THE NEXT MORNING GLORIA MET WITH SOME of her senior staff in a small conference room. Gathered around the table, sharing coffee and bagels, were OSI Administrator Grant Enright, Level X; Deputy Administrator Jillian Clymer, Level XI; OSI Internal Security Coordinator Arkady Volkonski, Level XII; and Elaine Murakami, Level XIV, subbing for Petra as Gloria’s assistant and gatekeeper.

Enright was a conventionally handsome, fortyish Lion who had been Gloria’s boss back in Sector 8. He was happily married—a rarity in Dexta, where marriage by lower-level personnel was actively discouraged—and enjoyed the distinction of being one of the few human males who had ever said no to Gloria. He had little patience with the sexual stratagems so often employed in Dexta and had become Gloria’s friend rather than her lover. Enright was efficient, friendly, and soft-spoken, and seemed to have been born to be an administrator. He kept OSI functioning with brisk efficiency during Gloria’s frequent absences.

Yet for all his abilities, Gloria had lately come to realize that Enright lacked the inner creative spark that distinguished true leaders. Given everything that had happened or almost happened to her in the past year, Gloria had inevitably been driven to give some thought to a possible successor for herself at OSI, and she doubted that Enright was the best person for the job. A better candidate, it seemed to her, was Jillian Clymer, who had been recruited for the Sylvania mission and had then accepted Gloria’s invitation to join OSI on a permanent basis.

Jillian was a curvy, apple-cheeked blond from a small agricultural world in Sector 2, whose radiant smile, enthusiasm, and positive attitude had made her a welcome addition to the OSI staff. She had inherited a modest fortune and, like Gloria, had married young and divorced young before joining Dexta. In the Dexta bestiary she would have been classified as a Lion, but, like most women in OSI, she had begun to take on some Tigerish traits under Gloria’s influence. Today, she wore a standard, Dexta-gray skirt and a matching V-necked sweater with, very obviously, nothing under it. Arkady Volkonski had apparently taken note.

Volkonski, a dark, glowering Cossack—distinguished by his ingrained sense of irony and a single, unpunctuated eyebrow—professed unlimited devotion to Gloria. But he was no Lap Dog; he was more of a Rottweiler. He took any assault on Gloria—from outside Dexta or from within—as a personal affront.

Enright led off the meeting by bringing Gloria up to speed on various administrative matters. Elaine Murakami nibbled at the edges of a bagel while taking notes on her pad. She had worked for Gloria back in Sector 8, before the creation of OSI. A thin, attractive, would-be Tiger, she was energetic and loyal, but had somehow failed to impress Gloria with any deeper qualities. And Gloria found her hero-worship frankly annoying. She was not comfortable with the notion of being anyone’s role model, no matter what the Spiritists said about her.

When Enright had concluded his presentation, Gloria turned to Jill Clymer. “Where do we stand on the double-flagging in Sector 19?” she asked.

“Nothing new to report,” Jill said. “As you know, I sent a team from Finance out to Staghorn last week, but it’s five-hundred-and-some-odd light-years. Their Cruiser should have arrived yesterday, which means we could get an initial report via messenger in a few days.” Messengers were reusable automated spacecraft that traveled at a rate of about 150 light-years per day; they were the standard means of disseminating information within the Empire. For more urgent communications, courier spacecraft could do two hundred light-years in a day, which meant that Earth was no more than five days away from the frontiers of the Empire. However, couriers were expensive, since they carried no fuel for deceleration and could, therefore, be used only once.

“And the initial report was filed by the Imperial Secretary on Staghorn?” Enright asked.

Jill nodded. “She seemed to regard it as something of a hot potato. One of her Finance people came to her with what looked like some suspicious data, and she took one look and sent it off to us. Seems she didn’t want to have to deal with some of the big names involved.”

“Big names?” Gloria asked.

“Big locally, at any rate,” Jill explained. “The evidence, such as it is, points toward an outfit called Wendover Freight and Storage, which is based on Staghorn and is the major local transport company in the Sector. It also does business in Sectors 20 and 21.”

“Big Twelve connections?” Gloria wondered.

“None, as far as we can tell,” Jill said. “Of course, it’s not always easy to sort out corporate connections. I’ve got someone checking out their history; Wendover has been in business nearly a century, so you would expect at least some Big Twelve affiliations. But nothing has turned up yet.”

“That in itself seems a bit odd,” Gloria opined.

Jill shrugged. “There are a few genuine independents left, and Wendover may be one of them. Still, if they are engaged in a large-scale double-flagging operation, it would make sense for them to have some ties to one or more of the Big Twelve.”

“Or not,” Gloria suggested. “Maybe the lack of a profitable connection to the big boys is what’s driving them into the double-flagging scam. Just how good is this evidence? And what about the Dexta office on Staghorn? You said the ImpSec was nervous about dealing with this. Could there be Dexta involvement?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Jill said. “But to tell you the truth, it wouldn’t surprise me. A good double-flagging scam takes inside help. I’ve checked out a dozen or so examples of this kind of thing over the past five or six centuries, and every one of them involved someone in Dexta. And I’ll bet the ImpSec on Staghorn thinks so, too—which is why she sent this to us instead of the Comptroller. Gloria? Are we going to get any help on this from Quadrant?”

“No,” Gloria answered flatly. “Probably just the reverse.”

“I see,” Jill said. “DuBray’s determined to be an asshole?”

“It’s what he does best,” Gloria said.

“Speaking of DuBray,” Volkonski put in, “I still say you should let me deal with this Manko character.”

Gloria reluctantly shook her head. “You know I can’t do that, Arkady,” she told him.

“Then just look the other way and let me handle it in some unofficial, unobtrusive way. Like maybe kneecapping the son of a bitch in some dark alley.”

Gloria smiled, then reached out and ran her index finger along the underside of Volkonski’s chin. “You’re such a sweet, sensitive man, Arkady,” she said. “But I can’t let you risk your career over this. It’s my problem; I’ll deal with it myself.”

“Then promote me to a Ten,” urged Volkonski, “and let me be your Hammer.”

“Not possible,” Gloria reminded him. “Anyway, I’m not sure you could take him in a fair fight.”

“Who said anything about a fair fight?” he asked. “You forget, I’m a Bug.”

But it had to be Gloria’s own fight, she knew, fair or not. When she was a Fifteen, she had endured worse than anything DuBray had done so far. If she had survived that, she could survive this. And, she asked herself, if she couldn’t find a way to handle DuBray, did she really deserve to be Dexta Secretary? Dealing with reptiles like DuBray, after all, was part of the job.

“And speaking of Bugs,” said Enright, “what is Internal Security doing about PAIN?”

The previous day, Internal Security had convened an upper-level staff conference to address the terrorist problem. Despite his relatively low rank in the Dexta hierarchy, Volkonski had been invited to the meeting in recognition of his role at OSI and the fact that Gloria had been targeted.

“There are things that I can’t discuss with you,” Volkonski said, looking a little guilty about it.

“We understand that, Arkady,” Gloria said. Internal Security was notoriously stingy with information, even within the ranks of Dexta. “Just tell us what you can.”

“Well, as you might imagine, the three attacks on Dexta personnel have caused something of a stir in IntSec. The assumption is that the PAIN faction responsible is based in Quadrant 4, since two of the attacks were there—although Cartago is in Quad 2. Anyway, measures are being taken. One might usefully surmise that said measures would include rousting every known or suspected radical in the Quadrant and shaking them until their teeth rattle. Perhaps something worthwhile will emerge.”

“And that’s it?” Jill asked.

“What would you have us do, Jillian?” Volkonski asked sadly. “There are a limited number of us, after all. Even working night and day, there are only so many citizens whose civil rights we can violate. Anyway, the real problem is that PAIN is, paradoxically, an organization of anarchists. In other words, it’s no ‘organization’ at all—just a voluntary, free-form convergence of like-minded morons. Supposedly, there are only Indians, no chiefs.”

“Still,” Enright insisted, “somebody must be calling the shots. Three nearly simultaneous attacks spread across two Quadrants couldn’t be a coincidence.”

Volkonski scowled and thought for a moment. “One might presume,” he went on, “that an organization such as Internal Security, when confronted with a threat such as PAIN, might attempt to infiltrate the opposition and glean information from the inside. Such information might even now be winging its way toward Earth. If such were the case, then an organization such as Internal Security might be weighing options and preparing possible responses in anticipation of the receipt of such information.”

Jillian gave him a cool, level stare. “You don’t have a clue, do you?”

Volkonski shook his head.

That afternoon, as Gloria was trying to catch a few surreptitious winks at her desk, a pinging sounded and the face of Elaine Murakami appeared on her console. “Gloria? Can you take a meeting with Eli Opatnu? He’s the—”

“I know who he is,” Gloria said. She had never met him, but he was well-known within Dexta and was considered to be something of a rising star. Not yet forty, he was already a Level VII, the Administrator of Sector 19. “When does he want to see me?”

“Right now,” said Elaine. “He’s here.”

“Okay,” Gloria said, “give me a minute, then send him in.” Gloria got to her feet, tried to rub some of the sleep out of her eyes, then gave her head a good shake to signal her long, flowing mane to restore itself to Dura-styled order. She took a quick glance in the closet mirror and was reasonably satisfied with what she saw. Her pale yellow minidress was relatively modest—perhaps too modest, it occurred to her when she thought of the images she had seen of Eli Opatnu. She pressed a hidden contact in a seam and the smart fabric of the dress retracted. She pressed another contact, adjusted the opacity of the fabric to 40 percent, then declared herself ready to meet Opatnu.

The Sector 19 Administrator entered her office a moment later. Elaine closed the door behind him and Gloria extended her hand. “Hi,” she said, smiling broadly, “I’m Gloria VanDeen. Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Opatnu.”

“It’s Eli,” he said, taking her hand. He grasped it firmly in his own and held it while he slowly surveyed every inch of her face and body—and Gloria did the same with his. Opatnu was the product of the same sort of genetic stewpot that had created Gloria, and his face seemed to bear traces of the Andes, Himalayas, and Alps. He had longish, jet-black hair with a hint of a wave in it, a strong, European nose, vividly green eyes, and skin that reminded Gloria of the color of an old saddle. He was tall and lean, but there was nothing fragile about him. His hand in hers was warm and forthright, with long, almost delicate fingers.

Gloria tried to catch her breath. Why don’t we skip the preliminaries, she wondered, and just start screwing here and now? From the look in his eyes, she figured that Opatnu was probably thinking the same thing.

They finally released their grip on one another. “I’m glad you dropped by,” Gloria said. “I was planning to pay you a visit in a couple of days. Please, have a seat.”

She sat next to him on the couch, and they spent a few more seconds silently smiling at each other. She could almost see the waves of heat rising between them. Gloria was never shy or reticent where sex was concerned, but she couldn’t recall the last time she had been so thoroughly overwhelmed by a man’s sexual presence. Charles, maybe, long ago, when she was young and easily impressed. But not many since. Eli Opatnu was downright breathtaking.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Opatnu said at last.

“My pleasure,” Gloria said.

“Mine too,” he said, breaking into a grin. His teeth were so white that it almost hurt to look at them.

Gloria started to reach for him, almost reflexively, but managed to divert her motion in another direction, and wound up standing up again, even though she had just sat down.

“Uh…can I get you something to drink…Eli?”

“No thank you…Gloria. I’m fine.”

“Yes, I can see that. I mean, uh, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the work you’ve done in Sector 19.”

“I have a full squad of creative publicists at work night and day,” he explained. “Oddly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything about you.”

“I’m the shy, retiring type,” Gloria said. “And may I ask, what brings you here today?”

“I think you know,” Opatnu said.

Gloria nodded, then sat down next to him again.

“You’ve started an investigation in my Sector,” he said. “I hoped you could give me an explanation.”

“Perhaps,” Gloria said. “But first, I’d appreciate it if you could tell me how you heard about the investigation.”

“Oh,” he said vaguely, “I have my sources.”

“I’m sure you do,” Gloria agreed. “And I’d like to know who those sources are. An OSI investigation is supposed to be secret, at least at this point in the process. Sector Administration has not yet been officially notified.”

“I understand that, Gloria,” Opatnu said. “However, I’m sure you must understand that I can’t reveal my sources. Let’s just say that I keep an ear to the ground.”

“I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with you…Eli,” Gloria said, meaning every word. “But I’m very concerned about this lapse in OSI security. By any chance, did you hear something about this from anyone in Quadrant?”

Opatnu shrugged. “If I did—and I’m not confirming or denying anything—I certainly wouldn’t be at liberty to tell you. Let it go, Gloria. Pursuing this isn’t going to get either one of us anything.”

“It’s not something I can ignore, Eli. If someone from this office—or elsewhere in Dexta—is leaking restricted information, I need to know about it. I cannot have OSI operations compromised, or my people endangered, by lax security and loose lips.”

“I seriously doubt that anyone is being endangered,” Opatnu said. He sat up a little straighter on the couch and his gaze was no longer as open and friendly as it had been. Neither was Gloria’s.

“I have a team on Staghorn,” she said. “If someone has already sent word of their mission via messenger or courier, it’s possible that they could be in some jeopardy. This is not simply some bureaucratic turf battle, Eli. I need to know how you found out about the investigation.”

“I can’t help you,” Opatnu said. He got to his feet and she got to hers.

“Then I can’t help you, either. You’ll be informed about the investigation in due course, through proper channels. And if you or any of your people in Sector get in the way, the OSI will come down on you so hard, you’ll wonder what hit you.”

Opatnu nodded. “All right,” he said, “if that’s the way you want to play it.” He took a step toward the door, then pivoted sharply, grabbed Gloria by her shoulders, pulled her to him, and gave her a long, smoldering kiss that she found herself returning with full intensity. It was at least a minute before they broke.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” Gloria told him.

“I know,” he said, and left.

But it did.