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else.
    So was Flint.
    They had to figure this all out—and soon.

 
     
     
     
    SEVEN
     
     
    RAFAEL SALEHI REACHED into the closet in his suite on S 3 ’s fastest space yacht. Even though the ship was fast, it had still taken longer than he expected to reach the Moon. The yacht was approaching Moon space now, and he was nervous.
    He wished he had more belongings to gather. He wished he had more space in this luxury cabin. He wished he had something to distract himself.
    He hated being nervous. It made him feel weak.
    Salehi never used to be nervous. He used to have balls of steel. He could go into courtrooms against impossible odds and turn a jury in his favor. He could charm a humorless judge into laughing, and that laughter would often guarantee a case went in his favor.
    He could face down some of the most vicious defendants in this corner of the universe and convince them to act reasonably so that they could beat whatever charges they faced.
    He used to be a much greater man than he was now.
    Maybe that was part of his nervousness. The death of his friend Rafik Fujita at the hands of Alliance authorities had galvanized Salehi into action, brought him back from the disillusionment that had hit several years ago.
    And now the murder of Torkild Zhu by the City of Armstrong Police reminded Salehi how much he had forgotten.
    Half of the responsibility for Zhu’s death rested on Salehi’s shoulders. Salehi hadn’t considered the atmosphere on the Moon when he hired Zhu to start S 3 On The Moon. All of the Moon’s communities had been ravaged by explosion or the possibility of explosions. Almost every citizen knew someone or was related to someone who had died in the past year.
    The Moon had been a dangerous place before S 3 decided— Salehi decided—to represent the Peyti clones who had tried (and mostly failed) to initiate a second bombing nearly two weeks ago.
    Salehi had known that decision would be controversial on the Moon and inside the Alliance. He just hadn’t realized the degree of anger that would come at S 3 . He hadn’t thought it through.
    Maybe Zhu’s death was more than half Salehi’s fault. He shouldn’t have set up the situation in the first place.
    He should have hired guards and made certain that Zhu understood security was a top priority.
    But Salehi hadn’t even thought of that, so he had had no way to counsel Zhu.
    And now it was too late.
    Zhu was dead.
    And if Salehi and his new team weren’t careful, they could die on this job as well.
    Salehi wiped his damp palms on his khaki pants. He took a deep breath, and reminded himself that he was here for the love of the law. He was going to change clone law forever.
    Those Peyti clones might be totally reprehensible, but they had once been living, breathing, functioning members of society. No one had known they were clones. And had they continued producing, being good little lawyers with strong practices and good reputations, no one would ever have known they were clones.
    Then they chose to act on some command—some plot, some plan—and tried to blow up the very people they had worked alongside for decades.
    And at that moment (actually, just a little earlier), the entire Moon figured out that these lawyers weren’t individuals under the Alliance law definition.
    They were clones, and as such, they were property.
    The very idea that someone could go from person to property in the space of a few hours upset Salehi. What no one seemed to realize was that the Peyti clones would receive more appropriate punishment if they were treated as individuals under the law rather than as property.
    They would be imprisoned forever. They would have to think about what they had tried to do each and every single day of their long remaining lives.
    And for lawyers, for individuals trained to follow the law along its jagged edge, for individuals who were once considered officers of the court, that punishment would hurt much more than non-lawyers could ever