"Should I care? Some kid who thinks he matters because he's big in his House. But ain't nothing in Canon."
"I could make your life unpleasant."
"You can't make it worse than it is already, being here on the butt of the universe getting interrogated by a fifteen-year-old with delusions of importance."
Midnight touched his arm, cautioning him not to overplay it.
The girl laughed. "It is the butthole of the universe, Blessed."
The boy flashed her an irritated look. She sneered. The boy looked at Turtle. "You might be right. If your answers are a web of lies, I won't trip you up now. So what am I going to do with you?"
"Not being human, I don't get why you figure you got to do anything. But the human that's got the power always figures he's got to interfere. What would a Ku do? Ignore us because he'd figure we wasn't any of his business. Unless he got in a bureaucratic bind. Then he'd ship us off to Capitola Primagenia and let the Presidents sort us out."
"Most human administrators would agree."
"But you're not going to do that because you figure you might be able to use us somehow."
The boy's face went cold. One finger twitched.
Turtle seemed to do nothing but lean a little and take a small step backward. The thug flung past him in a surprised sprawl. He showed no animosity as he pulled himself into a sitting position. "That's enough, Blessed."
"An experiment," the boy told Turtle.
"If I'd thought you was serious, you'd all be dead."
Young eyes went hollow as young ears heard echoes of the whisper of the wings of Death.
The boy Blessed said, "You've made an impression, Ku. Seriously, do you know who I am?"
"Who you are, no. I've heard this is a Tregesser world."
"I'm Blessed Tregesser. My grandfather is Simon Tregesser."
Turtle looked at him blankly.
"Simon Tregesser! Simon Tregesser!" the girl chirped.
Her brother asked, "You've never heard of him?"
"No." He hadn't.
Blessed Tregesser stared for half a minute. "Tina, show them where they'll be staying."
The girl frowned but led them out of the office.
Turtle was satisfied with his performance. But now he had to get off this world. Before these people found him out. Before VII Gemina came.
Blessed waited till Tina returned. She came in and demanded, "What did you guys cook up while I was gone?"
Nyo said, "Nothing. We waited for you."
Blessed asked, "What did you think, Tina?"
"He was scary. And I think he played you like a magic flute."
"Uhm. Nyo?"
"He scared me, too."
"Cable?"
"He was telling the truth. He could have killed us."
"Tina's right. He played us like magic flutes. Am I the only one who noticed he wasn't alone? He focused everything on himself."
Tina said, "You had one without a mind and one that couldn't talk."
"I've got a habit of accepting nothing at face value. Cable. Can we use them?"
"Him certainly. If we find a handle. I've never seen anyone move like that. Not a millimeter of waste motion. He could kill you so fast you wouldn't know you were dead. The psi-active alien might be valuable, too. If it can be controlled."
"That's the catch with all of them. That and the fact that they might be what they claim, and somebody might come looking for them. Research them. And cover any trace of them having come here."
"That'll take some doing. They made a racket coming in."
"Take Tina. If it can be gotten out of the system, she can do it. Nobody talks to people anymore. Unless they volunteer. Discourage that."
Shike smiled. "Consider it handled."
Blessed did. He always did when he suggested Cable handle something. Cable always got the job done.
— 61 —
Simon Tregesser's Voyager had been running flat out, well into the red, for nineteen days. It was seven days ahead of the schedule Provik had posited for the run to the G. Witica—S. Satyrfaelia strand.
Tregesser's crew thought him mad. Nobody pushed a ship so hard so long. It was a miracle the Q had not gone.
Simon was no more confident than they, but he was riding a nightmare hunch that if he did not get to that strand fast, he was a dead man. He had no idea why. But he trusted his hunches. They had done him right before.
They would be coming up on the strand soon. He had them feeling for it now. He wondered how Lupo was doing. He had not seen Provik since the run began. He had stopped trying to communicate.
Maybe Lupo hadn't gotten out. That would be hell. How would he manage without him? Lupo had been his rock forever.
Simon was on the operating bridge, filling half with his bell, when the Guardship broke off the Web. Right there. In his lap. Six light years from anywhere.
"Aw, shit," he said without any force. "One more signal to Provik. Warn him off." He analyzed the Guardship's motion vectors and ordered a turn that offered a chance to reach the strand before the Voyager could be destroyed.
He would not be taken, that he determined.
Provik remained amazed. "Simon is going to complete the run a week fast. Or kill himself trying."
None of his family were comfortable running in the red, though his Voyager was more suited to it than was Tregesser's and there were enough of them to close-monitor the Q.
"He should be getting close." Simon's Voyager remained at the very edge of detection.
"Message coming in."
Guardship. Right in Simon's lap. Motion vectors thus and so. He was turning so. Fifty-fifty chance of outrunning death and getting onto the Web.
"Damn! Decision time."
Tension filled the bridge. Suddenly they were all there, all offering to share the pain, wondering if he could do what, for nineteen days, they had been deliberating.
Lupo stared at the comm board. The tight beam was locked onto Simon's Voyager. The code sequence was in. The circuit was armed. The machinery was ready. Was the man?
Could he kill Simon Tregesser?
He could. But could he live with Lupo Provik afterward?
"Damn it!" His hand stabbed. "Turn us into the Guardship's vectors and shut everything down."
He sat down and cried.
Shedding their own tears, his family began trying to make the Voyager invisible by reducing its emissions.
— 62 —
WarAvocat feared he would have a minor mutiny on his hands if his move did not produce quick results. To hear OpsAvocat and ServAvocat fuss you would think VII Gemina would scatter into its component atoms shortly if it did not head for Starbase immediately. And that despite assurances from Gemina that the Guardship's wounds were neither deadly nor incapacitating.
There would be political consequences if the fugitive did not turn up. His reelection looked ever less certain. The cream of his support had been killed in that end space. The regrowth system would be a long time replacing them.
"Coming up on breakaway, WarAvocat."
"Very well." That bastard had better show.
"Breakaway."
Two seconds passed. "Holy shit. There he is."
What? Already? Impossible.
"Look at that bastard go!"
WarAvocat ran to where he could see it for himself, telling no one in particular, "He's got to have been running at the top of his red all the way. Why hasn't he blown his Q?"
"He's seen us, WarAvocat. He's turning."
WarAvocat scanned the motion vectors, range rates, relative velocities. The son of a bitch had a chance.
He gave orders quickly, moving VII Gemina not in pursuit but so as to cut off flight toward S. Satyrfaelia. Once the Voyager headed the other way it was dead. VII Gemina could overhaul it on the Web and run it till its master gave up.