Kara gripped the ladder rungs and clambered swiftly up to her favorite place atop the moving train.  There was a breathless instant as she moved from the steel rungs to the smooth roof surface, and a windy scramble for a good seat, and then she had it.  For a moment, Kara was completely happy.  The mountains of southern Germhacht flew by like something from a picture card.  Little cottages perched about blue lakes full of little boats, seeming as unreal as toys or a window display.  The air smelled of mountain meadows and pines as it whipped in her short cropped curls and her big black coat.  It was almost like flying. 

            Sadly, Kara was not flying.  In another moment the men following her would discover where she’d gone.  Kara sighed and edged out further along the top of the train toward the next car.  She made the giddy jump and won the scramble for good footing on the other side.  Things were never easy, at least not for a professional thief.

            Kara was a good thief, possibly the best of her age.  She didn’t know precisely what that age was, apart from older than twelve.  She looked about ten, but knew she had to be older than that.  It was an advantage sometimes to have no age, no parents, and no responsibilities in the world.  This was not looking like one of those times.  A shout came from several cars back.  Kara looked over her shoulder to see one of her pursuers climbing up to the top of the train car she had started from.  She let out a few of her favorite curses and, deciding it was time to be reckless, began to run along the top of the train and took the next gap at a flying leap.  If she could get to the passenger cars well ahead of pursuit she might find a good hiding place.  And if she could do that before the approaching tunnel it would be even better. 

Kara swore again, seeing a head emerge over the top of a car four down, in the direction she was heading.  She dropped and flattened her small body to the top of the train, and watched with a grin as the men before and behind took cover between cars as they approached the tunnel.  The moment they were in darkness, Kara pushed herself to the edge of the car and looked down over the side.  Her eyes adjusted perfectly to the dim light, as they always did, and she found the nearest window and pried it open.  She slid down and flipped over, vaulting in through the small window to drop, rolling, into an upper class sleeper car.

            She heard people approaching from the stateroom beyond, but a steamer trunk stood unlocked just feet from her.  Kara pulled the window shut and pushed open the trunk, curling into it and closing it behind her even as the train emerged into light again.

            Kara found herself in what were obviously a noble’s belongings and began systematically rummaging about for useful items.  It was a man’s trunk, and smelled of some kind of cologne and shaving cream.  Her fingers found a tin of complexion powder, and she concluded that the man was vain, or the victim of bad skin.  She paused in her investigation as she heard the stateroom door open and waited, frozen, to be discovered or not.

“I’ve won us a victory, Varden.  Stop sulking,” a man with an Arienish accent said.  “The find is mine, is ours if you like, and that backwoods mystic with the irregular degree is left empty-handed and looking a fool.  You might try to celebrate.”

            A younger man’s voice answered with the same accent and a low, bitter tone.  “We’ve been banned from the country, father.  All foreign nationals of every academic discipline have been banned from the country.  No one will get any kind of discovery for fifty years or more.  But you’ve won.  Should I order champagne?”

            “You might try to be a little grateful, Varden. ”  There was disappointment and a certain oiliness to the older voice.  Kara decided the face powder must be his, and set it aside.  “This was for you, as much as for anything.  Your dissertation--”

“Has to be entirely re-written,” the younger man snapped, “now that my area of research has been slammed shut because you wanted to deprive a rival of some artifact.”

“Listen to me, boy.”  The older man’s voice went cold.  “Governments are made of men.  All that is required is to be a greater man.  The greatest explorers and discoverers of our time have known how to work beyond the laws of the ignorant.  Science and learning can’t be bound by the restrictions of the uneducated.  The great make the laws, and the lesser live by them.  I’ll write a letter to Lord Halsingram.  He has some influence in that area since his company bought the salt mines.  We could be back in a few months.”

            “Through bribes and blackmail, wonderful,” the younger voice retorted.  Kara grinned dryly.  Nobles, sure enough.  Well, that meant there should be some good finds in this trunk.

            “I will not be spoken to in that tone,” the older voice said.  “Change your precious dissertation.  Write whatever you like about Narmos, or choose another ruin.  There are plenty of ancient civilizations to choose from.”

            “For you to plunder without the least documentation, and to sell to whatever museum will mislabel them--”

            “For you make your precious reputation on,” the older voice said.  “And if you want to keep attending strings of universities on my benevolent fortune, you’ll be civil.  Any other son might be happy to have a prestigious archeologist as a father.”

            And I thought I was a thief.  Someone had told her once that archeologists and tomb thieves were the same.  She’d met an assortment of both now, and had to conclude that certain tomb thieves and certain archeologists were far from being anything ordinary at all.  Judging by the contents of this trunk, these were the ordinary thieving variety of archeologists.  Good.  Kara rifled quietly through support stockings, several starched cravats, and a coat with tails, and then she heard the name that froze her in mid-action.

            “And if he brings a petition to his contacts as well?”

            “Blackfeather can petition the Society as much as he likes, but he won’t get a permit.  And I already have what he’s after.”