so they could grab her and kill her elsewhere. I'm sure they'd have left her body where no one would find it. They would not have wanted a dead Earth woman to be found in the square.”
“Who's doing this?” Dimitara asked. “It can't be the whole of the military. It's surely a smaller group.”
“Speak to someone called Dr. Farnn,” Bane said. “She's one of the few survivors of that fire at a military facility a few days ago. She was one of Lucy Harris's doctors there, and Lucy said she's the one who helped her escape. She'll have a good idea of who had something to lose by Lucy being found.”
“Do you know where she is?” Dimitara asked.
“I'll send you the details, Ambassador.” Bane hesitated. “I would suggest you put Dr. Farnn somewhere very safe, like the Urna. I don't think the military will be happy that she's still walking around free.”
“And you, Dray? What's your plan?” Dimitara asked.
“We have to come back to the city. I need you to send a team to get us.”
She hesitated.
“You won't send a team?” He didn't hide his outrage.
“No, I want to send a team. I'm just worried they'll be followed.”
Dray gave a snort. “So what if they are? What are they going to do? Shoot down a UC team?”
Her silence spoke volumes.
And, yes, maybe they were crazy enough to do just that. “Even if they do, we can shoot back. And there can't be more crazy military officers caught up in this cover up than we can handle.” He would relish shooting a few of them. It was sounding like a better idea all the time.
“If they shoot to kill? Or if one of them gets seriously hurt? How will that play out in the current mood on Tecra?” Dimitara asked quietly. “Do I care all that much about them getting hurt? No. I'm so angry about this, I want to call Bane back and get him to blitz the whole planet, but I'm here to make this agreement work. And so far, it really does look like a small group is causing this. That's not fair to the rest of the Tecran. And how much more damage will I do if I agree to let a team or two fetch you, weapons hot, and the Tecran take that as an attack in bad faith and pull out of the agreement? I don't want to be the UC ambassador who led the UC into war. And how safe will Lucy be in a situation like that anyway? Can you guarantee she won't be hurt in any armed confrontation with the Tecran? After all, they're trying to kill her.”
He saw his fantasy of using his shockgun on a few Tecran assholes evaporate under the cold reality of her reasoning. “I'll get us back quietly.”
“You do that.” Dimitara's words were implacable. “And soon, Dray. I won't rest until Lucy's safe on the Urna.”
“Safe on my Class 5,” Bane corrected. “There is no way she's going to be safe on the Urna.”
After a startled silence, Dimitara gave a hum of agreement. “On your Class 5,” she confirmed. “But you're not in the solar system, Bane. Until you get here, I want her in the fold.”
“So you want me to come in?” Bane asked.
Dray would say this for the thinking system, he was a very convincing liar. And he obviously trusted Dray not to out him to Dimitara.
“No,” she said, although not as decisively as he would have thought. “I'll have Lucy taken to you in one of the Urna's explorers as soon as we have her onboard. Things are too delicate at this point for you to make an appearance.”
Dray thought of Bane, hiding on Gyre, and for the first time since this mess began, relaxed a little.
He was glad the thinking system was right here. Not sitting in a holding pattern out of reach. The delicacy of the balance between the UC teams and the Tecran be damned.
When Dimitara said goodbye he responded in kind and then stood in the silent kitchen.
A feeling of being watched slowly crept over him, and he turned toward the stairs. Lucy Harris was sitting on one of the steps, wet hair slicked back to fall in a cascade of tight golden brown curls, her eyes big and dark.
She was dressed in a black shirt that was too big for her and loose black trousers, but her feet were bare. She leaned forward to hug her knees and the