CHAPTER SIX
“Easy, now,” Corwin said from over Jin’s shoulder. “Use the narrow probe—that one there. Work it between the neckband and the mold, just enough to break the air seal. Relax—you’re not going to lose it.”
Clenching her teeth, feeling sweat running down her face from the heat of the kiln on the table to her left, Jin got a grip on the probe and placed its tip where her uncle had indicated. Putting as much pressure on it as she dared, she pried a small gap into existence—
And with a soft pop, the neckband section came free.
Jin grabbed for it as it dropped toward the table. But Corwin was already in position and caught the precious piece of freshly glazed ceramic on a thick hot pad. “There you go,” he said approvingly as he set the pad carefully on the side table along with the others. “Perfect.”
“Semi-perfect, anyway,” Jin said, wiping her sleeve across her forehead and keying in her telescopics for a closer look at her latest masterpiece. At the spot where she’d dug in the probe she could see a slight imperfection. “What about that notch?” she asked, pointing. “Is it going to be a problem?”
“Shouldn’t,” Corwin said. “It’s not going to create a fracture line, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You sure?” Jin asked. This neckband piece and its fitted mate were going to be all that stood between an Aventinian Cobra and instant death. If there was the slightest chance it would fail in that job, they should scrap it right now. At the very least, they should figure out a way to test it.
Corwin might have been reading her mind. “I’m positive,” he said. “I’ve already tested a couple that were in worse shape than that one. That ceramic’s tougher and more forgiving than you might think, at least once it’s cooled and set.”
Jin smiled lopsidedly. Reading her mind, or more likely had already run through all the thoughts and doubts himself. “Good to know,” she said. “So we give the kiln a few minutes to get back to temp and start the next one? Or did you want to take a break?”
“The Cobras don’t get a break,” Corwin reminded her grimly. “What are we up to, twenty-four sections?”
“Right,” Jin confirmed. “Plus however many you’d already made before I got here.”
“That was twenty sections,” Corwin said. “Making a grand total of twenty-two complete neckbands.”
Jin suppressed a sigh. Twenty-two neckbands, for the hundred forty Cobras in the province, and the three thousand elsewhere on the planet. All of whom were being fitted with Dominion loyalty collars as fast as Reivaro could turn them out.
But she and Corwin could only work so fast. Besides, if Aventine’s response to the Troft invasion was anything to go by, most of the Cobras would probably be content to just wear their collars and watch from the sidelines, anyway. It was only the handful who decided to fight back that she and Corwin had to worry about.
And even twenty-two Cobras—if they were the right Cobras—could do a lot of damage to Reivaro’s calm.
She peered at the kiln’s temp reading. It was ramping up nicely, and should be ready by the time she finished mixing up the next batch of ceramic. “If we can get six more finished today—” she began.
And broke off as a sharp three-tone came from the computer in the far corner of the basement. “Uh-oh,” Corwin murmured, hurrying across the room toward the computer. Jin keyed in her telescopics again, focusing on the display.
One look at the formation of incoming Dominion aircars was all she needed. “They’ve found us,” she snapped. “Come on—we’ve got to get everything under cover.”
“No time,” Corwin said, spinning on his heel and hurrying back. “No use, anyway—even a toy-store infrared would pick up the kiln. Time to minimize our losses.”
“What do you mean?” Jin asked, shaking her fingers to loosen them up for combat. “We’re going to fight them, right?”
“And get us both killed?” he countered. He jogged past her and the table to the wall behind the kiln. “Not to mention wrecking my house?” He did something to the wall—
And without even a squeak a door-sized section of the wall swung open, revealing a person-sized hole in the concrete and dirt behind it.
“As I said—minimizing our losses,” Corwin said. “Get in while I grab you some neckbands.”
“But—” Jin said, staring at the hole. When in the Worlds had he had the time to make that? Surely it hadn’t always been there. Had it?
“No buts,” Corwin cut her off, grabbing a cloth bag from a nearby chair and stuffing in as many of the finished sections as he could fit in. “That’s about as many as I could do alone,” he added, peering briefly at the number of sections left on the table. “Don’t want them getting suspicious in either direction. Come on, come on—they’ll be deploying any minute.”
“I can’t leave you here alone,” Jin protested as he returned and gave her a not-very-gentle push toward the hole.
“You have to,” he insisted. “You know as much about making these things as I do. You can start again somewhere else. Besides, you’re a Cobra, and I’m a retired politician. You’re the best one to carry on the fight.”
“But I can’t just let them have you,” Jin said even as she let him guide her into the hole.
“They won’t hurt me,” Corwin assured her. “I’m not dangerous, I don’t know anything, and there’s nothing else they can gain by ruining my day. There’s no room in there for two, and I certainly can’t hide while you stay here. It’s my house—they’re going to believe you’re here and I’m not?”
Jin took a deep breath. She hated every bit of this, but he unfortunately had all the logic on his side. “What do I do?”
“First, cultivate your patience,” Corwin said. “The kiln should be close enough and hot enough to mask your heat signature, at least until it cools down. Hopefully, they’ll be long gone by the time that happens.”
“Then what?”
“You take these and get out,” Corwin said, reaching past her to shove the bag of neckband sections into a deep alcove carved into the dirt above and behind her head. “On the far side of the room, between the furnace and the cleaning machine, there’s another hidden door—the catch is on the right, same kind as this one. Not enough time for us to go that way now, but you’ll be able to take the tunnel into the storm drain system. Don’t go anywhere you ever liked to go—they’ll probably be watching everything. There’s an eyehole in this door here—see it?”
“Yes,” Jin said, leaning out for a closer look. The hole was barely a slit, but once the panel was closed in front of her she should have a view of everything from the kiln to the stairway in the middle of the basement and a little bit beyond it.
“Okay,” Corwin said, getting a grip on the edge of the door. “Make sure it’s clear before you come out.” He forced a smile. “Good luck, Jin, and be safe.”
The Marines were good, all right. There was no loud bashing in of doors or windows, no clumping thunder of heavy feet overhead, no faint and distant shouted commands or warnings or threats. Corwin had barely made it around to the other side of the table and resumed mixing the ceramic when a trio of armored and helmeted men suddenly appeared on the stairway, their eyes sweeping the room. “Don’t move!” one of them barked, the words coming faintly to Jin through the door. “Hands where we can see them!”
Corwin froze. “Which one?” he called back.
“Which one what?” the Marine demanded as they continued the rest of the way down the stairs. The first Marine headed straight toward Corwin, while the other two circled back behind the stairway, checking out the part of the basement back there. All three had laser pistols belted to their sides, Jin noted. Odd that they still bothered lugging the weapons around, given that practically everyone on Aventine surely knew about their epaulets by now.
“Which one do you want me to do?” Corwin said. “I can’t freeze and lift up my hands at the same time.”
“Yeah, you’re real funny,” the Marine growled. “Hands behind your back. Now.”
“Whatever you want,” Corwin said, setting down his spoon and putting his hands behind his back. “I don’t suppose you have a warrant or anything.”
“Martial law, Governor,” a new voice came from the stairway. “Remember? We don’t need warrants.”
And as Jin’s stomach tightened at the bitter memories associated with that voice, Colonel Reivaro walked down the stairs into view.
“Is that you, Colonel?” Corwin called, his lip twitching as the Marine fastened cuffs around his wrists. “Do you make a point of showing up for all the small fish your men bag for you these days?”
“You’re hardly a small fish, Governor,” Reivaro said, looking around as he strode toward the prisoner. “This way, please.”
The Marine caught Corwin’s shoulders and turned him around to face Reivaro. “And if you’re impressed that I came to visit…” Reivaro paused and half turned toward the stairway. Jin keyed in her audios, caught the sound of three more sets of footsteps. Another Marine appeared, followed by a second—
Followed by Captain Joshti Lij Tulu himself.
Jin felt her mouth drop open. As far as she’d heard, Lij Tulu hadn’t left the orbiting Algonquin since declaring martial law across Aventine. Corwin’s face was turned away from her, but the stiffening of his back indicated that he was as surprised as she was.
But he’d been a politician once, and he’d once told Jin that the first skills a politician developed were quick thinking and even quicker recovery. “Why, Captain Lij Tulu,” he greeted the newcomer. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Colonel Reivaro and I were just debating what size fish I was. I concede the argument.”
“As well you should,” Lij Tulu agreed, looking around the basement. His eyes rested on the kiln a moment, then returned to Corwin. “Your name alone raises you to giant trout status. This—” he gestured toward the kiln “—brings you to the very top rank of Cobra World traitors.”
“I don’t know how a harmless hobby makes me a traitor,” Corwin said mildly. “I’ve been experimenting with ceramics for years. You can ask anyone.”
“We have,” Lij Tulu said. “Unfortunately for you, we’ve also seen your latest project in action. Are you aware that under Dominion martial law we could try you for sabotage and accessory to sedition this afternoon, convict you by this evening, and execute you by dawn tomorrow?”
“Sounds like Dominion martial law is barely one step removed from complete lack of law,” Corwin said. “Consider me impressed or intimidated or whatever. Shall we move on to the or? Threats like that usually have an or chasing after them.”
Lij Tulu smiled thinly. “You should probably know that I’ve dealt with my share of glib politicians back at the Dome. The real Dome, not this pathetic colonial caricature you have here. You should also know that I despise every one of them. I suggest you not try to sound like them.”
“Point taken,” Corwin said. “Can we get to the or now?”
For a long moment Lij Tulu just stared at him. “Or you can help me defuse the situation that’s threatening to boil over into the streets of Capitalia,” he said. “The Cobras will listen to you. Your niece and great nephew in particular will listen.”
“I’m honored that you think so,” Corwin said. “However, I’m sure they’ll listen even harder to Paul Broom, whom you already have in custody. Why don’t you try to persuade him to calm things down? Oh right,” he continued, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “He did try to calm things down, at the Yates Fabrications plant in Archway. You rewarded his efforts by gunning down three Cobras in cold blood.”
Reivaro stirred—
“It was hardly cold blood,” Lij Tulu said, interrupting whatever the colonel had been planning to say. “But I’m not surprised that the reports you’ve heard were biased. As to Cobra Broom, yes, he’s still in custody. But he’s no longer in the Aventine system. Commodore Santores took him aboard the Megalith, which has gone to Caelian.”
“Really,” Corwin said, sounding intrigued. “Not exactly the vacation spot of the Cobra Worlds, so they’ll probably be back soon.”
“I doubt it,” Lij Tulu said. “You see, we had a visitor yesterday: the Iris, one of the Dorian’s courier ships.” He paused. “Which brought us the coordinates for Qasama.”
Jin felt her breath catch in her throat. Barrington Moreau had found Qasama?
If Corwin was as stunned as Jin by the news, he recovered much faster. “So you’re assuming the commodore will be heading there next?” he asked calmly. “Well, best of luck to him. I hope he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew.”
“The Megalith chews just fine, thank you,” Lij Tulu said. “But let’s not drift from the point.”
“I’m not,” Corwin said. “The point, or the topic anyway, is biting off more than you can chew. You want me to help defuse things? Fine—we can talk about that. The bigger question is whether you’ve bitten off too much, and if so what you’re willing to do in the cause of peace and domestic tranquility.”
“The Dominion is at war, Governor,” Lij Tulu said coldly. “So are you, or will be soon. My orders are to bring you to a war footing as quickly as I can, and I intend to do precisely that.”
Corwin shook his head. “Then we have nothing further to discuss.”
“Oh, on the contrary—we have a great deal to discuss.” Lij Tulu shifted his eyes to Reivaro. “Take him to my shuttle. Then find everything he was using for those—” he jabbed a finger at the handful of neckband sections Corwin had left on the table “—equipment, raw materials, everything. Collect it, catalogue it, and take it to the Dome.”
He turned and strode toward the stairs. His two Marine guards fell into step in front of him, while Reivaro, Corwin, and Corwin’s guard fell into step behind him. The other two Marines waited until the rest of the parade had left, then began a methodical search of the items on the shelves and cabinets. From above her, Jin heard the indistinct sound of Lij Tulu giving more orders, followed by the thudding herd of footsteps she’d expected earlier as the Marines up there started searching the rest of the house.
She checked her nanocomputer’s clock circuit. Just after three in the afternoon. The Marines hadn’t bothered to turn off the kiln, possibly because they didn’t realize it was still running. Sooner or later, though, they were bound to notice, and since Lij Tulu had ordered them to bring everything associated with Corwin’s neckband factory they would probably consider the kiln to be on that list.
For the moment, the thing was too hot to be easily moved. Once they shut it off, though, it wouldn’t take long for it to cool to the point where it would no longer shield her from whatever infrared sensors they had in those helmets. She had until then to figure out what to do.
Whatever she came up with had better be good. She hadn’t witnessed the brief battle between the Marines and Cobras in Archway, but she’d been through all the reports Corwin had been able to pull together, and it was obvious that the lasers built into the Marines’ epaulets had both power and pinpoint accuracy. The only weakness she could see was that the lasers couldn’t fire straight up or down, which still left the question of how an attacker could get into one of those positions in the first place without getting killed.
For the next half hour she watched the Marines search through cabinets, bins, and stacks of odds and ends. Along the way they collected tools, bags of ceramic powder, molds and, of course, the neckband sections Corwin had already made. All of it was duly noted, catalogued via some internal system, and then added to a growing pile near the base of the stairs. The sounds of footsteps from overhead gradually decreased as the Marines up there finished going through the rest of the house, and Jin kept expecting a few of them to come downstairs and assist the two already working the main center of contraband.
But no one appeared, and gradually it dawned on Jin that while this raid was important it was surely not the only situation the Dominion forces in Capitalia had on their plate. As the Marines finished their assigned task upstairs they were apparently leaving the house and heading elsewhere.
She’d assumed Lij Tulu’s warning to Corwin that the situation was about to boil over onto the streets was simply overdramatic hype. Maybe it wasn’t.
The Marines were nearing the end of their search when one of them discovered that the kiln was still on and shut it off.
And with that, the clock was ticking.
Jin watched as they tackled the final two cabinets, listening to the silence from overhead. If the situation elsewhere in Capitalia was as dire as she hoped, maybe these last two would decide to take their collection of loot and head back to the Dome. The kiln would be too hot to move for at least another hour, and Reivaro didn’t strike her as the type to let two of his men sit idle when there was other work to be done. They could always come back later and get the kiln if they really wanted it.
Unless, of course, the two Marines didn’t bother to tell the colonel they were finished.
It didn’t exactly fit the image of the stolid, professional Dominion warrior that Reivaro and the rest of the Dominion force had tried so hard to project. But Jin had seen enough organizations to know that there were slackers in every group. She could certainly see how these Marines might prefer hanging around an empty house, obeying their orders to the letter, instead of going outside to face whatever mischief Lorne and the other Cobras might be hatching.
The Marines finished with the cabinets and gave the room a final visual sweep. Jin pressed one ear to the door, mentally crossing her fingers as she keyed her audios to full power…
“Guess that’s it,” one of the Marines said. “Want me to go get the cart?”
“In a minute,” the other answered. “What about that?”
Jin shifted her attention back to the eyehole just in time to see the Marine’s hand come up and point to the kiln. She turned her ear back to the panel. “—forever to cool down,” the first Marine groused.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the second said, a malicious edge in his voice. “Hang on—there was a bucket in one of these cabinets over here.”
Frowning, Jin looked back through the eyehole. One of the Marines was heading toward the set of cabinets beside the deep utility sink while the second one watched. “What are you going to do?” the second one’s voice came faintly.
“You want it cooled down?” the first called back. “Fine. I’ll cool it down.”
“You pour water in it, you’ll wreck it,” the second warned. “Probably split it wide open.”
“So? The colonel just said to collect it. He didn’t say what condition it had to be in.”
Jin mouthed a curse. So much for her hope that they might be slackers.
So much, too, for the security of her hiding place. Left to cool down on its own, the kiln could have masked her presence for another half hour or more. With cold water dumped into it, that cover would vanish within a couple of minutes.
Desperation, her late father had often said, was the true mother of invention. By the time the Marine had located and filled the bucket Jin had a plan. Not a great one, but it was the best she could come up with.
The second Marine had taken a couple of cautious steps back, taking up a position about five meters away from the kiln and the table it was sitting on. Carefully, Jin put a target lock on the inside edges of each of his epaulets, where the sensors and targeting computer were located. Then, easing one hand up to rest lightly against the wall just above her head, she got a grip on the door’s release with the other. The Marine with the water reached the table, raised the bucket over the top of the kiln, and poured a hefty slosh onto the hot metal.
And as a violently hissing cloud of steam billowed into the air, Jin popped the release and shoved open the door, dropping onto her butt with her legs stretched straight along the basement floor. Giving the wall behind her a shove, leaning back to give the push extra strength, she lurched out of the hole and slid on her back under the table and squarely beneath the legs of the closer Marine.
With the roiling white cloud obscuring the back wall and the hidden door, it was doubtful either Marine even saw was happening until Jin slid out from under the table and into their view. But if they were surprised, they were also quick on the uptake. Jin had barely come to a halt beneath the closer Marine when the more distant one snapped out some kind of warning, the exact word muffled by his helmet and the hiss of the steam.
But Jin was also ready. She triggered the antiarmor laser in her left leg, and her nanocomputer instantly took over her body’s servo network, swiveling the leg to blast a pair of rapid-fire shots into the Marine’s epaulets. The same movement of Jin’s leg also shoved the right leg of the Marine standing over her, nearly knocking him off balance as the water bucket went flying off to the side. Even as he tried to get away from her, she lifted her right leg, cocked her knee to her chest, and shoved upward against his crotch, sending him flying straight up. His head slammed into the ceiling, shattering the acoustic tile and thudding hard into the joists and subflooring. He dropped back, flopping onto the floor like a dead fish, and lay still.
The other Marine was charging forward, fumbling at the strap of his holster, when Jin leveled her right hand and sent a full-power arcthrower blast at his helmet.
He staggered, his head and shoulders sheathed in a brilliant coronal discharge. Jin fired again, and this time he twitched violently and then collapsed to the floor, sections of his helmet still sparking. Jin scrambled to her feet, fingertip lasers at the ready. But he didn’t move.
Neither did the other one. His head and neck seemed straight enough, but there was no way to tell through the helmet and armor what kind of damage he might have taken. He could be severely concussed, or paralyzed.
Or dead.
For a moment she stared at the figure, her stomach tensed in a painful knot. This was not what she’d signed up for when she’d become a Cobra.
But there was no time for regret or reflection now. The two Marines had surely been linked to the overall Dominion communication network, and reinforcements were probably burning their way toward her. She had to get out, and fast.
The first task was to retrieve the bag of neckband segments Corwin had entrusted to her. Then, splashing her way across the wet floor, she grabbed the bucket the Marine had used to douse the kiln and hurried over to the stairway and the pile of contraband the intruders had collected. She eyed the pouches of powered ceramic longingly, but there was no time to gather all of that together.
But she could at least retrieve the rest of the neckband segments. She scooped them into the bucket, stuffed her bag on top of them, then hurried across the room to the furnace. The emergency escape route Corwin had mentioned was well hidden, but knowing what the catch looked like enabled her find it within a few seconds.
This door was thicker than the one on her hidey hole, with more mass of insulation attached to its back. Probably to make it harder for infrareds to pick the door out of the rest of the basement wall, she decided. Beyond the door was a narrow, rough-walled tunnel no more than a meter and a quarter high leading outward from the house. Wondering again when her uncle had put in all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, she worked her way into the tunnel and sealed the door behind her.
Whenever he’d done it, he’d taken the time to do it right. The door fit perfectly into its frame, not letting through even a glimmer for her opticals’ light-amps to work with. She switched to infrared, found it almost as useless as the light-amps in the uniform temperature of the dirt around her.
Still, with the heat radiation coming from her own body, the infrareds did give her about a half-meter bubble of faint visibility. It wasn’t much, but it should at least keep her from whacking her head on any protrusions that might be sticking out of the low ceiling along the way. Holding the bucket close to her chest, her knees forced to a ninety-degree angle, she headed down the tunnel in an awkward squatting walk.
The floor was as rough as the walls, with plenty of lumps and the occasional root or large rock or other hazard. But it was mostly flat, and with the IR glow of her body she was able to see most of the obstacles before she could trip over them. In the silence her breathing seemed extra loud and harsh, and her back tingled with the eerie expectation of the moment when the Dominion’s backup force found the hidden door and started shooting. She had to keep reassuring herself that it would surely be another few minutes before they could arrive, land their aircars, get inside, and start a search. As long as she kept going, she ought to be reasonably clear before the shooting started.
Her back didn’t care about logic. It continued to tingle.
She’d gone thirty meters when a hint of light appeared.
But not from behind her. From ahead of her.
She stopped short, her breathing sounding even louder as the sound of her footsteps ceased. The light was still faint, but it was slowly getting stronger. Someone was coming toward her.
She frowned. No, not toward her, but perpendicular to her. As the light intensity increased, she could make out a wall blocking the end of her tunnel about thirty meters ahead. A curved wall, made of a dirty-white ceramic or concrete. The light seemed to be coming from somewhere to the side of that wall.
And then, it clicked. The curved wall she was seeing was the far side of one of Aventine’s storm drain tunnels. The light was someone moving toward her along the tunnel.
She clenched her teeth, painfully aware that she was in about the worst possible location for a fight. Her sonics were all but useless in an enclosed area like this—too much of the blast would bounce straight back at her—and the distance to the drainage conduit ruled out use of her arcthrower. Corwin’s tunnel was straight enough for her to use her lasers, but line-of-sight weapons worked equally well in both directions, and in a tunnel that wasn’t even tall enough for her to stand upright she would have roughly zero chance of dodging whatever the person or persons at the other end of the target gallery chose to throw back at her.
Still, if she couldn’t maneuver, she could at least make herself as small a target as possible. Setting the bucket on the ground behind her, she eased herself down onto her back, her left leg and antiarmor laser pointed forward toward the approaching light.
Which was getting closer. And moving quickly: she could now see the slight variations in intensity caused by the movement of the owner’s arms as he or she strode along, and she could see that the stride was just short of a full-fledged jog. He was in a hurry, and in Jin’s experience people on urgent business often didn’t pay as much attention to their surroundings as they should. Fish in a barrel, the old saying whispered through her mind.
She just wished she knew which of them was the fish.
The light was getting closer, and her audios could now pick up the sound of footsteps. There were at least three people, possibly more.
She took a deep breath and lifted her leg slightly. If they passed her by, great. If instead they turned into her tunnel, she would have to wait until all of them were in sight before opening fire. There was a flicker of a shadow, and a hunched-over human figure carrying a flashlight was suddenly framed in the opening.
And without pausing he stepped up into Jin’s tunnel and headed straight toward her.
She clenched her teeth. Behind him, two more figures came into view and joined him in her tunnel. For the moment, the light was aimed mostly at the floor, which should leave Jin still in shadow. But that wouldn’t last. Holding her hand up to block out most of the glow, she keyed in her light-amps and tried to see the person behind the glare. If that was a Marine helmet back there, she would have no choice but to take the first shot.
And then, the light swung upward, as if the person was checking to see if the ceiling was this low the whole way. For a second a muted backwash of light reflected off his face—
Jin caught her breath. “Lorne?” she called softly.
All three figures froze. The light swung down again—“Mom?” Lorne’s voice came.
Jin exhaled in a huff. “Yes,” she said. She scrambled to her feet, remembering just in time not to try to straighten all the way up, and grabbed the bucket. “I thought you were the Dominion,” she said, hurrying toward them.
“Not yet, but they’re not far behind,” Lorne said, coming forward and meeting her halfway. “We got a tip they were going to raid Uncle Corwin.”
“Too late,” Jin said as they came to a stop facing each other. Her son’s face was thin and tired-looking, she noted, but otherwise he seemed in good health. “They’ve already got him.”
Lorne’s gaze flicked over her shoulder. “Are they still there? Maybe we can break him out.”
Jin shook her head. “Sorry, no. They’re long gone.”
“Damn.” Lorne pointed at her bucket. “Are those his neckbands?”
“Yes, everything he had,” Jin said, holding it up. “But we need to get out of here. I made kind of a racket getting out.”
“On a couple of Marines, I hope,” Lorne said. He threw another look past her, then abruptly spun around and headed back the way he’d come. “Too late,” he called softly to the others, who had remained by the drainage conduit.
“You know these others well, I hope?” Jin asked quietly.
“Very well,” Lorne assured her. “Badj Werle and Dill de Portola from DeVegas province. You remember them, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Jin said, some of her anxiety fading. Not only had the other two Cobras been solid friends to Lorne, but they’d also done serious damage to the Troft occupation forces during that conflict.
She swallowed. And speaking of the Trofts…“Listen, there may be some more bad news. According to Lij Tulu, Barrington Moreau and his ship—”
“When were you talking to Lij Tulu?” Lorne asked, frowning over his shoulder.
“He was with the raiding party,” Jin told him. “He and Reivaro both. Lij Tulu was trying to persuade Uncle Corwin to help keep the peace here.”
Lorne snorted. “Like that’s going to happen.”
“That’s what Uncle Corwin said, too,” Jin said. “Lij Tulu also told him they’ve found Qasama.”
She sensed his shoulders stiffen. “Did they get the location from Dad?”
“I don’t think so,” Jin said. “He said Barrington Moreau found them. Though I suppose he could be lying.”
“Probably not,” Lorne said sourly. “That would explain the courier ship we spotted coming in early yesterday. And why it took off again later in the day. Chintawa thinks it was going to Caelian—he said Lij Tulu told him Santores has gone there.”
“That’s what Lij Tulu told Uncle Corwin, too,” Jin confirmed.
They’d come up to the other two Cobras now. “Well, if he’s a liar at least he’s a consistent liar,” Lorne said.
“Persistent, too,” Werle said. “Any idea what they even want Qasama for?”
“Not a clue,” Lorne said. “Nothing good, though. Well, that one’s out of our hands. I just hope the Trofts left Omnathi enough resources to take on the Dominion, too.”
Jin winced. From the looks of Qasama when she, Paul, and Lorne had left, she seriously doubted it.
The floor of the conduit, as Jin had already surmised, was a few centimeters below the level of the one Corwin had dug. He’d probably done that on purpose, she realized as Lorne helped her down, in hopes of keeping water from coming up into his basement when the drainage system was doing its proper job. The ceiling was a few centimeters higher here, and there was more elbow room, but she could tell it wasn’t going to be an easy trip. “You have someplace safe we can go?” she asked as they headed back the way Lorne and the others had come.
“I don’t think any place in Aventine is really safe anymore,” Lorne said. “But we’ve got a spot that should work for a while.” He half turned and flashed Jin a tight smile. “Trust me, Mom. You’re going to love it.”
“And we should stop talking now,” Werle warned. “Sound carries way too well in these tunnels.”
Silence descended on the group. Jin kept her focus on her footing, and on trying to come up with some plan for fighting back against the Dominion. She tried very hard not to think of what Lij Tulu might be doing to Corwin.
She tried equally hard not to wonder what Captain Barrington Moreau and his war cruiser were doing to Qasama.