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  “Your armpits, maybe,” said Jock.

  “Don’t laugh,” she told him. “You’ll just stick up higher and make a bigger target.”

  Jock said, “Why are we camped out here in the middle of nowhere, anyway? What’s going on?”

  “Who knows?” Will said. “What I heard was that the Exarch summoned the Countess straight to Geneva as soon as he found out that our ships were in-system. And we’re damned lucky they let us set down here instead of making us stay penned up on the DropShips somewhere in orbit.”

  “Makes me feel all unloved and untrusted, it does,” said Lexa.

  “Aye,” said Jock. “We’re the ones who did the bleeding and the dying back on Northwind, and we’re the ones who’ve come here to do it all over again.”

  “So you’d think we’d at least get a hug and a smile,” Lexa said, “instead of being treated like everybody expects us to steal all of their silver spoons.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Will advised her. “We’re not doing this for anybody’s gratitude—”

  “Damn good thing, since we’re seeing so little of it.”

  “We’re doing it because this is what we do.” He paused. “And while you’re at it—pray for a late spring.”

  20

  Office of the Exarch

  Geneva, Terra

  Prefecture X

  March 3134; local winter

  Tara Campbell took the shuttle-hop from Belgorod DropPort as soon as the ships from Northwind touched down, only taking enough time to put on her dress uniform in place of the fatigues she had worn on shipboard. She spent the brief journey from Belgorod to Geneva in a state of tightly restrained impatience that only her years of diplomatic training enabled her to hide.

  She had found the reception of her message from space, sent while en route from the Terran jump point, to be galling beyond belief. The Exarch had all but denied her the permission to land her forces. If she hadn’t demanded to know outright whether the Terran defense forces were planning to treat her as an enemy or as a friend, she suspected that she might actually have been denied permission.

  It was bad enough that the Exarch and the Knights of the Sphere, with the Senate’s agreement and backing, had required the Highlanders to make their camp out on the godforsaken plains of old Russia, and not at one of Terra’s regular military bases. It was bad enough that she herself had been issued a peremptory summons to a conference with the Exarch, as if she were a truant schoolgirl called into the headmaster’s office for a reprimand. But the worst thing . . . she’d believed during the journey from Northwind that the worst possible thing that could happen would be arriving too late, so that she found Geneva and Paris and London dealt with as the city of Tara had been dealt with, and Anastasia Kerensky in charge of it all.

  She’d been wrong. This was worse: Arriving ahead of the bad news and having to fight to be believed.

  Tara caught herself. That was nothing but her own ego talking. An upset and embarrassed Prefect—or even a Countess—was nothing at all by comparison with what the Steel Wolves had already done on Northwind, and what they stood poised to do all over again right here if nobody tried to stop them.

  On the other hand, she thought bitterly, if I can’t get the Exarch and the Senate to listen to me, and to believe, what happens next will be worse than getting here too late. Because then I’ll have to watch, and know that I could have been able to stop it.

  She took a hoverlimo from the Geneva shuttle port to the building where Damien Redburn had his working office. The building wasn’t a famous landmark or an architectural prizewinner, just a many-storied box of steel and glass that housed the administrative personnel for a number of The Republic’s bureaucracies. In the days before the collapse of the HPG network—when travel to Geneva had been much simpler and more common than now—Tara had often heard it referred to jokingly as the Paperwork Palace.

  One thing her rank was still good for—when she got out of the hoverlimo at the Palace’s front entrance, she was recognized and admitted at once. She took the elevator straight up to Redburn’s office. The office occupied a suite of rooms on a floor only accessible by means of a key-card, and the palace doorman summoned a member of the service staff to work the key and escort her upward as soon as she walked through the door.

  The administrative assistant in Redburn’s outer office passed her through without a word. That was a bad sign, if the woman wasn’t trying even a little to ingratiate herself. It was still better than if Tara had been put on hold in the waiting area and left to contemplate her sins for long enough to feel properly insignificant.

  Not yet cast into the outer darkness, Tara thought. I suppose that’s something.

  Redburn was at his desk when she came in. He’d been working—she saw paper and folders and a data pad—but the work had all been laid aside before she entered. He gestured her to a seat in the room’s other chair, and she sat down.

  “You’re prompt,” he said.

  “The message said, ‘at my earliest convenience.’ So I came at once.”

  Redburn regarded her across the desk, looking even more like the headmaster getting ready to ask who put the fluorescent purple dye in all the washing machines in the south wing.

  It wasn’t me, honest, she thought, with a touch of silent hysteria. And I’ve got the purple underwear to prove it.

  “Tell me about the situation on Northwind,” Redburn said. “I know that, with Paladin Crow’s help, you repulsed the Steel Wolves when they attacked last summer—”

  “Yes.” She wanted to protest that the credit for the Steel Wolves’ earlier defeat belonged more to General Michael Griffin than to Ezekiel Crow. Taking on Anastasia Kerensky ’Mech-to- ’Mech, as Crow had done, was the sort of spectacular action that news reporters loved, but Michael Griffin had held Red Ledge Pass for thirty-six hours with nothing but untried infantry—and as a soldier she knew which feat counted for more in the scales of battle. Instead, she forced herself to concentrate on the issue at hand. “The documents that I’ve provided you with deal with events that occurred during the Wolves’ second, more recent attack.”

  The Exarch regarded her, stone-faced. “No such documents have come to this office.”

  “But—” She stopped and began again. “I sent a messenger. Because I knew that assembling a relief force would take time. And the warning was important.”

  Redburn shook his head. “There has been no messenger. And Paladin Ezekiel Crow tells a story far different from the one you told us in your message from the DropShip.”

  Tara felt a slow, rolling queasiness in the pit of her stomach. This was bad. This was worse than bad. She had been betrayed not once, it looked like, but twice.

  “What, exactly, did he say?”

  Redburn’s expression was grave, almost sorrowful. “According to Paladin Crow, you were defeated by Anastasia Kerensky and the Steel Wolves, and sued for peace.”

  “What?” The amazement choked in her throat like bile.

  “The surrender terms are alleged to include handing over both Northwind and the Highlander regiments to the Steel Wolves.”

  Amazement gave way to anger, rising up in an incredulous, adrenaline-fueled wave. She understood now the kind of rage that might cause someone to order a whole city burnt.

  She swallowed the anger, pushed it down, and forced herself to keep her voice low and steady.

  “Exarch Redburn, Ezekiel Crow lied to you.”

  Redburn’s face revealed nothing. “Someone, certainly, is lying.”

  “At least authorize me to take steps to resist the Wolves when they attack.” She knew that she was pleading; she was made even angrier by the realization. “I did not bring my Highlanders all the way from Northwind to Terra in order to stand idly by and watch while Anastasia Kerensky brings the Steel Wolves down on the lot of you!”

  “Perhaps not,” said Redburn implacably. “But I can’t take the risk that you may have come not to resist the Steel Wolves, but to he
lp open the door for them. Not without something to go on besides your unsupported word.”

  Tara stood abruptly, pushing her chair back so hard that it toppled over. She let it lie on the carpet where it fell.

  “Very well, Exarch. I will go back to the place you have assigned to us, and wait there for time to give you the proof you need.”

  She stalked over to the office door, then paused. “And don’t come crying to me then that I didn’t warn you.”

  She turned and left, closing the inner door with careful precision on her way out. She was almost to the door of the outer office when Redburn’s administrative assistant stopped her and handed her a card.

  “I was asked to give this to you,” the assistant said. “While you were with the Exarch.”

  Tara looked at it. It was a plain white business card, no ID codes or anything fancy like that, just a few lines of black type in a restrained, old-fashioned font:

  * * *

  JONAH LEVIN

  PENSION FLAMBARD

  14 RUE SIMON-DURAND

  GENEVA

  * * *

  Underneath the printing was an additional, handwritten note:

  Please call on me at this address as soon as you can.—J.L.

  21

  Pension Flambard, 14 Rue Simon-Durand

  Geneva, Terra

  Prefecture X

  March 3134; local winter

  Jonah Levin had not been waiting for long in the guest parlor of the Pension Flambard before he heard the street door open and close, followed by the sound of Tara Campbell’s quick, light steps in the foyer. Madame Flambard’s eyes widened when she recognized the visitor—the Countess of Northwind was too well known to The Republic’s media even to think of going anywhere incognito—but her discretion remained as absolute as ever. There had been more than one reason why a much younger Jonah Levin had preferred his lodgings at the Pension to other, more fashionable or luxurious quarters.

  Madame ushered the Countess into the parlor, then vanished into the back recesses of the pension. Jonah suspected that she was planning to pump the newly hired and on-call Burton Horn for gossip—and that Horn would be doing the same in reverse. Neither one of them was likely to succeed, in Jonah’s opinion, but the effort would keep both of them amused.

  Tara Campbell, on other hand, was not amused at all. Her interview with Damien Redburn clearly had not gone well. The Countess’s face was pale except for a betraying flush of red along her cheekbones, her full lips were pressed thin, and all her motions were tight and controlled, as though she had to hold herself back from physical reaction by main force.

  So, Jonah reflected, the Countess of Northwind has a temper—not surprising, considering that she’s a born aristocrat with a hereditary claim on the loyalty of a whole planet. She knows how to control it, though, and that is surprising.

  Tara Campbell took a seat in the overstuffed wing chair on the other side of the small parlor hearth. The faux-logs burned low; winter was drawing to its end. Her hands gripped the wooden ends of the chair arms so hard that her knuckles showed white.

  Jonah realized it was going to be up to him to speak first. “I’ve listened to a recording of your initial message to the Exarch.”

  “I’m glad that somebody did.”

  From the tone of her voice, he suspected that the Countess wasn’t accustomed to having her word dismissed out of hand—or even having it doubted. Jonah was less and less inclined, however, to think that Tara Campbell was lying. There were politicians in The Republic of the Sphere who could feign that kind of righteous indignation, but nothing in Tara Campbell’s record hinted at either the taste or the talent for such high-level duplicity.

  He wasn’t quite ready to say that aloud, however. Instead, he looked at her gravely. “As I understand it, you possess evidence that Ezekiel Crow betrayed Northwind and ran out on you, and perhaps that he was even in the pay of the Steel Wolves.”

  “Yes,” Tara replied. Jonah sensed powerful emotion behind the curt statement, a hint of pain that was more than merely political. Her self-control became visibly harder to maintain. She stood, her hands clasped behind her back, and began to pace. “We relied on him, and we were betrayed.”

  Perhaps more than merely relied? Jonah wondered. If that were the case, any betrayal would carry a double sting. But nobody in The Republic was ever likely to know, except for the two people who might—or might not—have been involved. He continued his questioning.

  “And this evidence is . . . where?”

  “I sent it to the Exarch, via courier.”

  Her frustration was evident again, this time stronger than before. Maybe the problem was not just a matter of her doubted word. Jonah shook his head.

  “The Exarch, I assure you, has not seen any such evidence. Do you have copies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then verification should be—”

  The Countess’s porcelain cheeks reddened further. She looked down at the carpet. “The copies are on Northwind, in the regimental archives at The Fort.” She raised her head and met Jonah’s eyes as if daring him to comment. “For safekeeping.”

  Jonah gave an understanding nod. There was no use in pointing out a mistake that she was, clearly, already well aware of and deeply regretting. “Sending for them would take weeks or even months.”

  “Which you—we—don’t have! The Steel Wolves are coming. I’m only surprised that they aren’t yet here. I don’t care what you believe about Ezekiel Crow, so long as you believe me about the danger to Terra.”

  “Unfortunately,” Jonah said, “people—even people like the Exarch—will want to believe either both, or neither. And for such strong allegations—treason, on the part of one of The Republic’s most respected Paladins!—most of them will want more than your unsupported word.”

  Her chin went up at that, and her blue eyes went hot. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Oddly enough, Countess, I’m not,” he said. “But either you are lying, or Ezekiel Crow is, and a Paladin’s word before the Senate is powerful, indeed. You’ll need to have something a bit more powerful if you want to overcome it.”

  “This is maddening.” She began pacing again, hearth to parlor door to street window and back again. Jonah could scarcely remember being that young, and having that much energy. “I have the proof!”

  “Had the proof. Let’s think for a bit—tell me exactly what you did with it.”

  “I sent it ahead on the first DropShip leaving for Terra, in the hands of Lieutenant Owain Jones, a combat officer of unimpeachable integrity, formerly aide to General Michael Griffin. General Griffin commands Northwind in my absence.”

  “When did you send Lieutenant Jones?”

  “February fifteenth. The Steel Wolves had left Northwind fewer than twelve hours before.”

  Jonah rose and left the parlor for the pension’s front desk. He pushed the button on the antique call bell next to the guest register, and Madame Flambard emerged from the back office.

  “Madame, would you locate Monsieur Horn and tell him that he is required in the guest parlor?”

  “Of course.”

  Jonah returned to his chair by the hearth. A few minutes later—during which Tara Campbell resumed her restless pacing—Burton Horn entered the room. The former GenDel employee was now wearing civilian clothing of a cut and color so ordinary and moderate as to be almost invisible.

  “Reporting as ordered,” Horn said. “You’ve got some work for me?”

  “Yes. A Northwind officer named Owain Jones arrived on Terra some time after fourteen March of this year,” Jonah said. “Find him.”

  “Yes, sir. Once I find him, what do I do with him?”

  “Bring him here. I’d like very much to speak with him—and so, unless I’m gravely mistaken, would his Countess.”

  “Yes, Paladin.”

  Horn gave Jonah a quick nod of respect, gave another nod—somewhat belatedly—to Tara Campbell, and left.

  “Th
at’s it?” Tara said.

  “That’s as much as I can do right now,” Jonah said. “But if Horn succeeds in locating your missing officer—and the evidence—I should be able to do a good deal more.”

  22

  Geneva and Belgorod

  Terra

  Prefecture X

  March 3134; local winter

  Burton Horn hit the streets of Geneva as soon as he left the Pension Flambard, intent on the task of finding one man on the entire planet—a tough job, though not impossible for someone who’d learned his trade with GenDel. The most important thing on his side was that the man was a stranger, with a known starting point. Strangers make ripples. Horn was going to find the ripples.

  The communications listings didn’t have an entry for an Owain Jones of Northwind—innumerable entries for that name in old Wales, but those could be ruled out, at least for now. Nor did the Office of Social Information carry listings for transient offworlders. Furthermore, the Genevan emergency records showed that nobody answering to the name of Owain Jones had checked in at any hospital or aid booth.

  Horn left the communications grid office. So much for official help. His next stop would be his old pals at GenDel.

  “Horn!” David Ashe said when he walked in the door. “I heard that you quit.”

  “I went on leave, that’s all,” Horn said. “Got a temp gig that pays pretty well. How’ve things been here?”

  “Not too bad. Every day gets me one day closer to retirement. What can I do for you?”

  “Can you find out for me the names, dates, and locations of any civilian DropShips that arrived on Terra from Northwind, or that arrived having made connections with a vessel from Northwind, since fourteen March of this year?”

  “Right into the proprietary data banks, eh?” said Ashe. “Why not just go to the ports and ask the cargo masters? That’s actually legal.”

  “Chatting up cargo masters takes time, and time’s what I don’t have. My boss wants results.”