Astor-Smath smiled and bowed. “And before those twenty minutes have elapsed, I will be safely on the ground in our metro-center compound. Until we meet again.” He turned and headed for the same high-speed VTOL which had brought him.
Darzhee Kut looked up at First Voice. “What happens in twenty minutes?”
“In twenty minutes, Speaker Kut, the humans will discover what happens if they choose to ignore our new terms for peace.”
Chapter Twenty
Downing sipped at the last drops of water in his glass, sighed, checked his watch: 1940 hours and still no sign of Elena. He looked around the mostly empty restaurant. Despite Elena’s claim to the contrary, Papillon was not only quiet, but almost abandoned. His table was one of only three that were occupied. Right. This has gone on long enough. Downing pulled out his palmcom, hit the all-address option, selected voice-only connection.
The multitone pattern on the carrier signal indicated Elena was being sought on all her data-contact lines. It continued its repetitious cycling of notes. Downing expected her answering message to take over after ten seconds, but it didn’t. After ten more seconds, he hung up and stared at the palmcom, checked that he had indeed selected the contact matrix for Elena Corcoran. He had. But no answer.
Well, perhaps it was time to call the other Corcoran. If anyone knew what was delaying Elena, it would be her brother.
Trevor answered his vox-link on the second ring. “Hello, Uncle Richard. How can I help you?”
Trevor’s voice was not quite as flat and cold as it had been when he left the office. But it wasn’t much warmer, either. “Sorry to disturb, Trevor, but do you have any inkling of where your sister is?”
“She’s probably shopping. She called from a sporting goods store about two hours ago.”
“Still trying to find something for Connor?”
“Yes. Without much success.” Trevor’s tone shifted from cool to suspicious. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Nothing that I know of, but she’s rather late meeting me for dinner. Must dash now.”
Trevor disconnected without waiting for a “goodbye” or offering one himself. Richard sighed, looked at his palmcom. So where in bloody hell is Elena? He chose her contact matrix again, waited to hear the connection go through.
Trevor stared at his commplex after disconnecting. What the hell was that all about? And why is Elena meeting Richard for dinner when she told me she’s coming by here with Connor later?
He leaned back and frowned at the commplex. In times past, when she had just been a civilian, interacting with civilians, and doing safe civilian things, Elena had been at the greatest risk when she had been with Trevor or their father. They were the guys who had the clearances, and had performed the deeds, that might attract the malign interest of any number of unsavory folks.
But now that she, too, had become snagged into the clandestine webs of IRIS, and was carrying confidential, defense-critical information between her ears that was possessed by less than two hundred persons—well, it was no longer permissible to simply wave off strange behavior as some misunderstanding or anomaly. Now, it was only prudent to ensure that atypical communication did not also signal an atypical situation in the making.
Well, Trevor decided, I can sit here trying to figure it all out myself, or I can take the short cut. He called up his commplex’s contact list, chose Elena’s home commplex, pressed for a connection, and widened the video pickup to maximum.
Two buzzes and the screen brightened. The face that looked out at him caused a hard, aching knot to rise into his throat. At thirteen, Elena’s son Connor was the spitting image of the pictures of Nolan at the same age. Trevor cleared his throat, smiled past the lump there, “Hey, Connor. I thought you had a game tonight.”
“I did, but they canceled it.”
“Why?”
“Beats me. Pretty weird. We were suited up and on the sidelines, but that was as far as it got.”
“Well, that stinks. Although I have to admit, it’s the first time I was ever glad I couldn’t get to one of your games.”
“I don’t know how you get to any of them, Uncle Trevor. You’ve got a long ride in from Annapolis.”
“Yeah, well, I hate to miss ’em. And given how many games your Mom and I both had to miss earlier this year, I know she must have been just as disappointed as you were when they canceled today’s. By the way, is she around?”
Connor frowned. “No. She wasn’t at the game either.”
Huh? “Why? Where is she?”
“I wish I knew, Uncle Trev.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I had to get a ride home with Dave Sklar and his dad, ’cause Mom never showed. When I got inside, I found a note from her, telling me I was going to be staying with Grandma.”
What the hell? “Why? Where’s your Mom going?”
“I don’t know; she didn’t say. Her note only said that she had to travel on business, she loved me, and she’d be back as soon as she could. I don’t think she’ll be gone long. She only packed a single piece of carry-on luggage.”
Trevor kept the frown off his face; no reason to frighten Connor. He was a pretty resilient kid, but he was still only thirteen. “So, what time did you get home?”
“About an hour ago.”
Trevor did the math. Two hours ago, Elena had called him from shopping. She had sounded exasperated, nothing more. But over the course of the next hour, she had evidently gone home, arranged for their mother to take care of Connor, written him a note, and packed for travel. And now she wasn’t taking calls from Richard, whom she had asked to meet for dinner. A dinner which was scheduled at almost exactly the same time she had said she’d pick up Connor from his game and drive out to Trevor’s townhouse. What the hell was going on?
“Listen, Connor,” Trevor said easily, “don’t worry. I’m sure everything’s all right. I’ll find out what’s going on and give you a shout, okay?”
“Okay, Uncle Trev. See ya.”
“Not if I see you first.” The response satisfied the corny farewell ritual that they both cherished. “’Bye, Connor.”
As soon as the connection closed, Trevor hit the commplex data string for Elena’s palmcom and the rest of her contact-matrix. No answers on any network and no location information. However, just as he gave up, his own incoming data tracker toned twice. A text-only message had arrived.
He called it up. Strange timing. It was from Elena, but had been posted an hour ago. An hour’s wait? What was—? Then he saw that she had put a one-hour delay on the delivery time.
Dear Trev:
Not much time; must run. I’ll be out of touch for a while, but don’t worry. Family business.
Look in on Connor. He’ll be at Mom’s.
“Family business?” There was no family business. Just the unfinished business of Nolan Corcoran and IRIS, which always seemed to involve Caine and Richard and exosapients and skullduggery. And Opal. Yes, he could call Opal. She might know something. Besides, it was an excuse to call her.
He did, but after ten seconds of paging and receiving neither an answer nor a locator grid result, Opal’s automated message came on. He disconnected. Something has gone very wrong. Gotta call Uncle Richard—and he stopped as his finger hovered over the “connect” button on the commplex’s dynamic datapad. No. Be careful. Think it through first.