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They reached the street. Wedge was struck sideways by a blast of intense light; he stumbled, threw up his sleeve to block the glare. “Sithspit! What’s that?”

“That’s the sun, Wedge. It’s after dawn.”

“Well, it offends me. Turn it off.”

“It’s a hundred thirty, hundred forty million klicks from here.”

“Go up in your X-wing and shoot it down for me.”

“You’re acting very strangely, chief. Come on, this way.” Janson tugged Wedge in the direction of their quarters. “Something else odd happened during the night.”

“What?”

“In the darkest, quietest hours—you hardly ever even heard someone swinging on a cable from balcony to balcony, and there were barely two knife fights out there to keep me awake—I thought I heard breathing.”

Wedge afforded him an amused glance. “You breathe, don’t you? In between fits of bragging, that is.”

Janson shook his head, for once completely serious. “When I was just sitting there with my back to the wall, I thought I heard the creak of someone on the stairs. Coming up, I think. I turned to look around the corner and there was no one to be seen … though the entire stairwell wasn’t lit, of course. Someone could have been standing in the deepest shadows, the way I was in that hallway. I waited and didn’t hear anything more, and then I held my breath and listened. I thought I heard someone breathing over there, but eventually there was a roaring in my ears—”

“That old lack of oxygen thing will get you every time. How much brain damage did you suffer?”

“Wedge …”

“And, more importantly, was it to any of the parts of your brain that you use, or was it in the majority portion?”

“Wedge … I really think someone was spying.”

“Well, you should have introduced yourself.” Wedge moved over to the street curb and walked along its very edge, balancing like a high-wire walker.

“Wedge, stop acting like a kid. You’re embarrassing me.”

• • •

Wedge had been asleep in his quarters for five minutes when he became aware of a noise from the main room: shouting, crashing of furniture. Sleepily, he pulled on a robe and stumbled over to open his door.

Tomer Darpen was in the main room, walking in circles around the main table. Tycho stood slumped, yawning, in the doorway to his room. Hobbie was sprawled on the main room floor, immediately behind him a tipped-over chair showing how he’d come to end up prone, and was carefully aiming a comlink at Tomer and thumbing its on-off switch as though firing a blaster at the diplomat; his expression was groggy enough to suggest that’s exactly what he thought he was doing. Janson emerged in his own doorway, his robe askew, and if glares were lasers Tomer would have been the victim of a dual-linked direct strike.

Tomer was speaking in a voice loud enough to awaken sleepers on the floors immediately above and below: “—very promising indeed, but we need to be there with our best faces on …” Making the turn at the end of the table, he caught sight of Wedge. “General! Excellent news.”

“Excellent enough to persuade Hobbie to spare your life, I hope,” Wedge said.

Tomer glanced at the semiconscious pilot. “Maybe even that good. As you know, the perator of Cartann, two days ago, flew in representatives of all of Adumar’s nations for purposes of discussing the foundation of a world government.”

“I didn’t know,” Wedge said. “Did you include that in a briefing you sent us?”

“I—uh, oh.” Tomer looked abashed, gave Wedge an apologetic look. “My mistake. I thought we’d done so. At any rate, we’ve received word from the perator’s palace that they’ll be making an announcement on that subject this morning.”

“… ths mrnng,” said the cabinet beside him, its words muffled.

Tomer glanced at it. “What’s this?”

“Wt’s ths?” said the cabinet.

“Cabinet,” Wedge said.

“I know it’s a cabinet, but it’s talking.”

“… ts tlkng,” said the cabinet.

“Oh, that,” said Janson. “It’s the Cartann Minister of Crawling Into Very Small Spaces.”

Tycho nodded. “He bet Wedge that he could fold himself into