It seemed hopeless, and that was troublesome in itself. Adaria had never been one to give up hope. Her mentor would be sorry to hear that it had come to this. Perhaps there was some way to maintain hope. Some way.
As she stepped off the transit platform near her apartment, the chill of memory set in. The memory of the night, ten days ago, when the agents of Centrist Strength had come calling. Terrorist agents, as far as she was concerned. Come to her home. Why hers?
The knock was not loud, but sharp. It was foolish of her to open the door, but somehow the knock seemed commanding. The two men who stood there spoke softly at first, and then with veiled threat in their voices: "...know that there are people you care for, back in the forest... it would be sad if evil came to them. But what you are doing, information you are giving to people who have no right to it, trying to make political gold out of a foolish legend—it has cost one man his life, already. How unfortunate if it cost more lives..."
Even that might not have been enough to cause her to leave her job. No, it was the change at work, her own boss acting as though Adaria had somehow done wrong to provide information to a patron, to Mrs. Mahoney. The chill had set in, not long after Mrs. Mahoney had come to the library asking about Impris; and it had grown steadily deeper, until Adaria simply could stand it no longer.
She let herself into the apartment with a whuffing sigh. Letting down her satchel, she turned and relocked the door with great deliberation. For a moment, she could not move, but just stood back from the door, arms and wings wrapped around herself, shivering. Then she went to the kitchen and put tea water on to heat. While she waited for the water to boil, she went to the com.
"Vegas..."
"Ffff—Adaria. Hello." Mrs. Mahoney's housekeeper sounded subdued, but pleased to hear from her. They were more kefling—acquaintances—than truefriends; and yet, in a city with so few Fabri natives, the distinction seemed less important.
Adaria fluttered her wings, trying to think what to say. She'd simply had the impulse to call, without knowing what she would say. "I've left my job at the library. It's just become too... uncomfortable." Dangerous.
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Vegas, who'd lived with her own share of danger in recent weeks. "Are you going to move back home?"
Back with our own people? "Perhaps later," Adaria admitted, trying not to feel it as a defeat. Driven from human society by racist elements. Was it racism? Or a simpler evil? "Have you heard anything from your employer?"
"Ffff—Mrs. Mahoney and Morgan have returned, and taken refuge in the Narseil embassy."
"The Narseil?" Adaria asked in surprise. "That's... most unusual, isn't it? I was not aware that the Narseil were prone to such hospitality."
"Unusual, indeed. But there are strange things happening at the Spacing Authority, apparently, and they cannot come home. Plus, there's the missing woman I told you about before. Mrs. Mahoney just called me, in fact. They think this woman might have been taken to a place up in the home province. They'd like us to put the word out... they don't know who's behind it..." The concern, edged with fear, was audible in Vegas's voice.
Adaria's own fear was rising again. Centrist Strength... meddling in our land again? "Are you all right, Vegas?"
"Yes—yes, I think I'm safe enough here. Mrs. Mahoney's people are looking out for me."
"Good." Adaria was silent a moment, thinking. "You know, maybe I should think about returning home sooner, rather than later..."
"Will you take word about the woman? Mrs. Mahoney is very worried."
"Of course. Yes. Send me all the details."
"I will. And Adaria? Ffff—take care."
* * *
Major Jenkins Talbott read the intelligence reports with a curled lip. He still hadn't gotten over the way someone had snatched this woman Maris O'Hare out of the hospital before his people could get to her. And he still didn't know who the hell they were, or why they had done it. Someone trying to muscle in on Strength? But who else would care, or want to put the squeeze on Rigger Legroeder? Not that that mattered now, since Legroeder had fled the planet. But Command—and especially, it seemed, the Kyber affiliates—were even more upset than he was. They wanted her found. It seemed the affiliates didn't take well to people getting away from their outposts, even podunk backwater outposts.
But at last he had some good news. His people—well, okay, Colonel Paroti's people, but they were all part of the same division—had tracked her down. It seemed her abductors had gotten a little careless in their driving, and run someone off the road, way up north of here. They'd fled the scene, but a tracker on the other car had made the ID. So now Talbott knew where they were: basically in the middle of nowhere. Which was fine with him. All the easier to get in, make a snatch, and get out—without any hassle from the police or need to involve North and the planetary authorities.
Talbott looked up with a frown as the agent who'd brought him the report entered his cubicle. "Good work, Corporal," Talbott said, slapping the report down. "Give yourself a pat on the ass for it."
"Thank you, sir," said Corporal Sladdak, with a crisp nod.
Talbott chuckled. A loyal Strength soldier, this one. Might make good officer material, some day—if he ever, for chrissake, learned to loosen up a little. So goddamn earnest. Talbott squinted at the wall above Sladdak's left shoulder, then blinked and picked up a document wafer. "Corporal, I need a message taken over to field ops. We're asking them to lend us a field action agent. I don't figure we need the extra body, but Command's got a bee in their bonnet about it." He paused, then yanked his gaze back to his man. "Corporal, how'd you like to join me on a little mission? We need to liberate this woman from captivity and take care of her ourselves."
"I sure would, sir," the corporal said, without blinking.
"Good. Damn straight. Well, after you deliver this message for me, you go home and get yourself ready for a little field operation. It's an important one, you hear?"
"Yes, sir..."
Chapter 27
In Search of Impris
The Flux felt different to Legroeder this time, as they flew down the light-years, far from the outer boundaries of Outpost Ivan. A part of him that had grown intensely attached to Tracy-Ace/Alfa was struggling to find a way to fill the emptiness where, against all odds, he had found something to treasure. Or at least want to treasure. Was it real, the thing that had happened to him with Tracy-Ace? He wasn't quite sure anymore. The Flux—perhaps acting in concert with his heart—felt more tenuous than usual, with a less clearly defined feeling of movement. He couldn't quite tell if the difference was in him or in the Flux itself—or maybe in the peculiarities of the Kyber ship Phoenix. Despite the lack of feeling of movement, they were speeding along briskly, as though in a planetary jetstream—thin, high-altitude winds.
The primary rigger crew consisted of Legroeder, Deutsch, Palagren, and Ker'sell—with Kyber riggers taking the secondary crew slots, a fact that did not sit well with the Kyber crew. Legroeder, per YZ/I's orders, was the command rigger in the net; but the ship itself was under the authority of a rugged Kyber captain named Jaemes Glenswarg, a man in his forties, with only modest augmentation. He seemed to have a tough disposition, and likely a willingness to take some risks—but also a predisposition toward conservative flying. That last was some reassurance to Legroeder, who was torn between excitement and fear as he thought of what lay ahead. He was grateful for the trio of Kyber escort ships that had departed along with them. The escort had already dropped back out of visual contact, to a distant shadowing position; but Legroeder was glad they were there—the first time in his life he'd ever welcomed the presence of pirate ships.
Any hope had evaporated for anything like a return to "old times." He and the Narseil and Deutsch worked well in the net together, as always—but it could never be quite the same, operating under a Kyber flag. If he wasn't sure whom to trust, the Narseil were even more uncertain. He had vivid memories of going to Fre'geel with the proposed mission...
>
"Send my people to fly with the Kyber? I'd as gladly send them out the airlock. What did you tell them, anyway?"
"I didn't have to tell them anything, Fre'geel. They knew all about us, the whole plan!"
It was hard to tell whether Fre'geel's indignation was real or staged. "What do you mean, they knew—?"
"They were waiting for us. They knew who I was the whole time. They were the ones who sent the feelers to El'ken. The whole thing was a setup to get us here! Not just me; they wanted your people, too!"
The Narseil's face was transformed by a series of expressions as he struggled to absorb this new information. "You're saying they brought us here to help them look for Impris?"
Legroeder appealed to Tracy-Ace, who nodded confirmation. "Don't forget it's one of the things we came here for, Fre'geel. We have a chance now to try to bring Impris in. Rescue her. Learn the truth."
Fre'geel glanced back through the window into the holding cell, where a set of portable mist-showers had recently been installed. The Kyber had kept their word on that, at least. But Legroeder could imagine him thinking, how would his crew react if he sent his best riggers out on a Kyber-run operation?
"Perhaps," Tracy-Ace said dryly, "you would like to hear the actual terms Ivan is offering."
"Terms!" Fre'geel said, not quite snorting. "Since you have us as your prisoners, you may be able to dictate terms. But you cannot command our actions. Why do you want Impris, anyway?"
Legroeder threw up his hands. "Why don't you listen to them and find out?"
Fre'geel looked stunned, but in the end he went along to discuss the matter with Yankee-Zulu/Ivan...
And in the end, if Fre'geel did not exactly trust Ivan, he did decide that the Narseil's prospects for achieving their goals were better with the deal than without. Even if there was no guarantee that YZ/I would uphold the bargain if they rescued the ship, they were at least pursuing contacts and gaining information. Fre'geel argued for the inclusion of Cantha and Agamem as bridge specialists to help analyze the structure of the Deep Flux, and although YZ/I had not originally intended to send non-rigger Narseil, he agreed.
They'd gotten underway without delay, despite signs of considerable wariness between the Narseil team and the Kyber crew. Ker'sell, whom Legroeder suspected had never quite trusted him in the first place, seemed more guarded than ever. Legroeder couldn't tell if Ker'sell regarded him as a traitor, or if he simply distrusted everyone. Agamem, whom the Narseil really had wanted along for security, rather than Flux analysis, seemed to accept Legroeder's loyalty; but even so, Legroeder felt he was being watched. As far as he could tell, Palagren and Cantha still accepted him as a friend and crewmate.
Phoenix's heading was set for upper northeastern Golen Space, where Kyber tracking was last known to have followed Impris. The information at their command was scant; Kilo-Mike/Carlotta, whose ships were currently shadowing Impris, provided only the minimum tracking data required by the Kyber Republic commonality agreements. However, YZ/I's people had purchased some additional information—they hoped more than just rumor—from a third outpost that had deeper sources than Ivan's within KM/C.
While Cantha worked with the Kyber crew at the plotting computers, trying to project Impris's possible locations from the information they had, Legroeder and the rigger team flew on a course traversing the narrow waist of the so-called Golen Space Peninsula. They were aiming for an area not too far from several important routes that skirted Golen Space just a few light-years to the galactic south of the star-birthing region of the Akeides Nebula. The nebula, just outside Golen Space on the route between Karg-Elert 4 and Vedris IV, was a passage of tremendous beauty, but also an area of turbulence, where a number of Centrist ships had been lost over the years.
The nebula was well known to Kyber worlds, too—but for another reason. It was a boundary point of Impris's wanderings. The ship seemed to meander chaotically, appearing in ghostly fashion in one place and then another, at unpredictable intervals. Its movements seemed limited to a zone a few dozen light-years in length, and a dozen wide and high. The region of the Akeides Nebula marked one end point of that zone.
"Are you saying," Legroeder heard Cantha asking a Kyber navigator named Derrek, "that there's a force in the nebula that turns the ship back when it gets too close?"
Derrek's return gaze seemed to deny all recognition of Cantha's authority or position. His electronic eyes glanced at Captain Glenswarg, as if to ask, How much do you want me to say?
Legroeder watched in silence. When the captain didn't speak, Cantha explained, "If we want to locate the ship, we need to understand its behavior. If you have knowledge that bears on our search..." He appealed with a gesture to the captain.
Glenswarg moved his chin up and down a centimeter, nodding.
The Kyber navigator's mouth pursed as he struggled to accept this. "The answer is, we don't know."
Legroeder thought, Was that so hard to say?
"Don't know what—whether or not the nebula turns Impris back?" Cantha asked.
Derrek shrugged. "For all we know, the nebula just happens to be there. Maybe there's no connection." He pressed his lips together, making clear there was nothing else he would offer willingly.
Cantha looked thoughtful as he turned back to the simulation console.
* * *
At the end of the fourth day of flying, Cantha and the riggers gathered in the plotting room just aft of the bridge. "I find it interesting," Cantha said, "that even the Kyber—with all of their ships tracking Impris—cannot accurately predict her course, or even define its limits very precisely." Cantha gestured to the holo-image floating in the center of the room, where he'd traced out his projections of their course aboard Phoenix. From the net, their course had seemed like a fairly straight line; but from Cantha's plot of the Flux-layers, it looked more like a mangled corkscrew penetrating the Golen Space Peninsula.
"What are these lines here?" Legroeder asked, reaching out to trace glowing threads that crisscrossed under the path of Phoenix. "Why do they zigzag like that?"
Cantha picked carefully at his teeth. "That's something you should regard as extremely tentative. I'm trying to sketch out some possible routes of Impris through the—" he hesitated "—underflux."
"Underflux?" Legroeder asked, cocking an eye at him. "Do you mean the Deep Flux?"
"Only partially." Cantha's neck-ridge quivered; he seemed a little reticent, even defensive, as he continued. "Our Institute has been examining a theoretical series of spacetime layerings that we term the 'underflux.' We don't have enough data to confirm or deny our theories, and it's... not discussed much outside the Institute."
Legroeder frowned. "Meaning, it's for Narseil eyes only?"
Cantha shrugged at the implied reproach. "Essentially, yes. Until now. The underflux includes—as nearly as I can tell—the layer that the Kyber refer to when they say the Deep Flux."
"As nearly as you can tell?"
Deutsch floated forward. "Is there a question about terminology?"
Cantha displayed an uncharacteristic annoyance. "Not just that. No offense, Freem'n, but your Kyber crewmates would sooner open their veins than share their knowledge about the Deep Flux with us. And somebody had better start sharing information. Why'd they bring us along, if they're not willing to pool knowledge?"
Palagren stirred. "They probably think we'll use whatever they tell us to try to stop that colony fleet of theirs."
"And are they wrong?" Deutsch asked. Before anyone could answer, he added, "Don't forget, these guys are not entirely playing with their own decks here." He tapped the side of his head. "I don't think I'm being programmed to respond to you in any particular way, but I'm not sure the same thing is true of the Phoenix crew. There may be low-level safeguards against the spilling of information."
Legroeder opened his mouth, closed it. If the augments were keeping the Kyber crew hostile... "I'd better talk to Captain Glenswarg about that. If they want us to find Impris, and there's
a chance she's actually lost in the Deep Flux..."
"It would be very helpful," said Cantha, "if you could use your influence with the captain."
That drew a low hiss from behind Legroeder, and he turned to see Ker'sell's eyes narrowed to thin vertical slits. Legroeder sighed impatiently. "Look, Ker'sell. Unless we cooperate with the Kyber, we'll never find the ship. I didn't sell out to them." At least, I don't think I did.
Ker'sell blinked slowly, looking like a large, dangerous lizard. "Perhaps not," he said. "But remember that our interests are not the same as the Kyber's." He almost spat the word as he flexed his long-fingered hands. Had his nails grown long and sharp when Legroeder wasn't watching, or had they always been that way? "I will be watching to see whose interests you serve."
"Please do," Legroeder said softly, trying to sound merely annoyed rather than alarmed. He drew a breath. "And now, if you'll all excuse me, I think I'll go have that talk with the captain."
* * *
Glenswarg crossed his arms over his chest, facing Legroeder in the commander's wardroom. "What do you expect me to do about it? I can't make my men like the Narseil. As long as they're doing their jobs—"
"But that's just it. They're not—" Legroeder caught himself.
"Are you suggested they're not doing their jobs?" Glenswarg asked in a low voice. Are you questioning my leadership?
Legroeder steeled himself. "They're not sharing information," he said slowly. "At least, not freely enough to enable our riggers, and researchers—" brought to you at enormous cost, across many light-years "—to do what's necessary to complete our mission. To find Impris."
"I am aware of our mission, Rigger."
"Yes, sir." Legroeder paused. "If you don't mind my asking, Captain—are these crew under... augment control?"
Glenswarg's gaze narrowed even more. "I don't see what concern that is of yours."
"Yes, well—" Legroeder cleared his throat "—let's just say, if they're intentionally being made to be suspicious of us, perhaps there is some adjustment that could be made..." His voice trailed off, as the captain's eyes grew more and more slitted.
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