Laura Jo Phillips (18 page)

No, she thought to herself, she could not return empty handed again.  No matter what, she had to find a way to get what she had come for.  And she wasn’t going to leave again until she had it.

Slightly breathless from her pacing, but feeling better for having burned off the worst of her rage, Mara selected the cushiest chair in the room, kicked off her shoes and sat down.  She wiggled around until she was quite comfortable and put her feet up on the needlepoint ottoman.  Then she put her head back, closed her eyes, and began to plan.

Chapter
23

Summer and Darleen left the med-lab together after Summer and Saige had healed the second of the three women from the slave compound.  Her name, they discovered, was Trina Evans and, like Rebecca from the previous night, she appeared to be groggy from the sedative Doc had administered, but otherwise fine. 

Summer hadn’t suffered the same collapse as the night before, but the effort had been tiring for her.  Since she still had to get through the interrogation with Lio, Saige had agreed to heal the third woman later in the afternoon or early evening.

When they entered the house Summer was surprised to find the Katre brothers standing in the hall, apparently waiting for them.  Summer’s stomach did a little flip at the sight of them.  She frowned in annoyance at her own reaction.  Secretly she thought they were extremely handsome men, and she couldn’t help her physical attraction to them.  Even if Maxim was stuffy and temperamental. 

Maxim bowed to her, which still made her a little uncomfortable. 

“We thought to escort you to the meeting room,” he said.  “Faron and the others are waiting.”

“All right,” Summer replied.  “We need to get Lio first.”

“No need, he is already there,” Maxim replied.

“How?” Summer asked in surprise.  “Did he follow someone else’s commands?”

“No,” Maxim replied with a shrug.  “We merely picked him up and carried him.”

Summer grinned.  She couldn’t help herself. 

“I would have liked to see that,” Darleen said.  “The great Lio Perry, lugged around like a bag of dirty laundry.”

Maxim arched a brow.  “I am not sure how
great
he is, but dirty laundry is a rather apt description.  Perhaps after the meeting we can take him down to the barn and hose him off.”

Summer laughed at the mental image.  She would not do such a thing to the man, but she had to admit that she was sorely tempted. 

Maxim stepped aside and bowed again, waving Summer and Darleen forward.  They headed down the hall, the Katres falling into step behind them.  There was something almost familiar about the sensation of the three men walking behind her, almost like déjà vu, but not quite.  Summer saw the door to the meeting room loom ahead and she shook her head clear of such strange thoughts.  She was going to need a clear head for what was to come.

Faron Lobo rose from his seat as Summer, Darleen and the Katres entered the meeting room.

“Good morning Summer, Darleen,” he said.  “I trust you are feeling a bit better after a good night’s sleep?” 

“Yes, much better, thank you,” Summer replied as she and Darleen took the seats that Faron indicated with a wave of his hand.  She noted that Lio was standing in one corner of the room facing the wall, then put him out of her mind.  She would see to it that he was properly fed and bathed after this meeting, she promised herself.

She was a little surprised that the only people in the room aside from herself and Darleen were the Lobos, and the Katres.  She had gotten the impression from Faron that there would be more people here.  Apparently Faron read the expression on her face.

“We thought it would be easier for you if there weren’t too many more unfamiliar faces here,” Faron said.  “Eldar Hamat Katre will be joining us in a moment, but that is all.”

“Thank you for that,” Summer said.  She had been a little nervous at the thought of an entire room full of Clan Jasani asking her questions.  She relaxed a little bit, but not much.

“We would like to begin with questions about the Xanti,” Faron said.  “We have almost no information on them at all, so almost anything he can tell us will be helpful.  Shall we just ask him questions directly?”

“I have to mentally order the Controller to force him to listen to your questions, and then answer them truthfully,” Summer said.  “The problem is going to be knowing which questions are the right ones to ask.”

“How do you mean?” Faron asked.

“The Controller responds to specific commands, specifically.  If you ask a question such as
What can you tell us about the Xanti?,
it won’t work.  It’s too general.  On the other hand, if you ask
What is the name of the Xanti you work with
?, then you will get an answer.”

Faron frowned thoughtfully.  “That makes things a little more complicated,” he said.  “If we don’t know enough to ask about something in particular, we won’t learn about it.  Is that correct?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is,” Summer replied.

“Excuse me,” Darleen interrupted softly.  All eyes went to her at once, which made her nervous, but she clenched her fists in her lap and continued as though she didn’t notice. 

“Yes, Miss Flowers?” Faron asked.

“I spent a year in Lio’s office listening to every conversation he had,” she said.  “I think I might be able to help give you some indications of what to ask him about.  If you think it would help.  And please, call me Darleen.”

“Yes, it would help,” Faron replied.  “Thank you, Darleen.”  He paused a moment to think.  Obviously Darleen was in very poor health, so now was probably not the time to put her through an interrogation.  As eager as he was to learn as much as possible about anything and everything Lio Perry knew, he was going to have to exercise some patience.

“Darleen, if you would not mind, it would be helpful if you could begin a list of what you believe may be important questions for us to ask Lio.  When you are a little stronger, we will work together on this.  Then we will question Lio further.  Would that be acceptable to you?”

“Very much so,” Darleen said eagerly.  “I’ll begin at once.”

Faron smiled, impressed by how much the woman had changed for the better.  “Thank you,” he said.  “In the meantime, we will question Lio about matters we are more certain of.  Such as the slave routes, compounds and names of people and ships who are involved.”

A while later Faron was beginning to realize just how important Darleen’s information was going to be.  So far, Lio had not been able to answer any of their questions with answers that did them any good.  The Xanti had covered themselves too well.  Lio knew only code names for the ships, captains and locations of those involved in the slavery ring.  The real information was all in the computers, which was another problem in itself.

“The only slave compound whose true location I know is located on Li-Hach-Cor,” Lio said in response to Summer’s silent command. 

“Damn,” Faron said softly.  “That’s not good news.”

“Why not?” Summer asked in surprise.

“Because the Li-Hach are an extremely problematic species,” Maxim replied.  “We have cordial relations with them, but that is the best that can be said of it.  They are very territorial, and will not agree to our entering their system for any purpose without extensive and, in all likelihood, lengthy negotiations.  Even then, I doubt that they will allow it.”

“But he did not say Li-Hach,” Summer pointed out.  “He said Li-Hach-Cor.”

“What is the difference?” Faron asked.

“Li-Hach-Cor is a terraformed moon in the Li-Hach system, but quite distant from Li-Hach.”

“Nevertheless, if it is a part of their system, the same applies.  They will not agree to our presence easily or quickly,”  Maxim said.

 “Not if it’s an overtly military presence,” Summer said.  “Otherwise, I doubt they will care, so long as nobody goes closer to Li-Hach than Li-Hach-Cor.”

“Why do you say that?” Faron asked curiously, shooting Maxim a quelling look when it was obvious he was going to argue further.

“The people of Li-Hach are, as Maxim pointed out, very territorial and war-like,” Summer replied.  “However, about two hundred years ago a faction of the population, which had been rather small up until then, began to grow larger and became too much of a
distraction
to the rest of the population.  This faction called themselves Li-Hach-Aki, which, in their language, means The People of Peace.

“At the time, Li-Hach had just signed the Intersystem Convention for Law Enforcement and Counterintelligence, which has a Sentient Species Bill of Rights, so they couldn’t exterminate the thousands of Li-Hach-Aki without severe political consequences.  So it was decided to remove them from Li-Hach altogether.  They had already begun terraforming a moon at the outer edge of their system, which they called Cor, for agricultural purposes.  The Li-Hach-Aki were sent there to live, and handle the agriculture as well.”

“So, only these peace lovers live on Cor?” Faron asked.

“Yes,” Summer replied.  “It is a small population, I believe about eight to ten thousand altogether.  They have a small settlement, and make generous use of technology provided by their Mother World to aide them in growing a large percentage of the produce consumed by Li-Hach.  But they only cultivate one relatively small portion of the planet.  It is easy to imagine someone setting up a compound on the far side of their world that would go undetected for a long time.”

“How do you know so much about them?” Dav asked.  “To my knowledge we do not have half that much information in our data banks on Li-Hach.”

Summer hesitated, glanced quickly at the Katre’s and lifted her chin.  She wasn’t really sure why Maxim seemed to be angry with her again, and she had no real wish to make him any angrier.  But, if he decided to dislike her even more because of how much she knew, then that was his problem.

“My mother is a Sentient Species Specialist,” she said.  “She’s written many books on the subject, and I’ve read them all.”

“Your mother?”  Eldar Hamat asked, frowning thoughtfully.  “Miss Whitney, do you mean to say that your mother is Kandria Whitney?”  He spoke the name with obvious respect, which Summer was used to.

“Yes, she is,” Summer replied.  She liked this Katre.  He seemed kind and soft-spoken.  Unlike his nephew, Maxim, he hadn’t glared at her once during the entire meeting.

“With as many books as she has written, I find it startling that you remember so much of one species,” Eldar Hamat commented.

Summer looked down at the table, wishing she could just be rude and refuse to respond to Eldar Hamat.  But she couldn’t.  “I have a somewhat special memory,” she admitted.

“Yes?” Hamat asked.

“I remember everything I’ve ever read, heard or seen,” she said in a rush.

“And you hesitate to admit this, why?” Eldar Hamat asked gently.

“Because people tend to think badly of me for it,” she replied honestly.  “They see me as a know-it-all, or a freak.  I’ve spent most of my life pretending to know nothing about anything.”

“My memory is much like yours,” Eldar Hamat said, much to Summer’s surprise.  “It is perhaps a bit different, but I understand your problem.  However, if I may say so, anyone who does not accept and appreciate you fully for who and what you are does not deserve your consideration.”

Summer smiled.  “Thank you Eldar Hamat,” she said.  “That is very kind of you to say, and I will try to remember it.”

“If you are the daughter of Kandria Whitney, then you are also the daughter of Admiral Quentin Whitney,” Faron said.

“Yes, I am,” Summer replied, not at all surprised that these people were familiar with her parents. 

“I don’t understand why your parents did not come to Jasan in search of you when you went missing,” Eldar Hamat said.

Summer again dropped her eyes to the table in front of her.  “Probably because they have no idea that I was missing,” she said softly.  She looked up at the confused expressions around the table and sighed inwardly.  “My parents and I had a bit of a falling out a few years ago.  We have not spoken since that time.”

“We sent the names of the missing women to Earth,” Faron said.  “Your parents should have been informed at that time.”

Summer hesitated, then lifted her chin.  “My parents no longer live on Earth, and I no longer use the name they gave me,” she said with a note of finality.  She had no intention of discussing that issue further.

Faron cleared his throat, evidently taking the hint.  “As your father is who he is, I imagine you have more than a little military knowledge.”

“Yes, I have some,” Summer said. 

“In that case, I am hoping you won’t mind going to Li-Hach-Cor on a military vessel,” Faron said.  “We don’t have the time to engage in political games with Li-Hach.  Therefore, a military ship with a minimal crew which just happens to visit Li-Hach-Cor out of curiosity seems the best way to go.”

Summer grinned.  “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

“I do not like it,” Maxim said.

 “Why not?” Summer asked with a frown.