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  To add to her uneasiness, Tailler did indeed manage to catch her before she left the center and insisted on explaining at length the incident which had made Bias so sensitive to "relationships" between research staff and locals. A sordid little tale, Lunzie thought: nothing spectacular, nothing to really justify Bias's continuing reaction. He must have had a streak of prudery before that happened to give him the excuse to indulge it.

  Chapter Six

  Dupaynil, hustled through the scarred and echoing corridors of the transfer station to the control center where the Claw's captain met him with the suggestion that he "put a leg in it" and get himself out to the escort's docking bay, had no chance to think things over until he was strapped safely into the escort's tiny reserve cabin. He had not been passenger on anything smaller than a light cruiser for years; he had never been aboard an escort-class vessel. It seemed impossibly tiny after the Zaid-Dayan. His quarters for however long the journey might be was this single tiny space, a minute slice of a meager pie, hardly big enough to lie down in. He heard a loud clang, felt something rattle the hull outside, and then the escort's insystem drive nudged him against one side of his safety restraints. The little ship had artificial gravity, of a sort, but nothing like the overriding power that made Main Deck on the Zaid-Dayan feel as solid as a planet.

  The glowing numbers on the readout overhead told him two standard hours had passed when he felt a curious twinge and realized they'd shifted into FTL drive. Although he'd had basic training in astrogation, he'd never used it, and had only the vaguest idea what FTL travel really meant. Or where, in real terms, they might be. Somewhere behind (as he thought of it) was the cruiser he had left, with its now-familiar crew and its most attractive captain. Its very angry and most attractive captain. He wished she had not been so transparently suspicious of his motives. She was no planet pirate nor agent of slavers. She had nothing to fear from him. And he would gladly have spent more time with her. He let himself imagine the nights they could have shared.

  "Sir, we're safely in FTL, if you want to come up to Main."

  Dupaynil sighed as the voice over the com broke into that fantasy and thumbed the control.

  "I'll be there."

  He had messages to send, messages he had had no time to send from the transfer station. And with the angry Commander Sassinak sitting on the other end of the block, so to speak, he would not have sent them from the station anyway. He rediscovered what he had once been taught about escort-class vessels in a few miserable minutes. They were small, overpowered for their mass, and understaffed. No one bunked on Main but the captain who was the pilot. Crew consisted of a round dozen: one other officer, the Jig Executive, eleven enlisted, from Weapons to Environmental. No cook: all the food was either loaded prepackaged, to be reconstituted and heated in automatic units, or synthesized from the Environmental excess.

  Dupaynil shuddered; one of the best things about the Zaid-Dayan had been the cooking. With full crew and one supercargo, the escort had to ration water: limited bathing. The head was cramped: the slots designed to discourage meditation. There was no gym but the uneven artificial gravity and shiplong access tubing offered opportunity for informal exercise. For those who liked climbing very long ladders against variable G. Worst of all, the ship had no IFTL link.

  "'Course we don't have IFTL," said the captain, a Major Ollery whose face seemed to brighten every time Dupaynil found something else to dislike. "We don't have a Ssli interface, do we?"

  "But I thought . . ." He stopped himself in mid-argument. He had seen a briefing item, mention of the ship classes that had IFTL, mention of those which would not get it because of "inherent design constraints." And escorts were too small to carry a Ssli habitat. "That . . . that stinker!" he said, as he realized suddenly what Sassinak had done.

  "What?" asked Ollery,

  "Nothing." Dupaynil hoped his face didn't show how he felt, torn between anger and admiration. That incredible woman had fooled him. Had fooled an experienced Security officer whose entire life had been spent fooling others. He had had a tap on her communications lines, a tap he was sure she'd never find, and somehow she'd found out. Decided to get rid of him. And how in Mulvaney's Ghost had she managed to fake an incoming IFTL message? With that originating code? He sank down on the one vacant seat in the escort's bridge, and thought about it. Of course she could fake the code, if she could fake the message. That much was easy, if the other was possible. But nothing he'd been taught, in a long and devious life full of such instruction, suggested that an IFTL message could be faked. It would take . . . he frowned, trying to think it through. It would take the cooperation of a Ssli: of two Ssli, at least. How would the captain of one ship enlist the aid of the Ssli on another? What kind of hold did Sassinak have on her resident Ssli? It had never occurred to him that the Ssli were capable of anything like friendship with humans. Once installed, the sessile Ssli never experienced another environment, never "met" anyone except through a computer interface. Or so he'd thought. He felt as if he'd sat down on an anthill. He fairly itched with new knowledge and had no way to convey it to anyone. Ssli could have relationships with humans beyond mere duty. Could they with other races? With Wefts? Were Ssli perhaps telepathic? No one had suspected that. Dupaynil glanced around the escort bridge and saw only human faces, now bent over their own work. He cleared his throat, and the captain looked up.

  "Do you . . . mmm . . . have any Wefts aboard?"

  An odd expression in reply. "Wefts? No, why?" Then before he could answer, Ollery's face cleared. "Oh! You've been with Sassinak, I know. She's got a thing about Wefts, doesn't she? They say it started back in the Academy. She had a Weft lover or something. That true?" Ollery's voice had the incipient snigger of those who hope the worst about their seniors.

  Dupaynil suppressed a surge of rage. As a Security officer, he listened to gossip professionally; idle gossip, malicious gossip, juicy gossip, boring gossip. He found it generally dull, and sometimes disgusting: a necessary but unpleasant part of his career. But here, applied to Sassinak, it was infuriating.

  "So far as I know," he said as smoothly as he could, "that story was started by a cadet expelled for stealing and harassing women cadets." He knew the truth of that; he'd seen the files. "Captain Sassinak"—he emphasized the rank a little, intentionally, and enjoyed seeing Ollery's face pale—"keeps her sex life in her own cabin, where it belongs, and where I intend to leave it."

  A muffled snort behind him meant that either someone else thought the captain had been out of line, or that Dupaynil's defense implied personal knowledge. He left that alone, too, and hoped no one would ask.

  Silence settled over the bridge; he went on with his thoughts. Telepathic Wefts, and a ship's captain who could sometimes talk that way with them. He'd seen the reports on Sassinak's first tour of duty. A Ssli who—he suddenly remembered something from the tour before he joined the Zaid-Dayan. Sassinak had reported it as part of her testimony before the Board of Inquiry. Her Ssli, this same Ssli, had taken control of the ship momentarily and flipped it in and out of FTL space. A move which she had described as "unprecedented, but undoubtedly the reason I am here today."

  He was beginning to think that Fleet knew far too little about the capabilities of Ssli. But he had no way to find out more at the moment so he moved his concentration to Sassinak herself. When he thought of it, her actions were entirely probable, He could have kicked himself for not realizing that she would react quickly and strongly to any perceived threat. She had never liked having him aboard; she had never really trusted him. So his interception of her classified messages, once she found out, would naturally result in some action. Her history suggested a genius for quick response, for instantly recognizing danger and reacting effectively in novel ways.

  And so he was here, out of communication until the escort reached its destination. No way to check the validity of his orders (though he was quite sure now where they had come from) and no way to tell anyone what he'd found out. It occurred to
him then, and only then, that Sassinak might have planned even more than getting him off her ship before he could "do something." Perhaps she had other plans. Perhaps she was not going to take the Zaid-Dayan tamely into Federation Central space, with all its weaponry disabled and all its shuttles locked down.

  For a long moment he fought off panic. She might do anything. Then he settled again. The woman was brilliant, not crazy: aggressive in defending her own, responsive to danger, but not disloyal to Fleet or Federation, not likely to do anything stupid, like bombing FedCentral. He hoped.

  "Panis, take the helm." Ollery pushed himself back, gave Dupaynil a challenging glance, and stretched.

  "Sir." Panis, the Executive Officer, had slid forward to the main control panel. He, too, glanced at Dupaynil before looking back at the screen.

  "I'm going on a round," Ollery said. "Want to come along, Major?" A round of inspection, through all those long access tubes.

  Dupaynil shook his head. "Not this time, thanks. I'll just. . ." What? he wondered. There was nothing to do on the tiny bridge but stare at the back of Panis's head or the side of the Weapons Control master mate's thick neck. A swingaway facescreen hid his face as he tinkered delicately with something in the weapons systems. At least, that's what Dupaynil assumed he was doing with a tiny joystick and something that looked like a silver toothpick. Maybe he was playing a game.

  "You'll get tired of it," warned Ollery. Then he was gone, easing through the narrow hatch.

  A lengthy silence, in which Dupaynil noted the scuffmarks on the decking by the captain's seat, the faded blue covers of the Fleet manuals racked for reference below the Exec's workstation. Finally Jig Panis looked over his shoulder and gave Dupaynil a shy smile. "The Captain's ticked," he said softly. "We got into the supply station a day early."

  "Ollery reporting: Environmental, section 43, number-two scrubber's up a half-degree."

  "Logged, sir." Panis entered the report, thumbed a control, and sent "Spec Zigran" off to check on the errant scrubber. Then he turned back to Dupaynil. "We'd had a long run without liberty," he said. "The Captain said we'd have a couple of days off-schedule, sort of rest up and then get ready for inspection."

  Dupaynil nodded. "So . . . my orders upset your party-time, eh?"

  "Yes. Playtak was supposed to be in at the same time."

  With a loud click, the Weapons Control mate flicked the facescreen back into place. Dupaynil caught the look he gave the young officer; he had seen senior noncoms dispense that "You talk too much!" warning glance at every rank up to admiral.

  Panis turned red, and focused on his board. Dupaynil asked no more; he'd heard enough to know why Ollery was hostile. Presumably Playtak's captain was a friend of Ollery's and they'd agreed to meet at the supply station and celebrate. Quite against regulations, because he had no doubt that they had stretched their orders to make that overlap. It might be innocent, just friendship, or it might have been more. Smuggling, spying, who knows what? And he had been dumped into the middle of it, forcing them to leave ahead of schedule.

  "Too bad," he said casually. "It certainly wasn't my idea. But Fleet's Fleet and orders are orders."

  "Right, sir." Panis did not look up. Dupaynil looked over at the Weapons Control mate whose lowering expression did not ease although it was not overtly hostile.

  "You're Fleet Security, sir?" asked the mate.

  "That's right. Major Dupaynil."

  "And we're taking you into Seti space?"

  "Right." He wondered who'd told the man that. Offery had had to know, but hadn't he realized those orders were secret? Of course they weren't really secret, since they were faked orders, but . . . He pushed that away. It was too complicated to think about now.

  "Huh. Nasty critters." The mate put the toothpick-like tool he'd been using into a toolcase, and settled back in his seat. "Always get the feeling they're hoping for trouble."

  Dupaynil had the same feeling about the mate. Those scarred knuckles had broken more than a few teeth, he was sure. "I was there with a diplomatic team once," he said. "I suppose that's why they're sending me."

  "Yeah. Well, don't let the toads sit on you." The mate lumbered up, and with a casual wave at the Exec, left the bridge.

  Dupaynil looked after him, a little startled. He had not considered Sassinak strict on etiquette, but no one would have left her bridge without a proper salute to the officer in charge, and permission to withdraw. Of course, this was a smaller ship than he'd ever been on. Was it healthy to have such a casual relationship?

  Then the term "toads" which wasn't at all an accurate description of the Seti, but conveyed the kind of racial contempt that put Dupaynil on alert. Everyone knew the Federation combined races and cultures that preferred separation, that some hardly-remembered force had compelled the Seti and humans both to sign agreements against aggression. And, for the most part, abide by them. As professional keepers of this fragile peace, Fleet personnel were expected to have a more dispassionate view. Besides, he always thought of the Seti as "lizards."

  "'Scuse me, sir." That was another crewman, squeezing past him to get to a control panel on his left.

  Dupaynil felt very much in the way, and very much unwanted. Blast Sassinak! The woman might at least have dumped him onto something comfortable. He looked over at Panis who was determinedly not looking at him. If he remembered correctly, the shortest route to Seti space was going to take weeks and he could not endure this kind of thing for weeks.

  The crew had worked off their bad humor in less than a week. Dupaynil exerted his considerable charm, let Ollery win several card games, and entertained them with some of the safer racy anecdotes from his last assignment in a political realm. He had read Ollery correctly; the man liked to find flaws in those above him; preferably blackmailable flaws. Given a story about an ambassador's lady addicted to drugs or a wealthy senior bureaucrat who preferred cross-cultural divertissements, his eyes glistened and his cheeks flushed.

  Dupaynil concealed his own contempt. Those who best liked to hear such things usually had their own similar appetites to hide.

  Panis, however, was of very different stripe. He had tittered nervously at the story about the bureaucrat and turned brick red when Ollery and the senior mate sneered at him. It was clear that he had no close friends among the crew. When Dupaynil checked, he found that Panis had replaced the previous Exec only a few months before, while the rest of the crew had been unchanged for almost five years. And the previous Exec had left the ship because of an injury in a dockside brawl. It was odd, and more than odd: regular rotation of crew was especially important on small ships. Fleet policy insisted on it. No matter how efficient a crew seemed to be, they were never left unchanged too long. Dupaynil had not been able to bring all his tools along, but he always had some. He placed his sensors carefully, as carefully as he had in the larger ship, and slid his probe into the datalinks very delicately indeed. He had the feeling that carelessness here would get him more trouble than a chewing out by the captain.

  In the meantime, as the days wore on, the crew loosened up with him and played endless hands of every card game he knew, and a few he'd never seen. Crutch was a pirate's game, he'd been told once by the merchanter who taught it to him; he wondered where this crew had learned it. Poker, blind-eye, sin on toast, at which he won back all he'd lost so far, having learned that on Bretagne, where it began.

  He sweated up and down the access tube ladders, learning to respond quickly to the shifting artificial-G, keeping his muscles supple. He discovered a storage bay full of water ice which made the restrictions on bathing ridiculous. There was enough to last a crew twice that size all the way to Seti space and back but he kept his mouth shut. It seemed safer.

  For all their friendliness, all their casual demeanor, he'd noticed that Ollery or the senior mate were always in any compartment he happened into. Except his own tiny cabin. And he was sure they'd been there when he found evidence that his things had been searched. He had time to wonder
if Sassinak had known just what kind of ship she'd sent him to. He thought not. She had probably done a fast scan of locations, looking for the nearest docked escort vessel, some way to keep him from communicating while he was in FTL.

  "I say he's spying on us, and I say dump him." That was the mate. Dupaynil shivered at the quietly deadly tone.

  "He's got IG orders. They'll want to know what happened." That was Ollery, not nearly so sure of himself.

  "We can't just space him. We have to figure out a way."

  "Emergency drill. Blow the pod. Say it was an accident." The mate's voice carried the shrug he would give when questioned later.

  "What if he figures it out?"

  "What can he do? Pod's got no engine, no decent long-range radio, no scan. Dump him where he'll fall down a well, into a star or something else big. Disable the radio and beacon. That way no one'll know he's ever been there. 'Sides, I don't think his orders are real. Think about it, sir. Would the IG haul someone off a big cruiser like the Zaid-Dayan—an IFTL message, that'd have to be—and stick 'em on a little bitty escort? To go to Seti space? C'mon. You send a special envoy to the Seti, you send a damn flotilla in with 'em, not an escort. No, you mark my words, sir, he's here to spy on us and this proves it."

  Dupaynil could not tell through the audio link which of his taps had been found, but he wished ardently that he had not planted it, whatever it was. Once again he had outsmarted himself, as he had with Sassinak. Never underestimate the enemy and be damned sure you know who the enemy is; a very basic rule he had somehow violated.

  He felt a trickle of sweat run down his ribs. Sassinak had been dumped in an evac pod, rescued by the combined efforts of Wefts and a Ssli. He had no Wefts or Ssli to back him up; he would have to figure this out himself.