Into the Fire

^{CHAPTER FIVE}

By the next morning, Grace wished she could forget the preceding hours, a string of unpleasant, painful, humiliating moments without any respite between them. The dinner, she was assured, was not the problem at all, though everything she threw up was collected and later analyzed. Her head ached, then the first injection site turned into a row of red lumps before the staff figured out an allergen had been added to the toxic gas. It itched, then burned. She finally fell asleep around 0500, only to be woken at 0530 by a nurse demanding that she take an immediate vision test.

“I can see you perfectly well,” Grace said. “Let me sleep.”

“First the test.”

After the test, it was only fifteen minutes until 0600, when the day staff arrived and the hall lights brightened. Brisk footsteps went up and down; voices in the hall were not muted. A different attendant came in to take vital signs. Grace wondered, not for the first time, if anyone could sleep while having their blood pressure taken. Only in a coma, she was sure. At 0700, the first doctor of the day arrived, closely followed by Commandant Kvannis and his aide, for whom Grace presented an intentionally groggy old-lady persona. She didn’t really suspect him of anything, but giving away information went against her principles.

“I don’t know,” she said in answer to every question about Ky. “I can’t remember… I hope it’s the gas…” She hoped she looked as bad as she felt, and apparently she did, or close enough, because Kvannis left, still unsatisfied but convinced the Rector had narrowly escaped death.

At 0915, Dr. Hermann, who had supervised her arm’s growth from bud to full functionality, came by. “I’m not lead on this,” he said. “But you’ve got a very good specialist in poisonings; she’s a friend of mine, and she flew in overnight from Makkavo. I told her how easy you are to work with, how compliant—” He grinned at her; her noncompliance in the matter of regular checkups once her arm was growing well had been, he once told her, unprecedented. “—so you can expect the same level of gentle pressure from her.”

“I’m touched,” Grace said. “I feel much better, and I have a lot of work to do. Important work.” She lifted her head to glare at him and wished she hadn’t. Neck muscles spasmed; she saw his gaze sharpen.

“Yes, of course you have important work. But you also have the residue of a quaternary toxin in your body—the stuff’s damned hard to root out. You will not be leaving the hospital today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. So get your tantrum about that over with before Sylvie arrives, because as I said she’s a friend of mine and doesn’t deserve the worst side of your tongue.”

“I need sleep,” Grace said, head back on the inadequate pillow. Her right foot cramped; she ignored it. “They kept me up all night.”

“Sometimes it takes that,” he said.

“A vision test at 0530?”

“The stuff attacks nerves, including the optic nerve. Once you’re blind, it’s too late.”

“They didn’t tell me that.”

“Standard procedure. Some people go skewy worrying about it. Ah—here’s Sylvie. Doctor Maillard.”

Sylvie Maillard was a short, dark woman whose intensity reminded Grace of an older Ky. “Good news or bad news?” she said.

“Bad first,” Grace said.

“That hiss you reported wasn’t a gas canister starting to spread it in your house; it had been open for at least a half hour. It was supposed to be a knockdown dose as you came in the door. So you got more than you would otherwise, even with only a single breath.”

“I held my breath—”

“When you heard it, yes. But like most people, you undoubtedly took a relaxing breath as you walked in. Everyone does that when they get home. The Ahhh Reflex, we call it. What that means—in terms Doctor Hermann says are meaningful to you—is that you won’t be getting out of this hospital room for at least six days—and quite possibly longer. Given the intake, you have done well so far, but there are possible late complications. Later today, after another battery of tests and if I deem it appropriate, you can have communications equipment moved in here, so you can work from bed for a limited time each day. And I do mean limited. If not, we’ll take an alternative tack and you won’t be working at all.”

Grace met Maillard’s gaze, every bit as determined as her own. “I don’t like it, but clear. If I’m in that bad shape, why do I feel better? I’m just tired.”

“It’s not just broken sleep. Typical of this class of poisons, MZT-43 continues to damage systems until you die, but its effects are not immediately lethal with the dose you received. Victims of a light dose typically feel upper-respiratory irritation at first, but that encourages them to drink and eat—which gives some components more time in the gut. You need to be monitored closely until it’s all gone, with appropriate treatment for the various complications as they emerge.”

“Not if they emerge?” Grace scowled. This might be as serious as Hermann looked.

“No. They will. You’ve already had IV and parenteral medication, the room’s getting extra oxygen, and if necessary we’ll intubate and put you on a respirator. At this point, if we are alert and don’t make mistakes, you’ll live and recover, but if you walked out of here and did not receive exemplary treatment somewhere else, you’d be dead by noon tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Grace had not imagined it being anywhere near that bad.

“So I expect your full cooperation with all procedures,” Maillard said. “And full disclosure of all symptoms. Anything, no matter how minor. We’re not talking about full functionality in a regrown arm; we’re talking about survival.”

“I’m in favor of survival,” Grace said. She could feel her heart pounding. That couldn’t mean the cramp in her foot, could it?

“Excellent,” Maillard said. “Then we understand each other. If all goes well, the next two days will be the worst. If not… well, let’s not go there. Depending on your latest lab results, you may be able to have communication with your office late this afternoon, but I strongly advise you to let your subordinates do the work. You’re not young, and this toxin has killed people much younger than yourself.”

“Thank you,” Grace said.

Maillard raised an eyebrow. Just one.

“For telling me,” Grace said. “One likes to be aware of the level of danger.”

“Good,” Maillard said. “I’ll see you again when the next lab results are in. Until then, take it as easy as you can.” She left.

“You ratted on me,” Grace said to Hermann. “She’s a formidable woman, but I doubt she’s like that with everyone.”

“I didn’t want to see two formidable women butting heads,” Hermann said. “Now she’s gone, I’m going to check your fine-motor control in both hands…”

The rest of the morning Grace endured more treatments and tests. Mac showed up around lunchtime with a report from her office and his own activities.

“And Ky?” Grace asked. “How’s she? Has she gotten in touch with Kvannis yet?”

“No. I suspect she and Rafe are…” His fingers intertwined. “Last person she’d want to talk to is someone official, I guess. You know Teague’s over there playing butler—keeping interruptions to a minimum, is my guess.”

“Anything else?”

“Something peculiar, actually. Military and civilian police are indeed looking for three fugitives from a military hospital here in Port Major. Thing is, as far as I can find out, they were never here, and this is the only military hospital in the city. There’s that psychiatric ward in the Joint Services base hospital, but my police contact told me the search isn’t for crazies, but for personnel possibly infected with a dangerous disease and under quarantine.”

“Quarantine. That’s one way to hide people.”

“Hide who?”

“Not sure we should discuss this here.”

“Sure thing. I hear your doctor coming. I left minutes ago.” Mac ducked into the room’s facility and out the far door seconds before Dr. Maillard came in.

“So you’ve had a visitor, but I don’t see piles of work on your bed. That’s good.” Maillard slapped a fat file down on the bed-table. “Ren says you like data, and don’t come apart if it’s not all positive, so here you are.” She opened the folder. “This is your basic chart. Red lines: level of toxin by organ system. Blue line: temperature. Green line: blood pressure. Yellow: heart rate on top, respirations below. Black dotted line: the average rate at which adults clear the toxin. Notice your clearance is well below that line: you’re not clearing it as fast as most, probably because you’re much older than the others we’ve seen.”

“Having it around longer isn’t good, I gather.”

“No. The longer it’s in an organ system, the more damage it does.” She stopped abruptly and looked closer at Grace’s face. “Did you know you have little marks on your face? Have you been poking it with anything?”

“No…”

“Let’s see.” Maillard pulled back the bedcovers and pushed up the gown. “Yes. Petechiae. Not a good sign at all. That confirms my concerns, and here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to knock you out, chill you—which, yes, slows your metabolism of the toxin, but also its action. Then we’re going to use specific chemicals, different for each organ system, to extract the toxin rather than waiting for your body to clear it, using procedures similar to dialysis for kidney failure.”

“How long will it take? When will I wake up?” Grace asked.

“If all goes well, we’ll be done with the clean-out in eight hours, and you’ll be awake, or at least in normal sleep, in another three. These procedures will save as much function as possible, but you’ll still have aftereffects and may need rehabilitation for several tendays after. You’ll need to have your implant out to avoid damage to it; the neuro treatment could scramble its wits. Since you’re a high-ranking government official, you’ll need to hand it over to a trusted subordinate with all the proper clearances for secure storage. Who would that be?”

“The visitor I just had, Master Sergeant MacRobert.”

Maillard touched the call button. “Maillard. Page a Master Sergeant MacRobert and see if he’s left the building. I need him here.

“I notice you have a guard on your door,” Maillard continued, turning to Grace. “That’s good. You should have a detail with you—outside your door, including during the treatment, with full recording capacity. Can MacRobert arrange that?”

“Yes,” Grace said. Her mouth felt dry; she reached for the glass on the bedside tray.

“No more than a sip. And only because you’ve already had food today, so a little water’s not the problem it might be.” Maillard leaned both arms on the bed table. “You need to know that there’s a chance that you’ll die during this procedure. It’s never been done on anyone your age, and though your baseline is good, much like someone fifteen years younger, we’re still dealing with an aging metabolism. If you were clearing the toxin at the normal rate, we’d take the slower route. But we don’t have time for that now. The petechiae indicate that serious damage is already occurring.”

“It’s done,” Grace said. “Mac knows where everything is.”

Maillard tipped her head to one side. “Are you two more than co-workers?”

“Friends,” Grace said. “Who sometimes—not all the time—comfort each other.”

“That’s good. Total solitaries die more often, in my experience.”

Mac poked his head in the door. “You called?”

“I did,” Maillard said. “The Rector needs a fairly radical procedure that will involve general anesthesia, hypothermia, and a series of drugs to yank the toxin out of various organ systems. She’ll be on machines similar to, but not the same as, the most advanced medbox technology. She needs her implant removed and properly stored, secure, until she can have it reinserted.”

“It’s got classified—”

“I understand that. She says you hold a high enough security rating to take charge of it. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Mac said, after a glance at Grace. “But I don’t have a proper carrier.”

“We do. It’ll be bulkier than the usual: full nutrient bath, oxygenator, power supply, so it’ll be ready to go back in when she’s ready. I would prefer you stay in the room when it comes time to remove it, so there’s a chain of control.”

“Absolutely,” Mac said. “Will you do that right now, or do I have time to inform the Rector’s closest relatives?”

Maillard shook her head. “The longer we wait the more chance of irreversible damage that will affect her quality of life. Every fifteen minutes matters. You can call them during the procedures, as long as you do not leave this facility and maintain control of her implant. If things go as planned, it should take no more than eight hours—preferably only five or six—and she’ll be ready for reimplantation sometime after midnight.”

“Please,” Grace said, glancing at Mac.

“I’ll be here,” Mac said. “And I’ll stay. We have that other situation under control, Rector, don’t worry about it. I’ll have a complete report for you when you’re ready.”

She was ready now, except that she wasn’t; she felt dull, heavy, aware at some merely physical level of something wrong inside. And the fear gnawed at her, fear she did not want to admit.

Benny Quindlan faced his uncle’s senior operations officer over the smaller desk in his uncle’s outer office.

“That was the stupidest thing you could have done,” he said.

“You’re calling your uncle stupid?”

“You’re telling me he ordered it?” Benny was almost sure his uncle hadn’t.

“Not exactly ordered it.” Maxim Furness had started to sweat; Benny could see the shine on his face. “But he wanted her out of the way.”

“And she’s not. And she knows, and the military knows, and all Vatta knows that someone had access to a quaternary poison gas that is supposed to exist in only two military facilities on the entire planet. Where the inventory can be checked, and probably already has been.”

“It could’ve been Kvannis; he hates her enough.”

“It could have been but it wasn’t—it was us. You, rather.”

“She’ll be out of her office for several tendays, if she even survives. And already the confusion there has enabled us to make some inroads in her security. We’ll get more—”

“Which will be found and healed by those ISC techs she’s got staying with her.”

“Ah, but they’re illegals now. They overstayed their visa.”

“And you know that because—”

“Because we have contacts in Customs & Immigration, just like every other commercial giant on this planet.”

“Even so—” Benny began when the outer door opened and his uncle, silver-haired and impressive as always in his perfectly tailored clothes, arrived for the day’s business. He and Max both stood.

“Good morning, Max; good morning, Benny.” Michael Quindlan gave them each a polite nod. “Ben, my office.”

Benny gave Max a look that he hoped was half as commanding as his uncle’s, and followed Michael into his office. The desk there was big enough for two men to lie down on. Michael waved him to a chair, the better of the two that sat before the desk.

“Sit down, sit down. I’m glad you’re here this morning. We have several situations to discuss that I would prefer not to do over any phone.” His uncle pulled out and set up on the desk a security cylinder and thumbed it on. Lights along one side blinked green, one after another. “What were you talking to Max about?”

“Using gas at Rector Vatta’s house.”

“Ah. And your view on that?”

Now he was on the microscope slide, exposed under his uncle’s flinty eye. “I think it was a bad mistake,” he said. Michael nodded permission to go on. Benny gave his reasons.

“Good analysis,” Michael said, at the end. “I had intended to start this morning by saying much the same to Max, but you have saved me the trouble.” He grinned, more feral than humorous. “All I’ll need to say is Benny was right. And assess him a fine.” He paused, opened a drawer, and pulled out a neatly bound folder. “I think it’s time you took a look at this.” He pushed it across the desk.

Benny picked it up. “Project 43.36?”

“Yes. Do you recognize the code?”

“No, Uncle.”

“Good. It’s not in any of the usual sequences. Tell me: what do you know about Miksland?”

“What we were taught: a terraforming failure, barren, just rock and ice. Not worth worrying about with all the fertile land we have without it. Until recently, when suddenly it seems there’s a military base on it, some question about what else is there, and I’ve seen a fuzzy image of some kind of big hairy animal with tusks—”

“Where?”

“One of those conspiracy sites you asked me to keep an eye on.”

“Right. Well. In fact, it’s not a terraforming failure, it’s not barren, and—though it’s not widely known—it belongs to us.”

“Belongs—?”

“To us. The Quindlan family. We… managed to tack that claim onto a rather bulky piece of legislation about the time a connection of our family determined that it had potential.”

Benny stared at his uncle. “The whole… continent belongs to us?”

“Yes. In rather convoluted language, and nobody seems to have noticed, but yes. We have… er… encouraged the belief that it’s worthless rock, but in fact there are valuable mineral deposits and… you can look at the file for the rest. Now that others have noticed it exists, we need to make our claim public and decide what to do from here on—and I want you to bring me some proposals. We’re meeting—all the seniors in the family—the day after tomorrow.”

“But sir—Uncle—what about the military presence?”

“Long story; read the file. It’s data-dense, and it has keys that will get you into the files stored in our servers at Portmentor. Don’t lose it.”

“I won’t,” Benny said. At his uncle’s nod, he rose—his knees feeling a bit unsteady—and went to the door. Max was still in the outer office; behind him he heard his uncle’s voice calling, “Come on in, Max!”

Benny’s own office was down two floors, and his com light was blinking when he arrived. His sister Linny, he noted on the screen. He slid the folder into his office safe and locked it, then sat down at his desk.

“What did he want?” was Linny’s first question. “Did he give you the promotion?”

“No. He was annoyed with Max for that operation against Grace Vatta.”

“That viper,” Linny said. “It should’ve killed her.”

“Lin. It didn’t kill her and it could have repercussions on the family. Using a rare weapon isn’t the smartest choice. We’re not supposed to have that stuff.”

“We’re not supposed to have a lot of things,” Linny said. She was, Benny reflected, the most openly bloodthirsty and action-oriented Quindlan of his immediate family, and he wished she’d been tamed before she’d become his responsibility.

“Lin. You’re still fourth tier. Do not start anything.”

“Oh, big brother’s going to scooold me? I’m so scared.”

“Big brother is telling you not to buck first tier unless you want to spend the next two years counting barnacles on the dock on one of the smaller islands.”

“Uncle Mike wouldn’t do that. He likes me. He likes me better than you.”

“That may be, but he doesn’t like anyone to cross him.”

She closed the call without answering. Typical. Benny looked at his schedule, told his clerk to hold calls from anyone junior to him, unlocked the safe, and opened the file. A day-after-tomorrow meeting meant his uncle would expect an outline of his presentation by noon tomorrow.

Two hours later, a call buzzed through. “How’s it going?” asked his uncle. “What page are you on?”

“One oh five,” Benny said.

“Good. That chart on one oh three?”

“Yes?”

“New data. I’ll send it to your desk, unlabeled. You can figure it out.”

And that was all. Benny allowed himself a moment of rubbing his temples and wishing he’d been born into another family before pulling up the new data.

Mac sat down in the chair beside the bed and took Grace’s hand. He could see the tiny red marks on her face, on her arms, and Maillard had told him privately what they meant. Her gaze was hazed, as if she was in pain, or sedated, but she hadn’t had the sedative yet. Across the room, two nurses organized a tray of equipment and drugs. He hated seeing her like this, and he knew she hated being here, needing to be here.

“I hope what Maillard does will clear this out,” Grace said.

“I’m going to trust that it will, and that your usual hardheaded stubbornness will pull you through anything. Most people your age wouldn’t have survived having their arm shot off.” He squeezed her hand, but felt her wince and let up his grip.

“I was younger then. Every year counts.”

He softened his voice before asking, “Are you really worried, Grace?”

“Not exactly worried. Just… taking it seriously.”

“Anything else?”

“Past things. Memories floating up. I think the records were all sufficiently slagged, but—”

He put a finger to her lips. “I’ll be here. If you start babbling about something you shouldn’t, I’ll see that nobody hears it, if I have to sing opera at the top of my lungs.”

Grace laughed; she couldn’t help it. And at that moment, Maillard walked in at the head of a line of assistants, all ready.

“Good to hear you laugh, Rector. This is the team that will be working on you. Jess, give the master sergeant custody of the implant support box. Rector, you will have a sedative and then local anesthesia for the process of removing your implant, because although it is not physically painful, it can be quite disorienting. Then general anesthesia for the chill-down and flush of the toxin.”

Grace did not argue. That in itself told Mac she was not anywhere close to being well.

Stella called Ky in early afternoon. “Grace is getting some complicated procedure; Mac is staying with her. I’ve been told not to come to the hospital, not to send flowers, just to wait. She’s our relative. I hate waiting.”

“And I hate being locked out of official channels,” Ky said. “There’s nothing at all on the news about the other survivors. Plus Rafe and Teague looking at me as if I’m supposed to pull the stuff they want out of the air.”

“I can help you with that,” Stella said. “I have access to Grace’s old Vatta files, so I know now who else she handpicked for Vatta Security. I’m sending someone over within the hour with the equipment Rafe asked for.”

“Fine,” Ky said. “How will we know he’s the right one?”

“You’ll know.” Stella cut the connection abruptly, and Ky managed not to snarl at her absence.

Stella had been right. Ky recognized the man as family the moment she saw him on the viewscreen. For one horrified instant, she thought it was her brother San, killed in the attack on Corleigh years before, but this man was a little taller. She let Teague open the door while she got her face back under control.

“I’m Rodney Vatta-Stevens,” he said. “Sera Stella Vatta sent me with some equipment to upgrade security here, after the trouble at Sera Grace’s.”

He looked like San in the face, the same build, the same way of moving when he walked in, nodding to Teague and then to Ky. “It’s been a long time since we last saw each other, at the country house one year, a birthday party. You may not remember me.” His voice was not like San’s, more tenor than baritone.

“I don’t remember you specifically,” Ky said. “The Vatta-Stevenses—didn’t you live somewhere south of Port Major?”

“Southwest,” he said. “Stevens Crossing. My great-grandfather part-owned a copper mine there.” He went on, explaining at more length than Ky cared about how he was related to several branches of the family.

“I never heard of Couray-Vatta,” Ky said, then wished she hadn’t. Was he about to start a lecture on the ancestral history of the Couray-Vattas? He was.

With a cheerful grin, he shared all he knew about the Vatta-Stevens and Couray-Vattas as he opened his equipment case and lifted out tray after tray of instruments, finishing up with “Anyway, that’s my family lineage. My parents live in Port Major now. My father’s down in the bowels of the new headquarters building keeping the big servers running. That’s where I was when Sera Stella called me up.”

“What’s your background in surveillance and countersurveillance?” Rafe asked. He sounded grumpy. He would have even less interest in the genealogy of Vattas than Ky.

“Sera Grace in Corporate Security recruited me out of school. My degree’s from Thensantos U, right here in Port Major. Then came the attack—I was on a training mission at the time. Put me through the toughest eight weeks of my life, because so many had been lost. When she was tapped for Rector of Defense, she recommended to Sera Helen that I be moved out of Security for a few years, given more background in communications and computer technology, so that’s where I’ve been. But I’ve kept up my physical training and martial arts, as a hobby, and I’ve kept reading.”

They moved into the front sitting room, following Teague, and Rafe nodded at one of the chairs; Rodney sat down, then they all did.

“What kind of martial arts?” Teague asked.

Rodney named five or six. “Our club rotates, so we don’t get stale. Every half year we change instructors, learn something new or ways to combine what we’ve been doing with what’s being taught.”

“So… what did Stella tell you about this situation?”

“Two jobs. The first, to bring a list of equipment to upgrade the house security. It’s all in the case here, plus some adapters in case something doesn’t fit. The second… she didn’t tell me much, because she said you’d tell me if you wanted me for it.”

“Briefing time,” Ky said. “We’ll go down in the basement; the charts are there.” She led the way to the lift installed in the house core and punched in the code. Down there he wouldn’t be able to see or hear the fugitives.

Rodney’s eyes widened when he saw the displays. “This is like a military mission briefing.”

“Exactly,” Ky said. “And for that reason, we need your agreement that you want to be in on it.”

“Without knowing any more?” He looked at Ky, then Rafe and Teague, and shrugged. “I say yes. Could be dangerous, right?”

“Very,” Rafe said drily.

“Just the four of us?”

“Maybe. You have someone else to suggest?”

“Depends. But I do know some people, mostly in my martial arts group. And some cousins back home, on the Stevens side mostly.”

“Well, then,” Ky said. “Here’s what we need to do. First we need to find the people who were with me in Miksland. We think they’re all locked up in various military psych wards and/or prisons. Then we need to free them.”

“How many people, how many locations?”

“We know the number of people, but not the locations. And that’s the first task we’re working on. Rafe and Teague have both surveillance and computer skills, but they’re not from here, and we can’t use anything in the Defense Department.”

“Not exactly my field,” Rodney said. “But you know the origin point of their travels… should be possible to track transport patterns using a program developed by Vatta for tracking its shipments. Pretty common sort of program; shouldn’t arouse any suspicions.”

“Excellent,” Rafe said. “I used something similar to track movements when my family was abducted years ago.”

Teague shifted but didn’t say anything.

“Secure communications here, right?” Rodney asked.

“Yes. And a dedicated line to Vatta’s servers.” Rafe answered before Ky could.

“Perfect. I’ll need the originating site, and any intermediate sites you’ve identified. Also any information about which people are where.” He looked around. “But what did you want first, the house security made more secure, or your people found?”

“House security,” Rafe said, Teague a beat behind him.

“Find the people,” Ky said. Rodney looked back and forth among them all. “Rafe, you or Teague could upgrade the house security with the supplies Rodney brought, but he’s the only one who knows the Vatta program for tracking shipments. We can do both.”

“Ky—I just wanted—” Rafe began, but Teague interrupted.

“I can do it, Rafe. I’ll call if I need your help. You left the stuff on our list upstairs, Rodney, right?”

“Yes,” Rodney said, with a glance back at Ky.

“Rafe and I are both qualified. No putting things in upside down or the wrong order.” Teague smiled.

“But if—”

“I’ve got this,” Teague said, sketching a salute to Ky on his way out.

Rafe moved closer to Ky. “All right then—let’s find the people. Do your magic, Rodney.”

An hour later, with visuals up on three different screens, Rodney had broken through the first problem. “They’re supposed to have their locators on—you’ve cited the military code—but they turned them off to hide from normal tracker activity. But we’ve got visual as well, and they might as well have painted themselves bright orange. Vehicles without locators traveling from or through the points you defined on the days you defined are now showing up as outliers.”

Colored lines now originated at the airfield near where a flight from Miksland could have landed. Rodney pointed to one particular trace. “Four vehicles without locators departed your starting point A on the date you suggested, spaced ninety minutes apart. Three took one route; one took another. That jibes with what you said about the more senior enlisted being separated from the rest early on. Vehicle one, registered to Slotter Key Defense Department, headed southwest on Highway 21W to a destination fifteen kilometers outside Marlotta, with a label of TRANSFER SUPPLY STATION.”

“The trace goes beyond that,” Ky said.

“Yes, but someone could have been offloaded at that station. Can’t be sure. It was there four hours and twenty minutes, at least. Then it ended some twenty-two kilometers past Egger’s Crossing, at Clemmander Rehabilitation Center. Not defined anywhere as a military installation. Was there for an hour and a half, then drove back to Egger’s Crossing where the locator was turned back on.”

“So you think some of them are there?” Ky asked.

“Very good chance,” Rafe said before Rodney could. “We need to find out who owns the rehab center and what kinds of patients it takes.”

“Did that,” Rodney said, pulling up another image. “This is what Clemmander looks like.” A brick building set in green lawns, fronted by a paved approach with three vehicles sitting on it. “It’s listed as a facility under Rehabilitation Services, Ltd., a subsidiary of Slotter Key Medical Services Incorporated. They have at least one facility on each continent; several here on Arland. Site says they have contracts with ‘major employers, private and governmental, to provide residential rehabilitative care for employees suffering from a variety of mental and physical impairments. Not open for uncontracted services.’”

“Very handy,” Rafe said. “A way to hide people you want hidden… do we have any satellite imagery of the place?”

“Yes, but it’s sited in an awkward location, so there’s not nearly as much satellite coverage as we’d like. For details, the local planning authority’s authorization, eighteen years ago when it was built, may be more useful. Included was the site plan, building plans and elevations, and at least some of the security measures. Here’s the only satellite view I could find; the standard mapping image blurs out, like you said it did for Miksland itself. But here’s the authorization paperwork.”

“Looks exactly like a small prison,” Rafe said. “Four pods holding five prisoners each in isolation. Staff security—guards, essentially. Kitchen, exercise area… a mini-prison. Except—” Rafe looked at the images of proposed client room décor. “—this is more like a private clinic. Beds, not steel shelves. Chair. Recreation area with tables, chairs, couches, bookshelves.”

“Pods aren’t equal,” Ky said, scowling at the tiny figures in the drawings then back to the descriptive text. “And there’s another level. Look—the ground-level rooms have the nice beds and so on… the upper one, the rooms are smaller, thicker-walled, no windows. Described as ‘treatment rooms for more severe conditions.’”

“Perfect for isolating problem people,” Rodney said.

“What about the other vehicles?” Ky looked at Rodney.

“Traced for two days. The first went north, up the east-coast road, no locator, then turned west at Sarl Harbor, then north again to a psychiatric residential facility within five kilometers of an AirDefense base, and a hundred thirty kilometers west of Port Major. Eleven days after that, a locator-free prison transport left there headed for Port Major, and arrived at the Joint Services HQ base west of the city. It lists a military prison sited near the east margin of the base, well away from any other buildings. That must be where the women here escaped from. The others turned west earlier—look here—” He pointed to the image. “Almost all the way across the continent, one to another rehab center a hundred and ten kilometers north of Portmentor, and the other to a rehab center two hundred thirteen kilometers south of Portmentor. And yes, all the rehab centers are operated by the selfsame Rehabilitation Services, Ltd.” Rodney looked pleased with himself, and Ky thought he had reason.

“We need more people on the team,” Rafe said. “Three sites—we’ll never get them all if we start with one: they’ll know we’re on the move.”

“Four sites. There could still be prisoners incarcerated here in Port Major.” Ky stared at the trace on the screen. “But you’re right, Rafe. We’re going to need more personnel.”

“There’s got to be an equivalent specialist on this planet, if I only knew—” Rafe said. He stopped as Teague came back into the room.

“I’ll check,” Teague said. “But how do we know who they’re working for? We’re not natives here; we don’t have the networks. Nor Sera Ky; she’s been gone too long.”

“Hostage extrication?” Rodney said. “Sera Grace had a list, but none she really trusted, she said. Though maybe since then—”

“It would take all of—” Teague paused, clearly editing what he’d been about to say. “That other person’s full team, all of it, to pull off multiple extrications involving the same source.”

“We’ve made a start,” Ky said. “And you’re saying we can’t go further without more personnel. So, Teague, how are you coming on the security end?”

“Not done yet—I need Rafe to check results while I test.”

“We need to do what can be done now,” Ky said. “Let’s finish getting the kitchen wing and garage better protected, and talk this over with the others and Stella when she gets home. Which should be in—less than an hour, now.”

They looked at her. Then Rafe shrugged. “That’s why she’s the admiral. Yes, sir, Admiral sir, you’re right.”

“Start in the kitchen,” Ky said. “And fix whatever lets scans count the number of people in there.”

Ky gathered her troops, as she thought of them, in Stella’s office, for a tactical discussion. Two days of safety and rest had done them all good. Barash, in the disguising wig and cook’s outfit, showed a witty side Ky had not seen before; Inyatta was back to her former energetic, serious self, eager for something useful to do. And Kamat, though still distressed about having an “immoral” implant, now seemed focused on rescuing the others.

“Do any of you have any knowledge of these regions?” Ky asked, highlighting the areas Rodney had pointed out on the image.

“I’ve got some relatives near there,” Inyatta said. “An uncle, some cousins. They’re out in the country, though. Livestock.”

Barash and Kamat shook their heads.

“But shouldn’t Slotter Key military be the ones to get them out?” Teague said.

“Except that they haven’t.”