Tarlo and Renne exchanged a glance. “They can afford it,” she said. “Remember, the Great Wormhole Heist is paying for this.”

“Even so,” Vic insisted. “This is true paranoia. Effective, mind, I’ve got to hand them that.”

“It won’t be all Guardians,” Tarlo said. “Elvin will recruit from any unsavory source; remember that agent Cufflin put us onto.”

“Thanks, Vic,” Renne said. “This is really good work. We’ll get the RI set up to cross-reference with our existing Guardian database, and the team can review the strongest leads for direct follow-ups.”

Vic settled back in his seat, and stole another fistful of fries from Renne’s plate. “You know, I was thinking about this when I filed the report. We’ve already got a ton of information, so many names and smuggling operations, and black market arms deals; it goes back decades.”

“I know,” Tarlo said, swirling beer around his glass. “Renne and I loaded half of it in there ourselves.”

“All right,” Vic said, suddenly earnest. “So how come we never managed to nail the bastards?”

“Sore point,” Renne said.

“Because it’s all peripheral information,” Tarlo said. “One day we’ll reach critical data mass, and the whole case will fall into place. We’re going to make a thousand arrests that day.”

Vic shook his head. “If you say so. I’ll see you back in the office, yes?”

Renne nodded. “Half an hour.” She eyed her nearly empty glass, wondering if she should order another.

“Give me a second,” Tarlo said to Vic, “I’ll come with you.” He waited until the big man was standing by the door. “You going to be okay?”

“Sure. I’m just stressed and depressed after EdenBurg, is all. That goddamn Isabella. Why doesn’t anyone care about her? Not her friends. Not her family. If you vanished, people would wonder, they’d ask questions. I’d want to know what happened to you.”

“That’s because you’re a good person.” He hesitated. “Look, Hogan will be watching you, but I can pursue Isabella on the quiet if you’d like.”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed a hand irritably over her brow. “There are no quiet inquiries left. I either turn it into a big deal or drop it completely. Damn, you don’t suppose Hogan could be right, do you?”

Tarlo laughed. “Never. See you later? I want to tell you all about Mars. It really was a strange place.”

“Yeah, I’ll be in soon.”

He patted her shoulder and left.

Renne took another bite out of her burger, and munched slowly. Maybe she had become obsessive about Isabella. It wasn’t a crime to run off and join the exodus. There were hundreds of thousands of people on each of the worlds close to the Lost23 who’d left home with no explanation, most of them scuttling off to worlds on the other side of the Commonwealth. Silvergalde was also a popular destination, and if Isabella had gone there she really would be out of any electronic contact.

“You shouldn’t discuss confidential information in a public place,” a woman’s voice said. “Office procedure has certainly slipped recently.”

Renne stood up and looked over the partition at the neighboring table. Paula Myo sat there, nursing a glass of orange juice.

“Jesus, Boss!”

“Can I join you?”

Renne grinned, and gestured to the empty seats.

“Sounds like you’re having a bad day,” Paula said as she settled in the chair Vic had vacated.

“I can handle it. I just keep asking myself what you would do.”

“That’s very flattering. So how is it going at the office?”

Renne took another bite from the burger, giving Paula a calculating glance. Was the boss deliberately testing her to see how much she’d divulge?

“You should know; all our data is available to Senate Security.”

“I wasn’t referring to the data from your investigations, I’m more interested to hear how Hogan is doing.”

“Coping, barely. He isn’t you.”

“For which I suspect he and I are both grateful. How did he take the request to spy on Alessandra Baron?”

“Didn’t you hear? Tarlo says badly. But I think that’s more to do with the fact you requested it than the manpower scheduling. What do you think Baron has done?”

“She’s a Starflyer agent.”

Renne stared at her old boss. “Are you serious? You really think it exists?”

“Yes.”

“Hell, Boss. What proof have you got?”

“The behavior of several people, including Baron. She’s part of a network of agents who are acting against human interests. We’re compiling information on them which should lead to their arrest.”

“Shit, you do mean it, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So why tell me?”

“I’d like to know why you have a warrant out for Isabella Halgarth.”

“The shotgun, the one which claimed Doi was a Starflyer agent. There was something wrong about it.” She explained her misgivings about the whole setup; and the way Isabella had subsequently dropped out of sight.

“Interesting,” Paula said. “Especially her connection with Kantil. We are looking for any Starflyer connection among the Commonwealth political elite. She might well be the link.”

“Isabella as a Starflyer agent? That’s hard to swallow.”

“You said yourself there’s something wrong about her. That shotgun did a lot of damage to the Guardians’ credibility. It is logical to assume the Starflyer would use disinformation of that nature to damage its one true opponent. Her involvement would confirm her connection to its network.”

“But she’s only twenty-one, and she was going out with Kantil two years ago. How would she get messed up in something like that so young? She spent most of her early life on Solidade. You can’t get more sheltered and protected than that.”

“I don’t know. Is there any chance you could research her background more thoroughly?”

Renne blew her cheeks out as she sighed. “That won’t make me terribly popular with Hogan.”

“Yes, I heard. Your choice, of course.”

“I’ll do what I can, Boss.”

“Thank you.”

Paula stayed at the table, finishing her drink as Renne walked out. Her virtual hand touched Hoshe’s icon. “She’s leaving now.”

“Yeah, we’ve got her. The team’s boxing her. Monitor programs for her unisphere access are loaded and running.”

“All right. Let’s see what we turn up.”

“Do you think it’s her?”

“I hope it isn’t, but who knows. If it is, the information I’ve just given her should goad her into making contact with someone in the Starflyer network.”

***

Although it wasn’t far from New York to the Tulip Mansion, Justine kept her own apartment on Park Avenue. It was a nice base in town for those times she wanted to be on her own, or throw a small soirée for close personal friends and important contacts; it was also somewhere private for affairs she preferred to keep quiet about. The building was two centuries old, a massive art deco–Gothic block favored by both the urban chic and serious old money. Her apartment occupied half of the fortieth floor, which gave her a nice view out over the park from her balcony. Tall marble gargoyles lined the stone balustrade, framing the city’s magnificent ma-hon tree as it glittered rose-gold in the late evening sunlight. She never tired of the unique sight of the biochemical anomaly. It was always a shame CST had closed its homeworld off, she felt; now there would never be any more transplanted to the Commonwealth worlds.

The maid had prepared a light supper of poached salmon and salad. Justine ate it cautiously before her guest was due. Sure enough, twenty minutes after she finished she had to rush to the bathroom, heaving up most of it.

“I’d forgotten this part,” she said to herself as she wiped her mouth with a tissue. It would have to be cold still mineral water and plain crackers when the meeting was over.

Her e-butler told her Paula Myo was on her way up from the lobby. She took a bottle of mouthwash from the medicine cabinet, and swilled it around. The horrible bitter acid taste was replaced by a clinical peppermint. It wasn’t much better.