The End of All Things #2: This Hollow Union Read Free Page A

Conclave’s head of intelligence, its office was substantially more secure than my own.
    “I think it’s more the thing Hado plans to use to try to oust Tarsem,” I said.
    “It took some nerve to drop it on your desk,” Oi said. “He might as well have put a sign up over his head announcing his plans.”
    “Plausible deniability,” I said. “It can never be said he was not the first to alert us to this information and the dangers within. He’s being the perfect example of a helpful and faithful officer of the Conclave.”
    Oi gave a whistle of derision. “The Gods should protect us from such faithfulness,” it said.
    I pointed to the data module. “What do we know about this?”
    “We know Hado wasn’t lying about how he got it,” Oi said. “This information has showed up at several dozen Conclave worlds already and more reports are coming in. The data is consistent across the various planets. It even showed up here.”
    “How?”
    “Diplomatic courier skip drone. Credentials forged, which we determined right away, but we examined the data anyway. Same data as in every other packet we’ve been offered.”
    “Any idea where it came from?”
    “No,” Oi said. “The skip drone is Faniu manufacture. They make hundreds of thousands of them a year. The drone’s navigational cache was clear, no skip history on it. The data itself was unencrypted and in standard Conclave format.”
    “Have you looked at it?”
    “There’s too much to just look at. Reading it manually would take more time than we’d want. We’ve got computers doing semantic and data analysis on it to get the important information and trends. That will still take several sur.”
    “I mean did you look at it,” I said.
    “Of course,” Oi said. “There was a document that came with it highlighting particular bits of information whoever sent it thought might be relevant to us. I skimmed.”
    “What do you think?”
    “Officially or personally?”
    “Both.”
    “Officially, anonymous information that shows up randomly at one’s door should be treated as suspicious until proven otherwise. That said, the documents we’ve done spot analysis on conform strongly to the Colonial Union’s data formatting and known activity. If it’s fake, it’s very cleverly done, at least superficially.”
    “And personally?”
    “You know we have sources in the Colonial Union, yes?” Oi said. “Ones I don’t go out of my way to let either you or the general know too much about?”
    “Of course.”
    “As soon as this started popping up I sent a query to one of them about this alleged whistleblower, this Undersecretary Ocampo. Just before you got here I got a ping back. He exists, or at least did exist. He went missing several of their months ago. He would have had access to this information. So personally I think it’s very possible this is legitimate.”
    “Hado seemed to be under the impression that the Colonial Union had found this Ocampo.”
    “I have no information on that, and I’d be curious to know how he does,” Oi said.
    “It might be a rumor.”
    “This would be the time for rumors about this information,” Oi agreed. “Do you want me to look into it?”
    Before I could answer my handheld buzzed out the sequence that told me Umman was trying to reach me for a critical purpose. I answered. “Yes?”
    “Your manicurist called and wishes to inquire about your next appointment,” Umman said.
    “I’m in Oi’s office, Umman,” I said, glancing over at Oi, whose expression was studiously neutral. “And you can be sure it already knows about my ‘manicurist.’”
    “I’ll just send the message over, then,” Umman said.
    “Thank you.” I terminated the call and waited for the message.
    “Thank you for not being offended that I know your business,” Oi said.
    “Thank you for not pretending to be offended that I would suggest you know my business,” I said.
    The message arrived. “And what does Colonel Rigney of the