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said.
    "Why not go to Commander Van Winkle first?" Goudanis asked.
    "Because the battalion commander doesn't know anything that the FIST commander doesn't, and the brigadier probably knows things Van Winkle doesn't."
    "Don't you think if the brigadier knew he'd have told us by now?" Dean asked.
    Dornhofer didn't answer. He knew what Dean was thinking. Confederation Marine Corps officers were all commissioned from the ranks. Every one of them knew what it was like to be on the bottom of the chain of command and have to carry out the orders or live under the dictates that came down that chain. Every one of them knew from firsthand experience what the junior enlisted and junior noncommissioned officers were capable of. Even if the institution the enlisted men sometimes called
    "Mother Corps" was occasionally negligent, the officers could be counted on to do their best for their Marines.
    "If something's going on that affects us like this, either he doesn't know or he's under orders to not tell us," Linsman said.
    "If he doesn't know, somebody needs to tell him. If he's got orders not to tell us, those orders are wrong." The others, even Schultz, who was content being with 34th FIST for an extended period, made movements or noises of agreement.
    There was nothing they could do about the situation that night other than complain. But Marines on liberty, with money in their pockets, beer at hand, and willing women nearby, don't stay disgruntled for long. After a while they set about getting happily drunk and started looking for proper female companionship.
    As it turned out, by the time Dornhofer filed for his request mast, he couldn't see the FIST
    commander.

CHAPTER THREE
    It was snowing heavily in Fargo on the day Assistant Attorney General Thom Nast had his second interview with Madame Chang-Sturdevant, President of the Confederation Council.
    That first time he'd been only a special agent of the Ministry of Justice, laughed at by superiors who thought him a fool. Madame President, however, knew better and she had given him the job of cleaning up the poaching operation on Avionia, which had resulted in the arrest of numerous government officials, chief among them the Attorney General herself. Nast had subsequently been promoted to Assistant Attorney General and put in charge of the Organized Crime Directorate.
    "Why the hell didn't you take the Metro, Thom?" Hugyens Long groused. He nodded at the swirling snowstorm just outside the landcar's window. "Or we could have taken a hopper," he added grimly. It was nearly forty kilometers from the Ministry of Justice's headquarters in Davenport to the Confederation Council Complex at Dilworth, east of the river. It would take them a good hour to travel that distance on the surface. Despite the fact that they would never have to go out into the storm, Chief Long had insisted on bringing along a warm overcoat. "You never know," he had said when Nast asked him if he thought the coat would be required.
    "I thought we might want to talk, Chief. Privately."
    "Don't count on it, Thom," Long grunted. "Sweet Persephone's tits, you don't know where the bugs might be! This is a company car, goddamnit." Spying had become endemic at the ministry during his predecessor's reign. When she had been arrested for her role in the Avionian operation, Long was called back from retirement to replace her. Unlike his predecessor, Long was a cop, not a lawyer, so to him the law was to be obeyed and enforced, not used for personal gain or advantage.
    As Attorney General, Long had managed to find out more than he was authorized to know about the ultrasecret Avionian Project, and some prominent politicians and businessmen had gone to the penal colony called Darkside for their role in the poaching there. Since his appointment he had discovered, to his utter dismay, that the Ministry of Justice was riddled with officials on the take, every one of them left over from his predecessor's administration. He was rooting