`Am I glad to find you! Look, you should know this: one of the ensigns in your old quarters is in here with a knife wound. He got attacked as he was opening the door. Knife just missed his lung. You being careful? who knows where you are now?’ `Very few. How’d you get through?’ `Ted Exeter told me to warn you. He’s still operating.’ Anxiety kept flickering across her expressive face.
`I’m fine. I’ve a `Dini guard out front and, with so many important experts on board, this deck’s well patrolled.’ Seeing Gravy reminded him that such vigilance could also be a disadvantage. `Are you on duty, Gravy?’ `No,’ she began with a frown and then her face brightened into a broad, happy and eager smile.
`No, Thian, I’m not. I just ended my watch.’ He was also exceedingly well pleased with his `portation of her. Though he felt an uncomfortable surge of awkwardness when she was amazed by the luxurious amenities of his stateroom, it was hard to stay tense in Gravy’s company. She had him laughing over her queries about some of the unusual items in one locker. In the next she found the bottles of exotic spirits, and couldn’t make up her mind which to try first, so she poured judicious levels of each one into a big glass, careful not to disrupt the lower layers, finishing up with a remarkably colourful `lethal cocktail’ which she made him sample, too. By the time he fell asleep with his arms about her, he decided that the most exotic spirit in the room wasn’t bottled!
It was great to be working again, and with his mother. They accomplished a great deal before their `day’ ended: auxiliary engines, propulsion units thrusters and communications gear were `ported’ from Earth, Betelgeuse, Altair and Procyon for installation on the wreck for its outbound journey.
The impetus given the vessel by the searing wave of nova force was nearly spent and, even on tow, it would need some independent impulsion. One of the large shuttles had been altered and then anchored to the most stable level to serve as bridge and quarters for the watch.
Once the wreck was close enough for a `portation, it would be `lifted’ to its final destination, at the moment a point equidistant between the `Dini homeworld and Earth was being discussed, though as all the Primes pointed out, its exact location was relatively unimportant. Scientists could be transported from anywhere. There was also controversy that the very presence of the hulk might somehow attract other Hive ships to its position – therefore it should be as far away from either homeworld as possible. This was a theory more voiced on human worlds than `Dini.
`Perhaps,’ Thian had remarked when the subject was discussed in the wardroom where he was lunching, `because `Dinis have already had Hive ships in their skies and survived. But then, so have we!’ There was a moment of stunned silence, broken by such a whispered curse from Malice that Thian wondered if he had imagined it. He took himself heavily to task for being so lax, and slow. He ought to have followed that whisper as quickly as thought.
But he hadn’t. He should have been ready, especially since the attack on the ensign who was recovering slowly. Thian hoped that Malice had had a shock over that miscalculation. With his mother, he’d gone over the names of the boarding party in the hope that some clue might be triggered. Except that twelve of the other fourteen members had attended his language classes, there was nothing to trigger identity Although there were still deliveries of equipment, most of what Damia and Thian `ported now was food and water to provision the three human ships that were to pursue the three Queen pods, and the KLTL which was continuing on to the suspect nova. Spectroscopic analysis said that the flaring star contained all the elements which had permeated the wreck. The `Dinis would not accept that evidence as proof positive that the Hive world had been involved in, and not survived, the holocaustic disaster.
Thian wondered if his tour of duty would soon be over and was almost relieved when he had a summons to appear in the captain’s ready room.