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had plundered known space and needed to be eradicated.
They would pad around in their robes, drink and eat the Pilgrims'
"sanctified" offerings, and fall blithely to their deaths in an act of
spiritual servitude. He shivered off the thought, then imagined himself taking
his Rapier head on toward the Olym-pus's bridge. Amity Aristee would stone up
in horror as his neutron cannon belched out a lethal spray a second before he
tore through the command and control center. His funeral pyre would consume
them all. But even if Aristee died, she might have standing orders to have
Pris and Lacey killed. There had to be another way out. But they kept him so
closely guarded. He needed a plan to smuggle his family off of the ship.
If he only had an ally. There had to be someone aboard whose loyalty
faltered. Yes, that was it. Instead of ignoring the rest of his squadron, he
would talk to them, probe for weakness, exploit it, and win a soul or two to
his side. They were Pilgrims, but they suffered the same frailties as humans.
He would play on their guilt, on their instinct toward self-preservation, and
even on their egos. How many others had families they might never see again?
How many others questioned Aristee's actions? How many others were motivated
by fear instead of duty? How many others saw no future in serving a renegade?
Santyana swore he would find out.
"Talk to me, Brotur Hawthorne," Aristee said, staring at the comm monitor.
Hawthorne, theOlympus 's forty-five-year-old hopper drive control officer,
gazed back at her, his woolly hair gone awry, his unshaven face drawn up in a
look of sheer frustration. "We're still having containment problems, ma'am."
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"How much longer?"
"We've been working on it around the clock. I can't give you an accurate
estimate."
Her jaw stiffened. "Let me spell it out for you. If we don't jump by
oh-seven-thirty tomorrow, the Tiger Claw,Oregon , and Mitchell Hammock will
arrive. Don't underestimate their ability to track us."
"I'm not. We're doing everything we can. At least modifications to the drive
are proceeding as scheduled. We should be able to extend the gravitic cloak
from five hundred meters to at least thirteen kilometers, as you ordered.
However, a cloak that size will pull in many more objects than usual, and I'm
not sure how well the drive's AI will compensate for the increased number of
distortions. We'll have to test it, and we'll need Frotur McDaniel's help."
"As long as we keep moving, we'll have time for that. Continue updating me
hourly."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Was that my name I heard?"
Aristee turned away from the starboard observation station to meet gazes with
Frotur Johan McDaniel, the last living descendant of Ivar Chu McDaniel. The
frotur's hazel eyes seemed to light up his surroundings, and they took no
exception with the bridge. Attired now in his ko'a'ka robe and sandals, he
resembled a pool-bound vacationer who had taken a very wrong turn. But when
the next hour chimed, every soul aboard would shed the old Confederation skins
of slavery and don the ceremonial garments of a new age. And the timing could
not be better: this was the Pilgrim Holy Day of Acclivity, the day that marked
Ivar Chu's rise to become one with the space-time continuum. Some argued that
he resided on an even higher plane incomprehensible to mortal minds. Aristee
had always leaned more toward pragmatic explanations, toward theology born of
science, toward a blurring of those lines. She smiled now at the frotur with a
deep, heartfelt reverence, with a love that transcended anything she had ever
felt for her parents both traitors to the Pilgrim cause. "Brotur Hawthorne
says he might need your assistance with the hopper drive."
"I'm a visionary, a navigator, and a compass but I'm still eighty-one years
old. I wish these youngsters would remember that. I feel as though everyone
aboard needs my help. But I'm not bitter. Just tired. I'm not used to this
kind of excitement."
"These are exciting days. I'm not sure if they'll ever live up to my dreams,
but if nothing else, we will make a statement that humanity will never
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