“Just me. And Emil owes me one. Two, really.”

“Well,” she said. “Well.” And she went to pick up the snifter. Right then, the rest of it fell into place.

“You’re old.”

“You’re hard to fool, Bey.”

“I’ve never seen you move like that before. It’s funny; I can tell a man’s age within a few decades, but I can’t tell a woman’s. Why don’t you move like that all the time?”

She laughed. “And have everyone know I’m a crone? Not likely. So I hesitate when I move, and I knock against things occasionally, and catch my heel on rugs…Every woman learns to do that, usually long after she’s learned not to. Too much poise is a giveaway.” She stood with her feet apart, hands on her hips, challenging. Now her poise was tremendous, a shocking, glowing dignity. Perhaps she had been an actress, so long ago that her most devoted admirers had died or forgotten her. “So I’m old. Well?”

“Well, now I know why you joined the kidnappers. You and Bellamy and the rest; you all think alike. No persuasion needed.”

She shook her head in mock sadness. “How you simplify. Do you really think that everyone over two hundred and fifty is identical under the skull?

“Piet Lindstrom disliked the idea from the beginning, but he needed the money. He’s been off boosterspice for years. Warren’s loved hunting all his life. He hadn’t hunted a civilized animal since the kzinti wars. Tanya was in love with Larch. She’ll probably try to kill you.”

“And you?”

“Larch would have gone ahead without me. Anything could have happened. So I saw to it that I was flying Lloobee’s ship, and I declared myself in.”

She was so damn vivid. I’d thought she was beautiful before, but now, with the little-girl mannerisms gone, she glowed.

I thought of the brandy.

“You loved him, too,” I said.

“I’m his mother.”

That jolted me to my toes. “The brandy,” I said. “What was in the brandy?”

“Something I developed long ago. Hormones, hypnotics…a love potion. You’re going to love me. Two years from now I’ll abandon you like an empty beer bulb. You won’t be able to live without me.” Her smile was cruel and cold. “A fitting revenge.”

“Finagle help me!” I hadn’t drunk the brandy, of course, but what the hell…Then it penetrated. Two years. “You know about Sharrol?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t drink the brandy.”

“There’s nothing in it but alcohol.”

We grinned at each other across the length of the couch. Then the ghost was between us, and I said, “What about Bellamy?”

“Larch took his chances. He knew what he was doing.”

“I can’t understand that.” I couldn’t understand why she didn’t hate me. Worse, all my questions were sure to be the wrong ones. I picked one that might be right and asked, “What was he doing?”

“Dying. He’d run out of things to do. He’d have taken greater and greater chances until one of them killed him. One day I’ll reach the same point. Maybe I’ll know it in time.”