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the address chit in her hand. Lish wasn't a kid, wet behind the ears, but she wasn't as well set up to be a Selmun smuggler as she might think.
    It was a sure bet the Holdout wouldn't want to hear that kind of thing from a stranger. Reva paused on the verge of tossing the chit.
    Then again, a new business connection couldn't hurt. It would require social niceties ... use of someone's house pass demands some kind of politeness in return. The semblance of friendship, if not its substance, to make dealings a littie smoother.
    She smiled to herself. She could play that game, if she wanted to. She had a mood, a demeanor, for every occasion. And it would be amusing, maybe truly useful, to turn this casual invitation into a reliable connection.
    What the hell. She hadn't seen Des'lin in forever.
    She pocketed the chit and punched out on the hotel room comp.

XVI
    Reva traveled mostly on commercial transport. The next hop to Des'lin was the morning commuter run, outbound to the hunting lodges on Selmun IV and the crystal mines on V. She boarded the shuttle, resigned to the company of complacent vacationers and combine executives checking on fur trapping investments.
    It was a routine journey she could sleep through, and did.
    Three hours later saw her past Customs' cursory check for in-system passengers. She emerged into the nearly empty concourse of Freebay's small starport, unchanged since her last trip through had taken her off Des'lin and away from the Selmun star for the first time. She found the ground travel agent in the place she expected, and leaned on the counter.
    "I need to go to Baneks Cape. What's the best way there?"
    The agent looked up from a terminal at the unexpected customer. "The Cape?" she repeated. "Either ground car or monorail, Domna. Rail would be faster. The storm season is on us already. Though you look prepared for it."
    Reva gave a false smile out of reflex to the small talk, and brushed one hand down the fur-lined kria-leather coat she'd bought for this journey. She knew all too well just what season gripped northern Des'lin at this time, and though her garment was chosen for its suggestion of local style, it offered real protection against what could be deadly cold. There was nothing warmer than kria-fur on this iceball, she knew. She had killed and worn her share of them before.
    "Rail, then." She bought a one-way ticket and studied the tourist map the woman handed back with the ticket tab. The monorail line was new to her, and now that she had the topography in hand, she saw where one spur led to Baneks Cape, a narrow, curving peninsula on the west coast of the larger of the two inland seas. Ponds, they seemed, after R'debh, but the weather upon them could be just as fierce, and from the shore, she knew, the waters looked just as vast.
    There were no slidewalks in Freebay's backwards terminal, part of the contrary Des'lini pride in doing things the frontier way. She strolled down a long hall toward the monorail platform, wondering as she went if Lish would be home for this unexpected
    visit. Though that's no real concern, thought Reva, because this isn't just an address marker I have. It's a house pass. She's either deathly naive or has very good instincts about whom to trust.
    She was shaking her head over that when an odd sensation came over her and she did her best not to halt in mid-stride. Every hair raised itself along her neck and spine, and a cold wave of anxiety forced an involuntary shudder. Reva walked as casually as she could to a vendbot and turned sideways in the hall, pretending to examine its selection of refreshments.
    A quick glance showed the hall behind her was empty, and just one person walked the passage ahead. Then what had given her that uncanny feeling? It seemed like it should herald danger, so stark and primeval it was. Her skin prickled beneath her clothes where every small hair had risen with electric chill.
    There, in the mecho's chromed dispenser arm, she thought she saw