“Nice manners,” Eric remarked toward the comm board, feeling a bit strange. Dorias he was used to, but polite phrases coming from Cam were unsettling. “Thank you, Dorias. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He reached for the shutoff key.
“Eric?”
“Yes?” Eric pulled his hand back from the board.
Dorias hesitated. “I think it would be better if you did not trust anyone else more than necessary. You are right. A war is brewing.”
Eric felt his eyes narrow. “I’ll remember that. Good-bye, Dorias.” Eric closed the channel down and eyed the android sitting in the pilot’s chair. Cam had been the one fixture in Eric’s life since Perivar had left. Cam didn’t move unless it was ordered to. Cam didn’t quest or question. Cam did exactly as it was ordered to and no more.
Adudorias ran Cam’s hands across the pilot boards, checking their layout and display sequences. It scanned the bridge, taking it all in with something that appeared to be interest.
“Adu,” said Eric. “We need to get going. Can you head us out for Abassyd Station?”
“As soon as we’re clear,” it answered.
Eric went into the common room and laid himself down in the landfall alcove. He felt a twinge of obscure remorse inside.
How was I to know I’d miss a nonsentient machine? He set his jaw and stared at the wall. Garismit’s Eyes. He rubbed his hands together. I will be glad when this is over. Shaking the thoughts away, he fastened the webbing over his torso. He’d left the view wall on and through it he could see the nighttime stealing in its strange, slow way over the City of Alliances. A few stars were visible over the tops of the distant cliffs.
He couldn’t stop part of his mind from wondering if one of them belonged to the Realm.
7—The Home Ground, Hour 08: 19: Settlement Time
It does not matter if you know the enemy when you see him, but you must be certain that you will fight the enemy when you know him.
Contractor Kelat looked down at his hand and flexed the newly grown finger. He smiled and felt his chest swell. He had never really believed he would be able to have it regrown. He had never believed he would really walk on the Home Ground.
He looked about him. And he had certainly never dreamed it would be like this.
They had had to seal the building, if four walls of patched cement with a polymer sheet for a roof could be called a building, and install an atmosphere-processing plant. The Beholden and the Engineers worked with zeal and the whole process took only a few hours. The inside was a wreck. Everything was preserved, certainly, but it was also vacuum welded and corroded by dust and radiation. There had been liquid in a lot of the mechanisms that had evaporated centuries ago, allowing the circuitry to collapse into incomprehensible jumbles.
So much gone. So much stolen.
But so much left, he reminded himself. So much that can be done. Outside, the thin atmosphere just barely carried the rumble of the excavation machinery. The Engineers were carefully digging down around the base of the pillar Baiel had found. The Engineers’ scans indicated it was a part of a network that extended…everywhere. Kelat allowed himself a smile at the bewildered look the Engineer gave him.
Kelat glanced toward where he knew the mountain range lay and wished, fervently and irrationally, that Jahidh would signal with more news of the artifact he had found. If the theories were correct, they were holding two halves of the Ancestors’ system, the human-derived and the mechanically derived, and until they could bring them together, they would never understand how the Ancestors’ world worked.
What bothered Kelat was that there did not seem to be any obvious interface between the two. There were control boards and readouts and other input-output sources that were perfectly comprehensible to the Historians and Engineers, but there was nothing that seemed to justify the enormous effort it would have taken to breed human-derived artifacts. Kelat could not bring himself to believe the Ancestors had created them to no definite purpose, not with the cost their creation had entailed.
“Contractor?” One of the contract apprentices made obeisance. “There is a message for you from the artifact reclamation subcommittee, 196.”
Kelat made his way over to the portable board and sat on the stool in front of it. He was ashamed to admit it, but he was looking forward to having a few more trappings of civilization installed.
The touch of his fingertips on the screen opened the channel. Caril’s face appeared against the grey background.
Kelat glanced sharply left and right. No Witness was in the room. They were occupied watching the activity outside, not the administrative details. His mind began the First Grace in thankfulness.
“What news?” he asked.
“The Grand Errand is being moved to the encampment in orbit around Kethran Colony,” said Caril. “Stone in the Wall has been located there, in one of their gene-tailoring facilities.”
The work of the Ancestors in the hands of outsiders! Kelat was aghast. He hoped it did not show. Caril was easily impressed or repulsed by appearances.
“What do we know about her circumstances?”
“Basq’s committee is expecting difficulties and has requested to be put on the Assembly docket to authorize a bribe for the colony officials to recover her. Kethran feeling is hostile to the Vitae presence and her contract is being held by a member of one of their first families. We may offer to withdraw. The projections show that if we did, the local government would request our return within fifteen years. The trade-off will probably be deemed acceptable.”
Kelat’s newly grown finger began to twitch. He stilled it. “Is there any way we might recover her first?”
“Paral is reconstructing an activity trail. Outside the Amaiar Gardens, she appears to only have had brief contact with a Shessel-held communications firm.”
Kelat thought. “Would you say it is a safe prediction that if the artifact felt threatened, she would attempt to run away?”
“That is certainly her observed behavior.”
“Then our course of action seems clear.” As he spoke, a measure of calm returned to him. “We induce her to run. Have we any of our own people on Kethran?”
Caril paused, considering. “A few. It will be possible for me to send Paral down to coordinate.”
“Paral…” Kelat hesitated. “He’s very young, Caril.”
“He is dedicated. He will do what is necessary.”
As does Jahidh, but that does not mean an efficient operation. Kelat tried to see alternatives, but could not. “Just impress upon Paral that he is to do no more than necessary, Caril.”
“What about Eric Born?”
“He was seen on May 16, but his ship left orbit before any movement could be coordinated to recover him. Basq’s network traces have been put in place, and we are waiting.”
The hum from the excavation changed pitch and Kelat made an abrupt decision. “If you are forced to make a choice, Caril, the female artifact has priority over the male.”
“Understood, Contractor.”
“And let me contact you next time. The Witnesses here have no fixed posts. Bad timing could see us added to the Memory prematurely.”
“Also understood.” With that, she closed the line and the screen went black.
Kelat sat watching the blank screen for a long moment. His new finger twitched spasmodically against his thigh.
This was bad, this was wrong. There were too many factors too far out of control. But what could be done? The Imperialists were committed. The dependence on service could not continue. The power in the Quarter Galaxy was shifting with the rise of the Unifiers and the discovery of the Shessel. The Vitae were in danger of losing their footing. The rule had to become open and firmly established. The artifacts and the Home Ground were the keys to the Imperialist success. They had to be recovered and understood.