"I think you'd better talk it over with Toll and Threbus first," said Maleen. "And this may not be the perfect time."
Goth took a deep breath. "I am not going to be able to sleep unless . . . isn't this a paradox? Like, he must have survived or we wouldn't have met him?"
Maleen bit her lip. "You'd think so. But all precog could give us was that somehow they avoided the time paradox."
"Time is too complicated to play around with lightly," said the voice of Goth's Toll pattern, issuing from her lips. "Dimensionality comes into it."
They went to find Threbus and Toll. And, not surprisingly, found them in consultation with several of the senior precogs. "You know the prediction that it was important that you spent the next year with my grand-nephew Pausert?" said her father. "We've got a little more clarity on that."
"We're trying to establish the precise dates right now," said Toll. "But you will be leaving on the
Venture
with him, and then we think you're going to have to jump to the past, via the Egger Route."
"I worked that out," said Goth, gruffly. "Been talking to Maleen. But why can't I just go now?"
"Because the flight schedules have been published and we are still trying to establish exactly when you have to go to, Goth. We have established you do—or did—go back to Nikkeldepain. We have only one other insight, Goth. A lattice ship."
The Leewit bounced. "Yay! I want to go too! I want to go too! I love the circus!"
"Well, you can't," said Goth firmly. "I need you to keep an eye on the captain. Anyway, you're the only one beside him that seems to be able to do anything with those little vatches."
Threbus grunted. "We need them to clean out Nanite-infected people. But the follow-up on that has been a bit chaotic. It seems that they only do things because they like Pausert. We don't really have any way of motivating them."
"Little-bit likes me too," said the Leewit cheerfully. "I got used to her."
She seemed firmly convinced the vatch was female, although Goth couldn't for the life of her figure out how you'd determine the gender of a vatch—assuming the distinction between male and female meant anything to them at all.
As if the vatch had known that it—she—was being spoken about, the tiny fleck of blackness with the hint of silver eyes appeared, flickering around the room.
Hello, big ones. I have taken the others to watch a play. They like them nearly as much as I do.
Goth chuckled. "I guess you've got your motivation."
Threbus nodded thoughtfully. "There are going to be a lot of traveling players visiting the outlying provinces of the Empire in the next while."
"On an Imperial cultural uplift programme," said Toll, smiling. "I'll have some words with Dame Ethy and Sir Richard."
"Should be pretty interesting with that sort of audience! They'd better not let the shows get stale or the little things will liven 'em up," said Goth. "But it could work."
Threbus nodded. "I like it. It gives us something the vatches want. The other issue with the Nanites is that we've had the Imperial scientists working nonstop on the material—dead material so far. They haven't given us anything to use to combat the plague, other than a possible repellant. But they have said that they're absolutely sure that the plague is an artificial creation. The Nanites were engineered. Made. They were programmed to do what they did."
There was a moment of silence. "That's a pretty powerful enemy."
Threbus nodded. "And one that has been around for a very long time. Working on records from the Sprites of Nartheby, the plague came from somewhere toward the galactic center. We, of course, probably weren't the targets. But it could be that something in there knows that their plague has been defeated."
"So they might be getting the next attack ready."
Threbus rubbed his jaw. "It's also, in a way, why humanity was able to expand off old Yarthe with such ease. We found so many habitable planets with traces of old alien civilizations on them, but no other existent aliens, except for the Sprites on Nartheby. But we have to face the possibility that the Nanite plague might just have been the alien equivalent of a pest-exterminator, cleaning up before the new occupants got there. And the Nanite problem won't just go away. It's with us for the foreseeable future. Even if we track down and destroy every Nanite in the Empire, they could still be hidden away somewhere—inside or outside the Empire, in the smallest colony, and could burst out again. We're going to have to be vigilant. And get people used to having grik-dogs to smell out the Nanite exudates."
"Well, at least I like grik-dogs," said Goth. "And I guess keeping an eye out for Nanites will also mean that we're ready for other problems."
Threbus nodded. "We're going to be stretched pretty thin, though, for the next few years. We'll have to keep Karres people undercover, scattered around. And Karres itself will probably keep a low profile. We will have to find ourselves a new sun to orbit, because the planet will be top of their target list."
"I reckon," said Goth. "And we like the old place."
Pausert was not prepared for Goth to sniff loudly and retreat, when he made a joke about his lousy take-off, instead of teasing him. The captain was almost sure she was in tears. But he couldn't leave the navigation controls just then to follow her and find out what was wrong. When she came back, her face looking recently washed, he started to ask. But she waved the question away.
She remained taciturn for the rest of the day—and all of the next, and the next. By then, Pausert was really starting to worry.
He tried to question the Leewit, to see if she knew anything. But the little witch seemed to be in one of her noncooperative moods.
By then, they were approaching the Chaladoor, and Pausert had something else to worry about.
Neldo stopped vibrating after a while, and started breathing. "Touch-talk," he gasped, just as soon he had enough breath. "The things I do for love. Maleen couldn't come because of the baby. And I've had a team of witches damping the klatha output. We hope that Pausert is unaware of this, but I need to be quick."
Goth put her hands against him, and made contact with Maleen. "What have you got for me?" she demanded.
"Quite a lot. We tracked back the date a lattice ship last landed on Nikkeldepain. And discovered that a girl called Vala, the daughter of Sutherb and Lotl, was a student at the Nikkeldepain Academy for the Sons and Daughters of Gentlemen and Officers, for six months in the same year. Got a picture of her from a yearbook. It's you, all right. But your hair is curled and red. I've sent curling tongs and the dye that mother thought best matched, with Neldo. You'll have to light-shift it a bit longer at first, but long-term it's easier not to have to do light-shift all the time. Oh, and here's a safe set of coordinates for you to go to—an impression of a place on Nikkeldepain. Father supplied that."
The image flooded into her mind. "Suberth and . . . ?"
"Mother and father, you dope," said the Leewit. Complex codes were obvious to her. Mere anagrams were a joke.
"Oh. Yeah."
"The Leewit. You need to know, seeing as Goth isn't going to be here. Someone is spending huge amounts of money on finding the
Venture 7333
. Offering a small fortune for her flight times and schedules. Whatever is happening in the Chaladoor has fingers in crime in the rest of the Empire. We're digging for whoever has put up the money. But, even by Karres standards, they've been spending it like water. And the odd thing is, they have a description of someone who looks a lot like mother, that they're also looking for."
"What's so odd about that?"
"The person has wavy red hair, and her name is Vala."
Goth put on as many layers as she could. The Egger Route was tough on the body. The captain thought that he had some way to stop the vibration, but she couldn't ask him about it now. Anyway, his klatha skills were very powerful—and a bit scary and off the wall.
The Leewit was oddly silent during the whole process. A little wide-eyed and apprehensive. The Leewit
really
did not like the Egger Route. Actually, Goth didn't like it much herself.
"Well," she said, taking a deep breath and fixing the touch-talk mental coordinates in her mind, "Here goes. Look after the captain for me, Leewit. And don't forget to wash behind your ears."
"I won't," said the Leewit, not arguing for once in her life, her voice a little small.
When Goth recovered from the stresses of the Egger Route, she tried to take in her surroundings. She was sitting on some turquoise mossy stuff, overhung by long fronded purple leaves, that she didn't recognize at all. But just over there was what she was sure was a tumtum tree from her native Karres.
A scrawny, fresh-faced boy was standing just a few feet away, staring at her wide-eyed.
"What is this place?" she asked.
"The Nikkeldepain Xenobiology Botanical Garden. It's part of the Threbus Institute of Xenobiology."
He sounded rather proud as he said that. But within seconds his wide-eyed stare was back. "You were having some kind of a terrible fit," he said. "Shaking and banging yourself around."
With a sudden shock, Goth realized that she recognized his face. She actually knew it very well. She'd just seen a picture of Pausert as a teenager.
"I'm all right now," she said shakily.
He was plainly worried by the whole experience. "I think I could carry you," he said. "I'll get you to a healer."
He possibly could carry her, Goth thought. He was a rather skinny boy, with a rapidly swelling black eye.
"Did I do that to you? Punch you in the eye?" she asked, feeling more than a little guilty.
He grinned. "No. You should see the other guy. He started it. But I'm going to catch it for it." He seemed quite accepting about that. "Look, I need to get you to some kind of medical help. That was really scary."
"Don't worry," said Goth. "It's over. It won't happen again." She thought hastily. "I just got the times wrong. I should have been home already. It's a side effect from the medicine I had to have for Munki fever."
"I've never heard of that. It must be pretty bad," said the young Pausert, plainly impressed. "So who are you, and what are you doing here? I thought I was the only person who ever came here. How did you get in?"
"Uh . . ."
What was she going to say? She hadn't actually expected to meet him. Just to slip around in no-shape invisibility, find out who was trying to kill him, and deal with them. She couldn't exactly say that she was Goth from his future. He might remember and he'd never mentioned it. Surely he would have? She snatched on the first name that came to mind.
"I'm Vala," she said. And then suddenly realized that Captain Pausert might never have mentioned meeting anyone called Goth, who had apparently been having an epileptic fit when he came across them . . . but he had definitely known someone called Vala. He'd even said that she'd looked a bit like Goth! Except a little older. The situation made her want to break out into a fit of the Leewit-type giggles.
What else had he said? Oh yes, Vala had had curly red hair. Her hair was hidden inside the padded hood she'd chosen to protect her on this end of the Egger journey.
She just had to remember to do a light-shift, when she took it off—which had better be quite soon. She might have survived the Egger Route, but she was going to boil in this outfit.
"Well, Vala," said the boy, "my name's Pausert."
She noticed that he was rather watchful as he said it. "That's a nice name," she said, smiling at him.
He looked at her rather like a spooked mountain bollem, one of the wild ones. One that could either run away or charge at you. "You don't come from around here, do you?"
That was for sure! she thought. But what she said was: "Nope. And you?"
He nodded. "Worse luck, yes I do. I've lived here for years."
Goth unfastened her bulky hooded over-jacket. And then took off the miffel-fur coat. Pausert stared at her, wide-eyed. "It's not that cold, you know! Actually, it's a pretty warm day for this time of year."
"I'm not used to this place," Goth improvised hastily. "I didn't know what to expect."
"Nikkeldepain only gets snow a little later. And besides, you never get it in here." He looked a little wary. "Just how did you get in here? Where are you from?"
As Goth had no idea just where she was, that was a question she preferred to avoid answering. And she hadn't exactly expected to have to immediately come up with a good story as to where she came from either. Fortunately, he answered for her. "You're from the lattice ship, aren't you?"
At least she knew something about lattice ships thanks to their time on the
Petey B
. But it was best to be a little cagey. She looked up at the glassed roof, and did her best to make her face into the very picture of innocence. "I really don't think I should say."
He grinned. "Don't worry.
I
wouldn't tell anyone. I want to get out of Nikkeldepain myself. Do they take on apprentices? I'll do anything. Clean out cages. Get custard pies in my face. I don't mind."
Goth resolved to remind him of that one day. But she also had a duty to see that she didn't mess up her own history and timeline. The captain had stayed on Nikkeldepain until his trading mission with the
Venture 7333
when he had rescued her, Maleen and the Leewit from slavery on Porlumma. "No," she lied valiantly. "And don't try and stow away, either. Promise you, it's not worth it. They'll just catch you. Kids try it at every stop."
He looked terribly disappointed. It had obviously been on his mind.
"Don't worry," she said. "You'll get out of here soon enough, I reckon."
He shrugged. "I don't really see how. Ma hasn't got the money to send me to the space naval academy. I guess I could sign on as a crewman one day. But not a lot of ships come to Nikkeldepain these days. It's a pretty dead-end place, I suppose."
He studied her for a moment, a bit squinty-eyed and looking much more curious than Goth was comfortable with. "Don't you remember how you got here?" he asked.