"Wait," Henry whispered. I stopped walking, Henry put his finger to his lips and mouthed the word "ROLEX."

Right - the modified watch that Doctor Sylk welded onto my wrist held a micro-camera that was recording our every move, listening to our conversation. We needed to be mindful of our words.

I nodded, and not-so-casually I removed my jacket and draped it over my right arm so it was covering the face of the watch. I tried my best to press the watch into the fabric to muffle any recording.

"Think they can still hear us?" I whispered.

Henry shrugged. "Probably," he said at full volume. "Let's just assume that Parksnip and Major Kale are listening to us and spying on our every move. Hi guys! We're crossing the street now. Everything is going according to plan so far."

Our plan was actually pretty vague. It was all Henry's idea, so I planned on letting him take the lead once we got to the Vicchady offices. As we approached the address, the domed buildings gave way to a small office park. Most of the buildings looked empty.

"Just remember," I said to Henry. "The translator implants in our molars will translate Italian into English. But – neither of us are fluent in Italian. When we talk to Italians, we can understand them but they might not be able to understand us."

"We just need to ask them to speak English, right?" Henry said. "No big deal. Europeans all speak English, Marsh. Don't overthink this."

"I know. But it can get confusing with our translator implants. I had an incident in a French restaurant a few months ago - "

"Do you have the swatch?" Henry interrupted.

"It's in my briefcase."

We stopped at the end of a long concrete building with the Vicchady logo hanging above the entrance. A red Fisker Karma convertible was stationed in front, parked conspicuously in a spot marked RISERVATO. There were a half-dozen other luxury cars also parked in front of the building: sports cars, electrics, exotics. Surprisingly, none of them were Italian-made.

Through the glass door of the building, I saw a spotless white lobby and a well-dressed receptionist sitting behind a floating glass desk.

"Ready?" Henry asked as we stood on the threshold.

I inhaled, gripped my briefcase tight, and pushed open the door. The receptionist stiffened as the door opened, his eyebrows shot up as we approached the desk. He seemed surprised, and I wondered if visitors were rare at the offices of Vicchady International.

"Buongiorno!" I smiled and cheerfully said one of the few Italian words that I knew. "Signore, do you speak English?"

"Yes," the man said tentatively as his hand reached for the telephone receiver. "How may I help you, gentlemen?"

"We are attorneys, lawyers, from the United States," Henry said. "We represent the Qwazler Paint Factory."

"I see," the man kept smiling, frozen. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No appointment," Henry said. "But we wanted to personally deliver a cease-and-desist order on behalf of our client. Vicchady International has been repurposing our client's intellectual property."

"I see," the man repeated. "Won't you please have a seat?" He gestured toward a row of white leather benches and punched some numbers into the telephone.

Henry and I collapsed painfully onto the upholstered bench, wincing and sore from the beatings we endured on Azodii and the rough-ride aboard the Klargung Cruiser. My body ached, but I was also so exhausted that I also could have closed my eyes and fallen asleep.

I shook my head and struggled to stay focused. My eyes scanned the lobby, searching for clues, as there were still plenty of unanswered questions: When did Vicchady start using alien blood for their tie collection? How were they getting it? Did they kill Zerk? Was Vicchady actually a corporate front owned by an aliens, like the Slatt Territory of Planets, Inc. in Beverly Hills? Was Vicchady owned by the Bob of Planet Bob?

I absent-mindedly ran my hand back and forth across the white leather seating. There was an abstract chandelier hanging in front of me, and a white glass sculpture across the lobby made by an artist whose work I recognized. I thought again about the cherry-red Fisker parked in front –

"New money," I said to Henry. "Look at the lobby furniture, it's all new. Eames sofa, custom chandelier. Commissioned artwork. The Fisker out front …"

Henry sat opposite me, nodding as his gaze drifted upward. "Yep. Make sure you keep the face of that watch covered, Marsh," Henry whispered. "I don't want anyone back at the ship to see that."

I followed Henry's eyeline to a large painting that hung over my head. It was an oversized canvas, at least thirty feet long, depicting a long artistic splatter of trademark Vicchady orange: Zerk's blood.

I felt queasy looking at it. I kept the Rolex covered with my jacket, so the camera wouldn't catch sight of the painting. Henry was right – if Lady Denebola saw the canvas, decorated with her husband's blood, she might order the immediate slaughter of everyone inside the building.

"Gentlemen!" the receptionist, ever smiling, stood and waved us toward him. "Please, will you come this way?"

We were led down a white hallway and into a glass conference room. A woman of about thirty was waiting for us inside, dressed neatly in a black-on-black suit.

"Good afternoon," she said as we entered the room, and the receptionist disappeared back down the hall. "I am Ms. Giotto, I am the Director of the Legal Department here at Vicchady International."

After handshakes and introductions, Henry and I sat at the conference table to present our case to Giotto.

"I hope you don't mind," Ms. Giotto gestured to a speakerphone at the center of the table. "Some of our corporate officers are on the line, and would like to listen to this conversation as well."

"Yes, that's fine," Henry said. "We wanted to stop by personally to inform you of our intent to file suit against Vicchady International. This is a professional courtesy."

"I see," Ms. Giotto said simply. She smiled, unflappable and confident.

"Our lawsuit will undoubtedly draw considerable attention, and we didn't want you to be blindsided by the matter," Henry continued. "Or learn about it first from the news."

There was a small eruption of laughter from the speakerphone, which Henry ignored.

"Our client, the Qwazler Paint Factory, believes that Vicchady International is selling a product that is the exclusive intellectual property of Qwazler."

"Oh?" Ms. Giotto scribbled something in a white-leather notebook.

"Specifically," Henry said. "I'm referring to the orange color that you use on your ties."

"Ah, so," Giotto flashed us a condescending smile as she closed her notebook. "Your client claims to have invented our famous Vicchady Orange?"

"The specific color is a registered trademark of Qwazler Paint," Henry said. "It was created by Qwazler over twenty years ago."

There was another muffled laugh from the speakerphone, less muffled than the prior outburst.

"Mr. Todd and Mr. Marshall," Ms. Giotto spread her hands on the table and smirked. "You must excuse us. Ever since we started selling our special-edition neckties six months ago, we have been bombarded by false claims that Vicchady Orange was created by another company, and Vicchady somehow stole the color."

Giotto leaned across the table at us, smacking her blood-red lips. "Your lawsuit is, of course, meritless. Vicchady Orange is the unique creation of Vicchady International. No one else in the world is able to create, or even accurately replicate, genuine Vicchady Orange. Like all the others, your claim is demonstrably false. If you came here looking for settlement money, then I'm afraid that you and our client are out of luck."

I opened my briefcase and placed a piece of paper onto the conference room table, a small, folded square. I pushed the paper toward Ms. Giotto, who took it and opened it.

The paper contained no words, just an oblong smear in the middle where Major Kale rubbed her fingertip after pricking it. I suppose Azodii eyes, being more sensitive, would have been able to tell the difference between the color of Kale's blood and that of Zerk's. But for us, humans with a blunted sense of visual perception, the orange stain in the center of the paper looked absolutely identical to Vicchady Orange.

"Huh," Ms. Giotto managed. She squinted and held the paper up to the light. "The color is close… My compliments to your client, Mr. Marshall. As far as forgeries go, this is very impressive."

"The color is called Azodii," Henry said, gauging the expression on Ms. Giotto's face. "It was invented by our client, the Qwazler Paint Factory, in 1998."

"What did you say the color is called?"

The high-pitched voice came from the speakerphone. Ms. Giotto stiffened in her seat.

"Sir," Giotto leaned toward the phone. "The gentlemen have presented us with a sample, which –"

"Azodii," I said with a little too much volume. "Um, the color. It's called Azodii." There was a long pause, then:

"Gentlemen, what firm did you say you were from?"

"We're from Zerk and Zerk," Henry said. "Perhaps you've heard of us?"

The pause this time was even longer, until Ms. Giotto became unsure if the line was still connected.

"Sir?" she said into the speakerphone. "Mr. Vicchady?"

"Ms. Giotto - please send the gentlemen upstairs to my office."