“Animus against me?” Klimov shrieked. “Animus against Cinnabar, you mean!”
“Not at all,” Adele said calmly, setting her data unit on the edge of her console and bringing out the wands. “Bertram was furious that you’d cheated him—outcheated him, I gather—at cards. Reading between the lines, I suspect that he was gambling with government funds and that he expects very serious personal consequences on his return to Pleasaunce unless he gets the money back.”
“That’s a lie!” Klimov said.
“Georgi!” shouted his wife, her voice rising. She stepped in front of the Count, her hands pushing him back. She shot Adele a glance over her shoulder; there was real fear in her eyes. “He didn’t mean that!”
It struck Adele, standing as still as a deck stanchion, that Valentina knew more than Adele had ever told her. There were plenty of people aboard who might’ve talked, of course. The Sissies were proud of their Signals Officer: the lady who’d as soon shoot you as look at you, who knew everything, and who never missed. . . .
“Count Klimov,” Adele said in a general silence of fear, “I’d sent a prepared search signal into the Goldenfels’ computer during the banquet. Yesterday evening and night I had time to analyze the results while we were waiting for Captain Bertram to attack. I’d be pleased to show you the information in both raw and processed form.”
She cleared her throat. “Now,” she went on. “I believe you started to say something which I was too abstracted to hear. If you’d care to repeat your statement, we can proceed as the situation dictates.”
Valentina pinched her husband’s lips closed and whispered viciously into his left ear, watching Adele sidelong. Klimov stared at Adele, nodded, and then moved his wife’s hand away from his mouth.
“Your pardon, Lady Mundy,” he said, bowing. “I’ve completely forgotten what I started to say. Knowing me, it was probably something very foolish anyway.”
“Yes,” said Valentina, glaring at her husband. “It was.”
Daniel cleared his throat, his eyes on a bulkhead, then turned to the Klimovs with a smile as though seeing them for the first time today. “That’s all in the past, of course,” he said, “but it does bring up an associated point. I don’t believe the Goldenfels will be pursuing us any longer—”
Adele glanced at the Klimovs. While in their stateroom they could’ve accessed the visuals of the Alliance vessel rolling over on its side, but she wasn’t sure they’d done so.
“—but other Alliance vessels may be searching for them. Any such ship that arrives on Morzanga and learns what happened will become a new problem for us. I suggest that we not leave via the ports from which we arrived.”
“What choice is there?” the Klimovna asked. “A cul-de-sac, you called this.”
“Yes, with the exception of the passage Commander Bergen traversed,” Daniel said, nodding. “For part of the way, that route requires travelling between rather than through bubble universes. I don’t honestly believe anyone but Uncle Stacey could have opened the route. I hope—I believe—that using his log books, I can retrace it, but I won’t pretend there isn’t serious risk.”
“You think John Tsetzes tried this passage and was destroyed, not so?” Valentina said.
Daniel nodded. “I think that’s possible,” he said. “After finding the copy of the Earth Diamond on Morzanga and no evidence that Tsetzes ever left this cul-de-sac, I think in fact that it’s very probable. We have the advantage of Uncle Stacey’s logs over him, of course.”
The Count looked at his wife, then back to Daniel. “If it’s so risky,” he said querulously, “why would we do it?”
“Because the risk is less than that of being shot by the people you and your card tricks put about our heads, Georgi!” Valentina said; summing up the situation in much the way Adele would’ve done herself, and in an equally peevish tone. “That’s what you mean, Daniel, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean,” Daniel agreed. “I’m not seriously concerned about meeting Alliance ships here in the North, but . . . this is a lawless region at the best of times. An Alliance vessel which found the Goldenfels and offered a reward on Todos Santos would get many takers. Whereas if we first make landfall at New Delphi, the planet with the tree oracle you know, I think we’ll have outdistanced potential trouble.”