“Who have you told, Lieutenant?” she asked after a moment, her eyes narrowing.

“You, Ma’am,” Stromboli said instantly, and went on to answer the unasked portion of her question. “Mr. Tremaine informed me by tight beam, so my duty com tech knows, I know, his boat crew knows, and you know. That’s it.”

“Good. Very good, Lieutenant.” Dame Estelle tugged at an earlobe, then nodded. “Use your own equipment to inform Commander Harrington, please. And ask her to tell Major Isvarian—he’s still aboard Fearless, I believe. Don’t tell anyone else without clearance from me or from your captain.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I understand.” Stromboli nodded, and the commissioner cut the circuit with a courteous if abstracted nod.

She sat silently for long minutes, trying to grasp the implications. It was insane… but it was also the perfect cover. She remembered the holos Isvarian had made of the base before the explosion, seeing once more the meticulous care with which the buildings had been hidden. It was all part of a pattern, a pattern of almost obsessive concealment, yet there was a false note. Concealment, yes, but once that screen of security was breached, the very lengths to which they’d gone to maintain it were guaranteed to touch off a massive hunt for the perpetrators at all levels.

And the way it had been done, the tap off her own power system, the apparent scale of mekoha production, the introduction of breech-loading rifles to the natives… All of it spoke of a massive operation, one which went—which must go—far beyond whatever might be earned by selling drugs to a Bronze Age culture!

But why? Where did it go… and to what end? She was alone in a dark room, groping for shadows, and none of it made any sense. Not any sense at all.

She rose from her chair and walked to her office’s huge window, staring unseeingly out over the Government Compound’s low wall at the monotonous Medusan countryside. It couldn’t be one of her people. It couldn’t! Whatever the ultimate objective, whatever the reward, she couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe that any of her people could feed mekoha to the natives and connive at the cold-blooded murder of their own fellows!

But someone had installed a power tap in the one place neither she nor any of Harrington’s people had even considered looking. And if it was built in, not added as an afterthought…

She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the tough, plastic window, and gritted her teeth in pain.

“It’s confirmed, Commander.”

Rafe Cardones nodded at the data terminal, and McKeon leaned closer to study it. The schematic of the power collector was interesting enough, but that was only part of the data’s surprises. The shunt to the drug lab’s power system was, indeed, an integral part of the satellite’s circuitry, built deep into its core where only a complete maintenance strip-down would have revealed it. More than that, every maintenance seal had been intact, with no sign of tampering, and even with access to government or Fleet equipment, breaking and replacing all those seals would have been a lengthy, time-consuming job. However it got there, the installation of that shunt hadn’t been any spur of the moment, rushed bootleg job.