"And one of those little old ladies looked at the two proposals before her and said, "This smells, but I don't see how," so she took it to her beloved great-niece, who said, "You're right, Auntie, this smells, but I don't see how," who took the problem in turn to her devoted husband, better known as Emperor Gregor Vorbarra.  Who handed it to his loyal Imperial Auditor, saying, and I quote, "Here, Miles, you're better at diving into the privy and coming up with the gold ring than anyone I know.  Have a go."  And I said, "Thank you, Sire," and took ship for Kibou-daini."

Vorlynkin blinked again.  Deeply.  Roic reflected that the Imperium's shrewd Komarran empress served Gregor in more ways than just the joint production of their several scarily smart children.

M'lord went on blithely, "The other thing wealthy old Komarrans tend to have is an excess of planetary voting shares—er, Raven, do I need to explain these to you?"

"Yes, please," said Raven, settling back and looking fascinated.

"The system, as usual, is a relict of Komarr's colonization history.  The planet is presently unlivable—though undergoing long-term terraforming—all settlement is in sealed arcologies, the Domes."

"I knew that much . . ."

"Right.  So to encourage the development of the domes, the early Komarran colonists set up a reward system.  In addition to an inalienable one-person-one-vote that every Komarran is born and dies with, the colony awarded additional votes to those taking on the work and risk of creating more living space.  These were inheritable, tradable, salable, and in general accumulate-able.  The basis of the Komarran oligarchy as it now stands is clan possession of blocks of these planetary voting shares.  The place is putatively a democracy, but some are measurably more equal than others.  You follow?"

Raven nodded.

"So," said Vorlynkin, who had, after all, had two years to watch Kibou-daini in operation, "you think WhiteChrys plans to accumulate those votes wholesale?"

"I do now.  Mind you, Komarr has a long history of attempted chicanery with its voting system.  Over time it's accumulated a huge number of rules to thwart same.  Among other things, voting shares can't be held outright by corporations—they have to be in the hands of individuals.  There are tested systems for proxies, and so on.  WhiteChrys's contracts passed muster with the Komarran regulators, and, if anybody had still been looking by that point, we'd have accepted that.

"My two working hypotheses are either that WhiteChrys has bribed some regulators—a possibility I now find quite compelling—or that they have figured out some way to game the rules system to hide their true intention till too late.  Or both."

Roic couldn't help thinking that m'lord oughtn't to look quite so admiring, detailing this in front of the still-gently-steaming Vorlynkin.  But, well, m'lord.