Part 40 (2/2)

”No,” Hanan said. With a clear effort he turned his right arm over and opened his hand. ”But you might give me your weapon.”

Kosta blinked. ”How did you know about that?” he asked, pulling the shocker out of his pocket and

laying it across Hanan's palm.

”Because I'm a wise old s.h.i.+p's captain, of course,” Hanan said with a straight face.

”Don't pay a bit of attention to him, Jereko,” Ornina admonished, standing halfway up and peering

uncertainly at the weapon. ”He was just guessing. How dangerous is this thing?”

”The safety's on,” Kosta a.s.sured her, showing them both the small switch. ”And it's tuned to its

lowest setting besides. Even if you managed to accidentally fire it, you'd only shock your target a little.”

”Good.” Hanan closed his hand on the shocker and yawned prodigiously. ”So are we finished for the

night?”

”As far as I'm concerned.” Kosta looked at Chandris. ”You have anything else?”

She shook her head. ”And I have a busy day tomorrow. I'd better get back to the s.h.i.+p and get some

sleep.”

”Sleep fast,” Ornina warned her. ”s.h.i.+p repair services open at six in the morning, and I hope to have someone at the Gazelle by seven. Did you happen to pull up a damage survey, by the way?”Chandris nodded. ”I can transmit it here to you if you want.””Yes, please,” Ornina said. ”It'll save time in the morning if I can tell them what exactly they'll need to do.” For a moment her eyes searched Chandris's face. ”You know, we can probably sc.r.a.pe up the

money from somewhere else.”

”I said I'd take care of it,” Chandris told her, standing up. ”You just concentrate on getting the s.h.i.+p ready to fly.”

”All right, dear,” Ornina said, giving Chandris a small and clearly forced smile. ”You take care, then.” She looked up at Kosta. ”You, too, Jereko.”

”We will,” Kosta promised her. ”Come on, Chandris, let's get going.”

”High Senator Forsythe?”

With a jerk, Forsythe started awake, the muscles in his neck screaming with the sudden movement.

He was, he discovered with some embarra.s.sment, sprawled across one of the couches in the fifth-floor hospital lounge where he'd apparently fallen asleep. ”You startled me, Zar,” he said reproachfully, blinking his eyes to clear them. The horizon outside the window, he noted, was starting to lighten with the coming of dawn. He'd been asleep for probably the past five hours or so.

”Sorry, sir,” Pirbazari apologized. ”Are you all right?”

”Sure.” Forsythe said, frowning at the tightness of his aide's expression. ”What's the matter? Ronyon?”

Pirbazari shook his head. ”A level-one message just came in from Uhuru. Lorelei has gone silent.”

Something got a grip on Forsythe's throat. ”What do you mean, 'gone silent'?”

”It's been twelve hours since the last scheduled skeeter to anywhere,” Pirbazari said. ”That puts the last one six hours overdue.”

And there were five skeeter-sized catapults in the system, any one of which could fire out the regular capsules if necessary. ”Could the planetary catapult have gone down, and for some reason they couldn't get a transmission to any of the ones in the belts?”

”Not likely,” Pirbazari said. ”For starters, there are six different official transmission systems out to the asteroids, plus all the commercial and private channels the government can commandeer in a pinch. And SOP is to send something on schedule, even if it's just a notice that systems are temporary down.”

Forsythe hissed under his breath. ”Which means all five catapults have been knocked out.”

”Looks that way,” Pirbazari conceded. ”And fast enough that no one had time to get out a warning.”

”How fast would that be?” Forsythe asked, reaching to his throat and tightening his neck clasp back into place.

Pirbazari pursed his lips. ”Not much more than an hour. Maybe an hour and a half, depending on how badly the situation caught them napping.”

” 'The situation'?” Forsythe bit out. ”Is that the official EmDef term for a Pax invasion?”

”We don't know that it was an invasion, sir,” Pirbazari warned. ”Or that the Pax was involved. Jumping to conclusions isn't going to get us anywhere with EmDef Command.”

”Oh, the Pax is involved, all right,” Forsythe said grimly. ”I don't know how they did it, but it was them. If EmDef Command hasn't figured that out, they all ought to be fired. What's anyone doing at the moment?”

”Uhuru sent a quick courier to Lorelei four hours ago to look things over,” Pirbazari said. ”As of my last check, it hadn't yet responded.”

”And when it does, it'll report back to Uhuru anyway,” Forsythe said, retrieving his jacket from a nearby chair and slipping it on. ”Where's the local EmDef HQ?”

”Eastern end of the hunters.h.i.+p yards,” Pirbazari said, dropping into step beside Forsythe as the High Senator headed for the lounge door. ”Far side of the launch dishes.”

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