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with pistols, clubs, knives.
    The Star Risk operatives ducked for cover behind the house's stone balustrades.
    A masked man glanced through the open gates at the mansion, saw the five guns leveled, and went after easier prey. The mask was unusual: a black domino eyepiece, with a loose cloth hanging from it to below the chin.
    Three police lifters cruised after the masked ones. The cops wore riot gear, but lolled at ease in their lifters, casually watching what was going on. They made no attempt to help the wounded or stop the running massacre.
    "Very nice," Grok said. "This is the kind of world we thrive on."
    "It is that," Goodnight said. "Nothing but scoundrels and goons."
    "I suppose," von Baldur said, "seeing as how things appear to be a bit stirred up, it may be time for us to go out and earn our keep."
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    NINE � ^ � M'chel Riss fell in love with the Dampier System's capital city, Tuletia.
    A river curled and twisted through the metropolis�a river long tamed and confined, except in extraordinarily wet years, to concrete banks. Studding the river were small islets, on which were built auditoriums, museums, art galleries, even a church here and there to honor various gods the Tuletians ignored.
    There were broad boulevards to speed transport, although Goodnight suggested, somewhat cynically, their real function was to allow the deployment of heavy artillery against any revolution.
    Away from the boulevards, small streets wound in patterns guaranteed to befuddle. Riss spent happy afternoons when she was off duty getting herself lost, and then found.
    The men and women of Tuletia dressed well, almost as if expecting a fashion designer to pop around the corner and ask them to pose. Statuary was scattered lavishly through the numerous parks.
    But best of all was the food. Riss didn't remember eating a bad meal, whether it was in the proud and enormous Bofigers, or once having a simple peasant stew in a tiny restaurant hidden in an alcove she could never find again.
    The Torguth had a strange saying, "happy as God on Montrois," which said something about the Torguth as well.
    The only drawback could be the people, sometimes charming, sometimes irascible. One of the planet's greatest philosophers said, "We Dampierians have the unique ability to reason impeccably to an utterly indefensible point and then go out and die for it."
    Yes, M'chel decided. After arguing with a waiter who said he was entitled to a tip because his job entitled him to one, even though he hadn't bothered to wait her table without being summoned, she wondered why the Dampierians, all too often, had to be so damned Dampierian�
    Von Baldur had called for a meeting with ex-Premier Jen Reynard, to brief them in detail about the players in the Sufyerd case. The meet was scheduled during noon meal at Tournelle's, which Jasmine looked up in a guidebook and discovered was "And I quote, �the longest-reigning high cuisine palace on Montrois, traditionally the meeting place for high-government officials, the cultural elite, and the very, very rich.' "
    "Real underground," Goodnight observed. "Secretive-like."
    But the five were there on time. Their lifter was most unobtrusive next to the long banks of lims with liveried pilots.
    "Very, very underground," Goodnight muttered.
    The older men and women looked rich and confident; the younger ones confident that they'd soon be as well off as the oldsters, or else well protected by them.
    The main room was a blaze of baroque paintings and wall hangings, with tables set discreetly apart. However, Riss noticed that the richest of the patrons were escorted into private rooms�as were they, when von Baldur announced their names to the rather supercilious ma�e d'.
    Reynard was waiting.
    "Good morrow, my friends," he said. "I am very happy to see you."
    "We are, too," Goodnight said. "But isn't this place a little public to be briefing your