He watched the two scratchounds tense together in slo-mo on either side of the pit.

~ The point is that your hosts will have to be asked to deprive themselves of your company for a while.

~ What? Why? Genar-Hofoen thought, immediately suspicious. ~ The decision has been made - and I hasten to establish that I had no part in this - that your services are required elsewhere.

~ Where? For how long?

~ I can’t tell you where exactly, or for how long.

~ Make a stab at it.

~ I cannot and will not.

~ Module, end this message.

~ Are you sure? asked Scopell-Afranqui.

~ Wait!, said the voice of the GSV. ~ Will it satisfy you if I say that we may need about eighty days of your time?

~ No it won’t. I’m quite happy here. I’ve been bounced into all sorts of Special Circumstances shit in the past on the strength of a Hey-come-and-do-one-little-job-for-us come-on line. (This was not in fact perfectly true; Genar-Hofoen had only ever acted for SC once before, but he’d known - or at least heard of - plenty of people who’d got more than they’d expected when they’d worked for what was in effect the Contact section’s espionage and dirty tricks department.)

~ I did not--

~ Plus I’ve got a job to do here, Genar-Hofoen interrupted. ~ I’ve got another audience with the Grand Council in a month to tell them to be nicer to their neighbours or we’re going to think about slapping their paddles. I want details of this exciting new opportunity or you can shove it.

~ I did not say that I am speaking on behalf of Special Circumstances.

~ Are you denying that you are?

~ Not as such, but--

~ So stop fucking around. Who the hell else is going to start hauling a gifted and highly effective ambassador off--?

~ Genar-Hofoen, we are wasting time here.

~ We?, Genar-Hofoen thought, watching the two scratchounds launch themselves at each other slowly. ~ Never mind. Go on.

~ The task required of you is, apparently, a delicate one, which is why I personally regard you as being utterly unsuited to it, and as such it would be foolish to entrust the full details either to myself, to your module, your suit or indeed to you until all these details are required.

~ There you are; that’s exactly what you can shove; all that SC need-to-know crap. I don’t care how fucking delicate the task is, I’m not even going to consider it until I know what’s involved.

The scratchounds were in mid-pounce now, both of them twisting as they leapt. Shit, thought Genar-Hofoen; this might be one of those scratchound bouts where the whole thing was decided on the initial lunge, depending entirely on which beast got its teeth into the neck of the other first.