Don't get too moral, he prodded himself. Honest spies get trusting and dead. Join the Purity League when this is over if you wish.
He had sent the fiche in to Haines hoping to avoid heart attack city. He hoped she would figure out his intent.
It took two days before he was summoned to her office.
The temperature could have frozen a nova.
"Sr. Braun," Haines said. "I've gone through your fiche, and your questions. Reviewed our own files. Everything my department has suggests you are on a dead end."
"I might well be," Sten said. "May I record?"
Without waiting for an answer, he put a battered taper—at least its exterior was battered—on her desk and turned it on. Then motioned to her to keep talking.
Haines frowned but continued telling Braun why thinking Rosemont's disappearance was anything other than what it appeared was a blind alley.
Sten had enough. He touched another button on the taper. "Your bug is suppressed. It's getting fed synthesized chatter."
Haines came around the desk, almost into an embrace, then stopped herself. "I'm married now," she said very softly. "Happily." That was softer still.
Another world of might-have-been vanished.
"I'm... glad for you," Sten said.
Haines managed a smile. "I'm sorry. I must say I've thought about... things. As they were. And... sorry. At least I can try to lie as well as you do, and let's say that I think of our time together as a lovely moment in the past. Emphasis past."
"Yeah. That's best. I guess, anyway. But who wrote that dialogue? Sounds like a livie."
"Best I could manage. Right off the top. Now," Haines said, trying to be businesslike. "I'd like to be flattered and think you're here to—more livie dialogue—relight the flame. In spite of your being one of the Ten Most Wanted in the Empire. But I think I know better. Dammit."
She turned away for a moment. "That scar?" she asked without turning back.
"Makeup."
"Thank God." She turned back. "Now I'll get angry. I'm getting used."
"Yes."
"First I wondered if I was getting set up. Then I changed my mind."
"Thanks for that much, anyway. But I need help. You were the best contact."
"Sure. Good old Haines. We were pretty good in the sack, so let's see if she'll roll again, just for old times' sake? Let me ask you... If I wasn't involved, and you were, would you have gone so far as to pull moonlight on the mattress?"
"I know you're pissed, Lisa. But that's a little—" He broke off, letting it go.
Haines took several deep breaths. "Oh, hell. You're right. But I'm not going to make a career of apology."
And she was in his arms. For a long moment.
"It was pretty good, wasn't it?" she asked.
Sten said yes and kissed her again. Finally, she broke away.
"But I wasn't lying. Sam'l is a wonderful man. Probably, to be honest, a little bit more the kind of person I should be with. Not some rogue with a dagger in his arm and murder in his heart. So... let's try it as friends. Never tried to be friends with somebody I was in—involved with before. So maybe I can learn something."
Part of Sten wanted to cry. "Sure, Lisa. Friends."
Haines started acting like a cop again. "First, how clean are you?"
"Clean. For at least a few more weeks."
"I gathered," Haines said, tapping the fiche, "that you're running a mission. Your ex-boss have anything to do with it? I thought so. Against the council?"
Sten nodded once more.
"One question—and you'd best not be lying to me. Last time around, after we policed up everyone involved with the late Kai Hakone, there were some bodies in alleys. By Imperial Order. What I'd done is collaborate in a murder conspiracy. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it any better now.
"So if there's what I've heard you call 'wet work,' or 'personal contact' at the end of this... don't even ask me."
"No. This is for the Tribunal."
Haines goggled. "Son of a bitch," she said slowly. Of course, in spite of the privy council's blackout, she had heard the Tribunal's announcement of its intent to sit in judgment on the council. "I'm thinking. Yeah. The whole thing—your idea?"
"It was."
"Son of a bitch once more," she said. "I said I wouldn't apologize. But I do. For the last time."
She grinned. "You know... maybe in another hundred, hundred and fifty years, if you spend some time in a seminary, you might actually be permitted to join the human race.
"Okay. What do you need?"
Another misunderstanding had been corrected by Alex Kilgour before he left on his recruiting drive. Oddly enough it had minor echoes of what Sten was realizing and saying to Lisa Haines.
Kilgour had informed Sten's bodyguard that for the moment they were no longer needed on their special assignment. They were reassigned to general court security.
Cind had requested an interview with her temporary commanding officer. The first question she had asked Alex was why the change? Had they done something wrong?
"First strike, on y', soldier. Security is security. Y dinnae need't'know. Sten's got bi'ness ae his own."
"Request reassignment, sir."
"Ae what? Pers'nal backup f'r him?"
"Something like that."
Kilgour growled. "Th' firs' an' only time Ah got in-volv'd wi' a task, m' Mantis topkick took m' back ae th' barracks. She wailed upon m' melon an' informed me Ah'd best learn't'be a professional ae m' task or go back't' sheep-shaggin'.
"She wae right.
"An' should do th' same't' you.
"But Ah'm sophisticated, noo. I c'd gie th' order-'So'jer, soldier!'-'n hae done wi' it.
"But Ah'll gie reasons. So gie your head oot ae y'r gonads or where e'er it's lurkin't, an' listen close.
"One, y'r bosses know whae they're doin't. Second, y're complete wrong f'r whae th' boss is doin't. An' dinnae yammer ae me aboot th' longarm an' how y'been studyin't intell'gence. Ah knoo all ae thae already.
"You're wrong f'r th' run because y're too... strik-in'. You dinnae e'er, e'er, e'er want to be notable i' y'r task is snoopin't ae poopin't. An' y're a so'jer. So'jerin' is a diff'rent discipline thae spookin't.
"But thae's as may be. Last-an' best-reason, y're too clottin' young. Y'believe in things. Y'dinnae ken th' depths ae depravity i' th' spirit. Unless y' grew up bein' nattered ae by Calvinists, ae Ah did. A spook must hae one thing runnin' throo his mind ae all times: Trust nae soul, an' always, always think th' worst ae most selfish ae any an' all.
"A hard an' evil lesson. One y','t'be honest, w'd be best not learnin't.
"Gie y'self back't' th' duties assigned, noo. Ah'll wager thae'll be more'n enow blood't' come. Y'll hae chances't' distinguish y'self ae th' eyes ae y'r superiors or e'en the boss, i' thae's your fancy.
"Dismissed."
Kilgour sighed when she had left. Christ on a pogo stick, he thought. He was starting to sound like a fatherly command sergeant major. Gettin' old, Kilgour. Gettin' old...
At first Sten thought going to Prime was nothing more than an ego-damaging, high-hazard bust. He was looking for three things: any more information on the murder-for-hire of the press lord Volmer than Haines had been able to give Mahoney; a paper trail for that first-question mark-meeting of the conspirators on Earth; and whether or not there had been another meeting before Chapelle was put in motion. Plus, as a secondary goal, whether there was anything more on the Chapelle/Control/Sullamora link than was known, in spite of Mahoney's proclamation that it was relatively unimportant.
Thus far, he had done a very good job of getting zeroes. No, Haines had nothing more on Volmer or the "suicide" of the assassin. She frankly admitted that she had not worked the case any further-it was clearly political. These days people had been known to vanish when they started asking uncomfortable questions about politics. She added, however, that she did not think there was anything to collect, at least not until the privy council was deposed and, it was to be hoped, indicted.