<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #80BFFF"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;">Peter Halvardson</span><br/><span style="font-size: 120%; line-height: 116%;">'The Viking'</span></span></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: justify;">Peter laughed dryly. He wasn't feeling like laughing, but still he couldn't resist a good chance for a humorous reproach.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"Good that you clarified that. I would have been mighty offended if you would see an old man in me."</span><br/><br/>But then his face got sad and serious. He shook his head.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"Alice, I hate to do that, but I have to destroy some illusions of you. Those reports have been read. From the guys on top. There is a simple proof for that. You are here. Why would they send their most stubborn and most talented investigator into this hellhole six weeks before I retire? To take me out of the business? They know me by now, Alice. All those years they could never find any proof for my part in this, because there is none. I am not dumb, Alice. I knew what I risked with those dossiers and I prepared for the worst. My entire business, and believe me it is far larger than the military and you may even assume, is divided into hundreds of small companies. It is such a myriad of enterprises and persons, that even if you would torture me, I couldn't come up with all names. It's a web, one that is so complicated that it would need a hundred Alices to even grasp its organisation after a year of research. I am not important in this web, I am just the person planning the next enterprises. They can't take me out of business, because I am not the business. The business is itself. And it will continue when I am long rotten. Those people I trust with important positions have learned that my way is the right way. They will continue. No, Alice, you are not here to take me out of business."</span><br/><br/>He walked up to her and his eyes looked sad at her.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"You are not the hunter, Alice. You are the hangman. They hope that you find some tiny thing, that would allow you to haul me in. And once they got me in their fingers, I wouldn't be sent to Darquel. There are planets killing you quicker. They fear me, Alice. They know that I prepared myself, that they would lose my tracks outside of Sirius-238. I have a dozen aliases, Peter Halvardson will be history, once I leave this planet. But they know that I never forgive them ignoring me and my petitions. That I have already planned my revenge. And I have...you remember my plan with the mining firm? What do you believe will happen if that firm produces cheap minerals with no unhuman labor for the miners? You don't think the news will spread with the miners, that there is someone who actually offers fair work, a health plan, retirement programs, anti-drug policy that deserves that word? The press is a whore, they will suddenly jump on that. My dossiers stowed away in some dark archives will suddenly become nuclear, someone will print them and then the heads will start to roll. UE, politicians, military. It will be the end of UE as we know it, they will have to change their policy. It is unavoidable..."</span><br/><br/>He could see in her face that she understood what he said, that she suddenly realised why he wanted to make that mining firm. It wasn't only about the business and making money. It was his slowly ticking bomb, ready to explode.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"I have a lot of bodyguards here, Alice. And believe me, I need them. There had been four assassination attempts in the last two years. Always freshly arrived workers. Someone really fears me...and now they sent you. And from all the people I could fall for it must be some stubborn, obstinate, obsessed police woman"</span></div>