The Sorceress of Karres by Eric Flint, Dave Freer

Did she go and lay siege to the Kapurnia ? In the end, she decided to go and have a look through her father's things in Pausert's house. That probably wasn't the right decision, she knew. But she was very curious about this map. En route she stopped at a money dispenser and, using her teleporting ability, swapped the maels she had for ones that were currently dated. Since it was an even swap, she figured it didn't count as stealing. After that she bought herself some breakfast, which consisted of a curious bunlike pastry with seeds and cheese in a neat little cardboard box.
    She let herself in to Pausert's home, and began to look in the obvious places—and then decided that was probably a complete waste of time. Franco and his friends would have done that, anyway, and done it better than she could.
    She could always pump Pausert for clues, but instinct said that would be a mistake. She felt that quite strongly, and one of the side effects of being a klatha-operative was that sometimes those feelings were in themselves klatha side effects. Perhaps what she needed to do was to tap into those feelings.
    She wandered around the house looking at the souvenirs of fifty worlds. They were interesting but she felt no draw towards any of them. She wandered into the kitchen, and then the bathroom, feeling like a bit of an invader. From there she peered into the bedrooms, feeling even more uncomfortable. She walked back downstairs.
    Her attention was suddenly caught by a piece of patterned cloth on which the communicator rested, on some kind of wall bracket. She touched the cloth, which was plainly some kind of handwoven material, pretty enough in a primitive sort of way. The cloth didn't feel special, just reminiscent of a hot place of tall fronded trees—but it was covering a small metal box that stood on the shelf. The cord of the communicator would be too short otherwise.
    Goth touched it, then pulled her hand back abruptly. The metal was oddly cold and felt repulsive, almost slimy. Carefully, Goth pulled the cloth aside and peered at the box.
    It looked disappointingly like a box, although there was some patterning etched into the metal. Goth carefully took it off the shelf, balancing the communicator against the wall. She didn't really like touching the thing. It reminded her, in a way, of the synergizer from the Lyrd-Hyrier ship, except that it felt old.
    She felt a flood of strange, unpleasant images coming into her mind, and put the box down hastily on a small table. It still just looked like a box. She could see a thin line where the lid fitted onto the lower section. There were neat little hinges at the back. There was no sign of a lock or any way to open it.
    Braving touching the box again, she shook it. There was a faint sound, too dull to be a rattle—as if whatever was inside was heavy and fairly soft. She put it down again. The box did odd things to her head. Images. Strange images. Enormous trees spanning whole continents, and little animals dying.
    Goth couldn't be sure quite what was in the box, but she was willing to bet that this was the "map" they were looking for. It would seem that they were wrong about the size. Or perhaps this was a sheet of metal that could be folded. The question was: what was she going to do with it now that she had found it?
    She was quite reluctant to even touch the box again. On the other hand, she was now very sure that she shouldn't let it fall into the hands of Mebeckey and his cohorts. If she left the box here they might come back and find it. But she couldn't just take it, since that would be rather obvious. Looking at the wall and the faint line where someone had obviously dusted often, the box had been lying on that shelf for many years. The box, however, was almost the same size and shape as the box her breakfast had come in. That was now in the previously empty trash can attached to a post just down the road.
    Goth went and fetched it, and put it under the cloth. It was much the