“I think what the Admiral meant was: fewer people outside high government office.”

“Yes, of course, the people most able to deal with the situation.”

The irony in her tone made Maynard Khanna give an inward flinch. “In view of the fact that Dr Mzu is now contacting a number of starship captains, and the Omutan sanctions are about to expire, the Admiral would be extremely grateful if we could be told of your policy regarding Dr Mzu,” he said formally.

“Are you recording this for the Admiral?”

“Yes, a full sensevise.”

Ione stared straight into his eyes, speaking in a clear precise diction. “My father promised Admiral Aleksandrovich’s predecessor that Dr Alkad Mzu would never be allowed to leave Tranquillity, and I repeat that promise to the Admiral. She will not be permitted to leave, nor will I countenance any attempt to sell or hand over the information she presumably holds to anybody, including the Confederation Navy. Upon her death, she will be cremated in order to destroy her neural nanonics. And I hope to God that sees the end of the threat.”

“Thank you,” Maynard Khanna said.

Ione relaxed a little. “I hadn’t even been gestated when she arrived here twenty-six years ago, so tell me, I’m curious. Has Fleet Intelligence discovered yet how she survived Garissa’s destruction?”

“No. She can’t have been on the planet. The Confederation Navy was in charge of the evacuation, and we have no record of carrying her on any of our ships. Nor was she listed as being in any of the asteroid settlements. The only logical conclusion is that she was outsystem on some kind of clandestine military mission when Omuta bombed Garissa.”

“Deploying the Alchemist?”

“Who knows? The device certainly wasn’t used; so either it didn’t work or they were intercepted. The general staff favours the interception scenario.”

“And if she survived, so did the Alchemist,” Ione concluded.

“If it was ever built.”

She raised an eyebrow. “After all this time, I thought that was taken for granted.”

“The thinking goes that after all this time, we should have heard something other than rumours. If it does exist, why haven’t the Garissan survivors tried to use it against Omuta?”

“When it comes to Doomsday machines, rumours are all I want to hear.”

“Yes.”

“You know, I’ve watched her sometimes while she’s been working over in the Laymil project’s physics centre. She’s a good physicist, her colleagues respect her. But she’s nothing exceptional, not mentally.”

“One idea in a lifetime is all it takes.”

“You’re right. Clever of her to come here, really. The one place where her security is guaranteed, and at the same time the one mini-nation which everybody knows is no military threat to other Confederation members.”

“So may I say you have no objection to our maintaining our observation team?”

“You can, providing you don’t flaunt the privilege. But please reassure yourselves. I don’t think she’s received much geneering, if any. She can’t last more than another thirty years, forty at the outside. Then it will all be over.”

“Excellent.” He leant forward a few millimetres, lips moving upwards into a slight awkward smile. “There was one other matter.”

Ione’s eyes widened with innocent anticipation. “Yes?”

“An independent trader captain called Joshua Calvert mentioned your name in connection with one of our agents.”

She squinted up at the ceiling as if lost in a particularly difficult feat of recall. “Oh, yes, Joshua. I remember him, he caused quite a stir at the start of the year. Found a big chunk of Laymil electronics in the Ruin Ring. I met him at a party once. A nice young man.”

“Yes,” Maynard Khanna said gingerly. “So you didn’t warn him about Erick Thakrar being one of our deep-cover operatives?”

“Erick Thakrar’s name never passed my lips. Actually, Thakrar has just been accepted by Captain André Duchamp for a berth on the Villeneuve’s Revenge , that’s an Adamist ship with an antimatter drive fitted. I’m sure Commander Olsen Neale will confirm that for you. Erick Thakrar’s cover is completely intact, I can assure you that André Duchamp doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“Well, that’s a great relief, the Admiral will be pleased.”

“I’m glad to hear it. And please don’t concern yourself over Joshua Calvert, I’m sure he’d never do anything illegal, he’s really an exemplary citizen.”

The Lady Macbeth is preparing to jump insystem,Oenone warned the crew. They were two light-weeks from Puerto de Santa Maria’s star, which cast a barely perceptible shadow on the voidhawk’s foam-encased hull. The Nephele was drifting eight hundred kilometres over the upper hull, yet Oenone ’s optical sensors were unable to see it.

Twenty-eight thousand kilometres further in towards the faint star, the Lady Macbeth ’s sensor clusters and thermo-dump panels were folding with the neatness of an alighting eagle.

If only everything about the Adamist starship’s flight was that neat, Syrinx wished. This Captain Calvert was a born incompetent. It had taken them six days to get here from New California, a distance of fifty-three light-years. The manoeuvres which Lady Macbeth performed every time she reached a jump coordinate were appallingly sloppy, they went on for hours at a time. Time was money in the cargo business. And if this was the way Calvert navigated on every voyage it was no wonder he needed the money so desperately.

“Stand by,” Syrinx told Larry Kouritz. “He’s lined up on the Ciudad asteroid.”

“Roger,” the marine captain acknowledged.

“The Ciudad,” Eileen Carouch muttered as she accessed the Puerto de Santa Maria file in her neural nanonics. “There are several insurrectionist cells based there, according to the planetary government’s Intelligence agency. They are pushing hard for independence.”

Attention everybody,syrinx broadcast, I want us out of stealth mode the moment we emerge. This Lady Macbeth is fitted with maser cannons, so let’s not have any mistakes. Chi, you have fire-control authority as of now. If they make one smartarse move, slice them in two. Nephele , you keep a sharp watch for approaching ships. If these insurrectionists are desperate enough to try and obtain antimatter-confinement technology they may be dumb enough to try and assist their courier.

We’ll cover you,targard, the Nephele ’s captain, replied.

Syrinx returned her attention to Oenone ’s sensor inputs. The Lady Macbeth had reverted to a perfect sphere. Blue ion flames shrank away to nothing. There was a sharp twist in space’s uniformity.

Go,she commanded.

Oenone erupted out of the wormhole terminus seventeen hundred kilometres distant from the Lady Macbeth . A blizzard of foam flakes swirled away as electronic sensors and thermo-dump panels were uncovered around the crew toroid. Fusion generators in the lower hull combat systems toroid powered up. X-ray lasers deployed. Gravity returned to the crew toroid. The distortion field swelled outwards, accelerating the voidhawk up to seven gees. It chased a sharp curve round to align on the Lady Macbeth . Two hundred kilometres away the Nephele was shaking off its stealth cloak.

Ciudad was a distant lacklustre speck, with a small constellation of industrial stations wrapped around it. Strategic defence sensor radiation raked across the Oenone .

Syrinx was aware of a curious secondary oscillation in the distortion field. Foam was streaming away from all across the hull.

That’s better,Oenone sighed almost subliminally.

Syrinx didn’t have time to form a rebuke. A transmitter dish unfolded from the lower hull toroid, swinging round to focus on the Lady Macbeth .