"I’ll call back," the elf said curtly and hit the Disconnect. London was close, and a friend who was a member of the House of Lords might be protection worth having. But for the moment he was still alone and twitching in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar airport thousands of miles and an ocean away from home. His hands were shaking even worse than usual. No one seemed to pay him the least attention, however. Looking around, Serrin saw the standard fare of all airports at five in the morning: the beginnings of the business commuter traffic headed for Brussels or Strasbourg; jilted lovers red-eyed and morose; sleepless and angry people denied their flights by some incompetent engineer or air-traffic controller: drunks and chipheads laid out on benches airport security hadn’t yet gotten around to cleaning up. Dimly, Serrin remembered some phrase from an English poet: Isn’t life a terrible thing, thank God? But God, if he exists. couldn’t have created airports, the elf thought glumly. Drek, I should just get on the next plane back to UCAS, to anywhere they can take me. So what if that’s what somebody’s probably expecting me to do? What other choice have I got?