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emotions over one event had been so mixed.
    The fact that he had used the
anacapa
proved that those small ships didn't have some kind of miracle weapon that destroyed the
Ivoire.
But the fact that he used the
anacapa
and wasn't back in the same spot at the time he had mentioned meant he was in trouble.
    Sabin's mother had been right all those years ago: those who missed the window by an hour or more usually did not return.
    Sabin sent the information to Cho and asked if he wanted her to contact all the sector bases still in operation. Sometimes a ship having trouble with its
anacapa
wouldn't show up in the spot it was supposed to; it would instead go immediately to the nearest sector base for repair.
    The fail safe also took ships to sector bases, usually the most active one. If the crisis had been really bad, no one at the base would have thought of contacting the front line—if, indeed, the base even knew that the front line had moved.
    Cho promised to check, and after he did, he requested a private audience with her. He wanted to talk to her nowhere near her crew or his.
    She didn't think that unusual. She thought it sad. Because she knew part of what he was going to say.
    Her ship had a small communications area just off the bridge. She had built that as well, for moments just like this one. When she thought about it, she realized she had made major modifications to every single ship she had served on, and on none more than the
Geneva.
    She slipped inside the communications area. It was larger than the one in her cabin. Ten people could fit in here comfortably, even though, if she needed that many people to hear something, then they would usually go to the conference area or listen on the bridge.
    The communications into this section of the ship were scrambled and encoded, more private than anything else on the
Geneva.
    Screens covered all the walls. Everything could become holographic if needed, but she never used that feature. The table in the middle of the room felt out of place. She didn't sit at it.
    Instead, she leaned on it, and contacted Cho.
    He showed up on the screen in front of her, in a room similar to her own. His ship had been redesigned after she made modifications to hers.
    Cho looked tired. Some of that might have been because of the bachelor party and the change of focus, but some of it was a man trying to cope with hard news, news that upset him, news he wanted to treat dispassionately, even though it was impossible.
    "You think they're dead," she said without introduction. She had almost said,
you think
he's
dead,
which was an insight into her own mind that she didn't want and she certainly didn't want Cho to hear.
    Either she thought Coop was dead, or she feared it, or she cared about it too much. After all, there were more than five hundred souls on that ship. She should care about all of them equally.
    "What I think doesn't matter," Cho said, which was clearly his version of yes. "They haven't shown up at any of the active sector bases or starbases. The
Alta
tells me that experts have pinged the older sector bases, and there's been no activity, at least activity that has appeared in the logs. Experts tell me that they shouldn't have gone back to sector bases that the
Ivoire
hasn't used in the past twenty years. The double-check was a long shot."
    She knew that. No ship had shown up on old decommissioned sector bases unless that ship had used or visited the sector base some time in its recent history.
    "The
Alta
wants us to do a few things," he said. "They want us to wait until the
Taidhleoir
arrives. They're the ones who will handle the situation on Ukhanda."
    The
Taidhleoir
was another ship that specialized in diplomatic missions. It wasn't as top of the line as the
Ivoire,
but it would do.
    "They figured out then who the ships belonged to?" Sabin asked.
    "The Xenth say that the ships are Quurzod, but the Quurzod aren't acknowledging anything, and apparently the
Alta
can't confirm. It's a mess,