As he passed one door, it sprang open, falling downward into the floor. Jainan stopped short. Behind it was the Auditor.
The narrow chamber beyond was set up in a disturbingly staggered way—not completely zero-grav, but furniture hovered at different levels, or was attached to the hull halfway up the wall. The Auditor sat at a desk suspended at the height of Jainan’s shoulders, surrounded by streams of light with no meaning to Jainan. The light-streams dissipated and gradually faded away as the Auditor looked down at him in the doorway.
“Come in,” the Auditor said. He opened a hand to a chair on roughly the same plane as him.
Jainan considered the problem then gently tested to see if the oddly helpful gravity would get him all the way up. It wouldn’t, quite, but a careful step took him to a rug floating at waist height, and from there it was a fairly easy step up to the chair.
The chair was the same pearly shade as the walls outside. As Jainan sat in it, it reformed itself underneath him, holding him gently in place. Jainan lifted a knee experimentally, and it released him. He settled back down.
The Auditor smiled, the last of the light-streams fading around him. “You’re a hard person to disquiet, Count Jainan.”
Jainan, who felt disquieted most of the time, chose not to answer that. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“I assume you have something relevant,” the Auditor said. “If not, this will be a waste of both our time.”
It would have helped if Jainan could have seen his eyes. “Has Iskat told you what has come to light about Taam?”
The Auditor’s lack of reaction just strengthened his feeling that they hadn’t. The Iskat establishment preferred to keep things under wraps until they had a result. That would be fine when it wasn’t playing with the safety of all their planets—which, of course, was exactly what Jainan was doing now. He made himself breathe out and explained, surprised by his own steady voice. Taam’s death. The embezzlement. Internal Security’s pressure to find a suspect. Aren and Lunver’s investigation. Professor Audel, whose guilt Jainan had never been sure about. The flybug accident. The odd mass readings from the refinery.
The Auditor leaned back in his chair, inscrutable behind the alien field over his eyes. Jainan couldn’t tell if he was listening. Now that Jainan looked closer, he could see the structure of the eye-covering in more detail: it was anchored by a pair of black, lacquer-like pieces that attached discreetly to the skull on either side of his head, then the field arced unsupported across his face. The visual effect of the non-colors was undeniable; Jainan’s eyes actively hurt examining it.
“You think the remnants are in this mining refinery?” the Auditor asked.
“Would they cause a mass distortion?” Jainan said.
“No,” the Auditor said thoughtfully. “Nothing noticeable on the basic sensors you have here.”
Jainan forced himself to say it. “I think he may have sold them. They may be on the Sefalan black market.” If they were, it would take more than four days to find them. “They may even have already gone through the link.”
“Possible but unlikely,” the Auditor said. “No ship goes through a link without a scout to pilot it. It takes complex measures to smuggle a remnant on board the same ship as a scout without them noticing, and I doubt this backwater is capable of that level of sophistication. Ah,” he added dryly, as the colors shifted on his face. “I have been notified that I shouldn’t have deprioritized my etiquette module. Accept my apologies.”
“I am not overly concerned with apologies,” Jainan said, the underlying dread making him blunt. “What does this mean for the treaty?”
The Auditor folded his hands in silence. As he did so, Jainan was suddenly aware of the absolute, deadening silence in the chamber. On a station there was always the background hum of life support systems, but here it was as quiet as deep space.
“The situation is interesting,” the Auditor said. “By not presenting the remnants by the deadline, Iskat has broken our nonproliferation terms.”
Jainan’s veins ran with acid. He said nothing.
“Thea’s representative, on the other hand, is trying to work with us.” The Auditor’s voice was a soft monotone in the stillness. “If the Iskat Empire is no longer a Resolution signatory … other arrangements could be made.”
And just like that, the crystal shape of the treaty in Jainan’s mind shattered into seven parts. “You mean cut Iskat loose. Draw up a separate treaty.”
“It would have to be done fast,” the Auditor said. “It is unwise to be outside the Resolution for any length of time.”
Jainan was so far out of his depth, it felt like someone had punched a hole in the hull of the Auditor’s ship, and he was hanging over the void. “The remnants need to be found. There are still four days until your deadline. You could extend it.”
The Auditor regarded him. Then he reached for the corner of his desk and gave it a gentle push; the whole thing slid smoothly out of the way, lining itself up against the wall, leaving nothing in between him and Jainan. He put his hand up and touched one of the lacquered pieces on the side of his head. The field around his eyes changed and faded.
Behind the field—though some distortion remained—his features came into view. His face was spare and space-pale, with prominent cheekbones and shockingly normal dark brown eyes. It should have been reassuring. Jainan was profoundly unsettled.
“You should make terms,” the Auditor said. Something about his voice was thinner, as if there had been extra harmonics before. “I say this not as role four-seven-five, or any of my committee roles, but as a human citizen. I’m not supposed to do that, you understand. How much Galactic politics are you aware of back here?”
At the question, Jainan felt like a village fisherman who had never left Thea. He knew of some of the megapowers, but Galactic politics were too far away to be of much concern on Thea when Iskat was right on their doorstep. “Not a great deal.”
“You should understand your threats,” the Auditor said. “I know the Iskat Emperor does. The megapowers have been chafing for decades—after all the consolidation last century, there are very few tiny sectors like yours not protected by a Resolution treaty. Do you understand what that means? Some hungry powers are looking for places to expand, and there is almost no fair game. No new links have opened in the last thirteen years.”
Jainan wished Kiem was here to ask questions. He had a knack for picking the obvious ones that clarified things. Why had Kiem turned off his wristband? “Why are they expanding?” he said. “I thought the Resolution was supposed to keep things in balance.”
The Auditor laughed—a strange, dry sound, as if he didn’t produce it much. “Do you know how big a territory the High Chain rules?” he said. “You’re sitting here with seven planets and a total population in the low billions. The High Chain owns a third of the known universe. Without assistive tech, the human brain cannot effectively comprehend either their population or the distance between their borders. The Resolution was drawn up by a balance of megapowers. We are a skeleton group overseeing a fragile truce. Do you really think the Resolution isn’t, itself, half under the Chain’s influence?”