"I appreciate that deeply, Brother Tobias," Abigail told him sincerely.
"Then if you would accompany me, I will guide you to the Meeting House, where Brother Heinrich and some of our other Elders are waiting to speak with you."
"Thank you," Abigail said, then paused as Sergeant Gutierrez started to key his communicator.
"I think you can remain here, Sergeant," she said quietly, and it was Gutierrez's turn to pause, his hand on the com.
"With all due respect, Ma'am," he began in his deep, rumbling voice, and she shook her head.
"I don't believe I have anything to fear from Brother Tobias and his people, Sergeant," she said more crisply.
"Ma'am, that's not really the point," he replied. "Major Hill's orders were pretty specific."
"And so are mine, Sergeant," Abigail told him. "I can look after myself," she let her right hand make a small, unobtrusive gesture in the direction of the pulser holstered at her right hip, "and I don't think I'm in any danger. But these people are probably uncomfortable around armed personnel, and we're guests here. I see no reason to offend them unnecessarily."
"Ma'am," he began again in a dangerously patient voice, "I don't think you quite underst—"
"We're going to do this my way, Sergeant." Abigail's own voice was calm but firm. He glowered at her, but she held his eyes steadily with her own and refused to back down. "Keep an eye on the pinnace," she told him, "and I'll keep my com open so you can monitor."
He hesitated, clearly hovering on the brink of further objections, then inhaled deeply. It was obvious he didn't think much of her order, and she suspected he didn't think a great deal more of the judgment of the person who'd given it. For that matter, she was far from certain Commander Watson would approve of her decision when they got back to the ship and Gutierrez reported. But the captain had emphasized that they were not to step upon these people's sensibilities or beliefs.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am," he said finally.
"Thank you, Sergeant," she said, and turned back to Brother Tobias. "Whenever you're ready, Brother," she told him.
HMS Gauntlet moved steadily outward from the planet of Refuge. She wasn't in any particular hurry, but Captain Oversteegen had decided he might as well actually go ahead and update his charts on the Tiberian System. As Commander Watson had suggested, it provided a perfectly acceptable reason to move Gauntlet away from the planet. And if he was going to use it as a pretext, he might as well get some genuine use out of it. Besides, it would be a worthwhile exercise for Lieutenant Commander Atkins' department.
"How's it going, Valeria?" Commander Watson asked, and the astrogator looked up from a conversation with her senior yeoman.
"Pretty well, actually," she replied. "We're not turning up any serious discrepancies, but it's pretty obvious that whoever ran the original survey on the system wasn't exactly interested in dotting all the 'i's and crossing all the 't's."
"How so?" Watson asked.
"Like I said, it's nothing major. But there are some minor system bodies that never got cataloged at all. For instance, Refuge has a secondary moon—more of a captured hunk of loose rock, actually—that doesn't appear. We're finding some other little items like that. Small stuff, nothing significant or worth worrying about. But it's an interesting exercise, especially for my newbies."
"Good, but don't get too attached to it. I don't imagine we'll be hanging around very long after we recover Ms. Hearns and her party."
"Understood." Atkins looked around for a moment, then leaned closer to the executive officer. "Is it true she left her watchdogs at the pinnace?" she asked quietly, with a slight smile.
"Now, how did you hear that?" Watson responded.
"Chief Palmer made some observations for me on his way to the planet," Atkins said. "When he reported them to Chief Abrams, he . . . might have commented on it."
"I see." Watson snorted. "You know, the grapevine aboard this ship must be made out of fiber optic, given how quick it works!" She shook her head. "In answer to your question, however, yes. She left Gutierrez and his people at the landing field. I don't think the Sergeant was particularly happy about it, either."
"He doesn't think she's actually in any sort of danger, does he?" Atkins asked in a more serious tone.
"On a planet full of nonviolent religious types?" Watson snorted again, harder, then paused. "Well, Gutierrez is a Marine, so I suppose he could be a little less trusting than us Navy types. But my read right this minute is that he's just a bit on the disgusted side. I think he's put her down as one of those Little Ms. Sunshine types who think the universe is populated solely by kindly, helpful souls."
"Abigail?" Atkins shook her head. "She's a Grayson, Ma'am."
"I know that. You know that. Hell, Gutierrez knows that! But he's also down on a planet we don't know anything about, really, on a first-hand basis, and his pablum-brained midshipwoman has just gone traipsing off on her own with the locals. Not something exactly designed to give a Marine the most lively possible faith in her judgment."
"You think it was the wrong decision?" Atkins asked curiously.
"No, not really. I'm going to give her a little grief over it, when we get her back aboard, and suggest that I sent those Marines along for a reason. But I'm not going to smack her for it, because I think I know why she did it. Besides, she's the one down there, not me, and over all, I think I have considerable faith in her judgment."
"Well," Atkins said, after a glance at the bulkhead time/date display, "she's been dirtside for almost four hours now. Nothing seems to have gone wrong so far, and I suppose she should be heading back shortly."
"As a matter of fact, she's on her way back to the pinnace right now," Watson agreed, "and—"
"Hyper footprint!" The tactical rating whose report interrupted the exec sounded surprised, but his voice was crisp. "Looks like two ships in company, bearing zero-three-four by zero-one-niner!"
Watson wheeled towards him, eyebrows rising, then crossed quickly back to the command chair at the center of the bridge and hit the button that deployed the tactical repeater plot. She gazed down into it, watching until CIC updated it with the red caret that indicated an unidentified hyper footprint on Gauntlet's starboard bow at just over sixteen light-minutes.
"Well, well, well," she murmured, and pressed a com stud on the chair arm.
"Captain speakin'," Michael Oversteegen's voice acknowledged.
"Sir, it's the Exec," she told him. "We've got an unidentified hyper footprint at roughly two hundred and eighty-eight million kilometers. Looks like it might be a pair of them."
"Do we, indeed?" Oversteegen said in a thoughtful voice. "Now, what do you think someone might be doin' in a system like Tiberian?"
"Well, Sir, unless they're as noble, virtuous, and aboveboard as we are, then I suppose it's possible they might be nasty old pirates."
"The same thought had occurred t' me," Oversteegen said, and then his voice went crisper. "Send the crew t' Action Stations, Linda. I'm on my way."
Abigail leaned back in her comfortable chair in the pinnace's passenger compartment, watching the dark indigo of Refuge's stratosphere give way to the black of space, and considered what she'd learned from Brother Tobias and Brother Heinrich.
It wasn't much, she reflected. In fact, she doubted she'd learned a single thing that hadn't already been included in the captain's ONI analyses. Except that it was pretty evident that the captain had been right about the way Star Warrior's captain had rubbed the Refugians the wrong way during his own visit to Tiberian.