The closest Hansa world was a place that catered to wealthy tourists. "On Relleker, they don't want their pampered visitors to suffer from so much as a splinter," Roberts had said. "They'll have every known medical supply."

Davlin met him at the small spaceport with a list of components he needed for the pumping and filter stations. Theoretically, he should have used the opportunity to transmit a report to Chairman Wenceslas, but he was not anxious to attract Hansa notice. He liked it here on Crenna, and by now he half-believed his own cover story as a simple settler. Out of sight, out of mind... he hoped.

The Ildirans had called Crenna "a world of sounds." Silvery streams bubbled up from springs and tumbled down in cascades. Natural seed-grasses rattled with the winds like tiny maracas. Insects hummed and droned throughout the day and night, adding a pleasant, musical white noise. The low hills were forested with spiny groves of flutewood trees; after the trees died, the soft cores decayed and left hollow reeds through which native insects drilled holes, and the ever-present breezes played them like musical instruments.

It was a nice place, much better than some of his other assignments.

Now, before Roberts could climb aboard his ship, the proximity alarms chimed, indicating that an incoming vessel had just entered Crenna's atmosphere. Roberts looked alarmed. "Who would be coming here?"

One of the part-time town officials in the survey tower bellowed an excited announcement: "It's a mail drone!" Then with increased volume, the man shouted, "Mail call!"

A drone was a small, fast ship built with automated systems, little more than an interstellar satellite. During the embargo, such drones were the only way to disseminate information to planets that had no green priest for direct telink communication. They also took detailed survey images of known Hansa settlements.

Roberts grabbed the list of mechanical components from Davlin's hand and scampered aboard his ship. "Go read your mail. I'll be back as soon as I finish shopping," he said in a rush. "In the meantime, if the sickness gets too bad, I hear that chicken soup works wonders."

Roberts lifted off without completing a standard prelaunch checklist-and presumably before the drone could have spotted him. The merchant ship streaked into the sky mere moments before the mail drone arrived. The fast satellite began to download its stored files and messages into Crenna's network database: letters from family members, business reports, news files, copies of entertainment vidloops and digitized novels.

No matter how much the settlers might enjoy the contact with home, Davlin found it odd that the Hansa would send such a low-priority mission here to outlying Crenna. He knew that every action Basil took had a reason-usually more than one. He also wondered what Branson Roberts had been afraid of.

Though he had no family or close friends, Davlin was not surprised to find a message for him among the transmitted letters. The note from his "brother" Saul read like an innocuous message: a niece's marriage, the death of an old relative, struggling family businesses. But after he took it back to his dwelling, he decoded it and read about the new assignment Basil Wenceslas had given him.