Stev Kimmer narrowed his eyes and shrugged. “Have the others seen the ruby?”

“Not yet.” She smiled slowly with sly malice. “If you’ll help me, they may never need to.”

By the time Stev Kimmer made a hurried departure to the loading dock, Avril was sure of his participation. Now all she needed was a chance to talk to Nabhi Nabol.

*  *  *

Kenjo Fusaiyuko tensed at the first shudder as the shuttle hit atmosphere. The admiral, seated between Kenjo and Jiro Akamoto, the copilot, leaned forward eagerly, straining at his safety harness and smiling in anticipation. Kenjo permitted himself to smile, too. Then he carefully blanked his expression. Things were going far too well. There had been no problems with the countdown checklist. For all its fifteen years of inactivity, the shuttle Eujisan handled perfectly. They had achieved an excellent angle of entry and should make a perfect landing on a site that, according to probe report, was as level as a natural area could be.

Kenjo had always worried about possible contingencies, a habit that had made him one of the best transport pilots in Cygnus Sector Fleet in spite of the fact that the few emergencies he had faced had never been ones that he could have foreseen. He had survived because, in planning for foul-ups, he had been ready for anything.

But the Pern landing was different. No one, apart from the long-dead Exploration and Evaluation team, had set foot on Pern. And, in Kenjo’s estimation, the EEC team had not spent enough time on the planet to have made a proper assessment.

Beside him, Jiro murmured reassuring readings from his instrumentation, and then both pilots felt the resistance as the shuttle dug deeper into the atmospheric layer. Kenjo tightened his fingers around the control yoke, setting his feet and his seat deep for steadiness. He wished the admiral would lean back—it was unnerving to have someone breathing down his neck at a time like this. How had the man managed to find so much slack in his safety harness?

The exterior of the shuttle was heating up, but the internal temperature remained steady. Kenjo shot a glance at the small screen. The passengers were riding well, too, and none of the cargo had shifted under its straps. His eyes flicked from one dial to the next, noting the performance and health of his vehicle. The vibration grew more violent, but that was to be expected. Had he not pierced the protective gases of a hundred worlds in just the same way, slipping like a penknife under the flap of an envelope, like a man into the body of his beloved?