"Aye, aye. I relieve you," the engineer said.
Freddy shook his head. "But just what is all this in aid of?"
"Maybe this will tell us," Glenda Ruth said.
The message had been encrypted using her public key. She set Clementine to decoding it.
Kevin Christian Blaine to Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine. The rest does not break in clear, the computer informed her.
"Hah. Use Kevin's special code."
Willco. She adjusted her earphones and waited. Everyone was assured that the public-key/private-key system was secure against everything. Maybe we're just paranoid.
She heard, "Sis, we have a problem. The Moties could be loose by the time you get this."
Freddy was watching her. "Ruth, what's wrong?"
"Nobody's dead. Shh." In the boredom and the interpersonal dominance games, she'd had weeks to forget that she was frightened for the Moties. Now- her brother's voice said, "We're taking three ships to the incipient Alderson point, the I-point, at MGC-R-31. Two Navy ships, and Bury's Sinbad. I've been put aboard Sinbad as liaison. I'm the senior Navy officer aboard, but I catch vibes from Renner. He can show he ranks me if he wants to. Maybe by a lot. The other Navy officer who came out here with Sinbad, an Intelligence lieutenant commander, decided she was needed back on New Scotland.
"I don't think of a lot we can do there by ourselves. The Moties have had a quarter century to prepare for this, and we're just now realizing we have a problem. I can't think three ships will have any surprises for them.
"The pot odds say we'll get there with ten to twenty years leeway, but there are complications. Odd things happening. It might be a lot sooner. There's even a chance it happened already.
"Sis, I sure wish we had the latest the Institute has developed. So does Mr. Bury. If you can get that to us, it might change things. I've attached our best-guess coordinates for the I-point. We thought about waiting for you, but we don't know just how long we have before everything happens. Bury arranged for the ship that gave you this message to refuel yours. Let them, if you haven't done that already. Try to get to the I-point before the Moties do.
"Sinbad's crowded. Bury's got Nabil and three women including Cynthia, no change in the relationships. There's me, Dr. Jacob Buckman, and Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo, the newscaster. She's interesting. Intelligent and wants to prove it, female and doesn't have to. Commander Cohen decided she was needed on New Scotland just after Trujillo was invited aboard, and that leaves Renner loose. Interesting patterns here.
"You may get here and find nothing's happening at all. Some of the blockade fleet may be en route already, but of course it'll take them months. If things last that long, maybe there won't be a problem, or maybe Mom's Crazy Eddie project will work just fine and we can think on how to use it.
"Or it may be all over before you get here. If they send through a big fleet with Warriors." If they do that, you'll talk to the Master in charge. If we have the symbiote, maybe she'll listen. If you live long enough to talk, Glenda Ruth thought. If.
And her brother's voice ran on: "Anyway, we're going for a look. It will probably help if you can get here pretty quick, but you do what you think best.
Love, Chris."
She reset and heard the message through again. "Freddy?"
"Yes, my love?"
She let it pass. "Freddy, we're being given fuel so that we can go direct to"-she punched in the coordinates from Kevin Blaine's message, and the navigation screen lit up-"here, instead of going to New Scotland first."
Freddy studied the display. "That's a wretched red dwarf system. There's nothing there."
"There will be."
"Glenda Ruth, do you know what you're doing?"
"I think so. It's no trivial thing, Freddy-"
"All right." He turned to the computer.
"No trivial thing at all. I don't exaggerate, do I? So. The fate of the Empire and the fate of the Motie species" -he hadn't paused- "it's all on our shoulders. I didn't even bother to ask Jennifer, she's worked up to this her whole life, but you-"
He'd finished typing in the course change. A warning note sounded, then they felt gentle acceleration. Hecate was now on route to MGC-R-31. Freddy relaxed in his chair, tired, not looking at her.
Didn't wait. Didn't need to think it over. Just trusted me and moved.
And she saw that it would break him. He would heal, over the years, almost; but his view of women of his class would be colored by a period of terrible frustration while his life was bent to one powerful woman's missionary urge.
She made a bet with herself, no trivial thing at all, and said, "I'll be moving into your cabin, if your offer's still open."
He looked up, and searched among possible answers while hiding his surprise. She held her expression solemn, a bit uneasy. Freddy nodded and smiled and took her hand, and still feared to speak.
Chris Blaine reminded Kevin of someone. Of Captain Roderick Blaine, of course, but of someone else, too . .. and he finally got it as Chris paused at a window. Kevin had seen Midshipman Horst Staley looking out at Murcheson's Eye blazing against the Coal Sack, like a single coal red eye within a monk's hood, just before MacArthur jumped to Murcheson's Eye itself.
And Chris took his fill of the Hooded Man, then moved on aft to get breakfast, while Kevin mused at his station.
Why Horst? Horst Staley, who had learned too much on Mote Prime and died for it, twenty-eight years ago. They could never have met. They certainly weren't related. Chris Blaine looked like his father, square face, fine blond hair, tiny Irish nose... his father's was broken, of course... whereas Horst Staley had been enlistment-poster handsome, triangular face, long, heavy muscles, and sloping shoulders.
Horace Bury looked up. "What?'
Chris Blaine was just coming into earshot; Renner could hear his voice. He said, "Just a vagrant thought."
As they approached their stations, Renner heard Trujillo's voice, cheerful and musical and not quite audible; then Blaine's voice raised above the hum of the ship's systems. "If you hadn't been digging for scandal, the high brass wouldn't have heard about the token ships for years. They look so harmless!"
"I can't take credit for that. It was the scandal I was after."
They were both finishing breakfast bars. Joyce Trujillo's assigned chair was out of the way, with a view of several screens but no controls. Blaine took his place as copilot. Renner waited a few minutes, then asked, "Chris, how're we doing?"
"Seventy hours en route and up to speed. I'll wind down the thrust"-tap-"now. Then we can drop the external tank and coast till we're approaching the Jump to the red dwarf. Two hundred seventy hours, unless the Jump point's moved, in which case all Hell lets out for lunch."
"I'm inclined to keep the tank and refill it. Better safe." Blaine nodded.
During the next five minutes the thrust dropped from a standard gravity to .05 gee, just enough to pull spilled liquid out of the air. Renner waited it out, then said, "Lieutenant, you have the con." And he went aft for coffee.
He was unsurprised to find that Bury had floated after him. He asked, "Turkish?"
"Please. You have left-left Blaine in charge of my ship. Is that wise?"
"We're barely beyond Dagda's orbit in New Cal system in free fall, near as dammit. What could happen? Outies? Helium flash in the motor? He's Navy trained, you know."
"Yes."
"Like me."
"Yes. Kevin, what was it you didn't want him to overhear? Or was it the Trujillo woman?"
"Oh... something was nagging at me, irritating me, and I finally got it. You wouldn't remember Midshipman Horst Staley. He was an idealized Navy officer, handsome, imposing, the kind you put on posters. So's Blaine, but he's doing it consciously, like a signal."