She grimaced at the collection of chairs around the table; mismatched, made of molded duraplast with tubular frames, they not only looked wretchedly uncomfortable, but as if they hadn’t been washed in decades.

“Lady,” Clarice said softly, “the others are entering. This is a moment for craft and guile. After the unfortunate impression on the landing field, we must play defensively. As if this were of no concern.”

Falise took a deep breath, ground her teeth, and forced herself to rearrange her luminshift gown to best effect, choosing the laser-like crimson as she seated herself on the molded plastic seat. Then she got a good look at the place. A low stage rose against the back of the dome. Upon it, a podium had been shoved off to the side. An industrial kitchen was open to the room on the left side. There, a middle-aged woman in a smock was tending a serving line of steaming trays. The old hag didn’t even bother trying to be surreptitious, but openly gaped at Falise, and then Bartolome, the boiling-mad Chad Grunnel, and finally Cinque as the others arrived with their entourages.

Falise’s overwrought senses caught the odor of the food. After nineteen months on Turalon she wondered if it was the finest thing she’d ever smelled. Cooked by a contractee though it might have been.

In the rear, the doors were pulled shut with a bang. And down the aisle, between the tables, walked the freak-woman in her rustic quetzal garb and high boots. Rifle slung over her shoulder, one hand on a large service pistol at her belt, she climbed up on the low stage and faced them. Hat hanging behind her back, she shrugged her cape over her shoulders, the shimmering effects iridescent in the overhead lights.

“Welcome to Donovan,” she snapped, glaring particularly at Chad Grunnel. “I’m Talina Perez. I’m in charge of security in Port Authority. That means my word is law.”

A series of chuckles, all low, could be heard around the room.

Up on the stage, Perez’s smile went cold and the feral planes of her face seemed even more alien. The woman’s eyes expanded, somehow dark and depthless. She said, “Laugh all you want. You’re what we call soft meat.”

“How dare you,” Chad muttered. “I’m a Grunnel. A member of a family who’s—”

“You’re jack shit, soft meat,” Perez barked in disgust. Then she raised a hand. “Let’s back up. Here’s how reality works here: On Donovan, no quetzal, no slug, skewer, or BEM gives a flying fuck who your family is back in Solar System. You digest just as well as some poor slob who’s been exiled to the Belt. Get it? You’re a meal waiting to set foot out past the wire.”