These are actually mine, but the setting and ideas come from Joss and Co. All power and glory to the Joss...

Ma En Lai checked into his hotel and went straight to work. By and by, he ordered in xiao chi, little eats, and tipped the man absently when he brought it. He ate while he researched the other passengers and crew of Orihime, for he was a careful man, and did not act without all the information he could get, or without knowing his own mind.

His enemies had called him 'the little rat-dog,' for good reason, and his friends, well, En Lai didn't really have friends, he had colleagues.

There was a knock on his door, and En Lai saw that six hours had passed. He turned on the local news as he got up to answer the door. The top story was piracy.

The man at the door was the very tall servant of Barbara Hambly, Howard Trent. He wore his servile persona, but to En Lai's careful eye, the other one was peeking out of those eyes, the hard Alliance special forces vet, not the Butler and cook for a silly old High Society Lady. Perhaps we all wear masks, he thought, but that was an alien concept, to him. Ma En Lai did not dissemble; with him, what you see is what you get.

"Madame would like a word with you, sir. She said that she would be very grateful, if you could spare a few minutes of your valuable time."

En Lai blinked, and considered all of the ways that the man could choose to enforce her will on a retired civil servant, and decided, under the circumstances, to acquiesce.

"Of course. Allow me to shut down my cortex box, and wash up? I was not expecting to wait upon a great lady, at this hour," En Lai added. It was pointless and rude to make the man wait in the hall while he did this, so he let him in, and a little while later the two of them left again.

(BTW, for them as know who I'm talking about, Hambly would be comfortable in the company of Inarra Serra, Lady Alys Vorpatril and Sam Vimes' wife, whose name escapes me, tho I could always look, Thud! is around here, somewhere...) –VLC

***

Local time on Beaumonde, this part of the planet, was oh-dark-hundred, and Sergeant Trent, Howie to his friends, breathed in, deep. The smells of a working ranch, and the country-side, at dawn, were like heaven, to a city-born boy turned rustic. He relaxed, and then immediately chucked that frame of mind. He was on the clock, still. Service, duty you chose for yourself to give your life meaning, that did not ever end, until you drew your last breath. And sometimes, not then.

The strange little mandarin sitting across from him looked up from his book. It was a reproduction of an ancient original copy, characters painstakingly carved into bamboo strips and blackened, strips bound together into pages, pages bound together into a book; Sun Tzu's Art of War.

"Are we here?"

"Yes. This is the Sunshine Ranch. Madame... my lady comes here when she is troubled. It is a place of beauty and serenity."

Ma En Lai simply nodded, and put his book away in a pouch, one apparently designed to hold it, as if it were a bible, or the Koran, or something. Carol drove up to the front of the ranch house, the main house, and came around to get En Lai's door, for Trent had already jumped out, and was casting about, the briefcase he liked to carry in his left hand, and his right hovering near the quick-release. After a second he relaxed, and smiled. En Lai glanced at him, curious, and noted how the worry lines had smoothed.

Did this outing take you away from your mistress, old dog? He thought. Aloud, he said, "It is, indeed, peaceful and... I should like, very much, to paint a landscape of that western view, the mountains like shards of heaven..."

"The locals call it God's Country."

"Indeed." The valley was still dark, and there was enough light, here on the eastern slope, to see, but the far distant peaks to the west were already lit up by the hidden sun, and glorius. Ma En Lai shook himself, as if waking from a dream, and followed the big man inside.

***

Henchman- "And it can't be becuase they like him, that's absurd." Villian- "To us, perhaps. But there are people who act from incredible motives." -The Impossible Virgin, by Peter O'donnell

***

They were shown through the house and into the garden, where, despite the earliness of the hour, Barbara Hambly was eating breakfast with a group of excited children. En Lai had to look at them for a few seconds before he realized what they all had in common; although some were wearing wigs and even makeup, others wore their bald heads, and other marks, with pride. Death has a dry smell, dusty, he thought.

He was a cold man, everybody said so, and he was surprised, even so, that he felt nothing beyond annoyance. Did this woman think that he, of all people, would credit her for her charity? He knew the statistics; it had been his life, and if he was cold, he was also efficient, and had always attempted, where possible, to see that needs were met fairly and impartially. The personal was not just un-important, it truly failed to exist, for him.

"Good morning, sir. I will meet with you, inside, if that is acceptable?" Hambly said, cheerily, not looking up from the children. She hardly seemed to be aware that he was there, at all.

"Good morning to you, as well; and it is..." He turned to Howard, and they waited for her, in a yellow room. A servant brought tea, and poured for both. En Lai tried it, and found it excellent, a brand he was fond of, and could rarely afford.

"She brings them here from all over; you know..."

En Lai looked up at Howard, and nodded. “In fact, I do. There was mention of this in the information... It is public knowledge." He considered, and added, "I do not judge her, for good or ill. Do you?"

Howard looked up, startled, and before he could reply, Hambly breezed in.

"Thank you, Mr. Ma. I thought, perhaps, that this would be better handled, in person. Do you have any questions, before we begin?"

"Certainly; several. Why, in fact, did you ask me to come here?" En Lai imagined, if that word was the right one, for one such as him, that it involved the information he had gathered.

"Well, I was thinking of offering you a job."

En Lai blinked. "I was not currently seeking employment. I'm not adverse to such, but I separated from the General Accounting Office with a certain amount of, ah, animosity."

"Put plainly, you were a gadfly, and the new administration, the one which formed after that mess with Miranda, wanted a little peace."

"You, madam, have a rather refreshing willingness to speak, as you say, plainly. One might even wonder how do you manage to, ah..."

"Stay out of trouble? Money, power, influence. Useful tools, but not an end in themselves."

En Lai sat up, and put his tea cup down. The bodyguard did not move, but he had tensed, almost imperceptibly, and En Lai put a hand to his face, to rub at a facial tic. Far too late, he wondered if they were recording this interview.

To Be Continued