I wouldn’t want you here no matter what happens. You’ll stay in contact with me?

“Yes, of course,” Wilson said.

Then you should go now. And hurry, because there’s not a lot of time left.

*   *   *

“This isn’t going to be a popular sentiment, but he’s going to die anyway,” said Captain Fotew. “We don’t have to expend the effort.”

“Are you suddenly on a budget, Captain?” Wilson asked. “Can the Conclave no longer afford a missile or a particle beam?” They were on the bridge of the Nurimal,along with Abumwe and Sorvalh.

“I said it wouldn’t be a popular sentiment,” Fotew said. “But someone ought to point it out, at least.”

“Rayth Ablant has given us vital information about the whereabouts of the people directing him,” Wilson said, and pointed toward the bridge’s communications and science station, where the science officer was already busily attempting to crack the encryption on the orders. “He’s been cooperative with us since our engagement with his ship.”

“It’s not as if he had much of a choice in that,” Fotew said.

“Of course he had a choice,” Wilson said. “If he hadn’t signaled to Corporal Carn, we wouldn’t know he was there. We wouldn’t know that some organization out there is taking the Conclave’s missing ships and turning them into glorified armed drones. We wouldn’t know that whoever this group is, they’re a threat to both the Conclave and the Colonial Union equally. And we wouldn’t know that neither of our governments is engaging in a stealth war with the other.”

“We still don’t know that last one, Lieutenant Wilson,” Sorvalh said. “Because we still don’t know the who. We still don’t know the players in this game.”

“Not yet,” Wilson said, motioning back to the science station. “But depending how good your code cracker is over there, this may be a temporary problem. And for the moment, at least, our governments are sharing information, since you’ve gotten that information from me.”

“But this is a problem of proportion, isn’t it?” Sorvalh said. “Is what we learn from you going to be worth everything we’ve expended to learn it? Is what we lose by granting Rayth Ablant his death more than we gain by, for example, what remains of his box when the explosion is over? There’s still a lot we could learn from the debris.”

Wilson looked over to Abumwe pleadingly. “Councillor,” Abumwe said, “not too long ago you chose to surrender your vessel to us. Lieutenant Wilson here refused your surrender. You praised him for his thinking then. Consider his thinking now.”

“Consider his thinking?” Sorvalh said, to Abumwe. “Or give him a decision on credit, because of a presumed debt to him?”

“I would prefer the first,” Abumwe said. “I would take the second, however.”

Sorvalh smiled at this, looked over to Wilson and then to Fotew. “Captain?”

“I think it’s a waste,” Fotew said. “But it’s your call to make, Councillor.”

“Prepare a missile,” Sorvalh said. Captain Fotew turned to do her bidding; Sorvalh turned her attention back to Wilson. “You used your credit with me, Lieutenant,” she said. “Let’s hope that in the future you don’t have cause to wish you had spent it on something else.”

Wilson nodded and opened up a channel to the Urse Damay. “Rayth Ablant,” he said.

I am here,came back the text.

“I’ve gotten you what you wanted,” Wilson said.

Just in time. I am down to the last 2 percent of my power.

“Missile prepped and ready for launch,” Captain Fotew said, to Sorvalh. Sorvalh nodded to Wilson.

“Just tell me when you want it,” Wilson said.

Now is good.

Wilson nodded to Fotew. “Fire,” she said, to her weapons station.

“On its way,” Wilson said.

Thank you for everything, Lieutenant Wilson.

“Glad to,” Wilson said.

I’ll miss you.

“Likewise,” Wilson said.

There was no response.

“We’ve cracked the order,” the science officer said.

“Tell us,” Sorvalh said.

The science officer looked at the humans on the bridge and then Captain Fortew. “Ma’am?” she said.

“You have your orders,” Fotew said.

“The coordinates for the return flight of the Urse Damayare in this system,” the science officer said. “They resolve under the surface of the local star. If it came out of skip there, it would have been destroyed instantly.”

“Your friend was never going home, Lieutenant Wilson,” Sorvalh said.

“Missile has reached the Urse Damay,” Fotew said, looking at her bridge display. “Direct hit.”

“I’d like to think he just got there on his own, Councillor,” Wilson said.

He walked off the bridge of the Nurimaland headed toward the shuttle bay, alone.

EPISODE TWELVE

The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads

“This is a very interesting theory you have, about conspiracy,” said Gustavo Vinicius, the undersecretary for administration for the Brazilian consulate in New York City.

Danielle Lowen frowned. She was supposed to be having this meeting with the consul general, but when she arrived at the consulate she was shunted to Vinicius instead. The undersecretary was very handsome, very cocksure and, Lowen suspected, not in the least bright. He was very much the sort of person who exuded the entitled air of nepotism, probably the less-than-useful nephew of a Brazilian senator or ambassador, assigned someplace where his personal flaws would be covered by diplomatic immunity.

There was only so much Lowen could stew about the nepotism. Her father, after all, was the United States secretary of state. But the genial, handsome stupidity of this Vinicius fellow was getting on her nerves.

“Are you suggesting that Luiza Carvalho acted alone?” she asked. “That a career politician, with no record whatsoever of criminal or illegal activity, much less any noticeable political affiliations, suddenly took it into her head to murder Liu Cong, another diplomat? In a manner designed to undermine relations between the Earth and the Colonial Union?”

“It is not impossible,” Vinicius said. “People see conspiracies because they believe that one person could not do so much damage. Here in the United States, people are still convinced that the men who shot Presidents Kennedy and Stephenson were part of a conspiracy, when all the evidence pointed to single men, working alone.”

“In both cases, however, there was evidence presented,” Lowen said. “Which is why I am here now. Your government, Mr. Vinicius, asked the State Department to use this discreet back channel in order to deal with this problem, rather than go through your embassy in Washington. We’re happy to do that. But not if you’re going to give us the runaround.”

“I am not giving you a runaround, I promise,” Vinicius said.

“Then why am I meeting with you and not Consul Nascimento?” Lowen asked. “This was supposed to be a high-level, confidential meeting. I flew up from Washington yesterday specifically to take this meeting.”

“Consul Nascimento has been at the United Nations all day long,” Vinicius said. “There were emergency meetings there. She sends her regrets.”

“I was at the United Nations before I came here,” Lowen said.

“It is a large institution,” Vinicius said. “It’s entirely possible that you would not have crossed paths.”

“I was assured that I would be given information pertaining to Ms. Carvalho’s actions,” Lowen said.

“I regret I have nothing to give you at this time,” Vinicius said. “It’s possible that we may have misunderstood each other in our previous communications.”

“Really, Mr. Vinicius?” Lowen said. “Our mutual State Departments, who have been in constant contact since your nation brought its first legation to Washington in 1824, are suddenly having communication difficulties?”