When people traveled through space, once a spacecraft moved away from Earth, messages sent from Earth chased after it. Unless the spacecraft traveled slower than light, light-speed information sent after the spacecraft could never catch up with it.
However, when people reached their destination and turned back, they traveled toward the incoming messages. The frequency of the messages they received grew faster and faster, creating a sensation of accelerated time.
When Georgiana headed toward Milan, she should, by rights, have received the news before Paris did. Yet in reality, the news came from behind her.
She was not surprised in the least. Venice had once tried to bribe people in the Directory with bills of exchange, hoping to win them to Venice's side and have Napoleon removed. Napoleon had intercepted several express letters in Milan. Not only had he escaped the plot against him, he now held the list of those who had taken bribes.
She guessed that Murat had intercepted this letter and sent it to Napoleon. It had not yet had time to reach the northern side of the Alps; otherwise, the people sent to deliver it would have been Dubois's men.
Fouché had always handled his own affairs first, then matters related to himself. Everything had its order of priority.
Once the bells stopped ringing, Georgiana had Oksana summon her guardian, Bougainville.
Bougainville arrived before she had waited long, and he was not wearing a naval uniform.
She turned the letter she had just received toward him and let him read it.
"Leon told me there was something happening in Gibraltar. What is it?"
Bougainville did not look at the letter at all and began his report directly.
Several countries had occupied Cape Town. Britain's territory there was not actually the largest, but when the French Republic