“My call, given my Board-granted authority? Sell Port Authority to the people. In doing so, I estimate that I made something like ten times the return in SDRs above The Corporation’s initial investment. And I offered the people the chance to space home on Turalon. Not only did only a handful wish to return, but we were having a hard time keeping crew. Especially in light of Freelander’s arrival. A dead ship. One that spent a one-hundred-twenty-nine-year journey through whatever universe it passed through. Can we salvage it? You go right ahead, Inspector General. And God help you.”

Again the melee of enthusiasm from the crowd.

Kalico waited for Talina to shout them down.

“Yes, I stayed on Donovan. With my people, we built Corporate Mine. Did we make mistakes? Did people die? Yes. But we shipped a fortune back to Solar System on Ashanti. Can you tell me the value of that cargo, Inspector General?”

“Several tens of trillions in Corporate SDRs,” Soukup said absently.

“More like forty to fifty trillion,” Cinque said, where he continued staring down at his notebook.

Kalico paced warily down the length of the bar, looking up at the camera recording the proceedings. “It might interest the Board to know that while I am often called the richest woman in the universe, I’m not. Corporate Mine, Southern Diggings? It’s all Corporate wealth.”

Kalico tossed her belt pouch; it landed with a metallic jingle on the bar in front of Abibi. “Captain, would you be so kind as to tally the value of the coins in my purse?”

It took Abibi no longer than fifteen seconds to sort through the denominations and declare, “I count a total of two hundred and eighty-seven SDRs worth of the Port Authority coinage, ma’am.”

Kalico chuckled in amusement. “That’s all? Could Inspector General Soukup be right? For a corrupt Corporate Supervisor, I must indeed be negligent and incompetent. You’d think anyone with even a little larceny and self-interest would have been able to skim considerably more than . . . what was it? Two hundred and eighty-seven? Out of all those trillions?”

The room broke into hard guffaws, feet stomping, people pounding on the tables.

Talina needed a couple of minutes to restore order this time.

As the room began to quiet, Kalico said, “As to the marines, the Inspector General is correct. I ordered them to the planet first thing. Put a third at Southern Diggings under Sergeant Briah Muldare’s command. Another third I deployed to Corporate Mine under Lieutenant Dina Michegan, and a third here for training under Captain Abu Sassi. I did that with the intent of having them learn what duty on Donovan entailed. And even with their advantages of on-planet training, armor, and tech, five have died. Five! Would have been worse if Colonel Creamer—ignorant as he was—had been left in charge.”

“Then why did you send me out on that malfunctioning A-7?” Soukup snapped.