Rear Admiral Vlahos remembered the Kzizn ambassador, Viscountess Basilissa Procopio, a suave woman of immaculate breeding whose husband, Dorian, was a Professor of Xenobiology and a scion from among the lesser nobility. Vlahos had admired Viscountess Procopio"s staunch resolve in accepting the ambassadorship to such a distant backwater.
He"d been a newly-appointed sub-secretary of Military Intelligence to the Imperial Bureau of Suspicion and had been at the palace to brief the Emperor on an uprising along the outer Perseus Arm. So it was just by chance he"d been present when Emperor Zenon had formally asked Viscountess Procopio to take the appointment.
Palace personnel had become aware of a subtle shift in the bureaucracy. No official documentation of this shift could ever be found, but
