Chiddy was still dithering, shifting weight from one set of legs to another, upper body twisting, eyes swiveling.
Benita took Chiddy’s pincers in her hands, got his full attention and told him that both he and Vess must depart immediately. Chiddy finally focused on her and agreed, though he wasn’t his usual self at all.
“Pistach selves will find a large ship somewhere and commandeer it in the name of the Inkleozese!” said Her Exactitude, sounding very magisterial and imperative. “What time will this take?”
“Four days, minimum,” said Chiddy. “Four Earth days.”
The ladies bowed, Benita bowed, everyone bowed, Chiddy left, the ladies left, except for Her Exactitude.
This personage came to Benita’s side. “Aside from our providing you with the recorded voice you require, is there anything else we can do to assist you, Benita? You bear much responsibility of a suddenly imposed sort. Such surprising burdens are sometimes difficult to uphold.”
Benita thanked her and started to say, no, nothing you can do for me right now, but then she thought of something.
“Ma’am, Your Exactitude, I apologize if what I am about to ask is rude or impossible or simply undesirable on aesthetic grounds…” She stopped, clenched her jaw, sighed deeply and went on to make her request.
She seemed amused as she responded, “I will take it up with my people. If they have no objection, we will be happy to grant your plea.”
They made mutual farewells. The Inkleozese vanished just as Chiddy and Vess often did, no beam-me-up sparkles, no dissolving into space, just poof, gone. Benita had decided it was some sort of transport commonly used in the Confederation. She did not spend much time thinking about it, however, for it was ten o’clock, she had had little lunch and no supper and was desperate for both food and sleep. Sleep aboard the ship had not been restful. She thought it possible that she had dreamed during much of it: conflict dreams, terror dreams, like those she had had long ago, as a young wife, when she would wake with her heart thundering in her ears, so frightened she couldn’t move. Night terrors, the doctor said. Fairly common. Meaningless, so far as anyone knew.
Well. A lot of things were meaningless so far as anyone knew. A year before, what would she have thought of an ancient invasion of the lands of the Jaupati? Would she have cared at all? If she had heard of a rebellion among the critters of Quirk, or of a Fresco cleaning, or if someone had foreseen her being selected as an intermediary . . .
Before she lay down, she called Chad, who sounded every bit as weary as she did.
“Well?” she asked.
“We’ve got seven definite yesses so far. A whole bunch of others will call back. The best ones tell us we’ll need at least eighteen or twenty, and a few more wouldn’t hurt. The press got the preacher.”
“The right one?”
“Yes, the right one, plus a pinch hitter, just in case. The preacher was a little worried about the language barrier, but I said we will overcome, one way or another.”
“Don’t forget emergency rations, supplies, you know. We won’t be eating Pistach food or using Pistach beds, and we’ll be there at least a day, maybe longer.”
“I know. Are they getting a ship?”
“The Inkleozese told them they had to.”
“How long before it gets here?”
“Four days, minimum, and I’m going to sleep two of them,” she said.
“Both of us,” groaned Chad.
When she lay down on her bed, Sasquatch curled up next to her, his back against her legs, just to be sure she didn’t wander off again. She fell asleep thinking of Carlos out there among the stars. Maybe he’d decide since nobody cared, he’d swim to shore.
And, she thought, firmly, decisively, without her usual vacillation, it wasn’t up to her whether he did or not.
The Cabal—TUESDAY
A day or so after Benita left for Pistach-home, the members of Morse’s cabal, sans Morse himself, had taken themselves down to the farm in Virginia where they’d set up camp in the house and waited for word from the predators. It was their opinion that though the predators had pretended to leave Earth, they wouldn’t go far, and the best thing to do was wait at the farm for them to show up. They had been waiting for almost a week, and were not the better tempered for it.