“Of course, ser.”
“Where’s the nearest station that’s not at the terminal?”
“That’d be eight blocks north, off Pearse. Pearse and Celebration, rightly.”
“Thank you.”
Van called for another groundcar, waiting inside until a beige vehicle appeared. Then he stepped outside and into the vehicle.
“Where to, ser?”
Van could tell immediately that the groundcar was operated by some security service, with the overlaid comm systems. Immediately, he began to cough, leaning forward for a moment, while trying with his implant to disable the comm-transmitting nodes. Then he straightened. “Sorry. Up Pearse, north, probably six or seven blocks. I’ll recognize the place.”
“You’re in charge, ser.”
Heading up Pearse. Says he’ll say when to stop…
Van smiled to himself, noting that the driver had no idea his transmission had not gone out. He began to explore the comm system, through his implant, and after less than a block, disabled the link between the receiver and the repeater.
The driver concealed a worried expression as the car passed one cross street, then another. Van saw the sign for Celebration and said. “Here.”
“Ah…ten creds.”
Van pulsed the credits to the machine, then counterfeited the acceptance, which unlocked the doors, and stepped out. He walked briskly to the archway and down the ramp, amid a handful of others. No one seemed to be following. Whether his maneuver would work, he had no idea, but he had time to spare. No one looking suspicious—or registering a security-type link—neared him on the platform or on the short ride back to the station serving the terminal. There he walked up to the departure consoles. He had no doubts that they were alerted.
So, standing behind two other travelers, a tallish man and a squarish woman in brilliant green, he began to probe the nets.
“Ser?”
Van stepped forward, speaking in Hispyn, “The shuttle to orbit one, and then, a passage to Lanford on the first shuttle in the morning.”
The clerk officer looked blankly at him.
Van repeated his request, again in Hispyn, still probing the console.
She shrugged helplessly.
Van spoke in Old Anglo, slowly, and haltingly. “I would like…one passage…to orbit one. The next shuttle. Then I would like…one passage…for the shuttle…down…to Lanford…in the morning…”
“Your datacard, ser.”
Van extended it, the one with the identity of Viano Alberto, knowing he couldn’t block the outgoing, but that he could block any hold coming back in. But, so far as he could tell, there wasn’t any alarm.
“You are confirmed, ser. Thank you. You go through the portals there.” She pointed.
“Thank you.” Van nodded politely.
He watched the portals. Again, no one stopped him.
Whoever had been following and watching him had either been thrown off the trail, or was just watching, or did not want to act in the open. That was clear…for the moment.
He also knew two other things. He wasn’t about to return to Republic space and control under anything close to his own name. But he was going to return—he knew he had to—regardless of the folly of it, to get answers to questions he had let go for too long, because nowhere else could he discover what had truly happened to the Fergus.
And he couldn’t spend the rest of his life fighting nightmares or consider himself even halfway ethical unless and until he found that out.
Chapter 62
For all his impatience, Van did not take the Joyau straight to Tara, but instead made a jump to another system—one only numbered as Y-3134U—a binary system with uninhabited planets and complex orbitals. There he parked the Joyau just outside the no-jump zone.
He’d checked the comparators and made some calculations. Had he made an immediate jump, he would have arrived in New Oisin on a threeday, and that would have meant spending too much time on Tara before he could act. He needed to time his arrival for about noon on a fiveday, New Oisin planetary time. That way he could take down an afternoon or evening shuttle, spend sixday making his preparations, then act over the enddays.
He also needed some time to think.
Sitting in his stateroom, he read over the hard copy of Baile’s obituary. The commander had been reported dead a month before he relieved Van, but the “Baile” who had relieved Van had had official orders. Further, the RSF had effectively acknowledged his command, and the fact that the Fergus had remained off Scandya orbit station for nearly a month being repaired indicated to Van that “Baile” had not been acting contrary to RSF directives. And Van had even talked to the man. Whatever else it signified, it was clear to Van that “Baile” had been acting under the orders and direction of the RSF, or of someone highly placed in the RSF—or both.
Then, there was the Founder’s Day massacre of the Republic government. The general methodology had been similar to that used by the Revenants on Scandya. Van didn’t believe that the Revenants had done it, but who besides the RSF in Tara had known that much about the methodology?
Add to that the fact that Van was the only survivor of the Fergus’s encounter off Scandya and that the Fergus itself was lost or destroyed, or both. He had to wonder. Had someone in the RSF just wanted the Fergus lost in order to get support for more modern ships? If so, what did that say about the RSF? And what about the attempts to murder Van himself?
Had Trystin played any role in it all?
Van considered.
He doubted it. There were too many aspects of the mess that Trystin didn’t know, and couldn’t have known, things that Van alone knew and had never mentioned. Trystin had his own agenda, and part of that was using Van’s troubles with the RSF to get Van into IIS and into the clandestine war—and it was a war—against the Revenants. But IIS had offices in many Republic systems, and Trystin hadn’t talked or acted against the Republic in the way he had against the Revenants.
Van still worried about Trystin’s obsession—or near obsession with ethics, but after dealing with both Morgan Henry
