Tennal realized why the name of the organization was familiar. “This is Zin’s reader rights group,” he said. “Lights lose it. My sister,” he added, by way of explanation. “She just started her apprenticeship. She won’t be involved with this—they must have dozens of law shoals in that group, and my aunt would have told Zin to stay out of anything controversial. But it must be legitimate if my aunt let her apprentice there. Surely you can’t stop a law shoal from writing to a random citizen.”

“That’s what I mean,” Surit said earnestly. “I think this accusation is being used to coerce the prisoner. I’ve been through their case, and I think the original imprisonment is on very shaky grounds. It’s not our jurisdiction, but you have a brief for comms infrastructure, so I think you could make an argument—”

“Surit,” Tennal said, “who is it?”

Surit paused then said, with the same precision as he read traffic reports, “The ex-governor of the station.”

Tennal groaned. “Of course it is.”

CHAPTER 18

The cell door slid aside with the faint hiss of a reinforced mechanism.

“Careful, sir,” the detention guard said. “Are you sure you don’t want them brought to an interview room?”

“What can they do?” Tennal said. “You said you had visuals in the cell. And I thought they were a politician, not a street wrestler.”

He wasn’t expecting what the guard said next, which was “They’re a reader, sir. They might see what you’re thinking.”

“How do you know that?”

The ranker looked surprised. “Everyone knows.”

The governor of a whole station, for years, had been a reader, and everyone on the station knew? Tennal didn’t care about Archer Station’s internal politics, but he felt like someone could have told him. “You know what,” Tennal said, “I think I’ll survive.”

Tennal stepped through the door to the cell, Surit at his back, and let it slide shut behind them.

He had gotten the facts from Surit on the way over. Governor Birimi had been ousted for corruption, the same charge they were still sitting in prison to answer for. Oma had taken over to replace them. Birimi’s supporters had boiled over a couple of weeks afterward, which had added treason to the charge sheet, but Birimi themself didn’t seem violent.

The opposite, in fact. Surit reported Birimi had started in community government after leading a hobbyist group of historical fabric enthusiasts, leading Tennal to instantly dub them Governor Knitting Circle.

And they were a reader. Tennal wasn’t sure why this annoyed him, except he should probably have some kind of commonality with a known reader, and he didn’t, and also he wouldn’t be caught dead at a historical fabrics society.