“Who has it now?” Daxon asks.
Chief looks up. “Has what?”
“The union. Kryzon’s been in a cell two moon cycles. Who’s got the seat?”
“Nobody’s taken it.” Heavy spreads his hands. “There was talk. Two of the level supervisors put their names forward andthen both withdrew inside a fortnight and neither of them will say why. Admin’s been running the shift boards direct since the arrest.” He looks uncomfortable. “It’s just, empty. It’s been empty since they took him.”
“So what do you want from me?” Daxon questions. “We all know the entire story of what happened and what House Vaszneth wants to do to the Illibrium. Why am I here?”
“We called you in because of Andrew Wilson, the brother. He’s off-world, six moon cycles gone, and we cannot reach him.”
Ines takes over. “He left on a legitimate transport under his own name, he wasn’t even hiding, which tells you how little anyone was looking. Two more movements after that, both clean, and then nothing. Best guess is he’s somewhere in the Chronos orbit, being kept. Not hidden.Kept.Parked somewhere cheap while beings decide whether he’s still worth feeding.”
“And?”
“And we can’t get him.” She counts it off. “There are no charges against him anywhere in the Four Sectors — none, not one, because every employer he ever robbed chose the quiet exit. Minecorp security has no authority off-planet. Grytel can’t detain a being on Chronos, he’d be arrested before Andrew was — “
“Correct,” Grytel says.
“ — and every male in this room is bound to Timbur by a demotion order that says they cannot leave this rock without Admin’s written permission, which Admin will not give.” Ines looks up at the screen. “You’re the only one of us who can go anywhere.”
“Because I’ve got a ship.”
“Because you’ve got alicense,” Mara says.
Every head turns.
She’s been quiet almost the whole time, one hand resting on the top of her belly, doing the thing she does where she stops listening to the room and starts listening to the problem.
“Sorry,” she says. “But that’s it, isn’t it? It’s not the ship. Anyone can have a ship. It’s the license.”
“Go on,” Daxon says, and there’s something new in his voice.
“You’re a licensed Bounty Hunter.” Mara sits forward as far as she can. “Which means you have legal authority to pursue, apprehend, and transport a target across sector boundaries. Including into Chronos space. Under an authority that has nothing to do with Minecorp, nothing to do with Timbur, and nothing to do with this family.”
“There’s not another instrument in the Four Sectors that reaches into a House’s own orbit.”
“There is not.”
“So we don’t need a ship,” Mara says. “We needyou.”
“There’s a problem,” Daxon says. “A Hunter can’t simply take a being. That’s not how the license works — it’s not a hunting permit, it’s anenforcementinstrument.” He’s got his forearms on his knees now. “I can only move on a target with a Bounty on him. A posted one, registered with the Guild, with a legal basis behind it that survives inspection. Somebody has to have brought a formal complaint, somewhere, and had it accepted.”
“And there’s no complaint against Andrew Wilson,” Ines says.
“There’s no complaint against Andrew Wilson anywhere in the Four Sectors, because as you’ve all just spent an hour explaining to me, that male has never once been charged with anything in his life.” Daxon spreads his hands. “So I can’t touch him. Not without a Bounty. If I take a being off Chronos with no Bounty posted, I lose the license, the Guild blacklists me in every sector, and I go from being the only one of you who can reach him to being another male stuck somewhere he can’t leave.”
“You need a Bounty. And you need it to be real. The Guild checks.”
“I’ll post the Bounty.” Grytel doesn’t move. “Sabotage of Illibrium infrastructure. It’s the one charge in the Four Sectors that every sector authority takes seriously without exception — it has to be, the whole of civilization runs on what comes out of this rock, and there are provisions in the founding compacts that predate the Houses entirely.” He glances at Daxon on the screen. “As Chief Executive of Timbur Minecorp I have standing to bring a formal complaint on behalf of the operation. It’s my signature. It’s my authority. Filed by end of shift tomorrow, if this room wants it.”
“And it survives inspection?” Daxon says.
“It survives inspection because it’strue,” Grytel says. “That’s the part I find restful about it. A male took payment from a foreign House and used his sister’s credentials to compromise the security of an Illibrium extraction facility, and a facilities tech died. I’m not manufacturing anything. I’m simply the first being in eight rotations who’s been willing to write it down.”
“What does it cost you?” Cannibal asks. It’s the first thing my brother has said all night. He’s been standing at the back with his arms folded, and he means it as a real question, which from Cannibal is nearly courtesy.
Grytel turns to look at him. “Everything, probably,” he says. “The moment that filing goes through, my name is on a public instrument declaring against House Vaszneth. Not implying.Declaring.I am Royal Pigment. My House is minor and my line is distant and I have spent eleven rotations being useful to beings who are neither, and every one of them will read that filing inside a diurnal. My cousins on Chronos will call it betrayal of blood. The Houses will call it worse. And Vaszneth kills witnesses. We’ve established that. I’d be a great deal more than a witness.”
