The Ascension Factor

He punched in the automatic VTO sequence and all of the power of the foil kicked him right in the seat of the pants. It swayed like a bug on a blade of grass until they were a safe hundred meters above the lagoon. He set the controls for straight-and-level and turned the foil loose. A routine ten-minute refueling had turned into nearly an hour's delay, and Nevi couldn't afford to waste another blink.

He listened to the radio and couldn't make heads or tails of the situation back at the Preserve. He'd tried to raise Flattery on their dedicated channel, but no one keyed him in at the other end. One fragment of transmission from an overflight came through and he shook his head in wonder.

What idiot talked Flattery into depth-charging the foil we're hunting?

He snapped off the radio and relaxed his grip on the controls. The afternoon turbulence didn't sit well on his stomach, so he flipped off the autopilot. He needed something to do besides listen to Zentz breathe through his drool. He kept the yellow arrow on his viewscreen pointed toward the green coordinates set down by the overflights.

He could tell, by the way Zentz squirmed in the copilot's couch, that the Chief of Security might be coming around.

Nevi had trouble suppressing a sneer at the mere thought of Zentz as chief of anything.

Chief Breach of Security, he thought. Chief of Insecurity.

Nevi had to admit that Zentz had held a difficult line against the increasing hostility of the villagers for nearly a year. A mob of villagers was one thing — this Crista Galli and her Shadow playmates were quite another.

"A hundred meters across!" Zentz gurgled.

Zentz's eyes were wild, the pupils dilating and constricting on both sides, dancing to some strange rhythm.

Nevi didn't answer. Zentz had started this raving about some giant hylighter as soon as Nevi had gotten the foil back in the air.

"Crista Galli, kelp gone crazy," Zentz went on, "giant hylighter grab whole foil. "

"That's hocus-pocus, and it's in your head," Nevi said.

He knew Zentz couldn't hear him, but it made Nevi feel better. His voice was calm and flat, a practiced calm that paid off whenever he had to work with Zentz. He knew it gave Zentz the creeps, and that always gave Nevi the edge. He wondered whether it would give Zentz the creeps in his dreams. He hoped so. It was this flying that made Nevi nervous.

The storm buffeted Nevi against the restraints in his command couch. Some of the updrafts along the coastline nearly emptied his stomach. Like most Pandorans, he preferred traveling the kelp's subways, particularly during afternoon storms, but today speed was critical. The cat had played the mouse too loose. Maybe Zentz was right about their foil. Who knew what the kelp had shown him?

If Ozette and Crista Galli got loose afoot in this country they might just wind up being dasher bait. Ozette didn't strike him as the survival type. Nevi knew that Flattery needed both of them alive — for now. For now, what Flattery needed Nevi needed, and he didn't want to get so comfortable out here that he forgot it.

Zentz needs them alive more than anyone, he thought.

The big question mark for Nevi was the hylighter — what would contact with that thing do to Crista Galli?

Or what might it do for her?

And something about those damned Zavatan squatters upcoast gave even Nevi the creeps. Nobody could farm the open country like that without some kind of protection. He wanted to know what that protection was. Or who. They kept one jump ahead of Flattery and the dashers — accomplishments that captured Nevi's personal respect.

The squall cleared occasionally, allowing Nevi glimpses of the coastline. Cloudfront pushed across both suns and confounded his perspective. He knew that thousands of square kilometers lay under Zavatan camouflage. It didn't take much imagination to appreciate the value of the new fertile land below.

In a matter of weeks the Zavatans turned bare rock into garden, pumped water and started up their smelly labs. The entire upcoast region was laced with streams and pockmarked with hundreds of small lakes. They'd already turned many of the lakes into fish farms. Their pitiful farms grew more than enough to sustain them, this Nevi knew. His information was better than Flattery's, but Flattery didn't pay him for information.

Where does their surplus go? he wondered.

He knew that when he discovered the answer to that one he would answer the Shadow question as well.

No food, no Shadows, he thought.

It would be a pity if Flattery managed to wipe out the farms to stop the supplies that he was sure were channeled to the underground. There must be a more profitable way.

It occurred to him that the Shadows might win. He shrugged.

Nevi admitted an admiration for these Zavatans, for their independence that Flattery couldn't yet control. He didn't intend to muddy his own hands, though this trip had already proved messy enough.