The hot season had passed on northern Ti Lepus. The weather was turning and the rains had started. For many this was a relief. For Nic ra Ptocto, now a Chief Inspector, the rains were just another burden that he had to deal with. The meeting had dragged on but most attendees were gone, leaving just Sessi Dark gen Wattar of the Secret Police, the Grey, and newly minted Inspector Evit ra Docci. Both eyed him with some sympathy mixed with amusement.

After the silence had dragged on for a fraction, Docci stirred. “The rains have one benefit, it should stop some demonstrators coming out for the next riot.”

Ptocto grunted, “So there will be a few less to arrest. Just wonderful.” He turned to the Sessi. “You have been very quiet. I have the feeling that what you haven’t said is bad, very bad. Please tell me that I am wrong.”

With a sigh the Grey leaned forward. “You are not wrong. I have two items to speak to. This is for the two of you only.” He stopped and looked at them both, stood up and closed the door. Walking back to his seat, he pulled out a small object of shiny metal, about six centi’s square.

“Is that a device for scrambling recorders? I have never seen one that small,” Docci remarked.

“Yes, video as well. The Empire has very good technicians.” There was surprise on the faces of the two policemen. This indicated a deeper involvement with the Empire then they had known about, but they did not enquire further and waited expectantly.

The Grey sat back with another sigh. “The Secret Police, as you know, has been investigating a certain member of the Council. It seems that we may be able to accumulate enough information to do something about him soon. That is the minor thing. The major thing is more complex. Since the execution of Lewes, the agitation has grown worse as you know. The reason for the agitation, however, has changed.”

Chief Inspector Ptocto sat forward. “How so?”

“Why is this going on? We thought that it was the Frim’s. They set Lewes up to be a martyr, but they don’t have the power, the width of contacts or the credits to do all this. Leves is behind it I am certain, but why? I think that I have finally figured it out. He wants to take all power. He wants to take over the council completely. And he may have persuaded enough of the council to go along with him.” In his agitation, Dark gen Wattar rose up out of his chair and began to pace the small office.

Ptocto and Docci stared at each other, beyond speech for the moment. Docci opened his mouth to speak, but closed it when Ptocto caught his eye and shook his head.

Wattar began to speak again. “It has taken me too long to get to the bottom of this. You remember the meeting with Rentap Dressiler?” Ptocto nodded. “Then, I thought that it was just the usual thing. Different people unhappy with their status and the like. Blaming it all on the outsiders like we all tend to do at times. We are unhappy people in that regard. But when it kept growing, I started to worry. Always it came back to the Frim’s, but that stayed a dead end. Where were they getting their information from? Without approval from the courts, I could not obtain permission to tap into their network. But there were others, minor players it would seem. But minor players have their uses too.”

“Who is this Rentap Dressiler that you mentioned? I have never heard of him.” Docci was curious.

“An importer of goods and computer software from the Empire, but mostly from other planets. This was at the beginning of our investigation, seven or eight months ago,” Ptocto answered.

“Why did you investigate him?”

“We didn’t. A senior Minister asked us to talk to him. He supplied information. No that’s wrong,” the Grey shook his head. “He confirmed to us what we knew. That all the news about the Empire was so much nonsense.”

After a pause, the Chief Inspector motioned for Dark gen Wattar to continue, “You recall that I went undercover to work some angles?” Wattar reminded them, “that was about three months after our meeting with the importer?”

“Yes, during the spring.”

“I came back during the Lewes investigation.” He looked at Docci. “You handled that very well by the way. It also gave me my first real clue as to what was really going on.”

“I am glad,” Docci grunted, “because I thought that I knew, but now I have no idea!”

“I understand completely. I was confused as well. I went back over all that I knew of Lewes’s contacts. You remember that we had been watching him for quite some time?” The two officers nodded. “He had to be getting his information from somewhere. Councillor Leves being the obvious suspect, but how? The flow of information to the writers was infrequent, so we had to watch for a long time. We watched as many of his staff as we could, but lacked the resources to be able to watch them all.”

At this Ptocto nodded in sympathy. He had similar problems. All police had the same problem.

“I looked over the staff, they were all long term employees of the Ministry. None had any associations with any known agitators, but that would have been too easy. I examined closely one in particular, the Underminister Nacek, the permanent highest associate. I could not find anything suspicious, so I looked even closer. By coincidence, that brought in Li Glwen, secretary to Leves. The perfect secretary she appeared to be, but that also put her in the perfect position to pass information. Did you know that she is the younger sister of Ardine Makapet?”

The two policemen exchanged glances and frowns. “Who is Ardine Makapet?” Ptocto asked for the pair.

“The mother of Lorena Makapet, Rentap Dressiler’s mistress.”

There was a hiss of in-taken breath at this revelation.

“Ardine Makapet is also the past mistress of Councillor Trem De Markus, member of Council of Ministers. Responsible for Trade and our patron.”

The two police gaped at the Grey on receiving this bombshell.

“That complicates matters, a lot,” Docci muttered. Looking at the Grey, he asked what his next move was.

“I have known this for more than a standard month. I didn’t want to tell you until I knew what I wanted to do. I discreetly did some research and found out that the two sisters are estranged. That was a comfort because I believed that Dressiler was innocent of any involvement in the leaking of any information. He simply did not have the access to the information that was leaked.” He paused. “But I did not have any idea of why the two sisters are estranged, or what Li Glwen was doing as secretary to Leves.”

“Interviewing either Councillor Markus or Ardine Makapet was unpalatable, but I knew that I would have to speak to one of them sooner or later.” He paused, the two policemen waited leaning forward in anticipation. “So I chose Ardine Makapet. I spoke to her yesterday.”