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dignity versus hoyden.  She was a flawed queen, age mingled with youth.  She must be at least eighty standard years, but the Beautybarbers had achieved this startling combination:  available pleasurefem and remote, hungry power.
    The expensive body wore a long gown of grey rainpearls which matched her, movement for movement, like a glittering skin.  She moved nearer the vortal tube.  As she approached, the edges of the tube blocked off first her feet, then her legs, thighs, waist.
    McKie felt his knees age a thousand years in that brief passage.  He remained crouched near the place where he'd entered the Beachball.
    "Ahhh, Fanny Mae," Mliss Abnethe said.  "You have a guest."  Jumpdoor interference caused her voice to sound faintly hoarse.
    "I am Jorj X. McKie, Saboteur Extraordinary," he said.
    Was that a contraction in the pupils of her eyes? McKie wondered.  She stopped with only her head and shoulders visible in the tube's circle.
    "And I am Mliss Abnethe, private citizen."
    Private citizen! McKie thought.  This bitch controlled the productive capacity of at least five hundred worlds.  Slowly McKie got to his feet.
    "The Bureau of Sabotage has official business with you," he said, putting her on notice to satisfy the legalities.
    "I am a private citizen!" she barked.  The voice was prideful, vain, marred by petulance.
    McKie took heart at the revealed weakness.  It was a particular kind of flaw that often went with wealth and power.  He had had experience in dealing with such flaws.
    "Fanny Mae, am I your guest?" he asked.
    "Indeed," the Caleban said.  "I open my door to you."
    "Am I your employer, Fanny Mae?" Abnethe demanded.
    "Indeed, you employ me."
    A breathless, crouching look came over her face.  Her eyes went to slits.  "Very well.  Then prepare to fulfill the obligations of . . ."
    "One moment!" McKie said.  He felt desperate.  Why was she moving so fast?  What was that faint whine in her voice?
    "Guests do not interfere," Abnethe said.
    "BuSab makes its own decisions about interference!" McKie said.
    "Your jurisdiction has limits!" she countered.
    McKie heard the beginnings of many actions in that statement:  hired operatives, gigantic sums spent as bribes, doctored agreements, treaties, stories planted with the visos on how this good and proud lady had been mistreated by her government, a wide enlistment of personal concern to justify -- what?  Violence against his person?  He thought not.  More likely to discredit him, to saddle him with onerous misdeeds.
    Thought of all that power made McKie wonder suddenly why he made himself vulnerable to it.  Why had he chosen BuSab?  Because I'm difficult to please, he told himself.  I'm a Saboteur by choice.  There was no going back on that choice now.  BuSab appeared to walk down the middle of everywhere and always wound up on the high road.
    And this time BuSab appeared to be carrying most of the sentient universe on its shoulders.  It was a fragile burden perched there.  fearful and feared.  It had sunk stark claws into him.
    "Agreed, we have limits," McKie growled, but I doubt you'll ever see them.  Now, what's going on here?"
    "You're not a police agent!" Abnethe barked.
    "Perhaps I should summon police," McKie said.
    "On what grounds?"  She smiled.  She had him there and knew it.  Her legal staff had explained to her the open association clause in the ConSentient Articles of Federation:  "When members of different species agree formally to an association from which they derive mutual benefits, the contracting parties shall be the sole judges of said benefits, providing their agreement breaks no law, covenant, or legative article binding upon said contracting parties; provided further that said formal agreement was achieved by voluntary means and involves no breach of the public peace."
    "Your actions will bring about the death of this Caleban," McKie said.  He didn't hold out much hope for this argument, but it bought a bit more