- You have no more than twelve hours. The woman's voice on the center screen was dry and businesslike. A white apostolic with a black cross on him seemed strangely out of place when combined with gravicompensatory armor, but no one gathered in the Council Chamber paid attention to this. Well, apostolic. So what? Agnes's mother, the abbess of the monastery of St. Catherine of Tarissa, like any of the nuns, bared her head only before boarding the pilot's chair. These novices, real and former, could afford to walk with their heads uncovered, which was demonstrated by two of them, who are now sitting in the hall...