“No,” Wilson said. “I’ve been having them look intensively for a couple of hours. There are bodies missing heads, but the heads are usually found not too far away, or the separation is ragged. This guy’s head isn’t near the body. It isn’t anywhere.”

“Some animal could have run off with it,” Yuan suggested.

“It’s possible,” Wilson said. “On the other hand, when the head of a CDF soldier has been cut cleanly from his body and his head is nowhere to be found, I’d suggest it’s not prudent to assume some animal is making a snack of it.”

“You assume it’s been taken by whoever attacked the colony,” Augustyn said.

“Yes,” Wilson said. “And while I’m at it, I think that whoever told us that the Bula didn’t know the colony was here guessed really badly wrong. I think not only did the Bula know it was here, I’d be guessing they’re the ones who made the raid. If they didn’t know it was here, I’m willing to bet whoever attacked it took that head to the Bula, because evidence of a CDF presence on one of their planets is worth more than a little bit of cash.”

“But they couldn’t have known about the CDF presence here,” Yuan said. “We didn’t.”

“At this point, I don’t think it matters if they did before,” Wilson said. “I think it matters that they do now. And if they do now—”

“Then they know we’re here now,” Augustyn said.

“Right,” Wilson said. “In which case it’s not the colony that’s the CU’s biggest diplomatic problem at the moment. It’s us.”

Augustyn was already ignoring Wilson to focus on contacting his ground forces to get them off the planet.

They’d gotten only about half of them up before six Bula warships skipped above Wantji and trained their weapons, already hot, on the Tubingen.

*   *   *

Abumwe’s negotiations with Sub-Ambassador Ting were winding down when Schmidt heard a pleasant ping from the sub-ambassador’s PDA. Ting excused herself for a moment, picked up the device, appeared to read a note there and performed the Bula equivalent of a smile.

“Good news?” Abumwe asked.

“It might be,” Ting said, and set the PDA down. She turned to her assistant, leaned over and spoke quietly into his closest ear. The assistant got up and walked out of the room.

“I apologize, but there are things I will need to conclude our negotiations, and I don’t have them with me at the moment,” Ting said. “I hope you don’t mind waiting a moment while my assistant retrieves them.”

“Not at all,” Abumwe said.

“Thank you,” Ting said. “I think you and I have established a good rapport, Ambassador Abumwe. I wish every negotiating partner I’ve had could be as pleasant and easy to work with.”