“No,” Marta said, her tone a little more hostile than before. “Since we can’t depend on The Republic, we’ll rely on our own technology. Span-net will not fail the way the HPG did.”

After such a bold statement and one reflecting what she thought of The Republic, Marta fell into generalized statements, stolen more from a PR campaign. Austin was glad he had glimpsed, if only for a moment, Marta’s true feelings.

She was no supporter of The Republic. Did that mean she would sell out the Governor, given the chance? Where did her allegiance lie? Austin thought Jacob Bannson was a possible candidate. Bannson would approach entrepreneurs, being one himself, and he had asked Sergio to consider a trading post. Perhaps the Governor moved too slowly and Bannson sought another foothold on Mirach, using the MBA.

Austin knew he was only guessing. But he would find that out, for the good of Mirach, just as he’d find out if Marta Kinsolving had anything to do with Dale’s death, for his own peace of mind.

Ministry of Information, Cingulum

Mirach

25 April 3133

Lady Elora’s face glowed in phosphorescent green light as she hunched over her desk in the windowless office. Half a dozen monitors winked on and off around her, each responsive to her silent command. There was space on the desktop for writing or spreading out documents, but the rest was a gently banked surface covered with vidscreens and controls that allowed her to tap into any feed from any camera sent out by the Ministry, to observe and edit or spy. Her long, bony fingers danced over the controls, shifting restlessly from one view to the next. Nothing transpired in the Ministry of Information without her approval and overview.

In spite of such tight control, Elora still felt neglected, out of the loop, talked about behind her back by her inferiors. Sitting in her sparse room, she could toil over her spy equipment and compile a list of those who opposed her. And it was such a long list.

She hesitated when a screen showed Legate Tortorelli with three aides—she knew they were bodyguards rather than advisers because Ministry sensors revealed their sheathed weapons as surely as if they were carried in plain sight—bustling along the hallway two levels below her office. The Legate had breezed through security at street level and was on his way to see her, reaching the foot of the restricted-access escalator coming directly to the top floor of the Ministry Tower, where Elora built her electronic nest.

“Let the Legate in,” she said, her index finger lightly brushing across a pressure switch. “Keep his guards in the reception area.”

She received no response and had expected none. Her staff was capable, except when it came to complex tasks. She still fumed that Hanna Leong had gone missing for the better part of two days before she had been permanently removed. Where had she been? Or did it matter, now that Dale Ortega was gone, too?

Such thorny questions stalked her waking moments.

Elora took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. It was time to prepare for the Legate’s unannounced visit.

Quick fingers worked over the controls, causing screens to vanish silently into the surface of her desk, leaving behind only faint seams to betray the hidden monitors. A single vidscreen showing the current Ministry newscast remained visible at one side of her desk. Elora leaned back in her chair, pushing aside the feeling of nakedness. So much happened when she wasn’t personally monitoring it, guiding it, exploiting it.

This was the price of dealing with Calvilena Tortorelli. He was a bothersome but necessary evil.

Her office door whispered open, and the portly Legate bustled in.

“Calvy!” she greeted with false bonhomie. “So glad you stopped by.”

“Elora,” the Legate said, sounding frightened. She guessed he was not happy having his bodyguards detained two stories below. “Forgive me for not calling ahead, but matters have been churning about me so. Terrible things, simply terrible!”

“Please, sit down. I—” Lady Elora recoiled when Tortorelli interrupted her.

“Is this room secure?”

“Yes, it is,” she said carefully. “What’s wrong?”

“No windows?” he asked. “You’re on the top floor of a fifty-story building and you don’t have any windows?”

“Security risks, Calvy. You know that. A laser shining against a glass pane turns the window into a microphone transmitting for everyone to hear.”

“What I wish to discuss is highly sensitive. Highly.”

“I live by the credo that walls have ears, Calvy,” she said, beginning to wonder what was so important. Whatever it was, it clearly frightened him.

“What I have stumbled across must be kept in the strictest confidence. If anyone else learned what I have uncovered, well, let’s say Mirach would be damaged severely.”

Elora considered what this might be and decided she had to divert him, if the Legate brought her the information she suspected from his behavior.

“Tell me, Calvy. You know I can keep a secret.”

“Baronet Dale’s death,” he said in a husky whisper. “It wasn’t accidental.”

“Calvy, you assassinated the Baronet?” she said with mock surprise.

“What are you saying, woman? No, no, not me. But I found the man who substituted the live missiles. A security camera recorded him. He wasn’t in my service and he certainly was not in the FCL.”

Elora said nothing about the haphazard way Tortorelli had planned the war games and how he had spread authority over too many junior commanders. What bothered her was how the assassin had been caught in the act on camera.

“You’ve arrested him? Turned him over to the Baron? No, he should go to the civil authorities,” she said.

“He vanished, Elora. Gone. Like smoke. But the Baron will think I knew about it.”

“Who else knows?” she asked. “Of the pictures and the assassin?”

“A handful of technicians. And their commander.”

“Scatter them around the planet, Calvy,” she said. “Transfer them and keep them separated. Promote the officer; make it a staff position where you can watch him. You dare not let a hint of this get out.”

“But I don’t know who he is. Was. Oh, Elora, this is a nightmare!”

“One easily handled by an experienced commander such as yourself,” Elora said soothingly. She considered how difficult it would be to remove all the witnesses, and decided eliminating one careless employee was better than creating questions over the death of half a squad in the Home Guard.

“I should tell the Baron. I had nothing to do with this, he needs to know, and that other son of his keeps asking questions.”

This signed the assassin’s death warrant. Elora didn’t know how it would be done, but it had to be done soon. And it would.

“Would Sergio be better off if you went to him? I think there might be more to the Baronet’s death than you think, Calvy. See what I’ve uncovered?”

She touched a spot on the surface of the desk. The small screen at the corner of her desk turned toward the Legate like a radar unit seeking its target. “This was recorded after the Baron’s news conference by accident and might shed light on whom the assassin works for. We were doing a feature on industries vital to Mirach. Of course, I had to do a significant portion on AllWorldComm.”

“Of course,” Tortorelli said, squinting at the screen, trying to figure out what he was seeing.

“Ms. Kinsolving and Austin Ortega earlier today were touring the AWC assembly area when this was recorded.”

Her Ministry’s best technicians had spent long hours putting this snippet together to garner the maximum effect.

“I’m no expert, mind you,” Elora said slowly, “but it sounds as if they are discussing the political stability of Mirach and that Ms. Kinsolving is disparaging your attempts to maintain order.”