If the indictment comes as a surprise, it doesn't show on Ralston's face. Standing there at the edge of some light's pool, his smile becomes only fractionally more fixed and there is no spark of alarm at all his blackly dark eyes.

He is unamused, maybe. Mister Ralston. He'd been considerate enough to give her his title, and for what?

The stick is fetched up and tucked under his arm. As he does it, Ralston forces himself to acknowledge that he needn't lean on it here. If he fixes that point in his mind, it will become as true as anything else on the Horizon.

"Your Aleksandra has even worse manners than I'd guessed at."