But the face that appeared on the comscreen was not Rafik’s but Calum Baird’s. Hafiz placed himself in front of the communications officer so that his own face and voice would appear on Baird’s screen.
“Ah, senior and ugliest wife of my nephew, how goes it?” Hafiz asked, delighting to see the color rise above Baird’s red beard at the mention of their first meeting, when Baird, as well as Acorna, had worn veils and a long gown to promote the idea that Rafik had become one of the fundamentalist polygamist Neo-Hadathians.
“Not so bad, oh robber baron who makes All Baba’s forty thieves look like rank amateurs,” Baird responded. “But I regret to tell you that Rafik had to go to Rushima. Dr. Hoa had a spot of trouble he had to discuss with him.”
“In that case, don’t wait up for us, my friend. We will go to Rushima instead for I must speak with my nephew personally. Ah-Baird?”
“Yes?”
“How is my nephew’s junior wife? Has anyone heard from her or the other members of the harem?”
At first Baird looked puzzled and then he said, carefully, “We last heard from them as they were leaving this quadrant, about twenty days ago. They were all well and uh-looking forward to being united with their families.”
“I see. And Baird?”
“Yes?”
“Your last cruise with the junior wife-would your plans have brought you to the destination you wished? Did the other harem members give you a clue?”
“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, they did. We would have come within-uh-the anteroom of the seraglio, so to speak. Why?”
“Oh, no reason. Just curious. A small wager I had with my own navigator. Nothing of any importance.”
“Right,” Baird said, in a tone that clearly meant “pull the other one.”
“Shahrazad out,” Hafiz said cheerfully.
“Have a nice voyage,” Baird replied sweetly and with an exaggeratedly effeminate wiggle of his fingers. His bushy eyebrows “were twisted with concern, however, and Hafiz knew that the Caledonian understood something of the nature of the business the Shahrazal had with Rafik.
The Condor contained certain modifications that were not purely born of mechanical necessity. A bank of multifrequency scanners was arrayed directly in front on the control console. Next to the cargo, these scanners were the most important item contained on the ship, aside from the captain and first mate.
Becker was constantly keeping a weather eye and ear open for distress signals, blips where there shouldn’t be blips, homing beacons, any sort of indication that some vessel, station, planetoid, or whatever might now be or have been in trouble in the recent past. Of course, Becker had a first aid kit and was perfectly willing to assist survivors if necessary, but his interest was not solely humanitarian -or alienatarian, as the case might be. He simply wanted to know where trouble had been, where vessels or settlements might be abandoned, leaving behind equipment and other good stuff for an enterprising scavenger. His scanning devices were aided by other sensors that detected the physical presence of largish items in the Condor’s vicinity and, just as usefully, detected the absence of the usual detritus, an indication that one of the useful holes or folds in space might be at hand. While some of these things could be plotted, others sometimes occurred where they never had before. “Space moths,” Becker Senior had postulated. “Damn space moths been chewin’ in this sector again. Shall we see where this one goes, boy?”
It wasn’t that it hadn’t ever occurred to Theophilus Becker that he might guide the ConSor into one of these little byways in space that made life jolly for astrophysicists and never find his way out. It was that neither he nor Jonas usually had an actual schedule or anything so he felt free to poke around. While it was certainly possible they could become lost in infinity, as the old vids were always postulating, the senior Becker held the opinion that there was a pattern and a predictability to these wrinkles in the space/time continuum within a given area. It was an opinion he hadn’t shared with much of anyone but Jonas, who figured what was good enough for Dad was good enough for him and took the same cavalier attitude toward wormholes and such, new or used.