It was not a customary thing for M. Agneau to awaken Bertrand du Corbeau so late in the night, and by this, even more so than by the strange lights outside his window, the old man knew that more adventures were at hand. "Come, mon ami," said Bertrand as the lamb pranced at the door, "let us see what has happened."
Wrapped well in housecoat and winter-coat, yet still shivering from the night air this late in January, Bertrand stood where he had nearly a week ago to watch the three ships land in his fields. Till yesterday the field had hosted four ships in all, including the one in which the female pilot had arrived the morning after the others. Now there were three again, after one of the smaller ones had departed without warning, day before yesterday. All the ships in the field were lightly brushed with the snow that had fallen since that day, but the light was not coming from any of them.
A new ship was settling into place, not far from where the oddly-shaped one had been before it suddenly flew away. This new ship was not so odd as the one it replaced, but neither was it like any of the snow-dusted ones; small, though not so small as the four-winged ship, and not so boxy as the largest ship. So remarkable, the variety to be found among such things.
Bertrand smiled and spoke to the lamb as the new ship's hatch slowly opened. "How nice, M. Agneau; we shall have visitors again. Thrice within a week's time; how very marvelous."
Two passengers emerged from the ship, the first leaping down quickly to assist the second. Bertrand watched patiently, and soon the two approached him, pulling away their helmets. The one, following slightly behind the other, turned out to be a woman, lovely but unfamiliar; "Not our friends from before, come back for their other two ships, then," Bertrand said to the lamb. "Someone new!"
Then as the other visitor removed his helmet, Bertrand blinked and stared in surprised recognition. "Thayer?" he whispered.
Thayer Atner smiled hesitantly and came to a stop at arm's-length away from the old man. "Bonsoir, Oncle Bertie--"
"Bonsoir!" Bertrand laughed merrily. "Bienvenue! Bienvenue, mon neveu," and impulsively he reached out and pulled the younger man into an embrace. Warned by the tenseness in Thayer's shoulders, however, he released him just as quickly, stepping back to look at him. "How you've grown, lad!"
"Not so much as that," Thayer grinned. "Unless it's even longer than I thought since you've seen me."
"Longer, much longer!" Bertrand enthused. "Bien sur! But come, my dears, let us go inside; I wouldn't wish the lovely lady to take a chill, standing out in the snow at such an hour."
The woman smiled at this and bowed her head slightly, murmuring a "Thank you" as Bertrand led his guests into the house.
"Now then," he said, once they'd shut the door on the wintry winds, "all is well in Mendellia, I hope?"
Thayer cleared his throat as he considered how to answer. "Well enough that we could leave it for a time," he said at last, "but not so well that we should not need to, I'm afraid."
"Ah, oui," Bertrand nodded, rummaging through cabinets for a teakettle and hastily setting it to boil. "I see. May I, then, be of assistance in the need that brings you here?"
"That is my hope," Thayer smiled. "First, though, if I may, I don't believe you have met--" He turned toward his companion and Bertrand lit up at a sudden thought.
"Why, no," he said, bowing slightly to kiss the lady's hand. "But I had heard, Thayer, though I do hear so little from Mendellia these days, I had heard that you had found a lady to be your Queen. Would I be correct in supposing that Mademoiselle is that lady?"
His words had a most intriguing effect, though not one he could have predicted: the both of them seemed, of an instant, half-paralyzed, staring at him in an astonishment plainly innocent of the charge. Then Thayer laughed and the lady hid a smile behind her free hand, and the moment passed. "Oh, no, Uncle," said Thayer. "This is Lady Lenka Leannan, my assistant, formerly one of my mother's ladies-in-waiting."
"Oh," Bertrand said, and inclined his head to Lady Leannan again. "Enchanté, Mademoiselle." She nodded graciously. "And how fares your mother these days, Thayer?"
"Mother is, well . . ." Thayer gave up with a shrug, "you know."
Bertrand chuckled. "Ah, oui, ever the same, our little Llessur. Tell her that I should like to hear from her, Thayer. She would grieve for your father less did she not close herself off so completely from all the rest of her kin."
"I know," Thayer nodded. "I doubt that I shall be able to make her see this: but I shall tell her that you asked after her."
"Bien. Now, my boy, about this story of your taking a Queen--I hope I was not misinformed?"
"No, actually," Thayer smiled, "that is why we are here, Uncle Bertrand. We've come to find her."
"In Paris?"
"I hoped I might even find her here with you. Their ships are, after all, still in your field."
"The ships!" Bertrand's eyes grew wide as he thought through that clue. "Do you mean, then--the lady pilot?"
"Pilot? No," said Thayer, "she doesn't fly. What pilot?"
"The young lady who arrived here the morning after the rest of them did," said Bertrand.
"No, Becki traveled with the rest of them on the Red Home," Thayer said.
"Becki!" said Bertrand, squinting as he tried to recall the names to go with the faces of the six visitors whose ships adorned his field. "Mademoiselle . . . euh, bien, I can't place the name. The demoiselle of the curly hair, peut-être?"
"Yes, her," Thayer smiled.
"Ah bon?" Bertrand chuckled and strained his memory, thinking back to the day the strangers had arrived in their ships. "I had no idea; nothing any of them said would have indicated--no one mentioned that she was your--that is, not that I recall; you know how I forget things, my boy--" The anxious look on Thayer's face at the suggestion of the visitors' neglecting to mention the young lady's identity prompted Bertrand to pursue another line of conversation. "But really, Thayer! How marvelous! A charming girl she was, indeed; that I have not forgotten. I congratulate you."
Thayer hesitated and so Lady Leannan spoke: "Do you know where we can find her? It may be quite urgent; one of the agents contacted us, requiring my lord's presence here, but he did not say how we might locate the team."
"Find her?" Bertrand frowned when his memory failed to respond to this challenge. "Why, I . . . I do recall that they left the name of their hotel with me when they went into Paris, but . . ."
The teakettle's whistle interrupted his thoughts, and by the time Bertrand had poured a cup for each of his guests, he had to say: "Now, where were we? What was I . . .?"
"The hotel, Uncle," Thayer prompted.
"Ah! Mais oui, and . . ." Bertrand frowned and looked around at the cluttered kitchen. "I know I have the name of it somewhere."
Minutes passed, unmarked by most, but felt all too strongly by the old man's Mendellian guests as they sat waiting. A quarter-hour of puttering ended in no triumphant production of the elusive scribbling of the hotel's name, and Bertrand moved on to the next room. Half an hour later, Lenka found a directory--slightly outdated--of Paris somewhere amidst the clutter, and she and Thayer sat reading over the long list of hotels, ready to call at each and every one of them should Bertrand's search of the rest of the house prove as futile as that of the kitchen.
Twenty minutes after the sun began to rise, two doors opened at once, and the squeaks of their hinges drew Thayer's eyes away from the directory and tugged Lenka out of the half-sleep she'd fallen into towards the end of their wait. >From the door leading to the rest of the house, Bertrand returned, looking disappointed and not a little confused. Through the other, the door leading out into the fields, entered a woman dressed in a rumpled gray flightsuit. Thayer's expression registered surprise when he recognized her.
"Noreh?" he said.
"Why, good morning, my dear!" said Bertrand's voice at the same moment from across the kitchen. "I've not even started breakfast yet, but do come in, sit down."
Noreh blushed and stopped short upon seeing the Dictator seated at the table, but she recovered quickly enough to return Bertrand's greeting. "Morning, M. du Corbeau." And then she remembered herself and curtsied toward Thayer.
"What are you doing here, Noreh?" Thayer asked, putting the weight of authority circumvented into his voice.
"I was called in by Terra Group as backup," the pilot explained hastily. "General Nivag knows, Sire, and authorized my participation. I thought you'd know. I'm sorry, I hope I didn't--"
Thayer frowned but nodded. "No, that's all right. Odd--" he grinned a little-- "and a bit frustrating, that you're literally taking part in the mission and they've barely even told me the least of details about it; but we shall assume that Terra Group knows what it does."
"For what it's worth, M'lord, I don't know much about it either. I'm just here on call if they need me."
"Do you perhaps know," Thayer asked hopefully, "where we can find them?"
"Or where I might have left the note they gave me with their hotel's name," added Bertrand sheepishly.
"Oh," Noreh said. "No, I'm afraid not. They didn't tell me where they were staying."
Thayer sighed and looked down at the directory again. "By Darwin's beard, they' re not making this easy. We've not time to call every--"
"Noreh," Lenka interrupted, brightening suddenly, "did they leave you no means by which to contact them?"
"Call them?" Noreh pouted her lips in thought a moment. "Well, no--but Mike left his astromech aboard the Home. It can patch through to his comlink, I should think."
"Perfect!" Thayer said; "or close enough. 'Twill serve."