Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [197]
The soft twinkling of precious stones gleamed through the transparent Elders. “Those of us who can will rendezvous with you at your signal.”
The gambler shrugged. “Guess I can’t ask for more than that, can I?”
He sensed that Sen was smiling. “No, I suppose you cannot, unless one wishes to emulate the enemy we are about to fight.”
As his fighter squadron passed through the mouth of the ThonBoka, Klyn Shanga was fighting a nagging thought. Like a tune that circles through your consciousness all day (whether you like the tune or not—and, more often than not, you don’t), he was wondering about the Ottdefa Osuno Whett. Why did that son-of-a-mynock seem so familiar? Where had he seen him before?
“Seventeen, square up a little on the mark. You’re lagging, and it’s putting a strain on the pinnace.”
“Roger, Zero Leader. Executing.”
He gave a quick glance at the other computer-generated indicators on his boards and settled back in his acceleration couch again. Where had he met the tall, skinny, white-haired anthropologist before, and why did he have trouble thinking of him as an academic. What should he be? A flunky of some kind. Whett was born to be a subordinate.
But why? He came to the conclusion that it wasn’t Whett’s appearance he remembered so vividly. The voice, then? A high, whiny, nagging voice it was, full of a high opinion of himself that didn’t seem to fit the vague memory Shanga had. It was like the false memories one experiences in dreams: you wake up suddenly (and often with relief) knowing that the thing you remembered never happened at all. But Whett was real.
“Twenty-three to Zero Leader, over.”
“Go ahead, Bern.”
“Sure. How come we’re not maintaining commo silence on this run? I thought we were gonna surprise the little—”
“They know we’re coming, and there’s only one direction we can come from.”
“Kinda like that first raid we made south of Mathilde, after the Betrayal, right?” Nuladeg chuckled at the bloodsoaked memory. It was the only thing they could do. The reminiscence wasn’t that pleasant, although they’d killed a thousand enemies that morning, caught them on the ground before they got set up for defense. He remembered the shock he’d felt at the invasion, after all the friendly welcoming they’d done for Vuffi Raa and—
Now why did that make him think of Whett again?
“Zero Leader to Twenty-three. Bern, have you seen Gepta’s pet anthropologist, Osuno Whett?”
“Can’t say as I have. How come?” Shanga could see the other fighter’s craft on the opposite side of the formation, its cockpit full of cigar smoke. He wondered how the little man breathed in that atmosphere.
“I don’t know, Bern, but there’s something nagging me, and it seems to be important.”
“Stop chewing on it, then, boss. Sleep it over. It’ll come to you if it’s important. Core, you could use a little shut-eye, anyways. Sit yourself back, and I’ll take the con for a while.”
“Thanks a lot, Bern, I appreciate it.”
“Just so you don’t make a habit of it.”
“Roger, Twenty-three, and out.”
The Ottdefa Osuno Whett looked over some highly peculiar data as he sat in the cramped confines of his hiding place. Outside, the stars appeared motionless through the ports. It was an illusion.
According to the almost microscopic spy devices he’d planted on Gepta with only partial success, the wizard had indeed entered that armored compartment aft of the Wennis through a tube scarcely larger than a child’s wrist diameter. And somewhere within that tube, according to these readouts, Gepta had ceased to exist, for the dust-mote-sized recorders had drifted in the tube and remained there, recording nothing, until the sorcerer again became himself.
Whatever that was.
Whett shifted uncomfortably on his couch, not daring to show a light that might be seen from the outside, not believing the readouts, their displays stopped down to near invisibility.