"I say not too mysteriously because of the character his son and successor, the present Baron Ryoval, immediately revealed. His first project was to get rid of all his potential sibling-rivals. The old man had sired a lot of children. Ryoval's early career is something of a Jacksonian legend. The eldest and most dangerous males, he simply had assassinated. The females and some of the younger males he sent to his body-modification laboratories, and thence to his very private bordellos, to service the customers on that side of the business. I suppose they're all dead by now. If they're lucky.

"Ryoval also, apparently, used this direct management approach on the staff he had inherited. His father had handled Lilly Durona as a cherished treasure, but the new Baron Ryoval threatened to send her after his sisters, to satisfy the biological fantasies of his customers directly, if she didn't cooperate. She began to plot her escape with a despised young half brother of Ryoval's by the name of Georish Stauber."

"Ah! Baron Fell!" said Thorne. Thorne was looking enlightened, Taura fascinated, Quinn and Bothari-Jesek horrified.

"The same, but not yet. Lilly and young Georish escaped to the protection of House Fell. In fact, I gather that Lilly was Georish's ticket in. They both set up in service to their new masters, with considerable negotiated autonomy, at least on Lilly's part. It was the Deal. Deals are as semi-sacred as anything can be, on Jackson's Whole.

"Georish began to rise through the ranks of House Fell. And Lilly began the Durona Research Group by cloning herself. Again and again. The Durona Group, which is now up to thirty or forty cloned sisters, serves House Fell in several ways. It's sort of a family doctor for upper-level Fell executives who don't want to entrust their health to outside specialist houses like Bharaputra. And since House Fell's stock in trade is weapons, they've done R&D on military poisons and biologicals. And their antidotes. The Durona Group made House Fell a small fortune on Peritaint, and a few years later made it a huge fortune on Peritaint's antidote. The Durona Group is kind of quietly famous, if you follow that sort of thing. Which ImpSec does. There was a pile of stuff on 'em even in the stripped-down files they let me see. Though most of this is common knowledge on Jackson's Whole.

"Georish, not least owing to the coup he brought House Fell in the person of Lilly, ascended to the pinnacle a few years back when he became Baron Fell. Now, enter the Dendarii Mercenaries. And now you have to tell me what happened." Mark nodded to Bel Thorne. "I've only caught garbled bits."