The colonists greeted the landing party with great joy. Ronan moved among the patients like a shadow as Zheng and the colony’s medics began to administer the vaccine in the tiny clinic. Once he knelt beside a little girl racked with shivers and laid his hand on her head in tender benediction. Cynara could have sworn she saw tears in his eyes.
Ronan remained very quiet when they boarded the Pegasus. Dharma was a quick hop by wormhole from Matisse, but Cynara was not looking forward to journey’s end. Ronan’s predicament was very much on her mind. Uncle Jesper or no, Janek would be a very unpleasant opponent. And she’d still have to face the Council for debriefing before the Pegasus left on its next crossing.
Even before that gauntlet was run, her family would be waiting.
As the Pegasus entered the gravity well of Dharma’s sun, small mining ships passed on their way to and from the asteroid belt, while others traveled to the cometary halo at the system’s outermost borders. These vessels lacked the range to reach other star systems, but their work was essential to Dharma’s economy. Dharma itself was metal-poor; the mining operations provided raw materials to be refined and shipped to the Concordat and the Nine Worlds.
The asteroid belt had provided an even greater source of wealth, for there miners had discovered the ancient wreckage of an alien ship—the source of the slingshot drive. The Pegasus, with its unique ability to evade shaauri warships, was Dharma’s greatest hope… and the Trade Council’s deepest secret.
Once in Dharma’s system, the Pegasus would remain in a geostationary orbit above the planet while the Thalassa ferried crew and cargo to and from Dharma’s surface.
Cynara, Janek, Kord, Basterra, Lizbet, Ronan, and a half-dozen Dharman crewmen would accompany the first cargo pallets to the planet’s sole spaceport. Other crew members who wished to take leave could do so after the first contingent returned to duty.
Adumbe stayed aboard the Pegasus, as did Chief Antiniou. She’d requested certain parts for additional repairs to the drive; doubtless the Council would send its few Concordat-trained technicians to verify her work. Cynara almost regretted that she wouldn’t be there to see the engineer’s scathing reaction to their meddling.
Zheng had chosen to stay with Gunter until he was transported to the hospital in Elsinore. Lizbet Montague would probably have preferred to remain aboard as well, but she was the best qualified shuttle pilot, and Cynara never missed an opportunity to remind Basterra and his cronies that a lowborn woman could do something they couldn’t.
Always wary of unsupervised Dharman males, Kord accompanied Basterra and his men to the Thalassa’s cargo bay, ostensibly to offer assistance with unloading. Janek kept to himself, but Cynara had no doubt that he’d already sent his own messages to the surface.
Once Lizbet had the shuttle undocked and under way, Cynara invited Ronan to observe planetfall on the screen in the passenger compartment.
The scene was always the same, and always different. First one saw the crystal blue of Dharma’s interconnecting oceans and seas, obscured here and there by banks of clouds, and then the brown and green of islands. Archipelagos appeared like paint spattered from a brush, all quite beautiful and deceptively peaceful.
As they approached Novaterra, the island that harbored the city of Cynara’s birth, the modern buildings and landing fields of Dharma’s sole spaceport became visible in the distance. It was no accident that die spaceport lay within the jurisdiction of one of the planet’s wealthiest and most influential burgher-lords, Magnus Casnar D’Accorso of Elsinore.
The shuttle skimmed over the coastal waters, giving the observers a clear view of oceangoing vessels of every shape and size. The old seaport was still very much in use, for trade between islands was still largely a matter of surface transportation, supplemented by Dharma’s small airfleet.
The D’Accorso palace stood on a rocky outcrop overlooking Elsinore’s chaotic sprawl. Sunlight struck sparks from the palace’s golden roofs and turrets, growing more distinct as the shuttle made its final approach.
“This city is your home?” Ronan asked, standing very close at her shoulder.
“Yes. Dharma’s traditional government consists of city-states, generally one to each smaller island and several on the greater. Elsinore is an exception—it’s the sole city-state on Novaterra, the largest island in this hemisphere.”