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was stuck, cross-threaded or not threaded at all. She heard Coromell shift restlessly in his chair. “Patience,” she said.

Discipline fbcussed her attention. The real join was not in the middle, where a groove suggested it, but at the end. It required not a twist, but a pull—a straight pull, pinching the last link hard—and out came a delicate pin with its tip caught in a lump of something dark. She pulled the pin free and held on her hand that tiny, waxy cylinder.

“This has to be it. Whatever it is.”

What it was, she heard later, was a complete record of Diplo’s dealings with the Paradens and the Seti for the past century: names, dates, codes, the whole thing. Everything that Zebara had promised, and more.

“Enough,” Coromell said, “to bring their government down . . . even revoke their charter.”

“No.” Lunzie shook her head. “It’s not just the heavy-worlders. They were the victims first. We can’t take vengeance on the innocent, the ones who aren’t part of it”

“You know something I don’t?” He was giving her a look that had no doubt quelled generations of junior officers. Lunzie felt what he intended her to feel, but fought against it.

“I do,” she said firmly, against the pressure of the stars on his uniform and his age. “I’ve been there myself. I’ve been to their opera!”

“Opera!” That came out as a bark of amusement.

Lunzie glared and he choked it back. “Their very, very beautiful opera, Admiral Coromell. With singers better than I’ve heard in most systems. Composed by heavyworlders to dramatize poems written by heavyworlders, and for all its political bias, we don’t come off very well. Tell me! What do you know about the early settlement of Diplo?”

He shrugged, clearly baffled at the intent of the question. “Not much. Heavyworlders settled it because ft was too dense for the rest of us without protective It’s cold, isn’t it? And it was one of the first

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