The server who brought the tea on an elaborately chased silver platter was refreshingly thick-limbed and hairy. He poured a stream of iridescent tea into cups of near transparent china, painted on the outside with a colorful hunting scene from ancient times: an elderly guide pointing into the distance and a quartet of men in hip boots carrying double-barreled pellet guns. In the background, a flock of aboriginal ducks arched like a feathered bridge into the sky. On the other side, the cup bore a painting of a duck in flight, rendered in subtle colors. It was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and despair had been imposed somehow on its immobile features. The shimmering tea, swirling behind the translucent ceramic, gave it the illusion of desperate motion.
Pulawayo handed her the cup, contriving to touch hands as she did. Bridget ban took it and waited to see what all this portended. “You’re paraperceptic,” she said.
The Director seemed disappointed in the response. “Oh. Yes. Only duplex, I fear. Half my brain—the logical, calculating half, I hope”—she giggled—“is overseeing the space traffic controllers. The other half…Well, here I am. Do you like the teacups?”
Bridget ban thought there was also an element of calculation in the half-brain she was facing, but she said nothing. “Ye painted these cups yourself,” she guessed.
Pulawayo waved a hand. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a hobby. You should see our export ware. But I’m such a silly. You were asking about the ’bushers. They matched trajectory with one of the treasure ships—and wasn’t that a pretty piece of work at high-v?”
“I know what they did. I’m trying to find out who they were.”
A blithe shrug. “They never said.”
Suppressing an exasperated retort, Bridget ban explained: “The, ah, ’bushers ne’er passed through Sapphire Point, so they must hae gone toward either Jehovah or Foreganger. If ye’ve no idea o’ their homeworld, at least tell me which direction they went.”
The Director waved her hand. “Oh, surely you can’t suspect Foreganger or Jehovah. Hijacking pirates isn’t Foreganger’s style, and Jehovah’s a turtle—keeps its head tucked in.”
“Of course not,” the Hound explained patiently, “but the phantom fleet must hae passed through one o’ them, and their STC could tell me where they went next. Now, I could be tossing a coin tae pick one, but I’d lose a fortnight running down and back, should I be guessing wrong. Those are twa of the busiest interchanges in this region o’ the Spiral Arm, and that’s a lot of straw to sift for one flotilla of needles. Unless,” she added sarcastically, “the ambushers fight a battle at each interchange to draw attention to themselves.”
The Director laughed. “Oh, of course. How silly of me. But…We don’t know which ramp they came off. They must’ve entered under heavy traffic, hiding themselves in a forest of arrivals. No beacons sent ahead. Incoming’s supposed to hail the port. Can’t always see ’em at high-v, y’know.” Pulawayo had reverted to choppy sentences, by which Bridget ban deduced that her paraperception was imperfect. When the Director split her attention and subvocalized, she could not frame complex sentences.
“Then, which road are they after leaving on?” the Hound asked with growing exasperation.
“Don’t know. Swung around…” Pulawayo held a hand up, said waidasec, and stopped the alternate conversation with a curt, Handle it yourself, dear. Then, “They swung around grabbing space like that ancient god, Tarzan. The aether strings are still rippling out that way. We thought they meant to circle around to the Silk Road entrances. But they never showed. All that confusion—do you know how many ships were in the sky at the time? And stealthed the way the ’bushers were—well…” She shrugged. “We lost them.”
“Ye lost them,” Bridget ban repeated. She could well believe in ’Cocker sloppiness, but this beggared the imagination. The Director was, as the Terrans were wont to say, “blowing smoke.” Bridget ban had listened to evasions spun by the best of them, and recognized all the symptoms. “I see. Is that a common problem around the Junction?”
The Director muttered, No, no, no. I’m off-line, then, “What do you mean?”
“Losing track of the traffic out in the coopers. Does that happen often?”
The elf’s face hardened as much as elf faces could. “We do well enough.”
“Ye noticed the battle itself, I’m sure. Ye must hae gotten some positional fixes. I can extrapolate origin and destination from those.”
“They changed vectors three times while we did track them, and might have done anything while they were in the black; so I don’t think the fixes we did get can help you.”
Bridget ban spoke as if to a child. “I’ll be judging what I can and can nae do. I need to review your transit records.” She was already proffering a memostick when the Director shook her head.
“Oh, dear. I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
This was more than evasion. This was obstruction. But the why of it eluded the Hound. Was Peacock protecting the phantom fleet? She began to suspect that if she did not obtain the STC records soon, she never would. At least, not the original records. The Director was, as the Terrans said, “playing for time.”
She flashed her badge once more. “I’m afraid ye’ve nae choice. League regulations. I ‘demand and require’ your information in the name o’ Tully O’Connor, Ardry of High Tara and president o’ the League o’ the Periphery.” Maybe the formal language would kick start the woman.
But the Director smiled sweetly. “And I’m afraid your ‘high king’ doesn’t mass much here. Peacock’s not a Member State.”
Bridget ban reared back. “Nae a Member? Ridiculous…” But her implant shook hands with the library aboard her ship and confirmed the fact. No agreement was on record. Was her gazetteer deficient? “The Treaty of Amity and Common Purpose was submitted one hundred and fifty metric years ago.”
“The Seanaid is still debating it. We don’t rush into things here. Oh…” She waved a hand. “It’s our custom to cooperate with the League. But we don’t cooperate because we’re ordered. We do it because we’re nicely asked.”
Bridget ban swallowed a sarcastic observation and forced a “please” through smiling teeth.
Pulawayo ran a finger along the back of the Hound’s hand. “I said nicely asked.”
Bridget ban finally understood what the Director wanted in exchange for cooperation. She was no stranger to bribery, even sexual bribery, but casual sex could still shock her. When she used sex, there was nothing casual about it. It was purposeful, deliberate, and well planned.
The Director misread the pause. “Are you exclusive to men?” she asked. “Because I’m seeing my surgeon later today. I’ve been feeling very male lately.”