“Informing the Kingdom is our primary responsibility now,” Lady Tessa said in a challenging tone. There was no reaction from the AV pillar sticking up out of her desktop processor block. “But it’s going to take time for them to respond and start searching. And Mzu will know that. Which means she’s got two options, either she takes the Udat straight to the Alchemist, or she loses herself out there.” She tapped a gold-chromed fingernail on the window as the myriad stars drifted past in slow arcs.
“If she was smart enough to get away from all the agency teams tagging her, she’ll know that she’ll never stay lost, not forever,” Monica said. “Too many of us are going to be looking now.”
“And yet the Udat doesn’t have any special equipment rigged. I checked the CAB registry, it hasn’t had any refitting for eight months. Sure, it has got standard interfaces for combat wasp cradles and heavy-duty close defence weapons. Almost every blackhawk has. But there was nothing unusual.”
“So?”
“So if she does take Udat straight to the Alchemist, how will they fire it at Omuta’s sun?”
“Do we know what equipment is necessary to fire it?”
“No,” Lady Tessa admitted. “We don’t even know if it does need anything special. But it was different, new, and unique; that means it’s non-standard. Which may give us our one chance to neutralize this situation. If there is any hardware requirement involved, she’s going to have to break cover and approach a defence contractor.”
“She might not have to,” Monica said. “She’ll have friends, sympathisers; certainly in the Dorados. She can go to them.”
“I hope she does. The agency has kept the Garissa survivors under surveillance for decades, just in case any of them try to pull any stupid revenge stunts.” She turned from the window. “I’m sending you there to brief their head of station. It’s a reasonable assumption she’ll turn up there eventually, and it may help having someone familiar with her on the ground.”
Monica nodded in defeat. “Yes, Chief.”
“Don’t look so tragic. I’m the one who’s going to have to report back to Kulu and tell the director we lost her. You’re getting off lightly.”
The meeting in the Confederation Navy Bureau on the forty-fifth floor of the StMichelle starscraper was synchronous with that of the ESA in both time and content. In the bureau it was an aghast Commander Olsen Neale who accessed the sensevise memory of Mzu’s abrupt exit from the habitat as recorded by a thoroughly despondent Pauline Webb.
When the file ended he asked a few supplemental questions and came to the same conclusions as Lady Tessa. “We can assume she has access to the kind of money necessary to buy whatever systems she needs to use the Alchemist, and install them in a combat-capable ship,” he said. “But I don’t think it’ll be the Udat ; that’s too high profile now. Every navy ship and government is going to be hunting it inside a week.”
“Do you think the Alchemist really does exist then, sir?” Pauline asked.
“CNIS has always believed so, even though it could never track down any solid evidence. And after this, I don’t think there can be any doubt. Even if it wasn’t stored in zero-tau, don’t forget she knows how to build another one. Another hundred, come to that.”
Pauline hung her head. “Shit, but we screwed up big-time.”
“Yes. I always thought we were a little overdependent on the Lord of Ruin’s benevolence in keeping her here.” He made a finger-fluttering gesture with one hand and muttered: “No offence.”
The AV pillar on his desktop processor block sparkled momentarily. “None taken,” said Tranquillity.
“We also got complacent with how static the whole situation had become. You were quite right when you said she’d fooled us for a quarter of a century. Bloody hell, but that is an awful long time to keep a charade going. Anyone who can hate for that long isn’t going to be fooling around. She’s gone because she thinks she has a good chance to use the Alchemist against Omuta.”
“Yes, sir.”
Olsen Neale made an effort to suppress his worry and formulate some kind of coherent response to the situation—one he didn’t have a single contingency plan for. No one at CNIS ever believed she could actually escape. “I’ll leave for Trafalgar right away. Our first priority is to inform Admiral Lalwani that Mzu’s gone, so she can start activating our assets to find her. Then the First Admiral will have to beef up Omuta’s defences. Damn, that’s another squadron which the navy can’t spare, not now.”
“The Laton scare will make it difficult for her to travel,” Pauline said.
“Let’s hope so. But just in case, I want you to go to the Dorados and alert our bureau that she may put in an appearance soon.”
Samuel, of course, didn’t have to physically meet with the other three Edenist intelligence operatives in the habitat. They simply conferred with each other via affinity, then Samuel and a colleague called Tringa headed for the spaceport. Samuel chartered a starship to take him to the Dorados, while Tringa found one which would convey him to Jupiter so he could warn the Consensus.
The same scenario was played out by the other eight national intelligence agency teams assigned to watch Mzu. In each case, it was decided that alerting their respective directors was the primary requirement; three of them also dispatched operatives to the Dorados to watch for Mzu.
The spaceport charter agents who had been suffering badly from the lack of flights brought on by the Laton scare suddenly found business picking up.
So now you have to decide if you’re going to allow them to inform their homeworlds,tranquillity said. For once the word gets out, you will be unable to control further events.
I didn’t really control events before. I was like an umpire insuring fair play.
Well now is your chance to get down off your stool and take part in the game.
Don’t tempt me. I have enough problems right now with the Laymil’s reality dysfunction. If dear Grandfather Michael was right, that may yet turn out to be a lot more trouble than Mzu’s Alchemist.
I concede the point. But I do need to know if I am to permit the agency operatives to depart.
Ione opened her eyes to look through the window, but the water outside was sable-black now, there was nothing to see apart from a weak reflection of herself in the glass. For the first time in her life she began to understand what loneliness was.
You have me,tranquillity assured her gently.
I know. But in a way you are a part of me. It would be nice to have someone else’s shoulder to lean on occasionally.
A someone such as Joshua?
Don’t be so bitchy.
I’m sorry. Why don’t you ask Clement to come to the apartment? He makes you happy.
He makes me orgasm, you mean.
Is there a difference?
Yes, but don’t ask me to explain it. It’s just that I’m looking for more than physical contentment right now. These are big decisions I’m making here. They could affect millions of people, hundreds of millions.
You have known this time would come ever since you were conceived. It is what your life is for.
Most of the Saldanas, yes. They make a dozen decisions like this before lunch every day. Not me. I think the family’s arrogance gene might be inactive in my case.
It is more likely to be a hormonal imbalance due to your pregnancy which is making you procrastinate.
She laughed out loud, the sound echoing around the vast room. You really don’t understand the difference between your thought processes and mine, do you?
I believe I do.
Ione had the silliest vision of a two-kilometre-long nose sniffing disdainfully. Her laugh turned to a giggle. Okay, no more procrastination. Let’s be logical. We blew it with safeguarding Mzu, and now she’s presumably on her way to exterminate Omuta’s star. And you and I certainly don’t have the kind of resources available to the ESA and other agencies to track her down and stop her. Right?
An elegant summary.
Thank you. Therefore, the best chance to stop her will be to let the intelligence community off the leash.
Granted.