“Couldn’t you have turned him over to the police?” she asked. “Nobody deserves to die like that.”

“I could have.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because you needed an object lesson.”

“He died because you wanted to give me an object lesson?” she said incredulously.

“He was always going to die, whether I killed him or the government did,” replied the Angel. “Don’t waste too many tears on him. He murdered more than twenty-five men and women, and the death he died was meant for you.”

“What am I suppose to have learned from all this?” asked Virtue.

“You are a reasonably courageous and resourceful woman,” began the Angel.

“Thank you,” she said sardonically.

“But you are also completely unimaginative,” he continued. “You act rashly, without any thought of consequences. I wanted you to see Simon’s corpse, because I want you to know that you’re associating with people for whom this is not an exciting adventure but a deadly serious business.”

“I already know that.”

“I wanted to reinforce that knowledge,” said the Angel, “before I told you what I have to say next.”

“And what is that?” she asked apprehensively.

“I have had to kill two men in the past twenty-four hours. Neither of them had any argument with me.”

“Bates didn’t have any argument with me, either,” she interrupted. “He was after Terwilliger.”

“Who in turn was here to see you,” said the Angel. “You have caused me a great deal of inconvenience, and have cost me three days in my pursuit of Santiago.”

“What are you leading up to?”

“Up until now I was perfectly willing to let you go your own way whenever you wanted,” he said. “But after our stay on Sunnybeach, you owe me, and when we reach Santiago’s planet you’re going to pay off.”

“How?”

“I’ll let you know when we get there. But if you try to leave me before then, or disobey my orders once we’re there, then I promise you that I’ll accept Dimitri Sokol’s commission and kill you myself.”

As she looked into his cold, lifeless eyes, she knew that he was telling her the truth, and that knowledge terrified her more than anything Sokol or even Santiago could ever threaten to do to her.

Part 5

Moonripple’s Book

19.

Moonripple, Moonripple, touring the stars,

Has polished the wax on a thousand bars,

Has trod on the soil of a hundred worlds,

Has found only pebbles while searching for pearls.

Beneath the grease stains and the tattered clothes, she was actually, quite a pretty girl. She had blue eyes that had seen too many things and shed too many tears, square shoulders that had borne too many burdens, slender fingers that would have been soft and white in a gentler life.

If she had any name other than Moonripple, she couldn’t remember it. If she had ever called any world home, she couldn’t remember it, either.