Page 28 of Alien Burn

Dhomhes stopped smiling. “No. I'm not. Send the location. Nothing about who told you anything.”

“And then you leave me alone.”

It would have been an easy promise to make.

“Until I have read it,” Dhomhes said.

The broker swore and ended the call. A set of freight coordinates arrived a moment later.

He saved them, requested the public incident report through an off-world contact, and checked the search channel again.

Nothing new.

His room sat one level above the volunteers' residences. Close enough to reach the guard station by a short flight of stairs, too small for the table he had borrowed from the adjoining office. It stood across the foot of the bed, leaving barely enough room to walk around it.

The bed itself was untouched.

He had set Fiviel's channel to announce any incoming signal, then increased the volume twice. It would have woken someone three rooms away. That had not made him willing to sleep.

On the display, he opened the note he had made in the banquet hall.

“Like it was flushed—is that a word?”

Roemary's words. Exactly as she had said them.

He read them beside the broker's account and the earlier smuggler's report. Sealed charges. Destroyed residue. A smaller explosion before a larger one.

The interval on the platform had been three minutes. Long enough to start getting people clear. Long enough for help to arrive.

He could see Fiviel through the smoke if he let himself. The last glimpse, before there was no longer anyone standing there to see.

Dhomhes enlarged the incident request instead.

He sent the investigator working with Stron's security team the technical comparison, keeping Roemary's account separate. The damage had to establish the method; a witness using a peculiar word could not do that for him.

Then he opened what he had on Senator Loric Vandrel.

Public appearances. Program support. Complaints about his daughter's treatment. A great many photographs of a male extending his hand toward someone less fortunate while another person ensured the image was captured.

Dhomhes knew the type. He had stood beside enough of them.

He still had no verified connection between Vandrel and the Rhysgarrds. He laid the inspection record beside the access logs and began again.

The morning search report contained the word continued four times.

Continued suppression. Continued survey. Continued assessment of ground access.

No survivors located.

Dhomhes worked down through the report. The fire images showed less active burning on the eastern slope. Smoke still hid much of the ground. A terrain specialist had marked two possible descent routes, both awaiting closer inspection.

He opened the equipment appendix to see whether either had been surveyed overnight.

Four drones.

There had been six.

Two drones had been transferred to a security review of the southern terraces. The terrain-mapping team had been sent to Refinery Complex Three for a structural audit.