskalie stayed behind, contenting herself with the third harvest trash that Amsil kept in a battered tin on her desk. Even after so many months of drinking it, the brew was less than palatable.

She was too tired and restless to accomplish anything constructive. Despite this, she was reluctant to settle down for the short nap which would restore her normal efficiency. Ever since she had zlinned Yosum's dreadful end, her sleep had been plagued with nightmares of Gen hands closing around her arms, clamping down on the vulnerable nerve complex just above her laterals and squeezing. She didn't dare try to rest with the cause of those dreams so close. What if it were to wake up when I was asleep?

After making a half-hearted attempt to straighten up the front office, she quietly let herself into the back room and observed her nemesis. Tallin was sprawled on one side, sleeping with the enthusiasm only Gens, children, and cats brought to the activity. She could zlin one of Sesfin's books next to the bedroll, set aside next to the unlit lantern as if the creature had been reading it.

Or more likely, the book succumbed to the latest avalanche, the detective though, zlinning the piles of paper overflowing her lover's desk. She picked up the lantern and lit it, setting it on her own neatly organized desk. She glanced down at the book once more, then shuddered.

The gaudy, poorly proportioned picture on the cover showed a Wild Gen with a bushy black beard which almost hid its predatory snarl. It was standing next to an unrealistically buxom Sime woman tied to a tree, obviously preparing to dissect her laterals with a huge, gleaming knife. Behind a nearby bush, where the Gen couldn't see him, a handsome Border Patrolman prepared to leap to her rescue. The blood-red text above proclaimed that the volume revealed the SECRETS OF THE KILLER GENS!!!.

As far as Eskalie was concerned, Tallin was acquainted with far too many such secrets already. Mindful of the bad temper Gens could display if awakened prematurely, she stepped cautiously across Tallin and retrieved the book, replacing it on Sesfin's sagging bookshelf. Then she settled into her own desk chair to wait for the creature to wake up.

She hadn't intended to sleep, but the Gen's nager pulled her under the moment she relaxed. It was a restless doze, haunted by dreams of being unable to find something desperately important. Not a Gen to kill, as in her need nightmares: Tallin's nager was proof against that, particularly since she was pre-turnover. It wasn't her usual nightmare of being killed by a Gen, either. However, she woke with the odd conviction that she had mislaid a portion of herself, and had only a limited amount of time to find it.

She discovered to her surprise that over four hours had passed, and that she and the Gen had switched places: she had the bedroll, while Tallin was in her desk chair. She refused to let herself consider the most likely agent of the switch. The upcoming day would contain enough dangers of its own; she couldn't afford to wear away her courage by imagining the other, less benign things that might have happened to her while she was unable to zlin them coming.

The Gen responsible for her apprehensions was reading SECRETS OF THE KILLER GENS!!! by the early morning light which filtered through the cracked window. It appeared to find the text amusing. Underneath the amusement was hunger, and an urgent restlessness.

That explains my dreams.

Tallin looked up as she stretched. "Good, you're awake at last," it said, putting the book aside.

"You didn't have to let me sleep so long," the detective complained. "I hardly require a whole four hours of sleep, when I had a nap yesterday. It's not as if I were still a child."

The Gen gave her a stern look. "Even Simes require regular sleep to remain functional. You've been skimping lately, or you wouldn't have slept so long." It surveyed her Sime-thin frame with sharp disapproval. "You haven't been eating enough, either. You're losing muscle mass."

Its tone of voice was so similar to the one Eskalie's parents had used when she had done something particularly stupid that she found herself squirming. "I've been busy working," she asserted defensively. "This contract with the Tormin police was a big opportunity for Kirlin Security. Besides," she counterattacked, staring pointedly at the Gen's untentacled arms, "what makes you such an expert on what Simes do and don't require?"

Tallin's nager shimmered with genuine amusement as the Gen chuckled, its good humor largely restored. "Getting Simes healthy and keeping them that way is my profession," it claimed. "Whether they want to be healthy or not." One brown eye closed in a wink.

Its confident pride would not have been out of place in the nager of a skilled physician recounting her successes. On a Gen, the attitude was laughable. Besides, Califf might be willing to organize his life around his Gen's idea of what was good for him, but Eskalie had no intention of letting the arrogant (and deadly) creature run her life.

"We can leave for Sommerin as soon as I've washed and put on some fresh clothes," she announced, ignoring the clearly implied threat of Tallin's last sentence. "In the mean time, there's some bread and fruit for your breakfast."

The Gen was hungry enough to allow itself to be diverted. While it began on the bread, spreading it with jam, she sought out her trunk in the attic and scrounged for some clean clothing. The Fall Fair contract had kept her too busy to do her laundry, and all of her usual shirts were dirty. However, in the bottom of the trunk were two carefully hoarded riding outfits: beautifully made costumes in the latest fashion, in fabrics that put Quildon's garish ensemble to shame. They were part of the "debutante" disguise she had used to infiltrate the Forst Genfarm, back when she had believed that Tallin was simply a well-trained, harmless pet Gen with an unusually strong nager.

Eskalie's usual dress was more modest, in keeping with her position as the junior member of a small, struggling agency. She had placed the dull life of a debutante behind her, and had few regrets. However, Tallin's reaction to the shabby office the night before had heightened her awareness of how far below her social station she was living.

If my parents could see me now...

She had no intention of letting her parents, or indeed anyone from what she preferred to think of as her previous life, see her. On the other hand, she was willing to admit, if only to herself, I'm not sorry that I'll have to dress respectably for the journey to Sommerin.

When she returned to the office, she nodded a greeting to Amsil, who was absently munching an apple as she poured over the account books at her desk. When she checked the back office, she discovered that Tallin had already consumed half the loaf of bread, and there was no sign that the Gen was slowing down. Sesfin, at his own desk across from hers, had claimed a slice of his own, slathering it with a think layer of jam. Much of the preserve, Eskalie noticed, had ended up smeared across his face.

The Gen's got better table manners.

Setting aside the unwelcome observation, she shoved some of the papers littering her lover's desk to the center and perched on the newly revealed corner.

"You're all fancied up," Sesfin commented, eyeing the understated gold braid which accented her tasteful, rust-colored tunic. "What's the occasion?"

"I've got to take the Gen back to Sommerin today," Eskalie reminded him, nodding in Tallin's direction. "I'm less likely to run into trouble on the road if it isn't dressed better than I am."

Unwilling to interrupt a feeding animal, she settled down to wait until the Gen had finished its meal. She hadn't intended to eat anything, but the bread smelled particularly good. It would be a shame to waste it, when it's fresh, she told herself, taking a slice and spreading it with a properly thin layer of the preserves. She took a neat bite, and discovered to her surprise that it tasted as good as it smelled.

She had almost finished her second slice when she caught Tallin's approving glance and realized how she'd been manipulated. That deceitful creature used its own hunger to make me want to eat. She hastily abandoned the remains of her meal.

"If you're quite finished eating," she told it irritably, "the sun's been up for almost an hour, and we've got a long ride today."

Without demur, Tallin swallowed its last mouthful of bread and stood. Like the obedient pet Gen it could resemble at will, it followed her out of the building. To Eskalie's relief, she was able to proceed around the corner without attracting more than a few envious glances from passing neighbors. Still, she breathed a sigh of relief when she and the Gen ducked into the relative safety of Danvan's livery stable.

Danvan was a scrawny, unkempt man who smelled all too strongly of the manure he shoveled all day. Still, he took meticulous care of the animals in his charge, and his prices were more reasonable than most. The hacks he rented out were all sound animals, although their breeding and manners were no better than their owner's.

After a brief search, Eskalie discovered Danvan shoveling out an empty stall. He coughed and spat into the dirty straw as he zlinned them coming, then paused to zlin Tallin again.

"I don't s'pose you'd sell that Gen?" he asked her, his full attention on her charge.

Eskalie stepped between them, blocking Tallin's nager and returning the man's attention to her. "The Gen isn't mine to sell, Danvan," she told him. "I'm to take it to its owners in Sommerin. I'll require my mare, Star, and a hack which can keep up with her."

"Ain't none of 'em can do that," the stableman said with a shrug, as he led the way to the stableyard. "Dusty there can go the distance, though, and he's fresh enough."

Danvan always kept a few of his rental animals hitched in the yard, saddled and ready, just in case a customer came by. The mousy dun he had indicated laid its ears back and switched its tail irritably as the stableman approached. However, despite the show of bad temper, it was a young, strong animal.

"Very well," Eskalie agreed.

Leaving Dusty tied for the moment, Danvan went to catch Eskalie's mount, which had been turned out into a small paddock with the other animals not intended for use that day. The black mare looked out of place among its ill-bred stablemates, like a peacock among a gaggle of geese. From the tips of the delicately pointed ears to the strong, slender legs on which it danced so gracefully, the beast could never be mistaken for anything but the pedigreed queen it was.

Eskalie had grown up riding such horses as a matter of course. However, her earnings at Kirlin Security could no more cover the cost of a well-bred mare than they could cover the sort of clothes she was wearing. Star had been offered to Eskalie by a former neighbor, Semma Arslan, in partial payment for escorting the woman's sister, Eskalie's former best friend Helka, to the border after the girl had established. Amsil had wanted to sell the mare, but Eskalie had managed to convince her boss that a pedigreed horse ate no more than a hack, and went a lot faster.

Danvan shared her appreciation of fine horseflesh, and treated the mare with a proprietary pride which Eskalie found amusing. Still, it ensured that Star received the careful handling that the horse's high-strung temperament required.

As the stableman brushed the dust from the skittish mare's coat, murmuring soothingly all the while, Tallin reached into an inside pocket of its blue-green and gray Householding livery and removed a coin. "For the rental of the horse," it told her, flipping the shining, newly minted disk in her direction. She caught it automatically, then gaped when she saw that the coin was silver. When she zlinned the Gen's pocket, she discovered that it was only part of a substantial sum.

"How did you come to be carrying so much money?" she demanded. Among Kirlin Security's neighbors in the dilapidated office building were a notoriously vicious loan shark, and at least three busy prostitutes--all of whom shared Amsil's distrust of banks. She had left Tallin unsupervised for hours the previous night, and once the Gen had told her that before it established, it had been a burglar for several years.

Visions of disaster danced before her eyes, until Tallin shrugged and explained, "What pickpocket would think to target a Gen?"

Put that way, it made a weird kind of sense for a Householder like Califf to let his Gen carry his cash.

Tallin cast an admiring glance at Star as Danvan brought out Eskalie's saddle. The mare was preening, as if it knew how the sunlight gleamed on its freshly cleaned ebony coat.

Eskalie felt oddly flattered at the Gen's approval of her most prized possession. She had seen (and envied) the quality of the horseflesh Dar maintained in its stables.

Tallin then turned its attention to Dusty, and gave a resigned sigh. Stepping aside to the straggly bush growing beside the stable entrance, the Gen took out a small pocketknife and cut a branch.

Eskalie froze at the sight of a knife in Gen hands. She hadn't thought to search Tallin for weapons; certainly any sane Sime would go to great lengths to ensure that his Gen was unarmed. The blade was small, but easily sharp enough to slice the woody twig--or a Sime arm. At the thought, her vulnerable laterals cringed into their sheaths as far as they could go. Whyever did Califf let the creature have that?

On the other hand, given that its Householding specialized in hand to hand combat techniques, it seemed likely that Tallin would not be significantly more dangerous with a knife than without it. Shen, the Gen can provoke a Sime into attacking it with one flick of its nager. And then crush his laterals with one good squeeze...

She shuddered. Yosum Forst had been a lorsh, and if he'd survived he would have killed her. But no one should have to die like that, betrayed by the deepest Sime instincts.

Oblivious to her alarm, the Gen returned to her side, neatly trimming the side branches away, but leaving a tuft of leaves at the end. "I expect I'll require this," it said, inspecting its improvised but effective riding crop. With a satisfied nod, it closed the blade and slipped the knife back into its pocket. Eskalie breathed marginally easier.

A few minutes later, Danvan had finished slipping the bridle on Eskalie's mare, and led it and Dusty over to the travelers. Eskalie paid him with the coin Tallin had given her, then swung lightly to the saddle. The mare danced in anticipation as she settled in and gathered up the reins.

Dusty's ears went flat back as Tallin approached. It snapped at the Gen, and received a fist on its tender nose for its trouble. While it was considering this development, Tallin hastily mounted. The ill-bred horse tried to buck as it felt the Gen's considerable weight land on its back, but Tallin had shortened the reins, and it couldn't get its head down far enough. Next the beast planted its feet and refused to move at all, but Tallin tugged one rein sharply and shifted in the saddle, pulling the horse off balance, and it was forced to move or fall.

In quick succession, Dusty ran through the rest of the tricks livery stable hacks used to get out of work: rearing to unseat its rider, sidling sideways to crush its rider's leg against the stable wall, grabbing the bit, shying at an imagined threat. Tallin foiled each strategy with an expertise worthy of an experienced horseman, and shortly, the horse gave up. With a resigned sigh, it followed the dancing mare out of the stableyard.

Eskalie and her charge wended their way through the outskirts of Tormin without meeting more than the expected minor annoyances: slow wagons, children playing tag in the streets, and frequent offers to purchase Tallin, which the detective declined with a polite wave of one tentacle. Once they left town on the main road to Sommerin, Eskalie loosened her reins and let the mare spring into a brisk canter. Much to its distress, Dusty was compelled to follow by a firm application of heels and switch to its ribs.

Eskalie's last trip to Sommerin had taken a full summer's day, and she had arrived well after dark. However, she had been riding an inferior hack that day, and Amsil, who had accompanied her, had never ridden a horse before. As Danvan had promised, Dusty was able to keep the mare's pace, albeit only with constant urging from its rider. Fortunately, Tallin seemed as eager to be home as Eskalie was to return the Killer Gen to its rightful owners.

The road was rutted in places with the damage done by the fairgoers bringing heavy wagonloads of goods to market. Occasionally, they passed a cloud of smoke, where a farmer was taking advantage of the calm day to burn a blighted field before the disease could spread. Still, it appeared that the crop had been reasonably bountiful. At least, the offers called out to Eskalie by the farmers were generous, even for a Gen of Tallin's quality.

It was late afternoon when the travelers reached the outskirts of Sommerin. This was marked by the Smuggler's Roost, a particularly lowbrow shiltpron parlor operated in a semi-converted barn by three former criminals named Mak, Eitan, and Zilmor. The porstan the three brewed would have been overpriced if they'd given it away free, but Zilmor's undeniable talent on the shiltpron had so far been sufficient to keep the venture from folding, particularly when there was a Gen available for her to use. Tallin had proved more than willing to be used in the past, with some very interesting results, but Eskalie was relieved when the Gen showed no interest in stopping to indulge itself.

Sommerin was a larger city than Tormin, and there was plenty of traffic to slow them down. Cheered by the thought that she would soon be rid of her dangerous charge, Eskalie patiently wove her way through the throng to the opposite side of town, and turned her mare down a cobblestoned alley. At the end was a stone wall, high enough to discourage Simes from climbing it. Any attackers who tried to scale the wall anyway would soon regret the attempt as they encountered the jagged pieces of glass embedded on the top.

However, Eskalie had no intention of making an unauthorized entrance into a compound populated by specialists in hand-to-hand combat and their trained Killer Gens. Set into a reinforced section of the wall was the main gate of Householding Dar: a solid wooden door large enough for a wagon, heavily reinforced with precious metal. Only Pens and perverts could afford that kind of security, Eskalie thought, as she rang the bell for the gatekeeper. Or would require it.

A small window in the gate opened, and a woman's face peered out. She looked curiously at Eskalie, then gasped as she saw Tallin on the other horse. The window slammed closed, and the detective heard the woman calling for assistance.

A few minutes later, there was a rumble as the heavy bars which sealed the gate were withdrawn. The door slowly opened to admit them, and the gatekeeper waved Eskalie through. She found herself in a clean, cheerful courtyard, surrounded by well-maintained buildings. There were half a dozen perverts scattered about the area, along with eight Gens and a handful of children. They stared with wary curiosity at the new arrival.

Then Tallin followed her through the gate, and was quickly surrounded by a horde of eager questioners.

"Sosu Tallin, what happened?"

"Where's Sectuib?"

"We expected you back last night. Did you run into trouble on the road?"

The Gen held up a hand and got immediate silence. "Yes, there's been trouble," it announced, its anger, exhaustion, and desperate worry leaking through the gaps in its foggy outer nager. "You'll find out the details soon enough, but right now, Miz Morlin and I have had a long ride."

A tall woman in a worn exercise outfit took charge, with the same air of command Eskalie's uncle the general used when addressing his troops. Within moments, the gatekeeper was back on duty, messengers had been sent off to call the House officers to a meeting, and others had been appointed to care for the tired horses.

When the crowd had disbursed, the woman turned to Eskalie. "I'm Ree, chief combat instructor," she introduced herself. "Let me show you to a guest room, Miz Morlin."

Eskalie had planned to give the perverts their Gen and leave, preferably after collecting a reward for her services. However, it appeared that all of the people who could authorize such a reward in their Sectuib's absence had been summoned to the emergency meeting. If they acted anything like the department managers of her parents' bank, they'd be arguing for hours. She didn't have enough money for an inn room and stabling costs, and Star was too tired to go all the way back to Tormin without a night's rest and a good feed.

Which might as well be at the perverts' expense, she thought, as she surrendered the mare's reins to an adolescent boy. Besides, the perverts might take offense if I insulted their House by refusing their hospitality, and that stableboy could probably take me apart with one hand tied behind his back, even without being able to augment!

Ree showed Eskalie to a comfortable, well-insulated room on the first floor of the main building, next to the infirmary, then hurried off. Before Eskalie had a chance to explore the room, a child arrived from the kitchen with a supper tray. With nothing else to do, the detective nibbled at the food for a while, and enjoyed the pot of excellent trin tea that had come with it.

She spent the rest of the evening browsing through a book on contemporary art which someone had left on the dresser. She'd never had a passion for art, but the book was at least a nice change from Sesfin's cheap novels and Tormin's weekly newspaper, which had been the only reading material available to her for the past seven months.

Even with these amenities, however, she was unable to shake a niggling sense of wrongness about the events of the day before. Dar was obviously wealthy: the furnishings in this guest room alone were worth almost as much as the disputed wagonload of goods. Householders were routinely cheated or overcharged in business dealings. That was a much a part of their lives as their perversion. Mementos of his dead mother or not, Califf should have surrendered the goods immediately, and not risked his life by allowing himself to be imprisoned. If Quildon's documents really were forgeries, the pervert would stand a better than even chance of reclaiming the goods in court. Most judges took a dim view of financial improprieties, even when the victims were only perverts.

So either Califf has reason to believe that Quildon's claim is valid, or there's something of overwhelming value in that wagonload of goods. She reconsidered. Or both. And whatever it is, it has to be time-critical as well as valuable, or Councilman Whilly wouldn't have sent his son on the errand.

But what could be so critical about a wagonload of cloth and farming supplies?

She was debating whether to grab a few hours of sleep on the canopied bed when someone stopped in front of her door and politely projected a desire to enter. When Eskalie signaled her consent, the door opened and a young woman poked her head inside.

"I'm Wirta," she introduced herself. "I'm to Escort you to Sectuib's office. Would you come with me, please?" Without the insulation of the door between them, Eskalie could zlin the same curiously artificial taint to the woman's nager that she had observed in Califf's field. Another channel?

As if to answer the question, the woman's fields shifted until she zlinned almost like a Gen. The imitation had all the realism of a prostitute pretending to desire a client: good enough to attract someone only if they didn't care whether they had the real thing.

As the perverts don't.

Worse yet, this channel, like Califf, fairly oozed her willingness to accommodate Eskalie, or any other Sime or Gen who would sit still for such treatment. Swallowing nausea at the thought, Eskalie followed her escort towards the Householding offices in offended silence.

The channel stopped in front of the door which led to the Sectuib's office. She opened it a few inches, and announced pertly, "Miz Morlin is here."

There was an answering mumble, too soft for Eskalie to make out, and channel opened the door a bit wider and waved the detective through with a inviting smile. It was obvious that the invitation wasn't limited to entering the office.

Eskalie swept past with her head held high, determined not to give the channel the satisfaction of a response. She was so intent on putting the ill-mannered pervert in her place that she didn't bother to zlin the room until she had entered it.

She realized her mistake as soon as she found herself surrounded by an all-too-familiar foggy nager. Instead of the person in charge, as she had expected, the desk was occupied by Tallin. The Gen had been fed, bathed, and dressed in clean clothes. Despite the dark circles under its eyes, it was wide awake, running on nervous energy fueled by the urgent anxiety which had been consuming it since Califf's arrest.

It was plain to zlin that the creature was up to something, and that Eskalie was part of its plan. The detective couldn't help feeling apprehensive: its last scheme had involved using her as cover so that it could get into the Forst Genfarm and steal their records. Neither its owner, Califf, nor her own uncle, who had approved the mad conspiracy, had bothered to warn her about what the deadly Gen was capable of doing to a Sime who angered it.

Tallin waved her to a seat in the visitor's chair with the same self-confident authority Eskalie's father used with a valued customer. At the same time, the channel closed the insulated door behind her with a soft click, leaving her alone with the Killer Gen.

"Please, sit down," it insisted. "Would you care for some tea?"

Numbly, Eskalie obeyed the polite order, seating herself on the edge of the comfortably padded chair. At least with the desk between them, she would have a chance to escape if the dangerous creature attacked her physically, and she wouldn't reach turnover with its great vulnerability to nageric disturbances until the following day.

By which time, I intend to be as far away from here as possible, reward or no reward.

She accepted the mug Tallin offered, wrapping her handling tentacles around it for comfort. The steam curled around her face, bringing the delectable odor of premium trin. She sipped delicately, enjoying the treat.

With that unnaturally bold manner it used with people who knew its true nature, the Gen proceeded to state its business. "As you've probably guessed, Dar's membership is rather upset about having our Sectuib in jail. We wish to resolve the issue as quickly as possible."

"I can understand why," the detective said politely, taking another sip of her tea.

"Then it won't surprise you to hear that we can't wait for Sheriff Russ's routine inquiry to make its way to Zarokka City and back. Consequently, we have voted to set aside a sum--" it named a figure--"to enlist your services to pursue the matter personally."

The money was half the sum of the disputed loan, and easily three quarters of the ostensible value of the wagonload of goods, horses and all. It would also pay Kirlin Security's operating expenses and Pen taxes for a month, and there was no hint of doubt in the Gen's nager that she would jump at the chance to earn it. Eskalie knew that logically, she should do just that, but she wasn't feeling logical at the moment.

"What makes you think I want your commission?" she demanded, sudden anger temporarily overcoming her sense of self-preservation. "Do you think I'm so poor that I'll take any job offered, no matter what? I've worked hard for my reputation, and I won't compromise it by publicly hiring out to rescue a pervert who..." She broke off, fighting down nausea at the thought of what the pervert did. As frequently as possible, and with any Gen--or Sime--whom he could seduce into agreeing.

"Would you rather compromise your reputation by publicly breaking your sworn word?" Tallin inquired calmly. Its nager displayed no alarm at her display of temper, or fear of her reaction to its insult. Its determination, however, was plain to zlin.

"I never swore to work for perverts," Eskalie pointed out.

"True," the Gen agreed. "However, you did give my son your personal assurance as a Morlin that he would not suffer any permanent damage to his health during his stay in the Tormin jail."

"And I kept my word. Sheriff Russ doesn't allow his deputies to beat up prisoners, no matter what they are, and Califf's not locked up in one of the general holding cells with the riffraff. Your precious chief pervert will keep just fine until Sheriff Russ gets an answer back from Zarokka. Or are you trying to claim that the leader of Householding Dar can't defend himself against a pair of unarmed kids?"

"The children are not a danger, and neither are the deputies," Tallin agreed. "However, my son is a channel. He's got two more days at most before entran sets in, and without a Companion available to do an outfunction..."

The Gen finally noticed Eskalie's blank look.

"My apologies," it said. "I tend to forget how little is known about channels outside of Householdings. I won't go into the medical details, since I doubt you're interested--" the detective could only agree--"but once channels get used to taking donations and giving transfers, they become sick with what we call entran within a few days if they stop working. Without proper treatment, the complications become fatal rather quickly, and it's not a pretty death."

Every new thing Eskalie learned about the perverts' lifestyle made it sound worse. No wonder their channels spend so much time chasing after every available nager. How could anyone want a fake kill badly enough to turn a normal person into an insatiable...? She found herself fighting to keep from depositing her dinner on the office's plush carpet.

"I see that you understand," Tallin said. "I could have prevented those complications easily enough if Sheriff Russ had allowed me to stay with Califf, but he didn't. That means my son must be released from prison within four days." The foggy nager condensed into an ice-cold determination as it added, "One way or another."

It didn't take much effort to deduce the Gen's intentions. If I don't agree to take the case, that creature fully intends to break its owner out of jail. And it doesn't care who it has to kill in the process.

The detective was under no illusions that the deadly Gen could be prevented from succeeding if it acted on its threats. The Genproof latches which had originally secured the cells back when the building was the town Pen might have stopped Tallin, since they had required tentacles to open, not a key. However, these had long since been replaced by padlocks capable of confining Simes. And those won't even slow the creature down much.

Eskalie might have been able to justify turning down the perverts' job on the grounds that she could hardly be held morally responsible for the medical consequences of Califf's perverted lifestyle. However, when she had accepted the post of temporary deputy, she had sworn other oaths: to uphold the law and to prevent her fellow peace officers from walking into unnecessary danger so far as possible. The job had ended, but she didn't consider her oaths less valid because of that.

She couldn't allow a jailbreak, and warning Sheriff Russ to place a guard on the pervert's cell would only result in adding one more victim to the Killer Gen's credit. And I can't in honor even warn them the creature's dangerous!

There was nothing that Eskalie wanted less than to be forced to return to Zarokka; she had suffered far too much ensuring that she'd never have to enter her parents' bank again. However, it appeared to be the only way to honor her conflicting obligations.

And I can settle this with Jan herself. It's not as if I have to even see my parents. Besides, she admitted to herself, I want to know what's going on.

"Very well," she agreed, hoping that her curiosity wasn't going to be fatal this time. "I'll take the case--on one condition."

"Name it."

"If I find the truth of this matter within four days, Dar must abide by the outcome. Whatever it is." She zlinned the Gen closely to make sure it understood. "That means if Quildon's loan is documented in the bank records, he gets the goods. And if he decides to continue his case against Califf, Dar and its individual Simes--and Gens--must let the law take its course. No jailbreaks, no convenient accidents to Quildon or the witnesses. Understood?"

"Agreed. Neither I nor any other member of Dar will interfere."

Eskalie didn't believe for one moment that Dar's leadership would consider themselves bound by a Gen's word. However, she was also willing to credit them with the common sense not to court disaster by defying the government in so spectacular a fashion. Not when their perverted lifestyle was barely tolerated as it was.

For good reason.

It was Tallin's personal agreement which concerned her, and there had been no quiver of deception in the Gen's nager. It might change its mind later, of course, if her findings went against its son. However, if it's right about how fast the pervert will die, it won't find out he's still in jail until it's too late.

The Killer Gen nodded, its nager displaying its satisfaction. "With a dawn start, we can reach Zarokka before your parents' bank closes tomorrow."

"Wait a minute," Eskalie said, as a sinking feeling twisted her stomach in knots. "What do you mean, 'we'?"

"I'm coming with you."

"What?!" the detective yelped. Recovering quickly, she insisted, "No. Absolutely not. If the matter is as time-critical as you claim, I can't afford to waste time dragging a Gen along."

Tallin's matter-of-fact confidence never wavered. "On the contrary," it stated. "It's precisely because of the timing that you can't afford not to have me along. With me to run interference, we can take the direct route back to Tormin from Zarokka, across that finger of Gen Territory. That will save a day, and settle this matter before Califf is in serious danger."

"Go through Gen Territory?" Eskalie had heard of the shortcut; some of the more reckless of the traveling merchants used it occasionally. Many of them disappeared in the attempt, and she had no desire to join them and suffer the nonexistent mercy of the Wild Gens.

On the other hand, the Wild Gens might treat a Gen escaping from Sime Territory reasonably well. With its owner gone, has the creature decided to escape to Gen Territory? Pursuing the thought, she asked, "What do the--er--'officers' of Dar think about that part of your plan?"

"I haven't told them about it yet," Tallin admitted.

Her suspicions fully roused, Eskalie fixed the creature with what she hoped would appear a firm stare. "I have no intention of allowing myself to be accused of stealing a valuable Gen," she informed it. "You are not coming along unless I have the full consent of whoever's in charge here, with Califf gone."

"You'll have it," the Gen said, its confidence so absolute that for one moment Eskalie found herself believing that Dar's chief officer really would agree to let their valuable pet travel through Gen Territory.

Nonsense, she told herself as the Gen's nager returned to its incessant worry over Califf's welfare. Even perverts have more sense than that. She said nothing, however. She was more than willing to let the Gen's owners be the ones to face its wrath when it was refused the permission it sought.

Having won her qualified agreement to its scheme, Tallin dismissed her politely to Wirta's care, with an admonition to get at least a few hours sleep before the morning. The dark circles under the creature's eyes showed that it would do well to follow its own advice, but then, Gens required almost as much sleep as children.

Eskalie hadn't planned on following the impudent Gen's orders, but by the fourth chapter, the art book had degenerated into an uncritical praise fest lauding the quality of art produced by Householders, while dismissing several of her favorite artists out of hand as "substandard." In disgust, she extinguished her candles and retired to the comfortable bed for a quick nap.

She had barely closed her eyes when she started awake, heart pounding, convinced that Gen hands were closing around her tentacle sheaths, slowly crushing her laterals. Shen! I won't even hit turnover until tomorrow. Am I going to start having nightmares before turnover as well?

Determined not to let thoughts of a mere Gen deprive her of sleep, she turned over and tried again. This time, she found herself being chased across the dream landscape by Califf and Wirta, their imitation-Gen nagers an obscene contrast to the laterals they extended towards her in invitation.

She spent the rest of the night pacing the room, counting the moments until she could ride far away from the insatiable perverts and their killer Gen.

The sky was just starting to turn gray with the approaching dawn when Wirta arrived at her door to escort her to the courtyard, still projecting the same invitation which had troubled Eskalie's rest. Besides Wirta, there were at least two other channels with the small group which had gathered in the courtyard to watch her departure. Ree, the combat instructor, was also present, standing off to one side with a man whose overdeveloped muscles would have seemed almost Genlike, if there hadn't been five real Gens present with which to compare him.

Eskalie didn't know much about how the Householdings were administered, but she could spot a committee of officials when she zlinned one. The reason for their presence became clear when a flashy chestnut was led out alongside her black mare, the saddle bags packed with food, clothing, and incidentals. It was a big-boned, spirited animal, quite capable of carrying a large person all day.

A person, or... Before she could finish the thought, Tallin was at her side. Sleep had restored much of its usual alertness, and it had just completed a substantial meal. Instead of the ubiquitous blue-green and gray Dar livery, it was dressed in the rough tunic and pants of a fashionable pet Gen. Around its neck was a lightweight metal collar, but Eskalie was under no illusions that the restraint would be any help in curbing the creature.

It's probably got a spare key in that flute case again, anyway.

An amused twinkle in the Gen's eyes showed that it was well aware of how neatly it had outmaneuvered her. In the presence of the assembled dignitaries, Eskalie could hardly claim that it was running off without permission.

I should have guessed that even perverts would be just as glad if that Killer Gen decided to go elsewhere.

With an unsettlingly good imitation of the formal etiquette of Eskalie's upper-class peers, Tallin bowed politely and presented her with a neatly embroidered moneybag, heavy with coins. The detective accepted it, automatically judging the value of its contents by zlinning the density of the coins.

Her full fee was there, as she had known it would be. She was therefore honor-bound to provide the services for which she had been hired--all of them. Refusing to show less dignity than the Gen, Eskalie tied the moneybag to her belt and turned to accept Star's reins from the stableboy.

She ignored Tallin's soft chuckle as she fastened her own luggage behind Star's saddle and swung aboard. She didn't bother to supervise the Gen. If it couldn't get on the chestnut by itself, she would be delighted to leave it behind. However, it mounted the beast without incident and followed her out of the gate.

It played the part of a pet Gen with near perfection as they threaded their way through the city streets. It remained completely silent, keeping the chestnut's nose a half length behind Star's tail, just far enough back that the mare wouldn't feel crowded and start kicking. Its nager was under much better control today. Only an occasional glimpse of the underlying brilliance was zlinnable through the outer fog, and the slight hint of anxiety was more suited to its role than its usual obscene fearlessness.

Eskalie was starting to feel a cautious optimism as they left town on the main road for Tormin. This early, there was little traffic. The fall's big local fairs were pretty much over for the year, much of the harvest was in, and most people were content to stay home rather then risk traveling in bad weather. There was only a farmer or two, and a few revelers making their unsteady way back to town. The detective expected even less traffic after they reached the turnoff which would take them to Zarokka.

It wasn't long before they passed the source of the revelers' intoxication: the Smuggler's Roost. The mingled odors of stale, cheap porstan, urine, and vomit could be easily smelled from the road. It had obviously just closed, since the three disreputable ex-crooks who owned it were making a halfhearted attempt to clean up after their customers excesses. As Zilmor, the shiltpron player, carried a bucket of kitchen slop out the side door, she zlinned the two travelers.

The bucket hit the ground, spilling its odorous contents across the packed earth, where they mingled with the contributions of her customers. Ignoring the mess, she sprinted for the road.

"Why, Pet, I thought you were out of town," she greeted Tallin enthusiastically, ignoring Eskalie completely. "I've worked out a great arrangement of that ballad. Come on in, have a glass of porstan, and I'll play it for you."

"Not today, Zilmor," the Gen replied. "Miz Morlin and I are in a hurry."

Eskalie didn't know which offended her more: the musician's lack of basic manners in approaching another Sime's Gen without permission, or the ill-trained creature's impudence in believing that it could speak for her. Her reaction finally caught Zilmor's attention.

"Well, I won't keep you then," she said, backing off to make it clear that she wasn't challenging Eskalie for possession of the Gen. "Take care of Miz Morlin, Pet," she continued, blithely adding insult to injury. "She's good folks, even if she don't have much in the way of street smarts."

"I intend to."

The Gen's firm tone sent shivers down Eskalie's spine. Star felt her tension and broke into a canter. Instead of curbing the mare, Eskalie let it run, for the moment not caring if she left Tallin behind.

However, the creature proved as difficult to shake as the nightmares it engendered. Barely two minutes passed before the chestnut was once again at the mare's side. Star snorted, eager for a race, but Eskalie reined her horse in before it could tire. The chestnut pranced as Tallin slowed beside her, flirting with Star. The black mare ignored the other horse as thoroughly as Eskalie tried to ignore its rider.

The silence continued as they reached the turnoff for Zarokka City, an hour later. This was a winding track, too narrow and steep for wagons, which connected the Sommerin-Tormin eyeway with that connecting Zarokka and the regional capitol. However, a rider on a good horse or mule could save two days off the time required to go around by the eyeways.

As they wound through the hills, Eskalie zlinned about her carefully for thieves and Raiders. She was uncomfortably aware of how far Tallin's nager would carry, with so little traffic on the road to disguise it. Her parents had always cautioned her about traveling alone, even when there were no recent reports of trouble on the road.

However, if there were thieves working the hills, they had evidently gotten discouraged by the lack of traffic and given up before she passed. As the sun rose towards its zenith, the detective scanned ahead, looking for an appropriate place to give the horses a rest. When she spotted a small meadow at the side of the road, with a stream crossing it, she guided the mare to the side of the road and dismounted. She loosened Star's girth and removed the bit so the mare could graze. Might as well feed the Gen, too, she thought sourly. That's better than having the creature's oversized appetite nagging at me all afternoon.

Eskalie herself had no desire for food. A flutter in her chest and a twinging ache in her abdomen warned her that turnover was immanent, with its nausea and other accompanying difficulties. At least I remembered to pack a good supply of rags. I'd hate to stain my good clothing--or my saddle.

Since there were no passing Simes to observe, Tallin didn't bother to wait for her to feed it. After tending its mount, the Gen removed a large picnic lunch from the chestnut's saddle bags before turning the horse loose to graze. "Are you planning to sulk all day?" it asked, handing her an apple before starting on a thick cheese sandwich.

"Sulk?"

"You haven't said a word since we left Dar."

Eskalie took a bite of the apple to hide her confusion. "Why would I?" she asked.

"It is customary to make polite conversation with one's traveling companions, is it not?"

The detective stared at Tallin, bewildered by the complaint. She doubted that the Gen would find much entertainment in the sort of polite conversation she had been taught to make with her peers. After all, what interest could a Gen have in the stock available at the various Choice Auctions, or the doings of the upper class? What passed for casual conversation among the lower classes was even less appropriate, since it consisted mainly of bemoaning the poor quality of the kills available at the local Pen.

It was useless (not to mention potentially dangerous) to discuss the fine points of finding a satisfying kill with a Killer Gen which just might take the advice to heart. She doubted that informing the creature that she considered it part of her luggage, not a traveling companion, would be any better received. Remembering her father's oft-repeated advice, she countered Tallin's complaint with a few of her own.

"You blackmail me into taking this case by threatening my reputation, force me--and your legitimate owners--to let you come along, and now you expect me to entertain you as well?"

The Gen took another bite of its sandwich and chewed slowly, its foggy nager calm as it considered her accusations.

"Shall we examine your charges individually?" it suggested after it had swallowed. "First, I haven't forced you to do anything against your conscience. Nor would I if I could. I did point out where I thought your duty lay--but you're here because you, yourself, agreed with me."

Since this was actually true, although not in the way the creature meant, Eskalie couldn't deny it. "And I suppose that you used a similar technique to convince whoever's in charge now at Householding Dar that you should be allowed to come along?"

"Not quite," Tallin admitted. Its gray eyes twinkled, and the surface calm of its nager sparkled with humor. "I didn't have to, you see. As First Companion, I'm in charge of Dar while our Sectuib is incapacitated or otherwise unable to perform his duties."

The enormity of this revelation shocked Eskalie to speechlessness, corroborated as it was by the Gen's conviction of its truthfulness. She'd known that perverts treated their Gens with an absurd solicitousness matched only by those rich society widows whose pampered lapdogs were allowed to sit at the dining table and eat off plates. However, even those dowagers who angered their heirs by providing for their spoiled pets in their wills didn't expect the animals to act as the executors of their estates as well.

No wonder the creature's so insufferable.

Eskalie glanced down to avoid the Gen's too-amused gaze, and discovered that the apple had disappeared during the conversation, leaving only a mangled core clenched in her tentacles. The rest of the fruit had somehow ended up inside her, although she couldn't recall taking more than a bite.

This fresh evidence of the hazards of traveling with the Killer Gen threatened to overwhelm her. She threw the apple core as far as she could, augmenting in her frustration, and knelt by the stream to wash the stickiness from her tentacles. Feeling a bit better for the display of temper, she retrieved a rag from her saddlebags, and left Tallin to the remains of its meal as she sought the seclusion of a pile of boulders.

The Gen had finished its own meal by the time she returned, and was making use of a small clump of trees. Trees weren't as good a privacy screen as granite, but Eskalie appreciated the effort. If nothing else, it would keep the picnic site clean for the next group of travelers. She caught the horses and led them back to the road, away from the temptation to grab another bite of grass.

She was retightening Star's girth when her turnover hit. She clutched weakly at the saddle with all eight handling tentacles as the world seemed to spin around her, staggering as her knees threatened to give out. The mare danced nervously away, and Eskalie had just enough presence of mind to let go of the saddle before she was pulled off her feet and dragged.

A wave of nausea hit, and she doubled over, depositing the apple's remains on the dusty road. Her perception of the surrounding fields was so distorted that she couldn't tell if the selyn source which seemed to be approaching from three different directions at once was real or another hallucination.

"What's wrong? Turnover?"

It was real.

A cool, selyn-rich hand slipped under Eskalie's forehead and steadied it, and another wrapped around her waist to keep her on her feet as she retched helplessly, trying to empty an already empty stomach. At the same time, a replete Gen nager blended with her own, providing a solid reference point which allowed her to reorient herself. Eskalie permitted the intrusion, too miserable to fight the Killer Gen off.

"This is what happens when you don't take care of yourself properly," Tallin scolded, with a strange mixture of exasperation and concern she'd never zlinned in any other Gen. "If you don't start eating and sleeping regularly, you're going to do permanent damage to your health."

"You're not my father."

The sullen retort slipped out before the detective could stop it. However, Tallin really was giving a good imitation of a parent tending a recalcitrant child which had injured itself through some particularly half-witted folly...down to ignoring her protest completely.

Given the zeal with which it was pursuing its son's freedom, she supposed that having the creature view her as a child was safer than having it view her as a potentially dangerous adult.

As her world slowly stopped spinning, Eskalie's nausea eased. With Tallin's assistance, she was able to stagger over to the stream and clean herself up. A few careful sips of the cool water settled the cramping in her painfully empty stomach, but did nothing to ease the cramps lower down.

Shen, it's going to be one of those months, she thought. She massaged the affected area in a futile attempt to ease the pain.

"Stomach still bothering you?" the Gen asked. "Oh, I see," it answered its own question. "Here, let me."

Once more Tallin's nager linked with hers, muffling the pain more effectively than fosebine ever had. As she stopped tensing against the discomfort, the cramping slowly eased, although it never completely stopped.

"That's the best I can do for now," the Gen said. "If I'd known you were prone to this kind of trouble, I'd have had one of the other Companions work with you last night. There are some problems which are easier to treat before they begin."

Eskalie was just as glad that Tallin hadn't known about her rough turnovers. One Killer Gen taking an interest in her health was bad enough.

Much of the obscuring haze had returned to the surface of the Killer Gen's nager, although a spotlight of attention pierced the fog to remain on her. It was a very strange effect, but it did keep her pain under control. Still, she couldn't seem to muster the energy to stand up.

"Rest for a few minutes," the Gen ordered. "I'll get the horses."

The spotlight of attention remained on her while the creature performed its errand, stretching thinner with distance and the distraction of the task, but never fading completely. It solidified again as Tallin led the horses over to her.

"You know," it said conversationally as it checked Star's girth, "you could avoid a lot of this trouble if you spent a bit more time around Gens each month, particularly just before your turnover."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Eskalie snapped. "Claim my kill two weeks early? I couldn't afford the food, much less the extra fee the Pen would charge for claiming a kill before I'm legally in need. Not to mention that our office is crowded enough as it is." The reminder of her poverty grated, although she knew that only the best-trained pet Gens could offer the kind of relief which Tallin was providing.

And which the perverts can enjoy every month.

"I tend to forget just how effective the Pen system is at preventing its Sime customers from spending any length of time with Gens," Tallin said. Its tone made the observation a tacit apology, although its steady nageric support never wavered.

"Who'd want to?" Eskalie asked rhetorically. She got to her feet before her unwelcome traveling companion decided to assist her, her knees wobbling only a little. Pleased with her recovery, she mounted Star, albeit with less than her usual grace.

Tallin watched closely as she settled gingerly into the saddle, seeking a position where the rag wouldn't be too uncomfortable, then mounted itself. "If you can manage to keep a reasonable pace, we can be in Zarokka before the bank closes this evening," it said, guiding the chestnut past Star. "Once we've got the proof that the loan is a forgery, we can find you a comfortable bed for the night.

"You seem awfully sure that the case will go your way," Eskalie commented, as Star followed the other horse without waiting for guidance. "Particularly when your...son...didn't accompany his mother on the journey during which the alleged loan agreement is supposed to have been signed."

"Of course I'm sure that Nilba didn't borrow money from Councilman Whilly," the Gen said. "You see, I did accompany my Sectuib on that journey. Unfortunately, my testimony isn't acceptable in a court of law."

"I should hope not!" The Killer Gen's nager was persuasive enough to convince a jury that black was white, as long as the creature believed the lie itself. However, if Nilba actually had been driven to ask the elder Whilly for a loan, she might well have left the Gen behind, to avoid the possibility that the Councilman would zlin it as a convenient source of collateral. She might also have been too embarrassed to tell anybody what she'd done. Shen, that's the sort of information a woman might not tell her own husband, much less her pet Gen.

And would a Gen necessarily know a loan contract from a recipe for spiced trin? While it was true that the Gen had been carrying Califf's cash, holding a purse wasn't the same thing as holding the purse strings. Gens were property, and could not make contracts, earn wages, inherit an estate, sell or purchase goods, or handle money in any other fashion. How, then, could any Gen claim to understand finance?

Shaking her head, Eskalie dismissed the Gen's assurance as wishful thinking. As the miles went by, she concentrated on staying in the saddle. True to its promise--or threat--Tallin set a brisk pace, although it was careful to pause every hour or so and let her briefly adjourn to the bushes.

When their trail joined the Zarokka eyeway, three miles outside the city, they began to meet fellow travelers again. Tallin reined the chestnut in until the two horses were trotting side by side, allowing the passing Simes to assume that Eskalie was leading it, instead of the reverse.

The outer, foggy layer of the Gen's nager had thickened as they came within zlinning range of other Simes. It obscured the golden furnace beneath, and made the creature zlin almost ordinary. Somehow, Tallin managed to accomplish this trick without interrupting the steady spotlight of attention which was holding her pain at bay. If anything, its strength and efficacy increased as the Gen stopped scanning the surrounding hillsides for bandits.

The added support allowed Eskalie to wave off her fellow travelers' many offers to buy Tallin with an appropriate degree of brisk confidence.

The detective couldn't avoid attracting attention as they entered the outskirts of Zarokka and began winding their way towards the financial district. The pedigreed horses and pet Gen were too obviously of top quality for the curious to overlook them, and the possibility of some first-rate gossip. However, to Eskalie's surprise and relief, most of the curious onlookers appeared uncertain as to her identity.

So much for my childish assumption that as the Morlin heiress, I'm so important that everyone in town would recognize me as a matter of course.

The irony amused her for a moment, then she shrugged it off. In Tormin, she was widely recognized as the talented junior partner of Kirlin Security and Investigations. That was far more satisfying than being known as her parents' eccentric daughter.

With that thought to buoy her, she was able to hold her head high as she halted Star in front of the large stone building on Main Street which was the center of her parents' financial empire. With the casual ease of the very wealthy, she reached into the well-filled purse Tallin had handed her that morning and withdrew the smallest coin available. It was still large enough to set three urchins scrambling for the privilege of holding Star. With a mental note to claim the tip as a business expense, Eskalie handed her reins to the winning urchin.

The detective had intended to leave Tallin with Star. She didn't want the dangerous creature to start making trouble in her parents' bank if the investigation didn't go its way, or if it simply took longer than expected. Certainly, Main Street was safe enough. People poor and desperate enough to steal a kill (or anything else) were kept away from the exclusive area by a small army of private security guards.

However, Tallin had other ideas. Without hesitation, it dismounted, handed the chestnut's reins to the urchin, and took up a position six inches from her left arm. Its steady beam of attention never wavered.

Eskalie's left-arm laterals retreated up their sheaths, cringing away from the Killer Gen's nearness. However, she had often seen perverts traveling with their Gens in a similar fashion. After a moment's reflection, she prudently decided not to attempt forcing Tallin to act against what was obviously careful training. Instead, she swept through the heavy, metal-reinforced oak doors, trying to pretend that she always traveled with a pet Gen at her elbow.

Eskalie surveyed the lobby with the confident, possessive arrogance of her heritage. A walnut-paneled counter partitioned off the back third of the spacious room, and a bored teller sat behind it, ready to handle deposits or withdrawals. Behind the teller, she could see the doors to her parents' offices down a short hall. Her parents had chosen the offices so that they could monitor happenings in the lobby, without making themselves too accessible to every lorsh with a whim to deal directly with the owner.

However, the observation worked both ways. Eskalie couldn't zlin through the insulated teller's cage, but she could see easily enough that both doors were fully closed. Long experience led her to conclude that both of her parents were out at the moment.

Suppressing a sigh of relief mixed with disappointment, Eskalie glanced to her right, to the clerks' offices. Jan Yarnan's office was occupied, by one woman only. Eskalie didn't recognize the nager, but she hadn't had a chance to zlin Jan in the few days between her changeover and her abrupt departure from Zarokka.

The teller's face was as unfamiliar to Eskalie as his nager. However, the man obviously recognized money when he zlinned it, even through the insulation provided by the metal cage. His nager assumed an eager servility, but the projection was forced, and it didn't cover the man's resentment of her presumed status and life of ease.

If only he knew...

"Can I be of service, N'vet?"

"Perhaps you can," Eskalie answered with polite condescension. "I wish to speak with Jan Yarnan."

"Do you have an appointment?" With two tentacles, the teller retrieved his desk calendar and made a show of examining it.

The detective led a trace of irritation color her nager. "No, I don't have an appointment. I merely have important business which requires Miz Yarnan's immediate attention."

Tallin's beam of attention solidified, with undertones of reproof underlying the steady support. Obviously, the creature was displeased with her show of temperament.

That's just what I require when trying to handle this lower-class lorsh: a critic.

"And what is the nature of your 'business' with Miz Yarnan?" the teller asked, oozing skepticism.

"It's confidential."

"I see."

Like many other minor officials, the teller obviously enjoyed exercising his power to inconvenience others. Throwing out his chest, he began what was obviously a well-rehearsed speech. "You realize that Miz Yarnan is a busy woman, whose work is vital to our bank's operation. She doesn't have time to speak to every young lady who comes through the door. Not even ones as pretty as you." The man's oily voice assumed an avuncular note as he continued. "Now, why don't you tell me why you're here. It may be that I can solve your problem, and then you won't be put in the awkward position of interrupting an important bank official. Believe me, you'd find that very embarrassing, Miz...?" The teller raised a politely interrogative eyebrow.

"Morlin," the detective supplied. "Eskalie Morlin."

The teller stiffened in ill-concealed alarm.

"I believe I am better able to judge whether my business really requires Jan's attention than you are," Eskalie continued relentlessly. "Particularly since you've been working here less than a year. Now, since neither you nor Jan is currently occupied serving other customers, perhaps you would trouble yourself to announce me? Before my parents return and find you playing your childish power games with their daughter?"

"Yes, Tuib. Of course, Tuib. Right this way, Tuib..."

Eskalie swept in the man's wake, nose in the air as befitted the debutante she had once been. Tallin stayed glued to her shoulder as if held on a short chain. The Gen was showing much more interest in its surroundings than was strictly necessary for its role as a pet, but at least it was quiet, and its nager was as calm and unprovocative as Eskalie had ever seen it.

This didn't prevent Jan from allowing a stab of desire to escape when she first zlinned its unusual nager. Recovering quickly, the clerk turned her attention to the Gen's ostensible owner, and real pleasure colored her otherwise bland nager.

"Tuib Eskalie!" she exclaimed, with the familiarity of a long-time family retainer. She invited Eskalie to take the best of the visitor's chairs with a deferential wave of two tentacles and sent her junior colleague for tea. "And use the good china," she reminded him. "Tuib Eskalie isn't just another politician begging for a loan, after all."

"Now, then," she said, settling back in her own chair and twining her tentacles in an attentive pose. "While we're waiting for our tea, you must tell me about this investigative work you've taken up."

Her expert eye tallied up the retail value of Eskalie's one good outfit and the Gen standing with ostensible tameness behind her chair. She added it to the heavy purse at the detective's belt, and drew some very understandable, if totally erroneous, conclusions about the state of Eskalie's personal finances. "You seem to be doing quite well at it."

The detective was quite happy to allow Jan the misconception. She knew the clerk would be questioned closely about their conversation when her parents discovered her visit. She couldn't bear the thought that they might learn she was wearing patched clothes most days, because she couldn't afford replacements and Pen taxes as well.

"Even here in Zarokka, we've heard that you were involved in resolving that embezzlement at the military Pens. It must have been very exciting."

"You could say that," Eskalie agreed, although "harrowing" would be a better adjective. It was quite obvious to her that Jan had a highly romanticized idea of her chosen profession. She gave a brief and highly edited account of the case, which sparked some hidden amusement in Tallin. Fortunately, the Gen's training held, and it didn't try to interrupt with its own version of events.

"But enough of my work," the detective concluded, as the much-subdued teller finally delivered the tea and departed, closing the office door politely behind himself. "What has been going on in Zarokka since I left? Is your father doing well?"

Jan paused in pouring the trin, her nager contracting in grief. "He died two weeks ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that," the detective said, letting her nager reflect her sincere sympathy--and hoping Jan wouldn't zlin Tallin's too closely.

Jan shrugged. "He was twenty-two years past changeover, and as frail as you would expect. He started having trouble with his kills last spring." She looked at Eskalie a bit apologetically. "There really isn't much to tempt one in a Gen from the Pens, you know."

It was obvious that she believed Eskalie didn't know, because no Morlin would ever get a kill from the common Pen. The detective nodded encouragement, deciding that it really wasn't necessary to explain just how well acquainted she was with the inadequacies of Pen stock.

"I was able to get a good kill for him last month, though, and that helped a great deal. For two weeks, he was almost himself again. Then he hit turnover, went into convulsions, and died." Jan shook her head, obviously still trying to assimilate the shock. "Your parents have been very understanding, but of course, there's so much to be done here at the bank..."

"It's been a busy summer?"

"Yes. You did hear that the wheat crop failed in some areas, didn't you?"

Eskalie nodded.

"Well, that's caused the kind of readjustments you'd expect. Some farmers want loans, some went bankrupt. People are moving to places where they can find work, and some of the factory owners are expanding to take advantage of the cheap labor. All the confusion has disrupted trade. Theft is up in those regions, too, so we're writing more insurance policies, and investigating more claims. For instance, just the other day..."

Eskalie listened with unfeigned interest. It was exactly this sort of boring number-chopping which had driven her to run away, rather than be trapped behind a desk. She had been quite contented in Tormin, and hadn't really missed no longer having her laterals pointed towards the Territory government's nager. However, the familiar surroundings, and the familiar details of running a financial empire, came perilously close to making her feel homesick.

"Are you planning to visit long?" Jan asked, when Tallin's growing hunger, and growing impatience, made it clear to both Simes that the conversation would have to be concluded soon.

"Not this time, I'm afraid," the detective said with genuine regret. "I'm here to collect some information for a case I'm working on. Perhaps you could assist me."

As Eskalie had hoped, Jan's nager brightened at the prospect of being involved, however peripherally, in the "adventurous" life of a real professional investigator. "Of course I'll help, in any way I can," she assured the detective.

Satisfied that she had zlinned her Gen, Eskalie moved in for the kill. "The case involves the disposition of a wagonload of trade goods, which were seized in partial payment for a delinquent debt. However, the debtor is dead, and her son believes that the loan never occurred. He insists the documentation used to obtain the confiscation order is a forgery. The creditor's son disputes this, of course, but neither party has first-hand knowledge of their respective parents' activities during the crucial time period. The sum of money is not large"--she named the figure--"but it's obvious that both parties feel strongly about their claims."

"Those are often the messiest situations," Jan remarked, so caught up in Eskalie's story that a sympathetic apprehension flickered through her nager.

"Indeed," the detective agreed. "There was a certain amount of unpleasantness, and now there is a criminal assault charge as well as the wagonload of goods at stake. Fortunately, the loan was made through Morlin Bank, and the alleged debtor's representative--" there was really no reason to inform the clerk that Califf's "representative" was the Gen standing so tamely behind her"--has retained my services to discover the truth of the matter. If I could trouble you to give me a look at the original paperwork..."

"Of course," Jan murmured. "If you would give me the particulars, I'd be happy to look it up."

"The loan was made last spring. The borrower was the former Sectuib in Dar, and the creditor of record is Councilman Whilly."

Jan's nager flared alarm as a loud, inarticulate shriek reverberated through the lobby, shattering the calm, businesslike hush of the bank. Eskalie gasped as a surge of adrenaline negated all of Tallin's careful work. The Gen itself somehow managed not to startle.

The office door was well insulated against zlinning to protect customers' privacy, but the soundproofing was less rigorous. The office's inhabitants could clearly hear the sound of running footsteps, as a Sime approached them under augmentation. Jan opened her largest desk drawer and snatched up the length of metal pipe she kept to discourage thieves and dissatisfied customers.

Eskalie was also no stranger to the possibility of attempted mayhem. She jumped to her feet and faced the door, taking a few steps to the side to get clear of her chair and the Gen. Sesfin might not think much of her street fighting skills, and her crouch owed more to her abdominal discomfort than to any martial expertise, but she hoped that she wouldn't totally disgrace her colleagues in Tormin if it came to a fight.

Her main worry was that Tallin might choose to participate. Far from staying sensibly to one side while the Simes took care of the problem, the Gen had come to the same dangerous state of alertness it had exhibited when it had been preparing to come to its owner's defense. She had seen Dar's trained Gens in action, and knew that any such performance would completely destroy her ability to pass the creature off as a simple pet.

The door slammed open, revealing the source of the disturbance. The detective barely managed to halt her lunge as she zlinned the identity of the newcomer.

"Mother!"

"Eskie!" Gretta Morlin shrieked, her nager ringing with astonished delight. "It really is you!"

Eskalie catapulted into her mother's arms, just as she had done when she was a child. For a moment, it seemed that nothing had changed, but then the childish illusion of parental strength shattered. She had last zlinned her mother two days after her changeover, before she had learned to interpret her new perceptions. Now, she knew that the quivering instability in her mother's field was a sign of aging. There was more gray in the fashionably styled hair, as well.

"Why didn't you warn us you were coming for a visit?" Gretta Morlin demanded, when she had restored a veneer of her usual impeccable dignity to her nager. It was a fragile illusion: her right-arm dorsals clutched Eskalie's wrist with the desperation usually reserved for securing one's kill, as if she was afraid that her daughter would disappear once more.

Bracing herself against the inevitable disappointment, Eskalie answered, "I'm not here for a visit, Mother. I'm tracking down some financial information for a case I'm working on, and I've got to be on the road back to Tormin at dawn tomorrow."

Gretta's nager quivered as she absorbed the news, then settled into a facade of determined cheerfulness. "Well, that means we've got the whole night to catch up. Have you already told Jan what information you require?"

"Yes."

"Then she'll have it ready for you to pick up at dawn tomorrow." A warning edge to her nager served to inform the clerk that if the desired documentation was not produced on time and in good order, the consequences would be severe. "Meanwhile, you're coming home for the night."

"I had thought to stay at an inn, rather than disrupt the house with an unannounced guest..." Eskalie argued tentatively. Her mother had always insisted that the mark of a true aristocrat was consideration for her servants.

"Nonsense." Gretta dismissed the thought with the flick of a graceful tentacle. "You're not a guest, you're family. We've kept your room ready, so there's no reason to feel you're imposing."

Recognizing an unstoppable force when she zlinned it, Eskalie surrendered gracefully and allowed herself to be herded out of the office. Tallin trailed obediently behind her. She told herself that she didn't zlin the amusement in the Gen's nager.

The Morlin town house occupied half a block of Zarokka's best residential district. While small compared to the family's country estate, it was still larger than the building which housed Kirlin Security, not to mention being in better repair. The grounds were carefully landscaped to give an impression of space, and the illusion was reinforced by the selyn-insulating stone of the high wall surrounding the property, which cut the ambient nager of the city to almost rural standards.

As Eskalie and her mother turned their horses through the wrought iron gate, the detective saw a curtain flutter in the attic of the servant's wing. She smiled, remembering the times she had relied on the cook's lookout to warn her of her parents' return.

She hoped Lorn wasn't too upset now that he knew he had an unexpected guest to feed, as well as a Gen.

Jev the groom met them at the house, warned of his employer's arrival by his own lookout. He accepted the reins of Gretta's mount with his left hand while using one right-arm tentacle to tug respectfully at the lock of hair which persisted in falling over his eyes. His cow-brown eyes widened as he recognized Eskalie, and he hurried to take Star's reins as well.

This left him with both hands occupied when Tallin dismounted. Caught unprepared, and unused to handling anything but the heavily sedated Pen Gens, Jev automatically reached for the third set of reins with his right dorsals. Gretta tensed, anticipating a flare of Gen alarm. However, her apprehension proved unnecessary. With a confidence which no undrugged Gen should display around a strange Sime, the Killer Gen blithely passed the chestnut gelding's reins off to the groom's tentacles and followed Eskalie through the front door.

It felt to the detective as if she'd lived in Tormin for most of a lifetime, not just seven months, but the front hall looked exactly as she'd left it. The late afternoon sun shone through the stained glass window above the door, casting an image of a spring garden on the gleaming wood floor. The clean scent of furniture polish drifted from the deceptively simple table by the side of the door, and from the scrolled banister of the main staircase which swept with dignified elegance to the second floor.

As usual on her turnover day, Eskalie wanted nothing so much as a chance to lie down and rest, as far away from any excitement as humanly possible. However, that was not a realistic hope. Kirra the butler was quickly summoned by the footman who had opened the door. Eskalie might have spent the past seven months living in poverty among the lower classes, but she was not so lost to good manners as to reject the warm welcome the woman extended on behalf of the entire staff. With the discipline instilled upon her by the exclusive Sommerin Academy, she even managed a credible reply, expressing her happiness to be in her childhood home once more.

Before Eskalie could escape upstairs to her room, on the pretext of refreshing herself after her long day's ride, brisk footsteps in the hall announced the arrival of Rossil Morlin.

Eskalie's last encounter with her father had not been notable for its courtesy. Quite the opposite. Things might have turned out differently if she had chosen to wait a few days until after her father had killed, or if she'd had more than three days' experience at distinguishing other nagers from her own. As it was, when she had announced her desire to strike out on her own, just three days after her changeover, he had forbidden it in an outburst of need-induced temper. Instead, he had insisted that she settle down in one of the bank's spare offices and begin to learn the family business. Goaded by his anger, which she had been too young to separate from her own, she had refused. Her rebellion had sparked such uncontrolled rage that she had left secretly that same night, without even saying good-bye to her mother.

The detective debated making a break for the door, but it was too late. With the determined cheerfulness which had gotten her through more than one awkward party, Gretta had already announced, "Rossil, zlin who's come to visit. It's Eskalie!"

Any hope that Rossil Morlin had forgotten--or forgiven--her defiance was shattered the instant she zlinned the cold anger diffusing through his nager. "So it is," he agreed.

Eskalie took an involuntary step backwards, almost bumping into Tallin. The Gen put a steadying hand on her back, and the soothing closeness of its unruffled nager allowed her to say calmly, "Hello, Father."

"'Hello, Father,'" Rossil mimicked savagely. "Do you hear that, Gretta? The girl disappears without a word of warning, and for seven months we hear absolutely nothing from her. No messenger, no letter, nothing. We wouldn't even have known she was in Tormin if my scapegrace, irresponsible little brother hadn't talked her into taking on the Forst Genfarm matter. Then she walks in here as if nothing happened. 'Hello, Father,' indeed!"

Even as she braced herself against her father's anger, Eskalie reflected that only Rossil Morlin would describe the much-decorated General Rabin Morlin, Commander of the Border Patrol's Eastern Division, in such terms.

Gretta seemed to share that assessment. "Now, Rossil," she chided him gently. "Don't you think you're overreacting?"

"Overreacting?" The elder Morlin's outrage was overdone, but no less sincere for that. "All we hear for seven months is that she's decided to become a professional investigator, of all things." His tone would have made it impossible for Eskalie to miss his low opinion of her chosen profession even if she'd been hypoconscious. "We spend seven months thinking she's living in the back room of some filthy third-floor office in a crumbling building in the worst section of town, occupied by prostitutes and pawnbrokers and who knows what else. We spend seven months worrying that our little girl is wearing patched cloth