“Please don’t get in our way, Mr. Gold.” Andez’s voice was cold.

Wiping her hands on a towel, Lydia stormed forward, her face pinched. “Demand to see their search warrant, Sullivan. We don’t have to let them in here. There are laws — ”

Her ill-advised words seemed to incite the cleanup crew, and they pushed past Sullivan. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This is private property. I’ll call the police.”

“We are the police.”

Lydia got in their way. “No, you’re not. You’re a gang of hoodlums.”

Sullivan grabbed his wife and physically restrained her. He had already seen how coolly they had gunned down the supposed accomplices in the assassination attempt on the Chairman. “Lydia, stop this.”

“Tellthem to stop it. Why are you letting them walk all over you?” She looked hurt. “We have to stand up for ourselves. We can’t just let this happen. It’s notright!”

The uniformed men and women overturned the furniture, upended an entire bookshelf, opened the cupboards in the kitchen, and began to fling dishes, pots, and pans everywhere.

“Please, just tell me what you’re looking for!” Sullivan cried.

“Evidence,” said Andez.

“Evidence of what?”

“Whatever we can find. We’ve had reports about you, especially your wife.” Andez smiled as they stood the dining room table on end as if they expected to find a secret transmitting device underneath the spindly wooden legs.

The previous day, his son Jerome’s restaurant had been looted, the windows smashed. Other family members had had their homes and places of employment terrorized. The cleanup crew had gone to his daughter Patrice’s private accounting office and placed an electronic lock on the door, posting that the business was “closed until further notice.” Two other daughters and a son had been “detained,” and his teenaged grandson Philip had a prestigious scholarship inexplicably revoked.

Now, as the uniformed men and women ransacked the home, going out of their way to overturn as many objects as possible, Lydia reached the boiling point. Sullivan saw it coming, but could not react quickly enough to stop her. She threw herself upon Andez, using bony fists to pound the woman’s shoulders and back. In a flash, the others pounced on his wife. Sullivan shouted for them to stop, genuinely terrified that they would shoot Lydia. Instead, they put her in restraint cuffs.

“You can release her,” he said, trying to get in the middle. “She won’t cause any more trouble.”

“She’s caused far more than enough trouble. The Chairman gave us orders.” Andez narrowed her eyes and looked at him. “He is still not pleased with your refusal to take over the Golgen skymines, Mr. Gold.”

As they whisked Lydia away, she struggled like a tigress trying to protect her home. They didn’t even bother continuing their search, and Sullivan felt that the whole event had been staged. He realized it must have been designed to provoke Lydia so they had an excuse to arrest her.

They had done it on purpose, just as they must have been selectively targeting his other family members. This was all about the Chairman showing him what the Hansa could do to him unless he agreed to cooperate.

He waited at home for almost a day, sure that Chairman Wenceslas would contact him with an ultimatum, and this time Sullivan would have no choice but to change his mind. But he heard nothing, and so he took the initiative and went to the Hansa HQ.

The door guards wouldn’t let him inside, citing “security reasons.”

Worse, he heard rumors that another round of executions would soon be scheduled. Though he never saw any list of proposed names, he felt a heavy dread in his chest. All of his family was in custody. He needed to see the Chairman. This was more than his own life and career on the line.

The first two times he begged for an appointment, his request was politely filed and then ignored, sent into a bin of low-priority items that some functionary far down in the chain of command would eventually review.

After days of being denied a meeting, Sullivan grew increasingly frantic. Finally, he tried a different administrative chain and managed to talk his way into one of the lower halls of the Hansa HQ. Fortunately, he bumped into Deputy Chairman Cain, who came through on his way to a meeting. “Please, Deputy, I need your help.”

The pale-skinned man recognized Sullivan, and in a rush Sullivan explained what had happened. Cain looked grave. “Obviously you need to speak with the Chairman.”

“I know. I’ve tried for days.”

“Come with me.”

Sullivan stumbled along, barely able to believe his luck. Cain walked right past the moat dragons, administrators, appointment keepers, and guards. “Mr. Chairman,” he said loudly as they entered the penthouse office, “you need to hear what this man has to say.”

In the spacious room, Chairman Wenceslas looked up with a scowl, recognizing Sullivan. “In due course. I have not yet replied to his requests.”

“I’m happy to expedite matters for you, sir. This should take only a few moments to straighten out.” He gestured Sullivan inside, as if he knew the Chairman was playing some unacceptable game, then turned smartly around and left.

Not sure what to do, but determined, Sullivan stood stiffly in front of the Chairman. “My family has been taken. I don’t know why, and I don’t know where they are. I. I was hoping you could help me, sir.” He inhaled deeply. “Please.”

“I’m sure there must have been some reason for their trouble.”

Sullivan decided to cut to the chase. “All right, dammit. If you insist that I take over the management of the Roamer skymining complex on Golgen, then I will do my best. If you give me military support, I can probably handle a hostile workforce. Send me there immediately, if you like. Just please, leave my family alone. Keep them safe.”

“These are dangerous and uncertain times, Mr. Gold. Who can guarantee anyone’s safety?”

Sullivan leaned close to the other man. “Youcan, Chairman Wenceslas.”

The other man smiled at the comment. “So I always believed, but recently I’ve had to take measures that I don’t particularly like. I comfort myself with the knowledge that in the long run, history will see the wisdom in what I’ve done.”

“I would see more of your wisdom if you released my family,” Sullivan countered. “They have caused no harm and certainly meant none.”

Basil tapped his fingers, aligning the fingerprints with other smudges on the polished projection surface of his desk. “The EDF base on the Moon would be a safe place to keep your family. Don’t you agree? We can provide them secure housing on the base. Commandant Tilton will be a proper host. So long as your cooperation and performance at Golgen are acceptable, your loved ones will remain entirely unharmed.”