Part 19 (1/2)

Nancia watched with curiosity as General Questar- Benn drew a palm-sized card from her pocket. Forister grinned. ”Brought your portable game board, I see.”

The general tapped the slight indentations on the sur- face of the card and it projected a hologram of a part.i.tioned cube, s.h.i.+mmering with rainbow light at the edges. Another series of taps produced the translucent images of playing pieces aligned at two opposing edges of the cube. Nancia twiddled with her sensor magnification and focus until she could make out the details. Yes, those were the standard tri-chess pieces: she recognized the age-old triple ordering. p.a.w.ns in the first and lowest rank; above them, the King and Queen with their Bishops and Knights and Castles. Above them the highest rank was poised to swoop down over the gamecube, the Brains.h.i.+p and Brawn with their support- ing pieces, the Scouts and Hovercraft and Satellites. The images were blurred and kept flickering in and out, giving Nancia a sensation of tight bands pulled across her sensor connections if she tried to look at them for any length of time.

”p.a.w.n to Brain's Scout 4,2,w Forister grunted a standardized opening move.

Nothing happened.

”My portable set isn't equipped with voice recogni- tion,” Micaya apologized. ”You'll have to tap in the code.”

As she indicated the row of fingertip-sized indenta- tions, Nancia hummed softly - her subst.i.tute for the rasps and hawks of ”throat-clearing” with which softsh.e.l.ls began an unscheduled interruption. Both players looked up, and after a startled moment Forister inclined his head to Nancia's t.i.tanium column.

”Yes, Nancia?”

”If you'll give me a moment to study the configura- tion,” Nancia suggested, ”I believe I can replicate your play-holo with a somewhat clearer display. And I, of course, can supply the voice recognition processing.”

Even as she spoke, she a.s.signed a virtual memory s.p.a.ce and a graphics co-processor to the problem.

Before the sound of her voice had died away, a new and much clearer holographic projection s.h.i.+mmered beside the original one. Forister exclaimed in delight at the perfect detailing of the miniaturized pieces; Micaya put out her hand as if to touch a perfectly shaped litde Satellite with its three living and storage globes, complete with tiny access doors and linking s.p.a.cetubes.

”Beautiful,” Forister sighed in delight. ”But won't this take too much processing capability, Nancia?”

”Not when we're just sitting dirtside,” Nancia told him. ”I don't even use that processor when we're doing regular navigation. Might have to shut down briefly when we're in Singularity, that does take some concentration, but- ”

Forister closed his eyes briefly. ”That's perfectly all right, Nancia. To tell you the truth, it never occurred to me to play tri-chess in Singularity anyway.”

”Me either,” said Micaya, looking slightly green at the very thought. ”You don't want to think about spa- tial relations.h.i.+ps at a moment like that”

”I do,” said Nancia cheerfully.

Less than two Central Standard Hours later, Sev in- terrupted the first tri-chess game to deliver a subdued Darnell Glaxely-Overton for transport to Central. ”He 214.

215.

broke when I showed him the hedron of Hopkirk's evidence,” he told the others after Darnell had been confined in a cabin. ”Funny - almost as if he'd ex- pected somebody to come after him one of these days.

Spent most of the flyer trip back telling all he knows about the other three. Here's the recording.''

”Four,” Nancia corrected Sev as he slid a datacard into her reader.

”Three,” Sev said again. ”Fa.s.sa. Alpha. And . ..

Blaize.” He carefully avoided looking at Forister as he p.r.o.nounced the last name.

”Neither of them has said anything implicating Polyon de Gras-Waldheim?'' Nancia couldn't believe this.

Sev shrugged. ”Who knows? Maybe there isn't any- thing to say. You never know, there could be one good apple in this barrel of rotten ones.”

Not Polyon. But Nancia refrained from voicing her protest. After the conversations she'd heard on her maiden voyage, she was convinced that Polyon de Gras-Waldheim was completely amoral. But would it be ethical to reveal those conversations? Caleb had been so adamantly against anything that even sug- gested spying, she'd never even thought of telling him.

But that had been five years ago. She had changed; she now saw shades of gray instead of the neat black and white of CS rules. Even Caleb might have changed; after all, he'd consented to this undercover mission.

Under protest He might feel doubly betrayed if she chose to violate his ethical code when he wasn't even here to censure her for it.

Perhaps she could put off the decision for a little longer ”It might be worth going by Shemali anyway,”

Nancia suggested. ”You never know. We might find some evidence linking de Gras-Waldheim with the rest I.

of the crew.” We'd have that evidence already, if they weren't -}: oft terrified to say a ward against him.

”Possibly,” Sev agreed. ”Meet me there, after An- galia?”

”I thought you were coming with us!” Micaya Ques- tar-Benn half rose from her seat, putting one hand right through Nancia's tri-chess hologram.

”I was,” Sev agreed. ”I am. I'll meet you on Shemali.

Something's come up.”

He was gone before any of them could question him, taking the stairs three at a time and whistling as he went. Nancia briefly considered slamming her lower doors on him and holding him until he ex- plained exacdy what he was up to.

She wouldn't do that, of course. It would be an un- ethical and unconscionable abuse of her abilities, the sort ofbullying she'd been warned against in the ethics cla.s.ses that were pan of every sh.e.l.lperson's training.

But it was a sore temptation.

”Something,” Micaya said thoughtfully, ”has made that young man extremely happy. I wonder what it was. Nancia, is there anything earth-shaking in that datacard of Darnell Overton-Glaxer/s testimony?”

Nancia had started scanning just before Micaya spoke. ”There isn't even anything interesting,” she said, ”unless a sordid record of petty bribes and cor- ruption and bullying fascinates you.”

”Ah. Overton-Glaxely did strike me as the cheap sort”

”You might want to examine his statement your- self,” Nancia suggested. ”You may see something I've overlooked.”

Micaya nodded. ”I'll do that. But I doubt I'll find anything. Bryley said there wasn't any evidence against de Gras-Waldheim, so whatever is taking him to Shemali, it can't be our business. d.a.m.n that boy!

Oh, well, I suppose we'll find out when we reach Shemali.”

216.

&f ”But first,” Forister said, ”we have a task to complete at Angalia.” His face was gray and still again; the momentary animation brought on by the tri-chess game had vanished. He looks like a man with a deadly dis~ ease. Is family honor so important to him ? Nancia wondered how she'd feel if her sister Jinevra were found to have corrupted her branch of PTA and embezzled the department's funds.

Impossible even to imagine such a thing. Well, then, what if Flix - she couldn't think what Flix might do, either, but what if he had got in with the wrong crowd - like Blaize - and had done something that would force her to hunt him down, arrest him, send him to Central for years of prison without his beloved musk?

The pain of that thought shook Nancia so deeply that for a moment the even hum of the air stabilizers was broken and the co-processor handling the tri- chess hologram faltered. The gamecube image s.h.i.+vered, broke apart in rainbow fractures, then solidified again as Nancia gained control of herself and her systems.

If even imagining Flix in trouble hurt her so deeply, how could Forister face the reality of Blaize's crime?

He couldn't, she decided, and it was up to her and Micaya to distract him whenever possible.