Orpheus met him only once, out by Barbizon, the gateway to the Inner Frontier, three weeks before he killed Giles Sans Pitié. They spoke for only ten minutes, which was more than enough for Orpheus. His audience had expected him to give the Angel no less than a dozen verses—after all, he had given three to Cain and nine to Giles Sans Pitié—but with the insight that had established him as the Bard of the Inner Frontier, Orpheus wrote only a single stanza. When asked for an explanation, he simply smiled and replied that those four lines said everything there was to say about the Angel.

Virtue Mackenzie wished he had written a little more, if only so she’d have a better idea of what to expect if she ever caught up with the Angel. She had reached the Lambda Karos system two days after he had departed, and missed him again on Questados IV. She arrived on New Ecuador three days later, checked for word of his whereabouts at the local news offices, received only negative answers, and finally returned to her hotel, where she took a brief nap, showered, changed her clothes, and went down to the main floor restaurant for dinner.

Three hours later she was sitting at a table in the back of The King’s Rook, a tavern that served as the gathering place for local journalists. Two men and a woman—all newspeople—and another man, a prospector who had hit it rich in the asteroid belt two planets out from New Ecuador, sat around the table, staring at the exposed cards in front of Virtue.

“It’s up to you,” said the prospector impatiently.

“Don’t rush me,” said Virtue, sipping her whiskey and staring at her hole card until it came back into focus. “I’m thinking.” Finally she pushed a one-hundred-credit note across the worn felt to the center of the table. “Call,” she said.

The prospector and one of the men dropped out, the woman raised the pot another fifty credits, the other man folded, and Virtue, after still more consideration, matched her bet.

“Read ‘em and weep,” grinned the woman, turning her hole card face up.

“Damn!” muttered Virtue, tossing her hole card onto the table. She grabbed a nearby bottle and poured herself another drink. “You didn’t learn to play from a little rodent called Terwilliger, did you?”

“Anyone for quitting?” asked one of the men, staring directly at Virtue.

“Not when I’m down almost two thousand credits,” she replied pugnaciously.

“Anyone else?”

“Hell,” said the prospector. “If she wants to keep on playing, I’m willing to keep on taking her money.”

“I don’t plan to keep losing,” said Virtue.

“Then you’d better cut back on the booze,” said the prospector. “She had you beat on the table.”

“When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,” said Virtue, trying to remember exactly what the winner’s cards were.