While she would have preferred making planet on the first shuttle, it was understandable that the Board Appointed Inspector General would take first preference. She and the rest of the families had to be content to take the second. Which, truthfully, was just as well. This way there would be no playing second fiddle after the IG when it came to making a first impression.

Falise turned, thankful to leave the wretched confines of the cabin behind. Nothing had prepared her for such hardship, confinement, and boredom. Well, there had been the thrill of seducing Kramer, and doing it right under Bartolome’s nose. That would go down as one of the greater triumphs in her life. Too bad it had been so short-lived.

Striding into the hall, she found it vacant, the others having already taken their leave of Crew Deck. Good. She liked arriving either first or last, but never in the middle. The fine luminshift-fabric gown she’d chosen for the occasion rustled as she walked, having the same consistency of an antique taffeta; the stiffness allowed for the most pleasing extensions at the shoulders and hips. She’d chosen it for the stunning impression it would make upon arrival on Capella III. For the moment, she left it radiantly golden, but would let the colors bleed into violet after she and her staff had boarded the shuttle.

Ednund, of course, had suggested the dress, while Clarice had argued for one of the pantsuits. Something more in keeping with a frontier world.

“I want to make a statement,” Falise had insisted. “The only Taglioni these wretches have ever known is my disaster of a brother. I want them to witness Taglioni elegance and superiority, a statement of fashion that no one on this ball of rock has seen before.”

Passing a couple of the Tech IIIs, she ignored their greetings and stares, and stepped into the lift, ordering, “Shuttle deck.”

A faint smile curled her lips. Falise had timed it perfectly. She’d make her entry a mere ten minutes before the scheduled departure. Her staff having arrived a half hour past, people would be wondering where she was. What was keeping her. When the lift stopped and opened, her appearance couldn’t have been better. She swept into the departure room with its seats to one side and airlock on the far end. Even as she entered, Ensign Schulyer was opening the hatch and bowing as Chad Grunnel and his entourage were the first to board.

Cinque—from where he stood to the side—sent a smile and a nod her way. Acknowledgment of her triumphant entry. Using that as her cue, Falise triggered the luminshift to begin its transition to violet.