“There’s no need to,” she replied. “Deceit is no more than I expect from a member of your sex.”

“Will you help me?” asked Cain, ignoring her comment.

“You’re wasting your time.”

“I’ve got plenty to waste,” he said. “And I can pay for yours.”

“I didn’t say you would be wasting my time,” said the Sargasso Rose. “I have every intention of selling you the information you need.”

“I’m not sure I understand the distinction.”

“I’m quite prepared to tell you what you want to know, but it won’t do you any good. The Angel has moved to the Inner Frontier.”

“I’m getting a little tired of hearing about him,” said Cain with a trace of irritation.

“So, I suspect, is every fugitive within ten thousand light-years,” she replied. “Mr. Terwilliger, I think it is time for you to leave the room. What I have to say to Mr. Cain is for his ears alone.”

“Why?” asked the gambler.

“For the same reason that you are denied free access to the goods in my warehouse: I don’t want you selling something that’s mine to the first qualified buyer who comes along.”

“I resent that,” said Terwilliger, trying to muster a show of sincerity and not quite succeeding.

“You are welcome to resent it to your heart’s content,” said the Sargasso Rose. “What you are not welcome to do is remain in my office.”

Terwilliger seemed about to protest, thought better of it, and walked to the door.

“I’ll be right outside,” he told Cain. “Yell out if you need me.”

Cain stared at him in amusement, and a moment later the door slid shut behind the little gambler.

“If you plan to hunt Santiago, you really should choose your traveling companions more carefully, Mr. Cain,” said the Sargasso Rose, leaning back in her chair.

“Perhaps.” replied Cain. “But on his behalf, I should point out that he brought me to you. Otherwise I’d be wasting my time hunting for Duncan Black, or else I’d be heading back for Port étrange to beat my money out of Jonathan Stern.”

“True,” she admitted with a shrug. “May I offer you a drink?”

“Why not?” he said agreeably.

She pressed a button on her computer console, and a small, furry red alien, definitely not humanoid, entered by a different door and set a bottle and two glasses down on her desk.

“Do you have any Men at all on Deadly Nightshade?” asked Cain as the alien left the office.

“The race or the gender?” asked the Sargasso Rose. “In either case, the answer is no. Both tend to desert you when you need them the most—especially the gender.”

“It must get lonely up here,” commented Cain.

“Eventually one gets used to it.” She filled the two glasses, and Cain stepped over and took one.