The incessant beep of Ryland's PDL dragged him out of a sound sleep. Blinking, he rolled over in bed and groped at the nightstand for his spectacles. Putting them on, he noted the time (251.3 beats) and pressed the answer button. Karen Grahart's face appeared, the soldier looking as sharply pressed as she had at dinner the night before.

"Karen?" he murmured blearily, trying to blink the sleep away. "What's going on?"

"I sent out some feelers on that favor you asked me about," she said. "It turns out that Rahn Solus was murdered last night. Just what the hell have you gotten me into this time, Ryland?"

~X X X~

"I have been reviewing the schematics," the voice from the screen reported, "and it appears that it may in fact be possible to salvage the test data."

"Wait a minute," Almonte said. "I thought that wasn't an option."

"I had initially considered that to be the case. Indeed, that was the original function of the system design. However, after conducting a further analysis, that does not seem to be the case."

Sena folded her arms over her chest and cocked her head to one side, a suspicious look on her face.

"Well, now, isn't that convenient."

The target of her sarcasm was apparently impervious.

"Yes, it is. Without this capability, months of our efforts would have been lost."

From behind the two researchers, another voice spoke up. Today, the project director was in the lab.

"Let's hear more about this solution."

"As you are aware, regardless of the memory storage method used, that data must first be compiled. That is, it has to come from somewhere originally. I believe that it would be possible to perform a sector-by-sector analysis using direct Photon induction to reconstruct the data from the remnant 'ghost,' as it were, left in the system itself."

"That's impossible!" Almonte yelped.

"Not necessarily," the director countered. Being an expert in the field, after all, was the reason the director held the position. "It's theoretically quite possible, but would take a team of trained experts several months working around the clock. The endeavor is certainly worthwhile, but we would never get the approval."

"I agree, which is why I suggested that I handle the task personally."

"You believe that you could do the work faster?"

"Indeed. It would require direct access, but by incorporating the device's system into a larger network of computers, the processing power could be applied simultaneously to large portions of the entire test machine at once."

"Directly connected," the director mused.

"You'd have to go down to Ragol," Almonte said. "The machine would have to be disassembled to bring back up, otherwise, and if I understand correctly, that would break Photon cohesion."

"Correct. Traces would still be present, but reconstructing them into a unified whole would no longer be feasible, and moreover would be entirely too speculative to convince anyone of anything."

"But is that even possible? You going to Ragol?" Sena asked.

"Perhaps not physically, but remote access is possible."

"The CALS terminals!" Almonte exclaimed. "They were set up all over Gal Da Val Island to give Lab operatives computer access. We could deploy a similar terminal and physically hook it up to the test machine."

"I think you people are forgetting something," Sena pointed out. "CALS controls the communications network between Pioneer 2 and Gal Da Val. We'd either have to use conventional BEE, which I don't think can handle the necessary data load, set up a competing network, for which we don't have the hardware, or use theirs. And if you think Chief Milarose is going to let this go ahead if she gets wind of what's going on, well!"

"I will have to consider this further," the director said. "Sena, Winston, get to work on preparing the terminal. As for you," he continued, turning to the screen and its pattern of swirling colors, "see if you can figure out something to do about the communications problem. We've all put a lot of time and effort into this project, and if we lose out now...well, everyone here knows exactly what that could mean for all of Pioneer 2."

~X X X~

It wasn't hard for Lyon and Ryland to find a docking slot for their aerocar. Downtown wasn't home to a lot of aerocars at all; the real risk was that the locals would bypass security and strip it bare by the time they were done. Given the number of military police vehicles gathered around, the risk seemed fairly low. Strobing red and blue lights cast the scene in weird hues as the hunters approached.

Inspector Laleham, the milipol's chief homicide investigator, was entering notes on a dataplate as they drew near. His square jaw was dusted with stubble, no doubt because he'd been roused from sleep just like Ryland, only earlier. Murder never seemed to conveniently wait for office hours. What caught Ryland by surprise, though, were the number of gray whiskers among the brown; when he'd first met the Inspector there'd been nary a one.

Given the stress of Laleham's job, and the sheer frustration at the futility of it all he had to wrestle with so often, perhaps it wasn't surprising that it had taken its toll.

"Morning, Inspector," Ryland called as they approached, walking between uniformed police agents. "I won't say 'good,' given the circumstances."

Laleham glanced up from his dataplate, and at the sight of the hunters his features settled into a scowl.

"You two. I should have known."

"That hardly seems pleasant, even given the early hour and unconscionable lack of coffee."

The Inspector pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm a little busy right now, Ryland. You'll have to excuse me."

"I know you're busy; that's why we're here. The murder of Rahn Solus."

Laleham shook his head once, sharply.

"No comment."

Ryland pushed his spectacles up his nose.

"Wait, what?"

"No. Comment. I don't know what you've heard or where from, but the death of Rahn Solus has been officially determined by the military police to be an accident. We aren't treating anything as a homicide."

Ryland waggled a finger at the Inspector.

"You may want to reexamine that conclusion. While I'm sure that this was well-disguised to look like an accident—" Someone in the crowd sniggered. "—I don't believe that it was entirely coincidental that Solus was killed the very night after he hired us for an extremely suspicious piece of work, about which we were trying to find out more."

Laleham gave him a sour look of disgust, and Ryland prepared himself for the usual complaints about how the policeman hated the kinds of cases Ryland got involved with, chock full of tricky conspiracies and plots that made arresting the villains and administering justice difficult or even impossible.

That wasn't what he got.

"Maybe you didn't hear me, Ryland. This investigation is over."

"Can you at least let us see—"

"No, I can't. The matter's closed. I've let you poke around things in the past, getting involved in official police business, but that's over and done with right here. There is no case, there is no file to poke through, there's nothing. Now get out of here before I have you arrested for interfering with the police in the execution of their duties."

Lyon took a step forward then, coming up alongside Ryland, and the Force was convinced that his partner was about to ream Laleham out in truly epic fashion, but he put his hand on Lyon's arm to forestall her.

"Let's just go," he said when she turned to him in surprise. "There's nothing more for us to do here."

"Good to see you're learning," Laleham said, then turned his back and began entering data again. The hunters, too, turned and walked away, more than one member of the milipol smirking at them as they did. It wasn't often, after all, that they got to see one of their own tear into one of the Hunter's Guild and have it stand. Generally it was the other way around, with hunters retreating behind Guild extraterritoriality and being the ones doing the smirking.

Understanding the emotion didn't make it particularly easy to bear, though, and Ryland's back seemed to burn with the weight of the stares on it. He could tell that Lyon was seething as she marched along next to him, but she held her peace until they returned to their aerocar and were seated inside.

"What the hell was that?" she snapped, bashing her fist against the inside of the door. "After all the incidents we've helped him resolve over the years, where does he get off treating us like that? Your request wasn't even out of line for a near stranger, but for a regular contact, someone you've had an ongoing working relationship with nearly since Pioneer 2 left Coral, it's unconscionable!"

"It isn't like he had a choice."

"What does that mean?"

"He as good as said it directly: he's operating under orders."

"Orders? To act like a giant jackass?"

Ryland couldn't help but be fascinated with how a machine, a wholly artificial entity, could feel angry and insulted, have a sense of fair play to be offended and pride to be hurt.

"To cover up the murder."

She stared at him.

"Cover up?"

"He as good as told us. How did he say it, 'we aren't treating it as a homicide'?"

"'We aren't treating anything,' actually, but the meaning's the same."

"And not once did he say 'I think' or 'I believe' or anything of the sort. It was all 'we' or declarations like 'has been determined by the military police.' He doesn't buy the story; I doubt the story's even credible if you saw the body. It's just a flat-out lie he's been ordered to tell."

"He didn't have to be such a jerk about it, though."

"Actually, he probably did. How many of the men and women there would report back up the chain of command if they saw the Inspector talking to hunters? The Guild isn't exactly the military's best friend, and whatever is going on, the higher-ups obviously take it seriously."

Ryland leaned forward, tapping the button to boot up their aerocar.

"You think he has a spy on his squad?"

He shrugged.

"Probably more than one."

They disengaged from the docking slot and moved out into traffic.

"The problem with these political cases is that the police is a sub-branch of the military; it's right in the name. The Administration doesn't control an armed force of its own, which is one reason why it maintains such a close relationship with us in the Guild," he continued.

"Not entirely," Lyon amended that. "The principal is an ex-Hunter and his daughter Red Ring Rico was one, too. There's a direct connection there apart from political concerns."

"True enough," Ryland noted as the traffic channel sent them rising higher, away from Downtown. "But the rest of the Council and the bureaucratic middlemen do the same unless they've got direct ties to the military in some way. The Lab has IntSec when they need muscle, but the Administration has to go to their political rivals, or to a group of individuals hired on an ad-hoc basis—us."

"Separation of powers, 'we all hate each other' style."

"Right, so there's a conflict of interest every time one of these cases comes along, Laleham's complained about it to us before, about how orders will come down the chain of command and he'll end up being screwed out of the chance to do his job because everything got resolved behind the scenes."

"Now that I remember."

"He's a policeman. His motivation is to catch criminals and keep the citizens safe. He doesn't care about the political nonsense, but he's still a military officer, still under orders, and he has a duty to obey his superiors. And in a case like this, it's pretty certain that if he ever tried to step out of line, they'd come down on him like a hammer."

"It's interesting. I appreciate all that, and I even feel sorry for him being stuck between a rock and a hard place, his duty and his sincere desire as a policeman. Meanwhile, I still want to punch him in the nose."

"I wouldn't recommend it."

"No, but having conflicted emotions is complicated. I'm glad that it doesn't cause a response slowdown the way it would in early-model androids due to the chains of input going into my reaction."

"That would be kind of weird."

"It's why early-model androids will only react based on primary, or primary and secondary priorities. Any less important concerns are dismissed as too remote. It makes their personalities seem more flat and machine-like, and would often lead to errors in behavior, such as neglecting a mission objective while accomplishing a more important one, because they were literally unable to process the lower-ranked goal while choosing their actions. The greatest utility of Photon-based computing in androids was to expand the decision trees to establish the importance of dozens of layered factors simultaneously without time lag, the way an organic's brain does. But back on topic, if the milipol isn't there to investigate the crime, why did they have a full team?"

"To sanitize the area, destroying any evidence that might counter the official story and insure that their spurious record is the only one that exists."

"And Karen Grahart knew that Solus was murdered because her contacts primarily are military, so she learned it from some level above Laleham."

"That's the way I read it," Ryland agreed.

"Then we know now that it was the military that killed Solus."

"Not necessarily."

"It was the military that gave Inspector Laleham and his men the orders. There's no other way about it."

Ryland nodded.

"I agree. Laleham wouldn't turn away from his duty to investigate the crime for anything other than a direct order through the military chain of command, properly verified as a valid order and not someone playing a private game."

"Then why would the military be covering up a crime they didn't commit?"

"There's any number of possible reasons. Mind you, it's entirely possible, even likely, that they silenced Solus, but it's also possible that they have a stake in whatever political game Solus is involved with, which I'm going to guess has to be our job and Kane's data, and they're trying to keep it quiet to keep any third parties from horning in."

Lyon thought that one over, even going so far as to cup her chin in her hand to indicate that she was doing so.

"It's possible," she allowed. "But it seems somewhat remote. It seems more likely that they'd be covering up their own crime instead of someone else's."

"Not necessarily. The existence of a cover-up might be to dodge blame, but it also might just be to avoid publicity. Solus's killer, if not the military, might want that publicity, noise, chaos, embarrassment, public attention. Some of the most effective ways of boxing in a political entity involve putting a spotlight on them."

"Fine," Lyon...Ryland would have said "harrumphed" if she'd been organic. "We'll leave the matter open."

"What we do know, though, is that the military is an active player in this business. Whether they were Solus's clients, killed Solus, both, or neither, they're involved in what's going on. And it's not just some individual playing a lone hand or a subfaction like WORKS. We know Laleham well enough by now that we know he wouldn't go along with the order to cover up a homicide unless it came right from the top or close to it, through legitimate and verified chains of command. The only question is, what's important enough about all this to have them acting so overtly?"

"Well, I might be able to help with that."

"Oh; did you learn something from Irene?" Ryland had filled Lyon in on his talk with Karen Grahart on the way to the crime scene, as background for how he'd found out about the death. It seemed like the other half of the partners' evening had worked out at all.

"I did. Though, there was a price."

"I'm guessing you didn't mean in cash."

She nodded.

"Correct. Well, at least, not in terms of us paying her. In fact, we've been hired by the Administration."

He looked at her in surprise.

"We have?"

"That's right. It was her condition for disclosing confidential information to us. As hunters working for the Council, we have a valid need to know the information, as deep background on our job."

"All right, but what exactly is our job?"

"To do exactly what we're already doing: investigating Kane's suicide and determining if it has any link to potential terrorism or other dangers. The only difference is that we have to report our findings to Irene."

"I can live with that. Signing us up was a good call."

"Thank you."

"It tells us something, too."

"What's that?"

"The Administration—or at least, the Principal's office or the Council as a whole—didn't hire Kane, and they weren't behind Solus's hire of us, either. She'd have just told you and left it at that, if that was the case."

"I think you're right. They're a third party to all of this."

"So then, the question becomes, what did she know? What could she tell you?"

Lyon told him, both about the burgeoning independence movement and the Ten-Nation Alliance's internal problems. Ryland whistled when she was done.

"No wonder the military's worried."

"Because of potential security issues?"

"Because it'll cost them their entire power base."

Lyon gave him a measuring look.

"You're more up on this political stuff than I am, Ryland, so you'd better go into lecture mode."

He grinned.

"Never one to miss a chance at a speech, that's me."

"I know."

"It's just a question of which organization has what level of authority directly connected to the government on Coral and what from its own presence here. On Pioneer 1, the military was very strong. They sent an elite fighting force, with Heathcliff Flowen as Deputy Commander. Going to an unknown planet, they didn't know what they'd encounter. Pioneer 2's military was much weaker, though. When we left, it was assumed that Pioneer 1 would be waiting for us, and they didn't have any significant troubles to report at that time; they hadn't yet reached Dark Falz's coffin. The destruction of 32nd WORKS as an effective fighting force has just gutted their strength even further. They don't have the power or the resources here on Pioneer 2 to justify their will. It's entirely possible that if we actually do declare independence, the military will be fully disorganized as a separate branch of government and placed under Administration control as some sort of Security Bureau or the like. It wouldn't make much difference to the rank-and-file beyond their emotional attachment to the group, but as far as Commander Valgarde and his cadre of elites go, they'd lose their entire power base. They might even be fired outright and more tractable command staff put in their place once the Administration claims the power to do so."

"You're completely right about that, aren't you?" Lyon mused. "The military must be fighting the independence movement tooth and nail."

"And their involvement in something as extreme as covering up Solus's death tells me that Irene's probably right. They've got limited resources now and can't afford to spend them in an area where they won't see any significant benefit. If they're sticking their necks out like this, then it's important to them, and right now there's nothing more important than an issue that could destroy them entirely."

"That's really weak, Ryland, particularly coming from someone who just argued that we couldn't assume that the military was involved in the murder even though they covered it up."

He blinked in surprise.

"I did just do that, didn't I? Maybe I'm just reflexively arguing both sides of a two-pronged issue without any coherent idea of what I actually think...I'm sorry, though. You're right about this one; we need to keep our minds open even while aware that there's a likely possibility. Tunnel vision could leave us chasing our tails and running up blind alleys."

"So where are we off to now? You've obviously got somewhere in mind, the way you're driving."

"I had been thinking about breakfast," Ryland admitted.

"Oh, I hadn't realized that you hadn't eaten before rushing out to meet me."

"Investigation before food, that's me," he chuckled. "But now that pesky organic need for sustenance is rearing its head."

"They need to invent something like our recharge pods for organics. It wouldn't get rid of your needs, but you could at least satisfy both food and sleep at the same time."

"That...actually sounds useful, if disruptive, giving all of the social rituals that revolve around food."

"As someone who doesn't eat, I'd consider that as a pure bonus. Though the idea of you without your coffee habit is kind of frightening; you'd be a completely different person."

"You think that you're funny, don't you?"

"Yes."

"You might want to debug that particular assumption. But anyway, breakfast isn't a priority any more. You gave me an idea."

"Oh? How?"

"By taking the Administration's job as a pretext. We want to know who was backing Selfas Kane. If he went to Gal Da Val Island, he had to have it authorized, which means a Guild Quest, either one that describes his mission or one that acts as a cover."

"Ah, like we did in December, when we got Dr. Severin to give us that quest to we could prowl around after Dr. Lucerne."

"Right. And if we knew what those jobs were, we might be able to identify whom he was working for, and maybe even what he was doing."

"But how would we find that out? We've already searched his residence and his PDL is at the bottom of the sea. And there'd be no reason for Kane to keep records anyway."

"True, Kane wouldn't keep those records, but there's someone else, someone right here on Pioneer 2, who would have reason to keep them."

"Wait, who would do something like that?"

Ryland smirked.

"The Hunter's Guild, of course."