The two passed through the swirling portal and found themselves on an observation deck overlooking a banquet hall of white marble and red cloth. A handful of lavishly dressed guests were carousing below, served by remarkably similar footmen in formal attires and heavy magnetic boots.

In the center of the room there was a large marble fountain depicting a ragged man in crude hides cutting the throat of a beautiful nude boy, red wine gushing from the wound to form a large pool around the brutal scene. The pool’s barrier was a grotesquely humanized snake that studied the murder with detached amusement.

Adjacent to the snake’s head stood two androgynously attractive and absolutely identical people who were helping themselves to the wine with long spoons wrought in the shape of cobras with human faces. One twin caught the Princess’s gaze and reacted by making the briefest of bows and murmuring something polite that sounded more feline than human. Von Schmidt returned the bow while the Princess merely nodded.

“These are the Marseille siblings, Jean et Jean. Famous for narrowly avoiding wars and other disasters in any locale they visit, usually by a margin of only a few days,” Von Schmidt said. “Now, this young man about to plunge headfirst into the wine pool is their current lover, according to the tabloids. Count Ivanov claims to be a free adventurer touring the Kuiper Belt with his lovely French companions, but in reality, he must be a Russian spy. Though to be honest, who isn’t a Russian spy these days?”

“So everyone is working for the Russians now?” the Princess asked disparagingly.

“Of course not! Someone must provide intelligence for the Japanese. For example, this short, impeccably dressed gentleman of the oriental persuasion is the honorable Tanaka Shin, a 17% samurai and the second-most dangerous person outward of Neptune.”

Hearing the man’s title, the Princess became even more alarmed about this surprise party supposedly thrown in her honor by a cadre of ominous strangers. In corporate Bushido, the percentage preceding a samurai’s title indicated how many shares the samurai held in his master’s company. Accumulated over generations through ruthless machinations and even more ruthless marriages, men whose shares were in the double digits were a fearsome breed indeed, as skilled in murder as they were in mass murder. In the rare instance one left his master’s palace, blood and mischief were sure to follow, for what other reason could a samurai possibly have to ever leave his home?

However, showing weakness in the face of intimidation, explicit or implied, was not her family’s way. Brainless bravado was her family’s way. However, with all due respect to her ancestors, royal, corporate, and mythological, the Princess did not intend to practice that either, seeing how death from old age was something of a rarity among her ancestors, royal, corporate, and mythological. Still, she was what she was and so, scoffing, she said, “I imagine you believe yourself to be the most dangerous man in the galaxy?”

“Heavens no, my dear lady! A man with a smartblade can merely extort a bank. A man with a bank can extort a planet. The most dangerous man alive would be that great, round gentleman over there, the one who just walked through my head footman. This is Herr Graff Von Ludendorf, officially a Swiss banker. Unofficially, the holder of more colonies than the Queen of England. He has made so many enemies back on Terra, not to mention the recent Sinii awakening movement, that he never leaves his trans-Neptunian Palace of Pleasure anymore. Instead, he transmits his hologram to parties and board meetings. Why, you must see him at masquerades, he’s absolutely the rage, if I may say so myself!”

The apparition hovered nearby and took a deep bow. “Mein fraulein, zis is un honor!”

“Von Graff.” The Princess returned the courtesy coldly to yet another person who purposefully failed to address her in the correct style. “I don’t have the time for a proper conversation at the moment, but I do hope that someday, we’ll be able to have a meeting of a more … substantial nature.”

The ghostly banker puffed and hovered away indignantly. Von Schmidt clapped his hands with pleasure. “My dear lady, I see you’re a better speaker than most of the crowned airheads of Terra! Would you like to see more of my guests?”

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“I don’t feel I have much of a choice in the matter, though I must confess that the crowd here is well known to me from palatial news. By rights, they should be exploring the horror vacui without the benefit of a spacesuit, not enjoying this infamous banquet.”

“Right ho! That sounds like the most marvelous sort of fun!” exclaimed a bestial voice from behind the Princess.

The Princess spun around to see an eight-foot-tall man covered in green scales. He had the head, wings, and claws of a pterodactyl, but the horrible fashion sense of an Englishman. The infamous Professor Herbert York, rumored to be uplifted from a genetically engineered egg, of course needs no further introduction, as his dastardly career is well known to any reader of intelligence and class. Indeed, it was once said that the sun never sets on the British Empire because it too wishes to assist in the apprehension of this interplanetary criminal mastermind.

“How do you do!” he said in perfect Corporate English, though his affectation of enthusiasm was somewhat marred by his otherworldly inflection and monstrous bearing.

The Princess wrinkled her nose and turned away. She was surrounded by the sort of people one hopes to go through life without ever seeing outside of sensational newscasts or feverish dreams. While the guests she’d met so far had at least some tenuous claims to aristocracy, the same could not be said about the last and least of the guests—a venerable Chinese woman in a gown of seemingly living butterflies and an obese Italian man smoking a thick cigar while framed by two belles, one albino and one Afro-Terrestrial, their doped expressions testifying to the ill effects of opium.

Von Schmidt followed her gaze and proceeded with his round of uncalled for introductions.

“This delightful lady, very well pickled for her age, which puts many of the rocks outside to shame, is the infamous pirate Chang Shih Feng, an admiral in the Fleet of the Thousand Butterflies. Her dress consists of a thousand ersatz butterflies with wings as sharp as razors. With a single word she can reduce a roomful of unshielded people into bloody ribbons or upgrade her dress into the latest scream in orbital fashion.

“Across the room, with two gorgeous women by his somewhat less gorgeous sides, is her sworn enemy, Don Vincenzo Calzoni. It is said that for all her flagrancy, Madam Chang has a soft spot for defenseless young maidens and would castrate anyone who would dare to take advantage of a young woman of any creed. Calzoni, on the other hand, has made quite a fortune by taking advantage of such young women, as well as boys, beasts, and various artifices unsuitable for civilized discourse due to being subjects of deviant intercourse.

“I hope you are flattered that two sworn enemies are willing to peacefully share a room just to bask in your royal presence, especially since both of them command private armies to match those of numerous smaller Terrestrial states, though, it must be said, not even a minor threat to your father’s fleet, or even the Old Brigade.”

“Overjoyed,” the Princess said with the expression of a person informed that their upcoming execution will be performed by a panel of award-winning executioners and that each artifice of murder will be lovingly handcrafted by a troop of celebrated Dutch artisans. “You could have saved a considerable amount of time by simply saying ‘a pirate and a pimp.’”

Von Schmidt clapped once, raising quite a few eyebrows, and laughed heartily. “This is true, oh yes, quite true! I will save time then—a scoundrel, a villain, a thief, a charlatan, an assassin, a radical, a libertine … well, that would be me of course, and a princess! My dear lady, if you feel yourself so much above this choice extract of the villains of the system, should we get to the matter at hand?”

“What matter?” the Princess asked suspiciously.

Von Schmidt turned away from her and spoke as loudly as one could without actually shouting. “Ladies, gentlemen. I’m so glad that most of you could make it. May I offer a moment of silence for our friends who did not survive the arduous journey?”

“No need! They already very silent!” Madam Chang interjected. Several people laughed uneasily.

“I admit-a to a-nothing!” Calzoni said and laughed, alone.

“Must we suffer this vulgarity for long, dear Jean?” Jean asked Jean in a sensual voice that sounded as if it was leading to a yawn, but never quite got there.

“It is a sad truth that the possession of some rare jewels is worth suffering the company of apes,” Jean replied to Jean in an identical voice.

“Apes are apes, though they speak with a rummy French accent.” Professor York misquoted the old poet and addressed Von Schmidt directly. “If one doesn’t care to spend the entire afternoon wiping blood and brain matter off the walls, one is dashed well advised to start with the proceedings already!”

“Indeed, my dear professor, let us waste no more time on banter and get to the auction.” Von Schmidt announced to his guests.

“What’s for sale?” the Princess asked uneasily.

“Why, you are, of course,” Von Schmidt answered cheerfully.