For two generations he had succeeded. His retirement had caused some trouble, but things had been peaceful until the HPGs got hit. That was a fairly nasty blow because it left everyone in the dark, both about what was going on elsewhere, and about the identity of those who took the Hyperpulse Generators out.

Rusty—God love him because no one else will—immediately jumped to the conclusion that the GGF had hit the local HPG because they were his bogeyman of choice. If GGF had the ability to take down an HPG out there in space, they’d not have a guy pussyfooting around the woods trying to blow off one of Maria’s legs. Still, his reaction wasn’t completely illogical, and was actually benign compared to some of the others.

The Draconis Combine and Federated Suns had contested ownership of Helen down through the years. It had changed hands so often that coin collecting was a minor industry. Faces changed on the coins on a monthly basis in some years. At least once the switch happened so fast that scrip had Kurita faces and FedSuns’ backs.

Listening to folks in the bistro, which sat in a largely FedSuns district, I could hear traces of us-and-them conversations. Simple things like, “Well, I heard they want to…” and “One time I dated one of them and…” The conversations went from benign to vehement and, most tellingly, would drop to whispers when some of the citizens of Asian descent passed by.

Absent any indication of who had taken down the HPGs, everyone was free to speculate. While the adults of today might have grown up in an era of peace where they played nicely with people of diverse backgrounds, they still had parents and grandparents who had been in the old wars, or had heard the old stories from their sires, and passed them on with the transparent frame of “In my day…”

Even without the efforts of a group like the GGF, society was going to be shaking itself apart.

“Look alive, Sparky.”

I glanced at Ray. “What?”

He nodded toward the Constabulary building. “Let her go past, then trail her. I’ll get the hovercar. Keep her in sight, but don’t let her see you.”

“She is your target?” Lady Lakewood had begun to descend the steps.

“She’s a bonus. Keep her in sight.”

I nodded and rose from my seat, then hopped the little railing that separated the bistro from the sidewalk. I slipped into the pedestrian stream easily enough and managed to keep an eye on her. It helped that she was tall, and helped even more that a few folks who recognized her bowed in deference.

I followed from the other side of the street, which is a pretty good position to be in. Even so, I knew the chances of keeping her in sight and remaining unobserved were minimal. A solid tailing job like this would take a dozen people all connected by radio, so teams could switch off and cover a variety of routes she could be taking. If she ducked into a store, then went out through the rear of the building, she was gone.

That assumed two things, however. The first was that she noticed she was being tailed. The second was that she wanted to elude pursuit. Unfortunately for me, she did notice, and she had no intention of fleeing.

What had escaped Ray’s notice was that, as a Knight of The Republic, Lady Janella Lakewood had her own security detail. This detail consisted of two rather large individuals, one male and one female. They wore sour expressions, as if they’d applied to join Stone’s Lament and had been turned down. They came up from behind me before I noticed and each grabbed my upper arms and quick-marched me into an alleyway. There I was thrust face-first against the wall and patted down by the woman while the man spoke into a personal communications device.

The frisking wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The hands landed in all the right places and she wasn’t bashful, but the pressure was all wrong. If she’d been any more thorough I could have skipped my next physical, which was good since I’d need that time to be picking brick grains out of my left cheek.

When they finally spun me around, there stood Lady Lakewood. “Been following me, have you?”

“In your dreams.”

“Not even a daydream, Mr. Donelly.” She crossed her arms and peered down at me with a gaze that was pure malachite fire. “Been hearing some interesting things about you. You’ve been making threats against Commander Reis.”

“Drunk talk, and you know it. I should be filing charges against him, a lawsuit and everything. He’s as rotten as a month-old corpse.” I shifted my shoulders indignantly, which brought her guard dogs back to alert. “So, maybe I was coming by the Constabulary to see him and tell him off, you know, and then I saw you. I thought I might tell you something, but thought better of it—then Jack and Jill here had me dancing cheek to cheek with this wall.”

“What is it you were going to tell me, Mr. Donelly?”

“That I’ve been asking around, and Reis is rotten. What he did to me he’s done to other people.” I snorted. “Back when The Republic was something, he’d have been stopped.”

Her chin came up. “Can you prove anything?”

“Data files and the like? The people down here don’t have such things, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know the truth. You could start with when he was a warden with the local penitentiary and work from there. He’s dirty, you’ll see.”

“Just as I thought. You have nothing.” She shook her head. “Let me give you something to think about, Mr. Donelly. You are in way over your head if you think you can hurt Commander Reis with unsubstantiated innuendo. This is especially true when you have established yourself as a liar.”

“I’m not a liar.”

Lakewood glanced at Jack. “The subject was observed at the Marketplace Bistro two hours and seventeen minutes ago. Upon your ladyship’s emergence from the Constabulary building he began to follow. On your order we apprehended him.”

I slumped back against the wall. “Okay, I was watching for you. Reis took my job. I thought I could appeal to you for some help. I have nothing.”

Jill chimed in. “Clothes are new, but there are no labels inside the jacket.”

“Nothing, Mr. Donelly? Are you sure you are not lying now?”

“You know what? The hell with you and The Republic. I’m an innocent guy who got in the middle of something that turned out bad for constables commanded by an idiot. He ruins me. You ruin me. Once I get passage off this rock, I’m long gone from The Republic. I’m going, I’m going… I’m going to the Capellan Confederation where there’s still some freedom left.”

Lakewood smiled, and I would have liked that smile under other circumstances. “Commendable histrionics, Mr. Donelly, but I’ve learned something in my tenure as a Knight of The Republic. The truly innocent protest neither so vehemently nor so eloquently. You’ve gotten yourself into something and you are afraid. Well, you should be. You should come to me and confess all before it is too late.”

“Oh, you’ll hear from me in the future, you can bet on that.” I brushed a hand over my cheek, wiping brick crumbs away. “Now, you gonna trump up other charges, or am I free to go?”

Lakewood stepped aside and waved me toward the sidewalk. “This is The Republic, Mr. Donelly. You are quite free.”

I squared my shoulders and mustered as much dignity as I could as I wandered from the alley. It did not help that one of my too-big shoes came off at the heel. I glanced down and noticed that Jill must have untied it when she was giving me the once-over. I refrained from turning back and snapping off some witty remark in her direction and kept walking.

I went to the next intersection and crossed over, then walked down the street. Eventually Ray pulled up in the hovercar and opened the passenger door for me. In a completely foul mood I slipped in beside him and strapped myself in.

“Tell me what happened.”