"This is screwy, Valerena. Guardships don't play games. They kick ass and say goodbye. Send a Voyager to Starbase for help."
"What? Us ask them for help?"
"It's their job. Coming back, the Voyager could collect Blessed."
"That's a joke? It's a lousy one, Lupo. Where did Simon find you, anyway?"
"Down in the Black Ring. Before there was a Black Ring. The same way Blessed met his jocko boy Cable Shike."
"That's at least the tenth story you've told." Who the hell was Cable Shike?
"I never tell the same one twice. It's nobody's business. But one of the stories might be true."
"Sure. I'll send for Blessed. But no Guardship. I'll go handle this personally."
"Manage that and you'll shut up the Directorate permanently." He left.
"Why did I say that?" Valerena asked her reflection in the window. "I'd better start thinking before I talk."
She made a call to her castle, then sat down to think. Would she stifle the Directors if she dealt with the Guardship?
Lupo was right. There was something bad wrong with it.
— 68 —
Haget had reverted. He was relaxing at attention. Degas and AnyKaat seemed numb. Vadja was in some sort of relaxing trance.
Unable to sit while WarAvocat thumbed through a mountain of hard copy, Jo approached Seeker. "Are you all right? Still feeling well?" His health had improved radically.
I am well, thank you. This is the man to convince?
"This is the man?"
WarAvocat flipped back and forth, comparing. He looked up. "Pardon my manners. I've just gotten a glimpse of a mystery that makes me uncomfortable. During your travels, did you hear anything unusual about the phantom trade, missing ships, or ships found empty on the Web? Other than apocrypha?"
"We heard a lot about the subject on IV Trajana," Jo said.
"I have Trajana's remarks here. Twenty-six hundred forty-one single-spaced pages, eighty-eight lines to the page, one hundred twenty characters to the line. A preliminary report, yet." Thin smile. "I wouldn't believe it even from a Guardship—from that one, anyway—if it weren't for incidents involving XXVIII Fretensis and VII Gemina returning from that end space."
WarAvocat checked a particular page again, shook his head.
"Sir?"
"We had to leave the Web to stabilize a drive well. Routine scan on local stations found an anomaly, a Traveler that had shown two identities, neither genuine. Just a nervous phantom, I thought. Till I spoke with WarAvocat XXVIII Fretensis.
"A few anchor points away, by chance, they stumbled on a Traveler caught on the Web. They maneuvered it into a rider bay, broke through a cargo hatch. Crew and passengers had been tortured and murdered and mutilated. Ritually, Fretensis suspects. Six passengers listed on the manifest were missing. So was much of the cargo."
"That doesn't make sense, sir. Pirates would put people aboard a Traveler, sure, but they wouldn't just kill everybody and leave the ship. A Traveler is worth more than any cargo."
"You're right. Ships are mostly what piracy is about. But. Trajana really talks ritual. And when you slide into the supernatural, you do leave all rationality behind. But I'm getting away from the subject. I want to hear what happened out there. Commander Haget?"
"Have you seen my report, sir?"
"I have."
"Then you're aware that I gave new meaning to the word incompetent."
"I didn't see that. Sergeant. Do you consider the mission a failure?"
"A grim time, sir, but not a failure, considering we had no fixed brief. And a success in that we established communication with Seeker. He still won't tell us anything substantive, but we might get it with a little work."
WarAvocat cut her off. Damn. She wished she were somewhere else.
"I have to explain why you've been isolated. There has been a catastrophic polarization among the Deified during your absence. Gemina fears you might worsen that."
Shit. That was all she needed, to get caught in the power games of the Deified. Screw them.
WarAvocat looked at Degas, AnyKaat, and Vadja. "I've screwed your lives around too much already, but I'm in a bind where all I can do is jack you around some more. We can't take you home till we're spaceworthy. IV Trajana is willing. Interested?"
He got no takers.
"I thought not. I'll express regrets."
Jo indicated Seeker. "There were things we didn't put on the record, sir."
"And things you weren't told. For example, XXVIII Fretensis came into the picture by aborting an Outsider attack on your friend's homeworld. Handled quickly and efficiently," he assured Seeker. "Without damage or casualties."
Jo asked, "Did you really have one of his people here, sir?"
"Yes. She and two companions. A Ku and an artifact." He explained. "They're walking bombs. They could blow up on us any time."
The sly bastard was sneaking up on something, Jo thought. She had a cold feeling. She would not like it when it came.
She wanted to rejoin her squad. She wanted to sleep off the rest of this nightmare.
I Am A Soldier.
Yeah.
"I'd like to question Seeker," WarAvocat said. "I had no chance with the other one. She was in a coma the whole time she was here."
Haget said, "Sir, it would be best to handle that through the Sergeant. He trusts her more than the rest of us."
Jo shot him a killing look. He did not shrivel. Maybe he thought he was doing her a favor.
"Makes sense. Commander, I'm sure you have friends you want to see. Indulge me and put that off till I've reviewed the data."
"Yes, sir."
"Colonel Vadja, I'll explore the possibility of alternative transportation. Meantime, be patient and enjoy our hospitality. Commander, if you'll show everyone to VIP, I'll get on with Seeker and the Sergeant."
Bloody hell. She felt like an animal caught in a trap.
WarAvocat studied the soldier. She was scared. He glanced at the alien. It wore a human guise but not well. As though to ease the discomfort of those around, it but not to deceive.
"Is there some way I can help you relax, Sergeant?"
She started. "I don't think so, sir."
"What about your friend? Would he be more comfortable sitting?"
"Not in a human chair, sir." She looked at the alien. Something passed between them. "He's anxious to hear about the one you had aboard."
"I have some tape made during her visit. If he can move to that viewscreen?"
The soldier explained through speech and gesture. WarAvocat set the tape running. "How good is this rapport, Sergeant?"
"Feeble. You have a fifty-fifty chance of getting through. If it's simple and concrete. What I get from him turns into garble easy. I can't catch the odors they use like we use gestures and expressions. They don't hear quite like we do, so they lose some of our verbal stuff. And our odors confuse them."
"I sensed hollow spots in your report."
"Not intentional, sir. I'd never done one before. I spent most of my time learning how to write one."
"He's agitated. Why?"
"I don't know, sir. Don't interrupt him. He gets real singleminded. You have to take things in series."
"Who and what is he?"
"That's hard. Seeker is more a job title than a name. A long time ago his people sent eighteen children to Capitola Primagenia. They wanted to understand humans better. They sent children because their minds are more flexible. They were supposed to stay ten years. But they never came home. When the first Seeker went out he found out they'd never gotten to Capitola Primagenia. But then, later, they got signals that some of the children were alive."