"Your friend...," Ignatius said to me as we watched Jocoby being carted away. A quartet of servants carried him on a sette for want of a stretcher. I had no idea where the nearest medicae might be, but given that the youth was calling for wine even as he bled onto the couch suggested that he would proably make it.

"You know how Jovian naval officers are," I told him. I had no idea how they were of course. Ignatius nodded as though this explained everything.

"I thought him... well I didn't expect such skill with the blade," the councilor admitted.

"Several boarding actions I believe," I lied, figuring that it was worth a little effort to rehabilitate his popinjay image. I could alway play dumb if he asked any follow up questions, a particularly easy feat when it came to imaginary millitary adventures. I was fairly certain we were too far from Terra for anyone to verify the story. Worst case it was just boasting to a lover.

"Can I impose on you for another dance?" Ignatius asked as the party began to return to something resembling normality. I shook my head sadly. There were already a bevy of young men moving towards me with hopeful expressions. 

"I think there has been enough violence tonight without inciting a riot," I told him but I let my hand linger on his bicep for a moment.

"Perhaps we may speak to each other more some other time," I didn't bother to tell him that I was at the Hotel Imperial. If I knew my aristos, and I did, he would have his people find out everything they could about me before the night was over. That wasn't going to be very much. Even with astropaths it would take weeks or months to get a message to Sol and I doubted they would give out any information. Ignatius might be a big fish here, but this was a rain drop compared to the levels of Imperial society centered around Terra.

"Perhaps we will madmoselle," he said, offering me a formal bow before turning away.

It took me almost another hour to get away from the collected high society of Moldar. Eventually I was able to escape the dance requests during one of the intermissions and slip out to the balcony. As promised Hadrian was already waiting for me. Fortunately it seemed that the balcony was designed for private conversations and I was able to close the folding screens of stained glass to seperate us from the crowd. Given the degree to which the sound from inside disipated I was certain there was some techno-sorcery involved. It probably wasn't safe to speak, any device that could suppress sound might be able to record it. Instead of speaking I lay my hand on Hadrian's wrist.

[i]Well that went well[/i], I thought/spoke in his mind.