Lanto paced back and forth on one of the Nautilus's viewing decks, looking out over the underground cavern, listening to the hum of voices that filled this museum. The air smelled different down here deep beneath Rubicon, a minerally, damp kind of scent alien to anything on the surface. It felt cool, a temperate place compared the sun-blasted deserts most people on Rychter were used to.

He breathed deep, in and out, relishing a small moment to himself. The army was well on its way now, advancing inexorably towards Brekka, collecting troops from every city it passed along the way. The war was truly back on now. His head was a whirl of ifs, buts and maybes as he played over the events that had led them here again.

Footsteps pulled him out of those bleak thoughts. Lanto looked back over his shoulder and a jolt of irritation shot through him when he saw Lieutenant Almar walking towards him. He was alone, his guards presumably keeping a weather eye on Thaniakas and the remaining skeleton team of archivists.

That was all that Lanto had left. Half a dozen men and women and three chaperones.

"I came out here to be alone," he grunted, turning his gaze back to the cavern vista.

"I know, sir."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I need to speak with you."

Lanto's jaw tightened. "Do you indeed?"

"Yes. It's important."

"Isn't everything these days?" Reluctantly, Lanto turned from the view, his stare boring into Almar's eyes. "I'll speak with you later."

"This can't really wait."

"I'll decide what can wait," Lanto snarled, and he started walking, making a beeline for the access door to the Nautilus.

Almar's face fell. "Minister Numitor, please. It's about my father."

"I've had just about enough of your father to last me a lifetime." He strode past without sparing the other man a glance. "Whatever it is can wait. There's nothing Minister Nastassos can do that he hasn't already. He got what he wanted. We're a world at war once again. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to speak to Archivist Thaniakas to discuss our options."

Lanto stalked off, his skin prickling with annoyance. He reached the open hatchway, and got one foot over the threshold.

"Minister," Almar yelled. "You're not listening to me!"

That taut, almost shrill yelp from the mouth of the burly soldier made Lanto stop in his tracks. Something in Almar's tone cut through his instinctive mistrust of the man, something desperate; something scared. He glanced back and his eyes narrowed as he appraised his chaperone curiously. He stepped back over the threshold and turned around to face Almar.

Wide eyes looked back at him. Something was wrong.

"Alright, Lieutenant," he said after a moment. "I'm listening now."

He looked like was about to deflate. His broad shoulders sagged with relief and he beckoned Lanto away from the hatch.

"It'd be better if we spoke out here."

Lanto eased the hatch shut behind him and walked slowly over to stand in front of Almar. "Talk, Lieutenant. What in the Everflowing's gotten into you?"

"I just... I didn't know who else to tell."

"Tell what?"

"I was at the Commissariat Chambers last night making my..." He winced, giving Lanto an apologetic glance. "Making my report. To my father. I was early but I went up to his office anyway."

Lanto cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "Why do you have to make your report in person? He's got a data slate doesn't he?"

"He'd rather there wasn't a paper trail. You know, just in case you were to make any accusations about me. Or him."

"And they just let you waltz on up?"

"I'm his son. Commissariat security haven't hassled me since I was old enough to walk."

"How nice for you."

Almar shrugged. "I went up, but he wasn't there. I didn't receive any message changing the time of the meeting. It's not like him."

"He's nothing if not efficient," Lanto agreed, his interest beginning to pique. "What did you do then?"

"Well, I tried to find him." Almar seemed to be growing more uncomfortable by the second, one hand fidgeting with the strap of his rifle has he spoke. "Asked some of the staffers still working if they'd seen him and they pointed me to the datacomms offices."

Lanto's brow rose. "And what would a man like Nastassos be doing in an office like that in the dead of night, eh?"

"That's just it. I got there, he was tucked away in some satellite office, not another soul in sight." The lieutenant's face twitched into an uncomfortable grimace. "I heard him talking with someone."

"He didn't see you?"

"I was in the hall. I would have just gone in but ... but something didn't feel right." Almar tapped his stomach. "In my gut."

"Didn't realise you were so suspicious of your own father."

"Until recently I wasn't. But you know my father is not the sort of person who sneaks around. He doesn't have to. He's a bloody general and one of the highest ranking ministers in the city. If he's hiding something..."

Lanto nodded, now fully curious. "So he was speaking with someone. In the room or over a comm?"

"A comm. He was alone in there."

"Do you know who it was?"

A shake of the head. "I don't. I didn't recognise the voice."

"And what were they talking about?"

Almar didn't answer straight away. He began to pace back and forth, his eyes flickering towards the door of the observation platform, like he was afraid someone might walk in and catch them in the act at any moment.

"You heard something," Lanto said quietly. "Lieutenant, what did your father say?"

"He told whoever he was speaking to, to make sure the war was still going by the time Rubicon's army arrived. He said to keep the fires burning. He told that person that when the war was over they would be in control again." Almar bit his lip and looked bleakly at the floor. "You can join the dots there, Minister?"

"I believe so." Although he remained outwardly calm, Lanto could feel his heart rate rising. Things were falling grimly into place. The blast at the Liaison Post in the south had only ever had one goal in mind. He had assumed the sabotage ended there, with disgruntled Brekkan soldiers who, having fought against the Scraegans for decades, balked at the idea of a permanent peace.

If it had been that simple, Lanto could almost have understood it. But this meant something much more bloody-minded was at work. Nastassos and others like him wanted war – needed war – to exist.

"Once he'd left, I checked the call log," Almar continued, his voice tight with unease. "It was a Brekkan civilian ID, but no name was attached. I waited, went back to his office and he was there waiting, calm as you like. Just listened to my report like he always does, and sent me on my way."

Lanto clasped his hands behind his back and took a deep breath.

"Lieutenant Almar," he said. "I believe I may have misjudged you. Thank you for telling me this. Most men wouldn't have had the stomach."

Almar smiled weakly. "Thank you, sir."

"Come with me, son," Lanto continued, stepping over to the door. "We have a lot of work to do, and I'm going to need your help."

*

It took a little while for the full weight of everything Lieutenant Almar had said to really sink in. Once it did, it took all of Lanto's self control to keep himself from erupting with a foul-mouthed tirade after the revelations on the observation deck.

He should have known, really. Nastassos had been angling after a war for months – was it such a stretch to imagine the old warhorse had decided to give things a helping hand? He was hardly alone in his view that it would be safer to just wipe the Scraegans out and be done with it. Lanto doubted he would struggle to find sympathisers in Brekka.

With Almar in tow, Lanto made his way back through the halls of the Nautilus, but rather than joining the others still pouring over old sensor logs of Wink and the surrounding volume, he summoned Archivist Karin Thaniakas to his private office within the ship.

She arrived looking a little haggard and rather irate at being dragged away from her researches. With their resources hacked down to the bone thanks to Nastassos's war effort, Thaniakas had been doing the work of three people, combing through every molecule of data around Wink and its satellites.

At least he knew he could rely on her.

"Archivist." Lanto acknowledged her with a nod as she entered. "Close the door."

"Minister." When the hatch thudded shut behind her she faced him, raking fingers wearily through her hair. Her eyes flicked uneasily to Almar. "What's going on?"

"Rather a lot." Lanto poured each of them a measure of coal-smoke whisky, handed the glasses out and then indicated a chair with one hand. "You'd best sit down and have a drink."

"Well, that doesn't sound good." She sank down into the seat, looking at him expectantly.

At his urging, Lieutenant Almar recounted the clandestine dealings of his father. He watched as Thaniakas absorbed it with growing incredulity, eyes widening. When the story was done she swallowed the last of her whisky in a single gulp and set the glass down.

"By the Watching Lords," she muttered. "You're sure about all of this?"

"I wish I wasn't," Almar replied, folding his arms and leaning against the door.

"So what now? We have to tell someone, surely? If he started a war for his own bloody ego we can't let that slide."

Lanto sighed. Every bone in his body wanted to drag Almar up to the Commissariat chambers and make him repeat every word he'd just said to Commissary-General Xanthus, but in practice he knew that would solve nothing. Words without cast iron proof meant very little.

But then what to do?

He looked at Almar. The young lieutenant shifted uneasily from foot to foot and turned his eyes to the floor.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," Lanto said eventually. "Without hard evidence, taking this to the Commissariat would be pointless. It would simply be the lieutenant's word against his father's."

"Then what do we do?"

"I've allowed Nastassos to misdirect me," he answered. "He almost had me believing that we could finish the Scraegans and then turn our attention outward. Not anymore. He'll have his war, come Rivers and Rapids, but we are not going to lose our way again. We're going find out just what's on Wink. We're going to find who's been receiving a signal from our planet."

Almar blinked. "How exactly are we going to do that? We're standing in the only spaceship on Rychter, and I don't think she's going to be flying anytime soon."

"She doesn't have to." Lanto looked to the senior archivist. "Karin?"

"Sir?"

"I trust you know the Rubicon observatory?"

"I know of it." Thaniakas frowned. "It's been derelict for years."

"I'm aware of that."

"Then what about it?"

"If we're going to find out more whatever in the River is going on out there, we're going to have to do something a little more direct than trawling through historical sensor logs," Lanto replied. "I believe it is time the observatory was brought back into service."

Thaniakas gave him a dubious look. "We don't even know if the telescope works."

"We can make another telescope, if we have to." Lanto made a gesture to their surroundings. "But our best resource is sitting right here."

"The Nautilus?" Almar frowned.

"A ship with a deep space sensor array, Lieutenant."

"Not much use to us down here."

"Indeed not. Which is why we're going to strip the sensor array from this vessel and bring it to the observatory."

Thaniakas's eyes widened. "I ... sir, I don't think we're sanctioned to do something like that."

"Sanctioned?" He snorted. "I'm a Commissariat Minister, and apparently quite a high ranked one. If it's going to count for something, it should count today."

"Even if we were, I've got five people working under me and none of them are engineers. We don't have the skills for that kind of work."

"I'll get you your engineers. Hang budgets and votes and piss-drowned Commissariat politics. I still have a few favours left to call on. On my direct orders we will restore the observatory to full functionality, we will install the Nautilus arrays, and we will take a good long look at Wink."

"What about Xanthus?" Almar asked. "And my father?"

"I suggest you put them out of your mind." Lanto's face darkened with determination. "I'll deal with them."