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database to find a name, and it might not be the right one. The call had relayed through a communications satellite then covering an area two time zones away; beyond that, he had been able to find one relay, a surface installation near a town named, with no originality at all, Pittville, presumably for the nearby pit mine.
    He ate a moderate breakfast, explaining to his waiter, in his persona’s stuffy way, that something he’d eaten the day before had disagreed with him. After checking out, he went directly to the regional airport. Someone, he was sure, would be checking on Genson Ratanvi’s movements. Let them. Genson would be boringly predictable for a day or so at least.
    While waiting for his flight, he used the databoards as any other business traveler might do. All bore the ISC logo and—here on ISC’s home planet—came with ads extolling ISC’s technological and marketing genius. Rafe spent a moment downloading the public information to his implant, then went on searching for food processing specialists’ current contact numbers at his next stop, and began calling them as he thought about the ISC listing.
    Interesting…his father was listed as an ex officio member of the board, and Lew Parmina was now listed as CEO. Not surprising that he was the new CEO if something had happened to Rafe’s father, but that didn’t explain the empty house, the traps on communications, that call on his cranial ansible.

CHAPTER
    TWO

    Cascadia Station,
Moscoe Confederation
    “Cousin Stella?” Toby’s voice and the skitter of his dog’s claws on the floor brought Stella Vatta out of another dismal reverie.
    She glanced at the security escort, annoyed with herself for having missed the warning tone of the entry, and nodded to him. He nodded back and sketched a salute before leaving the apartment; she checked to make sure the exit warning came on. Then she forced a smile and turned to greet him. “Yes, Toby?”
    “They moved me up another class,” he said as he came in. “The test results are in…and can I have a snack?”
    “Of course,” Stella said, waving a hand toward the kitchen. “Go right ahead. But then I want you to clean up this mess—” Spread across the apartment’s living room were boxes of what Stella dismissed as “tech stuff,” whatever didn’t fit in Toby’s own small room. Stella had quit looking in there; the visual chaos gave her a headache.
    “It’s not just a mess,” Toby said through a mouthful of sandwich. “It’s all organized—ouch!” He had stepped on something. Stella hoped it was as sharp as the little knob with a sharp prong that she had stepped on earlier.
    “I’m tired of walking on it,” Stella said. “At least stack it all by the wall, can’t you?”
    “It takes longer to find things,” he said.
    Stella looked at him. If he had ever been impressed by her beauty—a weapon she’d wielded skillfully since childhood—he was over it now, and she recognized the tone as one she herself had used on her parents. But Toby was more malleable than she had been; after a moment, he flushed and mumbled “Sorry, Cousin Stella,” and—the other half of the sandwich in his mouth—began moving the boxes.
    In the several tendays since Ky had gone off on her insane quest, as Stella thought of it, and Rafe had left for Nexus, she had had more than enough time to examine her life in light of the revelation about her parentage. Her real parentage. Biometric data proved she was Osman Vatta’s daughter, some stranger-mother’s daughter, not the daughter of Stavros and Helen Stamarkos Vatta, as she’d always believed. Her blonde hair, her violet eyes, her beauty came not from the Stamarkos family, but from…someone else. Someone she’d never known, probably would never know. Ky had said it didn’t make any difference, but she knew better.
    She had tried to shake off the waves of anger, grief, and depression that washed over her several times a day, but except for Toby she was