“I know,” he said calmly.

“And now you’re just going to leave?” she demanded.

“He’s not after me,” said the Angel.

“I hope they’re not expecting a chivalrous king on Far London.”

“They’re not,” said the Angel, walking toward a rental vehicle.

“Wait!” said Virtue. “What should I do about this guy?”

“That’s entirely up to you. But if I were you, I’d try to find out what he wanted before I led him to my hotel.”

“It’s your hotel, too,” she said desperately. “If you don’t help me lose him, he’ll know where you’re staying. That might be worth quite a bit of money to someone.”

“It’s not my hotel,” he answered.

“It isn’t? Then where will you be staying?”

“That’s not the sort of information I share with traveling companions.”

“Then how will I find you?”

“I’ll find you,” he replied. “I’ll meet you in the Welcome Inn’s lobby at sunset.”

“If I’m still alive,” she said bitterly.

“If you’re still alive,” he agreed.

He tossed his single piece of luggage into the back of the vehicle, climbed into the driver’s seat, registered it to his account with an identification card, and drove off.

Virtue waited for ten minutes, casting frightened glances into the shadows, then rented her own vehicle and drove out into the bright Sunnybeach sun. When she was halfway to town she realized that she’d left her overnight kit at the spaceport, but decided not to return for it.

Her initial idea upon reaching the nearby city, which, unsurprisingly, bore the same name as the planet, was to walk up and down the streets, window-shopping, until she got a glimpse of her pursuer. That resolve lasted about thirty seconds. Whoever had named the planet had possessed a mordant sense of humor: Sunnybeach was a desert world, with about five hundred miles of beach for every foot of seashore. The heat, once she left the confines of her air-conditioned vehicle, was oppressive, and she got the feeling that the only variation in the weather was an occasional sandstorm.

She had almost collapsed from the simple exertion of walking half a block when she came to a small, elegant restaurant. She entered it, requested a table that faced the front door, and pretended to study the menu while keeping a watchful eye on the doorway.

Some five minutes later a familiar bearded face, topped by a shock of unkempt red hair, peered in through the window, and an instant later Halfpenny Terwilliger entered the restaurant and walked directly to her table.

“Goddamn it!” she snapped, both relieved and annoyed. “Are you the one who’s been following me?”

“Yeah,” he said breathlessly. “We’ve got to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”