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them locked up, anyway. Let’s see if we can stir up some shit for a change.’
    ‘They won’t be happy, sir.’
    Understatement of the century, thought Corso, but said, ‘Fuck them. I also want all of their representatives’ assets, financial and otherwise, frozen pending an immediate investigation. Have the office put together a general press release after the fact, nothing too specific. But I want it worded in such a way that it’s clear we intend to take a stand. Even if Midgarth isn’t involved, maybe some of the others will think twice if they think their heads might wind up on the block as well.’
    ‘Yes, Senator.’
    The chime sounded again, indicating that the link had been broken.
    Corso took a deep breath, and pulled a small vial out of his jacket pocket. He shook a couple of pills out of it and swallowed them dry. How many hours a night of sleep was he getting these days? Four, maybe five?
    The medication helped, but he knew he was overdoing it.
    Corso exited the gym and met the half-dozen heavily armed men and women that comprised his personal security detail in the building’s lobby. From there it was a short walk across an open plaza to the domed building that housed Eugenia’s government offices. His guards surrounded him, their weapons discreetly tucked into pockets or within easy reach inside jackets. Tiny security devices whirred in the air around them like mechanical insects, scanning for anything that might be missed by ordinary human eyes.
    Eugenia had started life as an asteroid and, like so many of the larger bodies scattered throughout the Sol system following first contact with the Shoal, had been transformed by using the Shoal’s own technology. A gravity engine had been buried at the asteroid’s core, while shaped fields completely surrounding it retained a pressurized atmosphere and protected it from radiation. Fusion torches – suspended from poles that pushed through the shaped fields like pins through soap bubbles – shone heat and light down on the tiny world.
    It was the first boosted world Corso had ever found himself on, and he couldn’t say for sure if he was enjoying the experience. His stomach lurched every time he caught sight of the impossibly close horizon.
    For all that, Eugenia was one of the largest of the Main Belt boosted worlds, and a little over two hundred kilometres in diameter. It had started out larger, but its original rough, potato-like shape had been less than ideal, so it had been blasted and sculpted into something more approximating a sphere. It had even been allowed to retain Petit-Prince, one of its two small moons. An iron sculpture of Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince stood near the centre of the plaza, gazing up at a point where his namesake would pass overhead every five days.
    But before very long, the asteroid and its moons were going to become eternally separated. The Little Prince was going to have to make his own way through space.
    Yugo Stankovic, one of Corso’s aides, was waiting for him in the foyer of the government building.
    ‘All right, Yugo, Nisha already gave me an outline of what’s happened. Is there anything else I should know?’ Corso asked, as Stankovic matched pace with him. The security detail made their way elsewhere while Corso and his aide headed for a bank of elevators.
    ‘What she told you, she got from me. We managed to disable the cargo platform remotely without any further incident, but it was pretty close.’
    ‘How bad could it have been?’
    ‘It could have wiped us out. The Consortium’s own intelligence services are working hard at stopping any word of this getting out to the media, and Eugenia’s prime minister took the chair of an emergency session about five minutes ago.’ Stankovic smiled and shrugged. ‘We’re not invited, of course.’
    An elevator arrived and they stepped inside. ‘Who’s in charge of figuring out who’s responsible?’
    ‘Lieutenant Nazarro of our own Authority security is