CHAPTER 12

Well before midnight the Friendly consulate in Abbeyville had received permission from its host state, the Lancastrian Commonwealth, for a detachment of Friendly troops to be brought in from one of the leased units Bleys had already visited, to increase security in the consulate compound. All parties were maintaining a strict silence about the day's events, and nothing had made it into the media, which was the way everyone preferred it.

The two vehicles in which Bleys and his party left the battlefield had proceeded to the city after transferring their passengers, and by mid-evening had sped into the consulate's inner courtyard. The subsequent arrival of the rest of Bleys' official party, along with an official request for a deployment of local forces to guard the consulate from the outside, seemed to make it clear that Bleys was in, and intended to stay in, the consulate's safe confines. But no official statements were issued, and communications in or out of the consulate were scant and tightly controlled.

The consulate had already been buttoned down for hours when Bleys and his companions arrived at the rendezvous with Henry and his Soldiers, nearly a thousand kilometers away. But none of them had any intention of locking themselves into a potential trap.

Instead, they all headed for a tiny regional landing pad, where two privately chartered suborbital shuttles awaited them; and within four hours Bleys, Dahno and Toni were smuggled aboard Favored of God, secreted in a load of supplies for the repairs that were supposedly in progress on the ship. Favored had been sitting quietly on the pad outside Ceta City since some days before Bleys' own arrival aboard Burning Bush, ostensibly awaiting the arrival of its charter party. Favored WAS listed, in the port records, as the Konrad Macklin, of Freiland registry.

Kaj Menowsky, the Exotic-trained medician who had killed off the genetic antagonist with which Bleys had been poisoned on Newton, was waiting for them, along with a few of the ship's personnel, as Bleys and Toni were released from the crates in which they had boarded the vessel.

"Kaj!" Toni exclaimed. "We were told you'd been hurt. How're you feeling?"

"I'm fine," the medician said shortly. Clearly feeling he had no time for being sociable, he immediately began making a quick check into the stability of Dahno's condition. "It was just a mild concussion," he added, almost grudgingly, without turning to look back at her.

After a very short time, though, he smiled; and directed that Dahno be conveyed to the ship's infirmary. Then he turned to Bleys and Toni.

"How are you two?" he asked.

"I'm fine," Toni said. "Just tired—we haven't slept much lately." "I'm fine, too," Bleys said.

"Come with me," Kaj said to Bleys. "I want to check you over, too."

"No," Bleys said, more loudly than he had intended. "I'll answer as many questions as you want, but later! I have to have time to think and to get some things under way. And you have to take care of Dahno."

And I just can't take any of your incessant questions right now! he added to himself. The medician, for all his good work in combating the genetic attack on Bleys, at times made it seem as if keeping his patient talking was the key to his treatment.

"I've already confirmed that Mary did everything necessary to stabilize Dahno's condition," Kaj said. "It'll take only minutes to remove the needle still in his chest—in fact, Mary could have done that, even under field conditions, if the needle weren't lodged in a rib. But this ship has all the equipment we need, and I promise you

Dahno will be able to move about with very little constraint within three or four days, and will be completely recovered in less than two weeks. But—"

"No 'buts,'" Toni said firmly, taking Kaj by an elbow and rotating him so he could follow the crewmembers moving Dahno deeper into the ship. "There's an emergency situation still in progress, and we have things we have to get done right away." With a hand in the center of his back, she pushed him gently in the direction he was now facing.

"Again?" Kaj said; and then he shrugged, lengthening his stride and moving away from them in the direction of the ship's infirmary.

"Contact me in twenty minutes!" Toni called at his retreating back.

"I should have specialized in trauma . .." they heard his voice trail off as he passed through the hatch.

"Bleys, this is the first officer, John Tindall," Toni said then, turning and indicating the middle-aged man who had supervised the gentle removal of Dahno from his crate—no small feat, given Dahno's size—and then come to stand silently nearby during the brief argument with the medician.

"I know we've met before, Mr. Tindall," Bleys said, offering his hand.

"We have, Great Teacher," the first officer said. "We've had the pleasure of your company on board Favored of God on a number of occasions, although at those times we were usually carrying other passengers as well."

"The pleasure has been mine," Bleys said. "I learned long ago I could feel safe and comfortable in the care of this ship and her people."

As the first officer beamed, Bleys continued: "How is Captain Broadus? I assume she's busy?"

"She is ashore, sir," said Tindall. "Henry MacLean indicated it was imperative that this ship appear to be on other business, as well as virtually deserted during repairs. Since repairs are customarily the first officer's province, the captain took rooms ashore—under a false name, of course."

"I see," Bleys nodded. "No one would think anything was going on aboard a ship whose captain was apparently taking a bit of recreational leave."

"Yes, sir," said the first officer. "The captain is unhappy about it, though."

"They also serve who only stand and wait," Bleys murmured. "Yes, sir."

"I suspect, now we've come aboard, she'll find some reason for her own return," Toni said. Then, more briskly: "Mr. Tindall, can we arrange to have a work space set up for us?"

"Already done," the first officer said. "Please follow me."

"I need to know more about what's been going on," Bleys said, as he and Toni entered the ship's main lounge a few minutes later. "We still haven't figured out who our enemy is."

"Henry said we'd have nearly total communications available here—and I expect that would be you?" Toni said, addressing the question to two figures now rising from desks on the other side of the lounge.

"Yes," one of them said. He was short and muscular, with hair almost the same medium shade of brown as his skin.

"You're Walker Freas, I think," Toni said. "And you would be Sarah Kochan," she went on, turning to the second figure, a short, red-haired woman whose face carried an intense display of freckles.

The two Soldiers nodded. Their presence indicated they were members of the specialists among Henry's Soldiers—some of whom were technical specialists being trained in the skills of fighting, and the rest warriors being trained in technical skills. Bleys, when Henry had brought the idea of the dual force to him, had foreseen friction between the two groups, but the cross-training seemed to be paying off, as each side developed more respect for the other, having learned something of what the others had to know. . ..

"There are four more of us," Walker Freas said, "two on duty with the comms consoles, through that door there—" he pointed, "—and two catching some sleep."

"Henry gave me to understand you have landlines set up through the pad facilities, that can't be traced," Toni said.

"That's right," Sarah Kochan said. Her face lit in a toothy smile. "The line is shielded up to its junction with the public system, as is required by the interstellar compacts for spaceports."

She was referring, they all knew, to some of the legal niceties that gave all ships on spaceport pads the sovereignty of their home planets, and put them virtually beyond the control of whatever planet they might be on.

"And after that juncture, it becomes virtually anonymous in the midst of the public system," Sarah was continuing. "It's a permanently open connection, which means no initialization signals to attract attention—going to a safe house where we have all the standard comm security gear in place, as well as a nano-modulated—"

"What you're saying, I think," Toni interrupted what was clearly about to become much more of a technological lecture than Bleys wanted just now, "is that even if anyone traces calls to the safe house, they can't trace it back here."

"Oh, it could be done, I guess," Sarah said. "But not in any time frame I've been given to understand we have to worry⁷ about."

"Let's speak about this in more detail a little later," Toni said. "But for the moment we need to talk more about content than about systems."

"Do you want to ask us questions, or would you prefer our summary first?" Walker Freas asked. The unexpected aptitude the onetime mercenary⁷ had shown for intelligence collection activities had been very pleasing to Henry, Bleys remembered.

"Summary first, I think," Toni said, exchanging a glance with Bleys, who had already moved over to take a seat at one of the vacated desks, where he found already up and running a screen that accessed the ship's information storage. He entered the password needed to access the files from Others' headquarters that had been copied into the ship's computer before it left Association; and then looked up and nodded at Toni.

"We may ask questions as you go," Toni said to the two Soldiers.

"Of course," Walker Freas said. He turned and nodded to Sarah, who also sat down at a screen.

"Following your instructions," Walker Freas said now, "those of us who came in secretly on Favored of God set up covert surveillance on the Others' headquarters and its personnel, and two-person teams went out to surveil seven of the Others who primarily work elsewhere on the planet."

"Did you have information of some sort that led you to choose those seven?" Toni asked.

"No," Freas answered. "With nothing to go on, we simply chose seven at random."

"What did you find?"

"Up until your arrival, nothing untoward happened—except for one thing that didn't happen: our people couldn't locate one of the outlying seven Others."

"Which one?" Bleys asked.

"Stella Tanalingam," Walker Freas replied.

"Could she have been out on her route?"

"We don't think so," Walker said. "We had information on all the local Others' routes, of course, and our team followed along hers. As it happened, four of the other six outlying Others were also out on their routes, and the teams assigned to them had no trouble finding them."

"Could she have been on vacation, or ill, for instance?" Toni asked.

"Perhaps," the Soldier said. "But we don't think so, because there was another unexpected variation from pattern: her route was still being worked."

"Worked? You mean—" Toni began, but Bleys interrupted her.

"You mean someone else was out following up her normal contacts, don't you?" he said.

"Yes," Walker nodded. "Specifically, one of her staff members."

"You know that because it was someone listed in the table of organization you were given," Bleys said. "Which one?"

"Lester Parnell," Walker said. Bleys immediately called up the available information on that individual. He had thoroughly reviewed all such material already, but despite his retentive memory he took time to scan the file once more, while waving a hand for the summary to continue.

"In all other cases, the Others' staffs never acted on their own,"

Walker Freas said. "Generally the staff stays in the office, acting as liaison and so forth; if one of them goes out on a route, it's always in a position supporting the senior Other."

He fell silent, watching Bleys, who appeared intent over his screen. After a moment Toni spoke again.

"You've been telling us what you saw before our arrival," she said.

"Right," the Soldier said, and continued: "At what we now know was a short time after Burning Bush came out of its final shift, there was an explosion of activity in the headquarters here in Ceta City. None of it could be called suspicious, given the circumstances of your arrival. And within a short time, there was activity in all the outlying offices we were covering."

"All attributable to their seniors being instructed to come to Ceta City," Toni said.

Walker nodded.

"But in Stella Tanalingam's office?" Bleys asked, looking up now from his screen.

"Activity, yes," Walker said. "But no one went to Ceta City from that office. Rather, Parnell came back to the office immediately, and some sort of conference was held, involving two other members of the staff—and two persons unknown to us."

"There was no way to listen to that conference, or to any calls?" Bleys asked.

"No. Others' security is entirely too good to allow that. Perhaps we could have arranged something, with time, but—" "Never mind," Bleys said. "Go on."

"As I said, we only had two people on the scene," Walker said. "When the conference broke up, they made the decision to split up. Elizabeth Kalra followed Coleman Jones, another of the staff at that meeting, and Ken Anderson went off after one of the unknowns." He stopped.

"And?" Toni prompted him.

"Coleman Jones merely went home," Walker said, "and has cither stayed there or gone in to the office. Ken Anderson has not been heard from again."

CHAPTER 13

It was Bleys who finally interrupted the silence.

"Was there any unusual activity after we left the office here?" he asked.

"Not for some time, as far as we could tell—with one exception," Walker said.

"An exception arising after the bomb attack on our convoy," Bleys stated.

"Yes," Walker said; and Sarah nodded. "What happened?" Toni asked.

"Pallas Salvador was at home—it was night here when that attack occurred," Sarah said. "Our estimate is that no one called her with the news for several hours. When she got the news, she went to the office immediately."

"And during that intervening period, the staff—what?" Bleys asked.

"Two staff members who are normally off-duty at night came to the headquarters less than an hour after the attack," Walker said. "Gelica Costanza and Susan Perry. During the following twenty minutes three unknown persons arrived, and remained there for over an hour, leaving about twenty minutes before Pallas Salvador arrived."

"Descriptions?" Bleys asked.

"Better than that," Sarah Kochan said. "Pictures."

"Pictures?" Toni asked. "I thought even the most conventional security equipment prevented that kind of thing?"

"Anti-eavesdropping equipment works by inhibiting electronic circuitry," Sarah said. She smiled. "We took non-electronic pictures as they entered and left the building."

"How—" Toni began.

"Mechanical cameras," Bleys interrupted her. "They use some sort of non-electronic recording medium with a simple mechanical lens—we don't have time to get sidetracked on that: where are those pictures?"

"I'm sending them to your screen now," Sarah said.

"I sec," Bleys said after a moment. "Are these the same people who came to Parnell's office?"

"No."

"What descriptions do you have for those people?"

"A man and a woman," Walker Freas said. "Both estimated to be in their upper sixties in age. The man tall and muscular, with rosy white skin and graying brown hair, and the woman black-haired and brown-skinned, about six inches shorter than the man and unusually thin."

Toni, who had moved to look over Bleys' shoulder at the pictures from Ceta City while Walker gave the descriptions of the unphotographed people, looked up.

"There's a common denominator," she said.

"Yes," Bleys nodded. "They're all in the same age range."

"We noticed that, too," Walker Freas said. "And with only one exception it's the same age range as the staff members they conferred with. We don't think it could be a coincidence, but we don't have an explanation for it."

In the ensuing silence, Toni pointed out that tomorrow was the day the Others' leaders were scheduled to reconvene at the Ceta City headquarters.

"You're right," Bleys said. He paused to think for a moment.

"We need time," he said. "Get a message out postponing the meeting for seven days—route it through the consulate in Abbeyville, giving the impression it's coming from me there."

"All right," Toni said.

A moment later the door annunciator chimed. At a nod from Bleys, Sarah Kochan touched a control, and the door opened to reveal Kaj Menowsky. Toni held up a hand before he could speak.

"Bleys?" she said. Her tone got his attention.

"You need to go with Kaj now and let him look you over," she said.

Bleys looked at her, then at Kaj in the doorway. After a moment he stood up.

"We need to make this fast," he said to the medician.

Kaj only nodded, and backed out of the doorway as Bleys began to stride toward it. Bleys, however, stopped, and turned half around.

"Find me some experienced researchers," he said to the room in general. "I mean experienced in negotiating libraries and databases. I'd prefer they were our own people, but we can use locals for the sake of speed, if we can maintain security." He turned away but continued speaking over his shoulder as he walked toward the door.

"I think Henry called in some of the outlying teams to augment the force that screened us after the bombing," Bleys said. "Is anyone still out watching the outlying offices?"

"Yes," Walker Freas said. "Henry sent a few of the people who were originally with you to take over that surveillance."

"Probably thinking they were known to the local authorities in the area around us," Toni said. "They wouldn't have been known in the surveillance areas."

"Call them all in," Bleys said, "except for the ones watching Lester Parnell. We're going to need the rest here."

"The meeting's been postponed," Toni said when Bleys returned to the lounge less than an hour later. "What did Kaj have to say?" "He said I'm fine."

"I'll check that with him later, you know."

"I knew that," Bleys said. "He wants to look you over, too, you know. In any case, he'll still tell you I'm fine, although he'll probably take longer than that to say it."

"And he thinks you should take a nap."

"How did you know that?"

"He always wants you to get more rest," she said, smiling. "I'll admit to being tired," he said. "I'll get a nap in a minute." "There's a bedroom right down the corridor," she pointed out. He nodded.

"Where is everybody?" he asked.

"In comms," she said, indicating the door that had been pointed out to him earlier. "I'm afraid the Soldiers don't run to research skills, so I've got them looking for suitable locals."

"Would any of our official party be likely to have such skills?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "But they're all still in Abbeyville, pretending you're holed up there; and I thought it'd be best not to risk exposing that ruse."

"You're right," he said.

"Why don't you tell me what you want researched," she said. "Then you can catch a nap while I get it all in motion?"

"We want historical researchers," he said, "but I'm still trying to work the problem in my own head.... Let me sleep on it, and I'll have it by the time we have people ready to work. Besides, you need sleep even more than I do."

Things were quiet aboard Favored of God that evening. In fact, Bleys thought, it was almost like being in space, except there were fewer people around. He had napped for nearly four hours before getting up to have a small meal, which he prepared for himself in the ship's kitchen. Toni was still asleep.

He wished he could look out from the ship now, to see space as they passed through it—to look out at the stars, as he always tried to do when out among them ... but then, it wasn't space he would see out there now. He could activate a sensor to watch the Cetan night sky from here in the lounge, but it would not be the same thing.

It was strange that he could feel so free, in a ship like this, when it was out among the stars, and yet feel so penned in—in the very same ship—when it was at rest on a planet's surface.

He had not really realized, until now, how much he had come to miss those visits with the stars. On his first interstellar trips with his mother he had gotten out from under the thumbs of the caretakers she set to watch him, by parking himself in the lounges of the various liners and watching the starscapes the vision screens presented.... Some of the better liners had even had wraparound effects that could make him feel as if he was floating in space without need for a ship. On later trips, when he was an adult traveling alone, solitary, that feeling of kinship with the stars had, if anything, grown stronger.

These years his trips were always made in the company of others—other people and other concerns... so many of both, he could never seem to find the solitariness necessary to recapture that feeling of kinship.

Would he ever be that alone again? It seemed strange even to him, that he, who had felt loneliness so keenly all his life, should miss being alone.

It did not seem likely he would ever again be in a position to travel by himself, unburdened by the presence of others who could demand his time and attention.

—Maybe not. He remembered now, suddenly, that many years ago Donal Graeme, who had come as close as anyone ever had to being the ruler—no, make that guardian—of the entire race, had still managed to be alone in a ship, on that last trip when he had vanished, as sometimes occurred when a phase-shift went wrong.

Did Graeme travel by himself because of some similar desire to be close with the stars? Maybe he ought to look into more details of the man's life.

And maybe he could learn to handle a ship and go off on trips by himself....

But then, he reminded himself, Graeme had been a Dorsai, an accomplished member of a people skilled in ship-handling. Still...

He shook his head. His mission was going to require all the lifetime he could manage to attain, and more besides.

A few hours later, Toni came into the lounge by way of the comms room.

"Henry's on the line," she said. "He wants to know if you have any new orders."

"He told us earlier that the Soldiers found no identification of any sort on the dead attackers around that bunker, but that they were going to try to analyze some of the clothing and equipment," Bleys said. "Did anything come of that?"

"The equipment and clothing are all locally produced," Toni said. "Henry's reluctant to use official channels to follow up the serial numbers on the weapons, because that might tip someone off on what we're doing."

"He's correct," Bleys said, "but I don't think it could hurt us, as long as the request seems to come from the Abbeyville consultate— it would be normal for us to be trying to follow up the attack."

"It's still daylight in Abbeyville," Toni said. "I'll have Henry forward the information through the staff there. Is there anything else?"

"Not at the moment," Bleys said, "but there'll certainly be something for him to do tomorrow—maybe we should get him prepared for that. But what are you doing up? I thought you were sleeping?"

"I was," she said, "but I left instructions for them to wake me when Henry called. I'll be going back to bed soon.... As for Henry, I'd suggest we don't tell him anything about tomorrow, just now. Anything we have to tell him won't be hurt by waiting until morning— keep in mind, Henry has probably had even less sleep than we have, these last few days."

"You're right," Bleys said. "I should have remembered that."

"We can all use some more sleep," Toni said.

"I'm looking forward to it," he said. And he was, he realized, now that he had said it. Because sometimes his mind produced answers in his sleep.

"Don't let me sleep too long," he added, remembering that on those occasions when his mind had worked on a problem in his sleep, he had often slept for an inordinate length of time.

He stood up.

"How long is 'too long'?" Toni asked.

"Let's say—either when there's some unusual activity by the people we've been watching, or twelve hours." "All right," she nodded. "Are you coming to bed?"

"In a few minutes," she said. "Henry's waiting on the line; and I'd like to leave a few instructions with the duty people."

"All right," he said, and went through the door to the corridor. As Toni opened the door to the comms room, Bleys' head appeared in the other doorway again.

"Have there been any repercussions from all the bodies we left scattered in that field?" he asked.

"If you mean in the media, or in the form of any activity by our secret enemies—not that I've heard," she said. "Our diplomatic people informed the Solomonis that you managed to escape when your convoy was ambushed, and I'd guess they'll be embarrassed enough to keep the whole thing out of the media."

"Don't put out any feelers about it," he said. "But keep listening. Silence may lead our enemies to make a wrong move."

"I'll leave instructions on that, too."

He nodded, and vanished from sight again.