“Oh, fine, one moment while I go fetch copies of our plans, and hand over the names and addresses of everyone we have working in the Commonwealth.”

“Stop being a prat. We both know what’s got to happen here. You give me a onetime unisphere address, I’ll go back to the Commonwealth and make contact. That way we get to negotiate and find some middle ground where we both help each other.”

“That’s you,” Stig said. “What about your partner here?”

Dudley barely looked up from his water. He looked thoroughly miserable to the point of being disinterested.

“What about Dudley?” Mellanie asked.

“He kicked this whole thing off.”

“You stupid, ignorant, little man,” Dudley snapped waspishly. “Have you no sense of perspective? No one person began this; no one person will end it. Least of all me.”

Stig thought he did well to hold his temper in check. “Without you, the Second Chance would not have flown. Without you, millions of people would still be alive.”

“I died out there, you shit!” Dudley said. “They caught me, and they took me prisoner, and they…they…”

Mellanie’s arm went around him. “It’s all right,” she said soothingly. “It’s okay, Dudley. Sit back now.” Her hand was rubbing along his spine. “Dudley was used by the Starflyer,” she said to Stig. “If you don’t believe me, ask Bradley Johansson; he spoke to Dudley’s ex-wife. He knows all about the astronomy fraud.”

Stig didn’t know what to do. The simplest thing would be to give her a onetime code as she asked; hand the whole problem over to Johansson and Elvin. But right now, sitting across a table from an obviously unstable Dudley Bose, Stig felt as if he was being manipulated into that very position. His instinct had it that anyone as beguiling as Mellanie couldn’t possibly be duplicitous. Rationally, he suspected she was about ten times as lethal as any veteran clan warrior. Yet she seemed so earnest, so open.

“May I ask what you will do if the Guardians don’t provide you with any assistance?” Dr. Friland asked.

“Carry on as best I can,” Mellanie said. “Gather as much evidence as I can against Baron, use it to expose her to the authorities, and hopefully penetrate whatever agent network she’s a part of.”

“She will be one of only three people. That’s the classic model of spy cells, and with today’s encrypted communications she may not even know the other members.”

“I’ll find the others,” Mellanie said grimly. “No matter how secure she thinks her communications are, I can hack them.”

“Of course, you said you had allies. And we witnessed a small fraction of its ability today, did we not? Are you sure it is trustworthy, Mellanie?”

“I’d be dead if it wasn’t.”

“Yes. I suppose that does generate a respectable level of personal confidence. All I ask, Mellanie, is that you continue to question. You are a reporter, are you not? A good reporter, despite your circumstances and the unseen help you have received.”

“It doesn’t matter how much help you get,” she said. “There has to be talent there to start with.”

Dr. Friland laughed. “Not to mention self-belief. So, Mellanie, all I ask is that you don’t throw away that reporter’s instinct. Keep questioning. Don’t stop asking yourself about your great ally’s motivation. It is, after all, not human. It is not even flesh and blood. Ultimately, its evolutionary destiny cannot be the same as ours.”

“I…Yes. All right,” Mellanie said.

“Treachery is always closer than you expect. Ask Caesar.”

“Who?”

Stig frowned. She’s joking. Right?

“An old politician,” Dudley said wearily. “An emperor who was betrayed by those closest to him. For the greater good, of course.”

“It’s always for the greater good,” Dr. Friland said. His voice sounded like someone very young, a boy who felt sadness strong enough for it to be grief.

“I won’t make that mistake,” Mellanie said. She deliberately looked away from the Barsoomian, and took another drink of her beer.

Stig told his e-butler to prepare a file with one of his fallback unisphere contact addresses in it. “Here’s your address,” he told Mellanie as the file transferred into her holding folder. “I hope you’re on the level with me.”

“I know,” she said. “If I’m not, you’ll track me down, blah blah blah.”

“You. Your memorycell. Your secure store.”

“Nice try. If we don’t defeat the Starflyer, neither of us will be around to duke it out. If I had been a Starflyer agent, you and everybody at Halkin Ironmongery would already be dead.”

The casual way she dropped their secure base of operations into the conversation made Stig want to scowl at her. Instead he felt a touch of admiration. She really is quite something. So why Dudley?

She gave him a pert grin, knowing she’d won that round. “The wormhole opens in another seventy minutes. We’d better get going. Dudley and I are booked on the next Carbon Goose flight under different names. That should be enough.”

“We’ll be watching,” Stig told her. “In case the Institute causes any trouble.”

“I’m sure you will. Good-bye, and thanks.”

“Safe journey.”

***

As modern-day wedding ceremonies involving members of Intersolar Dynasties went, it was short and very old-fashioned. Wilson and Anna went for the classical love, honor, and obey pledges. Current fashion was for the bride and groom to write their own vows, or if they lacked the poetic streak themselves hire someone to compose some poignant lines on their behalf. The newest one-upmanship variant of this was for the vows to be set to music in order for the happy couple to sing them to each other in front of the altar. Society brides had been known to undergo a little cellular reprofiling of the vocal cords to ensure perfect harmony.

“You can stuff that,” Anna said when the hopeful wedding planner mentioned it as a possibility.

It was a good decision, given who was actually attending their service in the Babuyan Atoll multidenominational chapel. Chairwoman Gall was of course invited, on the groom’s side, and managed to sit in the pew in front of President Elaine Doi and the Senate delegation led by Crispin Goldreich. Senior navy personnel sat on the bride’s side, along with a small number of Anna’s family, who looked uncomfortable and out of place amid so many Grandees. Wilson had to make some tough choices about who to have from his own extensive family. His ex-wives were omitted despite him being on good terms with nearly all of them; on principle he asked one child from each previous marriage, a representative number of direct descendants; then of course there were a lot of Farndale people he had to invite—political obligation. Courtesy meant he had to invite Nigel Sheldon, who said yes for himself and four of his harem. Ozzie was sent an invitation, but didn’t bother to reply.

Given the ever-expanding number of guests, suggestions were made to the couple that they use a cathedral to accommodate all the additional people who really, really, would like to attend. Wilson said a flat no, and wished to God he’d never listened to Patricia Kantil and her idea about feelgood propaganda. A full third of the chapel pews were reserved for media correspondents. Medium-level reporters on permanent assignment covering the navy in High Angel suddenly found their “company” invitation appropriated by celebrity anchors and chief executives.

Wilson sat in the front pew slapping one hand into the other while the organist played some dreadful twenty-second-century hymn. His perfectly tailored dress uniform with its flawless midnight-black cloth was becoming oppressively warm while he waited. And waited.

“Probably won’t show,” Captain Oscar Monroe said cheerfully, and loud enough for several nearby pews to hear. “I wouldn’t. Too much pressure. Should have had a private ceremony like you originally wanted.”

“Thank you,” Wilson hissed at his best man.