“This vessel is suspected of violating the provisions of the Cherwell Convention,” Hammond told him, and felt a profound sense of internal satisfaction at the way his face went suddenly bone-white. “So I suggest,” she went on as the rest of her boarding party swiftly and competently secured the boat bay, “that you see about getting me to your captain. Now.”

· · • · ·

“It’s confirmed, Skipper,” Denise Hammond told Captain Ackenheil. There was no visual, because she was speaking to him over her helmet com, but he didn’t need a visual from her. He’d already seen the imagery from the external cameras of the Marines who’d forced the hatches into Wayfarer’s “passenger cabins.” Even in Silesia and even aboard freighters with strictly limited personnel space, passengers were seldom packed in twelve to the cabin.

Of course, Wayfarer’s crew had managed to save a little space for them in their quarters. After all, they didn’t need much space to store their personal belongings when they didn’t have any… including clothing of any sort.

The expressions of abject terror on the faces of those naked, hopeless “passengers” had been enough to turn a man’s stomach. But the moment when they realized they were looking at Royal Marines, not the bully boy guards of the owners to whom they had been consigned, had been something else again. Indeed, seeing it had given him almost as much pleasure as the sick, stunned expression on Kanjcevic’s face when she realized what had happened. And when she remembered that under the terms of solemn interstellar treaties, the Star Kingdom of Manticore equated violation of the Cherwell Convention’s prohibitions on trafficking in human beings with piracy.

Which was punishable by death.

“Good work, Denise,” he said sincerely. “Very good work. Keep an eye on things over there for another twenty minutes, and I’ll have the prize crew across to you.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. We’ll be here.”

· · • · ·

“Do you know what I hate most about our political lords and masters?” Dr. Wix demanded.

Jordin Kare tipped back his chair and cocked his head with a quizzical expression as he regarded the astrophysicist who’d just burst unceremoniously through his office door. It was very early in the day—which was the only reason Wix had gotten past the secretary who would have intercepted him during regular working hours—and Kare’s coffee cup sat steaming on the corner of his blotter beside a half-eaten croissant.

“No,” he said mildly, picking up his napkin and brushing crumbs from his lips. “I don’t know what you hate most about our political lords and masters, TJ. But I feel somehow certain that you can scarcely wait to enlighten me.”

“Um?” Wix stopped just inside the door, alerted by his superior’s tone of voice that he’d just committed a social faux pas. Then he had the grace to blush. “Oops. Sorry, Boss. I forgot it was breakfast time for you.”

“For me? Most people eat breakfast even earlier than I do, TJ—between the time they get up and the time they begin work,” Kare pointed out. Then he noticed Wix’s somewhat scruffy appearance and sighed. “TJ, you did go home last night at some point, didn’t you?”