Ferrol held the other’s gaze a moment longer; then, slowly, lowered his eyes to the folder. What was he afraid of, anyway? He knew what the Tampies had done to his world, and no snowpile of propaganda—cleverly packaged or not—could ever change that.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the folder.

From its weight he’d known there was a lot of paper inside; what he hadn’t expected was the sheer variety of types and forms that were represented.

Depositions, official colony records, extracts from several of the C.S.S. Defiance’s logs, transcribed interrogations of some of the Tampies, logistics sheets, descriptions of the evacuation of the colonists, documents and memos written on fancy Senate alter-proof paper, and scientific and medical reports.

A lot of scientific and medical reports.

“There’s an overall summary,” Roman said, “at the beginning.”

Ferrol nodded silently, fingering the pile of medical reports. The top one was for the colony’s director, taken afterwards aboard the Defiance; and as he skimmed through it—

He looked up sharply. “Here’s lie number one,” he told Roman, jabbing his finger down on the report. “This medical report on Billingsham is a complete fraud. He couldn’t possibly have been diagnosed with hive viruses—it’s one of the first things they check for before they clear someone for a new colony.”

“I know,” Roman agreed soberly. “And you’re right, he couldn’t have brought anything like that to Prometheus. No one could have.”

Ferrol stared at him, something hard and cold settling into his stomach. “No,” he said. “No—just forget what you’re thinking. There’s no way he could have picked it up on Prometheus—we were totally clean of hive viruses.”

“Are you sure?” Roman asked quietly.

“Of course I’m sure,” he snapped. “I’ve read the survey team’s report—”

The rest of the sentence stuck in his throat. “No,” he breathed. “No. It can’t be.

Prometheus was certified for colonization. It was certified, damn it.”

Roman nodded, a flicker of pain crossing his face. “Certified, approved, and commissioned. And three thousand colonists sent there… over two hundred of whom have died since then from hive virus accumulation.” He hesitated. “If the Tampies hadn’t gotten you off when they did, it could have been all of you.”

Ferrol’s heart was starting to pound again. “I know what you’re going for,” he snarled. “What you and your pro-Tampy friends are trying to do. But it doesn’t hold together. If there was a hive virus there that the original survey team didn’t pick up on, how the hell could the Tampies have done it? They don’t have any bioanalysis equipment worth dirt—damn it all, they’d been on Prometheus less than two months when they stole the planet and threw us off.”

Roman held out his hands, palms upward. “I don’t know how they figured it out,”

he admitted. “I’m not sure anyone does, really.” He nodded toward the folder. “The follow-up committee’s best guess was that their attunement with natural patterns somehow let them deduce the viruses’ presence. Maybe something like the way Llos-tlaa knew that those creatures on Alpha weren’t going to attack the landing party, even though he couldn’t tell us why. And as for stealing the planet—” he shook his head. “They’re just as susceptible to hive viruses as we are. Prometheus has been abandoned for the past nine years… and is likely to stay that way.”

Ferrol bit hard at his lower lip, uncertainty twisting through him like a helical saw.

No, it couldn’t be. Couldn’t be. A survey team couldn’t foul up so badly as to miss something as long-term deadly as a hive virus. It had to be just another pro-Tampy lie. Even if Roman himself genuinely believed it, it still had to be a lie.

But if it wasn’t…

And in the middle of his silent turmoil the door buzzer sounded.

For a single heartbeat Ferrol stared at the door… and then, in a sudden blinding flash of insight, he saw at last what they’d done to him. Roman’s invitation, designed to lure him off the bridge; the forged report, designed to keep him off it—

With the hiss of its released pressure lock the panel began to slide open; and with a single convulsive motion Ferrol jerked up half out of his chair, his right hand scrabbling beneath his tunic for the hidden needle gun. For an instant the barrel caught; then, as he slammed painfully down onto the chair again it came free.

Swinging it up, banging it once on the edge of the desktop as he did so, he brought it to bear on the doorway, squeezing it tightly in a two-handed grip. The panel finished its retraction into the wall—

And standing there, framed in the opening, was Kennedy.

The most dangerous person aboard the Amity, the Senator had once called her; and in that first, heart-stopping second Ferrol knew he’d been right. Standing motionless in the doorway, her hands hanging loosely and apparently empty at her sides, he watched as her eyes flicked from his face to the gun and back again without losing any of their icy calm. She was calm, cold, and professional.

And she had come to kill him.

It was another moment Ferrol had tried to prepare himself for… another moment for which, he saw bitterly, the preparations had been utterly inadequate. You’ll be able to handle her, the Senator had said with that infinite assurance of his; and Ferrol had nodded and believed him.

But no one had warned him what it would be like to look into someone’s eyes as he pulled the trigger.

Roman cleared his throat. “If you’re going to shoot her down in cold blood,” he said, almost conversationally, “you really ought to get it over with. If you’re not, perhaps you should put the gun down and invite her in.

Kennedy still hadn’t moved. “You can’t stop me.”

Ferrol warned her, his voice trembling with emotion, the taste of defeat in his mouth. If she would make just some move against him, something—anything—that he could justifiably consider an attack. But she just stood there. “Even if you kill me, you still can’t get help to the Tampies in time.”

Kennedy shot a quick glance at Roman. “I’m not here to kill anyone,” she told Ferrol soothingly. “Really.”

“Then why are you here?” he demanded. “I ordered you to stay on the bridge.”

Her eyes hardened. “As it happens, I came to try and keep you from making a fool of yourself. Obviously, I’m too late.”

Ferrol squeezed the gun tighter, determined not to be lulled. “I’m touched by your concern,” he said sarcastically. “And how exactly did you intend to do that?”

Roman stirred in his chair. “I think,” he said quietly, “that full introductions are in order.” He held a hand out toward Kennedy. “May I present Commander Erin Kennedy… formerly executive officer of the C.S.S. Defiance.”

Ferrol stared at her, the fingers wrapped around the gun gone suddenly numb. The Defiance … “I don’t believe it,” he heard himself say.

“Why not?” Kennedy asked. “Don’t think I could handle the job, or what?”

“I was warned that you were dangerous—” He broke off.

Roman nodded, as if reading his mind. “Warned, no doubt, by your Senate supporters,” he said grimly. “To whom the truth about Prometheus was indeed a touchy subject.”

Ferrol licked at his upper lip, dimly aware as he did so that he’d lowered the gun to the desktop. “Who would have known that? That you’d been on the Defiance, I mean?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Everyone who read that report, for starters,” she said, waving toward the folder lying open in front of him. “My name’s on half those papers—I was the officer in charge of the depositions and follow-up survey debriefings.”

Ferrol lowered his gaze to the folder, stomach tightening as he turned back a few pages to the stack of depositions. Interrogating officer’s name…

He looked up at her again. “It can’t be true,” he said, the words more reflex now than genuine conviction. “The survey team certified Prometheus clean of hive viruses.”