20
THERE WAS NO TIME to lose.
Ezhya and Asha left to arrange their respective business. I understood that Ezhya would take full command of Asto’s entire fleet, and would gather as many ships as could possibly make it back to Asto. If the sling could be back in time and if it was fired, he would do it.
After Asha had left the room, Ezhya said to me, “I don’t envy your task. It’s easy to go hunting and shooting things in the depth of space. They’re often things that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and no one complains, even if it was a ship with troublesome occupants.”
There had been suggestions that Asto’s fleet had been hunting Tamerians, and this was as close as an admission that this had indeed been the case.
“All these things become massively more complicated when the
