There was still a good chance that the mri would turn on him and kill him; he had reckoned that from the beginning but it was not the way that he had known them. If it would happen, it would proceed from the depth of some mri logic that these two mri had never shown him, even bitterly provoked.
It was long past time for regrets: there was little time left for anything he would do. He wiped the back of his hand across his blurring eyes he had napped when he could these past four days, but he had not slept in a bed, had not dared to, not with matters aboard in a state of flux, with two regul ships loose in the system and a nervous human ship tagging him.
He settled in at the console, called forth data from the instruments that flashed their busy sequences, saw that they were prepared for transition, their guidance system locked upon its reference star and prepared to make the move as soon as Fox’s other systems informed the computer that they were far enough from the nearest sizable mass. It could be as much as a day: automatic tolerances were wider than they had to be. It would surely not be more.
This far out, Kesrith was lost in sunglare, and red Arain itself was assuming its proper insignificance on a stellar scale, a mere boundary beacon for men, marking as it did the edge of human territories, a star orbited by one scantly habitable world and several that were not.
And on the one screen was the mocknp that still showed the regul further out than they should be after such a time: they were making a cautious approach. He did not concern himself with regul position: they were far across the system and no part of what occupied him.
On another screen appeared the tiny object that was Saber’s rider Santiago, his faithful shadow.
It was closer than it was wont to be.
He bit at his lip, his heart quickening, for he did not want to break silence or to start a dispute with his escort: the mri were at large; but the fact of the mri impelled him to rapid consultation with the computer, and he swore to himself and reached for the com switch.
“Santiago,” he signaled it. “Santiago, this is Fox. Request you draw back a space. You’re in my scan and your mass is registering on my instruments. You are preventing jump.”
There was a long pause. “We copy,” Santiago answered, and seemed to pause for consultation. “Fox,” came a new voice, “Zahadi here. Advise you we have difficulties developing.”
Santiago’s captain. A chill of foreboding went through him. “Explain,” he asked of Zahadi.
“Fox,” the answer came back in due course, “advise you neither regul ship has been receptive to approach. Hulagh has shuttled up to station. Situation there is extremely tense. Hulagh has demanded boarding on regul vessel Siggrav, Stavros’ latest message as follows: Boarding will be granted. All conditions with probe mission are unchanged. Proceed. End message as received.”
“Santiago, advise you we are prepared to jump. Situation elsewhere irrelevant. You are preventing jump. Please move out of scan.”
“We copy,” Zahadi replied.
There was a long silence. Duncan waited, watching the scan. There was no change. He repeated the message, irritably.
There was still no response. Santiago still hung within scan.
He flipped the contact again and this time swore at Santiago and all aboard her: a condemned man was allowed that liberty. “Get out of my scan,” he repeated. “Santiago, get out of my way.”
Again there was no answer. A chill sense of something utterly amiss was over him now; Santiago still remained, stubbornly using its mass to prevent him he was sure of it now.
Stavros’ orders, a leash on a ship Stavros could not fully trust, deliberate delay.
And the mri would come. He reckoned in his mind what would happen when Melein arrived down that corridor with the dusei to enforce her wishes. Niun might wait to search for his weapons; they both might wait a time, biding the return of their strength: Niun was hardly able to walk, and perhaps Melein could not. It was too much to hope that they would not intervene.