The Northern Resource Initiative wasn’t the kind of outfit that just hired off the street, but Ormo had done some legwork. Or rather, he had someone else do it, and he’d scraped up an alias Syrina could use.
Cairnsworth Menns had been a N’naradin engineer working under N’talisan back in Fom. He’d disappeared a few weeks after the death of his boss but had been, by all accounts, loyal to the Merchant’s Syndicate to the brink of fanaticism. Ormo was certain Menns had never been to Skalkaad to meet anyone at NRI, nor they to Fom to meet him. He was positive Menns wouldn’t show up now to prove Syrina a fraud. She didn’t bother asking how he could be so sure.
The only person around who knew Menns was a fellow named Carlaas Storik, a former engineer, now current acting head of Research and Red
