“I’m not at li—” Nilo began.
Lexi waved a hand. “I’m not asking you to detail exactly what they asked for. But, in general, what do they want? Money? Power? A trade?”
Nilo looked at Torran. After a few seconds of silent communication, Nilo said, “Power.”
“Are they zealots or mercenaries?” Lexi asked.
A small, pleased smile curved Nilo’s mouth. “Good question. We believe they are zealots.”
I blew out a breath. Zealots couldn’t be reasoned with. Mercenaries could be bought off with enough money, of which Torran seemingly had plenty. But zealots would fight to the end for their beliefs and money wouldn’t sway them.
“So where are they now?” Eli asked. “Or if you don’t know that, where are they not?”
“We believe they are still on Valovia, but likely not in any of the major cities. Cien is a strong telepath. Unless they are keeping him drugged constantly, he would be able to reach out to any nearby Valoffs for help.”
“Is there a way to block telepathic abilities without drugs?” I asked.
Nilo’s expression gave nothing away. I rolled my eyes. “You ruled out cities, but you could be making that decision on bad assumptions. Could a stronger Valoff prevent Cien from communicating telepathically?”
A disgruntled murmur rose from the Valoffs in the room, but surprisingly, it was Havil who spoke up. “It’s possible,” the soft-spoken medic said slowly. “But it would require at least a team of two to ensure coverage because it’s not possible to block while asleep.”
I nodded my thanks, then said, “I know you want to paint humans as the villains here, and I don’t disagree that anyone who kidnaps a child is the worst kind of scum, but the kidnappers already had help from Cien’s guard. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine they found a few more Valoffs willing to help them out.”
“So you think they’re in the city?” Torran asked, his body tense. If I said the wrong thing, I had no doubt that he’d start tearing the city apart looking for his nephew.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “There are a lot of witnesses in the city, so it’s not ideal for a team that needs to stay hidden. But all of our base assumptions need to be examined before we rule anything out.”
“How would you kidnap a Valovian child?” Nilo asked, genuine curiosity on his face.
I wrinkled my nose in thought. “I wouldn’t. Putting aside the whole moral issue, there are too many variables to control. Children are already unpredictable, but add in unknown mental abilities and you have a recipe for disaster.”
“If the team had help from Cien’s guard,” Lexi said, “then some of the risk is reduced. Presumably they knew about Cien’s abilities and how to counter them.” She shrugged. “With enough prep, we could do it. Kee and I could get us in, and Eli and Tavi could grab the kid. Easy.”
“Lexi!” Kee growled, her tone quelling. Next to her, Varro sat still and quiet, observing the room with a sharp eye.
“Am I wrong?” Lexi asked with a raised eyebrow.
Kee silently shook her head, then turned back to Nilo. “Did you trace the transport?”
Nilo nodded. “Stolen.”
Kee perked up. “Did you find video from where it was taken?”
“We don’t know when, exactly, it was stolen. The owner rarely uses it and didn’t even know it was missing until we showed up.”
Kee was undeterred. “Surely you have the vehicle logs. Did you put a data analysis team on it?”
“The logs were wiped,” Nilo said.
“I want to look at it. You didn’t give it back, did you?”
Nilo’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at Kee with new appreciation. “We still have it. I’ll take you over there after the meeting.”
“I will take her,” Varro said. “You stay here and answer questions.”
Nilo looked like he might argue, but Kee turned to Varro with a smile. “Thank you.”
“What about Cien’s guard?” I asked. “He couldn’t have vanished into thin air. Where is he?”
“He left before the kidnappers showed up,” Torran said. “We tracked him into the city before the trail went cold. His accounts have been flagged, as has his identity. He hasn’t touched any of them.”
“They gave him a new identity and a trip off-planet,” I said.
Torran dipped his head in agreement.
I looked around the room. “What happens in eleven days?”
As one, the Valoffs froze and then pretended that they hadn’t. “What do you mean?” Chira asked, false cheer in her voice.
“You all aren’t as smooth as you think you are,” Lexi murmured.
When no one volunteered any more information, I said, “We’ll assume that we must find Cien in the next ten days. I want everyone to split into groups with each group containing at least one member from my team and one from Torran’s. Torran’s people will go over the information they’ve collected so far. My people will ask questions and look at the assumptions. Let’s work together to see if we can find something that was overlooked.”
When no one moved, I clapped my hands. “Now, people.”
Varro stood and offered Kee help up. “I’ll take you to the transport.”
She beamed at him. “Thank you. I need to stop by my room to grab a few things,” she said, then she turned to Anja. “Would you mind helping me? I’m probably going to have to take the transport apart to get to the data store. I could use another set of hands.”
Anja rose with a smile. “Of course.”
As the three of them left, Varro murmured something I didn’t catch.
Eli, Havil, and Chira moved to one of the desks and began discussing the timeline from the night of the kidnapping. That left Lexi, Nilo, Torran, and myself. “You want me to deal with Nilo?” I asked Lexi subvocally over the comm.
She silently shook her head. “I’ll deal with him,” she replied. “You try to pry more information out of their fearless leader.”
I laughed to myself. I’d have better luck prying information out of a locked safe deep in the heart of the Imperial Palace.
Chapter Twenty
Torran and I spent the next four hours huddled together in front of our desk’s workstation display. The rest of our people did the same, with the exception of Kee and Varro, who’d remained with the stolen transport after Anja had returned.
At one point, Luna wandered in, found all of us far too boring for her, and wandered back out again.
I had to give the Valoffs credit—they’d done a thorough and meticulous investigation. The timeline for the kidnapping was broken down into detailed, minute-by-minute increments.
But the kidnappers had been thorough, too, and they’d left very few leads.
There was nothing obvious that Torran’s team had overlooked, and helpless frustration sharpened my temper. I hadn’t felt this antsy when I’d thought we were hunting a ring, but a ring wasn’t a child. Cien had already been gone for two and a half weeks, poor kid.
I stood and stretched the knots out of my back, then checked on the others. “Find anything?”