The Prince's Wedding (The Erik Midgard Case Files Volume 3)

Chapter 2

"Well, doesn't this just make my haxing day," said Commander Terence Horus, forty minutes later, holding the invitation at arms-length and glaring at it as if he wanted to handcuff it to a chair and interrogate it the illegal way. "Do I dare ask what forensics had to say?"

"Inconclusive, sir," I said. It hadn't been the answer I had been hoping for either.

"There's a temporal energy signature, but it's too low to tell them anything," said Mirabi. "It may have made a trip through time, or it might have just rubbed against something that has."

"Gentle Darwin. The finest collection of dumb eggheads from the best temporal science schools in the solar system, nine million credits worth of equipment and they're still worse than useless," said Horus. He stabbed a button on his deskcom. "Miranda, no paid overtime for forensics this month."

The head of ChronOps had recently had one of his rare, but intense arguments with his wife, which always made his mood and demeanour worse than usual. Us bringing this to him was not helping, but I was far too worried to be sympathetic.

"This could be serious, sir," I said.

"Obviously," said Horus. "Any chance that it's genuine? Could the overbred haxer genuinely want you at his wedding?"

"I can't imagine why," I said.

We had met the heir to the throne of the Jupiter Imperia only once before, half a year ago at the Time Traveller's Ball on Deimos. While our investigation had been a resounding success, the prince had been less than enamoured by the methods we'd ended up using. We had not seen or heard from him since the Ball, and while everyone in the solar system with a hypernet connection knew that he was getting married today, an invitation was the last thing I had expected.

"There's no reason he would," I said. "And surely I would have received it before the wedding day. And he'd address it to me..."

"Technically, he did," said Mirabi. "That might be the message. Maybe he wants Edward Minkwood; the mysterious professional problem solver, not the dull as ditchwater ChronOps detective you use as your secret identity."

"This isn't funny," I said.

"Nothing concerning you, or the Imperia, ever is," said Horus. "Both together is my new worst nightmare. But, chrono-genesis artefact or not, we can't ignore it. We'll have to get to the bottom of this just in case it's the real thing."

"I'm leading the investigation, sir," I said.

"Well, obviously," said Horus.

"This isn't... What?" I said.

The last time something like this had happened - my spine shivered as I remembered again that this wasn't the first time - Horus had refused to let me near the case on the grounds I was too involved, literally and emotionally, to be professional, and had packed us off to investigate a murder at Oxbridge Luna instead. That case had turned out to be connected, and it had led to me meeting Megan, but I'd been expecting the chief to say same thing now.

"Don't look so shocked, Midgard. If I could give this to anyone else, I would," said Horus. "Unfortunately, it involves the Imperia, so none of the usual rules apply."

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"Cassia versus Diacria, Erik," said Mirabi.

"Oh, right," I said.

ChronOps was the universal temporal law enforcement agency in the solar system. While we were based in the Solar Union, all of the solar states recognised our authority in dealing with any matters related to time travel. The Treaty of Cassia was the formal document that allowed us to go anywhere and investigate anything. The Jupiter Imperia, however, while recognising the need for an organisation like ChronOps, was nationalistic to the point of ferocity, and had never liked being told what to do by the rest of the solar system. They had insisted on their own separate treaty - the Diacria Agreement - which gave us all the authority we needed to operate in Imperia territory, which comprised today of all of Jupiter and Saturn's moons and their fiefdoms on Mars and in the asteroids, but also legally required us to kowtow to them to their satisfaction while we were doing it, which was a real headache when you were trying to run an investigation.