Bython Samudragupta-Xuanxiao took a deep whiff from his snifter of bubbly golden snuffwine. The intoxicating fumes lit up his synapses and inflated his already filled-to-bursting ego. He could feel it touching every part of his body.

Bython wore his most peacockian of outfits for this occasion, trimmed with the fur of extinct alien monsters and sporting not two, not three, but five of the most bedazzling capes ever constructed by mortal hands. No man, or woman, or member of any non-analogous alien sex for that matter, could claim to wear more capes than Bython!

Bython breathed deeply from his glass again. He looked out across the ballroom, at all his refined and colorfully dressed guests enjoying themselves, and he realized they all needed to hear about his personal philosophies at great length. He inhaled from his snuffwine again. Yes. The wanted a speech.

He tapped his glass with a spoon to make a sharp ringing noise, and get the attention to which he was entitled. Once he had silence, and all eyes were on him, he launched into his speech as though it had been expected.

"I've lived a long life during which I have seen some of the best and most horrific humanity has to offer, and I've come to an important conclusion. An important philosophy- my core philosophy. And that is this: money isn't what's important in life. What does money represent anyway? It doesn't represent wealth it represents debt. Poverty. No, the Cooperative is almost right on that point. Money isn't what's important in life. What's important in life is the things that money can buy. Things. Possessions. That's what life is all about. Who has the most expensive things? Who has the rarest, the most extravagant, the most exotic things?"

Bython smiled as he noted several of his guests muttering in polite agreement. How could they not? His correctness was self-evident.

"True wealth isn't about money," he reiterated. "It's about using that money to acquire the best things. And that's why I'm the richest human alive. Not because I own a third of a percent of a share of Saturn Starlifting or because I'm heir to the Xuanxiao fortune," he waved his hand dismissively, "but because I have the best things. The most spectacular. The most noteworthy. That is, at heart, why we're all gathered here today: so that the rest of you can bask in the reflected glory of all my wonderful possessions."

"Hear hear!" said a finely dressed woman who didn't seem to have been entirely paying attention.

She began to golf clap. The others politely joined her. Bython beamed with pride; his party was going swimmingly.

The party was inside a rustic ballroom, which was inside a hunting lodge, which was on a miniature continental plate, which was on a 50-kilometer-long starship, which was shooting through realspace at 99 of c in the opposite direction of the nearest wormhole router. This made it entirely inaccessible to anything but a hyperspace-capable starship.

The Palace Of Forbidden Delights And Hunting, as it was called, was flat-topped with the upper section fully exposed to naked space. The atmosphere was held in by several layers of transparent force fields. Multiple layers of fields protected the inhabitants from the countless other hazards of space travel.

Sam Decker was not wearing his usual green ranger's cloak, but he was wearing two capes for some asinine reason or other. Everyone here was dressed like a complete bayard, though, so he blended right in. Or so he hoped. If he didn't it wasn't his fault because he certainly didn't choose this ridiculous outfit.

Decker took a sip of his golden drink. He made a face; it tasted awful.

<You're not supposed to drink it, you're supposed to smell it,> Ophelia scolded him. She was able to bypass the ship's own communications network, they didn't trust it, and message him through their personal implant-to-implant connection.

Ophelia Annesdaughter was an A.R.C. ranger like Decker, but from a different lodge. He might be tempted to say "much different" but he wasn't sure how much of her behavior he could reasonably blame on the Violet Motley. They had been partners ever since they saved human civilization that one time.

Not that the ungrateful jerks over in human civilization cared.

Ophelia wasn't wearing any capes, but she did have on a dangerously low cut dress that Decker was trying very hard not to stare at. He suspected it involved AG of some kind. It had all kinds of extra semi-transparent nonsense all over it that Decker didn't know the names of. It all added up to approximately the same amount of ridiculousness as two capes. These people were on the absolute bleeding edge of dressing like bayards.

It was also the first time he had ever seen Ophelia's hair in anything besides her usual frizzy twin pigtails. Instead it was meticulously curled and styled. She radiated beauty in spite of her outfit.

Outwardly she was all smiles but inwardly he knew Ophelia was seething.

The speech seemed to be over, and a few of the partiers returned to the antigravity bubble at the center of the room to resume dancing. A finely calibrated privacy field blocked the dance music from leaving the confines of the bubble but allowed other sounds to pass through. Outside of the bubble the music was more subdued and classical.

<So what about the zoo?> Ophelia asked Decker, as though he had the answer. <The whole point of this entire ridiculous party is supposed to be the unveiling of the zoo! Why give a speech like that if you're not about to unveil the zoo?>

<He probably forgot,> observed Decker. <He's too high or drunk or whatever this stuff makes you.>

"I say I approve of this music. Do you happen to know the precise genre?" Decker asked aloud.

While they focused most of their attention on their mental communications, the two put on a show of having a regular spoken conversation as cover.

"It's Reverse Blue Neo New Classical Revival," replied Ophelia. "Textbook."

<I've had enough of this. I'm just going to ask him about it.>

<Might be better to hang back and wait a while longer. I don't know that our cover identities will survive overmuch scrutiny.>

"Reverse?" asked Decker.

<Yours might not. My cover identity is 'the girl in the low cut dress' and it is beam-proof.>

"Reverse *Blue*," said Ophelia, in mock exasperation.

<I'll hang back then I'd only cramp your style. Stay in contact.>

<QX,> she signaled. Even though mental communications did not exactly resolve as sound he could still positively hear Ophelia's Tau accent.

"Hm," said Decker, feigning hurt. "Indeed."

"I believe I shall go and greet our host," said Ophelia, as though it had just occurred to her.

Ophelia gracefully weaved through the crowd and made her way to Bython's orbit. Numerous hangers on were waiting a polite distance from him, hoping to be acknowledged or perhaps even granted a few lines of conversation. She squeezed through and went directly up to him.

"That was a wonderful speech you made just now, about how you can use money to buy things. Powerful stuff," she said.

She delicately maneuvered herself just inside Bython's personal space. Just on the edge.

"I don't believe we've met miss...?"

"Kalifa Evesdaughter," Ophelia lied.

"I thought I recognized that accent, you're from Tau. The Cooperative. How quaint. I, of course, am the man himself Bython Samudragupta-Xuanxiao. But you knew this."

He took a deep inhale from his snifter, closing his eyes to enjoy it.

"Naturally," said Ophelia. "I hope you won't hold my homering against me," she continued, "Politically I'm very much with the outer colonies. What business is it of the Cooperative how you conduct yourselves? The whole point of the colonies is to be free of Cooperative influence, control and even technology. It's the last place you can find real human beings living real lives by the sweat of their own brow. Marvelous, romantic stuff."

Bython laughed. Ophelia felt he had an especially dorky laugh.

"No my dear," he said, still grinning, "I don't know that I would hold your origins against you at all. I think we are very much of a mind on the subject of the Cooperative."

Ophelia moved her snifter to her nose and pretended to inhale. Bython mirrored the action, breathing deeply.

<See?> Ophelia signaled Decker. <He's clay in my hands.>

<Actually I can't see you two clearly through all these people so I don't know what's going on,> replied Decker.

<I just told you what's going on. He's clay in my hands,> replied Ophelia. <Go up to the top of the dance bubble you can get a better vantage point.>

<Good idea.>

"So now that you've given your speech are you going to unveil the zoo soon?" asked Ophelia "I'm quite excited about it. I do love animals."

"Why Miss Evesdaughter I am preparing to do exactly that only this minute," said Bython. "I was only waiting, you see, until the anticipation of seeing my amazing and exotic menagerie was too much for some beautiful young lady and she would have no choice but to approach me to ask about it. So it would appear the time has come at last!"

Bython made to grab Ophelia's behind, but she was too skilled a martial artist to catch. She dodged his handsiness while hiding it behind excited flitting about.

"Wonderful," she said, feigning innocence, "I can't wait!"

Bython was defeated but, he felt, the night was young. He tapped on his glass again.

"Ladies, gentleman and proudthings," he said, "Please follow me. Very shortly you will have the great honor and pleasure to see the unveiling of the most spectacular zoo in the Milky Way! In all probability the most spectacular in the universe! It is an achievement in exotic animal collecting unparalleled until now. Once you have seen it you will all know what true wealth is."