"With the Bubble gone. ncmo s normally swarthy skin paled.
"Yes, damn it. To see if it's gone. We've got to know what action to take if it is. That is, unless the Farmers vouchsafe to give us some indication that we don't need it anymore."
Kris held up her hand. "I'm getting something…:'
"Look!" And Jim was pointing to the bridge screen, which showed the moon that was coming up, and a small sparkle that couldn't be debris since it moved with astonishing speed on a steady, inward-bound direction.
"Oh, my God;' and Ray's voice was an awed whisper. "Have they been watching all along?"
"Does it mean that Zainal succeeded?" Jim Rastancil asked.
For the first time in her life, Kris fainted.
SHE CAME TO, lying on the cot in Ray's spartan accommodation at the hangar, with a folded towel on her forehead. She could hear male voices beyond the open door. Carefully, hoping the attack of vertigo had passed, she sat up, holding the towel in place as it felt good on her forehead, and swung her legs over the side of the cot. However did Ray get a decent night's sleep on this thing? Then memory flooded back, and she whimpered.
An anxious Ray Scott was instantly beside her. "Sorry, Kris."
That was when they both felt the almost electrical tingle that they had experienced before.
"We need more than that," Ray shouted, raising a fist above his head in challenge.
But that was all they got, and everyone they checked with over the next half hour confirmed the sensation. The Council called a meeting of its main members in the hangar as soon as they could get there. Fortunately a good deal of Retreat's population was asleep and might even have been oblivious to the mild shock. Others called in, having seen what they thought were "shooting stars:' Blandly, Gino had agreed that that's what they were.
Few realized that the Bubble was gone, and Ray thought a general announcement could wait until the Council could figure out what to do.
Dorothy Dwardie took the chair next to Kris at the end of the table.
The psychologist had been studying notes on her day's clinical sessions with some of the more unresponsive orphans when she'd felt the tingle. Unusual enough a sensation to make her want to find out if anyone else had experienced this phenomenon. She wasn't far from the infirmary so she opened a com link to the duty officer at the infirmary who had just been told to inform Leon Dane of a special meeting at the hangar. Dr. Dwardie ought to go, too. She was Council, wasn't she? And, yes, she'd felt the tingle, too.
It had happened once before that she knew of. Then she excused herself to answer another message. No sooner had Dorothy closed the link than she was buzzed, and hurriedly informed that she was needed at the hangar.
Walking down from her cabin, it took Dorothy a few hundred yards to realize that she could see the stars. Then the moon came shining through a gap in the lodge-pole trees. She ran the rest of the way to the hangar. She arrived breathless and took the first available seat, which was beside Kris.
"The Bubble's down?" she murmured, and Kris nodded without looking directly at Dorothy.
Then everyone heard the unmistakable sound of a ship taking off, and the brilliance of the propulsion units in the darkness of the landing field made them cover their eyes.
"Who's going where?" Dorothy softly asked, trying to squelch a feeling of anxiety.
"Checking on the com sat. Everything else up there came down in a shower;' Kris said.
"I felt the oddest tingle, like an electric current running through me," Dorothy added.
"The Farmers do that now and then. Counting noses," Kris replied.
"The Farmers? Have we had a message from them after all?" She leaned toward Kris, having just realized that Kris sounded very subdued. "You look awfully pale." She paused a moment, blinked as she came to a logical conclusion.
"How would the Farmers know we don't need the Bubble anymore?
If that is the case, then your Zainal succeeded?"
just then Ray Scott's characteristic calm deserted him, and he banged his fist on the table.
"How the hell can we construe a reassuring message from one goddamned short tingle!" he said in a loud, frustrated voice to Judge Iri Bem-pechat beside him. "Are they so goddamned busy monitoring the rest of the universe that we don't qualify for an explanation?"
Judge Iri Bempechat raised a gentling hand. "The message, I would think, is clear. We no longer require the protection of the Bubble. They've done a planet-wide search and counted noses again. It is my opinion that we should be grateful for what they have done, instead of--if I may be allowed to use the vulgar expression bitching about it:'
"The Judge is right;' And Kris rose to her feet, having heard all the wrangling and speculation she could stand. Not even the calm Dorothy had been oozing in her direction had helped. "And it took the Bubble away because Zainal and the others succeeded in… doing whatever they planned to the Eosi:'
"JUST…;' Ray raised his voice above the immediate babble of comment, "in case, I want the crews of all the other ships standing by and ready."
"Why?" Dorothy asked, almost amused. Obviously that was what an ex-admiral immediately thought of as appropriate. "There're too many of us now to be evacuated and where would we go?"
"Earth, of course," Geoffrey Ainger said, disgusted with her obtuse ness.
"I dropped. I stay," Kris said and walked out of the meeting.
Chapter Eleven.
AFTER. THAT SCARE WITH THE THREE bogies looking as if they were coming straight at them, the ships had not so much as hailed the scout, so they had proceeded on their return to the asteroid belt.
"I don't see why we need to pick up Baby now," Chuck said since that would lengthen the journey home.
Bert nudged him in the small of his back and held up one finger, making a grimace, and two, altering his expression of a beatific smile.
Then he gestured to his whole body and winced.
Chuck Mitford had never considered himself slow/n comprehension but the fright of that squadron bearing down on them-and then passing by, close but no cigar-made him interested in getting back to Botany as fast as possible.
So Zainal wanted Baby back. Hell, why would Kamiton want this ship returned? He had a massive navy to pick from. But Bert's other point-that Zainal wanted to be as fully recovered as possible from his "disguise"-made more sense. Although Chuck had been there when the first layer of the "disguise" was laid on, so to speak, he had been shocked when he'd seen Zainal in the cabin light.
They hadn't dared bring any Botany foods on Kamiton's vessel but there were some on board Baby. Chuck had some fresh goods in the galley, having enjoyed the daily haggle with the scruffy providers who brought their carts and baskets around to the occupied vehicles. A lot wasn't very fresh, probably rejected from the main markets in. the city, but it was better than what was served in the mess where Chuck was permitted to eat as a Drassi crewman. Years of eating marine chow had inured him to practically anything remotely edible. Some of the messes served to the crewmen were definitely remotely edible. But he pretended the same lip-smacking enjoyment the others did, even if he didn't eat as many servings as the others did.
He ate more slowly, though, so as they slopped food into their mouths, he seemed to be keeping pace with them.
He made a stew of the vegetables, then whipped it into submission as a puree which Zainal's abused intestines should be able to manage. He served the meal in small portions and often.
Then they encountered a squadron of mining vessels, and Bert had to scramble for his hiding place as the larger ship informed them that they were sending over a pinnace.
"We could outrun them," Chuck said, thinking that their luck must have run out. The bogies hadn't bothered them but mining ships could only be searching for the precious metals that had been found by Emassi Ven-lik.