He could feel his neck getting hot; this would not do. In his mildest voice, he said, “Are you a military historian, ma’am?”

“Good heavens, no. A military analyst. Quite different function. No one in their right mind would let me near students.”

Despite himself, he was intrigued. “You know my background, ma’am—what’s yours?”

“Backwater world, nasty little cultural conflict. My side won or I wouldn’t be here.”

“You… were involved?”

“Community defense,” she said. Her eyes twinkled suddenly; her smile was wickedly pleased. “Come now, General, you didn’t think ISC would send someone to talk to you who wasn’t a combat veteran, did you?”

“You?” He could not get past the fact that she was a plump little middle-aged woman in a crinkled linen dress and fashionable shoes. A pink dress, for the gods’ sake.

Her brows rose. “I’m sorry, General, to upset your stereotypes of military women, but on my homeworld, we’re all short and if we aren’t starved we put meat on our bones. True, I was only in the local militia for three years, but I can assure you I have been shot at and returned fire. My boss felt you deserved to have someone listen to you who understood your problems.”

“I… see.” He shook his head slightly. “I’m sorry—I just—”

“You come from a world where the average height is almost twenty centimeters taller than the average on my world,” she said briskly. “I understand that. Now—I am recording—” She did not ask permission, he noted, and he doubted that the office’s security systems were interfering with the recorder. “You say that you weren’t hired to blow the ansibles, and you have no information suggesting that your force blew them—is that correct?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Excellent. Care to tell me why you didn’t inform ISC of that at once when you heard the ansibles were blown, and you knew you had a force insystem?”

“Client confidentiality,” he said.

“Right,” she said. “So—when did you find out?”

“The… relay ship, outside the system, reported losing contact. That was”—he queried his implant—”Thirteen forty-two hours, UTC, on Central 346. The relay ship was on a two-hour schedule, though. We heard from other sources that the actual time of ansible loss was…”

“Twelve oh-two hours. Yes. You have documentation of the relay ship’s notification?”

“Yes, but—”

“We may need to see it later. Now—this was not a full-scale operation, is that right?”

“Right. Advisory, with a five thousand man support team.”

“John Calvin Tessan your onsite commander?”

“Er… yes.” How did she know that?

“Your organization, and your field commanders, all have acceptable ratings with ISC,” she said. “And I presume you wish to keep that rating…”

“Yes, of course.”

“We’re going to have to ask you to post a bond, I’m afraid,” she said in a tone that carried no regret whatsoever. “Even though you have an acceptable rating, even though we have no evidence yet that your personnel were responsible, they are onsite with weapons capable of taking out two ansibles.”

“A bond?”

“It’s an unusual situation, you see.” She paused, rubbed the tip of one carefully polished pink fingernail along the edge of her briefcase. “It’s been six years since anyone last intentionally destroyed an ISC ansible. Political group on Neumann’s, you may recall. We dealt with them.”

ISC had invaded the system—as they had invaded systems before where someone destroyed their ansibles—and that political group no longer existed.

“Although we had considered the possibility we now face, in previous adverse events the military force at hand was the one which intentionally destroyed ansibles. That’s a simple situation. If in fact Mackensee is not responsible here, either by accident or design, as you have stated, then we are faced with something we had considered in theory but not faced in practice. Policy, written in advance of experience, requires that we obtain a bond from you, to be returned upon proof that your personnel were not responsible.”

“What kind of bond?” Arlen asked warily.

“The usual. Monetary, or a lien on equipment.” She smiled, the kind of feral smile that Arlen knew very well from his own people. “Not quite ruinous, but serious.”

“What kind of proof of our noninvolvement will you require, and who will adjudicate this?”

“It is not the practice of the ISC to seek or submit to the judgment of civil courts, as I believe you already know,” she said. “We will determine that involvement or noninvolvement on the basis of evidence collected by our own personnel. On the other hand, since we are apolitical except with respect to the communications business, we have no motive for finding one way or the other.”

“You’re apolitical,” Arlen said, spreading his hands on his knees. “I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s quite true,” she said. “We do not care who is the government anywhere; we are not concerned with the crime rate, the state of the planetary environment, or any of the other things which motivate other corporations to interfere in local politics. Thus we need no lobbyists, no political backing. We have one focus: maintaining our interstellar monopoly. No one else can do what we do, and even if they could, we wouldn’t let them.” She ticked off these points with those delicate pink fingertips.

“But surely—”

She shook her head before he could get that thought out. “We haven’t diversified. That is our strength, that others would find weakness. We do one thing well—superbly, in fact—and we protect our market. Since that market is not limited to any one planet, it is in no government’s interest to interfere. Some of them are too stupid to realize that, but we educate them.” She smiled again.

“All right, you’re apolitical. And you want us to post a bond. With whom?”

“You have a choice, since Mackensee hasn’t had a prior incident with us. We will discount the amount if you choose to place it with us, or you may choose the full amount placed in escrow at Simmons & Teague.”

“And the amount?”

“Twenty million, which I believe is in the range of your contract amount with Secundus.”

How the devil did she know that? Curiosity almost swamped outrage.

“There’s another thing,” she said. “There’s a civilian ship captain in the Sabine system of some interest to us.”

“Oh?” Curiosity gained ground; outrage subsided. If ISC wanted something, he might have wiggle room on the bond issue.

“I understand from your literature and your history that you do not usually interfere much with neutral shipping, but clearly this operation has not been ordinary. If you could explain what procedures are likely to have been followed, and the likelihood of this individual being unharmed, it would be much appreciated.”

By whom? he wondered. Did the CEO of ISC have an errant grandchild on the scene or something? “Who is it?” he asked.

“Vatta Transport, Ltd., out of Slotter Key. Their chief financial officer’s daughter was on her first voyage as commander, and was reported in Sabine system just before the ansibles went down. Any information you receive or could provide—”

Vatta Transport, Ltd. He didn’t have to look that name up. Vatta had a star rating with their offplanet suppliers. They weren’t the cheapest, but they were reliable: their on-time delivery rate was above 97 percent.

“I don’t know anything now,” he said, spreading his hands again. “We’ve heard nothing since the ansibles went down. But I can say that our policy is always to disrupt neutral shipping as little as possible. Of course we recognize Vatta Transport as a legitimate shipping company and would have no reason to cause harm.” If a young, inexperienced captain hadn’t done something stupid, that is. He hoped very much that Mackensee hadn’t killed off the daughter of the CFO of a company they needed, but he knew it was possible. “With the ansibles being blown, the onsite commander might have chosen to check out every ship in the system—board them, choose one for a courier, and intern the others.” He hoped the Vatta ship had been chosen for courier, in which case it would show up in a few days, in range of an ansible, and they’d have some hard data.