Faberto walked through the door a few seconds after the „busy“ light above it turned off. Nico had never had a secretary, but had occasional meetings or conference calls of sensitive nature, so he had installed that system years ago. It also locked the door.

Nico spun around in his chair and regarded his visitor with feigned surprise and delight. „Oh hey Faberto. How nice of you to show up.“

Faberto stopped and looked back with wide eyes and half open mouth. Not the welcome he had expected. Then again, he realized, Nico had no idea what had happened to him.

„Sorry Nico, I…“, he began.

„Was busy elsewhere, I guess. More important things to do?“

Faberto stumbled over the words he wanted to say next, then stopped himself and started again: „I almost died. Was buried under debris from the attack and unconscious. I barely made it out because the section was sealed off by the time I came around. As soon as I came here I went to the control room and did my job.“

The snarly expression on Nico’s face disappeared and was replaced with a complete lack of expression. This clean slate remained on the governor’s face for several seconds. Then he stood up and approached Faberto.

„Sorry“, he said, „I didn’t know. Too much going on, and a lot that makes me angry. Shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Glad you are back. Seriously.“

Faberto tried to catch himself. Nico’s attack had hurt him and the shock was still visible on his face, in his eyes. It remained lingering there for a long time even after Faberto tried to shake it off and forgive his boss. He understood why the outburst had happened, but it anyway hurt, emotionally.

„Yeah“, he said, „Tough day for all of us from what I know so far. Anyway, I came to give you this.“, and with that he handed Nico the wallet. „I found it on a dead woman. Not a victim of the attack, dead for a while. She was stuffed into a box in a storage room I passed through. I… uh… discovered her when I fell on the box. Long story.“

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Nico had by now reached Faberto and accepted the wallet. He opened it and looked through its contents. He stopped at the third card.

„Chroma System Police“, he read, „What is she doing on Bloom?“

Faberto shrugged. „Not much anymore.“

Nico nodded, then walked two steps back to his desk and dropped the wallet on it.

„I’ll look into this once we have some of the other mess sorted out.“

„Right“, Faberto said, „Of course. Anyway, I’ll get back to work.“, and with that he turned and walked out of the office again. He still looked unhappy.

Nico stood and looked after him even after Faberto had left his office and closed the door.

„This all is getting to me.“, he mumbled to himself, „Need to stay sharp. Maybe get some sleep. Yes, I think that’s a good idea. He checked the tablet lying on his desk for any new and urgent messages and found none that could not wait a few hours. He set an automated response that let people know he took a nap and to let the AI know if it was urgent.

Then he shut off the lights and left his office behind, taking the walk down the hallway towards his living quarters. They were nearby, a perk he had given himself so that in case of need he could be on his position quickly.

Halfway down the corridor he suddenly stopped. „Chroma“, he said to himself. He turned around and walked briskly back to the office. He ignored the puzzled look of one of his staff members who had seen him leave, stop, turn around and go back. He rushed into his office and switched on the light. He grabbed the tablet from his desk and walked over to the couch in the sitting corner that he used for informal meetings or for visitors.

Plucking himself down in a comfortable, reclined position, he opened up the tablet and looked for his notes. There was too much that was in some way important on Bloom for him to remember it all. He had also learned in his career before the pirate station that memory is unreliable. So he wrote down pretty much everything, because you can never know what might suddenly become important in days, months or years.

He opened his notes on Yezzania Senglu. It was cross-referenced with the Bloom census data. Her basic data, place of residence, biography - there! Chroma IV was the planet she had given as her previous place of residence.

Of course, there were, as Nico confirmed with a quick search, almost two hundred people on Bloom who had come there from the Chroma system. But none of them had been recently murdered. It was one of those „too much for a coincidence“ moments and Nico had a gut feeling that he was on to something, but was still missing pieces of the puzzle.

„I need to ask Faberto where exactly he…“, Nico started talking to himself, then stopped. He did not usually talk to himself, at least not aloud. He shut his mouth and decided, inside his head this time, that what he really needed was some sleep. Everyone in this particular mess was dead already, they could wait until later.

He left his office, again, and went to his quarters.