“The newslogs,” Jainan said, with some dread.
“Saffer—may he run out of air on a junkship—threatened to leak the story to the press, and he did. All the Thean newslogs are running articles about how you were kidnapped. Some of them even picked up the Tau field angle. The entire planet is up in arms about what happened to you. It was technically a war crime.”
Jainan didn’t have time to think about that. The Resolution deadline was tonight. “The Auditor has his remnants back,” he said, frustrated. “What’s the problem? Is the Thean embassy refusing to sign the treaty?”
“No, at this point your embassy says they’ll sign anything,” Bel said bluntly. “But everyone on Thea is furious and the newslogs are out for blood. If the Auditor needs implied popular consent, Saffer has managed to royally screw us all over. You can’t change the opinion of a whole planet in six hours.”
Jainan needed allies. He needed Kiem. “Why is Kiem under arrest?”
“He broke into a classified facility.”
“To get me.”
“Yes,” Bel said. “Well. That’s where it gets a bit murky. They’re reading all our communications, so we don’t write much. He said to tell you he’s sorry.”
Jainan’s tongue felt dry. Kiem clearly hadn’t told anyone about Taam and Jainan’s history. “You’re free, though?”
“I’m out on Imperial sufferance,” Bel said. “And only because Kiem confessed to all the actual crimes and sent the Emperor a clemency plea for the rest of us. The Emperor now has the real version of my career history,” she added. “Kiem says, and I quote, ‘It probably tickled her.’”
“The real version,” Jainan said. He struggled to pull up his tattered memories of the Tau field. “Kiem said something about … raiders?”
“Raider,” Bel said. “Singular. Ex-raider.” She was watching him carefully.
Jainan felt a long-ago stir of suspicion rise again and take shape. “That’s how you knew the leader of the Blue Star group.” Bel nodded, only slightly. “Why are you pretending to be an aide?”
“I’m not pretending,” Bel said sharply. “I wanted to go straight. I applied for this job, I got it, and funny thing, being in the center of the Empire’s power base means any of my old colleagues who might want to argue find it very hard to get to me.”
“So it’s for safety?”
“No,” Bel said. “Well, a little. But no. I’m good at this job. I enjoy getting respect that doesn’t come at gunpoint, and I don’t want to make a living out of screwing over merchants and freighters. I don’t like shooting people. I was born on a Red Alpha ship, you know, I didn’t pick it.” She added, defensively, “I like it here. At least I get more career options than ‘raider captain.’”
“And all those times you solved our technical problems—？”
Bel spread her hands. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Jainan longed to press his knuckles into his eyes but held back. Kiem apparently knew all this already. And Bel had saved their lives, and there was really no time for this. “Thank you,” he said, at last. “I did wonder how Kiem had broken in. It makes much more sense now.”
“Don’t get arrested again,” Bel said. There was an odd undercurrent of relief to her voice. Had she really cared what Jainan thought of her? “I can’t get an Imperial pardon twice.”
“No, I do see that,” Jainan said. “Can’t I at least take responsibility for the break-in? This whole mess is”—my fault—“not your fault. Either of you.”
“Kiem said you might say that,” Bel said levelly. “And I would like you to know that if I could travel back five years with a burn gun and put a six-inch hole through Taam’s torso, I would also have been able to solve everything. It’s Taam’s fault.”
It took a moment for Jainan to reply. “I know that.”
“Apart from the part where you got tortured,” Bel said. “That was mainly Saffer. Fenrik’s still walking around, by the way. I suppose if you start imprisoning Imperial stalwarts it sets a bad precedent. I haven’t heard what the Emperor is going to do with him. Someone is very anxious that I don’t do anything illegal right now, which includes bugging the Emperor’s private message branch.”
That roused Jainan from his tangled thoughts about Aren and Taam. “You should certainly not do that,” he said, then caught the gleam in her eye and realized he had risen to the bait. The side of his mouth quirked involuntarily.
The visitor’s light by the door beeped insistently. Jainan automatically reached out to sign it open when he saw Gairad’s face on the screen, then hesitated and glanced at Bel. “Do you mind? She’s clan.”
“You might as well,” Bel said. “She’s been camping out in the waiting room. She came on the rescue mission, you know.”
“Pardon?” Jainan said as the door slid open to admit Gairad.
She looked somewhat the worse for wear. There was a healing bruise on her face and an inexplicable gel cast on her arm. She put one hand on the door frame—the other was hampered by the cast—and said, like she was hammering the words out of a punch press, “Will you please stop almost dying?”
“What happened to your arm?” Jainan said, alarmed. “Why were you with Bel and Kiem?”
That seemed to take some of the wind out of Gairad’s sails. She touched the gel cast with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. “I hit an Iskat soldier.”
“Punches badly,” Bel said. She sounded darkly amused. “Fractured her wrist. I’ve shown her how to do it better.”
“That was highly irresponsible,” Jainan said, not sure which one of them he was talking to. His mind was still reeling at how many people had been involved in finding him. Both Kiem and Bel had been strangers two months ago, of course, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Ressid might have something to say about Jainan putting a junior clan member in danger.
“We found the weapons,” Gairad said defensively. “Jainan, Iskat is trying to cover up the whole Kingfisher invasion. Even the Ambassador says to keep it quiet. That’s not right. And what’s going to happen with the Resolution treaty?”
Jainan tried not to show the urgent fear driving the wheels in his mind. “It will be fine,” he said. “The palace will release a statement. Nobody saw the abduction. It can be passed off to the newslogs as a misunderstanding.”
Gairad stood in the middle of the room, rocking back and forth on her toes and staring at him. There seemed to be something else. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Jainan said.
“Bel says it isn’t true,” Gairad said. Her expression had clouded. “I don’t believe it, if it helps.”
Jainan couldn’t tell if the spike of nausea was part of the field aftereffects or not. “Bel,” he said, “please tell me what is going on.”
“Take a deep breath,” Bel said. “There’s a nasty rumor that’s making the whole thing worse. I suppose Aren thought the abduction wasn’t enough to screw up public opinion.”