Dismissing his qualms, he left the room quickly, gaining speed as he went until he was almost running when he hit the stairs. He jogged down them and crossed the wide room to the doors that led outside. As soon as he reached the courtyard he began to scan the sky.

He spotted it almost immediately. It was so close by that time that it was impossible not to identify the craft as theirs.

“By Aiper’s balls!” Kulle exclaimed. “It is our ship!”

“Yes,” Drak agreed, glancing around for a beast. Fortunately, his men had anticipated that the beasts would be needed and they’d already saddled a round dozen, his favorite beast among them. Moving down the stairs, he grasped the reins and hoisted himself into the saddle.

The gates began to open as the men who followed hurried into the courtyard and grabbed mounts for themselves.

By the time they reached the cave where the craft was usually hidden, the ship had settled into the place it usually occupied when not in use. The engines died and the gangplank was extended.

Drak pulled his beast to a skidding halt and leapt from its back, striding quickly across the cave and up the gangplank. The door slid open as he reached it.

His heart thundering in his ears louder than the stampeding tread of his men as they followed him, Drak strode inside and directly to the control room.

It was empty.

The men came to a halt behind him, looking around, as confused and unnerved as Drak was … except Drak was deflated as well, his hopes crushed and anger surged to fill the void as he, too, searched the area with his gaze.

“Search the ship,” he growled, knowing even when he issued the order that they wouldn’t find her or Jules. The ship was empty.

“Noelle sends her greetings!” an unfamiliar voice announced.

Everyone started, glancing quickly around, swords drawn.

“She ordered me to deliver a message to Prince Drak the Fair. Are you the Prince?”

Drak looked around, trying to identify the direction the voice seemed to originate from but it seemed to bounce around the room and it was impossible to locate the origin.

“Who asks!” Kulle demanded.

“I am the onboard computer for this craft. I am called SIM.”

“What is onboard computer? And who is Sim? Where are you? Show yourself!”

“I am the ship. I am everywhere.”

Drak, who’d been listening and tracking the voice while Kulle interrogated it finally decided the voice was coming from the console itself. Each time Sim spoke, lights flickered across the console. “You are mechanical?”

“I am electronic. More accurately, I am both. I am the ship.”

The men exchanged unnerved glances. “It didn’t use to talk,” Kulle whispered to Drak. “You think it’s the ship? Or somebody hiding?”

Drak was thoughtful. “Search the ship.”

“I am not hiding.”

“We will see,” Kulle said grimly.

Drak jerked his head at the others indicating they should follow Kulle and search the ship. When they’d left the control room, he glanced at the console again. “I am Drak.”

“Noelle begs your pardon for taking the ship without asking permission. She said that she knew that you would be angry, but she is deeply regretful and hopes that you will forgive her since she programmed me to come back.

“She says that she hopes someday you will forgive her and that you and she can be friends.”

Drak frowned. “That’s all she said? That’s the entire message?”

“She said that she wasn’t sorry she’d taken Jules home to his mother because the child needed his mother. And also that you and Queen Niri should compromise on the custody of the child for his sake.”

Drak’s lips tightened. “Did she?”

“Yes.”

“Is there more to the message?”

“That is the entire message.”

Drak glanced around the room again, but he was convinced that he had spoken to a machine—as bizarre as that seemed, particularly since it seemed to speak directly to him and respond to questions. The ship felt empty of any living presence. He hesitated. “Can you answer a question?”

“I will try.”

“How did you reach K’naiper? I assume you did or Noelle would not have sent the ship back or mentioned leaving Jules with his mother.”

“Noelle reprogrammed the flight. Using the momentum created by the planet’s gravity, the ship was slingshot into space at a much higher rate of speed than it is currently capable of achieving. This made it possible to catch up to the sister world.”

Drak decided he would have to digest that information for a little while—and possibly it would eventually make sense. Trying to decide how he felt about the situation, he left the ship to the men, captured his beast, and headed back to the fortress.

Chapter Seventeen

Noelle had been kicking her heels in the colony jail for days before she was allowed any visitors at all. Almost a week had passed since she’d spoken to her advocate—which was the same day she’d returned Drak’s ship and then headed back to the colony and presented herself for the interrogation and the analysis of her PMAI.

It was amazing to her that five different people could look at the same damn thing and all interpret it in a different way!

She’d been sure that all she needed to do was to allow them access to her Personal Memory Assist Implant and they’d be able to see she hadn’t done anything wrong. She still didn’t see that she had! But all of the council members had had a different opinion—both of her activities at Prince Drak’s castle and when she’d sent his ship back!

Well, she couldn’t actually claim she’d had no idea they would want to study the Prince’s ship—not truthfully anyway. And she hadn’t been able to lie about it convincingly and pretend she didn’t know they’d want it since she’d hidden it to start with and then sneaked out of the colony and sent it back.

Nobody was buying that one! The jury was still out on her activities at the castle. At least half seemed to consider that she was under duress and shouldn’t be penalized for doing whatever it took to survive. The others thought she’d been way too enthusiastic for somebody that was doing something they were forced to do.

Either way, she wasn’t particularly perturbed. The advocate had said she was most likely to get probation rather than actual jail time—not because they didn’t consider she’d committed a crime but because they were anxious to use her to promote relations with the natives!

Politics!

She was surprised but gratified when Monica arrived. She didn’t know if Monica hadn’t been to see her because she considered her guilty and didn’t want to be friends anymore, though, or if she hadn’t because they wouldn’t let her so she was far more subdued in greeting her than she felt.

“They sent me to get you,” Monica explained without preamble when the guard had unlocked the door.

“Really? They’ve decided already?” Noelle asked uneasily. “My advocate said it might be as much as a month before they made a decision. Not that I’m objecting, mind you! This place totally sucks!”

“No. It isn’t that. Your … uh … boyfriend arrived and he’s pissed.”

Noelle, who’d followed her friend from the cell, stopped abruptly. “You mean Drak?”

Monica gave her a look. “You have more than one boyfriend?”

Noelle headed back into the cell and plopped down on the bunk. “If he’s pissed, I don’t think I want to talk to him.”

Monica followed her, grasped her arm and hauled her off the bunk. “He’s pissed because they said he couldn’t talk to you and they sent me out instead.”

“Oh. Oh? You’re saying he’s pissed off because I didn’t come out? Not just pissed off at me?”

“He didn’t seem mad,” Monica lied, “until I said you couldn’t come out. Then he said he would take the place apart stone by stone if we didn’t send you out.”

“Uh oh. That really sounds like he’s pissed at me, Monica.”