“But… why?” Honor asked slowly.

“I don’t know,” Dame Estelle sighed. “I just don’t know. I can’t think of a single commodity on this planet that could possibly be worth this kind of investment, Honor. Not one. And that,” she finished softly, “scares me a lot worse than if I could.”

The quiet hum of the buzzer turned raucous when no one answered, and Andreas Venizelos jerked up out of his sleep with a muffled curse as it broke into a series of abrupt, jagged bursts of sound, guaranteed to wake the dead. The lieutenant dragged himself to his feet, rubbing sleep from his eyes while he stumbled across his darkened cabin. He hopped on one foot, yelping as a bare toe collided painfully with some invisible obstacle, then half-fell into the chair before the com terminal. The buzzer was still screaming at him, and he glared at the chrono. Oh-two-fifteen. He’d been in bed less than three hours.

This, he told himself savagely, had better be damned important.

He raked a hand through sleep-tousled hair and punched the audio key with his thumb, refusing visual contact in his disheveled state.

“Yes?” He didn’t—quite—snarl the word.

“Andy?” the blank screen said. “This is Mike Reynaud.”

“Captain Reynaud?” Venizelos straightened in his chair, rags of drowsiness fleeing, and frowned.

“Sorry to disturb you,” Reynaud continued quickly. “I know you just got in a few hours ago. But we’ve had some traffic up here I think you should know about.” The ACS commander sounded anxious, possibly even a little frightened, and Venizelos’s frown deepened.

“What sort of traffic, Captain?” he asked.

“A Crown courier boat came in from Manticore about an hour ago and headed in-system,” Reynaud replied. “It didn’t stop for inspection, of course—” Venizelos nodded; Crown couriers had absolute precedence and complete freedom of passage anywhere in Manticoran space “—but I just got a look at the passenger manifest.”

Something about the way he said it touched Venizelos with dread, but he bit his lip and waited in silence.

“It’s Klaus Hauptman, Andy,” Reynaud said softly. “I don’t know what he’s doing on a Crown courier, but he’s here. And he’s headed for Medusa. After what happened with the Mondragon, I thought, well…”

His voice trailed off, and Venizelos nodded again to the unseeing pickup.

“I understand, Captain Reynaud. And I appreciate it.” He rubbed his eyes for a moment, then inhaled deeply. “It’ll take me a few minutes to get dressed, Sir. Could you warn the com center I’m on my way up and ask for a scrambled channel to Fearless?”

“Of course, Andy.” The relief in Reynaud’s voice was manifest, and he cut the circuit. Venizelos sat motionless, staring at the silent terminal for long, slow seconds, and his mind raced.

Civilians, no matter how important, had no official business on Crown courier boats. But Klaus Hauptman wasn’t just any civilian. It would have been very difficult to refuse him passage. In fact, Venizelos doubted anyone had dared tell Hauptman “no” about anything for decades. Yet how he’d gotten here mattered far less than why, and Venizelos could think of only one possible reason for him to come, especially in secret aboard an official government vessel rather than openly aboard a civilian transport.