Текст книги "Precursor"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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“I know this word. Shall I ask nadi Kelly?”

“If you can do so discreetly.”

“One will attempt discretion.”

“Report the result of that inquiry to Tabini-aiji when you take him the dispatch. I doubt it would be safe to send word to me, unless I make the flight… as my staff seems to believe I should. I remain doubtful.”

“I shall,” Nojana said. “Indeed I shall, nand’ paidhi.”

They conversed; Nojana slept and waked with the servants, another day, received more files, enjoyed meals with them.

“How long will he stay?” Bren asked Jago directly.

“Not long,” was Jago’s answer. “Tonight perhaps.”

“How did he know his way in the first place?” Bren wondered, because that thought had begun to nag him.

“Banichi sent him with that instruction” Jago said. “I’m very sure. And Banichi won’t have missed a thing.”

“What in hell do you do if you meet guards?”

“One will endeavor not to meet guards,” Jago said.

Some things there was just no disputing; and in some arguments there was simply nothing left to say. Banichi would come back. He believed that implicitly. Banichi would come back.

And true to his instruction, Nojana reported his intention to depart at midnight, enjoyed a cup of tea with him and the security staff, thanked the servants for their attentions, and stood ready to walk back down the corridors to take a lift to the core, with no more baggage than he’d arrived with… to the outward eye.

And could a human observer miss a tall shadow of an atevi in a pale yellow corridor, where there was no place to take cover?

Atevi hearing was good; but that good? He was doubtful. Banichi was armed, and needed no weapons against unarmed humans; but the very last thing he wanted was harm to the crew, even of a minor sort.

“I have all you’ve entrusted to me,” Nojana said, “nand’ paidhi.”

“I have no doubt,” Bren said. Nojana seemed to read his worry as a lack of confidence in him, and he had no wish to convey that at all. “I know Banichi has none.”

“Nandi,” Nojana said.

Then Tano quite deftly opened the door and let him out, one more time to trace his way through foreign corridors.

Chapter 19

They expected Banichi to arrive sometime after midnight. “Wake me” he said to Jago, who shared the bed with him that night. He knew her hearing, and her light sleeping, that she would in no wise sleep through Banichi’s arrival.

“Don’t be angry,” she asked of him.

“I shan’t be,” he said, lying close beside her. When he thought about it, he knew he was disturbed, and wished Banichi had asked before he did such a thing; but anger was too strong a word. Banichi was rarely wrong, never wrong, that he could immediately recall.

“Has he ever made a mistake?” he asked her, and Jago gave a soft laugh.

“Oh, a few,” Jago said, Jago, who knew Banichi better, he suspected, than anyone in the world or off it. “There was the matter of a rooftop, in the south. There was the matter of believing a certain human would take orders.”

“A certain human has his own notions,” Bren said. “And one of them is not to have my staff wandering the halls and me not knowing.”

“In the aiji’s service,” Jago said, “we overrule the paidhi. And the aiji’s orders involve the paidhi’s safe return.”

“The aiji’s orders also involve the paidhi’s success in his mission.”

“Just so, but caution. Caution.”

“Caution doesn’t get the job done.” She distracted him. Jago was good at that. He outright lost track of his argument.

Besides, he intended it for Banichi, when Banichi got back, after midnight.

But he waked in the morning first aware that Jago was not beside him, that the lights in the corridor were bright, and that breakfast was in the offing, all at one heartbeat.

Two heartbeats later he was sure it was past midnight and past dawn and Jago hadn’t done as he’d asked her to.

Or things hadn’t happened as they ought to have happened.

He rolled out of bed and seized up a robe, raking his hair out of his face on the way to the central hall, across it to the security station where Tano and Algini and Jago perched at their console… aware of him from the moment he’d come out the door.

“Where’s Banichi?” he asked at once. “Did he get back?”

“No, nadi” Jago said, and it was clear she was worried. “We have no information.”

“Did he express any belief he might be late?”

“He said it was a possibility,” Jago said, “if he found no way to move discreetly.”

“Discreetly down a bare synthetic hallway,” Bren said in distress. “I’m worried, damn it.”

“I think it well possible that he delayed with the shuttle crew” Jago said. “If something came to their attention or something changed, he might wait to know. In all his instruction there was no indication he considered the schedule rigid.”

“So what did Nojanawalk into? He went out there expecting an easy walk home.”

“Nojana is of our Guild,” Tano said, “and expects everything.”

“I have no doubt of him, then,” Bren said, “but all the same, Nadiin-ji, what is either of them to do if they meet some crewman going about his business?”

“Doors will malfunction,” Algini said.

“Doors will malfunction. I hope not to open onto vacuum, Nadiin!”

“One knows the route that was safe,” Tano said. “Banichi did consider the hazards, nandi, but he wishes very much to assure our line of retreat is open.”

“I agree with his purpose, but the risk…”

“Bren-ji,” Jago said, “something changed when the power failed. The patterns of activity that we monitor here have shifted, whether because part of this station is no longer usable, we have no idea.”

“How do you know these things?” He understood how they monitored activity in the Bu-javid, where they had the entire apartment wired, including some very lethal devices, but here in a structure where they had no other installations…

They had… one other installation.

Shai-shanitself.

And if in fact there was already an Assassins’ Guild presence on the station, at least a periodic one, with the comings and goings of the shuttle, then there might be equipment which came and went in Nojana’s baggage.

“We monitor sounds and activities,” Algini said. “Very faint ones. We know the pattern of the station from before; we know it now. The structure speaks to us. Now, and ever since the power outage, it speaks differently.”

Being paidhi-aiji, having mediated the transfer of human technology to the mainland, as well as being within very high atevi councils, he knew of atevi innovations that bore no resemblance to technology he knew on Mospheira, and no few of those innovations were in surveillance.

He had had a certain amount to do with the galley specifications: in this collection of monitors and panels and instruments his security had brought aboard… he knew very little, asked very little, mindful of his allegiance these days, and only hoped never to walk into one of the traps that guarded his sleep.

“Can you show me?” he asked.

“Yes,” Algini said.

It was not an encouraging image, knowing the little he did know regarding the station. It indicated a change since the power outage, at least, a change in where Algini estimated personnel were grouped, where they traveled. Everything pointed to a disruption of a region forcing detours.

“I’ve no idea what caused it,” Bren said. “I can’t ask Kaplan-nadi. It would give too much away. I refuse to ask Cl to be off talking to the captains if one of our people is lost.”

“Yet one can’t break pattern,” Tano said quietly. “Nandi, it would seem wisest to do as you always do.”

“Bedevil Cl and ask for Jase?” Bren muttered. “Do you see any shift of activity in the area of the shuttle?”

“Nothing out of previous pattern there,” Algini said, “except activity that would be consistent with fueling.”

“Very well done.” He was astonished by his security, astonished by what information they couldprovide him.

But none of it said why Banichi was late.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that I’d rather rely on the chance Banichi’s chosen this delay, and that anything I could do might bring adverse consequences. Do you think so, Nadiin-ji?”

“One believes so” Jago said, but he had the most uneasy notion that she might make a move after her partner—her father—without telling him in advance.

But that was the thought of a human heart. He reminded himself of a certain hillside, and mechieti, and how angry they’d been when he ran the wrong direction, as if he’d suddenly, under fire, lost his wits.

He was the lord, and under fire they would rally to him instinctively, all but blindly, with that devotion with which humans would run for spouses and children and sacred objects. They would run through fire to reach him, and only the exertion of extreme discipline could deaden that instinct. If Banichi was not here, it was againstthat instinct for him. Banichi wantedto be here.

That was a terrible responsibility, to know that one’s protectors had no choice but to feel that, and that a word from him could move them to utter, fatal effort. It was that precariously poised, and so hard, so morally hard to say: let Banichi solve his own problems.

But in that interspecies cross-wiring it was the wisest thing.

“He’s moved during their night,” he murmured. “Is there a reason for this? I would have expected equal distribution of the shifts. It’s traditional.”

“There also is a curious pattern,” Algini said, “since before the outage, the traffic in the corridors was more or less evenly distributed in frequency, and now there seems a cluster of movement last night just after our second watch and their first, then a great falling off. This is a nightly occurrence, as if a group of people moved.”

“Is it likely the ship-folk have this sort of surveillance?”

“We have no information,” Tano said, “but Jasi-ji confided to us that he knew of very little surveillance in the corridors. We failed to press him on the matter: it was Banichi’s judgment we exceeded our authority to ask him.”

It was understandable that Tano had. Anything to do with security involved their Guild and interested their Guild, and Tano had doubtless passed that information to the head of Tabini’s security, too. On one level, the human one, Bren found himself distressed that Tano had asked after such things secretly; on another, the atevi-acclimated one, he perfectly understood it was his security’s job to know everything that touched on the national business.

“Was Jase angry that you asked?” he asked, a human question, seeking the human degree of truth.

“No,” Tano said, who, of the security staff, was closest to Jase. “And he knew I would report it to the aiji’s staff. But one felt it was dangerous to ask too closely, to make Jasi-ji aware of the capacities of the equipment we prepared.”

“Yet we needed to know certain things,” Algini said, “to know how to design this console, and how to take best advantage, and what we needed defend against. And Jasi-ji knew some things, but others he was simply unaware of. One believes, nandi, that the ship itself has some internal surveillance to defend operations centers but that the general corridors of the station and the general corridors of the ship have very little. There are portable units, to be sure, but to a certain extent one suspects inbuilt security is bound to be outmoded and worked around far too rapidly; one would be continually delving into the walls to make changes. We do suspect the light installations in the corridors, as readily available power taps, but thus far, in this section, we turn up nothing.”

Algini spoke very little, except on his favorite topic, security technology. And what he said, and what his security had been finding out from Jase over the last several years, was far more extensive than he’d hoped.

“I suppose that encouraged Banichi to think he could take so long a walk,” Bren said.

“He has the means to operate these doors,” Jago admitted, “and might do so if spotted.”

“But it’s damned cold where the heat’s off,” Bren objected. “Damned cold! And there’s no guarantee of air flow.”

“We chill less readily,” Jago said. “Air is a problem.”

“Yes,” Bren said, hoping his staff would restrain its operations. “Air is a problem. And I don’twant you to go out there looking for him, and if they’ve caught him, I have some confidence I’ll hear about it. But please, Nadiin-ji, don’t surprise me like this!”

He met an absolute, impervious wall of respectful stares.

“You’ll do what you know to do” he said more quietly, in retreat, “but I beg you be careful.”

“One will be careful,” Jago said. “During certain hours there’s less movement in the corridors. One expects my partner will use his excellent sense and wait.”

“Concealed in some airless compartment!”

“He has some resources,” Jago said. “Don’t worry. It’s not your job to worry.”

He had to take himself to his own room and sit down with the computer, to lose himself in reports and letters. There was no other way to avoid thinking about Banichi and disasters.

There was still no word from Toby, there was nothing from his mother… a silence from the island, and nothing from Tabini, only a handful of committee letters acknowledging his previous letters, a dismal lot of mail, none of it informative, none of it engaging.

That his mother hadn’t written back was in pattern, too: when she was offended, she didn’t speak, didn’t reason, didn’t argue, didn’t give anyone a handle to seize that might be any use at all.

I hope you’re seeing your doctor, he wrote her, in a three-page missive. I hope Barb’s improving.

It wasn’t the most inspired of letters.

He wrote Toby, too. I know you’re not in any position to answer, and I don’t expect an answer. Just touching bases to let you know you’re my brother and I’m concerned. He started to write that he hadn’t heard from their mother, but that was the way he and Toby had gotten into the situation they were in: that he’d used Toby for eyes and ears where it regarded their mother, and a pair of feet and hands, too. And if Toby and Jill had a chance, it meant just shutting that channel down and not using it anymore, not even if it put their mother in danger. It was at least a self-chosen danger.

He sent-and-received, and the second round of mail was sparser than the first.

“Cl,” he said. “Can you put me through to Kroger?” He was down to wishing for another human voice, but Cl answered:

“Kroger is not receiving at the moment. There’s a communications problem in that area, sir. Sorry.”

A communicationsproblem.

He signed off and went to report thatto his security.

“It’s not on Banichi’s route, is it?” he asked.

“No,” Tano said. “It should not be.”

“Do you suppose,” Bren asked, “that there’s nothing wrong where Banichi is, that Nojana raninto trouble and just hasn’t gotten to him?”

“We have considered that possibility,” Algini said. “But we have emergency notification, a very noisy transmitter. We have not heard it.”

That was reassuring. Another small feature of his security that no one had told him.

“How many other surprises are there?” he asked.

“Not many,” Jago said. It was clear she wished there were more surprises available. She was worried, and by now he suspected the man’chi that held her to Banichi and that man’chi which held her on duty here, with him, were in painful conflict.

“Come with me,” he said to her, not wishing emotion to make his security’s decisions, and they sat in his room, and he offered her a drink, which she declined in favor of a cup of tea, on duty and remaining alert. They shared a small, out-of-appetite supper, served by a silent, commiserating staff.

It passed midnight of their clock.

And very quietly, with the opening of a door, someone entered the section.

Jago leaped up, and he did. By the time they reached the hall, the whole staff was converging from servants’ quarters, Tano and Algini coming out of their station.

Banichi looked quite unruffled, not a hair out of place.

But to a practiced eye, Banichi had a worried look.

“I fear Ramirez-aiji has fallen,” Banichi said first and foremost, and Bren took in a breath.

“Is anyone behind you?” Jago asked, before anything else.

“No,” Banichi said. “One regrets the delay, paidhi-ji.”

“Did Nojana reach safety?”

“Yes” Banichi said.

“Drinks in the security station,” Bren said quickly, breaching all custom, but he wanted all his security knowing the same thing and the same time, and he dared not have the instruments in that station unmonitored at this time of all times. “Tea, as well.” Half his security was on duty, and would decline alcohol.

Banichi, however, had earned a glass of something stronger. Fatigue rarely showed in Banichi’s bearing, but it did now.

Ramirez gone? Fallen? And not a damned word from Ogun or Sabin, God knew, none from Pratap Tamun.

One could babble questions. But direct questions rarely improved on Banichi’s sober, orderly report, if one’s nerves could bear it.

“The copilot, Parano, while I was there, heard the technicians talk about the power outage, but the copilot’s command of Mosphei’ has notable gaps. The technicians in his hearing asked each other whether they’d had any news of Ramirez, and went on to discuss whether they thought he was dead or alive or where he might be, at least as far as Parano could interpret the words. They discovered then that Parano-nadi was within earshot, changed expressions, and addressed him about business. This Parano reported to his captain, Casirnabri, and Casirnabri to me. Thereafter we spoke together, Parano, Casirnabri, and I, hence my information, directly from Parano. We attempted to overhear other things, during the regular course of work. The shuttle crew and the human workers maintain a good relationship… they do speak to one another in a very limited way, comparison of the translated checklists, translation from the key words list to settle what the topic is, all very slow, with hand signals they’ve devised among themselves, using number codes for operations. Casirnabri thought they might have asked about Ramirez, if I wished: they do have confidence in the goodwill of this crew. But I asked them not to do so. I place great importance, Bren-ji, in assuring your safety.”

“We’ve been quite unbothered here,” Bren began to say, and to add that he by no means took that as absolute, but Banichi frowned.

“No. I mean to take you home, nand’ paidhi. Having you here is far too great a danger. We should proceed as if we know nothing, make our plans to depart, and have you out of the reach of political upheaval.”

“Ramirez is old. Parano might have misunderstood. The crew language is full of idiom.”

Now he saw every single face set against him. Here was rebellion.

“You will go,” Banichi said in that deep voice of his, “Bren-ji. I have the aiji’s authority on this. I request you comply.”

“My usefulness is my ability to negotiate and to settle terms.”

“Your usefulness is very little if you become like Jase, unavailable to the aiji. I went to the shuttle because I had apprehensions and wished to know whether there was, even at this hour, a safe retreat. I believe that there is, and I insist you take it.”

On the aiji’s authority.

“Banichi is right,” Jago said, “given all he says. You should go.”

He didn’t want it. He’d had his doubts about being up here, he’d wondered daily about his usefulness where the captains continually postponed their meetings, but the ground had changed on him, without warning. Now he had to rethink everything, every gesture made toward them, every intimation of cooperation, or noncooperation.

“I’m not sure I improve our position by my leaving,” he said. “We’ve not been threatened. They’ve simply withheld meetings. We don’t know the reason. If the senior captain is ill, or stepped down… we just don’t know.”

“And they mean we should not learn, nandi,” Tano said. “Have they offered any goodwill at all? Have they apologized or admitted?”

“They have not,” he agreed, and Jase’s situation flashed across his mind like summer lightning, the landscape revised in a stroke. “But if we leave, we leave Jase.”

“If they have both you and Jase,” Banichi said, “our negotiating position is not improved. If you stay here, they may attempt some move against our presence here. If our presence grows quieter, they may neglect that measure and leave us a stronghold.”

“If you miss the shuttle,” Jago said, “there’s no chance for a very long time.”

“It’s the eleventh,” he said. “The shuttle leaves on the fifteenth. We have four days.”

“We can do nothing in these days,” Banichi said. “And, Bren-ji, your security very strongly advises you not to make it clear to this Guild that you know something’s amiss. We know humans do very odd things, but embarrassing them would seem provocative. We cannotpredict this situation or their behavior, but reversal of expectations does not seem to please humans more than it pleases atevi.”

“You’re quite correct.”

“Then a surprise would not be a good thing.”

“No” he agreed. “It would not, Banichi-ji. Thank you. Thank you for taking precautions.”

“We cannot take precautions enough,” Banichi said, “to secure your safety for the next few nights. We hope the shuttle will leave on schedule. Preparations are on time. There’s been no cessation of work there. I met no evidence of monitoring in the corridors, beyond what Kaplan carries on his person. I found nothing of the sort in the diagrams, and indeed, there seems none now. But there remains the possibility that they merely observed the movement and did nothing.”

“Likely enough there never was surveillance,” Bren said, “except in administrative areas. These areas were residential, and people would have resented it bitterly, as an intrusion, not as safety. The lack of signs seems their chief precaution. They couldn’t navigate the halls without a map. They don’t think it’s possible. They don’t imagine it. So there’s nothing to watch against.”

“A blind spot,” Algini said.

“A blind spot,” Bren agreed. “Humans aren’t the only species to have made such mistakes. I don’t wish to tell them, not at this point.”

“One has no wish to tell them,” Banichi said. “But were I stopped, I would have been Nojana. One doubts they would know the difference.”

“There are advanced technical means,” Bren said, “even granted they don’t recognize individuals that accurately. We mustn’t risk it again, Banichi-ji. I thank you very much for doing it, but I ask restraint. I understand your concern.” He saw his security poised to object to his objection, and held up a hand. “I will hear you. But give me today until the fifteenth to come to some resolution with the captains—not saying a word of what we know.”

“Until the fourteenth,” Banichi said. “The mission may stay. You, Bren-ji, with no baggage at all, will simply go to the shuttle early, and board, and Jago and I will go with you. The rest will stay.”

There was no question Banichi had just come to this conclusion, that he had had no time since walking through the door to consult with the rest of the team, but there was no schism in the company, that was very certain. Banichi declared his plan and the others said not a word.

It was, beyond that, a plan that made sense, not to advise the captains in advance, to be just a little ahead of any move the captains might make to restrain him from leaving. It left the majority of the staff, left Tano and Algini in charge of the mission, the servants to support them, and someone here in case Jase found a chance to reach them.

But another thought struck him with numbing force. If they left, God, if heleft, Kroger could only think the worst. If the human delegation had no warning of what Banichi suspected and it proved true, then he could by no means afford to leave them behind… Kroger left on a limb and feeling betrayed was beyond dangerous. They had had several centuries of bitter division, had just patched things into a workable agreement, and dared not leave Kroger alone with whatever mischief was shaping up on the station.

Particularly… another dark thought… since if something had gone wrong among the captains, the division might be a factional one as well as a personal power grab.

“We have to advise the Mospheirans,” Bren said. “For diplomatic reasons, for courtesy if nothing more. If they think we’ve double-crossed them, they’ll deal with the other side. They’ll conclude they can’t trust us. They have to have the same chance to get out of here. They have to know we’re on their side.”

“One can hardly speak securely on the intercom with them,” Banichi said.

“One can’t” he agreed, trying to think what to do.

“It’s not that far,” Banichi said. “I can walk there, too, and talk to Ben.”

“You’ve had a drink. You’re not on duty. No!”

“I might have another. If I’m walking the halls, I am doubtless an inebriate having strayed from duty, and will say I require Kaplan to guide me home. Humans understand inebriation. I recall your machimi. They consider it quite amusing.”

“Not when you’re damned guilty and in the wrong corridor. We’re not supposed to be able to open these doors.”

“One would certainly have to admit to that.”

“And there’s the problem of making the Mospheirans believe you when you get there.”

“Give me a token for them. Is this not machimi?”

“One will be prostrate with nerves the whole damned time,” Bren muttered, seeing less and less chance of dealing with a situation run amok. “One has not the least idea what Kroger may do. The woman distrusts me very easily. We simply can’t—”

“A banner is traditional.”

“Not among humans. Rings. Letters.” It was preposterous. “It’s a damned comedy, is what it is.” Banichi wasn’t one to propose lunacy. He had the feeling of being maneuvered, backed toward an ultimatum.

“We can hardly do this by intercom,” Banichi said, silken-smooth and one drink down.

“I can simply invite them to dinner and tell them face-to-face. No more wandering about the halls. By no means.”

Banichi sighed. “One did look forward to it.”

And not for the simple pleasure of risking his neck, Bren was suddenly sure; if Banichi had ever been serious, Banichi had his own reasons for wanting to undertake that walk. But the more likely answer was Banichi simply nudging him to come up with a plan. “Damn the whole idea! No. I’ll invitethem back. Narani will arrange something. An entertainment.”

“Machimi,” Jago said.

He looked at her, looked at Banichi, saw conspiracy and an adamant intent.

More—a third sinking thought—there was always the remotest chance, while he was trying to shore up Kroger’s doubts of him, that Kroger did know, and hadn’t leveled with himregarding Ramirez and some scheme on the part of Sabin and those who dealt far more with the Mospheirans.

Thatwas an utterly unwelcome thought. He was bounced out of bed past midnight, forced to think of abandoning everything he’d been doing here, informed that every agreement they’d hammered out was in jeopardy if not completely abrogated, and he found himself maneuvered into asking Kroger here to be read the conditions of a retreat.

And what would Kroger say? Wait for us, we’re leaving? Or, You go ahead, dear allies, and we’ll arrange things.

“I don’t think, given the food here, we’ll have any difficulty getting them to come,” he said to Banichi, “granted only I get a message through. But, dammit, Kroger can mess things up. And she may have a mind to do it.”

“Has there been difficulty with communications?” Banichi asked.

“Nothing worthwhile came through Mogari-nai,” Bren said, recalling that fact in present context, too. “They keep having outages, malfunctions, which might discourage anyone from sending critical messages, such as must not be half-received, or meddled with. I did tend to believe them about the outages. Now I don’t. It may well be an excuse to cut us off from communication. I haven’t gotten anything worthwhile from the aiji; I don’t know that he’s gotten my transmissions: I’ve had no acknowledgments. And that, Nadiin-ji, is a critical point: if we can’t be sure our messages are going through, indeed… if they’re lying to us, we can’t do our jobs here. But if we give up our foothold here, we can’t be assured of getting it back, either. If we can’trely on Kroger, if something’s going through in secret, only to Mospheira, we have a grievous problem.”

“One would agree to that,” Banichi said, and solemnly accepted his second drink, having won everything he had come to get. “But the paidhi will not be the presence to test their intentions.”

“Who can? There’s a reason Tabini sent me. There’s a reason I’m sitting here and not uncle Tatiseigi, Banichi-ji, and I can’t contravene that simple fact. If I don’t do this job, yes, you’re right, there’s no one else who can do it, but the simple fact is, if I don’t do this job, indeed, there’s no one else who can do it!”

The glass stopped on the way to Banichi’s lips. Banichi set it down and regarded him solemnly.

“A dilemma, is it not?”

“One I can’t solve.”

“One we daren’t lose,” Banichi said. “This I have from the aiji, that you must return safely. Do what you can. Take what advantage these days offer. Go down, and if things seem in order, come back in thirty days on the next flight.”

“And if things go wrong, I’ve left my staff in a hell of a position.”

“We simply lock the doors,” Tano said, “and hold out.”

“Against people who control the light and heat, Tano-ji!”

“Do you consider it likely we would be killed?” Tano asked. “It would be very foolish of them if they wish anything from the aiji.”

And Kroger had flatly said what he already knew, himself, that very few Mospheirans were willing to enter work for the ship under the old terms. Robotics, that missing part of the equation, might be Kroger’s specialty, but to design and build those machines in space, where they must be built, still required risks in an environment which had proven a killer before now.

He had to talk to them. That was a given. He had to get a notion how Kroger might react once she did know, and once she did know he knew that Ramirez had met with some sort of difficulty. Jase was another concern, one he knew hadn’t left his staff’s minds, but one which none of them could afford to pursue.

Damn, this was inconvenient. And what hadhappened to Ramirez, and where wasJase, and why, if Jase had a mother aboard, was there absolutely no contact?