“And meanwhile we’ll have failed, and be done for.” Once more Kenmuir had a sense of fingers closing on him.
Aleka struck them aside. “But you have a way, senor. You must, or you wouldn’t have spoken.”
“Yes,” Matthias answered, and abruptly his voice sounded almost young. “A mad way, a wild hunt, but it might work, it barely might work.”
Understanding flashed into Kenmuir. “Kestrel!” he yelled.
Aleka stared at him, “What?”
He could not stay seated, he leaped up and paced, to and fro, arousal going through him in surges like the sea waves out beyond the mists. “The spacecraft, the relic, Kyra Davis’s ship. We keep it always ready to lift—”
She gasped.
Matthias’s tones quickened: “Including spacesuits, modern self-adjusting ones, EV\ drive packs, and everything else.” Otherwise the symbolism would have been hollow. Suddenly Kenmuir realized, fully, why the Trothdom had fought, and paid a high price in things yielded during negotiations, for the right to maintain an antimatter-powered vessel on Earth. Kestrel was not the first sacred object in human history. Of course, any launch was forbidden. He heard through his blood: “A short flight, if you can pilot her, Captain Kenmuir.”
“I can study it up,” he said, faintly amazed at the levelness of his voice. “You have vivifer material about that model, so we won’t have to tap the public database, don’t you?”
“But the whole world will see!” Aleka exclaimed.
Matthias grinned. “Right. Something that spectacular can’t be kept entirely off the news, and the Teramind itself will be hard put to explain it away.”
Sobriety slid into Kenmuir’s passion. “Unless Venator’s service heads me off in time.”
“They have craft with far greater capabilities, true, and they’ll react fast,” Matthias said. “But you’ll take them by surprise, and they won’t know where you’re. bound till you’ve landed. Then you’ll have to be quick, oh, yes.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. Kenmuir laughed aloud. “We’ll plan the operation. You can get data on what Authority units are currently stationed where or in which orbits, can’t you? That’s public information. And I’ve got an idea about how ta. keep them from silencing me once they’ve caught me. Come, let’s get busy!”