Dieter's mouth snapped shut as a warning battered at the mizir. He was in the Beaufort enclave; the enclaves enjoyed extraterritoriality; and on Beaufort, dueling was an accepted fact of life.. He stared at the giant before him, and for the first time he understood the difference be- tween a patiently plodding ox and a charging bull.

"I--I--was He fought for words. "This is... is preposter- ous! Barbaric! You can't be--was "Aye, we're to be called barbarians," Ladislaus agreed grimly, "but it's to meet me you'll be for all of that." "I--I won't!" Dieter gasped desperately.

"No?" Ladislaus wrapped one hand in the New Zuricher's tunic, and muscles bred to a gravity a thirdeaagiin that of Old Terra's rippled as he lifted him from the floor. "You've the right to be calling barbarians, but not the guts to be facing one, have you? But it's on Beaufort soil you are the now! It's Beaufort law has the ruling of it here." "Let him go, Skjorning!" It was Fouchet, his hand still inside his tunic, and Ladislaus' blue eyes moved coldly to the security man's tighteaface.

"Chief?." the big Friffger said softly.

"Mister Fouchet," Fionna's voice rang through the hor- rified room, "You are legally on the soil of Beaufort, and as chief of her delegation, I will thank you to remove your hand from your tunieempty." Fouchet eyed her contemptuously, then paled.

Three grim-faced Assembly lictors stood behind her, stun batons in hand and a hard light in their eyes. He hadn't seen them appear, but he knew whose orders they would obey in this room.

His hand came out of his tunic--empty.

"Thank you," Fionna said icily, then touched Ladislaus lightly on the arm. "Put him down, Lad," she said quietly.

For a moment it seemed the towering blond giant might refuse, then he slammed Dieter back onto his feet, and the Corporate Wodder swayed. Fionna's eyes were emer- ald ice, but her voice was colder.