Urle and Brooks listened as Jaya finished her report of her talk with Apollonia.

“Thank you, you handled that adroitly,” he told her.

Jaya nodded, and terminated the connection.

Urle looked at him.

“Computer, locate Ambassador Kell,” Brooks asked, not speaking to Urle yet.

“Ambassador Kell is in his quarters,” the computer answered.

“When was the last time he moved?” Urle asked.

“Data unavailable,” the system said.

“Naturally,” Urle muttered. “I don’t think he actually does move in there. He goes in, goes into the water, and just stays still. For days at a time. The only time he moves is when he sometimes requests food or goes for a walk.”

“Does he still request two hundred kilograms of meat a day?” Brooks asked.

“Always. He’s asked for beef, for mutton, for pork, alligator, but most of all fish. He even asked Ham Sulp for twelve hundred kilograms of jellyfish one time. The man nearly had an aneurysm. I mean, we could synthesize the proteins, but . . . jellyfish?”

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Brooks was silent a moment before replying. “At least we know where he is right now. His disappearance during the boarding action was . . . alarming.”

“Not one drone could find him,” Urle said, disgusted.

“Which reminds me of our other missing quarry that has yet to turn up,” Brooks said, his voice turning far more unhappy.

“We’ve searched every single deck with every drone we have,” Urle said. “And I mean every drone. We’ve found no traces of the missing P’G’Maig boarding parties.” He shook his head, and rubbed his hand nervously on the edge of Brooks’s desk.

“I came up with the search pattern myself. We even checked each and every fusion reactor inside – while they were running! There is absolutely no way those Hev infiltration units could still be on the ship.”

“Naked,” Brooks added. “Given that they left behind all of their equipment, clothing included.”

“Without leaving a trace of blood or hair or a skin flake,” Urle continued. “I mean, they had gotten into the Armory – why didn’t they blow it?”

Brooks did not know what to say.

“What the hell happened to those Hev that killed Squats on Sand, nearly killed Logus, and left Apollonia unconscious – but unhurt?” he asked fiercely.

“I don’t know,” Brooks replied.

“Do you think it has something to do with Kell’s disappearance?” Urle asked. “Though I don’t know how he could have hidden or . . . disposed of that many bodies without leaving a trace.”

Brooks was silent a moment. “I think it was Kell.”

He rotated his chair, looking at the screen on the wall that showed space around them. Ships of the Dessei Republic Fleet stood off at a distance, with ships of Siilon’s task force closer, though all far enough away that they were mere glints of light.

A drone went by, holding a piece of twisted, blackened metal it had just retrieved from near the image’s location.

“And I sure as hell intend to find out for sure,” he finished.

*******

FINIS