“She went to the kitchen to fetch the tea when she heard the lift motor.”
“Ah. Good.”
The living room glowed like a stage set now, pools of light under each lamp, or directed onto the paintings on the wall. Gentle landscapes with quiet streams or lakes in the distance, soft colors, suggested peace and comfort. Stella switched on the emotional tonality her mother used most often, a combination of subtle scents and barely perceptible musical tones, all designed to put visitors in a calm, cooperative emotional state.
Stella piled the couch’s pillows against the end farthest from the front door, added one of the bed pillows, then lay back against them, sat up again, and positioned the second bed pillow under her bandaged ankle.
“All you need is a knit throw,” Ky said, grinning.
“The ground-floor linen closet,” Stella said. “Green or brown.”
Ky shook her head, amused at the color specification, but fetched a green throw with a brown border and laid it over Stella, with the bandaged ankle peeking out. “Like that?”
“Perfect.”
Just then Sera Lane arrived with a tray, Allie behind her with a folding tray table. Allie and Ky moved one of the armchairs near the couch.
“Thank you, Allie,” Stella said. “And you, Ky. We will need Rodney on the door, not Teague.”
Ky looked at the arrangement: the injured party reclining on the couch, and the injured party’s friend-or-attorney, depending on the way Stella wanted to play it, graciously pouring tea for them both.
By the time she’d found Rodney, and he’d put on the jacket he wore for his butler persona, she heard the doorbell ring and hurried upstairs as Rodney moved with butlerly dignity toward the front door. In Stella’s office, she turned on the video feed from the living room. Rodney opened the door at Stella’s order to admit a police officer. Stella, seen from above, looked like an injured heroine in the kind of vid show Ky didn’t like. Sera Lane looked appropriately older and respectable. The policeman looked slightly anxious.
Ky had seen Stella maneuvering people before, but never from such a safe distance or in this exact situation. She had changed some of her tactics. This time there was no overt sexuality to her calm, gentle voice; her beauty was still there, of course—it was in her bones, gene-deep, not to be lost—but the slight muting of it by her immobility, her overlarge sweater, the knitted throw over her clothes and the effect of its color, actually made her more attractive to someone whose occupation was protecting those who needed it.
Not until Stella had given her account of the attack, and handed over the duplicate recording from her vehicle, did the officer bring up any of the other things he might have brought up. “Those men who struck your vehicle—they claim to be working for Customs & Immigration.”
“Do they?” Stella toyed with the border of the throw. “What does Customs & Immigration say?”
“They say there’s an open case involving your cousin and her fiancé, but they deny that their people would intentionally ram your vehicle or draw weapons unless threatened. The person I spoke to—”
“Do you have a name?” Stella asked.
“Yes… it’s a Ser Matson. His contact number is 46-7833-5.”
“Thank you,” Stella said. “I’m certain Vatta’s legal team will want to contact him and ascertain the exact orders they were given.”
“They—he—said if I could gain entrance to your house, I should search for the… the fugitives and take them into custody.”
“They aren’t fugitives,” Stella said. “They live here.”
“But he said they hadn’t been able to gain entrance—”
Sera Lane spoke up. “Officer, their situation is being addressed by legal counsel. I am an attorney with Vatta Enterprises; my name is Lane. Excuse me for interrupting, Sera Vatta, but I believe the officer needs to know more of what’s been going on. You do know that Sera Stella’s cousin Ky was in a shuttle crash before she even arrived, do you not?”
“Yes, Sera. It was on all the newsvids.”
“And that later it was found that she and some of the other passengers had survived in life rafts, and with difficulty made their way to shore on Miksland, and then into a formerly unknown underground base?”
“I’m not clear on all that, Sera. Isn’t it just all bare rock and ice?”
“No,” Sera Lane said. “It is not entirely barren. And the underground base was stocked with supplies.”
Ky listened, fascinated, as Lane and Stella laid out what she had done, and how she had had no chance to follow the new procedures that had first stripped her of citizenship and then set requirements she could not meet to regain it.
“Why didn’t you tell her, though, Sera?” the officer asked. “You could have prevented this problem, couldn’t you?”
Ky wondered the same thing. What Stella had said didn’t quite make sense; her implant should have reminded her, if nothing else. Now Stella was elaborating on what she’d told Ky.
“Frankly, I could not imagine they would apply the rule to her—it was so obvious that she couldn’t have known about it, and she’d been through all that—saving those people, and before that saving all of us from that sociopath Turek. She’s a hero. It just didn’t occur to me. And they didn’t tell me until my most recent arrival.”
“But—the law was passed last year or the year before. They didn’t send word to you? No one in your family here did?”
“When did you find out about it?”
“Notification to local law enforcement… maybe a half year ago. I mean, it wasn’t a law that affected anyone I knew.”
“What’s happening?” Rafe appeared in the doorway of Stella’s office.
“She’s talking to the police guy. Gave him the tape, then he started probing about us—the ones Immigration is interested in. She’s telling him she didn’t know about the change in law when she first came back.”
“Hmm. Why didn’t Vatta Legal warn her?”
Ky blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Don’t they keep up with all the laws? They’re an interstellar business; their legal team should be alert to any changes in customs, immigration, and tax law in every jurisdiction where they operate.”
“Does ISC?”
“Yup. Of course, we used to write some of the laws, but certainly our legal team was aware of the different laws in different jurisdictions. ISC’s legal department’s huge. I wonder if Vatta’s been running too lean in that regard since the attack that blew up their headquarters.”
“I’ll ask Stella when this is over. And of course Sera Lane.”
“Didn’t she say their other specialist in immigration law was in court today? That’s a sign they’re too lean, in my opinion. Our legal staff’s divided into the experts and the litigators, the ones who actually take a matter to court.”
“Thank you, Officer—” Stella’s words caught Ky’s attention; she’d missed several exchanges. “I appreciate your time and your courtesy—if you’ll forgive me I won’t see you out—”
“No, that’s fine, Sera.” He looked around once more. “If your cousin’s not available I’m certain you can pass on what Immigration told me to tell her.”
“Of course. I’ll be glad to.” Sera Lane stood up then and let the officer out while Stella watched with a smile. Once the door was closed and locked, Sera Lane came back and sat down again. “Does Sera Ky know that you didn’t know about this until your last trip here?”
“I think I told her. Why?”
“Because she’s likely to wonder why you took care of your own citizenship and didn’t warn her about hers.”
“What I said was the truth. I did not think they’d go after her, because she’s a hero—the whole planet was excited she was coming last year, desolate when the search was called off, and excited again to find out she survived.” The defensive edge in Stella’s voice was clear to Ky. She expected Lane to pick up on it, too.