"Did he find anything?" Rudzinski asked.

"Apparently not," Aric said. "At least that was the message he sent to Dorcas with the Cavatina. After that, near as I can tell, he just dropped off the edge of the universe."

A breath of air brushed the back of Pheylan's neck, and he turned to find a burly, middle-aged man standing off to the side, listening silently to the conversation. "May we help you, sir?" he asked the man.

"This is Assistant Commonwealth Liaison Petr Bronski," Rudzinski said before the man could answer. "He works out of the Commonwealth consulate on Mra-ect. He saw Lord Cavanagh briefly on Mra-mig, and I asked him back here to see if he could shed any light on his disappearance."

"I wish I could help, Mr. Cavanagh," Bronski said. "But as I told Admiral Rudzinski earlier, I only saw your father for a few minutes in his hotel room in Mig-Ka City. There was some question about whether he was harboring a non-Mrach who was slated for deportation, and we were asked to check it out. My people and I searched his suite for the non-Mrach, found nothing, and left."

"That's interesting, Mr. Bronski," Aric said, a slight frown creasing his forehead. "What hotel did you say you spoke to him at?"

"I didn't say," Bronski said coolly. "It was the Mrapiratta Hotel."

"Yes, that's where Teva said he was staying," Aric agreed. "He also said he picked up a report on the way off-planet about a disturbance at that hotel. Gunfire, possibly even an explosion."

"An explosion?" Pheylan demanded. "You didn't tell me anything about this."

"Oh, Dad was okay," Aric assured him. "He was already outside the hotel when he phoned Teva and told him to get the Cavatina off-planet."

Rudzinski cocked an eyebrow at Bronski. "You know anything about this?"

"We had a minor altercation with a couple of Bhurtala on our way out of the hotel," Bronski said with a shrug. "Nothing serious." His lip twisted slightly. "Except, of course, that dealing with the aftermath prevented me from getting back to see Lord Cavanagh. Otherwise, I might have been able to stop whatever it was that happened to him."