Free Visions of Peace by Matthew Sprange

those missing Centauri are bugging me. It’s a loose end.’
    ‘Ah, yes, you have it precisely,’ she encouraged. ‘Now, what do you think is happening?’
    Shaw thought hard. With just the information they had seen today, few solid conclusions could be formed. He had been trained to speculate, however, though it had also been hammered into him not to rely solely on those speculations. Imagination was not a trait that was knocked out of Rangers during their training, but it was something to be tempered. Did Sabine have information he lacked? Possibly, but he knew he wasn’t expected to act on that, merely put the pieces he did have together.
    ‘Well,’ he began. ‘Sending scientists to terraform the system makes no sense. That takes years, decades even, and they must have known months ago that Quadrant 37 was being handed back to the Narn. These things do not get agreed overnight. So that was a lie. The scientists were intended for something else. The ship destroying itself as it activated its jump engines is a possibility, given how much we have heard about the state of Centauri shipping since the reparations started. On the other hand, if an assassination was planned, sabotaged jump engines would not be the first time it had been attempted in the Republic. Na’Quil did not push the matter, so either he believed the Centauri, which is unlikely, or he assumed it was something relatively harmless. Or, he thought it was a purely internal matter for the Centauri--feuding Houses or something.’
    Badeau nodded slowly as she leaned back in her seat and propped her chin with a hand. ‘Good. You found the essential truth--that Turquon, however pleasant he seemed, was lying. Your speculations are more or less on course as well. You missed one item of information which would push you in one direction but then, you weren’t primed to look for it.’
    Shaw frowned. ‘What did I miss?’ he asked, beginning to curse himself for being inattentive. As a Ranger, he had been trained to pick up any pattern during analysis. Coming consistently near the top in Denn’Bok training was no excuse for not concentrating on more cerebral lessons. Of course, for the Minbari, they were both much the same.
    ‘All six came from House Kaado. Two were using an alias of House Ardo, which is what threw you off. However, I am confident that when checking begins on Tuzanor, we’ll find those aliases confirmed.’
    ‘I am not sure I was supposed to have known that,’ he said, a hint of bitterness in his tone.
    As I said, you had not been primed to spot it. In my briefing before we left Minbar, I was told that intelligence was being sought on House Kaado from all Rangers operating near the Centauri border. It was a minor thing, and you’ll find we get dozens of such requests with every mission. This time it might have paid off. Anyway, now you know that, what are your conclusions?’
    Shaw felt he was on firmer ground now. ‘It has nothing to do with the Narn. It is a feud between Houses. Intelligence must be watching the rivalries between the Great Houses of the Republic. These scientists were assassinated by enemies of their House.’
    ‘I’ll go you one better. It still makes little sense for scientists to be sent to an outpost to start a project when the entire system is being handed over to another government. Consider this--suppose those scientists are not dead?’
    Pursuing his lips, Shaw was silent for a few seconds. ‘Wow’ was all he said at first. Finally finding his voice, he said, ‘Kidnapped, maybe. Probably not as hostages but for what they know.’ He stopped, considering another possibility. ‘Or House Kaado themselves made the scientists disappear. Which means whatever they are doing, the House wants kept secret from the rest of the Republic.’
    ‘Personally, I don’t like either possibility,’ said Badeau. ‘Oh, I don’t know which it could be, if it is either. I have no details on House Kaado. I was simply handed