Colonizing had seemed like a good idea back on Earth when the excitement of the Nathi War had died down. Any alternative, save First Centauri, which everyone knew was controlled by the First Families and founding companies, was better than Earth or moldering at grade on a lumbering merchantman. She had even toyed with the challenge of navigating mining ships within the Belts until the Roosevelt Dome had exploded for no apparent reason, killing all but a handful of the ten thousand inhabitants. The chance to rule a new world had drawn her. Over the years, she had had enough experience with psycho profiles to know how to control her pulse and what answers to give to the asinine questions that were supposed to separate truth from fiction. And so she had been accepted as astrogator for the Pern expedition.

But since she had failed to capture Paul Benden, who would be Pern’s first leader—in her estimation, the less colorful Emily Boll would be overshadowed by the more flamboyant admiral once they landed on Pern—she had decided that living the rest of her life in obscurity at the end of the Milky Way was insupportable. She was, after all, a competent astrogator and, given a ship, charts, and a deep-sleep tank, she could make her way to some other civilized and sophisticated planet that catered to the life-style she wished to enjoy.

She had begun with Stev Kimmer, partly just to ease the pain of losing Paul Benden. When she had noticed that Bart Lemos managed to attach himself to her whenever Stev was on duty, she encouraged him, too. Nabhi Nabol joined the group one evening, along with several others. Bart and Nabhi were pilots, each with a useful secondary skill: Bart in mining, and Nabhi in computers. Stev was a mechanical engineer with an uncanny ability to diagnose computer failures and rearrange chips to do twice the work they had been designed to handle.

For the plan taking shape in her mind, she assembled useful cronies. Most were contractors like herself, or small-stake charterers beginning to feel that they had been shortchanged on their deals. In the back of Avril’s mind was the notion that it would be fun to see if she could foment sufficient discord to overthrow their benevolent leaders and rule Pern on her own, instead of as Paul Benden’s consort. But that would have to wait for a propitious moment once the colony had been settled in and troubles began.