Governors didn’t often resign the Concord office. They died in it, more than once under very mysterious circumstances.

“Curious,” Dortland said, echoing Brazis.

“Curious. I’m sure he’s curious.” In both meanings. He never had liked Dortland. He decided today that he trulydidn’t like Dortland. The man had ice water for blood. Ran risks involving others and didn’t give a damn.

But the man was efficient. And intelligent. Give him that.

“Am I going to have to say no to this interview on my own?” It was still an option. “Dangerous, but an option.”

“You’ve gone this far. You might just see where this goes, sir,” Dortland said, “and keep meticulous records—in case this investigation widens. I would in fact have advised against your interview of this young man beforehand. Since it will take place, I’d record that session, under seal, to prove exactly what was said.”

“Who is he?” Sharp question, sudden focus of thought—on the Outsider Council at Apex, and simultaneously on the byzantine maze of Earth and Inner Worlds politics. “ Whatis he allied with?”

“Do you refer to the Chairman, the ambassador, or Mr. Stafford?”

“Gide. Mr. Andreas Gide. What possibly authorized a ship to come out here?”

Dortland never varied expression. “Some important entity, some body of very great resource and ample finance.”

“A political party.”

“Or some other entity who has a ship of this sort constantly at its disposal.”

“The Treaty Board.” That suggestion was completely askew from surmises of Earth party politics. “Do you possibly think? The Board, or someone trying to prove something to the Board?”

“It might be,” Dortland said.

“Do you have that information?”

“I don’t have it, but I suspect it, rationally.”

The Treaty Board sat aside from ordinary Earth authorities, which came and went, and combined and recombined. The Treaty Board was monolithic, quiet, and rarely moved or voted, or even surfaced, in its age-old existence. Most of its members were decrepit, dull, and scholarly, and most residents of the Inner Worlds and the Outside went about their business oblivious to the Treaty Board’s function in the universe.

But when that board did stir, when it raised any question that the Treaty, its sole business, might be endangered by some policy or action, governments shook and wise politicians thought twice and changed their tune as fast as they could dance to the other side. Nothing could generate panic in the economic markets like the Board stirring to life. Alone, it couldargue with Antonio Brazis’s authority, if it wanted to invoke its powers. It diddeal with the ondat,and with the agreements of performance that kept that ancient situation contained.

And what other Earth entity wouldlogically be investigating any serious whisper of First Movement data getting off the planet…and doing it with an armed ship as backup?

“Get your stock out of volatiles,” Reaux muttered, “if that’s the case. This isn’t a political setup. They’re serious. They’re damned serious. Do you suppose Brazis agreed to this because he suspects?”

“Let Mr. Gide meet with this young man,” Dortland said. “That’s my advice. You’re this far into it. Don’t falter.”

It was worth a shiver. He still didn’t like the prospect. But he’d asked Brazis. He’d gotten his answer.

Damn Brazis for saying yes. But now, twice damn it, the suspicion Gide held might be solid, and if it was, hewanted the answers.

A BREAKFAST BAR, a sandwich, a piece of cake and a pot of caff, precariously balanced, but Procyon had the entry to his in-apartment office down to an art. The very minute the security system would let him in the door, an elbow against the switch, a rotation of the body, entrance achieved.

After which, every morning just before 1000h, he set his breakfast and lunch down on the counter, poured himself that first cup of caff, and reclined in his working chair, feet up, to read the transcripts. This morning he had an agenda, research to do.

The room-encircling bank of monitors showed him everything from remote islands to the halls of the Refuge. He couldn’t command their search for a new one, not until he came on duty. They merely showed him what Auguste saw, at the moment, in his office several streets apart from his residence.

Nasty weather had moved in on Marak, in Drusus’s account. Marak’s party had set up the base unit, but hadn’tgotten the antenna up last evening. They’d taken to their tent and gone to sleep as the storm hit. That front they’d hoped would go slightly north, hadn’t.

And after that there was a very short file from Auguste. With the storm, disappointing news, had come a long communications blackout, lasting most of Auguste’s watch since midnight. Sand blasted into the air created static. Better if they’d been able to establish all their planetary relays by satellite. But there was upset with the ondatevery time they added a satellite. It took an act of God to get a new transceiver aloft, and here they were, communications-short and downed by a sandstorm.

Well, damn, Procyon said to himself. No new camera image from the area yet. He glanced past the images that floated before his eyes, to the rest of the monitors, scenes from off across the continent, stations either remote-dropped or precision-set by Marak or one of his people.

One of the stations, two sectors east of Marak’s position, had its lens completely obscured by blowing dust. The storm front had moved that far. Which probably meant it was clearing over Marak’s camp.

Auguste, still working, had sent over his partial transcript. The section of Auguste’s record that he could access was still brief, un-informative: storm and silence.

Well, damn and damn.

Then, from the tail of the general record, Ian’s, at the Refuge, and half an hour later—he saw there’d been worse than weather. An earthquake had hit the region this morning, a major one, with an epicenter, the team thought, in the Southern Wall, the very area they wanted to set up this string of relays to monitor.

Not unexpected, in the gross sense. Not a surprise. But a very strong movement.

An earthquake felt like an emergency stop in the lift system. That was the way he’d heard it described in his studies of planetary geology: a lurch, only with a shaking component that lasted about a minute or less. Structures fell down, poles whipped about, the taller the pole, the more violent. A tent could even pop a rope loose, and in a stormy wind with the dust flying, thatcertainly wasn’t a good situation. Canvas would bell and buck, possibly break loose and blow completely away.

Marak could certainly deal with that eventuality. He’d dealt with far worse. But the relay had clearly gone to secondary importance in their morning…witness Auguste was, in what trickled in minute by minute, still having trouble making contact with Marak, and his account of the quake slowly came trickling in, so voluminous and laced with research inserts it obscured the essential facts. From Drusus’s report, they had quit setup last night because daylight was going and a storm was coming on. And that had turned out, Auguste said, to be fortunate: an earthquake that strong, had the antenna been up without the bracing, might have added to their troubles, especially if they were in mid-process of the extension.

But things were surely all right down there. There was no one more experienced with rotten weather and the high desert than Marak and Hati.

The quake seemed right on that fault that followed the Southern Wall. And right where they didn’tyet have a camera. Marak would be very upset with that.

Procyon read, ate his breakfast, waiting for 1000h.

The clock showed two minutes to go. He waited for the final transcript from Auguste before he tapped in.