The Siege of Eternity

"But I don't think that would be possible," Rosaleen said reasonably. "They already know I was, ah, rescued-I do not use the word 'kidnapped,' as I believe my government does. So tell me what I should say about Dan's orders. Should I say that you instructed him to save my life? Or should I mention-as my friends told me-that that was only a secondary option, and in fact you authorized him to kill me to keep me from giving information to those foolish children?"

"Artzybachova," Hilda said harshly, "you're screwing around in places where you can get punished."

"Punished? But why do you speak of punishment, when we are all friends here? Friends do not say things that can cause their friends embarrassment. Just," she added, "as friends would not deny a friend a harmless few hours on his own. Would they?"

Hilda eyed her for a long, cold moment. Then she spoke to Dannerman. "First thing tomorrow morning, in my office, or your ass is chopped meat. Now. Let's start talking about just what happened in Ukraine."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Pat didn't mind the joyous clamor with which Pat Five and Patrice welcomed Rosaleen. Well, didn't really mind it. After all, the three of them had shared a whole harrowing existence as captives of the Scarecrows that she herself had missed. She didn't even mind that Patrice hospitably insisted that Rosaleen come and live with them -"There's plenty of room, now that Pat One isn't here, and I'm afraid the place where you used to live must be long gone by now." That was the first Pat heard that Pat One had been drafted to Camp Smolley to keep Dopey company, along with her own personal Dannerman. There wasn't really what you would call plenty of room, either. In fact, Pat gave up her own little bedroom to Rosaleen; old bones needed a real bed, and so Pat found that she would be sharing a bed with Patrice.

That wasn't the end of the housing problem. There also were the guards. When this Brigadier Morrissey said they would be set free she hadn't mentioned that they would have a Bureau agent keeping them company, three shifts of agents for each of the Pats and for Rosaleen as well, night and day. The agents did their best to stay out of the way, slept each night on futons in the dining room. But there were so many of them.

"On the other hand," Pat Five said, looking at the bright side, "now we don't have to pay a personal bodyguard anymore, do we?"

"Besides," Patrice added, "they're pretty good about lending a hand for the scut work in the Observatory. And we can use all the help we can get."

Pat blinked at her. "For what?"

"For the search for the Scarecrow ship, of course."

"But," Pat said reasonably, "now they know where it is, don't they? I mean, they got a line on it from the transmission, so that's not our job anymore. The need is real telescopes and we don't have any-"

Patrice looked at Pat Five, then shook her head. "Oh, you don't know, do you? There's nothing there. The Scarecrows must've used some kind of relay to send their message, maybe a little drone too small to be picked up. The ship itself is somewhere else, so we're back to square one."

So, like every other observatory in the world, the Dannerman was officially commandeered for the Scarecrow hunt. The whole staff was put to work searching old plates-every plate every telescope in the world had taken, ever since that first observation of the comet-like object that was surely no comet, but the ship that had brought the Scarecrows to Earth's solar system.