No, Simon thought, she probably hasn't had much reason to dance in a very long time. The thought was sobering, and left him enough in his own head to have missed the tension even if it had been obvious.

Wherever you're from? Simon blinked, not a little stupidly, and remembered again what that woman, Lust, had told him the first day. Her explanation had said that people came from different times. Simon wrinkled his brow.

"Max Nexus?" he asked, and the rest of it was difficult. "It would depend on your interpretation," he added, wording careful. The Alliance was an impressive government, but with it came intense corruption he had only began to see. He had no experience with the situations on the border planets, the rumors he had heard had been cast off as silly in his youth, and were only marginally more plausible now that he, too, was on the wrong side of the law.