A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [26]
Basil sat up, seeing the green priest’s concern. “What is it?”
“Several hydrogue warglobes were spotted traveling through inhabited systems. They’ve made no contact, but they have approached various planets, apparently scanning them.”
Peter pointed to the starmap. “Highlight the locations where the warglobes were seen. Maybe we can see some sort of pattern.”
“Only six of my counterparts sighted the hydrogues.” The green priest called out the names of obscure systems, and glowing red dots appeared on the mosaic. “Usk. Cotopaxi. Boone’s Crossing. Palisade. Hijonda. Paris Three.”
OX took a step forward, though his optical sensors had high-enough resolution that he could scan details from a distance. “That does not appear to be a simple defensive posture. Given the sparse distribution of green priests across the colony worlds, many other hydrogues could easily have been missed.”
Basil frowned. “Search through all mail drone files, see if they’ve picked up any other drogue images.”
“According to my reports,” Nahton said, “the warglobes made no overt aggressive move. They seem to be scouts traveling from system to system.”
“Hydrogues never come out just to snoop around,” Admiral Stromo said. He had been in command of the Grid 0 escort fleet that had been devastated at Jupiter. “Until now, they’ve emerged only to attack.”
King Peter’s mind was fully engaged. He scanned the seemingly random distribution of red dots where warglobes had been sighted. “Until now.”
11
RLINDA KETT
If she’d been a different sort of person, Rlinda Kett might have complained about how her fortunes had fallen. But she wasn’t a woman to bother with such nonsense. Instead, she crossed her meaty arms over her ample chest and reassessed what to do. Exuberant optimism might annoy more realistic people, but she felt that it often helped.
She paced the deck of her ship and took inventory of her cargo stockpile. It didn’t look all that bad, considering. At least the Voracious Curiosity was still hers—though on the rah-rah orders of King Frederick five years ago, she’d been forced to “donate” her other four merchant ships to the EDF for war-related purposes.
For the past month, her ship had been docked at a public hangar on Earth’s moon. It was cheaper to land in the Moon’s shallower gravity well than to use the additional thrust to go to Earth.
But she had just received a second annoying bill from the moonbase business offices, an insistent request for overdue docking fees. “And what am I supposed to do about it?” Rlinda sighed in frustration.
The military had rationed ekti so tightly that she couldn’t afford to make runs with the only vessel she had left. Then, to add insult to injury, they charged exorbitant fees to let her keep the Curiosity docked. Why couldn’t they let her sit in peace? Consuming the gourmet treats in her larder offered some small solace in the midst of these administrative headaches.
Over the years, she had already liquidated most of her assets, acquiring what little trade merchandise she could. But during the war she had a difficult time moving some of the upscale, exotic specialties she kept on the Curiosity. Maybe one of the moonbase officials would be open to a bit of barter; somebody must want to impress a spouse or lover with haute cuisine foods. Rlinda could even give them hints on how to prepare the stuff, how to score romantic points.
In the cargo bay, she squeezed her bulk into cramped places. Fortunately, the low lunar gravity and long practice assisted her. Rlinda ran her fingers down the impressive inventory list.
She’d kept a few bolts of Theron cocoon fiber for herself, but now she’d have to sell it. She would have loved a personal wardrobe of the shimmering material, but the money was more important. She still had six cans of saltpond caviar imported from Dremen and preserved insect steaks from Theroc (absolutely delicious, though Rlinda had difficulty convincing would-be