“I am.” The report would go out on a mail drone, a small unmanned craft that floated in space right outside a Flow shoal, onto which electronic communication—personal letters and pictures, business communications, reports, intellectual property that could be digitized—was recorded. Once a day one of these drones headed into the Flow with its stash of information; once a day a drone appeared out of the Flow, with letters, communication, IP, and so on to transmit to End. The mail was always late, because End was far away from everything. But it always arrived.

Claremont nodded again. “File your report. Send it. And then when it happens, you come back to me, and I’ll tell you my terms.”

“When what happens?”

“You’ll know it.”

“And what terms do you think you’ll be able to dictate?”

“I’d like not to have a murder on my record, for starters. After that, we’ll see. But I’ll tell you this, Lord Ghreni, you have this all wrong. I don’t need you. You, on the other hand, might need me. More than you know. So go write your report. I’ll stay quiet until you get back.”

Claremont actually made shooing motions, dismissing Ghreni. More out of bemusement than anything, he left.

* * *

Ghreni went to his office at the House of Nohamapetan building—it would take a while to move his concerns into the ducal palace, a thought that sent a thrill down his spine—and composed his report to Nadashe. The report was both in code and encrypted. Then he sent it on a secure beam to the mail drone, and waited for a receipt that it had been. The receipt came minutes later, along with the timer for the departure of the drone, which would be on its way in under half an hour. Ghreni noted the receipt and then busied himself with other work, primarily fielding reports from the team writing up the truce with the rebels.

This was involved enough that it wasn’t until three hours later that he noticed he’d received an additional note from the mail service, informing him that his mail would not be delivered on time. The reason was “drone failure,” which meant the drone was defective in some way. The information in the drone, including his report, would be transferred to a different drone (there were dozens parked out near the Flow shoal) and then sent through.

Ghreni noted this and was about to click through when he noticed two other reports of delays due to material failure. As he read the third one a fourth entered into his queue.

Ghreni pinged his assistant. “What’s going on with the mail drones?” he said.

“I don’t know, sir,” was the reply. “Everyone’s complaining about it. All the mail is bouncing from one drone to another.”