This sort of job -- something, whatever it was, worth contracting with a professional rather than retaining an army of cutthroats and thugs -- promised to reinvigorate Ianthe's dwindling credit balance. She'd gotten accustomed to drinking real, Earth-2-grown coffee after her last job, and resented having to give it up during this recent lean stretch. She'd responded to the ad through the usual channels, and arranged passage to Salzan aboard a tramp freighter without waiting for a reply. Even if the client picked another "problem solver," she reasoned, she was bound to find something, someone willing to pay for her particular talents, in a pesthole like this one.<br/><br/>She'd spent the journey reviewing what little information was available on Salzan's geography and culture, and walked off the docks with her armor and weapons hidden from view beneath a faux-lambskin longcoat. The crush of people in places like this always threatened to give her a headache if she opened her senses too much, so she narrowed her perception to the area immediately around her, "listening" for the threat from any fool who took her for an easy mark. She made her way to a terminal, and, brushing a loose strand of dark hair from her eyes, checked her messages.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>