Alison frowned down at Taneem's head lying across her shoulder. Jack had told them that his uncle Virgil was dead.
"Really," Neverlin said. "After all these months of looking for him, he finally surfaces. And at the most awkward time and place possible. Interesting. What does he want?"
"He wants to talk to you," Frost said. "Shall I blow him out of the sky and be done with it?"
"By no means," Neverlin said, and Alison heard the soft creak of a chair. "Certainly not until we know how he found us. I'll be right there." There was the sound of a door opening and closing, and then silence.
"Blast," Alison muttered, pulling the receiver out of her ear. With the conversation shifting to the Advocates Diaboli's bridge, she and Taneem were now out of it.
"It can't really be Virgil Morgan, can it?" Taneem asked hesitantly.
"Not unless Jack lied to us," Alison said, gazing at the door. "Which I'm sure he'd do in a heartbeat if he thought it was necessary."
Taneem lifted her head from Alison's shoulder. "We need to listen in on that conversation."
"I dearly wish we could," Alison said. "Problem is, if we leave the lifepod now we're not getting back in without everyone knowing about it. Remember the seal on the door?"
"What if I simply go over the door?" Taneem suggested. "Or what if I went into an air duct? I think I remember seeing one running along the upper part of the corridor."
Alison looked at the top of the door. The K'da was right, come to think of it. There was a large duct running along both sides of the ship, designed to flood the lifepod boarding areas with air in a hull-breach emergency. "Problem with that is that once you're out there's no way to get in again," she pointed out.
"We have time to think of something," Taneem said firmly. "Right now, we need to find out who this man is and what he wants."
Alison chewed at her lip. It was risky, and they both knew it. Still, even if worst came to worst, it should merely mean moving her private timetable up by a few days. "All right," she said. "If you're game, let's try it."
"I am," Taneem said. "You'll need to get higher up against the wall."
"First things first." Alison pulled out the comm clip that Taneem had been wearing during their hangar raid on Brum-a-dum and clipped it to the K'da's ear. "Just so I don't feel left out," she said. "No, wait a minute," she went on, frowning. "That won't work, will it? You have to go two-dimensional to get over the wall."
"Why not try putting it in my mouth?" Taneem suggested.
"Oka-a-y," Alison said slowly, pulling the comm clip off Taneem's ear. The K'da opened her jaws, and Alison set the device inside between the rows of sharp teeth. "Be careful you don't swallow it."
Taneem nodded and flattened herself again across Alison's skin.
The comm clip didn't reappear. Apparently, it was indeed going along for the ride.
Something even Jack probably doesn't know, she thought as she pulled over one of the lifepod's chairs. Climbing up on it, she pressed her back against the wall above the door, twisting at the waist to give as much connection as she could to the area of the air duct.
She felt a flicker of sensation, and Taneem was gone.
Alison hopped off the chair, praying silently as she turned on her own comm clip. Even Draycos had never tried falling off into such an enclosed space before. If Taneem had miscalculated even a little . . .
"I'm in," Taneem's voice came softy from the comm clip. "Heading forward."
Alison exhaled silently. "Be careful," she murmured.
"Don't worry," Taneem said. "I will."
It was the third time Taneem had been inside the Advocatus Diaboli's ventilation system. The first time, she remembered, she'd been nervous and confused and more than a little frightened. The second time, just a few days ago, she'd been only a little nervous, but very quiet and cautious.
This time, she found the ductwork felt almost like a second home.
Which wasn't to say she could abandon caution. Far from it. The ship had suddenly come alive, with crew members and Malison Ring mercenaries moving quickly through the corridors or settling themselves into various rooms. Whoever this person was who was pretending to be Jack's uncle Virgil, he'd stirred up a stingbug's nest.
By now the alarm had been silenced. Fortunately, there was enough commotion and conversation around her that she didn't have to worry too much about being heard. Still, she made sure to peek through each grille before she passed.
The bridge on a seagoing vessel, she remembered from the Essenay's encyclopedia, was typically on the upper part of the deck. The Advocates Diaboli's bridge, in contrast, was buried away in almost the very center of the ship. It was on the middle deck, a little ways forward of the computer and ECHO room.
She reached the room to find that Neverlin had already arrived. "So far, he hasn't tried anything fancy," Frost was telling the other as Taneem eased her way to the edge of the nearest grille. From her position she could just see Neverlin and Frost, standing behind a pair of men in white uniforms seated at a control board. "He definitely hasn't activated any of his weapons."
"And you're sure it's really Virgil Morgan?" Neverlin asked.
Frost snorted. "I'm not sure about anything," he said. "It could be the Tooth Fairy for all I know. But he is alone out there."
"Are we sure about that?" Neverlin countered. "We don't know what K'da look like on an IR scan when they're plastered across a human body."
"We know," a whispery voice replied. A very alien voice, of a type Taneem had never heard before. "I have studied the readings. The human is alone."
Neverlin turned around. "I see," he said, his voice subtly changed.
Carefully, Taneem moved forward a few more inches, trying to see the being who had spoken.
There, standing behind Neverlin and Frost, was a Valahgua.
There was no doubt in Taneem's mind that that was what this creature was. His head was wide and flat and bony, like a sphere that had been squashed down from above into a flattened disk. Dark eyes peered from beneath a brow ridge, and short tentacles writhed at both corners of his wide mouth. His body was wide and long but oddly slender from front to back.
The upper arm she could see was thick, splitting at the elbow into a much thinner forearm plus a muscular tentacle about the same length as the forearm. The hand at the end of the forearm was clenched into a fist, preventing her from seeing how many fingers he had. His legs were short and considerably thicker than even his upper arms.
The overall effect was as if someone had taken a legless crab and attached it to a wide door, then added limbs salvaged from an elephant, a human, and an octopus. It was a strange and rather ridiculous combination, and under other circumstances Taneem might have been tempted to laugh at it.
But these were the people who had made war against the K'da and Shontine. The people who, not content with driving them from their homes, were plotting with Neverlin and Frost to utterly destroy them.
There was no reason to laugh. No reason whatsoever.
"Fine; so he's alone," Frost said impatiently. Apparently, he wasn't as impressed or intimidated by the Valahgua as Neverlin was. "Can we get on with this before the entire StarForce comes roaring down on us?"
"Calm yourself, Colonel," Neverlin said. He gestured to one of the men at the control board. "Go ahead, Captain."
The other man nodded and tapped a switch. "This is Arthur Neverlin," Neverlin called. "Who is this?"
"Hello, Mr. Neverlin," a voice came over the bridge speaker. "This is Virgil Morgan. I understand you need me."