He called up news clips, then written records, then finally the accident investigation reports about the disastrous explosion that had claimed the lives of so many people. As Raymond knew, illicitly stored contaminated stardrive fuel had been hidden in sublevels under an innocent-looking dwelling complex. Containers had cracked, volatile fumes leaked. The explosion had ripped out the foundations of the building and sent an eruption of flames and toxic vapors through all levels. Private reports of the accident investigation, however, highlighted certain irregularities in the identity of the building owner, a man with supposed black-market connections, the origin of the siphoned and stolen fuel.

One of the rescue engineers injured in the fire had insisted during an interview that the doors beyond level sixteen had been blocked so that no one could have escaped, even those who might have survived the initial explosion. He even suggested that the evacuation doors had been welded shut on purpose. Oddly, the man had not been interviewed in any other accident investigation. According to the records, after his recuperation the rescue engineer had been transferred to municipal duty in a small emergency-response department on the planet Relleker.

Raymond found other discrepancies when he compared interviews and reports from different sources. He was not surprised to find his own name tallied among the casualties. Basil Wenceslas had warned him that they would cover up his disappearance to prevent anyone from suspecting “Prince Peter’s” humble origin. He swallowed hard when he read the names of his mother and three brothers beside his own, listed in small type among so many other casualties.

His heart turned to ice, however, when he uncovered greater detail. According to precise time codes, his own name and the names of his family had been entered onto the list of victims first—before the fire had been extinguished, before the first bodies were identified, and before the accident investigation had begun. He compared the precise filing time of the report with the chronometer readings on the fire images and the news coverage. There could be no question.

They had known all along. The Hansa had recorded the deaths beforehand.

Coldly horrified, Raymond deleted all record of his search, hoping that his caretakers had not bothered to watch his specific movements. He had been innocently busy for hours before he’d looked at anything that might have been construed as suspicious.

Raymond’s entire world had changed again, as much as it had on the day of the fire. Now he knew for certain that his family, including his estranged father, had been assassinated, all to tie up loose ends in order to stage Raymond’s death. The stakes were high.

Chairman Wenceslas and the Terran Hanseatic League were willing to pay any price so that a young man named Raymond Aguerra could vanish completely and reappear as Prince Peter, their willing puppet.

None of it had been an accident.