Surbius was frustrated to say the least. For thirty six hours he had tried to question Ardon, and not a single answer. It was not that the man was not able to answer, he simply chose not to, and with no access to either truth serum, which had limited effect anyway, or any forms for sanction possibilities, only perseverance and time could bring answers. NP was questioning him now while Surbius was going to get some sleep.
Even if they would get some answers, the outcome would be the same. After discussing it, the leaderships of TGFT and PA had decided to honour the deal with yoda, and so Ardon would be delivered to CLM HQ when they were finished with him.
This was off course unknown to Ardon, who still considered himself lucky that it was TGFT that had caught him, and not The Council. Especially considering that they had caught him withut his knowing, and so had had the opportunity to remove his suicide implant. He was wracking his brain with scenarios of what could have gone wrong, and every time he drew a blank. Ok, so they didn't get Ecka to start with, but how the wily old miner had escaped was beyond him. The plan was fool proof, and when he saw the video from the attack, he was certain that they had done precisely as they should to cheat the APRS. Still, that was not what made the plan collapse. They still had the firm Corvus presence in Remley, and with the attack on TGFT HQ in Dau they would still have sown so much destruction that nobody would care about some station deep in the bowels of Latos, thus paving the way for full take-over by Corvus and expansion of The Council's power. How The Anarchist had become so careless and stupid as to getting caught, was beyond Ardon. The one person he had trusted implicitly, had betrayed him due to incompetence.
The last thing that Ardon couldn't explain no matter how he analysed it, was how the H*** they had found his name, his whereabouts, and even if they had his room number, how had they known he would be at The Priggly Pear? Fadhe had invited him completely out of......wait. He had been betrayed by Fadhe, that was the only solution. That double crossing, back stabbing, money grabbing son of a w****. It had been him all the time. Him that had falsified the video, him that had warned off the authorities in Dau, him that had set him up in Daltas. Ardon was fuming with anger and rage.
"Ok, I'm going to talk."
NP snapped his head up and looked directly at the faceplate of the immovability suit. He keyed the intercomm to Surbius's room and hailed him.
"Mmhwat?" Surbius's voice drunk with fatigue and sleep.
"The bird is going to sing" NP replied, knowing that it would have the same effect on Surbius as a 100 gallon drum of espresso.
"On my way now."
NP waited patiently for Surbius, made sure all the recording gear was active and functioning correctly. He even poured a mug of coffee and put it in Surbius's cup holder.
Surbius entered, crisp looking as ever. Not for nothing had the dress regulation been made on basis of what he wore. He sat and grabbed his coffee as if it was the most natural thing in the world that someone had placed it there.
"So, has he said anything yet?"
"Just that he wanted to talk. We have waited for you."
"Excellent. Ardon, I know you can hear me. We want to know why."
Ardon gave a hoarse laugh.
"If you want information, you have to promise not to mindwipe me. Put me in a labour camp, put me in the deepest dungeon, but no mindwipe. I want your promise on that as 2iC of TGFT, or no deal."
Surbius didn't even flinch or reflect over the deal.
"I hereby as 2iC of TGFT promise that neither TGFT, TPG, UIT or PA will conduct mindwipe on Ardon Rala. Satisfied?"
"As much as can be. As I assume that everything here is being one time recorded, I guess it is as good as it gets. The guy you want, the mastermind, is a guy named Fadhe."
After two hours, it became clear that the man named Fadhe was the evil mastermind genius that had led the Corvus masters around by their noses. Not that either NP or Surbius believed any of it, it became quite clear after a while that whenever Ardon said Fadhe, he in reality meant himself. And when he described himself, it was Fadhe's role he assumed. The entire plan was a power grab by Corvus, to expand into Latos by overtaking Remley. Ardon made one comment about the council of seven, but it was not clear who these guys were. And after he had said it once, he would explain it away as non-important. After six more hours of interrogation, NP and Surbius had confirmed everything they had found out, and that meant that Ardon was now officially worthless. They dosed him with sleep gas, and informed their respective guild leaders that the case was closed. Well, almost closed. Three things still remained to be done. Extradition of Ardon to yoda, the expulsion of Corvus at Remley, and the secret one.
Surbius paged Hortan, Vardonx, Lambin and John. They would take care of the extradition, and then he and Ms. Chi would take care of the expulsion of Corvus from Remley Orbital.
Hortan was lying on the very comfortable bench at Dr. Wyman's office. He was tired, he had been asked repeatedly for more than two hours now, about the slaughter of the convoy primarily, but also about his obsession with His Queen.
"So it seems that you dream less of The Huntress than you used to. In some fashion, that is good. It is a sign that you are getting over the obsession. I still believe that you should be on a strict no combat daily routine, and we'll change the medication to something else. With less side effects, but the moment you feel something is wrong, you come back here." He closed his book and started tapping on the side of the ledger with the pencil. "I am not sure that you are telling me everything, I believe that something is hidden. But with my help and your enthusiasm, we'll get it out and cure it, ok?" He smiled reassuringly at Hortan, and took his glasses of and let them hang dangling from a strap around his neck.
Hortan was certain that they wouldn't get it out. No way was he going to rat on Ms. Chi. No way, never. He would not lie, but he could shut up, even to the shrink. Besides, he felt better than he had for a long time.
"Sure Doc, but I feel good lately. And I would really like to let go of the drugs. They make me so drowsy. Why, yesterday I fell asleep mining my favourite roid Mary-Anne. And that is the first time I have done that ever."
Dr. Wyman almost choked on the pencil he had started biting on.
"What, who is this Mary-Anne? You haven't mentioned her before?"
"I told you, it is my favourite Heliocene roid. I have names for them all. The big one in Helios B-14 is Helena, the small one behind is little shy Ariel." He chuckled. "She hide sometimes, and so I have to run around after her. The one all the way out in the deeps is Cassandra, or Cassie for short." Hortan beamed at the doctor.
"You have names for the roids...Girls names.." He started scribbling something on his ledger. "Have you had any girlfriends Hortan?"
"Ehm, not really. Well, not if you don't count My Queen."
"I think we have hit upon one of those small hidden things, mmh? Let me think about that one until next time. For now, lets try to get you on as little medication as possible. Just some uppers, ok?"
"You know best Doc," Hortan smiled and got up to leave. They shook hands, and Hortan left for his bunk. He was wasted. He would just swing by the Xang Xi merchant and see if they had received that new John Eldritch "Hive Skirmisher" action figure he had ordered for his collection, but then it was off to sleep.
