The elevator began to slow as it neared the power hookup bay. “Are we talking about smuggling, sir? Or barratry, or hijacking? Because if not, I don’t see what this could possibly have to do with WhiteStar. It’s been a remarkably peaceful voyage so far.”

The doors hissed open, and Steffi stepped out. Yuri was leaning against the wall beside the big gray switchbox. “All hooked up, ma’am. Would you like the tour?”

Steffi nodded. It took her only a minute to confirm that Yuri and Jill — who had hurried off, needed elsewhere — had done a good job. “Okay, let’s test it, turn it on, and sign it off.” She waited while Yuri called down to the engine room and ran through the checklist before tripping in the circuit. The cabinet-sized switchbox hummed audibly as it came under load, nearly fifty megawatts of electricity surging into it through superconductor cables no fatter than Steffi’s thumb. “Okay, here’s my chop.” She signed off on Yuri’s pad, then sealed the cabinet.

“Let’s go find a conference room,” she told Martin. “If you still feel you need to check our records … ?”

“It’s not whether I feel any need, I’m afraid,” he said quietly, then waited for the lift pod doors to close: “I don’t expect you to have any trouble in flight. The person or people we’re looking for are more likely to be causing trouble ground-side.”

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

Springfield looked grim. “I can’t tell you. But it’s bad enough to get a full-dress diplomatic mission out here to paper over the cracks. If you want confirmation, wire Victoria McEllwaine in Legal back at WhiteStar head office and ask her what you should do. Meanwhile, I need to go over your entire passenger manifest since the current cruise began. And your temporary staff, for that matter — anyone who’s been here for less than six months. I may also need to gain access to staterooms. If you can’t authorize a search, point me at someone who can. Finally, I need to make an inspection tour of your engineering spaces and check cargo consignments for certain destinations — any small to medium items that have been drawn out here by passengers, checked in from Earth, Turku, and Eiger’s World.”

“Is that all?” Steffi asked disbelievingly. He’d outlined enough work there to keep someone occupied for a week. With passenger churn approaching 40 percent per destination, they’d gone through six or seven thousand embarkations, not to mention the Entertainments staff: they’d shipped an entire chamber orchestra from Rosencrantz to Eiger, never mind the other irregular performers that Ents kept hiring and firing. “I’d better get you sorted out right away. If you don’t mind, I’m going to boot you upstairs to my CO — I’m due off duty in two hours with shore leave tomorrow.”

“Well, I won’t keep you — but let’s get started. I’m supposed to report back within twenty-four hours. With results. And then I may have to call on you to help me arrest someone.”

Meanwhile, Frank was groundside and frustrated. “Can you explain why they won’t see me? I made this appointment forty-three days ago; it’s been cleared via the consulate in Tokyo. Is there some kind of problem?”

“Problem.” The man on the small screen cleared his throat. “You could say that.” He eyed Frank curiously. “I’m afraid we’re in the middle of a staff training drill right now, and Minister Baxter isn’t available. Also, all embassy engagements have been scaled back, and I can’t find any mention of you in our workgroup diary. Would you like to make a fresh appointment for sometime next week?”

“My ship leaves the day after tomorrow,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “So next week is right out. Would Minister Baxter be available for a phone interview instead? If security is a concern, there’s no need for face-to-face contact.”

“I’ll just check.” The screen blanked for a moment, then: “I’m sorry, sir, but the Minister isn’t available at all until next Thursday. Can I help you make any alternative arrangements? For example, by long-range channel?”

“I’ll have to check my budget,” Frank admitted. “I have a limited bandwidth spend. Can I get back to you on that? Would you mind just double-checking that I’m not on your list anywhere? If the Minister’s unavailable, would it be possible to arrange a chat with Ambassador Morrow instead?”

“I’m sorry, but the Ambassador’s busy, too. As I said, sir, this is about the worst possible week you could have asked for an interview. If you leave things with me, I’ll see what I can do, but I’m making no promises.”

Frank put his temporary phone away and stood up tiredly. At times like this he felt as if he was walking blindfolded along a corridor pre-greased and strewn with banana skins by a cosmic jester. Why now? Why did they have to lose the fucking thing now, of all times? A quote from Baxter, or even Morrow, admitting that their colleagues were being stalked — that would be explosive. Only they weren’t playing ball. The whole thing smelled like a discreet security lockdown: scheduled interviews canceled, public appearances held to carefully controlled zones with vetted guest lists, the bland stench of denial hovering over the rotting corpse of business as usual. Just like one of Mom’s dinner parties when she’d been trying to break back into the charmed circle of political movers and fixers who’d dropped her the first time around, after her electoral defeat.

The air was still cool and slightly damp in the park, but the heated benches were dry enough to work on. Frank folded up his mobile office and stood up. The poplars were flowering, and he walked slowly under a ceiling of catkins, bouncing and shedding in the morning breeze. The path merged with two others at one of the bronze war memorials that were heartbreakingly common hereabouts. Frank paused for a minute to scan it with his glasses, capturing the moment forever. Almost a hundred years earlier, at this very spot, an enemy battalion had put up a spirited resistance to the forces of the All-Conquering. Their souls, large and warlike, had gone to Valhalla: the victors had raised the stele not out of magnanimity but with the more subtle intention of magnifying their own prowess. Nobody likes to boast that they massacred a bunch of terrified, starving, ill-equipped conscripts, Frank reminded himself. It’s easier to be a hero when your vanquished enemies are giants. Something he’d have to bring up if he ever got close enough to interview the honorable Elspeth Morrow. “So how does it feel sentencing to death 140 million children, 90 million crumblies, and another 600-million-odd ordinary folks who were content to mind their own business and don’t even know who you are?”

Farther along the path Frank passed a patrolling gardener ’bot. Judging from the smell, it was collecting and fermenting either slugs or waste from the citizens who walked their dogs at dawn. The trees were farther apart on this walk, with park benches between them and fields stretching away beyond. Each bench bore a weathered pewter plaque, stained almost gray by age: In loving memory of Private Ivor Vincik, by his parents, or Gone forever but not forgotten, Artillery Sergeant Georg Legat. The park wore its history as proudly as a row of medals: from the memorials to the fallen to the white charnel house built from the skulls and femurs of the enemy battalion, used by the groundskeepers to store their lawnmowers.

The trees came to an end, and the path began to descend toward a concrete underpass that slid beneath the road that separated park from town center. If you could call it a town center, these days. First there’d been a small rural village. Then there’d been a battle. Then there’d been another village, which grew into a town before the next battle flattened it. Then the town had been rebuilt and turned into a city, which had been bombed heavily and rebuilt again. Then the Mall that Ate Vondrak had turned into the Arcology that Absorbed Vondrak, all concrete towers and gleaming glassy Penrose-tiled roof, a groundscraper sprawled across the landscape like a sleeping giant. The place was heavily contaminated by history, war memorials marking off the worst pollution hot spots.