Asach reached out, gently, and took the image from Ollie’s quavering hand. Examined it carefully. Rubbed a finger over one portion several times, enlarging the detail. Looked at it thoughtfully, dispassionately.

“Ollie,” Asach said, “do you hire Saurons for your security details?”

He stopped blubbing with one breath, suddenly sober, suddenly back on the job.

“No!”

“How about Tanith? Hire any Tanith Jungle Boys?”

He was already shaking his head. “No! No offworlders! Only locals! Only lads from wards I know!”

Asach looked up from the image, slowly. “Only, feathery thing, a tamarisk. But there’s no tracks. No limbs that’d hold that weight. That’s why they—that’s why his weight is borne by the trunk. It took somebody strong as an ox to get that boy up that tree.”

And then Asach was looking at Michael. “And then there’s the method.”

Asach looked at Zia and Ollie. Then down at Marul. “I’m sorry. But you’ve already seen it. I think you should know. And I suppose they’ll tell you anyway, once they’ve figured it out for themselves. Or not. Which would say a lot in itself.”

Back to Michael. “It’s a nasty death. It’s a nasty death, because it’s meant to send a signal. Question is, who was the signal for?”

Michael was pale, on the verge of fainting.

And then to Ollie. But clearly, the boy’s father already knew. Asach handed him back the image, and pulled Michael aside, out of Mena’s hearing. “It’s called reverse kosher, for some pinch-minded, sadistic reason I don’t care to pursue right now. You can tell by the bleeding. First he was pinned to the tree. Then he was gutted. Then his throat was cut. It isn’t pretty, and depending on what bastard does it, it can be very slow.”

And very, very slowly, Asach looked Michael full in the face. “So, tell me, Michael. Who on New Utah pays hired goons? From offworld? From the nether regions of Hell?”

He cowered.

“See, I don’t think sending these folks away will make much difference now. Do you?”

He shuddered, as if a spell had lifted. He shook his head. “No.”

“Michael, I think it’s time to start spilling your guts to your dear, old friend. Because these people,” Asach waved a hand to take in the assembled behind them, “desperately need our help.”

He nodded.

“OK, so, do you believe me now?”

He nodded.

“Evidence of things seen, or unseen?”

He shuddered again. “Seen. Unseen. Both.”

“So, who was this message intended for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Michael?!”

“I DON’T know.”

“Then let’s try it a different way. Michael, where is your mother?”

Nothing.

“Michael, where is Lillith Van Zandt?”

Nothing.

“Michael, is Lillith Van Zandt here on New Utah?”

He nodded, slowly.

“Well, then, old friend, I think it is time to spill.”

They trundled poor Marul off to bed, in the company of Mena, Lena, half the household, and The Lads, who swore on their mother’s heads that they would trade watch to ensure that no harm came to her during the night.

Asach, Zia, Ollie, Michael, Nejme, and later Mena, lullabies complete, huddled around a table in the kitchen, with Lena on the periphery tending refills. And oh, did Michael spill. It had all been the opal meerschaum trade, he said. Lillith wanted in on the action; the TCM had a lock; and good son Michael had been dispatched to ooze his way around the margins and insinuate himself.

He’d insinuated as far at Bonneville. He’d sniffed and sniffed, and found that the TCM seemed to hold a bunch of warehouses there. Officially, they were tithe-houses, secured for the annual collection. Michael wasn’t so sure. Seemed to be a lot of to-and-fro, especially this past year, and well before the collection and debtor’s assizes.

So he’d gone to Bonneville. Bought the house. With Lillith’s money, not his. Found a staff. Settled in. Put it about a bit, quietly, that he’d broker. It was Nejme, really. Nejme and Mena. People came, spoke with them. It trickled in. Never much. Never much from one seller. No really big chunks. Bits and pieces, packed in sand, direct from wherever it came from. But nice quality. Even a few pieces of black—old family pieces, you know? It trickled in.

“What did they want for it?”

“Excuse me?”

“The meerschaum. What did they want? Selenium?”

Michael looked confused. So did everyone.

“Selenium?

“Vitamins? Fertilizer?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. No barter. Strictly cash.”

“Crowns?”

“Whatever. Crowns, local, credits, scrip. TCM tithe credits are favorite here. Sort of cuts out the middleman.”

Everyone nodded.

“And the other end?”

“There was no other end. I only worked here.”

“So you still have it all?”

“No.” He looked over at the grim-faced woman in the conservative black dress. “That’s where Zia comes in.” He re-told the story: the meeting; the Bonneville warehouse; the twenty-two kilos, sold, supposedly, fair-and-square, to a TCM contract buyer from something called Orcutt Land and Mining. The promissory voucher for full, one-to-one tithe credit. The notice of the impending auditor descent, and the subpoena to the debtor’s assizes. His hideously expensive, panic-driven flight to Saint George. Zia’s deal for salvation.

Asach thought for awhile in the exhausted quiet. Looked over at the plump, tough little woman with the pinched, grim face cowled by her severe, black frock and bonnet.

“And, you had in mind—?”

Zia felt nothing. Business was business. Hugo was dead.

“The warehouses,” she said. “I had in mind the warehouses. The warehouses for Orcutt Land and Mining.”

Ollie started. “Zia, No!”

She shrugged. ‘What does it matter now? Hugo is dead.”

“But Deela! And—”

“What does it matter? If they have them, if they want them, they are gone now too, no matter what we do.”

She turned back to Asach. “I know when the warehouses will make delivery to the TCM in Saint George.”

Michael jumped in. “But how can you? That’s what you never explained. How can you know when? I’m telling you, there isn’t enough product out there! There isn’t—”

“There will be. Very soon now, it’s coming.”

“But how do you know”

Zia glowered at him, her face pinched, and hard. She detested him. Detested his patrician manners; detested his phony Bonneville whites, detested his caviling clinging to his Mama’s purse. She barely, just barely, refrained from name-calling.

“I know, because we all know. Anyone from here. Anyone from Bonneville. Don’t we?”

She scanned the table. Nejme, Mena, Lena: they met her gaze briefly, then averted their eyes. But everyone nodded, slightly.

Asach knew too, of course, albeit in a different way, and from the other end. Had been briefed that much. Knew that a neutron star, in an eccentric orbit, opened a tramline—an Alderson point—from New Utah to Maxroy’s Purchase on a roughly 21-year cycle. Knew that the True Church had, every twenty years or so, briefly registered some mining company or other on Maxroy’s Purchase, and used its books to mask illicit shipments of fertilizer, vitamins, medical supplies—and in return pull in prime opal meerschaum. In between those decades, the price would climb and climb. The end game speculation was the stuff of dreams for small players.

And now, the Jackson Delegation was more-or-less hanging around, awaiting Asach’s report; awaiting the opening of the tramline, ready to offer free trade in fertilizer, in exchange for the munificent benefits of Empire membership. Munificent for some. Not so very munificent at all, if you had neither planetary government nor space travel. In which case, you enjoyed all the benefits of being colonized, as on Makassar.