"Can you?" I asked.

"Not yet," Jane said. "Everything about this world shifts. Every reason we've thought we had for being here has turned out to be a half-truth. I care about Roanoke. I care about the people here. I will fight for them and I'll defend Roanoke the best that I can, when it comes to that. But this isn't my world. I don't trust it. Do you?"

"I don't know," I said. "I know that I'm worried this inquiry will take it away from me, though."

"Do you think anyone here cares anymore about who the Colonial Union thinks should run this colony?" Jane asked.

"Possibly not," I said. "But it would still hurt."

"Hmmm," Jane said, and thought about that for a while. "I still want to see Kathy one day," she eventually said.

"I'll see what I can do," I said.

"Don't say that unless you mean it," Jane said.

"I mean it," I said, and was somewhat surprised that, in fact, I did. "I would like you to meet her. I wish you could have met her before."

"So do I," Jane said.

"It's settled, then," I said. "Now all we have to do is find a way to get back to Earth without getting our ship shot out from under us by the CU. I'll have to work on that."

"Do that," Jane said. "But later." She stood and held out her hand to me. I took it. We went inside.

"Our apologies, Administrator Perrry, for the late start," said Justine Butcher, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Colonial Jurisprudence for the Department of Colonization. "As you may be aware, things have been quite hectic around here recently."

I was aware. When Trujillo, Kranjic, Beata and I disembarked the shuttle from our transport ship to Phoenix Station, the general station buzz appeared to have trebled; none of us had ever recalled seeing the station as jam-packed with CDF soldiers and CU functionaries as it appeared to be now. Whatever was going on, it was big. All of us glanced at each other significantly, because whatever it was, it almost certainly involved us and Roanoke in some way. We fanned out from each other wordlessly, off to our own individual tasks.

"Of course," I said. "Anything in particular causing the rush?"

"It's a number of things, happening at once," Butcher said. "None of which you need to concern yourself with at the moment."

"I see," I said. "Very well."

Butcher nodded, and signified the two other people seated at the table, before which I stood. "This inquiry has been impaneled in order to question you about your conversation with General Tarsem Gau of the Conclave," Butcher said. "This is a formal inquiry, which means that you are required to answer any and all questions truthfully, directly and completely as possible. However, this is not a trial. You have not been charged with any crime If at a future point you are charged with a crime, you will be triec through the Department of Colonization's Court of Colonial Affairs. Do you understand?"

"I do," I said. The DoC's Colonial Affairs Courts were judge-only affairs, designed to let colony heads and their appointed judges make quick decisions so the colonists could get on with colonizing. A CA Court ruling had the force of law, although limited to that specific case only. A CA Court judge or colony head acting as judge could not circumvent Department of Colonization regulations and bylaws, but as the DoC recognized the wide range of colonial situations were not uniform in their regulatory needs, those regulations and bylaws were surprisingly few. Colonial Affairs Courts were also organizationally flat; there was no appealing a Colonial Affairs Court ruling. Essentially a CA Court judge could do whatever he or she wanted. It was not an optimal legal situation for a defendant.

"Fine," Butcher said, and looked at her PDA. "Then let's begin. When you were conversing with General Gau, you offered first to take his surrender, and then offered to allow him to leave Roanoke space without injury to himself or to his fleet." She looked up at me over the PDA. "This is correct, Administrator?"

"That's right," I said.

"General Rybicki, whom we have already called"—this was news to me, and I was suddenly sure that Rybicki was now less than entirely pleased he ever suggested me for the colonial administrator position—"testified to us that your orders were to engage Gau in nonessential discussions only, until the fleet was destroyed, at which point you were to inform him that only his ship had survived the attack."

"Yes," I said.

"Very well," Butcher said. "Then you may begin by explaining what you were thinking when you offered to accept Gau's surrender, and then offered to let his fleet go unharmed."

"I suppose I was hoping to avoid bloodshed," I said.

"It's not your place to make that call," said Colonel Bryan Berkeley, who represented the Colonial Defense Forces at the inquiry.

"I disagree," I said. "My colony was potentially under attack. I am the colony leader. My job is to keep my colony safe."

"The attack wiped out the Conclave fleet," Berkeley said. "Your colony was never in danger."

"The attack could have failed," I said. "No offense to the CDF or to the Special Forces, Colonel, but not every attack they plan succeeds. I was at Coral, where the CDF's plans failed miserably and a hundred thousand of our people died."

"Are you saying you expected us to fail?" Berkeley asked.

"I'm saying I have an appreciation for the fact that plans are plans," I said. "And that I had an obligation to my colony."

"Did you expect that General Gau would surrender to you?" asked the third questioner. I took a moment to take him in: General Laurence Szilard, head of the CDF Special Forces.

His presence on the panel made me extremely nervous. There was absolutely no reason why he of all people should be on it. He was several layers of bureaucracy more advanced than either Butcher or Berkeley; having him sitting placidly on the panel— and not even being the panel chairman—was like having your kid's day care supervisor be Dean of the College at Harvard University. It didn't make any sort of sense. If he decided that I needed to be squashed for messing up a mission the Special Forces supervised, it really wouldn't matter what either of the other two panelists thought about anything; I'd be dead meat on a stick. The knowledge made me queasy.

That said, I was also deeply curious about the man. Here was the general whose neck ny wife wished to wring because he altered her back into a Spedal Forces soldier without her permission and also, I suspected, without much remorse. Some part of me wondered if I shouldn't attempt to wring his neck out of a sense of chivalry for my wife. Considering that as a Special Forces soldier he would probably have kicked my ass even when I was a genetically-enhanced solder, I doubted I could do much against him now that I was once again a mere mortal. Jane probably wouldn't appreciate me getting my own neck wrung.

Szilard waited for my answer, his expression placid.

"I had no reason to suspect he would surrender, no," I said.

"But you asked him to anyway," Szilard said. "Ostensibly to allow your colony to survive. I find it interesting that you asked for his surrender rather than begging for him to spare your colony. If you were simply looking to him to spare the colony and the lives of the colonists, wouldn't that have been the more prudent course? The information the Colonial Union provided you about the general gave you no reason to believe surrender would be something he'd entertain."

Careful, some part of my brain whispered. The way Szilard had phrased his comment seemed to suggest that he thought I might have had information from other sources. Which I had, but it seemed impossible :hat he would know that. If he did and I lied, I would be deeply into a world of shit. Decisions, decisions.