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She had to touch the medicine chest control three times before it finally deigned to slide aside, and then she had to squint to make out the labels on the bottles inside. Finally she found the right one.

After pulling on the top for several seconds, she remembered that the bottle had a touch-sensitive control on the bottom that allowed ingress. She touched it four times before it finally opened. Then she swallowed three pills.

Seconds later, she was as sober as she had been when Ihazs had confronted her in that basement. And about as apprehensive.

Walking steadily, but nervously, back out to the living room, she said, “Computer, activate viewer.”

Zhres’s face appeared on the screen. “Ozla, Jorel would like to see you as soon as possible.”

Here it comes, she thought. The moment of truth. Or the moment of lying. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

What Ozla didn’t know was what answer she wanted more: that Ihazs was right, or that he was wrong. Because the thing that scared her the most, the thing that had driven her to drain her supply of Saurian brandy, Orion whiskey, and Terran scotch was the knowledge that this story would absolutely make her career. It would make the Orion expose look like a university term paper.

And that scared the living hell out of her.

William Ross had first visited the presidential office as a child. His parents had taken him on the tour of the Palais, and this office had been the last stop. He hadn’t gotten to meet President Thelian, of course, although he’d met several councillors during the tour. The seven-year-old Billy Ross had thought the room absolutely huge.

He’d been back many times in his Starfleet career, particularly under Presidents Jaresh-Inyo, Zife, and now Bacco. Each time he’d come in, the room had seemed smaller, never more so than when he’d stood and watched Min Zife give a resignation speech that had been hastily written, not by anyone on Zife’s speechwriting staff but rather by a Vulcan woman named L’Haan. It had been right after that that L’Haan and her associates had taken Zife, Koll Azernal, and Nelino Quafina to their “retirement.”

Ross had been surprised at being summoned to the fifteenth floor alone. Generally his visits with the president were in the company of other Starfleet officers, not to mention various members of the government-the chief of staff, various cabinet members, the security advisor, and so on. He was even more surprised when Bacco entered the office by herself, unaccompanied even by her right hand, Esperanza Piniero.

“Can you imagine that I’m getting more trouble from the Diplomatic Corps than the Klingon High Council about this damn summit? Now they’re concerned that we’ll be insulting the Romulan Empire.”

Allowing himself a small smile, Ross said, “It’s been my experience, ma’am, that one should never underestimate the capacity of the Diplomatic Corps to give you more trouble.”

At that, the president laughed. “Good point.” She moved around to her desk and sat down.

“What can I do for you, Madam President?”

Bacco stared at him for a second. “Bill, it’s been a bad day for me. The Pioneers lost three out of four to the Stars, which means they aren’t Northern Division champions for the first time in four years. The Diplomatic Corps is giving me lots of reasons to order them all beheaded with guillotines on the ground floor of the building, just like the good old days six hundred years ago. And now I’ve had this dropped in my lap.”

“What would ‘this’ be about, ma’am?” Ross asked, though the very fact that the president was calling him by his first name lent credence to several suspicions.

“The last person to have this office.”

That confirmed the worst of those suspicions. “What about President Zife, ma’am?”

At once, all pretense of a friendly demeanor was gone, and Bacco angrily snapped, “Cut the crap, Admiral! You and I both know what happened. We both know that Zife armed Tezwa with those pulse cannons and didn’t tell