"I was certain they'd sell, ma'am. We were offering them ten years of income for a successful melon grower!"

"An attractive offer," the woman conceded. "Yet you say they refused it. Why?"

"I-I'm not certain, ma'am," the purser said unhappily.

"They must have given some indication," she pointed out, and he nodded.

"As near as I could figure it out, they simply didn't want the money, ma'am. I talked to old Esteban, the yokel who runs the field, and he just said his wife, his father, and his grandfather were all buried in the plot behind his house. That... that was fairly typical of what all of them said, ma'am."

"Parochialism," the woman said distastefully. She shook her head, and her tongue made a clicking sound against her teeth. "Regretfully typical of these untutored frontier people. I suppose I ought to have expected it-and you should have anticipated it as well, Mister Bergren." She cocked her head. "I fear you've served us less than satisfactorily in this matter."

"I did my best, Madam Osterwelt!"

"I'm sure you did. That's the problem." The purser wilted before the chill dispassion of her voice, and she made a weary shooing motion with one hand. "We'll be in touch, Mister Bergren."

The purser withdrew with obvious relief, and the woman pressed a stud on her desk panel. A discreetly hidden door opened silently within twenty seconds, and an athletic young man walked in.

"Yes, Mother?"

"You were right about Bergren, Gerald. The man's an utter incompetent."

"Is he?"

"Utterly," she sighed. "How fortunate that no one knows he was acting for us. In fact, I think it would be a very good idea to take steps to ensure that no one ever does know he was representing our interests."

"I'll see to it," Gerald said, and she smiled at him.

"A good son is a mother's greatest treasure." She sat back in her chair and folded her hands atop the desk while she gazed across the office at the subtly shifting patterns of a light sculpture.