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"These are unsettled
times. I haven't endured all these years just to have a blade shoved
in my ribs."
    Hadrian's
mind raced. "Something in Jonah's death frightens you." It
was a statement, not a question.
    "The
killer must be stopped."
    "You've
told the world there is no killer. So there is no one to stop. We
have no murders in our paradise on earth."
    "You
can stop him." Buchanan's face was tight. "You must stop
him."
    "Tell
me, Lucas, why would I want to do that?" Hadrian asked.
    The
governor spun about. Hadrian half expected him to leap at him across
the desk. Buchanan paused, taking a deep breath. "I'm giving you
your freedom," he replied in a simmering voice. "No
banishment."
    "My
sentence is up in four days anyway. We both know with the stroke of a
pen you could make me an exile five minutes after I walk out the
door."
    "It
shall be recorded in the Council's ledger. No exile. Official freedom
to come and go. An expression of our gratitude for the way you helped
at the fire."
    "I'm
not sure I want to live in your colony anymore."
    Buchanan's
eyes burnt into Hadrian's. "Damn you! What do you want?"
    "My
armband comes off. Stop putting your slogans on the walls. And the
bridge. You promised Jonah to build one over the west ravine."
    "You
go too far! You will not dictate the use of public resources."
    "After
the bridge, there will have to be a road. Then wagons of grain. The
colony silos will be overflowing soon."
    "Ridiculous!
That grain is our lifeblood! Without it we'd never survive the
winter. I keep telling the Council we must expand the plantings."
    "More
has been harvested than ever before."
    "And
we have more mouths to feed."
    Hadrian
stared at him. "You never intended to construct the bridge,"
he finally said. "You lied to Jonah, to appease him. My
grandfather once told me that a lie to a dead man always comes back
to haunt the living."
    "It's
impossible. The people won't allow it. You know how they hate the
slags."
    "Only
because you taught them to." Hadrian rose as if to leave. "I
can wait until my sentence is up, then disappear into the forest, let
you spend the next year jumping at every shadow. I wonder what people
will think when suddenly they see you surrounded by bodyguards after
you've already assured them Jonah's death was just another suicide."
    Buchanan
grimaced. He was clearly struggling to keep his voice level. "We
must get the new roof on the library."
    "Split
the crews. But I won't do your dirty work for you until I see work
begun on the bridge. Jonah already gave you a set of drawings. First
come the anchor piers on this side of the ravine..."
    "Extortion
of the governor is treason."
    "There's
no such law. It will be fascinating to hear how you explain to the
Council why you need one now."
    Buchanan
seemed to flinch at the mention of the Council. His hold over the
supreme political body of the colony was tenuous. He had firm control
over only three of its seven votes, and the vacancy caused by Jonah's
death meant even more uncertainty.
    "Go
back to the hole you crawled out of," Buchanan said through
clenched teeth.
    Hadrian
shrugged. "The killers left a knife on Jonah's table. Did you
see it? An old sword, cut down, heavy and sharp as a razor. A blade
like that will slice your heart in half before you even feel it."

    A
city worker was lighting the fish oil lanterns hanging at each street
corner. Hooves clattered on cobblestones. A bawdy song rose from a
tavern near the waterfront. A horse nickered in a stable. Hadrian,
enjoying his newfound freedom, paused to watch the moon rise over the
endless water, then slipped through the rear door of an L-shaped log
and stone building, the largest in the colony except for Government
House.
    The
woman who sat at the kitchen table by the huge woodburning stove
didn't see him at first. Her brunette hair, streaked with grey, hung
over her face. She stared wearily into the steaming mug in her hands.
The white apron she wore was frayed and stained with