Too much management rubbish.” He leaned against an empty desk, spinning through some options, and then entered a command sign. “It has to go through Internal Security. There.” He finished the command with a flourish and grinned at Jainan. Even talking quietly, their voices echoed in the old room. Jainan kept glancing at the handful of soldiers within hearing. “That’s a fairly ghoulish souvenir you want, but it should be with you within a week or so.”

Kiem refrained from saying that apparently the officers hadn’t needed to see them in person to transfer the data after all, which was not making him feel any more well disposed toward Lunver. Jainan’s eyes went back to Aren’s face. “A week.”

Aren’s mouth took on a rueful twist. “’Fraid it’s an Internal Security issue,”

he said. “They put a block on all the investigation materials, so we have to go up the chain of command to get them released.”

“But you have the crash data,” Kiem said. “Come on. Jainan’s been trying to get it for weeks. I gave it a royal seal. I don’t want to start getting official about it—do us a favor.”

“I—” Aren looked between them, but Kiem thought he’d got his measure, and he was right. Aren gave a fluid shrug, shot a mildly guilty look at Lunver’s office door, and gave another command. Jainan’s wristband buzzed. “All right, then. Jainan’s got a copy.” His voice lowered, semi-comically, as if he was letting them in on a secret. “Please don’t hand it to your friends back home.”

The line of tension hadn’t left Jainan’s face. “I wouldn’t.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Kiem said.

For a brief moment Jainan and Aren both looked as if Kiem had grown a second head. “Oof,” Aren said. He traded glances with Jainan. “How to put this, eh? Kingfisher isn’t hugely popular on Thea.”

“Mm,” Jainan said.

“Sort of dead-cat-in-the-river levels of popular, in fact. Look.” Aren gestured another command and a screen sprang up vertically above the desk. After a moment’s browsing, he threw up a fringe-press article with the headline Iskat’s Mining Smash-and-Grab. And another, with a university logo: Activist Drones Sabotage Refinery. A third just said Sorry, Were You Using Those Minerals?

over a smiling picture of Taam.

Jainan had gone a shade sallower. “I hadn’t seen those.”

“Idiots,” Aren said cheerfully. “Students and fringe obsessives, mainly. But to answer your question, Prince Kiem, that’s why we’re running a lot of Kingfisher at high classification. I was assigned to the op as the strategic comms officer to try and fight this sort of bad press, but the positive spin just didn’t take. Hey, there’s a thought.” He threw himself back into a sprawl in the desk chair and eyed Kiem speculatively. “We’ve got a strategic comms post going spare.

Spinning Kingfisher to the Thean newslogs. You’d be a natural.”

“Uh,” Kiem said blankly.

“Oh, come on,” Aren said, half laughing. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”