Almost exactly like watching a repeat of the butterfly’s flight… “Randall—run a comparison between the vulture’s and butterfly’s paths.”
“Already done it, Chayne,” Randall told him. “It’s almost an exact match. The vulture’s definitely tracking the butterfly.”
“Cute,” Demarco growled. “So what the hell is out there for it to track?”
Ferrol smiled tightly. “The butterfly’s dust sweat, of course.”
“The what?”
“Tell you later,” Ferrol said. “I want to watch this.”
The butterfly had appeared on the display again. Still running… but there was no doubt now that the vulture was going to catch it. Even as they watched, the predator came within a handful of meters—
And, abruptly, the zigzagging ceased, both creatures continuing on in tandem with the pursuer’s last velocity. “The vulture’s got it,” Randall murmured. “Locked up solid in a telekene grip.”
Demarco hissed between his teeth. “And reeling it in… there it goes.”
The two creatures came together… and a moment later it was all over.
For a minute the bridge was silent. “All right,” Ferrol said quietly. “Randall, give Wwis-khaa a call—tell him to ease us forward into net range of that vulture.”
“Chayne!” Kohlhase cut in. “Movement ahead and port—something big.”
Ferrol slapped the intercom switch. “Wwis-khaa—emergency,” he snapped. “Find a target star and Jump us out of here.”
“Your wishes are ours.”
“As soon as Epilog’s ready,” Ferrol told him. “Demarco—computer ID scan; I want a size readout on it. Kohlhase, scan for anything that could be vultures coming off it.”
And at that instant his console pinged. A comm laser had made contact—
“This is Captain Roman aboard the Amity,” a familiar voice boomed out of the speaker. “Come in, Scapa Flow.”
Ferrol stared at the speaker, a rush of deja vu flooding over him. The Tampies’
yishyar system—the captured space horse colt—Roman’s challenge from the Dryden, and the Scapa Flow’s chip-skin escape…
And it was only as the flashback faded and he was able to think again did the crucial question even occur to him.
How in bloody hell had Roman tracked them here?
He cleared his throat. “Tell Wwis-khaa to secure from that emergency Jump,” he told Randall. Keying for vision, he tapped the transmit switch. “This is Ferrol,” he said into the mike. “Bit far from home, aren’t you, Captain?”
“I could say the same about you,” Roman countered as his image appeared on the comm display. He looked tired; but at the same time, there was something grimly self-satisfied about his expression. “What’s your status at the moment, Commander?”
“No problems, except that we have less than two hours before we’ll have to leave,”
Ferrol told him. “Our space horse and Handlers are a little strained by the conditions here.”
“I trust no one has been hurt.”
Ferrol swallowed. There had been a very definite threat beneath the words.
“Everyone’s in perfect health,” he assured the other. “And before you ask, there’ve been no threats, either. Wwis-khaa and the others came voluntarily.”
“At least from Arachne,” Roman said pointedly. “From what Yamoto said it didn’t sound like you called for volunteers before then. So. Did you find what you came for?”
Ferrol curled a hand into a fist, wondering if Roman had somehow guessed his real motive. “Not really,” he said evenly. “But along the way we’ve learned a fair amount about the space-going ecology of this place, and we’ve collected five samples for further study back at the Cordonale. We have a line on a sixth at the moment; with your permission, we’d like to try and get it.”
“Go ahead.” Roman cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t seem especially surprised to see us.”
“No, we were surprised enough,” Ferrol admitted. “It’s just that the surprise got covered over by relief—when we first spotted you I assumed you were a shark. I don’t suppose you’d like to tell us how you managed to track us down.”
Roman shook his head. “Actually, we’re not absolutely sure ourselves,” he said.
“All the Tampies can tell us is that Sleipnir was able to follow you here. Marlowe’s suggested that it’s some kind of perturbations in some theoretical telekene field, but so for—”
“Damn,” Ferrol breathed. Suddenly, so loudly he could almost hear the clicks, it had all fallen together. “It’s the dust sweat, Captain. Sleipnir read our trail from Epilog’s dust sweat.”
Roman frowned. “I don’t see—”
“Hang on,” Ferrol cut him off, fumbling for the recorder keys. The junior vulture’s attack on the butterfly… there. “Take a look at this,” he said, keying for transmission. “We recorded it here, just before you showed up.”
For a few moments the laser carrier hummed with silence as Roman’s image frowned thoughtfully at something off camera. “Interesting,” he said at last.
“You’re right, dust sweat clearly seems to be the space-going analog of a terrestrial animal’s blood-scent. But that only works if the animal doesn’t Jump.”
“No,” Ferrol shook his head, feeling the excitement of the revelation tingling through him. Why had no one ever seen this before—? “The dust sweat ends at a Jump, but the trail doesn’t. Those complex silicon molecules in the dust, remember?—the ones everybody’s looked at and never really seen? It’s there.
Somehow, the information on Jump direction is locked into those molecules.”
“Oh, my God,” Roman said, a sudden look of horror on his face. “You’re right…
but it’s not just the Jump information. It’s a record of everything the animal’s gone through. Short-term, maybe even long-term memory—all of it.”
Ferrol frowned. “I don’t see how that follows.”
“The second shark in the 9862 system,” Roman said quietly. “The one that destroyed the Atlantis’ task force. It knew everything about their weapons and tactics.”
Ferrol stared at the other, a cold knot tightening in the pit of his stomach. In his mind’s eye he saw that horrible massacre: the second shark using its vulture cloud to block the lasers and ion beams, using its own telekening power to block the missiles and then to put death-grips on the ships themselves…
And the first shark’s twisting, roiling dance of death. “It wasn’t a death dance at all,” he murmured. “The first shark was trying to spread its dust sweat around.”
“I think you’re right,” Roman agreed. “Marlowe?”
“Confirmed, Captain,” Marlowe’s voice came from off-camera. “The second shark passed through that area, all right; and if you look closely, you can see that it pauses there for a couple of seconds before starting its charge.”
Ferrol shivered suddenly. “And we sat in the 66802 system afterward… for ten days.”
“We did indeed,” Roman nodded grimly. “And were sitting ducks the entire time.
The only thing I can think of is that the missile we shot off to try and blind the incoming vultures did enough damage to Sleipnir’s dust sweat residue to make it unreadable.”
Ferrol gazed out the port at the eerie blue light edging the nearest asteroids and creating a sort of background haze from the distant ones. “It’s crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “The Tampies have been running space horses for over half a century now. How come they never figured this out?”
“Probably never had any reason to,” Roman said “I doubt they’ve had someone steal a space horse out from under them before.”
The bubble burst, and Ferrol abruptly remembered where he was. And why.
“Right,” Ferrol said. “So. What now?”
For a moment Roman gazed off into infinity. “What now,” he said, “is that we get back to the Cordonale with this as quickly as possible. Or perhaps to—”
He broke off suddenly, something blazing in his eyes. “Kennedy, get on your nav system—I want a minimum-time route to the space horse corral at Kialinninni.
Ferrol, consider yourself as on parole: collect that animal you’re chasing down and head back to the Cordonale —we’ll sort out any charges against you later.”
“Wait a minute,” Ferrol protested. “What’s the rush?”