Tasia dashed off to speak with friends her own age. Adaptable to the asteroids’ low gravity, she scuttled through the tunnel complexes, running toward the domed greenhouses. She hadn’t bothered to retrieve her spacesuit from Jess’s ship, but if she wanted to venture outside, there would be plenty of skin-suits for her to borrow. She could always rig something up.

With a mixture of dread and eagerness, Jess crossed a transparent connectube to the central asteroid, where he would at last deliver formal greetings to Cesca from Ross. Ancient Jhy Okiah clasped his hand in a sinewy grip, then flipped a glance at her protégée, who couldn’t tear her eyes off of him.

Self-consciously, the Speaker found urgent business. “If you two will excuse me, I have an appointment with the mother of Rand Sorengaard. Her clan wishes to submit formal apologies for her son’s actions.”

He and Cesca looked at each other in silence. Jess could barely cover his grin of admiration for her. Cesca’s olive skin and dark hair drew him like a magnet. She smiled with her generous mouth. “It’s good to see you again, Jess,” she said, a bit too formally.

He was forced to respond with a stiff bow, sweeping his cape to one side. “When last I was at Golgen, my brother charged me with delivering you a set of greetings. He expects the Blue Sky Mine to turn a profit this year at last.”

Jess opened a voluminous pocket in his embroidered vest. He withdrew a strand of metallic black spheres, a necklace of ebony skypearls. He held it up in the artificial light. Cesca’s dark eyes looked more beautiful to him than the midnight sheen of the valuable gems.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen skypearls before,” Cesca said. “And I certainly don’t own any. I don’t know what to say, except for you to pass along my thanks to him.”

The tiny spherical nodules were formed inside ekti reactor chambers, concentrated impurities taken from the atmospheric samples during harvesting. Skypearls clung to the walls of the reactors and were occasionally found during routine cleaning. Ross had been saving them for years, one or two at a time. He had given his fiancée a string of twenty-five, worth a fabulous fortune.

Jess dropped them into the soft palm of her hand, letting his fingers brush hers so he could feel an instant of her touch. His skin prickled with a flush of sweat. This encounter was sweet agony.

Jess tried to think of something to say in the uncomfortable lull in their conversation, because he did not dare voice the words he longed to speak. Cesca withdrew to a too-careful distance, and her lips parted as if ready to whisper something.