Three - Michael Jan Friedman [49]
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Gerda Idun tried to smile, but there was a liquid shimmer in her eyes that told Nikolas she still hadn’t gotten over the tragedy. “I never got to see him as he would have been,” she said, “as an adult. Until now.”
[145]So that’s what she sees in me, he thought. That’s been the attraction all along. I remind her of her dead lover.
Nikolas would have expected something like that to bother him. After all, he had been jealous of other guys from time to time. Why not himself?
But it didn’t bother him—not even a little bit. He found he didn’t care why Gerda Idun had feelings for him. All that mattered to him was that she did.
“You know,” he said, smiling, “you’ve been given a chance most people don’t have. You can find out what might have happened between you and that teenager.”
She averted her eyes, as if she were ashamed of herself. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that.”
Nikolas studied her face. “And?”
“With any luck,” said Gerda Idun, “I’m going to return to my own universe and leave you here in this one. It doesn’t make sense to start something that’s doomed to end.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. However, her tone wasn’t one of finality. It seemed to the ensign that there was some tiny bit of wiggle room.
And that was all he had ever asked for.
Wutor Qiyuntor eyed the phenomenon to which his Middle Order overseers had dispatched him. It was long, violet in color, and—if his ship’s data collectors could be believed—was generating an enormous number of charged particles.
The commander eyed the numbers crawling by at the bottom of his viewscreen and waited for the right moment. Finally, he turned to his pilot.
[146] “One-quarter light-speed,” he told Jeglen.
Instantly, the Ekhonarid slowed to a crawl, the streaks of brightness on Wutor’s viewscreen diminishing drastically in length. But then, they were within twenty-five million kilometers of the phenomenon. There was no longer any need for haste.
Wutor leaned back in his brace. All he could do now was wait—and pray that an enemy arrived before the High Order squadron summoned by the overseers.
“Commander,” said Delakan, the female who stood at the data-collection panel. Her face was caught in its pale green glare. “There’s someone else here.”
Wutor felt his neck pulse accelerate. “What do you mean?” he demanded.
“Another vessel,” Delakan elaborated. She looked up at the viewscreen, which gave no indication of any other ships in the vicinity. “It’s hiding behind the phenomenon.”
The commander leaned forward in his brace, the flat teeth in the back of his mouth grinding as he considered the phenomenon. “Show me.”
A moment later, the viewscreen abandoned its visual perspective on the phenomenon and replaced it with an augmented thermal-trace graphic—one that represented the other vessel as a ghostly, red shape on an otherwise unbroken field of blue.
Wutor’s tongue snaked over his teeth. Delakan was right. The ship was using the phenomenon to mask its presence.
And it wasn’t a Balduk ship. He could tell even from this crudest and quickest of scans. It was an invader—here, in a part of space claimed by the Balduk.
[147] The very thought made his blood boil.
But he kept his head. After all, he didn’t want to merely engage this enemy. He wanted to crush it and drag its carcass back to the homeworld as evidence of his victory.
When he stood in the brace of a High Order vessel, he would simply have swooped in with his subordinate ships and seized the victory. But to his shame, he was no longer in command of a High Order vessel.
All he had to work with was the Ekhonarid. But if he used his brain, that would be enough.
“Run a full scan,” he told Delakan.
“Aye,” she said, and bent to the task.
Wutor could feel his nails digging into his palms. Patience had never been his best attribute. But he would exercise it if it meant a