“Let’s walk, then,” Radnal said, though he wondered where Peggol vez Menk would find cool night air in Trench Park. Deserts above sea level cooled rapidly when the sun set, but that wasn’t true in the Bottomlands.

Getting out in the quiet dark made it seem cooler. Radnal, Peggol, and Liem walked without saying much for a couple of hundred cubits. Only when they were out of earshot of the lodge did the park militiaman announce, “Freeman vez Menk’s colleagues discovered a microprint reader among the Morgaffo’s effects.”

“Did they, by the gods?” Radnal said. “Where, Liem vez? What was it disguised as?”

“A stick of artist’s charcoal.” The militiaman shook his head. “I thought I knew every trick in the codex, but that’s a new one. Now we can rub the plenipo’s nose in it if he fusses about losing a Morgaffo citizen in Tartesh. But even that’s a small thing, next to what the reader held.”

Radnal stared. “Heading off a war with Morgaf is small?”

“It is, freeman vez Krobir,” Peggol vez Menk said. “You remember today’s earthquake-”

“Yes, and there was another one yesterday, a smaller one,” Radnal interrupted. “They happen all the time down here. No one except a tourist like Moblay Sopsirk’s son worries about them. You reinforce your buildings so they won’t fall down except in the worst shocks, then go on about your business.”

“Sensible,” Peggol said. “Sensible under most circumstances, anyway. Not here, not now.”

“Why not?” Radnal demanded.

“Because, if what was on Dokhnor of Kellef’s microprint reader is true — always a question when we’re dealing with Morgaffos — someone is trying to engineer a special earthquake.”

Radnal’s frown drew his heavy eyebrows together above his nose. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” Liem vez Steries inclined his head to Peggol vez Menk. “By your leave, freeman-?” When Peggol nodded, Liem went on, “Radnal vez, over the years somebody — has smuggled the parts for a starbomb into Trench Park.”