Plan B by Sharon Lee; Steve Miller

Author:Sharon Lee; Steve Miller
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2007-01-31T23:00:00+00:00

Liad: Department of Interior Command Headquarters

The operative commissioned to discover what nature of mishap had destroyed Tyl Von sig'Alda's ship, innocently in orbit about the busy world of Waymart, had filed her report.

Despite that this document directly contravened several apparently known facts, Commander of Agents readily accepted the operative's assertion that no such ship had been in orbit about Waymart during the span of days designated in the search grid, nor had such a ship exploded upon the day, hour, and nanosecond also named. The operative expressed herself quite certain of these things.

Commander of Agents ordered the operative to her immediate superior for deep questioning under the drug, but it was a formality. He believed her report, utterly. Oh, certainly, he had the raw data received from the hidden transmitter upon sig'Alda's ship, as well as his own excellent memory of event. Mere facts.

And facts, as any Agent knows well, are open to manipulation.

Seated behind his desk in the room of chronometers, Commander of Agents indulged in fantasy.

Tyl Von sig'Alda, the fairy tale went, had not departed the world of Vandar. Indeed, let it be that he had died there, during that brief period in which his ship had rested on world.

Val Con yos'Phelium, rogue Agent, having overpowered the man sent to return himself or his severed head to Headquarters, used the ship's key and lifted to orbit. There, he had not after all dawdled, but engaged himself in a fever of busyness, first seeking and then subverting the hidden beacon, the existence of which he would have easily deduced. That done, he had Jumped, but never, so Commander of Agents was willing to wager, for Waymart.

Or perhaps he had, as he was both subtle and intelligent.

In short, Commander of Agents concluded his fantasy, Val Con yos'Phelium could be anywhere in the galaxy, not excluding the hallway outside his Commander's door.

A peculiarly unnerving conceit, that.

It would all, of course, need to be checked.

With a feeling not unlike dread, Commander of Agents leaned forward and touched the switch that would summon his second to him.

A team of Agents, so he considered, in the few moments before that efficient person appeared. Certainly, a team of Agents to Vandar, to discover the whereabouts of Tyl Von sig'Alda, or the manner of his death. What else? How might they now discover a hint to Val Con yos'Phelium's thought, a clue that might point to his ultimate destination?

"You summoned me, Commander?" His second bowed and then stood silent.

Commander of Agents stirred, issued his orders regarding the team and the maximum priority mission they were to undertake. His second bowed. "There is something else?"

Where? Where might he go, whose clan, save one, was scattered to the Prime Points? What cause might move him more strongly? Balance? Or the safety of his kin? What reason might be read into random action? Which actions were deliberately random? Which only mimed chaos, with cold reason as the lodestone?

Where would he go, with all the galaxy to choose from?

"Dispatch a team to Jelaza Kazone," Commander of Agents said to his second.

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