“Beer,” Tarlo said.

“So what was Mars like?”

“Fun,” Tarlo said. “I had a ball driving the transRover. And it’s a weird-looking place, the colors are strange. We saw all the old NASA ships as well. They were falling apart. Sheldon and the Admiral were getting all misty-eyed about them.”

“We found the Reynolds ground station,” Hogan said in a reproving voice.

“The forensic team downloaded every program in its arrays, and we impounded the transmitter equipment for analysis.”

“Impounded.” Renne just managed not to giggle. She had an image of Hogan imperiously waving a court order at a bunch of angry little green men, furious at the navy marching off with their planet’s property.

“Problem?” Hogan asked.

“No, Chief.”

“I understand you left the office while we were away,” he continued. “For most of the time, actually. Did you pick up any leads?”

“Nah! Not one. It was a completely wasted journey. Victor and Bernadette, Isabella’s parents, haven’t got a clue where she is, and frankly don’t show a lot of interest.” The two interviews rankled with her. Warren Yves Halgarth had acted as her escort again; without him she doubted she would even have got in to see Victor. Isabelle’s father wasn’t exactly pleased to see her; his new job as managing director of the Dynasty’s second largest manufacturing bureau was a high-pressure management role. They specialized in force field generators and other high-technology machinery, and as such were one of the thousands of organizations that had suddenly found themselves supplying components to the navy on a crash priority basis. The whole workforce was badly stressed, and it showed. Victor barely knew what his current kids were doing, let alone one who had left home years ago. As for Bernadette, Renne had rarely met anyone who qualified for the title “idle rich” more than Isabella’s mother. The only surprise was that she stayed on EdenBurg, which had little time or space for anyone who wasn’t a hundred percent committed to the work ethic. Warren had explained that Bernadette was one of Rialto’s more renowned society hostesses, throwing parties that attracted a good selection of the corporate and financial elite. That didn’t leave her much time for keeping in touch with children, she hadn’t even known Isabella had disconnected her unisphere address.

“Are there any further leads on Isabella?” Hogan asked.

Renne took another drink of her green cherry fizz, enjoying its cold burn down the back of her throat. “Not direct ones. I thought I’d try and go through her activities on Daroca before she vanished, see if I can find any clues about where she might go. Then there’s Kantil, I could go see her.”

“All right, enough.” Hogan’s hand came down on her wrist, preventing her from lifting her glass. “I don’t want you wasting any more time over this girl. You made your long shot and it didn’t come off. I don’t mind you going out on a limb every now and then, but you have to know when to cut your losses. Understand me, this is that time.”

“There’s something wrong about her.”

“Maybe so, and because of that the warrant still stands. The police will find her eventually, and when they do I’ll authorize you to handle her interrogation yourself. But until that happens, I want you working on our priority cases.”

Renne stared resentfully at his hand; deep inside, the little sensible part of her brain was telling her this wasn’t the issue to make a stand on. “Yeah, okay, Chief.”

“And I certainly don’t want you bothering people like Christabel Halgarth again. If you want to talk to someone that senior in the Grand Families and Dynasties you clear it with me first. There are a lot of political angles in our investigations, not to mention protocols, which should be followed.”

“She was happy to see me.”

“You don’t know what she was thinking. I don’t want a repeat of that incident, understand?”

“Right.” His hand withdrew, and she lifted her glass to her lips. The barkeeper delivered the water and the beer, putting a small bowl of cashew nuts in front of Hogan.

“Our trip produced some very decent results,” Tarlo said. “The forensic guys managed to crack the program routines in the Reynolds arrays. We know what was being encrypted now.”

“What?” Renne asked automatically.

“Every scrap of data from meteorological sensors all over the planet.”

With Hogan distracted by Tarlo, Renne’s finger rose slowly above the rim of her glass, remaining stiff for a couple of seconds. Tarlo saw it, and pressed down on a grin.

“That makes no sense,” she said. “Why would the Guardians be interested in Martian weather? I don’t understand.”

Tarlo gave her his full bright smile. “Me neither.”

“But it’s the kind of solid result we can run with,” Hogan said, glancing back at Renne. “I want the two of you working together to find out what you can. Admiral Kime has given this a very high priority.”

“Figures, with his background,” she grunted, and snatched some of the cashews.

“Okay then,” Hogan said. He drained his mineral water in one. “Have your lunch, Renne, then when you get back to the office this afternoon, I want the two of you heading up this new angle on the Mars investigation. Call in some experts, find out every conceivable application for the meteorological data.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hogan nodded happily, and left them with a wave.

Renne watched him walk out of the restaurant. “What an asshole.”

“To be expected right now,” Tarlo said with a grin. “He had some bad news waiting for him when we got back.”

“Oh?”

“Thought that would cheer you up. Get this, Senate Security has officially requested we begin a covert observation of Alessandra Baron.”

“The celeb?”

“None other.”

“Why?”

“The official reason is that they suspect her of involvement with quote ‘detrimental individuals.’ How about that for covering a multitude of sins. But guess whose name was on the request file.”

Renne’s grin brightened to match Tarlo’s. “The boss.”

“Now do you see why our Great Leader is walking about like he’s got a bug up his ass?”

“Yeah. But that’s no reason for taking it out on me.”

“You’re the easiest, closest target. I warned you about chasing the Halgarth girl. He was never going to like that. And visiting Christabel was a big risk. He was bound to find out.”

“Yeah, yeah. But you’ve got to admit it’s odd. Why should Isabella vanish like this?”

“No,” he said, and held his hands up. “I refuse to get involved; it’s not just hanging on to the uniform, I need the money my job brings in. And I’m making the kind of progress which Hogan approves of.”

“You’ve got to look at the whole picture, Tarlo.”

“Sure you do. Just remember what happened to the last person who took that view. Oh, hey, here’s Vic.”

Renne twisted around on the stool to see Vic Russell walking through the restaurant. He held up a hand. “Better get a table,” she said.

They chose one along the wall, where a high partition veiled them from casual view. “Some good news for you,” Vic said as Renne’s burger was delivered. He took a couple of fries from her plate.

“I could do with some,” she admitted. “It’s been a long shitty day.”

“I’ve backtracked eighteen items from Edmund Li’s interception on Boongate.”

Renne paused in examining her burger for signs of mayonnaise. “Their entire routes?”

“Yep.” Vic’s big round face produced a smug expression. “You think you haven’t had much sleep. This has taken me weeks, they were so bloody complicated. It helps that we had the manufacturer and the final smuggling disguise; I could work the route from both ends, fill in all the gaps, and believe me, there were some massive gaps. Each route is a chain of courier companies playing the shell game between warehouses—some of the components were in transit for ten months. And all the finance used to pay the shipment costs came from onetime accounts. There was a hell of a lot of organization went into this operation. We may have underestimated how many Guardians are active inside the Commonwealth. Shipping the items like that had to triple the cost of each piece by the time they reached Far Away. Whatever they’re building, it’s costing them a fortune.”