Sayers avoided looking at Price. She forced a smile. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
“Okay,” Vanderveen said. “I can’t say that I have much hope for additional personnel. Not given the exigencies of the war. But if Mr. Price will provide me with some supporting documentation, I’ll see what I can do. Mr. Wexel… I hear you regarding the spares. If you would be so kind as to prepare a high-priority request, I will shoot it to the supply people via hypercom. Ms. Sayers… We’ll have a talk after I read those reports. I think that’s enough for today. Thank you.”
Vanderveen returned to her apartment after that and spent the next couple of hours putting things away. Then, having made herself a meal from items that Consul Zachariah and his wife had left behind, she took it out onto a small balcony. It was evening by then, stars glittered beyond the gentle curve of the dome, and she was very much alone. Could she see O-Chi 4? No, Vanderveen decided. She couldn’t.
Vanderveen spent her first two days on Trevia dealing with a variety of administrative issues and reading the Sayers reports. They were very dense. Too dense to pass up the chain of command without some serious editing. But they were also quite valuable. Because Sayers had not only been out meeting with people in the various subcommunities, she had gone to the effort of documenting everything they had to say and collected copies of news stories sent to them from their home planets. More than that, she had organized the material, cross-indexed it, and written hundreds of annotations. All of which might have seemed boring to Price but was like gold to Vanderveen.
But Sayers didn’t know that. And being used to the way Price did things, she looked scared as she entered the consul’s office and took a seat at the conference table. “Good morning,” Vanderveen said cheerfully, as they settled in. “I want you to know that I read your reports, and you’re doing an outstanding job. Such a good job that I’m going to put you up for an early jump to FSO-4.”
Sayers, who hadn’t heard any positive feedback in a long time, looked surprised, then pleased. “ Really? That would be wonderful! So the reports are okay?”
“The quality of the data and the analysis in the reports is outstanding. However, they need to be summarized and submitted with the detail as backup. Once you do that, the reports will be better than okay. I’ll use them as justification for a promotion.”
Sayers nodded eagerly. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get right to work.”
“Good… In the meantime, I’m going to need your help setting up a round of courtesy calls.”
“Yes, ma’am. I would be happy to set them up. Do you have any priorities I should be aware of?”
“Yes. For obvious reasons, the Ramanthian community is of particular interest to our superiors. And, as I read your reports, the name Hamantha Croth crops up more than once. What do you recommend? Should I begin with him?”
Sayers was thrilled to be asked for her opinion, and it showed as the light in her eyes grew brighter. “Yes, I think you should. There are a number of interesting things about Croth, starting with the fact that, even though he’s a relative newcomer, the expat community treats him like a well-established leader.”
Vanderveen’s eyebrows rose slightly. “As measured by what?”
“He’s a much-sought-after speaker,” Sayers replied. “But as you know, Ramanthians have a tendency to defer to people of superior rank. And when he’s around, the rest of them clam up. So I wondered why.”
“And?”
“And I did some research,” Sayers replied. “Some of the locals get news summaries from Hive, which they keep at their community center for others to read.”
Vanderveen smiled broadly. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You went there and read a bunch of back issues. Or did you? There aren’t many people who can read Ramanthian script.”
“That’s true,” Sayers replied, “but Ralph can. The news summaries were full of government propaganda. But Ralph found a fractal image of Croth, and we asked Wexel to convert it. And guess what?”
There was something infectious about Sayers and her girlish enthusiasm. Vanderveen smiled. “What?”
“His real name is Bebo Hoknar. And prior to the Warrior Queen’s death, he served as her majordomo. It’s my belief that the locals are well aware of that, which is why they defer to him. He’s the most senior ex-official on Trevia.”
“Brilliant,” Vanderveen said. “Excellent work. But why use a false name?”
Sayers shook her head. “I don’t know, ma’am. Unless he wants to keep non-Ramanthians in the dark about his identity for some reason.”
“Well, maybe we’ll find out,” Vanderveen replied. “Please set up a meeting.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Missy…”
“Ma’am?”
“Thank you.”
The Thraki ship Light Runner landed on Trevia without any fanfare and began to discharge its passengers an hour later. There were six of them, all but one of whom were Ramanthians, the sixth being a Thraki, who remained with the ship.
The rest, led by a richly robed merchant named Ortu Bacula, were transported into the dome. According to the information provided to the city’s registrar, Bacula and his party planned to meet with local officials regarding the construction of a pollution-spewing factory that would not only create jobs, but complement their efforts to produce greenhouse gases.
So it wasn’t surprising to the few people who were paying attention when Bacula and his retinue checked into a hotel at the heart of what the local humans referred to as “bug town.” It was a section of the city where Ramanthian cuisine, sand baths, and entertainments were widely available.
But, contrary to appearances, Bacula was the lowest-ranking member of the party, and one of his servants was in charge. The servant role was one that the War Ubatha had chosen for himself so that while all eyes were on Bacula, he would be free to look for the Warrior Queen. Because, thanks to the information extracted from the Egg Ubatha, the soldier knew his quarry was hidden nearby.
That didn’t mean the process would be easy, however. Most of the roughly twenty-five hundred Ramanthians who lived in Dome City were exiles, nonconformists of various stripes, or outright criminals. None of them was likely to cooperate with government agents. Especially a group of resident denialists who continued to send antigovernment tracts to Hive and other Ramanthian planets. Though careful not to claim that the Warrior Queen was still alive and living on Trevia, they liked to natter on about how “the memories of our rightful monarch will never die.” The key word being “rightful.”
Since he couldn’t go door to door searching for the Queen, the War Ubatha would have to use a less-direct approach. And that was to keep an eye on the individuals that a resident intelligence agent thought were most likely to know where the royal was hiding. Then, having identified such a person, the War Ubatha would follow him or her to the Queen’s hiding place.
To accomplish that, Ubatha had brought a surveillance expert plus a trunkful of very sophisticated equipment to Trevia. Devices which would not only allow his team to remain in the shadows-but greatly increase the number of suspects they could track.
The first step was to set up a command center in Bacula’s hotel suite. Once that was accomplished, hundreds of tiny self-propelled spy balls were launched into the air with orders to seek out the addresses of the individuals on Ubatha’s list and take up positions inside their homes. The process was delightfully simple thanks to the absence of roofs.
So, within one rotation of landing, the War Ubatha and his team were not only established but on the receiving end of a steady flow of information. Most of which was mind-numbingly dull. As a result, Ubatha had to take frequent breaks lest the banality of the incoming conversations drive him mad. That was why he was in his room, practicing crosscuts with his sword, when Ras Qwen appeared in the doorway. The surveillance technician was clearly excited. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. But subject Six has a human visitor.”
Each suspect had been assigned a number by the intelligence agent who had compiled the list of names. The lower the number, the more important that individual was thought to be. And since the agent was also the city’s registrar-he was in a position to know who was who. So a meeting between a human and Six was clearly of interest.
The warrior followed the technician into the central living area, where a bank of monitors had been set up.
