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Jotan might find unthinkable: He scanned for interceptors.
    There were laser defense arrays and nuclear reactors in low orbit all around the planet, but none of them were scanning for him or even aimed outward. Incredible as it seemed, the weapons appeared to be solely for Earth’s own destruction, leading Tagen to conclude that the smugglers who had placed them there intended at some point to wipe out the supply from which they drew their captives. But the scan had turned up something even more surprising to Tagen’s way of thinking. Faintly traced beneath the thin corona of Earth’s upper atmosphere, his instruments had detected an ionic disturbance in a straight line. It was scarcely measurable, but it was there, and any ion trail at all had to be a recent one.
    Tagen considered the matter, idly capturing a few images of the planet spinning below him (particularly of the synthetic glitter of what seemed to be very large cities in several places), and making records of some of the noise blasting across his audio channel. Let the Human Studies division sort it all out later. He only hoped it would be enough of a gesture to satisfy
vey
Venekus and his colleagues. The ion trail was his main concern now; he had no intention of turning this mission into a science-day field trip.
    It could have been caused by a meteor, he knew, or be any falling chunk of rubble that decayed out of the orbiting mass of like wreckage, but (and he might as well admit the possibility), it could have been left in the wake of a stolen prison transport vessel.
    Until now, Tagen had not really considered the possibility of E’Var’s survival. The prison ship had been a tremendously old one, and the Gates themselves were showing the evidence of time. Mid-Gate failures were becoming more common, much as the council might like to deny it. It was far easier to believe that E’Var had met with his well-deserved death in one fiery instant than to face the unpleasant prospect that a Fleet officer had, for whatever reason, aided him in his escape.
    Looking at the dimly-etched ionic distortion, Tagen grimly realized that he was going to have to investigate Earth as though E’Var were really on it. Out of the hundreds of thousands of human life-forms walking around on Earth, Tagen was going to have to try and find one Jotan. On foot.
    Damn it all, why had he ever joined the Fleet?
    Oh yes. Because his father told him to. Well, as long as that was settled.
    Tagen powered down for entry, tracking the faint smear of disrupted particles down through the layer of aurora and ozone, until it vanished under the sudden blast of Earth’s climate. He continued along the direction the trail had indicated, aiming for the surface and making his landing quick. It was broad daylight on this side of Earth, and even though the planet was not well-populated, that did not give him an open ticket to attract attention.
    There was a vast forest below him, which in itself was significant. Most of Earth was covered with an eerie, blue ocean. That the ion trail seemed to lead to land was a coincidence that smacked heavily of deliberate steering. The forest was good cover for a predator like E’Var, too. It was spotted here and there with small outcroppings of human habitation, but not so much that one couldn’t travel undetected.
    On foot, Tagen reminded himself sourly.
    He found an empty place to touch down and then only sat there with the shift-shield on, invisible to the physical eye. He had never been alone in the field before and he hated the idea of leaving a Jotan vessel on an alien planet while he marched around the woods looking for a fugitive. From a purely mechanical standpoint, he knew it could be done. The ship’s power cells could support the prime computer systems and the shift-shield for up to five years, undisturbed. Provided his locator didn’t fail, or that he remembered where he parked if it did, Tagen had plenty of time in which to execute his investigation.