"No. It can't be. They—" Ford argued, breaking off when he saw the life form identification. He re-ran the scan, fiddling with the calibration some more, and then spread his hands flat on the control panel, leaning heavily on them. "They re-engineer their ships before they emerge from a period of isolation. Of course. I knew that." He snapped out of his reverie with a frown. "But what in Miah's name are they doing out here?"
"Is there anything out here, other than Pharon crystal?" Sabrina asked hopefully. Maybe this was harmless after all.
"No." Ford was grim. "Any moment now they're going to identify us as a Wayship. I don't know how they'll react. Most races won't tangle with Wayfarers."
"But the Reissians have a grudge," Sabrina finished for him.
Ford nodded. Then he grimaced and pounced on the controls, his fingers flying above them, setting the ship into motion. "Rudolf!" he shouted.
The android answered over the ship's com. "Yes, sir?"
"Finish up with the matrix and rig the other life capsule to emit life signs. Two of them. When I give you the word, jettison them both at the same time. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are you hoping to distract them?" Sabrina asked.
"Yes. I can't re-install the matrix quickly enough to avoid them. We can't outrun them, and there's no way we outgun them."
"Bluff?" Sabrina suggested.
"I want to keep enough distance between us that they can't get detailed readings on our life signs. I don't want them to know there's a human aboard."
"But why? They don't have a grudge against Earth."
"They have a grudge against you, Sabrina. In fact they were trying to assassinate you last time you met. And the only humans that have ever been aboard a Wayship are you and your brother." He glanced at her. "Did Khediva have anything to do with that night, directly?"
Sabrina tried to remember. The Battle for Dansestari was a messy, bloody blur for her, with the exception of the scenes she remembered in too vivid detail—such as her adopted father's assassination. "She was there. She rescued Mara and Scotty after Mara bent space around the Reissian fleet. But then she was in hiding. I don't know if anybody knew she was there. I don't think so. Homeworld didn't."
"All right. I'm going to imitate Khediva's ident. She's got enough of a reputation that they shouldn't want to tangle with her. I'm going to put enough fuzz in the defense screens that any scans they run will be inconclusive."
Sabrina nodded, then let out a wry laugh. "You impersonate Khediva? Nervy."
"She hasn't caught me yet," Ford replied. "They're still coming right at us. They must know we're here by now, so it can't be bad luck."
Sabrina tried to swallow her rising terror. "What do they want out here? They couldn't use Pharon crystal, could they?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I've never met a Reissian," Ford said. "And I frankly don't see how the idea could have occurred to them. In fact I can't think how the idea occurred to any of you!"
"I think it was Scotty's idea," Sabrina said.
Ford snorted. "Naturally. Well, we'll just have to hope the Reissians don't have any Scottys in their ranks."
"God forbid!" Sabrina said fervently. She watched Ford's deft manipulation of the console, glad of anything to focus on besides the Reissian ship looming on the wallscreen.
"There." Ford straightened, flexing his fingers. It was the only indication he gave of being nervous; he didn't usually fidget. Sabrina noticed she was twisting her hands together so hard that her fingers hurt. She laid her palms flat on the console.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"They ignore us or attack us," he replied, as if it didn't really matter which.
Sabrina resisted the strong urge to interrogate him about the ship's defensive capabilities. The information wouldn't do her any good, other than satisfying her curiosity, and the questioning would irritate him.
"If they attack," Ford said, surprising her, "do you think they will destroy us outright, or try to board us?"
"I don't know. They were pretty much destroying everything in their path when they tried to take Dansestari. But then, they didn't need to interrogate anybody; they had all the intelligence they needed. In this situation they may behave differently. I guess it depends on what they're trying to achieve out here. If having witnesses threatens their plans, they'll destroy us. If it's more important for them to know why we're here, they'll try to board us. I don't...I don't really know all that much about their culture, Ford. There was just that one attack, and then we never heard from them again. You probably have more information on them than I do."
"Facts, yes. Real observation, no. You've stood face to face with them."
"An assassination squad." She swallowed hard. "I didn't direct the battle, or have anything to do with the space fighting. I was in Giandrah after I got back to the planet. Scotty'd be able to tell you tons more than I can."
"Well, he's not here," Ford pointed out.
"If he were," Sabrina said, with a small, fond smile, "we'd be in combat gear by now and he'd be hassling you about the ship's weaponry, not to mention spouting tactical plans and making you furious by acting like he was in charge."
In the silence that followed, the proximity alarm entered stage three, emitting a warning chime that was louder and sharper than the previous ones. "They're slowing down," Ford observed after a moment. "Can't make up their minds, evidently."
"Is that good or bad?" Sabrina murmured.
Ford turned to her. "Did you bring your combat gear?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then I want you in it, right now."
"I only have my blaster, if they board us," she warned him.
"Doesn't matter. The moment they look like they're going to try, you're going to be in the transport capsule headed somewhere else."
"The hell I am."
"Sabrina, Reissians have long memories. The moment they figure out who you are—and it won't take them long—they're going to carry out that assassination they kept bungling during the Regency. I've read about that. It doesn't sound like a nice way to die."
It had taken Rayland some time to die, she recalled, feeling sick. If they hadn't been hemmed in by tunnel collapses and more Reissians, they might have saved him, even from such a frightening, massive injury. She remembered with painful clarity the serrated knife and how it had torn her father's skin as it was yanked mercilessly out of him. No, she did not want to die that way.
"You're coming with me," she said.
"No. I can't leave this ship to fall into their hands, even without its matrix," Ford explained. "That's part of my arrangement with Homeworld."
"Damn Homeworld!" she hissed. "I am not leaving you. Not like that."
Ford opened his mouth to retort, but his attention was drawn to the wallscreen before he could speak. "They're turning!"
Sabrina blinked, not daring to believe such good luck. But it was true; the Reissian ship was veering off, passing them by.
"They must have decided Khediva didn't bear tangling with," Ford said, a hint of smugness entering his surprised tone.
The chill in Sabrina's stomach refused to be banished. "I don't feel good about this. It was too easy. Something's not right."
Ford grimaced, looking as if he were going to argue with her. Then he sighed. "You're right. It was. Something's going on here. We'll have to find out what."
"You don't suppose..." Sabrina began, then trailed off, biting her lip.
"That they have something to do with Malvarak?" Ford finished for her.
Her gaze flew up to his, astonished. "Do you think so?"
"It's a logical possibility." He frowned, contemplating the starfield on the wallscreen for a moment. "It's even a probability, if you think it through. He has to have allies. The Reissians are dangerous enough, and motivated. They have a history of siding with renegades. Of course, the renegades themselves usually meet bad ends, but I'm sure Malvarak thinks he's clever enough to avoid that."
Sabrina hadn't thought she could feel any more sick, but this latest possibility made her close her eyes and struggle for control. How am I going to forgive him for this? she thought. He was mentally ill, she knew; by keeping that in mind, she could usually control her indignation at his actions. But to side with the race that had come within a hair's breadth of ripping the heart out of Miahn civilization, that had murdered her father in front of her and nearly succeeded, so many times, in murdering her—that seemed almost calculated to enrage her, like a personal affront. It could not be, she told herself firmly. Malvarak wanted to revenge himself on Mara and Tirqwin, for failing to save Sribarak; he had never held a particular grudge against her or Scotty.
"We won't know until we go and see what's happening in the Pharon system," she managed to say. "Let's get it over with."
She opened her eyes to find Ford scowling at the wallscreen. When she finished speaking, his gaze turned back to her, softening. "I want you in that combat suit," he said, in a tone made all the more intense by its lack of volume.
"Okay." It would be madness to refuse, she knew. She could defend them, defend the ship, better if she was prepared.
"I'm going to jettison the matrix. I'll be right back."
"Right."
——————————
Two hours later, they were entering the outer boundary of the Pharon system, moving slowly and frustrated by the spatial distortions wreaking havoc with long-range scans. Sabrina moved restlessly, feeling confined in her combat gear and glancing with loathing at her gloves and helmet lying nearby, while Ford swore softly at the console and occasionally at Rudolf as they tried to get a clear picture of the system.
Sabrina found herself examining the control deck for good cover and vantage points. If they did get boarded, she wanted to be able to put up a good fight. She ran through various boarding scenarios in her mind, picking out the positions she should try for in each case. She actually paced through what she thought was the most likely sequence of events, kneeling behind one of the padded benches in the sunken area of the control deck in front of the viewscreen to test the sight lines.
"What are you doing?" Ford asked sharply.
She jumped, startled; he hadn't spoken to her in the past hour, at least. Then she hesitated over her answer, trying not to sound too grim. "Channeling Scotty, I think," she said finally, with a very small grin. "Just doing a little pre-battle choreography. Actually, that's not very Scotty; he just leaps in. Or...he would have. In the old days. Now...well, maybe I am channeling him."
Ford eyed her intently for a moment, but said nothing, bending over the console again. They'd had the actual conversation enough for Sabrina to know exactly what that look meant. His expressed opinion was that her method of dealing with what had happened to her brother was mostly denial. She thought he was partly right, but she didn't know what else to do, and no one else seemed bothered by her behavior. Of course, she realized suddenly, she was careful not to speak wistfully about Scotty's pre-renewal behavior around anyone else. It was probably too late to adopt that behavior with Ford.
And why should it bother him, anyway, she wondered. He had an annoying habit of ferreting out and trying to fix anything that marred her serenity, when she would much rather deal with it on her own. It was probably just a bad habit, acquired over the years of looking out for his younger siblings.
She wished they would get to Pharo, already, so she would have something to do besides ponder her relationship with Ford. "Getting anything?" she asked, risking the explosion of frustration she knew was likely.
"I can't even tell where the sharding planet is!" he exclaimed. "Rudolf's doing the calculations of gravitational forces in the solar system to try to get a fix. If there are other ships here, we're probably going to find out by running into them—literally!"
"We'll just have to hope their scanners are doing better than ours," she said.
"I doubt that!" Ford snapped.
Oops. Slighted his ship, therefore him. Mental note: make a better effort not to do that! She wondered how many times she'd made that mental note, and how many more times she'd have to before it sank in.
"Got it!" Ford exclaimed, making her jump. "I'm setting a course. We'll do a quick orbit, just to make sure nobody else is there, and then check the rest of the system."
Sabrina tried to assure herself that she and Scotty had been contaminated by the Pharon crystal matrix, not merely by being in orbit around the planet. And yet...she had a really bad feeling about this situation. Hush, she told her intuition. You are not the one with the mental powers, here. It's natural to be nervous about being here, especially after what happened last time.
Without warning, a wave of prickly, fiery pain made her grab for the nearest wall, and she heard Ford cry out. Her body knew what it was long before her brain remembered: Pharon crystal, clashing with the faint resonance the Great Crystal had left in her cells during her long residence in proximity to it. But it shouldn't be happening like this, she knew. It was too intense, too sudden.
"Something's wrong," she bit out.
"We've been scanned. By something Pharon," Ford managed to reply, his breathing quick and harsh. "I'm turning us—"
The console sparked, making Ford jump back with a searing oath. Then another panel sparked and ignited. "Rudolf!" Ford shouted.
"What can I do?" Sabrina demanded, running for the console. "Where are the manual extinguishers?"
"The red cabinet, there. Rudolf!" Ford yelled again.
"Master, the primary and secondary control systems are offline," Rudolf reported, emerging onto the control deck.
"I know that! Get down to the core and reroute them! Sensors first!"
"Acknowledged."
Sabrina put out the fire on the secondary console and scanned the rest of the controls for signs of ignition. "I didn't think of this," she panted. "The ship must have absorbed a lot of resonance over the years. But I didn't think crystal resonance affected inanimate objects!"
"I didn't either," Ford said. "But I guess on a molecular level—"
The ship rocked violently, sending them skidding to one side, catching themselves on the main console. "Unless it's a weapon," Ford said, sounding uneasy.
"Malvarak, or the Reissians?"
"I don't know. I don't even know what to hope for," he admitted. The ship rocked again, but this time they were braced against it. "Sabrina, I don't know if the escape pods will even be safe. I'm sure the transport capsule isn't. It's your call whether to evacuate."
"No. I can help you," Sabrina said firmly.
"Our shields are down. It would only take one good shot to finish us."
"A better way to die than a Reissian knife."
"One of us needs to get out of this and tell Homeworld what we found."
"Then that has to be you, because I certainly can't explain it!" Sabrina protested. "Can't you jettison a copy of the ship's log or something?"
"Yes of course," Ford said. "At least, if it's working once we get control back. But I don't—"
The ship bucked, shivered, and settled into a jittery vibration. "I think someone's got us," Ford said.
Sabrina stared at him; how could he be so calm? Then she saw that he was pale and sweating, and his eyes were over-bright, as if in the grip of a fever. She began making her way toward him, hand over hand on the edge of the console to keep her footing. She was so intent on her painful trek that she didn't notice Ford's fixed expression until he failed to respond when she grasped his arm. Then she followed his gaze to the far side of the control deck.
"Well, Sabrina. We do seem to meet in the oddest places."
Sabrina swallowed hard. "Malvarak. Release this ship immediately."
He smiled. "I can't do that, you know."
"Yes, you can. You've evaded Homeworld for all these years. You can continue to do so, for all I care. Just let us go. Let me get Ford out of here."
Malvarak chuckled, his grey eyes dancing with amusement, or perhaps some less innocent emotion, Sabrina thought. He looked no older than when she'd briefly glimpsed him on Stanos two years ago, but he was immensely different from the man she'd known and respected—had counted a friend—all those years ago, before Sribarak's death. His hair was darker and cut in a harsh, spiky way that seemed to accentuate the lines on his face.
"Malvarak," she tried again, "please. You know me; I'm very clear on my priorities. I don't give a damn what you do as long as you let me take Ford home safely."
"I do know you, Sabrina," he said, shaking his head. "And though I've no doubt you would consign the rest of the universe to perdition to save someone you care about, I also know that, given any slight opportunity, you would manage to get me into Homeworld's custody as well. You're too clever by half, Sabrina. Homeworld, the Reissian Empire—they all underestimated you. I don't. The Prince stays where he is. As long as he does, I know that you will do what I ask." He raised an eyebrow and grinned wryly at her. "Aren't you curious as to why I've gone to all this trouble? I could have eluded you so easily. You had no idea where I was, and you have no defense against what I can do to this ship. Charming as you are, my dear, I did not come merely to bask in your scintillating conversation."
Sabrina planted her feet more firmly, shifting her balance. She was pretty sure her blaster wasn't a threat to Malvarak, so there wasn't a lot of point in trying for a fast draw—especially since she was standing too close to Ford to pull it off. But she felt strongly that she needed to brace herself for the rest of this conversation. "Let me guess," she said harshly. "You did a deal of some kind with these Reissians. And it went sour. You probably reneged, yes? So now, to save your own hide, you're going to hand me over so they can fulfill the vendetta they launched against my family a hundred years ago."
Malvarak laughed. "You should write fiction, Sabrina. Really you should. But stay out of fortune-telling! It's true I am...having a misunderstanding...with my former allies. But I've no intention of handing you over to them. Even if they were still interested in you, I have a better role in mind than victim."
"And what would that be?"
His grin grew alarming. "My co-conspirator."