Hvaren Base was bustling. Every desk had a soldier at it. Jainan scanned the walls, which had a firework display of different visualizations that presumably had something to do with engineering, while Kiem listened to the trooper breathlessly recite base safety procedures.

“Uh, we were supposed to meet Major Saffer,” Kiem said, when the trooper stopped to heave in a breath. “Is he around?”

“Scheduled for eleven hundred hours, sir!” the trooper said. “I will take you on a tour of the base so you’re not bored!”

“Gosh,” Kiem said. “Can’t wait.”

He hadn’t reckoned with the effect of offering an engineer a tour of an engineering operation. “I would like that very much,” Jainan said, a gleam in his eye that Kiem recognized. “May we speak to the unit responsible for the propulsion design on the screens?”

The trooper looked slightly taken aback and then doubly enthusiastic. They’d

done it now. Kiem followed Jainan to the engineers’ corner. Luckily Jainan could have carried that conversation in his sleep, and at least it got them away from the unit on the other side of the room who had the intimidating look of people who wanted to talk about Trade and Export.

As Jainan got deep into the details of however mining worked—he hadn’t mentioned the Imperial College project, which was probably the best approach

—Kiem started to count the people in the room. There were only a few dozen, but he saw insignia from three separate divisions, so either the army had started splitting divisions or Kingfisher had about three hundred people, and most of them weren’t in this room or at the palace. The Kingfisher emblem, a jagged silver badge that could just about be a bird midstrike if you squinted, was more prominently displayed than any of the division insignia. There was another memorial photo of Taam at the back of the room, wreathed with gray flowers.

Jainan turned from one of the screens to a holo-abacus floating above one of the desks. One of the engineers had gone to find the person who made it.

“You’re having fun,” Kiem said under his breath.

Jainan looked sideways at him, startled. “No, I’m—” He stopped.

“Sirs!” the very helpful trooper said, popping up like a weather alert. “Major Saffer has arrived back at base. Please follow me!”

It was an unnecessary announcement. Just behind her, Aren was removing a heavy outdoor coat. He strode past his trooper, extending a hand. “Jainan! And Prince Kiem. Good to see you. I was hoping to catch you a bit earlier, but I got delayed, sorry about that. You had some questions about Taam and Kingfisher?”

Time to get to work. Jainan had frozen; Kiem automatically shook Aren’s hand. “Good to see you, Aren. Have you got somewhere we could talk?”

CHAPTER 15

“Embezzlement?” Aren said, stopping in his tracks. “That’s impossible.”