I have Monday blocked out as some primo writing time. I need it.
Explaining this all to Mika and Greg (I had brought a recorder with me; Rubicon had come with a jammer. Guess which device won?) afterward was fun. I had decided to tell them something, on the principle that if either was secretly a mad techno-death cultist of some sort I’d never figure it out in time anyway. Rubicon was right, dammit: you can be too paranoid.
But I didn’t go into full details, because Rubicon was also right about how the two weren’t entirely in the clear. Mika had been one of the survivors of the Richelieu Incident, and Greg had only been on-planet for the last eight months. Obviously neither would have been present for the most recent attacks, but I didn’t think this was all the fault of some kind of solitary madman. And even if they were trustworthy: were their assistants? Hell, their spouses?
But I needed somebody to help out. I had increased access to personnel records, sure, and even an idea what to look for: people with links to at least two or more of the destroyed colonies. What I didn’t have was the technical wizardry to sort out the most likely suspects in less than, I dunno, three months or something. Which would be fine, if we had three months. I wasn’t quite comfortable assuming that.