IN MIDAFTERNOON, GLORIA TRANSITED BACK to Dexta Headquarters in Manhattan, after spending two hours rolling in the grass beneath the glashpadoza tree with the Emperor. Charles had genetic enhancements of his own, and despite his essentially selfish nature, he was a marvelous lover. Whatever regrets Gloria had about their marriage, they didn’t include sex.

She walked along the main concourse, feeling every eye on her, as if people somehow knew she had just been humping the Emperor. But what an afternoon…

Empress! Spirit!

She had made no commitment, but she hadn’t said no, either. That, in itself, surprised her. It was an offer that could not be dismissed casually, if at all. Certainly, it would be a life-changing decision. Charles understood that and didn’t press the issue; they had agreed that both of them would give the matter more thought.

Gloria got into an elevator with several people she didn’t know and said, “Forty,” where the OSI had its offices. She heard two women standing behind her giggling to each other and resisted an urge to turn and look.

Another woman said, “Congratulations, Ms. VanDeen.” Gloria’s eyebrows shot upward. How could she have known?

Sensing Gloria’s confusion, the woman added, “About being selected as an Avatar of the Spirit, I mean. That’s quite an honor.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Thank you.”

“It reflects well on Dexta,” the woman said. “We’re all very proud of you.” There were more giggles from behind her. The car reached the fortieth floor and Gloria smiled good-bye and stepped out, feeling relieved. Between Charles and the Church, Gloria was feeling strangely vulnerable and conspicuous today.

She entered the outer office of the OSI and stood just inside the door for a few seconds, like a queen bee surveying her hive. After a slow and uncertain start, the Office of Strategic Intervention was now a going concern, vibrant and humming with activity and purpose. They had handled five interventions, which had required Gloria’s personal presence on the affected worlds, and were now ratcheting up their operations to include a host of lesser matters that could benefit from the OSI’s attentions. Gloria had soon realized that she couldn’t go everywhere and do everything herself, and there was really no need. She had assembled a crackerjack staff, and her people relished their assignments.

She smiled to her troops as she made her way to her own office and accepted their congratulations. Guarding the door to her inner sanctum, as usual, was her Executive Assistant and best friend, Petra Nash.

“Good afternoon, Your Avatarness,” Petra said. “How does it feel to be a holy-holy?”

“Just fine,” Gloria answered. “Anything happening that I need to know about?”

“A couple of messages on your console, nothing real urgent. Grant Enright is still in Bombay with the GalaxCo people, and Althea is off to Luna for a long weekend with someone whose name I’m not supposed to mention, so I can’t tell you that it’s the Duke of Glastonbury. Jill Clymer says she’ll have a report on some potential mess in Sector 19 for you tomorrow, and, let’s see, Phil Benz wanted me to remind you that he’s got Naval Reserve duty coming up next week. And if you have a few minutes, Pug and I need to talk with you.”

“Certainly. Just come on in.”

“Will do. Give me a minute to find the Pugnacious One.”

Gloria smiled and watched for a moment as Petra got up from her desk and went off in search of Pug Ellison, her assistant, roommate, and lover. Petra was positively glowing these days, and Gloria could only marvel at the way her friend had blossomed with newfound self-confidence over the past six months. At Gloria’s urging and with Pug’s ardent approval, Petra was trying to be less of a Dog and more of a Tiger, and seemed to be managing the transition with style and enthusiasm. Today, she was showing her Tiger stripes in a gray miniskirt that barely concealed her shapely bottom and a matching jacket buttoned only at the waist to show off the subtle curves of her small, pert breasts.

In the metaphorical (but quite real) menagerie of Dexta, there were Lions, Tigers, Dogs, Moles, and Sheep. The Lions, mostly male, were the natural leaders, relying on strength and force of personality to secure their positions. Tigers, mostly female, were sleek and beautiful, using sex the way Lions used strength. Dogs came in two breeds: Pack Dogs, who roamed the lower levels of the bureaucracy as feral predators, savaging the weak and unprotected, and Lap Dogs, whose loyalty won them the patronage and protection of a willing superior. Moles were sneaky bureaucratic infighters, and the numerous Sheep were the anonymous, workaday backbone of the system.

The species had evolved over the centuries because Dexta was, by design, a Darwinian jungle where only the strong and smart could hope to survive and flourish. Each year, a hundred thousand new Level XV staffers joined Dexta, and fully 20 percent of them failed to survive the first twelve months. The Fifteens—and, indeed, everyone else, to one degree or another—were subjected to every imaginable form of social, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse in the brutal environment of Dexta. The point of it all was to weed out the weaklings and assure that those who remained functioned at peak efficiency all the time. The system was cruel and often downright sadistic, but it worked, and that was all that really mattered.

Both Gloria and Petra had almost failed to survive that first dreadful year. Gloria managed by becoming a Tiger—predator rather than prey—and Petra had become her faithful assistant and Lap Dog. Gloria was, with her background, breeding, and beauty, a natural Tiger in any case, while Petra—a diminutive, clever, but insecure refugee from an impoverished home in nearby Weehawken—had taken a while to work out for herself just who and what she was and wanted to be. But she seemed to have hit her stride finally, and Gloria was happy for her.

Gloria sat down at her desk, checked her console for a few moments, then looked up as Petra arrived with Pug in tow. Pug—Palmer, formally—was a good-looking young man with brown hair, blue-gray eyes, and open, friendly features. He was a bit under medium height, which left him a good seven or eight inches taller than Petra. And, at twenty-four, nearly three years younger. He was a Level XIV to Petra’s Level XIII, but didn’t seem to mind being her assistant. He was, in fact, extravagantly grateful to Gloria for bringing him aboard as a permanent member of the OSI team.

She had originally recruited him for the mission to Sylvania the previous spring, when OSI needed a band of independently wealthy, big-bucks bureaucrats who could stand up to the get-rich-itch that seemed to infect everyone who came to that brawling boomworld. Pug, a Level XV at the time, had been eager to prove that he was more than just a member of a fabulously wealthy family from New Cambridge, and his work had impressed Gloria. He and Petra had caught each other’s eyes, and eventually they wound up in each other’s arms.

Back in Manhattan, Gloria had used her clout as the Level X head of OSI—and her personal wealth—to secure a sumptuous apartment for Petra and Pug in the same midtown building as her own glamorous penthouse, three blocks from Dexta HQ. Normally, Thirteens and Fourteens resided in designated Dexta quarters in Brooklyn, but Gloria felt she owed Petra something better after their perilous and painful mission on Sylvania. For Petra, who’d grown up in dire poverty, the apartment seemed like a palace; for Gloria, who’d grown up in an actual palace, the apartment seemed a pittance. Gloria still felt guilty about what had happened on Sylvania, even though Petra, blessedly, had no coherent memories of the rape and assault that had nearly killed her.

Gloria got up from her desk and went over to the couch, beckoning Pug and Petra to join her there. Pug first got them coffee and tea, while Petra leaned close and inspected Gloria’s new ruby mustard seed. “That’s gotta be the smallest gem I’ve ever seen you wear,” she said. “Usually they’re about the size of softballs.”

“We Avatars are a modest lot,” Gloria explained. “So, what did you want to see me about?”

“Cartago,” said Pug as he handed her a cup of coffee, then sat next to Petra on the couch. “We’ve gotten the initial report back from IntSec, and it’s a little troubling. The Bugs have also turned up some additional information that—well, I’ll let you characterize it for yourself. But it’s a bit strange.”

“Make that a lot strange,” Petra amplified.

“Oh? Let’s hear it.”

“Well, first of all, the shooter on Cartago,” said Pug. “There wasn’t a lot left of him, and the DNA trace was inconclusive. That’s not too surprising in itself. I mean, there are three trillion people in the Empire, and we don’t have definitive genotypes on all of them. But the analysts do say, with a ninety-five percent confidence level, that the shooter was not a native of Cartago. And in light of what we’ve learned about the weapon…Well, as I said, it’s troubling.”

“What about the weapon?”

“It was a Mark IV plasma rifle.”

“A Mark IV?” Gloria asked. “I thought those were obsolete.”

“Not obsolete, exactly,” Pug said. “I mean, they still work. But they’ve been outdated for about thirty or forty years. But this particular weapon is of special interest. You see, according to the serial number, it was a part of a shipment to Savoy at the beginning of the war with the Ch’gnth.”

“Savoy? You’re kidding!”

Pug shook his head. “The numbers check out. According to the records, that particular weapon was manufactured on Ostwelt in June of 3163, and shipped to Savoy that September, just a week before the Ch’gnth attack.”

“Savoy!” Gloria exclaimed, impressed by the very mention of the name. To a denizen of the early-thirty-third-century Empire, saying that the rifle had come from Savoy was like saying it had come from Waterloo or Gettysburg. The Empire’s last great war, against the Ch’gnth Confederacy, from 3163 to 3174, had been a desperate struggle, and it had all turned on the outcome of the first crucial battle for Savoy, in September 3163. The Empire’s garrison on Savoy—and the entire population of the colony—had been wiped out by the Ch’gnth, but their last-ditch resistance had bought crucial time that allowed the Imperial Navy to assemble a fleet. It had struck back at Savoy in one of the most decisive naval engagements in history. Military historians compared it with Salamis and Midway. It had turned the tide of the war and led to the eventual Imperial victory.

“So,” Gloria said, “we have a shooter who’s not from Cartago using a weapon that should have been destroyed fifty-odd years ago. And for some reason, he wanted me dead.”

“Initially,” Pug said, “the Bugs figured that he may have been connected to PAIN or PHAP, but he could just as easily have been working a zamitat contract, or just some freelance nutcase.” PAIN—the People’s Anti-Imperialist Nexus—was an anarchist terrorist organization of marginal efficiency, and PHAP—the Pan-Human Alliance for Purity—was a racist fringe group of doubtful sanity. The zamitat was an Empire-wide criminal network, with ancestral ties leading back to the Mafia, the Yakuza, and similar organizations on other worlds. Gloria couldn’t imagine why any of them would have targeted her.

“I can’t see PHAP,” Gloria said. “No aliens on Cartago. PAIN, you can never tell about, but they don’t usually go in for solo assassinations. And I don’t think the zamies have anything against me.”

“Maybe not,” Pug said, “but there’s something else.”

“This is the troubling part,” Petra said.

“Which is…?”

“This,” said Pug, “is the second Mark IV plasma rifle from the Savoy shipment that has turned up in the past week.”

“Last night,” Petra said, “we received a report from Watami III, in Sector 23. Six days ago, there was a terrorist attack on the Dexta offices there. They killed seven of our people, including the Imperial Secretary, along with three civilians who happened to be in the office. The complete list of victims is in your console.”

“Spirit!” Gloria said, genuinely shocked by the news. “What happened?”

“Details are still a bit sketchy,” Pug told her, “but it seems that three people burst into the office and opened up with plasma rifles. An Internal Security man killed one of them, but the other two made a clean getaway. Apparently they just fired at random, killing anyone they could. An hour later, PAIN released a statement on Watami, claiming credit for the attack.”

“And then,” Petra said, “this morning we got a report of another attack, four days ago on Kyushu Prime in Sector 20. Same sort of thing—three attackers with plasma rifles shooting up the Dexta office. Only four dead in this one—two Dexta, two civilian. And all of the attackers got away. Again, PAIN claimed it as their work.”

Gloria leaned back on the couch, a deep frown creasing her features. “What the hell is going on?”

“IntSec is still putting it all together,” said Pug. “Volkonski says he’ll have a report for you in a couple of hours. But here’s the thing that Petra and I are worried about. The terrorist who was killed on Watami was also using a Mark IV plasma rifle. And that rifle was also part of that Savoy shipment of 3163.”

Gloria silently stared at Petra and Pug for several seconds.

“When Arkady gave us the initial report from Internal Security,” Petra said, “he was very insistent about scheduling a meeting to set up coverage for you.” Arkady Volkonski, head of the OSI’s IntSec section, took it as his life’s mission to see to it that nothing bad ever happened to Gloria or anyone else in OSI. He was, in Gloria’s view, a trifle overzealous about it.

“He thinks,” Pug said, “and we agree, that PAIN was also behind the attack on you on Cartago. From their point of view, it would make sense. They hate Dexta and the Empire, and you are a prominent symbol of both.”

“Yes, but—” Gloria started to protest, then broke off. She didn’t want to accept the notion that PAIN had specifically targeted her, but the evidence was staring her in the face. “The weapon,” she said with glum resignation.

Pug nodded. “The Bugs don’t have a clue how those weapons suddenly turned up, but they clearly connect Cartago with the other two attacks. Volkonski says you need protection, and Petra and I agree.”

“I’ll see him tomorrow,” Gloria said, hoping she could find a reason between now and then to avoid it. She didn’t like the fact that the crazies in PAIN wanted her dead, but she was also not about to submit to the round-the-clock attentions of the Bugs.

“Gloria?” Pug leaned around Petra to look at her.

“What?”

“Your safety is our primary concern, of course,” he said. “But there’s also a larger issue here.”

“The weapons,” Gloria said.

“Exactly. How in hell are weapons that were supposedly lost more than fifty years ago on Savoy popping up now? How did PAIN get their hands on them? And what happened to those weapons in the first place, back in 3163? We’re going to need to do some serious historical research, and not all of the records we need are on Earth.”

“Where are they?”

“Well,” Pug said, “you know that things used to be organized a little differently. I mean, back before the war, before Secretary Mingus took over and reorganized the Department. Quadrant Administration used to be out in the field, not here in Manhattan. Savoy is in Quadrant 4—and both attacks on Dexta offices were also in Quadrant 4—so we’d need to go to the actual site of the old Quad Administration offices to get at the original records.”

Gloria frowned. “I asked a simple question,” she said. “For some reason, I’m not getting a simple answer. Just where is the actual site of the old Quad Administration offices?”

“Well…”

“On New Cambridge, Gloria,” Petra broke in, rescuing Pug from further circumlocutions.

“Aha,” Gloria said.

Pug smiled in embarrassment. “I was afraid you might think…”

“That you wanted an excuse for a little working vacation on your homeworld?”

“Um, well…”

“We’ll have none of that in my office,” Gloria declared firmly. “If it is necessary to send someone to New Cambridge to investigate this matter, they will go there to work. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now, I think this does deserve further investigation, and I think it makes sense to send someone who is already familiar with New Cambridge and has connections there. I suppose that means you, Pug, but I’m reluctant to send a Fourteen off on an important field assignment without proper supervision. I think you need at least a Thirteen along to make sure you keep your nose to the grindstone and don’t fritter away your time on family reunions and sightseeing tours and romantic getaways. Petra, I suppose I can rely on you to see to all of that?”

“Absolutely!”

“I knew I could count on you. Now, it occurs to me that this year’s Quadrant Meeting is in Quad 4, and it’s scheduled for New Cambridge in a few weeks. I wanted to get to that, myself. Ever been to a Quadrant Meeting?”

Both Pug and Petra shook their heads. “I went to one three years ago,” Gloria said, smiling at the memory. “Quite a show.”

Each year, on a rotating basis, one of the Quadrants hosted a grand gathering of the tribes. In an empire where communications took days or weeks, it was important for Dexta people to have a chance to make personal contact with their far-flung coworkers. Conflicts and controversies could be resolved face-to-face at the Quadrant Meetings, and they gave the Dexta brass an opportunity to assess the mood and morale of their troops. The formal agenda at the meetings always included a stupefying round of panels, committees, speeches, and seminars. Informally, much else happened.

“It’s like going to the circus,” Gloria said. “Anyway, I think the two of you should leave as soon as possible in order to have some results to report by the time I get there. I’ll get a Flyer for you. Can you leave, say, the day after tomorrow?”

Pug and Petra grinned at her. “Anything you say, Gloria,” Pug said.

“Uh…there is one thing, though,” Petra added. “If we’re going to be digging around in official Dexta records for the Quadrant—I mean, when we aren’t frittering away our time with family reunions, sightseeing tours, and romantic getaways—we really ought to get authorization from the Quadrant Administrator.”

“Good idea,” Gloria said. “And while we’re at it, another thought occurs to me. You said Jill Clymer has something brewing in Sector 19? That’s Quad 4, too. Get her in here, then get me an appointment for this afternoon, if possible, with Cornell DuBray.”

“Wow,” said Petra. “The Quad Admin himself? Level Four?”

“We Avatars of the Spirit,” Gloria said grandly, “don’t bother with mere underlings. Anyway, I’ve been looking for an excuse to get acquainted with the upper-level Eagles, and this will do.” She got to her feet and walked to her desk.

“Uh, Gloria…?”

“What, Petra?”

“I think you ought to change before you go see DuBray.”

“Why? What’s the matter with what I’ve got on?”

Petra walked over to Gloria and reached for her back. She plucked something off it and held it up for Gloria to see. It was a blade of grass.

“And there are some grass stains, too.”

Gloria rolled her eyes. No wonder people had been staring and giggling behind her back all afternoon! And that bastard Charles hadn’t said a word…

“Life’s just one big roll in the grass for you Avatars, huh?” Petra grinned impishly at her boss.

“Do not deny yourself joy,” Gloria intoned dryly.

“Don’t worry, we won’t. And thanks, Gloria!”

 

GLORIA ENTERED THE OFFICE OF QUADRANT 4 Administrator Cornell DuBray dressed, she felt, like a proper Avatar of Joy. She had changed to a white lace band skirt—just a hoop of all-but-transparent fabric four inches wide—slung low on her hips. Her breasts were similarly covered, but not at all concealed, by a narrower hoop of the same fabric. She didn’t normally come so close to outright nudity in the office, but it was, after all, a Visitation Day. And, in any case, she wanted to make a strong first impression on DuBray.

Far above the lowly Lions, Tigers, and Dogs in the Dexta pecking order were the Eagles—Level VII’s and above—who actually ran the organization. Normally, a Level X like Gloria would never have any contact with a Level IV like DuBray. But the Charter of the Office of Strategic Intervention, written by Norman Mingus himself, gave Gloria broadly defined powers and responsibilities and virtually unlimited access to Dexta personnel and records.

She had checked DuBray’s file before coming to his office to gain a little more insight into a man who was already something of a Dexta legend. Cornell DuBray—ninety-seven years old and still as handsome and vigorous as a man half his chronological age—had been Quad 4 Admin for nearly forty-two years. For purposes of comparison, Gloria noted that DuBray’s fellow Quadrant Administrators had been at their respective posts for twenty-three, nine, and six years. He had taken over the slot from Norman Mingus in 3176, when Mingus became the Dexta Secretary. He was the odds-on favorite to succeed Mingus as Secretary when Mingus finally retired or died—assuming he ever did.

During his tenure in Quad 4, DuBray had built a reputation as a tireless, ruthless, and sometimes tyrannical Administrator who never forgot a friend or a foe, and whose rewards for the former and punishments for the latter were equally lavish. There was nothing about it in the files, but it was said around Dexta that some of DuBray’s early opponents had wound up on high-gravity prison worlds; there were, apparently, no recent opponents. DuBray’s loyalty to Norman Mingus was unshakeable, and it was reciprocated by the Dexta Secretary.

He greeted Gloria at the door and ushered her into his palatial 110th-floor office. DuBray was just over six feet tall, beefy but not fat, and had long, pompadoured silvery locks and a thin mustache to match. His nose suggested Hazar blood, and his full lips looked supple and feminine. He had been married four times—leaving him one wife shy of Norman Mingus—and was said to pursue a sex life that the Sept of Joy might have noted with approval. He clasped Gloria’s hands in his and stared at her, head to toe, with undisguised appreciation.

“Ms. VanDeen,” he said, “it is a true pleasure to meet you at last. I suspected and hoped that our paths would cross eventually. Norman speaks of you often, and holds you in the highest regard. And I believe congratulations are in order today, are they not? I don’t know that Dexta has ever had its own Avatar of the Spirit.”

“Actually, there have been three,” said Gloria, who had checked, “although it’s been two hundred years since the last one. But thank you, Mr. DuBray. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, as well. I had hoped to make the rounds of all the Quadrant Administrators long before now, but OSI has kept me pretty busy.”

“So I gather,” said DuBray. “Can I get you something to drink? Some wine, perhaps?”

“That would be lovely,” Gloria said. She took a seat on a divan facing the windows, giving her a magnificent view of the January sunset over New Jersey. DuBray joined her on the divan a moment later, gave her a goblet of red wine, and clinked glasses with her.

“To Dexta,” he said. “And to our mutual friend and patron, Norman Mingus.”

“Long may he wave,” Gloria said. She took a sip of the wine and found it excellent.

“A cabernet from the vineyards of Sonoma III, vintage 3196. The finest wine in my Quadrant and, for my money, the entire Empire.”

“It’s marvelous,” Gloria agreed, taking another sip.

“I’m glad you think so. I’ll have a case of it sent to you.”

“Oh, please, don’t trouble yourself.”

“It’s no trouble at all, I assure you,” DuBray said, smiling wolfishly. “I didn’t say I’d deliver it myself. Although I would be happy to do just that. You truly are a remarkably beautiful woman, Ms. VanDeen. I’ve seen the vids, of course, but having you here—in the flesh, as it were—adds an entirely new dimension to my appreciation of your charms.”

“That’s very nice of you to say, Mr. DuBray. And please, call me Gloria.”

“Very well, I shall. Now tell me, Gloria, what good fortune brings you to me today? What can I do for you?”

“Well, as I said, I had hoped to make your acquaintance in any event, but I do have the excuse of some business matters. I wanted to let you know the OSI is going to be doing some work in Quadrant 4.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you. And what desperate shortcoming in my Quadrant, might I ask, requires your strategic intervention?” DuBray’s eyes had narrowed slightly, and the look on his face was not entirely pleasant. This was a reaction Gloria had seen before from planetary and Sector authorities. If an OSI intervention was necessary, it could only mean that there was a malfunction somewhere in the existing Dexta bureaucracy. No one was happy to hear that.

“Oh, nothing desperate, I assure you,” Gloria said as lightly as she could. “But it does look as if there have been some financial irregularities in Sector 19. One of my people is preparing a full report, and I’ll send you a copy tomorrow. It only came to my attention this afternoon, so I’m afraid I don’t have many details yet. But, in general, it seems that there has been some double- and perhaps even triple-flagging of various freighters. If the records are accurate, some freighters have apparently been showing up in two or more ports at the same time. We aren’t sure exactly what’s going on, but of course there are tax implications and the possibility of hijackings and phantom loads.”

DuBray nodded. “I see,” he said, and took a swallow of the excellent wine. “And what does Sector Administration have to say about all of this?”

“Nothing, yet,” said Gloria. “Since we aren’t sure just who or what is involved here, we thought we’d hold off on notifying Sector. Under the circumstances, we felt it might be best to go directly to Quadrant.”

“And swoop down on the malefactors from above, without warning?”

“If necessary. Of course, at the moment we still don’t even know if there are any malefactors. It could all turn out to be accounting errors, or something similar. But to be safe, it made sense to handle it through Quadrant, initially.”

“Indeed.” DuBray pursed his lips, crossed his legs, and stared beyond the slums of New Jersey toward the setting sun. “And you will be going to Sector 19 yourself?”

Gloria shook her head. “An OSI team has already been dispatched, but I have no immediate plans to get personally involved. There is, however, another matter…”

“More happy news regarding my Quadrant? My cup runneth over.”

Gloria shrugged. “Sorry, but part of my job is to tell people things they’d rather not hear.”

DuBray looked at her again. “And you dress this way to soften the blow?”

“If it has that effect,” Gloria said, “then so much the better. But the truth is, I dress this way because I enjoy it, and I’ve noticed that other people generally enjoy it, as well. You certainly have.”

DuBray offered her a smile. “Point taken,” he said. “Very well, then. Proceed.”

Gloria took a deep breath, then launched into it. “Mr. DuBray,” she said, “I’m sure you’ve already heard about the two PAIN attacks in your Quadrant.”

DuBray nodded. “Ugly,” he said. “Very ugly. But Internal Security is already dealing with it. What is OSI’s interest in this?”

“One of the terrorists employed an old Mark IV plasma rifle,” Gloria said. “And last week on Cartago, another Mark IV was used in an attempt on my life. Both of those rifles were part of a shipment to Savoy in September 3163, just before the start of the war with the Ch’gnth.”

DuBray gave her a sharp, probing stare, then abruptly got to his feet. He gazed at the glow on the horizon for a moment, drained the rest of his glass in one long pull, then went over to a sideboard to take the bottle and refill his glass. “Interesting,” he said finally, after taking another sip of the wine.

“We need to get at the original records from 3163,” Gloria continued, “when the Quadrant Administrator’s office was on New Cambridge. Two of our people will be leaving for there in a couple of days. Of course, the OSI Charter gives them all necessary powers, but things might go a little easier for them on New Cambridge if they could take along an authorization from you.”

DuBray took another swallow of wine and turned to look at her. “There were those of us,” he said, “who warned Norman that this Office of Strategic Intervention was a spectacularly bad idea. Dexta already has an Inspector General’s Office and a Comptroller, after all, and they have managed to keep the gears and cams reasonably free of grit down through the centuries, without any ‘strategic interventions.’ Some of us, in fact, told him to his face that his obvious infatuation with a certain young woman was leading him to make a potentially disastrous decision. But, of course, he ignored our advice—as was his privilege.”

Gloria got to her feet and faced DuBray. “I see,” she said.

“I doubt it. Come over here, if you would, Gloria.” After locking eyes with him for a few seconds, Gloria walked around the divan and approached DuBray. He regarded her frostily for a moment, then put his glass down and, with no preamble, unknotted her top and pulled it away from her. Then he looked down at her bare breasts and smiled crookedly.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“Isn’t that obvious? I suppose you could say I’m performing a little strategic intervention of my own. If you want to play your games in my backyard, little girl, you’ll play by my rules, or you won’t play at all.”

“We’ll see about that,” Gloria replied with some heat. “I’m not some bloody Fifteen anymore, and I don’t have to put up with this bullshit from you or anyone else now! I’m head of the OSI and a Ten!”

“Yes, and I’m a Four,” DuBray said blithely. “You see where that leaves you, don’t you? Honestly, Gloria, did you really believe that things were any different at the upper levels of Dexta than at the lower ones? We just play the game with a little more finesse and style up here. When you were a Fifteen, you saved your job by letting the Pack Dogs fuck you on the floor of the restrooms, didn’t you?”

Gloria could only stare at him in smoldering silence. She wondered how in hell he had heard about that.

“Well,” DuBray went on, “I have a very comfortable bed in the next room. If you expect to strategically intervene in my Quadrant, you’ll join me on it.”

The idea of having sex with a superior at Dexta to preserve or promote her career was hardly novel to Gloria. That had always been part of the game, and by becoming a Tiger she had committed herself to playing it. But after Mynjhino and her appointment to head the OSI, she had come to realize that her success at Dexta depended on the quality of her work more than on her sexual stratagems. And there was no one at Dexta—not even Norman Mingus—that she had to screw. So she was annoyed by DuBray’s arrogance and presumption.

Gloria smiled sweetly at him. “I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your very kind invitation, Mr. DuBray. You might have had a shot at me if you actually had half the finesse you think you have. But you see, I’m allergic to assholes.”

Gloria pivoted smartly and marched out of the office, leaving DuBray standing there holding the scrap of cloth in his hand.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said over her shoulder, but Gloria just slammed the door on him.