The Ministry of Information might still control a significant portion of the data flow, but Elora’s stranglehold would slip when the citizens found other, more diverse sources for their information.

Austin didn’t know if his father realized it, but Sergio had significantly reduced his own power by providing this new conduit of information. Although Lady Elora seldom followed the script as Austin would have written it, she paid some lip service to supporting the Governor and his policies.

Not enough, not anymore, Austin thought, distracted from Marta. Would it be better for the Governor to seize the news services or to give wider access, as he was doing? Austin wasn’t sure how Marta, the MBA, and all the other factions on Mirach would use this direct pipeline to every citizen. He hoped Marta meant it when she said All WorldComm was interested only in supplying the equipment and that content could be someone else’s bread and butter.

He wished his father confided in him more, rather than treating him like a minor functionary. Not for the first time Austin wondered what it would be like if he had remained with the First Cossack Lancers, even serving under Legate Tortorelli’s direct orders. He felt he had a flair for being a soldier. He certainly felt adrift working as an aide-de-camp for his father.

He hoped poking around MBA-affiliated factories, such as this new IndustrialMech assembly plant, might prove useful. How, Austin wasn’t sure, unless it gave some clue about Dale’s death, but he needed to keep busy. And he had talked Marta Kinsolving into being his guide through the Mirach Industrial Giants factory.

“I hope the project clears all the fiscal hurdles,” Marta said.

“What project?” Austin asked before he thought about how such a question made him appear. He had to stay more alert and not let his thoughts wander.

“The Span-net, of course,” Marta said. “We’ll have operational relays on all four moons within two weeks and cheap full-spectrum broadcast capacity for whomever your father approves.”

The Span-net would help direct attention inward, to how well others on Mirach were doing rather than making comparisons, probably created out of sheer vacuum, with other planets.

“Will only MBA companies be able to contract for transmission time?” he asked.

“Since we are such an encompassing group, I’m sure many will. But the licensure won’t be limited strictly to members.”

As long as “many” means more than the Ministry of Information, Austin thought. From Marta’s expression, he saw she meant what she said.

They reached the entrance to the huge assembly building. Stretching a hundred meters inside were ranks of MiningMechs in various stages of assembly. The ones nearest were almost complete, standing six meters high with a rotary drill on one arm and a giant scoop weighing down the other. Such a machine could bore into a planet and clean out a stope with relentless efficiency.

“Are these units going to Nagursky?” he asked. Austin studied the lines of the ’Mech nearest him. Squat and vaguely menacing, the ’Mech wouldn’t take much refitting to become a deadly fighting machine. It was nothing compared to a real BattleMech, but there weren’t any in the Mirach armed forces. He and Dale might have trained endlessly in the simulator, but it was only play.

“I’ll see,” Marta said. She drew out a small handheld unit and spoke rapidly into it. She tucked it back into a pocket and said, “Ben Nagursky’s got eight on order.”

“Eight!” This startled Austin. “Is he expanding his mining empire that much?” Austin knew enough about MiningMechs to know this many could ream out the interior of an entire mountain in a few weeks.

Marta gave a small shrug. “I can’t say. We work together for the common good of Mirach industry, but plans for our individual companies are not shared, except in general terms. He might have a new strike waiting to be exploited. Nagursky wouldn’t make such a find public until ore began coming out of the ground and he had a market to announce.”

Austin felt she wasn’t telling the complete truth. He hesitated to brand her words a lie, but they carried a feel of …untruth.

“That phone. The portable one. Is that part of your Span-net?”

“Here,” she said, pulling it out of her pocket and handing it to him. “Use it like a standard phone. Or you can punch one of those small blue buttons for news reports, weather, that sort of information.”

“Fair, twenty degrees, wind from the north at ten kph,” reported the phone when Austin thumbed the weather information button.

“The news available to Span-net is still sketchy, but when the moon stations are finished and the entire world is under a decent reception footprint, there’ll be more,” Marta said. She obviously thought more of this small communications device than she did the looming ’Mechs on the line.

The truth is mightier than the ’Mech? he wondered. That was hard for him to believe; it sounded too much like something his father might say.

“Do you mind if I take one for a test drive?” Austin asked.

“Keep the phone,” Marta said.

“Not the phone. One of those.” Austin pointed to a MiningMech standing at the end of the assembly line.

“It might not have been checked out yet,” she said.

“Who do I contact to find out?” Austin held up his phone, giving her the goad to reach the plant supervisor. Marta showed him how to use the device by dialing up the super. Austin spoke to the supervisor for a few minutes, then tucked the phone into his pocket.

“All settled. The super said I could take one out, as long as I didn’t redline the equipment.”

“They only have internal combustion engines,” warned Marta. “Not a fusion unit like on your simulator.”

Austin had to laugh. AllWorldComm had manufactured most of the simulator equipment and all the software. This was something Marta knew well.

“Have you ever piloted one before? A real one?” she asked.

“I… know my way around one,” Austin said, again not quite telling the truth. He had trained in battle armor, in every mobile unit available to the FCL, and in some of the Legate’s heavier tanks, but other than the simulator, Austin had never piloted a ’Mech. Any ’Mech.

“That’s good. It requires considerable experience to control one,” Marta said. “There’s no need for lateral agility in an industrial model, so the controls give you forward and back, not much lateral movement. The arm controllers are the most extensive, but they’re easier to figure out than autocannon loaders. The one on the right controls the drill and the other, on the left, the scoop.”

“I might dig or drill a little, to test out the handling,” Austin said, his heart racing a little faster. He should have found an IndustrialMech to try out much earlier. He and Dale could have really enjoyed themselves with mock dogfights.

His enthusiasm muted a little as he thought again of his brother, but Austin walked quickly with Marta to the ’Mech. She appeared to know her way around the metal giants as well as he did. The auburn-haired woman smiled.

“I was quite a tomboy when I was growing up. I know everything there is to know about a ’Mech. Even if I hadn’t been fascinated when I was younger, I’d still know quite a bit about them. I used to oversee all simulator software design work at AWC before I moved into management.”

He kept forgetting how capable she was. Her technical expertise was only one of the traits that had propelled her to such a position of power in such a short time. The other CEOs in the Mirach Business Association were much older than Marta.

“Here,” she said, rummaging about in an envelope taped to the wall behind the ’Mech he eyed with such admiration. “The activation codes.”

“Thanks,” he said, glancing at them. The sequences were simple, but then, these ’Mechs were still in-factory, with neurohelmets unprogrammed. Once they were put to work in the mines, Nagursky’s drivers would imprint their own neurohelmets and reprogram their access codes to something far more difficult to crack. Nagursky wouldn’t want just any employee jumping into a MiningMech and taking it for a joyride.