“Oh dear.” Hoechst grinned at him. “Is that all?” she asked warmly, and Bayreuth shivered. From being cold as ice, suddenly Hoechst had warmed to him. “And he failed to report this?”

Bayreuth nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak right then.

“And your channel into Scott’s department…” She raised an eyebrow.

“The channel is a very personal friend of Otto Neurath,” he emphasized. “However you decide to act on this information, I would ask you to behave leniently in her case. I believe Otto shows a lot of potential for intelligent action in support of his superior’s goals, and an indelicate response to his special friend might, ah, compromise his future utility. Parenthetically speaking.”

“Oh, Georg. What kind of monster do you take me for?” The terrible smile disappeared. “I’m not stupid, you know. Or bloodthirsty. At least, not needlessly.” She snorted. “Otto can keep his toy, once her loyalties have been retargeted on our team. I won’t break her for him.” Bayreuth nodded, relieved. Her restraint, for which he could claim responsibility, would only serve to bind Otto tighter to his rising faction. “As for you—” the terrifying grin was back — “how would you like to open discussions with Scott’s department, about our forthcoming merger?”

“Me?” He blinked, shocked.

“Yes, you.” She nodded. “I’ve been thinking you deserved the added opportunities that come with an elevated degree of responsibility for some time now, Georg. What was that phrase? A lot of potential for intelligent action in support of his superior’s goals, I think you said.”

“Why, I’m deeply grateful, but—”

“Don’t be. Not yet.” She gestured out through the window, at the terrace of rosebushes and the garden beyond the ha-ha, the walls and trees and the avenue leading uphill to the stately home. “If what you’re telling me is correct, we have a serious leak to fix. And I think I may need to fix it on-site. I’ve been weaving destinies from behind a desk for too long, Georg. Scott’s mistake is typical of what happens when you stay out of the field and lose touch with reality.”

“Are you going to travel in person, then? What about your estates and committees—”

“They’ll look after themselves. They’d better — they’ll know I’ll be back.” Another smile, this time almost coy; if he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn she was flirting with him. “But seriously. I can combine the trip with a tour of the new candidates, consolidate my control over Scott’s puppets in the field, and get back in touch with what it’s really about. The great program, Georg. Fancy that!” She tapped her tablet. “Get me a full briefing. Then I’ll arrange a session with Overdepartmentsecretary Blumlein, and obtain permission before issuing the formal denunciation by way of the Committee of Inquiry. After which we’ll discuss how you’re going to mind the shop for me while I’m gone.”

He caught her eye. “Me? The whole thing?”

She didn’t blink. “Did you have any other plans for tonight? No? Good, then I assume I can safely invite you to dine with me. We have a lot of things to discuss, Georg. Including how to ensure that you don’t disappoint me the way U. Scott has…”

The action went down hard and fast, once Hoechst had drawn certain facts to the elevated attention of Overdepartmentsecretary Blumlein. Blumlein had stared at her with those icy blue eyes, set just too close together: “Do it,” he’d said, and that was all. Leaving her enough rope to hang herself with if it turned out she was wrong and U. Vannevar Scott’s Subdepartment of External Environmental Control was, in fact, clean.

Walking in through the smashed glass doors of the office building in Samara, Hoechst nodded and smiled at the troops holding the front desk. Show the flag, as her creche-leader Fergus had exhorted her. One or two walking wounded waited stoically for the medevac truck to show up. A pile of pithed and drained bodies lay stacked like cordwood on the polished granite tiles at one side of the foyer, leaking blood from their ears and eyes, their minds already taken by the Propagators. Hoechst ignored them, concentrated on shaking hands and exchanging congratulations with her staff. First things first. Blood on the soles of her boots. She’d get to Scott in due course: Damn him for forcing me to this!

Of course, Scott’s headquarters wasn’t the only target of the action. Nodes had gone down all over the planetary net, branch offices off-lined and isolated during the mop-up. Out in the country, Peace Enforcement troops had punched in the doors of his harem, taken the puppets by the brain stem and turned them in for processing — those that weren’t put down immediately as a poor cost/benefit risk for reclamation. It was all part and parcel of the messy business of taking down a ranking ubermensch who had been accused of malfeasance, and Hoechst hated him for it, hated him for forcing her to publicly expose a ReMastered who was less than adequate at his assigned role. But she had no real alternative. A failure to act right then might only encourage him, or worse, expose her own people to accusations of inadequacy; and in the long run it risked undermining the destiny of the people.

Troops in cream-and-beige office camouflage wedged fire and blast doors open for her as she walked through the administrative castle toward the executive service core. Her bodyguards kept pace with her, anonymous behind their masks. Staff officers followed in their wake, apprehensive and eager to serve her. There were few signs of damage, and little violence, for U. Scott’s castle had been taken by stealth in the first instance. A scheduled movement of internal security troops had been replaced by Hoechst’s own storm groups, welcomed with open arms by slack defenders who never suspected that their death warrant had been ordered by the planetary overdepartmentsecretary with a curt two-word phrase.

At the core of the building stood a secure zone, doors locked open by a treacherous override. Hoechst climbed the staircase, her mood bleak. At the top, a mezzanine floor looked out across Scott’s control hub. He was one of those who seemed to thrive on oversight, she noted, as if he couldn’t trust anything that happened outside the reach of his own senses. The doorway onto the mezzanine was splattered with drying clots of blood, brown and sharp-smelling beneath the emergency lights. Her guards waited at either corner. In the middle of the floor a curious triumvirate waited for her. In the big chair, U. Vannevar Scott himself, pithed and locked down, his limbs limp and his face an accusatory mask. Behind it, to either side, stood S. Frazier Bayreuth and another person, a woman in the robe and veil of the Propagators’ Order.

“Vannevar, my dear. A shame we had to run into each other again under such distressing circumstances.” Hoechst smiled at the man in the chair. His eyes tracked her slowly, barely able to move. “And yourself, Bayreuth. And to whom else do I have the pleasure?”

The strange woman inclined her head: “U. Doranna Mengele, your excellency. Here by order of the overdepartmentsecretary to pay witness to the proceedings and ensure that all is conducted in accordance with the best practices and customs of the enlightenment.”

The body in the chair seemed to be agitated. Hoechst leaned close: “You should relax, Van. Struggling won’t help. Those nerves won’t grow back, you know.” It was necessary for her image; inside, something was screaming, You stupid unplanned bastard! What in the dead god’s name did you think you were doing? “We were given a warrant and we have executed it.”

She glanced at Bayreuth. “Do you have an activation key?”

He turned and beckoned a guard over. “Switch this one back on for the supervisor,” he said tersely. The Propagator cocked her head to one side and watched, silently. Hoechst tried not to pay any attention to her. There was no avoiding it. With a Propagator to witness everything, spooling the uploaded sensory take straight into the distributed network of her order, any attempt at dissembling — or mercy — would be exposed instantly.