Lights blazed from Paugeng, the whole place lit up like fireworks, lights exploding out across Ghenret and transforming the harbor into a puddle of flame. Jhai Tserai, just returned from Beijing, was on dyamentex to help her think, and it was making her grind her teeth, a sure sign that she'd got the dosage wrong. This annoyed her almost more than everything else. She'd invented it, after bloody all, and now she had given herself some ham-fisted quantity of the stuff. So, she thought, dragging her unruly thoughts back to the central problem. The control had escaped and now so had Robin Yuan, basically because Ei was too stupid to keep a hold on either of them. She did not blame Robin for the Geneva pills or the control's flight, nor for her running from Paugeng, which had been an intelligent move. Jhai recognized the hand of Hell in this somewhere, the characteristic sulphurous reek. She was determined not to have to be rescued by Heaven at the last minute, however, no Faustus she. She wouldn't rat her co-conspirators out. She would not deal, no matter what her contacts in Hell demanded.
The dyamentex stopped her from feeling the possible failure of her plans too deeply, but she knew it would hurt when the dosage wore off. She had instructed Ei to find the control and bring him back here; there was no need to do anything else just yet. They were supposed to find Robin, too, but she had not returned to her apartment, understandably. Tserai thought that she might head for Deveth's old place. She was having that watched as well.
"We will see," Jhai said to herself, and started grinding her teeth again. "We will see."
The link rang and Jhai switched it on to find Ei's grim visage staring back at her. "Colonel?"
"I think you should come downstairs, Madam," Ei said. "We've had to take the detective into custody."
"What?"
So Ei explained, and with growing interest, Jhai listened.