A view tank rose from a well at the front of the room, glowed, and cleared to show the Special Zone. Charon and its background of stars had been dimmed to reduce the clutter. In the foreground, the Slingshot Logistics Depot and its maze of ships, tugs, articulated cranes and flex-conveyers were portrayed busily engaged in loading and unloading the moored vessels, and the new arrivals that waited for their turn. A flurry rippled through the room as a door panel slid back into its slot and the Ambassadors strode in from an anteroom. They were men and women of varying appearance: tall and short, slender and rotund, and cadaverous and fleshy. More than half wore the military uniforms and ranks of their nation, and the rest were in the colorful robes of their offices and governments. Mostly in their middle years, they had the hard, arrogant look of ruthless power, survivors of craft and intrigue. Faces suspicious and wary, they took places around the table. None spoke. A brusque announcement cut the silence. "The President of Planet Pluto." President Narval, haughty in appearance and adorned in red-black robes of office, entered to the sound of sliding chairs and rustling garments as all present rose to their feet. Narval's massive body, pear-shaped and tapering into short legs and diminutive feet, shuffled forward in top-heavy gait. Drummer entered behind Narval and moved to stand silently beside a lectern adjacent the view tank. Sunken between ponderous shoulders, Narval's hairless head was small and neckless, his face smooth-pale with thin-lipped mouth and a stumpy nose. Cold, deep-embedded eyes constantly shifted focus and direction. His small hands, fingers laden with rings, appeared to drip from his sleeves. ## Lumbering to his raised chair at the head of the table, Narval laboriously stepped up and sat, lifted his hand to his mouth and nibbled at a fingernail. Finally, satisfied, he held the finger up, examined it and redirected his attention to his audience. President Reen Narval had earned the fear and respect that he enjoyed. A victor of scores of battles for control of the planet's criminal syndicates and political machinery, Narval had left a trail of blood and broken bones behind him as a warning to challengers. Challengers to his rule did not survive. A man of many talents, Narval had migrated to Planet Pluto from an independent colony orbiting Callisto. He had accepted expulsion from the place of his birth as the alternative to the court's sentence of labor in Callisto's encapsulated subsurface mines. Educated and trained to practice law in the Outer Region's inter-satellite and interplanetary courts he had, instead, become a serious liability to his government and to his community.