Page 23 of Enthraller

Velda set her cup down carefully. “You know why?”

“I think it’s got something to do with my new artifact consultant out of the same office. She was supposed to come in today for her first day on the job. Instead, someone in Planetary Admin set me up to take the fall for her murder by the same two men yesterday, along with the murder of Ed Zeneri.”

Velda stared at him for a long moment, tapping her finger. “Who in Planetary Admin?”

“Henry Nostrada.”

Velda drew in a quick breath. “Henry.” She gave a slow nod. “Why?”

At last Ethan sat down, took his first sip. “Wren Thorakis worked out of Nanganya, and when a group of scientists gathering data on Ytla got into some kind of stand-off with the cult there, SF was sent in to check out the situation. They found some culturally significant carvings while they were protecting the scientists, so Thorakis was called in to consult.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Seems to me, someone there set her up to be kidnapped by the cult. They assigned only two guards to her while she was in the field, and then when she was inevitably captured, they left her with her captors for six days. Someone used that time as an excuse to drop off supplies to the cult, signed it off as part of the ransom demand, and Thorakis said she overheard the cult members saying she should be good for at least one more supply drop before they let the SF team rescue her.”

“Let?” Wren noticed Velda honed onto the same word Ed had the day before. “You’re saying more than one person on Aponi is sympathetic to the cult, and set Thorakis up to be taken to give them an excuse to supply their friends?”

Ethan pointed a finger at her in approval, then drank more of his jah.

“Why try to kill her now, though? She served her purpose.” Velda slid her elbows onto her desk, her gaze locked onto Ethan’s face.

“There was a big storm on Ytla, which the SF team used as their excuse for not rescuing her right away. It was so handy, I’m going to go back and check exactly when they found the carvings and when they called her in to consult, and see if it was before or after they got a storm warning. Problem was, the storm ripped the roof off the hut where she was being held and she escaped. She made it back to the SF base by herself, no rescue needed.”

Velda slowly got to her feet. “I didn’t hear anything about this. Not even that an SF consultant was taken prisoner.” After a moment, she sank back down. “But even so, why kill her?”

“She complained about how the SF didn’t have her back. Requested a transfer to Demeter. Which they slow-walked over four months. They don’t want her talking about it to her new colleagues, is my guess. Because when I heard the story, you had better believe I thought it stank. Someone is compromised on the Nanganya teams, and in fact, more than one person. A single individual could not have pulled this off.”

“Someone is covering their ass. Butkillher?” Velda shook her head.

“Only thing that makes sense is that whatever is going on is bigger than just someone using Thorakis’ kidnap to supply the Har Met Vent with the medical supplies and food they needed. And given Ed Zeneri was maneuvered into being on the dock with Thorakis when the two Nanganyan SF soldiers tried to take her out, I’d say that’s a certainty.”

“Again, why?” Velda twisted her fingers together.

“Because now that Lily Jacine is in prison on Hathr, Ed Zeneri is the only one left on the planet who’s trained to use the Guan scanner.”

“Ed wasn’t working the scanner for us anyway,” Velda pointed out.

Ethan gave a nod. “But I had planned to meet with him. That’s why I pushed so hard for him to help when we were sold that absolute nonsense about Wren Thorakis being a possible shapeshifter. I was determined to bring him back into the fold. We’d uncovered a few massive smuggling rings by pure chance over the last two months, big enough to make me wake up in the night in a cold sweat as to what we might have missed. We need him, and I mentioned that in more than one briefing to the whole team.”

“So they infiltrated your team and tried to make it look like one of yours lost their nerve and shot Zeneri and Thorakis by mistake.” Velda did not sound friendly. “They don’t want someone with a scanner watching what’s coming into Demeter.”

Ethan gave a nod. “They want us blind.”

“What about the other stuff I heard went down yesterday?” Velda asked. “Silver shields appearing out of thin air. Someone vanishing in a puff of smoke.”

Ethan lifted his hands. “I tried to ask Ed and Wren when they came to see me last night, but then the Nanganya transfers tried to kill me, and it cut things short.”

“Ed Zeneri and Wren Thorakis came to visit you last night? Are they working together?” Velda asked, tilting her head.

Wren glanced over at Ed, saw he was looking at her.

“Are we?” he mouthed.

“Yes,” she murmured, at the same time Ethan said it.

“I think we need to get into that office,” Ed said. He gestured down the passage and she followed him.

The opening was only three offices down from Velda’s and it was into a storeroom. Clever, she supposed. Offices changed, storerooms rarely did.

They stepped into it and Ed moved to the door, looked out.

“Clear,” he said.

---