Two days later, Kressa's confidence in locating Zac had increased as more and more evidence came to light, but it was still going to be a difficult task. Fortunately, Jonathan had relieved her of her duties on board Stingray One to give her time to help look into the matter.

Working together, she, Keth, and Cody had put together quite a collection of data. Now the three of them had gathered in one of the base's conference rooms to go over the information, to see if any of it led anywhere.

Sauni and Aron were there as well. Mother and son had not been out of each other's sight since the night Zac disappeared. They were doing as well as expected, but they lost more than a son and brother when Zac was taken, they lost a part of themselves, and it showed.

Seated at the head of the long table as the unofficial director of the group, Kressa glanced to her left where the lanky, dark-haired form of Cody sat.

She met the boy's dark eyes. "Cody, you start. What's the word on the street?"

"Someone with Tyler's looks has been active in Cint-Istep for a while," he answered, getting right down to business, something he tended to do whenever Devin Tyler was involved. "He went by a lot of names, had some dealings with the druggers, spread a lot of credits around."

The conference room door slid aside, and Jonathan stepped in. He glanced around the room to greet each person with a smile or a nod.

"Am I too late to get in on this meeting?" he asked.

Kressa returned his smile as his eyes touched hers. "Not at all. Have a seat." She gestured to the empty chair on her right, beside Saunorel. "We could use someone else to help make sense of all this." She indicated the pile of data cards and printouts on the table before her.

Jonathan crossed the room. He gave Aron a friendly head-tousling as he passed Saunorel's chair. The baby moved restlessly in Sauni's arms and made a feeble attempt at a smile.

Jonathan gave the child a concerned look, clearly disturbed by the absence of a more enthusiastic greeting, and then continued across the room to the seat Kressa had offered.

Kressa looked back to Cody.

"You say this Tyler look-alike was into the drug scene?" she asked.

Cody nodded. "He bought a heavy amount of mecklin."

Kressa pursed her lips. She had heard a little about mecklin, but she could not imagine Tyler getting involved with something like that. The Devin Tyler she knew never even drank, let alone used drugs. But if some of the stories about mecklin's effects were true, and if Tyler had developed mental powers, he might have experimented with the drug in an attempt to boost his abilities.

"Did you discover anything else?" she asked Cody.

"I found the room where the guy was staying. The landlord said he'd been there off and on for about a year, but he hasn't scoped him since the night Zac was taken. Keth and the general pulled some favors from the local law and got me inside. I didn't find much, but whoever used the place left most of their gear behind when they skipped." He paused and gave a slight frown. "That's about all I could lock onto about Tyler." His tone sounded almost apologetic.

"That's a lot more than I expected," Kressa said, honestly impressed by the information Cody had gathered in such a short period of time. Of course, he had one hell of a motivation to get as much on Tyler as he could. The man had killed Cody's th'Maran girlfriend, Janae, during his escape from Marasyn. Cody was determined to make him pay.

"You didn't pick up any hint why he wanted the children?" Kressa asked.

"Nothing new," Cody said. "But, remember, Atkins said it could be for himself, as much as for sharing."

Kressa nodded. One of the things she'd done over the past two days was review the interrogation of Garrett Atkins, one of Gaunis's agents who'd been captured and questioned after the war.

"Atkins thought Tyler might be planning to sell the children to Gaunis," she said.

Now it was Cody's turn to nod. "I looked at that. Tried to find any new stories about Gaunis, but there's been so much talk since the end of the war, it's hard to know what to believe. According to half the stories, he's been on the edge of returning to power since he disappeared. No one ever opens about where he is, though, or how he plans to come back. I'm not sure he's still alive."

"He's alive," Jonathan said. "I guarantee that. And I'm sure we'll hear from him again someday."

"We may already have," Kressa said. "If this guy Cody investigated really is Tyler, and if that was his place he found, then he's been on Arecia since he escaped from Marasyn. And I doubt it's been a voluntary stay considering the reward we've offered for information about him. The stories we heard about him leaving were probably planted by Tyler himself, to get the pressure off.

"He didn't take Zac as a hostage to exchange for his way off Arecia," she went on, "otherwise he would have contacted us by now. But what if Gaunis offered him passage in exchange for one of the children? We know Gaunis wants one of them, and Atkins told Tyler that Sauni was pregnant months ago. Tyler could've been planning this all along, knowing he could count on Gaunis to help him once he had one of the children."

"Which means that if we find Zac, we may also find Gaunis." Jonathan's eyes narrowed in what Kressa recognized as eagerness to get the man who'd escaped from him twice already.

"And Tyler," Cody added, a cold, killer's edge to his voice.

Kressa looked at Keth.

He met her gaze with a look as dangerous as Cody's voice, but whether that look was for Tyler or Gaunis, Kressa couldn't say. Probably both, she decided.

"What did you find?" she asked him, eager to clear the deadly pall that had fallen over the room.

He ran a hand through his tight black curls, and the assassin's look faded from his eyes. "Nothing as good as what Cody got, unless you're interested in a thesis on what a resourceful son of a bitch Tyler can be."

"We all know how that is," Kressa said.

Keth nodded agreement. "We figured out how he got onto the base and past the guards. He's definitely got some kind of psi abilities. Of the three people he dealt with directly while on the base—the guard at the main gate, the vehicle pool attendant, and Rem, who was working at the guard station to the VIP area—two of them remember things that never happened.

"The soldier at the gate recognized Tyler as one of the base's regular soldiers, who, by the way, had a convincing Confederate ID that said his name was Karl Andrayco," Keth continued. "Rem got a good story from Tyler about needing to see the general, and he distinctly remembers calling Halav and getting permission to send Tyler to his quarters. Two of Rem's friends who were there at the time say he didn't make the call, although they remember Tyler stopping by. We were with the general and know he didn't get calls from anyone.

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"Only the attendant at the vehicle pool remembers anything suspicious," Keth went on. "Even then, he let Tyler take a car without checking it out. He remembers the incident, but doesn't know why he did it." He paused to give Kressa a long look. "Sound like someone's been doing some mental tricks?"

She nodded. "Some damned impressive mental tricks. Maybe we should get some of this mecklin and try it for ourselves."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Jonathan said. "We don't know what kind of side effects it may have."

Kressa shrugged. "You're probably right. Still, maybe we should get some, just to analyze it."

"That we might do," Jonathan agreed, and then looked at Keth. "Anything else to report?"

"We found the jamming device Tyler used on the security systems. It was an extremely sophisticated signal duplicator— definitely not something he put together himself—which pretty much proves he had outside help. We found the car he took, too. It was wrecked at the bottom of a cliff east of the base. The sergeant who originally took it off-base is missing. We figure Tyler got the car from him somehow, used it to get onto the base, then headed east once he had Zac. He probably drove the car off the cliff to get rid of it and throw off our search. We think he continued east on foot, then was picked up somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, Stingray One didn't start watching the base perimeter until after Tyler'd gotten away, so the trail ends there."

"But it does give us a hint where he might have been going," Kressa said. "If he went east, he may have gone to Varen or one of the cities farther on." She picked out one of the data cards in the pile before her. "This has a list of every ship that's left Arecia since the estimated time of Zac's abduction. And, thanks to Stingray One, it includes the direction each of those ships headed after they cleared the planet."

"Why'd we let any ships leave at all?" Cody asked. "We should've grounded everything until we found Zac."

"We couldn't exactly shut down an entire planet for one child," Jonathan said. "No matter how special that child is," he added with a kind-hearted look at Saunorel.

She gave him a weak smile in return.

"As it was," Jonathan went on, "Halav ordered every ship on the planet that broke its logged flight plan thoroughly searched before it was allowed to leave. And security was tightened at all the local ports, so it's practically guaranteed Tyler didn't leave Arecia on any of the big spaceliners. Maybe he hasn't left at all."

"No," Saunorel said, breaking her silence. "If Tyler is with Zac, then he is off Arecia. I haven't felt Zac since the night he was taken, and the place I saw him in was a ship. I'm sure of it. The man I saw was a pilot."

"How do you know that?" Kressa asked.

"I—I'm not sure," Sauni said. "The images I got from Zac were mostly of the man's mind. Zac has developed little inclination to look with his eyes when he can see so much more with his mind. But I do know I'm right about the man. He was a pilot. And there was something else about him. Something…" She frowned and shook her head.

"Maybe this will help." Kressa passed the data card she held to Saunorel. "Go through these ships and see if any of them seem familiar." She took one of the flexprints from before her and passed that to Sauni as well. "You can start with this. It's a list of all the ships that left from the ports nearest the base, sorted by time of departure."

Sauni set the printed list on the table before her and began to read it down.

Kressa looked around the table. "Does anyone have anything else to add?" she asked. "Or any conclusions?"

"Only conclusions," Keth said. "Tyler definitely had help, and that help probably came from Gaunis." His dark features grew angry. "I wonder what that bastard's going to do to Zac."

"I doubt he'll hurt him," Jonathan said. "He probably wants to find out how much truth there is to the rumors about the children's abilities."

"That's it!" Saunorel's sudden exclamation turned all eyes in her direction. "This is the ship." One slender finger indicated an entry on the printout. "It left from Varen the morning after Zac was taken. It's got to be the right one."

Jonathan leaned over to read the listing she was pointing to.

"The Phoenix?" he asked. "This says it's a Patrol courier. How—?"

"The man I saw in Zac's vision—the pilot. He was wearing a Patrol uniform."

"May I?" Jonathan set a hand on the printout.

Sauni pushed it toward him absently and turned to Keth. "That is the ship, Keth. We must find out where it went."

"It's on the data card," Kressa told her.

"And on board Stingray One." Jonathan continued to study the printout. His expression faded from interest to concern. "But… this says the courier is from the Esprit."

"The Esprit?" Kressa said. "That can't be right. Shaw wouldn't have anything to do with—"

Jonathan cut her off with an upraised hand. "I don't think your father's involved in this, Kressa. Not directly anyway. But remember who had command of the Esprit before the war. Gaunis. It's entirely possible he still has people loyal to him on board."

"But I thought the Triads checked all the Pattys after the war," Kressa argued, remembering the decision to test the loyalty of Patrolmen using th'Maran Triads to eliminate any who supported Gaunis or his distorted vision of what the United Galaxy should be.

"They tested some people—as many in the higher ranks and important positions as they could manage," Jonathan said. "They're still doing it, too. Any officer can request that any subordinate be tested, but there aren't that many requests. Having a session with a Triad tends to make one feel untrusted. Not very good for morale. Besides, there are only four Triads working with us; it would be impossible for them to check every person in the Patrol."

"I'm going to call Shaw," Kressa said. "I'll let him know what we've learned, and see if he can tell us anything about the people involved."

"Good idea," Jonathan said. "But don't go through any official channels. Make it a personal call. That way, if Gaunis has anyone monitoring the Esprit's communications, they'll be less likely to hear it."

"Maybe I should just go see him," Kressa said. "That way, all I have to tell him over the comm is that I'm coming."

"That may be best," Jonathan said.

"I'll go as well," Sauni said. "I may not have a clear picture of the pilot, but I felt his mind well enough to recognize it. We can find him and question him."

"You'll have to leave Aron here," Kressa said. "After what's happened, I wouldn't want to be responsible for him in Patrol territory, even on board the Esprit."

"He can stay with Keth."

Kressa nodded. "Great. I'll give Shaw a call and—"

She glanced up as the door to the conference room opened. Halav and Nico stood in the opening.

"Come on in," Jonathan said to the general. "We have some interesting news."

"So do I." Halav stepped into the room, went to the end of the table opposite Kressa and spun the chair around to sit in it backward, arms resting on the back.

Nico went straight to Sauni and Aron.

"Let's hear your news first," Jonathan said.

"It seems the Patrol's misplaced one of its ships, and they're asking for our help in locating it."

"Which ship?" Kressa asked.

"The Adriassa."

"Admiral Byerly's dreadnought?" Jonathan asked. "That's an awfully big hunk of metal to come up missing."

Halav shrugged. "Nevertheless, they've lost it. She was on a routine, scheduled trip from—let's see—Catia to Arkana, I think. Anyway, she never arrived at Arkana, and no one's heard from her. She was due three days ago."

"I suppose they want us to use the Stingrays to try to find her," Jonathan said.

"The Patrol sure as hell doesn't have anything with a Stingray's mobility," Halav said, "and One's not doing much at the moment."

"True," Jonathan said. He looked aside at Kressa. "Let me know when you plan to call Admiral Shaw. I want to let him know we'll be looking for the Adriassa."

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