“There are a number of articles,” Jainan said, skimming the thick blocks of text. He couldn’t possibly have had time to read all of that. “Most of them are neutral; the tone is fairly standard for our—I mean, for Thea’s mainstream

outlets.” He paused, glanced at Kiem, and then said, “I am afraid the fringe newslogs are much more volatile. Many of them are less than complimentary about Iskat. Four of them name me as a traitor to the planet.”

“What?” Kiem said, nearly fumbling the diagnostic shell. “That’s ridiculous.

That’s offensive.” Jainan gave a miniscule shrug, his eyes still skimming over the folder. Kiem strode a couple of abortive paces across the room and turned back.

“Can we blacklist them? Bel?”

“They were never on the list in the first place,” Bel said. “They’re Thean outlets. You might as well invite the Sefalan gossip logs.”

“But they can’t just make up—” Kiem started, then broke off when he saw Jainan try to say something. Jainan shut his mouth. “Go on.”

It took Jainan a moment to apparently reformulate his sentence. “There is a great deal of detail here.”

He’d gone back to Kiem’s post-wedding interviews. Kiem frowned, distracted from his indignation, and tried to remember what he’d said. “Is there?” He thought he’d been pretty impersonal, but he was used to the press.

“Which bit?”

“The—” Jainan paused, and his finger skated over several articles as if he didn’t want to touch them. “No, it’s not important.” He looked back at Kiem. “I was just going to shower.”

“Right,” Kiem said. “We’ll—Bel will fix your wristband. We’re meeting the Auditor this afternoon, and I have to go to a reception at the College first. How do you feel about university visits?”

“I can be ready in ten minutes,” Jainan said.

That was heartening news and distracted Kiem from the whole press debacle.

At least there was something they could do together that didn’t involve romantic dinners that bored Jainan to sleep. “Take your time; it doesn’t start until eleven.

Is there anything you need?”

“No,” Jainan said. It would have been abrupt, but he had an odd habit of leaving a pause afterward, as if it was open to negotiation. He waited for a moment, then disappeared into the bathroom. Bel pulled the messages off the wall and took Jainan’s wristband into the study, leaving Kiem by himself with the newslog articles.

“Minor problems,” Kiem said to the accusing spread of press folders. The Thean one was currently showing a newslog image of a Thean politician who looked very much like Lady Ressid. “A few articles, one bad night, so what?

Don’t look at me like that. I can fix this.” He shut the folder and stared at the

wall.