We spent the evening and most of the next day packing. A storm had blown in during the night which made it impractical to fly out to Quintin that night. Hadrian was eager to get started but grudgingly admitted that a few hours either way was unlikely to make a difference on a lead already months old. Trasic was roused from his lo induced stupor and astropathic messages were sent out to various allies including Urien, though last word we had put him several months away from Pacitus.

My own belongings had expanded considerably with leisure to shop and with expert advice from Clara. I had my wardrobe, which by this point included several armored body gloves, dresses in a variety of styles and a number of firearms. I also had a short bladed sword and a pair of fine daggers, though even with training I was still little more than average with them. Even out here pyscometric material was hard to come by and while I had forged (or commissioned Lazarus to forge) a force staff off my own, I had not yet found an appropriate focus for it. I had no doubt that Urien and his crew would shake their heads in disgust at my considerably increased cargo requirements. I had the servitors crate it up and transport it down to the docks for transshipment to the capital where lighters could ferry it to whatever orbital conveyance we were able to scare up.

I knew little of Samara Bandir or Havenos, Hadrian had a number of cases that he was working. Mostly threads he had uncovered while chasing Bahometus that had turned out to be unrelated or tangential. All of them had gone deep underground after even fleeting contact with the Ordos, but it was the nature of such infection to re-emerge. Nagrip was, according to the limited information the Ordos had, a minor warp dabbler, though there were questions as to how he had escaped off world and managed to vanish for so long, despite Hadrian having tasked local arbites and system defense personnel to prevent it. If he had been able to take down a bounty hunter of Samara Bandir's caliber, well that was another reason for Hadrian to sit up and take note.

Hadrian arranged for a farewell dinner with some members of the staff, intending to act as a briefing and to provide instruction during his absence. He probably meant it to be a simple working affair, but the servants took the opportunity to go all out, producing a lavish feast complete with custom invitation cards. I showed up early. It wasn't exactly a secret that Hadrian and I were involved but nor could our relationship technically be official. I was the lady of the house, but not the Lady of the House and I did my best to live up to peoples confused expectations of what that entailed.