Journey to New Europa

Chapter 28, Further Investigations

Investigations concluded for the moment, we head back to London by train. On the way, we discuss the next steps. We decide that Salimar and Robbie should go see the mysterious R. Dragomilov, using the ploy that seems to have worked very well for us here -- candor. We can have other team members waiting nearby, listening in on telepathy.

When we discuss the telepathy, we do it telepathically, since Katrina is in the car with us and we have not yet revealed our telepathy to her. It occurs to us that she would be very useful on the net, as a guide, considering that Robbie and Salimar are very alien to this culture. So, out loud, we mention our telepathy to Katrina and ask if she would like to be put on the net.

She had suspected something like that, given our penchant for sudden fits of abstracted silence, knowing what distant team members are doing or thinking, and "interviewing" cab horses ... and apparently getting answers. However, she is not sure she wants to be involved in it herself. She asks for time to think.

By way of preparing for the Dragomilov interview, Salimar begins morphing a little toward his shape, so as to look as if she might be a member of the family. She also learns that the custom is to present little name cards, so she would like some.

Tom tries to produce some with Second Order glamour (the palpable kind). TK doesn't usually work well for him here, but he tries pushing the ambient mana-threads aside first. Pffft A flare of green disney-dust. Oh, well.

Mithriel obliges, producing cards with the KaiSenese logo under her name for Salimar, and iridescent punch-holed cards for Robbie.

We arrive back in London around 6:00, which is too late to go calling on strangers, so we decide to investigate Roger Emerson. ("Who?") Stoutworthy's victim was a finance minister named Henry Jordan, who was suspected of graft and corruption. Roger Emerson was Jordan's partner in crime, or at least in suspicion. He's still alive but resigned from the ministry about a week before we fell out of the sky in Sommerset.

So, while Katrina and Robbie make futile investigations at the library and newspaper morgue, Salimar, Dafnord, Mithriel, and Tom look up Emerson in the city directory and take a cab to his house. A quick Second-Sight by Tom shows no one is home. Mithriel adroitly picks the lock of the kitchen door and we enter. The place shows every sign of a rapid, slightly panicked retreat -- The desk is somewhat ruffled and there are no personal papers anywhere. The wardrobe is likewise hastily stripped of chunks of clothing. Mithriel, Junior Champion Lockpick, breaks into the wall safe to find nothing but money -- very disappointing.

Salimar now reveals that we didn't lose all our retrocognitive talent when we lost Nick and Lorelei. She blazes forth with an octarine aura, in the light of which we can see Emerson hastily going about his evacuation.

(Octarine is a greenish shade of purple, presumably more familiar to Salimar's people than to Earthlings.)

His actions are much as we reconstructed them, but we get additional details such as his personal appearance, his shaken expression, and the act of sweeping lots of papers into a carpet bag. Mithriel captures all this in a glamour record. We then return to the hotel and show the glamour to Katrina, but it evokes no special memories for her.