The commotion had begun softly and had quickly become impossible to ignore. Emma had stopped reading her magazine after the first two minutes, and had stopped pretending to read it after the next two. Eventually the flustered young woman managed to pack all the items scattered across the Passport Control counter back into her handbag, and slunk away.

Emma stood up, folded the magazine backward to mark her place, placed it neatly in her own bag, straightened her skirt, and followed. She closed on the young woman when the latter stopped to stare up in dismay at the DEPARTURES board.

"I'd have thought," she said, "you'd be accustomed to the judges of the underworld by now."

The young woman turned to look at this unexpected speaker. She startled upon recognizing Emma, but caught herself reasonably well. "Oh, no!" she said. "I've never actually left the country before. I mean, I don't think going to Scotland counts, does it? I did know they'd want it--I just could have sworn I'd put it in my coat pocket. What do you suppose they'd do if I hadn't been able to find it?"

"I imagine they'd have turned you out and sent you back to England," Emma said, and it would have served you right, she almost appended. But the little idiot looked so crestfallen that she couldn't. "Your connection isn't connecting?" Needless remark, really; the airport was nearly at a standstill.

"The weather, I suppose."

Emma nodded. "I'm surprised your flight managed to land." And not with all aboard who should have been.

"How long will it be like this, do you think?"

"They have not confided in me. But I've been hearing dire announcements. The 'I'd look into a hotel' sort of dire."

"My wonderful timing strikes again."

Emma had never seen someone go from "carrying on valiantly" to "utterly exhausted" so quickly. All of the remaining energy had left the young woman's body at once. Her shoulders, the way she held her arms; a completely different person from seconds before. Emma studied her face, trying to see beneath the weariness.

"Let's go have a drink," Emma said to Tara King.

- - -

Tara surprised Emma by asking for dry sherry; the bartender surprised Emma by being able to supply it. "Where'd you learn to like that?"

"I don't--I mean, I didn't! I had an aunt who was always serving it, and I absolutely hated it. But it was the sweet kind, you see. Then a few years ago I met a student from Madrid, and he got me to try this. I'm surprised you like whiskey; I can't go near the stuff."

"Ah, my husband's to blame for that," replied Emma. "But I'm slowly cultivating a taste for it."

The word "husband" shoved Tara out of her temporary animation. Emma considered the approaches. There were a hundred hooks on which to hang a conversation, and none of them seemed to work here. Perhaps it was best just to go for the siege direct.

"Are you fleeing permanently, or just temporarily?"

Tara looked a bit like she had just been struck by a car, or had realized she was about to be. "I don't--how did you know?"

"You didn't really look like you were going on holiday. You haven't been sacked, surely?" She hoped Tara was circumspect enough to be able to discuss the topic in public. Then again, the bar was full, and a loud bar was safer than a quiet one.

"I might as well have been."

Emma cocked her head and waited.

"Oh, I don't see why not," Tara eventually said, grimacing. "At least you're above suspicion."

"I wasn't always," Emma replied. "I gather they thought you were doing something you shouldn't have?"

"I was set up. An information broker was planting evidence to make it look like I was selling him secrets. And the ministry believed it! A few mysterious phone calls to my flat and they were ready to call me a traitor!"

"Did Steed believe it?" Emma asked gently.

"Yes."

"Oh."

"He took my side eventually, but I had to set him up in the same way to prove the point." Tara took a large gulp of her sherry, managed to not quite choke. "He doesn't trust me," she said after she had swallowed. "He doesn't think I know what I'm doing. Well, perhaps I don't. Maybe I wasn't ready! No one asked me."

Emma sipped her drink and waited, but that seemed to be all there was of the outburst.

"Well, you won't be helping your case by running away," she said.

"Oh, no, I've a fortnight's leave," Tara said. "The question is whether I go back at the end of it."

"Even so. If you resign, they'll say 'we were right about her all along.'"

Tara studied Emma's face with unexpected alertness.

"He misses you terribly, you know," she said.

Emma shut her eyes. "Yes, I imagine he does."

"And I'm not you."

Emma opened her eyes again, but kept them on her glass. She felt a scrutiny she hadn't been under since--well, that had been a long time ago.

"All right, say I'm bad at this," the younger woman continued. "But I might improve--if I weren't constantly being held to a standard no one thinks I'll ever be able to meet! Would you do it? Would you stay somewhere where you were constantly being told you weren't good enough and never would be?"

Outside the huge windows there was almost no light left. The night had come early, with the pounding snow-rain. Less than a decade between them. Did it really make that much of a difference, Emma wondered? Had she ever been this unsure, this vulnerable? Of course she had. But it seemed so distant now.

"My father died," Emma said, "when I was twenty-one. He left me in charge of his entire operation. Titan of industry and all that. He hadn't informed me of his plans."

"But you ran it. I mean, you went ahead and did it--and you were splendid--"

"I didn't feel I had a choice. And I wasn't splendid; that's why I bring it up. The first six months were a nightmare."

Tara was wide-eyed. "What happened?"

"The organization was ... odd. I looked at it and thought, 'Well, I'm not sure why Father left this such a mess, I can do better than that.' Each time I did, I found he'd done it that way for sound reasons, and each time my meddling was disastrous. There were two nearly identical lines of research, each its own group. I thought I could consolidate those. It turned out the two heads of those groups despised each other. Father hadn't wanted to lose either of them. I lost both of them."

"Oh."

"I was shown a new pressure nozzle which would save us a great deal of money in production. I wasn't told that the project head never did adequate testing. The nozzles worked quite well for several days' constant use. After that, they fell apart. Exploded, really. We were obliged to replace a quarter million of them. That would have been all right, but I also let our publicity agent convince me to let him put out a ridiculous story that it was due to an unusually wet summer! I remember one trade newsletter titled their article KNIGHT EXCUSE: ALL WET."

Tara had her hand over her mouth to conceal her smile. "Oh, no, it's amusing now," Emma said, "but at the time I felt I was destroying my father's legacy single-handedly. I almost resigned."

"But you didn't. What--Oh, this sounds terribly rude--what stopped you?"

"I spent a few days with an old friend," Emma said, "and she convinced me I could weather it. She said the problem was that I thought I could look up anything I needed to know. But that doesn't work for people."

"It certainly doesn't," Tara said, sadly.

It's interesting, Emma thought. She doesn't seem to be herself very often. I wonder what she thinks she's supposed to be.

"She believed I could do it, which is exactly what I needed." And she made me feel that someone wanted me, Emma thought, but we won't discuss that. "I returned to work the next week." Emma lifted her glass high to drain the last drops.

"If you'll forgive my asking: Why did you leave? Your father's business, I mean."

"That's a long story. The brief version is that I was bored. Would you like another drink?"

"Oh!" Tara looked around at the dark windows. "I suppose I should be finding a room--"

"I have an idea. Come back to my hotel. I'm sure they have space. I have champagne chilling in my room. We can order in some dinner, and I'll tell you the story. How does that sound?"

"You have champagne in your room. What am I interrupting?"

"Not a thing. I was supposed to be meeting someone on your plane. He apparently didn't catch it."

"And his loss is my gain?"

Emma shrugged. "Don't try to tell me you work with Steed and yet don't drink champagne."

Tara briefly got the oncoming-car look again. Then she visibly dispelled it and smiled. "All right."