On the desk, the pistol slowed to a halt with its barrel pointing at my stomach. For a second or two, I imagined it going off—maybe as the result of a malfunction or jarring caused by the spin. Before recruitment into the intelligence community, I had been a cop and seen my share of accidental and self-inflicted gunshot wounds. I could easily picture the weapon flying backwards across the room, propelled by its own recoil, the muzzle flash scorching the damp curtain of my faux-cotton shirt, the bullet punching through skin and muscle, and my head snapping back against the chair while the chair itself rocked on its casters.

My left eye twitched.

At least it would be an escape. The only question in my mind was how long my corpse might moulder in this chair before somebody thought to come and check on me. In this heat, it would rot quickly. The pilots had their schedules for the week; unless a problem cropped up, it might be days before they found me.

I sucked on the root, and set the gun spinning again. I was still turning it an hour later, when the terminal in my pocket buzzed.

I hadn’t received a call for so long that it took me a moment to identify the source of the sound. When it buzzed a second time, I pulled it out and activated the screen.

The message was from headquarters, relayed via tight beam from a supply ship on the ragged fringes of the solar system. I read it three times, then shoved the pistol into the desk drawer and locked it.

The chair thumped against the wall as I rose. I felt an urgent need to take a walk to the trading post at the far end of the airfield, where I knew I’d find the one person capable of understanding what the intelligence chiefs of the Conglomeration were asking me to do.

Four: Sal Konstanz

FOUR

SAL KONSTANZ

The Trouble Dog showed me its telemetry log. George Walker’s vital signs had all tanked simultaneously, seconds after he’d been dragged into the sea.

“I have footage,” the ship said.

We were back on board now, and I was sitting in my command couch at the centre of the hemispherical bridge, surrounded by the soft blue glow of readouts and displays. Alva Clay had gone to the ship’s infirmary to secure the stretchers containing the injured and dead.