Sharon Lee - - Prologue

Win Ton paused, poured himself more tea from the pot, appearing somewhat steadier.

" Bechimo did not allow them aboard. When they attempted to force entry, it resisted, inflicting minor injuries as a warning. When they tried something more forceful, it wiped out the boarding party."

Theo blinked.

"Had you programmed the defenses?"

"Until now, recall, I have not had the study of antique Terran ships close to my heart."

"But how do you know this, about the landing party?"

"The survivors decided that what had worked once, would do so again. They came looking for me, Theo—and they found me."

Theo looked to the hall in horror. Win Ton raised his hands and signed heavily— not those , wincing as he did.

"I escaped, but they know that there were two keys. They believe that the second is still with the ship." He paused. "I believe I convinced them of that."

She sipped her tea, which was cold; sipped again and put the empty cup on the table.

"Thank you," she said, because she felt she had to acknowledge his last statement. She took a breath. "How do you have your key with you, if you were captured?"

He sighed. "It is Old Tech, and it is imprinted on me. It returned itself to me as it was able." He used his chin to point at it, there on the table between them. "There, take it up."

She picked it up, feeling a sense of relaxation, of welcome—and something more. Her key warmed agreeably between her breasts, and she heard a buzz, as if the captain's key was . . . acknowledging the copilot's.

"I feel it," she murmured, hardly aware that she spoke aloud.

"No difficulty?" Win Ton asked. "No headache?"

She shook her head, and put his key back on the table, not really wanting to. Her fingers moved gently— all fine better good.

He sighed, quite loudly. "May I hold yours?"

Reluctantly she drew the necklace, and handed to him.

He held it in his fist a moment, then returned it across his open palm, face gone Liaden bland.

"What's wrong?" she asked, holding the chain in her hand.

"Yes, Pilot, that is the question. The answer is like the birds you mentioned, Theo, the gooselets. That key, it has imprinted on you. I did not think—but there, that is given, is it not?" He moved his head, maybe he meant to shake it. "You not only hold the captain's key, Theo, but the key has also been imprinted. Bechimo accepts you as her captain."

Thirty-Eight

Conference Room Able

Pilots Guildhall

Volmer

"Theo?"

The chain was bright, the odd-shaped pendant familiar and comforting. In fact, so comforting that she was inclined to accept Win Ton's tale of Old Tech imprinting; the key almost radiated comfort . . . which was enough to set her teeth on edge when she thought about it. Theo glanced between her chain and his, seeing not much visible to set them apart. What would happen, she wondered, if they switched keys or got them mixed up by accident?

Win Ton's voice was more insistent this time, a little stronger. That was better—he almost sounded like his old self for a moment.

"Theo?"

She looked up into his face across the scarred table, feeling the smile trying to twitch at the corners of her mouth despite the annoyance that informed her shoulders.

"What am I supposed to do, Win Ton? You're not looking up to sitting a board and I—I don't know where this ship is , I haven't the first clue where to find it. You knew where it was, and now you don't; now you know who the pilot is but not where she can board it! What a pair of First and Second we'd make for Bechimo , eh? A pilot who wouldn't recognize her ship and a Second—well, if I'm the captain, what am I supposed to do with you?"

"Theo, I am a Scout. A Scout on duty . . ."

"How can you be on duty, Win Ton? Look at you!"

That hit him like a blow; if he'd been feeling stronger she was afraid she'd taken it all back from him with an ill-timed word.

He bowed one of his consequential bows, and spoke with eyes down, voice low.

"Pilot, I doubt anyone is more aware than I of my state."

"Then surely you know you need more than a pilot for a missing ship!"

"Theo, I am here to meet with a . . ." He hesitated, the pause stretching; and Theo couldn't tell if it was his vocabulary or his attention that was failing him. He raised his hands, fingers stuttering through something she couldn't catch. He drew a hard breath and lowered his hands, pressing palms flat.

"My team is here to meet with a person of special knowledge, one of those fringe type who exist, but who are rarely mentioned in reports or acknowledged in public. This one fell heir to a title belonging to one who aided in the building of Bechimo . An owner—this we think not. Yet there are features on the Bechimo . . . that this one has particular knowledge of. Features which speak to my thriving again, Theo. Which speak to my survival."

Dread flooded her and she dared to lean toward him, reaching toward his hands pressed against the table.

"Survival?"

"My captors insisted on my assistance, Theo. They assumed they could compel it quickly enough that I would be in their thrall when they recovered the ship."

"I don't understand, Win Ton."

He nodded a firm Terran yes . "No, you do not. May I have some tea, please? It is well chosen."

"Thank you."

She poured again for them both, hands flippantly presenting continue at will as soon as they had each sipped from their fresh cup.

Win Ton allowed his mouth to curl into the veriest ghost of a smile.

"This is not easy for any of us. The crew that travels with me does so to keep me alive insofar as they may, because of the problems I have caused, and the solution only I may effect. If I die, well then, Bechimo would be free in the galaxy with no guidance at all from a Scout, and with the danger that it may take some other group of people—these not attempting a forced entry—into dislike and eliminate them. Only my key, and yours, stand between this ghost ship becoming released to do whatever bidding it gives to itself."

"My key—" she began.

He shook his head. "Your key—is not widely known. It is in fact, underreported."

"I still am missing pieces of this . . . why can you not be cured? Why am I so bound up in this?"

"The melant'i of the situation is complex. We have sat at the same board, and because of my overstep, we sit at a new and strange board in absentia. Worse, and more complex, is the mix of the Old Tech in this, which inspires Headquarters to lend energy to a scheme depending on the trustworthiness of scoundrels and the very technology the Scouts wish to dispense with entirely."

The tea was having a bracing effect; his voice was clearer now.

"After my report reached a dishonest agent within Headquarters and was noted, waves happened. While the actual administrator was attempting to route me to a safe place to be questioned, this group, this Department, captured me and inflicted torture in the hope that I could, and would, give them Bechimo . They used Old Technology and new in service of their goal, but I was truly ignorant. Alas, the Old Tech they wished to embrace did as Old Tech so often does; it moved to its own whim, or to a design so grand it is beyond us all.

"In the course of this . . . questioning, I was injected, on purpose, with a slow-growing set of nanobugs. They—the rogues—had a controller, and could make me sicker, and better, or so they thought, and they used them to change functions, and even to hide and replace certain DNA, they claimed."

Theo kept the tone even, and only succeeded in making herself tenser as she heard her own words. "They were wrong? If you're sick to being in danger of your life . . ."