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“will conduct the bidding. We have chosen the four most common youth charities from those that each of you nominated, and we will donate a quarter of the profits from tonight to each of them.” He smiled broadly again. “So, bid generously, as I certainly plan to do, for you will be helping not only the child you will take home to love, but also a far larger group of children!”
    He bowed ever so slightly.
    The guests applauded him loudly as he walked slowly across the stage and down the steps.
    The man in front of the stage approached the nearest pedestal on his left.
    The guests on the ground floor followed him and gathered tightly around him. The half dozen in the boxes leaned over the edges so they could follow the action.
    “We begin,” the auctioneer said, “with this lovely boy, age eight.” He stared at the child within the transparent tube and patted the tube as if reassuring a reluctant son.
    The boy inside sat dully.
    “He is,” the auctioneer said, “as you can see, as perfect and beautiful an unspoiled flower as, well,” he waved at the other pedestals, “as the other children with us tonight.”
    He dropped his hand and faced the crowd.
    “Who would like to start us?”

CHAPTER 6
    Jon Moore
    I wanted to gather more information about the guards and their weapons, but I was out of time. I couldn’t risk that a winning bidder might take his prize right away and retire to one of the ships; I needed to stop this affair while all the children were in Privus.
    I wouldn’t lose any of them.
    I wouldn’t.
    The bidding on the first boy ended.
    A short man with a heart-shaped activefiber mask shook hands with the host and with the auctioneer. The rest of the men applauded him. He smiled and waved regally to the crowd, as if he had just won an election.
    I wanted to kill him.
    Instead, I backed toward the hallway to the kitchen.
    The man walked slowly to the guard behind the pedestal. The two spoke briefly, the guard nodding several times.
    The guard approached the pedestal.
    The boy inside it continued to sit, looking straight ahead but showing no reaction to anything.
    The auctioneer moved to the next pedestal on his right.
    I was out of time.
    I reached into my pants pocket and thumbed the remote. If they worked properly, the bladders would activate, the small fans and atomizers in each would force out their payload as a very fine mist, and the air handling system would do the rest. The gas would act quickly and knock out everyone inside for at least four hours. I’d taken a preventative drug ahead of time and would be fine. I’d brought the goggles because the gas irritated the eyes of everyone exposed to it. The nanomachines that laced all my cells would fix any damage to mine, but I’d lose precious time while they did and be nearly blind during that interval.
    Lobo’s modeling suggested it would take at most two minutes for the gas to start affecting people, and another fifteen to thirty seconds for it to knock out everyone. Those in the upper boxes would go down first. If we’d been able to secure information about Privus’s climate control systems, I’d have bet my life on Lobo’s simulation, but we hadn’t; there had not been enough time.
    I eased around the edge of the room toward the door through which the guests had entered. If any people tried to leave, I had to stop them until the gas took effect—or get out myself and regroup if it didn’t. No way could I take all of them without killing a lot of them, maybe all of them, or dying myself. The nanomachines could heal most injuries, but I had no idea if they could handle a shot to my brain, and I didn’t want to risk my life finding out. Lobo should be able to detect from the security cameras that people were falling, so he would be on his way, but it would take him at least two or three minutes to get here. Once he was here, I could rely on him to trank or at least keep busy any guards outside the building, but until then, I had