“Tender my resignation, effective last week.” She looked up. Pandusky was not concerned. He’d heard it before. “I’m sorry, Sanuel. It hasn’t been a very good couple of days.”
“No,” he agreed somberly, “it has not.”
“And now this.” Spinning her seat, she waved at the window and the rain-swept varzea beyond. “First this reprobate but supposedly competent Hasa person goes missing. Now you’re telling me that the skimmer we sent out to find him has done likewise?”
Pandusky pursed his lips, following her gaze to the window. “Do you suppose the Sakuntala insurgents could be responsible?”
Her gaze narrowed as she swiveled back to face him again. “You think they could have shot down both skimmers?”
Pandusky shrugged. “From what I’m hearing, they certainly have the firepower to do it.”
She made a face. “Doesn’t make sense. If they did so, it would gain them very little. If they tried and failed, they know it would allow us to justify sending patrols against them.”
“Something else, then,” the assistant surmised. “But what?”
“Maybe the Viisiiviisii itself.” Matthias turned thoughtful. “These wouldn’t be the first two skimmer crews to disappear out there. But to lose one sent to find another, that suggests something more than a feral coincidence.”
“So what do we do? Do you want me to try to put together another, better-armed team to go look for the both of them?”
She shook her head. “First of all, I’d like to have a better idea of what might have happened before I send a third skimmer after two. Second, we can’t spare anybody right now anyway, in case the extremist Sakuntala decide to try to test the patience of Commonwealth authority even further. We can’t do anything until things settle down here.”