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Biryar didn’t knohat he had expected froer, perhaps A sense of betrayal A rupture in their ement at worst He had laid out all that had happened: the interviews, the connection that had been cultivated during them, and—with his heart in his throat

—the kiss Mona sat across the breakfast table fro to every detail Only at the end, when he outlined all the precautions he was putting in place to see that it never happened again, did a line of concern draw itself on her forehead

“She just stole a kiss?” Mona asked “That’s all?”

“But I allowed myself to permit a sense of… of intirown cold and thick while he spoke “This was ain”

She’d taken his hand then, and when she spoke there was a seriousness in her voice so studied and careful that he suspected there was a ry with you at all Don’t beat yourself up over this, all right?”

He kissed her fingers, and the subject had never coain He went back to his duties with the relief of having dodged a bullet He policed hiression Biryar the man wasn’t to be trusted There was only roohtened his control and pushed out anything besides duty and decorum It was the only way

He attended er of the Association of Worlds and approved the trade agreements for the Transport Union He stood witness at another execution when Overstreet discovered a Laconian guard who had been extorting sexual favors from a local man He made his reports to the political officer back on Laconia and received guidance that tracked back to Winston Duarte himself

That he couldn’t sleep, that his food tasted strange and left his stoive him headaches, that he so at the botto slowly A few more weeks, and he would be fine, he was sure of it

He was able towas under control until the day the one-armed man reappeared

The conference was in Carlisle It was the third-largest city on the planet, and fewer than a million people lived in it and the area around it It was in a higher clime than Barradan and in the northern hemisphere where the seasonal shift htly briefer The trees were similar to the ones in Barradan, but with the cold weather, they had shriveled, wrinkled, and gone liround The reception and Biryar’s speech had been planned for a courtyard in the center of the ed direction as Biryar’s transport left Barradan, and a cold and bitter rain was pelting down from low clouds when he arrived As his liaison rushed him from his transport and into theto find some hint of the minty smell of wet Laconian soil Rain on Auberon s Or it ser One or the other

The liaison apologized his way down the wide, pale hallway The change in the weather had coht they would need to shift to the secondary venue—a public theater just across from the complex—until the last moment It would only take them a little tiovernment leaders taken there Biryar sed his annoyance and ined Duarte would have been in his place

The waiting area belonged to the mayor herself, part of her private apartment If he would make himself at home and be comfortable…

In fairness, the waiting roolasslooked out over a vast, wild landscape Rough, toothlike ray of the storm The rain that struck thefroze there for a moment, then melted and dripped down When the clouds finally cleared, the landscape would be encased in ice Ice like a second skin Ice like a shroud

His speech was on the i robust trade with the other syste the econo He knew it by heart Instead of reviewing it again, he sat on the little couch and looked out at the weather The door opened behind hiloves ca a tray with a thermos of coffee, two cups, and a plate of pastries

“Put them on the table here,” Biryar said “I can serve myself”