Emily had gone with Tarvi to give him what comfort she could, so Ezra was manning the room alone. He looked as old as Paul felt after the wringing emotions of the day.

“Any word?”

“None of it for polite company,” Ezra said with a snort. “She’s just discovered that the first course correction hasn’t occurred.” He turned the dial so that the low snarl of vindictive curses was plainly audible.

Paul grinned maliciously at Dieter. “So you said.” He turned on the speakers.

“Avril, can you hear me?”

“Benden! What the hell did that bitch of yours do? How did she do it? The override is locked. I can’t even maneuver. I knew I should have sawn her foot off.”

Ezra blanched and Dieter looked ill, but Paul’s smile was vindictive. So Avril had underestimated Sallah. He took a deep breath of pride in the valiant woman.

“You’re going to explore the plutonic planet, Avril darling. Why don’t you be a decent thing and give us a running account?”

“Shove it, Benden. You know where! You’ll get nothing out of me. Oh, shit! Oh, shit! it’s not the—oh, shiiiitt.”

The sound of her final expletive was drowned by a sizzling roar that made Ezra grab for the volume dial.

“Shit!” Paul echoed very softly. “ ‘It’s not the …’—the what? Damn you, Avril, to eternity! It’s not the what?”

Emily and Pierre, along with Chio-Chio Yoritomo, who had been Kenjo’s wife’s cabinmates on the Buenos Aires and her housemate on Irish Square, took the fast sled to Kenjo’s Honshu Stake. While most of Landing knew about Kenjo’s death and Ongola’s serious illness, there had been no public announcement. Rumor had been busy discussing the “unknown” assailant.

When Emily returned that night, she brought a sealed message to the admiral.

“She told us,” Emily said dryly, “that she would prefer to stay on at Honshu to work the stake herself for her four children. She has few needs and would not trouble us.”

“She is very traditional,” Chio-Chio told the admiral breathlessly. “She would not show grief, for that belittles the dead.” She shrugged, eyes down, her hands clenching and unclenching. Then she looked up, almost defiant in her anger. “She was like that. Kenjo married her because she would not question what he did. He asked me first, but I had more sense, even if he was a war ace. Oh!” She brought her arm up to hide her face. “But to die like that! Struck from behind. An ignominious death for one who had cheated it so often!” Then she turned and fled from the room, her sobbing audible as she ran out into the night.