It was an unkind blow, and I knew it. Against all the odds, it seemed Kawahara had missed Trepp with everything but the edge of the stun beam. The shard gun, I remembered when they told me, had been dialled down to minimum dispersal just before I went in to face Kawahara. Sheer luck I'd left it that way. By the time the rapidly summoned UN forensics team arrived on Head in the Clouds to take evidence under Ortega's direction, Trepp had vanished, as had my grav harness from the atmosphere sampling turret where I'd come aboard. I didn't know whether Ortega and Bautista had seen fit to let the mercenary go in view of the testimony she could give concerning the Panama Rose, or if Trepp had simply staggered off stage before the police got: there. Ortega had volunteered no information and there wasn't enough left of our previous intimacy for me to ask her outright. This was the first time we'd discussed it openly.