It only remained to see whether Stavros could deal with the regul. It was highly possible that he was going to succeed.
Phenomenal luck, phenomenal intelligence, a memory that missed nothing: there was nothing that escaped Stavros’ notice, and his apparent gambles were less chance than calculated hazard. While extending one hand toward the regul, another directed Fox, covering that possibility also, trusting no one absolutely.
Duncan frowned, began to relax to the familiar sights and sounds of the ship unaccustomed leisure, to know that he was not dropping down to combat, that Kesrith’s ruddy crescent did not represent threat, but shelter. He settled into Fox as into his natural environment, at home in ships, in the dark worlds, in the jungle and deserts and barrenness of humanless worlds, in freefall and heavy g and every other place where survival was not reasonable. He had known from the time that he had been shunted into special services, in a wartime confusion of transports and destructing orders from faceless men of Stavros’ kind, that he would end in some such place, light years removed from the safety of Stavros’ king. Stavros at this distance became only one of a long succession.
No one special.
At this, distance, from now on, there was only Sten Duncan.
On his scan he saw that something else had occurred, that there was another ship free of station. It was Santiago, an in-system rider, armed, but not star-capable.
He absorbed that knowledge calmly enough, a little resentful that he had not been asked whether such an escort was wanted; but with regul in the system, he did not object to it.
And he looked at the deck beside him, where in a padded support rode a silver ovoid, strangely unmarred after all the accidents that had befallen it. It did not look ever to have tumbled among the rocks at Sil’athen, ever to have been opened and examined. Its surface was unscratched.
But it was no longer unique. It had been duplicated in holos and might be duplicated in more tangible detail one day at ZoroasterTmore elaborate facilities, a museum curiosity for humans. Duncan reached down and touched it with his fingers, feeling the smoothness and the chill of it, drew his hand back and took a last check of the screens, where Santiago seemedlocked onto his track.
He ate, the ship proceeding under automatic, silent and safe from alarms. The scan took in Santiago at its now accustomed distance, and the machines recognized each other. There was no other within threatening range. There was leisure finally for human needs.
And there was leisure, too, for beginning to reckon with the mri, who rode, unconscious, in the ship’s labs.
He walked the corridors of Fox, checking to be sure that everything was in order, that nothing had come adrift in the shift from station operations to free flight. Units had reoriented themselves; the transition had gone smoothly. The dusei had ridden through it without visible difficulty: he observed them by remote, unwilling to enter that place now, disturbed as he was, and tense. The mri too rested safely, in their separate quarters. The medics had not taken them from their au-tomeds.
Duncan did so, first the delicate, slight she’pan of the mri, Melein, arranging her into a more comfortable rest on a lab cot. Her delicate limbs felt of bone and loose flesh, appallingly slight; her eyes were sunken and stained with shadow. She did not respond when he touched her thin face and smoothed her bronze mane into order, trying to make her beautiful again. He was afraid for her, watching her breathe, seeing how each breath seemed an effort for her. He began to fear that he was going to lose her.
And in desperation he adjusted the temperature in the compartment downward, marginally reduced the pressure to something approximating Kesrith. He was not sure no one was what conditions were natural for the mri. It was only certain that they had less discomfort in Kesrithi atmosphere than did humans or regul.
Melein’s breathing became easier. After a long time of sitting in the compartment, watching, he dared leave her; and in another compartment he opened the unit to remove Niun.