Yani still couldn't spot anything amiss in the other woman's expression, eyes, or aura, so she continued, "I told you before that after Chancellor Shirel died, the Life Tree Research Institute he founded ground to a halt. After Emperor Ivenya passed away, it became little more than a slush fund and a useless institution that handed out sinecures to the children of the powerful, until Emperor Ilaiserel disbanded it. But the institute's last project before it was shut down was a natural survey of the entire galaxy, conducted in partnership with Count Salvin, the Empire's Minister of Natural Environments at the time."
Fifi replied with a straight face, "Maybe it was a coincidence? A natural survey of the entire galaxy sounds an awful lot like a taxpayer-funded vacation. It certainly fits the profile of a useless institution."
"Heh. If Count Salvin hadn't taken a group of the institute's researchers with him when he left the political center of the Celestial Domain to start a business back home, I might have thought the same thing."
"...That was almost two hundred years ago, wasn't it? You dug that up too?"
"When the Life Tree Research Institute was disbanded, all its records and equipment were sealed away, and its personnel were restricted from moving about. The Inquisition handled it personally. Apart from the Standard Shipping Association, which is forever just, forever neutral, and forever committed to free trade and shipping safety, who else could have moved those people and their cargo?" Yani said proudly. "And the Standard Shipping Association is very professional. We even have records of sailing-ship trade from the homeworld era."
"Free trade under a just and neutral association. How noble," Fifi sneered.
"But if it was supposedly just a useless institution, why were its personnel restricted and its records and