“Have we tried restricting or controlling it?”

“Yes and no. It’s already illegal in most of the Delta city-states—not all, but most—and restricted in the others. On the other hand, the cities are where most of the mekoha used outside the Delta has traditionally been made, and even the Delta councils are wary of crossing the mekoha traders. It brings in a lot of money, and the drug merchants are none too choosy about the means they’ll adopt to protect their trade. Besides, the stuff has a firm niche in several of the Medusan religions.”

“Oh, Lord!” Honor sighed, and Dame Estelle grimaced.

“Right. The NPA can’t interfere with religious practices, both because we’re specifically forbidden to by our charter and because, much as I hate to admit it, trying to do that would be the one sure way to destroy all the goodwill we’ve managed to build up. Some of the Delta priests—and more of the shamans in the Outback—are convinced that off-worlders are an evil and corrupting influence, anyway. If we try to take their holy drug away from them, we’ll just be validating their feelings, so we’ve been forced back into education efforts, which aren’t the most effective way to reach Bronze Age minds, and behind-the-scenes pressure on the manufacturers.”

Honor nodded again as Dame Estelle fell silent once more, but her thoughts raced. She doubted the commissioner would have embarked on her lecture on Medusan pharmacology unless it was related to the unidentified air traffic, but that—

“Dame Estelle, are you suggesting that someone from off-world is supplying this mekoha to the Medusans?”

Matsuko nodded grimly. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting, Honor. We’ve known usage was going up even in the areas we police regularly. Since you’ve freed up the people I had stuck inspecting the orbital and ship-to-surface traffic, I’ve been able to push our routine patrols further into the Outback, and it looks like use levels are even higher there. More than that, we’ve gotten some samples of mekoha from the Mossybacks region, and it’s not the same as the stuff produced in the Delta. The proportions are slightly different, and it’s got a lower impurity content. Which, my people tell me, means this new version probably has more kick, too.”

“And you think it’s being manufactured off-world,” Honor said flatly.

“That’s what I’m afraid of. We can’t prove it, but, as I say, it brings a high price, by Medusan standards. And however hard it is for the locals to produce, any half-competent off-world lab could churn it out in job lots if it had access to the raw mek moss it comes from.”

“But first they’d have to get the moss off Medusa,” Honor thought aloud. “And after they processed the drug, they’d have to get it back onto the planet again.”

“Neither of which would have been an insurmountable problem before you and Fearless turned up,” Matsuko put in. Honor shook her head.

“I don’t know about that… and it still sounds too complicated to be very profitable, unless the selling price is even higher than you seem to be saying. How much of this—mek moss, you said?—does it take to produce, say, a gram of the refined drug?”