Free Dreamfall by Joan D. Vinge Page B

laugh. “There’s no
point to that. Anyway, it’s out of the question.”
    Kissindre leaned toward Wauno. “Is there someone you know
that we could talk with?”
    Wauno nodded. “There’s an oyasin. She knows more
about the reefs than—”
    “Now, just a minute,” Protz hissed. “You’re talking about
that old witch—that shaman, or whatever she calls herself? We suspect her of
supporting HARM! you aren’t seriously suggesting that members of this research
team go into the Homeland and look her up?” He glanced at the two Feds sitting
in the rear of the transport, as if he didn’t want this conversation going any
further.
    “Nobody’s ever proved anything against her,” Wauno said.
    “At best she’s nothing but a con artist. She’ll tell you
anything you want to hear.” Protz glared at the back of Wauno’s head. ‘And
since she can read your mind, she knows what you want to hear.” He looked back
at Kissindre, pointing his finger. ‘And then she’ll want you to pay for it,
just like the rest of them. For God’s sake—” he muttered, lowering his voice
even more as he looked at Wauno again, “how can you even mention her with a
straight face? And why are you encouraging outsiders to involve themselves with
Hydrans, given the current ... situation?”
    Wauno looked out at the sky and didn’t answer.
    I shut my eyes and kept them shut.
    I stayed like that for the rest of the flight, letting the
conversations drone on around me until finally I did doze off.
    I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept by the time we reached the
initial survey site. The transport let us out on a spit of beach caught in the
river’s meander below the reef-face. Everything we’d need to begin preliminary
data collection was already there, in dome tents laid out with all the
precision of Tau Riverton, as painless as anesthesia.
    Workers were still moving around the site doing the setup.
They all wore the same heavy maroon coveralls; they looked up at us as we
entered the camp, with nothing much in their eyes but dull resentment. I
wondered what they had to feel resentful about.
    And there were more Tau vips waiting for us. That didn’t
seem to bother anyone except me, until Kissindre’s uncle stepped out of the
cluster of bodies. Sand was with him.
    Perrymeade gestured at me. I glanced at Kissindre, saw the
surprise on her face, and then the confusion as he shook his head, signaling
her to stay where she was.
    “What now—?” Ezra muttered behind me.
    I started across the open ground toward Perrymeade and Sand,
not looking back, not looking ahead, either. I had no idea what they wanted; I
only knew that if they were here in person it had to be something I didn’t want
to know about.
    “what?” r said to Perrymeade, barely able to keep my voice
even, with nothing left to make the word civil.
    “ft’s about last night. The kidnapping,” he said, looking
like a man with a gun to his head.
    I stopped breathing. Shit. I met his eyes, saw the
blank incomprehension as he registered what showed in mine. “Let’s get it over
with,” I muttered, feeling a dozen sets of eyes holding me in a crossfire.
    “I thought you couldn’t do that,” he said.
    “What?” I said again, probably looking as confused as he did
this time.
    “Read minds. I thought you were dysfunctional.”
    I felt the blood come back to my face in a rush. “I am. What
about it?”
    “Then how do you know why we’re here?”
    I shrugged. “Because it only makes sense that you’d want to
get rid of me.”
    The look on his face got odder. “That’s not it at all,” he
said, and suddenly he looked relieved. “We want your help in dealing with the
kidnapper you encountered last night.”
    “Jeezu—” I turned away, not sure whether it was relief or anger
that made my brain sing. I looked back at him. “Why?” I said. “Why me?”
    “The Hydran Council is being ... uncooperative,” Sand answered.
‘We think maybe they’d talk to you, as