People tended to guard themselves during live encounters, such as being questioned by receptionist. Once past a check point, the body and mind relaxed, and hidden thoughts strayed to surface. If she was guilty of anything, her relief at having made it this far would be apparent.

She had to appear normal. Most people would be slightly nervous before a job interview and Claire all owed herself some mild anxiety. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The elevator door slid open. Claire stepped inside.

The door closed and the aerodynamic cabin accelerated upward.

Shaped like an elongated flower bud, the Guardian Building contained an inner core of offices and working spaces, up the side of which the elevator now climbed. This inner core sat within an outer shel of twisting steel beams forming a diagonal grid, the outer surface of the bud. Solar glass panels sheathed the diagonal spaces between the twisting beams, flooding the inside of the building with a warm golden light that set the polished granite floor of the enormous lobby aglow. The diagrid must've been enormously heavy, but bathed in the sunlight, it seemed ethereal, almost weightless. It was so beautiful, it felt magic.

Her memory served up the recol ection of her home world, spare boxes of skyscrapers, canyon streets, her grey apartment, the steel and worn plastic of the spartan spaceship she'd boarded two weeks ago... She couldn't decide if those memories were a nightmare or if this airy building with its bright colors and smiling people in vivid clothes was a lovely delusional dream.

Deep inside, beneath her shields, anxiety churned.

Making it to this planet had been a miracle. If her shields failed, she faced immediate deportation. She couldn't go back. Not after seeing this. Besides, if she was deported back to Uley, she'd never make it out of spaceport. There would be a death squad waiting for her at the spacecraft's door.

Below her people moved through the lobby. The men wore formfitting black and grey, the women chose flowing dresses and bright colors. What must it be like to come to work here every day? Did they ever become immune to this beauty?

The elevator stopped. Claire sighed, loathe to leave the view behind, turned and exited into a narrow hal way, its indigo, almost black, wal s reflective like a dark mirror.

Above her, long ribbons of dark blue luminescent plastic, set on their edge, ran paral el to each other, curving and twisting like three-dimensional current of a river. The transparent floor reflected it, and as she walked down the hal way, Claire had an absurd feeling she was swimming.

The hal way opened into a wide chamber, the transparent floor replaced by grey marble. Pale blue and grey couches lined the wal s. Two men and three women sat on the couch cushions. Her shield didn't permit her to actively scan their minds, but it didn't prevent her from listening to their psychic emissions. She was open to any signal, like a satel ite dish.

The woman on the right, with purple streaks in her black hair, had a loud mind, powerful, but untrained. all her thoughts floated around her like noise above a spaceport.

An easy target. The woman on the left was more restrained, but weak. Of the three men, two were trained psychers, but both were mediocre. She had more training by the time she was fifteen. The final man showed no psychic activity at all , his mind practical y invisible. On Uley, he would be a dud.

Here the term was drone, apparently.

A tal middle-aged woman in an artful y draped, deep red dress stepped through the arched doorway at the end of the room. She was carrying a tablet. The woman looked her over, her gaze precise like the beam of a bio scanner.

"Claire Shannon?"

"Yes."

The woman stared at her with brown eyes. Her mind sliced through Claire's surface thoughts with a laser precision and fell short of the shel . That was the beauty of mirroring surface thoughts over the shel - nobody realized the shields were there.

"Take this," the woman said, handing her the tablet.

"There are three tests loaded on the tablet. Sit down and complete them. You will be cal ed."

Inwardly Claire exhaled.

"Rokero Grenali," the woman said.

The older of the men rose and approached her. They disappeared through the doorway.

Claire sat. The polished wal presented her with her own reflection: a severe grey skirt that clasped her narrow waist, a conservative pale blouse, dul brownish hair pul ed away from her face. Of the three changes of clothes she was permitted to bring, this was the best, most feminine outfit she owned. She could count on her fingers occasions when she had worn civilian clothes in the last year.

The other two women were looking at her. One wore a slick silvery business suit, the other a vivid red and orange dress. Their minds betrayed their reactions: pity tinged with superiority. They felt prettier. They were bright dahlia blossoms, and she was a drab mouse. They dismissed her.

It hurt. It hurt and stung her pride. The emotions boiled inside and bounced off her inner shields. Her face, reflected in the polished wal , was calm. The outer surface of her mind was col ected. Nothing showed except for the mild anxiety, typical to any job applicant. She had too much discipline to let any emotion seep through.

She shouldn't have been this unsettled. First the anxiety from the landing, then tests, the echoes of PPP stil humming through her skul , and now the realization that she stood out after a lifetime of being told to how important it was to perfectly fit in. She attracted too much attention. all those factors shredded her normal poise to tatters. It's the sensory overload, she told herself. It will be fine. She had over eight hundred combat missions behind her. This was just one more.

Claire slid a stylus from its holder on the side of the tablet and scanned the tests. A written and mathematical proficiency, a psychological questionnaire, and a card test.

The virtual deck contained fifty-two cards in two sets, one red, one black. Each card bore a single symbol: a circle, a triangle, a diamond, or a long narrow rectangle. The program dealt cards face down and the user had to indicate color and shape. It was the simplest of psychic tests.

She had to make sure she failed it.

*** *** ***

"Shannon," the woman cal ed.

Claire stood up and crossed the now empty hal to the woman in red. She was the last applicant of the day. Her chances of being hired had shrunk to miniscule.

"My name is Lienne," the woman informed her. "Fol ow me."

They crossed through another dark hal . Claire braced herself. Whoever waited for her would scour her mind. Her shields had to hold.

They entered a large room. To the left, a floor to ceiling window showed the view of the diagrid envelope, the light streaming through the solar panels now the deep honey of late afternoon. Three plush crescent-shaped couches formed a ring in the middle of the room with a cream-colored coffee table made of reflective plasti-glass in the center. Further, a crescent desk of the same material curved from the wal , on which a large screen hung, streaming some sort of data. A tal blond man stood with his back to her. He turned at their approach and Claire almost stumbled.

He had a strong, masculine face, with a square clean-shaven jaw. On Uley, blond people had a washed out, sickly look, their skin too white, their hair verging on transparent.

His skin was flawless bronze, his hair a pale, almost white gold. His broad shoulders strained the fabric of his tailored light-grey summer doublet, the outline of muscle on his chest and arms plainly visible under the thin fabric.

Everything about him, from the way he turned, graceful and perfectly balanced, to the way he held himself now, communicated health, strength, and power. He was sun-kissed, golden, overwhelming.

His dark green eyes focused on her, reflecting a sharp, perceptive intel ect. The eyes of a man who could be either very generous or completely ruthless. The man smiled, at once charming and reassuring, and she felt the power of his mind. It was like a typhoon held back, enclosed in a self-imposed cage.

It was too much. Every coping mechanism that let her make it this far col apsed. She stared with no idea how to respond.

He was larger than life.

Lienne cleared her throat.

The sound shattered her trance. Claire closed her mouth.

"You're Claire," the man said, his voice resonant, communicating strength as much as his body did.

"Yes?" she answered, reeling from the shock.

"My name is Venturo Escana," he said.

The Escana kinsman family, a distant part of her mind informed her. They owned Guardian, Inc., and Venturo Escana led the family. She was facing the god of this beautiful building.

"This is my aunt Lienne Escana; she is my second in command. Please sit down," he invited her to the couch.

She sat on autopilot, smoothing her skirt over her legs.

She felt so out of place here, in this office. Venturo sat across from her. Lienne sat on the same couch as he, leaving several feet between them.

"You're a refugee," he said.

She couldn't sit there, mute, and simply stare. Claire forced herself to formulate words. "Yes."

"As I understand, our planet made an arrangement with your home world. We agreed to accept a certain number of refugees in return for the use of Uley's interstel ar bases as refuel points. I understand your home world made these arrangements with a number of other planets."

"That's correct," she said. He was keeping his mind firmly away from hers. It was an exquisitely polite gesture.

She had expected him to batter her the moment she entered the room.

"It must've been very difficult to leave your world."

He had no idea. "I've been very fortunate to arrive here."

"Do you like it here?" he asked with genuine interest.

"It's very beautiful," she said. "Very bright." Too bright.

Too vivid. Too many smiles. Men that were... that were...

"We try to live life to its ful est," he said.

He didn't intend anything sexual by it, but inside her shields, his words triggered an image of him naked. It flashed before her, stunning in its shamelessness. She wanted to touch him.

I'm losing my mind.

"I suppose we have to begin the interview now," he said, almost apologetic. "It's important that you answer with complete honesty. Lienne and I are monitoring your thoughts. We will be able to detect a lie."