"It means you've had no experience with bureaucracies from the inside out," said Jeremy. "Neither had I, of course"—here he gave Web Du Havel a sour look—"until this inveterate paper-pusher finagled me into accepting a position in his administration. But I know the dynamic, since I often manipulated it myself to good effect. Any bureaucrat, especially a bureaucrat in a security or espionage agency, has what amounts to an automatic reflex to keep things a secret. That's because 'being in the know' is the currency by which such stalwarts trade favors and influence—and thereby their own advancement."

Ruth looked dubious. So did Berry. But both Anton and Victor were nodding their agreement.

"He's right, Ruth. Trust me on this—since I'm the one risking my life, after all."

"And mine," piped up Yana. "But I trust you completely. Sweetheart."

Thandi seemed to choke. The look she gave Yana was one part warning, and ten parts simple amusement.

Even the one part warning, Anton knew, was just a sort of subconscious reflex. He was sure that Palane wasn't really worried about Victor "straying" while he spent weeks or possibly even months in Yana's close company, even sharing a bed with her.

With another man, she might have worried. But one of Victor's cover stories for years had been the pretense he and Ginny Usher had put up of being secret lovers, cuckolding Ginny's older and foolish husband Kevin. They'd used that disguise often and sometimes for long stretches, and almost always sharing the same bed.

Yana was an attractive enough woman, to be sure. But she wasn't remotely close to Ginny Usher, when it came to sheer beauty and sexiness. That was hardly surprising, since Yana's genome had been designed to be that of a soldier and Ginny's had been manipulated to be that of a pleasure slave. If Victor could manage to spend months in bed with Ginny Usher and do nothing, Thandi would be quite confident he could manage the same with Yana. The man's self-control bordered on the inhuman.

Except when it came to being teased by women. In that quirky area of the human psyche, Victor was often still as vulnerable as he'd been at the age of fourteen or fifteen. Anton had to suppress another urge to grin, seeing the way Victor actually flushed at Yana's wisecrack.

Hastily, Cachat pressed on. "The very fact that it's so hard to dig up anything on me means that if Mesa managed it—and we have to assume they did—the information will be kept tightly restricted to the upper echelons of their security forces. At least, until such time as they have reason to think I belong on their front burner—and I can't see any reason they'd do so. Not yet, anyway. Beyond that . . ."

He and Zilwicki exchanged glances. "This is something I've discussed extensively with Anton. Mesan society, no matter how tightly organized and no matter what secret cabal might actually be running the show, has got to have a huge and filthy underbelly. There's simply no way a society can operate on such brutal and elitist premises for so many centuries without creating such an underbelly—which it's very likely even Mesa's elite doesn't really know that much about. Partly because they can't, and partly because they don't want to."

Ruth still looked dubious. Berry, on the other hand, looked to Du Havel. She understood, better than Ruth did, that the truth when it came to such matters was more often found in historical patterns than in the minutia of intelligence work.

"I agree with them," said Web. "In fact, if we had the time and you knew the math involved, I could demonstrate that Victor and Anton's assessment is certainly correct. The only real variable, in fact, is simply how correct it is. To put it another way, how big and how filthy is that underbelly? But that the underbelly will exist at all, is a given."

Seeing Ruth's still-skeptical expression, he added: "And I could positively bury you under a mountain of historical analogies. As an example, one of the two societies in history which originally produced the term 'totalitarian' was the ancient Soviet Union. When it collapsed, not much more than a century before the diaspora, it didn't take long at all for a highly-developed gangster-ridden society to emerge. For a time, in fact, many analysts referred to the new government as a kleptocracy. The point being, that beneath the apparent surface—as hard and tightly policed as any in history—a very thuggish society had been gestating and developing."

He looked now at Victor and Anton, who were seated next to each other. "And that's what they're counting on. Anton as well as Victor, although his chosen entry route is a lot less flamboyant." Here, he smiled. "As you might expect. But both of them are counting on finding plenty of rot and corruption once they arrive on Mesa."

"In my case, simple greed," said Anton. He gestured with a thumb at Victor. "In his case, he's counting on the fact—fine, the assumption—that while Manpower has been using a lot of mercenaries, including StateSec renegades, they will almost certainly be keeping an arm's distance from them. They'll especially be keeping an arm's distance from the StateSec renegades, even the ones on Mesa itself. Which they can do because they're using the mercenary outfits as their 'cut-outs.' "

"Especially the ones on Mesa," said Victor. "We already discussed, yesterday, the information Rozsak's intelligence officer Watanapongse passed onto us. They're almost certain—and we agreed with that assessment—that Mesa is planning to launch a massive attack on Torch in the near future using mostly StateSec renegades as the shock troops. And that they're most likely planning to violate the Eridani Edict."

"Ah." The frown on Ruth's forehead cleared away. "Which means Mesa is going to want as much plausible deniability as possible when it comes to those StateSec renegades—including the ones on their own planet."

Victor nodded. "My guess, in fact, is that shortly before the attack happens, Mesa will launch a major purge of those StateSec people still on the planet. A few will be rounded up in case show trials are needed, but most of them—and certainly any who know anything—will be shot while resisting arrest or shot while attempting to escape or accidentally killed by a freak meteor strike."

"Don't forget lightning bolts and—a perennial favorite—aircar accidents," added Anton cynically. "There'll be a rash of suicides, too, driven by remorse, and a statistically improbable number of drownings and accidental drug overdoses."

"In short," resumed Victor, "all Yana and I have to do is get past Mesan customs—easy enough, with our cover story—and then we can disappear into the mercenary underworld on Mesa. We'll have to get out before the hammer comes down, of course, but that's a given anyway."

"I'll be using more conventional means," said Anton. "A shady trade delegation, basically, whom everyone will assume is really there to develop some contacts with seccy sutlers. Which is another murky underworld, and one which"—he nodded to Saburo—"the Ballroom can provide me entry into."

He looked around the table. "And . . . that's the gist of it. I'm not going into the specific details, of course. There's no reason to."

"How soon do you plan to leave?" asked Ruth.

"I'll be leaving tomorrow," said Cachat. "Anton, in about a week."

Palane's face got pinched. This was probably the first she'd heard of Victor's specific timetable. The man could take "need to know" to extreme lengths, sometimes. That might be excellent secret agent practice—but it was also guaranteed to cause some harsh words being spoken once Thandi got him in private.

"How will you arrange to meet each other after you've gotten there?" asked Du Havel. Then, held up his hand. "Sorry, I don't really need to know that. I'm just curious."