“And to the Lord Governor?”
“Yes,” Sergio said, his mind turning over the small clues. “Aren’t you asking the same question? Isn’t loyalty to The Republic also loyalty to Governor Sandoval?” Even as he spoke, he saw the flicker in Parsons’ emerald eyes suggesting that might not be so. This visit explained a great deal if Sandoval moved on his own, independent of The Republic.
Coupled with what Hanna Leong had told him yesterday, it seemed all the leaders of The Republic might be interested more in furthering their own ambitions than in maintaining unity.
“It is my duty to report if Mirach and its populace are comfortable being aligned with The Republic,” Parsons said smoothly.
“I am sure you will find that although the failure of the HPG net has unnerved many on Mirach, our loyalty is unflagging.”
“That is good to know, Baron. After all, another alliance might provide more benefit for a planet with considerable mineral wealth.” Parsons made a fluttering motion with his fingers, as if dismissing any such suggestion as being absurd.
Sergio started to open the packet the Envoy had given him, but Parsons reached over and stopped him.
“Those are such dry reports. You’ll have time to read them at your leisure and prepare a response for me to carry personally to the Lord Governor.”
Sergio inclined his head slightly in Parsons’ direction. He would need every possible second to formulate that reply.
6
Café Galactica, Cingulum
Mirach
15 April 3133
“Elora fired me,” Hanna Leong said in a choked voice. “She put that airhead Bethany into my newscast, told me I wasn’t good enough, and then she fired me!”
Dale Ortega saw how hard she tried not to cry. He reached across the small table at the sidewalk café and took her hand. The sounds of the city went away for that moment. Gone were the cars whistling through the twilight not two meters away. Dale barely noticed The Republic Tower, the tallest building on the planet, as he usually did. Something about its cloud-impaling apex, especially at sunset, inspired him and made him believe anything was possible. When he and Austin were youngsters, they had come to loiter at this very café and watch the top stories being laid into place. When his father had dedicated the building to Devlin Stone, Dale and Austin had stood beside him for the first time in an official capacity.
Their mother had died only a week earlier, and Sergio Ortega had wanted to involve his boys more in day-to-day routine to keep their minds off the tragedy. Somehow, Dale never thought of the Tower as being a tribute to Devlin Stone as much as to his mother. Dale struggled to find the words to inspire in Hanna the same comfort it represented for him.
“You can do better,” he told her. “You’ve got talent and you’ve got more ambition than any other woman I’ve ever seen.” He grinned and added, “You’ve almost got as much as me.”
“Austin’s the one with ambition,” Hanna said, dabbing at her tears and smiling a little. “You’re the one with the boyish charm. Remember?”
“I forget everything when I’m with you. Remember when we met?”
“You spilled a drink on me at a reception I was covering for the Ministry of Information. I thought you were a complete dolt.”
“Your beauty dazzled me,” Dale said. He surprised himself when he realized he meant every word. Before, with other women, it had been a come-on. Not with Hanna. “That you didn’t shout and get all mad that I’d ruined a good dress—”
“It was a gown, thank you,” Hanna said.
“You accepted disaster well.”
“And I accepted a date with you. You moved fast. Maybe you are ambitious,” she said. Then Hanna’s smile faded. “And Elora fired me. I suppose I should have expected it, but it was still a surprise.”
“Did she know you had a meeting with my father?” Dale asked. “I asked him earlier today about it, but he wouldn’t answer. Of course, we were receiving the Envoy at the time.” Dale hadn’t seen Hanna for a couple days and he had been as caught up in preparations for Jerome Parsons as everyone else. Not only had Manfred Leclerc assigned him to position the FCL guards, but his father had kept him jumping as liaison between the protocol officer and the transportation chief. It had been a relief when his father and the Envoy had driven away. This was the first chance he’d had to learn how Hanna’s meeting had gone.
“I don’t know,” Hanna said. “Maybe Elora knew about our meeting. She tries to know everything.” Hanna looked forlornly at him. “She fired me so abruptly, she must know.”
“My father will do something,” Dale said.
“I can’t prove my allegations. Oh, some I can document. She is the bastard child of a Clan raider, but that’s no crime. I was getting closer to finding out if she had been in touch with Radick. Being fired means I’ve lost my best contacts in the Ministry.”
“Did Papa believe you?” asked Dale. He held her hand tighter.
“He was noncommittal, but I think so. I’m sure Elora intends to use Tortorelli against him and depose him. From things she’s said, I believe she’s got the crazy idea that delivering Mirach to the Steel Wolves will give her even more power.”
Dale motioned her to silence as the waiter came to their table.
“Two coffees. Do you have Terran import?” Dale asked.
“Only domestic,” the waiter said, looking up and down the street and avoiding Dale’s direct gaze.
“Two coffees. And food always calms me down,” he said, trying to remember his last meal. He had skipped eating since an early breakfast in the FCL barracks because of preparations for Parsons’ arrival. “Kulebiaka and the coffee,” Dale said, knowing the meat-and-vegetable-stuffed pastry was always good to tame even his most savage hunger.
The waiter looked down the street again, brushed back his hair, then turned and hurried into the small café. Dale started to call after the waiter, then stopped.
“What’s wrong, Dale?” Hanna asked.
“I—nothing, I guess. The waiter seemed more interested in the traffic than he did taking my order.” Dale shrugged it off.
Dale took Hanna’s hand in both of his and started to tell her he was certain there would be a position on the Baron’s staff for her, when he heard the screech of tires and the roar of an engine. A car veered toward them and leaped the curb.
“Hanna!” he cried. He dived across the small round table, arms trying to circle and protect her. The car crashed into Hanna and brushed past Dale. He flew through the air and slammed into the next table. He tried to sit up, but his muscles refused to obey. His thoughts were jumbled and he couldn’t concentrate until a mental image of Hanna’s frightened face burned away the fog.
Dale crawled toward her on hands and knees and looked down into her face. He felt as if he had fallen down a long, dark shaft. From the way her head canted to one side he knew she was dead.
“Hanna,” he grated out, touching her cheek. Sirens blared in the distance, but it didn’t matter. The ambulance was already too late.
7
Ministry of Information, Cingulum
Mirach
15 April 3133
“Quite an impressive organization, Lady Elora,” Jerome Parsons said, looking around the broadcast studio. His head bobbed up and down, causing his triple chins to bounce about. “You have done well with a limited technical base. Not that Mirach doesn’t have fine minds and decent access to current technology, mind you.”
“Please, Envoy, I understand what you mean,” Elora said. She moved with deliberate steps that caused her purple silk dress to hiss slightly like an aroused snake. Parsons watched her with some amusement. She knew this focused his attention on her, both visually and aurally. What she seemed not to know was that he had seen such tactics before, on a dozen other worlds. Or perhaps she was vain enough to believe she was more appealing than any other could be. Parsons found such egotism tiring.
“I’m sure you do,” Parsons said as he idly brushed th
e controls with the tips of his pudgy fingers. The roving fingers came to a halt over one section of the control board. He expertly adjusted a control and brought up a view of Cingulum on the monitor screen.
“Such a lovely city in the evening. I am sorry I missed the sunset. With a star decanting such wine red light, it would have been spectacular. But I was trapped in that limousine with its armored-glass tinted windows.”
“The Baron has only your safety at heart.”
“I am sure,” Parsons said, adjusting other dials. “He has a great duty, as do you, Lady Elora.”
“What do you mean, Excellency?”
“The Ministry of Information controls more than eighty percent of the newscasts. That is a great burden, I am sure.” Parsons saw how she turned cautious.
“The Ministry supports our world’s endeavors, however it can. The cost of equipment and the dearth of trained professionals restricts others from joining us in broadcasting the news.”
“Being an agency of the government, it helps that you have a direct pipeline to the Baron’s office, too,” Parsons said.
“Excuse me a moment, Your Excellency,” Elora said as a young man motioned impatiently to her from across the room. Parsons watched as she swayed over and spoke with him in hushed tones. Elora returned in less than a minute.
“Business never ends,” she said.
“He had the look of a menial about him. In what capacity is he employed at the Ministry of Information?” asked Parsons.
“He doesn’t work here,” she said smoothly. “He’s a waiter at a local café, actually. He came to confirm… a reservation I had there.” Her face hardened for a moment.
“Such personal service is hard to find,” Parsons said, wondering about her look. He shifted the view of the city until he tapped into a news feed at an accident. “How tragic,” Parsons said. “A woman seems to have been injured in a hit-and-run downtown.”
“Cingulum has become a dangerous city, Excellency,” Elora said, reaching over and turning off the camera feed. “You don’t really want that signal.”
“What signal would you most like to receive, Minister?” Parsons asked. “Perhaps something showing the way to guide Mirach away from a weakening alliance?”
“Is The Republic’s grip on the Prefecture weakening?”
“Why, I never said that,” Parsons declared, his green eyes widening in mock surprise. He saw that Elora picked up his intent perfectly. She jumped to the conclusion that Sandoval sought new alliances in the wake of the HPG failure. He wondered what else she knew, or suspected.
“You represent Lord Governor Sandoval,” she said carefully. “Through my contacts, I’ve interviewed someone who claims Sandoval is distancing himself from The Republic.”
Parsons laughed and made it sound genuine. “That’s no more true than, say, Prefect Radick distancing himself from The Republic. It is a shame such rumors abound, but it becomes incumbent upon people like you and me to quell such …treason.”
“As you say, Envoy,” Elora said, bowing slightly.
“If you will excuse me, Minister,” Parsons said. “It is so late and I am woefully drained from today’s activities. Worse for my beauty sleep, I must rise before dawn.”
“You’re leaving Mirach so soon?”
“Oh, no, I’ll be here another few days. Tomorrow morning, far too early for my taste, Legate Tortorelli has arranged an inspection of the military. There is nothing quite so tiresome as seeing boxes of equipment or even long lines of soldiers dressed up and standing at attention for no good reason. Why, the last time I endured such an inspection, I got blisters from walking up one line and down the other. No one appreciated it. No one.” Parsons heaved a deep sigh of resignation. “Such is an Envoy’s fate.”
“If you find it too tiresome, perhaps I can arrange something more fascinating for you,” Elora said.
“You are such a gracious hostess, looking out for my interests this way,” Jerome Parsons said, “but I must attend, no matter how boring I might find it. The Legate was quite insistent about parading his combined forces.”
“Was he, now?” Elora frowned.
“Good evening, Lady Elora,” Parsons said, bowing slightly. He read people well. Elora had not known the Legate had issued that invitation. So were the seeds of distrust sown.
8
Ministry of Information, Cingulum
Mirach
15 April 3133
“You missed the other one,” Lady Elora raged. The man who had worked as a waiter in the café refused to be cowed.
“You said you wanted the woman dead. She is. The man would have cost you more.”
“Incompetent,” grumbled Elora. She shoved back in her desk chair and glared at the man. He had been useful before. He had to be useful again. Hanna had been rooting out too much information for Elora to be comfortable. What had she done with her data? Undoubtedly she would have told her lover. It would have been far easier if Dale Ortega had died along with her.
But had she told anyone else? Elora continued to fume. She had ordered that Hanna be watched when it had become apparent the Ministry of Information had a traitor in its ranks, but that observation had failed repeatedly. Hanna might have spoken to any number of people other than the Baronet. Elora frowned when she considered the possibility that Hanna had given what she had discovered to the Baron.
She quickly discarded that idea. The Baron would have fired Elora. Or would he? Was he astute enough to realize how that would appear to the people hanging on every word issued by the Ministry? She had gone out of her way to draw in as large a viewership as possible for the news, always hinting that danger lay around the corner. Removal of a Minister of Information would have been seen as an attempt at censorship.
“I have another job for you,” Elora said.
“I can do it.”
“You’ll have to play at being more than a waiter.”
“I can do it.”
“Let’s see how quickly you can become a soldier. One in charge of supply for the Legate.” She smiled as the man looked perplexed. The idea had come to her after learning Tortorelli had scheduled war games.
Let the games begin.
9
Palace of Facets, Cingulum
Mirach
16 April 3133
“Words are hardly enough to convey my sorrow, Dale,” Sergio Ortega said. “I know Hanna meant a great deal to you.”
Dale Ortega tried to put on a stoic face, but Austin saw the true pain his brother felt. For all his womanizing, Dale had finally found a soul mate in Hanna Leong. To lose her in such a terrible accident had to be painful, perhaps more so than when they had lost their mother in the air transport crash.
Austin tried to decide if it was better to know death was coming, creeping forward inexorably, or to be confronted with the abrupt fact of its finality. Try as he might, he could not decide.
“I’m in contact with the authorities,” the Governor said, “who assure me they’ll find the driver and prosecute to the full extent of the law. This was a tragedy that should never have happened.”
Dale started to speak, looked at his brother, then clamped his mouth shut. Austin wondered what Dale had been going to say but had chosen not to.
“Why don’t you take some time off?” suggested Austin. He wanted to ease his brother through the grief and knew time away from duties would help blunt it.
“There’s no reason,” Dale said. “I only got a few scratches. I prefer working to sitting and moping.”
Austin heard something else in his brother’s words. Dale wanted to be near the resources afforded by the Governor’s office.
Why? Austin wondered. What’s Dale up to?
“This is a terrible time to speak of political matters, I know,” Sergio said. “Your brother’s idea for you to take a week or two off is a good one. Consider yourself on leave beginning now.” Sergio checked his schedule. “After the Envoy leaves, why don’t we go fishing, the way we did when you we
re young? You always enjoyed being out on the sea.”
“A small vacation might do you good, too, Father,” Austin said.
“I prefer to work as much as I can, sir,” Dale said, looking upset at the notion his father would order him out of the office. “I might not have my mind fully on business, but any diversion helps.”
“Until the Envoy leaves,” Sergio said firmly. “Until then, take it easy. You two are my most trusted advisors. I need you with clear heads and hearts.”
“What’s the Envoy doing today?” asked Dale.
“Tortorelli is showing off his troops,” Sergio said with some distaste. Austin thought his father was going to spit. “It’s one thing to flaunt a world’s achievements, but to ruin it with a show of military might?” He shook his head.
“You should let the Legate control the mobs,” Austin said. “That would be a better demonstration of his abilities.”
“No!” Sergio settled back down and looked at his son. “I don’t want him exercising more force than he has already. That would be counterproductive in restoring peace and would result in even more deaths. I’m going to speak to the people at a series of open forums to offer new aid programs.”
“You’d expose yourself to the mobs?” Dale’s eyes widened. “They’d lynch you!”
“Oh, come now, Dale. It’s not come to that. I am not ruling from behind a barricade, surrounded by bodyguards, like Czar Nicholas. I have to go to the people and talk with them, soothe their fears, let them know that the universe is not falling apart because the HPG net has been disrupted.”
“Elora plays on their fears with every newscast,” Austin said.
“I’ve spoken with her about overstepping her charter as Minister. She has quite a following among the disadvantaged, and I’m hesitant about removing her. The unemployed might see her firing as an attempt to silence their protests.”
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