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district with his hands deep in the worn pockets of his old coat, trying to guess how long it would take for the early-morning sun to warm the air at street level. It would be mid-morning before the shadows began to lift, as far as he could tell; these lanes were only wide enough to admit a small transport mover, and the warehouses themselves towered to the skies.
    At least that was the impression from ground level, and the effect seemed to have a discouraging impact on the relatively few people Kazmer could see coming and going in the streets. Maybe they were all just minding their business; Kazmer could approve of that.
    Then something caught his eye.
    Didn’t he know that man —
    Kazmer had seen the familiar figure approach, but so far as he could tell he hadn’t been remarked upon for his own part. This could be good. Looking around him quickly, Kazmer located the nearest doorway and ducked into the shallow alcove the doorway offered for concealment, then waited.
    Moments passed.
    Then the man crossed in front of him, and Kazmer knew him all right. Tall and thin, big-boned, almost gangly, with a fine sharp expression of quick intelligence and lively wit — and big ears that stood out from his head, though perhaps it took a friend to notice. Frowning, just now, and apparently sunk so deep in thought that he didn’t so much as look up until Kazmer spoke.
    “Hilton Shires, as I live and breathe. What brings you into Port Charid, Hilton?”
    Kazmer stepped out of the alcove and extended his hand in greeting, but it seemed that the surprise he’d given Hilton was unpleasantly complete. It took Hilton a moment to respond.
    “Kazmer. Hey. Long time, how’ve you been?”
    Well, it hadn’t been all that very long a time. Not really. He’d taken his leave of the Langsariks well ahead of their rendezvous with the Jurisdiction fleet, and he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a Langsarik since. Two years, maybe.
    “I’ve got no complaints.” Kazmer took a step or two down the street, to encourage Hilton to walk with him; but Hilton wasn’t moving. Maybe Hilton was annoyed at Kazmer for getting the drop on him, which would be a little oversensitive on Hilton’s part. It was Kazmer who owed his life to Hilton, and not the other way around. “You?”
    “Life is changed.” Hilton made the obvious point so blandly that it was almost as though the fact had just occurred to him. “Not like old times at all, Kazmer. What brings you to Port Charid?”
    “I’ve been called in on a transport job.” By Hilton’s people, as a matter of fact. As if he didn’t know, him with his Langsarik colors showing beneath the sober collar of a new if inexpensive work shirt. But maybe he had gotten cautious, in his old age; or it could as easily be that Hilton felt they were too vulnerable to eavesdropping, out in the street like this. They’d be a lot less obvious if they were walking together, Kazmer told himself; but Hilton had a stubborn streak. “From what I’ve heard there’s been more than one of that sort of thing through Port Charid lately.”
    But what could Langsariks need cargo transport for? The Langsariks’ property had been impounded by the Bench, along with the Langsarik hulls — as a very practical means of assuring good behavior by removing the means of any independent behaviors at all.
    The only transport a Langsarik could get would be illegal and surreptitious by definition. So the only need that Langsariks could have for a mercantile pilot to transport cargo was to move contraband, and Kazmer and Hilton both knew it.
    Which only made Hilton’s resolute play at oblivious ignorance all the more irritating. “Well, traffic is picking up. That’s true. Plenty of work to go around.” And Hilton actually leaned his back up against the external wall of the warehouse that fronted on the street, folding his arms across his chest as he did so. Those were his racing thermals that Hilton was wearing with his new work