She slapped the desk angrily. “I should have spotted that right off the bat. Even before I left Unity aboard Boundless. But it was very well done, Admiral. And I had no reason to suspect those instructions.” Rycerz went silent for a few seconds before looking at Geary again. “On your honor, Admiral, were you given secret instructions regarding me?”

  He didn’t have to hesitate. “No. On my word of honor, I received no secret instructions regarding you. Not even official hints that I should behave in certain ways.”

  “Because they knew you were an honest man, which meant they couldn’t trust you.”

  “That statement is disturbing in so many ways,” Geary said.

  “I suppose it is,” Rycerz said with a crooked smile. “I think it’s clear that those who want this mission to fail did not want you and me working together. They wanted to sabotage that possibility as soon as they could.”

  He nodded. “Which would have left you totally isolated aboard Boundless.”

  “Isolated and effectively impotent,” Rycerz said. “After studying my instructions I realized that I have no real authority over Dr. Macadams, and I cannot actually order Colonel Webb to do anything. Even Captain Matson has an escape clause in his orders allowing him to disregard my instructions if he feels they would hazard the safety of the ship or its crew.”

  That last seemed reasonable, Geary thought, but on top of the other things seemed just another limit on her authority. “What about your staff?”

  “That’s interesting.” Rycerz paused to rub her eyes. “Admiral, I’m sorry, but is there any coffee available?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing. Hold on.” Geary cracked the security hatch, seeing the lights above it turn red. He wasn’t surprised to see two Marines from Dauntless’s detachment standing sentry outside the hatch. “I’ll be right back,” he told them.

  He knew there was a break room only about twenty steps away on this same passageway. The coffee dispenser was fleet standard, which for reasons known only to fleet supply was decorated with the usual depiction of happy cups of coffee marching off to be consumed by eager sailors. Geary had always found the image of coffee cups merrily marching to their deaths a bit disturbing.

  He got two cups, along with a couple of cubes of also fleet-standard “creamsweetstuff,” and hastened back to the secure room.

  “That junk will keep you awake, Admiral,” the Marine corporal advised with a grin.

  “So I’ve heard,” Geary said. “Have you noticed anyone taking an unusual interest in this compartment?”

  Both Marines shook their heads. “Just the usual foot traffic, sir,” the corporal said. “We’ve gotten a few looks for being posted here, that’s all.”

  “Good.” He went inside the room, set the hatch to seal again, and placed her coffee before the ambassador. “It’s not fancy, but . . . it’s coffee.”

  “I’ll take it.” The ambassador dumped the entire “stuff” cube in her coffee, waited for it to dissolve, then shuddered as she took a taste. “You’re certain that it’s coffee?”

  “Fleet coffee has a certain reputation,” Geary said, taking a drink of his own. “There are various stories about where it’s sourced from. None of which you probably want to hear.”

  Rycerz smiled. “I’ll take your word for it. Now, my staff. That’s an interesting situation. They couldn’t be fully insulated from my control, but when I dug into the fine print of their agreements to take part in this mission, I discovered that my ability to require them to do what I want is fairly limited. I have to avoid pushing them to the wall, because if I do, they’ll discover they can just slide through the wall and be beyond my reach. I don’t want to give the impression all of my staff are untrustworthy. I believe that most of them are. But with so little to do until the Dancers respond to our diplomatic outreach, my staff are . . . I suppose ‘restless’ is the right word.”

  “In the military,” Geary said, “we’re warned that nothing creates trouble faster than having too little meaningful work to do. Crews get restless.”

  “I can’t just make up work,” Rycerz said. “We already have dozens of contingency plans prepared to respond to anything the Dancers say or propose.”

  “What about the enigmas?” Geary asked. “Could I request help on the diplomatic side for dealing with them? That would give your people something worthwhile to do.”

  Rycerz set down her coffee and leaned forward, eyeing Geary. “Exactly what sort of help are you speaking of?”

  “My ships have to return through enigma-controlled space. We’ve attempted a breakthrough with the enigmas by returning that body unexamined.”

  “But there’s no telling how the enigmas will respond,” Rycerz said. “Or how you should respond to different enigma proposals. Let’s clarify this. You, as fleet commander, are requesting support from my staff in determining possible enigma responses to our outreach, and how you should reply to each of those possible responses.”

  “Yes,” Geary said. “I really don’t want to be responsible for figuring that out myself.”

  “Oh, this is excellent.” Rycerz sat back, smiling again. “A formal request from the fleet for my staff’s support. Meaningful work, and an acknowledgment that my staff has skills the military recognizes and needs. And, as a bonus, a clear signal that you and I are working together rather than being at each other’s throats.” She paused, taking a sip of coffee. “It will be interesting to see if that provokes any responses from those trying to ensure this mission doesn’t succeed.”

  “Are you safe?” Geary asked.

  “Me?” Rycerz laughed, though there didn’t seem to be any humor in the sound. “I’m perhaps the safest person there is. As long as I’m alive, I can be blamed for the failure of the mission and punished accordingly. But, if I’m dead, they might have to look for other scapegoats to satisfy the demand for retribution, and that might overturn some rocks that our opponents don’t want exposed to the light of day. Oh, no, Admiral, they want me alive when this mission fails.”

  “It’s not going to fail,” Geary said.

  “Damn right.” She raised her cup, they touched the rims together briefly, and then they both drank to affirm their vow.

  * * *

  AS Ambassador Rycerz was leaving, she passed a data disc to Geary before boarding her shuttle. “Colonel Webb asked if you’d run checks on these individuals aboard Boundless. I don’t know how legitimate his concerns are, but I thought I should give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to check,” Geary said. “Though I’m not sure we’d find anything that wasn’t already available aboard Boundless.”

  Not much more than half an hour later, he was proven wrong when Lieutenant Iger showed up at Geary’s stateroom. Iger stood in the center of the stateroom, looking about as uncomfortable as Geary had ever seen him. “Admiral, there’s nothing in our files on any of these people.”

  “Something seems to be bothering you, though.”

  “Yes, sir.” Iger displayed a picture of a man on his comm pad. “This individual. Lieutenant Joseph Paul in Boundless’s crew. I know him. This is really Lieutenant Commander Christopher George, Fleet intelligence.”

  Geary rubbed his chin, trying not to show how unhappy he was. “Fleet intelligence planted a mole among Boundless’s crew, without informing me or you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Iger said.

  “How can you be certain that this man is Lieutenant Commander George?”

  “Four years ago,” Iger explained, “I was ordered to attend a training course. One of the other officers in that course was then Lieutenant George. We were assigned a room together in the transient officers quarters.”

  “For how long?” Geary asked.

  “Three weeks, sir.”

  “Three weeks.” Something about that didn’t seem right. “Wouldn’t whoever gave Lieutenant Commander George his orders have done a check to see if anyone like you in the fleet could recognize him?”

  “They should have,” Iger said. “But it’s a minor item in our individual records, and there are a lot of intelligence officers. It wouldn’t be too surprising if no one noticed I was on Dauntless and had also spent time around Lieutenant Commander George, especially if they were in a hurry.” Iger frowned down at the picture. “Colonel Webb was concerned about the pattern of ‘Lieutenant Paul’s’ personal records. I can see why. At first glance, they’re unremarkable, but it’s the very lack of anything that stands out which seems odd. Why would someone with such a total lack of experience with anything but the most routine of jobs, such a total lack of exceptional appraisals, have been hired to be part of the crew of Boundless?”

  “Is there any way for you to contact Lieutenant Commander George without it being detected by anyone aboard Boundless?”

  Iger shook his head. “No, sir. If I talked to him it would draw attention to him. If you want to expose him, that’s what we should do, but I strongly recommend against that. We don’t know that he’s doing anything we’d disapprove of. He may simply be observing and recording events to ensure nothing is covered up.”

  “Whatever he’s doing,” Geary said, feeling anger growing inside despite his efforts to tamp it down, “if Colonel Webb doesn’t know about it then Lieutenant Commander George is in a dangerous position. Right now Webb is looking for an assassin and a spy. George is already on his scans as a suspect. How do I keep Lieutenant Commander George from being put on the rack by Colonel Webb and his soldiers?”

  “I don’t know, Admiral,” Lieutenant Iger said, his jaw tight with tension.

  Victoria Rione would’ve known how to handle this, how to turn spy versus spy and keep anything from exploding. But he didn’t have her anymore. He didn’t have anyone with that kind of devious thinking or experience.

  Or did he?

  “Hold on, Lieutenant,” Geary said. He made sure that Iger wasn’t within the view of his display before making a call. “Colonel Rogero. I’m hoping for some advice.”

  He explained his dilemma, trying his best to hide who was involved where.

  After he’d finished, Rogero nodded. “This isn’t beyond my experience, Admiral. The danger to Captain X comes from the fact that Major Z does not know who Captain X is and what he is doing. The answer is fairly simple. Tell Major Z. Major Z will now believe he knows what needs to be known about Captain X. He will become a known quantity. Perhaps one to be enlisted in support of Major Z at some point. Captain X will continue carrying out his orders, which if not aimed at Major Z will simply confirm for Major Z that Captain X is not a threat.”

  “I see.” Geary hesitated. “You have experience with that kind of situation?”

  “Isn’t that why you called me?” Rogero paused, his eyes going distant for a moment. “The snakes wanted us to suspect each other, to never know which of our co-workers was an informant. We gained a lot of experience with handling such situations. Either that, or we died fairly young.”

  Geary took a moment to reply. “I’m sorry.”

  Rogero shrugged. “If you ever wonder for a moment why snakes die quickly when the workers get the upper hand, that’s one reason.”

  The call ended, Geary saw Lieutenant Iger giving him an alarmed look. “Are you going to follow that advice, Admiral? Compromise Lieutenant Commander George’s identity to Colonel Webb?”

  “You heard Colonel Rogero’s reasoning,” Geary said. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “But . . .” Iger moved both hands as if trying to reach something that evaded his grasp. “Whatever mission Lieutenant Commander George is on is classified. We’ll be compromising that mission.”

  “Lieutenant,” Geary said, leaning back in his seat, “neither you nor I was told about George being aboard Boundless. We have no idea what his mission is. But I have no reason to believe that mission poses a danger to Boundless or anyone aboard that ship. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, sir,” Iger said. “Officers like George and I aren’t special operators. We don’t commit sabotage or try to hurt people. We just collect information.”

  “So we can tell Colonel Webb that Lieutenant Commander George poses no danger, that whatever his mission is, it is not anything contrary to Webb’s own mission.”

  Lieutenant Iger hesitated before nodding again. “Yes, Admiral. That’s true.”

  “Because I’ll tell you honestly, Lieutenant,” Geary added, “from what I hear of conditions aboard Boundless, we need to protect George from potentially becoming collateral damage in their attempts to find whoever tried to kill me.”

  Half an hour later, Geary was back in the secure conference room, along with Lieutenant Iger. The virtual presence of Colonel Webb sat across from them, listening. Webb, who had sat quietly during meetings in the past, this time seemed to be fighting off repeated twitches of his fingers. But when Geary and Iger were done briefing him, Webb smiled for a moment, like a wolf catching sight of prey.

  “I get it,” Webb said. “Fleet intel not trusting me, or you. Trying to have their own set of eyes secretly documenting everything. This might help a lot.”

  “How so?” Geary asked.

  “If this Lieutenant Commander George has been spying on what’s going on aboard Boundless, maybe he spotted something my own sources have missed. Or maybe he’ll see something in the future. But I need to talk to him, Admiral. I need him to cooperate.”

  Geary looked at Iger, who seemed to be trying to avoid any expression that might imply his feelings about the matter. That left it up to him.

  “I think you’re right, Colonel,” Geary said. “I hadn’t thought that George might be able to help you. I merely wanted you to know he wasn’t a danger.”

  “So you’ll tell George to cooperate with me?”

  Lieutenant Iger spoke carefully. “Sir, we don’t know what Lieutenant Commander George’s orders are. Or who they came from. Even if Admiral Geary tells him to cooperate, he may be bound by orders that take precedence over that.”

  “That wouldn’t be a smart attitude for him to take,” Colonel Webb said, two of the fingers on his right hand tapping rapidly.

  “Colonel,” Geary said in a low but forceful voice, “I don’t want anything to happen to Lieutenant Commander George. If he does not cooperate and you feel his presence aboard Boundless hinders your own work, I will order him transferred to another ship. But I will first tell him that I expect his full cooperation with you on anything that might provide leads to the security issues you are pursuing. Let’s see how he responds.”

  Colonel Webb inhaled slowly before nodding. “Understood, Admiral.”

  After Webb’s virtual presence had vanished, Lieutenant Iger stared at the place where he’d been. “Admiral, thank you. I wasn’t sure before but . . . Christopher George really might be in physical danger, isn’t he?”

  “I think so,” Geary said. “Something Fleet intel apparently didn’t think about before they came up with their brilliant plan.” He punched in another call. “Let’s have a talk with our friend the secret intel officer.”

  A few minutes later, another virtual presence appeared, wearing the civilian crew uniform of the Boundless. “Lieutenant Joseph Paul,” he said, either doing an excellent job of feigning worry and confusion or actually feeling that way. “Why did you want a secure conference with me, Admiral?”

  Geary gestured to one side. “You know Lieutenant Iger.”

  Paul shook his head. “Uh, no. I don’t think I ever—”

  “Chris,” Iger broke in, “Admiral Geary knows who you are.”

  “Of course he does. My name’s not Chris. I’m—”

  Geary stopped him with a gesture. “Lieutenant Commander Christopher George, I am formally ordering you to reveal your true name and mission to Colonel Webb aboard Boundless, and cooperate with him to the best of your ability. Whatever orders you were given when you were sent on this mission have been overtaken by events. Do you understand?”

  “No.” Lieutenant Paul/Lieutenant Commander George looked from Iger to Geary like someone trapped in a nightmare and trying to find his way out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m employed by the Alliance as part of the crew of Boundless and not subject to your orders.”

  “Chris,” Lieutenant Iger said, “why would Lieutenant Paul know he wasn’t subject to Admiral Geary’s orders?” As the other hesitated, Iger continued. “Your life is in danger. Colonel Webb suspected you of being involved in earlier assassination and spying attempts.”

  Paul/George shook his head. “I decline to abide by your orders, Admiral. I’m not whoever you think I am.”

  Geary shook his head in turn, his expression unyielding but not hostile. “I can’t have loose cannons in this fleet. Your bosses should have coordinated with me, for your own protection. Now, you have two choices. Follow my orders to contact Colonel Webb and cooperate with him, or be transferred in prisoner status to my flagship, where you will occupy a bunk in the brig while Colonel Webb goes over your stateroom and everything you own, and my own personnel run a full DNA analysis on you. And don’t bother asserting a right against DNA sampling. Out here, I can order it. Which is it going to be?”

  Lieutenant Commander George stood silently for a moment, visibly trembling, his breath going in and out shakily. Finally he looked at Geary. “Sir, I have priority compartmented orders.”

  “From whom?”

  “I can’t divulge that, sir.”

  “I’m just supposed to take your word for it?” Geary asked. As George hesitated, plainly searching for an answer, Geary leaned closer. “Listen. You are not being asked to do anything that will harm the Alliance. That’s what your oath is to, right? Just like mine. We’re on the same side. And Colonel Webb needs your help. Which means I need your help.”