"I take it she is dead then?" Sinead drawled with a contemptuous roll of her eyes.
Torkel blew a deep and frustrated sigh. "Please. Let's tell the relatives first."
"Sinead," Clodagh said softly, and the woman plunged into the crowd.
Diego, who at first had seemed moderately pleased to see Torkel, suddenly blew a gasket. "Goddamn you guys, you killed her!" he cried. Sean had hold of him, which was a good thing, because Diego was lunging for the captain and spitting with anger. "You guys just kept after her and kept after her and wouldn't believe her or us or anybody. So you fraggin' tortured her to death or something! Damn you. Why couldn't you let her alone? Why can't you let us all alone? You don't know the truth when you hear it. She told you what happened. Dad and I told you what happened, and you beat her up because you didn't believe her and she died."
"No, son, I-"
"If you didn't have my dad there, I'd never go back to that place. Never! Let us go. You're too dumb to-"
Clodagh was interrupting him with soothing noises, but she didn't really know the boy.
Neither did Yana, but she knew the reaction. The boy had simply had one too many profound traumas in a short space of time. His singing had been a highly emotional probing for him, opening a deep wound for healing. Before the healing could take place, Torkel's revelation had assaulted him with a new pain on top of the other.
"Metaxos, listen to me," she said in a calm but very firm voice. "We can find out the truth. There'll be a report. They'll return her body. I'll go back with you to SpaceBase personally and find out what happened if I have to go retrieve Lavelle myself."
Diego jerked his head to turn his scaring glare on her. "You're one of them. How can 1 trust you?"
"Oh, Diego, come on," Bunny said.
Just then Sinead arrived with a stony-faced young man in low. "Captain Fiske, this is Liam Maloney, Lavelle's son."
"My mum's dead, isn't she?" Liam asked Torkel. In contrast to Diego, Liam seemed outwardly very calm. Almost as if he'd been expecting this, Yana thought.
"Well, yes. I wanted to tell you and your father together."
"No offense, Captain, but I don't think Dad wants to see any of you people right now. I'll tell him." He turned to Clodagh, who put her arm around him as if he were still a baby, and as they moved away, he buried his head against her massive breast.
"Okay, Captain, now that you've done your duty, I think the rest of us need to know what's going on," Scan said.
"Come on back to my place," Yana said quickly, including Scan, Bunny, Diego, Sinead, and Aisling in her invitation and finally, with a sympathetic glance at Torkel, adding, "I'll make us some real coffee."
Chapter 10
How did she die?" Scan asked.
"We can't be sure yet. The autopsy report 'wasn't in when I left SpaceBase," Torkel said. "Probably delayed effects of exposure. Acted like respiratory failure, apparently. The medic suspected she may have frostbitten her lungs while she was out there and nobody realized it until she had already been transferred via shuttle to headquarters. The old man isn't doing so hot either, although the girl, Brit, doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects. They're to be transferred to Andromeda medical facility for further observation."
"Don't," Scan said. "Send them back here. Keep them at SpaceBase if you have to, but they will soon sicken and die if you send them offplanet. They're adapted to this planet and these conditions. They'll die elsewhere. Bring them back."
"I'm not sure I can do that," Torkel said, just a hint of belligerence creeping into his voice. He didn't say it, but Yana could feel the resentment building in him: here he was trying to be such a great guy and let the locals in on what was happening, and they tried to tell him how to do his job.
"Why not?" Diego demanded angrily. "Are you having too much fun questioning them?"
Torkel heaved an exasperated sigh. "Son, I'm trying to be patient with you because I understand how upset you must be about your father. Your dad's partner is on the way down to look after you and should be arriving on one of the first troop shuttles. But I've had about enough crap out of you. You've been raised by Intergal. Surely you know that we don't use rough stuff on our own people…"
He appealed to Yana, but she said nothing. The terrorists from Bremer had been interrogated. They had, at one time, been Intergal's own people.
Sinead said diplomatically, "It's just that we're a very close-knit community here, Captain Fiske. People will worry about Sigdhu and Brit even more now with what's happened to Lavelle. I'm not saying it was the company's fault, but you know, we're used to a different kind of atmosphere here than what you have on the stations and ships. Our air is fresh, even if it's cold, not endlessly reprocessed."
"Glad you enjoy it," Torkel said with an ironic lift of his eyebrow. "The company provided all of the amenities of this planet."
"We need our own back here on the surface, man," Scan said, and Yana realized that he was at a disadvantage not knowing who Torkel was. "My family has been accommodating the species of this planet to its peculiarities for four generations now and between you and me, the company hasn't provided a lot of what's here. There are major adaptation problems for our people…"
"And you are, sir?" Torkel asked politely, but with an edge in his voice to match the one in Sean's. They stood across the room from each other, each with his feet spread and his arms poised, like a pair of gunfighters squaring off. •
The cat, which had been lounging on the middle of the table washing its underside, suddenly leapt up, sprang to the door, and meowed urgently to go out. Yana crossed between the men to open the door, and when she turned back, they had relaxed so that they were merely glaring at each other, but no longer posturing. She stepped quickly between them, gesturing to each to come closer.
"Captain Torkel Fiske, descendant of the terraforming Fiskes, this is Sean Shongili, descendant of the genetic-engineering Shongilis," she said quickly, as if officiating at a hailing party for newly recruited officers. "You guys want to go to opposite corners and come out flashing credentials?"
They didn't seem to hear her for a moment; then Torkel suddenly grinned fondly at her and reached out to squeeze her shoulder.
"Trust you to try to defuse a situation, Yana. God, I've missed you. Shongili, I am actually extremely pleased to meet you. Excuse me if I came on a little strong, but we were all shocked by that poor woman's death when she had been so instrumental in saving young Diego here and his father."
"I think I can help, Torkel," Yana intervened again. "Let me see that autopsy report when it comes in. And please, I think there's been enough evidence gathered so far to show that Petaybee is not exactly what the company ordered, and Sean may be right about the adaptive failures."
Torkel shook his head. "That doesn't make much sense, Yana, when half the existing Intergal force was recruited from Petaybeans originally."
Yana shrugged and held out a cup of coffee, wishing she had acquired more cups from the BX. He took the cup in one hand, and then took her hand in his other.
"The recruits are young, Captain," Sean said. "Their growing isn't over, nor full maturation reached when they leave Petaybee to join Intergal."
"That's as may be, Shongili. Yana, we'll talk about this later. I can see now that everybody's too upset to listen to reason."
"I can take you and Diego back, sir," Bunny volunteered. Yana noticed that her young friend had very wisely kept her mouth shut throughout the conversation, retaining an enviably neutral-at least as far as Torkel was concerned-stance.
"Thanks, young lady, but 1 brought my own," Torkel said. He turned to Diego as if to say something, but Diego's black scowl made him think better of it.