Torin knelt by the body of the dead Marine, cataloguing his visible injuries. Had she been able to download the stored medical data on his implant as well as receive the BFFM beacon, she'd have been able to list internal damages as well. As it was, she could record only what she could see. That was enough. All the bones in his hands and feet had been broken, the cartilage in his nose had been removed, and one eye had been punctured multiple times. No point in destroying both eyes-that would have kept him from seeing what was coming.

His torturer had known how to use fear.

His kneecaps had been twisted to the side. His genitals had been both bruised and burned. Given the purple-and-green discoloration covering his torso, the odds were good ribs had been cracked and then pressure had been applied to the damage.

Over the years, Torin had seen a lot of injuries-limbs lost, guts literally spilled-but nothing that provided evidence in flesh and bone of such deliberate brutality.

He had a crest tattooed on the bicep of his left arm: 3rd Division, 1st Re'carta, 4th Battalion, Sierra Company.

"Did you know him, then?"

Torin took a final recording, shifted her weight back, and stood. "He has a sergeant's implant. Given his apparent age, I assume he's been retired for more than a few years." Which wasn't exactly what Craig had asked. She hadn't served with him, but she knew him. Had stood beside him on the yellow line that first day at Ventris Station. Had sat beside him on a VTA dropping for dirt. Had lain beside him in the mud, hands steady on her KC-7 as he bitched about the weather. Torin sent a copy of the file to Promise's data storage. Just in case. "He didn't tell them what they wanted to know."

Craig rubbed at the reddened dent the plumbing hook-in from the HE suit had left on his hip. "You know that because…?"

"There's nothing here that would have killed him outright." She gestured with the slate. "He died of the cumulative effect of his injuries, so his death was unintentional. Also, they didn't destroy his ability to talk-his lips are split, but they didn't go after his teeth or his tongue although he's bitten through his tongue himself."

"Doesn't look like he carked it that long ago either." When Torin shifted her attention off her slate and onto him, he shrugged. "If he'd been in vacuum any length of time, he'd have dehydrated more."

"So, not left over from the battle."

"Battle?"

"The one that created the debris field."

"Fuk, no," he snorted. "That battle happened back before you enlisted."

A lifetime ago. "Where's the nearest Warden's office?"

"Torin…"

One hand on the sergeant's shoulder, she met Craig's gaze. "This one's mine."

"They won't…"

"Craig."

"Nearest Warden's office is on Sulun Station-Sulun's a recent di'Taykan expansion planet." He rattled off the coordinates, but when Torin raised a brow at him, he added, "It's a short fold."

"How short?"

"About a day and a half in Susumi." Craig gestured at the body and added in a tone so neutral it had to be deliberate. "He'll have to be secured in the pen."

Torin thought about Jan and Sirin laid out for viewing in the market. "You say that like you think I might object."

"He's a Marine."

"He's a dead Marine. I don't get sentimental about the dead."

Craig stared at her for a long moment. "You get angry," he said at last.

"Sometimes," she admitted.

He nodded although she wasn't entirely certain what he was acknowledging. "Well, the sergeant here's not going to get any fresher. Throw out one segment while I suit up again, would you."

With a last look at the body, Torin moved to the pilot's chair and called up the screen that deployed the salvage pen. She'd ridden in it-with the survivors of the recon team sent to Big Yellow-and even if the sergeant had still been in a position to care, he'd likely had rougher rides over the years.

"So who do you think dumped the poor bastard out here?" Craig asked. She could hear the creak of his HE suit going back on.

"I'm hoping pirates."

"Hoping?"

"I don't like the alternative." She didn't need to voice the alternative; Craig had been there for the reveal. If the gray plastic aliens had maintained an interstellar war for generations in order to use it as a social laboratory then they could easily torture a few individuals in order to provide more context. "The sergeant's spent a lot of the last few years in space. His feet have no calluses and there's a scar on his hip where a suit's rubbed." Glancing up as the segment began unfolding, Torin muttered, "They can come up with broccoli in a tube and yet they still can't design a plumbing hook-in that doesn't leave a mark."

Her fingers drummed against the inert trim of the control panel. One more unnecessary mark on the sergeant's body. This one placed by bad design rather than cruelty, but still.

Then she realized the only sounds she could hear, other than her fingers, were the distant booms and scrapes of the pen moving into position against the hull. "Craig?"

Half into his suit, he stood and stared down at the body like he was seeing it for the first time. Then he stepped over the sergeant's splayed legs, the suit's bright orange arms flapping around his waist, and reached past Torin to tap the control panel. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

Torin breathed shallowly through her mouth-the insides of HE suits worn as often as CSOs wore theirs emitted a distinctly pungent aroma-and waited. Ships the size of the Promise were too small for secrets. He'd tell her in time.

When Craig straightened, a man's face filled one of the screens. The image had light brown eyes, a broad nose, salt-and-pepper stubble, and an expression that suggested he didn't think much of having his image recorded. "Is this him?"

"Is this who?" Torin asked.

"The dead Marine."

She twisted and stared down at the body on the deck. The chin, at least, was the same. "Probably. Who is he?"

"Rogelio Page."

They found Page's ship, Fortune's Fancy, drifting by the far edge of the debris field, two sections of pen deployed, both half filled with scrap. Plastics in one, metal in the other.

Craig zoomed in on the trailing safety line. "They took him while he was securing the load. That line's been cut."

Torin could think of no good reason why a man might cut his own line although a few bad ones occurred to her. "Pirates?"

"Pirates would take the pen."

"Whoever took him didn't want what he had, they wanted something he knew."

Page's ship was smaller even than the Promise.

"If we tighten his salvage into one pen, power Fancy down, and deploy all our panels…" Craig's fingers danced over the screen; the complex mathematics of maneuvering unique parameters beyond Torin's current skill set, "… we can take ship, salvage, and Page to the Warden at Sulun. Dying's one thing," he said in answer to Torin's silent question. "What Page went through, that's not part of the accepted risk package. And you're right. Dealing with this kind of shit is what the Wardens do."

"So to sum up…" One Who Maintains Order at the Edge, rested long, golden-furred forearms on her desk and laced gleaming claws together, "… you believe that two Civilian Salvage Operators-Jan Garrett-Wong and di'Akusi Sirin-were killed for salvage they had gained possession of and another-Civilian Salvage Operator ex-Sergeant Rogelio Page-was tortured in order to elicit information and although you do not know if Civilian Salvage Operator ex-Sergeant Page had been in contact with either Civilian Salvage Operator Garrett-Wong or Civilian Salvage Operator Sirin…"

Craig shifted, and Torin closed her hand on his arm, shaking her head when he glanced her way. Experience had taught her that the Dornagain could not be hurried. Would not be hurried. Their obsessive attention to detail and insistence on considering every possible variable before coming to a decision made them the perfect civil servant. At least from the government's point of view.