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draped over Charles’s shoulders. Pink was the color of approval. For a moment, Charles simply stood there. Then he lifted his free hand to touch the scarf, to check its color. His chin shifted, just a little, but David knew him well enough to know that he was pleased. He bowed, low, to the precise degree by which a duke honors the emperor, dipping to touch one knee to the floor. Then he straightened and regarded Naroshi in silence.
    In this light, David could discern no slightest tint of color in Naroshi’s pallid complexion. “I will watch your progress with interest,” said Naroshi.
    Charles inclined his head in acknowledgment, but said nothing more.
    The steward reappeared and led them out the way they had come. By unspoken consent, the three men did not talk at all until they left the secured line on Staten Island and transferred to a lev-train that would take them back to London. Charles sank into a seat. He draped the silver braid across his thighs. It was as heavy as gold, and as supple as the finest silk. David and Marco sat on either side of him. It was the old pattern from their university days: Marco on the right, David on the left.
    “‘I’ll be watching you,’” mused Charles as he stared out the window at the gray ocean. “But is Naroshi for me or against me?”
    Marco shrugged. “Does our concept of dualism even apply to the Chapalii? Maybe he’s for you and against you.”
    “I hate equations that don’t add up,” muttered David.

CHAPTER THREE
    A S SOON AS YOMI called the break, Diana fled the rehearsal space.
    “And if Hyacinth keeps flinging himself all over the stage like that, I’m going to scream!” Anahita proclaimed.
    “I don’t think she’s got more than one tone to play Titania with,” muttered Quinn to Hal. “If she’s going to go on like that for the whole trip shut up in this boat, then I’m going to scream.”
    Hal pulled a hand through his hair, tousling it, and heaved a great sigh. “What an awful day. I feel further from this scene than I ever did.”
    Gwyn stared at the plain wooden floor, and by the way his right hand turned up and then down, Diana could see that he was still thinking about the scene they had just rehearsed, a scene from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Phillippe was massaging Hyacinth’s shoulders and Hyacinth was, of course, smirking. Owen and Yomi had lapsed into a cabal, heads together over the table that was the only furniture in the space. Ginny sat in a chair, keying furiously into a notepad.
    “Di?” called Hal. “Do you want to go to dinner?”
    Then the door closed behind her, and she was mercifully free of them. What a bad day it had been. The tempo ran slow and they kept clumping together in the ensemble scene. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic. That was one thing she liked about Chapalii ships: they built their passageways wide, even if they were a strikingly ugly shade of orange and heated light to the level of sticky hot. She waited outside the door while a pack of human university students swarmed by her, chattering and giggling, ignoring her except for one red-haired young woman who threw her a startled and surprisingly vindictive glance; then a trio of alien nar skittered by, flicking their secondary dwarf wings at her in polite acknowledgment. She answered with a brief bow and set off in the opposite direction, toward the dining hall.
    It still surprised Diana that Charles Soerensen ate his meals in the regular dining hall, along with all the other passengers. All the non-Chapalii passengers, of course; the Chapalii themselves remained in segregated quarters. He had somewhere developed the ability to sit at a different table every meal while making it seem as if he was as much graced by his tablemates’ presence as they were by his. Marco Burckhardt sat on his right. Marco looked up, saw her, and smiled.
    Don’t do it, she told herself fiercely as she picked up her meal. Twenty steps later she stopped