"That's not an answer," I countered. "If you want our help—"
"Frank," Bayta interrupted quietly.
I looked at her, then back at Rebekah's drooping eyelids. The girl was exhausted, I remembered.
As were the rest of us, I suddenly realized. For the past twelve hours or so I'd been running on pure adrenaline, and I could feel my whole system poised on the brink of physical crash. The rest of the interrogation, I decided, could wait. "We'll talk about this later," I told Rebekah. "Right now, we all need to get some sleep."
"Yes," Bayta agreed. "You'd better get back to bed, Rebekah. Before you fall over."
"I will," Rebekah said gravely as she got a bit unsteadily to her feet. "And thank you. Thank you both. For everything."
She left. Getting up, I crossed to the door and stood just inside the dayroom, craning my ears over the low rumble of the drive. A few seconds later I heard the distinctive double click as she closed her stateroom door and locked it behind her. "Well, that was fun," I said, returning to my chair and dropping heavily into it. Suddenly, I was feeling as drained as Bayta and Rebekah looked. "You want to lay odds on how much of her story was actually true?"
"I believe her," Bayta said. "It all fits what happened back there, as well as what the Modhri told us at Yandro."
I rubbed my fingers thoughtfully across the tabletop. The story wasn't inconsistent with what had happened back there, anyway. Though not being inconsistent didn't necessarily mean true. "It certainly puts an interesting new spin on what happened in New York," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"Think about it," I said. "The walkers wouldn't have destroyed Lorelei's polyp colony that way. For all they knew, they might have been able to pull the location of the Melding's new Fortress of Solitude out of it."
Bayta's eye widened in horror. "You mean she did that to herself?"
"It's the only way it makes sense," I said, grimacing. It was a pretty gruesome mental image, I had to admit. "She felt herself succumbing to the snoozers and did the only thing she could think of to keep her colony from falling into their hands. At that point the Modhri had to do the same thing to his dead walker in order to confuse the issue."
"Horrible," Bayta murmured.
"Definitely," I said. "Ironically, the whole thing still qualifies as obfuscation, which is what I thought about it from the beginning. I just had it backwards as to which direction the smokescreen was going."
Bayta shook her head. "I still don't understand how the Modhri could suddenly change his basic character just because his polyp colonies were put into these people when they were young."
"Can't help you on that one," I said. "But there actually is precedent of a sort. A century or so ago the southern part of the Western Alliance had an invasion of killer bees that had been accidentally brought over from Africa. One of the techniques they used to blunt the species' nastiness was to get it to interbreed with a couple of calmer bee species."
"But that's a physical, genetic change," Bayta pointed out. "This is different."
"Only in that the effects are mostly mental," I reminded her. "The polyps are physically present, after all." I shrugged. "And don't forget we haven't actually proved this Melding is any more friendly than the original Modhri."
"Of course it is," Bayta said. "You saw how taken those people were with Rebekah. She has to be something very special for so many people to be willing to put their lives on the line for her."
"Unless it's just a whole mess of thought viruses," I countered.
"No," she said firmly. "Thought viruses use friendship as a conduit, but don't actually create that friendship in the first place."
For a brief moment I considered reminding her about the whole Penny Auslander incident. Fortunately, even my fatigue-numbed mind realized in time that that would just be begging for trouble. "Maybe," I said instead. "You know anything about this Sibbrava system Rebekah mentioned?"
"Not really," Bayta said, pulling out her reader and keying it on. "It's the third system you get to in Cimman space along the Kalalee Branch. It's about six and a half days from Jurskala Station, maybe ten from New Tigris Station." She peered at the reader. "Looks like the planet is mostly subsistence farming, mining, and manufacturing, with a small export trade in rare metals and exotic woods."
"Your basic end-of-the-line sort of place," I said. "Perfect spot for the Melding to take a long vacation from the rest of the universe."
"As long as no one wonders about them on their way in," Bayta warned. "The problem with small worlds is that strangers are easy to spot."
"True," I agreed, frowning as a sudden thought struck me. "What does the place have in the way of icy waters?"
Bayta fiddled with the reader's keys. "Not much," she reported. "Both polar regions are covered by land—glaciers and frozen tundra, mostly. There are a few lakes that are cold enough, but they look pretty small and shallow."
I nodded. With proper safeguards, Modhran coral could live nearly anywhere, but it needed lots of very cold water in order to grow. "Good," I said. "That implies the Melding's not trying to increase their coral outpost, only maintain it."
"They wouldn't want it growing anyway," Bayta pointed out. "Especially if they're afraid it might revert to true Modhran status without their presence nearby. They couldn't risk it growing large enough to outnumber them." She frowned. "If that makes sense."
"It does," I assured her. "Where did her boxes end up, by the way?"
"They're in the stateroom behind hers," Bayta said. "She wanted them with her, but there really wasn't enough room for her and them."
"Wants to be as close to them as possible," I said, nodding. "Sure."
Bayta stirred in her seat. "Are we going to take her to Sibbrava?"
I eyed her closely. "You really do trust her, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," she said, meeting my gaze without flinching. "I know trust is hard for you, especially with something like this. But I do trust her."
"Okay by me," I said. This was definitely not the time for an argument, or even a long discussion. Not with our minds and emotions clouded by lack of sleep.
But that didn't mean the subject was closed. Not by a long shot. It might be that the Melding's new telepathic frequency was close enough to Bayta's that she could genuinely sense Rebekah's sincerity. It was also possible that during their long hours together Rebekah had managed to plant a thought virus or two in my partner's brain.
"So that's it?" Bayta asked, frowning at my easy capitulation on the subject.
"For now," I said. "We both need some sleep before we can tackle anything requiring higher brain function." I dug into my pocket and pulled out the kwi. "Here," I said, handing it to her. "Keep it under your pillow tonight."
She fingered the weapon uncertainly. "She's not going to attack us, you know."
"Glad to hear it," I said. "Keep it under your pillow anyway."
Bayta hesitated, then slipped the kwi into her pocket. "All right," she said. "If it makes you feel better."
"It does," I said, standing up. "And lock your door behind you. I'll see you in about ten hours."
"Maybe even twelve," she said tiredly. "Good night, Frank." With a final weary smile at me, she left the dayroom.
I waited until I heard the double click of her door closing and locking. Then, hauling myself to my feet, I headed back to the cockpit.
The autopilot still had us on the minimum-time course to the transfer station that I'd requested. I checked for nearby ships—there weren't any—and then key-locked the autopilot so that it couldn't be changed by anyone except me. Then I did the same to the engine and environmental settings.
Bayta might trust Rebekah. I didn't.
And with that chore complete, I was finally able to retire to my stateroom. I locked the door behind me, took off my shoes, and flopped onto the bed without even bothering to get undressed.