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a hand to urge the man past the background data. "I've seen the plans."
    The petitioner continued doggedly, obviously plowing through a rehearsed speech. Too wired tense to do anything else, even when a new factor entered the equation.
    "Your Exaltedness . . . ah." Barholm's glare finally forced the speaker to summarize. "That is, His Supremacy the Governor Vernier, Vice-regent of The Spirit of Man of the Stars, we're orthodox in Gaur County, my lord . . . that is, the State advanced part of the cost of the renovations . . . but the materials have been so late, mylord! While the locks are out of operation, we . . . there's no cash flow, my lord, and the expenses . . . and, well, the coal has to go by animal haulage to below the falls. Your Exaltedness, we beg for relief, either on our interest payments or our taxes."
    Barholm frowned, his fingers drumming on one arm of the chair while he beckoned an advisor. Tzetzas' face stayed as calm as a mosaic Avatar, but his fingers riffled through a small box of index cards.
    I wonder what's behind all this ,Raj thought idly. Porifro Rifera's Tactics and Strategy had a whole chapter on the importance of transport in extended operations, and the Gaur Falls were the major break on the river between East Residence and the head of navigation in the Oxhead Mountain foothills. Wonder how it'll turn out .
    observe:   
    * * *
    A rectangle blanked in the air in front of him, then split: the left side flashed
    action by the Vice-Governor.   
    The falls, and the canal around them. Barges unloaded casks of cement, gangs of laborers, bundles of new-forged pickaxes and barrels of blasting powder. A side-wheel steamer tug pulled a train of barges into a basin whose sides shone with new-cut ashlar blocks; the barges were loaded with bales of hides, cauldrons of pitch, grain, dried fruit, others had holds piled high with gleaming coal. The town behind bustled.
    reference to the Chancellor.   
    The same scene, but he could tell it was nearly a year later. The steamer tug bore the weighing-scale blazon of Tzetzas' family on the side of its stack; as did the carts bringing down coal from the mines. A coffle was being driven onto a barge by armed guards in the Chancellor's livery; the people on the chain had the black brands of debt-bondsmen on their cheeks. Raj recognized the petitioners, in rough burlap prison tunics rather than the quietly affluent clothing they wore today; behind them were their families, others that were probably their retainers. There was a scuffle as the guards unhitched a girl of fourteen from behind Bendict, began pushing her forward under the overhang of the barge as they stripped the tunic up over her head. She screamed and struggled, and so did Bendict until a truncheon struck the side of his head with a sound like a rock on melon.
    * * *
    "Well, delay is certainly a serious . . ." Barholm was beginning. Tzetzas's messenger threaded his way to the Vice-Governor's chair, leaned to murmur in his ear. Barholm's face changed, going smooth and hard. " . . . serious matter," he continued, in a harsher tone. "I expect better of those the State sees fit to aid than excuses! Direct your petition to Chancellor Tzetzas, and perhaps something can be done."
    Beside him Stanson whispered sotto voce; with the acoustics in here, you could do that pretty safely.
    "Yeah, talk to Tzetzas and you're done, the way the monkey did the miller's wife."
    Raj made a noncommittal grunt; there were some people it was never safe to talk about.
    "But my lord!" the petitioner wailed, dropping the package of documents. "He—the Honorable Chancellor—he owns the firms that have been delaying delivery of the construction materials!"
    "Are you making allegations about my Chancellor? Perhaps you question my judgment, my uncle His Supremacy's judgment?"
    "No, Your Exaltedness," the man whispered.
    Barholm smiled like a wardog in a butcher's shop. "Well, move along then. As you