“I understand, Your Majesty,” she said. Her throat was suddenly treacherously dry. “I won’t let you down.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
TYRE
“That’s another black-ops facility, Your Grace,” Alexander Masterly said. “We were only able to obtain the project’s codename: Hyperion.”
Peter frowned. He’d ordered Masterly and Masterly and a few other agents to work on tracing the missing funds. It hadn’t been an easy task. Some of the money seemed to have been diverted to pork projects—spaceports on isolated worlds, long-term industrial development programs—while the rest had either been blurred into the general military fund or earmarked for classified programs. It was hard to tell what had really been going on during the war.
Father must have known where the money was going, Peter told himself. But why didn’t he keep better records?
“I see,” he said. The king had to have kept proper records. If nothing else, he’d need to know where the money was going. Peter’s father had often remarked that lying was bad enough, but not keeping track of your own lies was worse. “Make a note of it for later attention.”
“Yes, sir,” Alexander said.
Peter keyed his datapad, studying the latest developments. The bill to impeach the king hadn’t been made public, yet, but everyone who was anyone knew that something was in the works. There were few true secrets in High Society. It was hard—almost impossible—to say which way everyone would jump. The Opposition wasn’t sure of enough votes, yet, to press for impeachment, while the king presumably didn’t have enough votes to make a show of strength. Peter found that reassuring and worrying at the same time. On one hand, if the king could defeat the bill before it was even read, he’d have done it by now; on the other, if the king felt insecure, he might do something drastic.
And the situation on the streets is getting worse, Peter thought. Who knows where it will all end?
He shook his head. The combination of the convoy’s destruction and wave after wave of unemployment had proved disastrous. Violent crime, including attacks on immigrants and tourists, was on the rise, while his security staff were logging thousands of threats against him each day. Most of them would be nothing more than loudmouths relieving their feelings by sending threatening messages, but they all had to be investigated. Peter had doubled the security around the mansion and everywhere else of importance, as had everyone else, including the king. But there were limits to how much they could do.
“Keep me informed on progress,” he said. He studied Masterly and Masterly’s report for a long moment. Most of the money appeared to have been wasted, rather than put aside for selfish or malicious purposes, but it was hard to be sure. Just because he couldn’t see any long-term value in the pork projects didn’t mean that someone else couldn’t either. “Are there any other issues of concern?”
“Just one,” Alexander said. He sounded oddly hesitant. “As you know, Your Grace, we have been monitoring the long-term health of the corporation and its subsections.”
“I should know that,” Peter said, irritated. “I receive briefings every two days.”
Alexander nodded. “It’s not easy to monitor employee morale,” he said. “No one believes, for example, that anonymous surveys are truly anonymous. A person who is dissatisfied may well decline to put that to paper, for fear that it will be held against him at his next performance review. It may be illegal to fire someone for expressing an opinion, particularly an opinion they were asked to express, but there are plenty of ways to get rid of someone without technically breaking any laws.”
“I know,” Peter said. His father had told him, time and time again, that people would tell him what they thought he wanted to hear. Worse, they would conceal problems until they turned into disasters if they feared he would shoot the messenger. Bad news could not be allowed to fester, yet how could he deal with it if he didn’t know it existed? “And what’s happening?”
“Morale is going downhill sharply,” Alexander said. “There have been rumors of layoffs for months, Your Grace, but now they’ve actually started to materialize. People are worried that they’re going to be next, and that is having an obvious impact on their work. Productivity is falling too.”
“And there’s nothing we can do about it,” Peter said. “Or is there?”
He looked at his hands, helplessly. The hell of it was that there was no way to speed up the process and get it over with. He’d seriously considered making sweeping cuts, in the hopes it would be enough to allow him to preserve what was left, but the council had refused to even consider the option. They wanted to keep as much as they could. Peter understood the impulse, but he had a feeling it was making things worse. No employee could feel safe these days.
And we have too many other problems right now, he thought. What do we do?
“I don’t believe so,” Alexander said. “We do have some fairly precise estimates of how many cuts we’ll need to make . . .”
“Which isn’t politically feasible at the moment,” Peter said. He wondered, again, how his father had managed to balance running a corporation with his political work. Lucas Falcone had had a good staff, which Peter had inherited, but there were still too many things that demanded his personal input. “But I’ll take it back to the council . . .”
His terminal bleeped. “Your Grace,” Yasmeena said. “You have a secure call from Duke Rudbek.”
“Put him through,” Peter said, dismissing Alexander and Clive Masterly with a wave of his hand. “And then inform my next appointment that I may be delayed.”
Duke Rudbek’s image appeared on the terminal. “Peter, my boy,” he said in a jovial tone that had alarm bells ringing in Peter’s head. “Perhaps you’d do me the honor of joining me and a few guests for dinner? My chef has prepared a delicious repast of traditional food from Eulalie.”
Peter’s blood ran
