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Dalla and Zinganna were asleep on a big mound of silk cushions in one corner, their glossy black heads close together and Zinganna's brown arm around Dalla's white shoulder. Their faces were calmly beautiful in repose, and they smiled slightly, as though they were wandering through a happy dream. For a little while, Vall stood looking at them, then he began whistling softly.

"By doing so, I will make it necessary for us to detain you, at least for a few days. I hope you will forgive me, but I think you would forgive me less if I didn't tell you." "Something's happened to him," she said, her eyes widening and her body tensing. "Yes, Zinganna. At about 2010, this evening," he said, "Councilman Salgath was murdered." "Oh!" She leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes.

The detective nodded to Vall, tried to suppress a grin when he saw Dalla behind him, and went out. Vall saw his wife and the prisoner seated, and produced his cigarette case, handing it around. "You're Zinganna; you're of the household of Councilman Salgath Trod, aren't you?" he asked. "Housekeeper and hostess," the girl replied. "I am also his mistress." Vall nodded, smiling.

And including that girl Zinganna; that was a real masterpiece!" "I've met her, a few times," Elbraz Vark, the Political Liaison Assistant, said. "Isn't she lovely!" "Good actress, too," Tortha Karf said. "It's not easy to impersonate yourself." "Well, Kostran Galth did a fine job of acting, too," Lovranth Rolk said.

In case P.P.L. makes any trouble, they aren't here; they have faithfully joined their beloved master in his refuge on PolTerm. But one or both of them work for the Organization." "You're sure of that?" "The Organization is too thorough not to have had a spy in Salgath's household. It wasn't Zinganna, because she's volunteered to talk to us under narco-hyp. So who does that leave?"

"Who did it?" she asked, the Stone Age savage who had been her ancestor not ten generations ago peeping out of her eyes. "The men who actually used the needlers are dead," Vall told her. "I killed a couple of them myself. We still have to find the men who planned it. I'd hoped you'd want to help us do that, Zinganna." He side-glanced to Dalla again; she nodded.

In one of the viewscreens, he saw the door to the service hallway open. Zinganna, in a black evening gown and a black velvet cloak, and Calilla, the housemaid, in what she believed to be a reasonable facsimile of fashionable First Level dress, and Nindrandigro, in one of his master's evening suits, emerged.

"Here, Zinganna; take these, and take Nindrandigro and Calilla out for the evening. Go where you can all have a good time, and don't come back till after midnight. There will be some business transacted here, and I want them out of this. Get them out of here as soon as you can; I'll see to the dinner myself. Spend all of that you want to." The girl riffled through the wad of banknotes.

"I own the whole island, on that time line, and you can always be reached in a hurry if anything comes up." "We could have as much fun there as on the Dwarma Sector," Dalla said. "Chief, could we take a couple of friends along?" "Well, who?" "Zinganna and Kostran Galth," she replied. "They've gotten interested in one another; they're talking about a tentative marriage."

The police car had just landed: one detective had gotten out, and was helping the girl, Zinganna, who had been Salgath Trod's housekeeper and mistress, to descend. She was really beautiful. Vall thought: rather tall, slender, with dark eyes and a creamy light-brown skin. She wore a black cloak, and, under it, a black and silver evening gown. A single jewel twinkled in her black hair.