The access dates were all between five and thirty years apart over the last century and a half. The name of the accessor had been erased after the fact in each case; a clever trick, but perhaps not clever enough. Olmy requested the string length of the erased void in each access record. In every case, the name had filled fifteen spaces. It seemed probable that only one person had accessed the files for at least one hundred and fifty years, checking to see if the footprints were still hidden, if the dangerous skeleton in the closet was still secure.

Someone, of course, could have accidentally stumbled on the security door in the fifth chamber, or found out about it as Mar Kellen had. But Mar Kellen had used code cracking techniques developed comparatively recently to open the door.

In all likelihood, nobody in the Terrestrial Hexamon but Mar Kellen and now Olmy knew anything about the captured Jart.

Mar Kellen was finding his way to an honorable obscurity.

That left Olmy.

16

Gaia

The Boulē conference on the Libyan attack on the Brukheion had been discouraging. Jewish militia stationed all around the Nilos delta had already shown their displeasure in demonstrations that bordered on mutiny; the Boulē was now reacting. Kleopatra, attended by her usual midge-cloud of counselors and advisors, had emerged from the session into the glare of lights wielded by an official Boulē recording crew. She had enough vanity to hate bright lights and cameras, and enough sense of duty to smile.

Her position as queen was shaky indeed. She had long since come to regret the power she had regained for the Ptolemaic Dynasty in the past thirty years; power enough to take blame, yet not enough to assume control. She did not have the power to defy the Boulē completely and take charge of the military; yet she was held responsible by many groups if the Boulē military policy was a failure. Rumors of plots were thick in the air; she almost wished they would come true.

The day did not improve when her Mouseion spy reported on how Rhita Berenikē Vaskayza was being treated.

Her Imperial Hypsēlotēs had long since learned to take every possible advantage of a situation. She had suspected for over a decade that the Mouseion’s interests were drawing apart from her own, but not so far apart that they would be openly defiant. The Akademeia Hypateia on Rhodos was a thorn in the bibliophylax’s side; Kleopatra had thought she could provoke an interesting response, then, by allowing Patrikia’s granddaughter to come to the Mouseion. And if this young woman brought better news than Patrikia had…So be it.

Either way, she was useful.

But what the spy told his queen was infuriating.