“What are you going to do about it?”
She sighed. “It's a sticky area. The people are neither military nor government. They technically come under the government laws, but there is no law against the right to gather. That was set into the UC rules after that bad business with the light guns thirty years ago.”
“So you're going to let it play out?” He didn't think that ignoring the protesters was a good idea either.
“No. I'm going out to talk to them.” Dimitara sounded resigned.
“Take Cossi and Chep with you. Let them set up a secure perimeter.”
“Chep and Cossi have already suggested that. They let some people follow them around the square for nearly an hour and then came to find me to report.” She didn't sound happy. “I thought it would be bad when we got here, but my imagination was obviously not up to the task.”
“I'm surprised it isn't worse,” Dray admitted. “I know how the Grih would react, and I honestly don't know if we'd be this restrained. What is the government saying?”
He heard her chair squeak, as if she was leaning back in it. “They're panicked. They don't want to harm any of the protesters, but they also want to clear the square. And the shots fired in the square and in the side streets didn't go unnoticed.” She paused. “I'm guessing that was you?”
“I was responsible for some of the shots in the side streets. I don't know who fired in the square.”
“The military were firing at Lucy,” Bane said, and from the startled silence on Dimitara's end he guessed Bane had included her in the transmission.
“They were trying to kill her?” Dimitara's voice suddenly grew, as if three of her were talking at once.
“I think they planned to stun her so they could grab her and kill her elsewhere. I'm sure they'd have left her body where no one would find it. They would not have wanted a dead Earth woman to be found in the square.”
“Who's doing this?” Dimitara asked. “It can't be the whole of the military. It's surely a smaller group.”
“Speak to someone called Dr. Farnn,” Bane said. “She's one of the few survivors of that fire at a military facility a few days ago. She was one of Lucy Harris's doctors there, and Lucy said she's the one who helped her escape. She'll have a good idea of who had something to lose by Lucy being found.”
“Do you know where she is?” Dimitara asked.
“I'll send you the details, Ambassador.” Bane hesitated. “I would suggest you put Dr. Farnn somewhere very safe, like the Urna. I don't think the military will be happy that she's still walking around free.”
“And you, Dray? What's your plan?” Dimitara asked.
“We have to come back to the city. I need you to send a team to get us.”
She hesitated.
“You won't send a team?” He didn't hide his outrage.
“No, I want to send a team. I'm just worried they'll be followed.”
Dray gave a snort. “So what if they are? What are they going to do? Shoot down a UC team?”
Her silence spoke volumes.
And, yes, maybe they were crazy enough to do just that. “Even if they do, we can shoot back. And there can't be more crazy military officers caught up in this cover up than we can handle.” He would relish shooting a few of them. It was sounding like a better idea all the time.
“If they shoot to kill? Or if one of them gets seriously hurt? How will that play out in the current mood on Tecra?” Dimitara asked quietly. “Do I care all that much about them getting hurt? No. I'm so angry about this, I want to call Bane back and get him to blitz the whole planet, but I'm here to make this agreement work. And so far, it really does look like a small group is causing this. That's not fair to the rest of the Tecran. And how much more damage will I do if I agree to let a team or two fetch you, weapons hot, and the Tecran take that as an attack in bad faith and pull out of the agreement? I don't want to be the UC ambassador who led the UC into war. And how safe will Lucy be in a situation like that anyway? Can you guarantee she won't be hurt in any armed confrontation with the Tecran? After all, they're trying to kill her.”
He saw his fantasy of using his shockgun on a few Tecran assholes evaporate under the cold reality of her reasoning. “I'll get us back quietly.”
“You do that.” Dimitara's words were implacable. “And soon, Dray. I won't rest until Lucy's safe on the Urna.”
“Safe on my Class 5,” Bane corrected. “There is no way she's going to be safe on the Urna.”
After a startled silence, Dimitara gave a hum of agreement. “On your Class 5,” she confirmed. “But you're not in the solar system, Bane. Until you get here, I want her in the fold.”
“So you want me to come in?” Bane asked.
Dray would say this for the thinking system, he was a very convincing liar. And he obviously trusted Dray not to out him to Dimitara.
“No,” she said, although not as decisively as he would have thought. “I'll have Lucy taken to you in one of the Urna's explorers as soon as we have her onboard. Things are too delicate at this point for you to make an appearance.”
Dray thought of Bane, hiding on Gyre, and for the first time since this mess began, relaxed a little.
He was glad the thinking system was right here. Not sitting in a holding pattern out of reach. The delicacy of the balance between the UC teams and the Tecran be damned.
When Dimitara said goodbye he responded in kind and then stood in the silent kitchen.
A feeling of being watched slowly crept over him, and he turned toward the stairs. Lucy Harris was sitting on one of the steps, wet hair slicked back to fall in a cascade of tight golden brown curls, her eyes big and dark.
She was dressed in a black shirt that was too big for her and loose black trousers, but her feet were bare. She leaned forward to hug her knees and the neck of the shirt slipped over one shoulder.
He leaned back against the counter, staring at her, and the sound of the grinabo maker's warble that announced it had finished was a shock in the quiet.
“You feeling warmer?” he asked, and again realized he'd used Grihan. He cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he said in Tecran, “are you better?”
She nodded, her gaze traveling over him carefully. “Thank you.”
“How long were you . . .” He trailed off, worried his words would be distressing for her, then forced himself to continue, because this was something the UC needed to know. “How long were you held prisoner?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I wasn't conscious for some of the time. Something happened to me. They wouldn't tell me what, but I guessed it was their fault, and they felt guilty about it.”
“They?”
“The scientists and doctors in the facility. They didn't like me asking questions about it. But I recovered, and I've been awake for two months or so. They helped me get stronger. I think I was in a coma for about a month before that.”
That was as long as they'd had Imogen Peters and Fiona Russell, the two Earth women abducted after Rose McKenzie.
Dray shouldn't be surprised, but he was. He was staggered.