8

Lenaris had been right about Halpas. After rubbing Holem’s face in his unnecessary apology, the brusque old pilot was all too happy to accompany them back to Tilar to have a look at the warp ship, along with Tiven Cohr. He was also happy to use his own little raider to fly them back to where Lenaris had left the Ornathia shuttle, on the plateau of the Berain mountains—Halpas knew the traffic patterns like the back of his hand, and he had no fear of being detected. “Stick to the legitimate paths, they don’t even look up from the scanners,” he’d drawled. It was only a few hours later that they met again in Tilar.

Before they’d even left the hidden hangar in the foothills, Ornathia Delle had shown up to inform Taryl of the latest news—Seefa had gone.

“Where did he go?” Taryl asked, an edge of fear and regret in her tone.

“I don’t know,” Delle said. “He wouldn’t stop raving about how the Cardassians are going to come here, soon. He said we all need to take the shuttles and go—get as far away from the balon as possible.”

“I told him—Lac said they didn’t get his ship!”

Delle shook her head. “He wouldn’t listen,” she said. “A few others have gone as well. Tancha and Res and Vusan…”

Taryl looked lost for a moment before pulling herself together. “I can’t go looking for Seefa now,” she said. “We’ve got to get that carrier ready to go!”

Lenaris was prone to agree. Seefa could take care of himself. Lac, however—

Halpas and Tiven followed Lenaris and Taryl through the empty fields that lay between the village and the carrier’s resting place. “What’s all this about balon?” Tiven wanted to know.

“It’s how we fuel our ships,” Lenaris explained.

Halpas looked stunned, his heavy eyebrows moving back from his forehead. “You mean…like the ship you flew here? Are you joking?”

Taryl shook her head. “We distill the balon and isolate the nadion-affected components to stabilize it. We’ve been doing it for close to five years now, without a single incident.”

Halpas and Tiven appeared impressed, and when Lenaris told them that Taryl had created the technology, they were even more so.

“Where did you train?” Tiven wanted to know.

Taryl flushed. “Self-taught,” she explained. “My grandfather always said I had a knack for chemistry…”

“She’s an excellent engineer as well,” Lenaris told them.

“Not good enough to fix that carrier,” Taryl said.

“Well, you don’t have to be,” Tiven said. “That’s why I’ve come, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Taryl said, “and I’m hoping to learn a thing or two as long as we have you.”

Tiven frowned, and Lenaris wondered if he didn’t like the idea of an overzealous would-be protégée getting in his way, but the old man said nothing.

They reached the ship in very little time, Halpas and Tiven both doing a terrible job of masking their excitement as they looked it over. “She looks structurally sound,” Tiven announced. Lenaris and Lac had almost completely dug the ship out, and their diagnosis had been similar—these old carriers were built sturdy, and even some of the hardest impacts couldn’t crack them.

Tiven practically scampered up the side of the wing, climbing down into the cockpit like a man twenty years younger, with Halpas close on his heels. Lenaris and Taryl came in afterward, when Tiven had tapped on a palmlight and was already halfway down to the engine room.

Lenaris followed Taryl and Tiven down into the engine room while Halpas looked over the navigation controls. The old engineer wasted no time in hoisting himself into the maintenance conduit, shifting about and making his inspection for only a few moments before calling out his diagnosis. “Anti-grav’s completely shot, the aft piston coil array is fried, rear thrusters are in bad shape…and…it looks like the auxiliary power is…hm…”

“What?” Lenaris said.

Tiven bent his body so that his head emerged from the conduit. “Who’s been working on the auxiliary systems?”

“That was me,” Taryl said quickly. “A long time ago. I didn’t make it worse, did I?”

“No, no,” Tiven said, his head and shoulders again disappearing into the tube. “It looks like you would have almost had it, actually—you just need two self-sealing stem bolts on the transformer plate underneath the shock absorption circuit.”

“Oh—I have some, back in my house!” Taryl exclaimed. “I can go get them right now!”

“That would be helpful,” Tiven said. “And if you have a flange-type resistor wrench to torque down those bolts…”

“I do,” she said.

“Maybe I’d better go with you,” Lenaris suggested, feeling that his presence here was a bit superfluous. Taryl didn’t discourage him, and they climbed out of the ship together, into the afternoon sunlight.

They walked through the fields in silence for a while, Lenaris simply enjoying her company, as he had been doing since they left Tilar. It was nice to spend time with her without Seefa along. He felt a stab of guilt at the thought, hoping that Seefa wasn’t in any kind of danger, but he chased the thought away.

Similar thoughts must have occurred to Taryl. “I think I know where Seefa could have gone,” she said glumly. “And I’m sure he wants me to come after him. He’s testing me.”

Lenaris didn’t know what to say. He knew what he would have liked to say—that if Seefa was indeed testing her, then it was an unfair gauge of Taryl’s loyalties. How could she be expected to choose between her brother and her fiancé? “Where do you think he is?” he finally asked.

“Back near his family’s farm,” Taryl said. “The Aro farm was adjacent to my parents’ lands, when we were children.”

“So…your marriage was arranged?” Lenaris already knew as much, but he hadn’t heard it from Taryl, he’d heard it from Lac.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“How did you feel about that?”

She looked slightly put off. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just how things were always done around here.”

“But not anymore,” Lenaris pointed out.

They did not speak for a few more minutes.

“Holem,” she finally said. A subtle coloration in her tone had him very uncomfortable; he was sure now that she was upset with him.

“What is it?”

“You don’t really like Seefa, do you?”

Lenaris bit his lips, cursing the notorious directness of the Ornathia family. “What makes you say that?” He wished with all his heart that something—anything—would distract her from this conversation. A house caught on fire, an underground tremor, the very voices of the Prophets calling out from above…

She looked away. “Never mind. You’ve just answered me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re chewing your lip like it was a piece of gristle. You always do that when you’re uncomfortable.”

“Well, maybe it’s you making me uncomfortable.” Lenaris instantly wished he hadn’t said it.

Taryl looked annoyed for a split second before she laughed. “Oh, Holem. Be serious. What is it about him that you don’t like?”

Lenaris was taken aback at her laughter. Why did she find it funny that he might be uncomfortable around her? In fact, sometimes he wasuncomfortable around her, if only because his desire for a more meaningful relationship with her would periodically make his heart feel like it was going to break. But she probably had no idea that his affection for her was anything beyond platonic. She probably regarded him as she regarded her own brother. The consideration of that possibility brought back the unhappy sensation of heartache, and Lenaris blurted out his answer to her question without really considering what her reaction would be.

“He’s not good enough for you, Taryl. That’s all I have against him.”

Taryl looked surprised, but there wasn’t time to address the topic any further, for they had reached the village.

Lenaris followed her into the cottage, helping her to gather up the necessary items in a rough satchel. “Let me carry that,” he insisted, making to sling the satchel over his own shoulder.