will think to look for you there. Perfect for secret negotiations.”
“Apparently not so secret after all,” Rigney said.
“You’re presuming the Polk met with a bad end,” Egan said.
“Our frigates don’t have a history of randomly vaporizing,” Rigney said. “But whatever or whoever did this isn’t in the Danavar system now. There’s nothing there but planets and moons and a big yellow star.”
“Have we told the Utche about this?” Egan asked.
“We haven’t told anyone about it,” Rigney said. “Outside of command, you’re the first person to know. We haven’t even told your boss that her team is missing. We figured we’d let you do that yourself.”
“Thanks,” Egan said, wryly. “But surely the Utche have noticed there is no one negotiating a treaty with them.”
“The Polk arrived three days early,” Rigney said.
“Why?” Egan said.
“Ostensibly to give Bair’s team time to prep away from the distractions of Phoenix Station,” Rigney said.
“And in reality?” Egan asked.
“In reality to make sure we were militarily prepared for an immediate withdrawal if necessary,” Rigney said.
“Seems drastic,” Egan said.
“You’ll recall the Utche have handed our ass to us in three out of the last five military engagements we’ve had with them,” Rigney said. “Just because they came to us for this alliance doesn’t mean we trust them entirely.”
“And you don’t think the Utche might have figured out the CU’s trust issues,” Egan said.
“We’re pretty sure they have,” Rigney said. “In part because we let them know we were arriving early. Your boss signed off on the cover story, but we don’t assume the Utche are stupid. It was a sign to us of how much they want the alliance that they were willing to give us a tactical advantage.”
“You’ve entertained the possibility the Utche blasted the Polk out of the sky,” Egan said.
“Obviously,” Rigney said. “But they’ve been as transparent with us as we’ve been with them, and where they’re not transparent, we have spies. This is something we would have known about. And nothing they’re doing indicates that they think anything is out of the ordinary. Their diplomatic mission is on a ship called the Kaligm, and it’s a day out from skip distance.”
Egan said nothing to this but instead fired up the display, turning to it. Phoenix Station floated in the display, the limb of the planet Phoenix below it. At a distance from Phoenix Station, CDF and trade ships floated; their names appeared in labels hovering aside them in the display. The image pulled out and both Phoenix Station and Phoenix shrank to a single dot, taking with them thousands of starships arriving at or departing from the Colonial Union’s capital. The image pulled farther out and displayed, as dots, dozens of ships, each working its way toward a sufficiently flat spot of space-time to make a skip. Egan began pulling information from a few, crew manifests spilling onto the display.
“Okay, I give up,” Rigney said, after several minutes of this. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
“Ambassador Bair isn’t on our A-list,” Egan said, still scanning crew manifests. “She’s on our A Plus–list. If she was pipped to negotiate, then this mission is an actual priority, not just a top-secret diplomatic circle jerk.”
“Okay,” Rigney said. “So?”
“So, you don’t know Secretary Galeano like I do,” Egan said, naming the secretary of state. “If I walk into her office, tell her one of her best diplomats and her entire team is probably dead and their mission therefore a complete failure, without a backup plan already in place and ready to implement, things will be very grim indeed. I will be without a job, you will probably be without a job simply for being the messenger, and the secretary will go out of her way to make sure that the next posting for both of us will be someplace where our life expectancy will be measured with an egg timer.”
“She sounds nice,” Rigney said.
“She’s perfectly lovely,” Egan said. “Until you piss her off.” The display, which had been scrolling through ships and crew manifests, suddenly stopped on a single ship. “Here.”
Rigney peered up at the image. “What is this?”
“This is the B-team,” Egan said.
“The Clarke?” Rigney said. “I don’t know this ship.”
“It handles various low-level diplomatic missions,” Egan said. “Its chief diplomat is a woman named Abumwe.” The image of a dark and severe-looking woman hovered on the screen. “Her most significant negotiation was with the Korba a few months back. She impressed them by having a CDF officer stationed on the ship fight with one of their soldiers,