That much having presented itself, and not a lot else, Hunt indicated by gestures to the guards that he wanted to talk. One of them motioned him across. Hunt got up and approached, accompanied by curious looks from the others. The guard indicated for him to stop a good eight feet away. "There, you [something-something]."
"Talk Lambia prince." Hunt indicated the door. "Freskel-Gar."
The guard shook his head. "No talk. Highness [unintelligible] other man." Trying to bridge between old Lambian and later Jevlenese was tedious. Having ZORAC around made a big difference. The thought suddenly gave Hunt an idea of how he might be able to use this to get access to ZORAC. He mustered what he could recall of the smattering of Cerian he had picked up in their reconnaissance interviews and strung a few words together in an improvised sentence. The guard shook his head again.
"Cerian, no understand."
Hunt gestured again and made his voice urgent, mixing Lambian and Cerian words as if he didn't know the difference. "Must… important… Freskel-Gar… danger." The other guard muttered something and tapped on the door. It was opened from the other side, and he left.
"Stay," the first guard commanded. Hunt complied, feeling a bit like a dog being trained. He hadn't exactly been planning on going anywhere.
After a wait the door opened again, and the second guard reappeared. "Come talk [something] prince [something] quick."
The guard brought Hunt back to the communications center where they had been before. Things were still hectic. Freskel-Gar was talking to some officers and consulting a battery of screens displaying terrain and city maps. One showed the Shapieron hanging in space. Whether it was coming from a Minervan astronomical observatory or surveillance gear deployed by the Jevlenese somewhere, there was no way of telling. To his alarm, Hunt saw that one of the full-size surface landers was pulling away from it, having evidently just detached. The only reason to be using it would be to carry everyone who had been on board. But before Hunt could think any more about what it might mean, Freskel-Gar turned.
"Well?"
"Hunt," Hunt said, pointing to himself.
"What do you want?"
Feeling mildly foolish, Hunt smiled ingratiatingly and went into his act of mixing up the languages again. Freskel-Gar frowned as he tried to follow. "Apologies," Hunt said. "Know Cerian more. Easier with starship translator computer." It was one way of getting access to ZORAC, anyway. Quite ingenious, even if he did think so himself.
"Not necessary," Feskel-Gar said. "We can get you a Cerian translator."
Laisha sat with Farrissio and the other Cerians who had been inside the Agracon's secure zone. They were in a dingy room that looked like some kind of store, somewhere on the level where the communications room was situated, below the main building. She was still bewildered and had no idea what was happening. The crash from the euphoria she had been feeling less than an hour previously had been so total and sudden that she still wasn't capable of thinking clearly. This couldn't be happening, not after Harzin and Perasmon's speech, the reconciliation between their two countries, and everything it implied. She had tried to tell herself several times that at was all a bad dream and force herself to wake up. But there wasn't any waking up. It was happening.
After she saw Mera Dukrees being led back inside after trying to get back to the delegation's offices before they were occupied, the Lambian NCO took her to the guard post outside the restaurant building and waited with her until an escort appeared to conduct her to the communications room, where she had been heading in response to Farrisio's summons. But she never got as far as the communications room. She and her escort were stopped along the way by a Lambian officer with some soldiers and diverted to another room, where Farrisio and the others with him were by then being held. Farrisio hadn't realized the situation at the time he called her over, and had attributed it to a misunderstanding when he found himself suddenly being hustled out of the communications room. Prince Freskel-Gar had appeared with an entourage as the Cerians were being brought to their present location. The only thing Laisha could conclude was that he opposed Perasmon's position and was making a bid to take control of Lambia himself. She didn't know if Uthelia had managed to get the warning off to Kles's friend at NEBA, or even if she had attempted to, because Dukrees never arrived at the press office. So now all she could do was sit and stare at the stacks of boxes and the bare walls, ducting, and pipes, nursing a remnant of hope that she might still wake up.
The sound came of the door being unlocked. Everyone looked up. A Lambian woman in some kind of uniform stepped in, leaving a guard framed in the doorway behind. "There is a translator here?" the woman said, addressing the room in general. The Cerians exchanged uncertain looks among themselves. Some came to rest on Laisha. She tried to speak up, found that her voice caught in her throat, and had to swallow to clear it.
"I am a translator."
"You are wanted. Come this way."
Accompanied by the guard, they followed corridors full of hurrying figures to a set of double doors with guards posted on either side, and then through to an anteroom where uniformed clerks were working at desks and consoles. The woman signed for Laisha to wait there with the guard and went forward to say something to an officer stationed in front of the inner door. He nodded and disappeared inside, giving a momentary glimpse of a bright area filled with screens and communications equipment. Laisha gulped as she recognized the sharp-faced, mustachioed figure of the Lambian crown prince, wearing the uniform of an army field marshall, at the center of a gaggle of officers and aides. They waited while figures entered and left. Couriers arrived at intervals through the outer door to deliver messages to the clerks.
Eventually, the officer who had gone inside reappeared with another, wearing a Lambian colonel's uniform. Another man was with them, of unusual appearance. His clothes were unlike any that Laisha had seen before, and he stood tall and long-limbed, with uncommonly fair skin, more pink than brown, and hair that was light too, and bent into waves. His eyes were also lighter than any she had seen, and were, quick, missing nothing. They lingered for an instant on the guard and the woman who had brought Laisha from the room the Cerians were being detained in, came back to Laisha, and seemed to read the situation immediately. He caught her gaze and grinned. Laisha didn't know how to respond and glanced away, keeping a straight face.
"The Cerian translator," the woman in uniform said.
"We need help with this stranger." The colonel turned his head toward the light-skinned man, inviting him to speak.
The fast clipper from Thurien docked inside a bay in the central part of MP2. Calazar and a group of scientists from the Quelsang Multiporter were met by the Assistant Controller for the MP3 Gate and an assistant. The party hurried through to the facility's control center. Virtual travel was conventionally regarded as suitable for conducting routine business or for relaxation and pleasure, unless no alternative was possible. On this occasion, it would hardly have been considered appropriate.