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never seen a ship light up like that," he said. "I'm worried that they disappeared, not because of the
anacapa
but because those little ships used a weapon we don't understand."
    Sabin felt chilled. She hadn't even thought of that possibility. In that case, Coop—and his entire crew—were already dead.
    But she shouldn't guess. Guessing was the enemy in any search for information.
    "If those ships used such a powerful weapon," she said, "why would they have remained in the area?"
    "I don't know," Cho said. "I don't think they would have. But I can't rule out anything at the moment. We need to search."
    She agreed. "I'll do my best to figure out what happened here," she said. "I'll let you know when we have news."
    She had almost said
if we have news,
and had caught herself just in time. Normally, she wasn't a pessimist, but something was odd here, something she could feel but couldn't see.
    She wasn't usually a gut commander. She liked facts and hard information. But she also knew that sometimes hard information took too much time to acquire and gut became important.
    She hoped this wasn't one of those times.
8
    On the day her father disappeared, they pulled Tory Sabin out of class on the
Brazza
and took her to the observation deck. She always remembered it as "they" because try as she might, she couldn't remember who took her from class, how she got to the observation deck, how many people spoke to her along the way, or what anyone expected of her.
    She was all of thirteen, precocious and opinionated, one month into her new school—a boarding school, which was unusual at her age. Boarding school for most students started when they qualified for the final four years of mandatory education. She tested way ahead of her peers, and so got assigned to a special school for children her age who were on a fast-track.
    Her father was proud of her. No one had bothered to tell her mother.
    But someone had told her mother that Sabin (whom everyone called Tory back then) was alone on the
Brazza,
waiting for news of her father, because her mother swooped in as if she would rescue everyone.
    Her mother always wore impractical flowing garments, the kind of thing that confirmed she wasn't, nor would she ever be, part of the Fleet's military structure. She was an artist who worked in fabric. Her art changed each time she visited a new culture or planet, so her work became quite collectible among a certain group in the Fleet. She couldn't replicate patterns or materials once she ran out of whatever she had purchased in her (actually, the Fleet's) travels, so her pieces became—of necessity—limited editions.
    Tory hadn't seen her mother in more than six months, even though the ship her mother lived on, the
Krásný,
never left the Fleet on any kind of mission. Most of the Fleet's civilians ended up on the
Krásný,
partly because the military presence was smaller on that ship. The ship specialized in environments and environmental systems, and that included the interior design that kept the people on board all of the ships entertained, stimulated, and sane.
    Her mother sat beside Tory on a bench in the center of the room, enveloping her in lavender perfume. The bench was built so that the occupant had a three-hundredand-sixty-degree view of the space outside. Plus the domed ceiling was clear so that she could see everything above her.
    Tory wanted to slide away. Her mother's perfume was overwhelming, but more than that, her mother's golden gown was made of some kind of shiny but rough fabric, and just being near it made Tory itch.
    "They don't understand the
anacapa,
you know," her mother said conversationally, as if they'd been talking all along. No hello, no hug, no how-have-you-been, or even a comforting he'll-be-all-right. Nothing. Straight into the old arguments, with Tory standing in for her father. "It's dangerous to use them, and your father promised, back when we married, that he never would—"
    "Fortunately, you're divorced,"