They waited. She adjusted the squelch until a faint hissing and pop-ping assured her the speakers were operational. Nobody responded.

“Just a peek,” she told the others. She gripped the flight controls and replaced the mic, then nosed Parsona forward, back into the same bay from which she’d fled with Cole just a few weeks prior.

An easy in-and-out, she promised herself.

35

“You want me to meet someone called the Bern Seer?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve had enough of the Bern.”

Mortimor laughed. “She’s no more a Bern than you or I, Cole. She’s the one who’s been watching them come. She’s on our side, if there is such a thing.”

“Where is she? Here?”

“No—”

“Further ahead,” Arthur interjected, shouting above the rain. “As far ahead as you can go, in fact.”

“Why does she want to meet me?”

“Won’t say, but she’s calling in a favor, a big one, and . . . well, I can’t force you to go, but I’d owe you one of my own if you did.”

Cole looked down at his hands beneath the folds of his clear plastic poncho. Water coursed across it, giving his flesh an artificial sheen.

“I’ll go,” he said quietly.

“Good,” Mortimor said. He slapped Cole on the back. “Now, let’s get out of the rain. I’ll introduce you to doctor Ryke, who’ll take you out.”

Cole followed the two men forward, the pelting at his back driving him along and the rain to either side making him feel as if he could fall clean off the roof and go drifting after the droplets forever.

“Wait,” he yelled up to the others. “Who’s Ryke? Aren’t you guys coming with me?”

“Sorry,” Mortimor said, waiting up for him to catch up. “We’ve got plenty enough to do without a trip forward.” He worked his hand out of the poncho and put it on Cole’s back, urging him toward the stairwell. “Besides,” he said, “she specifically asked to see you alone. Ryke’s just driving you.”

“Driving me? In what?”

ѻѻѻѻ

Half an hour later, Cole found himself cowering in the passenger seat of the answer. They called it a hyperskimmer, and it raced across the water on three foils, skipping like a cast stone and feeling completely out of control. As the craft sped directly into the driving rain, Cole fought the urge to scream; he ground his teeth and gripped the dash in pure terror, wondering how the hell Doctor Ryke could see where they were going. As the craft’s forward skiff tore through the watery surface of hyperspace, it kicked up twin roostertails to either side—large sheets of foaming whiteness that created an artificial canyon the small vehicle seemed to glide through. Every now and then, Cole glanced over to Ryke to make sure they were going to be okay. Each time, he found the strange man fiddling with a dial on the dash or looking at Cole while he talked.