“Yeah, I guessed.” Jad wandered past me to the windows and peered out at the moored bulk of the Impaler. “So Micky, Tak, Kovacs, whoever the fuck you are at the moment. Want to introduce me to your friend?”

“Uh, yeah. Tod, this is Jadwiga. As you obviously already know, she’s from deCom. Jad, Todor Murakami, colleague of mine from, uh, the old days.”

“I’m an Envoy,” Murakami supplied casually.

To her credit, Jad barely blinked. She took the hand he offered with a slightly incredulous smile, then propped herself against the outward lean of the tower windows and folded her arms.

Murakami took the hint.

“So what’s all this about?”

I nodded. “We can start there.”

“I think you can probably guess.”

“I think you can probably drop the elicitation and just tell me.”

He grinned and touched a trigger finger to his temple. “Sorry, force of habit. Alright, look. Here’s my problem. According to sources, seems you’ve got a little revolutionary momentum up here, maybe enough to seriously rock the First Families’ boat.”

“Sources?”

Another grin. No ground given up. “That’s right. Sources.”

“I didn’t know you guys were deployed here.”

“We’re not.” A little of his Envoy cool slipped from him, as if by the admission he’d lost some kind of vital access to it. He scowled. “Like I said, this is pro bono. Damage limitation. You know as well as I do, we can’t afford a neoQuellist uprising.”

“Yeah?” This time, I was the one grinning. “Who’s we, Tod? The Protectorate? The Harlan family? Some other bunch of super-rich fucks?”

He gestured irritably. “I’m talking about all of us, Tak. You really think that’s what this planet needs, another Unsettlement. Another war?”

“Takes two sides to run a war, Tod. If the First Families wanted to accept the neoQuellist agenda, institute reforms, well.” I spread my hands. “Then I can’t see there’d be any need for an uprising at all. Maybe you should be talking to them.”

A frown. “Why are you talking like this, Tak? Don’t tell me you’re buying into this shit.”

I paused. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What kind of fucked political philosophy is that?”

“It isn’t a philosophy at all, Tod. It’s just a feeling that maybe we’ve all had enough. That maybe it’s time to burn these motherfuckers down.”

He frowned. “I can’t allow that. Sorry.”

“So why don’t you just call down the wrath of the Envoys and stop wasting time?”

“Because I don’t fucking want the Corps here.” There was a sudden, brief desperation in his face as he spoke. “I’m from here, Tak. This is my home. You think I want to see the World turned into another Adoracion? Another Sharya?”