She tethered it herself. "I want you to put me down on Iago Iago," she said. "I'll pay you—pay you well. It would have been impractical for me to take a passenger ship—with so many witnesses, the pilot wouldn't have dared to land me. I—I gambled that a loner like yourself might. Iago Iago's in conjunction now, and you won't lose more than a few hours, and no one will ever know."
He was staring at her. "Iago Iago! Why should you want me to put you down in Iago Iago?"
"The Polysirians are expecting the resurrection of their supreme saint. I—I want to be on hand to witness it."
"Nonsense!" Drake said. "When you're dead, you're dead, and that goes for saints and sinners alike."
Golden flecks danced briefly in her brown eyes. "Does it, Mr. Drake? Then how do you explain the Potomac Peregrination?"
"I don't have to explain it because I don't believe in it. But to get back to specifics: even assuming that there is a resurrection about to take place on Iago Iago, there would be no way for the news to have reached you."
"We have ways. Call it an interplanetary grapevine, if you like.... The supreme saint prophesied that he would rise from the dead before the passing of a single year and appear in the heavens for all to see, and then descend among the people."
To gain time for reflection, Drake dropped the subject and asked her name. "Annabelle," she said. "Saint Annabelle Leigh."
"And how old are you?"