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do not."
    Daniel's heels clicked to a brace. "Good day, sir," he said. "Meeting you has been an unexpected pleasure."
    He stepped out the door and began to whistle. What would Adele say about this?
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    A dele sat on a bench in the huge forecourt and took out her
personal data unit. The upper court with six banks of theater-style seating for a few hundred worshippers was to her right. Beyond it rose the gilded eighty-foot image of the Redeeming Spirit, framed rather than shielded by a conical roof supported by columns. Those structures on the very crown of the hill were the only portions of the complex really given over to religious uses; and that only rarely, when representatives of the Senate and the allied worlds gave formal thanks for the safety of the Republic.
    Adele smiled, half in humor. In another way the whole Pentacrest was a religious edifice, dedicated to the faith that Cinnabar was meant to rule the human galaxy. Daniel certainly believed that, though he'd be embarrassed to say so in those blunt words.
    And Adele Mundy? No, she didn't believe it and she didn't imagine she ever would. But not long ago she'd believed in nothing but the certainty she would die, and today she was convinced of the reality of human friendship as well. Perhaps someday Daniel would manage to convert her—by example; Daniel was no proselytizer—into a Cinnabar chauvinist as well.
    Adele felt, as she always did when walking out of a library, that the sunlight was an intrusion. Still, she hadn't wanted to call up her messages within the Celsus; not after the meeting with Mistress Sand. Contact with intelligence personnel always made her feel both unclean and paranoid, uncomfortably aware of how easily she could be observed within the confines of a building.
    Adele was an intelligence agent herself now. That made her feel more, not less, uncomfortable. Perhaps the paranoia would prove a survival trait, but she wasn't sure she wanted to live if she had to worry this way in order to do so.
    Most of the messages she'd downloaded were of no consuming interest—RCN information, updating her status; or even less significant queries from people who wanted to sell her things. Adele had gained a great deal of attention from publication of the list of those entitled to a share in the proceeds of the Princess Cecile whenever the government of the Republic got around to paying. She found it quite amazing that so many people thought she wanted to buy real estate, an aircar, or companionship.
    She permitted herself another smile. Companionship of the sort those folk offered had never interested her, even as a matter of scientific curiosity. Daniel was the naturalist, after all. Mind, Daniel's interest in companionship couldn't be called scientific, though the way he hooked and netted each night's quarry showed the same tactical acumen that had turned the tables on the Alliance at Kostroma.
    A short block of information was encrypted. Adele entered the day's key; even with the wands, the hundred and twenty-eight characters took some time.
    The message was from Tovera, Adele's servant insofar as that intelligent, highly trained sociopath could be said to serve anything except her own will. Tovera knew she wasn't fully human: that there were things which human beings felt that she would never feel. Her strategy for coping with her lack was to attach herself to a human who understood what she was, and who didn't care.
    Every time Adele looked at Tovera, she thought of the boy she'd killed fifteen years before; and the others. How many more lives could Adele Mundy end with a four-ounce pressure of her trigger finger, before her eyes were just as empty as those of her servant?
    The message was simple: Adele's bank had called regarding the drawing rights she had established against the award of prize money for the Princess Cecile . They would like her to meet with them at her earliest convenience, giving an address.
    It wasn't the address of the