Twelve hours later, Thornbuckle woke from a fitful doze at the approach of the Grand Admiral's aide.

"They're here now, milord."

The conference room, as secure as any room could be, was crammed with officers. Thornbuckle reminded himself that the blue shoulder-flashes were Intelligence, and the green were Technical.

At one end of the long black table, Grand Admiral Savanche leaned forward, and at the other was the only empty seat in the room, waiting for the government's senior civilian representative: himself.

He edged past the others to his place, and stood there facing Savanche.

"You've seen the recording," Lord Thornbuckle said. "What I want to know is, what kind of force are you committing to getting her back?"

"There's not a damn thing we can do," Grand Admiral Savanche said. After a brief pause, he appended, "Sir."

"There has to be." Thornbuckle's voice was flat, even, and unyielding.

"We can search," Savanche said. "Which we're doing. We have experts going through the intel database, trying to figure out who these people are, and thus where they might be."

"You have to-"

"My Lord Thornbuckle. Your daughter has not made any official checkpoint since Podj, sixty-two days ago. We have already begun running the traffic records and sightings from all stations-but there are thousands, tens of thousands, of stations, just in Familias space alone. You have three orbiting your own Sirialis. With the staff we can release for this, that's going to take weeks to months, just to sift the existing data."

"That's not good enough," Thornbuckle said.

"With all due respect, my lord, given the recent incursions by the Compassionate Hand and the Bloodhorde, we dare not divert resources from our borders. They can certainly add surveillance for your daughter or her ship to their other duties; those orders have gone out. But it would be suicidal to put all Fleet on this single mission."

"Tell me what else you have done," Thornbuckle said.

"We know that she leased the yacht Jester from Allsystems; ten personnel identified as your personal militia boarded with her. Allsystems has provided us full identification profiles for that ship; if it shows up in Familias space, within range of any of our ships, we will know it. We know that she took it from Correlia to Podj without incident. Do you know where she was going next?"

"No." He hated admitting that. "She-she said she wanted to visit several friends, and check into some of her investments, before coming to Sirialis. She had no itinerary; she said if she made one, the newsflash shooters would find her. She said she'd be at Sirialis for the opening day of the hunt."

"So-you expected her to be out of contact."

"Yes. She had mentioned visiting Lady Cecelia de Marktos on Rotterdam, and perhaps even Xavier's system."

"I see. So when would you have considered her overdue?"

"I was beginning to worry-I expected her to call in more often-"

"You see, milord, it's a very large universe, and she is only one person. Our technicians are still working on the data cube and the flatpics, but so far nothing definite has shown up. The cube itself is one of the cheap brands sold in bulk through discount suppliers; the image has been through some sort of editing process which removed considerable data. The flatpics were taken with old technology, but the prints you have are simply copies of prints, not prints from negatives.

That again reduced the data available for analysis." Savanche cleared his throat. "Right now,

there is nothing whatever to give us any idea what we're dealing with, let alone where she is."

"But they said they were the Nutaxis something or other-"

"New Texas Godfearing Militia, yes. Something we never heard of before; it sounds utterly ridiculous to me. We are making discreet inquiries, but until something comes along-some confirmatory evidence-this might as well be the act of lunatics."

"And how long will that take?" Thornbuckle asked. "Don't you realize what's happening to her?"

Savanche sighed, the creases in his face deepening. "It will take as long as it takes . . . and yes, I understand your concern, and I can imagine-though I don't want to-what may be happening to her."

R.S.S. Gyrfalcon

"Ensign Serrano, report to the Captain's office. Ensign Serrano, report to the Captain's office."

What had he done wrong this time? Lieutenant Garrick turned to look at him, and then jerked her thumb toward the hatch. Barin flicked the message-received button, and headed up to Command Deck.

When he knocked, Captain Escovar called him in at once. He was sitting behind his desk, holding what looked like a decoded hardcopy.

"Ensign, you knew the Speaker's daughter, didn't you?"

For an instant Barin could not think who this might be-what chairman, what daughter. Then he said, "Brun Meager, sir? Yes, sir, I did. I met her at Copper Mountain Schools, and we were in the escape and evasion course together."

"Bad news," Escovar said. "She was on her way back to her family home when her ship was attacked by raiders."

Brun dead . . . Barin could not believe that vivid laughing girl was dead . . .

"She was alone?"

"Not quite. She'd chartered a small yacht, about like one of our couriers, and she had a small security detachment, her father's private militia." Escovar paused, as if to make sure that he was not interrupted again. Barin clamped his jaw. "The ship has not been found, but a message packet was sent to her father, via commercial postal service." Another pause. "The Speaker's daughter . .

. was not killed. She was captured."

Barin felt his jaw dropping and bit down hard on everything he felt.

"The raiders . . . wanted her family to know that they had taken her, and what they had done."

Escovar made a noise deep in his throat. "Barbarians, is what they are. Information has been forwarded to me; it should arrive shortly." He looked at Barin, over the top of the hardcopy. "I called you in because we have no adequate professional assessment of this young woman's temperament and abilities. I know she was referred to Copper Mountain by Admiral Vida Serrano, apparently on the advice of Commander Serrano. But her Schools files were wiped, when she left, as a security measure. If anything is to be done for her, we need to know what she herself is capable of, and what she is likely to do."

Barin's first impulse was to say that Brun would always come out on top-it was her nature to be lucky-but he had to base this on facts. He wasn't going to make rash assumptions this time about what he knew and what he merely surmised.

"She's very bright," he began. "Learns in a flash. Quick in everything . . . impulsive, but her impulses are often right."

"Often has a number attached?"

"No, sir . . . not without really thinking it over. In field problems, I'd say eighty percent right, but I don't know how much of that was impulse. They didn't let her do the big field exercise, for security reasons. She did have a problem . . ." How could he put this so that it wouldn't hurt her reputation? "She was used to getting what she wanted," he said finally. "With people-with relationships. She assumed it."

"Um. What did she try with you? And I'm sorry if this is a sore subject, but we need to know."

"Well . . . she found me attractive. Cute, I think was her word." Like a puppy, he had thought at the time; it had annoyed him slightly even as he was attracted to her energy and intelligence.

"She wanted more. I . . . didn't."

"Aware of the social problems?"

"No, sir. Not exactly." How could he explain when he didn't understand it himself? "Mostly . . .

I'm . . . I was . . . close to Lieutenant Suiza."

"Ah. I can see why. Exceptional officer by all accounts."