The big mobile command post arrived at the Albina Valley warden’s lodge forty minutes after Chaing discovered the diaper, roaring along the chewed-up mud of the track. It was followed by a long procession of regiment vehicles, bringing a lot of troopers who had just been ordered to stop their sweep of the Naxian Valley.
Colonel Hokianga had spent most of the intervening time in the Terrain Truck, issuing orders through the radio operator. The vehicles he’d dispatched across roads and tracks beyond the lake were told to make for the next junction and establish a roadblock, locking down the whole area’s traffic. Nothing was to pass, and use of deadly force was authorized.
Chaing spent the time going through the lodge. Picking through the contents of the wicker basket in the bedroom wasn’t fun, but he laid out the tissues and diapers on a table in the living room. The diapers were a kind of shiny absorbent substance that he’d never seen before—which helped confirm that the baby had been brought to this world in the space machine.
With that settled in his own mind, he set about examining the living room. The two bookcases were large, which wasn’t entirely unexpected for a man who lived completely by himself. Chaing started pulling books off the shelves. Nearly a third of them were folders containing mimeographed copies of technical manuals, mostly mathematics texts and electrical systems.
“Find every machine and electrical device,” he told the troopers. “I want to inspect them. He must have been building some kind of gadget.”
“Communicating with the alien?” Hokianga asked.
“There’s no such thing as coincidence,” Chaing said automatically. Even so the man he’d met in this lodge earlier didn’t strike him as some kind of Commonwealth secret agent. But then what does one look like? And if he is, then he managed to fool me easily.
Chaing fetched a screwdriver from the work shed on the side of the lodge and started to take the radio apart. He wasn’t an expert, but the valves and capacitors inside didn’t look like they had any other function. The troopers started to pile up the power tools they’d found.
He’d opened up about half of them and was just unscrewing a big air compressor when the mobile command post showed up. It parked in front of the lodge, along with a dozen support vehicles. The chief communications officer plugged the command post into the sweep-coms box. Every farm and isolated home on Bienvenido had one. It gave regiments multiple telephone lines to the local exchange, enabling them to talk directly to their county headquarters, allowing them to coordinate sweeps with district authorities and reserve platoons.
“I’ll call in a Fall alert to headquarters,” Hokianga said when the communications officer gave him the thumbs-up.
“No,” Chaing said. “This is now a nest alert. It’ll provide us a plausible cover story and gives us the authority to call in the sheriffs.”
For a moment he thought Hokianga might argue, but the colonel gave him a tight nod and made the call.
Regiments were tasked with finding and eliminating Faller eggs—motionless targets. But a nest alert, with Fallers moving about, put the PSR in charge.
The plan he and Hokianga came up with would see sheriff’s offices in every town out to a hundred kilometers from Albina Valley establish roadblocks on the major roads that evening. Off-duty sheriffs were to be alerted overnight; they would then set up more roadblocks at dawn. Once that was organized, a second tier of sheriffs, from a hundred to two hundred kilometers away, were to repeat the procedure. They would have to be run by the regiment headquarters in conjunction with the Opole PSR office; that size of operation was just too big for the mobile command center.
Also at dawn, the troopers would start sweeping the entire Albina Valley.
“He’s gone,” Hokianga protested. “They should be helping extend the roadblocks.”
“He fooled me once,” Chaing replied. “This time we are going to be completely certain.”
After that it was the bad phone call. The communications staff managed to track down Stonal at the Opole Air Force squadron aerodrome, where a transport plane was assigned to take him and his consignment back to Varlan. Chaing accepted the telephone handset from the operator with a sinking sensation; the wretched thing felt as heavy as lead.
“What is it?” Stonal asked.
“Sir, your suspicions were correct. The machine had someone in it.” Chaing closed his eyes, waiting—the pause lasted several seconds.
“Do you have them in custody?”
“Not yet, no. Sir, I believe it’s a baby.” He didn’t want to say anything more; it was a regiment telephone line, but he had no idea how many people could overhear the conversation.
“A baby?”
“Yes, sir. An Eliter called Florian is on the run with it.”
“Florian? Isn’t that the forest warden in the next valley?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought you visited him?”
Chaing grimaced. “I did, sir. But the baby was hidden when I was here, and he misled me completely; by the time I realized what had happened, he’d gone. I apologize for the mistake. I’ve instigated a countywide nest alert.”
“I see.”
Chaing waited, wondering if he was going to be relieved of duty on the spot. Perhaps Hokianga would get a phone call and the troopers would line up in a firing squad…
“Who else was involved, Captain?” Stonal asked.
“I’m at the warden’s lodge now, sir. We’re examining the whole place. So far there’s no evidence of anyone else working with Florian. He was in the Naxian Valley last night rustling sheep. It’s looking like his encounter was purely chance.”
“If this visitor is from where we think, then Florian must not reach the radical Eliter movement. That is imperative. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. So what is your course of action?”
“It’s unlikely he’ll head south; that’s into the mountains. But I’ve ordered the colonel to deploy the regiment in a sweep through Albina Valley starting at first light. Florian’s Openland is missing, so the regiment and sheriffs are coordinating roadblocks to the north. Regimental vehicles will patrol all night, trying to spot him on the roads.”
“How long has he been a warden?”
“Seven years.”
“He’ll know all the back routes in the area.”
“Yes, sir. But if he uses them, he’ll be traveling slowly. The roadblocks are being set up for a hundred kilometers outside the Albina Valley. Tomorrow I’ll extend them farther.”
“Do it tonight, Captain.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else?”
“I’m going to requisition all the Opole PSR office’s files on this Florian, find out who his friends and family are. Who he’s likely to turn to for help.”
“Proceed, Captain. The Air Force plane should take eight hours to reach Varlan. I want a progress report as soon as I arrive. Don’t use radio to contact the plane unless it’s urgent.”
“Yes, sir.” Chaing took a moment to steady his nerves after the phone went dead. “Get me the Opole PSR office,” he told the operator.
His name was Minskal, and according to Yaki he was the leader of the three-strong section seven team Stonal had brought to Opole to monitor Captain Chaing. Jenifa stood beside the dresser in his hotel room, with her bare back pressed to the wall, and watched him screwing the teenage Eliter girl. For a forty-two-year-old, he had plenty of stamina.
The honey trap had been closed perfectly. It shouldn’t have been, not on anyone from section seven. But Jenifa had been wearing her PSR uniform when she and the Eliter girl had walked into the hotel bar where Minskal was sitting by himself. With Chaing called out to the countryside so unexpectedly, the team had been left with nothing to do. Minskal was killing time with a drink and a news sheet while he waited for instructions.
Jenifa chose the table next to him. He knew her, of course; that helped close the trap. The junior corporal who had been in Frikal Alley, who had obediently excluded any mention of a strange creature from her report (the section seven team had checked the records division), the corporal who had slept with Chaing (they’d been watching his flat). A good little PSR agent. No risk—and her young friend was very pretty, too.
There were smiles. A few tentative words exchanged, quickly becoming a conversation. Drinks were ordered.
An hour later they were upstairs in Minskal’s hotel room. It was a suite, of course, befitting someone of his status, with a high bay window in the bedroom. Jenifa made sure the curtains were open, allowing bright afternoon sunlight to splash across the bed. Then she and the Eliter girl put on a show undressing each other that matched any you could find in Opole’s private clubs.
Jenifa took him first, delighting in using her strength to excite him, and through that to control him. Her only regret was that he didn’t realize how much she’d played him, how superior she was—but that knowledge would come later, and she would get to see his stricken realization.
When she finished with Minskal, she rolled off the mattress so the other girl could begin. There was a mirror fixed to the wall above the dresser, overlooking the bed. Jenifa stood beside it, watching for a while to see if she would have to intervene, but the girl did as she’d been instructed and started talking, admitting how turned on she was by him being a PSR officer, and what did he do exactly…? Tell me about the bad guys you’ve caught. Have you actually seen a Faller?
Jenifa slipped away into the suite’s lounge and picked up her clothes. Carrying them, she walked down the corridor to the next room. It had a number on the door, but it was never used by residents. There was no furniture other than a couple of wooden chairs. The curtains were closed, keeping it dark.
She went into what used to be the bathroom. The plumbing had all been taken out, providing space for the substantial cine-camera on its tripod. Its wide lens was pointing through the small square hole in the wall that had the mirror on the other side. Thanks to the bright sunlight pouring through the bay windows, Minskal’s bed was perfectly illuminated even through the misty one-way glass.
Major Gorlan was peering through the camera’s viewfinder, one hand clamped on her headphones so she could hear everything the concealed microphone was picking up. She gave Jenifa a sardonic look.
“Has he given away any state secrets?” Jenifa asked as she started putting her underwear back on.
“No. He might be crazy-horny but he’s not completely stupid. Besides, I made it very clear to Lauraine: Don’t press for anything detailed, keep it to generalities.”
“Lauraine?”
Gorlan pointed through the mirror. “Your new best friend on Bienvenido.”
“Oh. Right.”
Gorlan patted the film drum contentedly. “He’s said enough to make him ours. Yaki will be satisfied.”
“Good.” Jenifa buttoned up her blouse. “You didn’t film me, did you?”
“No.”
“I want to see the film after you have it developed.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“No.”
Jenifa put a civilian coat on over her uniform and slipped out of the back of the hotel. One of Yaki’s fleet of private cars drove her home—her real home, not the small flat she maintained that was appropriate for her lieutenant’s salary.
Her real home was an elegant old four-story townhouse on Deral Avenue, where she had her own apartment on the third floor. After she handed her uniform over to a maid for laundering and showered, she went down to the gym in the basement.
That was where Yaki found her, straining away on the bench press.
“You need to be careful,” Yaki said as she checked the weight Jenifa had loaded. “This is very heavy.”
“I can take it,” Jenifa shot back, and defiantly lifted again. “And you take risks.”
“Do I?”
“That Lauraine girl is an Eliter. You can’t trust them, no matter how much pressure Gorlan applies. Suppose she linked to the radicals and gave them Minskal’s identity, or even mine?”
“She can’t. This operation was a strategic advance, not a risk. Lauraine is a mule. Just because you have Eliter parents doesn’t mean your macrocellular clusters actually work. The PSR has plotted a small but noticeable decline in functionality in the Eliter population over the past century.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did we get what we wanted?”
“Yes. Once I’d banged him, his brain was so fevered he couldn’t stop bragging to Lauraine about the Fallers he’d killed. It’s total bollocks, I reckon; he’s internal security, not a field agent. But we have it all on film.”
“A section seven officer telling an Eliter about his missions. Excellent.”
“But you just said she’s a mule.”
“That part isn’t on her official file.”
Jenifa grinned maliciously. “Neat. So how are you going to use him?”
“Strategically. Someone in his position hears a great deal more than his pay grade clears him for. I need eyes and ears in the capital.”
“What’s in the capital?”
“Power.”
“You have power. You run this city, not the mayor or National Unity.”
“The crudding Eliters were on to that nest,” Yaki snarled angrily. Her scar throbbed dark red. “Do you have any idea how bad that makes me look? There was a nest in Opole for years without the PSR office getting a hint of it. My office! It’s a weakness I can’t afford.”
“Oh.”
“It’s crudding humiliating. And it should never have happened. But the PSR has gone soft; we’re starved of resources and authority. People like Stonal have lost sight of our true objective. He’s old and weak, grown comfortable in the capital where everything is about politics. His generation has lost its relevance to this world. He’ll be departing it soon enough.” She jabbed a forefinger at her scar for emphasis. “And this is what he’s leaving us to face: the Faller Apocalypse. It’s real and it’s happening. And what’s he done to prepare us? Nothing! He sits around on his arse and tries to cover up any evidence that he’s doing a piss-poor job. That has to change; we have to be ready for them. We have to be strong and make the right decisions, not just build bunkers in Byarn to retreat to. But that’s not going to happen with him in charge. That’s why I need assets like Minskal.”
“So I don’t need to see Chaing again? Good.”
“No, I want you to keep screwing him.”
“For Giu’s sake, he’s not even a proper section seven officer! He’s weak, too. You know I hate that. The only reason Stonal gave him the badge was because he was in the wrong place.”
“But he found the wrong place, didn’t he? And he met the Warrior Angel there.”
“What?”
“You heard.”
“He never said. Crud, it was her that slaughtered all the Fallers like that, wasn’t it?”
“So he’s not quite as weak as you thought, then, is he?”
Jenifa stood up and admired herself in the full-length mirrors on the wall. “He doesn’t deserve me.”
“That’s what makes you so effective. None of them can believe their luck.”
“All right.”
“And the first thing I need to know from him is what’s going on in the Sansone Mountains. Stonal has half the Opole Regiment out there running some kind of high-priority sweep, but there was no Fall.”
“I don’t understand. What is it, then?”
“I haven’t been briefed, which is crudding insulting. So you’re going to find that out. Chaing is helping Stonal. A test, presumably, to see if he’s up to section seven standards. So he’ll know everything.”
Jenifa ran a hand back through her black hair and sneered. “Getting that out of him isn’t even a challenge.”
The phone rang. Yaki picked it up and dialed in the secure code. A blue light on the side lit up.
Jenifa watched her listening to the voice on the other end. Then Yaki smirked and held out the handset. “Speak of the Uracus,” she said. “It’s your lovely new boyfriend. He wants you.”
It was ninety minutes before dawn, and Chaing was asleep in a chair when the mobile command center door swung open. Jenifa walked in, wearing a long leather PSR uniform coat with a broad fur collar.
The command center’s officers threw some dubious looks at her but kept silent.
“Busy night?” she asked archly as Chaing peered up at her with bleary eyes.
“Oh, yeah.” He levered himself out of the chair, scowling at how stiff his joints were, the twinges of pain coming from his wrist. Yesterday’s rain hadn’t done his cast any good; it’d gotten soaking wet and now it was starting to crumble around his fingers. “Coffee please,” he told the center’s young orderly. “And one for the corporal.”
“So there’s a nest Faller on the loose with an egg?” she asked.
“Almost.” He lowered his voice. “It’s an Eliter, Florian, who’s run off with a Commonwealth artifact that fell from space.”
Jenifa’s delicate eyebrows shot up. “What sort of artifact?”
“A baby.”
“Bab—?” she squeaked, then clamped her lips together. “For real?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Her finger pointed at the command center roof. “So have they finally arrived? Are their spaceships…?” The finger jabbed upward urgently.
“I don’t think so. Section seven believes it was the latest Treefall that started this.”
“What?”
“I know. I don’t understand, either. But right now all I’m worried about is making sure we take Florian into custody.”
Jenifa held up a slim black leather briefcase. “Okay, these may help. Files on Florian. Not many.” She grinned. “Last night was something to watch. Yaki had Kukaida brought back in after midnight to oversee your search request.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh, yes,” Jenifa said maliciously. “But it worked. Florian’s a nonentity, but his family’s interesting.”
The orderly came in, carrying a tray with two mugs of coffee. Chaing took his gratefully.
Jenifa waited until the orderly left the command center before continuing. “His mother is Castillito. Father unknown; she refused to name anyone on the birth certificate—and paid the fine. Brother—” She gave him an expectant look. “—Lurji.”
“No crud?” Chaing grinned, and used his coffee to wash down a couple of painkillers. “Even I’ve heard of the graffito lord of Opole. That was what? Ten years ago?”
“Yes. Some of his artwork is still there.”
“Didn’t I hear he also burned down the mayor’s residence?”
“To be fair,” she said with a smirk, “only the expensively refurbished wing the mayor’s mistress used. That’s when he took off; National Unity and the sheriffs didn’t appreciate the anti-corruption statement.”
“So do we know where Lurji is now?”
“There haven’t been any verified sightings for years. PSR believes he’s gone to ground in Port Chana, like all of them.”
“Good call. But…this valley is big, isolated. The perfect place to hide, especially when your brother is the warden.”
“Any evidence for that?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I am starting to wonder if this is coincidence after all.”
“If it was planned, it was very long-term. I read the files on the drive over. Florian’s regiment service was completely unremarkable. He got bullied a lot, but then he’s an Eliter so what do you expect? He’s been in Albina Valley for seven years, never taken his holidays, always here when the supervisor turns up for an inspection. He signed up right after he left the regiment—and I mean within a couple of days. There are no entries after that day. He’s been a good boy.”
“Seven years without a break? No one’s that good.”
“Kukaida made her clerks dig in the right places. There was a ten-year-old intelligence file in Gorlan’s department. One of our informants reckoned Florian was some kind of hotshot at writing instructions to control those specialist cells Eliters have in their brains. His kind wanted him to carry on, but he turned them down. That was right around the time Lurji was getting down and dirty with Opole’s sheriffs.”
“So he didn’t want to follow his brother’s path, then?”
“Maybe not. But you’re right: It’s incredibly convenient that he’s got contacts with the serious Eliter radicals.”
“Yeah.” Chaing stared at the new maps on the central table. There were more than seventy red pins stuck in the largest, showing the area to the north, each one a roadblock.
“How big a start does he have?” Jenifa asked.
“Half of yesterday afternoon, and all last night.”
She wrinkled her nose up. “I would have been here ninety minutes earlier if we hadn’t been stopped at all those roadblocks. The troopers are good. He won’t get far.”
“Yeah. We need to catch him, and the baby.
“Your pride got hurt bad, huh?”
“I keep thinking about it. What he was when I questioned him—a shy awkward loner—that wasn’t an act.” He tapped the files with his index finger. “We’re seeing connections that maybe aren’t there.”
“What do you mean?”
“It could just be that he really is acting on his own. It’s not cunning and planning and determination that’s gotten him this far, just sheer blundering luck. We weren’t prepared for this, not a Commonwealth spaceship—and certainly not one that’s brought a baby. I mean, a baby? Why? What’s it here for?”
“To give the Eliters some kind of leader they can rally around. Their greatest weakness is how fragmented they are.”
“We can’t see the Commonwealth galaxy with a naked eye, and according to Mother Laura they don’t know we even exist, never mind where we are. If they have found us, they have a power beyond even the story Eliter propaganda tells. They’re not going to sneak around making contact with a pissy little radical movement. They’ll arrive in a hundred spaceships the size of Skylords, and order us around like we’re cattle. And if they truly are this big super-powerful benevolent society like Eliters claim, they certainly won’t stand for humans being eaten by Fallers; they would’ve blasted every Tree out of the Ring.”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe this is just the first scouting mission, taking a look around?”
“A baby is not a scout.”
“I don’t have the answers, Chaing.”
“I know,” he said wearily. “This is just all so frustrating. I’m so sure we’re missing something, that’s all. Something obvious.”
“Then we’ll get there eventually.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Did you bring me some clothes?”
“Yes. So what now?”
He checked the clocks on the wall. “The troopers are having breakfast right now. At first light, they start a sweep of Albina Valley. We have bloodhounds, too.”
“Looking for what, exactly?”
“Florian, or maybe Lurji. I’d settle for something that’ll tell me where I can find him and that baby.”
“I thought you said he’s charging away from here as fast as his Openland can go.”
“He’s not stupid. I’ve already underestimated him once. That isn’t going to happen again.”
“Ah,” she said appreciatively. “Misdirection?”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
At one o’clock, the sweep found Florian’s Openland truck. Chaing and Jenifa got to it nine minutes after the discovery was radioed in. Their Terrain Truck plunged through along the overgrown firebreak track and came to a halt ten meters short of the Openland.
“Did it break down?” Chaing asked the corporal.
“Er, sir?”
“Never mind.” Chaing brushed past the confused man and clambered into the cab. There was no key in the ignition. He pulled out a pocketknife and cut the wire bundle below the steering column.
Jenifa leaned against the open doorframe. “And where did you learn to do that?” she asked coyly as he stripped the ends of two wires.
“Misspent youth.” He touched the two bare wires together, and the starter motor growled. The engine caught with a clatter, black smoke belching out of the exhaust. “He abandoned it,” Chaing announced.
“Misdirection,” Jenifa said. “You were right. That’s impressive. We’ve got half the regiment and every sheriff for two hundred kilometers searching the roads. And he’s on foot.”
Chaing climbed out of the cab and stared along the overgrown firebreak track. “Get the bloodhounds up here,” he told the corporal.
“Yes, sir.”
Jenifa gave the lush lingrass and thick pine trees a skeptical glance. Raindrops still beaded every leaf, giving the forest a glossy texture. “Do you think they’ll pick up a scent?”
“I don’t know. But probably not.” Chaing looked back into the Openland cab. It was dirty and worn; the leather on the driver’s seat had several holes in it. The passenger seat was covered in dog hairs. He checked the fuel gauge, which was showing the tank half full. “This doesn’t make sense,” he said slowly.
“What doesn’t?” Jenifa asked.
“I get that he parked it here so we’d start off thinking he was driving away. But, actually, why not drive away?”
“Because the roadblocks and patrols would catch him.”
“Yes. But he had four or five hours’ head start on the roadblocks. He could park the Openland in a shed thirty kilometers away and switch vehicles. Or take a train, or a bus.”
“Nearest train station is Collsterworth; that’s fifty klicks away. And the local sheriff was there last night, right after you started putting out the alarm.”
Chaing pointed along the firebreak track. “How fast could you walk up here?”
“Average walking speed is five kilometers an hour. Florian is young, so he could probably make seven for the first couple of hours. But…it’s uphill and overgrown so that’ll take him back down to maybe four.”
“And he’s carrying a child. So four maximum. The Terrain Trucks can push through this stuff easily. We’ll catch him in a day and he knows it.”
“That’s good—”
“No. Somebody has collected him, or there was another vehicle in the valley. Crud! He drove away, but not in the Openland.”
“Makes sense,” she said.
“I need to get back to the command center.”
The Terrain Truck driver backed down the firebreak, snapping several low branches as he went. When they pulled clear of the tree line, he turned them around and started heading down the slope. Chaing looked back. The trees extended all the way up the valley slope behind them. No way could Florian have contemplated walking out. The abandoned Openland had to be a double bluff.
To the north, where the valley opened out, the lake glimmered in the warm afternoon sun. He could make out the lone track winding along the floor of the valley, following the stream that fed into the lake.
“Stop!” he snapped at the driver. The Terrain Truck lurched to a halt, slipping on the mud.
“What the crud?” Jenifa demanded; she’d nearly been thrown out of her seat.
Chaing pointed through the windscreen. “The Vatni village. Of course! We’ve been going about this from the wrong angle.”
“You mean the Vatni would have seen whatever vehicle he used to drive away in?”
“No.” Chaing smiled coldly. “The troopers found the sheep by the stream in Naxian Valley. Why drag it there from the field it was killed in?”
“You’re speaking in riddles.”
“No, I’m not. He’s a sheep rustler, so he needs to get into Naxian Valley without being seen. No matter how late at night he goes, there’s always a chance the Ealton family could see the Openland’s headlights. So he doesn’t use it. Why?”
“Oh,” she groaned. “Because he’s got another method of transport.”
“A boat. There was a boat at the Vatni village yesterday when I asked them about the space machine. Vatni don’t need boats; they’re aquatic. He’s not walking. He’s not driving on the roads. He’s on the crudding water.”
“That lake feeds into the river Kellehar,” she said. “Which is a tributary to the Crisp.”
“Which goes all the way to Opole!” His good fist hit the dashboard. “Get us down to the village,” he told the driver. “Now!” He picked up the microphone. “Hokianga, I’m en route to the Vatni village. Send me some backup.”
The Terrain Truck pulled up twenty meters short of the intricate woven branches of the Vatni’s tunnel-like buildings. Chaing climbed down and frowned at them. More Terrain Trucks were coming up behind him, as well as a couple of tracked carriers. Squads began to jump out of the vehicles.
“Give me a flamethrower,” he told a sergeant. He didn’t want to, but everyone knew how stubborn the Vatni could be. After all, they didn’t have to detonate a quantumbuster to be rejected by the Void.
“Er…sir?”
“You heard.”
The sergeant wasn’t going to argue. He signaled one of his squad members, who went around to the tracked carrier’s armory locker.
It had been a long time since Chaing had used a flamethrower, and that was only in training. They were standard issue for regiments conducting a sweep. Procedure was for any Faller eggs they found to be broken open, and the yolk incinerated. The backpack with the fuel cylinders felt a lot heavier than he remembered.
A dozen adult Vatni had gathered by the edge of the village to watch the humans. Chaing strode right past them and walked the length of the jetty to where he’d seen the little rowing boat. They whistled in short low notes as their tusks rattled. He ignored what was undoubtedly their version of gossip, and beckoned the trooper who was equipped with a flute and maracas. She looked young, probably still in her teens, which made him suspicious. “Are you an Eliter?” he asked.
She scowled at him. “Yes, sir.”
“So you know Vatni language perfectly. That’s one of your kind’s memory files, right?”
“Sir?”
“What happens here is classified. If it leaks out, I will make sure it goes bad for you and your family. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Translate this: Who speaks for you?”
“Can we help you, land friend?” came the reply from one of the bigger adults.
“I came here yesterday to ask your help. I wanted to know if you had seen a Fall the previous night. You told me you hadn’t. You lied.”
He looked at the gathering of Vatni who had now fallen silent. For a moment he hesitated, but this had to be done; they had to understand he was desperate to find Florian…He turned to the nearest of their huts and fired the flamethrower at it. For wood so close to water and recently rained on, it burned well. The gel that the flamethrower squirted out helped considerably, clinging to the curving branches and enveloping them in flame, dripping through onto the earth floor inside. Flames roared several meters into the air.
The Vatni bellowed loudly, shuffling about in alarm. Their low-pitched whistling carried across the whole village. He saw several of them dive straight into the water, shoving youngsters ahead of them.
“Uracus, Chaing!” Jenifa exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
“My job,” he told her calmly, refusing to let any hint of emotion contaminate his voice. “You”—to the Eliter girl—“tell them this: There was a boat tied up to this jetty yesterday. I believe one of my kind left in it. Is that correct?”
She looked scared as she turned to the group of Vatni and began blowing a series of notes on the flute. The aliens shuffled closer together and hooted softly among themselves, their tusk clicks subdued. Then one of them, a big male, waddled forward to stand in front of Chaing. At another time, Chaing might have felt intimidated by the alien’s size and strength. Not today. Today he was going to face them down. This was the point where Florian’s luck ran out.
“Why do you do this, human of the land?”
“What’s this one’s name?” Chaing asked.
“Mooray,” the translator told him.
“Well, Mooray, did Florian take your boat into the next valley two nights ago?”
“Yes.”
“Did he use your boat to sneak away yesterday afternoon?”
“Why do you want to know this?”
Chaing spun around and fired the flamethrower again, sweeping the long horizontal jet of flame over one of the bigger huts until it was completely ablaze.
“Did you help him escape?”
“Friend Florian left this place in a boat yesterday afternoon.”
“You would be better off not making friends with people like him. Where was he going?”
“I do not know.”
Chaing turned and raised the flamethrower nozzle again.
A furious hooting came from the Vatni.
“He doesn’t know,” the translator said frantically. “Florian went down the Kellehar. That was the last Mooray saw of him. But…”
“Yes?” Chaing asked darkly.
She frowned and played some fast notes, clicking the maracas. The Vatni replied.
“Florian said he’d be back in a month.”
“Why a month?”
“It would be safe to return then. He didn’t say why.”
“You’re sure this time?” Stonal asked.
“Yes, sir.” Chaing was standing in the mobile command center, looking at the new maps Hokianga’s officers were unrolling across the table. These were a smaller scale than the ones illustrating the roadblocks and road patrols, but they showed the entire river Crisp tributary network in detail from the coast to the west of Opole. Some of the northern rivers reached almost up to the Pritwolds. He hadn’t realized how many subsidiary rivers there were, nor their multitude of feeder streams. Most of them were large enough for boats to use. Apparently back in the Void, a lot of the region’s commerce had been carried by cargo barges. Then after the Great Transition and the advent of combustion engines, most of those goods shifted to road transport. “He’s in a Vatni boat heading downriver. Or at least he was yesterday. I don’t think he’ll be able to make it all the way to Opole. The Kellehar will take him down to the Crisp, but after that he’d have to row against the current to get to the city. And he’s got a baby to take care of. He’ll switch to an alternative route soon enough. There are two possibilities: the Eliter underground or his gang connections.”
“Very well. Your course of action?”
“I’ve got regiment troopers heading for every town and village along the Kellehar. They’ll ask the portmasters if they’ve seen the rowing boat. They’ll also commandeer motorboats to patrol the river. Colonel Hokianga is in contact with the river sheriff’s office at Opole. They’re going to send their boats downriver to the Kellehar. It’s a pincer movement. If he’s on the river, we’ll get him. If the boat is berthed somewhere, we’ll find it.”
“Very good, Chaing.”
“I’d like to use section seven authority to deploy that Air Force helicopter from the Opole squadron. That can cover the Kellehar a lot quicker than boats.”
“You have that authority. Don’t keep referring back to me; I’m not here to cover your arse. Carry on.”
Chaing put the telephone receiver down and let out a breath of relief.
“So now what?” Jenifa asked.
“Get the helicopter up. We’ve got a few hours of daylight left. And I need those files from Opole prioritized.”
“Yes, sir.” She grinned and picked up the telephone.
It was seven o’clock when the radio call came in from one of the boats the regiment troopers were using. They’d found an empty Vatni-made rowing boat snagged on the banks of the Kellehar, seventeen kilometers downstream from a town called Letroy.