“We were ready to try!” he said, shrugging nonchalantly as he unbuckled his riding straps. Then he realized that he, too, would need to find a clean pair of pants.

Chapter 19

“I said, we’ll maintain silence about Emily’s condition,” Paul said sternly, glaring at Ongola, Ezra Keroon, and the scowling Joel Lilienkamp. He did not want Lilienkamp taking book on whether or not Emily Boll would recover from her multiple fractures. He moderated his expression as his eyes rested on the bent head of Fulmar Stone, who kept pulling with agitated fingers at a wad of grease-stained rag. “As far as Fort Hold is concerned, she’s resting comfortably. That is the truth, according to the doctor and all the support systems monitoring her condition. For outside inquiries, she’s busy—shunt the call to Ezra.”

Abruptly Paul pushed himself to his feet and began to pace his new office, the first apartment on the level above the Great Hall. Its windows gave an unimpeded view of the ordered rows of cargo and supplies that filled that end of the valley. Eventually all those goods would be stored in the vast subterranean caverns of Fort Hold. So much had to be done, and he sorely missed Emily’s supportive presence.

He caught himself fingering the prosthetic fingers and jammed both hands into his pockets. His position had required him to contain his distress in order to avoid alarming people already under considerable tension. But before his close and trusted friends, he could give vent to the anxieties that they all shared.

The disastrous failure of the big sled’s gyros and its subsequent crash had been visible to the inhabitants of Fort Hold, but few had known that the governor had been a passenger that night. They could be honest about the severity of the pilot’s injuries, for he would recover easily from two broken arms and numerous lacerations. None of the other passengers had been severely hurt, and those who rescued the injured had not recognized Emily, her face bloodied by the head wound. At least until she was convalescing, Paul would not allow the facts to be common knowledge. Following so closely after the exodus from Landing, that crash, with the loss of some irreplaceable medical supplies as well as the sled itself, had to be minimized to sustain morale.

“Pierre agrees,” Paul went on. He could feel the resistance from the others, the unspoken opinion that suppression would undermine his credibility. “Even insists on it. It’s what Emily would want.” In his pacing, Paul inadvertently glanced out the deep-set window and averted his eyes from the view of the scar that the sled had gouged two days ago. “Ezra, get someone to smooth that over, will you? I see it every time I look out the window.”

Ezra murmured a response and made a note.