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talk there.”
    Brizo cheered slightly. “You’ll take the case?”
    “Yes.”
    The scents of the night sharpened as Rafe drove through the gates. The light of the twin moons was so bright that he could make out each silver-tinged leaf on the looming oak-drona trees that lined the drive.
    He knew this feeling, he thought. It was the sensation he always got when he became interested in a new case. The anticipation of the hunt.
    But this time he was not responding to the prospect of the investigation itself. Finding something as unique as a stolen alien artifact would be simple. The underground market for such items was very small and his contacts in it were excellent.
    No, it was not the case that aroused all his senses tonight. It was knowing that he now had an ideal excuse to hire Orchid Adams again.

Chapter
3
 
    Orchid smiled when her cousin, Veronica Adams, walked through the door of the restaurant. The effect on the other diners was predictable. She turned every head.
    It was not just the fact that Veronica was a very blonde, very attractive woman who moved with the kind of grace and poise that captured attention. It was her stark white attire and her aura of serene composure that drew the eye.
    Veronica was a Northviller, a member of the intellectually oriented Northville Community, and a devoted practitioner of the esoteric arts of the system of synergistic meditation and exercise known as meta-zen-syn.
    Northville and the North Institute, the academic research center associated with it, were a two-hour drive from New Seattle. Both the community and the think tank were named for Patricia Thorncroft North, the philosopher who had set down the three principles of synergy. Everyone who lived in Northville worked directly or indirectly for the institute.
    Almost everyone in Northville wore white except at their own weddings or funerals.
    The North Institute attracted the most brilliant scientific and philosophical minds from the three city-states of New Vancouver, New Seattle, and New Portland. Over the years, it had developed a reputation for research and development in the field of synergistic theory that was second to none. It ran on corporate funds, private endowments, and grant money. The institute operated its own education system for the children of the academics who worked in the think tank.
    Many of the people who were affiliated with the institute inevitably were attracted to the philosophical tenets of meta-zen-syn. The meditation exercises had great cachet with the intellectual crowd.
    Orchid knew all about the think tank, its school system, and meta-zen-syn. She had been raised in Northville. Her parents were on the research staff at the institute. Her two older brothers had both pursued careers there.
    Everyone had assumed that she would join the institute, marry, and raise another generation of Adams Northvillers. Instead, she had turned her back on her heritage and, at the age of twenty, she had fled to New Seattle to carve out a different life for herself.
    In typical meta-zen-syn fashion, her family had accepted her decision, but Orchid still suffered occasional pangs of guilt. She was, after all, the first Adams in three generations to leave Northville.
    The maître d’ rushed forward to pull out the chair across from Orchid. He had not made such a grand production out of seating her a few minutes earlier, Orchid reflected. The effect of a stylish white suit, white scarf, and a pair of white heels was amazing.
    Orchid was suddenly very conscious of her own faded jeans, rumpled jacket, black T-shirt, and loafers. She never had quite gotten the hang of wearing white. Five minutes after she put it on there was a spot somewhere on the front. It was almost a synergistic law of nature.
    Nevertheless, she was happy to see her cousin.
    “Hi, Veronica. How’s the wedding shopping going?”
    “Finished, thank goodness.” Veronica smiled as she took her seat. “I must say, I had no idea that getting