It wasn’t the sight of the woman, half naked, but the scars. Kalico Aguila had the kind of body only the elite could buy: lithe, muscular, and perfectly formed. Call her statuesque. She would have been a beauty in anyone’s book—but for the horror of the scars running across her stomach, hips, along the outsides of her thighs, on her back and arms. To Michaela’s dismay, the ones on the woman’s hands and face were hardly worth mention compared to those disfiguring the rest of her body.

Michaela gasped. Horrified. Her stomach went queasy, and she instinctively placed a hand to her throat.

Aguila glanced up, blue gaze startled, only to be followed by a knowing smile. “Sorry. Had to change into something without holes. Pisses me off, really.” She wiggled a finger through the hole in the knee of her suit. “My last good ‘official’ dress outfit. Maybe I can have Pietre Strazinsky figure out a becoming way of patching this. That, or it’s a whole new claw-shrub-fiber outfit. Some of the weave they’re making now is coming pretty close to a quality fabric.”

“Those were mobbers?” Michaela couldn’t take her gaze from the tracery of scars. “I just didn’t . . . I mean, I never . . .”

“Saw the like?” Aguila’s smile thinned, her laser-blue gaze cooling. “Donovan plays, for keeps, Director. So take a good look and don’t forget. Your next question is, ‘You’re a Board Supervisor, why don’t you undergo the cosmetic surgery to repair them?’ The answer is: ‘If I were back in Solar System, I would. But here, on Donovan, that kind of cosmetic surgery is outside of Raya Turnienko’s expertise. Her specialty is keeping you alive, and she’s pretty good at it.’”

“So you live with them?” Michaela wondered, her skin crawling at the disfigurement.

Aguila reached for her bag, removed a set of utilitarian coveralls, and pulled them on; her scarred hands zipped the fasteners closed. Then she attacked the rat’s nest her hair had been blown into. As she did, she said, “Director, even after the orientation we gave you in Port Authority, and despite everything I’ve tried to tell you about Donovan, I have a pretty good idea where you’re coming from. What your expectations are for the Maritime Unit and how you expect life to line out for you and your people. Now that you’ve finally made it here, you think it’s all going to be nice and cozy science filled with wonders. Oh, you’ll get plenty of wonders, not all of them pleasant.”

Michaela couldn’t get the scars out of her memory. Now, here was her Board Supervisor, dressed in utilitarian coveralls, pulling the knots out of her long black hair like she was a schoolgirl after gym class. Who the hell was Kalico Aguila, anyway?