He took the Deputy to the LOC civilian complex for a final debrief. Milli Torino provided summaries of the different operations, as well as repair estimates for the damaged Mantas in the spacedocks, while the largest ships remained parked or tethered to nearby rubble, awaiting their turn.
Cain frowned. “Shouldn’t priority be given to the Juggernauts? They’re our most powerful warships.”
The question jarred her train of thought, and she visibly worked to control her annoyed expression. “There’s a bottleneck, Mr. Deputy. A Juggernaut is so big, only one of our spacedocks is adequate to accommodate the repairs. Six of our docks can work on Mantas. We’re repairing Admiral Harvard’s ship now, because it can be placed back into service the quickest.”
Garrison spoke up. “Also, sir, Juggernaut components are more specialized, and my team is manufacturing them as swiftly as possible. Even if we had all three Juggernauts in the dock, we wouldn’t have enough replacement parts. Yet. Trust me, this schedule allows the greatest number of battleships to be repaired in the shortest possible time.”
Deputy Cain tapped his fingers on the desktop. “I’ll accept that, Mr. Reeves.”
They were interrupted when the green priest Lubai came to Torino’s office and insisted on speaking with Garrison. Now his supervisor looked particularly upset. “We are in an important meeting here. Mr. Reeves can take care of personal matters on his own time.”
The green priest would not be budged. “I have urgent news, a message just received through the worldforest network from Academ. It’s about his son.”
Garrison was on his feet immediately. “Is he all right?”
“A woman claiming to be the boy’s mother withdrew him from the Roamer school. Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni were unable to stop her.”
Garrison tried to wrap his mind around the revelation. “His mother? But she’s dead.”
“Her identity was confirmed as Elisa Reeves, although she called herself Elisa Enturi.”
Her unmarried name? “Elisa’s… alive.” He had to say it aloud to help himself believe it. He turned quickly. “And she took Seth?”
“They departed from Academ. Jess and Cesca insisted that you be informed right away.”
Garrison was already moving toward the door of the conference room, casting his apologies to Deputy Cain and the supervisor. “I have to go. Right now.”
Milli Torino was indignant. “You can’t just leave! You’re responsible for important shipyard operations here—”
“I said I have to go.” He understood that the Roamers at the fabrication complex could do their work just fine without him, and he had to get to Academ right away.
Deputy Cain’s expression was more understanding. “Go, Mr. Reeves. No need to worry about having your job back when you return to Earth.”
Rushing into the corridor, Garrison paused, surprised by the comment. “Thank you, Mr. Deputy.” But in his mind, that was the last thing in the universe he was worried about.
He flew the Prodigal Son directly to Academ without stopping at the main inhabited ring of Newstation. He passed through the access zone and rushed to the school offices in the walls of the hollowed-out comet.
When Jess and Cesca joined him, their expressions showed concern. Jess said, “There was nothing we could do. Legally, any parent has the right—”
Garrison held up his hand. “I’m not blaming you. I… I just can’t believe Elisa’s still alive.”
“Apparently, she didn’t know that you and Seth had survived, either,” Cesca said. “She was rather upset when she learned it.”
“Do you know where she took my son? I heard Lee Iswander has some massive secret ekti operations—no doubt Elisa’s gone back to him.” He clenched his fist. “That’s no place for a boy. Seth should be here at Academ with other Roamer students.”
“She wouldn’t tell us where she was going,” Cesca said. “In fact, she made a point of refusing.”
He had hardly been able to think during the swift flight from Earth to Newstation, and now he knew his next step would be to track down Iswander’s ekti operations. Even after the industrialist’s disgrace at Sheol, Garrison knew that Elisa would stick with him. She might ignore her son and resent her husband, but she would never, ever abandon Lee Iswander.
Still, he had no idea where to look.
“We have a way to track him down,” Jess said with a smile. “I gave your son a vial of wental water as a souvenir—on purpose. We hoped you would come.”
Garrison was confused. “What good will a vial of wental water do? They can’t protect him… can they?”
“The wentals are mostly dormant. But, even though they rarely communicate with us anymore, we can still sense them,” Jess said.
Cesca smiled. “That means we know where that vial of wental water is. We’ve already gathered the coordinates for you. But it’s very strange…”
Garrison was not concerned about esoteric details. He was ready to rush off. “Strange how?”
“The wentals can sense something huge and slumbering there,” Jess added. “We think Iswander is awakening it… or harming it. We don’t know.”
ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE
LEE ISWANDER
Out in the industrial complex, the ekti-extraction workers scrambled through a damage assessment after the particularly severe series of bloater flashes. The pumping stations reset their power trains after the overload. All systems checked in, and the production facilities finally came back online.
It was an hour before anyone even noticed the missing green priest, the silent drifting inspection pod.
Iswander couldn’t figure out what had happened. Apparently, after the flashes, Aelin’s pod had spun out of control, its systems dead, life support shutting down, no propulsion. Inside, the green priest was unconscious, perhaps comatose. Alec Pannebaker led a swift retrieval operation to bring the pod back into the modular complex. They dragged the limp green priest out onto the cold deck in the hangar bay.
Iswander tried to control his anger. “Is he alive at least?”
One of the station doctors checked the motionless form. “Barely, sir.”
After Sheol, Iswander could not afford another foolish industrial accident—especially one that the entire green priest network would know about. Inspection pods were supposed to be taken out only for external repairs on the ships and refinery facilities, not for sightseeing—and Aelin had gone out alone with almost no training, without even an environment suit for extra protection. How stupid!
Though the pod’s air was mostly gone and the interior temperature had plunged, Aelin remained in some kind of coma, his metabolism extremely low. His potted treeling, however, had not survived: it was withered, its fronds curled up, as if burned from within.
As they carried him away to the medical module, Aelin’s eyes flickered open, and he stared without seeing anything around him. His hand reached out, questing in the empty air as if trying to grasp something. He grabbed Iswander’s forearm, clutched him desperately. His sudden grin chilled Iswander to the core.
“My mind is filled with colors! Thoughts that not even the verdani could hold…” His voice rattled as he drew a long breath. “I can see eons in my head, and I hear the voice of God. Or maybe it’s God’s God.”
Iswander frowned at the medical team. “He’s having hallucinations. Do what you can for him.”
His son Arden hurried into the hangar, worried about his tutor. “Is he all right? Will he recover?”
“I think he suffered a brain injury,” Iswander said. “We don’t know yet if he’ll be able to teach you anymore.”