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been scared?"
    A twist of her mouth suggested a shrug. "They voted it down on two previous occasions."
    "Exactly." Warden's voice sounded sharp enough to draw blood; perhaps his own. "But the Members were mistaken. We misled them. The 'traitor' in Com-Mine Security didn't conspire with Angus Thermopyle. He conspired with us. We framed Captain Thermopyle to scare the Council. So the Act would pass."
    The director's compressed strength dominated the room.
    "Ensign Hyland knows he's innocent," he finished. "She was there. And I'm sure she'll say so, if anyone asks her the right questions.
    "You can tell Igensard that, too, if it ever comes up."
    Koina recoiled as if Warden had flicked his fingers in her face. A pallor of betrayal seemed to leech the color from her cheeks; even from her eyes. Indignation and confusion appeared to flush through Chief Mandich in waves, staining his skin with splotches like the marks of an infection. Knowledge which was commonplace to Hashi had never reached the Security Chief, or the new PR director. Min Donner and even Godsen Frik had known how to keep their hearts closed.
    In one sense Hashi noticed the reactions of his companions. But in another he paid no attention to them at all. He wanted to applaud and throw up his hands simultaneously.
    Warden had astonished him again.
    The director was willing to reveal the truth behind the passage of the Preempt Act. That was immensely exciting. It shed an amazing amount of light on the nature of Warden's game: too much light for Hashi to absorb in an instant. He found himself almost blinking in its brilliance. Yet that same revelation was also appallingly dangerous. When the truth was laid bare, the UMCP director—
    and all his senior staff—
    would
    be summarily fired. At best. At worst they might even find themselves facing capital charges.
    Just when the Amnion had committed an act of war, humankind's only defense would be plunged into total disarray.
    "My God," Chief Mandich breathed as if he were unable to stop himself. "Did Director Donner know? Was she part of it?"
    For him that may have been the essential question. Could he still trust the ED director? His rectitude was founded on hers. Could he continue to believe that she was honest?
    Hashi would have dismissed the issue as trivial; but Warden faced it squarely.
    "Yes." His tone was final, fatal: it permitted no argument. "But understand this. We did what we did on the direct orders of my lawful superior, Holt Fasner.'' He stressed the word lawful with a bitterness like concentrated sulfuric acid.
    "And those orders included secrecy. There would have been no point to it if we hadn't kept it secret."
    Did he mean to make that public as well? Did he intend that Koina should name the Dragon's role in the conduct of the UMCP before the Council itself?
    Of course he did.
    The prospect took Hashi's breath away. He flapped a hand in Chief Mandich's direction as if he were trying to shoo Security's petty honesty from the room. The nature of Warden's game transcended such considerations.
    Hashi couldn't inhale enough to raise his voice. Softly he murmured, "Yet you choose to reveal it now."
    "Yes," Warden rasped without hesitation. "Listen to me, all of you." He aimed his single gaze in turn at Koina, at Hashi, at Chief Mandich. "Get this straight. I choose to reveal it now.''
    Now, when the GCES had just been stampeded into rejecting a Bill of Severance which would have broken the Dragon's hold on the UMCP.
    Hashi's lungs strained for air.
    Would it work? Would Warden succeed at toppling Holt Fasner with his own fall?
    Perhaps. With Hashi's help: perhaps. These revelations, these unguessed gravitons of information, might well lack the force to pull Fasner from his throne unaided. The great worm was profoundly entrenched. They could be augmented, however—
    An almost childlike sense of affection for his director swelled in Hashi's chest. At the same time he felt that he had been personally exalted by