“I am curious,” she said. “From the little I’ve seen of your route, on the screen display out there, you seem to consider… um… Slotter Key as your ultimate destination, but you are not taking a direct route there. Research at intermediate points?”
“Yes, Sera.” He launched into the explanation he’d given the clerk until the tea and pastries arrived and the person pushing the cart had left the room.
Stella dropped her slightly bored expression. “Rafe, what do you think you can accomplish by going to Slotter Key?”
“Finding Ky and saving her life,” he said.
“You can’t,” she said. “She’s dead. Shuttle went down in the ocean—a very cold ocean—with winter coming on. It’s twenty-eight days now. No communications at all. No transponders, no radio, no skullphone linkage, nothing.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “You have to—we had to—accept it. I know you loved her—”
“Love. Present tense. And she’s not dead. We have a—a link, a bond. I would know if she was dead.”
“That’s wishful thinking, Rafe. Emotional thinking. But it’s no use.”
“I will not believe that until I find her dead body myself,” Rafe said. “I don’t just hope she’s alive. I know she’s alive.”
Stella’s expression changed. “How?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“If you want me to believe you, you must tell me. Otherwise I’m going to find ways to delay you, keep you away from Slotter Key—the last thing Aunt Grace and my mother need right now is a lovesick loose cannon crashing into their lives.”
“It’s not illegal to travel to Slotter Key,” Rafe said. “You can’t really stop me, even if you keep me off Vatta ships. You can only delay me, and that delay, Stella, could mean Ky’s death. Why didn’t you want me to come as soon as you heard?”
She ticked off items on her fingers. “Lovesick. Loose cannon. Fully occupied in running ISC, which is what you should be doing right now. Rogue at a level above—no, below—loose cannon. Totally untrained for locating or rescuing someone adrift in a lifeboat on a cold ocean—”
“Not entirely,” Rafe said. “I located and rescued my family, who had been abducted and were held on a cold plateau—”
“With considerable help,” Stella said. “Are you claiming Teague is your help this time?”
“Yes. From the same source. The task is different and I am assuming your aunt, the Rector of Defense, can deploy assets equivalent to those I had hired before.”
She sat back, frowning slightly. “You really are convinced she’s still alive, from something other than your personal feelings?”
“Yes.”
“But you won’t tell me what… so I assume it has something to do with a communications link that you and Ky share, that no one is supposed to know about—”
Rafe said nothing, though she stared at him for over a minute. A very long minute. Finally, she nodded.
“Well, then. I think Ser Bancroft needs to change his itinerary. I think it would be wise to go straight to Slotter Key, and visit—what was it, some obscure museum?”
“Yes.”
“On the way back, if it’s still of interest. I suspect, Ser Bancroft, that your reluctance to take the more direct route has to do with something you did at Allray, am I right?”
“Possibly,” Rafe said. She knew perfectly well what he’d done there. She’d been there.
“I have a Vatta courier onstation right now, refueling and resupplying for another mission. That’s how I came here. It is fast, long-range, but not as comfortable as the passenger quarters on our freighters. It would be cramped for you and Ser Teague.”
“How long?”
“How urgent is secrecy? If your disguise must remain undiscovered, then you need to miss that departure tomorrow for some plausible reason—no—let me think. A transfer—no, that won’t work, either. We need to discover a family relationship, Ser Bancroft. Then I could discover you as a family member and offer you the use of a courier, to give you more time for research.”
“You’re now known to be Osman Vatta’s daughter. What if I were one of his sons?”
Her brows went up. “You aren’t, are you?”
“No,” Rafe said. “I’ve seen my own gene scan many times, and that of my parents and Penny. I’m all theirs. But as Bancroft—”
“Fine. We’ll do it that way. A bit shady but it could be taken that I just want you far away from me—even that I’m sending you to Aunt Grace to be checked out for, um, rogue behavior.”
“Of which, in my checkered past, there’s plenty. All right, beautiful lady, now that we’re alone I reveal to you that I am the natural son of the evil Osman Vatta, reared in a foster home and discovering my real identity only by accident. Shocked and horrified, I became fascinated by Vatta family events, and now I am shivering in anticipation of what you might say in return.”
“Shivering in anticipation—a bit over the top, Rafe, don’t you think?”
“I’m not Rafe, I’m Hilarion Bancroft—”
“Hilarion? Also over the top. Oh, well. You are Osman’s son after all, and he was over the top. I am naturally startled, and then appalled, to think that you might have been stalking me, so the best thing to do is stuff you into a courier—you might want to lose the fat suit before that—and send you to Aunt Grace, who will wrap you in deepest darkest secrecy and force you to give up whatever vile plans you had made.”
“They aren’t vile,” Rafe said.
“Oh, I think they are,” Stella said. “And meanwhile it has been strongly suggested to you that you and Ser Teague stay with me—Vatta Security feeling safer that way—in a friendly sort of house arrest. It will take the courier almost two days to be ready, but less than half the time of any other ship to get to Slotter Key.”
“What do you use for couriers, fairy dust?”
“Couriers are always faster, Rafe, you know that. But Toby’s come up with something.”
“Which you won’t tell me about.”
“Trade secret,” Stella said. “Just like yours.”
For the first time since he’d heard about Ky’s shuttle going down, Rafe laughed. “My God, you’re a smart woman,” he said.
Stella was laughing, too. “Yes. We’re both smart. And that, if anything, might help Ky, if she’s still alive, which is why I’m going along with this. My young cousin is a pain sometimes, but I love her anyway. So now, I think, we begin the next charade you and I are about to be involved in. I will call my security staff in, and you and Ser Teague will spend a pleasant night, maybe two, in my guest quarters. Will you need to visit anything else onstation?”
“I should visit Crown & Spears,” Rafe said, “or—I was planning to. Set up a transfer to my next destination. But as it is—”
“We would prefer you not have a contact here besides Vatta,” Stella said, making her face prim.
“Then I will be pleased to accept your hospitality,” Rafe said. “Shall I pour us tea now?”
“I will,” Stella said. She poured two cups of tea, handed him one, and put two pastries on a plate for him. “Eat fast.”
She drank half her cup of tea while Rafe allowed crumbs to find their way down the front of his suit, and then touched a button on her desk. In moments, two serious-looking men in a uniform he hadn’t seen before appeared at the door. They eyed him with disfavor.
“This is Ser Bancroft,” Stella said. “I find that he is a relative of sorts—a natural son of my natural father from a different mother. He and his research assistant, Ser Teague, will be staying with me until Morningstar is ready for another trip, and then they’ll be passengers to Slotter Key. He has reason to visit my aunt Grace.”
“Yes, Sera.” Their looks became colder.