Derrek’s return gaze seemed to deny all recognition of Cantha’s authority or position. His electronic eyes glanced at Captain Glenswarg, as if to ask, How much do you want me to say?
Legroeder watched in silence. When the captain didn’t speak, Cantha explained, “If we want to locate the ship, we need to understand its behavior. If you have knowledge that bears on our search…” He appealed with a gesture to the captain.
Glenswarg moved his chin up and down a centimeter, nodding.
The Kyber navigator’s mouth pursed as he struggled to accept this. “The answer is, we don’t know.”
Legroeder thought, Was that so hard to say?
“Don’t know what—whether or not the nebula turns Impris back?” Cantha asked.
Derrek shrugged. “For all we know, the nebula just happens to be there. Maybe there’s no connection.” He pressed his lips together, making clear there was nothing else he would offer willingly.
Cantha looked thoughtful as he turned back to the simulation console.
At the end of the fourth day of flying, Cantha and the riggers gathered in the plotting room just aft of the bridge. “I find it interesting,” Cantha said, “that even the Kyber—with all of their ships tracking Impris—cannot accurately predict her course, or even define its limits very precisely.” Cantha gestured to the holo-image floating in the center of the room, where he’d traced out his projections of their course aboard Phoenix. From the net, their course had seemed like a fairly straight line; but from Cantha’s plot of the Flux-layers, it looked more like a mangled corkscrew penetrating the Golen Space Peninsula.
“What are these lines here?” Legroeder asked, reaching out to trace glowing threads that crisscrossed under the path of Phoenix. “Why do they zigzag like that?”
Cantha picked carefully at his teeth. “That’s something you should regard as extremely tentative. I’m trying to sketch out some possible routes of Impris through the—” he hesitated “—underflux.”
“Underflux?” Legroeder asked, cocking an eye at him. “Do you mean the Deep Flux?”
“Only partially.” Cantha’s neck-ridge quivered; he seemed a little reticent, even defensive, as he continued. “Our Institute has been examining a theoretical series of spacetime layerings that we term the ‘underflux.’ We don’t have enough data to confirm or deny our theories, and it’s… not discussed much outside the Institute.”
Legroeder frowned. “Meaning, it’s for Narseil eyes only?”
Cantha shrugged at the implied reproach. “Essentially, yes. Until now. The underflux includes—as nearly as I can tell—the layer that the Kyber refer to when they say the Deep Flux.”
“As nearly as you can tell?”
Deutsch floated forward. “Is there a question about terminology?”
Cantha displayed an uncharacteristic annoyance. “Not just that. No offense, Freem’n, but your Kyber crewmates would sooner open their veins than share their knowledge about the Deep Flux with us. And somebody had better start sharing information. Why’d they bring us along, if they’re not willing to pool knowledge?”
Palagren stirred. “They probably think we’ll use whatever they tell us to try to stop that colony fleet of theirs.”
“And are they wrong?” Deutsch asked. Before anyone could answer, he added, “Don’t forget, these guys are not entirely playing with their own decks here.” He tapped the side of his head. “I don’t think I’m being programmed to respond to you in any particular way, but I’m not sure the same thing is true of the Phoenix crew. There may be low-level safeguards against the spilling of information.”
Legroeder opened his mouth, closed it. If the augments were keeping the Kyber crew hostile… “I’d better talk to Captain Glenswarg about that. If they want us to find Impris, and there’s a chance she’s actually lost in the Deep Flux…”
“It would be very helpful,” said Cantha, “if you could use your influence with the captain.”
That drew a low hiss from behind Legroeder, and he turned to see Ker’sell’s eyes narrowed to thin vertical slits. Legroeder sighed impatiently. “Look, Ker’sell. Unless we cooperate with the Kyber, we’ll never find the ship. I didn’t sell out to them.” At least, I don’t think I did.
Ker’sell blinked slowly, looking like a large, dangerous lizard. “Perhaps not,” he said. “But remember that our interests are not the same as the Kyber’s.” He almost spat the word as he flexed his long-fingered hands. Had his nails grown long and sharp when Legroeder wasn’t watching, or had they always been that way? “I will be watching to see whose interests you serve.”
“Please do,” Legroeder said softly, trying to sound merely annoyed rather than alarmed. He drew a breath. “And now, if you’ll all excuse me, I think I’ll go have that talk with the captain.”
Glenswarg crossed his arms over his chest, facing Legroeder in the commander’s wardroom. “What do you expect me to do about it? I can’t make my men like the Narseil. As long as they’re doing their jobs—”
“But that’s just it. They’re not—” Legroeder caught himself.
“Are you suggested they’re not doing their jobs?” Glenswarg asked in a low voice. Are you questioning my leadership?
Legroeder steeled himself. “They’re not sharing information,” he said slowly. “At least, not freely enough to enable our riggers, and researchers—” brought to you at enormous cost, across many light-years “—to do what’s necessary to complete our mission. To find Impris.”
“I am aware of our mission, Rigger.”
“Yes, sir.” Legroeder paused. “If you don’t mind my asking, Captain—are these crew under… augment control?”
Glenswarg’s gaze narrowed even more. “I don’t see what concern that is of yours.”
“Yes, well—” Legroeder cleared his throat “—let’s just say, if they’re intentionally being made to be suspicious of us, perhaps there is some adjustment that could be made…” His voice trailed off, as the captain’s eyes grew more and more slitted.
“You’re treading very close to accusing me of incompetence, or sabotage,” Glenswarg growled.
Legroeder kept very still for a moment, holding the captain’s gaze. “I don’t mean to, sir,” he said evenly, at last.
There was another pause that seemed to last a dozen heartbeats. “I’ll see what can be done,” Glenswarg said. “Dismissed.”
“Thank you, Captain…”
Legroeder’s request seemed to bear fruit. During the following days, he often saw Cantha working at the sim console with one or more of the Kyber bridge crew; and the Narseil reported in private that the Kyber navigators were becoming a little less grudging in cooperating with his requests. No one was declaring the end of mutual suspicions, but at least he had a sense that they were working together. Of all those on the ship, Cantha clearly had the deepest understanding of the subtleties of the underflux—and even the Kyber crew were coming to recognize that fact, or were being permitted to recognize it.