"Yeah." We all would. Or we'd try. Raven might not let us. He was the toughest son-of-a-bitch I'd ever known. "If you ask me, we ought to find him and just tell him to get the hell out of Juniper."

Elmo gave me a disgusted look. "Haven't you been paying attention? Right now the only way in or out is the one we took. The harbor is frozen. The passes are snowed in. You think we could get Whisper to fly some civilian out for us?"

"Civilians. Goblin says Darling is still with him."

Elmo looked thoughtful. I started to say something else. He waved a hand for silence. I waited. He finally asked, "What would he do if he saw you? If he's been hanging around with the Crater bunch?"

I clicked my tongue. "Yeah. I didn't think of that. Let me go check something."

I hunted Bullock up. "You or the Duke got somebody inside the Crater bunch?''

He looked puzzled. "Maybe? Why?"

"Let's have a sit-down with them. An idea. It might help us break our thing here."

He looked at me a long moment. Maybe he was sharper than he pretended. "All right. Not that they would've learned much. The only reason they haven't run our guys off is we don't bother them. They just get together and talk about the old days. They don't have any fight left."

"Let's give it a look anyway. Maybe they're less innocent than they look."

"Give me a half-hour."

I did. And when that time was up, he and I sat down with two secret policemen. He and I took turns asking questions, each coming from his own private slant.

Neither knew Raven, at least not by that name. That was a relief. But there was something there, and Bullock sensed it immediately. He hung on till he had something to chew.

"I'm going to my boss," I told him. "She'll want to know about this." I had come up with a diversion. It seemed it would suit Bullock.

He said, "I'll take it up with Hargadon. Didn't occur to me this might be foreigners. Political. That could be why the money didn't show up. Maybe they're selling bodies, too."

"Rebellions do take money," I observed.

We moved next evening, at Whisper's insistence, over the objections of the Duke, but with the support of the chief Custodian. The Duke still did not want us seen. The Custodians didn't give a damn. They just wanted to salvage their reputation.

Elmo came slinking through the evening shadows. "Ready here?" he whispered.

I glanced at the four men with me. "Ready." Every Company man in Juniper was there, with the Duke's secret police and a dozen of Bullock's men. I'd thought his job silly, but even so had been astonished to discover how few men his office actually employed. All but one were there. The one was legitimately sick.

Elmo made a sound like a cow mooing, repeated three times.