The Prior entered the chamber on the arm of a young male acolyte. With him were the Klimovs and six spacers who’d been part of the the Princess Cecile’s anchor watch.
“What in bloody blue blazes are they doing here?” Woetjans growled. She started toward the newcomers. “If they think we’re going to lift ship before we find the captain, they can bloody well think again!”
Adele got up and followed, in part to prevent the bosun from doing something they’d all regret. The Klimovs owned the Princess Cecile, and the courts of Cinnabar had a short way with mutineers—however sympathetic the judge might be to the cause of the crime.
“Mistress Mundy!” the Count called cheerfully. “The Prior here tells me that I’ll be able to question the oracle after all! They’re going to prepare me now, and tomorrow I’ll know where the Earth Diamond is!”
He gestured to the couch. The touch of thousands of querents over millennia had blackened patches of the smooth wooden curves.
“Not without guards, you won’t,” Woetjans said. As soon as she knew that the Klimovs weren’t going to demand something she didn’t want to do, they returned to being “us” as opposed to “them,” which was everybody on New Delphi who hadn’t arrived aboard the Princess Cecile.
“Generally the querent is the only person in the room during incubation,” the Prior said to Woetjans and Adele, “but we can screen the couch if you’d like. The querent should have a degree of privacy, but there’s no need for anything that would interfere with your safety or continued work in the library.”
“You got that right,” Woetjans muttered, but even she seemed mollified.
“We’re going to my study to begin the preparation, just down the corridor,” the Prior said. He nodded to the guards. “These members of your crew are of course welcome.”
“Yes, go ahead,” Adele said because the spacers expected her to say something. She bowed to Klimov, hoping to wipe away the frown that’d appeared when he realized how completely his authority had been usurped in this crisis. “Good luck to you, your excellency.”
The Prior, Klimov, and the train of guards shuffled toward a side door. Hilbride waited by the console, holding a rebound octavo volume in one hand and his gun in the other; he looked like a bizarre heraldic figure. Adele turned to him, then realized the Klimovna hadn’t gone off with her husband.
“Mistress?” Adele said.
“Is there anything I can do to help you, Adele?” the Klimovna said.
Adele stared at her, considering the question. At last she said, “Thank you, Valentina, but I don’t believe there’s anything you can do. I appreciate the thought.”
The Klimovna cleared her throat. “I wonder, Adele; do you believe in the power of prayer?”
Adele blinked. “No,” she said. “No, I do not.”
“Then perhaps I will pray,” Valentina said with a sad smile. “So as not to duplicate someone else’s effort, you see.”
She turned and started back toward the door she’d entered by. The guards who’d accompanied her from the Princess Cecile had gone off with the Count and the Prior.
Woetjans stared at her back, then said, “Lamsoe and Griggs—tag along with her. It just might be she’s got the best idea yet, so I’m damned if I want anything to happen to her.”
Adele walked to the console and silently took the book from Hilbride; she’d set him to fetch further volumes while she searched this one for anything useful.
In her heart, she was glad for what Woetjans had said. She’d thought the same thing, but she was too much of a stiff-necked rationalist to say it.
CHAPTER 23
There was a man named Daniel Leary. The Tree was aware of him as it was aware of all the many billions of his species on many thousands of worlds.
The Tree knew.
Gas expanded and coalesced, forming suns and planets. The Tree was present because the mind of the Tree was omnipresent.
Slime formed in the warm seas of Earth and of innumerable other planets. It lived for a time, but as it started to spread vulcanism burned it back into its constituent elements. Life arose again, and this time a rain of cometary debris scoured the world clean. A third time, a fourth time, disaster following disaster; but eventually on Earth and many other worlds life survived. It covered the surface, then stepped across the reaches of space to other suitable environments.