“—can’t believe SS is so arrogantly insane to pull something like this. On the eve of Parnell’s arrival here on Terra!”

Admiral Young nodded. “They’re going to be suffering the worst public relations disaster they’ve ever had here in the Solarian League. The last thing they’d do is compound it by murdering a fourteen-year-old girl.”

Even to himself, the captain’s voice sounded thick and hoarse.

“I keep telling you,” he snarled, no longer even bothering with military formalities, “that this is not a Peep operation. Or, if it is, it’s a rogue operation being conducted outside of the loop. There’s no way of telling what the people who took Helen might do. I have got to have leeway to start investigating—”

“Enough, Captain Zilwicki!” snapped the ambassador. “The decision is made. Of course, I understand your concern. But, at least for the moment, all of our attention must be focused on the opportunities presented to us by Parnell’s arrival here on Terra. As a professional intelligence officer, rather than a worried father, I’m sure you agree. We can play along with this Peep diversionary maneuver easily enough. What we musn’t do is allow it to actually divert us.”

“And mind your manners,” growled Young. The admiral leaned back even further in his chair, almost slumping in it. “I’ve made allowances for your behavior so far because of the personal nature of the situation. But you are a naval officer, Captain. So you’ll do as you’re told—and stay within the boundaries of military protocol while you’re at it.”

For a moment, the captain almost hurled himself across the desk. But a lifetime of discipline and self-control stayed with him. And, after a few seconds, reasserted itself.

What kept him steady even more than training and habit was a simple reality: getting himself arrested, or even confined to quarters due to indiscipline, was the surest way he could think of to make his daughter’s already slim chance of survival nonexistent.

That realization brought his own final decision. I’ll get Helen out of this, no matter what the cost. Damn everything else.

The thought brought the first real calmness back to Anton Zilwicki since his daughter had been abducted. It drenched his fury like a bucket of icewater and restored his normally methodical way of thinking.

First things first, he told himself firmly. Get the hell out of here before they put any actual restrictions on your movements.

He rose abruptly to his feet and saluted. “As you wish, Admiral. I’ll send the communication to the kidnappers from my own home. With your permission. I think that would be better.”

“Yes,” agreed the ambassador firmly. “If you send it from here, or your own office, they might get suspicious.” His tone of voice actually managed a bit of warmth. “Good thinking there, Captain. I’m quite certain, along with the Admiral, that this is a long-term gambit on the part of the Peeps to create a conduit for disinformation. They’ll be reassured if their contact with you seems completely private.”

The words were spoken in the manner of an old intelligence hand, congratulating a novice on having figured out a simple task. Given the circumstances, Captain Zilwicki almost burst into laughter. The captain was an “old intelligence hand.” What Hendricks knew about the craft was simply the maneuvers he’d learned as an ambitious nobleman in Manticore’s political arena. That arena was complex and tortuous, true, but it was a far less savage place than Zilwicki had inhabited for many years now.

But he let none of his contempt show. He simply nodded politely, bowed, and left the room.

Anton

Sometime later, when he entered his apartment, Zilwicki found Robert Tye still sitting in the lotus position in the center of the living room. To all appearances, the martial arts master had not moved a muscle since the captain left that morning. Tye had his own way of controlling rage.

The martial artist raised an eyebrow. Zilwicki shook his head.

“About what I expected, Robert. The imbeciles are taking this at face value. And they’re so obsessed with the propaganda coup provided by Parnell’s coming testimony on the Peep regime that they don’t want to deal with anything else. So I’ve been ordered to follow the kidnappers’ instructions.”

For a moment, Tye studied the captain. Then, a slight smile came to his face. “And clearly you have no intention of complying.”

Zilwicki’s only response was a faint snort. He returned the martial artist’s scrutiny with one of his own.

Robert Tye had been the first person Anton contacted after he discovered Helen’s abduction when he returned to his apartment the previous evening. The captain was still not quite certain why he had done so. He had acted out of impulse, and Anton was not by nature and habit an impulsive man.

Slowly, Anton took a seat on a nearby couch, thinking all the while. He and Helen had been on Terra for slightly over four years. Because of his duties in the Navy, Anton had lived a rather peripatetic life and he was sometimes concerned over the toll that took on Helen. Having to change schools and sets of friends frequently was difficult for a child.

But his daughter, to his surprise, had greeted the announced move to Chicago with enthusiasm. Helen, following in her mother’s footsteps, had begun studying the martial arts at the age of six. As was his daughter’s habit—her father’s child, in this—Helen had studied the lore of the art as well as the art itself. To her, Chicago meant only one thing: the opportunity to study under one of the galaxy’s most legendary martial artists.

Anton had been worried that Tye would not accept a young girl for a student. But the martial artist had done so readily. At his age, Tye had once told Anton, he found the presence of children a comfort. And, in the years which followed, Helen’s sensei had become a part of their little family. More like a grandfather, in many ways, than anything else.

“Are you sure you want to be part of this, Robert?” he asked abruptly. “I’m not sure it was right for me to get you involved. Whatever I wind up doing, it’s bound to be—”

“Dangerous?” suggested Tye, smiling.

Anton chuckled. “I was going to say: illegal. Highly illegal.”

The martial artist’s shoulders moved in a slight shrug. “That does not concern me. But are you so certain your superiors are in error?”

Zilwicki’s jaws tightened. His already square face now looked like a solid cube of iron.

“Trust me, Robert. Something like this is completely out of character for Peep intelligence. And they’ve got nothing to gain.”

His expression changed. Not softening so much as simply becoming more thoughtful. “By the nature of my position in Manticoran intelligence, I don’t know anything of real use to the Peeps anyway. Not enough, that’s for sure, to warrant such a risky gambit.” He moved a hand across his knee, as if brushing off a fly. “The Admiral thinks the Peeps are engaging in a long-run maneuver, designed to turn me into an ongoing conduit for disinformation. Which is probably the single most asinine thing that asinine man has ever said in his life.”

The martial artist cocked his head a bit. The gesture was a subtle suggestion that the captain’s own subtlety had escaped Tye’s understanding.

“Robert, the reason the Admiral’s theory is nonsense is because it’s in the nature of things that a long-run campaign of disinformation has to be reasonably stable. Disinformation campaigns take time—lots of time. You can’t suddenly have your turned agent start flooding his own intelligence service with ‘information’ which seems odd and contrary to other information. It has to be done in a careful and subtle manner. Slowly adding one little bit of information at a time, until—over a period of months, more often years—a warped perception of reality becomes accepted without anyone really knowing when and how it happened.”