The warning must be presented to someone with the capacity, even the inclination, to listen. Will I find such a person at Starbase?
"Probably not."
Then we must find the man who will listen. There is not much time. You must tell the other one.
What she had expected. Telling them to get their butts in gear. "I will."
When AnyKaat came back, Jo figured it would be just to gather whatever she wanted to take with her. She went to the lounge to make up her mind if she would put herself through a farewell scene or just let it slide.
She had a drink. It did not help. She concocted another with twice the firepower, but then just sat there nursing it.
"There you are. I thought you'd disappeared."
The moment had come. But AnyKaat did not look like she was going anywhere. Looked ragged as hell, in fact. "Hi." Glumly. "Got a message for you from Seeker."
"He wants to get moving. Don't take much genius to guess that." She sat down.
"You got it. How'd it go?"
"It didn't. Jo, I can't talk to my own mother. She doesn't have the slightest idea what I'm telling her. The things she tells me all seem shallow and trivial after Merod Schene. And my son doesn't know who the hell I am and doesn't trust me enough to want to find out. My old friends are scared of me. Degas's people aren't the least bit shy about telling me it's all my fault he isn't here. Era's people aren't talking at all. The department is in a tizzy because the back pay they owe us, with the interest setup we had, will screw the budget for a couple of years. They wrote us off and stopped figuring us in. Not to mention what my accrued seniority might mean if I get plugged back into the system."
Jo mixed her one of her favorites. "Chew on this."
AnyKaat took a gulp. "I would've been better off if we hadn't gotten off V. Rothica 4. Hell. Everybody would have been better off. They wouldn't all hate me for turning up alive and making them feel guilty about how they feel."
Jo grunted. She could not think of anything to say to that.
"It hurts, Jo. Even when you understand what's going on. All that time hanging onto a thread, and here wasn't here anymore when I got here."
"I know. I've been through it. And it's all I have looking at me when I catch VII Gemina."
AnyKaat fiddled with things not there. "So how do you cope with it?"
"I don't know. After a while we just avoid attachments and commitments. We put everything into being a good soldier."
AnyKaat closed her eyes, expression momentarily surprised. Jo suspected she had realized that a certain Guardship soldier had formed an attachment despite herself. She hoped AnyKaat would not want to talk about it. That was when things got strange and scary and misinterpreted and turned into things they were not.
"I told Otten we were pulling out on the tenth. That's about as long as Seeker will be patient. He's real worried."
AnyKaat took the offered escape hatch. "How come?"
"I don't know. He don't always make sense even when Amber Soul helps him try."
"She's weird. She gives me the creeps."
"She gives herself the creeps. She's lived through what you're suffering right now, a hundred times worse."
"Yeah." AnyKaat reached across, touched the back of Jo's hand. "Thanks, Jo."
"Hunh? What?"
"Nothing. I got to check some things out."
Jo watched her leave, puzzled.
AnyKaat was aboard Dawn Watch when the Traveler undocked. Her face was puffy from crying. She could not forget all she had chosen to leave behind, though she had lost it long ago. Jo left her alone.
Jo did not think she could have walked away rather than cling to the edges of the once known....
Seeker had a vague notion where to start looking, almost two months of hard running beyond the Rim. The crew did not argue. However they were being paid, it was enough to make them bite down on their fear.
With unavoidable stops, misnavigations, and evasions, four months elapsed before Dawn Watch reached its destination. VII Gemina was not there. There was nothing in that system but the leavings of an old skirmish the defenders had not won. Seeker would have to continue spying on the methane breathers till he extracted a hint where to move next.
— 119 —
Blessed gazed in apparent benignity on the hundreds gathered in the back courts of his Fuerogomenga Gorge castle. Most were watching an outstanding nighttime display in the canyon. The Directors were all there. All the senior managers had come. Only T.W. Trice had failed to appear. No excuses, no regrets, no nothing, just no show.
Nyo came to stand beside him. "Fantastic party so far. You figured out which one she is?" He indicated the Valerena holding court below.
"The one out of the inner office. Cable says the others are holed up in the old place in the High City, having a party with some men they scraped up out of DownTown. Cable can take care of it."
Nyo sighed, relieved. He was not handling the pressure well. "That puts a lock on it, doesn't it?"
"Except for T.W. We don't have her covered. But I can handle her."
"What about Tina?"
‘Tina and Placidia are away from it and perfectly safe. Did you bring Rash Norym?"
"She's inside."
"Bring her out here. I want her seen with me."
Nyo shrugged, went inside, herded a flustered Rash Norym onto the balcony. "Is this wise?" she demanded.
"Probably not for you if we screw up. Which means you'd better give it all you've got to make sure we don't." He smiled. Rash Norym had been a big help, but he could not shake the feeling that she was holding back. "Tonight is the night."
"I... I don't think you should."
"Why not?"
"Uh... T.W. is sure there's something going on. She's doing things that look like she's getting ready for something." It had been a stroke of luck, finding Norym in Intelligence. Pity she could not have gotten closer to the center.
"Her people would have to be deaf and blind to miss all the signs, wouldn't they? The question is, does she know where it's coming from?"
"I don't think so. But I don't think you should count on that making any difference. She seems sure she can handle anything."
"Let's find out. Nyo, send out the word."
Bofoku gulped a mouthful of air, bobbed his head, went to push the thing past the point of no return.
Blessed leaned on the balcony rail, smiling and waving, and waited for his soldiers to move in.
Kez Maefele had left him with a useful little army. Be a shame to waste it.
Cable Shike had left the High City house reworked to his own specifications when Blessed moved. Just in case, someday. Someday had come. He entered his codes. A prepped security system not only allowed him inside, it concluded that he was not there at all. He must be a ghost or glitch.
He asked how many people were in the house and where they were. Four men and three women, all in one upstairs suite.
He went.
They had the place to themselves. They did not need to close doors.
Cable glanced in from the darkened hallway. The Valerenas were in a NoGrav bubble with two men, preoccupied. A third man leaned against a sideboard, naked, dull-eyed, sipping something, watching like he had come along only because he had not had anything better to do. The fourth man was nowhere in sight. He would be behind the closed bathroom door.
The man at the sideboard glanced Cable's way when Shike released the safety on his hairsplitter. The man said, "Aw, shit!" and squealed when the pellet hit him.