“I’ll have breakfast sent right up.” And he withdrew. She closed her eyes.

The projector came on, and she was staring at a virtual Woodbridge.

He was seated in an old-fashioned oak chair. Because of her awkward position in the bed, the projector was angled. Woodbridge peered down at her from a spot near the ceiling. He looked worried. “Kim,” he said, “are you all right?”

“I’ll have to do a little healing. Otherwise I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

She hesitated.

“It’s safe,” he said. “We’re on a secure circuit.”

That wasn’t why she hesitated. Tell him about the Valiant and it’s gone. Either to a government lab for research. Or back to the Tripley estate. Damn. After all she’d been through, the thing should belong to her, if it belonged to anyone. Anyway, she couldn’t see that she owed any kind of debt to anybody else.

“I got a call from Sheyel Tolliver,” she said, “asking me to meet him at Severin.” She explained that Sheyel must also have contacted Ben Tripley since Tripley had gone there too. But before she could find out what it was all about, the thing had attacked.

She described the assault at the lake and her subsequent flight.

“Curious,” said Woodbridge when she’d finished. “Why did Tolliver go out there? Why would he want you and Tripley along?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“And why did this thing suddenly go berserk? I mean, apparently it was there all these years, right? What was going on?” He frowned at her. “Kim, is there something you’re not telling me?”

He tried to dissect her with that Mephistophelian gaze. But she hardened herself and thought how easily she now resorted to deceiving people. “No,” she said. “I’m as baffled as you are.”

“This shroud, I’m informed no trace of it was found.”

“Good.”

“It strikes me that it has a resemblance to the creature you described from the Hammersmith”

“I’m sure it’s the same kind of beast, Canon.”

“Have we reason to believe there are any others about?”

“Not that I know of.”

He looked sternly down at her. “Good. Let’s hope not. In the meantime, the local authorities are waiting to talk with you. Be careful what you say to them. No connections to the Hunter. Or to the Hammersmith. No otherworld stuff. Okay? You were meeting friends, and other than that you don’t know what it was or why it attacked.”

“Canon, why don’t you just call them off?”

“Can’t,” he said. “People would think we were hiding something. You’ll be safe, Kim. I have confidence that you won’t tell them anything you don’t want them to know.” He smiled and blinked off.

An attendant came in with breakfast, accompanied by a nurse. “Dr. Brandywine,” she said, “there are some people here from the police to see you—”

“Repairing the tunnel’s going to cost half a million.” Matt Flexner was exasperated. “They’ll be rerouting traffic for the next year. You’re not very popular right now with the transportation people. Or with the taxpayers.”

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “It was the best I could do under the circumstances.” Aside from the broken bones, she’d suffered internal injuries and some burns, and would have bled to death had it not been for the quick work of Air Rescue, and the good fortune that they’d been able to get to her from the western end of the tunnel.

“Kim, we can do without the sarcasm. Since you’re an Institute representative, we’re taking the heat now.”

“Matt,” she said, “try to understand: I was running for my life. The Institute’s views weren’t uppermost in my mind.”

He softened. “I know. The problem is that they told you to stay out of the tunnel. But I’m glad you came through it okay.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

He nodded. “I guess I deserved that.”

“Yes, you did.”

He had a stack of images of the shroud, culled from the media. “What exactly was that thing anyhow?”

“It’s probably a designer lifeform. It was apparently a passenger on the Hunter.”

His eyes widened. “How can that be?”

Matt wasn’t somebody you’d necessarily rely on in a crunch, but he knew how to keep his mouth shut. She needed to be able to talk to somebody. Especially if she was going to arrange to have the Valiant analyzed.

She was still debating what to do with it after she fished it out of the lake. Take it home and put it in the den? Keep its existence quiet while she tried to learn as much about it as she could? Any other course of action would lose the Valiant immediately. “Matt,” she said, “I’ll tell you everything I know. But first I want a quid pro quo.”

“Okay.” He folded his arms, as if someone were about to question his honor. “Name it.”

“You don’t say anything to anybody about what I’m about to tell you without my prior approval. Absolute blackout on this.”

“First tell me what it’s about.”

“No. I won’t tell you anything without the agreement.”

The muscles around his jaw worked, but he remained silent. “Okay,” he said finally. “What have you got?”

“A starship,” she said. “A microship. From somewhere else.”

His eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”

“Have you ever known me to kid around?” She’d never seen him look so confused. “They’re telling me I’ll be out of here in a few more days.” Reconstructive procedures would heal her quickly. “Meet me and I’ll show you.”

“Show me? Where is it?”

“We’ll have to rent a boat.”

They also picked up some diving gear. Matt didn’t swim a stroke, and he worried about what would happen in the event of a problem while Kim was submerged. He feared she wasn’t quite entirely recovered yet, but she assured him that she was fine. She needed only not put too much weight on the leg.

He’d drawn the only possible conclusion. “You’re telling me it’s in the lake,” he said, as they put out from the north shore.

“Of course.”

“Kim, even if it is, I’ll drown trying to get a look at it.”

“You won’t have to go down.”

“You mean it’s visible from the boat?”

“I hope not.”

“Then what—?”

“Just bear with me a bit.” She had a sensor. But in fact it took almost two hours to find the site she wanted. By the time she did Matt had lost all patience. “It’s small,” she told him finally.

He frowned. “How small?”

She held her hands a half meter apart. “Really,” she added. “It’s a microship.”

The sensor picked it up finally, and she slipped over the side, used the jets to take her down through water that was quite clear, and had no trouble finding it. She plucked it out of the mud, then returned to the surface and handed it over to Matt. He made a skeptical face, took it from her, and stared at it.

“Stop assuming,” she told him, “that the celestials have to be the same size we are.”

Gradually he came to accept the possibility. On the way back to Eagle Point, he sat with it in his lap, saying things like, It feels as if it could be. And Maybe it’s possible. “But, Kim, God help you if this is a joke.”

They bundled the microship in wrapping paper, stowed it in a carrying case, and put it in the flyer. “Okay,” he said. “First thing we’ll need to do is put together a team to look at it. We’ll want to take it apart, find out how it works. Maybe we can figure out what sort of crew it had.” He looked pointedly at her. The message was clear: If she was wrong, they were both going to look silly.

“We’ve got a problem,” she said as they lifted off.

“What is it this time, Kim?”

“You start bringing in experts and the word will be out within an hour.”

“You’re telling me that Woodbridge doesn’t know about this.”

“If he did, do you think we’d be sitting here with the microship?”

His jaw muscles worked. “Kim, there’s no way around that. He has to be informed.”