“True,” he said more bleakly. “That, unfortunately, is all too true. But, you know, I spent the entire flight here asking myself what could possibly be going on. This isn’t my first return flight to Styx, of course.” He raised his smashed hand slightly. “They were quite insistent about seeking certain statements and information from me, and I’m afraid our immunization program works quite well… against any of the drugs in our own pharmacopeia, at least.

“But given that the pinnace flight crew wore Manticoran, Grayson, and Erewhonese uniforms—not to mention at least one uniform I didn’t even recognize—I was forced to the conclusion that something unfortunate had happened to Corporal Tresca.” He saw Honor’s eyebrow start up once more and laughed harshly. “Oh, yes, Admiral. ’Citizen Brigadier’ Tresca was an InSec corporal before the coup—didn’t you know that?”

“According to his personnel file, he was a Marine captain,” Honor replied.

“Ah.” Parnell nodded. “I don’t suppose I should be surprised. He had the access codes to the personnel files, I’m sure, and he was always rather fond of fulfilling his fantasies.” The Admiral’s tone was light, but his eyes were polished agate, and Honor felt the hatred radiating from him like winter fog. “May I assume something did happen to him?”

“You might say that, Sir,” Honor said.

“I do hope it was fatal?” Parnell inquired politely, and his eyes flashed at her small nod. “Oh, good,” he murmured. “That’s one item out of the way already.”

“I beg your pardon, Sir?”

“Um?” The Legislaturalist shook himself. “Forgive me, Admiral Harrington. My attention seems to wander a bit these days.” He smiled thinly. “It’s just that I made myself a small list of things to do if the opportunity ever came my way, and killing Tresca was the second item on it. Is it to much too hope that he died badly?”

“I think you could say he died about as badly as anyone possibly could, Sir,” McKeon answered for Honor, remembering the savagely mutilated lump of once-human meat his people had found in Tresca’s blood-spattered quarters.

“Then I suppose that will have to do,” Parnell said. An unreadable flash of emotion flickered across Warner Caslet’s face, almost too quickly to be seen, but Parnell’s alert eyes caught it. He smiled again, and this time there was no humor in expression, only cold ugly hate. “Does my attitude shock you, ’Citizen Commander’?” he asked softly.

Caslet looked back at him for a silent moment, then nodded, and Parnell shrugged.

“It would have shocked me once, too, I suppose. But that would have been before I watched Corporal Tresca personally hammer a six-centimeter nail through the skull of my chief of staff because neither one of us would give StateSec the ‘confessions’ it wanted.” Caslet blanched, and Parnell’s nostrils flared. “They’d worked on him for over two hours before they even started on me that afternoon, of course,” he added conversationally, “and the first nail didn’t kill him immediately. Commodore Perot always was a tough man. So Tresca used the same hammer on my hand and my right knee for ten or fifteen minutes before he got around to driving the second one in.”