"Want a ball of string?"
"Wise ass." She had room but the appointments were not plush. The Horigawas were a spartan crowd. "Guess I better report."
As they approached the bridge, Jo asked, "Why did you guys volunteer?"
AnyKaat grinned. "Great pay. Short hours. Nothing else to do but wait around till WarAvocat sent us home."
"Really?"
"No. We weren't ready to go home."
"Uhm?"
"We were all born on P. Jaksonica 3B. Era is the only one who's been off. A year for Staff College. My mother was STASIS, too, till she moved to Admin. She always wanted to travel. Fixing it so I could was the next best thing. Degas's mother is a dock worker. She'd throttle him if he didn't work this for all he could."
Jo stopped. This was all news. After months in AnyKaat's company. She'd never wondered about the woman's background. Soldiers did not think about anyone having antecedents.
"What's the matter?" AnyKaat asked.
"Just being awestruck. You probably see your mother sometimes."
"Every day. Another good reason for going away."
"Mine died while VII Gemina was being built. I was in storage." She resumed walking, shaken. "What about children?"
"We have a son. Tobias. Be turning four soon. He's staying with Degas's mother. I miss him." Just like that. And that was all. "What about you?"
Jo shivered. "We're all sterile." Without knowing why, she was sorry she had opened the subject. She increased her pace, arrived on the bridge briskly. "Combat team is aboard, Colonel."
"Ah. Lieutenant." Haget smiled. "I rehearsed. I'll probably call you Sergeant the next ten times. We're almost set. What about cargo?"
"Last of it shoud be loading now."
"Vadja's in Operations running test routines. When he's ready, tap station data and see if you can get a line on our aliens."
"You're pretty calm. Considering."
"Of course. The Deified will be along in an advisory capacity only."
"And if you don't follow his advice, there goes your career."
"Only if he's right and I'm not."
"Are they ever wrong?" Jo did not want the Deified along. There were a lot of angles to this mission she did not like.
"Your soldiers good for anything besides kicking ass?"
"Tell them what you need, they'll try to do it. I'll see what Vadja's got."
Haget pretended to notice AnyKaat for the first time. He beckoned her over and asked how he might best utilize her and Degas. Another angle Jo did not like. The thing was being thrown together, without formal manning for the systems being jammed into the Traveler. She left the bridge, stepping between stonefaced Horigawas pretending they did not mind having their ship rebuilt around them.
What had been crew's quarters and mess decks had had the partitions removed so the space could be made an operations center. The entrance lay only a few steps from the bridge hatch. Once the cargo bays were filled and passageways were cluttered with cables and everything was connected and integrated with the Traveler's systems, the ship would have many of the espionage and data-processing capabilities of a Guardship. There would be nothing like it on the Web.
"Can I get into the system yet, Era?"
"Jo. Hi. Sure. Funny. You don't look any different."
"What?"
"I thought you might have a mystic glow now that you're an officer."
"Shit. You're all going to get cute, aren't you?"
"Sure. Want to watch something you'll never see again?"
"What?"
"XXVIII Fretensis heading out."
She joined Vadja at a viewscreen. XXVIII Fretensis was just leaving the Barbican. It was impressive.
"Good hunting, guys," Vadja said. He had worked up a definite dislike for Messenger's species.
"There you are." Jo dropped a sheet of hard copy in front of Haget. "You said the ten most likely departures so I got you ten, but if they didn't go out on one of the first three you can have my comet."
"Why so sure?"
"All three were docked in the same section. The ship from Starbase docked in the next section. They all left within ten hours. And the Barbican had false alarms on its intruder watch there at the right time. STASIS decided there was a self-correcting glitch or a rodent off one of the Horigawas."
"All Haulers. What do you think, Smokey?" The Traveler's Chief's name was Hide Yoreyoshi but he insisted on Smokey.
"Ore carriers, Colonel. They bring in metal billets."
"Why the intermediate stops?"
"Picking up special order stuff."
"If you were the fugitives which Hauler would you have taken?"
"They were flying blind, Colonel. Probably whichever had the sloppiest dockside security."
Haget grunted, stared at the sheet. "Anybody think of a reason the Ku wouldn't get off the Hauler first chance he got?"
Nobody offered one.
Haget circled each of the first three stops. "There's our itinerary, Smokey. If we don't find anything, I'll spank the Lieutenant and we'll think of something else."
Jo snorted. She knew she had this step of the search in a lock.
— 75 —
Lupo Provik gazed out his office window, at a level with Tregesser Horata High City. He saw nothing that pleased him. "What is she doing up there?"
Four said, "Still no word."
"Doesn't she realize how much mischief the Directors can do? Especially now?"
Blessed's Voyager had broken off the Web two hours ago. Lupo and the family had gathered to await Two's report.
Three said, "What's Two waiting for?"
Four asked, "Blessed wouldn't have neutralized her, would he?"
"No," Lupo said. "We won't catch him in that kind of mistake."
One had been on station since yesterday, waiting to escort the crown prince.
Five and Six had comm duty. Six said, "Stop fussing. Two is on."
They clustered as Two took shape. Lupo felt mildly foolish. He should have suspected she was waiting to get close enough to send holosignals. She asked, "Am I coming through?"
"Perfectly," Lupo replied. "Got anything interesting?"
"Blessed is making a show of model behavior. For now. Main point is that though he took only three people out to M. Shrilica, he's bringing eight back."
Two vanished. Holoportraits replaced her. "Cable Shike. Nyo Bofoku. Tina Bofoku. They went out with him. Kharsen Bhentus. Oral Stang. Specialists in financial forecasting exiled by Simon Tregesser."
"I recall the incident. Not one of Simon's better days."
"Bhentus is human. Stang looks like an artifact trying to pass. The M. Shrilica records are inconclusive."
Lupo glanced at Three and Four. They were researching the names already.
"There are no records on these next three. Lady Midnight. Artifact. Function self-evident. Amber Soul. Artifact with a question mark. Of alien manufacture? Whatever, it gives me the creeps. Turtle. Alien. Actual name unknown. Race probably Ku. Supposedly Shike's assistant."
Lupo sensed what was on Two's mind. "You think it's a ringer?"
"This one, yes. Maybe more than one."
"We're on them. One will meet you on station. Brief him. Stick to Blessed. We've got us a situation."
"The Guardship?"
"Part of it."
Two said, "We saw a Guardship, too. VII Gemina." She secured comm.
It was very quiet there till Lupo managed a chuckle. "Seems I was a little optimistic about our success in the end space."
Nobody said anything. No point going into it till Two arrived with the whole story.
"Let's bring those last three images back and see what we can get out of the bank."
The one artifact was in the Banat-Marath catalog, a standard item. The alien was a Ku warrior, possibly useful to Blessed, noteworthy only for its rarity.