Lillian cast back to childhood. They had been close when they were young, united against loneliness when their parents spent weeks or sometimes months away from home. School had ruined that. Lillian took to Cantrell like a fish slipped into the sea, and couldn’t understand why Cyril had such a hard time. At university, Cyril sent her miserable letters that she answered with sympathy but little comprehension. Worse was her gradual transition to her parents’ side of the front; she wasn’t sure when being the good child became something she aspired to, a set of expectations to meet, rather than simply a tool she could use when she and Cyril got into trouble.

When she graduated from Sackett and started traveling, missing holidays and summer trips to Ibet, leaving Cyril alone … that was when things had gone sour. Shame on the household, secrets hastily covered up so that even she had never understood exactly what her brother was guilty of.

“A promising young man,” she said. “Neglected by his parents, smarts left to fester. And of course, he got into trouble.” By now she was not thinking about Cyril, but her own son.

“And I will guess,” Rinko said, “that the FOCIS did not treat him any better. Even if the Ospies gave him a compelling reason to turn, if he was loyal to the service he would have resisted.”

“Whatever he was doing for them, he ended up in the hospital.” Vivid memories showed her the thin, purple line of his lips, gashed through the green-white mask of his face. The black stripes of stitches marked neatly over a livid red wound. “Again, I don’t know the details.”

“We can get those later,” said Rinko. “So. He turns. But only under duress, I assume?”

“Yes. You know Vasily Memmediv?”

Rinko’s eyes widened, showing white all around the near-black iris. “The separatist?”

“Yes. He used to be a part of the FOCIS, and he knew Cyril then. Before the Ospies.”

“What’s he like, in person?”

“Slippery,” said Lillian.

Rinko hmphed. “And now he’s slipped one too many times. Fallen out of favor over there. How politics pulls people apart! They say he used to be good friends with Ianiźca before the schism, and now she’s calling for his arrest. Do you think he’ll flee Tatié?”

Lillian shook her head. “No. He’d bleed out into the earth if he thought it would help his … country, now, I suppose.”

“Funny,” said Rinko, “how far people will go for a lost cause.”

“Excuse me?” She knew what Rinko meant; it had simply taken her by surprise. The other woman had seemed so confident as she outlined her ideas.

“If Frye is elected and moves forward with this tribunal, what are you hoping for?” Rinko folded her hands around her glass and leaned in across her desk. Papers slithered underneath her elbows. “Acquittal? Exoneration?”