"Nothing is more important than family." Says the woman who hasn't got one, she thought with resignation.
"Some things are."
And the brief glance he gave her made her pulse skip, then race. Did that glance imply what she thought it implied?
Or were her overactive hormones making her read far too much into it?
"Like what?" she asked, as casually as she could.
"Like stopping a madman intent on starting a war."
Amusement and perhaps a touch of disappointment ran through her. So much for all the pulse racing, she thought wryly.
"So, you still think Wetherton has connections to Sethanon?"
"Do I believe it? Yes. Do I have any proof? No. Other than the body of the real Wetherton, and the fact that Sethanon was behind the attempt to replace the Prime Minister with a clone, that is."
"And Wetherton's connections to Hopeworth?"
"Could be a means for Sethanon to keep track of what is going on in there. Or maybe Wetherton is merely the go- between for Sethanon and his military source."
She raised her eyebrows at that. "You think Blaine is working for Sethanon?"
"It's not beyond the bounds of reason. I certainly don't think it's a coincidence that it was Blaine's image the multishifter imitating him used."
"Why?"
"Multishifters need to come in constant contact with someone to take their shape. It takes a little time for cells to reconfigure, and the longer the contact, the more exact the image."
"Really? Does it work the same for shapechangers? Or shapeshifters?"
He shook his head. "Shapechangers and shifters are born with their secondary form programmed into their cells.
Multishifters have 'adaptable' cells'."
"Fascinating."
"Very."
His voice was dry and she smiled. "Maybe not to you because you grew up with it. Who actually knows what, exactly, I grew up with?" She paused, frowning a little. "You know, it seems odd to me that you all fear Sethanon, and yet you haven't been able to find out a great deal about him in the all the years you've been hunting him."
"We do know a lot about his organization. We just don't know much about the man himself."
"Why not? I mean, you've captured his people, interrogated them, so surely they were able to give you something more concrete."
"Only concrete in the terms of his organization, his contacts, stuff like that. No one seems to know much about the man himself."
"Don't you find that a little surprising?"
"Not really. We're talking about someone who can change his identity at a whim. It's hard to trace someone when you can't even pin down their true identity." He grimaced. "Hell, for all we know, he could be one of the contacts we have under observation. Anything is possible when your form is mutable."
She raised her eyebrows. "So, he suddenly appears on the scene sixteen years ago and starts taking pot shots at the Federation and the SIU?"
"It's a little more than pot shots," he interrupted, his voice a little testy. "And his agenda—which he's made perfectly clear in several messages he's sent us—amounts to war."
"And yet if he intended war, why hasn't he just started it?
Why warn you at all?"