The complex doors slid apart and the rest of Zara’s team moved quickly through the warming air to the capsule, eager to be away before Clarf’s sun rose to give them a more intense sample of its power.
Zara’s natural buoyancy sustained her during the awkward moment when the others joined her inside the capsule.
Good luck – all of you! Keep in touch! said Laria.
Granddad says I’m to put you aboard the Columbia.
Thanks, Zara, Kincaid added.
Then the capsule was `ported to join the Second Expeditionary Force and Squadron B which hurtled on its way to Talavera, third planet of the Tau Ceti VI system.
When the generators wound down from thrusting the large carrier to the point where David of Betelgeuse and his son, Perry, could `port it the rest of the way, Kincaid sat up and slid his feet to the floor.
Keenly aware that Zara’s revelation about the stinggpzzt had been a breakthrough point for her Tower partner, Laria pushed herself upright and faced him.
`There should have been some sort of announcement about such a reaction to Hiver stuff, shouldn’t there, Laria?’ he asked in a reasonable tone of voice.
Behind that, Laria could almost hear his mind shouting with relief a boiling anger that he hadn’t been briefed on that one very important detail and a roiling of other ancillary regrets and recriminations he might never vocalize.
`The stinggpzzt Mild words to describe the effect the damned stuff has on the unsuspecting! His mental tone was savage.
Shut up and listen, `Kincaid,’ and Laria ended up speaking aloud in the tone of a teacher whose pupil continually interrupts. Kincaid gritted his teeth and glared at her. ` has been until very recently limited to Deneb which is the only human planet to have received Hiver attentions. Probably the only one that ever fought back successfully.
True, all the Primes involved were aware of it when my grandparents focused the two merges that destroyed the Hive ship.
But over the ensuing decades, no-one has, thankfully, had much contact with Hivers.
`You,’ and she pointed her finger at him, `were by way of being an experiment in FT&T communication possibilities when your squadron was diverted to follow one of the outbound spheres. It wasn’t anticipated that you would be asked to probe Hiver-occupied planets and the Fleet still doesn’t half-believe stinggpzzt is valid. Then there was so much going on what with the Great Sphere being found, then the queen pod – when, it is true …` She held up her hand when he had a cogent interruption to make. ` more people became aware of this reaction but not anyone directly in touch with Squadron C. Granted?’ He nodded, his anger slowly subsiding, but not, Laria noticed, some of his other conflised and roiling emotions. `Then the Xh-33
happened and the focus was off Squadron C until Earth Prime reassigned you here.
`When you arrived, you were in no condition for any debriefing, so it never occurred to me you didn’t know, hadn’t taken into consideration, the good al’ stinggpzzt that gives every Talent the willies.’ `I thought I was going crazy as well as everything else,’ he said, holding their eye contact.
`I’m not just your Tower chirr, Kincaid. I’m your friend. So are Lionasha and Vanteer because we’re already a team. Much more so than we were with those two misfits my grandfather thought I’d be able to work with.’ Laria give an indignant hufE `I’m not a misfit?’ Kincaid asked drolly.
`You can be as gay as Dick’s hat-band in your private life, but you fit so much better with me, Lio and Van that we’ve done everything we can to ease you in `Even to taking me to Aurigae?’ Laria caught the thread of indignant suspicion and made a face at him.
`You needed a change and were well enough to enjoy a vacation. It was Granddad’s idea, not mine. And he was trying not to be too obvious with his matchmaking.’ Kincaid sat straight up in protest. `He knows I’m homo?’ Laria laughed. `Sure he does. We all do, but he wanted Flavia paired with Thian and I could have told him she was far more interested in Jesper Ornigo.