Epilogue
WYLEIGH
Xaul checked the dampening field twice before he sat down.
Wyleigh waited. Her counsel had obtained an order allowing private visits from her mate.
The tighter procedures following Roemary's arrest had delayed him while the guards checked that order, took two devices, and tested the field generator they let him keep. They had inspected what he brought.
They were still bound by the permission she had secured.
He had found the experience insulting.
“They are inspecting everything,” he said.
“As they should have been doing before.”
He looked at her sharply.
She folded her hands on the table. The prison chair was uncomfortable. She had refused a cushion because accepting one would make someone feel generous toward her, and she had no use for that kind of generosity.
“Vandrel has filed another protest,” Xaul said. “The Rhysgarrds are spending heavily.”
“For their daughter?”
“For the case.”
Wyleigh inclined her head. There was a distinction, and he had finally noticed it.
“Khalzin has his proof,” Xaul continued. “The follow-up confirms the pregnancy is progressing. Every discussion of my work now begins with his results.”
“Our son has always enjoyed being right.”
“He is right, Wyleigh. That is the difficulty.”
For the first time, his anger seemed to have tired him. She watched him rub at a mark on the table.
“Then stop arguing with the part he has proved.”
He looked up.
“The program is one problem,” she said. “The search is another.”
His hand stopped moving.
“Ruthak's equipment?”
“Still there. Hawn will not accept the exclusions. Dhomhes has begun comparing the old survey boundaries.”
Xaul glanced at the device between them. Its field continued to hum.
“How close?”
“Closer than he was.”
“We cannot keep returning the same orders. He'll find the source.”
“Then the people who still have authority should stop using it so clumsily.”
Outside the field, a guard passed the window in the door. Wyleigh watched the shadow cross, then disappear.
“He thinks he is looking for a missing friend,” she said.
“He is looking for a missing friend.”
“And if he finds more?”
Xaul said nothing.
She could remember the first time she had been shown the restricted records. The careful explanation of what could be preserved by saying nothing. It had sounded like a duty then. She had repeated it often enough to make it one.
“He must not reach those lower surveys,” she said.
“You are in a cell.”
“You aren't.”
The visit ended with Xaul still looking at her.
Senator Vandrel
Loric waited until his staff had left before accepting his brother's call.
On the muted screen across the office, a commentator stood outside the Coalition chamber. Roemary's face appeared beside him, selected from a program portrait in which she looked young and hopeful.
Loric had chosen that image himself.
“The lawyers need more time,” he said.
“They always do.”
Gilorn sounded as though he was eating.
Loric turned away from the screen.
“She is your niece.”
“And your daughter. You have made that clear in every statement.”
“You told me she only needed to be charming. Find useful friends. Keep that waitress within reach if the charges failed.”
“She had a useful friend. She let the Gol-Vett take her away.”
“She didn't understand what choosing meant to them.”
“She understood what would happen if those accounts got out.”
“They have the extraction crew, Burk, and records we were told would never reach a Kantenan office. What would you have me do?”
“Continue. The statements are excellent.”
Loric gripped the back of his chair.
“My daughter is in custody.”
“I expect you to keep every camera pointed at her case.”
Loric looked back at the screen. Roemary's portrait had been replaced by footage of the dark-side refinery. Orange lights, armed guards, freight stacks in the distance.
“The other operation,” he said.
“Still running.”
“Where?”
Gilorn laughed softly.
“That is the first sensible question you've asked. You will forgive me for keeping the answer out of your office.”
The call ended.
Loric remained beside the chair until the screen showed his daughter's face again. Then he called his public secretary and asked for the morning statement.
He had a grieving father to prepare.