On the Kish side of the jumpgate, they encountered Matsushida's little sister Miya and her patrol, keeping Kish safe from the increased activity of Rampart-separatist-sponsored pirates. Disappointingly, Matsushida gave her no reason to blow them out of space.
Arriving in Kish orbit, Matsushida called his father, Count Sumiteru, and asked him to come up to the Lady, since he didn't want to take the tetrahedron down to the surface. After being briefed, Sumiteru agreed that further investigation was in order, and arranged to have it performed.
Leonora, who had come up along with Sumiteru, had a letter for Matsushida, from Baron Renato, which did not particularly increase or diminish anyone's level of confusion.
Once safely down and installed at Leonora's, Matsushida set his minions to finding the most pious and well-respected priest on Kish, and dug into the family archives and reminiscenses for information on his remote ancestor Remzao Li Halan and his proximate ancestor Paulus Li Halan. Gwen and Halley put out an advertisement for private investigators, looking for someone to look into the Zenobiah matter. Gwen then vanished into the mysterious realm of wedding dresses and engraved invitations, apparently having been deprived of such as a girl.
Eventually the appointed day for personal interviews of investigators arrived. The first applicant was a small weaselly guy who called himself Neville. An experienced bounty hunter who had brought fugitives in after as much as twenty years, he appeared promising until he delivered the fatal line, "Going into a bar and busting up the bartender for information, going into a library and busting up the librarian for information, it's all the same.".
The second candidate was Althea Hastings, a small, mousy, and extremely nervous librarian from the University at Leagueheim. Neither people skills nor fieldwork seemed to be her strengths, so they sent her back to the University to do research there. Hastings seemed greatly relieved.
The third candidate looked entirely appropriate to his thick Russian accent, and had apparently frightened off everyone else in the waiting room. Gunnar flattered and sucked up shamelessly, but had obviously done plenty of research to know just how to flatter Gwen and Halley, so they hired him anyway. (Sadly, this account cannot do full justice to Gunnar's interview technique. Gwen's diary contains another report of the interview.)
Gunnar apparently had scared off all the other canditates, so that was the end of the interviews.
Halley then went up to the research ship to help investigate the tetrahedron. Jaana went hiking, but was unable to gain access to Kish's terraforming engine.
Matsushida determined that his grandfather Paulus, a man well-respected for his learning and piety, had left Kish about six years previously, apparently to retrace Zebulon's journey, and had not been seen since.
After a few days of proper medical care, Veroni regained consciousness, but seemed to be heavily brain-damaged, and didn't react usefully to any attempts at conversation, nor to Elektra's use of piratic invective. The doctors said the symptoms were similar to those of a stroke, except that Veroni hadn't had a stroke, nor significant brain damage from anoxia.
Matsushida's minions finally produced the name of Father Peter Montgomery, an extremely pious priest who was known to have performed true miracles, without the involvement of theurgy. He met Father Peter at the Prophet's Cathedral, and laid out the situation. Father Peter put Matsushida on a strict regimen of fasting and prayer, and told him to come back in ten days.
As he left the cathedral, Matsushida encountered a beautiful woman who seemed oddly familiar. The "haven't we met before?" gambit elicited a name, Lauren, and some cold flirting interspersed with quirky smiles. Finally taking his leave, Matsushida set his minions on her trail as well.
Though no record could be found of Lauren on contemporary Kish, Matsushida's investigations turned up a picture of Remzao and several other people, one of whom was Lauren. Apparently Lauren Alecto was the sister of Emperor Vladimir, and vanished in the chaos following his death. Her body was never found.
A few days later, the technicians working on the computer core from the Far Star gave Matsushida their report. The blaster shot had badly corrupted the data, but they were able to recover enough to reconstruct the progress of the power drain: It started one jump before Cadiz, gradually increasing during the Far Star's stay in that system. The drain decreased during the mutiny, possibly because the tetrahedron was draining the crew, and spiked when Halley and Shung Shong were trying to restart the generators. It also appeared that the jump engines had not activated when the ship made transit to Cadiz.
The technicians also had a report on the contents of the datapad. Breaking the password had been easy, but the memory was badly corrupted, and only fragments could be extracted. The contents of those fragments were interesting enough that Matsushida showed them only to Gwen and not to the members of other power blocs and random lunatics he'd been hanging out with; a universal jumpgate key was not something he wanted anyone else to get hold of. He also showed them to his father, who seemed less than impressed and ordered Matsushida to take care of the matter.
Unsurprisingly, Gwen told all to Jaana at confession. Jaana then told Elektra and Halley about the recovered data. Thus, when Matsushida claimed to Elektra that the computer core and datapad were too badly damaged for anything to be recovered, she knew he was lying. Nevertheless, Matsushida made sure the datastores would be blank when they were turned back over to her.
Irritated at being cut out, Elektra began conspiring with Halley and Jaana.
Gunnar was dispatched to De Moley to trace Veroni's movements there, in hopes of the finding the mysterious Antonio.
Finally, his interminable ordeal of piety and mortification ended, Matsushida returned to the cathedral to meet with Father Peter. After further prayer, Father Peter opened his eyes, looked up above Matsushida's head, and announced that he saw a ghost, a man with Li Halan features wearing the armor of a knight of St Lextius. Although he could not discern the identity or purpose of the ghost, he thought it was protecting Matsushida, although he could not say what from. Suddenly things became a lot clearer, or at least the boundaries of ignorance were pushed back one step.
Impressed by Father Peter's insight into Matushida's problem where so many before had floundered clueless, Gwen consulted him about her headaches, and was in turn placed on a strict regimen of fasting and prayer.
Four days later, Halley and Elektra executed their clever plan. Overriding Gwen's protests with priestly sophistry, they persuaded her to lure Matsushida onto the Black Jack's Lady with the obvious strategem. As soon as he was on board, the hatches closed and Elektra pushed the Up button.
On the research ship in orbit, Halley substituted a tetrahedral ("active") fake for the inert (spherical) key and then shut down the power by remote control, causing widespread panic and evacuation by the poor scientists. In the confusion, she and Jaana transferred to the Black Jack's Lady and Elektra set course for the jumpgate.
Once onboard, Halley handed the key over to Elektra, and then tormented Matsushida by giving him a fake and sticking to her claim that it was the real one.
The week of travel to the jumpgate passed without noticeable happiness on anyone's part. Despite considerable and sometimes acrimonious discussion, no decision on the disposition of the key was reached. Matsushida sulked a lot.
After once again cheating Miya of her chance to blow Matsushida to itty bitty flinders, they jumped through to Rampart, and thence to Pandemonium.
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