There was a suitable drum roll, short of ambassadorial rank but more than a mere messenger would get. She claimed no title and wore only a simple black tunic with silver piping, indicating space service, retired. Arlai had aged her face and toned her hair more toward gray. She spoke in her lowest register when the screen image cleared to show a crisp military bridge, Holot officers dripping braid and honors bending over the scopes and controls.
They looked around shocked as she came onto their main screen. “I am breaking orbit,” she announced. “Do not fire upon my craft. I bring information vital to your security.”
From the side, one of the officers called, “Captain, one of the civilians is moving in. It’s discharged something.”
“My personal skiff. I carry diplomatic immunity.”
The com officer confirmed, reading out the Ducal ID with some frills Arlai had improvised. The captain was impressed.
The lifeboat was actually empty, but Arlai had arranged for it to appear as if their communication was coming from there, complete with emanating lifereadings.
“Captain,” continued Krinata before the Holot could say anything, “I regret it’s taken me so long to understand what this scene is all about, but my sensors have just discerned that the center one of those three passenger ships is loaded with nothing but Dushau. Duke Lavov knew you must have some Dushau left on Khol, and he sent me to trade with you. It seems I’ve arrived in the nick of time.” She was inordinately proud when she thought of using that Terrains.
The captain drew himself up on his hind feet, leaving all four upper limbs to dance over the controls before him. “State your business, Right Honorable Envoy. We are not empowered to treat with diplomatic…”
She cut him off with a wave. “I’ve come to trade news of a design flaw in the seeker craft for some of your surplus Dushau. If you fire on those ships, chances are three-to-two you’ll blow up your own ship. If you want that information, yield your fleeing prisoners to me. I’ll see none escape.”
“Your ship is old, Envoy.”
“They are unarmed passenger crates! Do not insult Duke Lavov’s honor.”
“I’d never!” the Holot gibbered.
Krinata had never heard a Holot gibber. She marveled, but kept a straight face and declared, “Let us conclude our business then, before we both lose them.”
“I’m not actually empowered to—”
“Are you empowered to commit suicide?”
“No, but…”
“Then certify your prisoners to the custody of The Right Honorable Katherine Minogue, signing for Duke Lavov. Do it via your Sentient. By the time you can take my skiff aboard, tile prisoners will have escaped you. I must authorize my vessel to give chase and tow the Dushau back. I understand they lack an onboard Sentient. All you could do is destroy them. We can capture them. I shall clear up any difficulties with your superiors when I arrive.”
The captain consulted with his bridge crew, the sound transmission off. Then he turned back to her, saying into a loud silence, “I agree to a simultaneous exchange of data. I will send the authorization to take custody of our prisoners. You will send details of this design flaw you claim can destroy us. If my Sentient decides your data is spurious, she will not complete the transmission, and we will blow your ship out of space.”
“Agreed,” snapped Krinata. But her mouth was dry.
Arlai announced, “Exchange begun.” Almost immediately, he added, “Exchange completed.”
Truth had already committed to pursuit of their quarry. The flag seeker craft was diverting to meet the empty skiff. Suddenly, the screen and scope images blurred, rippling as the three ships detimed in dangerously close formation.
Krinata slumped. The ships were free. There was no way to track a ship through a warp. Now for their own escape.
“After them!” said Rrrelloleh through his voder.
“Steady, Arlai… now!” Rinperee’s nailless indigo fingers stroked the board and Truth detimed.
The screens showed rippling fog as always in the nowhere of untime. But there were three flecks amid the clouds. Arlai whispered, “By all the gods of time, she did it!”
Rinperee had indeed tracked the three fugitives into untime. They apparently spotted the pursuit and in an attempt to lose them, retimed. Arlai barely grunted a warning before Rinperee’s fingers moved and Truth dropped back into normal space beside the fugitives.
Instantly, the screen lit with a very dark Dushau. “We refuse to surrender to Duke Lavov’s laboratories!”
Jindigar rose and came up behind Krinata removing both halves of his mask and dropping back into his own character. “Thellarue, we’re not from Lavov.”
“Jindigar?” His cautious wonder was almost comic after the searing tension. “But Kamminth’s… I thought Arlai…”
Jindigar said in grief-wrenched tones, “I am the only survivor.”
In Thellarue’s agonized silence, Trassle asked, “You know each other?”
Aside to Trassle, Jindigar said, “Thellarue’s Oliat has been trying to enlist me for many years.” Then he asked the Dushau, “You’re Dissolved?”
“Adjourned,” corrected Thellarue. “We’re in need of a first-class Emulator. You’d be welcomed.”
Krinata saw Jindigar fight off temptation. He was Oliat, through and through, raw from recent loss. His wanting glowed in his swirling indigo eyes. But he answered, steadily, “I’m flattered, but I have other obligations.”
Thellarue only nodded. “As always. I can only wait a little while longer, Jindigar.”
He inspected his feathered hands. “I know.” It was almost a groan. But he covered the ache by speaking crisply to Arlai. “Can you get the other two ships on conference?”
As the screen split, Krinata saw the other bridge crews included several Dushau also, and muttered shock spread among them at sight of Jindigar. Thellarue cut them off, asking, “Arlai, why didn’t you tell us you had Jindigar aboard?”
“His name is not to be mentioned where it might be overheard. I was sure I had a secure signal, but he wasn’t.”
“We got away with it, and that’s what counts,” said Jindigar. “Thellarue, you can’t go back to Dushaun now. If you breach the defense perimeter, the Allegiancy can attack.”
Quietly, gravely, the old Dushau said, “We have young in third Renewal. We’re going home.”
Jindigar subsided. Krinata watched him face some sort of hopeless problem. Dushau, she knew, went home for Renewal. But she didn’t know it was so important they’d risk letting hostile ships inside their planetary defenses.
A Holot female on one of the other ships said into the silence, “It really is Jindigar!”
His attention riveted to her. “Yes, Terab. You’ve done a very courageous thing.”
“We may not yet survive to be called courageous.”
It was only then that Krinata noticed the frantic activity in the background on Terab’s ship. “Status report!” snapped Jindigar.
Arlai ran a dense line of symbols across the bottom of the screen, saying, “I’m helping their Sentient cope with it all, but frankly, another detuning might be their last.”
Thellarue said, “These ships are indeed ‘crates’ as your Lady Minogue put it. We’ve no onboard Sentient to help them de-time, and Inrinan’s Sentient can’t function outboard.”
Jindigar surveyed the bridge crew of the third ship. “Where are you planning to go? Phanphihy?”
A Dushau female edged a human aside and leaned into the screen. “I’m Sopehan, Kithlinpor’s Outreach.” She spoke with the distant stiffness Krinata associated with a working Outreach. “We have young Treptian females aboard. Phanphihy would be too dangerous for them. We’ve elected to search, and so Kithlinpor’s remains constituted and balanced.”
“I understand,” said Jindigar, but Krinata did not. She’d never heard of Phanphihy, and Treptian females were notoriously tough. Their mild telepathic abilities often gave them an edge in dealing with wild anim
als—or people.
Terab said, “Our Oliat suggested a place called Phanphihy, but we haven’t been able to take a vote on it yet. There are those who feel the two ships ought to stick together. If you’ll join us, instead of going to Dushaun…”
“My destination must be Phanphihy.”
Phanphihy, Krinata concluded, must be the planet Jindigar had promised would be then” sanctuary. It seemed other Dushau also knew about it. Or maybe only other Oliat officers. All these people seemed to know each other. It didn’t mean there was some general Dushau conspiracy. They probably used Phanphihy to teach Oliat apprentices to judge commercially valueless planets.
Thellarue was talking. “I still urge you to return to Dushaun with me. As my Emulator, you’d be able to surmount all the old difficulties.”
Jindigar said something very softly in an old Dushauni dialect that sounded like a plea for mercy.
Krinata spoke up. “Perhaps we should all take time to hold a vote. We should be safe here for long enough, and it would be best if we could all stay together.”
Jindigar turned to her. “Before we head out of Allegiancy-controlled space, I must yet contact four Lehiroh to whom I’m deeply indebted. They are experienced Oliat Outriders and will increase our chances of survival enormously. So next, Truth goes to Razum Two.”
“We could set up a rendezvous,” suggested Krinata.
Thellarue broke in. “You all have crucial decisions to make, but we are already determined. Let us bid you farewell.”
“No, wait!” said Jindigar. “We have an onboard Sentient you can have. She should increase your chances of success.”
“You have a what?” Thellarue interrupted.
But he was interrupted in turn by Arlai. “Thirlein? Jindigar, you mustn’t!”
“It’s not certain death, Arlai. With Thellarue aboard, they’ve a chance. And if they had a Sentient, too, it could make the difference.”
“How could you—” started Thellarue.
Jindigar outlined how they’d come by Thirlein’s core. “But she’s in disconnection shock, and I’m not at all certain she’ll be stable. And she’s not really mine to give.”
Grisnilter appeared in a wedge of screen between two of the ship’s bridges. “We’ve discussed it, and if Rinperee agrees– and if you have a Sentient psychoengineer aboard—we’d be willing to let her go. That is, unless she objects.”
After some discussion it was decided that the Dushau ship would grapple to Truth and Arlai would help install and waken Thirlein under the care of Rinperee and several experts aboard the Dushau ship. Meanwhile, the passengers and crews of Truth and the other two ships would debate their options and decide on destinations. If they decided on different courses, people could transfer to the ships they preferred.
Krinata took time to divest herself of her disguise, then sat in on a meeting of all concerned via Arlai’s holo display in her own room.
When she saw a group of humans aboard Terab’s ship, pioneers by their dress and accents, she wavered in her determination to stay aboard Truth with Jindigar. Being the only human suddenly seemed a cold, bleak prospect indeed.
She leaped into the discussion, arguing Jindigar’s expertise and fine judgment, to get at least some of the humans to transfer to Truth, if none of the other ships elected Phanphihy. They were overcrowded, and Truth had room. But she only attracted one very young Dushau who’d heard what a fine Oliat trainer Jindigar was so he wanted to transfer to Truth if Jindigar would train him and two other Dushau who preferred Phanphihy to planet hunting.
All the crew and passengers took an hour to discuss it among themselves, and then registered their votes with Arlai. Krinata came close to saying she’d go with the rest of the humans, regardless of where they were going. But in the end, she stayed with Truth. The final tally showed Inrinan still determined to prospect for then– own planet, and Terab’s ship throwing in with Truth to go to Phanphihy though they wouldn’t accompany them to Razum Two. There were dissenters on each ship who wanted to transfer.
“I believe,” said Arlai when Krinata asked, “Terab’s ship has a larger percentage of people who know Jindigar personally or by reputation. The outsystem humans, for example, were colonists on a world Kamminth’s implanted just after Jindigar balanced them.”
Krinata was relieved in more ways than she could count. They wouldn’t be stray refugees on their new world. They’d have a constituted Oliat to read the ecology for them, find them a good living site and identify edibles, medicinals, and poisons right off. What unbelievable luck!
As the dissenters were packing up and changing ships, she went to the locking bay where the Dushau ship was connected to Truth by a walkthrough. Here the air was redolent with Dushau body odor, something she’d never noticed before. Dark and light indigo bodies filled the space, most tensed over precision tasks. She supposed the scent was nervous perspiration. She needed a shower herself.
Scurries interposed themselves everywhere, Arlai’s servitors going into the Dushau ship with full cargo loads, and coming out with nothing. Jindigar was donating supplies and parts Arlai had stockpiled for their exile.
It was just like him. They were his people despite any friction among them. Suddenly, she wanted to see him, to tell him the outcome of the vote and watch his face. She worked her way into the densely packed crowd, hardly noticing she was the only Ephemeral.
But apparently someone did notice and a commotion erupted near the walkthrough hatch. Several Dushau turned, calling urgently to those around and behind. Others gathered and retreated swiftly through the walkthrough. Then everyone seemed to relax, and a male came up to her.
“Katherine Minogue?”
“Actually, I’m Krinata Zavaronne, a friend of Jindigar.”
“Krinata Zavaronne, the one who devised the plan?” A sudden wary awe suffused the indigo features, and it seemed to Krinata that the nap on his face stood up. She’d never seen that in a Dushau before.
“I was just looking for Jindigar.”
“If you’ll wait here, I’ll find him for you.” With that, he strode away into the walkthrough.
That was how Dushau often earned a reputation for species prejudice. They could be abrupt and inhospitable. Telling herself she could locate Jindigar herself, she was about to follow when she remembered these Dushau were going to run a blockade and risk breaching their only home’s defenses because they had three “youngsters” in Renewal. No Ephemeral, except perhaps Terab, had ever seen a Dushau in Renewal. Though she’d searched the archives diligently, she’d never been able to find a reason for this.
Shortly, a Dushau female approached Krinata. “Jindigar has asked me to bring you to him.”
Curious, she followed the short, slender Dushau up a ramp and through cramped corridors into a Sentient’s core room. Jindigar’s feathered legs were protruding from an open access panel, and his voice boomed as he requested various tools. Across the room, Rinperee and several others worked over exposed circuitry, muttering together and occasionally calling, “Thirlein, can you hear now?”
It looked like the work would go on forever, so she wandered off to one side to wait. As she was examining the instrumentation near the door, Grisnilter came in, spotted the feathered legs and made for Jindigar. She didn’t like the expression on the elder’s face.
She stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. “With great and elaborate respect, Sir Grisnilter, I must beg you not to disturb Jindigar right now.”
She thought she sounded civil enough, but the older Dushau looked at her as if she had crawled out of something damp. “Did he instruct you to say that to me?”
“No.” And then she hit flashpoint. She knew her temper was out of control by the way her teeth refused to part to let her words out. “I just thought you ought to know that your hysterical meddling almost cost all of us our lives. You don’t have the sense of an Ephemeral adolescent if you think you can get away with picking a fight with him right before a ticklish oper
ation and still expect him to be witty, clever and clear-headed enough to cope with all emergencies! We’re not out of this yet, so if you expect your fellow Dushau to survive to get home, you’d better just take yourself…” She swallowed the obscenity and finished, “off this ship!”
She suddenly noticed an intense silence had fallen. Everyone was looking at them. Jindigar’s voice boomed, “Now!” After a long pause, Thirlein’s voice burst upon them, a wail of pain and terror. Someone turned the volume down, while others began talking soothingly to Thirlein. One Dushau female in a greasy coverall helped Jindigar out of the access hole, saying, ”Beautifully done! I thought it impossible—”
Jindigar hugged the woman absently, eyes riveted on Krinata and Grisnilter squared off and the center of attention. Absently, he muttered to the Dushau woman, “Comes from battering about the galaxy in an antique. Let me know if Thirlein decides to stay with you.”
Jindigar came over to them. Grisnilter eyed his smudged and unkempt appearance, and said, without a trace of apology, “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to upset you.”
Jindigar put a hand on the frail shoulder, and said in a quiet, ultimate tone, “It’s all right. I understand.”
Krinata’s face felt flaming hot, but she stood her ground. Grisnilter made a defeated gesture and left. Jindigar looked after him, worried. Then he pulled himself back and turned to Krinata. “What are you doing here?”
Krinata outlined the results of the vote, ending, “So there’s a Dushau looking for you to ask you to train him, and Arlai says Truth’s ready to go as soon as you’re finished.”
“You had to come here to tell me this?”
She pulled herself up and pronounced, “I apologize. I wanted to help.” She turned on her heel and marched toward one of the hatches, though she wasn’t sure where it led.
Jindigar caught up with her and took her elbow. But despite the strain he’d been under, there was no body odor. “This way,” he said, steering through another hatch, his long legs eating the distance so she had to stride to keep up.
“We’re not in that much of a hurry,” she protested.
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