The Grand Inquisitor had been ordered to appear with his aide for a papal audience at 0800 hours Vatican time. At 0752 hours, his black EMV arrived at the Via del Belvedere checkpoint entrance to the papal apartments. The Inquisitor and his aide, Father Farrell, were passed through detector portals and handheld sensors—first at the Swiss Guard checkpoint, then at the Palatine Guard station, and finally at the new Noble Guard post.

John Domenico Cardinal Mustafa, the Grand Inquisitor, gave the most subtle of looks to his aide as they were passed by this final checkpoint. The Noble Guard at this point seemed to consist of cloned twins—all thin men and women with lank hair, sallow complexions, and dead gazes. A millennium ago, Mustafa knew, the Swiss Guard had been the paid mercenary force for the Pope, the Palatine Guard had consisted of trusted locals, always of Roman birth, who provided an honor guard for His Holiness’s public appearances, and the Noble Guard had been chosen from aristocracy as a form of papal reward for loyalty. Today the Swiss Guard was the most elite of Pax Fleet’s regular forces, the Palatines had been reinstated only a year earlier by Pope Julius XIV, and now Pope Urban appeared to be relying upon this strange brotherhood of the new Noble Guard for his personal safety.

The Grand Inquisitor knew that the Noble Guard twins were indeed clones, early prototypes of the secret Legion in building, and vanguards of a new fighting force requested by the Pope and his Secretary of State and designed by the Core. The Inquisitor had paid dearly for this information, and he knew that his position—if not his life—might be forfeit if Lourdusamy or His Holiness discovered that he knew of it. Past the lower guard posts, with Father Farrell straightening his cassock after the search, Cardinal Mustafa waved away the papal assistant who offered to guide them upstairs. The Cardinal personally opened the door to the ancient lift that would take them to the papal apartments.

This private way to the Pope’s quarters actually began in the basement, since the reconstructed Vatican was built on a hill with the Via del Belvedere entrance beneath the usual ground floor. Rising in the creaking cage, Father Farrell nervously fidgeting with his ’scriber and folder of papers, the Grand Inquisitor relaxed as they passed the ground-floor courtyard of San Damaso. They passed the second floor with the fantastic Borgia Apartments and the Sistine Chapel. They creaked and groaned their way past the second floor with the papal state apartments, the Consistorial Hall, the library, the audience suite, and the beautiful Raphael Rooms. On the third floor they stopped and the cage doors slammed open.

Cardinal Lourdusamy and his aide, Monsignor Lucas Oddi, nodded and smiled. “Domenico,” said Lourdusamy, taking the Grand Inquisitor’s hand and squeezing it tightly.

“Simon Augustino,” said the Grand Inquisitor with a bow. So the Secretary of State was to be in this meeting. Mustafa had suspected and feared as much. Stepping out of the lift and walking with the others toward the papal private apartments, the Grand Inquisitor glanced down the hallway toward the offices of the Secretariat of State and—for the ten-thousandth time—envied this man’s access to the Pope.

The Pope met the party in the wide, brilliantly lit gallery that connected the Secretariat of State offices with the two stories of rooms that were the private domain of His Holiness. The usually serious Pontiff was smiling. This day he was dressed in a white-caped cassock with a white zucchetto on his head and a white fascia tied around his waist. His white shoes made only the slightest of whispering noises on the tiled floors. “Ah, Domenico,” said Pope Urban XVI as he extended his ring hand to be kissed. “Simon. How good of you to come.” Father Farrell and Monsignor Oddi waited on one knee for the Holy Father to turn to them so that they could kiss the Ring of St. Peter.

His Holiness looked well, thought the Grand Inquisitor, definitely younger and more rested than before his most recent death. The high forehead and burning eyes were the same, but Mustafa thought that there was something simultaneously more urgent and satisfied-looking about the resurrected Pope’s appearance this morning.

“We were just about to take our morning stroll in the garden,” said His Holiness. “Would you care to join us?”

The four men nodded and fell in with the Pope’s quick pace as he walked the length of the gallery and then climbed smooth, broad stairs to the roof.

His Holiness’s personal aides kept their distance, the Swiss Guard troopers at the entrance to the garden stood at rigid attention while staring straight ahead, Lourdusamy and the Grand Inquisitor walked only a pace behind the Holy Father, while Monsignor Oddi and Father Farrell kept pace two steps back.

The papal gardens consisted of a maze of flowered trellises, trickling fountains, perfectly trimmed hedges and topiaried trees from three hundred Pax worlds, stone walkways, and fantastic flowering shrubs. Above all this, a force-ten containment field—transparent from this side, opaqued to outside observers—provided both privacy and protection. Pacem’s sky was a brilliant, unclouded blue this morning.

“Do either of you remember,” began His Holiness, his cassock rustling as they walked briskly down the garden path, “when our sky here was yellow?”

Cardinal Lourdusamy produced the deep rumble that passed for a chuckle with him. “Oh, yes,” he said, “I remember when the sky was a sick yellow, the air was all but unbreathable, it was cold all the time, and the rain never ended. A marginal world then, Pacem. The only reason the old Hegemony ever allowed the Church to settle here.”

Pope Urban XVI smiled thinly and gestured toward the blue sky and warm sunlight. “So there has been some improvement during our time of service here, eh, Simon Augustino?” Both cardinals laughed softly. They had made a quick circuit of the rooftop, and now His Holiness took another route through the center of the garden. Stepping from stone to stone on the narrow path, the two cardinals and their aides followed the white-cassocked Pontiff in single file.

Suddenly His Holiness stopped and turned. A fountain burbled softly behind him. “You have heard,” he said, all jesting gone from his tone, “that Admiral Aldikacti’s task force has translated beyond the Great Wall?”

Both cardinals nodded.

“It is but the first of what will be many such incursions,” said the Holy Father. “We do not hope this… we do not predict this… we know this.”

The head of the Holy Office and the Secretary of State and their aides waited.

The Pope looked at each man in turn.

“This afternoon, my friends, we plan to travel to Castel Gandolfo…”

The Grand Inquisitor stopped himself from glancing upward, knowing that the papal asteroid could not be seen during the daytime. He knew that the Pontiff was speaking in the royal “we” and not inviting Lourdusamy and him to come along.

“… where we will pray and meditate for several days while composing our next encyclical,” continued the Pope. “It will be entitled Redemptor Hominis and it will be the most important document of our tenure as shepherd of our Holy Mother Church.”

The Grand Inquisitor bowed his head. The Redeemer of Mankind, he thought. It could be about anything.

When Cardinal Mustafa looked up, His Holiness was smiling as if reading his thoughts. “It will be about our sacred obligation to keep humanity human, Domenico,” said the Pope. “It will extend, clarify, and broaden what has become known as our Crusade Encyclical. It will define Our Lord’s wish… nay, commandment… that mankind remain in the form and visage of mankind, and not be defiled by deliberate mutation and mutilation.”

“The final solution to the Ouster problem,” murmured Cardinal Lourdusamy.

His Holiness nodded impatiently. “That and more. Redemptor Hominis will look at the Church’s role in defining the future, dear friends. In a sense, it will lay out a blueprint for the next thousand years.”

Mother of Mercy, thought the Grand Inquisitor.

“The Pax has been a useful instrument,” continued the Holy Father, “but in the days and months and years ahead, we will be laying the groundwork for the way in which the Church shall become more active in the daily lives of all Christians.”

Bringing the Pax worlds more closely under control, interpreted the Grand Inquisitor, his eyes still lowered in thoughtful attention to the Pope’s words. But how… with what mechanism? Pope Urban XVI smiled again. Cardinal Mustafa noticed, not for the first time, that the Holy Father’s smiles never reached his pained and wary eyes. “Upon the release of the encyclical,” said His Holiness, “you may more clearly perceive the role we see for the Holy Office, for our diplomatic service, and for such underused entities and institutions as Opus Dei, the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, and Cor Unum.”

The Grand Inquisitor tried to conceal his surprise. Cor Unum? The Pontifical Commission, officially known as Pontificum Consilium “Cor Unum” de Humana et Christiana Progressione Fovenda, had been little more than a powerless committee for centuries.

Mustafa had to think to remember its president… Cardinal Du Noyer, he believed. A minor Vatican bureaucrat. An old woman who had never figured in Vatican politics before. What in hell is going on here?

“It is an exciting time,” said Cardinal Lourdusamy.

“Indeed,” said the Grand Inquisitor, recalling the ancient Chinese curse to that effect.

The Pope began walking again and the four hurried to keep up. A breeze came through the containment field and fluttered the golden blossoms on a sculpted holyoak.

“Our new encyclical shall also deal with the growing problem of usury in our new age,” said His Holiness.

The Grand Inquisitor almost stopped in his tracks. As it was, he had to take a quick half step to keep pace. It was a greater effort to keep his expression neutral. He could all but feel the shock of Father Farrell behind him.

Usury? thought the Grand Inquisitor. The Church has been strict in regulating Pax and Pax Mercantilus trade for three centuries… no return to the days of pure capitalism was desired or allowed… but the hand of control has been light. Is this a move to consolidate all political and economic life directly under Church control? Would Julius… Urban… make the move to abolish Pax civil autonomy and Mercantilus trade freedoms at this late date? And where does the military stand in all this?

His Holiness paused by a beautiful shrub of white blossoms and bright blue leaves. “Our Illyrian gentian is doing well here,” he said softly. “It was a present from Archbishop Poske on Galabia Pescassus.”

Usury! thought the Grand Inquisitor in wild confusion. A penalty of excommunication… losing the cruciform… upon violation of strict trade and profit controls. Direct intervention from the Vatican. Mother of Christ…

“But that is not why we asked you here,” said Pope Urban XVI. “Simon Augustino, would you be so kind as to share with Cardinal Mustafa the disturbing intelligence you received yesterday?”

They know about our biospies, thought Mustafa in panic. His heart was pounding. They know about the agents in place… about the Holy Office’s attempt to contact the Core directly… about sounding out the cardinals before the election… everything! He kept his expression appropriate—alert, interested, alarmed only in a professional sense at the Holy Father’s use of the word “disturbing.”

The great mass of Cardinal Lourdusamy seemed to draw itself up. The heavy rumble of words seemed to come from the man’s chest or belly more than from his mouth. Behind him, the figure of Monsignor Oddi reminded Mustafa of the scarecrows in the fields of his youth on the agricultural world of Renaissance Minor.

“The Shrike has reappeared,” began the Cardinal.

The Shrike? What does that have to do with… Mustafa’s usually sharp mind was reeling, unable to catch up with all of the shifts and revelations.

He still suspected a trap. Realizing that the Secretary of State had paused for response, the Grand Inquisitor said softly, “Can the military authorities on Hyperion deal with it, Simon Augustino?”

Cardinal Lourdusamy’s jowls vibrated as the great head moved back and forth. “It is not on Hyperion that the demon has reappeared, Domenico.”

Mustafa registered appropriate shock.

I know through the interrogation of Corporal Kee that the monster appeared on God’s Grove four standard years ago, apparently in an attempt to foil the murder of the child named Aenea. To get that, I had to arrange for the false death and kidnapping of Kee after his reassignment to Pax Fleet. Do they know? And why tell me now? The Grand Inquisitor was still waiting for the metaphorical blade to drop on his very real neck.

“Eight standard days ago,” continued Lourdusamy, “a monstrous creature which could only be the Shrike appeared on Mars. The death toll… true death, for the creature takes the cruciforms from its victims’ bodies… has been very high.”

“Mars,” Cardinal Mustafa repeated stupidly. He looked to the Holy Father for an explanation, guidance, even the condemnation he feared, but the Pontiff was examining buds on a rose bush. Behind him, Father Farrell took a step forward but the Grand Inquisitor waved his aide back. “Mars?” he said again. He had not felt so stupid and ill-informed for decades, perhaps centuries.

Lourdusamy smiled. “Yes… one of the terraformed worlds in Old Earth’s system. FORCE used to have its command center there before the Fall, but the world is of little use or importance in the Pax. Too far away. There is no reason for you to know about it, Domenico.”

“I know where Mars is,” said the Grand Inquisitor, his tone more sharp than he had meant it to be. “I simply do not understand how the Shrike creature could be there.” And what in Dante’s hell does it have to do with me? he mentally added.

Lourdusamy was nodding. “It is true that to our knowledge, the Shrike demon has never left the world of Hyperion before this. But there can be no doubt. This terror on Mars… the Governor has declared a state of emergency and Archbishop Robeson has personally petitioned His Holiness for help.”

The Grand Inquisitor rubbed his cheek and nodded in concern. “Pax Fleet…”

“Elements of the Fleet already positioned in the Old Neighborhood have been dispatched, of course,” said the Secretary of State. The Supreme Pontiff was bent over a bonsai tree, his hand over the tiny, twisted branch as if he were bestowing a blessing. He seemed not to be listening.

“The ships will have a complement of Marines and Swiss Guard,” continued Lourdusamy. “We hope that they will subdue and/or destroy the creature…”

My mother taught me never to trust anyone who uses the expression “and/or,” thought Mustafa. “Of course,” he said aloud. “I shall say a Mass with that prayer in mind.” Lourdusamy smiled.

The Holy Father glanced up from where he was bent over the stunted little tree. “Precisely,” said Lourdusamy, and in those three syllables, Mustafa heard the sound of the overfed cat pouncing on the hapless mouse of the Grand Inquisitor. “We agree that it is more a matter of faith than of the Fleet. The Shrike—as it was revealed to the Holy Father more than two centuries ago—is truly a demon, perhaps the principal agent of the Dark One.”

Mustafa could only nod.

“We feel that only the Holy Office is properly trained, equipped, and prepared—both spiritually and materially—to investigate this appearance properly… and to save the hapless men, women, and children of Mars.”

Well fuck me, thought John Domenico Cardinal Mustafa, Grand Inquisitor and Prefect for the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, otherwise known as the Supreme Congregation for the Holy Inquisition of Heretical Error. He automatically offered up a mental Act of Contrition for his obscenity.

“I see,” the Grand Inquisitor said aloud, not seeing at all but almost smiling at the ingenuity of his enemies. “I will immediately appoint a commission…”

“No, no, Domenico,” said His Holiness, moving close to touch the Grand Inquisitor’s arm. “You must go at once. This… materialization… of the demon threatens the entire Body of Christ.”

“Go…” said Mustafa stupidly.

“An archangel-class starship, one of our newest, has been requisitioned from Pax Fleet,” Lourdusamy said briskly. “It will have a crew of twenty-eight, but you may still bring up to twenty-one members of your own staff and security service… twenty-one and yourself, of course.”

“Of course,” said Cardinal Mustafa and he did smile. “Of course.”

“Pax Fleet is doing battle with the corporeal agents of Satan… the Ousters… even as we speak,” rumbled Lourdusamy.

“But this demonic threat must be confronted—and defeated—by the sacred power of the Church itself.”

“Of course,” said the Grand Inquisitor.

Mars, he thought. The most distant pimple on the ass-end of the civilized universe. Three centuries ago, I could have called on the fatline, but now I will be out of touch as long as they keep me there. No intelligence. No way to direct my people. And the Shrike… if the monster is still controlled by the Core’s blasphemous Ultimate Intelligence, it may well be programmed to kill me as soon as I arrive. Brilliant. “Of course,” he said again. “Holy Father, when do I leave? If there could be a few days or weeks to set the current affairs of the Holy Office in proper…”

The Pope smiled and squeezed Mustafa’s upper arm. “The archangel is waiting to transport you and your chosen contingent within the day, Domenico. Six hours from now would be optimum, they tell us.”

“Of course,” said Cardinal Mustafa a final time. He went to one knee to kiss the papal ring.

“God go with you and protect you always,” said the Holy Father, touching the Cardinal’s bowed head as he pronounced the more formal benediction in Latin.

Kissing the ring, tasting the sour cold of stone and metal in his mouth, the Grand Inquisitor mentally smiled again at the cleverness of those whom he had thought to outsmart and outmaneuver.

Father Captain de Soya did not get a chance to talk to Sergeant Gregorius until the last minutes of Raphael’s first beyond-the-Outback jump.

This first jump was a practice hop to an uncharted system twenty light-years beyond the Great Wall. Like Epsilon Eridani, the star in this system was a K-type sun; unlike the Eridani orange-dwarf, this K-type was an Arcturus-like giant. Task Force GIDEON translated without incident, the new two-day automated resurrection créches functioned without glitch, and the third day found the seven archangels decelerating into the giant’s system, playing tactical cat-and-mouse with the nine Hawking-class torchships that had preceded them after months of time-debt travel. The torchships had been ordered to hide within the system. The archangels’ task was to sniff them out and destroy them.

Three of the torchships were far out in the Oört cloud, floating amid the proto-comets there, their drives off, their coms silenced, their internal systems at lowest ebb. The Uriel picked them up at a distance of 0.86 light-years and launched three virtual Hawking hyperkinetics. De Soya stood with the other six captains in tactical space, the system’s sun at their belt level, the two-hundred-kilometer flame tails of seven archangel fusion drives like chest-high diamond scratches on black glass, and he watched as holos misted, formed, and dematerialized in the Oört cloud, tracking the theoretical hyperkinetic seeker missiles as they shifted out of Hawking space, sought out the dormant torchships, and registered two virtual kills and one “severe damage certain—high probability of a kill” on the tactical tote board.

This system had no planets as such, but four of the remaining torchships were found lurking in ambush within the planetary accretion disc along the plane of the ecliptic. The Remiel, the Gabriel, and the Raphael engaged at long distance and registered kills before the torchships’ sensors could register the presence of the archangel intruders.

The final two torchships were hiding in the heliosphere of the giant K-type star, shielding themselves with class-ten containment fields and venting heat via trailing monofilaments half a million kilometers long. Pax Fleet more than frowned on this sort of maneuver during simulated engagements, but de Soya had to smile at the audacity of the two ship’s commanders: it was the sort of thing he might have done a standard decade earlier.

These final torchships came ripping out of the K-star at high boost, their fields venting heat on the visible spectrum, two blazing, white-hot proto-stars spit out from their massive parent, both ships trying to close on the task force that even now was ripping through the system at three-quarters light-speed. The closest archangel—Sariel—killed them both without diverting an erg of power from the class-thirty bussfield the archangel had to maintain a hundred klicks beyond its bow just to clear a path through the molecule-cluttered system. Such terrible velocities demanded a terrible price if the fields failed for an instant.

Then, with Admiral Aldikacti grumbling about the “probable” in the Oört cloud, the task force decelerated hard in one great arc around the K-type giant so that all of the commanders and execs could meet in tactical space to discuss the simulation before the GIDEON ships translated into Ouster space.

De Soya always found these conferences hubris-making: thirty-some men and women in Pax uniforms standing like giants—or in this case sitting like giants, since they used the plane of the ecliptic as a virtual tabletop—discussing kills and strategies and equipment failures and acquisition rates while the K-type sun burned brightly in the center of the space and the magnified ships moved in their slow, Newtonian ellipses like embers burning through black velvet.

During the three-hour conference, it was decided that the “probable kill” was unacceptable and that they should have fired a spread of at least five AI-piloted hyper-k’s at such difficult targets, retrieving any unused missiles after all three kills were certain. There followed a discussion of expendables, fire-rates, and the kill/reserve equations on a mission such as this where there could be no resupply. A strategy was decided whereupon one of the archangels would enter each system thirty light-minutes ahead of the others, serving as “point” to draw all sensor and ECM queries, while another would trail half a light-hour behind, mopping up any “probables.” After a twenty-two-hour day spent mostly at battle stations, and with all hands fighting post-resurrection emotional jags, jump coordinates for a system known to be Ouster-infested came over the tightbeam from the Uriel, the seven archangels accelerated toward their translation point, and Father Captain de Soya made the rounds to chat with his new crew and to “tuck everyone in.” He saved Sergeant Gregorius and his five Swiss Guard troopers for last.

Once, during their long chase across the spiral arm after the girl-child named Aenea and after spending months together on the old Raphael, Father Captain de Soya had decided that he was tired of calling Sergeant Gregorius “Sergeant Gregorius” and called up the man’s records to discover his first name. To his surprise, de Soya discovered that the sergeant had no first name.

The huge noncom had come of age on the northern continent of the swamp world of Patawpha in a warrior culture where everyone was born with eight names—seven of them “weakness names”—and where only survivors of the “seven trials” were privileged to discard the weakness names and be known by only their strength name. The ship’s AI had told the father-captain that only one warrior out of approximately three thousand attempting the “seven trials” survived and succeeded in discarding all weakness names. The computer had no information as to the nature of the trials. In addition, the records had shown, Gregorius had been the first Patawphan Scot-Maori to become a decorated Marine and then be chosen to join the elite Swiss Guard. De Soya had always meant to ask the sergeant what the “seven trials” were, but had never worked up the nerve.

This day, when de Soya kicked down the dropshaft in zero-g and passed through the irising wardroom soft spot, Sergeant Gregorius appeared so happy to see him that he looked as if he were about to give the father-captain a bear hug.

Instead, the sergeant hooked his bare feet under a bar, snapped to attention, and shouted, “TEN-HUT in the wardroom!” His five troopers dropped what they were doing—reading, cleaning, or field-stripping—and tried to put bulkhead under their toes. For a moment the wardroom was littered with floating ’scribers, magazines, pulse knives, impact armor, and stripped-down energy lances.

Father Captain de Soya nodded to the sergeant and inspected the five commandos—three men, two women, all terribly, terribly young. They were also lean, muscular, perfectly adapted to zero-g, and obviously honed for battle. All of them were combat veterans. Each of them had distinguished himself or herself adequately to be chosen for this mission. De Soya saw their eagerness for combat and was saddened by it.

After a few minutes of inspection, introductions, and commander-to-commando chatting, de Soya beckoned for Gregorius to follow and kicked off through the aft soft spot into the launch-tube room. When they were alone, Father Captain de Soya extended his hand. “Damned good to see you, Sergeant.”

Gregorius shook hands and grinned. The big man’s square, scarred face and short-cropped hair were the same, and his grin was as broad and bright as de Soya remembered. “Damned good that’ see you, Father Captain. And when did the priesty side o’ ya begin usin’ profanity, sir?”

“When I was promoted to commanding this ship, Sergeant,” said de Soya. “How have you been?”

“Fair, sir. Fair an’ better.”

“You saw action in the St. Anthony Incursion and the Sagittarius Salient,” said de Soya. “Were you with Corporal Kee before he died?”

Sergeant Gregorius rubbed his chin.

“Negative, sir. I was at the Salient two years ago, but I never saw Kee. Heard about his transport bein’ slagged, but never saw him. Had a couple of other friends aboard it, too, sir.”

“I’m sorry,” said de Soya. The two were floating awkwardly near one of the hyper-k storage nacelles. The father-captain grabbed a holdtite and oriented himself so that he could look Gregorius in the eye. “Did you get through the interrogation all right, Sergeant?”

Gregorius shrugged. “They kept me on Pacem a few weeks, sir. Kept askin’ the same questions in different ways. Didn’t seem to believe me about what happened on God’s Grove—the woman devil, the Shrikethingee. Eventually they seemed that’ get tired o’ askin’ me things and busted me back down to corporal and shipped me out.”

De Soya sighed. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. I had recommended you for a promotion and commendation.” He chuckled ruefully. “A lot of good that did you. We’re lucky we weren’t both excommunicated and then executed.”

“Aye, sir,” said Gregorius, glancing out the port at the shifting starfield. “They weren’t happy with us, that’s a’ sure.” He looked at de Soya. “And you, sir. I heard they took away your commission and all.”

Father Captain de Soya smiled. “Busted me back to parish priest.”

“On a dirty, desert, no-water world, I heard tell, sir. A place where piss sells for ten marks a bootful.”

“That was true,” said de Soya, still smiling. “Madre de Dios. It was my homeworld.”

“Aw, shit, sir,” said Sergeant Gregorius, his huge hands clenching in embarrassment. “No disrespect meant, sir. I mean… I didn’t… I wouldn’t…”

De Soya touched the big man’s shoulder.

“No disrespect taken, Sergeant. You’re right. Piss does sell there… only for fifteen marks a bootful, not ten.”

“Aye, sir,” said Gregorius, his dark skin darker with flush.

“And, Sergeant…”

“Aye, sir?”

“That will be fifteen Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers for the scatological outburst. I’m still your confessor, you know.”

“Aye, sir.”

De Soya’s implant tingled at the same instant chimes came over the ship’s communicators. “Thirty minutes until translation,” said the father-captain. “Get your chicks tucked in their créches, Sergeant. This next jump is for real.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” The sergeant kicked for the soft spot but stopped just as the circle irised open. “Father Captain?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“It’s just a feelin’, sir,” said the Swiss Guardsman, his brow furrowed. “But I’ve learned to trust my feelin’s, sir.”

“I’ve learned to trust your feelings as well, Sergeant. What is it?”

“Watch your back, sir,” said Gregorius. “I mean… nothin’ definite, sir. But watch your back.”

“Aye, aye,” said Father Captain de Soya. He waited until Gregorius was back in his wardroom and the soft spot sealed before he kicked off for the main dropshaft and his own death couch and resurrection créche.

Pacem System was crowded with Mercantilus traffic, Pax Fleet warships, large-array habitats such as the Torus Mercantilus, Pax military bases and listening posts, herded and terraformed asteroids such as Castel Gandolfo, low-rent orbital can cities for the millions eager to be close to humanity’s center of power but too poor to pay Pacem’s exorbitant rates, and the highest concentration of private in-system spacecraft in the known universe. Thus it was that when M. Kenzo Isozaki, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Council of the Pancapitalist League of Independent Catholic Transstellar Trade Organizations, wished to be absolutely alone, he had to commandeer a private ship and burn high-g for thirty-two hours into the outer ring of darkness far from Pacem’s star.

Even choosing a ship had been a problem. The Pax Mercantilus maintained a small fleet of expensive in-system executive shuttles, but Isozaki had to assume that despite their best attempts to debug the ships, they were all compromised. For this rendezvous, he had considered rerouting one of the Mercantilus freighters that plied the trade lanes between orbital clusters, but he did not put it past his enemies—the Vatican, the Holy Office, Pax Fleet Intelligence Services, Opus Dei, rivals within the Mercantilus, countless others—to bug every ship in the Mercantilus’s vast trade fleet. In the end, Kenzo Isozaki had disguised himself, gone to the Torus public docks, bought an ancient asteroid hopper on the spot, and ordered his illegal comlog AI to pilot the thing out beyond the campfire zone of the ecliptic. On the trip out, his ship was challenged six times by Pax security patrols and stations, but the hopper was licensed, there were rocks where he was headed—mined and remined, to be sure, but still legitimate destinations for a desperate prospector—and he was passed on without personal interrogation. Isozaki found all this melodramatic and a waste of his valuable time. He would have met his contact in his office on the Torus if the contact had agreed. The contact had not agreed, and Isozaki had to admit that he would have crawled to Aldebaren for this meeting. Thirty-two hours after leaving the Torus, the hopper dropped his internal containment field, drained his high-g tank, and brought him up out of sleep. The ship’s computer was too stupid to do anything but give him coordinates and readouts on the local rocks, but the illicit AI comlog interface scanned the entire region for ships—powered down or active—and pronounced this sphere of Pacem System space empty. “So how does he get here if there is no ship?” muttered Isozaki.

“There is no way other than by ship, sir,” said the AI. “Unless he is here already, which seems unlikely since…”

“Silence,” ordered Kenzo Isozaki. He sat in the lubricant-smelling dimness of the hopper command blister and watched the asteroid half a klick distant. Hopper and rock had matched tumble rates, so it was the familiar Pacem System starfield beyond the heavily mined and cratered stone that seemed to be spinning. Other than the asteroid, there was nothing out there except hard vacuum, hard radiation, and cold silence.

Suddenly there was a knock on the outer air-lock door.