“Um… sir?” I said, having no clue where she was going with this particular paranoid delusion, but I was already sensing she was on a dark path. “Let me assure you, there was no conspiracy. At least, if there was, it was only between Deech and Drusus.”

  She took a sudden, aggressive step toward me. Her head was forward, jaw set and working, eyes glaring in rage. Her finger came up and pointed in my face.

  “So!” she said. “You do know something! You were in on this!”

  She spun away on her heel before I could respond, and she began doing a strutting, wildly gesturing walk around the elevator lobby.

  I was too alarmed to even stare at her butt. The woman was going off—seriously.

  “I’ve got to think!” she declared loudly. “I won’t take this lying down. I won’t! Not again!”

  “Uh…”

  An elevator arrived and dinged. The doors opened, but she ignored them.

  “You!”

  She spun around again, focusing all that rage and hate on the only handy target.

  “You’re always around, aren’t you?” she demanded. “Always pecking at the sorest of sore spots. Playing the fool, but hidden in plain sight. I’ve underestimated you for years, McGill. What I want to know is this: why didn’t you demand the rank of primus as part of this grand bargain? Why not press for that as your blood-price?”

  “Galina, I didn’t—”

  “Too obvious, hey? Too clear-cut? No, no, you like to get your revenge in the coldest way. You play the long game, McGill. Don’t you?”

  The elevator gave up, closed its doors and whisked away to another floor. I reached out and pressed the call button again for her.

  “Imperator—I mean Tribune,” I stopped and sighed.

  She snarled at me, stung by my accidental reminder of her demotion.

  “Listen,” I said, “I didn’t do this to you. Someone did, I’ll give you that, but Winslade and I were as surprised as anyone when the announcement was made.”

  Galina heard me, but she didn’t take my words to heart. She seemed to be listening to some internal demon instead.

  “It was that business last year with Thompson, wasn’t it?” she demanded. “You didn’t like me putting an agent on your tail. At least now you know how it feels to be spied on.”

  It was my turn to frown.

  “I will say that was rude on your part, sir. I liked Evelyn a lot. I think she even began to care for me some at the end.”

  Galina snorted. “The great lover McGill, crying over a girlfriend who played him for a fool? I’m supposed to believe that?”

  She was starting to piss me off. I can take a lot of abuse, but eventually, it lights my fire as well.

  “You’re downright crazy tonight,” I told her, “and that’s not going to get your rank back for you.”

  Again, she gave me that calculating tilt of the head. She nodded to herself, as if hearing a voice I couldn’t.

  “All right,” she said, quieting down. “I see now how this game is to be played. Tomorrow morning, I want to see you, Winslade—and that little slut you just professed your love for: Thompson. All of you, in my office.”

  An elevator arrived and dinged again. This time, she stepped inside.

  “In my office by six!” she repeated.

  Then the doors shut, and she was gone.

  When she vanished, I shrugged. Sometimes, it seemed like there was a long list of women who were angry with me. Tonight’s example had been both unfair and unusually vehement—but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before.

  I headed back toward the buffet, planning to eat my fill of those pastries—but I didn’t quite make it there.

  “James?” a soft voice hissed.

  I turned to see Specialist Evelyn Thompson. She was the bio girl I’d had a lot of trouble with over the years.

  Evelyn was still pretty, in a too-skinny way. In the past, she’d looked at me with a sour expression, but ever since last year, when she’d seduced me and spied on me, her eyes had held a different light.

  “What is it, Specialist?”

  She looked pained. “Look, James… I never got to talk to you after last—?”

  “Seriously?” I asked. “You’re going to make another play? Turov just left moments ago. Maybe you’d like to call her back up here to have her judge your performance.”

  She sighed. “I know, I know, I deserve all of that. But I’ve got something—I found something. I don’t want to give it back to Turov, and I don’t want to have it in my possession. Will you take it?”

  She had me confused now. “Take what?”

  “This,” she said, sliding a paper-wrapped object out of her purse. “They thought it was destroyed—but it wasn’t. It survived the year Central was bombed to ruins.”

  Evelyn was talking about a day long ago when the Cephalopods had invaded Earth and almost taken out Humanity. In those dark times, we’d almost lost a war for extinction. Fortunately, it had been the squids that had paid the bigger price.

  “What is it?” I repeated, beginning to tear at the packaging.

  “Don’t!” she said. “Not here. Do it in private, where no cameras can see. Make sure nothing is watching—not even your tapper.”

  Frowning at the package, I nodded. Something about her urgent words had sunk in. She was full of fear, and I figured she probably had good reason to be.

  “What the hell should I do with it?”

  “You’ll think of something,” she said, stepping onto an elevator. “Just don’t tell anyone where you got it. Not even if I’m dead—not even if we’re both dead.”

  She wasn’t making any sense, but before I could press her for more, the elevator’s doors snicked shut, and she vanished.

  I turned the package over and over in my hands, frowning.

  Then I went back to my hotel room in the city and tossed it onto the couch. By morning, I’d forgotten all about it.

  -3-

  At six a.m. I was yawning and slouching outside Turov’s office door.

  Her secretary was in there, ignoring the three of us. Winslade was looking paranoid, and Adjunct Thompson appeared downright scared.

  “She’s in a really bad mood this time,” Evelyn said for the eighth time.

  “When is she in a good mood?” Winslade asked sourly.

  “She’s late,” I said, yawning again and rubbing my face.

  I wasn’t used to military mornings yet. I’d received my summons, of course, just like the rest of the legion. I’d planned to go back home after this awards ceremony and spend the week with my folks—but that wasn’t likely to happen now.

  If the brass didn’t put us on deployment and shove our butts onto a lifter bound for space, then Turov would probably assign us something punishing to do. Either way, the week was turning out bad.

  “Hey, Adjunct?” I called out to the man who played her office-boy. “Any word from the imper—tribune?”

  “Nope, Centurion,” he said loudly. “She’s not in yet.”

  I eyed the secretary narrowly. He was big fellow, blondish hair, wide shoulders. Suddenly, it struck home that he was a little bit like me. Could it be that Turov had chosen him for his looks?

  Shrugging, I lost interest. Galina was a puzzle with a few pieces missing on the best of days.

  It was almost seven in the morning when she finally strolled into the office. I was slouching on her couch by then, and she kicked my foot hard. I woke up with a jerk.

  “Oh… good morning, sir!”

  “In my office,” she said, jerking a thumb toward the door. “All three of you.”

  Exchanging worried glances, Thompson and Winslade scuttled inside. I brought up the rear, yawning and looking bored.

  When we were inside and the door was shut, Turov circled her desk in front of us.

  “Sit down,” she ordered, and we did.

  She looked at each of us in turn, squinting hard into our faces. I felt I was being judged—or maybe sized up by a butcher for a good skinning. It was hard to care much. I’d taken a lot of punishment in my years of service, and I doubted this would be any different.

  “We had quite a quaint little ceremony yesterday, didn’t we?” Turov said. “Did you all enjoy it?”

  “The food was good,” I said.

  The others were stone-silent.

  “Right… but what I really want to know, is what went on before that fateful evening. Who knew about these changes in ranks—and who didn’t?”

  “Took me by surprise,” I said without hesitation.

  The other two were a pair of mutes, fixed in their chairs.

  She nodded at all three of us, but she lifted a finger and directed it at me.

  “You see this?” she said, as if I were a slab of meat. “That’s genius at work. He responds when he shouldn’t. He plays the part of the bored simpleton when in actuality, he’s scheming all the while.”

  At this, Winslade and Thompson dared to toss me a glance. It was my impression they disagreed with her paranoid delusion, but they were too smart to say so.

  “You two, on the other hand,” Galina continued, “are playing it safe. Staying quiet, and low, and mouse-like. Well, it won’t work. None of this will. Not for any of you. Not today.”

  “But sir!” Thompson protested. “This isn’t fair! I’ve been loyal. If I’d known anything about Deech’s power-play, I would have warned you.”

  Galina stared at her, and Thompson dared to stare back.

  Finally, Galina nodded. “I believe you. That’s why you’re here. It’s the other two I’m still contemplating.”

  “Excuse me, Tribune,” I said, having stayed quiet through this drama for long enough. “What exactly are we all doing here at six—no, make that seven in the morning?”

  “Your fates are being decided. I’ve been thinking about this all night long.”

  I saw the dark smudges around her eyes then—and I believed her. Could she have cried last night? Make-up could only cover so much.

  “Sir,” Winslade said, speaking up for the first time, “I’m the one who shouldn’t be here. I’ve always supported you from the very beginning.”

  “As long as it suited your purposes, yes. But you sucked-up to Deech just as hard when she was your commander. Don’t think I don’t know that. Loyalty is thin in this room. Very thin indeed.”

  I yawned again. I didn’t mean to, as it was a rude thing to do, but I was sleepy and bored. I just couldn’t get myself to care about her little show.

  “So,” I said, “what next?”

  Galina smiled then. It was a tight, nasty thing to see. I didn’t like it at all.

  She dug a small box out of her drawer, then two more. She handed one of them to each of us.

  I stared at mine. I knew what was most likely contained in that box: New rank insignia.

  In just such a lofty office in Central I’d been given the rank of adjunct. More recently I’d been promoted to centurion, the equivalent of a captain in days gone by.

  What did this box hold? I wasn’t sure.

  “Open yours, Thompson,” Galina said.

  “I don’t want to,” she said stiffly.

  “I order you to open it!”

  Thompson looked traumatized. I knew why. She’d been demoted before, having reached the lofty rank of centurion among the bio teams, she’d been busted down to specialist years ago. Now, she was fearful of another demotion. Would she become a regular? Or even, God forbid, a lowly recruit again?

  Trembling a little, she opened her box.

  Her face lit up, and she showed off what was inside: the red crest of a centurion.

  “Congratulations, girl,” I told her.

  She looked so happy. She sighed and thanked us all.

  “Now gentlemen,” Galina said, “it’s time to open your boxes.”

  Winslade went first, and I could tell by the look on his face he’d begun to hope—but those hopes were instantly dashed.

  “I’m a centurion again?” he demanded.

  “Technically, it’s for the first time,” she reminded him. “You jumped from adjunct directly to primus years ago.”

  “This is… I must protest in the strongest terms, Tribune!”

  “Would you like to file a grievance with Legion Varus?” she asked in a sly voice.

  “I will!”

  “Fine. You can leave it with my secretary in the outer office. I’m the final voice in this legion now—an absolute dictator.”

  “I’ll go to Hegemony then!” he declared. “This is unjust, and unwarranted!”

  “Go, go! By all means, go! Tattle to whoever you want in all of Central. Trust me, no one will give the slightest shit what you say.”

  Winslade got up and slunk out of the office, shoulders hunched in rage and defeat. Evelyn stayed, however, watching Galina and I with a frown.

  Galina’s eyes turned to me next.

  “So,” I said with a smile. “You made me a primus, didn’t you sir? To replace Winslade?”

  “An excellent guess,” she said, gesturing toward the small box in my big hand. “Open it, James. I insist.”

  I did so, and my heart sank. A single bar gleamed back at me. The rank of adjunct—I’d been demoted.

  A grin sprang up onto my face.

  “This is a surprise, sir!” I said in false excitement. “Truth is, I never really felt comfortable in command of so many men.”

  “Good,” Galina said, not fooled at all by my bullshit. “You’ll be happy to hear that Winslade will be your new centurion, relieving you of all that stress. Follow him well and die at his side, like the loyal hound that you are.”

  Thompson frowned at me, then Galina. “Why are you busting McGill, sir?”

  “Did you witness the ceremony yesterday?” Turov said softly.

  “Yes, of course—on video.”

  “Who cheered the hardest when Deech was advanced to the rank of imperator?”

  Thompson glanced over at me, but she didn’t say anything.

  “That’s right. McGill and Winslade were practically doing handstands for that cold bitch. And then, when it was my turn, they were as silent as mice.”

  “You think they knew?”

  “Yes. I’m sure of it.”

  Thompson shook her head, and she looked down at the rank in her box. She closed it, and stood up.

  “May I be excused, sir?” she asked, not looking at either of us.

  “Dismissed.”

  Thompson left, and I was alone with the Tribune again. At least this morning she didn’t have that crazed look in her eye. I think tossing around ranks had made her feel better.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said, McGill,” she told me.

  “Huh?”

  “About Thompson. That she might have had actual feelings for you. Normally, I’d dismiss such nonsense as masculine bravado on your part—but that display just now. She cared about your fate. I could see that.”

  “Maybe she just doesn’t like to see someone done wrong. It happened to her, years back.”

  “Yes. And on that occasion, it was in no small part due to your actions.”

  My mind cast back to those days. On Steel World, when I was a fresh recruit and new to the legions, Centurion Thompson and I hadn’t gotten along. She had, in fact, tried to kill me—but ended up dead herself.

  As a result of this and her allegiance to Turov through some very bad decisions years later, Thompson had been demoted.

  “Tell me,” Galina said, walking around her desk and standing alarmingly near. “Are you still interested in me—physically?”

  “Uh… sure. I guess so.”

  “Good. I’d like to have you service me now.”

  “Um… what, sir?”

  “You heard me.”

  I stared at her. She had jutting young breasts, a lovely swell to her hips and an ass to die for.

  “Truly,” I said, “this isn’t a fair thing to do to a man, standing over him like this and offering up—”

  “Are you interested or not?” she snapped, putting her hands on her hips.

  I sighed. I thought I knew why she was turned on. She liked feeling she was back in charge. She liked the idea of me being dominated by her—punished.

  Now, I’ll be the first to admit that if I had an ounce of self-respect I’d have gently scooted her fine posterior out of my face and beat a hasty retreat.

  Unfortunately, I’m a man of simple tastes. One of them involved beautiful women.

  Accordingly, I put my hands on her, and I gave it my all. She hissed and she squirmed, but she didn’t tell me to stop. She liked everything I could give.

  We didn’t quite get to finish, however.

  Suddenly, the door popped open.

  Galina’s face was down on her desk, and most of her uniform was off.

  When she looked over her shoulder at the open door, she pulled away from me, instantly raging. One moment she’d been purring with pleasure, the next she was hissing like an alley cat.

  “What is this—?” she shouted.

  Two hogs crowded into the doorway. Hegemony men. Military police, according to their uniforms. Stern-faced veterans, they were heavyset guys who looked like they’d played a lot of football back in the day.

  “You’re under arrest—” began the lead hog, but that was as far as he got.

  Now, in order to understand what happened next, certain facts have to be made clear. I’m not your ordinary man when I’m rudely surprised. In fact, I have to confess a propensity to extreme violence in unexpected situations.

  Accordingly, the lead hog making his arrest-speech caught my fist under his chin. His eyes bulged in shock. I’d popped his larynx. He staggered, grabbing his throat, and made wheezing sounds.

  The second man went for his pistol, but I grabbed his wrist and jammed the gun back down into the holster at his hip. The gun went off, and it burned a neat hole in his brown leather boots. A gray wisp of steam and smoke told me the beam had gone right through to the floor, searing a hole the width of a pencil straight through his foot.

  Roaring, he punched me with the other hand. That was a good play—for a hog. They normally went down without much of a fight when you surprised one of them.