HASHI

As he expected, he was the last to reach Warden’s designated office—one of the private, utilitarian, and above all secure rooms in which the director of the UMCP officially ceased to exist for the outside world. Koina Hannish and Chief Mandich were there ahead of him.

Koina sat against the wall to the left of the door where Hashi entered: a deliberately self-effacing position which may have expressed her awareness that Protocol had only a small role to play at the moment. Opposite her stood Chief Mandich. The two of them approximately bracketed Warden’s desk.

Obviously the UMCPED Security Chief was here to account for his own inadequacies in person; but he also represented Min Donner by proxy. His discomfort was plain in his refusal to accept a seat. Although his back was to the wall, he did nothing so casual as lean on it. He stood with his hands clasped behind him and his shoulders stiff. The heat which had mottled his face and neck earlier had subsided, but it remained apparent.

Warden sat behind his desk with his forearms braced on the desktop and his palms flat. His single eye glittered with penetration, complementing the resources of the IR prosthesis hidden by his patch. He was not an especially large man, but the strength of his frame and the immobility of his posture made him appear carved in stone; as unreachable as an icon.

Hashi shuffled quickly into the room, strewing apologies in all directions, although he hardly listened to them himself. The door closed behind him: he heard the seals slot home, metallic and final. That sound gave him the unsettling impression that he’d entered the presence of ultimate questions. When he neared the front of Warden’s desk, he stopped; glanced around him for a chair. But he didn’t presume to sit until Warden made a gesture of permission with one blunt hand.

“Don’t apologize, Hashi,” Warden said harshly. “Explain. Tell me why we’ve been twiddling our thumbs here for the past ten minutes as if we didn’t have anything better to do.”

Warden Dios, Hashi noted, was not in a good mood.

With an effort he stifled his impulse for obfuscation. “Lane Harbinger has been studying the kaze’s remains.” His glasses had slid too far down his nose to muffle him from Warden’s gaze, but he didn’t push them up. “I waited as long as I could—until I received your summons. Then I took the time to obtain a preliminary report.”

For the sake of his own dignity, he declined to comment on whether or not Lane’s report had been worth hearing—or worth waiting for.

Warden studied Hashi as he spoke, then nodded once, brusquely. “All right. We’re in a crisis—the worst crisis any of us has ever seen. But the fact that the rest of us have just wasted ten minutes probably doesn’t increase the danger.”

Hashi blinked owlishly. Did Warden consider Imposs Alt’s attack “the worst crisis any of us has ever seen?” Impossible. Surely he could not be so entirely divorced from the world of the real. To call that attack anything less than an emergency was foolish: to call it anything more was madness.

“You think we’re here to discuss Suka Bator,” Warden rasped. “And some of you”—he seemed to concentrate briefly on Hashi—“are wondering why I took so long to summon you. Well, we are going to discuss Suka Bator. I want to know what happened. More than that, I want to know what it means.

“But an attack on the Council is only one side of our predicament. Before we go on, I’ll tell you what else has happened. Then you’ll understand why I didn’t call for you right away.”

What else has happened. Hashi smiled his relief, despite the grimness of Warden’s tone. After some anxious moments, he felt suddenly sure that the UMCP director was about to justify the confidence Hashi had placed in him.

“Crudely put,” Warden announced as if he were full of a bitterness he could neither contain nor release, “the situation is this. For all practical purposes, we are at war.”

Chief Mandich stiffened. He took a step toward the director’s desk, perhaps without being aware of it. His blunt features became as hard as Warden’s.

Koina leaned forward, her lips parted slightly. Her eyes were dark with shock and dread; with a human being’s essential genetic horror of the Amnion.

War? Hashi’s heart skipped a beat, then started rattling in his chest like an electron barrage. At war? With some difficulty he refrained from asking, Is this why you accepted Milos Taverner as a control for our Joshua? Did you foresee it? Is it what you hoped to gain?

“Two hours ago,” Warden continued, “I received a message from Min Donner by gap courier drone from Valdor Industrial. More precisely, the message is from VI Security, but she ordered them to send it. She reports that an Amnion ‘defensive’ has entered the Massif-5 system. A Behemoth-class Amnion warship.

“At that distance from forbidden space, I think we can dismiss the idea that she’s there by mistake. According to VI Security, Punisher has engaged the defensive, but the fight isn’t going well. Punisher is damaged, not at full capacity. The defensive’s shields and sinks are holding. On top of that”—he paused darkly—“she’s armed with super-light proton cannon.”

Mandich swore under his breath. Hashi would have done the same if he hadn’t been armored against betraying his emotions. Warden’s tone conveyed images of bloodshed and destruction. They constricted the air in his small office, making it hard to breathe. A super-light proton cannon was especially fearsome because it could wreak havoc through a planetary atmosphere. Matter cannon were useless for that: air protected the surface better than any particle sink. And lasers were too precise to unleash wholesale ruin. In addition, they tended to lose coherence across large distances. A super-light proton cannon, however—

Warden didn’t stop.

“VI is scrambling support for Punisher,” he went on. “Unfortunately those ships aren’t in range yet. For some reason the defensive isn’t anywhere near the main shipping lanes—or the Station itself, for that matter. And our cruiser Vehemence is too far away to be involved in the action.”

How entirely typical, Hashi thought. His attention was fixed on Warden; nailed there. Nevertheless his mind ran off on several oblique angles simultaneously. Vehemence’s record was far from illustrious. No matter who commanded her, or how her crew was composed and trained, she seemed inherently luckless or incompetent. To all appearances Nathan Alt’s months as her captain had put a curse on her.

“What are your orders, Director?” Chief Mandich put in abruptly. Tension strained his voice to a croak. “Director Donner isn’t here. I have to—”

He may have been as honest as an iron bar, but Hashi considered him inadequate to take Min Donner’s place.

Koina had better sense than the Security Chief: she waited her turn.

Warden stopped the Chief with a rough gesture. The movement of his single eye was sharp as a slap.

“Since then,” he pronounced trenchantly, “I’ve been making preliminary preparations for our defense. Our shipyards have gone to emergency work shifts. We need to get every ship we can into space. UMCPHQ is on alert. I’ve ordered Sledgehammer back. And I’ve sent out drones to recall Valor and Adventurous.”

Sledgehammer was a full battlewagon, the biggest and most powerful warship the UMCP had ever built. Currently she was executing shakedown maneuvers out between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn; training her crew to handle a vessel that massive. Too near to return to Earth by crossing the gap: too far to arrive at space-normal speeds in less than days. As for the other vessels Warden named, the destroyer Valor was on patrol around Terminus, the station in human space farthest from the Amnion. The obsolete cruiser Adventurous had been assigned to supervise exercises for the cadets of Aleph Green.

Other ships were available, of course. Hashi could think of half a dozen gunboats and pocket cruisers within Earth’s control space. They were paltry, however, for a task the size of defending a planet.

UMCPHQ itself couldn’t do that job. The Station had scarcely been designed to defend itself. It possessed shields and sinks; cannon of various kinds; but nothing that would be effective on such a scale. Any war which came close enough to Earth to threaten UMCPHQ was presumed to be already lost.

“But,” Warden pursued, “I don’t want to leave us spread too thin elsewhere—as if we weren’t already—because I don’t know what the Amnion are going to do next. From a strategic point of view, VI isn’t exactly a logical target for an act of war.”

Indeed. Hashi followed his director’s reasoning at the same time that he chased his own thoughts. Humankind’s ability to give battle would hardly be diminished—at least in the short term—by VI’s complete destruction. In addition that Station was too well defended, as well as too difficult to approach, for a single assailant to be sure of success. Any attack on Valdor would probably be a waste of effort.

“I have to assume,” Warden stated, “that subsequent threats might not be logical either. I mean strategically. Since the Amnion aren’t prone to either waste or foolhardiness, I also assume that this incursion doesn’t imply a full-scale assault on human space. It has some other objective.

“I can guess what that is, but I can’t guess where it might go. So I can’t predict where to concentrate our defenses.”

Koina had been silent too long. Now her dread seemed to compel her to speak.

“Please tell us, Director,” she murmured softly. “I think we need to know.”

“I’m sure you do,” Warden snorted. However, his sarcasm or disgust did not appear to be directed at her.

“You’re all aware Min Donner is aboard Punisher,” he answered between his teeth. “And you’ve probably guessed that I ordered her there to help protect Trumpet.”

“No, wait,” Koina protested. “I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. All I know about Trumpet is what you and Director Lebwohl told the Council. Angus Thermopyle and Milos Taverner stole her—”

“No, I’m sorry,” Warden interrupted. For a moment he gave the impression that he’d been overtaken by weariness. His personal defenses had flaws he couldn’t afford. “It’s all these damn secrets. I’ve been carrying them around too long.” With the fingers of one hand, he rubbed his forehead briefly. “Sometimes I forget I haven’t told you something critical.

“Angus Thermopyle didn’t steal Trumpet. He’s a cyborg. We welded him after we reqqed him from Com-Mine Station. He works for us. We sent him into forbidden space to carry out a covert attack on Thanatos Minor. And we sent Milos Taverner along to keep an eye on him. The story that they stole Trumpet was just cover. We didn’t want to make the wrong people suspicious.

“If Igensard asks in front of the Council,” Warden added, “you can tell him that.”

“But I still don’t—” Koina bit her lip. “Never mind. I’ll need the details later. For now the present is more important.”

The director nodded like an act of brutality. “I sent Punisher to the Com-Mine belt,” he resumed, “to wait for Trumpet to escape back into human space. Then she followed the gap scout to Massif-5.

“Why Trumpet went there I don’t know.

“But if the Amnion chose to commit an act of war by entering that system—and chose to do it now—for reasons that don’t have anything to do with Trumpet, it’s the biggest coincidence in history. I think we can be sure the defensive is after Trumpet.”

Hashi felt the tension in the room. Chief Mandich radiated dismay; the anxiety of vast responsibilities. Koina struggled to manage the scale of her incomprehension. Warden had the air of a man who was determined to hold the center of a whirlwind. At the same time, however, the DA director rode an entirely private swirl of oblique inferences and intriguing possibilities. An act of war? Fascinating! Whose game was this? Warden’s? Nick Succorso’s? The Amnion’s?—with or without Captain Succorso’s participation?

Uncertainties proliferated like ecstasy, weaving unknowns out of the quantum mechanics of the known. In his excitement Hashi dared to say, “It might be argued that we would do well to let this defensive succeed against Trumpet.”

Holt Fasner would surely approve.

Koina drew a sharp breath. Chief Mandich swore softly.

At once Warden’s gaze focused on Hashi. He could almost feel his electromagnetic aura frying under the intensity of the director’s IR sight.

“Explain,” Warden demanded.

Hashi shrugged; smiled. The risk he took pleased him: it might prod Warden to reveal more of his intentions. The director could stop him if he went too far.

He directed his words and his gamble at Warden, although they were superficially meant for Koina and Mandich.

“Director Hannish and Chief Mandich have perhaps not been informed that our Angus Thermopyle, Isaac né Joshua, has escaped forbidden space with a remarkable combination of companions. In particular I refer to Morn Hyland, first Captain Thermopyle’s victim, then Captain Succorso’s.

“This is an unexpected development for several reasons. On your direct orders, Isaac’s datacore was explicitly written to preclude the possibility that he might save Ensign Hyland’s life.” Then Warden had switched that datacore for another; a new set of instructions. But this secret was Warden’s to reveal or hide: Hashi had no intention of exposing it. He only used it to put pressure on the director. “She is—or has been—thought dangerous to our purposes. Only a strange, unforeseeable sequence of events could have led to her presence aboard Trumpet.”

“What ‘purposes’?” Koina asked quickly; intently.

Hashi ignored her to concentrate on Warden.

“In addition,” he continued, “we have reason to suspect that she has been a prisoner of the Amnion, delivered to them by Captain Succorso to gain some end we can hardly imagine. Thus it is doubly strange that she now accompanies our Captain Thermopyle. Did she escape? If so, how? Was she released? If so, why?”

The DA director was not entirely prepared to surrender his hypothesis that Morn might be a type of genetic kaze: ruin aimed at the UMCP. Angus had rescued Morn—privately Warden had admitted as much—but that didn’t erase other possibilities.

Warden frowned as Hashi finished. For a long moment he kept his grip on Hashi’s eyes: he may have been searching to find out how much Hashi knew—or guessed. Then he nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Forgive me, Director,” Koina put in insistently. She remained almost motionless in her seat, yet she gave the impression that she’d risen to her feet. A low tremor flawed her tone without softening her manner. “Director Lebwohl said ‘purposes.’ ‘Our purposes.’ In what sense is it conceivable that Ensign Hyland could be a threat to any purpose of ours?

“I heard Director Lebwohl tell the Council why we let Captain Succorso have her. I didn’t like that, but this sounds a lot worse. She’s one of our people. Why in God’s name would a UMCP cyborg’s datacore be ‘explicitly written to preclude’ rescuing her? I would have said that violates our purposes more than anything she might say or do.”

No doubt Min Donner would have approved Koina’s objection. To the extent that he was capable of thinking clearly, Chief Mandich surely felt the same. Nevertheless Hashi was not swayed by it. Deliberately he pushed his glasses up on his nose. The smear of the unnecessary lenses aided his concentration.

Now more than ever he needed to understand Warden Dios.

Although Warden sat still, his frame seemed to intensify, almost to swell, as if he were taking on mass from the air and ambience of his office. He faced the PR director with an un-giving glare while she spoke. When he responded, his voice was gravid with bile and self-coercion. Each word was as exact as the flash of a laser.

“Director Hannish, how did we get the Preempt Act passed?”

She answered without relaxing her insistence. “A traitor in Com-Mine Security conspired with Angus Thermopyle to steal supplies.” Beneath her professional polish and her womanish softness, Hashi realized, she was tougher than departed Godsen Frik had ever been. “That scared the Council. The Members decided that if they couldn’t trust local Station Security they had no choice but to expand our jurisdiction.”

Warden nodded. “Would the Act have passed if the Council hadn’t been scared?”

A twist of her mouth suggested a shrug. “They voted it down on two previous occasions.”

“Exactly.” Warden’s voice sounded sharp enough to draw blood; perhaps his own. “But the Members were mistaken. We misled them. The ‘traitor’ in Com-Mine Security didn’t conspire with Angus Thermopyle. He conspired with us. We framed Captain Thermopyle to scare the Council. So the Act would pass.”

The director’s compressed strength dominated the room. “Ensign Hyland knows he’s innocent,” he finished. “She was there. And I’m sure she’ll say so, if anyone asks her the right questions.

“You can tell Igensard that, too, if it ever comes up.”

Koina recoiled as if Warden had flicked his fingers in her face. A pallor of betrayal seemed to leech the color from her cheeks; even from her eyes. Indignation and confusion appeared to flush through Chief Mandich in waves, staining his skin with splotches like the marks of an infection. Knowledge which was commonplace to Hashi had never reached the Security Chief, or the new PR director. Min Donner and even Godsen Frik had known how to keep their hearts closed.

In one sense Hashi noticed the reactions of his companions. But in another he paid no attention to them at all. He wanted to applaud and throw up his hands simultaneously. Warden had astonished him again.

The director was willing to reveal the truth behind the passage of the Preempt Act. That was immensely exciting. It shed an amazing amount of light on the nature of Warden’s game: too much light for Hashi to absorb in an instant. He found himself almost blinking in its brilliance. Yet that same revelation was also appallingly dangerous. When the truth was laid bare, the UMCP director—and all his senior staff—would be summarily fired. At best. At worst they might even find themselves facing capital charges.

Just when the Amnion had committed an act of war, humankind’s only defense would be plunged into total disarray.

“My God,” Chief Mandich breathed as if he were unable to stop himself. “Did Director Donner know? Was she part of it?”

For him that may have been the essential question. Could he still trust the ED director? His rectitude was founded on hers. Could he continue to believe that she was honest?

Hashi would have dismissed the issue as trivial; but Warden faced it squarely.

“Yes.” His tone was final, fatal: it permitted no argument. “But understand this. We did what we did on the direct orders of my lawful superior, Holt Fasner.” He stressed the word lawful with a bitterness like concentrated sulfuric acid. “And those orders included secrecy. There would have been no point to it if we hadn’t kept it secret.”

Did he mean to make that public as well? Did he intend that Koina should name the Dragon’s role in the conduct of the UMCP before the Council itself?

Of course he did.

The prospect took Hashi’s breath away. He flapped a hand in Chief Mandich’s direction as if he were trying to shoo Security’s petty honesty from the room. The nature of Warden’s game transcended such considerations.

Hashi couldn’t inhale enough to raise his voice. Softly he murmured, “Yet you choose to reveal it now.”

“Yes,” Warden rasped without hesitation. “Listen to me, all of you.” He aimed his single gaze in turn at Koina, at Hashi, at Chief Mandich. “Get this straight. I choose to reveal it now.”

Now, when the GCES had just been stampeded into rejecting a Bill of Severance which would have broken the Dragon’s hold on the UMCP.

Hashi’s lungs strained for air.

Would it work? Would Warden succeed at toppling Holt Fasner with his own fall?

Perhaps. With Hashi’s help: perhaps. These revelations, these unguessed gravitons of information, might well lack the force to pull Fasner from his throne unaided. The great worm was profoundly entrenched. They could be augmented, however—

An almost childlike sense of affection for his director swelled in Hashi’s chest. At the same time he felt that he had been personally exalted by several orders of magnitude. Suddenly he was aware that he could comprehend and participate in the quantum energies of this crisis on a scale which would have been impossible for him only moments earlier. A blaze of illumination had effaced the shame of his incapacity to grasp Warden’s game.

He found himself beaming unselfconsciously, like a senile old man. A joy as acute as terror throbbed in his veins.

He knew at once that he would give the UMCP director all the help he could.

Baffled by a rush of information he was unable to manage, Chief Mandich retreated into a pose of clenched stolidity. He belonged to ED; and as Min Donner had sometimes said, ED was the fist of the UMCP, not the brain. The Security Chief was accustomed to using his mind for his own duties, not for analyzing the underlying purpose of Warden’s policies. Hashi felt sure that Mandich was full of outrage. He was also sure, however, that the Chief would continue to take orders—and carry them out faithfully—at least until Min Donner returned to account for herself.

Koina may have understood Warden’s intent as little as Mandich did, but she responded differently.

“Director Dios,” she said coldly, “I’ll certainly tell Special Counsel Igensard—as soon as an appropriate occasion presents itself.” The chill in her voice was extreme. Her inflections might have been rimed with ice. “But that’s a secondary issue. Under the circumstances, whether or not the UMCP has any integrity”—she froze the word to such brittleness that it threatened to shatter—“can’t be our first concern. The Amnion have committed an act of war. That’s primary.

“Are you going to tell the Council?”

“Of course.” A tightening around Warden’s eyes made Hashi think he found the question painful. “That’s the law. It’s also my duty.

“But first I want to know where events are going, what the stakes are. If I can’t tell the Members what the threat actually is, they’re liable to do something stupid.”

Indeed they were. Hashi agreed completely. From a historical perspective, it was plain that elected officials acting in legislative bodies seldom did anything which could not be called stupid. And in this case the difficulties were greatly increased by the fact that many of the Members derived their positions, directly or indirectly, from Holt Fasner—who in turn derived much of his wealth and power from trade with the Amnion.

Koina appeared to grant Warden’s reply a provisional assent. However, he had already moved on as if he neither wanted nor needed any acknowledgment from her.

“Which brings us,” he said mordantly, “back to Suka Bator.

“You three were there. Chief Mandich, you’ve been made responsible for security on the Council island. In particular you were responsible for security during this extraordinary session of the GCES.”

The Chief tightened his lips to a pale line; but his only reply was, “Yes, sir.”

“Director Hannish,” Warden continued, “you were responsible for representing formal UMCP policy before the Council. Director Lebwohl”—the UMCP director paused to study Hashi momentarily—“I will presume you were there because you’re responsible for our investigation of the kazes who attacked Captain Vertigus and killed Godsen Frik.”

Hashi nodded, but he held his tongue.

“I want to know the exact nature of the threats we face. That means I want to know what the Amnion are doing. And I want to know what’s behind these kazes. Who’s sending them? Why are they being sent? And why are they being sent now, when the Amnion have just committed an act of war? How we respond to one is likely to depend on what we do about the other.”

Why are they being sent now? Hashi considered this interrogative a trifle specious. He was convinced that Warden understood the timing of recent events very well. He kept his belief to himself, however.

“So you tell me,” Warden concluded, “the three of you. What happened? What the hell is going on?”

He did not single out Chief Mandich for answers. Perhaps he realized that no question he could ask would search the Chief more intimately than Mandich searched himself.

Nevertheless Chief Mandich considered it his duty to report first.

“I’m still waiting to hear from DA, sir,” he began. “I can’t account for what happened myself.” That admission came awkwardly for him. His sense of culpability was plain on his blunt face. “We took every precaution I know of. Retinal scans. Every kind of EM probe we have available.” The kind of scanning which Angus Thermopyle had been constructed and equipped to circumvent. “Full id tag and credential background verifications. For everybody on the island. And everybody who arrived or left. The kaze still got through. He must have been legit—even though that’s supposed to be impossible.

“Since then it’s been up to DA. I’ve sealed the island. Nobody in or out—except our own people. Some of the Members are squalling about it.” The Chief shrugged. He had no qualms about discomfiting the Members. “They want to go hide. But if whoever is behind this is on Suka Bator, I’m going to make sure he stays there. So we can find him.”

Hashi nodded his approval. He knew that no direct evidence would be found on the island. A chemical trigger released on a preconditioned signal by a man in a state of drug-induced hypnosis would leave no traceable data. Nevertheless he wished to be certain that the responsible individual would not escape.

Casually he asked, “Has the Dragon’s estimable First Executive Assistant posed any objection?”

“No,” Chief Mandich retorted.

Of course not. In such matters Holt Fasner’s aides and cohorts preserved an illusion of complete cooperation.

“I haven’t had time to study the reports,” Warden put in. “Cleatus Fane attended the session?”

He did not appear to be taken aback.

“Oh, yes,” Koina answered before the Chief could speak. Hashi suspected that she held Mandich blameless and wished to spare him unnecessary chagrin. She was capable of such consideration, even when her own chagrin ran high. “I was surprised to see him. So were quite a few of the Members.

“Several of them had the impression he was there because he knew why Captain Vertigus had claimed Member’s privilege. That doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t see how anyone could have known what Captain Vertigus had in mind”—she held Warden’s gaze without faltering—“unless he told them. But Fane was there anyway, emitting bonhomie like toxic radiation.”

Hashi chuckled pleasantly at her transparent dislike for the UMC First Executive Assistant.

Still facing Warden, she said, “You know what happened.” She made no pretense that this was a question. “Captain Vertigus used his privilege to introduce a Bill of Severance. He wants to dissolve us as a branch of the UMC and reconstitute us as an arm of the GCES.”

For his part Warden made no pretense that he had been caught unaware.

“Fane raised a number of objections,” she stated. “Then he called on me to support him. I announced formally that our position on such matters was one of complete neutrality. I gave our reasons. Fane didn’t seem to like them much.”

“I’m sure he didn’t,” the UMCP director remarked acerbically. “Maybe that explains why he’s been trying to call me”—Warden indicated his intercom—“every twenty minutes for the past two hours. Fortunately I’ve been too busy to talk to him.”

Maybe: maybe not. Hashi could think of at least one alternative rationale for Cleatus Fane’s calls.

Apparently Koina could not. Or she saw no reason to redirect her account of the session. “After that,” she resumed, “Director Lebwohl spotted the kaze. He still hasn’t told any of us how he managed that. But if he hadn’t been there, a lot more people would have died. Some of the Members might have been killed.

“As it was, the cost was high enough.” Complex fears darkened her tone. “GCES Security lost a man. An ED Security ensign lost a hand. And we lost the bill. I suppose the Members believed Fane’s argument that we would be weaker if we were separated from the UMC—and right now their lives depend on making us as strong as possible.”

She fell silent. After a moment her gaze shifted from Warden to Hashi.

Warden and Chief Mandich were also looking at the DA director. The time had come for him to speak.

He didn’t hesitate. He was at home among the uncertainties which crowded Warden’s office, the swirl of secret intentions; in his element. “Director Dios,” he offered with a sly smile, “you might find it entertaining to accept the First Executive Assistant’s call.”

“Why?” Warden asked.

Hashi shrugged delicately. “I suspect that his reasons for wishing to address you have little or nothing to do with Captain Vertigus’ Bill. The issues he hopes to obfuscate may prove to be of another kind altogether.”

Warden shook his head. He seemed to be beyond surprise. “I want to hear your report first.”

Hashi bowed slightly. “As you wish.”

Ignoring the pressure of scrutiny from Koina and Chief Mandich, he presented his information directly to Warden Dios.

“The means by which I identified a kaze in the extraordinary session of the GCES is easily explained. Quite simply, I recognized him. That is to say, despite his GCES Security uniform, I recognized him as the infamous Captain Nathan Alt. You would have done so yourself, had you been there.”

Koina caught her breath at the name. The Chief growled a soft curse.

Warden raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.

Hashi warmed to the pleasure of his own explanations. “Captain Alt’s presence in the Council hall struck me as unexpected,” he expounded. “And I admit that I was alert to all things unexpected. Director Hannish had relayed to me Captain Vertigus’ fear of another attack. I considered his fears credible. That in large part motivated my presence at the extraordinary session.

“Because Captain Alt’s presence was unexpected, I moved to intercept him, hoping to obtain an explanation. When I drew near enough to see him more clearly, I had no difficulty identifying the danger he represented. First, his eyes and his manner indicated that he had been heavily drugged. Second, his credentials were not those of Nathan Alt, former UMCPED captain. They were those of one Clay Imposs, a GCES Security sergeant.”

With false ingratiation, Hashi added smoothly, “I’m sure Chief Mandich would have drawn the same conclusions I did—and taken the same actions—if chance had given him the same opportunity to recognize Captain Alt.”

Nathan Alt’s name was well-known in UMCPHQ. However, his court-martial had taken place several years ago; before Koina’s time. On the other hand, as a member of ED—with a personal investment in ED’s reputation—Chief Mandich almost certainly remembered the former captain well enough to identify him.

Hashi spread his hands disingenuously. “So much is simple.

“All that remains to be said of the events themselves is that before Chief Mandich’s stalwarts impelled the putative Clay Imposs from the hall, thereby saving almost any number of lives, I contrived to snatch the clearance badge from his uniform, as well as the id tag from his neck.”

Now at last Warden permitted himself a reaction which may have been surprise. His eye widened: he shook his head slightly.

“So what?” Chief Mandich put in harshly. “That tag and badge aren’t going to help us. I’m sure you’re right about Nathan Alt. I’m sure his credentials are legit for Clay Imposs. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been cleared. And I’m sure they were doctored somehow. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten past a retinal scan. But even if you figure out how they were doctored, you won’t be able to prove who did it. His id tag and badge will just confirm what we already know. Which is that whoever’s behind this has access to all the right codes.”

“You took a terrible risk, Hashi,” Koina breathed. “You could have been killed. What did you hope to gain?”

Hashi ignored both her and Mandich. “Since my departure from Suka Bator,” he told Warden, “Data Acquisition has been diligent in its assigned functions. The technical aspects of this investigation I have entrusted to Lane Harbinger, whose qualifications for the task are superb. For my part, I have taken the occasion to impose Red Priority security locks on various data venues, hoping to ensure the accuracy of the information which may be obtained from them.” Briskly he named the sites he’d sealed. “In addition I have obtained preliminary readouts from Data Storage on both Nathan Alt and Clay Imposs.”

“Go on,” Warden murmured like a man who couldn’t be moved.

Hashi did. He had no intention of stopping.

“The vanished Imposs we may dismiss,” he stated. “His records are both correct and clean. No marks tell against him. We must assume, I believe, that he is dead—a victim of intentions in which he had no other role except to die. It is likely that his body will never be found.”

Corpses which had been burned down to their essential energies, or dissolved into their component chemicals, no longer existed in any form which might be susceptible to discovery.

“Nathan Alt, as you might imagine, is another matter entirely.

“I will spare you the less relevant details of his history.” Hashi enjoyed lecturing. The more he explained, the more he understood. “The primary facts are these. Less than a year after his court-martial, Captain Alt found employment with Nanogen, Inc., a research-and-development concern studying the production of microchips and electronic devices by nanotechnological means. Specifically he found employment in Nanogen Security, despite—or perhaps because of—his record.

“Not surprisingly,” Hashi remarked dryly, “Nanogen, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Mining Companies.

“Since then, our subject’s career has been one of steady advancement through the vast hierarchy of the UMC’s Security departments. Again I will spare you the details. For our purposes, the crucial point is that approximately a year ago he attained the position of Security Liaison for Anodyne Systems, the sole licensed manufacturer of SOD-CMOS chips.”

“We know what Anodyne Systems does,” Chief Mandich muttered.

Hashi didn’t respond. He went on speaking to Warden as if the two of them were alone.

“I suspect that First Executive Assistant Fane will confirm this when you accept his call. One of the redoubtable FEA’s duties as the Dragon’s right hand concerns the oversight of Anodyne Systems.”

“We know that, too,” Warden said brusquely. “Get to the point, Hashi.”

He didn’t add, I have an act of war to worry about. There was no need.

Nevertheless Hashi declined to be hurried. The quantum mechanics of truth yielded its secrets only when its uncertainties were handled with care.

“Quite naturally,” he continued as if he were impervious to any exigencies except his own, “as Security Liaison for Anodyne Systems, Nathan Alt had no dealings with us.” In his own way he considered himself as unreachable as the UMCP director. “He had no direct contact with the UMCP at all. We supply all working personnel for Anodyne Systems. In particular we supply all security. Rather his duties involved coordinating the flow of knowledge and skill between UMC as well as UMCP cryptographers and Anodyne Systems Security.

“Specifically his responsibilities centered on the design of the embedded code engines which generate clearances for both the Governing Council for Earth and Space and the United Mining Companies Police. His assigned task—I quote from the personnel mandate of his employment—was ‘to ensure the highest possible level of precision and invulnerability’ in those codes.

“The coincidence is intriguing, is it not? How did a man with Nathan Alt’s record—and his reasons for disaffection—attain such a lofty and vital position? Perhaps Cleatus Fane will shed light on that question for us. Certainly our former captain’s record suggests brilliance in code design and programming. And UMCP training is apt for security. In that sense he was well qualified for his work.

“Lest you think that we have committed some monumental blunder in regard to his involvement, let me stress that he had no power to select or alter the specific code engines employed by Anodyne Systems. Those decisions were made by Anodyne Systems Security under our explicit supervision. From our perspective Captain Alt was merely a resource which the UMC had made available to Anodyne Systems Security. Therefore we had no reason to protest—or even to remark upon—his participation.

“Yet the fact remains that he supplied a substantial portion of the source-code and design for the engines currently in use. His proposals were tested and validated, and ultimately accepted, by our own Security techs. They were, in Chief Mandich’s terms, ‘legit.’ Thus he has proved his value as a resource.

“Of course,” Hashi remarked casually, “in order to make such a sensitive contribution to our own Security, as well as to the Council’s, Captain Alt required a complete knowledge of every facet of those code engines, including those portions which he did not supply.”

Obliquely Hashi wondered whether Koina and Mandich caught the implications. Warden assuredly did.

“What is the result?” the DA director asked rhetorically. “Through the intervention—direct or indirect—of the Dragon, a man whom we have court-martialed for ‘dereliction of duty’ has attained an intimate grasp on the most secret, as well as the most specialized, aspect of our procedures for self-protection.”

Now that man was dead.

His death in a state of drug-induced hypnosis suggested that he had not chosen his own end. Holt Fasner rarely inspired the loyalty for self-sacrifice.

Before Warden could insist again that he “get to the point,” Hashi pronounced, “Under the circumstances, we can be certain that Nathan Alt possessed both the skill and the knowledge to substitute his own physical id for Clay Imposs’ credentials.”

The UMCP director appeared to study this assertion as if he had no essential interest in it; as if it changed nothing. But Chief Mandich reacted like a man who had been provoked beyond endurance.

“How?” he demanded fiercely. “Tell me how. God damn it, Lebwohl, if you knew about this, why didn’t you say something? We could have stopped him.”

Without glancing away from Hashi, Warden lifted a hand to warn the Security Chief that he went too far.

Mandich bit down his protest.

Into the space left by the Chief’s silence, Koina placed a challenge of another kind.

“This doesn’t make any sense, Hashi. If he could do all that, why did he choose himself to be the kaze? Don’t you think that’s a rather bizarre way to commit suicide?”

Warden continued watching the DA director stonily; remorselessly.

Now Hashi deigned to answer the Chief. “There is no mystery here. If you were adept at the programming of SOD-CMOS chips, and if you held possession of both your id and mine, you would have no difficulty preparing a composite which blended my records with your physical data. In effect, the new id tag would identify you as me.”

He wished to show Warden that he could transcend Mandich’s personal animosity. More than that, he wished to show that he was equal to Warden’s game.

Koina’s questions would answer themselves.

Warden planted his palms on the desktop in front of him—a gesture which usually indicated that he was out of patience.

“Director Lebwohl, I’m sure everything you’re telling us is true.” His voice sounded guttural; angry and tense. “And it’s all important. But I don’t have time for a seminar. None of us do. I need a connection—a real one, not some tenuous, circumstantial theory based on the fact that Fane hired a man who doesn’t like us to help design SOD-CMOS code engines.”

Hashi nodded to show that he understood. “May I again suggest,” he countered, “that you allow the First Executive Assistant to contact you?”

Warden dismissed the idea. “Not yet. You aren’t done.”

Did it show? Hashi liked to believe that his personal IR emissions were difficult for Warden to interpret. The DA director had done studies on himself, seeking to determine how much his own aura revealed. The results had gratified him: he could tell the baldest lies without producing definable ripples along the bandwidths of Warden’s sight. It was possible, however, that Warden understood the nature of Hashi’s excitement in some unquantifiable and intuitive fashion.

“Very well,” Hashi acceded. “Sadly, I cannot offer you a connection which will not appear both ‘circumstantial’ and ‘tenuous’ in law. Nevertheless the connection I propose has substance. It will hold.

“If we are fortunate”—he permitted himself a small grin—“Cleatus Fane will confirm it for us.”

If the First Executive Assistant did so, that would also confirm the importance of Imposs/Alt’s id tag and clearance badge.

“In no sense,” Hashi continued promptly, “has Lane Harbinger had time to complete her study of Nathan Alt’s earthly remains. However, certain of her preliminary findings may be relied upon.

“It is unmistakable, for example, that at the time of his demise our Captain Alt was deeply under the influence of hypnogogic substances. His actions in the hall were innocent of volition. He may well have both designed and carried out the procedures by which his id replaced Clay Imposs’, but his death was not a suicide. He did not elect his own end.”

If Min Donner’s accusations during Alt’s court-martial were accurate, the man was too much a coward to die for any cause.

Koina sighed softly, nodding to herself as if she were relieved in some way. Idealistic images of the UMCP died hard, especially in Warden’s presence. Apparently she had been quite disturbed by the idea that any UMCP officer could be so disenchanted that he would be willing to kill himself in order to harm his former service.

Because he spoke for Warden’s benefit—as well as his own—Hashi didn’t pause to acknowledge her reaction.

“The chemicals by which hypnosis may be induced are familiar to us. Lane will identify them precisely. However, Captain Alt’s blood also holds heavy concentrations of a substance which is”—the DA director cleared his throat conspicuously—“less commonly understood.

“That substance is a coenzyme. Inherently inert, it has no utility in itself. However, it combines with some of the human body’s natural apoenzymes to form an artificial holoenzyme, one which could not occur naturally. This holoenzyme is active.

“Lane’s hypothesis—which I share—is that Captain Alt was dosed with this coenzyme in order to produce a holoenzyme which would serve as a chemical trigger for his explosive device.”

Now Hashi paused, maliciously allowing Chief Mandich time for some inapt remark. But the man kept silent. Perhaps he had realized that he was out of his depth.

In some indefinable way, Warden seemed to intensify. His outlines sharpened as if the light had changed: the strict shape of his face hinted at dangers and possibilities. He did nothing to interrupt or hurry Hashi.

“If our hypothesis is accurate,” Hashi resumed, “several conclusions derive from it. First, no volition was required. It was not necessary that Captain Alt ‘set himself off.’” Hashi articulated the colloquialism like a sneer. “Second, the absence of some more mechanical timing device suggests that those accountable for this kaze wished to adjust the explosion to suit events. They were unwilling to guess in advance when their kaze might best be set off. Third, the use of a chemical trigger rather than a radio-controlled detonator suggests that the perpetrators felt some fear that they might be caught with the transmitter in their possession.

“Surely it is obvious that the timing of the blast could only have been adjusted to suit events by someone present in the hall.” Hashi permitted himself to elaborate this point unnecessarily while he explored some of the more obscure strands of inference spun by Lane’s investigation. “And it was surely predictable that UMCPED Security would seal the island in order to prevent any conceivable suspects from effecting an escape. Therefore the peril was real that an incriminating transmitter might be discovered.”

He glanced at Koina and Mandich as if he were asking them to fault his logic. Then he returned his attention to Warden.

“Thus the method becomes plain. Captain Alt is hypnotized involuntarily. He is conditioned to respond to a specified signal—a particular word, a particular gesture. He is given—let us suppose until Lane’s exploration is complete—a false tooth filled with a massive dose of the triggering coenzyme, a tooth which will break open when it is bitten. He is supplied, still involuntarily, with Clay Imposs’ credentials. Then he is sent into the hall to await his signal—and his own death.

“The most obvious benefit of this method is that it leaves no evidence. The knowledge of the pre-conditioned signal—and of the man or woman culpable for it—dies with the kaze. No transmitter—or indeed timer—can be found.

“Coincidentally, it perhaps rids the perpetrators of a man who might well have become an embarrassment to them.” A man who knew—and who therefore might reveal—how the code engines in question could be misused.

“The obvious conclusion,” Hashi stated with satisfaction, “is that whoever gave the signal must have been within Captain Alt’s clear field of view.”

Not simply present in the hall: present in plain sight from Nathan Alt’s position.

Wondrous energy shells, layers of uncertainty, mapped the center of the atom; the core of truth.

Neither Director Hannish nor Chief Mandich spoke. Perhaps they sensed the presence of implications they were unable to define. Or perhaps they failed to grasp why Hashi considered these details to be so significant.

Warden’s reaction was of another kind altogether.

Studying his DA director, he said quietly, “All right. Let’s see where this goes.” With a precise stab of his forefinger, he keyed his intercom.

“Director Dios?” a communications tech answered.

“I’ll talk to Cleatus Fane now,” Warden announced. His tone carried the force of a commandment.

Koina settled herself back in her chair with a visible effort. Chief Mandich took another step forward as if he were ready for combat. Perhaps intuitively they both comprehended Hashi’s explanations better than he realized.

“Right away, Director.” The intercom emitted thin hissings and clicks as microwave relays shuttled, establishing a downlink. A moment later the tech said, “Director Dios, I have First Executive Assistant Cleatus Fane by secure channel from Suka Bator.”

An alert on Warden’s desk flashed until the tech left the line. Then the light turned green to indicate that the channel had been sealed against eavesdropping.

“Mr. Fane,” Warden began bluntly. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve been busy.”

“I understand completely, Director Dios.” A faint spatter of static marred Fane’s avuncular tones—solar flare activity, perhaps. “Your duties have become especially complex recently. I wouldn’t bother you at a time like this, but I think I have something to contribute to your investigation.” He chuckled fulsomely. “That sonofabitch came close to killing me. I shudder to think what could have happened if Director Lebwohl hadn’t spotted him. I’m very eager to make a contribution.”

Especially complex recently, Hashi thought. Doubtless Fane intended a reference to Trumpet; a reminder that Holt Fasner had given Warden orders. False bonhomie concealed pressure. The FEA meant Warden to understand that he could not afford to ignore anyone who spoke for the Dragon.

Warden was unmoved, however. “I don’t want to seem rude, Mr. Fane,” he answered, “but time is tight. What contribution did you have in mind?”

“Then I’ll be brief. The sooner you finish your investigation, the sooner I can leave this hopeless rock.”

Not for the first time, Cleatus Fane’s manner made Hashi think of a Santa Claus with fangs.

“By now, Director,” Fane began, “I’m sure you’ve identified that kaze. I recognized him myself. If I’d noticed him earlier, we wouldn’t have had to rely on Director Lebwohl to save us. I knew he might be dangerous. At the very least,” he explained, “I knew he shouldn’t be there. That would have made him look dangerous, even if I had nothing else to go on. But I didn’t think to look at him closely until Director Lebwohl accosted him.

“His name is Nathan Alt. The Nathan Alt—the one who used to work for you. He was court-martialed for ‘dereliction’ when he was in command of Vehemence. You know that. And you’ve had time to access his records, so you also know he’s been working for us since then. I mean for the UMC. Specifically he was our Security Liaison for Anodyne Systems.”

Behind his smeared lenses and his impenetrable smile, Hashi resisted an impulse to hold his breath. Despite his confidence in the web of inferences he’d woven for Warden’s benefit, he was acutely aware that he needed Cleatus Fane’s confirmation. Without it he might be left looking uncomfortably like a man who grasped at straws in order to redeem his tarnished credibility.

Fane’s disembodied voice continued smoothly. “But that’s not the reason I’ve been calling you. Aside from the fact,” he added piously, “that we all have standing orders to give you our fullest cooperation whenever it’s needed.” We no doubt referred to Holt Fasner’s primary subordinates. “There’s something you may not know about him.”

“What’s that, Mr. Fane?” Warden put in noncommittally.

Fane paused for emphasis, then announced, “We fired him six weeks ago. Threw him out.”

Koina shook her head at this information. Chief Mandich clenched his fists.

Only a conscious act of will prevented Hashi from laughing aloud.

Warden’s shoulders tightened. He scowled at the intercom as if he were trying to read Cleatus Fane’s aura through the blank mask of the microwave downlink.

“Why?” he demanded.

Fane answered promptly. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that we wouldn’t have anybody working for us—certainly not in a position as sensitive as Security Liaison for Anodyne Systems—if he wasn’t cleared by the most rigorous scrutiny.” An irritating fuzz of static distorted his sincerity. “And we scrutinize everyone incessantly. Over and over again.

“Our latest—shall I call them observations?—of Nathan Alt showed that over the past several months he’s been in frequent contact with the native Earthers.”

The First Executive Assistant raised his voice to convey indignation. “I don’t need to remind you, Director Dios, that they’re terrorists. The worst kind of scum. In the name of preserving humankind’s ‘genetic purity,’ they oppose any dealings with the Amnion, even responsible trade. They oppose diplomatic relations. They oppose us because we do lawful, authorized business with forbidden space. And they don’t hesitate to use violence of all kinds to support their policies.

“Of course we fired Nathan Alt. Once we knew he was in contact with the native Earthers, we couldn’t trust him.”

Warden ignored Fane’s outrage. “And that’s how you knew Alt was dangerous as soon as you recognized him?” he asked.

“Director Dios,” Cleatus Fane retorted strongly, “I think the native Earthers are behind all these recent attacks. I think Nathan Alt gave them the means to supply kazes with legitimate id, and they’ve been using it to try to undermine both the UMC and the UMCP.

“Fortunately they can’t succeed,” he added at once. “The fact that the GCES soundly rejected Captain Vertigus’ misguided Bill of Severance demonstrates that. But the danger is still real. And it must be stopped.”

Through the static he projected the righteous indignation of a man who had come close to a death he didn’t deserve.

Warden grimaced at the intercom. After a moment he drawled mordantly, “An interesting theory, Mr. Fane. I want to be sure I understand it. The first attack—the one on Captain Vertigus—what was that supposed to accomplish? The native Earthers have always called him a hero.”

The FEA laughed humorlessly. “But he hasn’t done anything heroic for decades. He’s too old and ineffectual to do them any good. They wanted to make him a martyr. His opposition to Holt Fasner and the UMC is common knowledge. They want people to think he was attacked to silence his opposition.”

Warden snorted softly; too softly to register on the intercom pickup. “You can’t apply the same argument to Godsen Frik.”

“Of course not.” Static or stress made Fane’s bonhomie sound brittle. “As a spokesman for the special relationship between the UMC and the UMCP, he’s a natural enemy of the native Earthers. They wanted to use the confusion caused by Captain Vertigus’ martyrdom to strike at one of their most public targets.”

For a moment Warden appeared to give this statement consideration. Then he asked, “And the attack today?”

“An attempt to scare the Council,” Fane pronounced firmly. “Fear breeds stupidity—and stupidity breeds native Earthers.”

Hashi considered this an interesting piece of conceptual legerdemain. From his perspective, stupidity bred rejection of Captain Vertigus’ Bill of Severance.

Warden may have felt the same—Koina plainly did—but he didn’t comment.

“I’ll look into it,” he told the Dragon’s henchman. “But I have to say, Mr. Fane, it makes me wonder why you hired Alt in the first place. You had reason to think he might not be particularly reliable.”

Cleatus Fane snorted. “Because he couldn’t meet Director Donner’s standards for ‘conduct becoming an officer’? There aren’t many men or women on the planet who can be that pure all the time. His court-martial didn’t render him unfit for productive work. Or honorable work, for that matter,” Fane added.

“But the truth is”—microwave noise complicated his candor—“his court-martial was one of the reasons we hired him. He never hid the fact that he resented the UMCP. From our point of view, that made him uniquely valuable. We wanted a man who was highly motivated to find fault with anything you people touched—especially with the security procedures designed for organizations like Anodyne Systems and the GCES. If he couldn’t find chinks in your armor—so to speak—no one could. And if he could find them, we could fix them.”

The First Executive Assistant might as well have said, Don’t try to challenge me, Director Dios. You’re wasting your time.

Chief Mandich’s features held a resentful scowl, but he didn’t speak.

Warden shrugged noncommittally. “As I say,” he replied, “time is tight, Mr. Fane. Director Lebwohl is already investigating some of the possibilities you’ve mentioned.” Cleatus Fane would know soon—if he didn’t already—that Hashi had invoked Red Priority security locks for some of Holt Fasner’s Home Office computers, as well as for all of Anodyne Systems’. “Just one more question, if you don’t mind.

“Did Alt take any of his work with him?”

“Director,” Fane answered heavily, “nobody carries that kind of work around in his head. It’s too minute and complex. His last project ran to something like eight million lines of source-code. Most of us would burn out our brains just trying to remember the design protocols.

“And we made damn sure he didn’t carry it any other way. I can tell you that for a fact.”

On this point Hashi felt certain that the FEA’s facts were accurate. Captain Alt’s secrets—whatever they might have been—had never left the Dragon’s orbital headquarters.

“Very well, Mr. Fane,” Warden returned. “I’ll contact Holt Fasner directly when I have anything to report.”

He raised his hand and aimed one strong finger to silence the intercom.

On impulse Hashi left his seat so abruptly that Warden’s hand stopped. In a rush Hashi reached the front of the desk and leaned over the intercom.

“Mr. Fane?” he said quickly, almost breathlessly. “Forgive the intrusion. This is Director Lebwohl. I am with Director Dios. Overhearing your discussion, I have a question of my own, if you will permit me to put it to you.”

Fane hesitated momentarily, then said, “Go ahead, Director Lebwohl. Anything you want to know.”

Grinning past his glasses at Warden, Hashi responded promptly, “You say that you fired Nathan Alt six weeks ago because he was in contact with the native Earthers. And you made sure—I believe you made ‘damn’ sure—that none of his work left with him. Did you institute any other precautions to ensure the security of Anodyne Systems?”

If the First Executive Assistant was willing to go this far, surely he would go further.

“Of course.” Fane’s tone hinted at relief. He was prepared for this question. “We made a mistake hiring Alt. We weren’t going to compound it by being naive. In essence, we threw out everything he did while he was Security Liaison. I mean, we kept his ideas. Some of them were brilliant. But we erased every application he designed. We erased every application he might have touched. Then we wrote our own to replace his. And we wrote patches to alter the code engines in every SOD-CMOS chip Anodyne Systems manufactured during his tenure.

“Even if he was smuggling data and code to the native Earthers for months before we caught him,” Fane concluded, “it’s all useless to them now.”

Nodding to no one in particular, Hashi resumed his seat. He didn’t trouble himself to thank Cleatus Fane.

Frowning at his DA director, Warden pursued, “In other words, Mr. Fane, you’re sure the security breach which put legitimate id in the hands of three recent kazes didn’t come from Nathan Alt? Directly or indirectly?”

“That’s right,” Fane replied as if his credibility were intact. “You have a traitor on your hands. That’s obvious. But he isn’t here.”

No doubt Fane meant in Holt Fasner’s employ, either in his Home Office or in the UMC.

“Thank you, Mr. Fane,” Warden said sharply. “That’s all.”

With a decisive stab of his finger, he toggled his intercom to end the First Executive Assistant’s call.

Then he faced Hashi. His hands clenched each other on the desktop as if—literally as well as metaphorically—he needed to keep a grip on himself. His single eye caught the light like the wink of a cutting laser. Hope or fury beat visibly in the veins at his temples.

“All right, Director Lebwohl,” he said harshly. “We’ve heard what Cleatus Fane has to say. What does it prove?”

Koina and Chief Mandich studied Hashi with their separate forms of incomprehension. Confusion appeared to aggravate the Chief’s resentment. Perhaps he was irritated because he thought that Hashi’s insistence on speaking to Fane wasted time. But Koina’s bafflement was of a different kind. Hashi saw her as a woman whose primary assumptions prevented her from understanding what she heard.

“Ah, ‘prove,’” he answered Warden. “Nothing, I fear. We remain in the realm of the tenuous and circumstantial”—Werner Heisenberg’s rich domain—“despite the First Executive Assistant’s generous confirmation. Nevertheless I believe that my conclusions are substantial. They will hold.”

Warden didn’t hesitate. “What are your conclusions?”

Hashi spread his hands as if to show that they were empty of subterfuge or misdirection. Enunciating each word distinctly, he announced, “That these recent kazes have been sent against us by none other than the UMC CEO himself, Holt Fasner.”

With one forefinger the DA director pushed his glasses up on his nose to disguise the fact that he was keenly proud of himself.