“This latch’s been forced, Captain.” Turning, she carefully examined the window feature in question. It looked like it had been melted neatly in twain, not unlike what she’d planned to do herself. She had missed it when she crawled in, but she was less than shocked to see proof of her suspicions. She made a couple of gestures at Merlo, and the girl nodded. It seemed basic hand gestures for soldiers were nearly universal, or close enough at least to get her point across. Merlo fell in behind her as a rear guard as Branwen quietly drew her blade, and they advanced to begin a further search of the house in the glimmer of its golden plasma light.
Two things now limited their search, the low amount of light lingering from the setting sun, and the possibility that they might not be alone here. Branwen attempted to move them along with heed paid to both concerns. Likely, if there was something of note here, it would likely be in whichever rooms Don Mateo used most frequently. They currently seemed to be in a wing populated by a uniform set of guest rooms, so she dismissed them and headed for the main section of the house.
Fantastic paintings and statuary passed them by as they slipped through the house, and inactive light sources of sculpted glass and crystal glittered overhead, but Branwen paid them little mind regardless of their beauty. She was busy not only watching and listening for anything amiss, but also trying to calculate where in the house a man like Don Mateo would store anything of value. For someone to break in, he had to have something they desired, and it was too much to assume that it was simply a coincidence and unrelated to the matter of Kala Tiala’s disappearance. Besides, had they been a common thief, they had left countless priceless art pieces safely behind, making that assumption even less likely.
If she had built a home on a cliff overlooking an ocean on a breathtaking resort world, she would personally seek to make the most of the view. So she headed toward the sunset side of the building, crossing carefully through a grand, empty foyer as they went. Branwen herself was only mediocre at sneaking about, as too many years wearing heavy armor had rendered it a useless skill, so some of her footfalls echoed tellingly in the wide open space. But the only thing they seemed to disturb with their cautious passage was a fine layer of dust.
They located a library, then an adjoining study, but found nothing during a cursory examination. Then Branwen paused, looking carefully over a desk sitting in a sheltered nook along the wall near a window. “Look,” she said quietly, drawing Merlo’s attention toward the small mahogany desk, and where dark streaks marred the dust around the drawers and handles. “Someone has been looking for something.”
“Whoever they are, they must be here for something specific,” Merlo said, and Branwen nodded. “Otherwise they could have just wiped this place clean. This has to be related, right?”
“I would bet on it, myself.” Branwen tugged open a few drawers herself, but they yielded no clues. She hoped they didn’t pass over a clue, unknowing what it was they were looking for. She wasn’t exactly a thief-hunter, nor did she know what their thief in question was looking for or even exactly what Don Mateo was mixed up in. She puffed out a quiet sigh and departed the rooms, looking for the stairs. If it were Branwen’s home, she’d put her bedroom and private rooms on the second floor, somewhere near the back side of the manor. Maybe something of import could be found there.
She found his private rooms exactly where she had expected them to be, and held up a fist to signal Merlo to stop, but the girl bumped into her lightly anyway. Maybe hand signs weren’t so universal, after all. Merlo gave her a mildly sheepish smile when she glanced back, but Branwen simply pointed at the open door ahead of them and her companion’s face went deliberately serious again.
Someone had forced entry to this room, and there was no telling how long ago. The door’s frame was damaged at the area containing the latching mechanism; it looked like whomever had forced it had abandoned the higher degree of subtlety with which they had canvassed the rest of the house. Branwen pointed to herself first, then Merlo, then the door, and counted down from three on her fingers. At “one,” she tensed to kick her way into the room, but Merlo flowed around her and beat her to it, thumping the door open and taking point. Branwen cursed silently and followed; she’d have to talk to her later about her unnecessary initiative.
A quick scan of the new room and its adjoining room proved both their caution and aggression totally unnecessary. “It’s empty, Captain. Whoever’s been here, I’m betting they’re long gone.”
Branwen grunted, sheathing her plasma blade in agreement. “Drop not your guard completely,” she said, still keeping her voice low so that it wouldn’t carry, if not hushing it to a whisper like before. “There could still be someone elsewhere in the house… though I doubt it at this point.” Better safe than sorry, though. Warriors that were not on guard when they had cause to be often became dead warriors rather quickly.
There might not have been anyone there currently, but someone definitely had been fairly recently. Whoever it was had finally abandoned careful searching, as countless books, drawers, papers, and many other things laid scattered across the floor. Rich wood walls covered in bookshelves lay half bare, their contents vomited haphazardly across the soft rugs carpeting the floor. Knickknacks lay here and there, intriguing or beautiful art or mementos peering timidly at them from between fallen volumes, papers, or more modern accoutrements.
Merlo helped her right a toppled computer-box as they circled around a desk in what appeared to be a spacious personal study. “What do you make of all of this, Captain?” She kept her voice to the same level of volume as Branwen’s.
Branwen considered for a moment, putting together what she could in her head. “Well, these rooms are trashed, whereas the ones beneath us were not.” Merlo nodded. “It says to me that whoever came here looking either ran short on time or patience, and tossed their caution to the winds.”
“Seems reasonable, Captain.”
“Furthermore, some of those books have been stepped on, and others kicked aside as someone moved about, meaning they continued to look even after first tearing the place apart.” She met Merlo’s gaze and pointed around the room at some of the clues. “Which means they did not find what they sought easily, if they even did at all.”
“Huh… unfortunately, we have no idea what they were here for either, do we Captain?” Merlo looked to her, as if hoping she knew something more the girl didn’t, but Branwen shook her head slightly, no answer yet to give. “Hey, what are these things that are all over the place?” Branwen blinked as Merlo gingerly picked up a thick, leather bound volume by the spine.
“Those… those are books, Merlo.”
Her pilot blinked at her for a moment before flipping the tome over and ruffling its pages. “Oh. Wow. Never seen one before.” She paused, then thumbed through a few pages. “Why would anyone use these? They’re so cumbersome. And these pictures are really poor resolution.” She held one open and pointed it toward Branwen indicatively.
Branwen smiled gently at her. “It’s technology that preceded digital information. It’s how many peoples used to record things in the distant past, and how my people still do.”
Merlo dropped her volume back onto the floor, oblivious to the disrespect and damage possible in such an action. “Sorry, Captain. It just seems really weird to me. What are these things even made of?”
Branwen shrugged. She couldn’t speak for Don Mateo’s maligned volumes, but she was rather familiar with the ones on Fade. “Typically, pressed plant matter, ink, and worked skins in the form of leather.”
She watched as Merlo made a face. “Gross, Captain.”
She chuckled in response, but Merlo’s line of thinking sparked a thought. “Hmmm… That is actually a very good point, Merlo.” She watched a quizzical expression grow on her pilot’s face. “See this computer tower? Knocked over, with its accessories scattered.”
Merlo nodded. “Yeah?”
“If they had found whatever they sought therein, why then would t
hey scatter the shelves as if still searching? Don Mateo seems to favor the old styles of information. Perhaps what was hidden here was of a more physical nature.”
“Okay, so like, an item, or one of these… books?” Merlo knelt and shifted aimlessly through a pile of fallen tomes. The light level was getting low, and they’d had no success with the automatic lights. The power grid had probably been sabotaged by the thief. “But how would we know it, even if we saw it? Maybe our thief had the same problem.”
“Perhaps.” But Branwen’s train of thought was still running. “If Don Mateo was a man who favored more antique tastes… If he had some sort of secret, something to do with the recent disappearance… He would want it found. But not easily. And if one were to want to hide physical clues, in a place like this…” She trailed off, scanning the room for the type of thing she was considering. On her homeworld, something of the sort would be horribly obvious, the first place any competent thief would look. But on a world like this, where important information is contained on data streams and digital devices? The need for such hiding places was long past.
Branwen edged past the soft, leathery couch to a large painting of a woman picking flowers, hung on one of the few walls in the entire room not covered by bookshelves, and firmly seized hold of the edges of its gilt frame. Merlo stood again and eyed her with a raised eyebrow.
In these worlds, where time had long moved past the things she was more familiar with, the old was new again. She glanced back over her shoulder in time to see Merlo’s jaw drop when the picture frame began to move aside with a low mechanical hum, revealing a closed and latched cavity behind it.
It opened easily enough, though Branwen didn’t put her face too close to it. At least where she was from, people commonly guarded these with spring-and-needle traps, as well, though nothing of the sort sprung out at her from the shadowy depths of Don Mateo’s safe. She reached inside the dim cavity, her eyes unable to make out more than a dim shape, and retrieved her prize with no small amount of triumph. She’d always been fond of a good treasure hunt, time permitting.
“He wanted it to be found,” Branwen said as she turned, bringing the object into the light. “Just not by whomever he expected to seek it first.”
13.2- Merlo
“No, Captain, you had the right idea. Any agent the Kalaset had sent would have been familiar with the more… antiquated methods of concealment as well.” Sirrah held the small, dark box Branwen had retrieved out in front of her, light glinting off of its patterned gold inlay as she turned it this way and that, seemingly in search of the method of opening it.
“I can’t believe you didn’t call us.” 286 looked over at Merlo, narrowing her eyes. The whole of the Destiny’s occupants, crew and passengers alike, had gathered in the dining area to discuss the fruits of Merlo and Branwen’s investigation. Now they stood around, their measure of success on hold while Sirrah deciphered the Kalaset code used to seal the ornate lockbox.
Merlo blinked at 286 in response to her complaint. “What? Nothing happened. There wasn’t anything to call you over.”
Prisoner 286 sighed, looking dejected. “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to get off the damn ship and have some fun.” She looked over at Sirrah, who, unlike the others, had taken a seat. They all watched as she turned the carved container back and forth, sliding a piece here and tapping an obfuscated button there. “Oh, just give me that.”
Merlo didn’t expect anyone to just let 286 have the intricate item, but she snatched it from Sirrah’s grasp before the Kala could do more than drop her mouth open to speak. Merlo’s eyebrows weren’t the only ones in the room to shoot up, as with a gleam of warped light and a sharp crack, she tossed the cracked carapace of the exquisite puzzlebox back onto the table in front of Sirrah.
“There. Boom! Done.” 286 leaned back against the kitchen counter, smiling in the most irritatingly self-satisfied way Merlo had ever seen. Mr. Leonard and Zimi both edged even further away from her, leaving 286 nearly alone on that side of the room.
Kala Sirrah looked down at the pathetic looking object in front of her, her mouth ever so slightly open, the first time Merlo had seen her seemingly at a loss. “That… was a priceless, twelve hundred year old Elysian safebox.”
Merlo couldn’t bury the unexpected grin quick enough, but no one was watching her anyway. 286 just shrugged a shoulder. “And now it’s broke. So what?”
Sirrah opened her mouth to speak. “It was—”
“What? More valuable than whoever it is we’re looking for? I thought time was of the essence here.” If anything, Merlo supposed 286 seemed irritable, and she watched the woman’s hand linger on the side of her head, massaging the scalp beneath her strip of close-shorn hair.
To Merlo’s surprise, Sirrah took a small breath and smiled. “You’re right,” she said, to Merlo’s further astonishment. The Kala began to pick through the ebony wood shards of the container. “Thank you.”
Prisoner 286’s raised eyebrows and semi-offensive gesture pretty clearly said “Of course.” Merlo covered her face with her hand and repressed an amused snort of a laugh.
“But what do we have inside?” Branwen, ever the calm influence, leaned over Sirrah’s shoulder to help pick through the bits on the long table. “It is not what I expected to find.”
As everyone except Prisoner 286 crowded around Sirrah’s end of the table, the contents of the box turned out to be three amber-colored rectangular silicon pieces, a thin, black metal portable data drive as long as Merlo’s finger, and a small section of well-folded paper. “Except for the paper, I suppose.” Branwen continued as she reached over and picked up one of the amber cards, a semi-transparent piece with silvery circuitry on it.
“They’re holovid chips, Captain.” Merlo gestured at them.
“And they’re not terribly full.” Mr. Leonard spoke for the first time during the meeting, and then seemed to get embarrassed as everyone glanced at him. “Um, well, you can tell because of there’s only very slight etching on the connections there.” He pointed at something on the exposed circuitry of the holocard, but Merlo couldn’t get close enough to see what he meant with everyone else crowded around.
“Then it behooves us to see what they contain as soon as possible.” Branwen wasn’t quite telling Sirah what to do, but she had that older-woman tone going again that Merlo still found somewhat out of place, considering Branwen’s appearance. She kept meaning to mention that again. If she bugged the Captain about it long enough, she figured she’d eventually get an answer.
Sirrah appeared to be thinking the same thing anyway, nodding as soon as Branwen spoke. “If you would excuse me, I must go and view these immediately.” She didn’t wait for anyone’s approval or response, and rose smoothly from her chair and exited swiftly in a swirl of silver and white cloth.
Branwen sat down in her place, turning over shards of rich, dark wood and poking through the other contents. After just a moment, she picked up and unfolded the odd looking piece of paper. Parchment, I think. Merlo thought she’d heard Branwen call it that before.
“Um, do you think we should be lookin’ through that, Cap’n? It’s Kalaset business, ain’t it?” Zimi said, speaking up for the first time since she’d arrived on the scene.
Merlo thought the younger girl looked a little nervous. She still felt that people’s reverence of the Kalaset was out of place, at least to her perspective. But what do I know, I’m the outsider here.
Branwen nodded. “Yes, but I do believe we are already involved, are we not? The way I see it, we should know more of what we are getting ourselves into.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Everyone looked up as 286 spoke again. She glanced back and forth over their reactions before adding a sharp, “What?”
Going back to perusing the paper, Branwen made thoughtful noises. “It is a map. And names. Mostly Urzran names, if I do not miss my guess.”
Merlo glanced at 286, recalling the fact that she was supposedly Urzran, but the tall w
oman was staring off into space and scratching her exposed scalp. Merlo moved closer, Mr. Leonard edging out of the way to make more space for her. “Where is it a map of? And what’s on that?” Merlo pointed at the data drive.
“I do not know, but I imagine they are related.” The Captain picked up the drive and turned it this way and that, as if by gazing into it she might unlock its secrets.
Mr. Leonard cleared his throat. “Well, we could look.”
Zimi seemed surprised. “What? But it ain’t ours. That wouldn’t be right.”
He shrugged, seeming defensive, or maybe just nervous as usual. “I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, Miss Zimi. But we could look easily enough if the Captain felt we had need.” He produced a slim, silver-edged datapad from a pocket somewhere inside his dapper vest, but Merlo beat him to it, thumping her own pad down on the table next to Branwen. She wanted to know, at least.
They didn’t get the chance, though, because Sirrah hurried in at just that moment. She glanced over the datapad on the table next to the shiny obsidian drive in Branwen’s hand, but didn’t seem bothered by what their presence suggested. “Captain, I need to speak with you. Alone, if you please.”
13.3- Branwen
Branwen leaned back in her chair, raising a thoughtful hand to her face. Kala Sirrah removed the third and final holotape from the projection device she’d brought, folding her hands neatly in her lap and waiting. The Kala’s face might not show it, but long years of practice told Branwen when someone was watching her with anxiety, hidden or no.
The rest of the crew was gone, by Branwen’s bidding, though with various degrees of curiosity. Despite anything either Branwen or Sirrah had said, however, Prisoner 286 refused to take the hint, instead hovering somewhere behind Branwen’s chair and chewing loudly while the holovid recordings played.
Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) Page 26
