Текст книги "Catalyst of Sorrows "

Автор книги: Margaret Bonanno

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter 15

Ki Baratan was sweltering that night under an unusually early heat wave. Romulus, it was said, had only two seasons—too hot, and too cold. From the comfort of her climate-controlled suite high above the pavement, Cretak watched the streets empty of pedestrians as the curfew sounded. Soon there was nothing to see below but an occasional air-car on patrol, stirring the debris at the curb as it passed. And were those—? No, they couldn’t be. Vermin, even in this part of the city? Disgusted, Cretak let the filmy drape fall over the window and moved away.

What would this city be like?she wondered, not for the first time. This prefecture, this province, this region, this planet, this system, this empire, if we weren’t always at war?

But how can we not be, when whom we are most at war with is ourselves?

The aristocracy hid themselves behind the walls of their great estates, the Senate saw to it that the areas surrounding official buildings, the places outworlders saw, were maintained, but the rest of the city was a shambles of potholed, muddy pavements, piles of uncollected refuse rotting in alleys and banked against the sides of buildings by the prevailing wind, swirling into ever-changing tels of new piled upon old, chaotic time capsules evidencing: Here we were when this happened, when this emperor died and this war overtook us, when we invaded here and were invaded there, all the way back, it wouldn’t surprise her, to the Sundering. In that case, there would also be evidence of the Gnawing buried in the debris of their past. Always, like a knife scar through the psyche, the Gnawing.

Is it only that?she wondered. Only the Gnawing that has conditioned us so that, no matter how much some of us have, we always want more?

She couldn’t see the decay from here, but knew the signs abounded throughout the city, the broken cornices and battered facades of once beautiful buildings, windows shattered and patched and repatched with scrap lumber and great running globs of adhesive, coming unstuck when it rained. And dirt, always dirt, no matter how many times the old ones came out with their twig brooms to sweep, like some antique parody of what once was, but was still, because the sanitation bureau was too corrupt and the automated cleaners were more often broken down and in the shop than not.

Everything gray. Gray buildings, gray pavements, gray clothing, gray souls. Why must we all dress alike,she wondered, affect the same helmetlike hairstyle, if not to blend in, disappear, say to the forces that can track us by a fingerprint, a breath, a smattering of chromosomes: “It’s not me. I didn’t do it. You want someone else!”

Elements,Cretak thought. I am so sick of it! It’s in the very air we breathe, gray air, gray food, gray souls. We swallow down the grayness, the broken, the trashed and rubbishy; our very souls are chipped and worn and in need of replacement, replenishment, renewal.

And now this new thing, this illness, scattering among the colony worlds but, evidenced by the new reports her sources brought to her, moving inward, toward the homeworld, even as it moved outward, across the Zone, to the other side. Ahundred cases here, a thousand there, an entire suburb cordoned off on such-and-such a world. And yet, in the official news sources…nothing. People who have lost relatives are told it was a chance thing. There is no epidemic, and anyway the government is investigating it. Return to your homes and go on with your lives. Or else.

Only one entity within the power structure would have the temerity to experiment thus on its own citizens, Cretak thought: the Tal Shiar. And why, without any proof, when she thought of epidemics did she automatically think of Koval? He had been fixated on sickness for as long as she had known him, perhaps only because Tuvan’s Syndrome ran in his family and he sensed his life would be shorter than most. Cretak had no proof he was behind this—pestilence—and even if she did, what could she do with it?

She had been offworld often enough to know that it wasn’t the universe that was gray, but only those things touched by Romulans. We left Vulcan because it was nothing but sand and logic,she thought grimly. Now we have become nothing but dust and deviousness!

Yet here am I,Cretak thought, secure in the Senate despite my early association with Pardek, currently in disfavor, with whatever power that gives me to oppose the sort of calculated chaos the likes of Koval plays at, if only I can stay ahead of the knives. Madness. If Koval loses control of whatever he’s doing, I shall be senator of a dung-hill. Some distinction! But this is my world. What else can I do?

It was late. There was much to do on the morrow. Cretak hated sleeping draughts, but took one anyway, knowing there would be no sleep this night if she did not. As she waited for oblivion, she went over the day’s events in her mind.

Once word had reached her in its roundabout way that her Pandora’s box had been delivered safely and its message understood, she had thought her part in this was over. She did not understand enough about medicine to know if this horror could be cured or at least defended against. Her only thought in giving the information to Uhura had been to say: Don’t let me carry this alone!

But she was embroiled now. Even as she wanted to stop up her ears against the influx of reports, they continued to come to her, all but driving her to despair. Had she sent the messenger too late, or too soon? Or if there truly was nothing to be done, had there been any point in sending the messenger at all?

“…guaranteed to cure what ails you, stranger!” a hoarse voice croaked. “Come try a free sample on that bruise on your arm.”

“A snake-oil salesman,” Tuvok concluded. And at Selar’s inquiring look, he elaborated, “Terrestrial culture, pre-warp. Dealers in false medicinals. Their cures were always fake, usually harmless, occasionally dangerous. An interesting example of the placebo effect. Such individuals would sell everything from herbs to wood shavings to common soil, presented in a pleasing form.”

The salesman was a scrawny, red-faced humanoid with a raucous voice worn down by a lifetime of shouting out his wares. A small crowd had gathered around his booth to listen, but no one was buying. Even after he “cured” a “volunteer” from the crowd, no one was buying.

“A common technique,” Tuvok whispered to Selar. “The ‘huckster’ frequently planted a ‘shill’ in the audience to feign an illness. This person’s ‘cure’ often inspired purchases in others.”

“Curious,” Selar replied. “I would be very interested in the composition of this miraculous substance.”

“Indeed,” Tuvok said as they began to work their way through the crowd.

The Listeners had reported an increase in the number of merchants selling ‘miracle cures’ in this sector. Admiral Uhura had thought it worth investigating, which was why the team was here.

“It’s a fake!” a Romulan in the crowd was shouting. “And you want too much for it!”

“Too much for a miracle?” the huckster shouted. “This here, my friends, is something you’ve never seen or heard of before. It’s found on only one planet in the entire quadrant, and I’ve risked my life to get it.”

This got a few people’s attention, and a few purchases were made, but most in the crowd began to drift away, giving Selar a chance to move forward.

“What will you take in trade for a sample of this miraculous compound?” she asked the huckster who, once off his platform, was nearly a head shorter than she. He squinted up at her and grinned.

“Whatcha got to trade?” he leered hopefully, licking his spittle-flecked lips. “That’s a right fine pendant you’re wearing. That Vulcan?”

“It is.” Selar slipped it off and gave it to him to examine.

“Genuine garnet,” he appraised it, then gave it back. “But I’d have to give you a cartload of hiloponto be worth that.”

“Even for a miracle cure?” Selar asked dryly.

The little man’s eyes shifted sideways, as if he suspected a trap. “Well, how’s about I give you a free sample? Then I’ll take the pendant in trade for something, shall we say, more of interest to a beautiful young woman such as you. Perhaps a love potion for that…um, special Vulcan time?”

Tuvok, who had been hanging back in the crowd searching for the shill, who had melted away, suddenly materialized beside Selar. His appearance was sufficient to wipe the leer off the huckster’s face.

“Look, I don’t want no trouble!” he protested, raising his hands as if to fend it off, backing away from them. “I can tell you’re with the gov, but my permits are in order, and I ain’t selling anything that’s on the banned list. Okay, the hiloponis a little out of the ordinary line, but it ain’t illegal to sell it here, and you know it. Besides, I’m not the only one selling it, and it don’t hurt nobody. Want to look at it another way, I’m selling hope. There’s always a chance it mightwork.”

“We are more interested in what it is and where it comes from,” Tuvok said sternly, palming one small packet and secreting it in his specimen case as the huckster began hurriedly packing up his booth; if the little man wanted to believe Tuvok was a Sliwoni official, Tuvok would not inform him otherwise.

“It’s called hilopon.And if you’re with the gov, you know it comes from Renaga. That’s common knowledge. You’re trying to trip me up, make a liar out of me, but that’s the truth. And you got no jurisdiction on Renaga, so you got no hold on me.”

“Refresh my memory,” Tuvok said, distracting him while Selar ran her tricorder discreetly over his wares. “Why was it necessary for you to risk your life in order to obtain this substance?”

The little man had been snatching vials and jars and packets off the counter, tossing them into a carryall, lowering the curtains on the booth to indicate it was closed.

“Hey, you know how it is there. Natives are as backward as sheep. They think the stars govern their lives. They don’t like strangers, and they believe if you take so much as a handful of dirt off their planet, you’re making it smaller. Can you believe that? So I had to sneak this stuff off very carefully, even though it’s only dirt.”

He’d finished packing now, and was searching the gathering crowd furtively for a means of escape.

“But you know that!” he accused Tuvok, waving a finger in his face defiantly. “You’re just toying with me so I’ll leave town. All right, all right, I’m leaving, see?”

The uproar he was making was drawing a new and not entirely friendly crowd. Someone shouted, “Leave him alone!” Selar turned off her tricorder and quirked an eyebrow at Tuvok. It was time and past time to get back to Albatross.

Maybe it was working in the sometimes airless confines of the engine room all day, or maybe it was the unfamiliar dusts and pollens in the air of Sliwon, but Sisko had been bothered with a tickle in his throat all afternoon. Clearing his throat didn’t get rid of it, drinking water had no effect. By the time the Vulcans signaled their impending return, it had evolved into an annoying cough. In the ensuing attack by the villagers with their shortbows, he had almost forgotten about it, but now it was back. He cleared his throat.

“It would be unfortunate if your display of superior fire power upset the normal evolution of weaponry on this world,” Selar was suggesting to Tuvok as they came aboard.

“Dubious,” Tuvok remarked. “The villagers think nothing of space travel. Their use of the bow is merely traditional. On worlds where archery is a normal part of the weaponry, for example, the crossbow and the longbow often evolve in tandem. Curious, since the longbow is a far superior weapon. At the battle of Agincourt, the English lost only 500 men to the French 10,000, because of their adoption of the Welsh longbow…”

“And that’s the long answer,” Sisko quipped, admiring the longbow. “Damn fine craftsmanship on such short notice.”

“In fact, it is very primitive,” Tuvok pointed out. “It ought to have been made of French yew, aged for at least thirty days. However,” he said, unstringing it and stowing it under his bunk. “It has served its purpose, in that it has prevented something as inconsequential as a skirmish with the locals from endangering our mission.” He frowned slightly. “Where is Zetha?”

Sisko blinked. “I don’t know. I assumed she went with you.”

Tuvok’s frown deepened. “She asked if she could remain here, and indicated she would speak to you about it. I should have verified that. An oversight on my part.”

“I’ve been in the engine room the whole time,” Sisko explained with a sinking feeling. “I assumed, since she always goes with you…I never thought to check.”

Was this where it happened? Sisko wondered. Was this where she jumped ship, went back to her masters, set his crew up for an attack? Was the ambush they’d just foiled part of her plan? How much of that was his fault?

“She’s probably back in the lab,” he suggested, praying it was so. “Although why she didn’t come out during the attack…”

But Zetha was not in the lab, nor anywhere else on the ship.

“We would have to attain orbit in order to get clear of local comm chatter,” Tuvok suggested, already preparing for departure. “But if Zetha is anywhere in the vicinity, it will be possible to put a trace on her….”

“And if she isn’t in the vicinity,” Sisko said grimly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if—” Just then the perimeter alarm sounded, and he slid into the command chair.

“The Sliwoni are back,” he reported, scanning the clearing and the surrounding woods. “Not just a handful on foot, but half a dozen hovercraft, weapons powering. I’d say we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

Tuvok had taken the seat beside him at the controls and was scanning the weapons signatures. “Standard plasma weapons. If they fire, shields should be able to handle it. But I would prefer that we not have to test them.”

“You and me both,” Sisko agreed. “I doubt these shields have been used since before I was born. I wouldn’t want to find out—”

A shot across their bow left his thought unfinished.

“Whatever happened to ‘come out with your hands up’?” Sisko groused, sealing hatches, powering up. “And is it me, or are there no official markings on those ’craft?”

“Confirmed,” Tuvok reported, scanning. “Unmarked, and of several different designs.”

“A posse,” Sisko decided. “Vigilante justice. Well, they want us out of town before sunset, I’ll be happy to oblige them.”

Before Tuvok could ask the question, he gave him an answer.

“My educated guess is those ’craft are built for atmosphere, not vacuum. I just want to get high enough up to where they can’t follow us, and then we’ll go looking for our runaway. Shields up,” he announced just as one of the hovercraft fired another shot. The shields took it with only a little protest, though Sisko could feel the drain as if it were he and not the ship who’d been hit.

“Shields down to sixty-eight percent, recharging,” Tuvok reported smoothly.

“Can’t wait for it,” Sisko announced. The engines were fully online now. He opened the intraship to warn Selar in the lab. “Hang onto anything breakable, Doctor. We’re out of here!”

With that he activated the forward thrusters and threw the big bird into reverse. She slid abruptly backward to hover above the raging sea, buffeted by the wind sheer until Sisko reversed thrusters and, like her namesake, her cumbersome shape defied gravity and soared upward, over the heads of the disappointed hovercraft, and away.

Comm was crackling furiously. Since Sisko was occupied, Tuvok monitored. A jumble of cross talk greeted him, Sliwoni authorities arguing with their attackers, who were arguing back.

“Some are insisting that they should let us go and good riddance,” Tuvok reported. “Others want to imprison us on charges of bioterrorism. A third group insists they should have destroyed us while we were still on the ground.” He closed the channel with something like a sigh. “By the time they finish arguing among themselves, we will be well away. Can you accurately pinpoint one Romulan life-form reading within ten kilometers of the clearing?”

“Assuming she’s still within ten kilometers of the clearing, and assuming she’s the only Romulan within ten kilometers of the clearing…” Sisko muttered, scanning. “Sliwoni have their own distinct signature, but given the interplanetary population, I’m also reading non-Romulan humanoids, what could be Rigelians and…hello.”

The scanner indicated one vulcanoid reading, in the very same thicket from which the archers had attacked, as if Zetha were crouched and watching the hovercraft circle the now empty clearing with something like futility, wondering what she should do next.

“I guess she’s completed whatever errand took her into town,” Sisko said half to himself.

Tuvok raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“Lowering shields,” Sisko said, “and activating transporter.”

A rather breathless and disheveled Zetha waited for the decon beam before hopping off the pad, something hidden in her jacket.

“I tried to get back before they attacked, but they cut me off,” she reported, as if it had all been part of some plan. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

She reached inside her jacket and presented Sisko with a reasonably new adapter that, with slight modifications, would be exactly what he needed.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded, not sure if he was annoyed because she’d been able to find it or because he’d been so impatient with her questions about it in the first place.

“What difference does it make?” Zetha asked. “Does it fit? I know it works.”

“What do you mean, you know it works? You stole this, didn’t you?”

“I scrounged it. Stole it, if you prefer. Its previous owner has an entire warehouse of them, and if it works, it will help us, will it not?”

Sisko opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

“Would it comfort you if I told you I meant to barter for it, but when I heard all the uproar in town I didn’t have time?”

“Barter with what?” Sisko demanded. “You don’t have anything worth bartering for!”

He regretted it the minute he said it but, as usual, Zetha took no offense.

“Well, there you are,” she said with her characteristic shrug.

“Thank you,” he told Zetha tightly. “I’ll deal with this later. For now…” The hovercraft were dispersing, but who knew how long it would be before official sources tried to intervene? “…we’re getting the hell out of here.”

When at last they were well away from Sliwon and Sisko had repaired to the engine room, it was Tuvok’s turn. “How did you manage not only to slip into town undetected, but to steal the adapter and elude pursuit on your return?”

Zetha’s smile came more readily now. “Sisko thinks I’m a spy. So, in your heart, still, do you.”

“Yet you claim you are not.”

“I’m small, I’m fast. I’ve been told all my life that I’m invisible, that I do not exist. Who’s to say it isn’t true?”

Aft in the engine room running a diagnostic on the environmental controls, Sisko was shaking his head. “Well, I’ll be damned! I don’t believe for a minute that this was the only errand that took you to town, but at least the darn thing works….”

“It’s continuing to spread,” Crusher informed Selar. “Twenty-seven planets and five starbases affected. Outbreaks confirmed on seven freighters and two science vessels, and we’re following other reports. Still one hundred percent mortality in those affected. We can give palliative treatment to ease the symptoms in the final hours, but we’ve had no luck cracking the code on this thing. And we still haven’t a clue to how it’s spread.”

“Giving further credence to the Typhoid Mary theory,” was Selar’s opinion.

“So it seems,” Crusher said. “And yet, the Romulan on Quirinus tested clean. What’s the word on Sliwon?”

Selar told her what she’d found. “As expected, air, water, and soil samples tested negative. Native flora and fauna, also negative. As for the putative cure…”

“The stuff you confiscated in the marketplace,” Crusher said. “What do you make of it?”

“Structurally intriguing, but essentially inert.”

Crusher sat back in her chair, hands in her pockets. She’d hailed Uhura and McCoy, but neither had reported in yet. Well, she could give them a précis later. “Structurally intriguing? I’m listening.”

“At the molecular level, it would appear to be a levorotatory form of the Gnawing bacillus,” Selar began. Suddenly McCoy popped into view beside Crusher. A human might have been startled, but Selar merely waited for him to say what he would inevitably feel compelled to say.

“Are you sure of that?”

“Within 99.997 percent of certainty, Doctor, yes.”

The old man’s eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful news! We could be talking about a potential treatment, or at least a decoy. Same principle behind ryetalin treatment for Rigelian fever.”

“I’m afraid it is not that simple,” Selar said quietly, and suddenly Uhura was with them, too.

“Wait a minute. Back up and explain this for the layman, please.”

“She means ‘in English,’ ” McCoy supplied. Crusher suppressed a smile. Selar’s news was making them all a little giddy; it was the first ray of hope in a long time.

Selar activated a holoprogram. “We are all by now familiar with the Gnawing, as seen at the molecular level,” she said, as the image rotated before them. “This,” she said, calling up a second shape, “is hilopon,its mirror image, the substance Lieutenant Tuvok confiscated from the individual in the Sliwoni market.

“As you can see, the same number of molecules, in the same order, is present. But in the Gnawing, the genetic helix rotates to the right, whereas the hiloponspiral rotates to the left. Thus levo—from the Latin, meaning ‘left’—rotatory, or turning in the familiar helical configuration.”

“So this could be a potential cure?” Uhura asked, not daring to hope.

“Not exactly,” McCoy butted in before Selar could speak. “Since you’re not dealing with the pure Gnawing, but with the Catalyst neoform, which has been grafted onto Rigelian fever. But Rigelian fever’s curable with ryetalin, which is what I started to tell you about. But I’m sure with a little ingenuity we could design a cocktail of the two compounds, a little one-two punch that’d knock this damn disease right out of business.”

“Hypothetically,” Selar said quietly. “If it worked.”

Crusher had been studying the two organisms intently. “You started to say something about its being inert.”

“Correct. I have tested it against the Gnawing. It is ineffective. In fact, it does not kill even ordinary staphylococcus. There are several potential reasons for this.”

“There’s something I’m not getting here,” Uhura interrupted. “Why would something found in the soil of a planet hundreds of light-years from Romulus cure a disease found only on Romulus?”

“You mean a disease found only in the soilon Romulus,” McCoy supplied for her. “Who knows? Why do targeted histamines ingest some kinds of cancer? Why does bread mold kill everything from pneumonia to the clap? And why does Rigelian fever affect humans as well as Vulcans, and why it is cured by something found on Holberg 917-G? One of the universe’s unanswered mysteries, one of God’s little jokes. From a purely empirical point of view, it does, that’s all. We’ll philosophize about it later; for now, we work with it.”

“It would fit with Sagan’s theory about star stuff,” Crusher said thoughtfully. The others looked at her. “C’mon, guys, am I the only one who knows this? Carl Sagan, late twentieth century Earth, taught physics in a way so simple a child could understand it. God, I think I can recite it from memory! ‘We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the Cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff.’ ”

She stopped, suddenly embarrassed.

“Why, Doctor, you’re a poet,” Uhura said appreciatively.

“Brava!”McCoy chimed in.

“In other words,” Uhura went on, “whatever cosmic forces formed this part of space might have split these two molecules out of a single matrix and scattered them across parsecs of space to form two separate, compatible entities on two distant worlds.”

“Something like that,” Crusher acknowledged. “Even a passing comet could have scattered biological debris on both worlds.”

“Well, now isn’t that interesting…” Uhura said, accessing something on her office screen that the others couldn’t see yet.

Awake despite the sleeping draught, Cretak reviewed everything she had done since Taymor’s death. It all had the quality of dream. Sometimes her own temerity amazed her. But she had been consumed with rage when she showed up in Koval’s office that day, and her anger had neutralized her fear.

In the old days, she might simply have accused Koval and his office of complicity in her cousin’s death, drawn her honor blade, and exacted his life for Taymor’s. Then, of course, Koval’s second would have had to challenge her, and then her family—well. While some might simplemindedly think that all disputes could be resolved at the point of a knife, others had learned to be more subtle.

She would use the Tal Shiar’s own methods against them. She could not bring Taymor back, nor any of the others the disease had already taken. But she could expose the plot, and at least stop, if not bring down, the plotters, without their ever knowing it was she.

Thus she appeared in Koval’s office, flustering his aide with her silky request to speak with him even though, oh, dear! she had committed the unconscionable gaffe of showing up without an appointment.

Don’t simper!she warned herself as the aide asked her to wait in the soundproof antechamber and she scowled at the official decorators’ consummately bad taste. You were never girlish, even when you were a girl, and he’ll remember that. He also knows your record in the Senate, and that fluttering is not your style. You will appear preoccupied, but not silly.

“Kimora?” Koval managed to act ever so slightly surprised without altering his face, his stance, the tone of his voice. Cretak assumed whatever genuine surprise he might have experienced at the mention of her name had been brought under control well before she crossed the threshold. “What ever brings you here? You’re looking well. Flourishing, in fact.”

Then I’m a better actress than I thought!Cretak thought as the aide brushed past her a touch too close for propriety. Listening, taking readings, or simply rude?

“I am as well as can be expected, thank you, given a recent death in the family, as I’m sure you know.”

This time Koval allowed something resembling embarrassment to touch his features momentarily. “Yes, of course, your cousin. How stupid of me to forget. My condolences.”

She acknowledged this with a brief nod, lowering her head just enough so that he wouldn’t see the fire in her eyes, thinking: You, forget? Since when? I will see to it that you never forget, murderer! At least one result of my visit here today will be that you give orders to your purveyors to steer clear of important families from here on.

“That is not why I’m here,” she said. “As I’m sure you also know, I am part of the diplomatic mission to the Border-lands. There is much to do before we leave, and my staff is overworked as it is….”

“Is there anything I can do?” Koval asked helpfully.

Cretak allowed her expression to brighten, as if with great relief. “Possibly. In fact, you were the first I thought of. I need a messenger. Someone discreet, possibly expendable. I know you are training a cadre of young people for special missions, and I thought perhaps—”

“Well, if dense as a stone qualifies as discreet…” Koval was ruminating. “Walk with me.”

He would not bring her to the barracks; the crowding and the squalor might offend her delicate sensibilities. Instead he brought her to the official gardens, where he had sent some of his charges to pull weeds and rake up debris.

There were official gardeners to maintain the official gardens, but Koval didn’t trust them. Afraid that someone might plant listening devices or introduce dangerous bacteria or poisonous plants, he insisted that only his ghilikwork the gardens surrounding his office. He personally hated greenery and would have preferred to pave everything over to give himself a clear field of vision but, if official decree said that he must have official gardens, his mongrels could serve as the first line of defense therein.

“You may have any of these,” he told Cretak with a proprietary air, as if offering her the choice of a hunting dog or a steed from his stable. “They’re all at the same level of training. Most of them can even read and write.”

“You joke!” Cretak feigned a smile, though her eyes betrayed something else. “I’m sure they’re all as bright and able as—”

“—as a true Romulan? Don’t be so sure. But, please, feel free.”

There were seven of them, working with varying degrees of assiduousness. As she approached them, each one stopped work long enough to offer a bow and a murmured “my Lady…” in deference to her caste and office. Most looked down at their shoes as they spoke. Only one looked her briefly in the eye, and the look all but rocked Cretak back on her heels.

Nevertheless, she passed that one by and moved to the next and the next until she had completed a circuit of the gardens and studied each of them.

“Well?” Koval said airily, but with a touch of impatience, his tone implying that he really had far more important things to do.

Cretak pretended to hesitate. “It’s difficult to decide. If I could speak to each of them…”

Koval shrugged. “Take all the time you wish. But I don’t want to leave you alone with them. Not that they’d try anything. They know they’re monitored constantly—” He indicated the spy-eyes set into the walls. “—but I’d prefer that you have guards with you as well.”

He snapped his fingers at the nearest ghilik,but Cretak stayed him.

“I’ve taken enough of your time already,” she said and, drawing upon everything she had learned about him during their brief affair so long ago, added: “Tell me which of them you can most easily spare.”

He pretended to hesitate, looking them over one by one. “That one,” he said finally.