Becki wandered away from the briefing, thinking through all the preparations that remained to be dealt with before the team could leave for Paris tomorrow. Ships to be readied, of course; gear to be stowed--remembering the book bag that had made the trip with her all the way from French class to the High Palace, she made a mental note to transfer her French dictionary and phrase books from it to her gear bag for the mission. Of course they would also need to look over the maps of Paris and figure out where to begin their search for Cheriss.
But all of that could wait, really. For the moment, she had another mission in mind: one perhaps not so vital to Terra's well-being, yet more urgent in her own mind. She wished the briefing had included the Mendellians; then she could have caught Thayer on the way out, if not before. Now she'd just have to hunt him down. Finding a spy could wait till tomorrow; today she had to find her fiancé and . . .
She'd figure the rest out later. When she found him. If.
Before she was halfway down the hall, a more-or-less feminine sounding voice stopped her. "Lieutenant Bush?" Becki glanced back slowly, anxious not to be stopped or distracted from her mission. A coppery protocol droid was waving frantically at her: Z-3PO, Terra Group's new quartermaster.
Becki slowed but didn't quite stop. "Yeah, Zee?"
"I am sorry to disturb you, Lieutenant, but . . . a moment of your time?"
She sighed and gave up, turning back to meet the droid, who hastened to catch her. "Okay, I suppose. What is it?"
"You know that I'm assigned to your team for this mission to Paris. . . ."
"Yeah, I was at the briefing, Zee, I caught that."
"Yes, of course. Unfortunately, there's a problem with that."
"What, they sent us a protocol droid who doesn't speak French?" Becki teased.
Zee just looked at her, angling her head in that peculiar way that so perfectly conveys the impression of protocol droid surprise. "How did you know?"
"What? You mean they did send us a protocol droid who doesn't speak French?"
"Nor any other language on this planet, it would seem, except Terran."
"Terran?" Becki grinned. "I think you mean English?"
"Er, yes. It was labeled Terran in the NRI databanks. That's why I wasn't aware that there were other 'Terran' languages I should acquire for this assignment."
"Oh, good grief . . ."
"So I was wondering . . ."
"Oh dear . . ."
"I understand that you are fluent in this 'French' language."
Becki shrugged and glanced back down the hall, towards the dictator's office where she'd much rather be right now. "More or less. Three years in high school and a minor in college. I can speak it without an accent--my pronunciation's Parisian standard, that is--and I can follow a conversation at most levels if it's not too terribly fast, but I'm a bit shy on vocabulary, actually. And let's not even think about subjunctives and conditionals."
"Er, yes," said Zee. "I see. But you do know the language to some extent."
"Yeah, sufficiently to make myself understood. Which is why I'm going on this mission." And which is why I'd like to go have a talk with a certain Mendellian before I have to get to work prepping for this mission. . . .
"Well, you see, that's why I was wondering. . . . Do you think you might teach me what you know of the language? If I don't know it," the droid said in that perfectly mournful tone unique to droids of her kind, "I'm certain to need it."
"Oh, for goodness sake, Zee . . ."
"I would hate to endanger the mission," said Zee, "by my ignorance."
"Zee, you realize I've been learning French for . . . eight years now? How am I supposed to teach you that in one night?"
"I am a fast learner, Lieutenant," Zee insisted.
"I think you overestimate my teaching abilities," Becki laughed. "Well, all right, I'll teach you what I can."
"Oh, thank you, Lieu--"
"But first I've an errand. You can tag along if you like." And then she turned and hurried off again towards Thayer's office.
But when she reached it, he wasn't there. Reth looked up at her from the cabinet against the far wall.
"Becki!" he said. "Briefing's over?"
"Yeah," she said. "Um . . . is Thayer around?"
"Just left," said Reth, with a look of disappointment. "You missed him by a hair, really."
She shot a glare back at her tagalong droid. "Did I. Well, okay." She paused and absently twisted the double-helix ring on her finger for a moment. She'd been so eager to corner Thayer and find out what was wrong--to set things right and get back to where they had been before the year of separation. But now, finding that he'd eluded her eager search, she felt her enthusiasm die away and doubt replace it. "I've got some work to do getting Zee here ready for the mission tomorrow," she said. "I'll catch him later, I guess."
~
"She isn't here?" Thayer asked, glancing around the Batcave uncertainly.
Josh Cochran, overseeing the Paris preparations, likewise glanced around and then confirmed the Dictator's conclusion. "Nope, she isn't. Where'd she go? Vickie? Have you seen her?"
Vickie peeked out of the Red Home's entryway. "Becki? Oh, she went off somewhere with Z-3PO, I think."
"She did?" Josh exchanged a confused look with Thayer. "Why?"
"I don't know," Vickie shrugged.
"That'd be my doing," Mike's voice sang out from the Red Home's hold, and then he too peeked out. "I sent Zee after her."
"What for?"
"French lessons." With an impish grin and a wink, Mike disappeared back into the ship.
"Ooh," said Josh. "That's cold."
"French lessons?" Thayer asked.
"Our protocol droid," Josh explained, "speaks English and no other Terran language. Since she found out she's going to Paris, she's been begging us all to teach her French."
"I see," Thayer said dubiously. "I suppose I'll talk to her later, then."
"Zee?" Josh teased. Thayer glared.
"You know what I meant. Anyway--"
"Oh, before you go," Josh said, "there's something you might be able to help with."
"For the mission?" Thayer brightened.
"Yeah. You know some folks in France, right?"
"My mother's people."
"Well . . ."
~
Becki tucked the book Zee handed her back into the book bag and pulled out the next, her 501 French Verbs book. "I'm glad we thought of this. Much easier than teaching you in the usual manner. You really are a fast learner when all it takes is scanning text."
Zee didn't answer; she just opened the Verbs book and started paging rapidly through it, recording each page in her memory for linguistic processing later on. After a few pages she looked up to say, "This is rather odd, Lieutenant."
"You don't have to call me that," Becki interrupted, looking through the rest of the books in the bag. "I have a name."
"Er . . . Ma'am?"
"Becki."
"Oh. This is rather odd, Becki. The conjugations are beginning to repeat themselves."
"Ah, yeah. Those'd be the regular verbs, I guess."
"Why repeat them if the patterns are regular?"
"For those of us who can't record verb paradigms in our memories quite so easily as a droid can," Becki grinned. "So we can look 'em up quick and not have to think too hard about it. There are irregular verbs in there, too, though; you'd better go through the whole thing."
"Oh. I see." Zee went back to her scanning.
~
Five hundred and one verbs later, Zee looked up. By that time Becki was engrossed in her French Lit book, trying to make sense of a Rimbaud poem and about to give it up for an excerpt from Pilote de Guerre.
"That was helpful," Zee said, "as was the dictionary. But I believe I am still lacking significant data."
"Hm?" Becki murmured, glancing up.
"Regarding the syntax of the language, usage, pronunciation--there was little of that in these books."
"Oh, right. I guess that's where I come in. Okay, I . . ." She paused mid-sentence as an idea struck her.
Thayer knows French, too.
Not that he used it much nowadays, as she recalled. But Llessur'd schooled him in it as a boy. And he'd been at university in Rennes when Eugor took power; she remembered he'd mentioned that once.
He speaks it better than I do, probably.
He certainly wouldn't thank her if she handed Zee over to him for the next stage of French instruction. Zee did not, as you might say, have a way with people. Nor did Thayer, as you might say, have much patience. Becki wasn't minding the droid's quasi-neurotic ways so much now, though; she made for such a model student that Becki was beginning to actually enjoy working with her. Almost she shuddered at the thought.
But what Zee needed now was to hear the language in use, to have real samples of it that she might analyze for their pronunciation and syntax; she'd learn it quicker that way than from any explanations of grammar Becki could give her.
What was needed was a conversation.
And not just for Zee's sake.
"Come on, Zee. I've got an idea."
~
Thayer handed an envelope to Josh and glanced around the Batcave again. "There's the first of them."
"That was quick."
"That was the easiest. She's not back yet?"
"Haven't seen her. Have you checked in her room?"
"No, I . . ." Thayer looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I suppose I shall have to. I'm not entirely sure I want to find her, do you know?" he admitted.
"Yeah, right," Josh grinned. "And you don't look at all like you want to find her, do you? Don't kid yourself, Thayer."
The Dictator glowered at this teasing. "I'm not sure even where to begin with her."
"Well, technically, finding her would be a good start."
"And as much trouble as that has been, do you expect me to be optimistic about what comes after finding her?"
"She'll turn up sooner or later," Josh assured him. "You'll work it out."
~
Becki dragged Zee back to the Dictator's office, but they found it empty. "Where could he have gone?" she grumbled.
"I'm sorry," came Zee's voice from behind her, "I don't quite see--"
"Never mind," Becki sighed. "He's awfully hard to catch these days. Let's just go see if we can get some French practice in with Vickie or Josh. We can try for Thayer again later on."
"Oh. Of course, Lieutenant, if you think--" Zee hurried to catch up as Becki took off towards the stairs leading to the lower levels.
~
Not in her room, either. Thayer finally decided to give up the hunt for now; as Josh had said, she'd have to turn up eventually. If he timed it right, in fact, he could probably catch her tomorrow morning before the team left for Paris. For now, no doubt she was busy with preparations anyway. . . . He'd wait for a better time. He headed back towards his office to finish up the rest of the letters of introduction that Terra Group needed from him.