under his arm, and sat next to Maynard Khanna.
“You handled Lalonde quite well,” the First Admiral said. “Not perfectly, but then you weren’t exactly prepared for anything like this. Under the circumstances I’m satisfied with your performance.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Bloody ESA people didn’t help,” Motela Kolhammer muttered.
Samual Aleksandrovich waved him quiet. “That is something we can take up with their ambassador later. Though I’m sure we all know what the outcome will be. Regrettable or not, you acted properly the whole time, Solanki. Capturing one of the sequestrated was exactly what we required.”
“Captain Auster made it possible, sir,” Kelven said. “I wouldn’t have got the marines out otherwise.”
The voidhawk captain nodded thankfully in acknowledgement.
“None the less, we should have given your situation a higher priority to begin with, and provided you with adequate resources,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “My mistake, especially given who was involved.”
“Has Jacqueline Couteur confirmed Laton’s existence?” Kelven asked. Part of him was hoping that the answer was going to be a resounding no.
“She didn’t have to.” Samual Aleksandrovich sighed ponderously. “A blackhawk”—he paused, raising his bushy ginger eyebrows in emphasis—“has just arrived from Tranquillity with a flek from Commander Olsen Neale. Under the circumstances I can quite forgive him for using the ship as a courier. If you would like to access the sensevise.”
Kelven sank deeper into the scoop of his chair as Graeme Nicholson’s recording played through his brain. “He was there all along,” he said brokenly. “In Durringham itself, and I never knew. I thought the
“You are not in any way to blame,” Admiral Lalwani said.
Kelven glanced over at the grey-haired Edenist woman. There was an inordinate amount of sympathy and sadness in the tone.
“We should never have stopped checking, all those years ago,” she continued. “The presence of Darcy and Lori on Lalonde was a rather miserable token to appease our paranoia. Even we were guilty of wishing Laton dead. The hope overwhelmed reason and rational thought. All of us knew how resourceful he was, and we knew he had acquired data on Lalonde. The planet should have been thoroughly searched. Our mistake. Now he has returned. I don’t like to think of the price we will all have to pay before he is stopped this time.”
“Sir, Darcy and Lori seemed very uncertain that he was behind this invasion,” Kelven said. “Laton actually warned them of this illusion-creating ability the sequestrated have.”
“And Jacqueline Couteur agrees he isn’t a part of this,” Dr Gilmore said. “That’s one of the few things she will admit to.”
“I hardly think we can take her word for it,” Admiral Kolhammer said.
“Precise details are for later,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “What we have with Lalonde is shaping up into a major, and immediate, crisis. I’m tempted to ask the Assembly President to declare a state of emergency; that would put national navies at my disposal.”
“In theory,” Admiral Kolhammer said drily.
“Yes, and yet anything less may not suffice. This undetectable sequestration ability has me deeply worried. It has been used so freely on Lalonde, hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. How many people does the agency behind it intend to subjugate? How many planets? It is a threat which the Assembly cannot be allowed to ignore in favour of its usual horse trading.” He considered the option of total mobilization before reluctantly dismissing it. There wasn’t enough evidence to convince the president, not yet. It would come eventually, he was in no doubt of that. “For the moment we will do what we can to contain the spread of this plague, whilst trying to find Laton. The flek from Olsen Neale also went on to report that Terrance Smith has met with some success in recruiting mercenaries and combat-capable starships for Governor Rexrew. That blackhawk made excellent time from Tranquillity; a little over two days, the captain told me. So we may just be able to put a brake on Lalonde before it gets totally out of hand. Terrance Smith’s ships are scheduled to depart from Tranquillity today. Lalwani, you estimate it will take them a week to reach Lalonde?”
“Yes,” she said. “It took the
“Apart from the
“I know that name . . .” Kelven Solanki ran a search program through his neural nanonics. “The
“That wasn’t mentioned in any of your reports,” Lalwani said. Her slim forehead showed a frown.
“It was a commercial flight. Slightly odd, the captain wanted to export aboriginal wood, but as far as we could tell perfectly legitimate.”
“This name does seem to be popping up with suspicious regularity,” Maynard Khanna said.
“We should be able to look into it easily enough,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “Commander Solanki, the principal reason I asked you here was to inform you that you are to act as an adviser to the squadron which will blockade Lalonde.”
“Sir?”
“We’re launching a dual programme to terminate this threat. The first aspect is a Confederationwide alert for Laton. We have to know where the
“He won’t stay on board,” Lalwani said. “Not after he reaches a port. But we’ll find him. I’m organizing the search now. All the voidhawks in the Avon system will be conscripted and dispatched to alert national governments. I’ve already sent one to Jupiter; once the habitat consensus is informed, every voidhawk in the Sol system will be used to relay the news. I estimate it will take four to five days to blanket the Confederation.”
“Time Universe will probably beat you to it,” Admiral Kolhammer said gruffly.
Lalwani smiled. The two of them were sparring partners from way back. “In this case I wouldn’t mind in the least.”
“Be a lot of panic. Stock markets will take a tumble.”
“If it makes people take the threat seriously, so much the better,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “Motela, you are to assemble a 1st Fleet squadron, a large one, to be held on fifteen-minute-departure alert. When we find Laton, eliminating him is going to be your problem.”
“What problem?”
“I admire the sentiment,” Samual Aleksandrovich said with a touch of censure. “But kindly remember he escaped from us last time, when we were equally hungry for blood. That mistake cannot be repeated. This time I shall require proof, even though it will no doubt be expensive. I imagine Lalwani and Auster will agree.”
“We do,” Lalwani said. “All Edenists do. If there is any risk in confirming the target is Laton, then we will bear it.”
“In the meantime, I want Lalonde to be completely isolated,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “The mercenary force is not to be allowed to land, nor do I want any surface bombardments from orbit. Those colonists have suffered enough already. The solution to this sequestration lies in discovering the method by which it is implemented, and devising a counter. Brute force is merely dumping plutonium in a volcano. And I suspect the mercenaries would simply be sequestrated themselves should they land. Dr Gilmore, this is your field.”
“Not really,” the doctor said expressively. “But we shall put our female subject through an extensive series of experiments to see if we can determine the method of the sequestration and how to cancel it. However, judging by what we know so far, which is virtually nothing, I have to say an answer is going to take a considerable time to formulate. Though you are quite right to instigate a quarantine. The less contact Lalonde has with the rest of the Confederation the better, especially if it turns out Laton isn’t behind the invasion.”
“The doctor has a point,” Lalwani said. “What if the Lalonde invasion is the start of a xenoc incursion, and Laton himself has been sequestrated?”
“I’m keeping it in mind,” Samual Aleksandrovich said. “We need to know more, either from the Couteur woman or Lalonde itself. Our principal trouble remains what it has always been: reaction time. It takes us far too long to amass any large force. Always our conflicts are larger than they would have been if we had received a
