Abruptly, Peter stood and turned to Estarra, taking the protocol attendees by surprise. He was finished playing Basil’s game. He raised his voice. “Mr. Chairman, thank you for coming up into the light of day to allow us this fine meal. Rory, please allow me to reciprocate and invite you to my Confederation flagship so that I can demonstrate our goodwill and hospitality — shall we say in two days? Of course, you are most welcome to bring the Chairman with you.” He lowered his voice and quietly growled to Basil, “I’ll have an answer for you then about reuniting the human race.”

At a slight nod from the agitated Chairman, King Rory brightly accepted the invitation as all the imagers captured the moment.

Basil seemed to be trying to figure out how to have the last word even as Peter and the rest of his retinue took leave of the Whisper Palace and followed their escorts back toward the spaceport. Estarra cast one last glance back at Sarein, who seemed unsuccessfully to be trying to communicate something.

Peter transmitted to Admiral Willis that they had been released unharmed and would be returning to theJupiter shortly. He wasn’t certain exactly what the Chairman had meant to accomplish with this meeting, but Peter had achieved his own aims. “We’re done here, Admiral. It was quite a successful evening.”

Willis acknowledged. Estarra was disturbed and preoccupied as they boarded the diplomatic shuttle that would take them back up to the Confederation ships patrolling beyond the lunar orbit.

In his former life, as the streetwise kid named Raymond, Peter had learned how to pick pockets. Though he was now King, he had never forgotten important skills. Now, as the shuttle lifted off and flew away from the Palace District, Peter carefully held on to the piece of silverware he had discreetly slipped up his sleeve. While OX had made a show of picking up a dropped spoon, Peter had palmed the fork from Rory’s plate. A fork with his DNA.

123

Sarein

Sarein withdrew to her quarters after being released from her rigidly defined duties at the banquet — “Keep talking to a minimum,” Basil had said. “You’re there to remind Estarra that you arewith me. That’s all.”

He had returned to his private shelter deep underground, leaving her up here. Basil hadn’t spoken a word to her after the banquet, though she supposed he was still watching her every move.

As she lay back on a settee in her quarters, trying to remember every word her sister had spoken during dinner, an evacuation alarm shattered her concentration. The obnoxious racket demanded her full attention. Because of the imminent threat of meteor bombardment, everyone knew how to find the closest evacuation shelters. The thick-walled rooms would supposedly provide protection in the event of a complete building collapse, although if a large enough fragment of the Moon smashed into the Palace District, everything would be vaporized for kilometers around.

In response to the alarm, Sarein ran from her rooms, taking nothing with her. All of her favorite possessions had been removed anyway when Basil had ordered the remodeling of her quarters. She hurried down the hall, dropped down a level, and raced into the nearest VIP shelter. With the evacuation alert still sounding, she ducked into the small room — and saw that someone had arrived ahead of her: Deputy Eldred Cain.

He sealed the door and turned to her with a cold smile. “This will give us a few moments to talk in private. I wish I didn’t need to cause such disruption, but I couldn’t think of any other way. We don’t have much time.”

The bomb shelter wasted no space on comforts or decoration. The steel-reinforced walls were made of thick beige-painted blocks. A metal cabinet held food supplies and water; in the corner a polymer curtain surrounded a small chemical toilet, adjacent to which was a water recycler and sanitizer sink. The phosphorescent tiles in the ceiling would illuminate the chamber indefinitely.

Although Cain had secured the chamber, Sarein could still hear the throbbing alarm out in the corridors. The deputy kept his voice low. “It is more urgent than ever that we remove the Chairman. You know this, Sarein.”

“Of course I know it! But the first assassination attempt failed, and look what happened to McCammon — and eighteen innocent scapegoats.”

Deputy Cain withdrew a ceremonial dagger from his inner jacket pocket. Its ornate sheath was inscribed with the initialsRRM: the ceremonial knife that McCammon had always worn as part of his royal guard uniform. “I recovered this from the Captain’s body before his possessions were disposed of. I cleaned off the bloodstains.” When he looked at her, the expression on Cain’s face and the way he held the knife in his hand frightened her. “I intended to give it to his family. I thought they’d want it as a token of his years of honorable service. But I found no one. Apparently, our Captain McCammon was alone in the world. He had no family to miss him.”

“We’ll miss him,” Sarein said, her voice catching in her throat. “We know what really happened.”

Cain tapped the pointed end of the sheathed dagger against his palm. “Ironically, the Captain’s death, coupled with the faeros attack on the Moon, may have bought us a little time. The Chairman no doubt believes that we have been frightened back into our places. He’s moved on to the next problem, and I’m sure he thinks we’ll behave ourselves.”

“He showed me surveillance images! He’s got proof against me.”

Cain shrugged. “And he quite probably has proof against me, as well. The question is, will we act before he does?”

Remembering Basil’s cold touch, Sarein shuddered and wondered if he would come to see her again. She could not let that happen. “We have to.”

He smiled. “Agreed. And we have no choice but to act precipitously. You may have noticed that an opportunity arose at the banquet. Peter extended an invitation that the Chairman cannot afford to decline. I doubt he’ll take King Rory with him, since that would put him at a tactical disadvantage, but he will go to the Confederation flagship. Behind closed doors, he will hammer Peter with his ultimatum and back it up with significant threats.”

She lowered her voice, not convinced — even during a disaster alarm — that Basil wasn’t eavesdropping. “What kind of threats?”

“Now that King Peter has seen Rory in person, the Chairman is ready for the coup de grace. He’ll threaten to kill Rory. and I’m quite certain he means it. Under the circumstances, the Chairman is absolutely convinced Peter will back down, rather than let any harm come to his brother.”

“IsRory his brother?”

“I have no idea. And neither does Peter.”

“Basil thought the Mage-Imperator would bow to his demands, too,” Sarein pointed out.

“We won’t give Peter the opportunity, either way. There’s too much at stake. While the Chairman is gone, Freedom’s Sword is perfectly positioned and ready to move.” Cain slowly drew the knife out of its sheath and looked down at the sharp silver blade. His meaning was clear.