The tri-prop took less than two hours to make it from Lands Command to Princeton. But the aircraft was no flying command center; such things were beyond current budgets. So the General had two hours with only a low-speed wireless link. That was two hours away from the command and control hub at Lands Command or its near equal at Princeton. Two hours to listen to fragmentary reports and try to coordinate a response. Two hours for grief and anger and uncertainty to gnaw. It was midafternoon when they landed, then another half hour before they reached Hill House.
Their car had scarcely stopped when Sherkaner Underhill was pulling the doors open, urging them out. He caught Unnerby by the arm, and spoke around him to the General. "Thanks for bringing Hrunkner. I need you both." And he walked them across the foyer, drawing them down to his den on the ground floor.
Over the years, Unnerby had observed Sherkaner in various tricky situations: talking his way into Lands Command in the middle of the Tiefer War, guiding an expedition right through the vacuum of the Deepest Dark, debating trads. Sherk didn't always win, but he was always so full of surprise and imagination. Everything was a grand experiment and a wonderful adventure. Even when he failed, he saw how the failure would make for more interesting experiments. But today...today Sherkaner had met despair. He reached out to Smith, the tremor in his head and arms more pronounced than ever. "There has to be a way to find them. There has to be. I have computers, and the microwave link to Lands Command." All the resources that had served him so well in the past. "I can get them back safely. I know I can."
Smith was very still for a moment. Then she moved close to him, laid an arm across Sherk's shoulders, caressing his fur. Her voice was soft and stern, almost like a soldier bracing another about lost comrades. "No, dear. You can only do so much." Outside, the afternoon was moving into overcast. A thin whistle of wind came through the half-opened windows, and the ferns scraped back and forth on the quartz panes. A dark green gloom was all that filtered down through the clouds and the shrubbery.
The General stood with her head close to Sherkaner's, the two just staring at each other. Unnerby could almost feel the fear and the shame echoing back and forth between the two. Then, abruptly, Sherkaner collapsed toward her, his arms wrapping her. The soft hiss of Sherkaner's weeping joined the wind as the only sounds in the room. After a moment, Smith raised one of her back hands, gently motioning for Hrunkner to leave.
Unnerby nodded back at her. The deep carpet was littered with toys—Sherkaner's and the children's—but he was careful where he stepped and managed a silent exit.
The twilight quickly became night, as much a product of the gathering storm as the setting of the sun. Unnerby didn't see much of the weather, since the house command post had only tiny, beetling windows. Smith showed up there almost half an hour after Unnerby. She acknowledged her subordinates' attention, then slid onto the perch next to Hrunkner. He waggled hands at her questioningly. She shrugged. "Sherk will be okay, Sergeant. He's up with his graduate students, doing what he can. Now where are we?"
Unnerby pushed a stack of interviews across the table toward her. "Captain Downing and his team are still here, if you want to talk to them yourself, but all of us"—all the staff that had come up from Lands Command—"think they're clean. The children were just too clever." The children had made fools of an efficient security setup. Of course, they had lived with the setup for a long time, knew Security's habits, were friends of the team members. And till now, the external threat had been a matter of theory and occasional rumor. It all worked in the cobblies' favor when they decided to go for a jaunt....But that security team was a creation of General Victory Smith's own staff. The team members were smart people, loyal people; they were hurting as much as Sherkaner Underhill.
Smith pushed the reports back at him. "Okay. Get Daram and his team back in the loop. Keep them busy. What's new with the search reports?" She waved the other staffers close, and she herself became very busy.
The house command post had good maps, a real situation table. With the microwave link, it could double for the command center at Lands Command. Unfortunately, it had no special advantage for comm into Princeton. It would be several hours before that problem was cured. There was a steady stream of runners moving in and out of the room. Many were fresh from Lands Command, and not part of the day's debacle. That was a good thing, their presence leavening the fatigued dispair that showed in the aspects of some. There were leads. There was progress...both heartening and ominous.
