Slave Empire III - The Shrike by T C Southwell Page B

her?”
    “Well, it moved
the ship into orbit. It was decelerating, and -”
    “I get the
picture. Now I need to know if it’s the same ship returned, or is
it another, with an Envoy on board?”
    Marcon’s brows
rose. “How do we find that out?”
    “Good
question.”
    Tallyn glanced
around at his officers, many of whom had been with him during the
humiliating encounter with the Shrike five years ago. Never before
had an Atlantean warship been so quickly disabled, or so much
damage done in the space of a few minutes. The engineers who had
repaired Vengeance had estimated that the Shrike’s weapons were at
least twice as powerful as Vengeance’s, and the Council had wanted
to know how that was possible. During the refit, they had tried to
increase the energy shell’s power, but that had made it unstable,
which was why it had not been increased in the past.
    The Shrike’s
little ships had far more powerful energy shells, and Tallyn
suspected that this was due to their size. His brush with the
outlaw had provided them with vital information about the Shrike’s
weapons, and, in light of this, the Council had not reprimanded him
for his part in antagonising its enemy. More diplomacy was
recommended in future dealings with the slaver, however. The
Council did not believe in paying for pointless, but expensive
conflicts. The fact that Vengeance had not scored a single hit on
the Shrike’s ship had only added insult to injury.
    Many of his
officers looked away when his eyes flicked over them, and he knew
what they were thinking. The Golden Child could no longer help them
if this ship was hostile. They had destroyed the only weapon that
could defeat an Envoy in a useless bid to capture her husband.
    Marcon said,
“This might be a clue, sir. I’ve been comparing vidpics of the
previous crystal ship with this one, and they’re not the same.”
    “They’re
not?”
    “No, sir. This
ship is larger and significantly brighter. One interesting thing,
however, is that it’s in exactly the same place as the last one was
when it vanished, to within a few hundred metres.”
    “That doesn’t
really help. Is there any way to contact it?”
    Marcon checked
the holograms. “Apparently they communicate telepathically, but
only with those they choose.”
    “So we can’t
contact it. We have to wait for it to contact us?”
    “Yes, sir.
According to the files Rayne gave us, it will only communicate with
a person who has the right sort of mind. It scans the people around
it and chooses one, or not, if it doesn’t find what it’s looking
for.”
    “What kind of
mind?” Tallyn asked.
    “I would guess,
an empath, sir.”
    “And how many
empaths are listed in your database?”
    Marcon touched
the sensor pad and read the information that scrolled up in the
gloom. “None.”
    “Just as I
thought.” Tallyn clasped his hands behind him and gazed at the
crystalline entity. “So all we can do is wait and see what it does,
then decide what we’ll do about it.”
    “Respectfully,
sir, if that’s an Envoy, there’s not much we can do about it.”
    “Then we’d
better pray it’s not.”
     
     
    Tarke looked up
from his scribe pad as Vidan rushed into his office, irritated by
the interruption that had broken his concentration just when he had
been on the brink of solving a complex problem of shipping rights
with a neighbouring territory. The scribe pad was filled with
information he had downloaded from the station’s database, which he
had just sorted into some a comprehensible order. Vidan’s flushed
face and bright eyes made Tarke tilt his head as the Atlantean
struggled to catch his breath, wondering why Vidan had chosen to
run here instead of using the vidlink. Vidan sank onto the chair on
the other side of the desk, gasping.
    “You should
exercise, Vidan. A lap or two around the dome each morning will do
wonders for your wind,” Tarke advised.
    Vidan shook his
head. “I had to tell you in person.”
    “So you