Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [39]
His fellow team members used comm systems to keep in touch as they circled over the expanse of calm water. If Nira had tried to swim from her island, she would certainly have drowned. No one could cover such a distance. If that were the case, Daro'h's search was doomed from the beginning.
He recalled that his father had been extremely fond of the female green priest, who had come to Mijistra to read the Saga of Seven Suns to her potted treelings. He remembered seeing Jora'h and Nira often in the PrismPalace. But then she had vanished, apparently killed in a fire.
Now Daro'h knew it had been part of a much more complicated plot. Nira had been brought to Dobro already pregnant with the Prime Designate's child. Had that been Jora'h's wish, or had it all been done without his knowledge? Could Udru'h have hidden such a momentous thing from the Mage-Imperator?
The Dobro Designate had explained the need for the breeding program, and Daro'h understood that the Terran Hanseatic League must never learn what had happened to their generation ship the Burton. But why would the secret have been kept from the Mage-Imperator himself? Daro'h could imagine no justification for such an act, and it disturbed him greatly.
The fourteen scout ships followed their grid lines, and the searchers meticulously crisscrossed the dry, empty landscape. Daro'h spoke aloud to the pilot and the guard. "The green priest could have left the island months ago. She might have covered a lot of ground."
"Then we will cover a lot of ground," the pilot said.
After several hours, Daro'h received a message from one of his scouts. "Designate-in-waiting, we have found some interesting debris on the shore. It might be significant."
Their ship reached the edge of the inland sea and settled next to where the other scout had landed. Four Ildiran searchers stood looking at a tumble of logs high up on the beach. In the bright sunlight Daro'h saw the remnants of dried vines that lashed the logs together. Each one of the trunks had been cut to approximately the same length. A raft!
"She could have floated on this to land." Daro'h glanced back at the water, saw how far up the remnants of the raft rested on the shore. "She must have dragged it up onto the beach herself."
"Why would she do such a thing?" asked one of the searchers. "Her island was lush, and this . . . this is desolate."
Daro'h stared at the rugged panorama that extended as far as he could see. "Who can understand a green priest? But we now know she made it this far. Continue the search."
22
PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
With the Hansa at war and the Spiral Arm in crisis, with countless human colonies abandoned and defenseless, former Chairman Maureen Fitzpatrick saw nothing wrong with holding an afternoon party. She was delighted to have her grandson home from his captivity and had invited everyone she considered important. Maureen also sternly lectured Patrick to break out of his malaise and pretend to be happy.
He reminded himself, repeatedly, that he had endured far worse.
When he'd revealed his part in destroying the Roamer ekti ship, she had looked decidedly uncomfortable--not because of what he'd done, but because of the fact that he felt guilty about it. "Nothing to worry about, Patrick. You were only following orders. The Hansa has far more vital concerns these days."
"More vital concerns? It's why the Roamers stopped delivering ekti. It's what put us in this untenable situation and made it far more difficult for us to fight the real war."
"Oh, Patrick," she had said in an amazingly condescending voice. "Leave the tangled politics and subtle trade consequences to the experts. I've been Chairman myself, and I know that things aren't as clear-cut as they seem to an idealistic young man."
"I used to be idealistic, Grandmother. I used to know all the answers, but I'm much older and wiser than that now."
Though her hired experts and caterers could run a diplomatic party on autopilot, Maureen kept her hand in all the details. Music was playing;