"Yes," she agreed. "Yes, I'll ask him to make inquiries. Are you staying in T-Town?"

He gave her the name of his hotel, rose. She offered her hand. "When I have something to tell you, I'll call you, Mr. Stern."

"I just hope that I'm not worrying you without reason," he said.

"No." She heard the voices, Josh's voice, Sheba's voice. We need you, Sarah. "It's time to be concerned, I think."

"Once again let me apologize for disturbing you on Sunday afternoon,"

Vinn said, as she walked him to the front door.

Sarah got lost twice in the labyrinthine corridors of X&A headquarters before she found the office of Staff Colonel Jefferson Watch. Pete's position and influence had secured an appointment quickly, but when she was shown into Watch's office by a polite Service rating she realized that Pete de Conde's request had not been given serious priority. Colonel Watch was a man in the middle fourth quarter of his life. Sarah knew enough about the Service to understand that she'd been steered to a man who was serving out his last few years before retirement, a man who had been pushed aside in the fierce competition for top command.

In spite of his wrinkles and white hair, Watch was an impressive man.

He rose from his desk, a smile showing that he'd availed himself of the finest dentures available.

"Did you have a pleasant trip from Tigian, Mrs. de Conde?" he asked, as he shook her hand.

"I abhor space travel," Sarah said, answering his smile. "But as it goes, it was a pleasant enough trip I suppose."

"I think you'll find that chair comfortable," Watch said. "Coffee? Tea?"

"Neither, thank you."

He sat down behind his desk and picked up a folder emblazoned with the seal of X&A. "I have been going over the information given to me by fleet control," he said. "You are concerned about the Erin Kenner, commanded by Captain Joshua Webster?"

"My brother, Captain Webster, went into space searching for other members of my family who have been missing for some time. It has been just over two years since my mother and father were last reported."

"Ah, yes, the Old Folks, Tigian registry."

"And the Fran Webster, owned by my other brother, David Webster, went missing in the same segment of space about a year ago."

Watch cleared his throat. "Actually, Mrs. de Conde, the Service does not consider either of those two ships to be overdue. As you must know there are vast distances and huge star populations involved in any exploratory venture away from the established route. Your parents' ship, for example, still has almost one year's supplies, not counting the space rations which would last, in an emergency, for some months."

"Colonel Watch," she began.

He cut her off skillfully, with a smile. "If any one of the ships about which you're concerned had filed a flight plan stating that it would arrive at some specific destination at some appointed time, then there would be room for concern. However, both Old Folks and the Fran Webster filed an exploratory agenda for an indefinite period of time."

She opened her mouth, but he held up his hand to silence her. "As for the Erin Kenner, I would be highly surprised to hear from her inside of two years from her departure from the U.P. Sector. It's her job to seek outthe lonely places."

"Isn't it Service policy to leave behind permanent blink beacons when an exploratory ship is charting new star lanes?"

"Yes, of course."

"And isn't it standard operating procedure for all X&A ships in the field to send back status reports once a month?"

"Under normal circumstances," Watch said. "In fact, Erin Kenner sent back her routine position reports, including one from a new blink beacon positioned in toward the core from the extragalactic route. We know, however, that it was Captain Webster's intention to search a given area for Old Folks and the Fran Webster. I don't know whether you understand the complicated nature of such a search, Mrs. de Conde. Let me give you an example. Let us say, since the search area is near the periphery of the galaxy, that it contains only a few hundred stars within, say, a radius of a hundred light-years. Many of those stars could be eliminated because of their size and nature. Say only a hundred of them were of the types known to spawn planets. The Erin Kenner could work for a year or more and not have examined all of them, since approaching each new star would require weeks of short jumps and careful movements. During such an operation, which is essentially local, the ship would not be laying down permanent blink beacons and, therefore, she would be out of communications with headquarters."

"I get the idea, Colonel, that it's going to be some time before X&A gets concerned about the situation."

"I sympathize with your wanting to have word of your relatives," he said. "And it is highly unusual, isn't it, to have so many members of the same family jumping about in the same region of space. I can only submit to you, Mrs. de Conde, that David and Ruth Webster acted impulsively.

The search for Old Folks should have been left to Service professionals."

"The search for Old Folks and the Fran Webster is being conducted by a Service professional," she said. "And I know my brother, Josh. He's a stickler for regulations. I am convinced that he would not allow six months to go by without filing his reports with headquarters."

Watch cleared his throat again. "The Erin Kenner carries enoughfirepower to protect herself in any eventuality. Captain Webster, although this is his first command, has an excellent record." He stood in dismissal, his smile showing his gleaming dentures. "Don't worry, Mrs. de Conde. I'm sure that all of your family will turn up."

She had taken time from the middle of a closely contested election campaign to make the trip to Xanthos. She was fuming silently as she left Colonel Watch's office. She spent the night in a luxury hotel, but nothing pleased her. The food did not sit well. The bed was too hard. In her dreams they all called to her, Josh, David, Ruth, Sheba, her mother and father.

She fretted on the shuttle that took her to Xanthos Space, a trip that lasted two hours longer than the blink back to Tigian. She took a taxi to Pete's office and arrived just in time for lunch. He saw that she was upset and waited for her to pick her own time to tell him about her trip. In the restaurant she toyed with a plate of fruit and salad while her husband ate with gusto. She asked him about developments in the election campaign, although she'd only been gone overnight. Then, at the last, she told him about Colonel Watch and the brush-off she'd been given at X&A

Headquarters.

"I'm sorry," Pete said. He chuckled. "It's rather deflating to know that my influence on Xanthos rates me an appointment with a passed-over staff colonel counting the days until retirement."

"It's not your fault," Sarah said, putting her hand on his. "You did all you could."

"Perhaps if I put on a little pressure here and there we can do better than your Colonel Watch. Both the central government and a Zede consortium are negotiating with us for the output of the mines on that new planet out in the Two Sisters quadrant. I'm patriotic, most of the time, but I don't like to be treated like some yokel from Outworld Four."

"Forget it, Pete," she said. "Maybe Watch was right. Maybe we're all being too impulsive. For the time being, I'm going to operate on the theory that if we leave them alone they'll all come home."

"Wagging their tails behind them," Pete said with grin.

"I've got an election to win," she said.

"That Stern fellow called twice this morning to see if you were back."

"I'll call him."

"You don't suppose the Queen is serious about him?"

Sarah shrugged. "With Sheba, who knows." She smiled. "But it's about time for her to find a permanent attachment. I get a bit prickly reading about all of her romances in the media."