One's Aspect to the Sun (27 page)

“I'm trying to find her, goddammit!” Buig snapped. “But it's like she's vanished. I hoped she'd already found her way to you.”

I swung around, searching the parking lot. The dual moons painted it in a clear, bright glow that reflected off the many vehicles still dotting the area. But nothing moved, the air was silent, and the lot seemed empty of anyone but us. “I don't see her. She hasn't come outside.”

“Do you think she'd go straight to your ship?” Buig looked up from his screen, searchingly, as brilliant light flared in front of him. It darkened again, and he looked back down. “She's not in the labs.”

“I didn't tell her the name . . . but who knows, she might know it.” I tried to think clearly, logically, but my mind raced from awful possibility to awful possibility. Which was worse: that she'd been somehow kidnapped practically right in front of me, or that she'd run away from me again, despite what she'd said?

I felt a firm hand take mine and looked up to see Hirin's blue-grey eyes. They were dark and serious. “Let's go and check the ship. She might be there. We can't be much help here . . . we don't even know our way around.”

I swallowed hard. He was right, as usual. “I'll call you again from my ship, Chairman,” I said. “Keep looking.”
And if you're lying to me
. . . I climbed into the groundcar beside Hirin and we wheeled out into the Kiandon night.

The drive back through the nearly-deserted streets to the spacedock seemed to take forever, and the silence was making me crazy. There would be a rowdy area of the city, where the clubs and bars and shopping venues were open late, since it was predominantly a mining colony and there were always miners whose shift had just ended. Our path wove through more residential and business areas, where lights had been extinguished for the night and streets lay in soft darkness. None of us spoke much. I felt torn between by the certainty that I should not be driving in the opposite direction from where I'd last seen my mother, and the crushing fact that perhaps this was exactly what she wanted.
Could she have lied to me that thoroughly? Could I have read her so wrong?
I don't know what consumed everyone ease's thoughts, but I guess we were all either too worried, too angry, or both, to talk. Hirin and I kept an eye on the road behind us, but no-one followed.

When we arrived back at the Havering spacedock Baden jumped out to disable the alarms and open the cargo pod doors. I wanted to call Chairman Buig again, but I wasn't going to do it until we'd reached one of the wire-blocked decks above the cargo level. The engineering and bridge decks had wire blockers on a constant sweep and scramble so that onboard communications were private, but the cargo deck didn't—the required electronics would limit the types of cargo we could haul. I was glad that we'd spent some of the travel time to Kiando making security modifications, but I was suddenly sorry that I'd stopped carrying torpedoes a while back, if PrimeCorp was sending far cruisers after me now. At least the personal ordnance locker remained well-stocked for emergencies.

Hirin's hand on my arm brought me out of my musings and I realized the groundcar was inside. Baden and Maja were already securing it. Viss lifted Yuskeya gently out of the car, and Rei had a hand on Dr. Ndasa's arm. It was lucky they knew instinctively what to do, because my head seemed too jumbled to think of everything. I gathered up the heavy folds of my purple dress and climbed out of the car.

“Go ahead, Captain,” Baden said. “I'll help Viss bring Yuskeya up.”

“Put her in First Aid,” I said with a nod, and headed for the metal stairway that had been locked in place next to the ship when we docked. It led all the way up to the airlock door on the bridge deck. The rhythmic mindlessness of the climb up the stairway felt somehow soothing, and I didn't stop until I'd reached the top. Hirin was right behind me all the way. It didn't occur to me that it was a long climb for him or that I should slow down, but he kept pace without complaining. I took five minutes to change out of my dress and into jeans and a black t-shirt, then strode straight to the bridge. I called Buig as soon as I was sitting. Hirin took a skimchair and slid it over near mine. Maja came in and sat at the communications console, since Baden wasn't there yet.

“Anything?” I asked without preamble when the Chairman appeared on the screen.

He shook his head. He looked a little calmer now, although no less worried. “I can only assume that she knew this might happen someday, and had a plan ready,” he said. “She's very resourceful.”

“Or she might have been kidnapped!” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. It didn't work very well. “
Someone
knocked out my navigator, and I doubt it was my—Demmar.”

“Is your navigator all right?”

“She's still unconscious. You don't think this looks like Demmar was taken by force?”

Through my anger and anxiety I was trying to read the man. I had only his word that he'd found Yuskeya unconscious—what if he'd knocked her out himself? But if he had, why had he allowed me to retrieve her?

“It's possible Demmar was kidnapped,” the Chairman said, “but I don't think it's likely. Why would PrimeCorp do that—a criminal act, something so risky—when they think they're going to walk away from here with her anyway?”

“Then who attacked my navigator?”

He shook his head, his brow furrowed. “I'm sorry, I just don't know. Maybe they were accosted by someone, and there was a struggle, but Demmar got away. Perhaps your crew member will be able to tell us something when she regains consciousness.”

I wanted to drop my head into my hands and cry, but there was no time for that. “You'll keep searching on your end?”

He regarded me seriously, his eyes dark with worry. If he was a liar, he was damn good at it. “I will. What are you going to do?”

“Consult with my crew. I'll get back to you shortly,” I said, and broke the connection.

Rei came onto the bridge. She'd also taken time to change out of her golden finery and into a plain blue shipsuit, and had tied her chestnut hair back in a ponytail. “Dr. Ndasa is back in his room.”

“Think he'll stay put?”

She nodded. “Seems pretty glum about the whole thing. Also, I locked the door from the outside,” she added with a grin.

Viss and Baden came in through the archway to Sensors. “Yuskeya's settled in First Aid,” Baden said. “All her vitals are good, she's just sleeping now.”

Viss passed me a cocoa-coloured leather satchel, a little worn around the edges as if it had seen a lot of use. “This was slung over Yuskeya's shoulder,” he said. “Don't know if you noticed it. I've never seen it before, and I don't think she had it with her when we went to the Chairman's place.”

I took it, puzzled. “I'll ask her about it when she wakes up,” I said. “Thanks.”

Rei was in the pilot's chair. “I assume we're getting out of here?” she asked, flicking switches to start the engines and thrusters warming up. The bridge screens sprang to life.

“I—” I stopped. I didn't want to leave the planet without knowing what had happened with my mother.

Hirin put a hand on mine. “No matter what else has happened, you still don't want to give PrimeCorp those samples, right?”

I pulled a deep sigh and shook my head. “No.”

“The Chairman might be able to protect your mother if she's still down there, but he can't do a thing for you if we're sitting right here in plain sight. I know it's hard to leave.” He squeezed my hand. “But we can come back.”

Tears sprang to my eyes and I blinked them back. I swallowed hard. “Right. You're right. Rei, get us off Kiando, fast. Baden, try to get a reading on that PrimeCorp ship. Wherever it is, take us in the opposite direction. Once we're well outside their sensor range, we'll figure out what to do next.”

Maja said, “I'll go and sit with Yuskeya in case she wakes up and wonders what's happening.” She left the comm station to Baden and hurried off to First Aid. Baden commed the docking authority and told them we'd be leaving. After a brief discussion about docking fees they agreed to release the clamps.

Viss settled in at the auxiliary Engineering console. “Once we're off the planet, I'll go down to make modifications to the main drive. I might be able to alter the drive signature slightly, to make us more difficult to detect in case PrimeCorp is scanning for us. It'll only be temporary, but it might work.”

“Great. Are we ready to lift off?”

Rei nodded. “Firing thrusters now.” A low, steady hum had been building in the ship for the last thirty seconds or so and it increased sharply when Rei took us up. Other than that, it was a smooth lift. Probably not even enough to wake Yuskeya. Even under pressure, Rei had a steady hand at the helm. Maybe especially then. I got ready to contact Chairman Buig again.

“Luta, look at this,” Rei said, although she didn't look away from her screen. A map of the Mu Cassiopeia system popped up on my screen. “The PrimeCorp far cruiser came through the wormhole from Delta Pavonis not long ago. No matter what wormhole we decide to go through, we're going to have to wait until the cruiser is docked here in order to get close to any of them. Instead of hightailing it out to the other side of the system to stay out of their scan range, why don't we just try to hang out in the planet's sensor shadow until they land at Ando City? Then once the planet's turned so that the spaceport is facing away from the wormhole we want, we'll slip out of the shadow and run like hell for the terminal point.”

I hesitated. “How much time will it save us in getting through the wormhole?”

“Depends on how fast the PrimeCorp cruiser is moving, and where we decide to go. But it'll be here in a few hours. If we spend that time putting distance between us and them but then have to backtrack . . .”

She was right. “Go ahead, then, Rei, but be careful. Block all outgoing transmissions except from the bridge. I'll speak to Chairman Buig if I have to while we're there, but otherwise we don't want anything going out that PrimeCorp could pick up on.”

I sent a ping to Chairman Buig and he came up onscreen. I quickly outlined our plan. “Will you send me an encrypted message when they dock at Ando City?”

“
Certe
,” he said.

“What are you going to tell PrimeCorp?” I asked.

A glimmer of a smile touched his lips. “Why, that
Sinjorino
Holsey went off to visit someone at the spaceport, and I haven't seen her since. Naturally, I'll keep my men searching for her.”

“And you'll leave out our little conversations?”

He grinned. He looked quite nice when he did that. “I don't know what conversations you mean, Captain. I've also instructed my docking authority to 'lose' the documentation on when you left.”

There wasn't much to do then except sit and watch as Rei piloted us up and around the planet. On the viewscreen, Kiando spun slowly below us, the ochre swirls of its many arid deserts interspersed with verdant dots of scattered oases and small blue seas.
Was my mother still down there somewhere?
Any number of small vessels and mining ships had lifted off since the message had come from the PrimeCorp ship; the spaceport at a busy mining colony rarely went quiet, and a silvery starliner hung in orbit, with a busy stream of shuttles flitting between it and the surface. But if she'd wanted to get off the planet, why hadn't she simply come with me?

“We're just about in a perfect position,” Rei said.

“Oh, thank goodness,” said a voice from the archway. I looked up to see Yuskeya, very pale and with a somewhat messily wrapped bandage encircling her head, leaning against Maja. Her robe was a wrinkled mess but she seemed supremely unaware of it.

“She insisted,” Maja said, shaking her head.

Yuskeya stared at the bag in my lap. “Where's your mother?”

I jumped up and went to her. “I wish I knew. But I know where you should be. Lying down,” I told her.

She shook her head, then half-closed her eyes, grimaced, and pointed to the empty skimchair at her nav station. Maja and I helped her into it and I knelt beside her. “What in the world happened?”

Yuskeya closed her eyes. “I was hoping you could tell me. We had your mother's things—she gave me that bag to carry for her—and we were on the way to meet you.” She touched the tips of her fingers gingerly to the lump on her head. “Whoever or whatever hit me, I never saw it coming. The next thing I knew, I woke up in First Aid.”

“Who was with you?” I wanted to check out Gusain Buig's story.

“Just me and your mother,” she said. “The Chairman went with Baden to hook him up with the comm centre. Did you send me a message?” She squinted as if she were trying to remember something.

I nodded. “Several. You only answered the first one.” I kicked myself mentally. My message had probably been the distraction that let someone sneak up on Yuskeya. “I'm sorry,” I told her.

She shook her head, then winced again. “No, I'm the one who's sorry. This never should have happened.”

I patted her hand and went back to my chair, where I'd left the leather bag. It felt a little voyeuristic to go through it, but I justified snooping by telling myself there could be a clue inside to tell me where Mother was now. To be honest, I think I just wanted to feel a little closer to her. I sat down and opened the top.