eld agent.

In which case, it was possible DarLowrie had obtained more information
than Owajima had intended--including that the information had been set
up for him to find. And where had DarLowrie learned such a skill? Not
on any of the Sandeman worlds, which weren't given to such subtleties.
The only places Owajima knew, in fact, that taught more than the most
basic such reading were the Kai school here, and the Imperial field
agent school on Terra. No Sandeman had ever studied here, and he was
aware of only one who had successfully completed field agent training--his
predecessor as top agent, Nevan DarLeras, now sworn to the Crown
Princess by the totally-binding Sandeman personal-fealty oath.

That left a graduate of one of those two schools as DarLowrie's
teacher. An ex-field agent was by far the more likely, if only because
there were many more of them, and few Kai-school ninjas left Nippon-Ni.
Take that as a working hypothesis, then. In that case, was it likely
the agent had taught DarLowrie only face and body reading?

It would be safest, Owajima thought, to operate on the worst-case
assumption that DarLowrie had learned most, if not all, of an agent's
skills. He would need them, if he had any intention of assassinating
Owajima on his home territory and then escaping.

Should he simply eliminate DarLowrie, or would it be better to capture
and question him? The second, Owajima decided almost immediately.
That would be more difficult, but it might be a good idea to discover
the agent reckless enough to teach such skills to anyone able to pay--and
discourage . . .

He was going to do it himself. He could and would ask for help from
his former colleagues, the Shogun's secret police--but attempted murder
of an Imperial officer was an Imperial crime; they didn't have
jurisdiction. He could call in assistance, but that was something
field agents were, as an occupational characteristic, disinclined to do
unless there was no other way to get the job done--which, at this
point, was not the case.

* * * * *

Nevan spent the first two days of his flight to Nippon-Ni studying
everything the Last Resort's ship-comp had available about that planet.
It sounded interesting, and he decided he'd like to visit sometime when
he could do so openly; it had been settled by Japanese who wanted to
return to the days of the Samurai, without giving up modern
conveniences or an industrial base. They e