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consumers.
    “We have a safe hiding spot nearby, sir,” Jarmo said as they climbed into the car. “We’ve lost our pursuers for now, but we should take cover until things cool down.”
    “Right, we’ll duck low for tonight,” Lucas sat on the floor of the limo, surrounded by the huge hunched-over forms of his bodyguards.
    “And tomorrow?”
    “We’ll head back to the spaceport,” said Lucas grimly. He noted Jarmo’s upraised eyebrows. “They aren’t going to let us just walk in and take their power from them, that much is clear, but I’m not going to just hide, either. Grunstein Interplanetary is owned by the Cluster Nexus itself. We’ll make our stand there.”
    Jarmo dipped his head slightly: a nod. He gave a small shrug and then went back to the business of keeping the Governor alive.

Four

    “Imbecile!” hissed Mai Lee into the video unit. The luxurious hanging tapestries of the Planetary Senate Chambers lined the walls behind her. She was wearing the blue velvet robes of her office, and held a portable video unit in the palm of her hand. Her tense, harsh face was a wild network of lines that no surgery could completely erase. “Everyone is outraged! How could you fail at so simple a task?”
    Ari Steinbach made a wry face, raising his eyebrows until they disappeared beneath his hanging blonde bangs. Out of sight of the video pick-up, he silently drummed his horkwood desk with his fingers.
    “My operatives—”
    “Your operatives are cheap, ineffective thugs,” she said from between her clenched teeth, trying to keep other nearby Senators from hearing. She poked her pen-shaped note-recorder at the video pick-up so that it seemed to lunge out of the screen at his end. “All you did was put him on his guard and get the damned Senate stirred up with headlines. The media is playing shots of the wrecked lobby and the bodies at every commercial break! The crazy Zimmermans have mobilized their estate armies in Grunstein and Slipape County.”
    Ari nodded his head gloomily. After the failed assassination attempt, he had spent all night at militia headquarters, trying to cover his involvement and fend off the newsmen. Sergeant Borshe’s bloody corpse had done nothing to help matters, as his close relationship with Ari was known to the media. After a night of being run ragged by hungry newshounds, he had spent the day trying to calm the excitable aristocracy of the colony. All day reports of the powerful elite families pulling together their ‘security forces’, some of which had air assault and light grav-armor units, had flooded his desk.
    He sighed and glanced out his window briefly, eyeing the heavy cobalt waves of the polar sea. So near to the pole the days were only four hours long during the winter and darkness was closing in fast. The skies were dark and pregnant; it looked as if they were in for a storm tonight. It might even snow if it lasted until morning.
    “General!” she snapped, rapping her note-recorder on the audio pick-up so that a loud clacking noise sounded at the other end. Ari jumped and grimaced.
    “Sorry, your Excellency,” said Ari distractedly. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, then rubbed his eyes and sipped his hot caf. “I’ve been here all night trying to clean up this mess. I might point out that you suggested this course of action.”
    “And I might point out that you are on the edge of losing your lucrative office, General,” said Mai Lee with a flash of her merciless eyes. They were the eyes of a reptile, cold and devoid of compassion. “Listen, you just find where Droad is hiding this time. You just find him and call me. I will have my personal assets take care of matters after that.”
    Ari heard his own involuntary sharp intake of breath. The old battleaxe was talking about committing her personal guard. Known as the Reavers, they were also giants, monstrous Korean men that normally guarded her hilltop palace in the Counties. Ari had seen them often