“Yeah.” Drakon grinned, not taking offense. “Like that buried enigma base at Iwa. We couldn’t get to it on the ground. We think the enigmas may be a generation ahead of us on ground combat capabilities. So we pulled our people off the planet and dropped a thirty-kilometer-wide rock on the base.”

  Desjani’s eyes lit up. “A thirty-kilometer-wide rock?”

  “Yeah,” Drakon said. “Cracked the planetary crust. The planet used to be marginally inhabitable by humans, but not anymore. I wasn’t there, but the videos are something. I’ll send you some.”

  “Thank you, General,” Tanya Desjani said, looking like she’d just found a big present for her hidden in a closet.

  “We had to send a message,” Drakon told Geary. “Let the enigmas know that if they stuck a foot into human space and wiped out any more settlements we’d tear that foot off and ram it down their throats. Maybe it won’t deter more attacks. But they know what we’ll do if they try again. We had a ship pop into Pele and broadcast that video to the enigma sentry ships there.” He rubbed his chin with one hand. “And we told them we don’t want more war with the enigmas. Leave us alone and we’ll leave them alone. What we want is to build something here. Something that lasts. We’re trying, anyway. Gwen is talking to your ambassador right now about sending some of our representatives along with that ship back to Alliance space. They want to talk deals, but they also want to learn how things work there.” His eyes went to Geary. “This voting. And elected government. The workers here seem happy with it, but it feels unstable. I keep wondering what would happen if something happened to Gwen.”

  “It is unstable,” Geary said. “Democracies can be destroyed in all kinds of ways. It’s a constant vigilance problem.”

  “I’ve heard rumors that the Alliance is having some problems dealing with how things are after the war with the Syndicate formally ended,” Drakon added.

  “They’re true,” Geary said. “Nothing like the problems the Syndicate Worlds has faced, of course.” Should he mention the disastrous dark ship program and the way some members of the Alliance Senate had secretly taken actions against Alliance law? No, not unless Drakon asked about it and showed he already knew. “We’re trying to fix them.”

  “Hmmm.” Drakon looked down at the drink in his hand. “I’ve got a daughter,” he said abruptly. “I worry about her. Someday I’d like her to see the Alliance in person.”

  Surprised at the sudden change in topic, Geary glanced at Desjani, who was maintaining a poker face. “I don’t see why she couldn’t,” he said.

  “Would you personally host her?”

  Desjani’s eyebrows went up. After a moment, she nodded to Geary.

  “We’d be happy to,” Geary said. “When . . . ?”

  “Not for a long time,” Drakon said. “The kid is still in diapers. But someday, you know? Good talking with you, Admiral. You, too, Captain. I’d better link up with Gwen.”

  “Good talking to you, General,” Geary said.

  As Drakon moved off, still surrounded by his guards, Geary rubbed the back of his neck. “Did we know that they had a daughter?” he asked Desjani.

  “He said he had a daughter,” she pointed out. “Not that they had a daughter. Drakon never said ‘we’ as in him and Iceni when he talked about the daughter.”

  “Why would Iceni tolerate that? It sounds like the kid was born not too long ago.”

  Desjani shrugged. “The mother could be someone who died a decade ago and left some eggs frozen. If I read Iceni right, I think you can assume whoever she was, the mother is dead.”

  “He’s worried about her,” Geary said.

  Desjani laughed, surprising him. “Oh, yeah. Didn’t you catch all of that? Yes, he’s worried about her, but he’s also worried about her.”

  He tried running that through his brain twice and still couldn’t figure it out. “What?”

  “He’s worried about what’ll happen to her,” she explained, “but he’s also worried about what she’ll do. Usually daughters have to be a bit older before their fathers worry about both of those things. I wonder what her mother was like. Oh, by the way.” Desjani pulled back one sleeve of her dress uniform to reveal the bracelet she’d been left by Victoria Rione. “This thing was going crazy with alerts while General Drakon was near us. That uniform of his is laced with enough hidden defensive and offensive equipment to take on a destroyer single-handed.”

  “I guess in some ways Drakon still thinks like a Syndic. Or still has to cope with the problems created by the Syndic system.” Geary looked around them, realizing that even though Drakon had left there was still a bubble around him and Desjani, as if the others present were reluctant to approach them. “I guess if we want to talk to anyone else we’ll have to make the first move.”

  “There’s a bunch of uncomfortable-looking scientists over there,” Desjani said, pointing to a corner near a refreshment table.

  “I see Dr. Bron and Dr. Rajput,” Geary said. “Since that group is going back on Chinook, we should wish them a safe journey.”

  “And Dr. Cresida,” Desjani said, her voice flat. “If she wasn’t Jaylen Cresida’s sister I’d be happy to kick her butt hard enough to help her on her way back to the Alliance.”

  “She saved our butts from what Dr. Kottur planned,” Geary reminded her. He led the way to the scientists, who seemed happy to see a familiar face. “Thanks for the great work you guys did. We’re sorry to see you go.”

  Dr. Bron looked at his companions. “Uh, about that, Admiral. Uh, we’re trying to get approval to stay.”

  “Stay? At Midway?”

  “No, with this fleet,” Dr. Rajput said. “We talked about the chance to interact directly with the Dancers and learn firsthand about their technology. We want to try that.”

  “Is someone objecting to that idea?” Geary asked.

  “Security officials on the ambassador’s staff,” Dr. Bron said. “They’re worried about our best scientists being, um . . .”

  “Within the grasp of horrible alien claws,” Dr. Cresida said, her voice and expression both deadpan. “What if they suck out our brains and learn all of humanity’s secrets?”

  “We already gave them duct tape,” Geary said.

  The scientists looked uneasy, only Jasmine Cresida speaking what was on their minds. “Which we’ve been informed was a mistake not to be repeated.”

  “What?”

  “Giving away human technology—” Dr. Bron began in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t happy.

  “Duct tape?” Desjani said.

  “Was stupid,” Dr. Cresida finished for Dr. Bron. “Or so we’re told.”

  Dr. Rajput made a face. “It’s like they expect the Dancers to hand us all of their tech while we hold on to every bit of ours like dragons protecting their gold.”

  “Who is ‘they’?” Geary asked in what he thought was a reasonable tone. From the way everyone’s eyes went to him, though, he must have sounded at least a bit as upset as he felt. “Whose policy is this?”

  “The tech transfer people on the ambassador’s staff,” Dr. Cresida said.

  “This doesn’t technically fall under your responsibilities,” Desjani cautioned him.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Geary said. “But I do have a stake in the success of this mission. Why did the Alliance send along so many people who seem set on sabotaging it?”

  An uncomfortable silence followed his statement, one that was finally broken by Dr. Cresida, who was watching him in that speculative way she had, as if trying to fit him into some sort of grand unified theory of human oddities. “You ask interesting questions, Admiral,” she said. It was hard to tell what Dr. Cresida meant by that.

  “I’ll speak to the ambassador,” Geary promised them.

  He and Desjani headed toward Ambassador Rycerz, resplendent in official Alliance diplomatic black tie, but saw her engaged in conversation with General Drakon and President Iceni, the small group isolated by the combined forces of both Iceni’s and Drakon’s bodyguards, who were mingling in a visibly uncomfortable way with some of Colonel Webb’s special forces soldiers protecting the ambassador. Rycerz, looking about for a moment, spotted Geary and very subtly shook her head to indicate he shouldn’t barge in. Whatever this was didn’t involve the military side of this mission.

  Frustrated, Geary led Desjani to one side of the ballroom, the side opposite the virtual window on space, to where an autobar waited for customers. “You know the trick with these, right?” Desjani said. She entered a rapid series of commands that resulted in a new menu popping up. “And now instead of being limited to the cheap stuff, we have access to the VIP drinks. Want a single malt?”

  “Sure. Neat.” He took a look at the new menu. “Did Master Chief Gioninni show you that trick?”

  “I knew that trick before Gioninni reported aboard,” Desjani said. She looked over as a man in an obviously new suit came walking up and stared uncertainly at the autobar. “Need some help?”

  “This is a different drink menu, isn’t it?” the man asked.

  “No,” Desjani said. “It isn’t. What’s your poison?”

  “Um . . . that.” The man touched the command, waiting as the bar produced the drink.

  Seeing that Rycerz was still engaged with Iceni and Drakon, Geary nodded to the man. “Hi. What brings you to Midway?”

  After a long pause while the man appeared to be trying to remember the answer to the question, he nodded quickly. “Senn. My name’s John Senn. I’m an historian.”

  “An historian?”

  Senn nodded wearily, his posture that of a man expecting to hear jokes he’d already heard countless times. “And why do they need an historian, right? It’s hard to get people interested in even what happened a hundred years ago, let alone much longer ago than that.”

  “As it happens,” Geary said, “I’m pretty knowledgeable about what happened a hundred years ago. So why are you here?”

  “Because I studied something everyone else thought was garbage,” John Senn said, his stance stiffening as if he expected a challenge. “Visits by aliens to Earth, prior to humanity expanding into the universe. And then evidence of sentient alien species in star systems we’ve explored and occupied since then. Which made me either a fool or a huckster in the eyes of other historians. The idea was always regarded as somewhat fringe and off the wall, something populated by gullible conspiracy theorists. And once we started traveling to other stars, and finding no other intelligent species, the possibility that Earth might’ve been visited by such species was totally discounted. We should’ve at least found ruins marking the presence of aliens on other worlds, right? As a result the idea of studying evidence of alien visitations to Earth became regarded as fit for scholars of folklore or popular superstition, not an actual historical specialty.”

  “Why’d you do it, then?” Geary asked.

  John Senn paused, thinking. “I guess because everyone told me it wasn’t worth looking at. It made me wonder how many people had seriously looked. Or if they’d discounted any possible real evidence because it was tainted by all of the nonsense peddled by true believers. My decision was . . . not welcomed by other historians. I’ve been sidelined. I could never get a doctorate because my attempts at dissertations were all dismissed as nonsense. But then that admiral found some intelligent alien species. Is he here?”

  “Right here,” Desjani said, pointing at Geary.

  “Oh! I’m sorry! I—!”

  “It’s all right,” Geary said. “So, suddenly you weren’t a fraud?”

  John Senn grinned. “Suddenly I was the only expert on plausible evidence of alien presence in human-occupied space. Because I was always rigorous, you see? I just tried to look at things with clear eyes instead of already knowing what they were before I looked. Like those ruins the Dancers say they left in Durnan Star System? Those had been dismissed as natural phenomenon even though they looked remarkably regular. But if you went in thinking, ‘It can’t be aliens,’ then you’re going to conclude it can’t be aliens.”

  “That’s very—” Geary began, halting when he saw Desjani look past him with sudden concern. He turned, seeing General Drakon moving toward them very quickly, his surrounding screen of bodyguards trying to keep up.

  As Drakon got within a couple of meters of them he said one word. “Duck.”

  Desjani stared at him. “How did you hear about the duck?”

  “What?” Geary said, though he wasn’t sure if he was addressing Drakon or Desjani.

  “Duck!” Drakon repeated, his hands reaching to grab Geary and Desjani and drag them down.

  Glimpsing Senn the historian looking on with a baffled expression, Geary swung one hand out as he fell, snagging a grip on Senn’s new suit and pulling him down with them.

  As they all hit the deck, the autobar exploded.

  FOUR

  THE blast reverberated through the ballroom, followed by a moment of shocked silence, which quickly dissolved into shouts. Geary saw the military and bodyguards present dropping to the deck in case the first explosion was followed by others, while the civilians mostly stood frozen in shock.

  A half-dozen Marines rushing to Geary nearly ended up in a fight with Drakon’s bodyguards before he and Drakon told both sets of protectors to stand down.

  Reaction teams spread through the ballroom, scanning for more threats and ushering guests toward the exits.

  John Senn the historian began slowly, shakily coming to his feet, only to freeze when several weapons held by bodyguards and Marines lined up on him. “I’m not dangerous,” he said. “I’m an historian.”

  The Marines lowered their weapons, but Drakon’s bodyguards did not.

  Drakon gestured to them. “Stand down, I said.” Looking at Senn, he studied him. “In the Syndicate, historians are people who change records of the past to match whatever the current policy is or whatever the current leaders want. That’s why ‘lie’ and ‘history’ mean the same thing in the Syndicate. What kind of historian does the Alliance use?”

  Senn stared at Drakon in disbelief. “A different kind. A good historian tries to learn what really happened, even if that offends people.”

  “Interesting idea,” Drakon said. “How is it you’re still alive?”

  “Sometimes I wonder.” Senn looked at the remains of the autobar.

  A Marine major ran up to Geary. “Sir, if you will follow me—”

  “Hold on,” Geary said, watching Drakon glance around with a sort of weary fatalism before walking over to the remains of the autobar.

  “Looks like they used a shotgun frag pattern,” Drakon commented to Geary. “Look at the upward angles of the exit holes. This was aimed at whoever was standing in front of the menu. That’s why no one else got hurt. The frag went over their heads.” He gave Geary a twisted smile. “Lay you odds there was a biometric fuse to trigger it. You never touched the menu, did you?”

  “No,” Geary said.

  “If you had, it probably would’ve gone off instantly and we’d all be mourning your untimely end. But you were close enough for the fuse to go active. My, um, scanners picked that up.”

  “Why didn’t our security spot this?” Ambassador Rycerz demanded as she reached them, gazing in shock at the wreck of the autobar.

  “Maybe you ought to ask them about that,” Drakon said with a smile that exposed his teeth. “I guess President Iceni and I should call it a night. Thanks for the entertainment.”

  “I deeply apologize for—” Rycerz began.

  Drakon waved off her words. “There’s a saying in the Syndicate. The party hasn’t started until the first assassination attempt.”

  President Iceni, her eyes taking in every detail of the scene, nodded, her composure cool and controlled. “You should have a talk with your security workers, Admiral. They may be in need of some motivation.”

  “Yes,” Geary said. He nodded to Drakon. “Thank you, General.”

  Drakon grinned. “Now you owe me one.”

  “I do. Gearys honor our debts.”

  “So do I, Admiral.” He waved a farewell and followed Iceni as she walked away, her movements casual and unworried in a way that was clearly designed to convey confidence and strength. Iceni must have had to put on such displays many times.

  A Marine colonel had shown up to reinforce the major. “Admiral, we should clear the area.”

  Geary watched Drakon and Iceni almost strolling out of the ballroom on their way to the shuttle dock. “Okay. But we walk at my pace.” Being rushed out of here would not only create the wrong image of him, it might also spread fear among those remaining. The leaders of Midway knew that.

  Colonel Webb had also shown up from the command post where he’d been overseeing security. Webb looked ready to spit fire, but he kept his voice steady and calm. “I will find out what happened,” he promised Rycerz and Geary.

  “You might want to check the rest of the autobars first off,” Desjani suggested. “It was just chance that we went to this one.”

  Surrounded by Marines who had brushed off offers of support from Webb’s special forces, Geary walked slowly out of the ballroom, aware of all the eyes that were on him. Like Iceni, he acted totally unconcerned on the outside, even though on the inside his guts were churning in belated reaction to the assassination attempt.

  * * *

  ONCE he and Desjani were in Dauntless’s shuttle, away from the eyes of others, Geary finally relaxed, letting a slow shudder roll through him. “Damn,” he muttered.

  “Whoever did that had better hope I don’t catch them,” Desjani said, a low tremor of fury in her voice. “How the hell did something like that get past security?”

  “I have a feeling that Colonel Webb will be intensely focused on that,” Geary said, leaning back in his seat as he tried to calm himself. “Did you see him? People like Webb take a lot of pride in being able to do their jobs well, and that pride just took a major hit amidships.”