The World of Zekira History part 2

The World of Zekira: Legal Tender

A lifetime of service, that was how he would surely be remembered. Qhaleb drew in a long breath and smiled at himself. His younger companions came and went, in the huge household, but he remained. Steady, solid. He saw the looks that the other male Slaves got whenever he was chosen for a Breeding project by Lady Breeder Qez, and since he was considered almost normally fertile, that meant that he in fact had a good number of offspring running around. Without his name, of course, and without his proper heritage.

But that came with the knowledge that he'd be the one to carry on his one mother's line where she could not. That she was nearly sterile, and had borne him at all, that was the testiment to her abilities as a Breeder herself.

He continued to smile while he worked on the Hold, tidying up after a large, loud party that the Lady and her Lord brother had held the night before. There were still half a dozen people lounging or sleeping off their indulgences in the Hold, most of whom had found a room but a couple had to be dragged bodily around until they were on a couch or in a bed. It was after lugging one of those sloshy-brained Lords around with another Slave, that Qhaleb saw the Look again.

“What is it, Nikkal?” He asked. His voice was deep, he was a strong barrel chested middle-aged man, handsome – more than a Slave really had a right to be, especially since their Lady didn't use him herself as a personal attendant.

“It's you,” Nikkal said. “You're always around. I just wonder, why you don't get moved around more?” He patted down the cloth covering on the big wide couch, and they went on to the next room to survey the damage. “I've only been here what, a dozen years or so? And there have been five sales and two Bondings, but you've never been sold or raised.”

“Twelve years is hardly enough to determine a Slave's long-term value,” Qhaleb replied, as they folded a sheet. “But you are correct. I have not been sold off. That is probably because I mean a bit more to this family than other bought Slaves do.”

“Don't get so smug,” Nikkal said, shaking out a pillow. “How do you do it? Mind powers?”

“I do not have powers like that,” Qhaleb lied. “I do not need them. Not to remain here. It is as a service to my family.”

“Your folks were Slaves too?” Nikkal asked. He was faintly tactless, as many Permanently Bonded Slaves were. Then again, Qhaleb was of a much better stock than most Bayaran.

“No, I am here as a service to my half-sister and my cousin.”

“Annnnnd, they're who?” Nikkal asked, polishing up a single glass vase that had not been tipped over. Everything else in the room looked as though a tornado had ripped through it. Nothing broken, thankfully, but not one piece of furniture or accessory was still in its proper place.

“Lady Breeder Qez, of course,” Qhaleb said, turning away and grinning madly. He loved playing with Nikkal. He wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, either. It might take him a while to get this one. So, Qhaleb turned back. The look on Nikkal's greeny-yellow face was precious. “Qez is my younger half-sister, on her mother's side. She is my cousin on my mother's side.” That provoked an initial response of ‘oh-I-get-it' but that predictably slid into the ‘huh?' stage.

“What?” Nikkal said.

“I have two mothers, and several fathers, and Qez is my sister-cousin because we share our one mother, Lady Breeder Haloq.” Qhaleb sighed. “I miss her. She always kept the pair of them more calm.”

Nikkal merely stared blankly at the Slave beside him. “Okay. So, you have ... two mothers.”

“And several fathers. But I never met them. In fact I don't even have the slightest idea if it matters. They don't make up enough of my gene pool to matter. Not with what the Lady Breeder did with them.”

“I cannot follow this any more,” Nikkal shook his head, and turned back to work. “I'm glad you're happy, Qhaleb, I guess it must be nice to... Wait a minute,” Nikkal finally said, standing up and gazing again at his servant-companion. “That makes you ... what, what?”

“It makes me Lady Bhez's son, yes, but only barely.”

“Then why aren't you commanding us instead?” Nikkal shook his head, and moved the black-green hair out of his eyes. “That makes no sense.”

“Of course it does. I am merely my mother's prize. I think she keeps me close because I remind her of Lady Breeder Haloq. And when she is angry, of course. I can keep her occupied when she is in need of thrashing about.”

Nikkal turned away, and suppressed a shudder. “I don't envy you that. Any Slave gets a beating, it's one thing. But to take what she doles out? I... Could never take it. I Obey pretty well, don't you think?”

“I do think, Nikkal,” Qhaleb said with a smile, “I do.”

Qhaleb became the storyteller for the Slave children. It was a job that he enjoyed, especially since it didn't involve a lot of picking things up and lifting. He had injured his back, and his Lady had the good sense not to put him back on hard duties right away. Plus, there were three children that needed tending. They were youngish, none more than eight years, and they were going to need the kind of education that he could give them. Their parents had landed them into such familial debt that they would never be able to pay off a Bayaran.

And Lady Bhez was quickly on her way to becoming something new: the Suzerain status that had gone into effect some sixty years before was looking quite appealing to her. She'd always been good with numbers, and great with people. That was apparently her father's doing. The Lady was shortly to become Suzerinne Bhez, something she and her stock were happy with. That meant she could Hold more and Sell more, things would get busier.

Qhaleb gathered the three boys, and they sat somewhat impatiently before him in their well-lit square room. He knew they were a bit excitable – and today he wanted to give them a taste of the sweet little things that Slaves could claim for themselves. “There was a day not so very long ago, when the safety of the Land President was endangered.” He began. They immediately calmed, his Empathic ability was tuning well to this work. “Since we have only had very few Land Presidents, this was a significant event in our history. High Master Eshoy was enjoying a day hiking and touring a new portion of Stetil that he was thinking of Holding. You know that Stetil is packed with high, sharp peaks, and snow almost year-round?” The children nodded, he'd taught them that much in the days before. “Well this was spring time, there were many beautiful streams of cold icy water draining from the snow pack. HighMaster Eshoy and his group were led around a trail that had been made just the year before, by explorers. When he was rounding a certain pass, one of the great grey boulders above him broke loose!” He paused and sent a small empathic nudge to the children, who gasped and trembled, “the rock fell at great speed, toward the unsuspecting hikers!”

He paused again, taking a sip of water. The trio of boys had the whites of their eyes showing brightly, transfixed. “What happened?!” Asked one. Qhaleb held his violet-spotted hand up to calm him.

“Well, the rock loosened many other smaller ones, and that caused a landslide. This was mere spans away from the pass! High Master Eshoy was pulled back away from the path of the tumbling stones by his faithful Slave Melleth, but even so, they were both injured.”

“What happened then? Where were they injured?” Asked another boy.

“The High Master's leg was crushed – they would never be able to really heal it completely. He was to wear a brace on his leg for the rest of his lucrative life. But the Slave, he came away with his foot broken, and his arm horribly scraped by the sharp sides of the rocks. But there was more to this than met the eye!”

“Oooohhh,” the boys intoned. Exactly as Qhaleb wanted them to.

“Even with his foot in shambles, and bleeding from his arm most profusely, Melleth rose and looked up to the peak. There, he thought he had seen motion. He was a bodyguard, trained well. He left his HighMaster in the care of the healer in the group, and went himself up the side of the rock face!”

“Didn't it hurt?”

“Of course it hurt,” Qhaleb said quietly, “Melleth was very brave. He ignored the pain in his body, because of his love for his High Master. There up on the top of the cliffside, was a raggedy man, a Worker named Kacha who had left his mining job that day to ‘watch the President go by'. But that wasn't all he wanted to do! He wished to kill the Land President, to make some kind of statement!”

“What did he want to say?” Asked the third, more quiet boy.

Qhaleb turned and his tan-brown eyes blinked. “He was disgruntled that the Workers did not vote for the Presidents spots. That was all.”

“But we don't get to vote at all.”

“That is correct, we are Slaves. We do not need to vote. Our Owners do that for us.”

“Then wasn't he right to complain?” The first asked.

“No, the laws do not work that way, little Fel. When the Land needs a President, when there have been disasters or there is some other need, the Land Holders and higher Status folk appoint them. Our job is to serve, theirs is a much harder service than ours is.”

“What happened to the Worker and the Slave on the cliff?” Asked the other child.

“Ah – thank you. Melleth chased the Worker back down to the trails, where the group apprehended him. It was hard work, because he was meant for mine working, and miners are often quite strong and hardy.”

“Like you are?”

“I'm hardly as strong as you'd like me to be,” Qhaleb said, with a laugh. “My poor back has seen better days. I'm quite glad that I do not work in a mine!” He glanced over the delicate features on each of these three, “and you lot should be glad you do not either. Our Suzerinne-to-be fortunately does not Hold any mining lands.”

“Anyway,” Qhaleb continued after a moment of pondering, “the Worker was taken back with them. The pass would have to be cleared, and the President would have to be given treatments for his agonizing leg. The Slave, Melleth, though...”

“What happened to him!?”

“He was given his Freedom – Raised straight from Slave up to Worker. He remained with High Master Eshoy during his employment as well. His training served him very well in his working life. Your training will be well suited to your work.”

“What will I do?” Asked the most beautiful of them. His long white hair looked equally good when short or in its current tail, and his faintly white-tinted peachy skin was a prize that his Lady surely thought was worth keeping. “You, my young Zehn, will probably be suited to personal work. You should learn the way to keep your Lady or Lord happiest. You have not been tested for any mutations yet, have you?”

The three boys all shook their heads. “That will come soon enough. You're a little young yet for that. For the moment I would be willing to be that you Fel will excell at helping a Lord or Lady place their betting at a race.” The young lad sat straighter up.

“That's because I'm good with numbers, right?” Fel said.

“Yes, that is true. And you Polin, you're definitely going to work with plants. I can feel that much from you. I would put money – you could help, Fel – that when they test you, you're going to show some flora tunings.”

The boys seemed satisfied. The lesson hadn't really gone entirely the way that Qhaleb intended, and it looked as though Fel might turn into one of those Slaves who wished he was a higher Status. Polin the plant-sensitive showed a higher degree of intelligence, but he also seemed to understand that knowing something, and enacting it, were different things. He would be happy to know how the laws worked – but he didn't necessarily need to affect them himself.

The boys got up and thanked the Slave for his lesson, they were all more polite after a lesson than they were going in. Qhaleb carefully got himself off the cushion he was sitting on, and found that he was being watched with bemusement by his mother, his Lady, his Suzerinne, Bhez.

“A nice ending,” she said. “You saved that one.”

“I like to think they can save it themselves,” Qhaleb said. “My Lady, have the papers gone through?”

“Tonight,” she beamed, “tonight. And tomorrow, I'm going to petition for a law class.”

“Oh?” Qhaleb said, “that seems ambitious.”

“Hardly – I've been looking over the laws, and you know how I feel about getting things right the first time.”

“If I may say so without incurring your mighty wrath, my mother? It took you long enough.”

Though he was ready for any ire that might spur her on to beating him, this time Bhez was in more than good enough spirits to simply laugh and embrace her Slave son.

It was fifteen years to the day after Suzerinne Bhez got her law practice going, that she helped win a most effective case. She was growing old, as well, and this felt like a victory that she would savor – cheated of the time to truly enjoy it. Attended by her helpful Fel and her ever-present Qhaleb, the Suzerinne presented the last bits of evidence that Lord Zrkee Zhkaahaa had contrived the need to have a Bayaran placed exactly where she could do the least amount of work. Obviously, that would lead to her eventual Slavery – something she intended to avoid at any cost. The cost really? Was that she for two years was to live again in Bayaran but this time to Bhez. During the extended trial and courtroom drama, Bhez had not only taken on the Bayaran's case, but she'd thrown enough money at Zhkaahaa to get Renta into her own camp.

Fel would be on his way toward Bayaran, soon enough, if this case was going the way it seemed to be. The judge looked over the final evidence, and glanced at the Lord. “You've put yourself in a most odd position, Lord Zrkee, wouldn't you say?”

“I have nothing to say, Judge Oda.”

“Good,” the judge said, “because you've brought me to make a more broad decision than I would have, if I'd never seen you before. As the court might know,” he said, looking over everyone in the room, including the media who had two cameras there and were broadcasting to the local Area stations, “I am involved in researching legal matters such as Bond laws. Payment schemes like this one, Zhkaahaa's in particular, have come across my desks before today. It has made me painfully aware that certain Bayaran are being exploited and pushed into jobs that they have no prior training for. This situation as of this moment will be permanently rectified. My colleagues and I have developed a plan, and Suzerinne I would dearly appreciate your input to it as well, after I pronounce this case finished,” he waited for her nod, which she gave – Qhaleb could feel her excitement at the matter, though her exterior was quite calm.

“Lord Zrkee Zhkaahaa, you have been found guilty of Bayaran abuse. In this case I will formally announce that your Bayaran are to be immediately Raised and all prior debts to you be nullified. Your Slaves will not be placed as Bayaran, however. You obviously should not be trusted to keep them either,” he said with a baleful gleam in his golden-orange eye, “but since this case did not examine the situation with your Owned Stock I will not presume to judge it. I expect your full cooperation and all the paperwork to be delivered to a qualified Bond agency –”

“I am a qualified Bond agent!” Zhkaahaa bellowed. “This is an outrage! I can do as I wish with the Bayaran in my service, and I will hardly see fit to give them up to y-”

“If you do not calm yourself immediately, Zrkee, I will have Suzerinne Bhez here make you calm. You are aware that she can do that.”

“And will,” She added quietly. “Boorish actions like that are hardly fitting of a man of your station. Suck it up, Zhkaahaa. You've merely lost your Bayaran. It could have been more.”

If Zrkee wasn't already a shade of plum-violet, he'd surely have turned it, stewing in anger.

“Further, however,” the judge continued, “I will no longer allow you to place any individual no matter their need, in your care as Bayaran. Needless to say the other judges and lawgivers of this Area will be watching you closely, Lord Zhkaahaa, so if I were you, I'd watch where I put my Slaves as well.”

With a final bluster to his clear outrage, a wordless growl coming from the Lord's throat, he vanished from the courtroom with a flurry of papers coming from his briefcase. His two Membayar lawyers packed up those papers more carefully, both of them apparently glad that they weren't named in the suit as well – though they could have been.

When the Lord and his people were out of the room, judge Oda beckoned Bhez near the big table where he sat. The one camera crew had followed Zrkee, but another remained. Perhaps there would be something amazing happening, here.

There was.

“I would like to say that even though you do have a bit of a reputation for being somewhat... prone to violence?” The judge said, “your work here has inspired myself and others to offer a Land-wide law proclamation. If you would, please take a look at the contents.”

Qhaleb and Fel got the chance to look over their Suzerinne's shoulders to read the document, which basically summed up would give Bayaran the chance to work at their skilled jobs – provided they had one before going into debt – and not be placed into an inappropriate location or position against their will. If they wished to learn how to garden after being a maid, that's one thing. But if they petitioned for a job suited for their level of skill, they would have to be placed in one.

Bhez smiled, widely. “What do you think, boys?” She asked, and Fel glanced doubtfully at the older Qhaleb – he wasn't sure whether he was allowed to say what he really thought.

“I think it is a grand piece of work, very important,” Qhaleb announced, and Fel nodded.

“It's a lot of work, do you think that it will be voted in?” Fel asked, and the judge nodded.

“It will not be difficult to convince Membayar to vote for it – and given the typical lack of response from Lords in voting matters, I doubt that it will be opposed in any organized manner.”

At that, the court's remaining camera-person cleared his throat. He might be a Worker, but he might also have something to say. The judge folded his grey-colored hands around themselves, and nodded at the man.

“I think I would like to ask for some interviews now, if I might?” He flashed a bright smile, “I think today is a very special day for Bayaran around the world...”

“You know that this complicates everything for you,” Qez said. They were now merely cousins, ones mourning the loss of Suzerinne Bhez. “Do you have any idea how many children you've actually got?”

“I have no children, Qez,” Qhaleb said quietly. “But I would surely like to meet one or two of them. I would choose who will Inherit this fortune.”

Qez nodded, only slightly younger than he and both of them were showing signs that they too would be growing older shortly. “I'll get some information to you soon.” She turned her red-brown eyes toward the casket, which would be buried in the estate where Qhaleb and she had been born. “She did great things, Qhaleb, I never thought she would have so much compassion, really.”

“It took her a number of years to learn it,” Qhaleb said.

Qez was silent, thinking deeply on that. Then, she said in a whisper so that others in the room did not hear, “you did that, didn't you?”

“Changed her mind about the Bayaran? I nudged her in that direction, and I rewarded her when she went the right ways.”

“That's...”

“That is what I do, Qez, do you think that someone of my breeding would allow too much more abuse? Do remember that I am heavily empathic. I would come back to the Slave quarters and feel every moment of agony coming from the boys she'd beaten. They should hardly have to look forward to that.” He gave a nod to one of the other visiting mourners, and turned back to Qez. “Plus it got easier once she was older. Her own powers faded rapidly, you understand.”

Qez wasn't quite sure what to make of this, but she was never going to say that it wasn't in his blood. It clearly was. Their grandfather had been a master manipulator, and thus the offspring could be as well. “I'll bring you some pictures and information, just give me a call. Lord Qhaleb?”

He looked up immediately.

“Well, that didn't take long,” Qez smirked and left the room after paying respects to her aunt.

LandMaster Fel came toward the casket and shook ‘Lord' Qhaleb's hand. “I'm... Not sure what to say. I'm not happy she's gone, but congratulations to you, sir.”

“And you,” Qhaleb said. “You will be well on your way to whatever status you deem worthwile, Fel. I knew you could do it.”

They stood in a pleasant silence for a moment, ex-slaves often would do that. Whether they were both appreciating their new Status, or just trying to find ways to avoid smiling like idiots after having been Raised (in both cases, significantly) because of the death of this woman, was a mystery that neither wanted to explore.

Finally, Fel said, “I do wonder, though, why you dote upon her like this. She was... Well, she was a vicious woman at times.”

“Yes, she was.” Qhaleb said with a smile. “Such my mother was.”

“I never heard her call you son,” Fel said, “nor that she loved you.”

“But she did, Fel,” Qhaleb told him, “she did. Here I am, the Lord of her estate. Her own brother inherited only a small portion – he's got his own worries and I'm sure that he will be in need of your services soon enough.” He sighed, “no, Fel, she did not need to tell me anything of the sort. She was a Lady, and I her Slave. It would have been grossly inappropriate to choose to lower herself to being my mother, the mother of a servant.”

“Sometimes, Qhaleb, I don't understand you at all,” Fel said. He too bid Suzerinne Bhez farewell into the next world, and left the funeral service. He would attend others, not the least of which would be his friend Qhaleb's, within only another twenty years.

“Do you remember when we came here the first time?” Asked the brightly-violet skinned girl of her companion.

“I do, and it was so dreary... Everyone had gone, and there was a funeral wreath still hanging.” The spotted-brown skinned girl next to her said. They were examining the entrance to the Estate at Mada. It was old, perhaps three or four hundred years old. It was starting to look that way too.

Naaki, the brown colored grand-daughter of Qhaleb, glanced over the wood and tsked her tongue. “This is going to rot.”

“We've been having some warm weather, miss,” Said one of the remaining Slaves of the estate. He'd stayed on, serving no one specifically, because he knew he was much too old to be sold. Though he was still a Slave, he was treated more like a Worker, especially by the girls who had showed up to claim their Inheritance properly.

“Well, there are treatments for such things available,” Naaki announced flatly. “It could save us a lot of time and effort if we just start the renovations now.”

Her cousin Khadai nodded in agreement. Though they had both been Raised from Slavery into their Holdings, they did behave more like proper Holders than servants. Trained well, though, they both almost flinched when the Membayar they'd left in charge of fixing the estate up shouted from across the courtyard to them.

“Heyo! You're finally here, good, good,” he approached. He was a portly and pasty-skinned man, too much fat for either woman's taste yet he had a handsome smile. The young women always walked on eggshells around him though – he was well known as a Hard Stock auctioneer, and they'd both encountered him separately before being Raised.

“We are, but we're looking at a lot more of a mess than I remember there being,” said Khadai, seriously. “Lemlo, you told me that you'd be able to have the place fixed up within a year. It's been ninteen months, and nothing!”

The large framed man swung his arms over the pair's shoulders, nearly crushing both of them with his weight. “Now, now, you don't expect a miracle to happen overnight, do you?”

“I expected you to be as good as your word, which isn't amounting to much,” Khadai said, grunting and forcing his arm off her. “The contract was for short term success. I see no success, and the short term is rapidly turning into something longer.”

“We don't have time for this kind of waste,” Naaki said, as the Membayar began to get a concerned frown on his flabby face.

One of them he could probably handle. But two? And such young things? Lemlo briefly wondered what it was about them that made him nervous. They'd been Raised, and that was probably half of it. He mistrusted Slaves that became anything else. He wasn't much for Raising. He was more a ‘best value for your money' sort of guy. He'd of course voted against the Worker Laws back in '27 – why make things more difficult to Bond someone? If they were intent on being in debt that was their look-out. And people like himself were always there to care for them. But of course, the Ka bastard was elected a couple more times, for no apparent reason that Lemlo could sense.

Khadai watched the man intently. Though she didn't have a strong psionic presence, she did always seem to know what someone was thinking just by the way their body moved. Few indeed were the people she'd ever encountered in her fifty years, that she could not read that way. Lemlo wasn't one of those few. He sweated, panted, his heart obviously fluttered (though those things were halfway because he was so overweight), his sallow eyes moved between the two women nervously and he fiddled with his hands. She noted all these things almost subconsciously, and packed them together to add up what was going on.

They were being ripped off, that was what she saw.

“Lemlo, let's put this out on the table because I'm tired of wondering if you think we're idiots.” Khadai said, her own feet planted firmly and her neck arched down to look at him through serious golden eyes. “You are cheating us out of our contractual due. We would like you to finish the job, or refund our money for the work you have clearly not done on our estate.”

“See here – I - ” He sputtered, but then the other shark in the water started circling.

“Lemlo, I know you're afraid of me,” she tilted her own head, just like her cousin's. “I know because it's my job to know. I filtered out the bad visitors from the good, for my Lord. Now that I'm working for myself, I can still do that job, you know. It's not something that I have easily forgotten how to do.”

“That's ... admirable,” Master Lemlo said. “But I can't see what-”

“Let me show you, then,” Khadai said, and she firmly took his elbow and walked toward the estate.

Mada's summers had indeed been growing warmer, but the storms had never abated. There was always one edge of the endless storm circling the planet, hitting Mada and other such towns. Though there were forests to the north, and the gigantic mountains of Polaen, Mada was always graced with a bit of warmth with their downpours. The end effect of which was that this estate that their great-grandfather had set up, was rotting from the inside out. Damp and warm today, but when the place was built the climate seemed to be a bit cooler all year round. They hadn't counted on such things... But the pair of women knew that they could account for it now.

Refitting the place for new beams would be the hardest and costliest piece of work. They knew that Lemlo had contacts in the wood industry, and they'd contacted him specifically because his name was one they knew. They realized their mistake, now.

“This whole floor should have been refit, torn up if need be,” Khadai said, as she kicked at a loose board. “And it does, need to be. Look at this mess. It's hardly fit for even a Slave to live in, it's hardly luxury! Look – the window sills are all warping away from the wall, and the beam!” She exclaimed as they walked into the huge hall central to the estate, “look at it. I don't dare put that chandelier back up on it, it'll fall in a moment.”

“You sound like a Lady already,” muttered a male voice, from a corner. Lemlo started and almost cried out, but calmed himself. He knew this Free Holder too – a former Bayaran whose inheritance also brought him up to the same level as the women. Another of Qhaleb's distant and unknown offspring brought together.

“Mhorlait,” Naaki grunted. “Didn't see you come in.”

“That's right, you didn't.” He said, grinning. He was dark against the shadows in the corner, where a big curtain had fallen onto the floor and was draped over two couches and half the mantlepiece of the huge fireplace. When he stood, the light hit him, and his skin changed color to a more bright shade of reddish brown, then settled into a sort of wood color – the same shade as the floor.

“Well, the good Holders here were going through the ... list of –”

“Complaints,” Mhorlait completed for the Membayar. “They were going over the list of things that you promised and didn't deliver, Master Lemlo.”

Great – Lemlo thought – Now all three of them. What next? The Slave in the hallway going to jump out at him too?

“Well,” he said, as though they'd reached an agreement. “I can see that I have my work cut out for me.”

“I think you should pay us back and get out,” Mhorlait said, not quite casually. More caustic, actually. The girls found themselves agreeing with their much younger cousin. Naaki especially, who took a step toward him and turned back to look at Lemlo over her shoulder. He did look much too fat to get anything done.

The threesome of cousins, Inheritors, gazed at the Membayar in the middle of their wreck of an estate, and among them their powers seemed to grow.

“I will get my contracts in hand, and we will look over them,” Lemlo stated hurriedly. “Now if you will excuse me please, I have another appointment that is very pressing.”

He turned on his heel and trundled back out of the estate, and got back into his carriage. It sagged with his weight, and the Bayaran who held the reins urged the Steeds into a trot. The trio stood in the doorway, behind them their not-really-Owned servant.

“Landmistress, Landmaster? Would you care to see what I have done with the garden and gazebo in the meantime?” He asked, cordial.

“If it involves a spot of wine and cheese, I'm up for it,” Khadai said. She changed her tone so quickly, from the assault on Lemlo to the casual chipper addressing the Slave. “I'm positive that you've done a good job, Polin. I always wondered how you got the blooms to keep shining even in winter.”

“I am flora-tuned, Landmistress,” he said, smiling. He led them into the back of the building, and out to the rear courts. Where once stood the grand statues and collection of exotic items that their ancestress had created, was now a garden that could have grown quite wild in the intervening decades. However, Polin had always kept Qhaleb's words in his heart. He did love plants, and he loved the estate where he'd spent all of his life.

The trio of Land Holders sat in the gazebo, looking out at the wonderful garden, until one of them turned to Polin. He lay slumped in the chair just on the side of the stairs, still. Between the three cousins, they knew he'd died.

“Aw, crap,” Naaki said. “We're never going to get this garden to behave now.”

The trio was joined by the other pair of Inheritors that Qhaleb had chosen before his death. Endree, a woman Raised from Bayaran out of her parents' Slave status, trained for organizational work and filing. The other was Theakhid, the youngest of their group by a year, only halfway through his twenties. He was the most perceptive of the cousins, psionically speaking, while Endree seemed to have a distinct lack of good luck in that realm. It looked as though whenever someone nearby would use a psionic ability, she'd get some kind of headache or backlash from it even though it wasn't aimed at her. It did give her a unique method of determining whether someone in a room was Bred, though.

Among the five of them, they'd split several Holds up and sold off enough of the things they did not need nor want to keep themselves in decent luxury for a good long while. They did not all share the Estate, but that was why they'd called this meeting together. To see about really fixing it up, making it into a party house the way it used to be.

“Remember that we're just lowly Slaves and Bayaran at heart,” Endree said quietly. Her red-violet skin contrasted with her short bright blue-green hair. “We don't know how to throw parties.”

The others laughed loudly at that. Of course it was a joke – among Slaves and Bayaran, who best knew how to run a party? Who was the one with the tray of fruit? Who served the wine at the proper chill? Who set up the tables and chairs with all the silverware in their proper places? Who occasionally was called upon to actually do the invitations and deliver them?

That's right. The Slaves and Bayaran.

“I suppose it would be far too much to ask, if we invited the Lords and Ladies that we know,” Theakhid asked. He was halfway serious, too. “I mean, they don't much care for Workers and Holders coming to their parties, but... Who else do we know?”

“Maybe we don't need to know anyone,” Khadai said with a thoughtful look on her diamond-shaped face. “We can make our own group. There are hundreds of Workers and Land Holders here in Mada, who would probably jump at the chance to have a nice party.”

“We still have to fix this place up, though,” Naaki said.

“Will you stop putting a damper on everything?” Mhorlait quipped.

“No, I will not. How are we meant to put on a decent party until the place isn't going to fall apart under our feet!?” Naaki stood up. “Look at that.” She pointed with her brown-striped finger up to the ceiling. “That part of the wall is almost going to peel away from the stairwell. If that falls, it'll kill someone. And needless to say I don't even go up the stairs. That is suicide.”

After a moment of pondering, grumbling and sullen silence, Theakhid asked a question. “How many people used to live here?”

Khadai glanced through a pile of papers. “Close to a dozen, I think. That might or might not include Slaves, though. It's always hard to tell with their records.”

“But we've got at least six good bedrooms, upstairs, and three suites down here,” Naaki pointed out. “Plus the Slave quarters around back, which can house what, six more? Comfortably, too, their quarters weren't cheap.”

“And a ballroom, an art gallery, and that turret with the haunted bathroom?” Said Mhorlait, “I've always wanted to find out what happened there...”

“What have you got, Endree?” Asked Naaki.

“I've got a twin-towered Hold that has a courtyard filled with weeds, but its heating system is superb and it's got three very sound suites with little kitchens attached to them. I don't know what they were thinking.”

“They were probably thinking it'd be a good long-term-stay type place.” Khadai said, nodding. “Is there anything else sellable in it? I'm just trying to figure out how much it's going to cost to actually renovate the place.”

“Why didn't we go after Lemlo?” Theakhid asked. The three estate Holders just glared at him. “Okay, okay, fine...”

“He's not going to be mentioned again,” Naaki grunted.

“Okay! Okay!”

“I don't want to sell the towers,” Endree said, quietly. “I like it.”

“Even with the weeds?” Jibed Mhorlait.

“Especially with the weeds. They're charming. Smelly, but charming.”

“... Smelly?” said the others, in unison.

“In a good way!” Endree exclaimed, “honestly you people!”

“We're just like you!” Mhorlait whined, doing an admirable emulation of his cousin.

“We need to fix the estate, and then we need to throw this magical party.” Said Khadai, matter of factly. The others looked at her, at the big table they were gathered around. “If we have to do it ourselves, we'll throw that party. And it will be the best party that any Land Mistress or Worker could ever attend. In fact it'll be better than any party our own Lords or Mistresses have thrown.”

With that said, they got to work. They started with estimates of what was actually going to need repair, and what had to be replaced. Raw material costs, from the manufacturers would come next. Building codes and permits to do new work would have to be examined, and the replacement of the ancient furnishings would come last. No, the garden would come somewhere in there too – it couldn't be last, because they knew that in order to have the smelly weeds that Endree had in her courtyard blooming properly across their own estate's grounds, they would have some planting to do.

“We're on a tighter budget than we used to be,” Mhorlait said.

“Is that a complaint?” Asked Naaki.

“Hardly. It's actually a lot more fun this way.” He grinned widely and then vanished into the big warehouse. They were looking for some wood trim, something to keep the blooming vines from creeping everywhere across the estate. When given the choice, apparently, that vine would rather cling to wood and climb around trees. It would not kill the trees, but if it went into the house they'd be smelling the heady odor of the blooms until it was unlivable.

What the pair was looking for was shortly found, and paid for, and brought back to the estate for working. But what they were actually achieving was an entirely different thing. In the process of finding the qualified workers for the jobs, locating the raw materials, and collecting the information and doing their research on how to actually renovate the place, they were impressing and catching the interest of every Worker, LandHolder and even a batch of Membayar who ran small businesses in Mada. When anyone asked, they found out that this batch of people had Inherited their Status, and were actually quite well prepared to keep it.

They were professional, together, smart. In fact some might say kind of scary when they were working together. The more of them there were, the more amazing they got.

The Qhaleb Kids, as they became known, inadvertently gave themselves the reputation of being swift and sure, charming and clever, and most importantly, they had this estate they were sprucing up.

So when the announcement went out that they were going to have a kind of formal Homestead Warming party, it was no surprise that every invitation they sent out got an immediate response. They would have to hire on some workers, so they went through one of the better Bond Agencies nearby. That would take care of the food and drinks, place settings and such. They found a florist who helped them trim up the smelly vines, but also to use the existing batches of flowering plants that Polin had tended so well during his life. A cook – none of them could cook worth a damn, so that was a given – that brought along his own staff of Bayaran.

The furnishings were a bit less grandiose than any of the five wanted, but on their budget they couldn't afford to really go all out on them. Plus, it really looked as though the more embroidery or ostentation on a couch there was? The less comfortable it was to sit on. They chose practical things, silverware that wasn't completely overflowery, who would want to steal it? The plates and dinnerware were sedate, but matching.

It was the best they could do.

It was probably the party of the decade. A number of Owners showed up to crash it, and found themselves being out-done by a bunch of LandHolders? One of them stuck around, while his two snooty companions took their Slaves and went back to make their own party. The wood seller and the gardener got on famously, but it became clear that the cook and his entourage would have to be kept away from Naaki, and when one of the cook's Bayaran made a comment about the vine blooms overshadowing the smell of their wonderful meal Endree almost fired him there and then. But it went off without any real glitches.

It was an endless night of talking, discovering neighbors and making the foundations of a very solid friendship group. Theakhid took some pictures – something he had wanted to do all the while he was a Slave and was denied.

At the end of the party – which went well into the wee hours of the next morning, and made half the attendees quite late to work (which didn't matter much, since their employers were just as late, seeing as they were also at the party), the cousins lay exhausted in the pit of the huge square sectional couch. The ballroom made for a much better party locale than the gazebo, since it was easier to clean up. The polished floors were strewn with napkins and one or two broken dishes, scuff marks, and one lone sleeping man.

“Who is that?” Asked Naaki.

“That's the Lord who showed up, remember? His friends were the idiots that told us we couldn't do a party if it was the last thing we did. Then they left because we had better food than he'd tasted in years.” Mhorlait gloated tiredly.

The man stirred, moving a pile of plain white napkins off his shoulders. Someone had used his curly hair to set a pair of flowers into, as a joke. Apparently he'd been asleep for a long time.

“Welcome to the day after,” Khadai purred tiredly. The sun was coming up. The whole ballroom looked bleached out, the east facing windows had but simple white lace curtains on them, and let all the glory of the sun into the wide room. The red-blond wood of the floor and the trim along every other surface glowed brilliantly in the dawn.

The Lord made some kind of gurgling noise, but then shifted himself around so that he could see everyone. With no embarrassment whatsoever on his round-cheeked face, he grinned and said, “great party. Can I join you? I'm really tired of the people I hang out with.”

“What exactly do you see in him?” Asked Theakhid of his cousin Endree. She shrugged, an inelegant move for someone as normally eloquent as she.

“He's... he's cute. I like him, is all. Why? Does it matter?” Endree replied. “It's because he's an Owner, isn't it?”

“He's not even an Owner any more, Endree,” Theakhid said, “he's divested, and he's a complete slacker! He doesn't even have a job!”

“But he has Land, and Holdings, just like we do.”

“But we have jobs too, Endree,” the youngest Inheritor insisted. He was exhasperated, because when they'd allowed Lord (now LandMaster) Veen into their lives, he had stuck there with a tenacity that even the smelly vines outside the Mada Estate didn't have. He had steadfastly stood by them when the collectors for certain bills came through, and had endeared himself to the girls. But for some reason, Thea and Mhor didn't like him in the slightest. Not after getting to know him, anyway.

It was not because Veen was a bad person. Quite the contrary, he was very nice, well mannered for a Lordling, generous to a fault, and hardly at all like other Owners they'd all known. But he was so... clingy. He didn't know when to leave, even though he had a nearby Homestead. He was always around, the neighbor who just never knew when to quit. Half the time, Veen would be found sleeping in one of the couches or the guest room – if not the bathtub if it was one of those nights for him. He was always smiling, when he wasn't asleep – and that was about half the time.

Theakhid drew in a sigh. They had been brought together now nearly twenty years, and just under half that was spent with their sixth member, Veen, tagging along. He was able to get them into certain places they otherwise weren't welcome, one or two parties where they established contacts with crafters and even an Animal Master or two. But that was, in Thea's opinion, small effort compared to what they all went through for him. Half the time, he didn't have his money on him – which was a travesty. They wound up paying his way to several events until they actually ganged up on him and changed how he handled his own cash.

Veen right at this moment, was upstairs in a bed being tended by a Healer for a fever. The Healer would be staying on, it appeared, until the ex-Lord was well. That meant that the estate's food supply, laundry service, and other such sundries, were going to be even further depleted.

It wasn't bad enough that Veen was apt to give his own money away at a moment's notice. It was that he seemed to do it for other people too. Whether they wanted him to or not. It just happened that way.

Endree thought for a moment on Veen's rose-colored face, how his bright yellowy-orange hair framed it, his beautiful smile... And melted again.

“I'm sorry, Thea, what were you saying?” She asked, and then jolted when the door upstairs clacked shut.

“He's going to be all right, I must have some tea. You do not have any proper servants, do you?” Asked the Healer, with a bit of a taint in her voice. The disdain for the group of LandMasters was clear, but she was obviously not above remaining there for her own friend's sake.

“Of course we have tea,” Endree said, and scampered off to get some. Theakhid watched her, and then turned back to the Healer.

“You know, I don't think you see it either.” He said.

“What would that be, LandMaster?” She said, nearly spitting out the words.

“That you're all women. All of Veen's best friends are women.” He said blandly.

“And there is something wrong with that? I would think it is jealousy that runs in your veins, Land Master.” The Healer accepted Endree's offering of tea, and went back upstairs abruptly. Her charge was coughing.

Endree turned to her cousin. “What did you say to her? She's a very well-qualified healer, Thea, it's not good to make healers angry.”

“I've got my own,” Thea said, “and he's not blinded by hormones or something. Whatever it is.” Theakhid turned and went to the office room where he had been looking at maps and balancing figures.

“What are you looking over, there?” Endree asked, from the doorway. The way Thea was behaving she might think he didn't want to be interrupted.

“It's a map of Altem, I've been thinking of investing. There is a small new Zone called Imat, it's got some prime Lands up for Holding, and it'll be a good area for transportation and gathering. I'm thinking an inn would be a good thing to have in a transport town.”

“That's a wonderful idea!” Endree exclaimed. “I must go up and see if Vee-”

“NO!” Thea shouted, pounding his fist on the table and rising angrily. “No, you will not. It is not his idea, and it is not his money, and I don't want him anywhere near Imat with my Holdings there!” When he saw the horrified, frightened look on his cousin's face, Theakhid immediately regretted yelling at her. “Endree, look – it's not that I don't want you to tell him, I just don't think he needs to be a part of everything we all do. If you want to let him into your place, that's great. But I don't. I'm capable of making my own way, and ... I don't think he can contribute to it.”

“I... see.” Endree said. Her voice was flat, so unlike her normal tone.

“Endree, I think you should stay away from him for a while.” Theakhid suggested, to the further ire of his cousin. “Endree, we all know that you get affected by powers – what if... What if he's using something subtle, maybe he doesn't even realize it? You'd be the very first target that it would hit, and you'd be hit hardest.” He paused, got up, and shut the door so that Endree didn't bolt out of the room. “Endree, I'm worried about you , not him. He might not be doing something maliciously, like I said he might not even know he's doing anything at all. And it's been ages since you have spoken to anyone else, gone anywhere without him. How about you and I go out to the Steed park, and see about taking a fly, how does that sound?”

“It sounds like you're trying to bribe me,” Endree said.

“Maybe I am. Is it working?” Thea said. He knew very well that Veen upstairs was doing ‘something' but he wasn't experienced enough with using his ability to tell just what it was. Over the last few years, his senses had grown outward, and now he could tell if there was an animal in the yards, who was where at a party, and even if someone was a strong psionic, at a distance.

Endree looked at the floor and the ceiling, and then back at her cousin. “Okay, I'll go with you. Can we see if-”

“No, we cannot see if Veen is healthy enough to go with us,” Theakhid cut her off, a little sharply. He twisted his mouth into a halfway grin, “sorry. Look, today it's just you and me. Okay?”

“All right.” Endree looked like she would turn black and collapse if she was away from Veen too long.

Theakhid closed up his reference books and shut the cabinet – locking it – and went outside for the Steeds to take them to the park. The group of Inheritors had three grounded Steeds to their estate, normally they would be hooked to the carriage, but Thea decided that Endree needed a good jolting ride. The park wasn't too far away, either, so it would be an easy ride even if she (or he) were distracted.

Their day went well, all things considered. Endree tried to slip away twice to vid-phone the estate and check up on Veen, but Theakhid distracted her with a snapping ribbon that he put into her hair, and a ride on an oversized cart drawn by four huge Steeds. The park was closing up for the evening, and they finally had to head back home.

When they got back to the estate, Naaki was home, and Endree swept past her to get to the upstairs bedrooms. Thea and Naaki could hear them above, as Endree gave off a croon and lavished Veen with talk of missing him and wanting to be by his side.

“Is this annoying you, or are you going to join her?” Theakhid asked his elder cousin.

Naaki sighed. “I know there's something going on. It's all I can do to stop myself from doing just that, cousin,” she admitted. “Which means that yes, there is something pretty strange happening here. And that's what is annoying me, not so much that Veen is a slacker twit.”

Thea laughed at that, “come on. I want to show you something I'm thinking of investing in. Keep it from Veen, right?”

“Got it.”

At least Thea could count on Naaki to keep her word. Her willpower was much stronger than their cousin's.

“I wonder if he could have known we'd wind up like this?” Theakhid asked of Mhorlait. “Two Membayar, one dead, one LandMistress and one back into Bayaran?”

Mhorlait shrugged. “I don't think he really planned it out this far, cousin, I think actually you're ascribing our grandfather a bit much in the way of forethought.”

“It is a pity about Endree,” Naaki commented, “but thank you, cousins, for keeping us all together.”

Mhorlait was the Bayaran. Endree and Veen had endured a stint as such, as well – after he convinced her to all but jump into the ocean with him on investments. It had been a good thing that Endree listened to Khadai once before she disappeared, and transferred her Holdings to the Estate itself. That way her Wa'bin Tower Inn became part of her cousins' transportation web. Khadai and Theakhid had thrown together in their investments, Naaki keeping them aware of habits on the landHolding front, and Mhorlait? He had gotten himself into tremendous trouble when he ‘accidentally' killed a rather rich Lady on his way into her husband's office to steal some information. Spy business was never quite what it was cut out to be in the viddies after all. There were debts that only his cousins wanted to incur with him. He was far too valuable – as a spy – to let him be thrown into prison or to be Bonded out to someone else. They paired up and invested Membayar status just to keep him on. As Membayar, Khadai and Theakhid did stunningly well – after a decade or so, Mhorlait wasn't the only Bayaran on hand that could sneak into places or acquire information in ways that weren't always legal. And there were always people that would be willing to pay for that kind of service.

Mhorlait was still the same slighty bitter, very blunt individual as he always had been, one hundred twenty years into his life. Yet he also seemed the most content to be in his Status. As long as he was put to good use, he claimed, there was no reason to think he'd be better off managing his own resources. So he clearly had no intent on going back into his Holdings – they were forfeit several years before when his cousins had to bail him out. He just liked to play spy.

Naaki enjoyed a fruitful partnership with a man that was so unlike Veen, Thea or Mhor – he was a simple Reimal Land Master himself, a Steed cabbie, with a good set of Steeds and the ability to fix their tack and make the carriages that they pulled. He could never have afforded a flying Steed – they were all grounded. Naaki and Yeldan took care of not only Endree's child with Veen, a frail girl named Evenree, but their own young boy they'd named Yanaak. Naaki had her hands full, but she still made the time to fly to Mada often enough.

The others had no offspring – that they knew of. Mhorlait hinted that he did, that his exploits around women were becoming legend. They weren't sure whether to believe him or not. Theakhid's attempts to even settle down with a woman were bringing him to believe that even though he was a nice enough guy? He just was too normal or perhaps too simple in relationships. He'd been born a Slave after all, and that would stick with him. He had no trouble getting a girlfriend, being a transportation expert he made the effort to impress anyone who came through Imat's inn. Yet it was keeping their interest which seemed to elude him. Khadai remained resolutely single as long as she could. She was sought-after, more by Breeders than anything else, and mostly due to her splendid coloration. It was that she really didn't want to give all that time to bearing a child that she might not keep.

They had gathered this day as a means of a small celebration. The Wa'bin territory had just been Zoned, meaning that the Towers were worth considerably more today than they had been a few years before. It was an unspoken agreement that Evenree, if she was healthy enough when she passed any exams, would be the one to take care of her mother's Inheritance. Mada would normally have been their group's destination, but this time they decided since Wa'bin was the focus, they all descended upon it.

By this time, of course, they'd all seen each of their separate Inheritances and Holdings. Yanaak giggled with pleasure at seeing his uncles and aunties, and Evenree made a brief appearance before she needed to take a rest. Her fragile health seemed to be a perfectly normal thing, according to the Breeders that they'd spoken to. Veen's inheritance to her, apparently. While he spent a lot of time being ill or being affected strongly by drinks or drug, Evenree's illness manifested itself in the form of an aversion to sunlight, exertion, and certain basic foods. Her diet had to be watched closely. Yanaak didn't understand why his ‘sister' didn't ever want to come out to play with him on nice days.

Yet, everyone knew that Evenree had much stronger psionic powers than her adoptive brother. She seemed to gather people around her, though she was growing into an age when she'd rather be left alone. She was only nine, her brother four, when Wa'bin was Zoned.

As the adults conversed about transportation lanes and Steed housing, Evenree slipped out of her daybed and walked quietly around the Towers. The smell of the vines was something she'd been used to since birth, of course, as they were now the mark of this family's Holdings. They spread anywhere, but since they weren't ugly things, and they grew decently enough in almost any climate, the Qhaleb group Holds could always be identified by it.

Someone else in Wa'bin had made her fortune by weaving the slender and durable vines into rope – Zoning Wa'bin had become a goal for that woman. Evenree faintly knew that history – just like she faintly knew tidbits about everyone around her.

“You're too quiet, uncle Mhorlait, you can come out now.” Evenree said. The chilly stone floor didn't bother her at all, even though her feet were bare. There would never be light gracing this particular corner of the Towers, and she found herself gravitating to it.

“You're good,” Mhorlait said, voice low but obviously with a smile. He flickered himself visible. His control over his camoflaging powers had grown, but he would never become truly invisible to the eye. That was perhaps a blessing. He'd go invisible and never come out again. “Do you want to test your powers?”

Evenree tilted her head. She was a pretty girl, with Veen's round cheeks, and Endree's stunning eyes. Mhorlait knew that to remain with this girl would probably be courting more disaster with his family, but like her father Veen, Evenree obviously had some kind of sway over him. Either that, or he was just a pervert. Both were possibilities.

“I would like to, but I get so tired. It's not fair,” she whispered. She always had such a willowy, whispery voice. Yet behind her voice, behind the facade of sadness or delicacy, there was a current of undenyable strength of mind and will.

“Then we will go easy and if you don't come for me, I will find you and make sure you're all right.” Mhor said, and Evenree nodded.

“Well then – I'll get going...” Mhorlait said, and to the unpracticed eye he seemed to simply vanish into thin air. Evenree could sense him, but she squinted anyway. There was a faint outline, he was merely mirroring the colors and shades of the area behind him. And since this was a darkened stone hallway, it wasn't all that challenging to him.

“Go on,” Evenree said, plainly.

She heard a chuckle from her great-uncle. “Well, that's one.” With that, he did start down the hall. He led a trail through the two stone buildings, the courtyard's shadows, and finally the basements. She caught him, with more effort going in to staying standing, than to actually having to locate him. She was quite expert at this, already – but she got better with time.

“There is no shame in telling us,” Naaki said to her neice. “It's not a problem, I am just curious. And the Breeders will want to know.”

“I do not have to tell them, either, they can just take gene samples and leave it at that.” Evenree stated flatly to her adoptive mother. The young Land Mistress had grown into a well-rounded woman in the years following Wa'bin's Zoning. It was a time that she spent studying and practicing her abilities, and trying to decide just what to do with herself. Apparently, that included becoming pregnant, with a mystery man.

Everyone had their suspicions, but Evenree was a very private young LandMistress, and her abilities to block out her family's psionic queries was very strong. They let her make the decision to keep the father anonymous, and tried to respect it. Khadai all but insisted that Mhorlait come clean, but she too remained silent on the matter because she respected the girl's privacy.

But it was his, and would shortly endanger Evenree's life again. She was not such a fragile creature that she'd die during child birth, but she did become frightfully ill the whole time. It was with grand relief that she, at the age of thirty, squeezed out a two-toned boy, along with the first loud yelling she'd ever managed to do in her life.

When all was said and done, Veni was the boy's name and he would remain with Evenree at the Inn. But he would be trained by the family, since the Breeder that looked the infant over said that he showed a strong potential for psionics. There was little chance he would be more mutated than his two-colored skin, nothing odd seemed ready to spring out of him, no horns, no extras.

Khadai was almost disappointed. Inbreeding should do that to people.

The family left the young mother alone, as was her wish, all but the Healer leaving the Inn. It was a big thing for the group – their first grandchild? They all sort of claimed kinship with him, as was proper, and everyone was most happy that Evenree lived through the event. It wouldn't do to have a child being raised without his mother.

Theakhid paced around the office, in clear distress, and was worrying his cousin. Khadai put her hand out to prevent him from walking around the room again. “Thea, these things happen.”

“Why do they always have to happen to me?!” He shouted, then slumped. “I shouldn't say that. It wasn't me killed, and I've already given my consolation to the family... But...”

Theakhid's bad luck with women had never been worse. Not only had he been dumped a decade before by a HighMistress who had at first been all over him – until she found out he'd been born a Slave that is – but just last week the best potential wife yet had been found brutally stabbed to death in Imaa's forest village of Nuris. Mistress Kaha had just told him how happy she was that she'd been able to release two Bayaran from their Bond service since they'd just discovered a knockout beautiful hot springs which she intended to develop into a tourist attraction...

“Was that it?” Thea muttered to himself. Khadai looked up curiously. He knew something, it had been on his mind for a couple days. Khadai knew it too, but she just didn't know what “it” was.

“Do you know what happened?” She asked.

“Well, I think I know something about it. I'm going to talk to the authorities about it.”

“Why don't you talk to Mhorlait about it instead?” Khadai said, sly. She knew that her cousin would jump at the chance to help the family out, he was like that. Especially since Veni was born, right? Khadai was the only one who really knew, both of them had the same way of talking about the event.

“I don't know if I want to involve him, and get us embroiled in something that might be more serious,” Thea said, jolting Khadai out of her thoughts. “I mean, if this... well, if whoever killed Kaha could do that to a person, what's to prevent them from doing it again?”

“Thinking only of the family, of course,” Khadai nodded. She'd put Mhorlait on it the moment she knew where to send him. Heck, maybe he could take Veni with him. He was young but boy was he powerful.

When Theakhid did his duty and reported what he thought might be suspicious events to the authorities of Imaa who were investigating the murder, he found out that in fact, they'd been following someone already.

One Lord Iat, who had prior business ties with the Mistress. He'd been using her Bond Agency to supply him with scouts and woodsmen, people able to work the Nuris area. It wasn't hard for Theakhid to put together that the call he'd gotten from his fiancee regarded a pair of his employees, those who he might have had more use for. The investigators thanked Thea, and got back to their work. It wasn't often that murders like this got solved.

But this time, they did, publically. Because Mistress Kaha's family was a powerful one, and because Iat's investments weren't all that sound, they managed to bring to the public eye everything that had transpired. With some satisfaction, then, Theakhid regarded her family highly. They appreciated his presence at the trials, regretted that they did not in fact have another daughter to send his way. He was such a nice man. Theakhid did his best to keep them near him, in the future.

Khadai was glad for that, too. His precarious balance between distress and elation was getting worse, and the nice man sometimes turned into a terrified boy.

When Veni got the first call in his new office, he nearly jumped out of his two-toned skin. His eyes went from a rich gold to a dark brown, as he focused himself and picked up the call. The vid showed a lanky young black-red skinned woman with peachy-pink hair, holding a bundle which looked to him like a baby. The woman looked scared.

She looked like a Slave.

Did he want this? His instincts screamed that he didn't, in fact, but he cleared his throat and for the first time said, “Veni Qhaleb's Detective Agency – I find what you've lost. Can I help you?”

“I – I hope you can,” she breathed. “My Lord has issued a reward for my capture... But I can't bring my baby back to him. He's going to kill her!”

“Where are you?” Asked Veni, throwing all forms of caution and good sense to the wind. “If you can't get to me, I can find you.”

The woman's eyes were brimmed with thick tears. “I don't know!” She hissed into the vid's microphone, “I've never been off my Lord's Hold! I'm so scared, I didn't know what to do... Someone said that you did things for people, I found your advertisement...”

Darkly, Veni hoped that her Lord didn't find it too. Wouldn't that be interesting?

... On the other hand, wouldn't that be interesting ?

“Is there a sign post anywhere? A store front?” He asked, and then more importantly, “Are you in Wa'bin?”

She nodded, “I'm next to a store that sells fruits and pastries, but I can't see that they have a sign...” She fussed for a moment with her baby, whose dark-cherry colored arm had worked its way out of the swaddling. “And the road is paved, all the others here are dirt.”

“I know where you are,” Veni said, with confidence. “I'll be there, and I'll have a grounded coach – it's got blue wheels. Remain near the store, but try to keep your face and the baby hidden.”

She nodded, and Veni saw her ducking while the connection faded. This would be an adventure. He brought the carriage out, harnessed the big yellow-grey gelding to it, and rode away from his office. His place was a sturdy two-story office-home, he lived on the top floor while his office and other sundry things were below. The yard was filled with his grandmother's vines, and he rarely had time to prune them. The newly placed sign for his business was the only place on the yard where the vines had been cut recently, and he meant to remember that he'd have to keep the rest of the yard under control so people could see it.

Veni rode out to the edge of town, where the paved roads began. It was still a somewhat rare thing to have a town this large with only four main roads, Wa'bin was largely known for its dramatic waterfalls and the fringe industry, woods and rope of course. There was talk of adding more roads, because some extremely rich fellow wanted to put in a hovercraft station and move people along more quickly.

Right now, more quickly was high on Veni's mind. The Slave and her baby were standing behind a tall display of flowers, next door to the fruit stand. He pulled the reins and gave a quick whistle to her. She darted out from the flower stand, looked around quickly, and then nearly lept into the carriage. It was an open four-seater, meaning that there was room for her to cower on the floor behind the driver. The baby began to cry, and she hushed it frantically.

“Relax, hush,” Veni said, and he exerted a bit of his powers. “No one is going to know you've even been here.” He glanced at the flower seller and the fruit stand, sensing three people within. They found themselves a bit confused a few minutes later, realizing that they had customers and no memory of them entering the shop.

Veni got the Slave home to his Hold, and she stood as nervous as one person could be, while he unhitched the carriage. Veni finally brushed himself off and shut the carriage house's doors, and escorted the woman into the back doors of his home. “My name is Veni, but you knew that,” he said. “What's yours?”

“Slave Hanoo, and this is Oolath,” she announced holding her baby. “Lord Xeos has already announced my reward...”

“I'm not going to turn you in,” Veni said. The woman visibly relaxed but she maintained a sharp-eyed glance at every window. “No one will know where you are, I can prevent people from remembering things like that. You're safe for the moment. I would like to know some things, though...”

The renegade Slave nodded. “It's that I was not supposed to be bearing this child. Lamath is her father, he's a Slave at another farm, belonging to Suzerinne Tal. She thought it was a good idea to introduce us, but my Lord didn't. It... just worked out this way.”

“But why would he be so infuriated with you for her? Oolath is a splendid child,” Veni said.

“She is, but... She was not supposed to be. My Lord wanted – me. Now, he's soured on that, and I will be caring for Oolath. Unless she goes away.” The look of fright and desperation crept back into Hanoo's burgandy-red eyes. “He is so ... what's the word? Hateful.”

“Vindictive,” Veni said, “yes. Owners can be like that.”

“Well he is. He's normally a generous man, I've attended parties and worked in his Hold long enough to know that. But I know he doesn't love his wife enough to keep this from her, and she hates me.”

“That doesn't help,” Veni said. “Have you tried contacting Suzerinne, what was it, Tal?”

“I tried, but she isn't in town. Ansvas – one of her Bayaran – told me that she's going to be out on business for the farm for another few days. I don't know where she's gone... She might be my only hope...” Hanoo clutched her baby, sobbing into the cloth swaddling.

“Hanoo, for the moment, just be my guest here. Relax. Take a bath, I'll make sure that there's food and drinks for you and Oolath.”

“But you're... You'd be housing a renegade, and I ... I don't want you to –”

“Don't worry about it, Hanoo,” Veni said, his eyes had shifted to a deep blue color. “I can find Suzerinne Tal, and I can make sure that your Lord doesn't find you here.” He paused, “there is a guest room to the left of the stairs up this way,” he indicated the top floor, his home. “Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. I'll start making calls.”

Hanoo uncharateristically (for a Slave) threw her arm around Veni's shoulder, and cried a thank-you. Then she vanished into the guest rooms, while Veni pondered just how he could work this.

There was a reward, he found as he searched the news links. It was a sizable one, too. She was a pretty young woman, probably older than Veni by a few years, and fertile, which made her worth that much more to an Owner. Xeos lived somewhat near by, not on any kind of direct course to Veni's place, and Held a large farm which supplied the very same fruits that the vendor she'd made it to sold. He was decently well off, but not the richest Owner in the Zone. Suzerinne Tal on the other hand was a richly appointed woman who seemed to have about a dozen small estates and lands all over the world. Doubtless she was staying at one or another, while she was on business. She practically Held in every Area she could find.

That got Veni thinking. It was obvious by the way that Tal had arranged the girl's meeting with her Slave, Lamath. It was possible that she'd be able to front money to just buy the girl, but it was doubtful to Veni that Xeos would allow it. A bitter, overprotective man, and his posession that clearly meant more to him than his wife (was she infertile? was that it? he'd have to check) would bring a hard fight for Ownership. Veni didn't have nearly enough money to go into Ownership, at that time, so that was out. He couldn't buy her.

But would Tal be able to hide her? If she had so many Holds, wouldn't it be possible for her to keep switching the young mother around? Perhaps until Xeos gave up or lost interest... Or found another play toy? Or got interested in other things?

Veni was many generations removed from his manipulative ancestor – but that didn't mean he couldn't carry on the tradition. And he did it with style, too.

“So we finally meet, Master Veni,” Xeos said darkly. He was a burly, dangerous looking man, who literally towered over Veni's lithe form. There was no look of pleasantries on Xeos' face, nothing saying to Veni that he'd be safe.

But Veni didn't mind. After five years, Xeos had at last figured out what had happened to Hanoo.

“You are a clever one,” he added after a moment of silence. “Making your living off of these kinds of desperate people.”

“The people I work for would hardly qualify as desperate, in most cases, Lord Xeos.” Veni said, politely. His eyes had moved from color to color, and were obviously making Xeos annoyed.

“That does not matter, Master Veni,” he spat. “You've stepped in a rather deep hole this time.”

“My lawyers don't seem to think so,” Veni said casually.

“You might be able to vanish,” Xeos said while dipping in close to Veni, who flinched a bit. “But you're in the courts now, little man, and you can't vanish from here.”

“I do not need to,” Veni said, thankfully sensing his lawyer coming up behind Lord Xeos. “Now if you'll excuse me I have a meeting. Good day, in as much as you'd ever enjoy one,” he completed, with a grin he didn't dare show in front of Xeos.

The Membayar lawyer Veni had found to help him had a number of cases under his belt, and he was concentrating on Breed law mainly. He'd taken this case because it did involve threats to a female Slave and her child – that was close enough for him. He'd even found a pair of qualified Breeders who could testify about the conditions that Hanoo would have been under when her baby was still gestating.

He had a stack of paperwork, folders, and a briefcase stuffed under his arm, a mug of exotic zpara clutched in his other hand, and a grin on his face. “Veni, you're going to love this latest...”

Veni couldn't help but notice that Xeos was still staring at him from across the hall. The marble floors and the rich wooden trim of the walls seemed to all point to the huge man. But all Veni could think of was how glad he was that Hanoo didn't have to be here just yet. She would not do well around him. She wasn't of the temperment that could handle a burly man like this, even his physical presense could scare anyone.

Master Anlon tapped Veni's shoulder and they went into the smaller office which was afforded to the defense, while the prosecution had their own on the other side of the court. “Let's get this on the table now.”

They read over a list of complicated Breeder's statements. But what was consistantly clear was that Xeos was apt to cause not only terror and inspire fear just by being around his Slaves, he'd actually harmed a series of them in the past. Several of them were female, and unfortunately for their case, they were infertile ones. But it was painfully clear that the moment Xeos had located a fertile Slave, he'd be able and willing to isolate, hurt or cajole her into being more personal than she wished.

Slaves of course didn't get the option of choosing their duties, but when it came to pregnancy and such, it didn't much matter. That was the Breeders' realm alone. Veni was pretty sure that Anlon wanted to become a Breeder before he got into his current career. He was so animated about this situation, and he knew that if they won this case (which Veni had no doubts they would) Anlon could buy his education up to that level.

In just the five years since taking Hanoo and little Oolath's case, Veni found that this was the most thrilling way he could make his living. Plus, when he had established himself a bit, he'd been able to start Bonding too – his Membayar case was a story in itself.

His other cases were more tame, of course. Finding a lost child, that was a popular one. Locating Slaves or Bayaran who'd gone missing was half of how he spent his time. He knew that others were of two minds about his services. At times, he'd eagerly find a missing Slave. Others? He would do the job, but then recommend another lawyer for the escapee to buy their way out from their Lord or Master. He liked to claim that it was fair – that in the interests of the people involved, when he found a Slave who had made their way around the wilderness because of their grief over losing a child, he'd return them to their Lord and make sure that they got the right councilling. When there was a Bayaran who came to be found, and the fear and circumstances were clear that they left because of a bad situation, he would offer to become their Bond agent instead.

There was one case, a huge profit to be made on a renegade Slave bounty, that Veni knew he hadn't done the right thing. But one out of how many dozens? He could only console himself by keeping tabs on the Slave and hoping that the Lady who Held him would stay in line in the future.

But now, with the Breeders in their camp and the facts on their side, Veni felt confident that he'd be able to prove that Suzerinne Tal should become the new Owner of poor Slave Hanoo and her daughter.

Until he saw the judge sitting there. There was something about her. She sat comfortably in the big plush chair, cerimonial robes draped over her shoulders, and had a strangely satisfied look on her square face.

She looked to be Xeos' sibling, for sure.

“This isn't right,” Anlon muttered. He approached the judge's tables, and glanced from her to Xeos. “Where is Judge Temello?”

“He's been called away,” the woman said, unpleasantly. “I'll be your replacement for the duration of this trial.”

“Oh no you won't,” Anlon spat.

“Hold your tongue, Master Anlon!” She said, rising up. She had the same burly figure as her brother, and was if anything taller than he. Anlon stood his ground, but barely. “You are hardly in a position to decide who replaces whom around these courts.”

“And when did your money decide to override the laws of this Area?” Anlon said, hard. His charcoal-black hand turned to a fist as he stood before her. “There are procedures to follow, and they have not been. We were scheduled with HighMaster Temello, and we will have our court with him.”

“How about not at all?” Asked the woman. “Because he won't be returning.”

A sinking sensation dwelled in Veni's gut. “You've killed him,” he whispered. “Haven't you.”

Judge High Mistress Xekcho stood right up next to Veni and sweetly said, “hardly, nothing as sinister as all that. Just ... the man needed a rest. He's ... on vacation. Far away.”

“Then you can consider us to be suspending these proceedings, judge ,” Anlon said with a sneer. His face was dark, darker than typical with his coloration. He was richly angry. “While we locate the judge with whom we had a court date. Good day.”

“You'll be leaving the Slave in her Owner's care, of course, in the mean time.” The woman said caustically.

“Hardly,” Anlon said, picking up his xpara mug and striding toward the door. Veni quickly followed him. “We'll be ... in touch.”

There was a noise in the court room behind them as they left, but neither man was in the slightest interested in dawdling to see what it was. Probably the pair of siblings turning the place upside down to get to the doors.

“We have to get out of here,” Anlon said.

“That's not a problem,” Veni said. “This way.”

He slipped into the corner nearest, and fell invisble. Anlon whispered, “that's fine for you, but...”

“No – wait.” Veni said, and concentrated so hard that he shook. He was directly beside the other Membayar, and with difficulty the two of them faded into the woodwork. Anlon stood in silence, out of fear mostly, as Xeos and his sister Xekcho stormed out of the room and furiously looked for them. They didn't dare move. With sweat coming down over his red-tinted pink forehead, Veni finally relaxed when the pair had gone.

“We've got to get her,” Anlon said, holding up Veni who appeared to be physically exhausted. “And Tal, she'll have to help. This has gotten out of hand.”

“Damn right,” Veni said. “You get Tal, and I'll find us somewhere else to hide than her place. I don't like this at all. Where do you think Temello went?”

“Who knows. You're the detective, remember?”

Suzerinne Tal held Oolath up in the morning sunlight, and the young girl squirmed and laughed. The Hold would be their home for a while, until Xeos either conceeded the case, or they found the missing High Master Temello. Veni worked tirelessly on this. His powers worked best when he had some object or a person who had some recent personal contact with the individual. He had neither. His thought was that he could get one of his uncle's contacts to help them with transportation. Tal was to remain with Hanoo and her daughter, to protect them. If it was just with her Status alone, that would have to do. She wasn't a strong or durable woman, not like Xekcho at least, but she had a lot of political sway in a number of Areas around the world.

Veni and the group were holed up in his recently-deceased ‘uncle' Theakhid's Imat spread. The transportation business didn't suit Veni, but the others in their expanding family handled his businesses with ease. And, they were all generally willing to help out when they knew one of their own clan needed assistance.

Being that they all sprang from low beginnings, they were all but clamboring over one another for this case.

“I'm not even sixty years old,” Veni said as he went over more information on the Breeder's net and other places. “And here I am smuggling around a renegade and with cohorts like you lot...”

That lot gave a collective snicker. Tal turned her eyes away from the sunlit child in her arms. “You should talk. We ought to surrender you to the authorities immediately. You started this.”

“No – I started it,” Hanoo said, more subdued. She was always like that, somewhat of a damper and an eternal reminder that things weren't all sunshine and laughs. “I should finish it. I should just go back to him.”

“It's not going to happen,” Anlon said, “and you know what would come of you if you did, at this rate. He'd kill you, Hanoo, and we've all invested way too much of our lives to let that happen now.”

Hanoo was on the verge of tears, as she often was. “I can't thank you enough.”

“It's all right,” Anlon told her. “Eventually, he'll give up and we'll all get to lead normal lives again.”

“You do not know him.”

“Then we'll have to see about making him give up,” Veni said. “There has to be a way of distracting him, while we look for Temello.”

“Another woman would do it,” Tal said, “but I don't know any women that I hate enough to send to him.”

The men chuckled, and Hanoo gulped back a bit of a laugh herself. “You are wicked, Suzerinne.”

“You know I want you to call me Tal, sweetheart,” Tal told the Slave. “It's all right.”

Veni half listened in on their conversation, which went somewhere like ‘I'll raise you if you stop thinking you're worthless', as he kept scanning the info lines. Eventually, he found something worth looking into.

“Temello has a Hold about five hundred miles away, up in the mountains. He probably isn't there, but it's worth a shot looking for him, and I'll be able to get my hands on something to identify.”

“You want to break into a Hold? A High Master's hold at that?” Tal jibed. She smiled brightly, her yellow skin betraying a flush of excitement. She was laughing because she wasn't going to be the one breaking in. That, she'd leave to the menfolk.

“I've got enough people to help too,” Veni said. “When my father died, he left me with a list of people he'd worked with. And,” Veni said while holding that list up, “my other siblings.”

“What a great thing to be left with,” Tal said, “he didn't leave you anything else?”

“Thank goodness for that,” Veni laughed, “he was Bayaran already, and they never told anyone that I was his son anyway...”

And as it turned out, Mhorlait's bragging hadn't been at all exaggerated. Veni had perhaps half a dozen half-siblings all of whom had inherited a bit of Mhor's eccentricities. Three of them lived nearby, and were Free Holders. The others were either too far away to be of any help, or were Bayaran or Slaves themselves. Veni tried looking up some relatives on the other side, but it seemed Evenree's health prevented her from wanting to bear another child. That, and Breeders took one look at her allergies and backed away from asking her to donate.

So it was, that within two weeks of running from the courtroom, a group of some eight Qhaleb family members of varying generations arrived at the mountainside logging community of G'lan. The peaks were very sharp, but it was summer and there was no hint of snow on the tallest yet. Two of the cousins had transportation interests, so they were fit with a quiet hovercraft for the trip. They would get Steeds for any other ground touring, locally there were several steed farms that were breeding high-altitude compatable animals. Another pair of the cousins worked together in a more dark-sided detective business than Veni's turned out to be: they were spies like their father. They had tools that even Veni didn't, but they didn't have his ability to locate and identify things and people. Anlon was there largely for legal support and to get them into the right places. Tal had arranged it so that any bribery that needed to be done would go through her accounts.

It was a group event, and half of the group were there purely for the fun of it all. Veni and the rest located the all-wood estate on a map, and followed a well-traveled trail up to Temello's place. It wasn't in use, there were not even any Slaves on hand to keep the grounds up. However, it had been inhabited recently according to Veni's senses. He drew his hand over the door handle at the front and nodded.

“There were people here, not more than a month ago. I don't know whether it was Temello, but it's a start.”

“How about this,” one of the spy cousins said, holding a metal object that both Veni and Anlon recognized as an expensive lock pick, “we go inside and find who's been sleeping in the beds. A mug, something like that, that would have some kind of ... residue that you could identify?” She raised her bright red eyebrow.

“It would be ... yeah, that would work.” Veni said, and the LandMistress got to work. Within moments, the door of the estate was opened. The air inside it was cool, it was dark and inviting.

“Come on, Anlon,” Veni said. “We're already criminals. Let's make the best of it.”

Veni could sense his friend's trepidation, but Anlon went along anyway. Inside the house, there were scattered items such as paperwork, dried flowers in expensive vases, and a number of teas and herbs for both brewing and smoking. Clearly High Master Temello liked to relax when he was away from work.

“Maybe one of these will have some information about where he's gone,” said one of the cousins. She held up a dossier that had been laying on the table. “I guess we're looking for travel records, that kind of thing.”

“I already asked around through Theakhid's information network,” Veni said, “and got nothing. But that doesn't mean that he didn't have his own records. If he traveled through someone else's services.”

That turned into a big if. It dwindled to a scant possibility that he'd chosen to travel without telling someone.

“Did you get anything?” Anlon asked when Veni came out of the bathroom.

“I got this,” he said, holding up a wooden and stiff bristle brush. On it were several strands of the judge's distinctive black and red hairs. “I'm going to relax a bit, before digging in to this. It might take some time.”

The others prepared his space, throwing pillow after pillow on him as he sat in the cushy couch in the main den. One of them thought to bring a cup of tea – made from the High Master's stash. Veni wasn't sure whether to trust it or not, but he then realized that the cup as well as the tea would supply further information. He leaned back and sipped at the tea. It was a blend of dark red leaves which gave a minty spice taste, and certan black and green teas. It was a rather rich tea, served in a thin porcelain cup that still had a faint feeling of Temello on it. It was deeply stained from this tea, it was something that the judge clearly enjoyed drinking, and habitually out of this particular cup.

As Veni used his location powers, the others watched out for any local activity outside. There was hardly a soul out there, but it could happen that they were being watched anyway. Paranoid? With a family full of spies, paranoid was a basic emotional state.

The visions that Veni had were clear – distant, but clear. Temello had been here perhaps three weeks prior, which narrowed their search. Veni gave off a constant monolog of what he saw or felt from any given item or moment. At first he descirbed things within the house. How a dresser was used for only certain bits of clothing. How the boots that were in the mud room needed mending. The tea brought a rush of color to Veni's face when the red spicy leaves began leaking some exotic psychotropic element.

“I ... am seeing things.” Veni said.

“We're hoping you continue to,” Anlon muttered.

“No, no,” Veni said with a bit of a sway to his head. His changing eyes turned to Anlon and the Membayar jolted back a bit.

“Your eyes are black,” he said. “I've never seen that.”

“Now you have...” Veni said, leaning his head back and closing those eyes. “It's amazing. There is a Steed that Temello was boarding here. He's taken it.” The others leaned in, waiting. “They flew west.”

“... West?” Asked one of the cousins. She got a worried look on her pale grey-pink face. “That's into the cliffs. High mountains. Is that right?”

“I see peaks, yes. Cliffs. But...” Veni trailed off, furrowing his brow and raising his head again off the back of the couch. “But I see them returning.”

He opened his eyes and glanced around at the blank expressions on the people around him. “How can that be?”

“Where are they, then?” Asked another cousin. He was almost glowing with a metallic brass gleam to his skin.

“They ...” Veni tried hard to concentrate on the confusing images in his mind. Several things competed for attention. “Well, they did get back. One Slave was sent with the Steed down to Imat, she could be of help if we can find her. She's meant to transport the beast down to Kirun somewhere.” Veni paused, and tried to leave the Slave's information aside. “But then there's a visit from our favorite Lord and High Mistress... Xeos and Xekcho indeed. They came here, and that's when it gets confusing. I'm not certain that our judge was in a proper state of mind when they came.”

“Well that wouldn't be hard to achieve,” Anlon said, “given the amount of smokables here.”

“Sure. But what I don't understand is that he just... Isn't here any more. He was packing up,” Veni said and waved his arm at the office to the left of the main hall, “the siblings arrived,” he pointed at the main doorway which they could see from the den, “and then... Temello just... Disappears.”

“Dead?”

“... No?” Veni said, completely unsure of what he was meant to be seeing.

Exhasperated, one cousin strode up to Veni. He hadn't even realized that he'd stood up and walked toward the hall. “Here, show me. Maybe I can make sense of it.” She put her cream-colored fingers onto Veni's forehead and concentrated. He could feel her mind entering his, and he tried letting down his defenses for her. She stiffened a bit when the contact was made, and she fished around in his mind for the visions he was seeing.

“Hrm,” she said.

“Rai?” Asked another of the cousins. “What do you see?”

“The ... same thing he does. Only, I think there's something else. I think they used some kind of ability on him. Something to disguise him maybe?”

“We've got to get a Breeder's registry open,” Anlon said. “I wonder...”

He went to the vidlink, and tapped in a few codes. He contacted one of his Breeder friends, who listened intently before sending some kind of information packet to the vid unit. It printed out something, and Anlon looked it over. They spoke quietly for a few minutes, and the Breeder remained on the line out of sheer curiosity.

“You guys aren't going to believe this...” He said.

“Try me,” Veni said. “About now, I'll believe anything.”

“Okay...” Anlon started. He explained a bit about his contact's information first. There were three classic Breeder's Gibbrish lines on the paper. The first and second were Xeos and Xekcho's separately. They showed certain levels of mutation in different recognized genes. The third... Was the combination of the two siblings'.

From the vid, the Breeder said, “I've never seen anything like it, they work only together.”

The pair of Lord and HighMistress' genes were nearly normal when taken singly. But when they were paired up as a team, working in close proximity to one another, they might be able to do any number of odd psionic tricks.

Not the least of which was a devistating mind wipe the likes of which the Qhaleb family's genetics could only have combatted five or six generations before.

“They must have wiped his entire personality,” Veni said. “That's why I can't find him any more – he's not here because he doesn't exist any more. Physically I'm sure we'll find him sometime soon. But mentally? He might not recover.”

“That's right,” said the Breeder, “and when you do find him I'll be happy to put him into therapy for you...”

“Always working,” Anlon said. “I'll get back to you Eikon,” they disconnected.

As the group sat in a mix of awe, exhaustion and disgust, Veni finally stood up.

“We've got to go find him, in any case. I can't get a bead on his personality, but I might be able to find his hair.” He held the brush up to his nose and closed his eyes. He finally had to pick out the hairs and feel them apart from the brush – the brush had too many old memories stored on it.

“Let's head out to the village,” Veni said. “He might be there. I see a path, something that's traveled occasionally. Not the same way we came up.”

“His Hold is right on the edge of the community,” offered another cousin.

“Do we lock up?” Asked the snide dark-brown Halmho.

Temello's wife and son were extremely happy to see him. The poor orange skinned man however had no idea who they were. He had no clear recollection of any house, hold or steeds. He was in fact kind of iffy on the whole of Zekiran history, come to ask him anything factual about it. What he knew was that the smell of pine was quite nice this time of year, he didn't much like flying in machines, and he thought the idea of Owning Slaves was a bit preposterous in this day and age wasn't it?

Now, with the added pull of Dala and Lello's estates, Temello would hardly go unavenged.

“The first thing I really want to do,” Veni said, “is talk to Tal and Hanoo. There might be a bit more delay if this has to be sent through another court.”

“The first thing I want to do,” Anlon said with a vicious smile, “is contact the local news authorities.”

While Veni was busy making sure that Hanoo and her daughter were safe, Anlon did just that. They had brought his Breeder friend Eikon in from somewhere in Difar, just so they would have a better idea of how to get the courts – and the media – to understand what had happened.

There was no doubt in Veni's mind that the pair of siblings had done something horrible to the judge. He could be identified physically in all ways. Certainly his wife thought he was the same old man – she wanted to joke with him about a riding injury that he'd sustained that had left a small scar in a rather private place. He had to check for it because he didn't know he had a scar. It was both pathetic and quite frightening.

Lello was confounded and angry. “My father's estates will remain in his name until we ... figure out how to handle this.”

“It might be a while,” Anlon said. “I can't recall anything like this ever happening before.”

“There is always a first time,” Eikon said, gazing at the printouts of the sibling's records.

“You're positive that these are their readings?” Veni asked. “I mean, it'd be even worse than it is now if it turned out to be someone else.”

“We can subpoena more testing, if you're in doubt,” Eikon said. “How are your renegades?”

“Does everyone know what we're doing?” Veni glared at Anlon, who shrugged and grinned. “They're fine. Tal is kind of bored and she said she'll want to be bringing them out here.”

“We're going to need a bigger estate then,” said yet another cousin.

All told, then, before the media got there, the number of people staying in Temello's main estate was in fact quite high. Dala and Lello, Temello, Eikon, Anlon, Veni, Halmho, Rai, Nheil and his daughter Eildhar, Veni's adoptive brother Yanaak and his two sons Aafkar and Kaarnak, Tal, Hanoo and Oolath, and an assortment of Slaves and Bayaran who were already biting their nails to the quick because their Lord was missing in the first place. It was almost too much for the little place.

Fortunately, they moved around to the courtyard outside when the media arrived. The accusations would have to be put into writing, but that would happen soon enough. Dala was herself a minor court official, and could do any signings they needed.

When it was all said and done, though, Veni sat near Hanoo, her daughter on his lap sleeping after her day of travel. “Xeos and his sister will never recover from this mess,” he said.

Hanoo nodded slowly. “Do you think that I ...” she faltered, and looked down. “Do you think I was worth all this effort? I mean, look at them all!” She waved her hand and Veni gazed at the batch of film crews, lawyers and such... And at the healthy beautiful little girl sleeping with her head nestled on his collarbone.

“Without a doubt, Hanoo. Without one doubt.”

“And what will you be doing today?” Asked one of the other Bayaran.

“I'm going to be tending my young sister and her friend,” Oolath announced with a grin, “we're going out to see the Steed parade.”

The older woman nodded deeply and smiled. “That's a good thing to be doing on a day like this. I remember seeing my first parade...”

“Perhaps you could go with us?” Oolath asked, but the elderly Bayaran shook her head.

“No, no, I'm too old for that. My knees can't handle walking or riding, if you think that would help.” She swept her broom at Oolath, “you collect those girls and have a good time.”

Oolath did that. She was barely over twenty, and her sister was just seven, and Loneset was shy of six. Oolath had another dozen years in Bayaran before she would be released to work for Suzerinne Tal at her true worth, but she didn't even care. She was surrounded by good friends and family – all over the world, she had people who claimed that she was a cousin or little sister or something like that. And she reveled in it.

Oolath located Nooni and Loneset sitting with Nooni's father Veni. He was crouched down next to the girls and had a silly look on his face.

“Like this?” Nooni said, and she gave off a noise like she was trying to pass a watermellon. Her face showed effort, but nothing was happening.

“Well, sort of,” Veni sighed, and looked up to see Oolath. “Ah, here's your sister now. You three get out of here and have a good time!”

“Why aren't you coming, daddy?” Nooni asked.

“I've got a big case to work on, but I will be back tomorrow. You behave yourself for your sister.”

“I don't have to behave!” Loneset giggled at her friend. “He didn't tell me to behave!”

“But I will,” Anlon announced from the doorway, and his own daughter quieted down.

Both girls calmed down and then started getting bubbly and eager as Oolath took their hands and walked them out of the house. “If they give me grief, I'll just put them on a Steed and smack it's behind, that'll keep them nice and far away.”

“Daddy would find me,” Nooni said proudly.

Anlon and Veni went out themselves, but off to a hovercar which would bring them to Imat's mountain port. The girls headed off on foot to the already-waiting carriage.

“What were you doing, when I came in?” Oolath asked. Nooni tilted her head, sunset colored skin shifting around pleasantly into different colors of red-orange-violet.

“I was trying to turn invisible!” Nooni said. “But it wasn't working very well.”

“I don't think you can do that, Nooni,” Oolath told her sister, feigning sadness. Loneset nodded and seemed to agree that Nooni's skin-changing powers were never going to be under her control, they just made her colorful all by themselves.

“I think it's okay,” Loneset said, “if you were invisible I wouldn't be able to find you.”

“But daddy would,” Nooni said again, happy.

They made it to the Steed Parade with plenty of time to spare on gathering up pinwheels and ribbons, straw hats and the like. When they heard the jingling of tack they immediately bolted to the street side, among the other dozens of people up here on the Hill. Imat was a hilly, cliff ridden Zone already, but certain places had just acquired names like “The Hill” and “The Fall” because of who lived there or an event. The Hill carried with it a certain kind of pride, it was built up by Membayar and Suzerain, crafted nicely and kept up by a community that all seemed to spring from one source: Qhaleb's kids.

Tal went and Held some land up there, building a new smallish homestead. That would be Loneset's, when she was old enough. Anlon's daughter with her would be a very fine Membayar, if she remained in that position all her life, and Tal thought she would be an even better Suzerinne. They made their home in this place, comfortable, and safe. Nooni's mother Hanoo had finally been Raised, she and Oolath were sharing their duties as Bayaran to Tal until they knew that Xeos and his sister would never return from Exile.

It was only fitting, that they be exiled. That pair had done something amazing, yes, but criminal. It was one thing to destroy someone with politics or by poison. This ... what they did was unspeakable. It made every news organization, and clearly had a huge effect on the judging and legal professions. But the girls remained blissfully unaware of their family histories. There would be time enough for that, later.

For now, there was a Steed that had blue and gold flames on his fur, with wings that stood up straight in white tipped in purest sky blue. That was enough for them, for this moment.

By the time Oolath had finished her Bayaran, at around age thirty, her younger sister and their eternal third Loneset were finishing up their own Status exams. Loneset would pass her Membayar exam, with ease. The fifteen year old would really make a killing in finances. Nooni went from one side of the fence to the other constantly. Should she just take the easy way out and remain Bayaran with Tal until she knew what she wanted to make of herself? Or should she try the FreeWorker exam? She knew she didn't want to mess with the Membayar one – that was too much math for her. Their elder sibling and friend was happy Working for Tal doing errands and reception work at one or another of Tal's business locations.

Someone in the Qhaleb line had commented about Nooni's disposition toward work, that she was rather like her grandfather – he'd work when he really thought he could get something out of it, and when he didn't he just sat back and allowed the bills to pile up.

That was why Loneset decided to keep an eye on her Holdsister's assets. Nooni was good with saving money – until she saw something she absolutely had to have. Normally her ‘auntie Tal' would set her up with it, but sometimes she dug into her own savings and came away from a shop with some useless item or other. She was faintly artistic in her bent for decorating her rooms, though, and Loneset suggested that she try interior design for a living. If anything, she could just get out of it later on, and do something different.

“Maybe you could be a spy like your dad.”

“Daddy is not a spy,” Nooni insisted. Though he had on occasion accompanied the others in the family on their little ‘outings' which he never spoke about later on. She always wondered what it was that they did on those outings. And one afternoon as she came home with Loneset, she found out.

Because that day, she had her first vision.

Loneset bumped into Nooni's back, because the tall slender sunset-colored girl had abruptly stopped in the middle of the hallway. She cleared her throat, nudged Nooni, but nothing happened. Then she noticed that her childhood friend's skin was turning very slowly from yellow to violet, starting at her head and face, moving down her arms and torso, and to her feet. It had never done that before – it was actually very pretty. But Loneset correctly assessed that Nooni was not controlling it. She had never been able to, not as a child, certainly.

“Nooni,” Loneset said, quietly, “do you need any help?”

“No – no,” she said, “I'm just... seeing something. Weird.”

Loneset took Nooni's books out of her hands, and placed them in their study room. She turned back to see Nooni's skin was now heading back through reds and golds. All colors she'd displayed before, she never had any of Loneset's bluish black coloration.

“When you're ready,” Loneset said, “I'll help you. What are you seeing?”

“My ... dad, and his cousins...”

Loneset noticed that Nooni's eyes which were normally the same sunset-colors as her skin had swirled dark, almost black. Veni's would do that, on occasion, when his powers were controlling things and he wasn't able to stop them. Loneset decided even more strongly that she would have to remain with Nooni until this changed. It was possible that she'd never control this, and that could be bad.

Finally, after many minutes of the two girls standing in their shared Hold's hall, Nooni blinked and shook her head to clear it. “Wow,” she whispered. “Weird.”

Loneset flopped down on the thickly cushioned couch, threw her grey-blue hair over her shoulder, and tilted her head. “Okay? What?”

“It was definitely my father, and his group. I think they were breaking into something.”

“When!? Are they doing that now?” Loneset perked up. “This could be fun to watch!”

“Well, it's over now, it was like... I was just there, looking over their shoulders.” She furrowed her brows, “it was a familiar place, too. Big wooden house, trees, that kind of stuff.”

“Nooni, we live in a big wooden house surrounded by trees and ... stuff.” Loneset said flatly, looking unconvinced.

“In the peaks, in the summer.”

“Oh.” Loneset said, it was midwinter now, and their Hold was at the flat end of things in Imat. Since transpanting there, so many of the houses and locations in Imat had been supported by the Qhaleb family in some way... The place had become quite the nexus of transport and Steeding of late. And their family dominated the transportation and housing industries. The house where they lived with Oolath was closest to the township and the Academy, while most of their family holdings otherwise were up in the hills or in the fringes of Imat.

“It was before I was born, before you were born...” Nooni said, sitting down carefully and locating her books. “I should write it all down, and see what he'll say about it.”

Nooni got to doing that, while Loneset worked over another set of tables for her next class. She was taking hard core Law and Land Holding courses, while Nooni concentrated on the more delicate design and art that she'd agreed would be best. Fabrics lay everywhere, swatches of materials with colorful patterns were draped in books, slung on the walls and everywhere else they could reach. Loneset was glad for that, because she found that while she had no time to do it herself, she'd far rather be studying in a colorful and relaxed environment than a sterile study hall. The other Membayar students and legal instructors were so stuffy it was a wonder that anyone wanted to work with them at all. Boring!

Nooni finally finished the writing she felt she needed to do, and then began flipping through her own books. With Loneset, there was never a bad time to study – Nooni thought that they should keep their work in one room though, because cluttering up everywhere in the house with their stuff looked unappealing. She really was good at what she'd chosen.

“It's way too quiet in here,” Loneset said after half an hour of silence. “I want to know more about this vision you had.”

“Of course you do,” Nooni said with a wry grin. “But I'm studying.”

“So am I,” Loneset reminded her.

Nooni closed her book and looked at Loneset, then they leaned in together the way that any pair of teenage girls telling secrets would. She related the tale – what she saw of it anyway – of their parents finding their way into HighMaster Temello's estate in G'lan. They both marveled at the fact that she'd had a vision in the first place, and came to the decision that they would ask Tal about it instead of Veni. She was always more willing to talk about things to them, perhaps because she was a woman, but more likely because she was an incurable gossip.

It looked like Loneset inherited that at least. Within only two weeks, everyone at their academy knew that Nooni had a vision. The reports of what she'd seen varied so widely as to be sheer fantasy. Nooni and Loneset walked to their one shared class, a basic history class, and Nooni mockingly glared at her friend the whole while. There were no hard feelings, of course, they'd been through far too much together as children to bother with jealousy or anger. Their instructor was not so forgiving.

“Mistress Loneset, Worker Nooni? I would certainly like to know what it is about each other that is so entrancing that you cannot keep your eyes on the board?”

The two of them glanced with the same knowing look at him. He wasn't a pleasant person – no one really said they liked him grandly, but he was fair so no one really ever said they hated him either. His pasty grey colored skin was hardly complimented with weak-tea colored shortly cropped hair, and his eyes were like runny egg yolk. In other words, two teenage girls did not find him in the least attractive. Certainly not attractive enough to stare at when they had better things to do with their eyeballs.

“Well, we were having a discussion before class,” Nooni said, “about the vision I had that Loneset blabbered about to everyone she could pull aside.”

Loneset made a silly noise, but did not complain. She'd done the deed after all.

“And?” Instructor Forlan said, impatiently.

“And, well, actually I was wondering if you could help sort something I saw out. There was a ... group of people up in the hills...” She explained her version of the vision. As she spoke, the Master stood back and stared at her oddly.

“That's ... hardly public knowledge, but it was well known after the fact. You are saying that you did not know of this event? In your family?”

“Well I know it's my father, and hers,” Nooni said.

With a smug grin, Master Forlan spoke at length about the process of Exile to the group. While it was hardly on their current subject it was clearly something that he'd encountered or at least knew a bit about. To Nooni and Loneset this was all roughly new, at least in the context of their parents having been involved so deeply in a huge Exile case.

“That would explain why Oolath remained in Bayaran so long,” Nooni said, “and why mom still is.”

“They're still worried about Xeos and his sister coming back from Exile?” Master Forlan asked. “I doubt that my word would do any good, but I think that given the terrain and the time of year they were sent out of Imat, they did not stand a chance.”

“You never know,” Loneset said, quietly. “I think it's actually a better idea to know for sure.”

“You advocate a death in this case?” Master Forlan said, surprised.

“Well, perhaps not in this particular case, but ... they did effectively ‘kill' a man. They did it on purpose and there's no reason to believe they would stop there. Sometimes I wonder, if Exile is too light a sentance.”

“We have no death penalty for crimes such as this,” the Master said, “because we value more the lesson to be learned.”

“But, wait,” Nooni said. “My mother could at any time be kidnapped by this exile and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it?”

“Of course you would. Exiles are not bound by our laws. Killing an exile is like... killing a wild rat if it breaks into your Stock. They are nothing more, legally speaking, than animals.”

Nooni nodded, saying nothing more. Master Forlan thanked them for sharing something worth while, ‘this time' he added, with a grin.

The rest of the day was spent working on color charts for Nooni, and drawing a big chart for terrain use by Holding type. Neither of them said anything on their way home, they were both lost in thought. They arrived at the Hold and Nooni's elder sister greeted them.

Her bright smile faded as she saw the looks on their faces. “What has happened? Did something bad happen?”

The edge of worry in her voice brought the pair back to reality. “No, nothing wrong – we were just thinking about a law, that's all.”

“Which law,” Oolath asked. “And why do I get the feeling that you don't want to talk to me about it because it involves me?”

“Well, not you specifically,” Loneset said. “But ... do you remember Xeos?”

Oolath winced at the name. “I ... I know I met him at the trials. I was terrified of him. I'm very glad he's gone.”

“Well, we don't know what happened to him and his sister,” Nooni said. “Don't you ever get afraid for yourself?”

Oolath leaned against the dark wood of the doorway. “I suppose I do, but with Suzerinne Tal dragging me around all the time I hardly have time to worry, really. Mother would probably disagree.”

“But she's always worried about something,” Loneset said, “she's ... well, no offense,” she said indicating both sisters, “but she's a total worrywart.”

“Tell me about it,” Oolath said, and they followed her into the brightly sunlit kitchen. “When I told her I would be going to live here with you two, she nearly tied me down and refused to let me leave!”

“Yup, that's mom...” Nooni muttered. “Why do you think she's not like that with me?”

“I always was the one she overprotected...” Oolath said, halfway dreamily and half to poke at her sister. “Probably because you were such a relief to her, when you were born. I remember the stress, she was crying most of the time when I was little.” She paused, and then as they were fixing salads before their big study crush, Oolath said, “why are you wondering about the exiles?”

Nooni and Loneset looked at one another. Though they were not related, they were not connected through any way other than having been brought up together and being naught but a year apart, they did not have to use telepathy to convey what they were thinking during their class.

“We want to make sure that Xeos and his sister are dead.” Loneset said.

“We can't be held responsible, there are no laws against killing an exile.” Nooni added.

Oolath looked a bit sick. “That's... hardly what I expected to hear, but... I suppose that it's a thought. Count me out of it, kids...” She swept around and tried to look like she was busily preparing her own dinner. It didn't work, Nooni and Loneset cornered her.

“You asked,” Loneset said.

“And you answered, and I told you what I thought,” Oolath said, staring at the plate before her. She put some fragrant rice on it, didn't smell it at all.

“You think it's a bad idea,” Nooni commented.

“I think that killing people is wrong,” Oolath said, sharper than she meant, “and I think that what you want to do is like ... hunting people. It's wrong, and I don't like it that you, my own sister, have that in you.” Oolath turned back to her food and grasped the plate, taking it into her own suite.

Nooni and Loneset did not follow her.

“I think... maybe we don't talk about this thing again,” Loneset said.

“I think maybe you're right.” Nooni glanced side to side, and then they tried to bury those thoughts of final revenge.

“How is the planting going?” Asked Nooni, of her group of workers. The senior of them stood and brushed the fresh dirt from his pants and hands.

“It's going well, but there is rain on the horizon. We may need to finish up and wait it out. We cannot plant in mud.”

“Oh, I know it.” Nooni said, nodding. “So, just try and get as much done in the meantime, and then head home. Be sure to cover up the plots,” she shouted in general. She made her way off the grounds of the Owner's estate where she was setting up a new courtyard. The Lord would be happy, she thought, because she'd managed to incorporate every color that they found inside his grand homestead into the courtyard's twisting maze of plants and pathways. Not only was Nooni proud of having graduated at the top of the class' expectations when she finally did bring herself to take all the exams, but Nooni's project won a widely-read horticulture magazine's cover-piece award. The offers for work started the day after it was printed.

“I'm going to send the workers home before it rains, Lord Dhela.” She called into the home. She heard him in his office nearby, closing a briefcase and pushing the wooden chair he loved so much away from his huge desk. The rich wooden floor was worn slightly from his eternal work at that desk. Nooni leaned against the dark red wood doorway and saw his shadow pass the office.

“They are almost finished?” He asked, his Stetil accent strong. Nooni nodded, and smiled a bit.

“They're going to cover up the plots and make sure that their hard work isn't going to wash away in the storm. It looks to be a big one, too,” she glanced to the south, where the dark line of clouds brewed thickly. The mountainside area where Dhela had his Homestead was regularly washed with rain and covered with snow in the winter months, but it was not so high up in the peaks that they needed to worry about permafrost or too-frigid summers. Nooni had found plants native to high altitude and rainy areas for this project, that was her forte.

She escorted Lord Dhela over the bridge to the plot of land where they were planting the colorful vines and low-clinging ground cover. “It won't take more than another few days to have the whole placed planted, Lord Dhela, so after that we'll just have a couple people tend it perhaps once a week until the winter.”

“And in the winter, it all gets covered up again, whether we like it that way or not, eh?”

His voice was lilting in a way that entranced the low-lander Nooni. Dhela was a handsome man, nearly twice her age, with a busy life but a strong desire to show off the finer things he could find. Nooni was extremely flattered that a man of his ability would have asked her to design his courtyard. In fact he was looking for more than that, it seemed, he kept hinting that another of his Holds would do with a makeover.

“Perhaps once this planting is done,” Dhela suggested, “you could take a look at the beachfront property I've just acquired.”

There it was. Nooni smiled widely. “I've never done a beach house before!”

“Well...” he drew out the L-sound. Casting his bright yellow-gold eyes skyward, he rocked back and forth on his heels. “That's the thing, LandMistress Nooni. There isn't ... exactly... a house there. Yet.”

When Nooni realized what he was saying, she nearly burst. “Oh – well, then.” She said, trying to clamp down her excitement, and after a moment she added, “we'll just have to rectify that!”

“That would be perfect,” Dhela said. “After seeing your work here, start to finish, I'm positive that the beach house will be something you'll enjoy. And I know it will be another award winner.”

He flickered his dark red eyebrows at her, and Nooni flushed and giggled. Her skin coloration suddenly went wild, a display that would embarrass her surely. Here was a finely bred Lord, with aspirations higher, and she was just a Land Holder with a gift for color... All kinds of color, it seemed.

He tilted his head, watching her skin. When he suddenly blinked and shook his head, he cast his eyes down and gave a pleasant chuckle. “I apologize, LandMistress, your – I rarely see such things. None of the people I usually work with have such intriguing an appearance.”

Nooni waved it off, but noted well to herself that he was apoligizing to her . That was something new. “Don't worry about it. It's been a pain since I was a child. My father could control his coloration, but I just can't seem to get that down.”

Dhela blinked and looked at her oddly. “People can do that?” He asked.

Nooni's expression changed to surprise. “Well, yes! Some can, anyway. Many of my cousins can do it. It's in our line.”

“What an interesting thing to have...” The Owner pondered. Then abruptly he tilted his head and checked the sky. “Oh my, I do apologize again but there is a hover I have to catch. Help yourself to the amenities, if you would like, I must – hrm,” he muttered on his way down to the carriages. Nooni chuckled. He certainly was a character!

He looked too young to sound so distracted. Nooni knew that he was married, but had never met his wife. She thought that the woman must be lucky. Both of them – he was a nice man, and a keen investor.

The storm spattered the first early bits of rain down onto the estate a few minutes later, after Lord Dhela had gone and the Slaves at the Hold welcomed back the carriage. Nooni stood and chatted with the foreman of her work force, and sent the Workers out. She gazed at the garden walk. It was a pretty thing, really – echoed with the peaks above in white, but also with the mirror to the coloration inside the estate she thought that perhaps it might be one that could warrant some media coverage. She decided to send a letter to the magazines to find out if they wanted to cover it.

She wanted to find out more about Lord Dhela, too. He was certainly a conesseur of beauty – was his wife beautiful? Did he have beautiful children?

As the storm broke, she found herself on a tram owned by a distant relative headed down to the low lying ports. She thought about what she'd say to Loneset about this. Because of course, her best friend Mistress Loneset would just sit down and start typing in requests for all the information she could gather.

That wouldn't be a bad thing, would it? Would it be prying? Nooni had found that different people – no matter their Status – would want different levels of attention. There was one stuffy Suzerinne that had almost thrown her out on her ear when she commented that she'd need to clean up and where was the restroom? Then there was Dhela, whose casual manner caught almost everyone on the site by surprise. Some land Holders wanted complete control over where and when the work was done, some never even came to the site to look at the results.

It was all in the personality, and Nooni decided that she liked Dhela best.

“I'll have to find where this beach property is,” she muttered to herself, drifting to sleep on the trip home.

“This is not ... quite what I expected to find,” Nooni laughed. Dhela and his wife Tanzu accompanied their architect to the strip of cliff-backed beach. Tanzu laughed in return.

“That's what I told him too,” she said, “when Dhela said he bought a beachfront Hold, I hoped he was talking about some sunny strip in Bohata!”

Dhela merely turned his eyes to the beach, then up to the cliffside. “Anyway... This is all the Hold – from the road's end,” he waved his wood-orange hand toward the south, where the steep cliff wore away to a more leisurely incline and there was clearly a built road, “to the black cliff wall there,” he indicated it, it looked to be about half a mile away to the north-west, “and to the road again back along the cliffs.”

Nooni stood in awe. The village up in the wooded hills was calling itself Ist, perhaps a bit more than a thousand miles from Imat, at the sharp end of Altem. Situated thus, it was hard to see what would happen in this township. Would it be a Steeding land? A transport capitol? Were there mines and metals to be had?

It was then that Nooni had another of her very infrequent ‘visions'. Dhela and Tanzu both reached out to steady her, as the forty-year old stood trembling and gasping a bit when she was finished.

“Are you all right?” Tanzu asked, worried. “Did you have a seizure?” The Owners stood close to Nooni, and she faintly heard Dhela whisper to his wife something about ‘see, I told you her skin does these things!' to which Tanzu shushed him.

“No, no, Lady Tanzu, I... I had a vision. Sometimes, they come to me. This place is remarkable. I know it's here, there was an earthquake here some time ago – perhaps a thousand years. This cliff was exposed. I ... I've never seen a vision about a place, before. Just people.” She breathed more steadily after a while, and returned her eyes to the high cliffside. Her coloration subsided into a dark red.

“Do you think it will be dangerous to build here, then?” Dhela asked, a bit disappointed.

“I think the contrary, Lord Dhela, I think this is a great place to build. In fact I think I need to do a bit of research. Climbing. Is there an outfitters here for hiking and wilderness survival?”

“I dearly hope so,” Tanzu muttered. “This forsaken place is so isolated you'd have to have some kind of preparations... for... you're not going to climb that, are you?” She said, weakly raising her white colored fingers to the steep cliff face.

“I'm going to be looking for something deeper in the hill, on the cliff top itself. I ... I saw something that you two will probably like quite a bit.”

The trio got back to the carriage, a low-slung enclosed cab that trailed behind two short-legged grounded Steeds fit best for the twisting switchbacks of this mountain retreat. Once they reached the little village of Ist, they realized that they were the only tourists – now Holders – crazy enough to work the land right over the ocean.

The Zekirans still had their habitual fear of water – light-bodied people like they, with uniformly little in the way of body fat, and practically no talent whatsoever for swimming, they were a bit stymied by the water around everything. Their culture refused to revolve around waterways and transport over oceans or lakes. Instead, their technology had remained constant to bring supplies and people to the farthest reaches of the world with out once stepping foot into a puddle.

But it would be a challenge, then, to build something dramatic as the surroundings – Nooni was determined to locate the thing she'd seen in her vision.

Tanzu sounded openly doubtful about the process of finding an outfitter, but was actually right up in front when they'd bought the right kind of boots and hefted their day-packs. Her white nose was brightly red, by the time they had hiked an hour. Exhausted but thrilled, Tanzu held back her husband while Nooni explored a certain reach of their new Hold.

“I think she's wonderful,” Tanzu said. “Have you told her anything yet?”

“I was going to wait until you gave the word. You know I would never make a move like this without you.”

Tanzu leveled her washy green-blue eyes at her husband. “And you know that's what makes you the best man in the world.”

They waited, watching Nooni as she lifted branches and scuffed her thick boots on the turf. Finally, though, she gave off a cheer that squealed into the air. Tanzu and Dhela approached, quickly.

“What have you found?” Dhela asked. He peered over her shoulder, where she was proudly indicating with a pointed violet-swirly finger.

It was a bank of dark, grey-green marble. The whole cliffside below them, a jolted few spans exposed by that earthquake that she'd spoken of. “It's going to be your new homestead's material. That, and these beautiful trees. The wood is brittle, but I think it can be treated well enough. It lives here perfectly fine. It'll do as your home.”

Tanzu recovered her senses, after the stunning sight. She nudged her husband and grinned widely.

“Ah – ah! Yes!” Dhela said, trying to adopt a casual air as he walked toward Nooni. “I ... we have a bit of a proposition for you, Nooni. You've worked with me for what, three years now?” Nooni pondered and nodded. “And I was a fan of your prior works, as well, you know that. You make our homes feel so ... homey.”

Tanzu snorted and rolled her eyes. Butting in, sidling up to her husband, she said, “we'd like you to become, well, part of our family. Dhela would like to marry you, and I have no objections to him having a second wife. It would be a pleasure having such a talented woman in my family.”

Dhela nodded, “Tanzu speaks for me. Would you perhaps consider marrying me?”

Nooni was numbed, half from the chill in the air and their climb, but this? Her skin turned an almost sunlit golden red. Blinking, she turned her eyes from one Owner to the other, and tried to formulate a way to say she'd think about it. But that did her no good – she couldn't even bother with it.

“Of course I would!” She exclaimed.

“Then you'd be living here, if you wish?” Dhela said.

“It's much too cold, this time of year!” Nooni said, “but I think if I worked on it I'd be able to swing a homestead that's warm and dry looking over the cold wet cliffside. How's that?”

It was a convienence that Dhanoo's weakly inherited locating power allowed him to wander through the warehouse and gather whatever he needed for his projects. His half-brother Zudhi on the other hand kept intricate notes for any given item they required. Both of them were apprenticed to Dhanoo's mother for the duration, they exhibited the desire to learn her architectural trade at an early age.

With only six years separating them, Dhanoo the elder concieved during the celebration of the new homestead's finish and Zudhi born of a splice technique to the largely infertile Tanzu, the brothers were as alike as they could be – and as different as night and day.

“When you said you knew what you wanted,” Zudhi said as he pushed the hand truck behind Dhanoo, “you were lying, weren't you.”

“If you say it like that, of course I was lying.” Dhanoo chuckled. “Ah – that'll do it. The wood glue we have is just about gone.”

“Then get two – I'm going to start something that I don't want to be hammering through.” Zudhi said.

“Done,” Dhanoo nodded and dropped two of the heavy jars into the basket on the hand truck. “Dare I ask what it is you'll be doing?”

“My mid-year project will be coming up soon.” The peachy-colored young man said. “And since you've already done all that I don't want to be copying your work.”

“Why not?” Dhanoo said, bumping his brother, “you know I scored well.”

“I know your mother would give you a good grade – this isn't her class.”

“My mother had nothing to do with my mid-year,” Dhanoo insisted. “And I worked with stone and metal. You're going to make something nice out of that elva-wood we picked up last week, aren't you!”

They worked their way through the builders-supply warehouse, and managed to pay for everything with their own cash. Their few side projects had already started getting interest, and if Zudhi's work was more ornate and complicated, it was slightly less flowing and subtle than Dhanoo's. They both figured they could out-do one another some day.

Their parents collectively thought otherwise, of course, and were right. The young men came home to the big marble Ika mansion, put their work aside, and slipped into the steam room for a nice relaxing and bone-warming bath. The temperature outside was almost to freezing, but the sky was clear of any snow yet. The sea-water vapors from the ocean chopping below their home made the chill in the air cling to noses and exposed skin. It was their habit – and the habit of their parents – to come in and relax before doing anything else for the day. It was a practice that kept the household warm and civil, tempers rarely flew in this house.

Lord Dhela and Lady Tanzu's other Owner friends made reference to that fact as though it were undesirable or somehow less of an Owner's trait. It was when one of them tactlessly suggested that the Lord and Lady ought to divest and just bring themselves to a new low of LandHolding that everyone was surprised.

“We may,” Dhela said, with a smirk on his handsome face. “But then we've got a number of good Slaves that I would never want to suffer at your inexpert hands.”

The other Lord didn't return to any of this family's parties.

It was perhaps the strangeness of having a LandMistress for a second wife – not a mistress, not a hidden lover – that disturbed Lady Tanzu's friends most. “How do you stand her? Isn't she just a worker with a nice home? She's hardly an addition that any true Lady's house would be needing!”

Tanzu did not even let them finish their tea before escorting those ‘friends' out of her Homestead. That home had been made by her step-wife's hands, and she appreciated every ounce of effort that went into it. Who better to have make a comfortable home? Surely not a stiff-lipped woman like Lady Amzhur, whose ‘expertise' was in homestead acquisition. She'd gloated about a particularly cheap homestead she'd located out in the desert where some old Lord farmer had allowed his Slaves to go missing or starving. There was a house out there, she said, just waiting to be renovated and used.

“Perhaps as a Bond house, that sand could be used for cement or ... something decorative.” Lady Amzhur was saying when the pair of young men came out from their bath. They'd listened in while dressing, and silently went past her. “Ah – yes, I would love to see what you would do with that kind of sand. It's... very yellow.”

“Is it aerated?” Zudhi asked flippantly, “or is it just loose tumbled limestone? It's useless either way, unless you just want more desert in your house.”

“Imagine that you could make a little sand walk or a pit or something,” Dhanoo stated, trying to steer the conversation away from openly insulting the visiting Lady – it was too late for that at any rate.

“What, with one of those little rakes and the pebbles that HighMaster Nuz talked about? Feh,” Zudhi waved his hand, “I hardly want to deal with something as gritty like that getting into any home of mine.”

“Don't build on the beach,” Dhanoo grinned. He tugged his brother's elbow and made wide-eyes at him directing him to the Lady's perturbed expression.

They heard the tink-tink of cups and silver spoons mixing more honey into the tea within. Zudhi grinned at his brother.

“You think I didn't know she was angry?” He said.

“You're wicked,” Dhanoo agreed quietly, “I wish that she'd leave, we need to talk about where to rent space for the projects.”

“That's right!” Zudhi groaned, “I'd forgotten, the last space was loaned out to the woodHold for their storage...”

Together they waited, comparing notes about what projects they would be mastering this season, and what direction they would take once they'd both completed their Ownership exams. Dhanoo wasn't positive he'd be able to complete it, he wasn't all that hot on all the complex issues of Ownership at all. Zudhi promised that he would help – and because Dhanoo came from a line of gracious people he expressed the relief that he felt. “I couldn't do it without you,” he said.

“And I probably wouldn't have completed that course on tools if not for you,” Zudhi said, “so we're always even.”

“Want to wrestle?” Dhanoo said, holding his arm up and making a small muscle. They were both fairly slender, neither of them overburdened with muscularity. They were still in their late teens and early twenties, though and had some growing to go. If they continued to lift and work with their tools, they would get strong in the way that only construction people did. Their mothers assured them that was a fine trait to have. Especially when impressing the young ladies was concerned. They of course perked up at that. Both of them were heartily masculine without being annoyingly so. Their father taught them the right way to greet a Lady, what not to say to a young woman even when she's of a Status considerably lower.

All in all, their family was a stable, pleasant place to be.

Until Lady Amzhur's highly competitive daughter entered the picture. Though she was in her thirties, and had long since passed her exams and been an Owner of some reputation in the Imat area, and though she claimed to be ‘into Steeds more than anything' she suddenly expressed the grandiose desire to re-learn everything and become – of course – an architect.

Zudhi and Dhanoo would come home, bathe, and try to relax. When they saw Lady Amzhur's violet-trimmed carriage in the drive, however, they knew that things would just go to hell that day.

“Why can't she stay in Imat, anyway?” Griped Zudhi. “She's supposed to be Holding there. Not here.”

“Ika's nowhere,” Dhanoo agreed vocally, “it's a place where only the strong put down roots.” Their voices were muted by the thick walls and the sound of the water moving below the floor – but they almost raised their voices enough to be heard halfway across the mansion. There was little chance that either Lady Amzhur or Lady ette (as they referred to her) Uryi could hear them through halls. Unless she was spying on them.

Which she was.

It was only in her nature, of course. Proper Owners could do anything they wished – and if spying on the Holders of the house was in order, she'd do it. With her mother's approval. Tanzu didn't realize that the woman was even in her home until one of the Slaves asked if she'd want something brought to her in the Tile room.

“The ... the tile room?” Tanzu asked, “why would she be in the tile room? We're chatting here, please tell her that her tea will get cold.”

“Already done, my Lady,” the dark-blue skinned Slave said, bowing his head a bit, “but she says that she's just going to wait for a few minutes.”

Tanzu blinked, and then glanced carefully at Amzhur. “Your daughter is spying on my sons,” she said flatly, and sipped her tea. “I would care to remind her that in my home, we have no secrets nor any great reason to invade one another's privacy.” She sipped again, while it looked like Amzhur was gathering her wits for an answer, but she interrupted. “There are walls in this Homestead for a good reason, Lady Amzhur. I'm sure that your daughter realizes that, what with her being all intent on becoming as expert as my sons, in their trade.”

Without being able to speak, and her tea cup halfway between her lips, Amzhur raised her thin grey-steel eyebrows over her cold blue eyes. But Tanzu wasn't finished, apparently.

“My sons enjoy their meditative bath about this time of day, before they get to work on their studies. You know that they are both about to graduate, of course.”

“... Of course,” Amzhur said, putting her tea cup down with a tiny twink noise. “Of course. And my-”

“And they have done so on the virtue that my step-wife is an expert in the field. Of building , and designing . Rather than ... locating things. Like homesteads.”

There was a very awkward pause, and the Slave noticed that this was the moment he ought to say, “I shall retrieve the young Lady from the tile room and present her tea,” and turned to do just that.

After the Slave removed himself from their presence, the two women regarded one another. “Young Lord Zudhi is your son, correct?”

Tanzu nodded. “Yes, he is.”

“So your ... ‘other' son, that is the offspring of your step wife? You really call her that?”

“Of course I do. Well,” Tanzu gave a coy smile, “usually I call her Nooni.”

“And you call her son yours as well,” Amzhur said with some distaste.

“Of course I do,” Tanzu repeated. “And that bothers you tremendously, doesn't it?”

“Why would it ever?”

“Because you are an arro- a proper Lady, and proper Ladies hardly like to consort with the lower Status. You believe that I have somehow ... sullied my Status?”

The Lady stiffened, and narrowed her eyes. “In fact, yes. I do. And such a thing should prove to you that your ways should change.”

Tanzu gave a little shrug and heard down the hall as the Slave brought a protesting Uryi into the room. “Mother, I insist I was merely admiring the textures and color combinations.”

“And well you should,” Tanzu said before Amzhur could say anything, “because the workmanship of this mansion is superb. I have heard that you wish to enter my sons' profession – yet I hardly think that a woman who has done nothing but play with Steeds all her young life would be able to truly appreciate the work which did go into the home. It took us three years to craft this place. I even put up the fixtures in the dining hall and bedrooms.”

To Amzhur it appeared that was a scandal waiting to be spread. To Uryi it was a slap in the face.

“Mother! I cannot tolerate this for one moment more. First those boys insult me at the school, and they talk behind my back constantly, and now this woman says-”

“So you admit that you were standing there listening to my sons in their private chambers?” Tanzu said, simply.

Uryi blinked, confused and angry.

“You'd best admit it, Uryi, you may as well. We are an open family, and you treat our opinion of your abrupt and highly egocentric decision to intrude upon their chosen field as something offensive?” Tanzu stood, moving her hand through her faintly green hair before continuing. “I find that the mere mention that you think you could compete with either of them in the field to be both amusing and pathetic.”

“Tanzu!” Amzhur exclaimed suddenly. It was right about then that Zudhi and Dhanoo emerged from the hallway in silence. They could not help but hear their mother speaking harshly at Lazy Amzhur, but this was something different than she'd done in the past.

“Yes, sister?” Tanzu said, and all three of the younger folk in the room nearly lost their eyeballs in surprise. Tanzu spared her sons a brief glance and an apologetic smile. “Half sister, dears. Why else would I allow her to trespass into my home so often after insulting me?”

“I'd wondered,” Dhanoo muttered.

“You know it's just not me,” Dhanoo said, as he officially signed his divestiture papers. He'd long since sold his only Slave to his brother, prefering to work with Bayaran or just hire people instead. “I think this is for the best.”

Zudhi wasn't so convinced, but then he had Ownership running in his blood. “I suppose, but you won't be able to Hold enough land to support your ideas.”

“Of course I will,” Dhanoo stated. “As a Membayar I won't worry about Slaves, but do remember that I can Hold as much land as you.”

“And if that Land becomes more valuable? What happens when it's reZoned?”

“Then, brother of mine, I will simply peition to become an Animal Master and stick a herd of Steeds somewhere. They don't have to Own or Bond.” Dhanoo grinned widely and the woman taking his paperwork gave a private smile. He was quite right, it was determined with the busy nature of Animal Masters around the world, they didn't have time for things like keeping track of their money. That was why they had other people do it for them. It was nice to have a Slave come to greet you at your homestead, but then again half the BeastLords in the world had been Raised from Slaves. Most of them didn't feel like a slap in the face every time they came home.

“Clever,” Zudhi said, “you've thought this out.”

They left the legal offices and the woman called out to Dhanoo, “don't forget, you will be getting a currier with your new Status package soon.”

That package would include his new official identity markers – a distinct “circle around a circle”, indicating the protective sway of the Membayar's influence on a Bayaran – whose symbol was that inner circle. It was just recently when those things had come back into use. Apparently generations ago, when the colonization had begun – perhaps before then, but the brothers didn't know – the symbol badges were in common use and actually required in certain places. That had all but been abandoned a few hundred years back, but they were now a fashion accessory.

“Have you heard about the fight over those Renegades in Wivir?” Zudhi made small talk as they rode back to the mansion in his carriage. “Their children have sued for their Raising.”

“I hope they get it,” Dhanoo muttered, looking out the window at the rolling hills and stormy skies of Ist. “They spent their whole childhood free, why not?”

“Well, you know it's complicated.”

“That's why I divested, brother,” Dhanoo said, his tone warm but he was also willing to continue discussing this matter.

“It's so long ago, why are they doing this now?” Dhanoo said after a moment and a sip of his celebratory wine.

“Well their parents had been on the site for what, eight or nine years. The children were all born there,” Zhudi said, relating what he'd heard at a law-club meeting. “and they were first going to be placed in Slave status the way their parents had. But a couple of the smarter Renegades thought it would be more appropriate to put them into Bayaran. So, they did.”

“Ah – but for how long, that's the question right?” Dhanoo said, nodding. “I can see where this is going. They've been Bayaran what... you were like, three? when this happened? I remember your mother talking about it a lot. Mine didn't seem to notice.”

“She was a bit busy with you,” Zudhi quipped and snorted a laugh as Dhanoo put on his ‘you're so smart' smile.

“So they've been Bayaran for almost thirty five years? That is a while. Especially considering they didn't do anything to get there in the first place.”

Zudhi nodded deeply. “And, there was someone just recently, a few years back, that Suzeraan's kid. He wasn't a Suzerain before, his Bond bore him that Slave of his, and everything got all mixed up. They've settled that suit too.”

“Good, because I can't bear to think about it. Too many complicated things!” Dhanoo waved his glass. “I mean, it's one thing to be able to sit down with someone and tell them – ‘look, you just broke someone's fence and their prize winning Steed got hit by a hovercar. They won't be able to breed him now and they won't be winning any race money from him. That's a pretty serious problem and you're to blame.' So in steps the Membayar to take care of the details, and payment levels. It's okay that way. I just don't want to deal with a Slave who's maybe going to try telling me that I owe them back pay because their new Status allows them to petition for it.”

“Oh – so that's what this is about, that girl Ginali right?” Zudhi said. Dhanoo rolled his eyes and groaned. “It is her. She's a BeastLady now, why worry about it? She doesn't have time to worry about your money. She barely understands how to keep her own.”

“That's not true,” Dhanoo shot back, “She's viciously smart. And I think she's holding a grudge.” He leaned back into the black leather seat, “how was I supposed to know she'd never been tested for Tunings by her former Lord? She was eighteen! You're supposed to be tested when you're like, twelve!”

Zudhi raised an orange eyebrow over his golden green eye. “I would think that you have more than a bit of professional interest in her, Dhanoo. You didn't want to Raise her because you wanted her to stay on.”

“... I'll admit that to you,” Dhanoo said quietly as the carriage rocked back and forth. “She ... she's a beautiful, strong willed woman, she's not any shorter than you, and she's fertile, and she is very smart. I don't want to sound like a complete idiot, but Zudhi, I miss her. And she hates me.”

Zudhi pushed himself back into his own side of the seat, and looked straight ahead at the window and the sky beyond the driver. “She might not hate you as much as you think she does, Brother Dear.”

They shared a silent look at one another, and then both gave a bit of a wry grin. “So that's why you were so quick to point out you could re-title to Animal Master,” Zudhi said, and his brother smacked his shoulder. “It's true! You only get like this when you know I'm right!”

When they got back to the Ist mansion both were pleased to note that Nooni was home for once. Dhanoo asked her opinion about the matter, privately, and got that knowing smile she would give. She thought it would be best if he let the tempers die down, ask around to see if she spoke of such things to her friends, and then perhaps... work something out.

What he wound up doing was rather like that plan, and rather cleverly he had set things aside and made arrangements in addition to watching Ginali's career for two long years. She was an expert Steed trainer, an admirably healthy and attractive Slave-born woman. Her Tuning apparently allowed her to take a group of Steeds and teach them all at once, rather than one at a time, saving endless annoyances with one colt that wouldn't learn, or re-doing the same thing over and over. Once Ginali had settled on a method, apparently she enjoyed doing her work wherever there were Steed farms.

But she had nothing to call her own, really. A small stipend and her steady earnings allowed her to Hold a chunk of Land out in the newly Zoned city of Kua. That land, Dhanoo suspected, would be prime space sooner or later, and she'd be able to give her children some impressive Inheritances.

And he wanted to share in that. He'd bought her half on a whim, from an elderly Lord who apparently neglected too many of his duties and just wanted to retire. This was a little more than four years back, and it was quickly determined that she wanted to be presented to a Breeder. Not only did she test fertile, but those unusual markings on her back and legs seemed to be the smallest indications of her Tunings. She had a little tail, a tiny thing that she never showed her Lord but the Breeder told him all about it.

It made Dhanoo want her even more. But his responsibility was to Raise her, so he did. She'd been Held by him for only a year and a half, but she'd made quite an impression on the sunset-colored man. Her brilliant yellow skin dappled with dark brown spots, the way her hair was the shade of sunlight on water – mixed a beautiful deep blue-green and that sunlight flickering on the ends – and her eyes were entrancingly emerald.

So over the next two years Dhanoo examined Ginali's Holdings and looked at her needs. She didn't know this, of course, he made sure that even if he spoke directly with one of her friends, they kept secret. Even they knew that she did hold a grudge but it wasn't really against him particularly, just Owners in general. So when he'd divested it was halfway to please her. It was two years late, of course, but that didn't matter. She would see his new badge and realize the difference between he and the rest of the world.

It was at a race, when they finally met up again. Kua was a very busy place, and it had been difficult to arrange a time when both would be there without any other events to intervene. Zudhi made the arrangements of course, he was better at that. Dhanoo on the other hand, Zudhi had insisted that he leave all the financial and arrangement work to him, Dhanoo needed to concentrate on making the right lines on that blue paper.

He designed a homestead for her. One which incorporated her needs, and what he saw as her desires. He asked frequently at parties about her, making sure that her friends got details right. He suspected there was at least one jealous Animal Lord, who either didn't want to share the potential relationship or didn't think Dhanoo's powers or appearance would fit well enough. So Dhanoo stopped going to that man's parties, and concentrated on the group of women she clung to. A Breeder, two other Animal Mistresses, a LandMistress and a Worker, all tagging along together. They assured Dhanoo that Ginali's interests were in two places: Steeds and men. She wasn't an ‘upwardly mobile' sort, she was quite happy to work with Steeds for the rest of her life. She'd just wanted to do it under her own name and rank.

And Dhanoo couldn't blame her. His family history kept coming back to him, he knew well that their livelyhoods had been made or broken on Slaves or being Owned. Each generation of his history gave him something new. Of course he couldn't really know his deepest histories of Status and whim, but somehow he felt a connection to this woman.

When the party was announced Dhanoo knew it would be his best chance. She would be showing off a batch of Steeds that she'd trained to do flips in the air around one another, which was quite a show. That would be bringing in all manner of Steed fans for the event, and the after-party was to be stunning. She was the guest of honor, the Hold was her Breeder friend's. That Breeder suggested at one prior party that their genetics were very compatable. Colors notwithstanding, two shades in hair and skin on both sides? That would be pretty.

Dhanoo brought with him not only the actual blueprints, but a small scale model that he'd assembled. The land was crafted after photographs and scans he'd gotten from the Land Mistress, and the kinds of trees were identified by the Worker girl. Her two Animal Mistress friends supplied the information about how many Steeds were likely to live there at once, whether there would be need for Ground Steed facilities, a lab or such other Mastery things. He'd colored it according to the landscape and on the inside the decorations were mainly looked over by Nooni for aesthetic reasons. Dhanoo admitted that his mother did the best job in the world, in making the colors and layout work best.

Now... If only Ginali would appreciate the effort – and accept the offer to have this Homestead built on her Land, using his supplies at his expense. She would know immediately that this was a ply for her attentions. She was smart that way.

The party was in full swing when Breed Lady Xem swished by. In one blue-violet hand she held a wine glass with wine almost the same shade as her skin. In the other, she towed along Ginali away from an adoring batch of onlookers.

“I have a surprise for you,” Xem said, “and I want you to promise me that you will think hard on this before saying anything.”

Ginali groaned, “of course, I won't let you down...”

“You never have,” Xem said, and gently brushed aside the foursome of partygoers who had gathered to look at the model on the big table in an atrium. “Here, you may recognize the creator of this beautiful model,” Xem announced and nodded to Dhanoo. “His work is superb, of course. Like yours.”

With reluctance at first, Ginali glanced at Dhanoo and then steeled herself for whatever it was on the table. But then her eyes focused on it, looked over the black-roofed building that blended into the smooth hill where she –

“That's my Hold!” She exclaimed. “That...” She peered into the model, looking at the way the doorways were open and the doors themselves all had beautiful cut-out windows of either clear or stained glass, how the Steed barns could fit the whole mess of them wings and all, and had a little walkway connecting it and the house decorated with simple but pretty woodworks.

“I'd like to build this for you, BeastMistress Ginali,” Dhanoo said. “In exchange for one thing.”

“... And what one thing would that be?”

“That you would give me the time to court you properly, and not refuse me outright?”

There was a party-induced cheer and subsequent silence, and that put both of them on the spot. Neither of them truly liked being the center of attention – Ginali wanted the Steeds to do that for her. She liked praise, but she didn't much care for ...

“... How much will it run?”

“I said, in exchange for one thing .” Dhanoo repeated carefully. Some of the Membayar and High Holders in the party at that point started muttering about the cost of love, and such.

Ginali swept her head back up, after peering at the model again. “I should think about it, but I'm going to just say yes. It's lovely.” She glanced at her friends all of whom were beaming. “And now I know why you kept asking what my favorite stupid color was,” she said to the one Beast Lady.

“We can start right away,” Dhanoo said, “I've been getting the supplies already.”

“What if I'd said no?” Ginali said.

“Then I would build it while you're away, and surprise you with it.”

Ginali's face showed a bit of apprehension and then a broad smile. She threw her arms around him, which took Dhanoo by surprise. She buried her face in his neck, and then winced when her nose found the metal of his Status pin. “I missed you, Master Dhanoo, I hadn't realized it until just now.”

With the homestead in Kua came a certain amount of acclaim for both Ginali and Dhanoo. His design was ground breaking – if not only for the way that it rested within half the hill and gently caressed the natural boulders to the west, but for the way that he'd convinced Ginali to allow him to build it. Dhanoo was convinced that his Membayar status wasn't going to last, with the way he'd gotten so many offers to design things recently.

“Why not start with my idea?” Ginali asked him, as she moved through the Kua hold. “I heard you muttering about it, why not blow some of that money on me?”

“What, again?” Dhanoo laughed. “Where are you thinking?”

“I am thinking that the neighbors don't have enough interest in their Landholds...” Ginali pondered while glancing out the east windows. “Look at it.”

“I look at it every day, do you think they'll sell?”

Ginali pressed up against her architecht-husband and purred, “of course they will, if you let me do the talking...”

So it was, that shortly after opening the Kua Flip Ranch (a name that Dhanoo despised with a grin on his face), that Ginali and Dhanoo began preparations to flatten out some of the low-grade hills on that Hold and see about putting in a major piece of real estate.

It would be much larger than anything Dhanoo had designed, and would probably take both their combined monies to assemble. But ... it would be a marvel. While they would rest, snuggling in a large dark room with starlight playing over them through the north “tunnel window” that was burrowed through the ground behind the building itself, Ginali would tell Dhanoo of her desires, and Dhanoo would tell her how it could come to be. Their pillow talk was rather odd, it would seem.

But if it was pillow talk, the pillow was rich.

For the next few months, both of them worked solidly on other people's projects, and accepted payment eagerly for the first time in ages. They would normally have given better rates, or even haphazardly discounted their services in both Steed and design realms – but they were preparing for the big investment of their lives.

Zudhi and the others in the family contributed what they could, even if only for a small plaque when the thing was done. It was well worth their efforts. In the fall of the year Fourteen-Eight, Ginali's superb (and as yet unnamed) Steed Arena broke ground.

By summer of Fourteen Ten, it was finished. The landscaping had time to grow in, and there was a beautiful festive platform which rested somewhere between the Flip and the Arena, where a large group of Steed professionals, architects and a multitude of other onlookers gathered. The grand opening was upon them.

A flight of bright yellow, golden winged Steeds rose as one from the area behind the platform, circled into the air as though they had never done anything else. They vanished behind the big bank of trees, and came back around to graze the bush tops by the platform. Then, they climbed again aggressively into the sky. Ginali commanded them with a great ease and a huge smile on her face. Though she was pregnant – and not with Dhanoo's child – she was able to take attention away from the Steeds long enough to say: “We will meet them inside the Arena!” And with that, the group moved from the outdoors to the interior of the large Arena.

It was big enough to hold aerial stunt flights, yet each portion of the place had a close, intimate feel to it. Perhaps it was the angle of the walls, or the way the vertical windows streamed in light from the setting sun, or maybe the place was smaller than anyone realized? But it was mostly white, no spare pillars or anything that might catch a Steed's wing. The floors and grounds were meant for both Zekiran and Steed feet to walk. It was ironic, really, that when Ginali asked about substances to line the Steedways with, the first thing that Dhanoo thought of was that frightful yellow sand that his step-aunt owned.

She sold him the Hold, without two blinks of her eyes. She realized quickly that her own daughter was by far the biggest mouthed young woman in creation, and that sand was just sand unless she could afford to somehow turn it into gold or dirt. Since neither were about to happen, she abandoned it just as its prior Holder had done.

And about three tons of that sand wound up lining the Steed ways. It was comfortable on their hooves, compact enough that it didn't wind up everywhere when they waved their wings, and matched the pale tone of the white interior.

Ginali wasn't sure why Dhanoo always chuckled to himself with a guilty look when he talked about that Hold – he hadn't really explained why he knew about it, only that his relative had it. So it was with the utmost irony in the world, that Lady Uryi brought her trio of Steeds to show at the Arena's premier opening. She and several dozen others were set up in the booths that lined the main arena space. There was a kind of wheel-shape in that room, with ten main double-wide doors leading back to the Steed housing. Another ten more smaller doors led down slightly longer corridors to other boarding areas, and all were in use and open right then.

The Arena itself was to hold Steed Shows, more than races. That was Ginali's forte after all, training a racing Steed was work for someone who actually rode more than she. Whenever she did have to put herself onto the back of a Steed, Dhanoo always complained that she didn't like having her tail touched afterwards, so she managed to stay off them most of the time.

“This is wonderful,” Ginali whispered, heard only by Dhanoo over the celebratory din.

“Isn't it?” Dhanoo laughed. “I'd offer you wine, but you and the little one there won't be needing that.”

At that, Ginali adopted a strange look, one which Dhanoo had gotten used to of late. “You're sure you-”

“Ginali, if you're fertile, you're fertile. Your BreedLady would hardly warrant an entire strip on the boardwalk with her name on it if she couldn't get you to give the world a child.”

“But – He's-”

“Not mine, I know. But he's yours.” Dhanoo smiled again and raised his wine glass to the center of the Arena. “And some day, part of this might be his. Maybe he'll grow up underfoot. But maybe,” he said, with another more sly grin, “he'll be growing up with a sibling.”

That turned into a truth quickly. Ginali and Xem had practically plotted out the next decade, but Ginali had the final say about who she would and would not pair up with. When the Arena was making an ungodly amount of money – Steed boarding, Shows, events, and even local broadcasting held there regularly – Ginali decided that now she was ready for Dhanoo to get serious.

Not that they hadn't been serious before, about their lovemaking. But now, after two births and a five year wait, Ginali knew how her body worked more accurately. Whenever she got that look on her face, a heavy-lidded smile, Dhanoo immediately got himself in gear. They enjoyed every effort they made, of course.

Less than five months later, Ginali's belly swollen again, her son and daughter visited and asked the typical questions of her. They would be experiencing school and being informed about Breeding later on, as they were both quite young yet. Dhanoo watched as his wife entertained them with stories of how heavy the child inside her was, and then took them outside to her favored Steed's stall. Dhanoo rose and followed after her, interested in just watching her interact.

“You see how swollen she is too?” Ginali showed the two young children – both with her spotted skin, one with a much longer tail and pointed ears as well – the dark yellow-gold mare's own pregnant self. “Ooh – did you see that?”

“It went bulgy!” Said the girl, Vanlith.

“The baby Steed is getting restless, moving around.”

“That's ikcy,” said Gonell, her older brother. “I don't want that!”

“... uh-” Ginali said, pausing because she was about to laugh so hard she might cry. Fortunately, Dhanoo stepped in to save the day.

“Well, Gonell, only girl-types have to worry about that. You don't get pregnant, just females.”

The profound look of exaggerated relief on the boy's face made everyone laugh. “That's good!” He clearly had his mother's sensibilities and temper. Only his sister would be Inheriting from this Hold, though – her father was another Animal Master. Gonell's father was a Free Worker thanks to his donation to Xem's breeding pool, Bayaran turned Free for the moment.

It amused both Ginali and Dhanoo that not more than four months later, as his mother went into labor in the Flip house, that he added, “girls get to do all the cool stuff.”

“Maybe you should become a Breeder like Xem,” Dhanoo said, and Gonell shrugged. “It's a lot of work, but ... look at that... You've got a sister.”

“I already have a sister,” the ten year old grumbled, but then he and that selfsame sister nearly bubbled over when they got to hold little Dhanali. Ginali was tired, but not exhausted from her third birth. Xem said something about slowing down on the Breeding work for a while, which was a bit of a relief to both adults. After all, too many Inheritances spoil the Hold.

“Why didn't I get that damn thing cut off?” Dhanali grumbled, rubbing her rear end and wishing heartily that she had her hand-length tail removed when BreedLady Xem suggested it. She determined that when she had the spare silver she'd do it. Of course, she told herself that every time she rode, and the next day promptly wondered why she'd ever think of such a thing. She could hardly imagine her own rear end without the extra flap of vertibrae and skin.

Neither could her assortment of fans and lovers. As an Animal Mistress she was superb, a racer and trainer of Steeds like her mother. She was more interested in the active role that a jockey plays, than merely the aspects that Ginali worked with. Both of them would work on their group of fine yellow and gold Steeds together, but it was Dhanali who would race them to victory. Not every race would be won, there were some very serious Steeds and jockeys out there. For the moment, Dhanali participated in local races instead of worldwide. She liked being at home. Flip House had become busy again with the birth of Ginali's fourth and final child, a little boy whose Suzeraan father required an heir for his sizable plantation empire.

Xem would never have accepted money for any of the little surgeries that could have changed Dhanali's appearance, since this was also her project. One of the other projects that the aging Breeder was working on, was training a young apprentice. A woman named Layahta, whose habit of cracking her knuckles landed her a permanent spot in Dhanali's book. They would compare notes – seeing which direction got the best satisfaction, how many neck bones they could snap at once... Both BreedLady Xem and Ginali were horrified that such a thing could cause bonding with two otherwise sensible and popular young women.

But it did.

Layahta was a bit older than Dhanali, perhaps a decade, so she had been working on her Breeding degrees while Dhanali was still in school. They were able to entertain each other, though, in ways that most people did not expect. Not the least of which were in belching contests.

“I cannot see how that girl came from either of us,” Ginali muttered while passing the suite where her daughter lived. Dhanoo chuckled and agreed. They were lusty, fun-loving people. But they were polite.

“It's a shame, really,” Dhanoo said, “because she's a beautiful young woman. What if some rich Holder comes along to court her, and she manages to pass gas at their tea service?”

Ginali burst out laughing, and from Dhanali's suite came a loud, “I know you're talking about me! You can stop it now!”

Which of course elicited a grand cascade of laughter from both her parents.

In Dhanali's room she leaned against her thick pillows and looked at Layahta on the vid screen. “See what I have to put up with?”

“Then come with me. There's a race I want to bet on, and I'd love to get closer to one of the racers. It's in Reimal, a new course.”

“I suppose.”

“You don't like traveling, I know, I know...” The green-black of Layahta's lips moved into a smirk, “How about we fly there on our Steeds?”

“That's insane, Layahta. Even my Steeds aren't that good for endurance. Besides the race is when? You said in three days?”

“I was only joking... You really are nothing like your folks.”

They met up at the hoverport, and Layahta made a surprising change to their plans. “I would love to go on that boat across Neres Gulf,” she announced. She was looking with some interest at a large ship which held four huge masts and a batch of white sails. The young Mistress Breeder caught Dhanali's look of fear and confusion. “Come on. You're up in the air half a mile high, half the time without a saddle. This is hardly any more dangerous – it's safe , Dhanali!”

“I ... suppose it is. They wouldn't let people on boats if they weren't actually safe.”

Layahta chuckled evilly, then had to back pedal and do a more convincing job of getting her friend on the boat. In order to distract her during the eighteen hour long trip the Breeder talked at length about the project that had finally netted her her own Sixth Degree status.

“It was pretty easy, all things considered. I just had to keep checking on three sets of genes instead of two. Even Xem was surprised I could do it.”

“I'm not surprised at all that you managed to convince three parents worth of genetic material to fuse. You convinced me to get on this boat, and I think I complained more.” Dhanali groaned and lay down with her face pressed into the soft mattress in their stateroom.

“You are still complaining,” Layahta giggled. “Worrywart. I will have to check up on Lepa, she's probably not going to be able to bear children, all in all. But we know that doesn't matter these days.” She puffed herself up with pride.

“It's such an enlightening time...” From her face-down muttering spot, Dhanali fumbled around with her long, spotted hand, and located what she was looking for. A spare pillow which she then launched in the general direction of her friend.

That worrywart's anguish over being on a boat for a day and a half didn't last too long in the face of a good pillow fight.

When they did get into the port, they had to arrange transportation away from the shipyards and up the coast a bit toward the Teklel Project. That would take up the remainder of their travel time – the race would literally be starting only hours after their expected arrival.

“I wish we could have just taken a hover,” Dhanali said, “all this traveling is making me wish I'd taken you up on flying FeatherFeat here.” She paused, looked at the sly expression on her friend's face, and shouted, “I was joking !!”

“I know you'd never put a Steed through that effort, Dhan, I know...” Layahta nodded. “Still, I wonder what their real distance limits are like?”

“I would never put any Steed to that kind of a test unless our lives depended upon it. Like that one Slave who almost lost a whole herd of her Lord's Steeds.” She sighed. “It shames me to know that I'm part of that bloodline.”

With surprise, Layahta glanced at Dhanali. “You're related to Vrva?”

“You know her name?” Dhanali said, equally surprised.

“I do – it's a good bit of history when you like Steeds.”

“It's my history because she was my ... I don't know, great aunt or something, on my mother's side. She ought to have been Raised and given her right Status, that might have changed the way she flew them across the gorge.”

“Falling to your death is still falling to your death,” Layahta commented. “And what really surprised me is that they were able to contain the Steeds one by one.”

“If they'd found an adequately talented Animal Master to do it, they wouldn't have taken two years to get them,” Dhanali said, with a grin.

“Oh, you think you'd be able to get them all back? Twenty Steeds is a lot.”

“Not for my mother,” Dhanali reminded the Breeder. “For her that's a strain, but not too many. Besides they could have done it with the safe-nets.”

“Did those even exist then?”

“Layahta, it was only one hundred years ago. Of course they existed then.”

Their conversation went this way for another six hours, while the hovercraft they and three other people were in flew over the soft rolling Reimal coastline. On occasion, Layahta would attempt to get the others to converse, but they politely declined by turning a bit and pretending to sleep. They clearly didn't know that this woman with the burly hands and the rough voice was a Breeder of considerable talent.

They found out later, when she donned her long coat that had the emblem of the Breeders embroidered in bright gold on it. It was like a gang-member's jacket, showing off her affiliation as though it was meant to terrify or cow other Status. It worked well enough.

While they were in the large inn at Teklel where many transient visitors to the race circuit stayed, placed bets and watched the race on large view screens, Dhanali noticed something different about her friend. She was placing bets at a rapid rate, for not only this race, but for half a dozen others. The Animal Mistress couldn't help but notice – since she didn't bet, herself – that Layahta's bets were mostly poor, and mostly losing.

The big race went on, but even though there were a dozen very fine Steeds to watch, Dhanali found herself watching Layahta's reactions instead of the screen. It was almost painful to her, as though the woman could try willing a fourth-rate Steed into a first-place spot. Obviously, it did not work.

“Why did you bet on that Steed? He was never going to win, Lay.”

“I like to play long shots,” she said, with a half-satisfied grin. There was an oddly wild look on her dark blue eyes when she noticed that another of her races had been run, and she'd lost again. The Breeder swore without caring who was there to listen.

“Those long shots are labeled that way for a reason,” Dhanali pointed out. “They don't often win, and they're never going to amount to a good Steed placement in the finals.”

“Maybe I don't care about that,” Layahta said. She drank a glass of wine as though it was water in the desert, and looked back at the big screens where yet a third race had gone farther from her grasp. The Steeds she bet upon didn't even finish – two of them had tangled in each other's wings, and a third had to shy away from them so far he drifted off the whole course.

“How much did you put on those races?” Dhanali demanded, trying to sound merely interested.

“Oh, probably three or four hundred.”

That pushed Dhanali into an alert stare. “But... Lay... Those Steeds aren't even worth three or four hundred sil, they're worthless and untrained! The least you could do is ask me if I think their training is good enough to-”

“I don't need to worry about that kind of thing,” Layahta snapped, in her drunken way she was still trying to be friendly. “I just go for the ones I like, is all.”

“But how many others have you wound up placing bets for that aren't even in the top ten in their race?”

“Oh, bunches, bunches. They're all pretty though... Their jockeys are very fine.”

“You're going on looks? And whether you'd bed the Jockey?!” Now Dhanali was angry. “You're going to wind up washing dishes like Bayaran if you don't stop betting like this!”

“Ah – hardly. There's no need for such a big voice, Dhani.” The Breeder waved her friend off. She started looking for another betting station, and found one which was showing a race that was to be run in Difar shortly. She began to load her personal banking information into the machine, since she'd run out of cash to put into it.

Dhanali sputtered, “You have a problem!”

From the machine's glowing front, Layahta said with a deep slur, “Maybe I do have a problem with that. Do you have a problem with me having a problem with that?” She laughed abruptly and thumb-printed the release of funds.

It didn't take long for those funds to be sucked out of her account. Which, Dhanali noticed while the on-screen information was still vivid, was depleting rapidly.

“You're going to lose all your money, Lay!” Dhanali said, as her friend searched around for yet another place to throw her money.

“Ahh, I can make more. What's the big deal? Even if I do wind up Bayaran it'll only be for a moment. I'm a Breeder, remember?”

“But Lay – when was the last time you took a client on? You've ... you haven't done any Breeding work since you got your Degree! I know that Xem spoke about it to you, she's disappointed in your – ”

“Of course she's disappointed in my lack of work.” Layahta spat unkindly. “She wanted me to do all kinds of messy splicing after I showed her I could do it. Just because I can, doesn't mean I want to all the damn time!”

“But maybe once would be better than never ,” Dhanali said. “Come on. You're drunk and you're wasting your money here.”

“I do not want to go yet, I'm not finished yet.”

“There are always going to be other races that you can lose money on, Ley,” Dhanali said, and she looked around toward the owners of the establishment. Her eyes – always changing with her mood – had gone a bright yellow color that contrasted with the violet markings around her eyes. She hoped that one of the local Bayaran would come and help her take Layahta up to their room.

“You just don't want me to have any fun.”

“This is not fun, Lay, this is insanity. You have to come upstairs with me right now. You are drunk and you are causing a scene.”

“Oh and since when has that ever been a problem with you? I thought you were my friend! My best friend!” The woman was not yelling, yet, but others were starting to take interest. One of those big burly men with the logo of the inn on their uniform was looking on, and Dhanali wished that he would just walk right over. The fact that he could still see the Breeder's logo on the noisy woman's coat kept him at bay.

“I ... maybe you need a better friend if you want me to continue letting you do this to yourself.” Dhanali said. Layahta froze and stood up straight.

“A friend would let me have fun, and not worry about me impressing my mentors.” She said, low. Dhanali had never seen such a dark look on her friend's face.

“Then I ... might not have what it takes to keep you happy, any more. I never knew you were so ... addicted to this. It's wrong, Lay. It's stupid. You're smarter than this.”

“Don't you tell me what I am and am not.”

“I'll tell you you're going to be Bayaran and I don't think I can help you get out. I don't think I should help you if you'd just go back to doing it again.”

“Then maybe you shouldn't try helping me at all,” Layahta said, almost as though she enjoyed saying it.

“I don't want to lose you as a friend, Lay,” Dhanali said. “But... I don't want to lose you to this, either. Come on upstairs and at least just sleep tonight. It's been a very long couple of days and we're both tired.”

“You go on ahead,” Lay said, narrowing her eyes. “I don't need to worry about the problem I have. I've got you to do that for me.”

There was a creeping pain in Dhanali's stomach, which went up to her throat and cut off anything else she might say. Layahta had never been like this before. She'd been drunk in her presence, certainly, they enjoyed having romps through wine tasting houses. But... The combination of betting and wine had ruined whatever was left of her friendship.

“Not any more,” Dhanali said, and turned to go upstairs.

She cried openly, while on the vid to her mother and father. But she managed to straighten herself up a bit to speak to Xem. Since it was in a later time zone, it was all right to call the BreedLady at her plainsland Homestead in Tana. She would have to know about this. When Dhanali spoke of Layahta's distressing behavior to the Breeder, Xem's response was to look downcast and disappointed.

“I ... was afraid that this would happen.” Xem said. “Her father was like this, I had no idea that it could be passed like an addiction to a substance – it's almost like a disease.”

“It is a disease,” Dhanali said, shakily. “It's frightening. I ... don't know what to do. I want to go home, but I can't leave her here. She'll run herself straight into Slavery at this rate.”

“How about you let me make the decision about where I go and what I do,” said a very angry Layahta from nearby. She startled Dhanali enough that the Animal Mistress yelped out loud. Xem on the screen could not see her apprentice, but she heard her speaking again. “You and that woman have tried to manipulate me all my life! Enough! If I want to bet on Steeds I can do that. If I want to run myself into the ground, that's my problem . Not yours!”

Dhanali squealed in fear as her friend of more than half her life swung with a cane that she'd clearly either stolen from someone or found on the way up to the room. Dhanali's reflexes were better by far than the Breeder's, so she ducked and slid down to the floor, scrambling away from the chair. Xem's communication was cut off, when the cane impacted the vid unit.

“Oops!” Layahta said, loudly, “that's another debt! Broke someone's little toy!”

“This isn't a game!” Dhanali yelled, “Why are you doing this!?”

“It's in my blood,” Layahta said, a growl escaping as she gripped the cane more firmly and advanced on Dhanali. “Didn't you hear? It's inescapable, I can't beat my genes, after all.... But I can beat you.”

Fortunately for Dhanali, either someone in the inn had heard the crashing and the yelling, or Xem had called the inn back and warned them of the attack, two guards came bursting into the locked room's door. It took Layahta by surprise, and gave Dhanali the time to duck around the couch and into a more safe area. Layahta would have to fight her way past not only the guards but several pieces of furniture to hit her. One of the guards allowed Layahta to swing the cane at him, it thudded onto his thick arm with no obvious damage to him, and he expertly took the weapon from her. His partner, a more lithe man, came up to grasp her arms and pin her down.

“I'm so sorry!” Dhanali cried, sobbing at the men while they subdued her friend. “I didn't know she was like this...”

“A lot of people get like this, BeastMistress,” one of the guards said. His partner had administered a chokehold which rendered Layahta unconscious. “Just rarely this high Status is all. We'll need you to give a statement to our security team, and the locals.”

“I.... I'll do that.”

“We'll inform you when you're needed,” said the other guard, as they took the woman away. The door couldn't shut, since they had had to break the lock to get in, but the hinges seemed acceptably undamaged. Little things like that, the way the grain on the door frame would have to be replaced and repainted to match, kept Dhanali occupied as she waited. She could hardly think, so her father's professional words would come to her. Her mind escaped as she ran through the ways that he would have designed the room differently. Over there would be the table, not in the center of the room. This color scheme is all wrong. The vid should be on the wall... Not smashed into pieces on the table.

Dhanali absently picked up the pieces of the broken vid unit, and tried to get them all onto the table. It was difficult, for her eyes were constantly tearing up and making her vision blurry. When the security team finally did ask for her, it was nearly dawn. She'd slept on the couch, clutching a pillow to her chest and sobbing all night into it.

She gave what she could as a deposition, trying to make sense of her friend's behavior. It was clear that her accounts would not support this massive incursion, and worse than merely causing an accident, this was a purposeful abuse of hotel property, theft of someone's posessions – the cane belonged to an elderly Lord who didn't think much of women in the first place, endangerment, and all manner of other slurs that the patrons downstairs had to endure while she was bumping her way from betting post to betting post. It did not look good for Layahta.

It looked bleak indeed for their friendship. When Dhanali saw local police escorting her to their hover vehicle outside, Layahta gave Dhanali such a blistering look of hate that she knew she'd never be able to call the woman friend any longer.

She finished her statements, and was allowed to leave. Dhanali gathered up what she had brought with, and left Layahta's things where they were. They would be used to offset any financial damages she couldn't pay back anyway. When Dhanali reached her home, the Flip hold seemed both invitingly familiar, and a bleakly chill world. Her suite was empty without her friend – and full of Layahta's things that had been left there or shared. She spent the rest of the day wearily packing those things up and separating out what she knew was hers when she'd let herself into Layahta's place later on.

A pile of exchanged items, a bag of her own goods – music recordings, a trophy, clothing, wine – placed into her carriage.

The small Hold that Layahta had might have to come up for sale, too. Could she bear that? Dhanali thought it was a more personal loss – even if Layahta didn't think so.

She would never know how much of a loss, really, because she learned that two days later Layahta killed herself with a dinner knife and would leave all the debt for the lawyers to sort out.

Dhanali threw herself into her work. With her mother training the Steeds for the Arena, and Dhanali getting them into the air and racing them to moderate success, they gave themselves little time in which to dwell upon Layahta. But every time Dhanali went into a race, she felt she was betraying everyone who had ever placed a bet compulsively.

Eventually this guilt drove her to do something quite unusual. She went to her uncle, Lord Zudhi, and asked him about things that she might be able to do. One of his suggestions was clearly based upon his own recent dealings, but it was the best option she'd found yet.

He'd just created a superb location for a broadcast company. They were located in the south of Bohata, but their broadcasts would be seen almost everywhere. The tower for their signal was part of the design of the building, he'd always been best at that kind of thing. He took stock in the company as his payment, so he had a stake in the success of it.

“If my neice thinks she can change the way people do their betting, then that's the best place for her to do it,” he said, for some reason always referring to her as ‘his neice' even though he was otherwise informal with her. Thus encouraged, Dhanali went out to find further evidence that betting and the addiction that it can aggrivate was not only a social factor, but a genetic one. She contacted Breeders, some of whom thought she was insane, many of whom gave their professional opinion but would not go on screen to solidify it. Some though managed to come through for her.

“It's a set of genes, and sometimes they just seem to activate in people who do have an addictive personality,” said one Breeder. They were in a smallish studio being filmed for this event that Dhanali was planning. “It's been confirmed over several studies, but not every Breeder has seen this information.”

“So you think that perhaps people ought to check up on those genes, before starting themselves on a destructive course?” Dhanali asked him, hoping that she didn't sound completely insane.

“I think... well, I think that it would be wise for people who have those genes to avoid betting entirely. But then again, I'm not a betting man. I know when to stop – there are many who don't.”

“But by the same token,” Dhanali said, glancing at her notes, “there are many people who can bet, lose, and walk away – in equal numbers to those who bet and lose, and keep coming back to lose again. Do you think that all of those people are genetically predisposed to this problem?”

“I don't think so,” the Breeder confirmed a suspicion that Dhanali had. “I do think that it's necessary for people – like yourself, and I commend you – to intervene when they can. I have seen several people destroyed if not by betting, then by other dangerous and repetitive activities. Theft, compulsive danger addiction, it's able to manifest itself in many different ways, and I think that while it doesn't go specifically with the set of genes I'm talking about, they may certainly play a role.”

“Thank you, Lord Breeder Whaalnoth.” Dhanali turned to the camera, and leveled her serious, currently green, eyes on it. “So the general consesus, with no fewer than five prominent Breeders and other experts knowledgable on this subject, is that sometimes knowing when to stop isn't enough. Sometimes, knowing when not to start betting – or playing the dangerous games such as petty theft, placing ones self into physical danger – can be even more important.” She paused, and the assistant in the room switched the cue reader for her. “If you suspect that you feel overwhelmed by needs, such as those, there are always options to consider. First is to allow your friends and family to help you, if they offer it. My... My best friend died, because of her addiction, and she could have been given help, if only she'd taken it. That is not the way I want anyone else's life to end – over a betting machine loss.” Again she paused, and gave a flickering smile. “Here are some locations of the Breeders that we've spoken to this evening. If you suspect you – or someone you know – has a problem? Please contact them. It's better than becoming deeply in debt, and certainly better than a life of Slavery to an uncaring Lady Luck.”

The cameras were on just a moment longer, then they turned to clear, and everyone relaxed.

“Did I do okay?” Dhanali asked, nervously.

“Okay?!” Said the station manager, “Beast Mistress, I've never seen anyone do what you just did. I would be honored if you'd consider coming on to the set more often!”

She turned away and flushed, giving off an embarrassed smile and muttering something silly.

“He's right,” said Zudhi, “you were composed, well-spoken, and clear. I've rarely seen someone with that kind of talent, Dhanali.”

“You never call me by my name,” she whispered.

“Then take it as the solid truth,” Zudhi said, leaning in to his neice and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Now, they're going to add the right information to the screens and put some other technical things in under your faces – who you are and all that kind of nonsense. It will be shown, if we can pull it, during the world Steed semi finals.”

“Is that wise?” Asked the Breeder, a short man with brightly green skin and tan colored hair. “It might anger people a bit, to know that they're somehow being thought of as ‘damaged' when they're out there betting. And that might make parlour Holders angry...”

“I catch your meaning,” Dhanali said, nodding. “But when then? By making them aware of it at the very moment they're doing it? I think it makes sense. Especially for family members, if they see their friends or ... well, you know.”

The group parted and headed their diverse ways. Dhanali and Zudhi went back to Kua, where their family waited and asked a multitude of questions. Zudhi was careful to leave instructions with them, however, regarding the eventuality of tirades, threats and hate mail that they were sure to get after the broadcasts. None of them were naive enough to think there would be no such events, but they were glad that one of them had the foresight to plan for it.

Two weeks later, with the race circuit in full swing, and Dhanali on a Steed belonging to her mother, the semi finals were upon them. At least one of the other riders in the race had heard about the ‘informative vid spot' on gambling addiction and said he was all in favor of it. Yet three others were so silent and cold toward Dhanali that she knew they were either heavy bettors themselves, or knew that her actions would be giving serious repercussions in the industry. Their livelyhoods were made or broken by betting. Gambling was the way of their world.

But she wanted to stop them?

Let her try, she heard someone mutter to their trainer, as she got onto Dusty Account. The Steed wasn't one of the show-bred, his fur was a much darker shade of yellow-tan than their high quality breeders. But he was a fast Steed, good in the air. Dhanali tried to focus on his mood and the race.

There was a pause, while some wild birds were shooed out of the area, and then the race was announced fully.

Twelve Steeds, representing ten breeders. It was as wide a field as they'd had in years, so many people were now getting into breeding and racing. Their apperances ranged as widely as their moods – Dhanali could sense them all. She could even sense the one heavily Bred man who rode a strongly winged black toned Steed nearby. The buzzing of excitement finally overtook her, and she stopped for the moment in her worrying.

Shortly they were up, blasting into the air with heavy wing beats. This course relied upon a lot of lift, nearly two straight-up sections were involved, and then long portions of fast moving downhill weaves between tall poles. One wrong move there, and it was likely death to either Steed or Rider.

Was she one of those Riders whose level of danger gave her the thrills? She enjoyed flying, she wasn't in denial. There was always risk, and she sometimes refused to take a Steed on a particular course for that very reason. The Steeds went into a formation up into the sky over the grandstands, and then circled around their first destination. A tall white pillar with a helium balloon pulling a long banner straight up. They would have to circle it, then move on to the next section. Dusty Account was admirably fast in the turn, but wasn't always good for lift. They would have to make up some speed on the slalom portion.

Dhanali was intent on at least getting Dusty Account up to the second pillar, when one of the other riders was nearly knocked from the sky by his Steed. Suddenly angry with him for some odd reason, the Steed faltered, bucked in midair, and began flapping hard enough to dislodge the saddle. The rider clung on for dear life, as the saddle fell to the ground below. He was out of the race, she swept by him yelling that there would be help on the way – from her vantage point, she could see they were arriving in hovercars.

But this was a race after all, and there was half the herd ahead of her now. “Dusty, come on. Up!” She urged, and his training kicked in. He was if anything well versed in accepting instructions, a very well behaved Steed. His cream-grey colored wings beat in a pattern, and Dhanali nestled herself down by his neck. They reached the pinnacle, circled, and then Dhanali looked over the competition as they spread out before her. Down a steep hillside, there were five poles, again with the balloon supporting a line of ribbon so they could see where to go. There were six ahead, and four left behind her. That was no place for a rider and Steed like them.

“Go!” She said, and she felt Dusty's back arch in anticipation of movement. He was in his full glory, his wings were long but also quite wide so they allowed him to pump them and gain accelleration momentarily. They swept past the sixth leader, and went around the pole. The fifth and fourth leaders were heading to the right of the second pole, and wove expertly into the pattern. Dusty and Dhanali joined them, all of them quite intent on the next pole.

“You won't win,” yelled one rider. He was a coldly-blue man, his hair tucked under a slick hood. His Steed was in almost the same colors, blue and green, as he was. “And you won't keep anyone from betting!”

With a sneer, she tilted into their turn, as they rounded the next pole, “I never wanted to do that! Only stop them from killing themselves in the process!”

They both knew that there were camera stations focused on them from the balloons, and from hovering platforms all through the course. So if he tried to do anything, it would clearly be caught and recorded. The rider refrained, but he did send his Steed down lower to avoid discussions with the woman. The other rider kept silent, kept to her task of remaining in front of Dhanali and the others. But it was clear to Dhanali that her Steed was tiring already, clearly not used to the high chill in the air. The weather was clear, but cold, in this part of the world. Stetil was all mountain peaks and craggy hillsides, but this area was ideal since it had several lush valleys to build in.

They wove their way through one, and then had to head upwards over one peak, to the next! It was hard work – the lead Steed and rider faltered at the peak and almost tumbled down head-over-wings. There was a medical station nearby and Dhanali felt the Steed's pain as they passed overhead.

But that left her in third place now. Dusty was breathing hard, but there was only this one section of the course to go, and then they were home. At the top of the peak, starting their descent, he spread his wings and –

Dhanali's eyes went wide and white. There was something outside her, prying in... Another Steed's mind, not just hers, and she could see through his eyes. Angry eyes, angry like his rider, coming up right behind them! Too close! Dhanali could hardly control her hands, and she tried to send Dusty into a sharp drop, but it was just a bit too late. The other Steed, ridden by one of the more hostile of the jockeys, had come up and ‘accidentally' swept down too quickly – while urging his Steed to have his sharp hooves out in a show-style manner. That meant that his hooves impacted Dusty's hindquarters hard, sending the Steed imbalanced and into a backward loop.

Dhanali wasn't ready for this. She'd done loops, but this was not in the program for today! Neither was it a standard loop – catching no air on the way up, and just bottoming out the hindquarters... It would most certainly have ripped Dusty's flight muscles, for he was already in pain. It was sharp pain in his rear, but it was growing in his wing shoulders.

“NO!” Dhanali screamed, “Dusty you have to catch yourself, catch the wings! Bank left!” She fought for control, and it was difficult. Shortly before they would have bashed into the trees below, the Steed rolled sideways and that gave his wings enough rest that he could open them up and glide out again.

Amazingly, though the Steed was hurt and dismayed, his overwhelming urge was to head toward the poles again. Dhanali knew that this would be one of those race moments... If she allowed him to go. If she did, he might never fly again. If she didn't, she'd be disqualified and deal with that – and with her special broadcast on for this race she didn't want to lose that kind of respect.

Of all the times to have a dilemma. It was solved for her, when another rider swept by and called out, “he's okay! We saw the whole thing! We'll have him disqualified – get back in!!”

And with that, Dusty rose to the occasion. At least he didn't have to climb any more, it was all downward from there. Using muscles that were more than sore, they were ripping, using tendons that had been bruised by the sudden jerk of impact on his hindquarters... It didn't matter to either of them. Dusty wanted to finish, and Dhanali could hardly refuse him.

They came in fifth, which was a tremendous surprise at all – and were changed to fourth, when the other rider was kicked from his second-place finish. The stormcloud mood of some folks competed with the cheering of many others. This truly was an amazing race, and everyone wanted in on the winners circle.

“How do you feel about the winners? Do you think they deserved their earnings?” Asked one man with a microphone and a vid-recorder.

“I think that everyone flew admirably well – Steeds only do what they're asked to do, after all... Except this one,” she glanced at Dusty, “he apparently wanted to come along just to prove he would finish. I'm going to have to have him checked up now, if you don't mind?”

The crowd parted for them, and it was clear that Dusty Account's wings were damaged. Not so much in the feathers, but the way he held them closely to his body, wrists downward. That indicated to any other Steed tuned Animal Master that his flight muscles were so tired that he couldn't use them to counterbalance. His back-side showed two very clear marks of impact, marks which of course matched the other Steed's hooves. She administered some salve to the injuries, in the quiet area where the boarding was done. Heavy wooden walls separated each Steed from the next, and a long hallway connected the rooms at one end.

“This wouldn't have happened if you only hadn't interfered,” said one rider as he passed her, his Steed trailing still had spittle on his flanks and his flight feathers looked ripped.

“I think you should practice your words, Lord Nathzi,” Said a familiar voice, “my daughter did what she knew was right. If you had ever lost anyone you'd know.”

“I hope you tumble,” he spat, and continued on his way. Ginali entered the room and quietly helped soothe Dusty.

“You saw him coming,” she stated.

“I did... It was the oddest thing, mother. I've never noticed that power before, but this time... it was like I could see right through his Steed's eyes. I saw them coming up on us, I saw me!” Dhanali said. She was as amazed as anyone else about this.

“That's a new use to an old power, I think,” Ginali said. “Your father can find things, you know, just by thinking about them... Perhaps your powers are all Steed tuned and not so different.”

“Whatever, it was strange. And I could live without the death threats, too...”

“That was a decision you knew you'd face,” Ginali said. “We've already started getting calls, people are thinking they want to pull their Steeds from the Arena's boarding facility. I've told them that we do no on-site betting and we never have, in case they hadn't noticed that.”

“What did they say to that?” Dhanali asked.

“They said they'd leave their Steeds with us.”

“I'm glad people respect consistancy,” Dhanali sighed.

“Oh, and that man from the broadcast station called, too. He said he'd be honored to have you out to dinner, if you'd go.” Ginali's expression drifted to a knowing smile while she was hidden from view of her daughter.

“He did did he...” Dhanali pondered this.

“I think you should go. He seems a nice man, and he believes in your cause as much as you do.”

“Then I shall have to accept once we get home. I am so tired, I just want to be there already.”

“Well, tomorrow. This race was flown and we're going to be in the finals, you know. Will Dusty be able to fly?”

Dhanali looked over the Steed, and how his wings drifted downwards. “I can't say for sure. I'd rather pull him than injure him permanently trying to finish a race.”

“Then I shall pull him. He is my Steed after all, and I wouldn't want him falling before he gives us a good colt or two.”

The dinners with Master Nesh went nicely. He was a pleasantly aggressive man, somewhat older than Dhanali, who enjoyed to hear about Steeds and training as much as he obviously enjoyed talking about his own profession. At the beginning, Dhanali wasn't sure what his intentions were. But it became clear that he was not only interested in keeping her on as a commentator for racing events, he also was quite interested in producing an heir for his “media empire” as he called it.

“Nesh,” Dhanali laughed over the shellfish dinner, “you've got a broadcast station. Just one,” she held up a long marked finger, “how does that consitute an empire?”

“Well,” he said casually while he dunked a breadstick into the glossy sauce nearby, “because since your gambling spot we've had so many people jumping on to our airwaves we're going Area wide. I've been offered a good location in Stetil that can send signals all the way across Laiarta, and I'm going to take it. Your uncle and father have already been planning on helping with the structures.” He sipped at his wine, smiling. His pale yellow skin was a bit flushed with pride, when he added, “and I think you'll be surprised how many people want to see you in front of a camera as well on a Steed's back.”

It had been several months since that aired. The death threats had dwindled, but there were still some people who would leave horrible messages with the servants or on the vid captures.

“You know it would be fun,” Nesh said, breaking Dhanali out of a little trance thinking on those threats. “There is a lot of money in shaking people up.”

“I think I've done enough of that.” Dhanali looked down at her plate and picked something new off it to sample.

“I don't think you've done nearly enough,” Nesh said seriously. “And have you thought about the other offer?”

“I'm definitely thinking on that,” Dhanali said with a grin. “But at the request of BreedLady Xem I'm supposed to get a contract and agreement of Inheritances first.”

“Ah – yes, that's right... Well,” Nesh rolled his amber-orange eyes, “they're always thinking of little things like that. I'd rather be thinking of the juicy bits.”

“You and juicy bits,” Dhanali purred, sliding a piece of food into her mouth so carefully that Nesh nearly choked on his drink. “Why not just run a pornographic station? If you've got such a great broadcast range?”

Nesh licked his lips and smiled, finally recovering. “There's only one problem with that, and it's that I just don't have enough naughty film of you, my dear.”

Dhanali burst out laughing, and other patrons of the restarurant couldn't help but glance over and wonder what was such the grand joke?

In the end it was hardly difficult to convince Dhanali of either proposition. She could never give up Steeds, but her racing days were numbered. She had trouble entering races, not physically but for the grim reminder that she would have died at the hands of an angry rider. That could not be allowed to happen again. Racing was dangerous enough as it was, to add that factor in.

She continued to train with her mother of course, it was in their blood. Would it be in their child's? Neshad was his name, with spotted fire-colored skin, a tiny version of his mother's tail that she herself had inherited, and oddly enough, he seemed to have longer slightly pointed ears. He was not furry or showing any odd signs of any further Tunings, but as a young child who could tell? Only the most powerful mutants were able to do anything before their pubescence for the most part. Neshad grew up in a secure homestead under the broadcast peak in Stetil.

Dhanali enjoyed the company of her uncle more often than not, because he was very keen to keep up on such projects. He branched out in many directions, unlike Dhanali's father who deeply enjoyed his work in construction and architecture. The only problem that the Animal Mistress had was that up here there weren't nearly enough Steeds.

While Master Nesh and Lord Zuhdi would plot and plan what types of information or entertainment they would be playing from this huge station, Dhanali would take her son outside and watch the huge formations of clouds go by. He did have an uncanny knack to know just where the local animals were, when they would go on nature walks, so Dhanali suspected that he had at least a slight inherited Tuning. Probably not enough to become an Animal Master – but then their contract wasn't for any such thing, it was for little Master Neshad to become his father's protegee. That would suit him, for he seemed just as at home inside the big station's technical center, as he did outside.

The start of the race season was the opening of the station's broadcasts, as well. They'd spread word of their frequency – but that wouldn't even matter. If a vid unit was within some fifty miles of its intended arc of broadcast it would be picking up the station. They would have to contain the stray power because it was actually interfering with some local bandwidth and almost caused a hoverjet accident. They got the bugs out of their systems before their first official day of broadcast, however.

“We're coming from the Peaks of Stetil,” said an excited Dhanali, “where the air is clean, cold and today – filled with Steeds!”

Behind her, in the thin air and with a great snow-capped peak as a backdrop, a large group of Steeds used in transport and locally were allowed to fly freely. The Steeds in the race were still in their stalls and waiting, they were far too valuable to allow to fly without supervision. But the flock that was up there certainly was colorful, and loudly brayed as they passed the crowds.

“Today there are two races, both of them speed trials. Tomorrow there will be a placement race for the start of the Circuit season! Zerin has added three new stops on their Area tour, allowing for another dozen or more Steeds and Jockeys to place in the finals later this year.”

Dhanali continued to rattle off scores, statistics and names, as the participants of the first heat were led from their trailers and stalls. She knew most of the riders, had a hand in training at least two of the Steeds herself. Only one of the riders was openly unfriendly to her, and he merely glared as they walked, not willing to make a spectacle of himself before the race.

Up in the broadcasting booth, under their massive tower which actually blended in beautifully with the tall pines of the peak, Nesh and Neshad toyed with the technical bits. Nesh was quite clever with machinery and equipment, and he thought his son would be brilliant that way. Within a few years, of course, that fact would be one of the most important discoveries in the world.

Dhanali ran commentary on the race, and gave a brief reminder that her betting helpline was still always open. That was sure to make a batch of Masters angry with her, but hey – they did have to make their living somehow. She just didn't want it to have to be at the expense of someone like her dear friend...

As a commentator on the race, Dhanali was quick and sure. She knew the subject, and she knew the racers. She was only a bit shy of the other reporters. Her only exposure to them were the brief moments when she'd been in the winner's circle, and they would do their interviews and talking. As it was, however, she was their station's only representitive. Their staff was still quite small.

After the broadcast, however, and after the races that day, they had gotten a huge number of messages from people all the way through Stetil and Laiarta, and even one from an isolated area of Reimal. They were able to show clear images, moreso than those coming through the distant satelites, and a number of advertising deals were suddenly in the works. That was how it went, for the first several years until the business really got rolling on its own.

As Dhanali got more popular as a reporter and Steed expert, she found that people were recognizing her on the street – and she was getting a bit frightened in public. Though most Breeders now recommended using the process she'd helped discover for the addiction genes, there were still people who were bound and determined to prove that she would somehow ‘ruin their business'. Some of that proof often involved public displays of anger, rocks, and the occasional stray psionic power. For that reason, she determined to find a bodyguard.

That came in the form of a tall man from western Stetil, a dark-purple skinned fellow whose skin had markings somewhat like Dhanali's family, in the same light grey color as his hair. He was not unattractive, but he wasn't the same kind of stunning man that would have been chosen to appear with her on a broadcast. He was purely ‘off camera' material according to Zudhi and Nesh.

That was fine with Master Stenso. His gruff nature was echoed in his physical presense as well as his powers. He'd been born Bayaran, Bred by an innovative Fifth Degree Breeder. Because he was as good as he was at his job, guarding that Breeder, he'd been Raised and had promptly set himself up as a for-hire guard. That, and when one of his relatives passed on, he Inherited a small Hold. Bringing himself up to Membayar was a short step – he was talented with telekinetics as well as having a strong force field, both of which he used extensively during his work – his mind was keen and he could recognize talent like his when he saw it. His little Bodyguarding business would get a boost when Animal Mistress Dhanali needed him.

“It's a highly visible post, of course,” Master Stenso said, and made notes on his little calculator. “And travel expenses would have to be included.”

“All of your travel while working for me would be covered,” Dhanali said, “as well as your fees. Plus equipment if you need it, but I would hope that we only require your personal abilities.”

“I trust my own field, yes,” Stenso said with a bit of a grin. “Then you should look this over and decide whether the fees are to your liking,” he pushed the pad across to her, on the big dark table. His office was quite nice, he'd obviously made himself rather valuable over the few years he'd been fully in business. “You are talking about me doing the work personally, correct?”

“Of course I am,” Dhanali said, “it isn't that I don't trust the others in your organization, but I figure, you're the one that would be recognized.”

“It wouldn't do to have a Bayaran with just a company logo,” Stenso agreed. “So?”

“They're fine, although I would like to add a clause that we might alter the contract at a later date if conditions change.”

Stenso nodded. “You're a lot sharper than most Animal Masters I've ever dealt with,” he said.

“Thank you, I suppose,” Dhanali replied. She was either not impressed by the gruff exterior or not amused by it, but either way she enjoyed the compliment when she heard it. And it was sadly true, as well: most Animal Masters couldn't bother themselves to think past a few races ahead. She had to know all manner of information all the time, and her own Bayaran had trouble keeping up with her needs. She was thinking about using some of her resources to contract a specific type of Slave for her information shuffling needs, someone that would be with her for a while. But with this bodyguarding thing being necessitated, that might wait a while.

They signed off their contract, and agreed on a start date. Soon enough, Stenso would be needed. There was a semi-final coming up in Kua that would attract thousands of people, the newly built raceway grandstands were gigantic. Dhanali would often broadcast from a roaving locale, asking questions of trainers or jockeys, fans and locals as she could. It filled time, and it was a great way to promote their work. She studiously avoided betting parlours, and would only mention betting in a cursory manner when races were run. The odds were important to everyone, but their broadcasts concentrated on the sport itself, rather than the money it could bring. They were the only station doing so, until that time, but soon enough others would carry more than mere betting odds and hype for the Holders of the Steeds.

Stenso was a fixture, but he was also quite professional about his presence. He dressed well, but not so richly that he would move attention to himself. Since they broadcast mostly out of Stetil and Laiarta, occasionally in Ka but usually in parts of Zerin rather than other locales, it was not unusual to see a man such as Stenso – barrel chested and with a round strong face. But it was his power of using a force field, telekinetics that strongly affected the local area, that allowed him to work.

There was always a bit of distance around Dhanali when she reported, unless she was directly talking to someone. That distance could not be broken by much other than air and sound. Invisible, and that was both the frustrating and amusing part.

One sunny day, during a broadcast, someone decided to throw a stone at Dhanali while she spoke with her camera crew. The stone bounced off, striking a passing High Holder. Who turned and saw only the crew, no one disreputable enough to have done it. Twice more, and then the angry member of the crowd rushed up.

“What's goin' on here!?” He yelled, half incoherent with an accent that was faintly similar to Stenso's. “I been tossin rocks – you needs'ta be hit!” As he got closer, Stenso moved in. Standing mere handspans away from his charge, Stenso improved the density of the field, and allowed the man to approach.

He smacked with some silly noise coming from his throat, into what appeared to be thin air. Scrabbling at the dome of power exerted by the Membayar, the rabble could hardly believe his own senses. He was carted away.

Dhanali snorted a laugh, and gently leaned back to rest on Stenso's broad shoulder. “That was amusing. I've never seen anything quite so silly. Remember to do that again some time.”

For the first time since hiring him, Dhanali saw a broad grin form on the man's face. “That's a nasty sense of humor you have there, Animal Mistress...”

Lin'es and her half brother Neshad attended the funeral, but with very different reactions. Though Dhanoo was their shared grandfather, neither of them was remarkably close to him – but Neshad had worked with him on a design that incorporated electronic equipment right into the homestead. The elfin-eared orange and brown-spotted young man thought highly of Dhanoo's abilities, and was given to a slight worry that his closer granduncle Zudhi would be passing on soon enough. Lin'es was a little less experienced with her grandfather, her ties more distant, and her face more drawn to neutrality than sadness. She was here for the readings and the Inheritances, certainly as several others were.

Memories were traded, sniffling discussions of how Dhanoo would be remembered abounded. The location was the isolated Ist homestead, unsurprisingly, though the Flip Ranch might have been more appropriate, since he spent most of his last days there.

Ginali was also growing old, and somewhat more quickly than her Membayar partner. Though she was clearly an Animal Master through and through, she'd still been born to Slaves, and her life would not be extended so far as those of higher Status. She dabbed her eyes, and remained fairly quiet.

Eventually as the funeral came to an end and Dhanoo's body was given to the ground, surrounded by the beautiful green marble that had made up his home, those individuals who had no relationship or were not Inheriting wandered home. Those left constituted a good number of relatives, and a close batch of friends. Many of them would get certain items that meant something only to their friendship – a set of books, tools and the like. But the children, grandchildren and such would be content to split the values of the several Holds that Dhanoo built up over his life. Obviously the Flip Ranch was not ready to be given away, but his shares in it were to be held by Ginali until her own death. Half a dozen other locales, ranging from a nice office (which Lin'es was to take over) and a stunning flatland that yeilded reeds well-known for textile weaving (that went to one of Zudhi's two children), a large chunk of unbuilt lands that Dhanali would be using for her Steeds, to a mine which had ores valuable to the metal trade. Neshad was pleased to learn that he would be getting that mine. It was small, but he knew that it could be expanded easily enough. And most of the ores in it were useful in his father's field.

“I wonder,” Neshad said absently as they had drinks later on, “if he was disappointed that none of us followed in his field?”

“It's possible,” Lin'es said, tilting her glass his way, “but if he was, he never showed it. Mother certainly never said anything about it.”

They both looked toward where Dhanali stood, being tended by a pair of Slaves. She had taken the whole month off, but would have to start working again soon, since the racing circuit was headed into preseason.

“I wonder,” Lin'es added a few moments after Dhanali was escorted back to her rooms, “if mother ever is disappointed in us?”

“For not being into Steeds so much as she is?” Neshad said, shrugging. “I don't think so. She's, well, you know how she is now. She's hardly concentrating on the Animal side of her Mastery. How can she blame us for not being up there training with her if neither of us really sport good powers to go along with it?”

“We both have decent abilities to sense, Neshad,” Lin'es commented, “but I'm sure you are right. If she had chosen another Animal Master for a mate perhaps we'd have a different view.”

Stenso's daughter and Nesh's son, rarely together. They both reflected the professionalism that their fathers genes brought – but Neshad always wondered how his younger sister got so much more mature than him, in such a short time. They were both in their twenties, and the century was nearing its close.

Neshad looked at the titles to his new Holds and said, “I'm just glad there weren't a mess of Slaves to distribute.”

Lin'es let out a sighing laugh, “that's so true. That would be a mess. What with so many of us unable to Hold Hard Stock.” That was one of the few points that many in the family could agree upon. They were much better businessmen and women than Owners. One or more of them had at one point attempted to work with Slaves, Raising to the status – but those attempts often landed a bad end.

“So what is it you're going to pass on to your children, Neshad?” Lin'es asked. “You long eared freak you?”

“Flame colored bitch,” Neshad jibed. “I'm hoping to find someone that carries the same machinery powers that I have, you know.” He looked at a nearby comm pad, and it came to life with but a thought on his part. “It's frightfully convienent. I wonder how many people know that we can manipulate machines?”

“It is a relatively new power,” said a Breeder that had come to give his condolences and scope out the people. “If you wish, I could start looking for you.”

“... And you are?” Lin'es asked, glancing over him and deciding she'd never met him before. He was tall and had brightly green hair and eyes, but his skin tone was a deep shade of russet-red. He looked like a fresh picked tuber.

“Beast-Master Breeder Nankai,” he said while bowing, “I know your family through some Steed farming I've done with them.”

“Ah, I see,” Lin'es didn't look at all convinced. For that matter, neither did Neshad. Their family had close ties with certain Breeding circles, and this man didn't seem to fit among them. So... why was he there, really? It was clearly a question that both siblings wanted answered. Lin'es glanced around the tall man's shoulder and said, “perhaps we could arrange something a bit later. I'm sure that we have your contact information on hand. Neshad, look, we need to talk to Melvi about this mine of yours. She has machinery.” She almost dragged her older brother by the elbow away from the Breeder, who politely remained behind.

“There's something completely suspitious about that guy,” she said when they'd turned around one of the corners in the big house. “Don't you think?”

“I think But Lin, we've totally lost that spy-thriller thing in our bloodline, generations ago.”

“Don't be silly. Both of us have powers we can use to track him.”

Neshad stood there rather numbly and with his crimson eyebrows raised. “Do we?”

“Remember when we were children, and you showed me that trick you had learned? Following me about in the Hold?” Lin'es said. “Can't you do that any longer?”

“... I can, I suppose,” Neshad said. “You're right, I can still use electrically powered objects for my vision. Normally I just kind of use it to work on the station's wiring.”

“What a waste, then,” Lin'es said with a grin on her dark violet face, “show me that you can still track, and I'll show you what I've learned how to do.”

“That sounds dirty,” Neshad said, and concentrated on the lamp which was next to where they had last been standing talking to the Breeder. “He's not there any more. Let me see...” He used his tracking powers through the electrical wiring, and located another object. A small rotating art piece, which caused him to be a bit dizzy when he used it as a point of view. “There he is, he's back in the mud hall. I think he's talking to someone but it's on a private sat line. I don't think I can interrupt that.”

“Then let me try,” his half sister said. “Watch out for me.” She sat down in the soft cushioned dark-grey chair nearby, and went into a kind of trance. “I see him, now...” Her voice was a whisper, as though her body didn't want to accept any movement or commands. She was seeing and hearing – but from outside her body. Floating freely in the nothingness between people, Lin'es found their Breeder and listened in on his conversation.

To her, it sounded almost tinny, as though she was listening through a bucket or plastic walls. Sound from everywhere else reverberated and made it difficult to make out every word, but she got the gist of his conversation.

When Lin'es snapped back to her body, Neshad had fetched a glass of water and offered it to her. She looked tired out suddenly on opening her violet eyes. “He's plotting something, with a man I think is a High Holder. I couldn't catch the name, though.”

“Any idea what he's up to?” Neshad glanced around the corner – they couldn't see the mud hall from there, of course, but he did it anyway.

“I think it has to do with your mines you've just Inherited,” Lin'es said, narrowing her eyes in thought, “if he knows you have these powers, I wonder if he didn't already have something in mind...”

Neshad sat down in the seat next to her, cramming himself onto the chair built for one. He wasn't a tiny man, and she certainly took after her burly father. The chair strained, and Lin'es giggled at his idiotic behavior.

“I wonder then, maybe we go along with him, and see what's up. I don't want to pass up the chance – real or otherwise – to meet someone else with my abilities.”

“I can't blame you,” Lin'es. “You're... unique.”

“Ain't I though?” He grinned widely. The arm of the chair gave way a moment later and deposited him on the floor right as a number of their elder relatives and family came into the hall.

“As you can see the contract clearly states this condition,” said Nankai's Membayer lawyer. “It was there when you signed the contract.”

“It wasn't,” Neshad said, “In fact I made a copy of it.”

“Copies cannot be admitted into this court,” the judge reminded them. “We don't know when it was made, or whether you merely fabricated it.”

“That's nonsense,” replied Lin'es sharply, “if we cannot introduce a copy of the document – which myself and no fewer than two others witnessed,” she recalled them clearly, since they were the operators at the station's print room, “then you cannot introduce that document,” here she pointed to the contract in question, “since it may also have been altered or fabricated in the intervening time.”

The judge was silent for a moment, and then he narrowed his eyes. “Point.” He said. He turned to Nankai and his group. “Which actually brings up a very good question that I've been wondering about all this time. Where is the other copy of the Breeding Contract, Beast Master Breeder Nankai? The copy of which is meant to go to the sire of the child, since you Own the mother?”

“There was little need for it at the time,” Nankai said abruptly, and his lawyer looked slightly peeved that he was talking without first consulting him about the results. “After all, Master Neshad and my Slave Melena had already consummated their-”

“Judge, I need to remind my client of certain privacy matters,” said the Membayar beside the Breeder. He aimed a scathing look at the man, who almost seemed apt to continue even when he knew he was just putting fuel into the fire.

“No, that was a free admission to the court,” the Judge said, trying to ignore the sputtering protests that the lawyer was giving off. He looked first at Nankai, then to Neshad. “Is this true, what he's said?”

Neshad furrowed his brows and said, “no, not to my knowledge. I signed long before I'd even met the woman. I could hardly have been having sex with a Slave without knowing it.”

“Did you sign this contract?” The judge asked, standing – collecting it from Nankai's lawyer, and placing it before the “tech-elf”. Neshad peered closely at it, touched it with his thick fingers, and looked back up at the judge.

“Sir, with all due respect, I cannot say if I signed this or not – whether it was a contract at the time I signed it.”

That put a tic onto Nankai's face.

“And what exactly does that mean?” The judge asked, curious. He saw how Nankai rose a bit in color and fidgeted a bit, and recognized those things as a sign they were on the right track now.

“It means, sir, that I might have signed the paper ,” Neshad said, “but not necessarily while it was a contract . There are ways of getting signatures and then placing them onto other-”

“This is purely outrageous!” Yelled Master Quain, “what manner of lies are you tolerating in this court?”

“I am tolerating a bit of new information, for the sake of discovering the truth,” the Judge said, calmly. “Now sit yourself back down and do not interrupt again, I'll have you charged.”

As Quain lowered himself back into the leather and wood seat, Neshad rose from his own. “If I may, sir, my sister is a qualified psychometrist. She can read the paper's origin, perhaps the information there will help.”

Given a pause, the judge nodded. “Well, in the interests of keeping the fairness in this courtroom – I will find in the courthouse another impartial examiner. I know we have one or more on staff.” He rose back up to his full height, straightened his robes, and turned to the room again. “There will be a recess until a psychometrist can be located that can verify the origin of the paper and its contents.”

He left to go do so, followed by the Bayaran running the room.

That left two rather irate parties, glaring at one another from across their desks.

“You know we've caught you in it,” Lin'es said. “There's no escaping this one. You altered it, we know that.”

“I didn't do anything of the sort,” Nankai muttered and Quain nudged him to be silent.

In the three years since their grandfather's death, Neshad had begun getting the rich ores from his new mine lands. He'd also sired a child with Slave Melena, a young woman whose own powers echoed his but also drew from crystals and pure ores and not just technology. Their son was a long-eared bronze skinned boy with long ears and one too few finger on each hand. It was plainly obvious to both Melena and Neshad that the boy would be strongly powerful in the world of technology. However, it wasn't Neemal that was the problem.

It was that in his contract – or so Nankai claimed – the mines themselves were the bargaining chips instead of the sizable funds that had already exchanged hands, that would Free or Raise Neemal from being Owned by the Breeder. In this “new” version of the contract, Neemal was meant to be Raised at such time that either his father demanded it, or he turned fifteen and was tested at a Breeding house. Of course, the testing had already been started, by his Lord. The fine print on the contract that Neshad had actually signed read no such way of course.

“It was a huge gamble,” Neshad said. “But you're going to learn why our family has pretty much given up gambling.

Nankai grunted, still smiling to himself. Shortly, the judge, Bayaran and a third person, a slender limbed young man with a bad haircut and too many ruffles on his shirt came into the room.

“Found him,” the Judge said, and presented the young man. “Young Master Farn, this is the paperwork in question.”

The Bayaran a-hemmed, and made sure that any of the offical paperwork needed, in this case an “expert witness” waiver, was signed off by everyone. The judge duly noted Nankai's hesitance to sign it. But the moment after he did, Farn picked up the contract and leaned against the judge's large desk.

“It's made locally, paper mill not more than fifteen kliks away from its forest. The... ink, the signature ink was produced in Kiran, imported. The rest of the contract's composition is different. The ink here,” he indicated clearly to the judge and both groups, where the contract read, “is much ... much fresher on the contract portion, than the signature.”

“So what is your opinion on this paperwork?” Asked the judge, but he wasn't watching the young man. He was watching the Breeder.

“My professional opinion is that this contract was printed onto paper that had an existing signature on it.”

“Is there any doubt in your mind that the signature was there first?” Asked the judge, still staring at Nankai. He was giving that interesting eye-tic again.

“No doubt whatsoever.” He said. Farn halfway saw that while the one set of people, a Breeder and Master, looked altogether angry at this finding, the other – a man and woman who looked enough like one another to be siblings? Didn't look nearly as harshly. He in fact thought that the woman, while a bit on the chunky side, was pretty attractive all in all. And there was something about her...

“Thank you, Master Farn, that will be all for today. I consider your court fees to be paid by the loser of this case, when I pass judgement, and I will make sure that Harkan here will get you a copy of the proceedings.”

Farn bowed, and left the room, but he allowed his eye to drift toward Lin'es as he shut the great wooden doors.

While the judge, Bayaran and opposing team were all shuffling papers, Lin'es and Neshad exchanged a bit of a smile. “There's a good one for you, sis,” Neshad muttered. “I found mine, sort of.”

“He's good – honestly I don't know if I could have done that well.” Lin'es said.

They paid attention again, when the judge clapped once.

“If this were a mere case of Breeding misconduct, or a forgery, I would say that it wouldn't be as serious.” He drew in a breath, and looked at Nankai and Quain. “But it is more. It is a serious breech of good conduct in both legal and Breeding circles to alter a contract. The fact that you neglected to offer a copy of any contract to the Sire of this child is an infraction that I will consider added to the rest of this mess. Beast Master Breeder Nankai, I am going to find you guilty of misbehavior and fraudulent contract creation. You do not now, nor will you ever, Hold Master Neshad's mine Lands, and in addition I am going to grant the immediate Raising to Bayaran to the boy, Neemal, in the care of his father.”

There was a kind of angry silence, from the desk where the Breeder and his crony sat.

“And, while it is not entirely warranted as I have found no actual abuse on record, it will be my pleasure to tell you that your Slave Melena will be going with the boy also as Bayaran.”

“You cannot do that,” said Quain. “That is so far above your jurisdiction in this case that-”

“While I'm going to say you might be right in some cases, Master Quain?” The judge said, holding his hand up and having his Bayaran take notes on the pair's behavior, “in this case, I do believe that the woman in question was being used only to procure Land Holdings on the part of her Lord. That is an unacceptable misuse of a good fertile Slave, sir.”

There was more paperwork to fill out and determine who owed what to the courts, but as they left, both Lin'es and Neshad remained to gloat a bit before retrieving the new Bayaran Neshad held.

“That's why we don't gamble,” Neshad said.

“Especially not on such a long shot,” Lin'es added.

“It was hardly a gamble,” Quain muttered as he pushed by. “It's a-” He stopped himself, the judge was still there listening in on them.

“You know you want to say it,” Lin'es said, blocking the door briefly as he stood there. “That you two have done it before. Just that no one else has questioned it.”

“That, Mistress, is pure speculation. And I would add, that the case is closed and your winnings should be collected before we have them thrown out for tresspassing.” With that, he shoved by and was followed by a rather distracted Breeder.

“I know they've done it before, the cases just haven't crossed my courtroom,” said the judge. “That's why I was willing to entertain your little ‘gamble'. Bringing in a psychometrist was a good idea, I wouldn't have thought of that.”

“Can I ...” Lin'es started to say, but stopped, and had all three men staring at her. The Bayaran gave a grin and chuckle.

“I'll go find him, Mistress,” he said, and walked out to go locate Farn. The other two stood and watched Lin'es blush.

“Fesli?” Lin'es said, looking around the corner of her bedroom and into the broad white hall. “Fesli?” She stepped out, and saw her daughter – all of six years old, who lay at the bottom of the stairs to the second story – crumpled in a sobbing heap.

“Fesli!” The Mistress ran to her child, and felt an immediate wave of fear, pain and shame from her. Fesli's first day with new powers of empathy, and it turned into something far more serious. Lin'es took her daughter carefully into her arms. The bone in her leg was sticking all the way up to her skin, but it hadn't broken through. It also looked as though Fesli was cradling her right wrist. The violet color of Fesli's skin and the confusion of the colorful markings in bright gold and pale blue made it even harder to see just what else might be wrong – but Lin'es didn't see any blood.

Nor did she see any tears.

“It's okay to cry out, Fesli,” Lin'es said softly, as she carried the girl to the office. It was possible that by now she was in shock – Lin'es didn't even know quite when her daughter had fallen down the stairs. It couldn't have been many minutes before she was found, they were supposed to be on their way to a musical show, and both of them were getting ready separately. Fesli was a very mature little girl, and she steadfastly refused to cry on the way to the healer. Lin'es carefully punched up a number to the nearby Breeder's house, and was immediately told to come as quickly as possible, as carefully as they could.

While the First Degree Breeder set about putting his own powers to work – he had a bit of psionics but not so much that he could work too long – Lin'es went to his office to call her husband.

He was at work, more than two hours away in Kua. The look on Farn's face was a strange one. “This is my fault,” he whispered.

“Hardly – it was just an accident, she's a young child and she fell,” Lin'es said.

“No – no, not that she fell...” He sighed, and Lin'es saw him glance down, he was looking at his fingers. “My fault that she broke her bones. I told you we should have consulted a Breeder about this...”

“We'll have to talk about that later,” Lin'es said, worried. “But she will be fine. The Healer has set her bones and she's resting now, so the Bond here is waving at me to say.” She flashed a smile at the short boy, who nodded and went back to the girl's side. “It will be fine.”

“I'll be home in the evening,” Farn announced, and took the rest of his day off.

Lin'es disconnected the vid, and peered into the recovery room where her colorful daughter lay asleep.

“I've given her a relaxant,” the Healer said, “and she will need pain killers. I could only set the main leg bone, her wrist had to be done manually. It will be very tender. She has extremely light, fragile bones, Mistress Lin'es. It is a good thing that this fall was not onto some harder surface than your carpeted floor.”

“That's what he meant,” Lin'es said. She glanced from her daughter back up to the Breed Lord, Healer Wilka. “My husband said that he was to blame – could this be something about his side of the family? Mine has never had anything like this, really.”

“It is surely possible. Some anomalies like your psionics are paired with mutations – not all of them beneficial.” The older man drew up a chair and sat beside the bed, and Lin'es did the same. They spoke quietly, but not in whispers. “Perhaps his family line has a weakness in the bones. But that is certainly what has happened here. Fesli will need to be careful, probably all her life, with this kind of mutation.”

“It... can't be cured?” Lin'es asked, more out of quick wonder than serious thought.

“No, no. It is a condition that is inherent to her powers.” Wilka looked at Lin'es, and added carefully, “it may have been enhanced by the reinforcement of your own genes. I am not a qualified Breeder for that kind of thing, though. My specialty of course is merely healing.”

“It's good enough for me,” Lin'es assured him. “But, can you recommend a Breeder capable of ... well, testing or whatever it would take?”

“Of course.” Wilka stood and said, “if you wish to take her home, you should do so. She will be asleep for another few hours at least, but there should be someone with her when she wakes. You may remain here, it's thankfully not so busy. I have the beds to spare.”

While Wilka found the contact information to a good local Breeder of a higher Degree than himself, Lin'es gathered her daughter delicately and put her in the carriage outside. “I need to be at home, my husband will be coming back from Kua, and we should talk together.”

“Well, good luck then. Bring her back if things change or get worse for her. I may have to find you more of the pain killers, if she requires them.” He tucked the card with another Breeder's name and number on it into Lin'es' jacket pocket.

The ride home and the wait for Master Farn was mostly uneventful. Lin'es got a bit of her paperwork done for her last job, and wondered how much the bill was going to be for this little medical emergency. Wilka was an exceptionally nice man, but his services weren't going to be cheap either. When Lin'es heard the distinct jingle of Farn's carriage approach the homestead from the south, she almost lept to the door way herself. Two of the Bayaran in the house kept her occupied, one with bringing her a cup of water for Fesli, and the other assured her that he could in fact bring Farn into the house.

The tall and thinly handsome Farn entered with a great worry on his pale blue face. “Is she all right?”

“She's fine,” Lin'es said. She explained the details of the injuries, and then asked, “you said that this was your fault – Farn, I don't blame you and you shouldn't blame yourself.”

“I knew that my own bones break easily, but that's why I chose a bit of a lazy job.” Farn admitted. “I'm the first in my family to have this kind of power level, so ...”

“Well I've collected a Breeder's contact from Healer Wilka. We'll take her to them when she's better.” Lin'es said. As they spoke, Fesli stirred a bit, and both her parents felt a wave of strange garbled feelings. The empathy would have to come under control somehow.

The first thing that little Fesli said was, “are we at the show yet?”

Her disappointment as she woke grew strongly. She hardly noticed her wrist, instead Fesli's tears were because she'd missed the flower wreaths and sand sculpting contests.

Neemal and his mother relished the times that they could just rest outside the mines and return to their home. Getting clean and warm, laying in the sun, and generally enjoying being Freeworkers instead of Slaves – or Bayaran, which they'd earned their way out of quickly indeed, those were things that anyone would enjoy. But this pair seemed to love it more. Their lives had been hard enough, under Beast Master Breeder Nankai, but now their earnings showed when they worked for it.

Both of them were expertly able to extract ores from stone, locate the good crystals among the bad. Neemal's abilities with machinery and technology were much stronger than his mother's, and his sire was determined to make sure that he exploited them fully.

“How was the exhibition?” Neshad asked his son, Melena had already retired for the night, when Neemal wandered back out to the Hold's main house.

“It was fantastic,” Neemal grinned. The colorful metallic patterns on his skin showed up in the firelight, and in that light too his fire-orange hair and dark eyes gleamed of their own accord. “There were all kinds of new devices. There was one, I think it was a Membayar from the mountains in Tana, he'd gotten some digging machine out there. It practically works itself.”

“That's for me.” Neshad laughed.

“You would take the easy way out,” his son laughed at him. “But there was also a great flatbed, hover engined. It could mean we could transport the ores up through the regular walkways, instead of tunneling down for elevators.”

“Did you get their-”

“Of course I got their contact information,” Neemal said, indicating a pile of paperwork and cards on the nearby table. “You know I won't be able to afford that machinery, but you could.”

“It's my mine, I think I should, eh?” Neshad said. He sat comfortably in a big chair near the fireplace in the northern Bohata home. “It'll be yours, some day. Yours and your mother's.”

Neemal sat down on the floor next to his father's feet, staring at the fire. “Ah. Great. That means a life of effort for us, then. Thanks.”

Neshad nudged his son with his knee, and then put his feet up on the young man's back in jest. “Yes... And you can start now. Just, um, don't move.”

“I would trade anything to be able to manipulate fire instead of machinery, about now,” Neemal muttered, while he slid his long-eared head out from under his father's feet. “Then I could make sure your poor exhausted little feet would be nice and warm .”

“Brutal,” Neshad said, sleepily. “Oh, say, your cousin was interested in that ... thing, whatever it was, that you were making for her.”

“It's kind of a collection plate, for her to use to sense through.”

“That's what she said. I reiterate, that thing.”

“She'll be able to concentrate on it, I can tune it right for her so she can put it places and, well, you know, listen in on things with it.”

“Why not just use a camera and microphone like everyone else?” Neshad muttered, “people'd think she's a spy or something.”

“It runs in the family,” Neemal said with a laugh. “There were some other distant relatives, asking about those things too. Do you think I should take them up on it?”

“What, you mean those Qhaleb people again? Don't they have enough trouble for themselves, they want to share it now?”

“I think they want to pay me,” Neemal threw his stubby finger into the air. “That's a bonus I can't pass up.”

“It's your payment, I say go for it. Just don't blame me when you get arrested for some weird law.”

“Aww you're no fun, dad,” Neemal said, “and you're really sleepy. What were you doing all day, anyway?”

“You know that antenna at the top of the Station in Stetil?” Neshad asked, and Neemal nodded. “Well it fell down – there was a storm. I put it back up.”

“Yourself?”

“Mostly,” Neshad said. “But it's back up now. It was pretty tough. It ripped out a batch of wiring and made a mess of the anchoring. We've both had a day.”

Then let's call it a night, dad. Go to bed. I'll put the fire out, and you ...” Neemal let the fire remain, since his father had already fallen to sleep.

Fesli was disconcerted by what she saw through her Orb. The device that her cousin had built was still her favorite ‘toy' – even though she was long past her childhood she considered what she did playing with it rather than work. Today, she was working with a LandMaster named Gheev, using the orb to visualize the lay of certain hard-to-reach portions of his Hold. It wasn't actually that she was annoyed or confused by the visions of red-brown soil topped with short dark grasses interrupted by longish tufts of some lighter green sprouts. It was that whenever she saw one of the sprouts, she relayed the information and Gheev gave off a kind of greedy tittering.

“There's another, oh – there is a whole field of the things past the grove there,” Fesli pointed north-east. “I can see a few more to the west, but they're mostly on the eastern side.”

“Good, good,” Gheev bounced up and down on his heels. “An excellent day.”

“I suppose,” Fesli said. “It's getting kind of late, we should be going back. Your sprouts are... what, sprouting to your liking I guess?”

“They are, they are indeed!” Gheev said, mysteriously leaving off any other information. They headed to the carriage, and Fesli's hovering ball came back to her of its own accord. She wore a small locator pin, Neemal had modified her Status pin so if she wore it, the orb would return to her when it's batteries were getting low. She held it delicately in her hands, as she climbed into the carriage. Carefully she settled into the seat – it was an older model of carriage, and there was only a little padding on the seat. Not nearly enough for her easily-broken bones, but she would only come away from the bumpy trip back to the nearest small town. Altem's plainlands were not really to Fesli's liking. It was very deceptive land indeed – though it was generally flat, she could tell that there were endless dips and rises, all covered in the same greenery for miles. She watched a bunch of it, as the sun set, before they reached their destination.

Fesli accepted payment from LandMaster Greev and headed to her hotel room. She was greatful that there were hotels everywhere on Steeding land such as this. Anywhere a circuit race would be held, there was an inn that someone ran just in case. Anything to make a Dec. And that was also the impression she was getting from this guy. Gheev was giddy with excitement when he hired her, at thirty five she was one of the best explorers of her kind: the kind that didn't actually have to get off her rear end to find her way through a forest. The clever design of the orb she used to “see” through obviously helped her greatly, but she was well known not only for her abilities, but for her exotic looks.

Her cousin had similar patterns, but in almost the reverse color scheme. They both made a striking pair, really. Rarely working together, though, their occasional meetings now were all for family events. But a few days later, Fesli and Neemal met up to work out a second orb or something similar. She described Gheev's excitement, and Fesli laughed out loud at her cousin's response.

“Maybe he just gets off on tubers – those are ground-roots, he's having you find. I ... you know what? I think those are what he sells. If they're growing out in the wild like that, he's got it made. All he has to do is harvest them.”

“Then why in the world did he need me to find them for him?”

“He's lazy?” Offered Neemal, “he's trying to act like a higher Holder than he is? I dunno, cuz, but he seems like a bit of an eccentric.”

“That's nothing new...” Fesli said. “I wish he'd gone and invested in a bit more padding for his carriage service...” She rubbed her bum, laughing. “That would be a better way to spend his investments...”

While the mystery of the LandMaster's tubers was easy to solve, and certainly seven years later it apparently paid off as his famous tubers spread into markets all across Curra, there was a deeper one that left a mark in families all over the world.

It was the eve of the new year, 1597, and the elections held not a fortnight before in Polaen had come in. The strong victor was a woman with black skin and bright red hair and eyes – High Mistress Tenya. Her competition was a variety of High Holders, Suzerain and even a pair of Breeders, from a variety of locales across Polaen's plains. And when it came down to it, this woman deserved to be the Area President. The people of Polaen had watched her ascend from Membayar into her present status, climbing with a keen eye for investments as well as a remarkable force of will and care around people.

She had run with the idea that the Mada law enforcement would be the greatest thing on the Land – its funding was something she'd seen to for decades. She was on the verge of introducing a whole new concept to the law enforcement community: ranged weaponry. However, her competition relied upon that to sway many votes away from her campaign. How was it fair to use hunting equipment against people? Those opposed to her views were quite vocal. But, she'd been elected anyway, and by more than a two-thirds margin above the next candidate. She wanted to work with him to settle the arguments about the weaponry that was developed in her labs, and he was happy that they would get to talking about it at all. She was going to be sworn in to her office the next day, during the Turn celebration.

And that would have been great. If not for the fact that on the Day of the New Year 1597, Tenya was found dead in her home in Mada. Her lover, not-quite-husband Lord Vehdar was beside himself with grief.

A number of qualified investigators arrived to the scene, and all of them seemed to agree that Vehdar was either a tremendously heavy sleeper... or a suspect in the case.

Lin'es' investigation company – now rolling along with a good number of psychometrists, psionics and seers, in addition to body guards, planners, lawyers and the like – was one of those called in. Lin'es, her daughter Fesli, and Fesli's two sons Farek and Likas all joined Farn in trying to figure out what had happened. The crime scene was a mess, people had been in and out all day long.

“How are we meant to understand any of these clues,” Fesli said while indicating the corner of the bed which had been tucked and untucked just while they were watching the other investigators, “when people keep messing with them?”

“We will make due,” Lin'es said quietly. She waited until the others were gone, and then her own unit went into the room. She'd noticed, and her husband as well, that the other units of investigators did not have such strong psionics on their side.

The brothers made a pass around the room and reported to their grandmother.

“There are three things missing from the room,” Farek said, “the murder weapon and two pieces of clothing – the High Mistress' nightgown, and the clothing that was worn by the murderer.”

“I can understand one,” Lin'es said, still quiet, “but, the murder clothing? Are you sure?”

“I'm certain of it,” Farek nodded. He indicated his brother.

“And I'm almost entirely certain that we all know who did it.”

“But can you prove this?” Lin'es said. In her hundred-plus years, she'd seen all too many cases blown because there was just not enough proof of guilt. Their family had been made on such things in the past, and she was not about to begin accusing someone if they could not offer an airtight case.

“I can and he can help,” Likas said. “Both of us got the worst sensastions from Lord Vehdar when he was still hanging out. I want to go check him out.”

“I would like us to do more than that,” Fesli said, holding on to a book that was sealed with a simple but elegant lock. “Even if we cannot get into this page by page, I can already feel some important moments coming off it.”

“Is that the High Mistress' diary?”

“It's Vehdar's,” Fesli grinned. “Even better.”

Her mother took it, and handed it to Farn. “But this date,” he said, “it's long before this year. How can this possibly help, Fesli?”

“Because maybe there was something more to this than we know?” Fesli asked, taking it back gingerly. She'd been in another accident recently which caused her fingers to shatter, and she still could not hold heavy objects in them for very long. But she was intent on finding out what had happened here in the last week.

Soon enough, the next set of investigators would want to enter and mess up the crime scene even further. Lin'es and Farn wanted to see the first photographs and vids taken when the original police had been called. Since it was a death scene they did have to record the original state of things. That's not to say that no one had moved things before they got there, of course.

“I'm worried that Lord Vehdar had already set things around,” Farn said, as they left. “Anything could have been staged.”

“There was not enough blood to indicate that she'd fought back,” Farek said.

“And there were no other drag marks, to say that she was killed elsewhere and laid to rest in their bed, after.” Added Likas.

“Although the place just reeks of having been cleaned well, and recently. Not too much evidence that is left if it's been cleaned off.” Farek confirmed what had been gnawing at the others noses the whole time.

The young men were three years apart in age, but they acted rather like twins. They could often complete one another's sentences, and always had their minds on the same things. Their appearances were not dramatically different from one another either, though Farek's violet skin was marked with gold patterns, and his brother Likas' was more purple and blue. They both had attractive purple eyes, and their father Karr's handsome chin. Their major differences were in how they dressed and wore their violet hair – Likas preferred his to be short, while Farek's metallic purple hair was always held long and in a straight tail. They both haid tails – literally, their father's was much bulkier and they wore their shorter more slender tails with pride. Dhanali's influence, surely.

Also the late Animal Mistress' influence was that of the unshakable course that the men would take whenever they were on a case. They had researched her and her life, her family, and found that they had relatives in the ‘spy biz' as they called it. They wanted to call in some others, but this investigation would only go forward with a few people working it. Farek was a strong empath who had only slightly inherited his father's heating ability. Likas had an ability to not only sense and read objects or people, their history laid open to him, but he could then visualize in a brilliant light display what he had seen.

That was their secret weapon: that was what Lin'es would use for the sureness of her case. If they could take the information that Likas could locate, confirm it, and prove it in a court, they would be the ones who could break the case wide open.

But it was Fesli and Farek who tempered this. Fesli wanted to see what was in the diary, but also whatever was in Vehdar's working journals. He was immediately a suspect until proven otherwise, of course, but he and his money had managed to squeeze in a law team of his own. He claimed they were there to put his mind at ease about his fiancee's affairs, but everyone, even the other detectives, knew that he was putting them there to clean up any other evidence he might have left behind.

The field of detective investigation was surprisingly cutthroat.

It thrilled Fesli to be a part of it all, still. Less than one hundred years old, and she'd seen murders, attacks, vanishings, kidnappings, theft and all manner of other crimes. Her psychometry was stronger than her mother's by far, and she enjoyed the ability to move her senses through other objects than just the one that her cousin had made for her.

That got her thinking, while she watched the other detectives moving in.

“Mother, I'm going to bring in one of my platforms, if you don't mind,” she said to Lin'es, who nodded and sent a Bayaran with her to help just in case.

She went back to the room to place it on the dresser, and one of the other local guys tried to stop her.

“You can't leave that here, what is it anyway?” He muttered, “it looks dangerous.”

“It's hardly dangerous, it's merely a touchstone for me. A recording device, so to speak.” She said, offhand, while she turned it so that its tendrils would help her vision reach around corners.

“That's not legal,” someone else said. “You have to get that out of here.”

“Excuse me, Land Master, ” Fesli said, but in my many years in courtrooms, I have never come across such a ‘law' about leaving an information gathering piece at the scene of a crime. If you wish to take it up with the Judges later, you may do so, but until then, you will neither touch it, nor insist it be moved.” She was about to turn away, and then looked back over her narrow shoulder, “or, place anything on it. It will be quite aggrivating should that happen.”

She heard the mutters of the other men in the room as she left, and saw her mother with a big grin on her face.

“You're wicked,” Lin'es said, wrapping her thin arm around her daughter's waist. “Now we wait and see what happens, yes?”

“Yes – in the van. I can't leave or go too far, now.” Fesli said seriously, “I won't lose another of the platforms to some idiot who doesn't know what it does.”

“We can come back when we know that Lord Vehdar is back,” said Likas. “Come mother, you're going to need rest.”

Reluctantly, Fesli went into their large camp. There were three others, mobile units which contained enough to house the detectives for the duration. Needless to say, Lord Vehdar was not pleased to have such things on the lawn. But, it wasn't his lawn, so he really had no business to complain. There were also a number of local and worldwide news crews on hand, because while an assassination was not entirely out of the ordinary – they usually happened after the politician had been in office for a bit of time.

That evening, while everyone else was busy poring over their photos and notes in the other vans, Lin'es and her group did something entirely different with their time.

Farek was plugged in to the business network, busy locating any of Vehdar's business deals and legal paperwork. He began to turn up some interesting items, but said nothing until later.

Likas and Farn were busy with the diary, they'd slipped it out from Vehdar's items and no one noticed. Since it was older – more than three years out of date – they had a good chance of finding a starting point. They also of course stood a chance of not locating anything of substance. But they knew that Vehdar was involved with the High Mistress for some 12 years, and that was encouraging.

Fesli and her mother, though, were busy making preparations to visit the inside of the mansion again. Only, they weren't going to be doing it with their bodies on. Both women could use their powers adeptly enough that while Fesli was looking through her platform at the scene, Lin'es was going to be “out of body” for a time, taking a walk around the place and possibly following Vehdar himself. He had never exhibited any psionic abilities himself – rare Owners did. Of course their family was an exceptional one, of oddly Bred Membayar and Free Holders – neither of which Status often displayed such powers in great numbers.

“Ready?” Lin'es asked her daughter, who nodded.

Fesli was a bit worried, but they were surrounded by family and in no danger of being seen or felt. At the first sign of such a thing, both had agreed to leave the scene immediately.

They went into their respective trances, and shortly ‘met up' in the odd aether outside bodily perception. They were ghosts – in as much as such things could exist – and they could only see each other as though through a veil. In such a vulnerable position otherwise, if something happened to their bodies, Fesli would be the one to wake sooner – since her senses were all that was drifting about. Lin'es' whole mind and being were outside of her own body.

Lin'es located Vehdar, and followed him for a while. He puttered around, drawing himself a drink and sitting beside the fire for a while. But then, he went back up to the expansive bedroom where his fiancee had lain. That was where Fesli saw him, tailed by her mother's ghostly sense.

“Well well,” Vehdar said, to no one. “It looks as though I have quite a mess to clean up before I can make this place presentable again.” He started straightening the bed, but what both Fesli and Lin'es noticed was that while he did so, there was a vicious smile on his face. He was clearly hiding something. Lords didn't go around making beds and cleaning floors, did they?! That was why they had Slaves.

Fesli snapped back into her body, and asked briefly, “does anyone know if the Slaves were interviewed?” She went right back, though, sure that her sons would pick that up and do something good with it if they could.

Farek tilted his head and looked at the records on the screen in front of him. “... It doesn't even look as though there were any Slaves on the site. Nor Bayaran.”

“That's odd,” Likas said, “were they all sent out?”

“Well,” Farek said, turning the chair and digging around through other physical notes, “between the pair of them, they had sixteen Slaves and – yikes, Tenya had nearly eighty Bayaran to her name. Not one of them was here. Let me find transportation records, you two keep looking through that thing.”

That thing was the diary, which yeilded much in the short time they had been working it. The psychic energy off it was old, but clear. This was a man who meant business, but that was why everyone was confused. Where had the servants been sent? When?

“Ah – got it, there was a record of three carriages being hired to take the batch of house workers away to Vehdar's estate lands down somewhere near the river, Spimlo. Should I call up for someone to talk to them?”

“We'll get to that,” Farn said, nodding. “Good work.”

Inside the mansion, Vehdar proceeded to wipe the bed's solid wood head and foot boards clean, inexpertly, with a cloth. It was when he stood up and wiped his hands clean on it, that a strange new expression crossed his face.

It was disgust, clearly. But whether it was at himself? Or that he had blood on his hands? Literally?

‘Follow him,' Fesli said to her mother, though no words came. It was already a clear priority to Lin'es that they found out where he went with that cloth. Vehdar slipped into the bathroom, and from there into a closet where Fesli lost contact with him. She came back to her body and informed the family what they were watching.

“I can't get a good grip on anything else in the house, I'm sorry.” She said.

It was up to her mother, now. Lin'es did not disappoint. What she saw as she followed behind Lord Vehdar was that he went into the closet that contained cleaning equipment – clearly a Slave's domain – and then...

“There's a secret door,” she whispered, half in and half out of her senses. She could not remain like that for long so she chose to remain with the Owner. Down into a narrow and dark stairwell, Lord Vehdar went, until he got to a kind of basement room. There, Vehdar paused to open a horizontal door, which had below it a kind of hot shaft. Perhaps it was to a furnace, or merely to a local hot-air vent. Lin'es was not clear on the local geography and natural history, she wasn't aware of there being such things here.

Vehdar tossed the cloth down, and apparently it burnt up because a bit of a spark showed up in the air before he closed the doors. But then Lin'es watched as Lord Vehdar turned around and kicked a piece of coal into a large pile.

She roused herself with a start, and said, “there is another body – in the basement. Furnace...” she gasped. She tried to relax, but what she'd seen was so very unnerving. A hand, pale green in color, covered in coal dust. It was no trick of the light, there had to be another body.

She described it to her grandsons, and Farek took a better stock of the Bayaran and Slaves that belonged to the late High Mistress.

“Oh – there,” he said, going a bit pale. “She had a youngish Slave that had been born to the family, looks like almost six generations of service to Tenya's family. She's the only one that had green skin,” he said. “And I would bet you that she tried to stop him.”

“Well we already know that's where the items that were missing went,” Farn said, nodding to Farek who echoed it. “Now, question is do we wait, tell the other camps, and alert the authorities? Or?”

“Or what, father,” Fesli asked, “go in ourselves? We are hardly prepared to step in to a situation like this.”

“No better or worse than the other investigators are,” said Likas.

“And we know we've got information that he thinks is safe.”

“I worry that we might be overstepping,” Lin'es said, sadly. “It was not quite an authorized run we've just done.”

“Then we get authorization from the right people,” Farn insisted. “Now, if we can.”

“What all did you get from that, father?” Fesli asked, of the diary.

“That he had some interesting contacts in a service that most Lords doing Steeding and farm equipment don't care much about.”

“That would be?” Fesli asked, interested.

“Industrial cleaning supplies,” Farn said, “and what's more is that half of those,” he indicated Farek's screen print, “were doing either Bayaran or time in prison for one or another crimes.”

“That gives him motive,” Likas said, “doesn't it?”

“Why?” Fesli asked her son. She was tired, otherwise she'd have figured it out by herself.

“Because if his soon-to-be wife became the Area President, and enacted her Security measures, half of the people on Lord Vehdar's payroll would be in danger of being shot instead of running away from their crimes.”

“He was behind them?” Fesli said, shocked.

“We can't prove that,” Lin'es said, “but it sounds pretty secure to me. Get on the vid with the Judge, I want this.”

“We all want this now,” Farn said with a grin.

Mada's courts were big, dark places. Of all the places that Farn and Lin'es had to work, this was not a place they enjoyed. Mada might have been one of the First Four cities, but it sure didn't pose quite the nice image.

This case would take all the family to complete. Each of them had their little nook that they took to the extreme. Fesli would be able to touch and sense items and compare them with others, for psychic residue. There would be counter-arguments, and moves against using such extensive psionic tools in a courtroom – but the Judges, this time there were three, thought it was an exceptional idea to keep each side honest. It was clear to Likas that at least one of the Judges had seen a number of Vehdar's Bayaran through his court before – something that had to work in the law's favor this time. He knew the past history of this Lord and his methods.

But it was after the diary was brought out, that caused the most stir. Likas and Farn spoke about how they would use it, to catch that same psychic residue that Fesli could – but then Likas would be brought back again one more time.

To actually “read” Lord Vehdar himself. It was proven that Likas could successfully tell truths from lies, and get information off of someone that had remained hidden for years. But his ability to transfer this knowledge to a visual image was stunning.

Of course – this took more than a month. Because Vehdar lodged protest after protest, trying to slow the process down. He was also quite infuriated that his fiancee's will had been stalled until this point too, since there was a clause in it about conditions of death and such. Tenya was a bit of a paranoid, and with good reason.

“Why kill the Slave?” Asked one of the Judges. They were clearly convinced that the Owner had done it anyway – they wanted now to know why.

“I did no such thing,” Vehdar said. He glared at Likas, who was then brought up near the man. “Wh- what are you doing?”

“I'm going to read you. It will not hurt.” Likas said.

His hands, those long hands with their painfully large joints, gently touched the Owner's skin and the air around them lit up like a display.

“Think back to the moment you found your fiancee,” Likas suggested, and the images swirled to what appeared to be the bedroom. But though he'd asked for the moment that the woman might have been found – he seemed to dwell on the moments before that. When he'd bludgeoned her to death with a small wood-handled coal shovel.

Everyone in the room jumped back, at that. There was no sound – and the images were seen as from the Owner's perspective, so what everyone saw was right from the killer's eyes.

“What about the Slave, Vehdar?” Likas said, “you've been asked why you killed her.”

“I – I di.... She was going to inform Tenya,” Vehdar sighed, and the images were a mess of darkness and hot red light, the green skinned young Slave trying to pry the instrument out of his hands so that it could be turned in as evidence. Her High Mistress was good to her family, she was loyal – anyone who had ever Owned or been around a good Bayaran knew the look on her face. She was so distraught that she could only try to make sure that her High Mistress' life was avenged. The same tool was used again, breaking on the Slave's shoulder first and then being tossed down the furnace shaft. He actually crushed the girl's head against the hard stone floor when she wouldn't go down as easily as his sleeping fiancee.

“Lord Vehdar, is there anything you could possibly say at this point, to redeem yourself?” One of the Judges asked, almost pleadingly. He was trying to see past the passion – perhaps there were circumstances they had missed?

“No,” Vehdar said. “The Land Master here got it right, already,” he indicated Farek.

“I did,” Farek shrugged.

“The weapons would be by far the worst things ever to be introduced to the law forces. It would hardly be a fair advantage.”

“You know that the only people that would truly lose in that situation are criminals,” the third Judge said.

“I know that now,” Vehdar said. “But you must understand, she was so naive. She wanted to protect me from this,” he waved his white-grey hand. “The world was so dangerous, she said... She did not know.”

“You acted entirely independantly,” asked the other Judge.

“I acted for the betterment of a ... business. Mine, others. No one in specific, I acted alone for the better good.”

Fesli drew in a breath but could find nothing to say. The Judges pronounced that Vehdar's Status be forfeit into Slavery, and he be put to prison for the rest of his natural life. As he was taken away, Fesli heard the Judges speaking among themselves, and had to pry.

“It was the Slave,” said the one woman Judge. “If he hadn't killed her that way, I don't know that I would be able to convict him.”

“What, killing the newly elected Area President wasn't enough?” Asked the other, a squat tan skinned man. “It took a Slave to tell you he's a madman?”

“No, it took a Slave to show me how much he wanted to keep his secrets,” she replied. “One can only wish to Own a Slave of such bravery and loyalty. That is a tremendous shame, that he killed such a woman.”

“Judges, if I may?” Fesli asked, and the trio stopped, “what's to become of the Will reading now? He must not be allowed to use that to his advantage and get out of this.”

“Since Tenya was wise enough to include the phrase ‘with no outside harm done' in her death conditions? He'll not be getting in on that Inheritance.” The squat Judge said.

“I would say that it's too bad that Slave Imja had to die for that man's pride,” said the woman Judge, “she should have been rewarded. I'll see if she had any family.”

“And I suppose that we will have to strike up a new image for our Area coin now, too,” said the third Judge, a tall grey and yellow colored man. “Since Tenya's face was to be on them for the next decade.”

“Maybe we can convince her successor to allow them to keep it...” Said the woman, as they went down the hall. Fesli was sure that they'd all done the right things. Everyone had their role, everyone's job well done.

Though it was really none of their business, Lin'es and her brood attended Tenya's will reading, just to see what happened. It was a good thing they did.

Three of Vehdar's relatives tried horning in on the action – and were escorted out by the guards. Since he'd condemned himself and his whole relationship, and she had never apparently been too fond of his aunt or her sons, they were entirely out of the will.

But it did leave about three dozen Bayaran deeply indebted and with no one to rely upon for their work. With the bunch of them standing around, literally in the yard outside the house where they had last been living and working, the Membayar who had done the legal work turned to see the trio of Farn, Lin'es and their daughter Fesli.

“Yes?” He asked.

“We'd like to see about the Bayaran,” asked Lin'es. “We've just come into a bit more of a windfall than we expected with the publicity of this case,” she thumbed back at the crew of cameras (the other half of the family – so predictably – still involved in all that broadcasting mess!) and reporters outside the estate's walls. “I think that we might be able to work a deal.”

The batch of Bayaran looked worried, stunned, and hopeful all at once. “I think we can swing that, if you do the batch.”

“Are you planning on getting your sons into this?” Asked Lin'es of her daughter.

“If they think they need the help, I can't see why they couldn't retitle to Membayar. It isn't like we don't have the room. We have the work too, I am certain of it.”

“Then I will get these men and women,” the lawyer said, “up to their rooms for a bit, and next week we'll talk about those arrangements. It won't be hard, Mistress Lin'es, I know how you are in court. You won't have any trouble getting the whole batch and then some.”

They walked back out to do interviews, and saw that Likas was showing his powers off. “It's a great thing he can do,” Fesli said. “Would you have ever thought that my lousy layabout of a first husband could have given me any better sons than this?”

“I never said he was lousy,” Lin'es said with a hidden grin. “I only said he was a bit lazy and seemed to hardly be able to hold down a proper job.”

“That was why I bonded him in the first place,” Fesli said with a laugh. “Because I knew potential when I saw it, just like you did,” she winked at her father. “Karr will want to know all about this, so I'm going to head home. When you need me, I'll be around. Now I want to collect my ‘reward' and my sons.”

“Good day, my daughter,” Lin'es said, bowing quite formally to her daughter, to the great amusement of the onlooking camera crews.

“How much of a reward is there?” Asked Farn.

“There are about seventy vid messages, on her professional line at home,” Lin'es said. “All asking about if we'll take their cases.”

“Oh – well that's good enough.”

“Of course it is,” Lin'es said, laughing.