For some reason, Tennal’s eyes fastened on the burn gun mark he’d noticed before: a scar on the desk right in front of where the occupant would sit. Fired to intimidate. He’d always assumed the rebels had fired at Oma. But if the rebels had taken back Birimi’s office, it must have been Birimi sitting there and Oma’s troops with the burn gun.

He raised his eyes to Oma’s. “Exciting times, sir,” he said blandly. “Where’s my lieutenant?”

Oma tapped her fingers on the desk. Despite his previous attempt, Tennal wondered if there was any chance he could read her. But when he reached out a tentative feeler, she was as sealed up as Surit and gave the impression of a shielded fusion reactor.

“Do you know,” Oma said, “I seem to have lost Birimi.”

“The ex-governor?” Tennal didn’t turn a hair. “That’s a shame.”

“Two days after you visited them, in fact.”

“Guidance takes strange paths,” Tennal said piously. “When you say you lost them—did they die? Does that go on my permanent record? My very first murder; that’s exciting. What have you done with Surit?”

Oma, rather unexpectedly, laughed. “I won’t press you for an answer about Birimi,” she said. “They’re not relevant at this point. Your Lieutenant Yeni is under arrest for trying to desert.”

“Trying to desert?” Tennal made himself sound incredulous. “Is that what you call it when a soldier tries to go back to a different division? Aren’t we all Orshans?” There might not be any inter-sector fights while the Resolution was watching them, but the divisions were so entrenched that society was unimaginable without them. Tennal sometimes suspected Orshan had to have a standing army to protect itself from its own standing army.

“I have nothing against Cavalry,” Oma said, without even bothering to sound sincere. “But obviously Lieutenant Yeni wasn’t going back to Cavalry. He was going to follow you through the galactic link.”

“Through the link?” Tennal said blankly. “Why would he do that?”

Oma frowned. Tennal got the impression that was the first thing he’d said that she hadn’t expected. “Because he’s synced to you,” she said. “You can’t be too far apart. There must have been a plan for him to go with you.”

Tennal couldn’t exactly say, I assumed the shit we made up wouldn’t matter once I was several light-years away. He managed a shrug. “I’d like him released, please.”

Oma sat back in her chair. “Well, there’s also the charge of trespassing in the station archives,” she said, “which you were also involved in. In fact, between that, breaking my prisoners out of detention, and trying to get yourself onto a Resolution ship, I can only conclude I haven’t given you enough to do and you’re getting bored.”