“Who is she?”

“I wish I could tell you. We have nothing beyond her alias—no background, no world of origin, nothing. We don’t even know if anyone else in the group calls her Norah. But our source believed she was fairly high in the organization. If she’s here, on the street, they’re definitely moving toward something big.”

“How come this information isn’t in the file?”

Mandela eyed Heather warily. “Most of it is.”

“And the rest?”

“I held out.”

Heather’s toe started tapping on the floor. She had come to Mandela because she trusted him, yet now even he was acting suspiciously.

“Why would you hold out anything?”

“First, because this name is of little consequence. It’s an alias, and for all I know she changes it on a daily basis. Second”—Mandela’s words emerged slowly, as he chose each carefully—“often in these investigations it can be useful to know something no one else knows. Though of little consequence, these bits of information can prove useful in interrogations, or undercover infiltrations. It’s best to keep one or two things away from all other eyes to protect their confidentiality.”

“You don’t trust a classified file?”

“Have any Paladins ever given you reason to mistrust them?” he shot back.

She wanted to say “no,” but she couldn’t. “All right. Why tell me her name now?”

“As I said, these little pieces can be useful in interrogations, which I hope you will be conducting shortly. And I trust you more than I trust the file.”

“Thanks. So you say her presence means they’re moving toward something big. Any ideas on what that might be?”

Mandela stood, walked to a corner of his office, and began idly spinning a globe as he thought. The rhythmic thud of his hand on the resin was oddly soothing.

“They don’t want to destroy The Republic,” Mandela said, thinking out loud. “If they act against the government, it wouldn’t be to bring it down entirely; they would just want certain people out, making room for the people they felt they could trust, or who would further their goals.”

“Assassination?” A thought had struck Heather.

Mandela’s hand moved faster. “Maybe. In certain cases, they might find it necessary.”

“Victor?”

The spinning globe stopped as Mandela’s hand rested flat on it. Then he slowly began spinning it again.

“Not likely. A movement like Kittery depends on a certain degree of public support. Victor may not have shared their goals, but he was a legend—killing him could do them far more harm than good, in the long run.”

“How does staging a riot do anything good for their popular support?”

Otto gave the globe a final spin, then paced back to his chair. His gestures became more and more theatrical as the conversation progressed. There was a reason Mandela was assigned to watch elections so often, besides his honesty. He understood politics as well as any Paladin—with the possible exception of Anders Kessel.

“First, you have to remember that only a few of us know that Kittery had anything to do with this. They have made no effort to take credit for their effort—to the contrary, they’ve covered their tracks quite well. This is not supposed to be a riot of the Kittery Renaissance. It’s just supposed to be a random occurrence.”

“Increasing the tension in a city already near the boiling point.”

“Right!” said Mandela with a snap of his fingers. “Leading to either a popular uprising against the government—”

“—which, given the government’s vast technological advantage over the citizenry, is unlikely to succeed—”

“—or to a government crackdown.” Mandela paused before adding one more thought. “Or, with the election coming up, influencing us to choose an Exarch who will crack down on some of these elements.”

“They staged a riot to manipulate us?” Heather asked incredulously. “It’s not working too well.”

“They’re not done. This is a prelude. Whatever they have planned next is supposed to do the real work.”

“And what they’re planning is…”

Mandela, who had been wandering briskly around his office, abruptly stopped and slumped in his chair. “I have no idea.”

“If they’re trying to manipulate the election, who is it they want to win?”

Mandela smiled wanly. “Before I could take a stab at that, I’d need to know what they were up to.”

“Now for the truly difficult question. Is one of our number using the KR to get themselves elected?”

“No,” Mandela said firmly. But he shifted in his chair.

Heather, watching him squirm, remained silent.

“At least, I hope not,” Mandela finally said. “This is not our way, funding terrorists to do work that, all our lives, we’ve performed directly for ourselves. I know the Paladins well enough that I have difficulty believing any of them would be involved with this group. But in the current political climate, I cannot offer any guarantees.”

“Plus,” Heather added, “we have two Paladins who many of us don’t know very well.”

“Redburn appointed them, and I trust his judgment,” Mandela said. “But you’re right. We don’t know them.”

Heather didn’t have to look for Duncan when she left Mandela’s office. He pounced when he saw her.

“We’re up to three bomb threats in the Hall of Government today,” he said. “Would you like to know who sent them?”

“No.”

“I should tell you a mysterious package was found on the eighth floor.”

“A bomb?”

“No. A misplaced data screen.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“To keep—”

“—me informed. Fine. How did your conversation with the receptionist go?”

Duncan’s eyes brightened. “Oh, right! Interesting!”

Heather fervently wished Duncan had learned something besides the woman’s phone number.

“It turns out she’s new here. She’d been working for a Senator for a while, but just got transferred out.”

“Okay.”

“She says she got transferred because she caught her boss sneaking a rendezvous with some guy from the diplomatic corps.”

“Sex?”

“Maybe. But something else, too,” Duncan said, attempting an air of careful sophistication. “Getting transferred doesn’t do anything, really, to keep her from talking. She’s free to spread rumors about them as much as she wants, like she did with me. But what she can’t do anymore is watch them. If they’re up to something else, she’s not in position anymore to find out what it is.”

“That’s good thinking,” Heather said, trying not to sound surprised. “Did she happen to mention any names?”

Duncan smiled. “She certainly did.”

St. Croix Office Equipment Warehouse, Geneva

Terra, Prefecture X

13 December 3134

At night, the warehouse compound of St. Croix Office Equipment and Consumables, located in Geneva’s industrial outer ring, resembled nothing so much as a large, empty shoebox. The site scarcely looked the same as the busy commercial depot that by day received and sent out crates and pallets of manufactured goods—desks, chairs, computers, short-run printing and binding equipment, cleaning equipment and supplies, and reams and reams of paper.

Geneva was the home of the largest bureaucracy in The Republic of the Sphere, and the city’s appetite for office supplies was insatiable. This particular St. Croix warehouse was only one of dozens of such ugly rectangular buildings located out of sight of the elegant and historic city center, but conveniently close to the main transit arteries required for making deliveries.

This last fact prompted the Kittery Renaissance leader, Cullen Roi, to settle on the warehouses of the St. Croix chain as the target for tonight’s work.

Cullen Roi had sent Hansel to supervise the job. Norah would have liked to come as well, but Cullen knew that she couldn’t be trusted with this kind of mission. She was an excellent agent provocateur, one of the best at stirring up trouble and being long gone by the time it came to a head, but she was neither patient nor quiet.