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softly into her neck. As a matter of fact, he’s gone to sleep right on top of her. Like something a woman would do.

She dozes, too. Lies there for a minute or two, all these thoughts going through her head.

This is a pretty nice place. Like a mid-priced business hotel in the Valley. She never figured anything like this existed on the Raft. But there’s rich people and poor people here, too, just like anywhere else.

When they came to a certain place on the walkway, not far from the first of the big Core ships, there was an armed guard blocking the way. He let Raven go on through, and Raven took Y.T. with him, leading her by the hand, and the guard gave her a look but he didn’t say anything, he was keeping most of his attention on Raven.

After that, the walkway got a lot nicer. It was broad, like the boardwalk at the beach, and not quite so crowded with old Chinese ladies carrying gigantic bundles on their backs. And it didn’t smell like shit quite so much.

When they got to the first Core ship, there was a stairway that took them from sea level up to its deck. From there, they took a gangplank across to the innards of another ship, and Raven led her through the place like he’d been through it a mfflion times, and eventually they crossed another gangplank into this containership. And it was just like afucking hotel in there: bellhops with white gloves carrying luggage for guys in suits, a registration desk, everything. It was still a ship-everything’s made out of steel that has been painted white a million times over-but nothing like what she expected. There’s even a little helipad where the suits can come and go. There’s a chopper parked next to it with a logo she’s seen before: Rife Advanced Research Enterprises. RARE. The people who gave her the envelope to deliver to EBGOC headquarters. All of this is fitting together now: the Feds and L. Bob Rife and the Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates and the Raft are all part of the same deal.

“Who the hell are all these people?” she asked Raven when she first saw it. But he just shushed her.

She asked him again jater, as they were wandering around

looking for their room, arid he told her: These guys all work for

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