“I made a special effort to check in with Heimdall, Cyclops, Trombone, Strathmore, and Kenichi,” Brinton-Massengale told her, and she nodded. All five of those star systems were within thirty-five light-years of Beowulf. In fact, Heimdall was barely fourteen light-years away, and all had been trading partners and (usually) political allies for decades.

“And?” she asked when he paused.

“And Routhier, Reicher, and Tannerbaum were some of the people who seem to be having vision problems. Fang Chin-wen was at least willing to exchange a few words, but I had this sense she was looking over her shoulder the entire time. In fact, the only one who seemed ready for an actual conversation was Gook Yang Kee.”

Hadley nodded again, although not happily. Kjell Routhier was one of Cyclops’ delegates. Aurélie Reicher was from Heimdall, and Charlotte Tannerbaum was from Kenichi, while Fang Chin-wen was the assistant delegation leader for Trombone and Gook Yang Kee was the junior member of the Strathmore delegation.

Hadley wasn’t that surprised about Tannerbaum, since Beowulf’s relations with Kenichi had never been particularly close. Routhier was more of a disappointment, especially after the way Hadley and her delegation had helped grease the skids for his delegation chief to meet personally with Permanent Senior Undersecretary Kolokoltsov a few T-months back. The real disappointment, though, was Aurélie Reicher. Heimdall and Beowulf did a tremendous amount of business with one another, given their proximity, and there was more intermarriage between Beowulfers and Heimdallians than almost any other star system except Manticore itself.

I don’t like the possibility that Heimdall’s decided to pull the plug on us, Hadley thought. Still, Reicher’s a pain in the ass on her best day. And she resents the fact that our delegation’s got two more members than hers does. Talk about petty! So it’s possible she’s simply decided on her own that there’s no point getting splashed if we’re about to get whacked.

“What did Fang have to say?” she asked.

“Not a lot, mostly just everyday platitudes. I had the impression she was making conversation to be polite. On the other hand, that may have been for the benefit of the rest of her delegation.”

“Why do you say that?” Hadley’s eyes narrowed intently.

“Because she’s the one who told me to go have a word with Yang Kee…and she did it very quietly, when no one else from her delegation was in easy earshot.”

“Okay.” Hadley nodded in understanding.