The Tangled Stars by Edward Willett

Author:Edward Willett [WILLETT, EDWARD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Published: 2022-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

“‘The Naming of Cats’ by T.S. Eliot is a work of profound insight. I do, indeed, have three different names. Thibauld is my everyday name, assigned to me at birth. My unique name for myself is Theosgatas. And as for my ineffable effable effanineffable deep and inscrutable singular name—that, I will never confess.”

—Thibauld’s Private Log

Androssian missed his scheduled call, which did not fill me with warm fuzzies about how things were going down on Earth.

“There could be a million reasons why he can’t contact you,” Thibauld pointed out. He was having a wash. He was always having a wash. Even though I knew his voice wasn’t generated by his feline vocal apparatus but by his AI implant, it was still weird that he could talk at the same time his tongue was industriously grooming his tail. “Don’t ascribe to disaster what could be due to anything from bad weather to simple incompetence.”

“The cat speaks truth,” Ilya said, which earned him a narrow-eyed stare from Thibauld, who, as a rule, did not like being referred to as simply “the cat.” “I am sure we will hear news very soon.”

We did, but not from Androssian. It came from Thibauld again, who was monitoring Earth communications. His ears suddenly perked up, and he stopped washing, the tip of his pink tongue forgotten outside his mouth for a moment. I refrained from pointing that out. He was sensitive about it. “Police have been called to the Jeanne Baret Interpretive Center,” he said. “One rapid response aircar and two hovercars are en route. The access tunnel from the Museum of Science and Industry has been sealed, and a second force is advancing along it.”

My heart skipped a beat. “So much for a quiet getaway.” I glared at Ilya. “I thought these guys of yours were professionals?”

He shrugged. “Shit happens.”

“Very profound.” I looked at the main display. “Ernie, do you have eyes on the Jeanne Baret?”

“Through commercially available mapping satellites, yes. However, resolution is poor.”

“Show what you’ve got.”

An image sprang into being on the main screen: the island where the Pioneer-class starship on which all our plans depended had been mothballed. Light flashed in the big open space between the curving shape of the interpretative center and the huge oblong of the starship itself.

“What’s that?” I said sharply, but I’d already guessed.

“Gunfire,” Thibauld confirmed. “The police are engaged in a firefight with their own air cruiser.”

“What? Why?”

Suddenly, the image flashed so bright that it overloaded the satellite’s sensors and went black. When the image returned, the air cruiser was gone. Debris littered the space where it had been, just visible through gaps in the cloud of rising smoke.

“What the hell?” Ilya said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

This time, Ernie answered. “The Jeanne Baret has fired a high-energy particle beam,” he said, as unperturbed as ever. “The police cruiser has been destroyed.”

“Which means Laysa successfully woke the starship,” Thibauld said with complete certainty. As happened far too often, he’d grasped what must have happened a heartbeat—okay, maybe two or even three—before I did.

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