I turned to Kranjic. “You’re talking to other journalists,” I said. “Are you hearing anything about this?”
“About you being floated as a traitor? No,” Kranjic said. “There are still a lot of journalists who want to talk to either you or Jane, but it’s all about the night the Conclave fleet went down or how we’ve survived here. I’ve turned a lot of these journalists over to Manfred and the other council members. Maybe they’ve heard something along that line.”
I turned to Trujillo. “Well?” I asked.
“Nothing like that on this end, either,” Trujillo said. “But you know as well as anyone that most of what the Colonial Union is planning or thinking isn’t ever discussed outside of its own halls.”
“So they’re going to pin you as a traitor because you weren’t hopping up and down to kill a couple hundred thousand intelligent beings,” Savitri said. “I’m suddenly reminded why I loathe the Colonial Union power structure.”
“It might not just be that,” Jane said. “John may be being made a scapegoat, but if that’s true then it begs the question of what he’s being made a scapegoat for. Alternately, if his behavior with Gau is being examined, the Colonial Union is looking at how his behavior affected events.”
“You think something didn’t go according to plan,” I said to Jane.
“I think you don’t look for scapegoats when your plans go off without a hitch,” Jane said. “If the Conclave is behind tonight’s attack, it suggests that it’s gotten itself reorganized more quickly than the CU expected.”
I looked back over to Kranjic, who picked up the meaning of my glance. “There’s nothing in the media reports I’ve seen about the Conclave, positive or negative,” he said.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. General Rybicki had told me that part of the plan was to introduce the Conclave to the colonies in its great moment of defeat. Now they had the moment of defeat; it should be all over the media. “There’s nothing about the Conclave at all?”
“Nothing by name,” Kranjic said. “The media reports I’ve seen mention that the Colonial Union discovered the colony had been threatened by a number of alien races, which made the CU pull its deception. They also mention the battle here. But none of it has the Conclave described as the Conclave.”
“But we know about the Conclave,” Savitri said. “Everyone here knows about the Conclave. When our people send letters or video back to family and friends, they’re going to talk about it. It’s not going to remain a secret for long. Especially after tonight.”
“There are lots of ways for the CU to spin that if they want to,” Beata said, to Savitri. “We don’t know who attacked us tonight. It could be any number of races, and there’s nothing in the attack to suggest an alliance of races. If the Colonial Union wants to minimize the idea of the Conclave, it could just tell the media it intentionally fed us bad information for our own protection. We’d be more willing to look after our own safety if we thought the entire universe was out to get us.”
Savitri pointed to me. “And his encounter with General Gau was just some sort of delusion?” she asked.
“He’s being recalled,” Beata said. “It’s entirely possible his inquiry is going to be him being told to revise his memory of the incident.”
“I didn’t realize you were this conspiracy-obsessed,” Savitri said to Beata.
“Welcome to me,” Beata said.
“It’s possible journalists and others do know about the Conclave,” Kranjic said. “It’s just not making it through the official media channels. And if the CU is actively discouraging journalists from talking about it, then they’re not likely to discuss it with us—”
“—because all our communication comes via skip drone,” Jane finished. “Which means it’s monitored by the Colonial Union.”
“Right,” Kranjic said.
I remembered Hickory’s concern about the CU listening in to its communication with other Obin. Apparently it wasn’t the only one suspicious of the CU. “Don’t you guys have code or something?” I asked Kranjic. “Some way to let other journalists know something even if you’re being monitored?”
“You want me to write ‘The hawk flies at midnight’?” Kranjic asked. “No, we don’t have a code, and even if we did, no one would risk it. You don’t think the CU looks for semantic idiosyncrasies and steganographic patterns?” He pointed to Jane. “Rumor had it she did intelligence for the CDF at one time. Ask her about it.”
“So not only do we not know what the CU knows, we can’t know what the CU knows,” Savitri said. “We might as well still be lost.”
“No,” I said. “We can know. We just can’t know from here.”
“Ah,” Trujillo said. “Your trip to Phoenix Station. You think you can find out more there.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You’ll be busy with your inquiry,” Trujillo said. “You’re not going to have a lot of time to catch up on gossip.”