Constant Sorrow: Backyard Starship #15

JN Chaney

1

I TAPPED the controls to nudge the Fafnir through a starboard yaw, then applied a half-second burst from the drive and all the port thrusters to get her settled onto her new course. “Zoom,” I murmured, enjoying a thrill that I was convinced I’d never lose. The two mines, connected by several hundred meters of cable, slid to the left. We’d miss them by… a few hundred meters. I eased out a breath. It sounded like a lot, but it really wasn’t, and not just because that distance in celestial terms is insignificant. When you’re talking minefields, a couple of hundred meters feels pretty insignificant, too. “How much more of this bullshit is ahead of us?” I asked, my eyes glued to the overlay. “I’m not sure. This field isn’t marked on any charts. If it extends the full width of the asteroid cluster, though, it’s about a million more klicks,”

Netty-P answered. I sighed through gritted teeth. “Great. Minefields don’t just happen. Have we got any idea who put this one here, so I can go kick their ass when we’re done?”

“Don’t know that either, Van, sorry. If I had to guess, though, I’d say it’s probably a relic from one of the many historical border disputes between the Eridani Federation and the Seven Stars League.”

“Well, that narrows the candidates for an asskicking down, anyway.”

It would have been easy to turn aside and try to track down our quarry another day. And, had the ship we were pursuing been another smuggler or thief or privateer, I’d have done just that. But this perp was special. This perp was a mass murderer. Allegedly, anyway. Seeing that the way ahead was clear for the moment, I took a break and looked at Perry. “Think I’m going to hand control over to you for a while, bird. This toxic combination of tedious and really, really hard is getting to me.”

“What a real top-drawer idea—letting the tireless, negligible reaction-time AI take control of flying us through a dense cluster of asteroids sown with mines. Why didn’t I think of that?” he shot back. I gave him a tired scowl. “Like I said, I’m trying to up my fine, low-velocity piloting skills. So sue me for trying to improve myself.”

“You know, when you were learning how to drive, your grandfather took you to a parking lot so you couldn’t smash into anything. He didn’t take you into Chicago on the I-90.”

“Let me guess. You were somewhere nearby, watching me.”

“Yeah. It was hilarious. To see a ’72 Volkswagen sliding across Iowa winter roads was a special moment for me. My gas sampler detected thermal ablation products from the clutch of that old Bug from halfway across—"

“Excuse me, but it would seem to me that we should be focusing on the task immediately at hand, not reminiscing about the past,” Funboy cut in. “And especially not a car that had, according to my facts, less horsepower than many bass boats.”

I glanced back at him. That was the third time since the chase had started that he’d not only cut into a conversation, but in a way that also conveyed outright irritation. Funboy was—well, never a fun boy, really, and more like Marvin the Paranoid Android on a bad day. But just as he was very rarely upbeat, he almost never descended into actual anger, either. He generally occupied an emotional no-man’s-land of weary, resigned dreariness. “Perry, your ship,” I said. “My ship.”

“Funboy, are you okay?”

Funboy blinked back at me. “I am nominal. My biological functions are all—”

“No, I mean—” I frowned. “You seem on edge, almost upset about something—”

“Perhaps the matter of pursuing a dangerous offender through a dense cluster of asteroids combined with a minefield has something to do with that.”

I held his dark gaze for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, fair enough.” I turned my attention forward again. If there really was something bothering him, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. And he was right, this really wasn’t a good time for heart-to-heart conversations, even if I did genuinely believe a little lighthearted banter was good for easing the tension. Torina returned to the cockpit. She’d gone aft to check on Icky and Gabby. Icky, at her damage control post near the engineering bay, was fine, of course, so it was really more about Gabby. In a way, she had a tougher job than any of us right now, which was effectively no job at all. Icky had started training her to help out with damage control, but until there was actually damage, she had nothing to do. She could only sit back there and wait. “How’re they doing?” I asked Torina as she climbed back into her seat. “Icky wants to know when we’re going to start shooting. Gabby wants to know if we’re going to start shooting.”

I nodded. “That is a good question.”

Our quarry, a class 8 that was bristling with weapons, had fled the scene of a massacre near the edge of the Spindrift system. The unfortunate victims had all been members of an enigmatic race known as the Sekittus. Supposedly originating in the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way—groups of them plodded around known space in cumbersome crèche-ships. The one that had been attacked at Spindrift had carried three groups called Crèche-Friends on a three-year religious journey called Purification Through Time. Each group consisted of seventeen beings bonded in some spiritual way, for a total of fifty-one, all of them gruesomely murdered. Not that I’d known any of that before we were urgently called to the scene of the crime by a Schegith freighter. When we arrived, I’d just seen a bulky ship of unfamiliar design. It had been Perry who provided the ID and the background information. He and my grandfather had apparently encountered the Sekittus nearly a century ago, in the big empty between known space and the current location of Reverie, the GKU’s secret research facility. I just added that to the pile of stuff Perry had finally revealed to me during our long-postponed sit-down on Earth. He’d played exposition bird, filling me in on his memories that had been unlocked. I was still digesting it all. But I put my focus on the matter at hand. The fleeing ship had twisted to Wolf 424, a fact communicated to us by another Schegith vessel already there, to pick up a load of ore. The Schegith had been putting an ever-widening footprint on known space as their race rebounded from its near-extinction. It had made them an incredibly useful network of spies and informants. We’d accordingly followed the lead, got a hit on the fleeing class 8 again, and set off in pursuit. They, in turn, fled into this dense asteroid cluster, a debris field from an old mining operation. Which, as we’d discovered, had been mined in both senses of the word

—the removing-valuable-ore one, and the make-a-wrong-move-and-explode one. Rab, drawing on his considerable expertise, had contrived a way to suppress the proximity fuses on them, but there was no way to avoid a detonation if we contacted one. That was the point of the tangle of long tethers connecting them, apparently. Minefields were as much about dissuading someone from entering them as they were about actually destroying, and in many cases, even more so. They were area-denial weapons. “He has got to know a path through this mess,” Rab said, frowning at his own instruments. “He’s not only managing to keep his distance from us, but he’s also widened the gap between us—”

“Whoa.”

We all turned to Perry’s exclamation. I could feel the thrusters thrumming through the deck plates under my feet as he slewed the Fafnir quickly to starboard. Something banged and then scraped along the hull with an ominous rumble that abruptly cut off. Gabby stuck her head into the cockpit. “Uh, guys?

I don’t like this music you’re playing.”

I shook my head. “Neither do I. Perry, talk to me.”

“Sorry, gang. When I came around that big rock, there were three pairs of mines dead ahead, cabled together. I was able to dodge two of them.”

“Unfortunately, the cable connecting the third pair is now stuck on the starboard particle-cannon mount. It means we’re now pulling two mines along with us,” Netty-P said. I swore at the image she put on the central display. It was a split screen, showing the two mines, one above us and one below, slowly converging like a closing pair of scissors on their own momentum. Fortunately, we hadn’t hit the cable in its exact middle because the mines would eventually crash into one another. Unfortunately, they’d just keep swinging along on their tether, wrapping themselves ever more tightly around the base of the cannon mount until one or both of them hit the ship. And that was a flavor of boom we couldn’t survive. “Options, guys?

And let’s not open with a spacewalk, because—”

“We don’t have the time,” Icky said. “Van, let’s dump the particle cannon using its safety-eject fail-safe. Then we can just move away from the damned mines and let them do their thing.”

I grimaced at her suggestion. I didn’t want to lose the particle cannon, but I didn’t want to lose the Fafnir a whole lot more. Besides, we could always retrieve the cannon later—probably using the Frankie, which was a lot nimbler. “Do it,” I said, turning to Rab. He nodded, then looked to a panel beside him and flipped open a safety cover over a switch. “On the way,” he said as he flipped the switch one way, then the other. A heavy thud shuddered the Fafnir, and the particle cannon slid free in a puff of vapor from its ejection charge. The mines, no longer forced to revolve at the end of their cable, both now traveled in a straight line—one directly toward the Fafnir’s stern. “Perry—!”

“Got it,” he said, applying thrust and pitching the Fafnir upward. The mine swept past the drive bell, clearing it by a couple of meters at most. Perry eased the ship away from the mines, which were still sailing along, riding the momentum they’d been given by the Fafnir. We put them behind us and managed to get a few klicks away before one of them finally struck something and detonated with a flash. A piece of shrapnel smacked into our stern and gouged a chunk out of the rad shielding just ahead of the drive bell. “Well, that was harder than it needed to be. Sorry, Van,” Perry said. “No worries, bird. If I had been at the helm, I’d probably have managed to hit all six mines.” I gave him a smirk. “But you do owe me a particle cannon.”

“Eh, take it out of my pay. Oh, wait, you don’t pay me anything.”

“I pay you with kindness and respect. You’re like an artist, or a writer—

you’re getting, you know, character building, and, um—”

“Don’t forget exposure. That’s a great word for not paying people for their work,” Funboy interjected. “Ah. Well, yes. Funboy is correct. But as I was saying, I pay Perry in”—I lifted my eyes, seeking the perfect bit of bullshit—“admiration.” I practically beamed when I said it. Perry was less enthusiastic. His beak opened, and his eyes flashed. “Try opening an account at The Quiet Room with that.”

“VAN, gotta be blunt. This is kinda bullshit. Why don’t we just blast our way through this?” Icky asked. “Because, as Netty-P just pointed out to me, the minefield is becoming denser the further we go. A detonation of a single mine might trigger a chain reaction, which might be the point.”

“If we end up setting off a dozen mines close to the ship, do you really want to deal with the aftermath?” Torina put. “If there is an aftermath,” Rab muttered. Funboy shot him a glance. “There will be an aftermath. We may just not be part of it.”

Rab sniffed. “In which case, there might as well not be one at all. Van, I highly recommend against detonating any of these mines if we can avoid it. I’ve been scouring the various databases, and I think I’ve got them pegged as Model Sixty, Type Fifteen-Beta-Gamma mines produced by Scintillant Dynamics. You’ll be happy to know that they were a wholly owned subsidiary of the Enhancement Empire.”

I looked back. “A company that made face cream and did age-extension therapy also made space mines?”

“It’s important to diversify, I guess?”

I muttered a string of curses that included the Enhancement Empire, as well as BeneStar, the mega corporation that had owned it, and Helem Gauss, the man who’d wrought it all in his own avaricious, narcissistic

image. “Okay, so aside from letting us call customer service and complain, how does knowing the make and model of these mines help us?”

“Does it give us a nifty way of doing some small task so they’ll all deactivate?” Torina put in. “Ah, no. That would make them pretty useless. The reason I bring it up is because that model of mine does have a feature that lets them be chained together in clusters. If one of the mines in the cluster goes off, they all do.”

I sighed. “Fantastic.”

I glared even harder at the overlay. Our antics with the cabled mines had cost us time, putting our quarry even further ahead of us. I was beginning to have the wrenching realization that this asshole was probably going to get away from us. But I wasn’t going to give up, either. Not yet, not while he was still in our sights. We pressed on, Perry and Netty-P piloting the ship, threading the needle through the minefield that never seemed to want to end. After another thirty minutes or so, I was damp with sweat and a little shaky, feeling like I’d just run a marathon. Now I did start to contemplate giving up. I wanted this asshole, but I wanted to preserve the lives of my crew even more. I turned to Perry. “Okay, I think we’ve earned our pay for the day. Perry, find us the shortest path out of this mess—”

“Van, he’s decelerating,” Torina said, pointing at the overlay. He was. I pulsed the active scanners to get a picture of the commingled debris and minefields around us and saw why. The minefield ahead of him had been woven through a particularly dense cluster of rocky debris in such a way that there really was no way ahead for him—certainly not at much more than a walking pace, at least for a few klicks. Either way, we’d be right on top of him. “Looks like he’s decided to turn and fight,” Rab said. I nodded. “Not that he has much choice.” I tapped at the comm. “Maybe now he’ll be willing to talk.”

I opened a broadcast channel. “Unknown ship, this is Peacemaker Van Tudor, credentials attached to this message. Heave to, power down all of your scanners and weapons, and prepare to be boarded.”

The class 8 finished coming about. We slid among the cabled mines toward it. The silence on the channel told me that this was going to be a defiant last stand—the kind that leaves everyone either dead or awash with

guilt. Damn. Hopefully, we could recover evidence from the wreckage about the murders and why they’d been committed—

A raspy male voice hummed out of the comm. “You made this exceedingly easy. I expected—I don’t know, more from you, the vaunted Van.”

Threat alerts lit up on the overlay from port and starboard. Two class 12

fast freighters, both up-gunned to the teeth, had been snuggled up against big rocks and lying in wait. We now faced them and the class 8 amid a field of debris and mines that would make maneuvering—or retreat—almost impossible. We did have an escape clause in the form of the combi-drive, but the thing was an antimatter hog, and our reserves were already low. It would have to be a last resort. I stared for a moment. Icky’s voice muscled through my racing thoughts. “Okay, now can we start shooting?”

2

I HIT THE MUTE BUTTON. “Guys, we need options. I’ll stall for as long as I can.”

Perry rustled his feathers. “The vaunted Van?

Bit clunky if you ask me.”

“I tend to agree. Alright, everyone—battle stations.”

Everyone swung into action, hurried out of the cockpit, and started a hushed and furtive conversation just aft while moving smoothly to their respective places. I released the button. “So we’ve established you’re a shitty poet who likes the letter v. What’s your name?”

“Stalling, huh?

Sure, I’ll play along, since the way I see it, you’re screwed. I’m Klezmir. You’ve probably never heard of me, but I think you’re familiar with my employer, one Mr. Dohlennz.”

My mind parsed his words as he spoke them. He knew I was stalling, so he wasn’t a complete moron. He assumed he had an irrevocable upper hand, so he was confident, even arrogant about it. And he worked for Dohlennz, the one-time lieutenant to Helem Gauss. At least, we assumed he was Gauss’s lieutenant, although he may have been more like a personal physician—a twisted, evil physician. Dohlennz had pioneered the vile process known as Braiding, which involved just that—braiding together more than one being, incorporating mechanical parts, and calling the resulting Frankenstein’s monster of a creation a “better, improved” body for the original subject. Helem Gauss had been the beneficiary of Braiding. It

had transcended the limitations of his original human body, but at the Monkey’s Paw cost of turning him into an inhuman abomination. “Yeah, I’ve heard the name, I think. Bit player in Helem Gauss’s operation, wasn’t he?” I said. “Very funny. Anyway, Dohlennz knew you’d never resist coming after such a vile criminal as someone who murdered a bunch of innocent religious pilgrims. He knows you better than you know yourself,” Klezmer cooed. “Well, in that case, he knows what I’m thinking about him and his employees right now.”

Klezmer laughed. “Anyway, I think that’s enough time wasted. Let’s get this show started, shall we?”

I cut the comm and turned to my crew. Rab nodded. “We have a plan. Sort of, anyway.”

I WATCHED on the overlay as the class 12s came to life. “Netty-P, backtrack us out of here. Keep as much distance between us and them as you can.”

“On it,” she said, firing the thrusters. Once she had us underway, she fired the glitter caster, which enveloped the Fafnir in a shimmering cloud of reflective chaff. She also popped a missile out of one tube, then let it slide through the chaff and back into the clear. The chaff seriously degraded our own situational awareness, so the missile would act as a sort of remote sensor, feeding tactical data back to us. I turned back to Rab. “What do you mean, sort of?”

“We need all the firepower we can muster. But with limited room to maneuver, it’s just not viable to launch the Frankie. So, instead, we keep her docked and use her one suppressor cannon not fouled by the Fafnir’s structure.”

Missile launch alerts triggered. At the same time, we started taking stray diffusions of laser energy, as the other ships started bombarding the chaff cloud. It would burn away under the onslaught but probably bought us a full minute. “Go on,” I encouraged. “Yeah, this is where it gets tricky. Torina’s doing her usual weapons thing. I’m running the Frankie. Icky and Funboy are going outside the ship with that portable missile launcher that’s been kicking around in the armory back there since—um, since I came aboard.”

I frowned, then perked up and nodded. The launcher was called a Flashfire. It had been given to us by a retired Peacemaker named Max Croon. She’d been security chief aboard the luxury liner Parallax, a ship that we saved from pirates. She’d acquired three of the Flashfire launchers and two missiles for each on the gray weapons market through her underworld contacts and had sold us one, along with a missile, for cheap. That had been at least three, probably pushing four years ago now. It was a potentially devastating weapon, even against something as big as a class 12.

Its short range, the fact it had to be fired from outside the ship, and the fact we only had the one warhead for it had conspired to never really offer up a great opportunity to use it. And, I’d kind of forgotten about it, just as I’d forgotten about the GKU

tracking device I removed from the Fafnir on my first spacewalk and stashed in the evidence locker. I really had to go back there and see what else we’d squirreled away. I wasn’t happy about using it now, either. Icky and Funboy would be fully exposed to the fury of a space battle, outside the protective envelope of the ship’s hull and armor. But Rab’s expression made it clear that this was it, this was the only idea they had. I nodded. “Do it. But for the sake of all stars, be careful out there, guys.”

Funboy gave me a grave look. “I have no incentive to do otherwise,” he said, then turned and headed aft. I swung back around as Torina took her station. “Okay, folks, fight of our lives time. Don’t wait for orders. You think something needs to be done, you do it,” I said, snapping my helmet in place as Netty-P prepared to depressurize the ship, readying her for battle. I exhaled. This never got easy. But it did get familiar. I’D BRACED myself for a protracted, uncertain battle, but when the shooting started in earnest, things happened fast. I loosed a volley of missiles and a salvo from the swarm launcher, then Netty-P nudged the Fafnir out of what remained of the chaff cloud. The instant we were clear, Torina opened up. Rab called from the Frankie. “Van, you need to roll the Fafnir about a quarter turn. I’ve got nothing in my field of fire—”

“Rolling now. Torina—”

“Yeah, I’m compensating,” she replied, tapping and brushing her weapons controls. As soon as Rab had a target, he added the weight of the Frankie’s suppressor cannon to our outgoing fire. “Icky, Funboy, what’s your—”

Icky’s voice crackled. “Status?

Let’s see, hanging on for dear life, me huddling behind the aft nav scanner—”

“Icky!”

“I loaded the launcher. Funboy’s waiting to take the shot—which you can do anytime, sourpuss—”

“Silence while I work, if you please,” he said, and it came out more terse than usual. We were tense. We were in a fight unlike most of our engagements. It started bad. Despite the tension of the firefight, I exchanged a quick glance with Torina. She looked as surprised as I was by Funboy’s withering outburst. But I didn’t have time to think about it, because a mass-driver round slammed into the ship and passed through the overheads in the galley, then punched through the deck and smashed its way through the machinery space beneath. We lost one of the ship’s primary power buses, but we had two to spare. More critically, we lost the primary scanner array, forcing us onto the redundant backup array, and about six other systems. “Netty-P, keep us backing out of here,” I called, switching my attention to the missiles and the point-defense batteries. I saw one of our missiles make it through the point defenses of the class 8 we’d been chasing and detonate close by. Our own point-defense cannons swatted away two incoming missiles, but a third raced in. I switched back to the thrusters and rolled the Fafnir to put her bulk between it and Icky and Funboy, who were exposed on the upper rear hull. “Damn it, boss, you screwed up my shot,” Funboy grated. I opened my mouth to reply, but the missile detonated. Rab cursed as shrapnel pummeled the Fafnir’s underside and the Frankie. REAB modules thumped, but he kept up the most sustained fire he could from the suppressor cannon. “I’m really missing that particle cannon we dropped,” Torina muttered, now tapping furiously at her weapons console. I grunted my assent and rolled the Fafnir back to give Funboy a clear shot. “Funboy, any time. Then you and Icky get your asses back in—”

“I know, Van.”

We’d lost a half dozen REAB modules on the Fafnir’s underside, so I had to keep maneuvering the ship to present as little of that target aspect as I could to our enemies. I saw the class 8 limping out of battle, trailing vapor, but we still faced a pair of vicious class 12s. Another mass-driver round slammed into the ship. We needed to turn this battle, and turn it now

—and I could think of only one way to do that. “Funboy, come on—!”

“I’m still acquiring a target, Van. This system is somewhat out of date. If you hadn’t rolled the ship—”

“If I hadn’t rolled the ship, you and Icky would probably be dead now. I need you to fire that damned thing.”

“Boys, boys—let’s win this fight before we start any new ones of our own, okay?” Icky snapped. I opened my mouth, but a new voice cut me off. It was Perry. “Aw, yeah, the bird’s in the fight. Eat hot plasma, suckers!”

“Perry, what the hell are you doing?”

“I got Gabby to grab Rab’s Big-Ass Gun and hold it while I aim and fire. Pow, pow, take that, assholes!”

I just shook my head. The added fire of Rab’s BAG wasn’t much, but it wouldn’t hurt, either. I turned my focus back to Funboy, almost desperate now for him to—

“Firing now,” he said. The small projectile zipped away, flashing through the raging firefight as little more than a sporadic flicker on the scanners. I held my breath. The little contact narrowly dodged point-defense fire from the nearer of the class 12s, then raced in and finally detonated. Its warhead contained a tiny antimatter charge, barely enough to run a twist comm for more than a

few seconds. But released as an annihilation of an equal amount of matter, the result was one hell of an explosion. The searing flash briefly washed out the scanners. Torina kept firing by instinct, slamming laser and plasma-burst cannon fire into the stricken ship. When the view cleared, the thing had been blown almost in half, vapor and debris pouring from the enormous gash ripped in its hull. Another explosion triggered. Another. Mines were starting to detonate. “Van, we need to get the hell out of here,” Rab snapped. “If that ship blows, this whole minefield—”

“Way ahead of you, Rab. Icky, Funboy, get back—”

“Inside?

Yeah, no shit,” Icky said. “Or we would, if the showboating bird would get out of the way!”

“Pew-pew-pew wingnuts!”

“Perry—"

“Relax, they’re in. I’m sealing the lock. You can—”

“Go, yeah, we’re doing that now!

Netty-P, pick the thinnest part of the minefield and go that way. Torina, Rab, fire at anything that gets in our way,” I ordered. Things were happening in a cascade, sights and data and emotional spikes in an endless cacophony. “Boss?

Got one boot scootin’,” Netty-P informed me. The class 12 was bugging out. Or trying to. Just by watching their thrusters, I knew they were finding egress. Immediately. It was time to get the hell outta Dodge. Then another mine detonated. Another. A third, close to the now-derelict class 12.

It shredded more of the ship, triggering further secondary explosions, painfully bright lights flickering across the blackness in a staccato beat. Netty-P lit the drive. We accelerated directly toward a tangle of mines, which Torina and Rab hosed with fire. I switched the point defenses to manual mode and threw them into the fray. The Fafnir, preceded by a hurricane of weapons-discharge, tore her way into the minefield. Mines detonated around and behind us. Things slammed into the ship. Alarms blared. Systems flashed orange and red. Many went dark. We’d managed about a hundred klicks before the class 12 finally exploded behind us, triggering what felt like every mine in the whole damned field in one colossal blast. FOR A MOMENT, the Fafnir was awash in an ocean of incandescent fury. The scanners went blank, the tactical overlay empty. Instinct kicked in. Before I’d even consciously realized what I was doing, I’d hammered at the combi-drive controls. I skipped the startup checklist and wasn’t even sure if they’d still be online, but it didn’t matter. I punched Commit and the combi-drive activated, just as a deluge of searing plasma and hyper-velocity shrapnel converged on the ship—

Then utterly ceased to exist as the Fafnir entered her own little pocket universe, both only a few centimeters and an entire reality away from the raging, serial detonation of the mines. Alarms blared through my helmet. All else was just silence. “Guess we aren’t dead,” I said to no one and everyone. Funboy spoke over the comm, his voice deliberate. “Yet.”

I inclined my head outward, presumably toward where Funboy was. “Thank you, sunshine.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m smiling at the sheer joy of, ah, it all.”

“A vision I prefer not to think of. But—glad you’re here.”

Turning my attention to the scans and screens, I started to take stock of our situation. Even if immediate death had been averted, the potential for critical injuries and cataclysmic damage was still very real. I wanted to check on the crew, but my first duty was to ensure the safety of the ship. I glanced at the status panel for the power plant and antimatter containment. The latter was still running, merrily fusing lighter elements into heavier ones and energy. The containment screens were ominously dark. “Netty-P, talk to me about that antimatter containment.”

She answered immediately, which was a relief. Two crew members were still alive, anyway. “Containment itself is fine. The containment controller is offline, which could have caused a shutdown and ejection of the containment pod, but you seem to have switched control over to Hodgepodge in the literal nick of time.”

I looked at the instruments that were still working. Sure enough, Hodgepodge, the dedicated AI controller for the combi-drive, had assumed oversight of antimatter containment. It meant I could shove my attention on to the next item on the agenda. “Is everyone still in one piece?”

Torina pointed at a hole in the ship just above her station, then traced a line with her finger to the deck between us. “I make that a miss by, what, ten centimeters?

Barely even exciting.”

Icky reported in, bruised but alive—which, considering they’d been outside during the battle, was a bit of a miracle on its own. Rab groaned. “It seems I took a couple of hits. At least, I think that’s what the sealing foam and desiccated blood all over my suit means. But, hey, I’m lucid, so that’s something, huh?”

“Funboy, get to Rab—”

“I’m busy with Gabby.”

I tensed. “What happened to Gabby?”

“She took shrapnel hits, two of them, through and through.”

“Oh, shit!

I’m coming back there—!”

“Van, don’t bother. I’ll be fine,” Gabby’s voice rasped. “Gabby?

You’re—uh—” I seized on Rab’s word. “Lucid?”

“Yup. Remember my knife demonstration?”

I did. She’d gashed herself with a butcher’s knife to show us how resilient she was. The deep cut had quickly closed itself and vanished. Her species had few truly critical points on their bodies. As long as they were undamaged, the bulk of her was mostly just amorphous, gelatinous tissue that could readily knit itself back together. “Funboy, if Gabby’s okay for the moment—”

“Yes, yes, I’ll see to Rab,” he said. “I notice you haven’t asked about the bird,” Perry cut in. “You’re next on my list, Perry. And since you’re talking—“

“I’m wounded, Van. Wounded bad. Tell my wife… I love her—”

“Perry. Seriously.”

“Sorry. I am wounded, though. Lost half my right wing. And right after I got the tips repaired, too. Do you know how pissed I am right now?”

I slumped back, drained. “Yeah, it never fails, huh?

You get your car washed, it rains. You get your avian combat AI repaired on a distant space station, he gets broken again during a space battle.”

“Life, am I right?”

I CUT the combi-drive before it burned off the last of our antimatter. As it was, we had enough for a hop back to Spindrift, and that was it. Returning to ordinary space, we looked back in time to see the searing dazzle of the cascading mine detonations whose light was only now just catching up with us. If we’d had the optical capability to actually view it, we could have seen ourselves starting our desperate flight through the raging hellfire. While Funboy tended to Rab, Icky, Torina, and I started on damage control. Icky just stood, looking around the ship and glaring from behind her visor. “Think I’m going to start by making a list of what’s still working and go from there. Let’s see, we’ve got the drive, and some nav, and—and that was easy.” She turned her glare on me. “You’ve busted up my ship, Van.”

“Guilty as charged, big girl. Where do you want to start?”

Netty-P spoke up over the comm. “Van, the good news is that I managed to snag a pretty good emissions signature from the class 12 that turned tail and ran.”

“As if I need any more, what’s the bad news?”

“It looks like Klezmir was aboard it, so he escaped, too. I also managed to intercept a snippet of a comm message he sent. The metadata I caught doesn’t tell us anything about the recipient, though.”

She played it on the HUD in my helmet. I found myself face-to-face with what looked like some sort of Gajur-Usu hybrid. He had all the warm charm of a robot coupled with the arrogant belligerence of an Usu and the sneering contempt of a Gajur. A tube emerging from his neck trickled pale vapor up toward his mouth, which he inhaled with each raspy breath. “—escaping, he has something that let him just vanish, turned him into a scanner ghost—” he grated to whomever the intended recipient of his message was. “What a peach. He certainly looks the part of one of Dohlennz’s minions, doesn’t he?” I muttered. “He saw us activate the combi-drive. That means the bad guys know we have it,” Torina said. I shrugged. “Can’t be helped. It was going to come out sooner or later. And they don’t have any details about it, at least not yet.”

“But they’re gonna try to find them out,” Icky said, kicking at a broken spar protruding through a bulkhead with a massive, booted foot. “And,

yeah, this is four hours of work to fix right here,” she growled. “I want to find that Klezmir scumbag and put about four hours of work into him.”

“You’ll get your chance, Icky,” I said. “When?

Soon, I hope?”

“Sorry, can’t promise that. That’s the difference between me today, and me a few years ago. Now, I can wait. The moment to dispense justice will come.”

Torina came on a private comm channel as we continued aft, to see how Rab was doing. “You know, I hate to bring this up, what with all the excitement, but we have a bit of a deadline here, Van. We’re supposed to be on our way to the Iowa.”

“Yeah, I know.” Paxomar was waiting for Icky on the Iowa, the two of them intending to spend some time together on vacation. Their deferred wedding had only seemed to make the two of them want one another’s company even more. It was cute, in a hairy, grunting, awkward kind of way. We reached the airlock, which was sealed and pressurized so that Funboy could tend to Rab. I peered in through the viewport. “Rab, how are you doing?”

He turned a bleary gaze to me. “Oh, fine. Funboy gave me something that—” He blinked. “I’ll put it this way. I’m in enormous pain, but”—he giggled—“I just don’t seem to care.”

Funboy looked up at me. “He’s taken one minor injury, mostly muscular in his right thigh, which should be easy to regenerate. He also took another injury, though, to his lower abdomen, right side. It was a small piece of shrapnel, fortunately, but it did significant damage. He needs some time in a proper medical facility.”

“Rab, is the Frankie still flyable?” I asked him. “Huh?”

“Earth to Rab. The Frankie. Can she still fly?”

He chuckled. “Earth to Rab. Good one—”

“Rab!”

“Uh?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, she’s got a couple of holes, but she’s otherwise fine.”

I turned to Torina. “Once we’ve refueled, I’m going to send Rab, Netty-P, and Perry on to Anvil Dark in the Fafnir to get him into the Infirmary, Perry into Wings’R’Us, and the ship into a repair bay. You, me, Funboy,

Gabby, and Icky will take the Frankie to the Iowa, then head to Anvil Dark from there.”

Rab chuckled again. “Earth to Rab. Van, you’re funny.”

3

AS THE FAFNIR limped off to Anvil Dark for repairs, we made our way in the somewhat better condition Frankie to Sol and the Iowa. Icky managed to get the holes in her hull patched, so we could pressurize her and not have to make the whole trip suited up. But several of her systems were still offline, including, unfortunately, the waste reclamator. “Where’s Perry when you need him?” Torina asked, smirking. Icky laughed but shook her head. “Nah, even plugging the bird into the shitter wouldn’t help this time. The, uh, receiving system is kind of smashed to bits.”

I peered around her. “The receiving system?”

“Yeah. The part where you stick your—”

“Okay, big girl, I get it—oh.” I saw what she meant. A piece of shrapnel had indeed punched right through the receiving system. It was like looking into a restroom stall and finding nothing but porcelain chunks and splinters. “There is still an opening available, so the system is functional,”

Funboy said. Icky and Torina both glared at him, then at each other. “Men, amiright?”

Torina muttered darkly. Icky turned to Funboy. “See, we’re girls, and—”

“And I’m out,” I cut in, lifting my hands. “Each of us will just have to use our initiative and manage the best we can for the next few hours. And, I’d just like to add, this really dulls the shine of any awe and wonder I still have for the magical experience of flying among the stars.”

“Hey, among the stars or anywhere else, Van, you gotta go, you gotta go, no getting around it,” Icky said. “She has a point. Everybody poops, Van,” Torina said. I sighed and started forward. “If anyone needs me, I’m going to spend some time trying to recapture the majestic grandeur of outer space.”

“Okay, and while you’re doing that, I’ll be back here trying to jury-rig the crapper,” Icky called after me with a sly grin. “And while you’re being all majestic, I’ll keep you updated on how I’m getting on—oh, only update you once?

Is that what that finger means?”

WE ARRIVED to find another ship already docked with the Iowa, another Peacemaker Dragon-class ship. I didn’t immediately recognize it. All Dragon-class ships, like the Fafnir, shared a similar basic hull design in their off-the-shelf configuration, but as Peacemakers upgraded them, each took on its own peculiarities. There’d be no mistaking Lunzy’s Foregone Conclusion for Gerhardt’s, Jacomir’s, or Dugrop’che’s ships, for instance. Nor was its transponder active, but docked ships usually didn’t operate them unless they had a specific reason for it. And the registration number on the hull meant nothing to me. I therefore opened my mouth to ask my go-to for all things ship related, Netty-P, for an ID on it. But she wasn’t here, so I tapped the comm instead and called up Betty, the version of Netty that operated aboard the Iowa. “Who’s our visitor, my dear?” I asked her. “An old friend. But they asked me to keep it a surprise.”

“Mysterious. Okay, we’ll be aboard shortly.”

We docked and passed through the airlock, to find the usual arrival party waiting—and, since these were the Conoku, I did mean party, as in all happy chatter and boisterous enthusiasm. “Captain Van, guess who’s here—?”

“I’m gonna tell him!”

“No you’re not—!”

“No one’s gonna tell him!” Cantullin snapped. “It’s a surprise, remember?”

I gently nudged away the throng of chitinous excitement. “Guys, whoever it is, just let them—”

“Van!”

I glanced toward the booming voice. A dark, imposing figure strode into the compartment, a dazzling grin splitting his face. The Conoku parted for him and immediately turned their attention to Gabby and Icky. I grinned back. “Essie, good to see you!”

Blessing Mbana, aka Essie, was a native of Earth like me, born in 1970s South Africa, but thanks to our relative twist time-dilations, was only a few years biologically older than me. He specialized in undercover work, which is why we rarely saw or even heard anything about him. He gave my hand a vigorous shake, then turned to Torina. “Ah, and I understand that you’ve made a somewhat more honest man out of Van.” His smiled faded as he hugged her. “I’m sorry I missed your wedding. But, duty calls and all that, eh?”

“Not a problem, Essie. And we got your lovely gift, so thank you for that,” Torina replied. He turned his grin on Icky. “And how you are, you enormous—”

“I’m fine, yeah, good, nice to see you, too, Essie, but I gotta hit the head, then find someone,” she said, absently shaking his hand, then pushing past him into the ship. Essie looked surprised. “Was it something I said?”

Torina grinned. “No, Essie. It’s more that you’re not the male she’s looking for.”

His grin got even wider. “Oh, um—Paxomar, right?

He’s on board, too.”

“And he and Icky have been apart for—well, a while now.”

“Got it.” He turned. “And there’s my old partner. Funboy, come here,”

he said before reaching out, grabbing Funboy, and pulling him into a tight embrace. Funboy looked momentarily stricken, then actually relaxed a little and patted one of Essie’s shoulders with a long-fingered hand. “There. This is truly a, um, delight. To my spirit. To see you, that is.”

Essie boomed a laugh. “Easy, my dour friend. You will shame yourself with such wild outbursts of emotion.”

We headed into the Iowa, grateful for the relative sprawl of space after the cramped confines of the Frankie. As we walked, I turned to Essie. “So

to what do we owe the pleasure?

Did you just happen to be in the celestial neighborhood?”

His grin faded and he shook his head. “If only. No, I’m here to deal with an Earth problem I’ve got. Specifically, a South African problem. And since you’re the Guild’s lead on all things terrestrial, you’re the logical guy to turn to.”

“What’s the problem?”

“My family owns a swath of land in Northern Cape Province, near the border with Free State Province and west of Kimberley.”

“Kimberley?

So, diamonds?”

“Maybe?

More platinum group metals, though. There’s been some historical mineral exploration, but nothing that ever led to any sort of mine development or production. Anyway, my uncle was contacted by some high-priced Manhattan lawyer who said he was acting on behalf of an off-world interest. He made an offer to purchase the land. My uncle said

'thanks, but no thanks.’ Instead of taking no for an answer, though, he strongly suggested it would be in my family’s best interests to play ball.”

“Was this lawyer named Forester?”

“You know him?”

“Yup. I’m sitting on an offer to work with him and the Equal Grasp, in fact.”

Essie stopped. “What?”

I laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not about to turn to the dark side. He made the offer, and I’ve got someone stringing him along, trying to suck as much information as we can out of him in the meantime.”

“Well, if you happen to get a chance to, let us say, accidentally knock him out of the window of his ivory Manhattan tower, don’t hold back,”

Essie replied as we resumed walking. “So, I did some digging and found out who this Forester asshole is representing. It’s a consortium of Cotzei that’s apparently thrown in with the Equal Grasp.”

Cotzei. Right. Slender and rat-like, with pointed ears set high on their skulls, flattened, pug-nosed faces, and six arms. They were something of an enigma, apparently originating outside known space, probably somewhere in or beyond the Deeps. The location of their homeworld, if they still had one, was unknown. We didn’t even have decent translation data for their language, meaning that any conversation with them was a broken, pidgin mess. What we did know is that they were cunning, manipulative bastards

who’d have made Machiavelli—the pop-culture version of him, anyway—

proud. “I’m assuming that these Cotzei scanned my family’s lands and got data that convinced them they want the lands for themselves,” Essie went on. I narrowed my eyes. “Kind of an epic coincidence that your family just happens to include a Peacemaker. Could that be the angle?

They’re trying to put pressure on you for some reason?”

Essie shrugged. “No idea. Maybe?

They are sneaky little gits, so yeah, there might be layers to this. Not that it matters. My inclination is to go and find them and, ah, turn them into pretty clouds of shimmering vapor maybe.”

“Not that they don’t deserve it, but I’m not sure that should be your first option.”

We reached the crew lounge. “Oh, yeah, I know. I’ve vaporized them a few dozen times in my fantasies, but that’s as far as I’ve gone—so far.” He flashed a quick grin. “Anyway, I’ve been undercover as security in a shipyard in the League now for almost two years. I’m thinking it’s time to move on. Before I ask the Guild to assign me to Earth, though, I thought I should check in with you.”

“Not going to deny I wouldn’t appreciate the help. But too many cooks and the soup and all that. How about I look into it for you in the meantime?”

“Sounds good and much appreciated. Any way I can return the favor?”

I crossed my arms. “Actually, yeah, maybe you can. As I recall, you started with the Guild as a systems engineer with the Anvil Dark station defense shop, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Got my accreditation as a defensive systems guy, then discovered a life of crawling through machine spaces and conduits wasn’t for me. I’m too tall,” he laughed. “Why?”

“Because, as you may have heard, we’re building a fortress of our own not far from here, on a dwarf planet called Orcus. We need a permanent, well-equipped base here at Sol. How’d you like to do some consulting for us?”

“Hmm. So a job that doesn’t involve skulking around, pretending to be someone I’m not, always in danger of being discovered by really bad people who don’t hesitate to use violence to solve their problems?

Hmm. Let me see.”

“Is that a yes?”

He laughed. “Yes, of course. Gerhardt asked me to name my next assignment, and this one seems perfect. I’m in. I can use the opportunity to find out more about these Cotzei scumbags while I’m at it.”

As we talked, something filtered through my awareness. The Conoku, still about a half-dozen strong, had gone strangely quiet. I glanced around at them. “You guys are being awfully silent. Why does that make me nervous?”

One of them clacked a claw into Cantullin. “Ask him.”

She shoved right back. “Okay, I will!

Captain Van, our brood is going to be going through its First Molt soon. When we do, we’re supposed to get together with another bonded brood and socialize.”

“Okay. And this means… what, exactly?”

“We need to go back to our homeworld and meet up with our bonded brood. It’s kind of, well—”

“It’s like a party!” one of the Conoku said. Cantullin shot an eye-stalk glare at the other Conoku. “I was gonna explain that!

Anyway, it’s, yeah, like a party. One brood gets to know the other so we can, you know, in the future—”

“Say no more,” I replied, grinning. “I get it. It’s a mixer.”

“What’s a mixer?”

“A big party and dance, where teenagers can get together and get to know one another.”

Torina frowned and shook her head. “We have those on Helso, too. They’re absolutely—”

I nudged her. “—uh, wonderful!

Truly a magical evening!” she said, fixing a plastic grin in place. I gave her a sidelong smirk and muttered, “Good answer.” I turned back to Cantullin. “Where are you going with this?

If you all need to go back to Starsmith or wherever, that’s fine. You’ve earned the privilege of taking the Iowa, in fact. I just need to arrange to have another ship cover while you’re gone. Maybe the Schegith can—”

“Uh, Captain Van?

There’s more. We need Proctors—it’s part of how it works. We’d like you to do that.”

Torina’s smile hadn’t faltered a millimeter. “So… chaperoning a seething crowd of pubescent teenagers?

That’s the best news I’ve had in,

ah, some time.”

“Yeah, we’re asking all of you to be there. We want you all to be our Proctors,” Cantullin said. Gabby, who showed absolutely no sign of being blasted nearly in half less than a day ago, almost bounced with glee. “Will there be dancing?

I absolutely love dancing!”

Funboy looked at her. “So do I,” he intoned. I glanced at Essie, who just grinned and shrugged, then turned back to Funboy. “Excuse me?

You like dancing?”

He answered by abruptly dropping to the floor, then whirling about and popping back up in something similar to a retro breakdance robot move. “It’s just one of the things my Circle was noted for, actually.”

“That, and being handsome,” Gabby said. Funboy stared at her for a moment, then did something I didn’t recall having seen before. He wagged his tail, like a dog. I generally forgot he even had a tail, but now it flicked back and forth like he’d just been offered walkies. “Did she just make him wag his tail?” Torina whispered, leaning in. I just nodded and smiled. “So it would seem.”

“So how many Conoku will be there?” Gabby asked. “All of them!” Cantullin replied. “Wonderful. Absolutely magical,” Torina said through teeth still doggedly clenched in a grin. I opened my mouth, but a sudden, bestial howl cut me off, echoing through the corridors. Essie tensed, dropping partway into a fighting crouch. “What the hell was that?”

Torina and I exchanged a knowing glance, then both spoke at once. “Icky finally found Paxomar.”

I CHECKED in with Panzygrus on the status of Forcus, our fortress on Orcus. Her big googly eyes, which she refused to give up, wobbled at me as she spoke over the comm. “We should be ready to pressurize Zone Alpha of the facility in another three or four days. Gabby’s schedule has saved us almost two weeks.”

“Excellent. Now, what’s the bad news?”

“What makes you think there’s bad news?”

I smiled. “I’ve been around long enough to know there’s always bad news.”

“Well, yes, there is some of that.”

“See?”

“In order to proceed with construction on Zones Beta and Gamma, we need additional smelter capacity to anneal the excavations and ensure they are airtight. Your AI on the Iowa, Betty—she’s lovely, by the way—tracked some robotic smelters down and arranged an acquisition. However, they’ve been held up by your Guild.”

I cocked my head. “My Guild. The Peacemakers?

Why?”

“Something about proper certification documents. Your Guild apparently seized them several years ago from an illegal mining operation and has had them impounded ever since.”

“Wait—seized from an illegal mining operation?

I don’t suppose it was on Helso, was it?”

“As a matter of fact, it was.”

I sat back, shaking my head in chagrin. “Yeah, I was involved in seizing them. And I remember, now, that we justified hanging onto them by digging into their certifications and finding deficiencies—”

“So you were the one responsible for getting them hung up in your own bureaucracy?”

I had to laugh. “Yeah, seems that I’m the bad guy here. Look, we’re going to Anvil Dark anyway to meet up with the Fafnir. She’s gone there for repairs. I’ll shake them loose from the paperwork net they’re stuck in before we head to Starsmith.”

She signed off, and I leaned back, looking up into the overheads. “Two things you should never weaponize—nukes and bureaucracy. They’ll just come back to bite you.”

4

WE LEFT Essie with Panzygrus and headed for Anvil Dark. We took the Iowa after loading the Frankie aboard her as cargo because anyone can be uncomfortable, right?

Why stick ourselves in the cramped coziness of the Frankie when we had the ample space of the Iowa available?

The flight was otherwise uneventful. We arrived to find repairs on the Fafnir well underway, marked by the complaints of everyone involved. In short, if people were bitching, then the work was getting done at the correct pace. The heaviest lifting, involving damage to structural spars and members, was almost finished. “Got an estimate on the critical stuff?” I asked Netty-P. “Two days, boss, and then we spring our ship. There’ll still be minor and cosmetic repairs, but we don’t need the repair bay—or those fees,” she answered. I beamed. “To see you embrace fiscal responsibility just warms my heart,” I told her. “I tried to use a coupon, but no joy. Then I told them Icky would wear pants if they hurried up. Really got things moving,” Netty-P said, laughing. “I see you understand the art of motivation. Carry on, then,” I said, easing into my landing routine. I suspected it would be our last moment of peace. I was right. Barely ten minutes after we’d arrived, I already had a call from Gerhardt, asking me, Torina, and Perry to come to his office. We went

immediately, then stood in his office as he regarded us with a look that was… warm. Welcoming, even. I instantly found his behavior suspicious. “What’s wrong?” I asked, feeling my brows rise. “What makes you think anything is wrong?”

I smiled and started to stand. “Oh, so this is just a social call?

Well, why don’t we all go to The Black Hole, then order up a few rounds and—”

My voice trailed off into Gerhardt’s impassive stare. I smirked at him and sat back down. “Let’s try this again. What’s wrong?”

“We’ve reached a somewhat… liminal moment. Until now, you’ve been an issue for a variety of individual parties—mainly miscellaneous criminal syndicates. However, you now seem to be in the process of making a much more extensive enemy.”

“More extensive than what feels like everybody in the universe?

Excellent.”

Torina put her hand on my arm. “And who is the newest addition to our big list of bad guys that want us dead?”

Gerhardt trotted out one of his rare, genuine smiles. “You know, when I first met Tudor—met Van—I admit to feeling something akin to, I don’t know… disgust, I suppose, at his seemingly unending good fortune. He had luck in battle. Luck in his career. Luck in life, and the minutiae of everything it takes to live it. So much so that he never seems to doubt himself.”

He paused. I didn’t interrupt. This was Gerhardt being human, and it was both unprecedented and utterly fascinating. He let his gaze linger on Torina. “And then, he had the incredible fortune to meet you, Ms. Milon. Or Ms. Tudor. Or—”

“Or just, you know, Torina.”

He smiled again. “Well, Torina, he got very lucky with you, too. And yet, I know that you two have built a relationship, over time and with much hard work. He held your hand under the Moons of Helso, and here you are, looking forward into the unknown—but together. You have each other.”

I glanced at Torina and found her looking at me. Even Perry seemed mystified. Where the heck is he going with this?

he asked in my ear bug. Gerhardt abruptly stiffened, then shook his head as though clearing it. Apparently, the human moment, when he said the things he’d felt the need to say, was done. “Your newest enemy is an entire race, at least as far as I can tell. And I’m as confused as anyone by it because, until now, I thought of these people as”—he curled his lip, then shrugged—“as just people who served in Guild posts, and with distinction. But now, I’ve got too much intel to just discount it. And a lot of it comes from Retta, who I trust and who is frankly alarmed.”

I leaned forward. “Who?”

“The Vela. And as to why, we don’t know. As to who, I can say this—

Retta tracked six of them in five different systems, all converging toward Earth, Anvil Dark, and Helso. The Vela are coming for you, Van.”

Okay, that left me genuinely puzzled. I’d only ever met, as far as I could remember, a single Vela—Chensun, Dayna Jasskin’s cryptic assistant. I could barely even envision her, she’d left such a minor impression on me. A few centimeters taller than me, pale and almost translucent skin, a strikingly long and thin nose, and blue-tinged black hair plaited in braids. Other than that, I knew that Chensun was incredibly efficient, could probably solve complex quadratic equations in her head and had absolutely no personality. Bring an old desktop PC to life and give it braids, and you’d pretty much have Chensun, but without the vaguely sullen presence. “Why the hell would the Vela be after me?” I asked, shaking my head in wonder. “An excellent question. And to help answer it, I’m afraid I have to ask you—and Torina—to do something dangerous.”

“More dangerous than chaperoning several hundred horny teenagers with claws?” she asked, but I felt her tension through her flippant tone. Gerhardt managed a small grin. “Even more than that. I need you to find out why the Vela want you dead. And then—”

“And then you need the Fafnir to do some dirty work for, um, political reasons?” Torina asked. Gerhardt leaned back and nodded. “I knew you were the brains of the bunch, Ms.—Torina. This just confirms it.”

I HAD Perry scour every database he could tap for information about the Vela. Like with the Cotzei, though, there wasn’t much known about them. They simply began appearing in archives and Guild intel reports about 300

years ago. Their phenomenal ability to conceptualize and solve complex mathematical and other problems on the spot had quickly made them invaluable across fields as diverse as engineering, biomedical research, mining, and financial management. Even better, they appeared to have little overt ambition, being content to work in the margins of things as research assistants, clerks, and similar supporting roles. Chensun, Dayna Jasskin’s personal assistant, was a perfect example. “Stunningly brilliant, super efficient, completely without any drive to move up an org chart, and so utterly inoffensive it’s as though they have no personality at all,” I said, sitting back in one of the armchairs in the Fafnir’s crew lounge. I had the rest of the crew present, as Perry presented his findings, although Icky, Paxomar and Netty-P were just aft, listening in while they polished off a few last, minor repairs. “Sounds like the perfect employee,” Torina said. I nodded. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?

Quiet, excel at their jobs, never cause trouble, stay out of the way—”

“A perfect employee—or a perfect spy,” Funboy said. I nodded again. “Yeah. There’s this idea that spies are somehow almost superhuman—masters of stealth, cunning as hell, expert martial artists—but the best spies are really just the ordinary people in the background, the ones no one ever pays any attention to.”

“And these Vela seem to have gone out of their way to be… well, boring,” Gabby said, then perked up. “Hey, I had a thought. Do you think maybe they’re artificial life-forms, like those awful Usu?”

“Not all of them are awful, Gabby. Rektorr saved us from the Jackals, remember,” I said and nodded yet again. “But it’s a good point, yeah. If they are manufactured, it would explain why they just suddenly started to appear out of nowhere.”

“Yeah, but they must have come with some sort of credentials. I mean, unknown life-form shows up on your doorstep and says, ‘hi, I’m here to be an assistant on your secret research project,’ your answer probably isn’t going to be ‘welcome aboard,’” Rab offered. “It doesn’t seem that’s how it went, though. The early records aren’t great, but the sense I get from them is that Vela first appeared occupying

low-level positions, like minor clerks and assistants. They started getting put into more senior positions over the next hundred years or so,” Perry replied. “If that’s an infiltration, it’s a long one. Three hundred years.” Torina pursed her lips. “Maybe Gauss had something to do with it. He would have been around back then.”

I was staring into nothing, thinking. “Maybe. I’m not sure he was actually behind it, but he might have been involved.”

“So who do you think is behind it?”

I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. It would have to be something that could afford to take that sort of long view, that could invest a few hundred years in having a scheme play out.”

“Some thing?” Gabby asked, and I glanced at her, frowning. “You said some thing, Van. Not some one.”

I stared at her for a moment, then sighed. “Okay, I’ve had this… wild theory. Ever since we fought the Rogue elements of the Seven Stars League at Null World. What if Calamity is behind it all?”

There was a moment of silence as my crew exchanged glances. I just went on. “I said it was a wild theory. I mean, we’ve been treating Calamity as a computer virus, and, yeah, it sure as hell acts like one. But what if there’s more to it than that?

What if it’s not just a virus, but a sentient being of some sort?”

“That’s disturbing,” Rab said. “Right?

But it’s just a theory. I’ve got nothing to back it up, and nowhere to go with the idea, either. Calamity seems to have gone entirely dormant, so I’m not even sure where to begin looking for it.”

Icky poked her head into the crew lounge. “Uh, Van?

You’re practically sitting on a copy of it. Remember, uh… Netty?

How she—?”

“I haven’t forgotten, Icky, don’t worry. But that copy of Calamity might as well be on the other side of the galaxy too. We’ve got no way to access it without risking letting it loose.”

I didn’t have to add and killing off whatever remains of Netty in the process. Everyone knew that. Everyone also harbored a secret hope that we might someday figure out how to get her out of the infinite loop of logic within which she’d imprisoned herself and Calamity. I shrugged again. “Anyway, our immediate problem is dealing with the Vela. And to do that, we need to know everything we possibly can about

them. Perry, talk to Bester—”

“Already have. He’s going to scour his archives, just as soon as he figures out how to do it without tipping off his two Vela assistants,” Perry replied. “He’s got Vela working for him?” Rab asked, his tone sharp. “Yeah. They’re perfect for his operation—hyper-organized and efficient, with photographic memories and mad analytical skills. There are currently eleven Vela on Anvil Dark, in fact.”

“Great. Eleven potential assassins just outside that airlock,” Torina snapped. “Gerhardt has arranged for them to be all kept under close surveillance. And he’s not making any particular secret out of it, either, so the Vela on Anvil Dark know they’re being watched,” Perry said. “Not to mention that if one of them comes knocking, I’m gonna tell them to get lost, or I’ll knock them right back, if you know what I mean,”

Icky said, miming swinging her hammer. “Yeah, well, let’s not declare war on the Vela just yet. Let’s find out why they apparently want my head. We’re assuming they’re part of a bigger conspiracy, but it might have nothing to do with the Equal Grasp, or Calamity, or the Jackals or Usu. For all we know, maybe I violated some sacred cultural taboo of theirs without realizing it. In other words, if it’s something we can apologize or negotiate ourselves out of without violence, that would be my preferred option,” I said. “The question is, do we continue to the Conoku event?

I know they have their crabby little hearts set on us being their chaperones, but I don’t think we want to put them in danger,” Torina said. “Pfft. A Vela would stand out in that crowd even more than we do,”

Icky replied. Funboy turned to her. “Because of their murderous intent?”

“No, because they have braids, right?

Long ones?

Kind of hard to miss, duh.”

“Braids, and pale, translucent skin, and a personality made for—for not mingling with others. Think about Chensun. She just didn’t seem like the girls gone wild type.”

I had a brief flash of Chensun in Fort Lauderdale on spring break, flashing her boobs and intoning something along the lines of, I have now

revealed my secondary sexual characteristics to you. Please confirm when you are aroused. I shook my head. “Yeah, she’s kind of a cipher, isn’t she?

But you’re right. They wouldn’t play well with a horde of Conoku.”

Torina blew out a sigh. “Not sure I can play well with this hormonal carpet-bombing we’re about to experience, either. How do we know if they’re, ah, misbehaving?”

“Bubbles,” Funboy said, and every head swiveled toward him. He blinked back at us. “I took the opportunity to review Conoku mating and sexual practices. It only seemed prudent, if we are to function as effective chaperones.”

“I kinda want to check out his browser history, but I also kinda don’t,”

Perry said. “Anyway, Funboy—bubbles?”

“Yes. Emanating from their pedipalps. The formation of viscous, mucosal bubbles is an indication of sexual excitement.”

“I think viscous mucosal bubbles is now officially the least sexy phrase I’ve ever heard,” Torina muttered. “So if they start foaming at the mouth, they’re getting turned on. Good to know,” Rab said. Paxomar, who’d been puttering away inside a conduit junction, looked back over his shoulder. “That’s how I know Icky’s getting excited—

OUCH!”

Icky pulled her fist back, glaring. “You always hurt the one you love,”

she said in a dolorous whine. “In any case, we do not need to be overly prudish. Some degree of sexual excitement is to be expected, given the nature of the event. Our role is to discourage any—” Funboy paused, seeking a word. “Dance-floor shenanigans?” Icky suggested. “Horizontal tango?” Perry offered. “Clackety-shmackety?” Torina added. Funboy nodded. “I believe those descriptors are apt, yes. Any of that is to be discouraged.”

“Great. So if we see something that looks like foam on a cappuccino, we’ll shut it down. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again—you organics are gross,” Perry said, shaking his head. I smirked at him. “True, but sometimes it’s also a damned good time. Now then, if you’re done insulting my status as a repulsive meat puppet, I think we need to get ourselves underway for Starsmith. Oh, and sort out our fanciest duds. We do want to look our best.”

Funboy preened a little. “I could not agree more. I intend to wear something different from the wedding but still appropriate.”

“So, no vintage, powder blue tuxedo?

No Surtsi battle sash?” I asked. “No. For this event, I will be wearing something I’ve been interested in since I began reading about your culture. And I found one—rather, Gabby did, on the terrestrial virtual marketplace known as eBay—in my size, which is that of a young male of your species.”

“You were buying stuff on eBay?

How the hell did you even set up an account?” I stiffened at that, more than a little alarmed at the idea that Funboy was getting too immersed in Earthly culture. I couldn’t very well tell the rest of known space it was hands-off Earth, then let my crew have free run of the planet, now could I?

“Tony made the purchase and had it sent to the farm through Miryam. We took it aboard in our last shipment for Base Orcus. I wanted to have it just in case. You know, for special things. Like this.”

“Oh, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Perry said. “Does this garment have a name?” I asked. Funboy’s reply was almost smug. “Yes. It’s made of an advanced fabric, but it’s intended for fun. Like me. It is called a leisure suit.”

Rab leaned towards me. “Is that good or bad?”

Perry answered. “It’s amazing!”

5

WE MADE the trip to Starsmith without incident—maybe because, between them, the Fafnir, the Frankie, and the Iowa constituted one hell of a powerful combat force. Starsmith wasn’t actually a Conoku system—in fact, it was formally recognized as an open system, meaning that there were no restrictions on traveling to or from it. The Seven Stars League had once decided that it would slot nicely into their territorial possessions and sent a small fleet to do just that. However, the flotilla had been mysteriously obliterated by a sudden stellar eruption when it arrived. Like the attempted Mongol invasions of Japan in the Thirteenth Century, which had been wiped out by the typhoons known as the kamikaze or “divine wind,” this had been generally taken as a sinister omen. No one had tried to test Starsmith’s neutrality since. Of course, it hadn’t just been a fluke. A strange being known only as Matterforge, which actually lived on the surface of one of the system’s stars, had destroyed the League fleet like someone swatting a fly—if the flyswatter was made of incandescent star stuff. My crew and I were among very few people who even knew Matterforge existed, so the veil of ominous mystery remained. So did a message—you do not screw around with Starsmith. We arrived to find the place bustling, with a dozen ships in orbit. While we landed the Fafnir, Icky ferried the Conoku down to the surface in the Frankie, where they had a raucous, fractious reunion with Linulla and the other Starsmiths. Many of them also met their younger brood of siblings,

who’d been born after they’d become the Iowa’ s crew, for the first time. That only added to the chaos, turning Starsmith from the sedate, even somber place I’d come to know, into a sort of subterranean rave. I waved to Conoku through the tumult. “Linulla, why don’t you do this on your homeworld?

Or on a Conoku system?”

“What?”

“I said, why don’t you do this on your homeworld?”

“What?”

I laughed, pushed my way closer to him, dodging claws and jointed, flailing legs, and repeated the question. “It’s customary for the First Molt to be performed in the place of a Conoku’s birth. And since they were all born here—”

I nodded and opened my mouth to say something else, but a sudden tussle of young crustaceans tumbled through, separating us again. I turned to Torina. “I’m heading back to the Fafnir. Going to freshen up before the festivities and”—I paused as a chitinous ball of young Conoku tumbled by—“enjoy a bit of peace and quiet!”

“What?”

“Exactly!”

THE EVENT, which was actually called the Mending, turned out to be a surprisingly structured and orderly affair, charged with much gravitas. The closest thing I could think of in Earthly terms was something like a Jewish bar or bat mitzvah or a similar coming-of-age ritual, but with a lot more claws. The fifty-odd adolescent Conoku present represented three families on Starsmith, Linulla’s and two others. Add another couple dozen younger Conoku and, based on history, you’d think you had the makings of a soccer riot. But when the Mending started, silence reigned, broken only by the restless tap of myriad claws on the polished stone floor of the assembly hall. I glanced at my crew. Torina and I wore our Peacemaker dress uniforms, me with the Moonsword slung at my hip. Rab and Icky had made themselves presentable, Icky continuing to avoid pants by wearing a sort of

leather kilt. Perry sported his little bow tie, while Netty-P had a flowered headband around her imaging cluster. And then, there was Gabby and Funboy. Gabby wore her peach taffeta prom dress, the one she’d obtained for our wedding but had happily foregone in favor of a bridesmaid’s gown. I wasn’t sure who on Earth, if anyone, had owned the dress before her. If they could see it now, though, clinging to the decidedly protoplasmic form of a slender, upright, bipedal tardigrade, I’m sure they’d be… intrigued. As for Funboy—he indeed made good on this threat and wore a leisure suit, all pale cream polyester over a dark brown shirt with a garish Paisley pattern in lurid shades of orange and yellow. It made him look like a freshman at a high school dance in 1978.

Perry laughed, kept laughing, and finally ran a subroutine to stop himself from laughing. “He seems to be developing a real obsession with Earth, and particularly American culture from the 1970s,” I said, watching Funboy make his entrance. “Don’t suppose you have anything to do with that, do you, bird?”

“Why the immediate suspicion that I’m the one feeding his interest in the Disco era?

It’s insulting. It’s presumptuous—”

“It’s also not me, and since I’m the only other person likely to even be remotely familiar with Saturday Night Fever times, who else would it be, Perry, hmm?”

“It could be Netty-P.”

I just stared at him. He finally shrugged. “Okay, but come on, Van. You gotta admit that he does look pretty stylin’ in that polyester chic, don’t you think?”

“Stylin’.

Yeah. That’s the word I was thinking of.”

A chime pulled my attention back to the proceedings. Linulla and another Conoku wheeled out a small trolley, upon which sat an incredibly ornate cauldron wrought in brassy alloy. It was richly decorated with an intricate pattern of silver and gold metallic inlays, accented by white, crimson, and cerulean blue designs in ceramic. About half the size of a fifty-five gallon drum, it straddled a fine line between breathtaking work of art and garish eyesore. Jeez, boss, who raided the Italian grandmother’s dish cabinet?

Perry sent. Right?

Capodimonte on steroids. New rule. Don’t let Funboy bring anything like this back to the ship. We gotta have limits. Done. With my thanks, Perry answered, adding a bronze wink at our silent understanding. Linulla spoke up. “It is unusual for non-Conoku to present for the Mending, but my brood implored me to allow Van Tudor and his crew to be present as Proctors. After conferring with my Starsmith colleagues and our Overseer of Protocols on our homeworld, we determined that it is permissible, but only if you are willing to be afforded the status of Conoku for the duration of the event. You will, in all respects, be considered adult Conoku, with the rights and responsibilities thereof. We would ask any who do not accept this to withdraw from these proceedings now.”

Linulla had already informed us of this little bit of ritualistic procedure

—essentially, we all had to become Conoku for the event. Technically, it would make us subject to Conoku law, so I had to clear that with Anvil Dark in a rushed twist-comm call, and have I mentioned how much I hate bureaucracy, even the ceremonial type?

We all nodded and, just like that, became Conoku. Linulla then turned his attention to the young Conoku who would participate in the Melding. The big brassy urn contained a multitude of pottery disks, all broken in two. Each Conoku would, in turn, take one at random, then they’d all determine who had two halves of the same disk. This would establish their pairing for the Melding. Each pair was then expected to make an effort to bond for three Conoku homeworld months. If they couldn’t, then they would attend the following year’s Melding and try again. At least, that was the theory. But Linulla confided that it was really just an ancient ritual carried out as a matter of tradition. In fact, Conoku would bond in the same way most other sentient species did—with someone to whom they were attracted and with whom they felt comfortable. It gave me an opportunity to make an offhand remark that I hoped might pull back a bit of the veil on Conoku society, even answer a few questions. For instance, where was Linulla’s mate, the mother of his children?

Did they even have a mother?

Or did they have several, like the P’nosk?

Torina leaned toward me as the young Conoku filed past the urn, each extracting a piece of pottery. “I wonder how long this is going to take. I mean, comparing all those pieces of pottery to find matches—”

I shrugged and prepared myself for a wait while they sorted themselves out. But once the last Conoku had retrieved their piece, they all abruptly held them aloft in a claw. About five seconds of silence followed, then they quickly paired themselves off. “Does that answer your question?” I whispered back to Torina. She made an impressed face. “Five seconds of looking at dozens of shards, and they all recognized the one that matched theirs?

That’s—wow.”

“Probably the same instincts that make them such good smiths—and spaceship pilots.”

That seemed to abruptly end the solemn part of the ceremony. As though on cue, the Conoku burst into a rattle of excited chatter and swarmed toward their mates for the event. A wild skirl of music erupted, bagpipes crossed with aluminum pots being dropped onto concrete. Superficially, it was an ear-scraping, discordant mess, but deeper hints of rhythm and beat tied it into a unified whole. The Conoku began to dance, flinging themselves around with unfettered abandon, shrieking and yelling and clashing their claws together. Put several different teams worth of soccer hooligans into hard, clacking armor, tell them to insult one another’s clubs, then sit back and watch the ensuing mayhem, and you’ve got a good visual of what now unfolded before us. I dodged a flailing claw and grimaced at Torina. “It’s like a high-school dance, except all the kids are armed with sharpened clubs!

Kind of wish I’d worn my b-suit—”

I ducked, and another chitinous limb swept over my head with a whoosh. “—including helmet!”

LINULLA and the other adults had set up a sort of bar that offered— only to the adults—a potent liquor distilled from several native Conoku plants. It smelled like a cross between fish and lavender, with hints of something volatile, like gasoline. We non-Conoku were served only a few milliliters of it, heavily cut with a more palatable fruit juice, though. “Non-Conoku who drink it straight tend to end up experiencing hallucinations, convulsions, and various types of brain damage,” Linulla

said, handing me a glass. “I knew these people could party,” Icky enthused. I stared at the glass suspiciously, then gave Linulla a look. “Not anxious for any type of brain damage, thanks. You’re sure this is safe?”

“In that quantity and dilution, yes. And you may not drink more than one per hour.”

I shrugged, raised the glass, and pushed my face through the acrid stink to take a sip. The flavor that sang across my tongue was sheer heaven. “Whewwww, did not expect that. It’s—it’s delicious.”

It also got rid of things like inhibitions or social mores. The Conoku came to us, demanding that we dance with them. And soon we were, me doing my best to swing and gyrate around without looking too awkward or ridiculous among a seething dance floor full of whooping space crabs. My worries around being inadvertently walloped or impaled by a chitinous appendage were, as it turned out, vastly overblown. The dazzling spatial awareness of the Conoku allowed them to flail around with wild abandon and yet not hit anything—not one another and not us. In fact, the Moonsword, swinging around in its scabbard, was far more of a hazard. I eventually retreated from the floor to hand it over to Linulla for safekeeping. As I caught my breath, I turned and scanned the festivities to see how my crew were doing. Torina was a lithe, whirling figure grinning as she swayed and hopped among the Conoku. I noticed she put a few Innsu-inspired flourishes into her moves, and she found my deeply appreciative gaze resting on her for a moment. It was hard to imagine that this beautiful, graceful woman was now firmly part of my life, and I of hers. First employer and employee, then colleagues, then lovers, and now—

It made me deeply, contentedly happy just to watch her. But I did find the others. Rab danced with an awkward stiffness, like an old uncle coaxed onto the floor at a wedding. Icky mostly stood in one place, stomping her feet and turning in circles, two of her arms windmilling around while the others switched from clapping to doing something like the Batusi from the old Adam West Batman show. Gabby was practically a blur of frenetic motion, while Funboy—

Funboy was voguing. And he’d nailed it. Replace Madonna in her video for Vogue with a deadpan, anthropomorphic sloth and that’s exactly what I

was watching. Several Conoku stood motionless around him, their eyestalks following him in rapt fascination. “Daddy’s got styyyyle!” he crowed. The Conoku agreed. Hell, I agreed. Perry, meanwhile, had put himself on Netty-P’s back, fluttering his wings as they both cavorted around in a display of, well, machine-like accuracy, a dance that blended itself perfectly into the throng, flashing and pulsing with glorious precision. “I’m supposed to be the proud father here, Van,” Linulla said, stepping up beside me. I blinked out of a reverie brought on by the deluge of sights and sounds, exertion, and the effects of even the tiny amount of the Conoku liquor I’d consumed. “Sorry, Linulla, what do you—”

“You’re standing there beaming with such pride, you’d think it was your children out there, not mine.”

I flashed him a smile. “Maybe it’s both.”

He patted my arm with one of his smaller claws, then noticed my gaze had wandered back to Torina. “Maybe your children isn’t entirely the correct word.”

Torina leapt and dropped, doing what amounted to the splits, then flung her head back, her hair a blur, and drove herself back to her feet with a powerful thrust of her legs. I shook my head. “Sometimes they feel like my kids. But, yeah”—I smiled at Torina—“sometimes they absolutely do not.”

“How soon before you have your own children?

If it’s not too forward of me to ask, that is.”

I looked out across the party. “Sooner, rather than later. It’s something Torina and I have discussed, but we haven’t settled on anything more than that yet.”

“A responsible answer. You’re a smart man, Van. Much like your grandfather.” He hesitated a moment. “When you have time, we should talk. There are things you should know, and things we should discuss—such as your grandfather and what he hoped for you. My friendship and feelings of obligation to Mark didn’t end when he—they didn’t end. So, yes, we should talk.”

Okay, now I was intrigued and turned a questioning glance toward him. But he shook his head. “Not now. Now, go, enjoy,” he said, nudging me back to the festivities. I let him, and I arrived on the floor just in time for Funboy to begin organizing some of the Conoku in some fashion. Curious, I went that way. “Funboy, what are you doing?” I shouted at him over the music and babble. “I saw this in a movie from 1941 on the Earthly calendar—an orderly, rhythmic procession called a conga line. It spoke to a better, calmer, more structured society.”

“Well, yeah, if you ignore a little affair called World War II, 1941 was great.”

“Ah, yes. That was a significant conflict, I gather.”

“It wasn’t called World War II for nothing.”

“A good point. Anyway, I feel that I should be wearing a basket of indigenous Earthly fruit on my head—all of it carefully cleaned of possible agricultural toxins such as pesticides, as well as parasitic life-forms, of course.”

“I’m not sure Carmen Miranda gave much thought to pesticides or parasitic life-forms, Funboy.”

“Well, she should have. In any case, Van, you may join the line right there.”

“I—what?”

“C’mon, Captain Van!” one of the Conoku shouted, grabbing me and almost shoving me into the conga line, which Funboy got moving, snaking through the crowd. So I congaed. With space crabs. And, yeah, I admit it—I had a ball. ONE THING COMMON TO PARTIES, no matter what planet they’re on, is that they all seem to wind down the same way. There’s a shift in energy, a palpable fading of excitement into a diffuse, quiet satiation as those still partying start to realize they’ve had enough. When that happened, I went and spoke to Netty-P, asking her to upload a particular piece of music to the sound system and begin playing it. Then I headed for Torina. As the smooth lilt of the Righteous Brothers began to croon through the room, I smiled at her. “May I have this dance?”

She smiled and nodded back. “You may indeed, Captain Van.”

I took her in my arms and let Unchained Melody enfold us like a soft, warm blanket. The Conoku, my crew, the Fafnir, the Guild, war, strife, corruption—it all fled into some distant place, leaving me utterly alone with this amazing woman. We danced, surrounded by nothing but a void, another pocket universe containing just the two of us. We danced, and then we kissed. Then we both jumped as cheers erupted around us. I gaped around and found that everyone, all the Conoku, the Starsmiths, and my crew, had formed a circle, with Torina and me at its center. We laughed and kissed again, then pulled apart and, just like that, the party began to end. I heard Icky suddenly bellow, “Okay, you two, I see you over there!

Break it up!” I glanced that way, over Torina’s shoulder. “Bubbles?” she asked me. I nodded. “Yeah.”

“No, I meant—here?” She gave me a coy smile. “If there were bubbles right here?”

I smiled. “Oh, I’d say that, over here, we’re on the boil—”

“Captain Van!”

We both laughed. “Hold that thought,” I said, then turned to the speaker, who was Cantullin. “Captain Van, the crew, they wanted me—they asked me—uh—”

Torina and I just waited. “They—we—because I want to say it, too—we’re glad you’re our Captain. We trust you, and Torina—all of your crew. And want you to keep being Conoku, even after tonight. We want you to be a part of us, as much as we are.”

I glanced at Torina, then smiled more broadly. “I think we’d all like that. We’re already a family on the Fafnir, so I think we can extend our family to include you guys. And maybe we’ll eventually get to the part where we don’t have to fly around in armed ships anymore and can”—I gestured around—“well, do a lot more of this. In fact, I’m determined to make that happen.”

“That would be nice. Flying the Iowa is fun, but partying—oh, crap, I forgot, I have to dance with Lochmeil before this all ends!” she said, then

scuttled away. I turned back to Torina. “Now then, about all that boiling—”

She took my hand. “You can tell me all about it on the way back to the Fafnir.”

We headed for the exit. As we passed Perry, who was standing on a table near the door, he gave me an amber wink. “I’ll let the crew know,” he said. “Know what?”

“If the spaceship’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.”

6

I STOOD on a mound of icy rock and watched as Panzygrus and her bots unloaded the last of the smelters from the Iowa’ s cargo hold. One of the advantages of working on an airless, low- g rock like Orcus is that you don’t have to go through all the hassle of atmospheric insertion during a plunge into a gravity well. The bots were more than able to maneuver the smelters right onto the surface. Panzygrus immediately powered them up, and when they self-tested as ready, put them right to work. “I would expect to be back to full construction capacity shortly. I’ve consulted with Gabby, and with her helpful suggestions, we should be back on the timetable within three days, perhaps four.”

I looked around. Forcus was still just a shell—a series of excavations and connecting tunnels hewn into the bedrock, with partly completed domes erected over two of the larger digs. Bots and supporting machinery dotted the frozen rock-scape, all of it in low light thanks to the hard spark of distant Sol. I’d had to dial up my helmet’s imager just to be able to see more than shadows and suggestions. A new voice came on the comm. I recognized it as the Captain of the Poltava, which had been keeping watch over Forcrus while we were off doing dances with crabs. “Van, since you’re done unloading, we’re going to head back in-system and take up station.”

“Sounds good. Thanks muchly, Poltava.” I smiled. “You guys have been around Sol long enough that I think you count as honorary Earthlings.”

A laugh. “Hey, as long as Groshenko’s paying the crew, they’re happy to sit around, play cards, and take in the scenery. I think we’re going to hang out near Mars this time around, at least for a while. Jupiter’s lovely and all, but it’s getting kind of old.”

“You do you, Poltava.”

“Poltava out.”

A brief flash lit the landscape as Groshenko’s ship gave a quick burst from her drive and slid away from Orcus. It must be costing Groshenko a small fortune to keep the ship, a class 15 cruiser, constantly on-station, and mostly at his own expense. The Guild offered him a small stipend to offset some costs, but it wasn’t much. It spoke to how well the rest of his mercenary outfit must be doing monetarily. Exactly what they were doing, though, and where they were doing it, Groshenko had never said—and I’d never asked. There was no shortage of work for skilled mercs across known space and beyond it, in places like the Deeps. I assumed that Groshenko stayed away from the most morally and legally questionable or reprehensible jobs, but there were still plenty that fell in the gray area or better. A few could even be considered good and noble—although those tended to be the ones that just didn’t pay as well. But, as Groshenko had said, “Earth is my home, warts and all. And no one enters my home without my say-so.” It was a bold statement, but I knew what he meant. I felt the same way. “Van, how much longer do you plan to spend down there?” Torina asked over the comm. “Well, I came down expecting to see rocks, ice, holes dug in the ground, and more holes being dug in the ground. And”—I looked around—“I’ve done that. So I’m coming back up now. Why?”

“Because we’ve got a bit of an issue here aboard the Iowa.”

I waved to Panzygrus, who waved an articulated limb back at me and then turned, her googly eyes wobbling comically around. Then I started a low- g shuffle-hop toward the nearby Frankie. “What sort of issue?”

“It seems that we’re starting to see some fallout from the big dance.”

“Oh—?

Oh. Wait. Crap, someone didn’t get—you know—in the family way?”

“In the family way?

What the hell does that mean?”

“You know—pregnant.”

“So why didn’t you just say pregnant?”

I sighed as I climbed through the Frankie’s airlock. “I don’t know. I blame school.”

“School. What, they taught you to not say pregnant?”

“Kinda—look, what can I say, I had some prudish teachers, okay?

And I notice you haven’t yet said ‘no, it’s not someone being pregnant.’”

“Well, it’s not. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“More complicated than pregnancy?”

“Yes. It’s relationship drama. Teenaged relationship drama.”

“Oh.” I slid into the Frankie’s pilot’s seat and started the take-off checklist running. “Yeah, that probably is more complicated.”

IT TURNED out to be both not as bad as I’d feared—and yet also worse. “How many of the crew want to leave, Cantullin?” I asked. “Nine. They want you to know that it’s not because of you, or your crew, or—”

“No, no, I get it. Things started for them at the dance, and they want to see where they go. It makes perfect sense.” I looked at Cantullin and the other Conoku nearby. They’d all changed. A lot. Their First Molt had left them all bigger, their colors more diverse and distinct, and with a more subdued attitude. They were, as Torina had noted, young adults now, no longer really kids. “And how about you, Cantullin?

Are you planning to leave us?”

“No, sir, Captain Van. Not yet, anyway. Lochmeil and I—we’re going to, you know, stay in touch. But we’re not ready to—”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“So you’re not mad at us?” one of the other Conoku asked. I smiled and shook my head. “Not at all. I’m actually happy for you. You guys have to do what’s best for you, and if that’s building a relationship and—well, who knows, even starting a family of your own, then it is. And I think that’s great.”

Another Conoku rattled her claws. “But what about the Iowa?

We’ll need new crew to replace them!”

“Yes, we will. And we’ll find them. But that’s our problem to solve, not theirs.”

Cantullin spoke up. “I told my father, and he said that there are some of his younger brood that are excited about coming to the Iowa.”

“But they’re just kids!”

“They don’t know anything!”

“Ugh, they’ll be so annoying!”

Icky, standing nearby and listening, boomed a laugh. “In other words, they’ll be just like you guys were when you first came aboard!”

“That’s not true!”

“Uh, yeah, it is,” Icky countered. “No it’s not!”

“Yeah, it is—!”

I held up my hands. “Okay, everyone, calm down.”

“Yeah, Icky,” Perry put in from where he was perched on a conduit. “Listen, bird—!”

“ENOUGH.”

Everyone fell dead silent at Torina’s single word. She actually hadn’t yelled it but had snapped it out in an authoritative, no-uncertain-terms tone that cracked through the hubbub like a whip. “Okay, that was definitely a mom voice,” Perry said. Torina nodded. “Damned right it was. That’s because I apparently have to be mom around here right now. Cantullin, you and the other Conoku staying aboard the Iowa are going to accept these kids as you call them as your own, and you’re going to train them and turn them into crew at least as good as you are, and preferably better. Do you understand?”

“But—”

“Do you understand?

”

Cantullin subsided a little “Yes, Torina.”

She swung her furnace glare on the rest of us. “Any other unhelpful comments from the audience?

Icky?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Perry?”

“I’m good.”

She swiveled her scowl on me. I felt it like a gust of hot wind. “Van?”

I looked at her for a moment, then turned to the others. “What she said.”

PANZYGRUS REPURPOSED two of her bots to help fill the holes in the Iowa’ s crew until the young replacements arrived. She seemed to have a preternatural ability to do that—to take a bot meant for, say, hauling away rocks fragmented by excavators and change it, pretty much on the fly, into a bot intended to help maintain a spaceship. She was also supremely adept at taking old or malfunctioning bots, or even just collections of bot parts, and quickly and efficiently pressing them into service to suit whatever need she had. “Shifty didn’t know what kind of gold mine he was sitting on,” Perry said, referring to the Gajur who’d previously owned Panzygrus. Enslaved was actually a better term. And Perry was right. If Shifty had tried treating Panzygrus more as a partner than a subservient minion, he’d likely have realized far more value from her. He also wouldn’t have been a greedy, exploitative piece of shit, so there was that, too. I decided to leave Gabby with the Iowa, helping the Conoku sort out the new crew roster. Those who were leaving had to train their replacements, and I wanted Gabby and her organizational and general people skills on the case. In the meantime, I took two incoming calls. The first was from Gerhardt. “Just checking, Tudor, to see if you’re aware of anything going on involving the Synergists of Arminsu-el.”

“The Space Hippies?

No. What about them?”

“It seems that several departed their homeworld en route to a reclamation task in the Tau Ceti system. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just assistance in rehabilitating an old mining operation. But they didn’t arrive, nor have they returned to Arminsu-el.”

“Huh. I hope they’re okay. Has anyone tracked the course of their ship?”

“I’ve got Dugrop’che doing that right now, as a favor to them. However, I know that you and Miss—” He stopped, smiling. “Sorry, Mrs. Tudor, have employed them in the past, so I wondered if you might have heard about something that might have diverted them.”

“No, sorry, I haven’t. And it’s Tudor-Milon, actually.”

“For both of you?”

“No. I added a bride. I won’t add letters, though. It’s part of my rugged masculinity.”

“A man of reason, and, ah, vitality. Good for you. So you’ll answer to Tudor, still?”

I laughed. “I will, sir.”

He almost smiled. “Superb. Gerhardt out.”

He signed off, and I felt a sense of unease. I liked the Space Hippies. They were fundamentally good people who lived by a simple yet powerful ethos. It could be summed up as always leave a place better than you found it. I could think of more than a few Earthly types that could benefit from that message. But the Synergists weren’t warlike at all, not even a bit. I wasn’t sure if their ships were even armed. Their protection came in the form of famous neutrality, bolstered by an ascetic lifestyle that meant they really had nothing worth stealing. Even the most hardened pirates tended to give the Synergists a pass. Attacking them would be like swatting a honeybee—

you’d be harming something that was, itself, not only fundamentally harmless but actually beneficial. Of course, it didn’t have to be malfeasance. It could have just been a case of misadventure—an accident, like a drive failure or loss of fusion reactor containment, a catastrophic nav error, an unexpected hull breach from structural failure, or any number of other ways you could quickly die in space. I hoped not. But such was the nature of spaceflight. People across known space tended to take it for granted because accidents were extremely rare. But when they happened, the hostile, unforgiving reality of the void tended to make them instantly fatal. The second call was from Valint. “Hey, grand—”

“What have I said about calling me that, Van?” she snapped, cutting me off. I smirked. “Sorry. Hard to resist. What can I do for you, Seneschal Valint Damascine of the Galactic Knights Uniformed?”

“It’s what I can do for you. I understand you lost one of the Fafnir’s weapons.”

“Yes. We had to cut a particle cannon loose after a cable connecting two mines got tangled around it.”

“And you haven’t replaced it yet.”

“No. Why?”

“Because I have an alternative for you,” she said, and the image flicked to the schematic of a weapon. A big weapon, I quickly realized. It was ten meters long and seemed to be based on a mass driver, but with a lot more moving parts. And immovable parts, too. “What am I looking at?”

“That is the latest out of the R&D shop at the Armory. Mother Hen has been looking for a ship to field-test it.”

I studied the schematic, then asked Rab, my weapons expert, to join me. The Armory—the GKU’s semi-secret research facility, fabrication plant, and warehouse for weapons and ordnance—often field-tested weapons by deploying them on GKU and Guild ships. The suppressor cannons on the Frankie were just that. Mother Hen, the irascible old Fren-Okun woman who ran the Armory, was picky about who got the weapons, though. Rab joined me, and I showed him the schematic. He examined it, then made a huh sound. “An accelerator cannon. Pretty impressive.”

“I believe you. Now, care to elaborate for us non-experts whose technobabble ends at pew pew?” I asked him. He traced a finger along the schematic. “It’s a conventional mass driver for about two-thirds of its length—triple-barreled but conventional. That makes it damned big, though, so it’s going to generate some impressive muzzle velocity just as is. But this front third or so of it seems to use twist technology to accelerate the slug even more—”

He frowned, then his eyes widened. “Wait. Remember when we used the twist drive to accelerate those rocks out at Reverie?

This seems to use the same principle.”

Valint appeared in a window on the screen. “Exactly right. As soon as Mother Hen read your report about it, she started looking for ways to weaponize it. This is the result.”

I gave a slow nod as Rab explained it, remembering the incident that had apparently inspired Mother Hen and her people. We’d cheated the laws of thermodynamics, taking advantage of the fact that it’s possible to twist in such a way as to briefly enclose several objects in the twist effect. One of the fundamental facts of twisting is that the kinetic energy going into the twist must equal that coming out. So, if you let an object leave the twist effect early, it will be carrying all the kinetic energy of everything being twisted. And then, when everything else leaves the twist effect, it will also

have that same amount of kinetic energy. It was an end run around the First Law of Thermodynamics, Newton’s Second Law of Motion, and, at least technically, his third as well. It added energy to the universe, which shouldn’t be possible but was, thanks to the peculiar, reality-bending effects of twisting. The entire result was, in a word, spicy. When we’d done it, we’d accelerated rocks with the Fafnir. This weapon fired three slugs simultaneously, enclosed them in a twist effect, then spat them out of it one at a time, each with the kinetic energy of all three. The result was a phenomenal muzzle velocity that far exceeded that of a regular mass driver. Moreover, it fired damned fast, able to spit out a hyper-accelerated three-round burst every second. It was effective out to a modest range, but at close range would be utterly devastating. “What’s the downside?” I asked. “Fuel,” Rab said. “It needs antimatter to operate. Looks like it can be fired in conventional mode, in which case it’s just three hulking mass drivers. But if you want to use it to full effect, it’s going to cost fuel.”

I blew out a resigned sigh. “So the twist drive, the twist comm, the combi-drive, and now this thing are all going to eat up our antimatter, huh?

We need a bigger tank.”

“We could strap an antimatter pod to her,” Rab suggested. Netty-P, who’d been listening in, spoke up. “The amount of passive containment required in a pod means that they’re extremely massive. They add mass and inertia to the Fafnir, but it’s off-center mass, requiring constant velocity corrections.”

I stretched out my legs. “It’s also outside the ship’s armored envelope. There’s a reason the antimatter containment is buried in pretty much the deepest possible part of the ship.” But I shrugged. “Whatever. I’d rather have this than not. We’ll just have to manage our antimatter supplies carefully. Netty-P, I’ll let you continue doing your usual bang-up work on that.”

“Understood.”

I turned to Valint. “Now then, the awkward moment has arrived. How much?”

“Mother Hen has requested a modest fee to cover costs like—”

“Yeah, yeah. A wise mechanical bird told me, very early on in my career, that there are no free lunches in the universe. How much?”

“Five hundred thousand bonds.”

“Ouch.”

Valint held up a hand. “I’ll cover the cost. Consider it my wedding gift to you and Torina.”

“Aw, an experimental hyper-velocity mass driver?

You shouldn’t have,”

I replied, grinning, but shook my head. “That’s not necessary.”

“I insist. If you really want to pay me back, fine—but take your time and wait until the thing is installed and actually works properly and doesn’t blow your ship to bits.”

“Wait—it might blow my ship to bits?”

“No, no. Just a figure of speech.” She uttered a breezy laugh that did nothing to assuage my nerves. I grimaced. Hopefully, it doesn’t blow you to bits was heading in the direction of a threat. But the thing wasn’t just a schematic—there were images of the finished weapon and performance data from its static test-firing at the Armory. Anyway, between the regular hazards of flying around with a fusion reactor and an antimatter supply strapped to your butt, through the unforgiving danger of space, and having the exotic additions of the combi-drive and alien grav-plating—hell, what was one more cutting-edge, untried system?

I shrugged. “Let’s do it.”

Valint nodded. “I’ll send you the delivery location.”

“It’s not the Armory?”

“No. Mother Hen is trying out… something else. While she is, there’s a ten million kilometer exclusion zone around it.”

Rab leaned eagerly toward the screen. “Really?

What is it?”

Valint returned a smile that was anything but warm. “A secret.”

7

I SETTLED into the Fafnir’s cockpit. “Moonshade. Where the hell is that?

And, is it in the shade of a moon somewhere?”

“At the risk of taking the edge off your razor-sharp deductive abilities, kind of. The facility is located on the dark side of a tidally locked planetesimal on the edge of the Denobala system, also known as Beta Leonis,” Netty-P replied. I frowned at the star chart she’d put on the display. “That’s in Unity space.”

“It is.”

I looked from her to Perry. “Why would we be going to Unity’s territory to receive an experimental weapon built by the GKU?”

Perry answered. “Ever since we helped Unity stop the Sorcerers from invading their territory, we’ve been getting a lot of intel from them. I don’t know for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say there’s some sort of new, cozy relationship between the Guild—and, therefore, the GKU—and Unity.”

“Master Gerhardt did put a lot of effort into building a relationship with them, if you’ll recall,” Torina added. “It does keep things away from prying eyes,” Rab put in. I finally shrugged. “Okay, who am I to argue?

Netty-P, get us underway, please. Now, what do we know about this place?

Are we heading into a wretched hive of scum and villainy?”

“You love that phrase, don’t you?” Perry asked. I felt a wash of nostalgia. “Yeah. Never imagined that when I first heard it, when I was thirteen, that I’d actually get to use it in outer space. Not that I didn’t visit a few wretched hives, etc., on Earth before that.”

Perry nodded. “Yeah. Baltimore.”

“What have you got against Baltimore?”

“Oh, it knows. It knows.”

Funboy cut in. “I’ve consulted some Guild intelligence databases not normally accessible and have found the following. Moonshade is a forward operating base used by the Unity Fleet. But it’s actually operated by a civilian contractor who’s been given approval to rent out maintenance hangar space. It would appear to be a busy place but with competent ship engineer support, quality tools, and stable power supplies.”

“What databases are you accessing that we’re not?” I asked him. He gave a slow shrug and blinked. “Certain databases used by undercover Guild operatives. My access to them was never revoked.”

Icky swiveled to glare at him. “Have you been holding out on us, grumpy pants?

Which, I might add, are the worst type of pants.”

Funboy looked mildly back at her. “Certainly not. The vast majority of information contained in them is only relevant to specific cases. Unless, that is, you believe that the sexual peccadilloes of a certain Gajur deuterium merchant on Spindrift would be of interest to us.”

“Uh—depends. What sort of peccadillos are we talking about here?

Like, really weird, kinky ones—?”

“Van, Icky’s making my workplace toxic again,” Perry said. “Uh—yeah. Icky, like Funboy said, it’s not relevant,” I said, turning back to the instruments. But I gave Torina a sidelong look. “On the other hand, if he were to leave the database open on that entry and walk away—”

“Van, it’s a Gajur. You don’t have the same equipment.”

“I—wait. How do you know that?”

She smiled. “I know lots of things.”

OUR TRIP to Denobala was uneventful, except for one odd little instance. Since it was on the way, we dropped Paxomar off on the Wu’tzur homeworld. It was his goodbye to Icky that was the odd bit. “Well, I’m going,” he said. Icky nodded. “Be seeing you.”

He turned and left through the airlock. “Not exactly a Hallmark moment, is it?” Perry said to me. Icky turned to find Perry, me, and Torina all staring at her. “What?”

“Icky—is everything okay?” Torina asked. She shook her head. “No.”

“Do you want to—you know, talk about it?”

“I guess. See, it’s the starboard fusion manifold. It’s running about two percent below its optimum spec. Now, I’m starting to think that there’s a defect—”

“Icky—no. I meant, is there anything wrong with, well, you and Paxomar?”

She stared. “Well, he thinks that it’s the upstream regulator—”

“No, Icky, what I mean is—”

She kept staring back, her face blank. Torina finally just smiled and patted her arm. “Never mind, Icky,” she said, then turned and headed forward. “What was she talkin’ about?” Icky asked me. I just shrugged. “No idea at all.”

WE ARRIVED at Denobala to find a surprisingly busy traffic-control pattern. It was surprising because the only habitation in the system was Moonshade itself, in the system’s outer reaches, and a gas-extraction operation running around the single gas giant. The star itself was bigger and much brighter than Sol, and also produced an anomalously high amount of stellar radiation. That was the reason for Moonshade’s location on the permanently dark side of its little planet, as well as the fact the gas-extraction outfit was mostly robotic. We met Valint’s Stormshadow and started heading in-system. It wasn’t far to Moonshade—a couple of hours flight at most. But it took us almost three times that since we kept getting bumped into holding patterns. And that was a massive pain because it cost us huge amounts of fusion fuel. “I get why that gas-processing thingy is here,” Icky said, scowling at the fuel levels. “If it weren’t, then at this rate there’d have been about a gazillion ships floating around out here, all out of fuel.”

When we finally arrived and eased the Fafnir into her assigned hangar, we were quite low on fuel. Fortunately, it turned out fuel was pretty cheap. Valint shuttled down from the Stormshadow and joined us once the Fafnir’s bay had been sealed and pressurized. Ready for visitors, the bay hummed with potential activity. Then Valint surprised me by wandering up to the ship, then walking along her length. Frost had formed on her hull, the lingering chill of the void condensing moisture out of the air. I walked with her, intrigued by her sudden introspective air. She stopped aft, just ahead of the rad shielding protecting the ship from her own fusion exhaust. “She’s so… different. And yet, still the same,” she said. I cocked my head at her. “Excuse me?”

She smiled and glanced down at her feet, then back up. “Remember, Van, this was Mark’s ship. Her command and hab modules up front, and this drive module back here, are the same ones that he used.”

“Well, yeah, they were kind of all that she had left when Perry first introduced me to her in the barn.”

She looked back along the Fafnir’s length. The expanded forward hab module, forward utility module, forward weapons module, crew-lounge module, rear utility and weapons modules, and the engineering module added just ahead of her drive were all new additions since I’d taken over the ship. None of them would have been part of my grandfather’s version of the ship. So I got what she meant—fore and aft, she was still his ship, even if all of the stuff in between wasn’t. “She’s been growing right along with you, Van,” Valint said. “And gaining new capabilities, just like you have.”

I smiled. This was Valint’s way of telling me she was proud of me, I guess. She was hardly a demonstrative person—quite the opposite, in fact. She was generally cold and aloof, almost imperious in her attitude. A sweet old grandmother who enjoyed spoiling her grandkids, she wasn’t. This was as close to snuggly as it was going to get. But it struck me that she’d touched on another truth—the first few upgrades to the Fafnir had made a dramatic difference to her performance. But more recent upgrades were offering diminishing returns. Their benefits were coming in smaller and smaller increments. The new accelerator cannon would definitely increase her firepower, but she could already put out a fearsome amount of destructive energy. Maybe I was the same way. I went from Peacemaker Initiate to skilled and experienced Peacemaker in my first couple of years. Since then, I'd gotten better, too. But, like my ship, the improvements had been more nuanced, in smaller increments. “Yeah, for both of us, I guess, it’s going to be the small things that start making differences. The big changes are behind us now.” I said it out loud but more to myself as I looked at the Fafnir, which was now dripping water as the frost had started to melt. “What do you mean?”

I glanced at her. There was a penetrating intensity to her question. She wasn’t just asking me to clarify or amplify. There was something more, something she was… probing for. I looked around, buying myself time to consider the answer. My gaze finally settled on a short antenna mast protruding from the rear utility module. I pointed at it. “That’s the ship’s tertiary real-space comm antenna. A backup to the backup. It’s functional, but that’s about it. Eventually, we’ll replace it with a system like the primary comm, so we have a full backup. It’s a small change but could be a crucial one in its own way.”

I turned back to her. “That’s what I mean. It was easy to make a class 6

better. I guess I’ve accepted that the improvements from here on are going to be small, subtle, and not necessarily very interesting in themselves.”

“Unless you take them as an aggregate,” she said. “Then many small changes can add up to a big impact.”

“Where are you going with this?” I asked her. “Well, you’ve upgraded your ship. You’ve got an excellent crew. So I agree, your big improvements to those are probably behind you.”

I stared at her and waited. She gave another thin, fleeting smile. “There are still some big upgrades you can make to yourself, Van. You’re a member of the 32, but you haven’t really embraced that. You haven’t—”

“Made a difference?”

Her gaze met mine. In it, I saw exactly what she was getting at. My grandfather had had a chance to make a difference, and he’d passed it over. She probably saw me on the same path—giving the GKU and the 32 lip service, but that was it. The trouble was the 32 was a profoundly touchy subject. I still had no idea how many of them there were, what agendas were at work, what the 32

even really was. It was starting to feel like an old episode of the TV show M*A*S*H. The two lead characters, Hawkeye and Trapper, invented a fictional officer named Captain Tuttle as part of a scheme to circumvent military bureaucracy and funnel crucial supplies to a local orphanage. Tuttle soon came to take on a life of his own, so much so that Hawkeye and Trapper had to kill him off—heroically, of course—before the situation spiraled out of control. The 32 was just like that. It was starting to feel like a piece of fiction, a way of allowing people to do things and then having a place to shift the responsibility. If that was true, though, it meant that at least some of the members of it were part of keeping that fiction alive. I didn’t think Valint was one of them. She was too… noble, I guess. But not thinking Valint was part of an elaborate scam, and knowing she wasn’t, were two very different things. Valint finally shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, Van. You may not have made a great deal of difference in the 32 so far—but you still have time.”

Again, a direct look into my eyes. She was… urging me?

Pleading with me?

That earnest look pushed me a long way toward believing Valint had nothing to do with creating Captain Tuttle. But for reasons not clear to me, she obviously thought I was the one to do something about it. So I nodded. “I know. It’s on my to-do list,” I replied, looking straight back into her gaze. “Good. Anyway, about this accelerator cannon—” she said, walking forward, toward the Fafnir’s empty weapons hardpoint, from which we’d lost a particle cannon. I followed her, discussion now turning to the details of mounting the new weapon. It pulled in Rab and Icky, and was soon very much into the technical weeds. Even so, several times, I caught Valint looking at me with that same intense, almost pleading expression. WHILE THE ACCELERATOR cannon was being mounted, we received an urgent call from Gerhardt. “Eight more of the Synergists have gone missing. This time, they were en route to Procyon to provide advice and assistance in establishing an expansive nature preserve,” he said, without preamble. I rubbed my chin. “Okay, this is no longer just a case of some unfortunate misadventure. Or, if it is, the Synergists are suddenly encountering a run of really bad luck.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Not for an instant. Someone is targeting the Synergists. But why?

How do peace-loving Space Hippies who make trees and flowers grow get on someone’s hit list?”

“An excellent question, and one to which we need an answer. Eyes are starting to turn on the Guild all across known space over this. The Synergists are popular, and the Guild is the lead agency to find out what’s happening to them.”

I tsked in agreement. The Guild, per its Charter, was like the Earthly Interpol, although way more heavily armed and with far more expansive jurisdiction. Dealing with an issue like this, which involved multiple systems across several political entities—all themselves Charter signatories

—was why the Peacemakers existed. “So I assume this is your way of saying, over to you to solve, Tudor.”

Gerhardt nodded. “You’re still my Justiciar, so having you lead the case shows the sort of commitment the good people of known space are expecting. You won’t be alone, though. I’m assigning Dugrop’che, Lucky, and Jamberac to assist you. I’ve alerted them, and they’re waiting for you to call.”

I drummed my fingers on my cabin desk. “Well, we’re grounded here at Moonshade for at least another day while we get this new accelerator cannon mounted. As soon as that’s done, we’ll make this case our top priority.”

“Actually, Tudor, I need you to start engaging sooner than that. We’re under considerable pressure to solve this. The Synergists are currently involved in nineteen major projects across known space, and all of them have been put on hold. And the Synergists involved in them have been

placed into protective custody. In the meantime, I’ve dispatched the Righteous Fury to Arminsu-el, to take up station in orbit.”

Gerhardt sighed. “It’s more than just the Synergists being loved by everyone, though. Some of those nineteen projects—”

“Involve a lot of money,” I said. He nodded. “Millions of bonds, in some cases. Locking the Synergists down like this has effectively frozen something like two hundred and fifty million bonds worth of work in place, some of it up against tight deadlines. So if the fact that the Synergists are just so damned sweet isn’t enough—”

“We’ve got people with money at stake breathing down our necks.”

“Actually, breathing down my neck. And now, I’m breathing down yours. I need you to start making conspicuous moves regarding this case, Tudor, even if you are stuck in drydock for now.”

“Consider us moving. This instant.”

Gerhardt inclined his head. “Excellent. I’ll wait for good news. And Tudor?

Don’t make me wait long.”

WITH THE FAFNIR laid up for the moment, my options for conspicuous moves were limited. Valint, who had no reason to stick around, said she’d make a few calls while she took the Stormshadow to—wherever her next destination was. I was otherwise left talking to Dugrop’che, Lucky, and Jamberac to get them coordinated. The first two were already experienced Peacemakers, on the case and running down leads on their own initiative. Dugrop’che was following a nugget of Guild intel suggesting that the Synergists did some work for a shady mining cartel based at Dregs and had just arrived there. Lucky, meanwhile, was en route to the planned destination for the second group of missing Synergists, a sprawl of contaminated industrial land on Outward in the Procyon system. I was happy to let both just continue doing their thing. Jamberac, though, required a little… handling. “I’d like you to start at the departure point for the first group of Synergists who went missing, at Arminsu-el, and follow their course. Use whatever data, traffic control, or other information you can get your hands on. See if you can replicate their

route as closely as possible, and look for anything resembling a clue,” I said to him. He nodded but seemed a little hesitant. “Something wrong?” I asked, knowing the answer was yes. “No. Or—no. It’s just that—”

I waited. He finally sighed. “Van, I was contacted by one of my great-grandsire’s, uh, business contacts,” he said. “A criminal, you mean.”

“Yeah. He’s proposed a deal to me. I look the other way while he…

does his business. And he’s offering information and money in return.” He held up a scaly hand. “I haven’t replied to him yet. I’m well aware that a lot of people don’t really trust me because of my family connections.”

“Your great-granddad was a sleazy criminal engaged in all sorts of illegal shenanigans, so that’s not really a surprise,” I replied. Indeed, his ancestor Jacomir had been the hub of a far-flung criminal enterprise—and also the father of fifty-three children. That apparently wasn’t uncommon for their race—huge broods of offspring produced by fertile males. However, the vast majority of their males weren’t fertile, which was why the galaxy hadn’t been overrun by people who vaguely resembled half-boiled chickens. “I’ve been meaning to ask your advice about it. I don’t really have any informants yet, like most Peacemakers do. And I know how valuable they can be. This one would be a particularly good source of information, but—”

“But you’re worried how people are going to view it if word gets out.”

“Yeah. A lot of Peacemakers who aren’t you seem to think I’m just a criminal-in-waiting, biding my time. What do you think I should do?”

I crossed my arms. “My suggestion is that you do not accept a dime from this person.”

“What’s a dime?”

“Oh, sorry—Earthly thing. Do not accept a single bond from this person, not in cash or any equivalent—so no luxury trips, no works of art, no free memberships in ritzy clubs, none of that. Tell him you’ll only deal in information relevant to doing your job as a Peacemaker. And then tell him that you’ll look the other way when it comes to Class C and lower offenses as the Guild defines them. But if you become aware of any A or B

offenses, you will have to report them and follow up on them again as a Peacemaker.”

“Huh.”

“If you know this guy is involved in serious crimes, Jamberac—murder, piracy, Crimes Against Order—”

“Yeah, I get it. Honestly, I don’t think he is. He’s more of a financial crimes kind of guy. Frankly, I think he makes most of his money skimming profits from a couple of casinos on Reticulum.”

I smiled. Reticulum was the site of a domed pleasure city where pretty much any sin, vice, or other entertainment was available if you were willing to pay for it. It was also operated by the Reapers, a one-time criminal syndicate who’d found that it was easier to make money by giving people what they wanted than stealing it from them. But criminality still ran in their institutional DNA. “Hey, if this guy’s got his fingers in the Reapers’ cookie-jar, then first, he’s got balls—big, alloy ones. Second, he couldn’t be stealing from a nicer bunch. And third, it’s not like the Reapers are going to come running to the Guild to sort out a problem like this.”

“So you think I should agree?

Subject to the conditions you’ve suggested?”

“Jamberac, it’s your decision. Informants can be extremely useful, but they’re also a double-edged sword. As informants go, this one seems pretty tame, but there’s always going to be some risk of it blowing up in your face.” I smiled again. “Mind you, if this one’s stealing from the Reapers, you’d better hurry to get what information you can out of him. There’s a good chance he’s going to trip and fall out of an airlock someday soon.”

“Thanks, Van. I appreciate the advice. I’ll talk to him. In the meantime, though, I’ll follow the Synergists’ course, like you asked.”

We signed off, and I sat back. “Huh.”

I’d become the guy other Peacemakers came to for advice. And that was despite me often being uncertain about what I was doing myself. How the hell had that happened?

Perry leaned toward me, then winked. “Sooooo—”

I lifted a brow. “Yes, bird?”

He cocked his head in a position that I’ve come to identify as Perry at his most annoying. Grinning, he leaned toward me. “Far be it from me to

cause, ah—unpleasantries—”

“Perish the thought. And yet, I sense exactly that kind of thing is about to bloom, right here.”

He managed to look wounded and aggrieved. “Perceptive as usual. Now then, your face. It’s—yes, of course you’re handsome and dashing, we get it

—but right now, that’s the face of a man with imposter syndrome if ever I saw it.”

I said nothing. He lifted his wingshoulders. “Care to comment, sir?”

I sniffed—with great dignity, of course—and then said, “Not at this time.”

“Interesting. An evasion. Well, I’ll leave you to your thoughts. I’m sure this is quite a moment for you, now that you’re an interstellar consigliere.”

I thought it over. It had a nice, if criminal, ring to it. “That’ll do.”

8

WHEN THE ACCELERATOR cannon was finally installed, we were able to lift the Fafnir from Moonshade and get underway. We were heading for a system known only by a star catalog number, another of the many, many dim and unremarkable red dwarfs that comprised most of the stars in the Milky Way. It was interesting only because Valint had already sniffed out a possible lead—the first group of missing Synergists had apparently used it as a nav waypoint. An Eridani freighter doing the same thing had recorded the presence of the Synergists’ ship in the system, seemingly between twists. It was as good a place to start as any. Once we were clear of Moonshade, we test-fired the accelerator cannon. The weapon only had a few degrees of elevation and depression, and a few of traverse, but only to the Fafnir’s portside. It was enough to allow for fine adjustments to its aim, though. The ship had to otherwise be pointed at the intended target. It was a severe limitation, but the size and position of the weapon offered no alternative. So, I yawed the Fafnir to point her into deep space, then turned to Rab and gave the thumbs-up. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Rab scanned the accelerator cannon’s control panel and nodded. “Everything’s green. Fire control is online.”

I gave another thumbs-up. The cannon had its own fire-control system, which worked with, but independently of, the Fafnir’s primary FCS. Rab, or whoever was at his station, would be the primary gunner. Torina had

enough panels and instruments around her station and didn’t need to try taking care of another weapon system. “Firing a one-second burst in five, four, three, two, one—”

THUMPTHUMPTHUMP. We all peered out the canopy, but there was nothing to see, of course. Nine depleted uranium darts, each about the length and diameter of a half a baseball bat, were now on their way toward the galactic rim. “Everything’s still green here,” Rab said. “I’m tracking the projectiles now,” Netty-P put in. “Their velocity is about seven times that of our other mass drivers, so pretty impressive.”

I nodded. Larger, more massive rounds, each traveling seven times faster than our current weapons?

Yes, please. “Okay, Rab. Weapons-hold. Meantime, let’s go see if we can find ourselves some missing synergists.”

WE REACHED the numbered red dwarf after two twists, one longer, one shorter. There wasn’t much to see. The star itself was a dull, ruddy spot, surrounded by a halo of rock and dust that had apparently tried and failed to form an actual planetary system uncounted millennia ago. “I’m underwhelmed,” I said. “In fact, I’m not even a little bit whelmed. Boring.”

“Most stars in the galaxy are,” Perry said. He started to say something else, but Netty-P cut him off, as did a threat alert. “A ship has just lit its drive, about twenty thousand klicks to our three o’clock high,” she said. I sat straight up. We’d arrived ready for battle, suited-up and depressurized, but twenty thousand klicks was pretty much point-blank range. Torina was already slewing the weapons onto target. But Netty-P’s next words turned a potential emergency into a mystery. “Van, that ship is… us.”

“Us?

What do you mean, us?”

“I mean that it is perfectly mimicking the Fafnir’s drive signature. And it’s heading in-system, so away from us.”

I looked at Torina, who looked back and shook her head. “What the hell

—?”

I reached for the comm panel to broadcast a demand to stop—but some instinct caught me, leaving me sitting with my fingers hovering over the controls. I looked back up at Torina. “Hold your fire. Netty-P, tell me about that ship.”

“It’s a class five workboat, standard utility design. The only unusual thing about it, in fact, is its drive sig—”

Another threat alert cut her off. A new ship had appeared, lighting its drive and sliding out from among some drifting rocks. It immediately loosed a volley of five missiles, which locked onto and tracked the workboat. “Van, we should—” Torina started, but I raised a hand. “Let’s see what happens.”

What happened was about five minutes of watching the missiles close on the workboat, then blow it to bits. A third ship appeared, twisting in about a half million klicks away. This one popped up a blue icon, friendly. It was the Stormshadow. Valint’s ship immediately engaged the ship that destroyed the workboat, and a ferocious firefight broke out between them. A few seconds later, another contact appeared—another ship concealed among the rocks. It powered up and started shooting at the Stormshadow. “Nobody wants to play with us!” Icky called from aft where she was watching the action unfold on her repeater display. “It would appear that we have yet to be detected,” Funboy said, his eyes bright with interest as he scanned the main screen. “Well, let’s let them know we’re here,” I said, lighting the drive and accelerating onto an intercept course with the second ship attacking the Stormshadow. As we closed, I looked at the data on the overlay. The two enemy ships were a wholly unfamiliar design, at least to me. Sleek, with aerodynamic surfaces suggestive of atmospheric flight, their hulls slender and willowy. They reminded me of the smooth, menacing lines of the American B-1

Lancer bomber. They also looked awfully cramped for a crew of more than two or three. The one that we were chasing abruptly started to maneuver, hard, turning to face us, then it loosed another volley of missiles. Like the salvo

fired by their fellow, these immediately locked and started to unerringly track. Perry had done his usual deployment of various electronic countermeasures intended to degrade their performance, but the missiles blithely ignored them. “They’re tracking our drive signature,” Rab said. I opened my mouth to ask him how he knew that but didn’t. He was right. These missiles had been designed to attack the Fafnir. “Torina, over to you. Can you take those missiles out?”

“Sure, babe. I’ve got some time on my hands,” she said, her fingers dancing across her weapons controls. She fired the lasers, and, as the missiles closed, the particle beam and plasma burst cannons. Two of the onrushing missiles blew apart. Then a third, shattering into a small but enthusiastic cloud of gas. The range ticked down. Torina cursed. “Those last two missiles have activated some sort of countermeasures of their own. I can’t get decent firing solutions on either.”

“Keep trying,” I said, but I switched the swarm launcher from hold to ready. The launcher, which spat out an eponymous swarm of small missiles, was designed to saturate a volume of space with destructive energy. I locked them on the oncoming missiles and got a firing solution of barely thirty percent, but I fired a salvo anyway. Two dozen small projectiles flashed away from the Fafnir. I switched my attention to the Stormshadow. She’d taken a few hits, but it was a lopsided contest—a heavy cruiser bristling with weapons against something obviously intended for hit-and-run raids, not sustained slugfests. But the Stormshadow was between them and their twist point to escape. They’d apparently decided their best bet was to accelerate as hard as they could and pass Valint’s ship on an opposite course. It meant they’d have to weather her fire, but if they made it, they’d be home free. I looked back at our own firefight. The swarm projectiles picked that moment to detonate, flooding hundreds of cubic kilometers with incandescent plasma and shrapnel. Only one of the oncoming missiles emerged, and it was tumbling, damaged. Torina swatted it into oblivion with an almost contemptuous plasma burst. “Bird down,” she said. “Still a lot going on out here.”

“Our battlespace is fluid, boss,” Netty-P said, highlighting an enemy that continued racing directly toward us, firing short wave lasers that set our

scanners howling. We took a hit, then another, two REAB modules on the forward hull detonating. Chunks of our ablative armor turned to vapor. I checked the range, then slewed the Fafnir to starboard. “Rab, you’re on.”

“With pleasure,” he said. A moment passed, Torina landing a few hits, our opponents landing a couple more in return. THUMPTHUMPTHUMP. Once, during my brief career in the US Army, I’d participated in a live-fire exercise in Texas. Lots of things had banged and cracked and exploded, but the moment that really stuck with me was a pass over some targets, derelict tanks, by a pair of A-10 Thunderbolt IIs. The A-10 was essentially built around a massive 30mm cannon, and as each of the aircraft swept overhead, they’d loosed a long burst with a loud BRRRRRRRRP. The targets, the battered hulks of some M-48 tanks, had erupted in showers of splintered metal amid roiling clouds of dust. It had been, frankly, awesome. What I saw now was much the same thing. Our torrent of accelerator cannon slugs, traveling at hyper-hyper-velocity, raked the other ship from prow to stern. Their titanic kinetic energy shredded it, a sleek vessel suddenly reduced to a whirling cloud of debris. An instant later, it lost antimatter containment and vanished in a blinding flash of light and a pulse of radiation that reached well into the gamma-ray end of the EM spectrum. I blinked. “Well. That was a definite wow.”

“I’d call that a kill,” Rab said. “Actually, I’d call that an overkill,” Funboy replied. Icky immediately cut in. “Disagree, sourpuss. When it comes to people shooting at you, there ain’t no such thing as too dead.”

WHILE THE WRECKAGE was still cooling and Netty-P and Perry were scanning it for any useful information, I got Valint on the comm. “Okay, the battle’s over, so now comes the part where you explain to me what the hell is going on,” I said to her. “I intercepted information to the effect that you were going to be lured here and attacked with missiles specifically tuned to track your ship’s drive

signature. I thought I’d take advantage of the situation. You’re welcome, by the way.”

I stared at the display for a moment, then turned to Netty-P. “I’m going to continue this conversation in my cabin,” I said, unstrapping and removing my helmet since the ship was now repressurized. “He would have said our cabin, if we, you know, ever got the hab module reconfigured,” Torina said. I smiled at her. “Feel free to come sleep with me in my single bunk, my dear. We’ll see which one of us has which parts end up numb from lack of blood flow first.”

“Which wouldn’t be a problem if you’d just get the module reconfigured—”

“Excuse me, but can we keep the marital strife to a minimum, at least in the cockpit?” Funboy asked. “We’ll talk about this later,” Torina said. Rab chuckled. “I’m having flashbacks to my childhood. My mothers and fathers said that all the time. Justice delayed is justice denied, kids. This advice is free, courtesy of your pal Rab.”

I waved them all off and headed back to my cabin. I closed the door and sat, as Valint’s image came on the display. “Have to admit, I’m not happy that you used us as bait. I’m even more unhappy that you used us as bait and didn’t tell me,” I said. I was trying to step my anger down as a means to give her a chance to talk. Valint lifted her chin and gave me an imperious look. But whether it was because she was talking to me, her grandson, or just the fact she realized she was in the wrong, she just as quickly relented and sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Van. I guess I’m just used to doing things the GKU way.”

“Which entails setting up friends in dangerous situations for your own tactical benefit?”

“Yes.”

I stared. Blinked a few times. “Really?”

She shrugged. “It’s not exactly a secret that the GKU isn’t a very unified organization. Unfortunately, there tends to be an… an uncomfortable number of instances of working at cross-purposes and, yes, even competition. Sometimes damaging competition.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“It means that, like the much ballyhooed 32, which is starting to sound more like a fiction than a fact, the GKU itself is starting to seem kind of”—

I struggled for a word—“sketchy.”

“I don’t know if I’d use that term, but, yes, there are internal tensions.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not one of them. Next time, I expect you to clue me in about something like what just happened.”

Valint nodded. “Understood, and I will.”

“Those were Vela, weren’t they?”

“They were.”

“How did you know they were setting this up?”

“Call it an educated guess.”

I sighed. “We just went through this. I’m not one of your internal tensions. Did you break their comms?”

Valint nodded. “Yes. We did. You’d think that, being so good with numbers, they’d be better at creating unbreakable encryption.”

That left me frowning in thought. “Maybe that was deliberate on their part.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back on Earth, during World War II—”

“Before you start lecturing me on twentieth century Earthly history, grandson of mine, remember that I was around for all of it,” she cut in, her eyes flashing. “Fine. Do you know about the Battle of Midway?”

She hesitated a moment. “I’ve heard of it. Naval battle, right?”

Shrugged. “Anyway, go on.”

“In 1942, the Americans were facing down the Japanese across the Pacific Ocean. They’d partly broken Japanese codes, so they knew a major Japanese offensive was coming in early June. But they didn’t know where. The Japanese only referred to their objective as—I think it was AF. They suspected it was Midway Island, but they weren’t sure. To confirm it, they sent some of their own traffic, which they knew the Japanese were monitoring, saying that the water purification system on Midway had broken down. Shortly thereafter, Japanese radio traffic mentioned that the water purifier on AF had broken down.”

“You’re suggesting that this was a deliberate leak by the Vela?”

“Well, you break their encryption, and then you get a big win because of it. Now, you’re likely to believe anything they say using that encryption, aren’t you?” I asked. “At the cost of two ships and their crews, who were carrying missiles tuned to track your ship’s drive.”

I shrugged. “Why not?

They might have gotten lucky and taken us out

—and you’d still think you’d secretly broken their encryption. Or, alternatively, they might have wondered if you had, and now they know it for sure.”

Valint returned a thoughtful stare, then nodded. “An intricate and subtle plan, if true—also diabolical, but it would fit with the Vela’s reputation as forward-looking and extremely intelligent.”

“And ruthless, if they were prepared to sacrifice two of their own ships for the cause.”

“Which, frankly, is unlike them. The Vela have been around for a long time, but they’ve also been one of the most unobtrusive races in known space. It’s as though they’ve suddenly decided to become all nefarious.”

I thought back to my conversation with my own crew. “Or they’ve been nefarious all along, and they’re just engaged in a really long plan—which means we can add extremely patient to their list of personality traits.” I hesitated a moment, then went on with a question that had been bothering me the whole conversation. “Your tip about this being a waypoint used by the Synergists—was that true?

Or was that just a ruse to get me to come here?” I asked. Valint immediately shook her head. “It was not a ruse. GKU intelligence really did come into possession of information from an Eridani freighter that the Synergists were here. We assume it was only to use this as a waypoint because, well”—she gestured around—“there’s nothing here. None of these rocks are even big enough to hold an atmosphere.”

I believed her, but as she spoke, my curiosity shifted into high gear. I popped open a window and looked at the relative positions of Arminsu-el, the Synergists’ homeworld, and their destination, Outward in the Procyon system. I held up a finger to Valint and turned to the comm. “Netty-P, question. Does the system we’re in now make sense as a waypoint between Arminsu-el and Outward?”

“Not really. Or, it does, but only if you’re planning on taking a pretty indirect route. It would be like driving from New York to Chicago, but

doing it via Louisville, Kentucky. You’ll still get there, it will just take you much longer and you’ll burn a lot more fuel,” she replied. “Thank you, my dear.” I closed the channel and looked back at Valint. “So why the hell were the Synergists here?

Or, more to the point, what connection do they have with the Vela, who were also here?

What do beaded, chanting Space Hippies and cold, calculating number crunchers have in common?”

Valint frowned for a moment. “I have no idea. I’ve never given the Synergists much regard, but I respect what they do.”

“That seems to be a common theme. The Synergists don’t really have any enemies. So why would someone want to harm them?

Or to—”

I sat up. “What?

What is it?” Valint asked. “Or kidnap them.”

Valint’s face hardened. “Stolen persons. Stolen identities?”

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and held it, then let it out. “Evil never really dies, does it?

It just crawls into some dank little hole until it thinks the coast is clear. And then, it comes back. It always comes back.”

9

SOMETIMES, you can work a case for ages, digging at it, poking and prodding it from every angle, and just keep coming up empty of leads or clues every time. And sometimes you can get a solid hit on your very first bit of investigation. We were lucky. It was usually the first, but this time, it was the second. We all listened as Perry presented the lead he’d uncovered less than an hour after I’d briefed the crew. “So, according to Unity intel, via Guild intel, there’s evidence of at least one stolen identity on this planet, Tormaran, in the Nu2 Lupi system,” he finished. “Nu2 Lupi. So it’s a Unity system, which means we have no jurisdiction there,” Torina said, grimacing. “And they’re kinda—I don’t want to say—”

“Dicks,” Icky offered helpfully. I waved grandly. “Succinct and somewhat accurate. Thanks, big girl.”

She beamed. “I’m a diplomat in my hearts.”

“They’re only situationally dickish,” Funboy clarified. Perry’s beak opened in a smile. “Excellent analysis. And no, we don’t have jurisdiction, but Unity intel has offered us a deal—they’ll deputize us into their Space Patrol for the purpose of investigating this lead, and in return, we need to deputize one of their Space Patrol officers so they can follow up on a case of their own that involves some sort of sketchy scheme on Dregs,” Perry replied. I couldn’t resist a smile. “Space Patrol?

Really?”

“Right?

Doesn’t it just conjure up images of action figures and branded lunch boxes and stuff?”

“It does. Name aside, though, I put in a call to Gerhardt right after you told me about this, and the Masters are on board with it. As soon as we arrive at—Tormaran, right?

As soon as we arrive there, I should receive my temporary credentials as a Space Patrol Deputy and we can get on with it.”

“Are we going to have Unity representatives present when we do?”

Funboy asked. Perry shook his head. “No. They were very clear about that. Tormaran is what you might call a gated community—a beautifully Earth-like world with a permanent population of only about a hundred thousand people, all of them filthy rich. Another half-million or so have what you could call vacation homes there.”

Rab muttered something, shaking his head. “A whole habitable planet, all that living space, all those resources, and its home to less than a million rich assholes?”

“Yup. Rich and powerful assholes, at least in the context of Unity politics. The Unity authorities would prefer to keep themselves as detached as possible from what we do there,” Perry replied. I nodded. “Much easier to confront powerful sorts with a faceless bureaucracy than living, breathing officials with, you know, actual names and lives.”

“Well, sure, but if they’re that powerful, they probably have people inside the Unity Space Patrol who’ll get wind of what’s coming and tip them off.”

But Perry shook his head again. “That’s the beautiful part of this. The Unity official approving our Deputization apparently submitted a request to purchase some land on Tormaran to build a vacation home of his own. For reasons we’ll probably never know or care about, he got turned down.”

“A strategically placed official with a grudge, huh?”

“Exactly. Anyway, he’s going to personally send us our credentials only when we arrive at Tormaran so that the dissolute, wealthy goobers can’t be tipped off.”

“Do we know for sure that this stolen ID is one of the Synergists?”

Funboy asked. I opened my mouth to answer, but Icky surprised me by beating me to it. “Does it matter?

’Cause it sure as hell doesn’t to me,” she said, her face hardening into a menacing glare even I found a little unsettling. So, apparently, did Funboy. He simply blinked at Icky and nodded. “I quite agree,” he said, his tone as mild as ever. Which, in its own way, was just as ominous as Icky’s simmering hostility. N2 LUPI COULD HAVE BEEN Sol. Twisting in presented us with a star that was almost my home star’s twin. The planetary system, though, not so much. Dominating the inner system were three enormous rocky planets, between five and ten Earth masses in size. Tormaran was the fourth planet, orbiting in the outer part of the system’s Goldilocks zone. The other big difference was the presence of two other stars, one a white dwarf and a bigger, brighter blue-white beast. They were gravitationally bound to each other, but apparently not to Nu2 Lupi. According to Netty-P, though, the bigger of the two would be as bright in the Tormaran sky as the full Moon was on Earth. Which was all very interesting, but we weren’t here to sightsee. We started a slow, inbound trajectory aimed at a small research station in the system’s outer reaches. Anyone who noticed us would hopefully assume we had nothing to do with Tormaran—at least until my temporary Deputy credentials showed up. Which they did, moments after Perry sent a prearranged message to a Unity comm address. As soon as we had the credentials in hand, we changed course and burned at full power, accelerating hard toward Tormaran. I’D KIND OF EXPECTED that we’d be intercepted, or challenged, or might even provoke a flight of people from the planet who had skeletons in their closet— but it was an uneventful entry. We got illuminated by a traffic control scanner, and that was it. “Too quiet,” I said as we fell into orbit. Just as the star could have been Sol, the planet scrolling past beneath us could have been Earth. The landmasses were wrong, of course. But the mottled green, gray, and brown continents, the expansive azure seas, and the swirls of white cloud superimposed on it all were all pretty much what we’d see orbiting over, say, the Pacific Ocean. “Not much habitation, just lots of empty space. And by lots, I mean there are Russia-sized blobs of complete wilderness down there,” Netty-P

said. “That’s part of the rich-bitch angle to this planet. They’ve managed to get most of it declared as ‘biome preserves’ under Unity law. So even if people wanted to come here, they’d immediately be faced with the optics of unprotecting biomes,” Perry replied. I nodded, actually a little impressed at using blatant manipulation of the law to cynically seize the moral high ground. But I didn’t really care. We weren’t here to deal with Unity’s cultural outrages. “So, Perry, the data from your Unity contact said that the presumed location of the stolen personality was here.” I pointed at a map of the planet. The location in question, a tropical coastal region on the margin of an Australia-sized continent, was just now rising over the arc of the planet’s horizon. “That’s right. It’s actually an aerial community, floating on gravity repulsors. They can move the whole place inland to avoid storms, or up and down the coast for a change of scenery.”

“It’s tough at the top,” Rab said, his tone biting. “Literally,” I agreed. “Okay, Rab, I’m going to leave you up here in the Fafnir with Netty-P, to be our top cover. The rest of us are going to saddle up in the Frankie and go drop in on cloud city down there.”

We headed aft, suiting up and retrieving our weapons. Icky looked sharp in her new b-suit, which we’d finally been able to pick up for her from Anvil Dark. It was the first b-suit designed for a Wu’tzur, and having her wear it made me feel a lot better. On at least a couple of occasions, she’d taken serious wounds that a b-suit would probably have prevented. She had only one problem with it. Or, rather, two—one for each of her legs. The b-suit, by definition, protected her legs. And that meant they were pants. “Looks good on you, big girl,” I said, as we started clambering into the Frankie. She had her hammer propped on her shoulder, an auto gun slung on her back, and a slug pistol on her hip. This personal arsenal, combined with her hard scowl, just made her all the more intimidating. “My butt itches. And I can’t scratch it,” she growled. “Yeah, but that’ll save you getting shot in it.”

“Not sure it’s worth it.”

We sealed up, undocked, and descended on a trajectory that would take us straight to the cloud city, as Perry called it, although its actual name translated roughly to Bucolic Skies. Again, I braced myself for challenges, sudden illumination by fire-control scanners, target locks, or even warning shots. Again, though, we encountered nothing but silence. I wheeled the Frankie in a 360 around the floating town. “They really needed to pick a theme and stick with it,” Torina said. I nodded. There were twelve distinct platforms, each presumably a palatial residence. But two were domed over, two resembled pastoral country estates, one could have been a wing of Versailles Palace, and another reminded me of a Malibu beach house perched on stilts over the Pacific shore—

In other words, it was a garish mishmash of wildly different architectural styles. It was also completely silent. Nowhere did we see a person, a pet, or any sign of life that wasn’t flora. “Van, we’re being interrogated by local traffic control AIs. They’re all saying much the same thing—get lost,” Netty-P said. “Just send them those credentials.”

“I have. And it’s been shutting them up. Mostly, anyway. They’re still going on about private property, having the necessary authorization and warrants to undertake searches, blah, blah.”

“It’s almost like their AIs are programmed to deal with sudden arrivals by the authorities,” Torina said. “Probably comes preinstalled into the AI,” Perry replied. I’d already tried broadcasting comm messages—first, the “good cop”

version, requesting permission to land. When that went unanswered, I switched to “bad cop,” declaring that we were going to land anyway. Neither of those got a response, either. “Nobody’s home. Great. I put on pants for nothing,” Icky grumped. “Oh, we’re not done yet. If no one’s home, then there must be a reason for it. I think it’s incumbent on us to make sure that reason isn’t that everybody’s, you know, dead,” I said, banking the Frankie and aiming for the nearest landing pad. As I flared and settled the ship onto her landing pads, I glanced back. “Okay, everyone, get yourselves ready. We’re either going to find ourselves facing no one, a bunch of entitled rich brats, or bodies.”

“I would prefer that it be the latter,” Funboy said, unstrapping. “You’d be okay with a bunch of bodies?”

“At least they wouldn’t be entitled.”

IT WASN’T THE SECOND, or the third. We investigated four of the platforms and found them all unoccupied. Perry wheeled overhead, scanning the others, but came to the same conclusion. I gathered everyone together again at the Frankie. “So no one’s home, but the place obviously hasn’t been abandoned or anything like that. They must have all gone somewhere.”

“Well, they aren’t camping out on the beach or surfing down below on the surface. While I was above, I scanned up and down the coastline as far as I could see, and there really are no beaches—just rocks, lots and lots of rocks,” Perry said. “So where the hell would all these people have gone, all at the same time?” Icky asked, scratching at her backside, then glaring. “Damn it.”

I looked around and stopped when my gaze fell on the ocean filling the view to the west, out to the horizon. “Huh. How about sailing?” I activated the comm and called up Rab on the Fafnir, which was in synchronous orbit overhead. “Rab, take a good look out to sea, to the west of our current location. Do you see anything out there?

Ships, boats, floating resorts—”

“Yup. There are enormous boats that would be… pretty much right on your current horizon. Check your data slate.”

I did. The imagery Rab transmitted showed three huge, trimaran-style ships plying their stately way across a glittering blue sea. Perry, in the meantime, had soared back on high and confirmed it. “Yeah, I can see them. They’re right on the horizon. Damn, they’re gorgeous,” Perry said over the comm. I gestured at the Frankie. “Okay, folks. Looks like we’re going to sea.”

“And me without my yachting togs,” Funboy said. “Togs?” I asked, incredulous. Even for him, it was a touch obscure. He managed a laconic shrug. “I’ve been reading about people known as preppies. It seems their migratory breeding grounds are near the water—

places like Martha’s Vineyard and such.”

“I see. And can we expect you to start wearing plaid as you work through this particular interest?”

“I’m considering it,” Funboy answered, then narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Do you think a cashmere sweater can survive armed combat?”

“YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO LAND,” the AI said. I sniffed. “Yeah, I am. This is a lawful investigation, per the Unity law enforcement credentials I just sent to you. So I’m not asking you for permission to land, I’m informing you that I am landing.”

“You are not authorized to—”

“Van, I’ve got three solid signals indicative of stolen identities, probably stuck in some kind of service role. And, might I add, I haven’t had to say that in a long time, and I do not miss it,” Perry said. “Yeah, I hear you there, bird.” I shook my head. “What is it with these people being forced to be glorified butlers, anyway?

Can’t these scumbags flush their own toilets?”

“A good question. Anyway, the three signals are slightly different, suggesting we’re looking at three different races. So we’re not dealing with someone who’s satisfied with just one hideous crime.”

“Three times as many reasons to go all hardcore secret agent on them. Shall we?” Torina asked. “Just be cool. Remember, we’re professionals,” Perry said. He was obviously a little concerned about the taut anger gripping the crew over an old, vile crime turning out to be back in vogue. “Damn it, my butt is itchy, and I can’t scratch it!” Icky snapped. I glanced at Torina. “That’s us. Professionals.”

SEVERAL PEOPLE HAD GATHERED to watch as we settled the Frankie onto a landing pad on the stern of one of the big trimarans. All were dressed in—

some of it was clothing. But I saw a Gajur draped in what looked like waxed paper, a human male who could have just stepped out of a bondage club, a Nesit clad from the waist down in a shimmering veil of light, and a buxom human female festooned in silver chains. As soon as we opened the airlock, an odd, rhythmic pulse throbbed the air. “What the hell is that?” Icky asked as we clambered toward the airlock. “Oonts—oonts—oonts—” Perry replied. “What?”

“They dropped a sick beat, that’s what. A heavy one. Gonna get tranced out by the banger. Gotta rage, shuffle to the trap in the big space and swap some kandi.”

Icky stopped. “Van, the bird’s broken!”

“Hey, it’s all about PLUR,” Perry said. I glanced at him as I passed. “PLUR?”

“Peace, love, unity, respect. You never went to a rave, Van?”

I paused. “Actually, I did. About six months before you came tapping on my kitchen window. In Amsterdam. I think my ears finally stopped ringing a few weeks ago.”

We disembarked on the trimaran’s deck, and sure enough, pulsing waves of sound rolled over us. They erupted from a ramp leading down to the next deck. Peering down that way, I saw darkness punctuated by strobing flashes of light, like a video of a lightning storm played in fast-forward. I caught hints and suggestions of people and movement in the rapid-fire flashes. “Hey!”

I turned to the shout and saw a trio of heavily armored figures striding toward us from the direction of the bow. All carried unholstered sidearms. I stepped forward. “I’m Van Tudor, Peacemaker, duly Deputized by the Unity Space Patrol in order to carry out a lawful investigation,” I said. As I spoke, Torina

raised a data slate with the Unity credentials displayed, including the Warrant we’d been issued by our disgruntled friend in a high place. The lead figure stopped. “Don’t care. Get back on your ship and get the hell out of here. You get one warning.”

I tilted my head at him curiously. “Only one?

What then?

You start shooting?”

The lead figure—I think it was another Gajur, but it was hard to be sure under an almost comical amount of armor—nodded to his partners. They all raised their guns and started forward—

“Enough of this bullshit,” Icky snapped, striding past me and swinging her hammer like Babe Ruth’s angrier cousin. THUNK. Her impact flung one of the armored guards against the railing. He toppled over and vanished over the side of the trimaran and hit the water with a heavy splash. Perry, soaring lazily above the ship, spoke on the comm. “Hey, that armor floats!” He dove, landed, and perched on the drifting figure now falling into the trimaran’s wake. “Look at me, I’m a seabird!”

I pulled The Drop and aimed it into the shocked guard’s face. Funboy stepped around Torina and did the same with his own Swiss Army gun, the one that combined handgun, knife, club and brass knuckles all in one neat package. “Do you feel lucky, punk?” he intoned to the guard he was covering. “What?”

“Just… holster your weapon and put your arms up.”

As I’d suspected, the guards were more a show of force, probably to keep unruly party guests in line, than a credible security force. Faced with b-suited, armed figures—and Icky, swinging a warhammer—the guards folded like wet cardboard. As Torina and Funboy took their weapons, I heard another shout, this time from aft. I turned in time to see a flabby, elderly human man clad in a gold lamé thong and a gauzy robe shuffling toward us, because of course I did. Two ravishingly beautiful women flanked him, both wearing enough that they at least technically didn’t count as naked. “I should get an outfit like that,” Torina said. I glanced at her. “Yes. Yes, you should.”

“Who the hell are you?” the old coot rasped. I repeated my spiel and declaration of credentials. He peered at me, blinking, hunched forward—though whether because of age or the weight of the Mr. T collection of bling hanging around his neck, I wasn’t sure. He blinked a few times at Torina’s data slate, then turned back to me. “Go to hell. Get off my ship.”

“Excuse me, but what part of lawful investigation don’t you—”

“I am the law around here, not those simpering windbag bureaucrats from Unity. So get the hell off my—”

I held up my hand and cut him off. “This planet is a Unity holding?

It benefits from Unity military protection in times of emergency?”

“Yeah, but—"

“Assuming you would ever pay taxes, which I’m sure you don’t because people like you loophole your way out of them, you’d pay them to Unity?”

“That doesn’t—”

“Van, what he’s upset about is the fact that all the kickbacks he gives to Unity officials are supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening,”

Torina said. The man nodded. “Damned right. Now get the hell of my yacht. If you don’t, I’ll take out whatever ship you got in orbit, too.”

I tapped my comm. “Rab, any threats up there?”

“Indeed there are. Netty-P just pointed out we’ve got two class five workboats, both armed, coming our way.”

“Have they lit you up with fire-control scanners?”

“Just now. What do you want me to do?”

The old man glared at me with piggy, bloodshot eyes and a smirk that abruptly flipped a switch. This man and these people were absurd to the point of comedy, but there was nothing funny about them. They were exploitative, narcissistic pieces of shit who were happy to enslave chipped people to run their waste reclamators. They were, in other words, evil. “Destroy them,” I said, staring right into the old man’s face. “Really?”

“Yup. Both of them. Use the accelerator cannon to get the point across.”

“Okay, stand by.”

The old man’s attitude shifted slightly. “You’re really going to destroy those ships?”

“Yup.”

“Wait—”

“One down, Van,” Rab said. “Targeting the second one—”

“Wait!”

“Rab, hold fire and stand by,” I said, then just stared at the old man. He deflated like an old inner tube. “Fine. You mean business, I get it. So, how much?”

“How much?”

“Don’t play dumb. It just wastes our time. I know the deal. How much to make this”—he waved pudgy, ring-spangled, liver-spotted hands—“all go away?”

Torina gave a mirthless chuckle. “Today’s not your lucky day, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“My friend, you’ve just run into your worst nightmare—an honest cop.”

10

WE STARTED down the ramp into the bowels of the rave. Now, I’m no expert in electronic dance music and rave culture—been to a couple, had fun, went home—but this one seemed particularly… acoustic. “Sounds like a diesel mechanic’s belly after Taco Tuesday,” I said. Funboy stopped. “Are you suggesting this is music somehow based on noxious emissions?”

“I kind of am, yeah. Think of sixty wealthy, dissolute aliens all wasted out of their skulls on whatever gets them off. Now, the soundtrack to that is

—”

“Like someone went to Frankenmuth and said to hell with being lactose intolerant,” Perry said, landing beside me. “By the way, Floaty McFloatface out there is a very nice Nesit named Wyxitin, and he’s wondering if someone could, at their convenience—and not to put anyone out, of course

—come and rescue him?”

“He said that?”

“I’m paraphrasing.”

Funboy was looking thoughtful. “A Cheese Curd Symphony. Hmm. A concept that is both fascinating and deeply repugnant.”

I turned back to him. “Excuse me?

Really?”

“Cheese is very good, Van. For the right type and quantity, I’d be prepared to loosen my usual standards.”

Icky leaned toward me. “Is he seriously talking about turning people’s, uh, toots… into music?”

“Art comes in many forms, Icky,” Funboy said. “And, did you not suggest selling your own hair to that earnest young man who said he was making a—correct me if I’m wrong— muppet suit for spicy weekends?”

Icky sniffed. “It was four hundred human dollars.”

Funboy nodded gravely. “We all have our price.”

I just shook my head and carried on. Stepping into the club was like stepping into a working steel mill, if all the steelworkers were dressed in variations on plastic wrap, assless leather chaps, and Astroturf. I scowled. First things first, the party had to end. I paused, thinking that I was turning into a grumpy neighbor, but then I focused on the crimes that were being committed. There was nothing charming or quirky about human suffering. I squared my shoulders and shouted, “Icky, can you shut that racket down?”

“What?”

“I said, can you shut that racket down—”

She reached out, grabbed a handful of cables protruding from the back of a mixer console festooned with whirling, 3D holo-widgets, and yanked. The sound cut abruptly out, catching several people screaming conversations at the tops of their lungs. They went quiet as the lights came up. I flashed her a smirk. “Glad I put my best engineer on that complex, intricate task.”

“First rule of engineering—it’s way easier to break something than it is to fix it.”

I turned back to—well, you really couldn’t call it a party anymore. Now, it was just a bunch of people in stupid outfits standing around, looking deeply uncomfortable and casting furtive glances at one another. The place was as humid as a rainforest and—the smells. Oh, my, the smells. The place was a simmering stew of pheromone-laced body odors, cloying perfume, acrid smoke, and the tang of miscellaneous mind-altering substances. “What the hell, man?” a girl—the one I’d seen earlier dressed in nothing but silver chains and body paint—exclaimed. “‘What the hell’ is that this is a lawful joint investigation by the Peacemaker Guild and Unity Space Patrol into the trafficking of stolen personalities.” I heard a dozen intakes of breath that were about to expel in a torrent of protests, but I headed them off. “And before anyone decides to get shitty about it, know that that constitutes a Crime Against Order, which are the most serious crimes on the books in known space or Unity. These are capital offenses, folks, and I am given the broadest latitude to decide what constitutes interfering in our investigation. So, with that in mind, who wants to complain?”

Silence. “Thought so.” I turned to Perry. “Can you locate our missing people?”

“Yup. There’s one right here, in fact,” he said, pecking at a console in the DJ booth that controlled a series of complex lights projected onto sails flapping in front of fans. “They’ve got them working as part of their light show.”

I spun on the crowd. I guessed the look on my face was not a happy one because several recoiled, and a couple gasped. “I want to know where every one of these stolen identities is,” I said, making sure to meet gaze after gaze. None lasted more than a second or two before dropping to the deck. The old man who apparently owned the trimaran decided to puff up his doughy man boobs and speak. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. We’re just having some fun—"

I drew and aimed The Drop at his face. “What’s your name?”

He gaped, his mouth opening, closing, then opening again. “I have an identity,” Funboy said, holding up a data slate. “This individual has a dossier in Guild records.”

I kept The Drop leveled and glanced at Funboy’s slate. “Your name is—

Fab?

Glitzy Fab?

What kind of a stupid name is that?”

“I—you—listen—!”

I narrowed my eyes. “Oh. And according to our intel, you’re behind a whole bunch of criminal enterprises. Emphasis on behind, because you’re obviously not brave enough to actually do any dirty work of your own, you miserable shithead.”

I turned back to him, sighted down The Drop, and pushed the muzzle forward until it was almost touching his mouth, before flicking the safety off. Even his fake tan couldn’t conceal his sudden deathly pallor. Acrid fear flared in his piggy eyes, while his mouth opened and closed like a stranded fish. The Drop has that effect on people. I gave the room my most frigid smile, and it had the intended result. “Well, Mister Fab, welcome to the pointy end, where the dirty work happens. You are officially in the line of fire. And, based on this dossier we have on you, me pulling this trigger would be doing the whole universe a favor.”

Torina stepped up beside me, turned her head away from Fab, and whispered, “Before you dispense any justice—and yes, he deserves it, they all do—let’s maybe find the other two missing people?”

I held my aim. I’d admit it, there was a part of me that wanted to pull that trigger. It was the part that had lived out the violent death of a man through one of the identity thieves’ diabolical machines. The part that said goodbye to Rolis, who’d been chipped and tried his best to make peace with it, right up until he died to save my ship and crew. The part that had picked his way through massed graves, that had gazed on the horror of Dohlennz’s braiding, that had been forced to experience the relentless horror of all of these cruel, selfish, evil assholes. And Fab knew it. He knew he was looking into the eyes of a man who might kill him sometime in the next few heartbeats. And all he could do was wait for it to happen. So I let him. And then I lowered The Drop and flicked the safety back on. “You know what, Fab?

You’re not even worth the bullet.”

I turned to his guests, who’d watched the man they’d all so admired practically piss himself at the end of my gun. “Now, I’m going to ask you again. Where are the other stolen identities aboard this ship?

Someone here knows, and this will not end until they tell me.”

A Fren-Okun decked out like Elton John in Tommy licked his lips. “That one—” He pointed limply at the light console. “It’s the only one we—”

WHAM. Icky’s hammer actually punched a hole into the wall less than a meter from the Fren’s head. She loomed in. “That’s the only free lie you get. The next time someone spouts bullshit”—she lifted her hammer and stared over it at the crowd—“this does that”—she pointed at the wall—“to them.”

The situation had obviously ratcheted up the anger for all of us. Funboy turned to the crowd and spoke in a low, flat tone. “And while Icky is delivering mighty blows of her hammer to stamp out falsehoods, rest assured, I will make use of my detailed knowledge of the

anatomy of every species present in this room to make sure she does it in the most painful way possible.”

I scanned the crowd. “So, for the third and last time, where are the stolen identities?”

The woman I’d noticed earlier, the willowy one decked out in body paint and silver chains, stepped forward. “I can show you.”

A pudgy human male sheened with sweat and smears of his own body paint grabbed at her. “Shut up—”

“Oh, you shut your hole, Kinnit.” The woman smiled. “Damn, I’ve been wanting to say that for days.”

As soon as she said it, I recognized her. Under the body paint and a little cosmetic surgery was a face I knew. “Gabriella?”

She sighed. “Yes, and now my cover’s blown. It took me weeks to get in here. We’ve known for a while that this happy little gang of scumbags has been dealing in chipped people.”

The man apparently named Kinnit goggled at her. “Wait—you’re not really a professional erotic acrobat?”

Torina giggled. Gabriella shot her a look. “Everyone take note—Kinnit is a smart one, capable of quick conclusions when he’s not staring at my naked ass.” She flicked a glance of disgust at him, and Kinnit looked…

smaller. “To explain it in terms you can grasp, you mouth-breathing tool, no. Erotic acrobatics is just a hobby. When I’m not spying, that is.”

“Unless you are a nude acrobat in your heart, it’s merely a dalliance,”

Funboy stated. I shot him a look. “A… dalliance?

And you know this because?”

He managed to shrug. “I’ve said too much.”

Icky snorted. “I’ll say. Keep your pants on, fuzzy.”

“One could order you to do the same,” Funboy countered. I raised a finger. “Quick question for Gabriella. How exactly does this hobby work, because—”

Torina pointedly cleared her throat. Gabriella nodded to her. “You’re married, Tudor.”

“It was for professional purposes, dear. I’m merely curious about the, ah, wider universe.”

Torina made a disapproving sound. “First time I’ve heard boobs called the universe.”

“Proving that you don’t grasp their importance in the male hierarchy of stuff.” I clapped my hands and grinned. “Now then. Let’s resume our cleansing of this facility, shall we?”

While Funboy and Icky kept Fab and his guests menaced into submission, Torina, Perry, Gabriella and I walked halfway back up the ramp to the main deck. The fresh tang of maritime breeze was a welcome balm after the dank stank of the lower deck. “You know, the Guild sucks at coordinating and deconflicting its operations,” I said. “Gerhardt knew I was coming here. Why the hell didn’t he tell me you’d be here, too?”

“Because he doesn’t know. My point of entry into this shitshow was actually on Dregs. The last check-in I could make only had me coming to Unity territory. At the time, though, I didn’t know where. And it’s not as though I can just excuse myself to come back to Anvil Dark from aboard this boat, now is it?”

“Do you know where the chipped people are?” Torina asked. “Some of them. I’ve been getting hints that there are more around somewhere, though, either aboard one of these ships”—she gestured around, meaning the three trimarans—“or back on Fab’s estate.”

I looked at Perry, who shook his head. “I’m getting three different signals, that’s it. The one stuck in the light show, and I can probably track down the other two. But I’m not getting any signals otherwise.”

I turned back to Gabriella. “Do you have any idea where these other identities might be?”

“Probably the next deck down. Golden Thong over there doesn’t let anyone go below this one. Oh, and if you’re going there, you’ll want to keep an eye out for anything related to the other big reason I’m here,” she replied. “Which is?”

“Fab deals in more than just chipped people. He deals in the most valuable thing there is, more valuable than anything physical.”

“Information.”

“And secrets. Lots of secrets. And you’re not going to believe his source.”

“Cue buildup of dramatic music,” Perry put in. I sighed. “Can we move this along—?”

“You know Retta, the Thurk?”

I stared for a moment, then sagged a little. “Oh, no. Not our favorite little escargot—”

Gabriella held up a hand. “No, not her. Her sister.”

“Her… sister?”

“Or… litter mate, spawn partner, clutch compatriot—I don’t know what the hell the Thurk call their siblings. Sister’s close enough.”

“Her… sister… is a dealer in illicit information?” Torina asked. “I’d point out that Retta is technically a dealer in illicit information as well,” Perry said. I nodded. “Yes, but as far as we know, she traffics it to the good guys. So I guess her sister—”

Gabriella nodded back. “She traffics it to the bad guys. The very bad guys.”

WE FOUND the other two chipped people. One was being used to run the device that flapped the sails upon which the first one we’d found was projecting a light show. The other was involved in moving the sun sails on the top deck that moved with the system’s star to keep parts of the ship in shade. I felt my jaw clenching harder each time I realized a sentient person

—and a murder victim, at that—was being used to do something that I could have done with a few lines of code. Fab made another attempt to talk to me when I stalked back down into the lower decks, but I just blew past him. Funboy, though, did not. He stopped and stared up at the fat, old criminal. “You disgust me. And I am not easily disgusted.”

I heard Icky draw a breath, but she held it. Torina huffed, choking back a laugh. Perry, though—well, he was Perry. “He’s right, you know. Funboy here revels in filth, practically rolls in the muck like a pig in a pigsty. It’s truly repulsive. Isn’t that right, Funboy?”

Funboy gave Perry a solemn look. “Yes, it is. I am indeed a lover of uncleanliness.”

We pushed on. The door leading to the next deck down was sealed with a security maglock keyed to biometrics. I could have browbeat Fab until he gave us the code to override it, but I didn’t have the patience or inclination. Instead, I looked to Icky. “Want to do your engineering thing again?”

“You mean bust down the door?”

“I mean bust it down.”

“Sweet!” She hefted her hammer and laid into the door, which shivered under the blows. It took her a half dozen swings, but this wasn’t a blast cover—it was just an ordinary, albeit fairly sturdy panel probably meant to act as a firebreak. The door finally caved in with a hail of splinters, and we pushed through. I walked down the stairs, into—

“Oh—okay, red alert. I repeat, red alert, but not for us. For Funboy,” I said. He called down from the top of the stairs. “Why?

And what is that smell?”

I nudged a trapeze-like sling hanging from the overheads with the muzzle of The Drop. The floor was nothing but mattresses. There were mirrors all around, and above, as well as velvet ropes, fur-covered manacles, racks of oils and lotions and… lubricating agents—

And other implements in an array of colors. And sizes. And judging by the scents I was getting hammered by, flavors, too. “This is one time that I really regret taking medieval history classes,” I murmured. Perry tapped an object with his wingtip. “Is that—boss, is that—”

“A Pear of Anguish, but apparently, for some reason, grape flavored?

Yes, bird. Yes, it is.” I turned and called back to Funboy. “Believe me when I say you don’t want to know.”

“Don’t want to know what?” Funboy asked. “Any. Of this. Ever.”

Icky turned a slow circle. “What the hell is all this?”

I looked at Torina and Gabriella, who both smiled. “Yeah, Van, what the hell is all this?” Gabriella asked. “Don’t look at me, I was raised Methodist. And Midwestern, I might add. I specialized in being nice and bringing casseroles, not, um—” I waved vaguely at the scene. “ Let’s just find what we came looking for and”—I

glanced down, then hastily stepped away from a large box with a variety of padded circular holes opening into it—“get the hell out of here before I feel compelled to wash my hands. Three times.”

“I believe that I will remain up on this deck to keep an eye on the crowd,” Funboy called down. “And, while it occurs to me, I expect each of you to thoroughly decontaminate yourselves when we return to the ship. Three times.”

WE DIDN’T FIND a chipped person. We found nineteen of them. They were installed in various systems and bots, whose purposes I didn’t really want to know. Even more troubling was the fact that Perry could only detect them when he was within a few meters of them. Prior to this, the ID chips had given off a unique signal that, for complex engineering and biomechanical reasons, wasn’t easy to suppress. It looked, however, as though someone had finally cracked the problem. I crossed my arms and cursed. “You know, I was kind of hoping we’d put this whole identity-theft thing behind us. But it’s back, and now it’s worse.”

“What I don’t get is why they seem to be targeting the Synergists specifically. I mean, nice people and all, but flaky and not exactly given to thriving in rigidly structured settings. They sing and they dance and they talk to plants and things—whatever it is they do—but how would that make them valuable?”

“Ultimately, for the same reason they chip anyone else. Money.”

Torina turned away from a set of padded manacles with a thoughtful look. I grimaced at her. “No, we are not getting a set of those.”

She blinked. “What?

Oh—no, it’s not that.” She glanced back at the manacles. “Although—”

“No.”

She turned back with a mischievous smile but quickly turned serious. “Maybe they’re after the Synergists for another reason, aside from money. Remember how they sang and danced and did their, let’s face it, wacky routine on Helso?

The one intended to make the plants grow more quickly and be healthier?

And it worked?”

I started a slow nod as she spoke, seeing where she was going. “Many people believe the Synergists have some sort of latent psi ability.”

“Which makes them a rare instance of it, and the only racial one we know about.”

“I still find all that psi stuff pretty hard to believe,” Gabriella said. Funboy had been listening in on the comm. “Like when you discovered I can dance?

And seduce Canadian women?”

Gabriella pulled a face. “Yes. That hard to believe.”

Perry landed on a—device, a contraption of rings and poles and brackets, and I had no desire to know what it did—beside me. “Boss, I’ve managed to connect to the identity controlling the sun sails on the top deck. I had to do some fiddling to make it work, but they’re on the line if you’re interested.”

I gave him an uneasy look. “What am I going to be talking to?

Are they… lucid?”

“Oh, yeah. Lucid and not in the mood for bullshit.”

“Okay. Put me through.”

“You’re live, boss.”

“Hello?

I’m Van Tudor, a Peacemaker, and—”

“I know who you are. I heard of you when I was—not this. Back when I was actually alive, I guess.”

“Oh. Okay. And you are—?”

“Octis. I’m—or, I was a Huwarde.”

“Really. I’m actually part Huwarde, although it seems to have not made much difference. I seem to be human in every noticeable way. Anyway, my grandmother is a Huwarde named Valint. She married my grandfather, Mark Tudor.”

Silence for a moment. “Valint. Yes, I know her,” Octis finally replied. “This is where it turns out Van’s talking to his long-lost brother,”

Gabriella muttered. I shot her a glare, but Octis actually laughed. “No, I am not your brother. But I did know Valint, as well as your cousin.”

“My cousin—wait, you mean Carter?

Carter Yost?”

“That’s right. In fact, he’s actually the reason I know Valint.”

“How does that work?” I asked. “The short version is that I owed him some money for a ship deal and, well, needed some more time to come up with it. He wanted it immediately, though, so I ran. I assume he must have spoken to Valint, because I suddenly found her chasing me. Us both being Huwarde didn’t dissuade her. If anything, it only made her more determined to find me. Anyway, she ended up chasing me into the arms of—”

“The scumbag chip merchants who turned your body into puree and dumped you here,” Torina put in. “No, I wish. I did this to myself. I needed money to get Valint off my back. So, I woke up—”

“As a glorified window shade?” Perry said. “Yes.” A moment of silence. “It meant three months of psychosis before I could stop screaming. I’m—I’m exhausted, Tudor. In ways you can’t imagine.”

Again, silence. This time, I was the one left momentarily speechless. I looked at Torina and Gabriella and, since they wore their own expressions of horrified fascination, knew they were thinking exactly the same thing as I was. “Octis—wait. Let’s back up here. Are you saying that you voluntarily agreed to be chipped?

In exchange for money?”

“That’s right.”

I looked at Perry. He returned a steady amber stare. “If you’re wondering about the legal ramifications of that, I have no idea. There are no laws dealing with temporary suicide.”

I shook my head. Temporary suicide. Holy shit. Just when I thought I was getting close to the bottom of the festering heap of criminal horror that was chipped ID theft, a new chasm had suddenly gaped open. Was agreeing to be chipped legal?

Was it legal to offer the opportunity for it?

What about the ethical, moral—hell, even the spiritual ramifications—?

I shook my head. “Okay. Let’s just make a note to be utterly appalled by all that later, and focus for now on the present.”

“Well, here in the present, Peacemaker, I can tell you that I actually got something out of all of this,” Octis said. “What’s that?”

“These assholes thought they were above the law. They were so sure they’d paid off, extorted, and blackmailed all the right people into their

pockets. They obviously never thought someone like you would drop out of the sky. So they talked—a lot—for the three years I’ve been here. And as depraved as these idiots like Fab are, they’re just in this for the jollies, to show off their power. But the people they trade with, from toward the galactic core—those are the ones to avoid.”

“Who are they?” I asked. “There’s more than one group of them. The only one I know anything about, though, are the Vela. And before you put me back in a body, you have to promise me that no matter what, I’ll be hidden from them.”

Boss, I’m monitoring the way this guy’s chip is processing data, Perry said in my ear bug. Stress is expressed by a particular type of computational signature. And it spiked to the stars when he mentioned the Vela. They scare the shit out of him. “I’ll go one better than that, Octis,” I said. “Not only will you be safe from them, but the Vela also just got some terrible news, although they don’t know it yet.”

“Which is?” Octis asked. “Until now, I’ve been interested in the Vela. Now, I’m fascinated by them.”

Ominous silence fell. For a moment, until Icky suddenly gestured around with all four hands. “Wait a minute. This is all sex stuff, isn’t it?”

11

WE LEFT Unity territory with Gabriella and the stolen IDs, including Octis, and without incident otherwise. On the way, Gabriella continued chasing leads she’d picked up during the apparently unending party that was Glitzy Fab’s retirement. Meanwhile, I referred the whole matter to Unity authorities, so they could deal with Fab as they saw fit. I suspected that the consequences would consist of the square root of nothing, but Perry wasn’t so sure. “I overheard a few conversations among the crowd of partygoers because, you know, I was eavesdropping. Seems that Fab is where he is mainly by virtue of reputation from his days when he wasn’t a fat, old version of Caligula. He was quite the cunning piece of intimidating shit in his heyday. Anyway, we’ve kind of blown a hole in his cred, and the scuzzy vultures are already starting to circle.”

Torina sniffed and shrugged. “Looks good on him. Hopefully, he’ll end up, ah, wearing—right, concrete overshoes—and—sleeping with the fishes,” she said, hesitating every couple words. I looked from her to Perry, grasping what was happening in a flash. “Are you feeding her those lines in her ear bug?”

“Just trying to expand her understanding of Earthly culture.”

“Not that I disagree. I doubt that the Unity legal system—”

“Spaaaaace Patrol!” Perry put in. “Right. Space Patrol. I doubt that they’re going to be able to touch him. But if he goes down to one of his sleazy competitors, I’ll take it.”

WE SET a course for Anvil Dark. Nineteen stolen personalities entailed a lot of work. Simply connecting to them and determining which ones were even still sane enough to talk rationally was going to be a monumental task. We assumed that most, if not all of them, were Synergists, but we didn’t know that for sure. Gerhardt had already called in additional expertise to help the Guild’s tech shop deal with it, so the poor bastards would be in good hands, at least. About halfway through the flight, Funboy came to my cabin, where Perry and I were getting caught up on a mountain of bureaucracy—

basically, all of the forms and things I should have done before crossing into Unity territory as a Peacemaker. He found me in a foul mood, but I did my best not to growl. I stabbed a finger at the display on my terminal. “They’ve got me filling out forms that are forcing me to pretend we haven’t even started for Unity territory yet. It’s like the shittiest time-travel story ever—going back in time to do paperwork!”

“If I have come at a bad time—”

“No, no. There’s no good time for this sort of bullshit,” I said, waving a hand at the terminal. “Anyway, what’s on your mind?”

“I’ve been communicating with Essie. I’d intended to determine if he had encountered anything to indicate a resurgent ID theft ring in known space. In particular, I’m curious as to whether it is an operation focused solely on the Synergists, or if they’re just part of a larger operation.”

“Good idea. And?”

“And, he cannot point to any particular information of substance. Certainly, there are hints here and there, but in isolation they mean little. Nor are they obviously connected. However, he did have some interesting information about the Vela that recently came into his possession.”

That made me sit up. “He also told me that before I began working with him, he had dealings with Retta’s sister, the Thurk named Atsuu.”

“Gesundheit,” Perry said. We both looked at him. “Yeah, I’m still workshopping that one.”

“While you’re doing that, how about also pulling whatever information the Guild has about this Atsuu?”

“I just did. And it’s not much. Essie seems to be one of several undercover Guild operatives who have worked with Atsuu. For operational security reasons, very little information has been recorded about her. Or, if it has, it’s in databases I can’t access—need to know, and all that.”

I turned back to Funboy. “Would you be able to access them?”

“I’m afraid that my current role as a Peacemaker Auxiliary, no longer employed in the undercover service, has finally caught up to me. My access to those archives has been revoked.”

I sighed and drummed my fingers on my desk. “I’ve got to get Gerhardt to give us some level of access to that stuff.”

“You are his Justiciar,” Perry said. “Yeah. Plus, you mentioned need-to-know. Well, we need to know.”

Back to Funboy. “So what about the Vela?”

“And is there some connection between them and Atsuu?” Perry asked. Funboy nodded sagely. “It would seem so. The Vela have, it would seem, undergone some sort of recent, internal schism. Essie said that a name, Windribbon, has come up several times. Apparently, a faction of Vela have begun coalescing around whoever that is.”

I glanced at Perry, who shrugged his wings. “Sorry, the only reference to windribbon I can find has something to do with a seasonal festival on Faalax. And before you ask, no, I can’t find any meaningful connection between the Vela and Faalax.”

I nodded. The Vela had a reputation as being supremely rational and analytical. Faalax was a planet noted for its artistic endeavors and exports, like spectacular tapestries and pottery. It was hard to see how they might be linked. “So what about this Windribbon faction, then?

What makes them a faction to begin with?” I asked Funboy. “The Vela have been famously neutral throughout their tenure in known space, going back three centuries. This faction has, for reasons unclear, chosen to adopt a more activist stance. It seems to have an agenda, part of which includes eliminating you—and by you, I mean us.”

“They’ve got to be implicated in this ID theft thing, then. Why else would they see value in coming after us specifically?”

“Oh, I don’t know, boss,” Perry said. “Maybe they’re involved with the Equal Grasp, who you’re blocking from Earth. Or the Sorcerers, who you

helped destroy. Or Calamity, whose attempt to destroy the Schegith you helped thwart. Crazy, right?

So… mysterious.”

“Or the Fade and the Salt Thieves, both of whose virtual destruction you were involved in. Or the Jackals, from whom you helped protect Reverie,”

Funboy said. Perry resumed. “Or the Stillness, another criminal outfit whose plans you’ve foiled. Or—”

“Okay, I get it, guys. We’ve got lots of enemies. Fine. What about the connection between Windribbon and Atsuu?”

“That is more… complicated. Atsuu apparently has a reputation for being utterly amoral, a perfect mercenary. She will work with anyone, if the price is right. However, that apparently does not extend to the Windribbon faction of the Vela. Again, for reasons unclear, she refuses to have anything to do with them.”

We batted around these new facts for a bit but couldn’t come up with anything more than conjecture and hunches. I asked Perry and Funboy both to keep looking for opportunities to dig deeper, then turned my attention back to the paperwork. After all, if I didn’t properly fill out form 897-A/7-B, then my mission to retrieve the stolen IDs from Fab might never get authorized. WE ARRIVED at Anvil Dark to find the sleek menace of the Righteous Fury on-station, parked a few klicks away. Gerhardt sent a message to meet him aboard her, so I took the Frankie, with Perry, to do that. Torina and the others flew the Fafnir into a maintenance hangar so Icky and Rab could finish a few incomplete maintenance tasks. Funboy was going to keep trying to run down leads regarding Atsuu, the Vela, and the mysterious Windribbon. One of the Fury’ s junior officers, a young Lieutenant, greeted us when we arrived. “Right this way, Peacemaker Tudor,” she said. “And might I say, it’s a great honor to meet you. I’ve been following your career very closely.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. I want to become a Peacemaker myself. And I think, well, if I’m going to do that, I might as well learn from the best!” she said, smiling brightly at me as we walked. She’s your number one fan!

Perry said. “Just doing my job, Lieutenant—uh—”

“Juni,” she said. “Lieutenant Juni. Please, you can call me Tammi.”

“Alright—Tammi. In that case, you can call me Van.”

She actually missed a step. “I can?

Oh—I never thought I’d get to know you on a first-name basis!”

You know, now that I look at her, she does kinda resemble Kathy Bates, doesn’t she?

“Hey, Tammi, I was wondering, does this ship have a disposal facility for AIs that are malfunctioning?

Or just a, you know, pain in the ass?”

“I—uh—” She blinked over her cheery smile. “I’m not sure. But I’ll definitely find out. You can count on me—Van!”

I’ll bet she’s got a little shrine to you in her bedroom—

“Oh, sincere apologies, Perry. I didn’t see you there when I kicked out my foot.”

The eagerly chipper Lieutenant Juni offered me an even more chipper grin and an actual salute when we reached the Fury’ s planning room, where Gerhardt was waiting. Then she strode off, glancing back and waving. Actually, she did look a little like Kathy Bates. Gerhardt was alone in the room with a man I didn’t recognize—and would probably forget the moment I turned away from him. He was absolutely the blandest, most unremarkable person I’d ever met. Perry obviously noticed it, too. You know how there’s got to be someone in the very middle of the bell curve when it comes to things like personality, shoe size, and so on?

The literally ‘normal’ person?

This is him. Meet Mr. Average-In-Every-Way. “Tudor, this is Faron White. He’s a representative from the Equal Grasp.” Gerhardt said it while I was shaking the guy’s hand. I tried not to tense or suddenly pull away, but White apparently noticed the glimmer of my reaction that leaked through. “I understand, Mr. Tudor, that you’ve been speaking to our representative on Earth, Mr. Forester,” he said. His voice was the spoken equivalent of white noise. I frankly wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been genetically engineered to be as uninteresting as possible. “I did, yes. I met him several weeks ago. He extended me a generous offer to assist your group.”

“Which you still have neither accepted nor rejected.”

I smiled. “No, I haven’t, have I?”

White flicked a smile on, then off again. “There is obviously still a gulf of distrust between you and our organization.”

“Really?

That’s your conclusion?

Maybe it’s because that six million bond bounty you folks put on me and my crew is—”

“Rescinded. It was a mistake for it to have been offered in the first place. I apologize for that,” he said. “Uh-huh. And if I say no to Forester’s offer, then—”

“Then nothing. It remains rescinded. Our management team has…

undergone some changes and no longer wishes to do business that way, Van. May I call you Van?”

“Well, my friends call me Van, so—no, you may not. Peacemaker Tudor will be fine.”

Again, smile on, smile off. “I understand—Peacemaker Tudor. And I understand your position, as well. I, too, have a vested interest in seeing Earth treated fairly, since it’s my homeworld as well.”

“Really. Where are you from?”

“Dalton, Georgia.”

“Huh, the floor-covering capital of the United States,” Perry said, then added in my ear bug, So he comes from the same place as carpets and vinyl flooring. Why am I not surprised?

“I lived in Atlanta for several years. I’ve been through Dalton a few times, driving to and from Iowa. Nice town. Very neighborly. Tell me, are you neighborly, Mr. Dalton?”

I saw Gerhardt raise his eyebrows, but he didn’t intervene. He seemed content to let me run the show, at least for the moment. I also finally saw a genuine emotion flicker across White’s face—annoyance. “I’m not sure, Peacemaker. You’d have to ask my neighbors that. However, I’m quite prepared to be neighborly in the context of your known space.”

“Mr. White here has been named by the Equal Grasp as their official representative to known space at large,” Gerhardt put in. “I perform a similar role to that of Mr. Forester. However, while he deals with matters on Earth, my focus is off-world, with the wider galactic

community,” White said, then smiled. This time, he kept it powered up. “A friendly face, as it were.”

We sat, and White launched into a graphics-supported discussion about the Equal Grasp’s proposed plans for Earth. They wanted to set up so-called Innovation Centers in major cities, as well as areas of Earth that possessed certain resources of interest. They also wanted to establish what they called a Bridge Brigade, intended to identify and nurture talent that might be profitably employed off-world. He droned on in a way that brought me right back to interminable slide presentations at conferences and symposiums I’d attended. They’d all blurred together in my mind, and this one would have joined them if it weren’t such an appalling message. When he was done, I turned to Gerhardt. “Master Gerhardt, how soon can we muster a fleet action against anyone and everyone associated with this blatant attempt to plunder my home?”

White frowned. “These are just first steps, building bridges that will benefit—”

“You,” I cut in. “This will benefit you. It will allow you to pull not just mineral and other resources away from Earth, but human ones, too. Your Bridge Brigade sounds like the perfect way of stripping talent off the planet.”

“Earth will benefit as well, I can assure you—”

“Really?

How?

Your presentation was long on what the Equal Grasp intends to do, its objectives and how it intends to achieve them. But it was kinda thin on what Earth gets out of it. And we’ve seen this game before. You’re familiar with the Raj, the rule of the British Crown in India, I assume?

That was much the same at this—lots of emphasis on what the Brits got out of it, but the people of the Subcontinent?

Not so much.”

White narrowed his eyes on me. I could see him switching mental gears. “Now, Peacemaker Tudor, you see why we would like you to be part of this. We need a fierce advocate for the interests of Earth. And we need it soon, because this situation is evolving even as we speak.”

I stared back, then decided to try shifting into a different mental gear of my own. “Okay, yeah, I admit it—the genie’s out of the bottle now. So you want a fierce advocate?

Fine. Before you remove a single pebble from Earth, you implement a period of informing the people there to the point where they can make informed decisions about all of this. And, in the

process, you prove the value that they’d obtain from a—a friendship with the Equal Grasp.”

White’s frown deepened a notch. “And how would we prove that?”

“Simple. You begin by sharing—free of charge, mind you—medical knowledge and tech that can help my people. You help to eradicate some of the things that needlessly cost people their lives every year—malaria, say. Or cancer treatments that don’t involve bombarding people with radiation and pumping them full of poisons.”

“We… are not very deeply involved in the medical field. Our resources to do that would be very limited.”

Perry spoke up. “You know, I smell a partnership in the making. Maybe we should call in some favors from Pont Alus Kyr.”

I nodded to him. “Excellent idea, Perry. They provide the expertise—

and Mr. White’s organization pays for it.”

Gerhardt actually smiled. “Well, there we go, we have a consensus, don’t we. I’m rather proud of you, Tudor—you as well, Perry.”

He turned his smile on White, who was still looking irked. I presumed it was because we’d maneuvered him and his employers into a position they’d never contemplated. Gerhardt’s smile widened. “Building bridges from day one, we are.”

WE REJOINED the crew on Anvil Dark to plot our next move. Since the ID

theft ring had either resurfaced, or had begun again under new management, I wanted to start with that. There was nothing, to me, more important than stopping people from being exploited by those with the means to do so. And there was nothing more exploitive than turning someone into software and trapping them in a device. It was the most complete, and most vile, form of enslavement I could imagine. But things took an unexpected turn, as they often do. Gabriella had managed to get a break on one of her party leads. It was a convoluted tale that ultimately tied itself back to Atsuu, Retta’s evil twin. More importantly, it also tied itself to Earth. “Van, what do you know about gadolinium?” Gabriella asked, stepping aboard the Fafnir. She’d ditched the silver chains and body-paint outfit in favor of a b-suit, but she still sported a frizzy spray of platinum blonde hair and facial tattoos. It made her look like a character from a cyberpunk story. “Gadolinium. Um—sounds vaguely familiar. Something Roman?”

“No.”

“Some one Roman.”

“No, it’s—”

“Some place Roman—”

“Would you just shut up and listen?

It’s an element, a type of metal.”

“Oh. Okay. Chemistry was never my thing. Isn’t that the one that melts in your hand?”

“That’s gallium,” Perry put in. “Gadolinium is element number 64, a silvery-white rare earth metal when in its unoxidized state, eighth in the lanthanide series—”

Gabriella held up a hand. “Thank you, Perry. The point is that it has an interesting property, something called”—she looked at a data slate

—“paramagnetism. Something about applying a magnetic field, and it generates another magnetic field. Anyway, this gadolinium is apparently the most paramagnetic element around.”

I crossed my arms. “I’m having flashbacks to tenth grade chemistry—a subject I was neither very good at nor interested in, you’ll recall me mentioning.”

“That’s his way of saying, so what?” Torina said. She’d been sitting in the Fafnir’s crew lounge taking a break as we walked in, looking delightfully sweaty and hard-working. “See, we’re married. That means I can sense the subtle changes in his tone when you discuss something he doesn’t like, like lima beans or chemistry or, stars forbid, the eradication of the Designated Hitter rule.”

“The what?

Oh. Sportsball. Right. Well, the so what about all of this is that gadolinium”—she again started reading from the slate—“between being paramagnetic and really good at absorbing neutrons, is a key element in a new substance that behaves both as a metallic alloy and a crystalline ceramic. In fact, this stuff can be used to build fusion reactors that are nearly fifteen percent more efficient than the current standard design.” She looked back up at me. “Needless to say, that’s a big deal. Saving fifteen percent on fusion fuel

—”

I nodded. “Yeah, don’t need to be a chemist to see the significance of that.”

“Makes sense. Gadolinium-157 has the highest neutron-capture cross-section of any stable element. It’s also magnetocaloric, so it’s also good at transferring heat,” Perry put in. “Who developed this stuff?” I asked. “The Eridani Federation. It was their state military R&D shop.”

“Military R&D?

And this is public knowledge?”

Gabriella rolled her eyes. “No, Van, that would be the secret part of what’s being trafficked by Atsuu.” She glanced at Torina. “You didn’t marry him for his brains, did you?”

“I married him in part for various portions of his anatomy, which may or may not include his brain.”

Icky stuck her head around a bulkhead. “That’s more sex stuff, isn’t it?”

I tsked at Torina. “Not in front of the children, dear.” I turned back to Gabriella. “Anyway—”

“Anyway, Atsuu sold this information to Fab. What he’s done with it, if anything, we have no idea.”

“So this is very interesting and all, but why does this rate bringing it to us?” I asked. “Because of where gadolinium comes from. Or, more importantly, where the stuff comes from that is not currently mining and shipping it off-world.”

“Earth.”

“Got it in one. It’s apparently found in”—she looked back to the slate

—“China, the United States, Brazil, Sri Lanka, India, and Australia. Planetary reserves are believed to exceed one million tons. And since the total production on your home planet is about 4000 tons per year—let’s just say there’s lots left.”

I rubbed my chin. “Huh. I wonder if the Equal Grasp knows about this.”

“Oh, I suspect they do,” Torina said. “Whether they do or not, we should probably assume they do,” Perry noted. I nodded to him, then turned back to Gabriella. “My dear, you may have just exposed the hidden part of the Equal Grasp’s hidden agenda for Earth. I

wonder if the Eridani Federation’s aware that it’s been compromised?”

“Or if they’re in on it,” Torina put in. Gabriella shook her head. “I don’t think so. I have no doubt they’re going to be quietly looking for sources of gadolinium so they’ve got a reliable supply for themselves—and to minimize what’s available to others. I’m not sure that Earth is the first place they’re going to look.”

“But their attention eventually will end up there, I don’t doubt. That means the Equal Grasp has a window to get a lock on the Earthly supply of the stuff.” I turned to Perry. “Bets that Mr. White and his colleagues are going to fall over themselves to make us happy?”

“No doubt. They’ve tried the sneaky approach, and they’ve tried the intimidating approach, and neither of those have worked. Now, they’re heading into buy us off territory.”

I nodded as Perry spoke. It made sense. Ultimately, exploiting Earth by trickery or force wasn’t going to work out for them. Both approaches denied them legitimacy when it came to the Eridani, who could just muscle them aside if they really wanted access to Earth’s supply of gadolinium. Getting things locked in via valid contracts recognized by the Guild would give them that legitimacy. It also meant that Earth stood on the brink of a precipice. My homeworld faced the possibility of an amazing future, one in which it joined the interstellar community of known space as a full partner. Not all at once—that would be too wrenching a change and could lead to its own sorts of disaster. But, over time, this might be terrestrial humanity’s chance to finally grow out of its celestial infancy and take its first toddling steps toward the stars. But. But, a lot of things could go wrong. There were so many moving parts to this, so many chances for mistakes to happen, misunderstandings to occur, bad actors to move in. If we weren’t careful, it could also mean a plunge into chaos and turmoil for terrestrial humanity—

Or its end altogether. WHILE I CONTEMPLATED the existential fork in the road that would soon confront my homeworld, we were abruptly confronted by our second unexpected turn of events. I got a call from Linulla, one that he asked I take in private. In my cabin, I had Netty-P put him through. He got right to the point. “Matterforge would like to speak to you.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Matterforge, the strange being that lived on the surface of one of the stars in the Starsmith system, experienced time and space in a cryptic way. It could see the past and the future in much the same way it saw the present—but not quite. The way Matterforge described it, it could see the broad strokes of events, but not the specific details. The result was what sometimes felt like a fantasy fiction trope—

vague prophecies that weren’t terribly useful, only becoming clear when they were fulfilled and it was too late to do much about them. Matterforge didn’t intend it that way, I was sure, but it was the result nonetheless. “You are troubled?” Linulla asked, breaking the lingering silence. “Yeah, a little. Did it say what it wanted?”

“No. That’s not how Matterforge works. It simply said, ‘I have to speak to Van Tudor,’ and that was it. If it makes you feel better, there’s some other business we can attend to, as well. I’d like to speak to you about Cantullin, for instance.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No, not at all. But I think we need to give some thought regarding her future and, more broadly, the future of the Iowa’ s crew. This has all been spurred by the fact that some of my children are choosing to leave the ship

—and by the fact that there are now more young Conoku vying to serve aboard her than you likely have positions for. The Iowa has come to be considered a prestigious appointment amongst our youth.”

That surprised me a little. The Conoku, like the Synergists, were a widely liked and respected race. That our ship should become some sort of prize among their young was, frankly, something of an honor. I decided we’d head to Starsmith. While discussing the Moonsword and the Iowa and her crew would be useful, I was actually anxious to hear what Matterforge had to say. After all, even obscure, prophetic visions could be useful in helping us decide where to go from here. 12

I STARED at the display on the comm terminal with admitted apprehension. Not because of the image, which was just a dimmed-down view of Struve 2398-A, one of the system’s two stars. Rather, it was kind of the screensaver for the terminal used to communicate with Matterforge. Even Linulla wasn’t entirely sure how it linked to the strange being because its presence in the system and this comm terminal predated him by—he wasn’t sure how long. Decades, certainly. Perhaps several centuries. “Uh, hello?

Matterforge, are you there?

It’s Van Tudor.”

Silence. I glanced at Linulla. “Maybe I caught it at a bad time. Not that an eternal being really has a bad time. Or time, for that matter.”

Linulla shrugged his chitinous shoulders, a human gesture he was trying to emulate. I spoke up again but still got no response. Now it was my turn to shrug. “Maybe we should just—”

“I am here.”

The voice, mechanically flat and clipped, thrummed through the remote chamber that housed the terminal. “I understand you wanted to see—er, well, talk to me.”

“Indeed. I have come to realize something that will be significant to you.”

I almost sighed. Something else significant is what I heard. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate already—

“Okay. And that would be—?”

“You bear a material implement. A sword. It is one of three.”

I glanced at Linulla. “The Moonsword. That’s right. I inherited it from my grandfather when I became a Peacemaker.”

“This implement is woven deeply into the tapestry of events extending both prior to and following the instant of time you occupy.”

“Oh?

How so?”

“It is a shard, a fragment of a single such implement. It was fractured into three parts in the past, at a moment of convergence of many sequential events. An inflection point, if you will, in the course of history.”

“Oh. Huh. I knew there were two other blades, and that they were all made from the same source of metal—”

“Originally crafted as a single such implement.”

“And subsequently split into three.”

“That’s correct.”

I frowned at the image of the star. All Peacemakers bore a sword as their badge of office. Mine, though, was unique. Those owned by, say, Dugrop’che or Lunzy, were a standardized design and frankly more ceremonial than actually useful as a weapon. Lunzy’s was displayed over the faux fireplace aboard her ship, the Foregone Conclusion, for instance. Gerhardt’s hung on the wall of his office behind his desk. In fact, the only Peacemaker I knew who regularly carried theirs was Lucky—and that was only because she’d put the effort and money into having the blade reinforced and honed by Linulla. Offhand, I’d seen maybe a third or so of Peacemakers actually wearing their blades outside of parades and formal events. The Moonsword was different. It had been fashioned centuries ago, from some sort of unusual cometary metal—or, rather, was apparently one-third of a preexisting weapon that had been. While Linulla could enhance and prettify other Peacemaker blades, the Moonsword was amenable to all sorts of useful and interesting upgrades through a process called reforging. Essentially, the peculiar properties of the blade allowed it to act as a substrate upon which Linulla could layer additional handy capabilities. As for its two companion swords, which I’d heard called the Starsword and the Sunsword, I could only assume the same thing applied. However, neither had been seen for at least a century, and probably longer. I cocked my head at the star image. “Okay, so this sword—and its siblings—were important once before. And they will be again. Can you tell me anything else?”

“One of its siblings, as you name them, has reentered events.”

“Really?

Where, or how, or—?”

“The being named Dohlennz has recovered it. It is not clear to me which. What is clear to me is that that blade, the one you bear, and the third will be recombined, made whole. And when they are, that moment will represent another inflection point in the course of events.”

I tensed. Dohlennz, our number one most wanted. He’d been Helem Gauss’s minion but had escaped the ruin of his master and had eluded us ever since. Now, apparently, he had one of the other two swords. Great. I sighed. “Don’t suppose you know where Dohlennz is,” I asked, expecting the answer to be no. “I could not provide his location in any way that you would find useful. All I can tell you is that he is present in this locus in time and space.”

“I… kinda figured that, yeah, thanks.” I turned to Linulla. “Still, it’s useful to know that Dohlennz has one of these blades. If he wanted to get it reforged, like I’ve been, where would he take it, other than here?” I narrowed my eyes. “And I’m assuming he hasn’t brought it here.”

“No, he has not. I am the only Starsmith here that knows how to work with the blades’ unique alloy. Three of my children who have chosen to follow me as Starsmiths also have some skill—”

“That’s okay, Linulla. I don’t suspect your kids are secretly reforging the Moonsword’s sibling blades on the side.”

“I am otherwise not aware of anyone else with the skill or means to reforge these blades. However, now that I know that such expertise is likely to be sought, I can remain vigilant.”

I shook my head. “You know, this is starting to get a swords-and-sorcery vibe to it.” I smiled at Linulla’s blank look. “Sorry. That’s a genre of storytelling back on Earth. Heroes with swords, evil villains with dark magic, fantastical creatures—basically, a form of myth-making.”

Matterforge abruptly spoke up. “Your reference to the crafting of myths is apt, Van Tudor.”

“Oh?

In what way?”

“Myths offer a way for observers to explain things they lack the means of understanding. In that sense, myths are as fundamental to life propagating and thriving as are the genetic foundations of organic life themselves.”

“I suppose. But myths aren’t true, pretty much by definition, right?

On my homeworld, we have an old story about a man named King Arthur, who had a sword named Excalibur. Arthur and his noble followers engaged in archetypal heroic events. But it was all just myth. The historical guy Arthur was based on didn’t really have a magic sword, and he wasn’t involved in those events.”

“So the myth has no value?”

“I—uh—”

I trailed off, staring at the screen. The obvious answer was, no, it was just a story, it wasn’t true. But the story of Arthur and Excalibur was an important part of British and, more broadly, western culture, wasn’t it?

It laid the foundation for many stories and myths that came after, and those all had value in turn. For that matter, understanding storms and lightning as the wrath of the gods made manifest was another myth—but it helped explain how the world worked to people who knew nothing about atmospheric phenomena and electricity, didn’t it?

For that matter, how many of the things we currently took as factual—

the nature of gravity, for instance, or the expansion of the universe—were just our own forms of it’s the doing of the gods. What myths were we taking as true?

I came away from my meeting with Matterforge feeling like I’d learned both very little and a great deal. At the very least, I’d learned that Dohlennz bore one of the Moonsword’s sibling blades. That made him even more dangerous but also represented an opportunity, even a vulnerability. After all, if he wanted to get it upgraded by reforging, he had to find someone to do it. And as far as we knew, Linulla was the only person that could. Which, as we headed back to join the others, provoked a darker thought. Did that put Linulla and his family in danger?

I TRIED to push that thought aside, though. For one, Starsmith was protected by Matterforge, a being capable of flinging weaponized coronal mass ejections at intruders into the system. For another, the Conoku weren’t exactly helpless. They were master artificers and maintained a small but highly advanced fleet consisting of ships of their own design to protect their homeworld. And much of Linulla’s family lived aboard the Iowa, a heavily armed battlecruiser. So, despite my unease, I smiled and went on to discuss the Moonsword’s next upgrade with him. It was a deceptive, almost unseen benefit—the blade’s molecular structure would be altered to allow some bend in the material. In short, the Moonsword would be even more durable, a fact that eased my mind because I used the sword as what it was built for

—a weapon. We shifted our conversation to Cantullin, the subject actually touching on that small but highly advanced Conoku fleet. Cantullin wasn’t just an excellent engineer. She was blooming into a superb officer, and I told Linulla just that. “I am so very pleased to hear that. She has been a bright point since her first days among us. As to the rest of us, we’re proud of our ships and their capabilities, and of the crews who operate them. However, they lack one very important thing,” Linulla said, sitting in his forge. “Experience in battle,” I offered. “That’s right. Cantullin is now, by far, the most battle-hardened Conoku leader alive. I’m extraordinarily proud of her.” Linulla gave me a beady-eyed crustacean stare. “I think you probably see where this is going.”

“You want her back.”

“My peoples’ leadership has expressed a desire to see Cantullin be given an appointment in our fleet. Initially, she would command a single ship. If she proves capable—and none of us doubt she will—she would soon be elevated to command of a flotilla of several ships. Ultimately, we could see her commanding our entire fleet.”

I crossed my arms. “She’s done damned good work. I’m going to hate losing her.”

“Ah, yes, well—that’s the problem. She has refused to leave your service.”

“Really?

I’m… flattered, sure. But she doesn’t see how valuable she can be to your people?

Known space and environs aren't getting any safer. I

agree, I think you need her.”

“Absolutely. But she refuses. And this puts me in a difficult position, Van. I hate to do this, but can I presume upon you to, ah, convince her?”

I bit my lip for a moment. Finally, I shook my head. “No. I can’t convince her to go, any more than I’d be willing to convince her to stay if she was intent on leaving. I can talk to her, try to get her to understand the important role she can play among the Conoku. But the decision has to be hers.”

Linulla stared at me for a moment—a disconcerting experience, because try staring at a crab sometime and try to figure out what it’s feeling—then nodded, to my relief. “I assumed that would be your answer, because it’s the right one. And if she decides to stay with you, then I’ll certainly support that.”

I bit my lip again, though, thinking. “What I can do is assign her an understudy, someone she can train to command the Iowa in her absence. If she feels she’s created her own successor, and has confidence in them, she might find leaving the Iowa easier.”

“Ah, an excellent idea.”

“Which means I need someone to assign as her understudy. No one on the existing crew, the ones that are staying, really jumps out at me. And I don’t know any of the incoming replacements at all. So this might take a while—”

“Perhaps not,” Linulla said, activating a comm on one of his forge worktables. “Dinullo, would you come to the forge, please?”

“On my way.”

“Dinullo is the eldest of my second brood. By tradition, he would train and ultimately become a Starsmith. But—well, you’ll see in a moment.”

A Conoku appeared on one of the gantry-like galleries elevated around the forge and descended toward us. They moved without the nimble scuttle I’d come to associate with the race, though. When they finally reached the floor and headed our way, I saw why. They were missing a foreclaw and the leg immediately behind it. As a result, their motion was kind of an awkward, rolling gait. “Dinullo, I believe you know Peacemaker Tudor.”

“I do,” he said. “Everyone here knows you.” He turned to his father. “You wanted something from me, father?”

Just as Dinullo didn’t scamper about the way other young Conoku did, he likewise spoke in a much more measured way. His tone had far more gravitas than the excited chatter I’d come to expect from Conoku kids. “Yes. Van and I have been speaking. How would you like to serve aboard the Iowa?”

Dinullo swiveled eyestalks from his father, to me. “I’m… not sure.”

“That you want to?” I asked him. “No. That I can.”

That one sentence summed Dinullo up. He was hesitant, even uncertain. Clearly a loner, probably a bit of a self-imposed loner, keeping himself apart from his rambunctious siblings. He reminded me of a teenage boy growing up with his grandfather on a lonely Iowa farm—not an unpopular kid, but not a popular one, either. Just a kid, facing a future he was probably having trouble envisioning. “Well, think about it,” Linulla said, then sent him off on an errand obviously meant to get him out of the way while we talked about him. “He was born with his limitation,” Linulla said when he was gone. “Unfortunately, it means his abilities as a Starsmith will be curtailed. And before you ask, there is no effective therapy to grow his missing limbs applicable to Conoku biology, at least not today. And while prosthetics are very good, they are far from perfect. And it is in the fine manipulations that the true craft of the Starsmith resides.”

“Well, I suspect that’ll be much less of an issue aboard the Iowa, acting as a member of the crew.” I looked at Linulla. “But we were talking about Cantullin’s understudy, not just another crew member.”

“Yes. Dinullo is, frankly, brilliant. He also possesses something most young Conoku lack—discipline and self-control.”

I grinned. “Yeah, I’d noticed that about your kids. It’s part of what makes them so good at what they do.” I let my grin fade. “What are his prospects as a Starsmith?”

“He will no doubt be able to perform adequately.”

“Kinda damning with faint praise, there, Linulla.”

“Yes, I am.”

I shrugged. “Sure. If he’s willing to join the Iowa’s crew, I’m all for it. And if you think he’s a good candidate to be Cantullin’s understudy, then I’m all for that, too.”

“I appreciate that, Van, thank you—”

“Van, you have an incoming call from Gerhardt,” Netty-P cut in via the comm. I sighed. “A Peacemaker’s job is never done.”

“And only would be when there is nothing but peace, so none needs to be made,” Linulla replied. “Yeah. Which sadly means I’ve got a job for life.”

I WATCHED as Netty-P set us on a course for Earth, but my attention was on Gerhardt, on the Fafnir’s main cockpit display. “So White simply agreed to it?

All of it?” I said, surprised. “He did. The Equal Grasp is willing to fully sponsor the provision of beneficial medical services to Earth, by a team dispatched from Pont Alus Kyr. Their proposed approach is to offer therapies intended to both cure and prevent heart disease in humans,” Gerhardt replied. “Replacing every deep fryer on the planet with an air fryer would go a long way toward that,” Perry said. “The Pont Alus Kyr team is proposing something a little more…

substantial than that. It would seem that heart disease of various sorts is a relatively easy condition for advanced extraterrestrial therapies to address. You only have to ask Petyr Groshenko. Once he dragged his obstinate carcass out of Anvil Dark and actually started taking care of himself—well, you’ve seen the result.”

I nodded. When I first met Groshenko, he was an overweight, world-weary Guild Master on a clock relentlessly imposed by a pernicious breakdown of his general health. When he finally left the Guild, he’d intended to live out his remaining days as a mercenary. He probably had visions of going out in some dramatic firefight, dying like the soldier he was. Instead, he apparently found he simply couldn’t perform as a merc without attending to his health. And once he did, he quickly got better. Now, he was as fit as hell for a man his age. Not for the first time, it showed how being healthy is as much a state of mind, a genuine desire to be healthy, as it is exercising and eating right. Of course, access to the sort of medical science we were discussing here didn’t hurt. I sat back, staring at Gerhardt. “Tudor, am I sensing reluctance on your part here?

Isn’t this what you wanted?” he asked. “Yes—and no. Yes, I want the people of Earth to benefit from things like Pont Alus Kyr’s therapies for heart disease. Of course I do. Hell, anything that pries open the profiteering death grip big corporations have on something as fundamental as health care is a great thing.”

“And the ‘no’?”

“The ‘no’ comes from the bigger picture. This is a genie that ain’t gonna be stuffed back into the bottle. Once we formally introduce the people of Earth to the stars, the potential ramifications—”

I shook my head. What impacts were over the horizon, ones that we couldn’t even envision?

For that matter, what about the impacts we could imagine?

What was going to be the impact on humanity’s psyche when they learned, as a race and incontrovertibly, that they weren’t alone after all?

That they were really just small players on a far bigger stage—and technologically backward ones at that?

What would be the impact on religion A or belief system B when they found that their creed simply didn’t exist outside Earth’s atmosphere?

What happened when country X or group Y tried to obtain off-world weaponry to settle scores against their hated rivals Z?

I’d always thought the whole government-covering-up-alien-conspiracy was dumb. Why would they do that?

Now, facing the idea of the world learning the truth, I was starting to get where the government spooks were coming from. The truth really is out there—and maybe that’s where it should stay. “I appreciate your concerns, Tudor, but I think your genie is already standing in the bottle’s exit. The question is, when it finally leaves, which direction is it going to go?” Gerhardt asked. I sighed. “Wish I could disagree with you. Anyway, that being the case, I guess the question is the best way to do this. Like where. And when. And how. I mean, I really don’t think we want this sort of first contact to happen in a parking lot or something.”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, there’s also the matter of believability. Earth is in kind of a funny place these days when it comes to things like

facts,” Perry said. Torina frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“This isn’t really first contact, is it?

Tutsi Auffenberg had a Yonnox on her TV show. The Equal Grasp has tried at least a dozen more times, in different parts of the world, to gain some traction. And thanks to social media and deep-faked videos and things, the general reaction across Earth has been, yeah, right.”

“Perry’s got a point. An ironic one, at that. We could tell everyone the absolute truth and they just won’t believe it,” Netty-P added. We batted it around a little more, then Gerhardt signed off to leave us to ponder it. The Equal Grasp and Pont Alus Kyr still needed a couple of weeks to get their own respective acts together, so we had a brief window, at least. “So do we stage-manage first contact with aliens in a way that’s not going to cause a panic, but that’s also not going to be treated as viral marketing for some movie?”

“Well, there’s no point doing it in the Netherlands or Belgium,” Perry said. I gave him a suspicious look. “Why, pray tell, bird?

What have you got against the good people of the low countries?

They’re people, just like me.”

“The hell they are. I have never, in your entire life, seen you put mayonnaise on fries. Will Pont Alus Kyr’s wonder therapies be able to overcome that?

Check and mate, Tudor.”

“Well, not that either of those countries were at the top of my mental list anyway, but it does speak to the question—where?

Before anything else, we need a venue.”

“Are you seeking a place that represents a cross-section of all that is good and wonderful about your planet, Van?

Because I have an idea.”

“Are you suggesting we set up on the sidewalks of Frankenmuth?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That shining star must remain unsullied by crass commercialism—even if it comes from outer space.”

“You want to avoid sullying a town that thrives on selling souvenirs and year-round Christmas bling with crass commercialism?”

Perry clicked his tongue. “Yeah, Van. Next you’re going to be suggesting that we bring capitalism to Niagara Falls.”

“Anyway, Funboy, what are you suggesting?” I asked. “ I’m suggesting that we have the inestimable Tutsi Auffenberg host the event, and have a Miracle Health Fair From The Stars.”

“What, have first contact happen in Cedar Rapids, Iowa?”

“Again, I’ll point out that technically it already has,” Perry put in. I thought back to sitting in the farmhouse living room and watching in stunned shock as Tutsi interviewed a Yonnox. “Touché, bird. I was actually thinking, though, that we could try to find a piece of unclaimed territory somewhere on Earth and have the event there. That way, no one could accuse one country of being favored.”

“So you’re looking for terra nullius, nobody’s land, huh?

Well, right now, you’ve got three choices on Earth—Bir Tawil, which is a strip of land between Egypt and Sudan, some pockets of land near the Danube River caught up in a border dispute between Croatia and Serbia, and parts of Antarctica, mainly Marie Byrd Land,” Perry said. “That’s it?”

“Yup. So, a scorching, land-locked desert populated only by nomadic Bedouins, a frozen and totally uninhabited hellscape, or a few riverside enclaves in the Balkans that are the subject of a territorial dispute between two historic enemies.”

“Huh. Not much of a selection, is it?”

Torina spoke up. “Van, Funboy’s idea may not be a bad one. It would be a pretty soft entry, so to speak. I’m not sure that landing the Fafnir in front of, say, the White Home would be a good idea. It might come across as kind of threatening.”

“White House, actually.”

“Your President lives there, it’s white—”

“Yeah, okay, granted. But I agree with you. We probably need to stay well away from any seats of power, any major military installations or critical infrastructure, war zones, areas subject to political tension, or anywhere that might be considered really controversial.”

“So… Bir Tawil or Marie Byrd Land,” Perry said. I gave him a sidelong smile. “Actually, I keep going back to the idea of Cedar Rapids. Hard to imagine anyone feeling threatened by that. I mean, if we have White and Forester pull some strings, get some significant outside names to come in—”

I shrugged, as much to myself as anyone else. “It’s gotta happen somewhere, right?”

“Perhaps one of those invited parties could bring some blueberry cheese. Think of the opportunity for diplomacy,” Funboy said. “Mopey, if you spend the day tooting because of blueberry or any other cheese, I’m sending you to Orcus for a year. And I’ll take Gabby with me when I drop you off.”

“That seems unnecessarily harsh.”

“Fine. You’re allowed one—can’t believe I’m saying this—one pound of cheese. And again, that’s blueberry or otherwise.”

“Per what unit of time?

Day?”

“Oh, for—"

Torina put her hand on my arm. “Calm, dear. He’s just an addict. It’s what they do.”

13

IT TURNS out that arranging first contact with an alien species is complicated. Who knew?

That wasn’t just an idle question. There had been no formal first contacts with so-called brink civilizations, those on the very edge of discovering twist technology, for over one hundred years. The institutional knowledge in the Guild regarding it wasn’t just thin, it was virtually nonexistent. Only a handful of people who’d been around at the time of the last one were still in the Guild, and they were in niche, specialized roles. Max, the Masters’ administrative assistant, was one. Bester was another. There were exactly three more, all in equally Anvil Dark-bound jobs. And none of them had participated directly in the last first contact. In fact, the Guild’s official Head of First Contact was an empty position, assigned as a secondary duty to one of the Masters, currently Alic. And when I talked to him about it, he was pretty clear about how he thought we should handle this. “Over to you, Van,” he said. Great. So now first contact with Earth, something I’d never imagined or even particularly wanted to happen, was now my responsibility. The situation on Earth was no less problematic, albeit for the opposite reason. While no one in the Guild was interested in really getting involved, Earth was rapidly getting too many cooks coming into the kitchen and fiddling with the broth. I initially made contact with Tutsi, but it wasn’t long before Manon Clemenceau, the official head of the US version of the

Men in Black, was in on the fun. Forester started pestering me from his Manhattan office tower. And behind them, I could sense other people—

politicians, business tycoons, lobbyists, activists—all starting to turn our way. Now, I sat in the kitchen in the farmhouse, talking to Tutsi via a secure cell phone she’d provided. “Van, the military doesn’t like Cedar Rapids. They say it’s too close to the Rock Island Arsenal,” she said. “It’s over a hundred kilometers away.”

“I know. But they don’t like it.”

“What about our proposed alternates?”

“Dubuque is too close to Truax Air National Guard Base in Madison, Wisconsin. Elkader or anywhere in Northeastern Iowa is too close to Fort McCoy and Volk Field Air National Guard Base. Anywhere west of Des Moines is too close to Offut Air Force Base—”

“Tutsi, there are military installations all over the United States. Hell, you’re probably never more than an hour’s drive from Fort This, or That Air Force Base, anywhere in the Lower forty-eight.”

“I hear you, Van. But the military is really wary of this.”

“They do realize that these aliens, if they wanted, could land in the center courtyard of the Pentagon, and there’s not a damned thing they could do about it, right?”

“Actually, I think that’s part of the problem. To the extent that they even believe this is real, you’re asking them to come to a dick-waving contest where their opponent is… I don’t know, something with a really big dick. A whale or something.”

“To the extent they believe it’s real?”

“Yeah, that would be the other part of the problem. You’d think that first contact would be… um, a bigger deal.”

“The biggest deal. As in, ever. As in, since the instant the first thing resembling life formed in some primordial puddle on ancient Earth.”

“You’re preaching to the converted here, Van, remember?

These days, though, you can’t really even be sure if what the President is saying in some video is actually him or an AI recreation. People are really leery about this turning out to be some elaborate hoax, or the latest attempt at viral marketing by a big Hollywood studio. They don’t want to show up and look stupid.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Well, assuming this goes ahead in Cedar Rapids, then the sole representative of the US government is going to be Constance Plowitz.”

“Who the hell is she?”

“The representative from the Iowa First Congressional District. And the only reason she’ll consider dropping by is because she’s expecting it’s going to be a bit of fluff she can use to promote what a fun person she is to her constituents.”

“And try to pull some money out of them.”

“Duh.”

I sighed. “I cannot believe it’s this hard to set up a first contact. I’m actually starting to lean toward the old standby—the White Home lawn.”

“White Home?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I frowned at the kitchen table for a moment, then thought, screw it. “You know what, Tutsi?

To hell with them. We’re doing this in Cedar Rapids, per the original plan.”

“What do I tell the military?”

“You can tell them that there is nothing, and I mean literally nothing in the Rock Island Arsenal that’s going to be of even remote interest to these aliens. Except, that is, as souvenirs of their visit to Earth.”

“That’s… not going to be well received. Remember the dick waving?”

“I don’t care. If they don’t like it, feel free to tell them to come and put a stop to it. That’ll definitely put us on the map.”

“SO THIS IS EARTH.”

I turned to the speaker, a dour woman with a face like the prow of a ship. Her name was Dores Kerry, and she was here representing Pont Alus Kyr. I’d been told she was a brilliant researcher who specialized in human physiology. Credited with developing several unique therapies, including one specifically tailored around human cardiac function, she seemed like the perfect person to spearhead Pont Alus Kyr’s involvement in our first-contact initiative. Now, if she’d only stop complaining about it. “Yes, this is Earth,” I said as I cycled the Frankie’s airlock open. I’d landed her a few hundred meters away from the venue in Cedar Rapids, where we were holding our first-contact shindig in the back of a small, wooded park. I kept her stealth system still engaged. We’d toyed with the idea of descending from the heavens in all of her extraterrestrial glory but decided against it. People tended to be fascinated with hardware, and there wasn’t any hardware more fascinating than a spaceship. I didn’t want the event to become about the Frankie—particularly since her suppressor cannons were such obvious weapons. I’d had visions of everything devolving into a furor over armed spacecraft, which could further devolve into even more furor about threats from outer space, and that’s not how I wanted this to go. The whole point was to make first contact a benign thing, a positive thing, not a menacing one. “Oh. Oh—my.”

I glanced at Kerry, who’d stopped in the airlock with a stricken look. “Are you alright?”

“What is that smell?”

I sniffed. I smelled nothing except a warm summer evening. “Sorry, what smell?”

“You can’t smell that?

Volatile organic compounds, combustion products, definitely some particulates—” She sniffed and pulled a face. “And what definitely smells like the excrement of some—thing.”

“Probably animal manure, yeah. There are about a billion farms upwind of Cedar Rapids.”

“Some of these compounds are probably carcinogenic. Many are definitely toxic in high-enough concentrations.” She winced at me as she disembarked. “And you consider this level of atmospheric contamination normal?”

I looked askance. “You get used to it, I guess.”

“How does one get used to breathing in teratogenic toxins?”

“I really need to introduce you to one of my crew. His name is Funboy. I’m sure the two of you would have lots to talk about.”

“I’m going to have to undergo detoxification therapy when I get back to Pont Alus Kyr.”

I nodded as we made our way toward the lights and sounds of our venue. “Yeah, lots to talk about.”

We entered the community center to find it bustling. Torina was already there, working with Miryam and Tutsi to handle the crowd—or as much of a crowd as we’d managed to pull in, anyway. Our old friends, Special Agents Bullard and Begum, were in attendance as well. Along with a half dozen of their colleagues, they were providing general security. I looked for Manon Clemenceau, Tutsi’s boss as head of the so-called Defense Intelligence Reserve, but didn’t see her. The place wasn’t exactly packed, which I found both personally odd and more generally unsurprising. Personally odd because this was first contact between Earth and known space. Generally unsurprising because, to the vast majority of people on Earth who even paid attention, this was just another supposed first contact. We expected that we’d only get nominal interest, and mainly from fringe sorts and the idly curious. And that was fine. I preferred it that way. Everyone wanted to treat first contact as an event—it would happen, and the world would change. But it wasn’t. It was a process, one that would take time to burn through the hurricane of noise that was everyday life on my home planet. To quote Torina, this was indeed a soft entry. “Van!”

I turned to the voice. It was Tony Burgess. I saw Marla with him, but not Myron. “Van, I just wanted to give you a heads-up,” he said, walking over to join Kerry and I. “Myron is in his glory here.”

I opened my mouth, but Kerry spoke up. “You are considerably overweight. Are you aware of the stress that puts on your physiology?”

Tony gave her a hard stare. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“What do you mean Myron’s in his glory?” I put in. He pointed to one corner of the hall. Now I saw Myron, surrounded by a half dozen people. He waved his arms, pontificating to them, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. “Do I even want to know what that’s all about?”

Tony shrugged. “If you don’t want to hear Myron pretty much taking personal credit for revealing the truth about aliens on Earth, then no, you don’t.”

“He is now claiming the status of visionary,” Marla put in. I sighed. “And that is the reason it’s going to take a while for this whole first-contact thing to sink in—”

“Van, good to see you again.”

I turned next to this voice. It was the dapper Mr. Forester, the high-priced New York attorney who’d been working with the Equal Grasp as their business representative on Earth. Faron White was with him. “It’s a long way from Manhattan,” I said to him, making myself smile as I shook his hand. “Well, I could hardly miss such a momentous occasion, now could I?

And, might I add, I’m so glad you finally decided to see things as we do—

that this won’t be anything but good for mankind.”

“Yeah. It was that, and totally not because this was going to happen whether I liked it or not, so I wanted to get it under control.”

Forester revealed a grin full of perfect, whitened teeth. “Whatever works, Van. Whatever works.”

“We’re ready to begin any time you are, Peacemaker,” White said. I nodded. “I’m going to bring out my crew first. We’ll see how that goes, and then we’ll go from there.”

I kept Kerry with me, excused myself from the others, and headed for the rooms behind the community center’s stage. Torina had corralled my crew back there—except for Perry, who’d apparently decided to slip out early. I passed him perched on the back of a folding chair. “No, you can’t buy one of me on Amazon!

I’m not a product line!”

The two men he was talking to, both variations on Tony Burgess, glanced at one another, then turned back to him. “How about eBay?”

I pushed on, passing Myron in the corner. “—gubmint was trying their damndest to keep it covered up, but I knew they were lying. And this proves it!

Aliens are real, and so’s the rest, mark my words!”

“Well, sure,” said a teenaged girl who was apparently cosplaying Sailor Moon. “But the Earth is hollow?

Like, how does that work?”

I sighed and carried on into the backstage rooms to find Icky, Funboy, and the others gathered. Funboy was wearing the baggy, low-riding jeans Netty-P had made for him when I’d taken him into Frankenmuth, and a t-shirt emblazoned with Pricks are good for you, over a picture of a syringe. “Uh, Funboy, where did—no, wait, let me guess. Perry suggested that t-shirt, didn’t he?”

“He suggested it would be a positive message regarding the provision of off-world medical care to the Earthly masses.”

“Okay, first rule of the evening—don’t use the term Earthly masses. And secondly, find another shirt, please. That one is just… rude.”

Funboy blinked. “In what way?”

Torina, who’d followed Kerry and I backstage, leaned close to Funboy and, grinning, whispered something to him. Now he blinked at her. “Really?

Why would they be called that?”

“Think about it.”

“I’m sorry, I fail—oh. Ah, the penetrative aspect. I see. Perry was being disingenuous, then.”

I rolled my eyes. “You think?” While Torina herded Funboy away to change, I turned to the others. “Is everyone clear on what to do?”

“Yeah, be all alien and stuff,” Icky said, chewing on something. “Are you eating?”

“Yeah. Torina brought some little sandwiches back from out there. Where are they, anyway?

These ones with this moist, crumbly yellow stuff in them are good.”

“Egg salad.”

“That’s it.”

“No, I mean, egg salad.” I pointed at her chest. “You’ve got some on you.”

And of course she picked it off her tunic and ate it. For what would not be the last time this evening, I was sure, I sighed and turned to Rab and Gabby. “How about you guys?”

Rab shrugged. “I’ll do my best to be charming, I guess.”

Gabby bubbled. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun!

There are so many people out there, and they all seem so nice!”

Perry cut in over the comm. “Van, I’ve tested the sound system. It’s set up for full translation, so no matter who talks, everyone will hear it as English.”

“Thanks, Perry.” Between that and everyone routing their own translator through their comm, we should at least avoid a Tower of Babel situation out there. “Okay, well, let’s get this show on the road.” I took a deep breath. I then said something I’d never imagined I would say to my crew. “Let’s go meet the good people of Earth.”

THE GUILD’S formal first-contact protocols for a near-Twist-capable civilization were long and detailed. They described how to identify the civilization’s power structures, how to make surreptitious contact with them, what to say, how to say it, and generally how to lay the groundwork for a full revelation of this new reality. What they didn’t say was to march a bunch of aliens out into a community center of people drinking shitty coffee and eating egg-salad sandwiches. A thunderous silence fell as I led my crew up onto the stage. I heard a few gasps. And then, as though choreographed, several dozen cell phones were lifted like soldiers presenting arms. I opened my mouth, but someone cut me off. It was a chubby, loudly obnoxious man in his forties who called himself Dennis Everyday—a social media influencer whose motto was The People’s Cynic—I call bullshit when I see it. He certainly wouldn’t have been at the top of my list of invitees if I really wanted this first contact to immediately take root in the Earthly zeitgeist. Perry had noted that. “You do realize this schlub is a toxic asshole, right?”

“A toxic asshole with millions of followers,” I’d replied. “Uh—yeah?

He’s going to do his best to convince them that this whole thing is just a hoax.”

I smiled. “Yes, he probably will.”

The fact was that I wanted to cast doubt on this. The longer we could stretch out first contact, the more slowly it actually began to be accepted as fact around the world, the better. I certainly hadn’t advertised the fact. It probably wouldn’t take long for the Equal Grasp to catch on, of course—

Forester and White were both sharp guys. But if we could poison the waters with enough doubt, we might be able to spread out and diffuse what would otherwise be a traumatically wrenching cultural, social, and political cataclysm. “So here they are, the supposed aliens,” Everyday was saying into his phone. “Pretty amazing what prosthetics and practical effects can do, isn’t it?” He turned, playing his phone across my crew and me. I smiled at him. “If you could keep the cynicism down for the moment, I’d like to introduce everyone. Then… well, fill your boots.”

“Yeah, let’s see these introductions,” he oozed. I went down the line, introducing each of my crew. “First, our big girl, Icky. She’s a Wu’tzur, the chief engineer of my ship, the Fafnir.”

Icky raised all four hands. “Yo, Earth. Glad to be here.”

People automatically applauded, because that’s what crowds are trained to do. “Next is—well, technically, his name would translate to Cheerful Enthusiast, but we call him Funboy. He’s a Surtsi, our backup engineer and medical officer.”

“I am very gratified to be part of initiating first contact with this world, in hopes that doing so will stave off your otherwise inevitable self-destruction through environmental collapse and/or nuclear war.”

A few desultory claps. Many puzzled looks were exchanged. I grinned. “There we go, Funboy, everyone!

Next is Rab, our systems engineer. He’s a P’nosk.”

True to form, Rab stepped forward, raised a flipper-like hand, and nodded. “Nice to meet you all.”

“And this is Gabby—”

“I’m so happy to be here, your planet is so wonderful, full of so many wonderful people, and I think it’s so exciting that you’re going to get to be part of the interstellar community—oh, as soon as you start flying away from Earth, I highly recommend you go to Faalax, they have such gorgeous scenery there—”

I gently nudged Gabby back into line. “She’ll be available if any of you would like to speak to her,” I said to the crowd, then turned to Perry, who was standing on the front of the stage. “Perry here is—”

“Often called an artificial intelligence, but there’s nothing artificial about it!” he said. “I am the real deal, folks!

A sentient being based on inorganic technology!

If you liked Robby the Robot, Holly from Red Dwarf, or Mister Data, you’re gonna love me!”

“You’re a bird,” someone said. “Well, yes, I am. At least, that’s my—”

“Hey, are those gonna be for sale?” someone cut in, then others spoke up. “Yeah, on Amazon, maybe?

I’d love to get one of those.”

“Yeah, way better than Alex or Siri.”

“How much are they going to cost?”

Perry’s eyes flashed amber. “For the last time, I am not now for sale on Amazon or anywhere else, nor will I ever be!”

“And now my favorite crew member,” I put in, turning to look at the others with an apologetic shrug. “Sorry, guys. Anyway, Torina Milon is very much a human, but from off-world. She’s one of many humans who are actually already out there. She also happens to be my wife.”

“Your wife,” Everyday said, wobbling his phone between us and himself. “Your wife is a human being from outer space.”

“She—”

Torina raised a hand to me, then descended from the stage and walked right up to Everyday. He did his best to keep looking defiant, but his body language showed he was ready to run away. She smiled sweetly. “Actually, from the perspective of my homeworld, you’re the one from outer space,” she said, letting her smile linger, then turned and came back up onto the stage. “You—well, I suppose, but—”

Miryam, standing nearby, laughed and gave Torina a thumbs-up. That apparently antagonized Everyday, who was made momentarily speechless in front of his followers since he was obviously livestreaming. He spun about and faced me squarely. “Alright—Tudor, if that really is your name, how about telling us the truth now. What is all this?

Some sort of marketing campaign?”

“Yup. For outer space.”

“So you seriously expect us to believe that that”—he pointed at Icky

—“is real. Or that.” He stabbed a finger at Funboy, and then Rab and Gabby. “Or that or that. Seriously?

I’ve seen more realistic aliens on Star Trek.”

Icky drew in a breath and bristled—literally, her blue fur sticking up as she assumed an aggressive posture. I put a hand on her arm, but before anyone else could do anything, Kerry, the Pont Alus Kyr rep, muttered something and stepped forward. She pulled a gun-like device from her belt and pointed it at Everyday. Who yelped and winced. But there was no shot or discharge, just a beep. “You have had three small cardiac events over the past eleven months, but you only recognized one of them. You consume far too many empty calories and have egregiously high blood sugar. I have done some

background research and conclude that you consume so-called energy drinks in large quantities while you broadcast your insipid nonsense to whoever is watching you. Your left foot is mildly numb right now due to neuropathy, and you’ve been impotent since February.” She reconsidered and added, “January. Eleventh, if I’m getting specific. Lucky you.”

Everyday stared, his face flushed like a boiled tomato. Kerry lowered the instrument. “Now, if you’ve got nothing else useful to say, please shut up so we can move this along,” she snapped, stepping back. “Sometimes, tough love is best,” Funboy intoned. “Isn’t that right—

Denny?

May I call you Denny?”

14

WE SPENT the next half hour or so fielding questions, many of which were surprisingly tough to answer. Earthly humans lacked the frame of reference for easy answers, meaning that I had to explain things first, to set the context. And then that would provoke more questions, and I had to explain more things to set the context for those. When I sensed the audience was starting to drift, I signed off the organized part of the event and just let everyone mingle. Funboy was approached by a woman with a small boy, who asked him,

“Are you a monster?”

“Positing that we are free-willed beings, we all have the capacity to be monsters, insofar as we may do monstrous things—”

The boy turned to Icky. “Are you a monster?”

“Yup. Grrrr!”

The little boy shrieked and shrank back but laughed while he did it. Icky immediately melted. “Hey, it’s okay—”

I left them and wandered over to join Forester and White, who were huddled in furtive conversation in a corner. As I did, I passed Special Agent Bullard, who was eating sandwiches with both hands. “Big egg salad fan, I gather,” I said as I passed him. He chewed and nodded enthusiastically. “Well, gentlemen, what did you think?” I asked the Equal Grasp’s two representatives. Forester offered his plastic smile. “It was a start. But I think we’ve got a lot more to do.”

“I agree.”

White’s smile was decidedly more watery. “I do, as well—to a point. I think we need to do bigger events in bigger venues. This is nice and all”—

he gestured around him—“but we’re really not getting a lot of traction here in Rapid Cedars, are we?”

“Cedar Rapids. And, as I’ve been saying for a while now, this is going to be a process, gentlemen. There are well over three hundred million people in the United States alone. And they’re… well, far from unified on pretty much anything, really. And there are another seven and a half billion people around the rest of the planet, all equally divided.”

“This planet needs a world government. It would be far more efficient.”

I smiled. I was really tempted to tell White to go and suggest that to Myron—a world gubmint. But I restrained myself. “Yeah, there’s something you don’t want to go advocating out loud—”

Speaking of government, Van, a big car just pulled up outside. It’s got government plates, Perry said in my ear. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but we seem to have an honored guest arriving,” I said. “I’ll bring her in and introduce you to her.”

I stepped out into the cooling evening to see an impeccably tailored woman stepping out of a limo. Representative Constance Plowitz was a sometimes-celebrity in the media. I recognized her face, though mainly because it appeared over stories about her twisting like a weather vane, conforming to however she thought the political winds were blowing. For most politicians, flip-flopping like that wouldn’t fly. But Plowitz somehow managed to deftly thread her way among the competing agendas of her own party, as well as the opposition. She never really emerged looking like a winner, but more importantly, she never looked like a loser, either. Her whole career had been built on a foundation of kinda showing up in the background of the victorious side. As for things like principles and values—well, they just got in the way. She looks like a dollar-store version of Torina, except smeared with an oily residue of opportunism, Perry said as I approached her. A burly man in a dark suit and sunglasses—at night—moved to block me, but she switched on an incandescent smile and nudged him aside. I might be someone important, after all. “Representative Plowitz, I’m Van Tudor.”

“Very nice to meet you, Van. And your involvement in this is—?”

I couldn’t resist. “I’m from outer space!” I proudly declared. Perry laughed in my ear. Good one, boss. Let’s see how she handles that. She handled it by keeping her bright, rigid smile fixed on me like a floodlight. I could see her mental gears spinning. If anyone else, at any other time, had proclaimed themselves from outer space, she’d have ignored them and let her security people shove them aside. But this event was supposedly all about people from outer space, so she hesitated. If she was going to avoid being on the losing side regarding this supposed first contact, she couldn’t afford to start taking sides yet. “Really?

From what planet?” she asked me in an absolutely neutral tone. In a sound bite, she could just as easily come off as mockingly scoffing as she could genuinely interested. It was, I realized, her secret weapon, her superpower. She had the knack of saying things that, when inevitably played back, could readily support whatever narrative she wanted. “Actually, Earth. I was born and raised here in Iowa, near Elkader. I didn’t head into outer space until just a few years ago.”

“Really. And what prompted you to do that?”

“After I inherited my grandfather’s farm, I found his spaceship in the barn.”

“Ah.” She glanced around. There was media present—a couple of local network affiliates, a few bloggers, and Tutsi Auffenberg, now ostensibly representing Wake Up Cedar Rapids!

on local access. What wasn’t present were the big players—the likes of CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. They hadn’t bought into any of this yet, either. Plowitz obviously decided she needed to get in front of whatever news came out of this regardless. She turned her high-wattage smile to the handful of cameras and started to speak. She rambled on with a few noncommittal comments, then immediately got hit with a question about how she intended to vote on an upcoming bill dealing with funding to government social programs. While she proceeded to avoid answering that, Icky wandered out of the community center, saw the gathering, and ambled over to investigate. I let her. Which meant that, while the good Congressperson was talking about fiscal needs and policies of restraint and doing right by the taxpayers, a

seven foot tall, blue-furred, four-armed alien wandered into her backdrop. “What the hell’s all this?’ Icky asked. She’d switched from sandwiches to donuts, sporting a cruller in one hand and a half-eaten jelly donut in the other. I crossed my arms and grinned. “This, Icky, is somehow turning out to be a wonderful evening.”

The various cameras lifted, now shooting past and around Plowitz. She hesitated, then turned—and froze. Icky blinked back into the sudden glare of attention. “What?

Oh, shit—

Van, have I got jam on my chin again?”

PLOWITZ BREEZED her way into the venue, but not before Tutsi Auffenberg sidled up beside her, wearing a vacuous smile. But her words were anything but, when Perry played them back to Torina and me in our ear bugs. Don’t think for a minute you’re going to co-opt this stage, you lying bitch. I’ve been watching how you vote about—about everything. “Who knew Tutsi had it in her?” Perry said, standing on the refreshment table. “Bird, your tail is sitting in the muffins,” I said, nodding toward his hind end. He looked back. “Oh, for—I just had Rab clean sprinkles off my right wing.”

“Tutsi didn’t really surprise me,” Torina said, watching as she walked with Plowitz toward the stage. “I had a chance to talk to her. She was in pageants when she was younger.”

I had to whistle. “Wow. Plowitz never had a chance.”

Tutsi peeled off, looked around, then headed our way. I smiled as she approached. “Harsh words for the Congressperson. Aren’t you worried she’ll cut your funding?”

Tutsi gave a thin smile. “You’re assuming that Congress even sees our funding.”

“Ah. Point taken.”

“I just wanted to make sure that she would stand up there and be Constance Plowitz.”

I frowned at that. “That didn’t seem to be the message you gave her.”

“She’s a politician, Van. The only way to get her to really take a stand is for someone she considers beneath her to try to tell her what to do. Trust me

—she and I go way back. I had her on my show when she was still just the Cedar Rapids Water Commissioner. I know how she operates—and where the bodies are buried.”

“They say there’s no politics as personal as local politics.”

Tutsi gave a sly smile. “Oh, you have no idea.”

“Okay, so what’s she going to do up there?” Torina asked. Tutsi crossed her arms. “She’s going to make it abundantly clear to the world that she was here tonight. But she’s going to do it in such a way that, down the road, she can claim she was here to debunk all of this when it turns out to be a big bullshit hoax—or be the visionary hero, the first politician to come out in support, when it turns out the little green men are real.”

“And want to do business,” I said. Tutsi gave a firm nod. “Exactly.”

Sure enough, that was exactly what Plowitz did. Her remarks on the stage were cunningly crafted so that they could later be portrayed in whichever way she found most advantageous. It was actually kind of impressive to watch—like I said, a superpower. When she was done, Plowitz quickly extricated herself without further discussion or questions. I was surprised to see Dennis Everyday, the social media influencer, hurrying after her. “I doubt she’s going to offer you any comments,” I said as he rushed by. He stopped, a strange look on his face. It quickly grew into a dumb grin. “I don’t give a shit about her. I’ve got more important things to do.”

“Do tell.” I assumed he meant social media influencing, but he actually stepped closer to me, enveloping me in a dense molecular cloud of body spray. He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Yeah. That… doctor, or whatever the hell she is, the one who pointed that thing at me—”

“And said you’ve been flying at half-mast since January?” Perry asked Everyday shot him a glare, but it quickly turned back into a grin. “That was true, emphasis on ‘was.’ She gave me a pill and—” He spread his arms. “Let’s just say winter snows are long gone, baby. Now, where does a guy go for some, you know, fun around here?”

“In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on a Wednesday night?

Uh—” I shrugged. “Go find a cab. Slip the driver a few bucks and ask him. He’ll know,”

Perry said. Everyday stared for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Great idea. Thanks, uh… robot bird.”

“Robot bird is happy to help.”

Everyday hurried away. I looked at Perry. “What do you know about finding action, courtesy of cab drivers?”

“Hey, I’ve been around.”

Our caterer wheeled in more food. Funboy ambled over to us. “There appears to be considerably more food here than there will be demand for.”

He looked gravely at me. “It would be a shame for it to go to waste.”

I shrugged. “Go ahead, dig in. We’re a planet with aliens now, so what the hell.”

Funboy nodded and unbuckled his baggy jeans. “What the hell are you doing?” Torina asked. “Living up to my family motto.”

“Which is?”

“Enthusiasts eat ’til it hurts,” he said, and headed for the food being laid on a side table. On the way, he took Gabby by the arm and pulled her away from the conversation she was having with Bullard and Begum. The two Agents looked profoundly grateful. Perry stared after him. “Definitely not what I would have guessed.”

RIGHT NEAR THE end of the evening, a beater of a car pulled up outside the venue. I’d stepped out with Torina and Miryam to get some air, then saw two figures pile out and come rushing up the sidewalk. It was Kyle and Derek, our two young UFO enthusiasts from Minneapolis. “Sorry we couldn’t make it here sooner, but somebody had to finish up an assignment he’d put off ’til the last minute,” Kyle snapped, shooting a sidelong glance at Derek. “Dude, I told you, I had family shit all week. And I’m not taking a low grade for being late—”

“Guys, you’re here. And you didn’t really miss much,” I said. Kyle rolled his eyes. “Yeah, other than first contact with aliens.”

“Is that what this was?

To be honest, I’m not really sure,” Miryam said, smiling and winking at me. “What does that mean?” Derek asked, but I just waved him off. “What it means is that things are going to start happening now. Slowly, and over time, but it’s going to start filtering out that aliens are real, and they’re here. I’d like you guys to monitor that—”

“Tony!”

Tony Burgess and Marla had ambled out of the community center. Tony looked at Derek, frowned, then nodded. “Oh, yeah. The UFO Festival in Roswell, right?

Couple of years ago?”

“Yeah. We watched your panel on the Hessdalen Lights. It was pretty awesome.”

“I remember you guys. You had a zillion questions.”

“So you guys know one another,” I said, nodding. “Actually, that’s perfect. Tony, Kyle, and Derek here are in the know. I was just telling them what I told you a while ago—I need you guys to keep track of how this spreads through the zeitgeist, as it were, and keep Miryam here informed.”

I nudged Kyle and Derek off to talk to Tony and Marla, then took a moment to wander with Torina off across the lawn in front of the community center. I was surprised to see that Rab was already out here, staring up into the sky. “Looking for home?” I asked him. He pointed at a dim star. “There it is, right there.”

“You’re not interested in filling your face at the food trough, like Icky and Funboy?”

“Not a fan of terrestrial food, honestly. Well, except for the fish.” He paused as a couple of people walked by, ogling him and whispering. “So, did you achieve what you hoped to?”

“I think so. Thanks to the Equal Grasp, first contact was going to be inevitable. Doesn’t mean they had to have it go just how they wanted.”

Rab said nothing. That made me curious. “Why, Rab?

How do you think it went?”

He shrugged. “I don’t really know your people, Van. You’re the human I probably know best, and you’re hardly a typical Earthling.”

“But?”

He looked up again. “But, as far as this planet’s concerned, tonight has started changing the sky up there from… just that, the sky, into something else. A place where other people live. And a lot of those people will not have the best interests of Earth in mind.”

He shrugged again. “I’ve actually become kind of fond of your planet. I realize that it has its share of conflicts and troubles, sure. Everywhere does. But the universe just became a much more complicated place for your people, Van. In a way, that’s too bad.”

I nodded and looked up at the Moon, at the stars gleaming around it. “Yeah, innocence has a certain allure, doesn’t it?

The trouble is that it’s also pretty fragile. It doesn’t tend to last.”

Rab shook his head. “No, it does not.”

15

WITH TONY, his people, and Derek and Kyle on the case to closely monitor what happened next, we flew back to the farm. Miryam assured me she’d stay in touch with our eyes and ears in Appleton and Minneapolis, while also dealing with Forester. “He’s already called me, wants me to come to New York for some meetings,” she said as we prepared to board the Fafnir and head back into space. “Are you going?”

“A few days in New York, all expenses paid?

Damn right I am.”

I laughed, but we quickly turned serious again. “How much longer do you think you can hold him off?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m running thin on legal tricks to keep him spinning his wheels, and he knows it. I think, Van, the next time you come back to Earth, you’re either going to have to piss or get off the pot when it comes to helping the Equal Grasp.”

“How crude.”

“Part of my upbringing on the mean streets of Garnavillo.”

I kissed her cheek and headed for the barn, behind which the Fafnir sat, waiting for me with the rest of the crew aboard. I had deeply mixed feelings when we finally lifted. On the one hand, it was a relief to be away from Earth and all of this uncertain, complicated first-contact bullshit. On the other, I hated to leave for the same reason—that I’d be away from it and, therefore, not able to influence it. But I couldn’t stay tied to Earth forever. Moreover, I got some good news shortly before we took off—Petyr Groshenko was en route. He planned to spend some time on Earth, seeing as it was his home too, and he wanted to make sure this first-contact stuff didn’t get out of hand. That did make me feel better. Groshenko was a wily and formidable guy. With him planetside, Earth was in good hands. AS WE ACCELERATED past the orbit of Mars, Torina brought me a coffee, then settled into her seat in the cockpit beside mine. I needed the caffeine since it occurred to me I hadn’t slept more than a few hours here and there over the past three days. “Funboy is back there regaling Gabby with exploits about his smooth crowd handling back in Cedar Rapids. To hear him tell it, the whole evening revolved around him,” she said, smirking. I chuckled. “Eh, he’s trying to impress his girlfriend.”

“She was there.”

“So?

When have facts ever mattered to a guy who wants to impress his woman?”

“Tell me about it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She smiled sweetly. “Nothing.”

Icky came into the cockpit. “Hey, you know what they’re calling me in your media?

The Star Beast with No Pants.”

“You sound more proud than outraged,” I observed. “Not my worst nickname. And it is kinda accurate. Anyway, I just finished the last tweaks to the ship, so she’s officially undamaged—finally. Be nice if we could keep her that way for a while.”

“I’ll talk to our enemies, ask them to be careful around the Fafnir.”

Netty-P, who’d followed Icky into the cockpit, spoke up. “Speaking of our enemies, while you were off schmoozing your way through a first-contact party, I did some digging. The name Windribbon keeps coming up in intel reports and other sources. But the references are all pretty much disconnected. More than a few of them contradict one another, in fact.”

“So what do you recommend?” I asked her. “Go to the source. Atsuu, Retta’s sister, seems to have some sort of specific reason to avoid the Vela and this Windribbon. That implies she not only knows them, but also knows something about them.”

“Do we have any idea where this Atsuu is?” Torina asked. “No. Given the nature of her—employment—she keeps an extraordinarily low profile. She’s particularly good at not being wherever it is she’s believed to be, based on the number of frustrated comments on Guild intel reports,” Netty-P replied. “The nature of the beast,” I noted to Torina. Icky scowled. “Was that some kind of crack about me?”

“What?

No, it’s… just an expression, Icky. The beast in this case is metaphorical.”

“Although it probably does wear metaphorical pants,” Torina muttered, smirking at her instruments. “See, it was about me—!”

“Can we focus, please?

Netty-P, how long until we arrive at Forcus?”

“About four hours.”

“Okay. While we check on the progress Panzygrus has made, I’d like you to keep digging into this. See if you can get hold of Retta. If anyone is likely to know her sister’s whereabouts, it would probably be her.”

“Will do. Getting hold of Retta might be difficult, though. She was on Earth, building the spy network you asked her to work on. If she’s there now, then it might be tough to track her down.”

“Do your best.”

FORCUS WAS ALMOST HABITABLE. In fact, parts of it were habitable, in the sense that they were pressurized and rad-shielded, but they were otherwise mostly empty space right now. Panzygrus estimated that the entire facility would be complete and ready to occupy in about another month. “Which leads to a question, Van. You’ll have the power plant, the high-resolution scanner suite, the weapons, the facilities to handle spacecraft and their essential maintenance and repairs—the only question remaining is who’s actually going to man the place,” Panzygrus said. I looked around. We stood in an empty dome about fifty meters across. It was lit and warm and full of breathable air but otherwise just empty space. It was earmarked as living quarters for the Forcus crew. And that crew was going to be more of the Conoku. Linulla had spoken with other families associated with his, and all of them were quite keen on putting their youngsters to work on the Iowa. As Linulla had said, serving aboard her had become a prestigious appointment, to the extent that we were now developing a waiting list. The solution was to make Forcus a first-step posting, a sort of boot camp for young Conoku waiting to serve on the Iowa. Since the Iowa was stationed out here anyway, the ship would never be far away if she wasn’t on a mission somewhere. It would make it easy to cross-train the young Conoku on Forcus aboard the Iowa, meaning we didn’t have to bring new crew aboard her entirely untrained. Forcus would provide a constantly replenished source of trained Conoku already familiar with the Iowa to replace those of their fellows who left the Iowa to move on to other things. I explained this to Panzygrus. “Which means that we need quarters here''—I gestured around at the cavernous space—“for, say, fifty Conoku. For the other hab dome, we’ll set up half of it for twenty-five more, and the other half we’ll call transient quarters for any strays who end up out here.”

“I’ll draft up a proposed set of plans and have them to you shortly.”

I nodded. “How about the scanner suite?

Is it installed?”

“It is, and we’ve run the first tests and started doing the various calibrations. I think you’ll be pleased with it,” Panzygrus said, leading us out of the dome and along a tunnel of annealed rock to a second, smaller dome. This was the primary command center for Forcus, with a redundant secondary facility a few hundred meters away. The scanner suite we’d purchased—using The Quiet Room’s money, courtesy of Dayna Jasskin—

was a top-of-the-line static system intended for ground-based use. Now that it was operating, we were all blown away by the results. “I think I can see my house from here,” I said, admiring the extremely fine detail the system provided, even if not fully calibrated. We had a complete 3D picture of the solar system, with every body displayed in stunning resolution. Its sensitivity was so fine that, even in passive mode, it would be extremely difficult for even a well-stealthed ship to pass unnoticed. In active mode, it would probably be impossible. I turned to Torina. “Have to admit, I’ll be a lot happier when this place is fully up and running.”

She fiddled with the scanner controls, taking in some crisp imagery of Saturn’s rings. “You don’t trust the Equal Grasp.”

“Do you?”

“Hell no.”

“It’s not just them, either. Once word gets out that Earth is opening up for business, you know what’s going to happen.”

She nodded. “Every smuggler in known space is going to start drooling over a brand new market to exploit.”

Perry, who’d been silently communing with Panzygrus over some esoteric aspect of the scanners, spoke up. “And hard on their scummy heels will come the privateers and pirates, looking to make money of their own—

the old fashioned way, by stealing it.”

“None of which is going to make the Equal Grasp happy. They’re supposed to have exclusive access to Earth for a specified period, after all,”

Torina said. “Yeah, well, then they’d better be willing to play ball with us—which brings us right back to that trust issue. I wouldn’t put it past them to try a little smuggling of their own. I suspect that Earthly cultural artifacts and the like are going to command some high prices out there. And I really don’t want to see the Mona Lisa or—I don’t know, the Golden Armor of Tokugawa Ieyasu heading off into outer space, bound for some sleazy Yonnox collector’s living room—”

Netty-P broke in over the comm. “Van, we just got an urgent request for assistance relayed through Anvil Dark. A Synergist has sent a distress call from Ross 248, the Crossroads system. They’re about four hours from a twist point, and they’re being chased by a ship they can’t identify. They’ve taken unspecified damage. Gus has dispatched help from Crossroads, but they’ve got to climb out of the system’s gravity well, and they’re never going to make it in time—”

I waved at Panzygrus, who waved back. Then I started toward the tunnel that would lead us back to the surface, and the Fafnir, while Netty-P

was still talking. Perry and Torina fell in right behind me. “How long for us to get there?”

“Well, since we can twist pretty much from here, we can be at Ross 248

almost right away. And if we use the combi-drive from there—"

“On our way,” I said. This might be just the break I’d been hoping for. Assuming that the Synergists were running hell-bent for leather for a twist point, with their pursuer right behind, then we’d be able to twist in right in front of them. Together with the combi-drive, it meant that we could, at least in theory, intervene in a drama playing out eleven light-years away within the hour. Now, if we could only avoid destroying the ship pursuing the Synergists, then maybe we’d finally get some answers. AS SOON AS we twisted in to Ross 248, we saw the Synergist’s ship with its pursuer close behind. We’d used the nav data relayed to us from the Synergists to plunk ourselves directly in their path. The pursuer—a ship Netty-P immediately identified as another Vela craft—rightfully believed they had at least two hours before we could intervene. Since Netty-P gave it less than an hour for them to overtake the Synergists, they made no immediate effort to break off. “Let’s ruin their day, shall we?” I said. “Torina, Rab, ready on the weapons. But please shoot to disable them. I’d really like to take these assholes alive. Funboy, I’d like you and Gabby to stand by in the Frankie. As soon as we’ve got the situation under control, I want you to head directly for the Synergists and render whatever aid they need.”

Everyone swiftly moved to comply. When Hodgepodge, the AI that controlled the combi-drive, signaled the system was ready, I engaged it. “Kickin’ it now,” I informed everyone. We all winced at the wrench of partial entry into a twist, then let out sighs of relief when the Fafnir was settled into her own little temporary universe. I told Hodgepodge to run the combi-drive for five minutes, which should bring us back into normal space close to, but still ahead of, the Vela ship. “This still gives me a headache,” Torina grouched as the time on the combi-drive panel ticked down. We suited up and depressurized both the Fafnir and the Frankie. “I feel it in my stomach, personally,” I replied, swallowing a queasy simmer of nausea. It was far better than when we’d first started using the

combi-drive, out at Reverie. The spatial distortion still hadn’t been properly compensated, so flying with the thing engaged was like dropping acid and then stepping into a funhouse. At least, that was how I described it, based on my one and only experiment with LSD as a teenager—which also had the tragic effect of ruining Disney World for me. Permanently. I’d hated the result then, and I hadn’t liked the combi-drive induced weirdness any more. “Five seconds,” Hodgepodge said. We braced ourselves, again all wincing as the combi-drive cut out and we returned to ordinary, four-dimensional space. I studied the tactical overlay. Our situational awareness while using the combi-drive was limited, our scanners essentially blinded to anything not within the immediate vicinity of the ship. The overlay quickly refilled with data, a red icon popping onto the display about a hundred thousand klicks away. I immediately hit the fusion drive, accelerating us on a parallel course. The Synergist’s ship would whip past us, followed by the Vela, until we gained enough velocity to match them. It didn’t matter, though. For the better part of a full minute, the Vela would be under our guns as it raced by. I hit the comm, a multi-channel broadcast. “Vela ship, this is the Peacemaker ship Fafnir. Cut your drive, power down your weapons, and prepare to be boarded.”

I hadn’t really expected a reply and, sure enough, didn’t get one. Still, I broadcasted two more warnings. After the second, the Vela ship started a lateral burn, trying to open the range between us and them. But it was too late. The combi-drive had given us a cheat code to get around the implacable physics of spaceflight. What had probably seemed like a slam dunk to the Vela had suddenly gone very, very wrong for them. “Okay, Torina, Rab, weapons free. And remember—”

“Shoot to disable. Yes, mother,” Rab said. They opened fire, coordinating their efforts to try to land hits only on the Vela ship’s engineering section, and particularly her drive bell. If we could damage the bell badly enough, the drive would do an auto shutdown, and they’d be left coasting. The Vela ship started returning fire. They weren’t trying to disable us, though, so their shots came thicker and faster, aimed to inflict as much damage as possible. I started jinking, using our other cheat code—the alien grav-plating still installed on the ship. It served to reduce our effective mass, meaning we could accelerate harder for the same amount of thrust. Unfortunately, it made Torina’s and Rab’s job even harder, but it was that or start taking punishing hits of our own. We took a solid laser hit. Another, this one detonating a REAB module and gouging a furrow in the armor beneath. One of the grav-plates was knocked offline by a third hit. I clenched my jaw. If either Rab or Torina didn’t land a disabling hit soon, we might have no choice but to start shooting to knock out the Vela ship—even if that meant destroying it—

“Bingo,” Rab said. He’d finally hit the Vela ship’s drive bell with a solid particle-beam hit. The long tongue of fusion exhaust streaming in the Vela’s wake abruptly cut out, leaving them coasting. “Looks like we scrammed their reactor as well,” Netty-P said. “Their power emissions just dropped to the floor.”

“Okay, Funboy, you’re on,” I said. “On our way.”

The Frankie launched and accelerated after the Synergists. I yawed the Fafnir onto an intercept course with the Vela and accelerated after them. With their delta-V now zero, we quickly closed the distance. Well, this had been a lot easier than I’d expected—

A lot easier. “Icky, correct me if I’m wrong, but a main drive cutout doesn’t automatically shut down the reactor, does it?”

“Nope. I mean, I suppose it could happen if everything came together just right, but the chances of that are pretty small.”

“Huh.”

Torina peered at me through her visor. “I sense suspicion.”

I stared at the overlay for a moment, then at the image of the Vela ship on the display above it. “Yeah. I mean, they’re pretty much helpless, aren’t they?”

“They are. No drive, no power, so they’ve got nothing but emergency power cells.”

“Which takes their weapons offline, too.”

“Except for point-defenses. Those are normally self-powered, with their own supplies,” Rab said. “How about their scanners?”

“Operational in passive mode only, limited resolution,” Netty-P replied. I turned to Perry. “Would it be possible to spoof their scanners, to make it look like we’re continuing to close in on them?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a program for that stashed away. You think this is a trap?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. And that means we should probably err on the side of caution.”

“Okay, gimme a minute.”

“Netty-P, Icky, as soon as Perry’s ready, I want you ready to shut everything down,” I said. “Just give the word,” Icky replied. We waited. The Vela ship drew closer. I considered the overlay, focusing on how close we could safely approach before we’d be caught in the danger zone of a full antimatter containment breach from the Vela ship. Another couple of minutes, no more—

“Ready,” Perry said. “Okay. Coordinate this with Netty-P,” I replied. “On five. One—two—three—four—five—”

The Fafnir went abruptly dark. Only the overlay remained lit, so we could see what was going on, and then only with the same low-res passive scanner capability the Vela had. Icky had even preempted the emergency lighting. We’d still have a distinct infrared signature, but I hoped Perry’s scanner spoof would override it. A new icon had popped onto the overlay—the Fafnir’s ghost, still underway. Perry configured it so it would behave logically, maneuvering and decelerating to match velocity with the Vela. We all watched intently. “Okay, coming alongside,” Perry said—

Then, sure enough, the Vela ship vanished in a dazzling pulse across the high end of the EM spectrum. When it cleared, there was nothing left but a tenuous cloud of cooling vapor. “You called it,” Torina said. I offered a grim nod as Icky brought the power back online. “Yeah. And that’s the good news.”

“The bad?”

“That I was able to call it. The Vela were prepared to sacrifice themselves for a chance to kill us. And that makes for one hell of a

dangerous enemy.”

16

THE SYNERGISTS, at least, turned out to be mostly unharmed. Their ship had taken damage, which Icky and Rab set about repairing, while we hosted them aboard the Fafnir. Funboy attended to a few minor hurts but was limited in what he could do. “Their physiology is largely unknown outside their own people. For a relatively gregarious race, there’s actually a great deal that we don’t know about them,” he said when he’d done all he could. I glanced past him, into the crew lounge, where the Synergists sat talking to Gabby—a kindred spirit, because of course she was. “Well, they don't look like they’re about to keel over and die.”

Funboy frowned slightly—which was just his usual expression, only more so. “Why would you think they were?

I just reported that they—oh. More Earthly vernacular.”

I nodded. “Yeah, kind of along the lines of reductio ad absurdum.”

Silence. I sighed. “It means making a point in a ridiculous way—"

“No, it’s the big Latin words you used to do it, Van,” Perry said from nearby. “Hey, y’all aren’t the only ones to have yourselves some fancy book larnin’.” I left them to talk to the Synergists. Even as aliens went, they were an oddity. Tall, lean avian beings, they had narrow faces with striking, deep-set eyes. We called them Space Hippies, thanks to their gaudy decorations of beads and feathers, coarse

garments either rendered in earth tones or else brightly tie-dyed, and above all, their slow, relaxed attitude about nearly everything. It was a term of endearment, though, because the Synergists did nothing but good works around known space. I’d been curious and went back to search Guild records for an example of Synergist malfeasance, but I couldn’t find as much as a parking ticket or the equivalent thereof. As far as the Peacemakers were concerned, no Synergist of Arminsu-el had ever committed a single crime, which made them unique among all known races. They also had a cryptic ability to interact with their environment. They influenced things like the growth of plants and the fertility of soil through frankly silly displays of chanting, singing, and dancing—although there was nothing silly about the results. I’d seen it for myself on Helso. It was widely speculated that they had some sort of latent psionic ability, which they were able to focus through their free spirited rituals. No one had ever been able to prove or even explore this, though. The Synergists had politely but firmly rebuffed all efforts by outsiders to explore how they did what they did. Gabby gestured with a stumpy arm at one of the Synergists, apparently their leader or elder or whatever it was based on her resplendent feathered headdress. “Van, this is Danci. She’s the Foremost of this group of Synergists.”

I gave her a warm smile. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I only wish it was under less unfortunate circumstances.”

“No problem, friend. They weren’t as unfortunate as they could have been, am I right?”

True to her hippy vibe, her voice was low and gravely slow. She reminded me of someone who’d gotten a touch too baked and suddenly had a monumental insight into the nature of existence—like how we had ten fingers and ten toes and we used a base-ten system of counting and that couldn’t be a coincidence and was totally mind-blowing. Afterward, of course, I’d realized it wasn’t really that mind-blowing at all. It was convenient. “That’s true. My crew have reported that the damage to your ship is minor, nothing that’ll prevent you from getting underway again.” I put my hands on my hips. “But there’s the fact you were attacked in the first place, and by the Vela. This isn’t the first time that’s happened in recent memory.”

“Right?

What is up with that?” She started swaying, moving her long fingers in an intricate pattern near her waist. I gaped dumbly for a moment,

then turned to Gabby. “She’s upset,” Gabby replied. Danci started snapping her fingers in a curious staccato, and she added, “Oh, wow. Very upset.”

“I believe you,” I said. Danci sure as hell didn’t look upset to me, but my experience with the Synergists was pretty limited. She looked more like someone at a dance, currently without a partner, standing off to one side and idly swaying to the music. “Um, Danci, could you maybe elaborate on what’s bothering you?

If it’s more than simply the fact you were just attacked, that is,” I said to her. “It’s the Vela,” she said, writhing slowly from side to side like kelp in a slow current. “Their energy has become so negative. So dark. They never used to be that way. They were dim and gray.”

“Dim and gray?”

“Dim and gray,” she said, giving me a languid stare. “Not like you. You’re bright and blue. Full of life and energy. Not as bright and blue as Gabby. She almost hurts to look at. The Vela were just… dim and gray. Plain. Boring. Not anymore. Now they’re red. Red and dark. Angry.”

“Oh, now do me,” Funboy asked. Danci looked at him and immediately said, “Gray.” She looked at him again. “Very.”

“I don’t see people in colors, and even I could have guessed that,” Perry said. “Do you have any idea why the Vela have become… dark and red?” I asked Danci. “Because there’s something black deep inside them.” She looked at Perry. “Like him.”

Funboy’s mouth lifted slightly. “At least I’m gray.”

I held up a hand. “What does that mean, he’s black?

Perry is one of the good guys here—”

“It’s not about good or evil. Black means that he doesn’t exist. Not really.”

Perry cocked his head. “Okay, I’m confused. Should I be having an existential crisis right now?”

But Gabby spoke up. “No, no. She means that you aren’t… you know, like us. Organic. You’re an AI, a machine—”

I suddenly got it. “Danci, are you saying that something—I don’t know, synthetic is affecting the Vela?”

She swayed and snapped her fingers in a complex rhythm. “Yes. Not real. It’s turned them hard and red and shot through with veins of black.”

Her fingers snapped even faster. “Ugly. Wrong.”

“Okay, Danci, that’s fine, thank you. Gabby, can you see to our guests’

needs?

Food, that sort of thing—”

“Already on it. I’ve got a batch of biscuits in the oven for them.”

Torina, who’d been standing back and watching, smiled. “Probably just as well Icky’s not on board, then.”

I nodded, then withdrew with her, Funboy, and Perry to the cockpit. “Something synthetic. Bets on it being Calamity?” I said. Torina crossed her arms. “But how could Calamity affect organic life-forms like the Vela?

Are we saying that it has become an actual virus, like the disease-carrying kind that we can catch?

Because if we are—”

“As horrifying a thought as that is, no, I don’t think that’s the case,”

Perry put in. “The Vela do incorporate machine intelligence in their physiology. But unlike, say, the Usu, who are mostly machine with some organic bits, the Vela are the opposite. They’re organic beings who’ve melded inorganic components and AI into themselves. They’re able to assign some of their experiential and resulting thought processes to the artificial parts, which then feed back the output into their awareness.”

“So similar to me using a data slate to solve some mathematic problem, except in their case, the data slate is incorporated directly into their physiology,” Funboy offered. Perry bobbed his head in a nod. “Pretty much. They do it far more efficiently, though. In the time it would take you to input a single math problem into your slate, and your brain to understand and even begin responding to the output, they could probably do that hundreds, maybe thousands of times.”

I thought about Chensun, Dayna Jasskin’s Vela assistant. I’d thought of her as a walking, talking computer, able to almost instantly solve complex numeric problems or retrieve huge amounts of complex information. It was what made the Vela so useful in roles like that one, Dayna’s financial assistant. And it was why there were Vela occupying many such positions across known space, some of them mission-critical to whoever was employing

them, and some downright sensitive. The Guild employed several in key roles on Anvil Dark, in fact. None of them had exhibited any signs of being compromised, though. Although that didn’t mean they weren’t. I swore and turned to Netty-P, who was in her place in the cockpit, keeping watch around the Fafnir, the Frankie, and the Vela ship for any further trouble. “Netty-P, get Gerhardt on the comm for me, please. It’s urgent.”

“On it.”

I turned back to the others. “If the Vela are susceptible to the effects of Calamity—” Torina said. I nodded. “Then the war against that damned virus is back.”

I ASKED Netty-P to scour her records of the battle to see if she could find any hint of Calamity activity in the Vela’s emissions, transmissions, or whatever. She checked, but didn’t find any evidence of the virus. What she did find was more puzzling, though. “It was an encrypted twist-comm burst transmission. Fortunately, the encryption was relatively weak and easy to break,” she said. I lifted an eyebrow. “That suggests we were meant to break it. I mean, if anyone should be able to use decent encryption, it would be someone like the Vela.”

“True, but I don’t think that’s the case here. I suspect that the Vela were hoping that by compressing the transmission to a blip, it might escape notice.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The message was in French—or, more correctly, a Belgian dialect of French. And it was directed at Earth. It’s likely that the receiving technology of the intended recipient was the limiting factor in the encryption.”

I shifted uncomfortably in the pilot’s seat. “French. Damn. That makes me think of Retta again. Or her sister, Atsuu, although I don’t think she’s ever been portrayed as a Francophile the way Retta is.”

Perry, perched on Rab’s seat, cut in. “Retta speaks an impeccable Parisian French, right down to the carefully cultured accent. She’s never shown any interest in speaking a lesser form of French, like some regional dialect—especially Belgian.”

“Why especially Belgian?”

“Because Belgium isn’t France. In fact, a significant component of Belgian culture is that they are specifically not France.”

I shook my head. “Okay, so where is this going?

We’ve got another player on Earth, someone in Belgium?”

“Maybe?

We’d have to investigate to find out, I guess.”

“Yeah, I’ve got better things to do than land in Belgium—a country I’ve never visited—to try to find someone, somewhere, with access to a twist-capable receiver. I mean, the country must have a population of, what, at least a couple million?”

“Eleven-point-six-seven million, as of the last enumeration,” Perry said. “So I was off by a factor of almost six. Told you I don’t know much about the place.”

Torina wandered in from the galley with a mug of coffee. “We’ve got people we could ask, though, right?”

I shrugged. “Most of our contacts are in the US. I’m mindful of the fact that there are about seven and a half billion people on Earth who aren’t in the US, and that’s something we’re going to have to deal with. Right now, though, our resources outside the States are pretty limited.”

“Okay, maybe this is something,” Netty-P said. “I’ve been scouring Guild data archives for signal intercepts in Belgian-dialect French. Unsurprisingly, there aren’t many. In fact, there are only four. Two of them are related to cases that were solved and closed years ago—one of them by your grandfather, in fact—”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that,” Perry put in. “Back during the bad old days of Belgian colonial exploitation of the Congo, in Africa. Mark caught wind of a smuggler running illegally mined cobalt using the horrific situation around the rubber industry as cover. The smuggler messed up his trajectory calculations and ended up smacking into Saturn. Kinda closed the case right there.”

“Okay, what about the other intercepts?” I asked. “One of them is too garbled to offer up much—I’m not even sure why it was retained. The other one is pretty garbled as well, and related to one of

Lunzy’s cases—another smuggler running mid-range consumer tech. He was apparently just using Sol as a waypoint while twisting, though, and didn’t obviously have anything to do with Earth,” Netty-P said. “But?”

“But, two clear bits of the transmission were captured. One referred to an exchange point. The other was a single word, ‘Turnhout’.”

“Okay.” I looked from her to Perry. “And?”

“Turnhout, from the French verb tourneour, meaning to turn on a lathe. It’s also a surname,” Perry said. “Turnhout is also a town in Belgium, in the Flemish province of Antwerp,” Perry said. “And—stop me if you’ve heard this one—a really interesting coincidence.”

“Ah, my favorite kind of completely random event. What sort of coincidence?”

“Turnhout is also a castle located near the town. It was built in the eleventh century, a lovely place, but it’s the recent history that’s a lot more interesting. In the 1970s, a wealthy family bought it and took control of several local buildings as well. Their name is Alarie.”

I stared for a moment. Perry had said it as though I should know the name—

Wait. I did. “Alarie. As in the original family name of the woman now known as Manon Clemenceau, Director of the Defense Intelligence Reserve in the United States.”

“Got it in one.”

Torina swallowed coffee. “I know space is really, really big, but sometimes it feels really, really small.”

I nodded. “Don’t it just. Well, hello, Director. Fancy meeting you again.”

“What are these Belgians known for?” Torina asked. Perry answered. “Jean-Claude Van Damme. Waffles. Chocolate. And, of course, a lot of guns, and that really nasty unpleasantness in the Congo I mentioned a moment ago. Mind you, that was a long time ago now, and it’s not like most other countries on Earth don’t have their own unpleasant bits of history. Well, except for Andorra.”

“Andorra?”

“When was the last time you heard anything bad about Andorra?”

I drummed my fingers on my armrest. “Well, I think that as of now, we’re going to treat Turnhout as a possible location of illegal goods exchange on Earth—probably one that isn’t involved with the Equal Grasp.” I shrugged. “No honor among thieves. Anyway, who wants chocolate?”

Funboy leaned around the bulkhead and looked into the cockpit. “Depends. Do I have to share with Icky?”

WHILE PERRY SEARCHED for any interesting signals or emissions, I circled the Frankie over the town of Turnhout. Located about thirty klicks east of Antwerp, it was a charming, if unremarkable small Belgian town, not too different from any number of similar-sized towns around it. I’d brought Torina and Perry, as well as Icky in case we needed muscle, and Funboy as another gun and for the medical expertise. Unfortunately, we had to start treating encounters on Earth as potentially far more dangerous than we had been, now that aliens and their tech were starting to come planetside. I glanced at Perry. “Anything—”

A sharp ping cut me off. An icon on the tactical overlay had brightened and started to flash—a threat, though not the about to attack us kind. It was a British Airways A320 on its downwind leg, soon about to turn back onto final to land in Antwerp. This was the third time we’d had a traffic conflict since we started circling over Turnhout, thanks to the peculiarities of winds and similar aviation stuff. I put the Frankie into a turning dive until the Airbus’s icon went dim again. “Busy up here today,” Torina said. I grunted assent and nodded, studying the overlay. We were circling in the midst of an airspace triangle defined by Antwerp to the west, Rotterdam to the north, and Düsseldorf to the east—three very busy airports. The aircraft and the ground controllers guiding them around had no way of seeing the Frankie, of course, but just because we were invisible to them didn’t mean we weren’t here. The stealth system that concealed us had a limited ability to sort of shunt mass around it—which is why I was able to futz around in the barn for years without slamming face-first into the

Fafnir’s unseen forerunner, the Dragon. But the system couldn’t shunt a hurtling airliner enough to make a difference—and slamming into a speeding Boeing 777 was definitely going to leave a mark. I frowned. The Frankie’s flight management AI had projected four more aircraft as possible collision hazards. I started another descent, but we were running out of altitude—especially to the south of Turnhout, which was where final approach to Antwerp’s Luchtaven Airport started—

“Bingo. Got a hit,” Perry said, putting another icon onto the overlay. It wasn’t near the castle, thankfully, which sat pretty much in the middle of Turnhout. That would have been awkward. This one illuminated a chunky stone barn on a pastoral farm southeast of Turnhout. I dropped the Frankie to just over treetop level and started a broad circle, lighting up the barn with scanners as we wheeled around it. A Lufthansa Embraer 195 swept majestically overhead on its way to Antwerp. I looked at Perry. “Anything more than just a hit?”

“Not really. There’s something inside that barn that’s giving off power-cell emissions. So unless some Belgian cows have figured out how to harness the atom, I’m guessing it’s some off-world stuff—”

“Van, something’s happening down there,” Icky said, pointing. A pair of barn doors had just been flung open. A moment later, a car, a late model Audi, erupted from the opening and raced up a lane bordered by trees on one side, a grassy field on the other. “Shit. I really don’t want him to get into a built-up area. Torina, can you stop him?”

She tapped at her weapons controls. “If by stop him, you mean vaporize him, sure. But I’m assuming you’d prefer—well, not that.”

“Yes, not vaporizing him would be nice.”

The suppressor cannons were out—they’d unleash untold destruction onto the Belgian countryside, which was something else I’d rather avoid. The point-defense battery was no better, since it would be like shooting at the Audi with an Abrams tank. She dialed the Frankie’s single remaining laser emitter to its lowest power setting and narrowest beam, lined up her shot, and fired. After a flash and a puff of gray smoke, the Audi swerved and thumped off the road, into the field. It stopped, then a man got out and started running—

Okay, running wasn’t really the right word. More like quickly picking his way across the field, lifting his feet with exaggerated care while

clutching an umbrella. “Wow, John Steed’s really let himself go,” Perry said. “Wait—you know that guy?” Icky asked. “I—no. John Wickham Gascoyne Beresford Steed was a character in The Avengers.”

“Oh, I watched that on our way out to Reverie. Was he one of the ones Thanos snapped into oblivion?”

“Wrong Avengers—”

“You guys can talk TV trivia later, okay?” I said, diving the Frankie to cut the man off from the tree line he was running, or rather hopping with some delicate side-stepping, toward. If I didn’t know we were in Belgium, I’d accuse the man of being exceptionally British. We landed and disembarked, then stepped out of the Frankie’s stealth effect about ten meters ahead of our escapee. He was a thin, ascetic man in a dapper dark suit and purple bow tie, carrying an umbrella. He yelped when he saw us, then fumbled at the umbrella and drew a sword with a blade about as menacing as a coat hanger. He brandished it at Icky, who stalked toward him. “St-stay away!

I won’t hesitate to—”

Icky snatched the blade out of his hand and bent it double in her two bigger hands. With a smaller one, she grabbed the umbrella and bit it with a sharp crack. I walked up beside her. “Kinda barbaric, big girl.”

Icky shrugged and spit out umbrella. “Just trying to sell the whole space-monster thing.”

“So four-armed, hairy, and blue wasn’t enough, huh?”

She pulled fabric out of her mouth. “Blah. Gross. What kinda animal is that made from?”

“Brontosaurus, maybe?” Perry said. I glanced at him. “What?

”

“Synthetic. Plastic. You know, made of oil?

And oil’s made of dinosaurs?

Although it’s not, really. The origin of oil is a lot more complicated—”

“Uh, guys—he’s very slowly getting away,” Torina said. Sure enough, the foppish dandy had turned and started flouncing off the other way. I sighed. “Oh, for—hey, wait a minute. We’re close enough to France for this one—” I cupped my hands and bellowed, “J’accuse!

”

Perry gave me a look. “Very dramatic. Think you oughta—”

“Yeah. I will.”

I jogged after him. It took me about five seconds to catch him, grab his shoulder, and spin him around. “Unhand me, you ruffian!”

His voice was shrill, nasal, and full of outrage, but also annoying. I returned a flat look at him, while the others ambled up to join us. “I’m sorry, sir, and you are?” I asked him. “Outraged!

How dare you simply appear—”

I held up a finger. “Okay. First, we detected anomalous signals from your barn over there, suggesting some sort of off-world contraband. Second, we’re here because of an intel tip about the aforementioned off-world contraband.”

“I—"

“Third, you apparently were able to detect us while we were circling above,” I went on, “which makes it pretty clear you have the means of doing so—and that means off-world tech. Fourth, you then tried to run—

probably away from your barn full of contraband.”

“But—"

“And fifth, you don’t seem that surprised to see us drop out of the sky, or by the fact that we’re accompanied by a giant, four-armed alien, or one that looks like an anthropomorphic sloth.” I ended by gesturing to Funboy, who was looking down at his feet. “Oh dear. What is this on my boot?”

Icky peered at his foot. “I’m thinking… shit.” She looked around. “Excuse me, I mean merde.”

“You really are becoming worldly,” I told Icky, who beamed. Funboy started scraping his foot in a clump of grass. “Oh dear, oh dear

—”

I turned back to the foppish dandy. “So, let’s try this again. You are?”

He drew himself up with a sniff and looked down his nose at me. “I am Remy Alarie, a man not to be trifled with. My family owns this land—”

“And I own a farm in Iowa that’s probably four times the size of this pasture, so what. My name is Peacemaker Van Tudor, emphasis on the

Peacemaker. And from the way your face just fell a little, I’m guessing you know what that is.”

“I—uh—”

“Yeah, yeah, tell it to the judge. Meantime, how about you go show us around your barn?”

17

THE BARN WAS a trove of off-world tech, all mid-level stuff, mostly related to entertainment. If science fiction and Radio Shack had a baby, it would be a lot like what we saw all around us. It was clear that Alarie intended to flood Western Europe with the stuff, and that would be a pain—and would definitely antagonize the Equal Grasp. In fact, I was starting to understand why Manon Clemenceau, who was Remy Alarie’s sister, was keeping a laissez-faire policy toward the Equal Grasp. She was probably implicated in her brother’s off-world dealings and didn’t want to risk attracting the Grasp’s attention to their family. But hyper-realistic VR simulators and 3D food printers weren’t the problem. Or they were, but mainly from a breaking Guild smuggling laws perspective. Far, far more worrisome were what Icky uncovered in a crate stacked under some entertainment systems. “Well, look at what I found,” she growled. We did. The case contained laser-pulse projectors, single-shot weapons that could emit a powerful energy charge in the high-frequency end of the EM spectrum. They had to have a new charge cell inserted after every shot, but that shot was devastating. At close range, it could punch through the armor of a main battle tank. They were military-grade devices, sort of the ultra-advanced equivalent of the old German panzerfaust anti-tank weapon or its more modern successor, the Swedish AT4.

“Tell me, Mr. Alarie, who were you going to sell these to?” I asked, waving a hand at the weapons. He tried to maintain his haughty poise, but I could see fear starting to creep into his snooty expression. “I… wasn’t even aware those were here.”

Torina rolled her eyes. “Wow. I hope you don’t play cards with that face.”

Icky and Funboy dug into more of the buried crates. One of them contained a data chip, which Perry took back to the Frankie to scan for any hints of Calamity infection. When he proved it clean, he accessed it, then called over the comm. By then, we’d uncovered twenty crates of pulse projectors, each containing ten of the weapons. “You know, I love it when the bad guys just leave hard evidence lying around,” Perry said. “This chip contains cargo manifests for buyers in seven different African countries, four more in the Middle East, three in southern Asia, two in South America, and even one in Chicago.”

I spun on Alarie, who looked like he was starting to hyperventilate. I was less than concerned. “You absolute asshole. You’d put dangerous alien tech in the hands of vicious warlords, oppressive governments, and murderous scumbags for—

what?

What sort of profit?

Answer me, you foppish little pissant,” I snapped, leaning into his face and pushing him back—

Against Icky, who looked down at him. “You should probably answer the nice man. I’m a space monster, remember?”

“F-five. Five percent.”

Torina gave him a look as hard as mine. “I happen to know a little about money. What was your promised gross yield?”

“S-seventy-two million euros for the first, ah, sale.”

“And how much for each weapon?”

Alarie’s voice dropped to a rusty hiss. “Fifteen. Thousand.”

Perry spoke up. “Wait. You were going to sell ninety-six thousand alien weapons to untrained, murderous criminals?

Boss, you know I’m usually the voice of legal reason, but, screw it. I say we ice this guy right here for—

I don’t know, I’ll make something suitable up.”

I glared at Alarie. He was exactly the sort of amoral streak of human misery I’d come to despise back in my days as a computer consultant. He clearly had money, and lots of it. But it wasn’t enough. So, while he sat in some café in Turnhout, sipped fine wine, and nibbled on expensive cheeses, the incredibly powerful weapons he was helping shift would be wreaking untold suffering around the world. At best, the vile criminals wielding these

things would use them on other vile criminals. But it never worked out that way. Innocent, downtrodden people would end up in the target zone. And all so that this contemptible little dandy could stuff more money into offshore tax havens and never spend it. “You know what, Perry?

I’m kind of with you. Tell me, gang, does anyone object if I just blow this shitty excuse for a human being away right now?”

Torina stepped back. “Just shoot that way. I don’t want to get anything on me.”

Icky leered. “No shooting. I’ll go get my hammer.”

Funboy sidled up to him and blinked placidly. “There are several aspects of human physiology I am currently working to understand. It would be helpful if I could examine them in a still-living specimen.” He blinked again. “With all ten liters of blood intact, for the moment. Then we can kill him—”

Alarie snapped his patrician face from speaker to speaker, then broke down in blubbering tears, gasping out promises to tell us everything we wanted to know. Torina shook her head. “Just when I didn’t think I could get even more contemptuous of him.”

“Tell you what, Mr. Alarie. You help us and we’ll let you live. Oh, you’ll still be paying for it with a chunk of your freedom, but that’s better than dead”—I glanced at Funboy—“or going through a little vivisection, isn’t it?”

He nodded quickly. “Yes. Yes. I have a communications device in my car. It has all of the information you want on it.”

I rested my hand on the holstered grip of The Drop. “Okay, then. Torina, you and Funboy—”

Alarie suddenly lunged for the nearest case of pulse projectors and snatched at one. I waited until he’d managed to get it out of the case, then drew and fired The Drop in a single motion—a slug hit him center of mass and blew a hole through his chest. He toppled backward and sprawled across the containers of weapons he’d seen as nothing but profit. Icky gave me a sidelong glance. “I thought that gun of yours has a stun beamer thingie on it.”

I turned back to her. “Oh, yeah. Oops.”

Funboy looked down at Alarie, then back at me. “He’s dead, Van.”

“Thanks, Bones, kinda figured that out for myself,” I said, reholstering The Drop. “I notice that you waited until he had the opportunity to believe he might actually get to fire that weapon before you shot him.”

“Yeah, I was a little slow, wasn’t I?”

“You didn’t want him alive?” Torina asked. I shrugged. “As soon as we had him in custody, I suspect his sister Manon Clemenceau would have been in touch with somebody, somewhere, to get him sprung. He was never going to pay for what amounts to a Crime Against Order.”

Perry whistled. “Well. I’m with you, boss.”

“Fifty-three.”

Perry looked at me. So did everyone else. “What’s that?”

“Fifty-three people a day are murdered in just one place where those weapons were headed. I know. I read the data. It… stayed with me.” I looked around, seeing their faces shift from stunned to… agreement. Understanding. “I feel bad killing him, by the way. I decided long ago that I didn’t like killing anyone. But for killing this man, in particular?

Not really feeling anything other than a sense of closure for victims he would have created—

in the name of profit. If he hadn’t tried to grab the projector, he’d still be alive. But he’d made his choice. And if we’d managed to stop nearly one hundred thousand profoundly deadly weapons from infesting Africa and the Middle East and Chicago in the process, then we did more than our job.”

Torina gave me a sad smile. “You’re damned right, dear. You did some good.”

WE DID FIND a comm unit in the Audi. Icky took it to Perry so it could be checked for Calamity and then investigated. In the meantime, Torina, Funboy, and I headed for the stone farmhouse. When we reached the porch and were about to mount the cracked stone steps to the ponderous front door, Perry came on the comm. “Van, it looks like Alarie was into collecting antiques,” he said. “What do you mean?”

“That comm unit Icky brought me is pretty old school. The basic tech has changed a lot, but the design is from over a hundred years ago.”

I stopped, one foot on the step. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“That… it’s old tech. I don’t have any other conclusions to offer, at least not yet. We might learn more when we have a chance to analyze the thing in more detail.”

I stared at the door as he spoke, dark wood with iron hinges and bands. It was like a bank vault compared to the front door of my own farmhouse in Iowa. Of course, as they say, in North America, we think a hundred years is a long time, and in Europe, they think a hundred miles is a long way. A little trite, maybe, but still apt. This farmhouse could easily have been standing here when Henry V gutted the French at Agincourt. Right now, though, the brooding, fortress-like bulk of the place made me nervous, without me really knowing why. “Icky, leave Perry to deal with that comm unit and come join us. And make sure you seal the Frankie when you leave. Oh, and bring your hammer.” I glanced at the door. “And a breaching charge.”

As soon as I said it, Torina and Funboy both drew their weapons without question—Torina a new machine pistol she’d recently purchased, Funboy his trusty old Frankenstein’s monster of a gun-club-knife-knuckles combination. I heard Icky hurrying on the comm. “Problem, Van?”

I looked back at the heavy door. “At the moment, no. But I think we’ve kind of let Alarie’s discount John Steed act put our guard down. This is—or was—Manon Clemenceau’s brother, after all. And while she’s the cunning spider at the center of her web, I’m sure her brother was one of her brood.”

There was also something about a century-old comm unit that pinged my alarm bells. I wasn’t sure what, couldn’t put a finger on it, just…

something. Icky came jogging up to join us, her hammer in her big hands, a slug carbine cradled in her smaller ones. I checked over my crew, all of us b-suited up, though lacking helmets. I considered going back to the Frankie to get them but decided against it. We’d been standing out here in front of this farmhouse long enough. I turned away from the house, pulled out my data slate, and called up—

something, it turned out to be the Fafnir’s fuel expenditure record for the

last month. I pretended to consult while speaking quietly to the others, who gathered around me. “Icky, will that breaching charge blow a hole in a stone wall?”

“Well, it’s meant to punch through spaceship armor, so, duh?”

“Good. Icky, in about one minute, you, me, and Torina are going to go up to that front door, and you’re going to start hammering like hell on it. While she’s doing that, Funboy, you’re going around the right side of the house to plant the charge and blow a hole into that space beyond those windows behind us, to the right of the front door. It’s probably a living room, or whatever it’s called in a place like this. Don’t enter, though, and just take up a position for covering fire. If Icky’s got the door down, we’re going in that way. If not, then Torina and I will run to join you and go in through the breach. Big girl, if you can’t get that door open right after that, then you’ll follow us in. Now, ignore my next set of instructions.”

I raised my voice. “Okay, based on this floorplan, we’re going in through the front door. Icky, you’re bashing our way in. Funboy, you go around back. Everyone got it?”

I got nods all around. “Okay, let’s go. Head on a swivel, kids.”

We turned and clattered up the steps. Funboy followed us, but as soon as Icky wound up and started slamming her hammer into the door, he dropped to a crouch and hurried around the side of the house. The door, as I’d expected, resisted even Icky’s best shots. She dented the wood—which, considering how old and frankly beautiful it was, was too bad—but it stubbornly absorbed her impacts. I glanced to the right, toward the corner where Funboy had gone. Any second now—

But, nothing. Silence, except for Icky’s increasingly frustrated cursing and the deep THUD-THUD-THUD of her hammer impacting the implacable door. She spat a particularly snappy curse and wound up to swing again—

But pulled her blow when the door suddenly opened, revealing Funboy. “There was a side door. It was unlocked. And, fun fact—this one was unlocked as well,” he said. I scowled at him. “You could have walked into an ambush, damn it—”

“I believe that the ambush is awaiting us on the upper floor,” he said, his voice lowered as we entered. “I heard voices up there a moment ago. This floor appears unoccupied, so a less kinetic entry seemed desirable. I reasoned that the blast of the breaching charge may have attracted unwelcome interest.”

It was a good point, one I’d considered, but a risk I’d reasoned worth it to help protect my crew. Still, I patted his shoulder as I passed him. “Good initiative, good work.”

“You could have complimented me without the accompanying physical contact.”

“Sorry, princess.”

“I’ll consider accepting said apology,” Funboy intoned. Back in my Army days, I’d been involved in a two-week long urban warfare exercise. One of the points driven home to us was that, when fighting in and around buildings, you had to break everything down into little tactical problems. Entering a room was a tactical problem. Clearing a corridor was a tactical problem. Ascending a staircase, which we now faced, was a tactical problem. And each one of these tactical problems had to be evaluated, then a plan had to be developed and executed. They’d taught us another trick as well. “Funboy, hand me that breaching charge,” I said. He did, and I hefted it in my left hand, The Drop in my right. Icky opened her mouth, but I held up a finger to cut her off and pointed at the initiator on the charge, which would start it counting down from as little as five seconds to as much as ten minutes. But I deliberately didn’t activate it and instead mimed throwing it up the stairs, then running up after it. Everyone nodded. I crept to the bottom of the stairs, shouted, “Fire in the hole!” and threw the uninitiated charge up to the top. It clattered across the hardwood, and I raced up after it, The Drop raised. Torina followed me, her machine pistol ready, followed by Icky, with Funboy bringing up the rear. Sure enough, two figures cringed in a doorway on either side of the top landing, as if they expected an explosive charge to detonate. When they heard our footsteps, they tried to recover, swinging vicious looking, snout-nosed weapons toward us. I fired The Drop into the one on the left, while Torina put a burst into the one on the right. Both went down. For good. I kept going left, around the chunky wooden balustrade. Torina likewise kept going right. A figure crouched in a doorway just ahead of me, leveling something with a bore the size of a sewer pipe—a shotgun. I dodged left,

and he fired. The blast caught me across the left side. Gleaming needles bounced off my b-suit. Something like a live electric wire touched the left side of my face, just below my eye. I fired back, double-tapping two rounds into him. He toppled back, limbs flailing in a grotesque series of spasms. I kept going. Behind me, Icky bellowed, and I heard shouts, then a scream. Torina, on the other side of the stairwell, lunged into a room, cleared it, and came back out. I did the same on my side, stepping on the man I’d just shot to do it. That left only one room, a closed door ahead of us. I glanced back in time to see Icky’s hammer shatter the skull of another of these… mercenaries, I assumed. Gore spattered across five-hundred-year-old plaster and hardwood. I had an inane thought—considering how old this house was, this might not be the first time someone had had their head caved in inside it. This was Europe, and this house had gone through who knew how many wars?

Funboy remained on the stairs, looking back down, in case anyone tried to get in behind us. Torina grabbed my arm. “Van, are you alright?”

“Think I took a flechette in the cheek, but yeah—”

She nodded, looking relieved. “That would explain all the blood.”

“Bandages later,” I snapped, turning to the remaining closed door. I grabbed the brass knob and twisted. It was unlocked, so I flung it open and jumped back, while Torina and Icky aimed their weapons from behind cover, into the room. I peered around the door frame. An old woman stood on the other side of a bedroom repurposed into an office. She held a pistol of some sort, aimed vaguely at the door. “Let me take her out, Van. Just one arm. She’s got two,” Icky growled, aiming her carbine while keeping her hammer held aloft and ready to swing. The old woman glared over the pistol a moment longer, then dropped it with a clunk onto a richly embroidered carpet. I charged into the room, swinging The Drop right and checking behind the door. Torina went left. Icky came in, went straight to another door, and yanked it open, revealing a closet. I turned to Icky. “You and Funboy go and clear the rest of the house.”

Icky blinked at me. “I’ve got a better idea. Let Funboy patch up your face, and I’ll clear the rest of the house.”

I touched my face with my free hand and pulled it away, sticky with blood. Facial wounds. They bleed like hell. “Torina, spray me,” I said. She hit me with a dose of first aid spray to stop the bleeding for now. I shooed Icky and Funboy off, then turned to the old woman. She was short and bent, with iron gray hair and skin wrinkled with age. I figured her for somewhere in her eighties, but there was nothing in her eyes but sharp cunning. “Let’s start with a name,” I said, keeping The Drop half-raised. She gave me an imperious look—ballsy, considering the circumstances. “I am Elsbeth Alarie, and this is my home that you’ve invaded.”

“Ah. You must be the family matriarch. I see the resemblance to your daughter. It also explains how that mincing dandy of a son of yours had the balls to take on such a big operation. He didn’t. You did.”

“I have been engaged in this business for a very long time, yes. And I assumed it from my father before me. We have operated for a very long time, Peacemaker Tudor, under your very nose.”

I offered a thin smile. “Well, until now, anyway. But all good things, and all that, am I right?”

“We shall see about that.”

Torina, her expression as cold as old ice, shook her head. “Sounds to me like she just admitted to a long history of criminality.”

“What you call criminality, I call advancing our race,” Alarie snapped. I laughed. “Really. By running guns and putting them into the hands of psychopathic warlords and despotic dictators?”

“You may have the uniquely American luxury of calling them that, Peacemaker. But to many forced to live in these less fortunate places, those so-called warlords and dictators—”

“Are freedom fighters and patriots, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, I’ve heard all the justifications the book has to offer. The point is, Ms. Alarie, that for you, it ends—today.”

“Again, we shall see.”

Torina’s icy glare became an icy frown. “Indulge us. You can’t have been running weapons for the past century. So, what then?

What sort of off-world tech have you been dealing in all this time that hasn’t shown up in some pretty obvious ways?”

Alarie gave a thin smile. “What makes you think it hasn’t?

Nearly every major conflict since the Great War has seen some use of the things that we have provided. But we are careful. Subtle. It is how we have maintained our… low profile, you might say. And when our clients got careless—” She shrugged. “You may have heard of Die Glocke, the supposed Nazi UFO?

Herr Hitler sought to overtly adapt some of our—goods—for purposes we never intended. He was stopped.”

I shook my head. Die Glocke was an infamous conspiracy theory, a UFO, time machine, superweapon—probably a potato peeler and lemon zester, on top of it all. Since becoming a Peacemaker, it was one of a number of conspiracies I’d actually wondered about, if there was something to them. In this case, there apparently was. “So you stopped Hitler from developing UFO technology,” I said. Alarie smiled. “We really are not monsters. And you’re welcome.”

I shook my head again. Wow. Her arrogance was downright breathtaking. But something else plucked at me. She’d said every major conflict since the Great War, World War I. And we’d found a one-hundred-year-old comm unit in her son’s car. And she knew my name. “You knew my grandfather, didn’t you?” I asked her. She gave me a hard look for a moment, then shrugged and turned to the bookcase behind her. She reached for a small statue of a winged lion, one of a pair mounted on bookends. I raised The Drop, while Torina lifted her machine pistol. Alarie actually laughed. “You are so frightened of an old woman?”

“Like Torina said, indulge us. One of the pulse projectors out in your barn is still deadly in the hands of an old woman,” I replied. She shrugged again, then manipulated the statue’s wing, twisting and pulling it. An unseen motor hummed, then the bookcase to the left of her swung open. It revealed a tall, slender figure with pale skin—an alien, though a species I didn’t recognize. It was clad in battered armor and sealed away behind glass. Wounds on the body made it pretty clear that they had suffered a violent death. I stared for a moment, then I got it. I looked at Alarie. “That’s Halvix.”

Alarie actually looked a little surprised. Torina simply looked blank. “Who?”

“This was the alien criminal Valint was chasing when she met my grandfather. He crashed here, on Earth, during the Great War. She followed him down, and that’s when she and Gramps met. He was a soldier at the time.”

“Very astute, Peacemaker Tudor. Yes, this is Halvix. His body was, through circuitous means, sold to my father by a German officer after the end of the war. That officer went on to become a wealthy industrialist in Germany during World War II. My father, in the meantime, was able to use the comm device Halvix had with him to reach out to the stars. Both the industrialist and my father went on to have a long and fruitful partnership. And the rest is history,” Alarie said. I could only marvel at this woman. Her father had not only spawned a trade in illicit alien goods that had done who knew how much harm through the decades, but he’d also done so in cooperation with a Nazi industrialist. How many of Germany’s late-war technological advances were influenced by alien tech?

The V2 rocket?

The Horten Ho 229, a virtual stealth fighter long before stealth was even a thing?

What about the Allied side?

Had alien tech been involved in the Manhattan Project?

How many people had died because of the utterly amoral greed of those two men?

One thing was clear, though. Elsbeth Alarie was very much her father’s daughter. “Whoa, who the hell is that?”

I glanced back. Icky and Funboy had both returned. “It’s an old family friend. Is the rest of the house clear?” I asked. “Yup. Right down into the cellar—where, incidentally, there’s a bank of power cells. This place was set up to be juiced for years,” Icky replied. “There is also evidence that things have been moved into and out of the cellar. There is currently nothing stored down there, but there recently was,”

Funboy added. I nodded and turned back to Alarie. She gave me a look that was both mild and still profoundly haughty. It was… curated. A braided look of breeding and arrogance and an assumed power that made a column of anger boil up inside me, wild and unbidden. I tamped it down with an effort. “Very well, Peacemaker, you now know my story.” She started around the desk. “I suppose I am now to come with you—”

“What, no attempted bribes?

I’m a little insulted,” Icky said. I narrowed my eyes, though. Alarie did suddenly seem awfully willing to put herself into our custody. I turned back to the bookcase and then, on a hunch and a whim, walked over and manipulated the wing of the other lion statue, the one she hadn’t touched. I twisted—and it turned. I pulled it—

And another motor whirred, opening the bookcase to my right. It revealed another figure behind glass. A Synergist. Her eyes were flung wide, her mouth gaped in pain or horror or both. She was pinned behind glass to the wall behind her, like a butterfly on display. 18

I’M NOT NORMALLY GIVEN to blind rage. Blind rage doesn’t work very well for a computer hacker, a pursuit that requires a methodical, deliberate approach to problems. That said, I’d had my share of furious moments since becoming a Peacemaker—like the time I emerged from experiencing the violent death of a man through an evil virtual reality Cusp machine, or when one of my crew had been hurt during the course of duty. This, though, was different. This was truly blind rage. I don’t even remember raising The Drop and jamming the muzzle into Elsbeth Alarie’s face. I don’t remember what I said. I do remember Icky actually grabbing me and, with measured but relentless force, lifting my hands holding The Drop until it was pointing at the ceiling. I snarled something and fired a shot anyway. Another. Ancient plaster dust sifted down. Alarie cringed and flinched, looking frantically at Torina, as though hoping she might intervene and bring salvation. Torina, though, just aimed her machine pistol at Alarie. “I’m a hair trigger or so away from doing the same thing,” she intoned, shaking her head. “Can’t believe I’m the voice of reason here,” Icky said, glancing back. “Funboy, little help?”

Funboy calmly walked up and pushed Alarie steadily back against the wall, then kept himself between her and Torina and me. By then, though, the surge of incandescent rage had abated, dissipated by the two shots and my crew’s exaggerated calm. I looked at Icky. “Thanks, big girl. You can let me go now.”

“You’re not going to just blow her away, are you?”

“No. I want to. Really, really want to, but no.”

Icky nodded. “I want to bash her skull in, so I hear ya.”

She released me. I looked past Funboy, at Alarie. “One question. You answer it. No stalling, no delays. Otherwise, I will kill you.”

“And this time, I’m not going to stop him,” Icky said. “Nor will I,” Funboy added. I nudged Funboy aside and put my face into hers. I’m not sure what she saw, but what I saw was a hateful, selfish, psychopathic old woman who was also very, very scared. She should be. “Why?”

“It can’t be money,” Torina said, lowering her weapon. “You’ve got generational wealth.”

She took a shuddering breath. “No. Not money. To… make me young again.”

“Dohlennz?”

She nodded. I turned away. “What are you going to do with me?”

I stopped. “Ma’am, I am taking you into custody on charges of Crimes Against Order. You are going to spend what remains of your miserable, wasted life on the Guild’s prison barge, orbiting a lonely, distant star. All of this—all the wealth, the power, the luxury—are gone. In fact—”

I turned back. “Icky, do we have a way to set a fire that’s going to destroy this house and thoroughly cremate these bodies?

A fire that’s going to look half-assed natural, but that the local fire authorities aren’t going to be able to put out?”

“Uh—yeah, sure. I can rig those power cells in the basement to overload. When they let go, they’ll turn this place into a torch. Oughta reduce the whole place to ashes in, say, ten or fifteen minutes?”

Alarie actually had the nerve to speak. “This house is over four hundred years old—”

I opened my mouth, but Funboy beat me to it. “That is unfortunate. It would have made it to five hundred if you had never lived here—or been

born in the first place, which would have been a better outcome for the universe as a whole.”

His flat, matter-of-fact tone shut her up. “Fine. We’re going to have to load those cases of pulse projectors onto the Frankie, too,” I said. “What about the rest of them?

There are supposedly thousands more, remember?” Torina said. “I am going to refer that to the Equal Grasp. Madame Alarie’s vile little outfit is violating their exclusivity agreement with the Guild, so they can deal with it.” I stared at Alarie. “And since they’re really just a bunch of criminals themselves, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to stamp out all traces of this woman’s grubby fingerprints on Earth.”

I walked back to her. “Oh, and if you think your daughter and her connections are going to save you, think again. She’s next.”

Alarie gave me the most venomous glare she could muster, but Funboy shook his head. “No. Now is not the time for defiance. Now is the time for—”

He leaned in and whispered something to her. Her eyes hardened, then flew wide, then her knees buckled and she sagged to the floor, pale and stricken. I walked away, Torina with me. “I wonder what he says to them,” she murmured. “You don’t want to know.”

I CIRCLED the Frankie over the Belgian countryside, watching the Alarie house. I wanted to make sure we’d destroyed it before leaving. More to the point, it was the funeral pyre for the dead Synergist, and I thought it was only right to watch it burn. “Any second—” Icky started, but a flash from below cut her off. The house did indeed go up like a torch, a column of nearly white flame that shot thirty meters or so into the sky. It burned like a magnesium flare for about three minutes, then subsided. Through the haze, I could see that nothing was left, just a blackened pit belching smoke. There was almost no residual fire because there was nothing left to burn. I saw pulsing red lights in the distance. “Icky, is there any lingering risk for the firefighters?”

“Nope. Once those cells gave up their energy, there was nothing left of them but some scrap metal. Maybe a little radioactive material, but nothing even close to harmful.”

“Given the intensity of that flame, all that will remain of any organic matter in that house is some carbonized residue,” Funboy added. Perry finally spoke up. “Is somebody going to tell me who this old broad is that we have manacled in the back seat?

And why we just Roman-candled a house?”

I started the Frankie into an eastward climb back toward the Atlantic. “She’s a vile, evil bitch, in league with Dohlennz. And that was her vile, evil lair, where she had a Synergist”—I paused, looking for a word—“on display.”

“Okay, ’nuff said, then.”

“Did you find anything useful on that comm unit?”

“Yeah, it’s got all the logs of every message ever sent or received. Somebody was either sloppy as hell, or didn’t know how to access the delete function.”

“Good. Maybe we can bust open more of this—what words did I use?

Oh, yeah. This vile, evil scheme and put a few more of its associated scumbags into a dark hole somewhere to rot.”

I ENJOYED SLAMMING the door of the Fafnir’s holding cell in Alarie’s face. She’d tried to show a little defiance, but whatever Funboy had said to her left her with a haunted, hunted look that took any force out of it. I enjoyed that, too. I’d intended to head straight back to Anvil Dark to hand Alarie over for arraignment, but shortly after we broke orbit, I got a call from Gerhardt. He was aboard the Righteous Fury, on-station at Forcus. We changed course accordingly. When we arrived, we saw not only the sinister bulk of the Fury, but also B’s ship and Valint’s Stormshadow. “Wonder what this is about,” Torina said. I shrugged. “Not sure. But I think, since the gang is all together, that it’s time for a reckoning.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know that little tracking device we’ve got back in the evidence locker?

The one that I found on the ship when I first became a Peacemaker?

Let’s bring that with us.”

Torina stared for a moment, then gave a thin smile and nodded. WHEN WE’D SETTLED into the conference room aboard the Fury, Gerhardt got right to the point. “I read your preliminary summary, Tudor. Good work in breaking open that gun-running ring on Earth. The Equal Grasp will certainly be pleased.”

“I can honestly say that I didn’t have them in mind, not even a little, when we took Alarie into custody—and then burned her house down.”

Gerhardt frowned. “That was a crime scene—”

“Yes, it was. That’s why I burned it down.”

“We did collect detailed imagery and such first, though,” Torina added. “We can take the Alarie woman off your hands—” Valint started, but I turned to her with a hard look. “That won’t be necessary. I’m going to take her to Anvil Dark and ensure she gets arraigned, then put into secure custody.”

Valint frowned back at me. “Why does it sound like you’re implying something, Van?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re inferring something. What could that be?”

Gerhardt shifted in his seat. “Tudor, is there something you want to say here?”

I looked around, then nodded. “Yeah. There is. Since I’ve been inaugurated into the rarified heights of this organization, I feel more out of the loop than ever. Since the 32 decided to let Helem Gauss go, I’ve been having more and more doubts about how committed everyone is to the same cause.”

Gerhardt made to speak, but I went on, cutting him off. “My grandfather was involved in some sort of internal upheaval in the Guild, the GKU, or both. The facts of it are being parceled out to me as increments of Perry’s

memories are unlocked. The vaunted 32 are telling me nothing. I still don’t know who most of them are, if they exist at all. I’m starting to wonder if the missing eighteen or so are just cover for some agendas at work here, some of them around this table.”

B sat up. “Van, there is a lot going on here, yes. But most of it doesn’t even involve you—”

I reached into a pouch on my harness, pulled out the tracking device I’d taken off the Fafnir so long ago, and tossed it onto the table. It clattered and slid to a stop. “Is this something else that doesn’t involve me?”

B looked around. “Can I have a few moments alone with Van, please?”

Valint, Gerhardt, and the rest of my crew exchanged glances, then quietly stood and filed out. I kept Torina and Perry back, though. B actually looked nervous. I was definitely fond of the old girl and didn’t particularly suspect her of any wrongdoing—but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, either. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure about anyone who wasn’t a member of Fafnir’s crew or a small-town lawyer in rural Iowa. “Explanations are in order, I think,” I said. B sighed and nodded. “Alright. Fire away.”

“I’ve only got three questions—for now. First, B, do you know who attached this to my ship?

To be blunt, was it you?”

For all her cunning and roguish poise, I could tell B wasn’t used to being put on the spot like this. “Yes, it was me. I attached it to your Dragonet, now the Fafnir, shortly after Mark took ill and was clearly nearing the end of his life.”

“Alright, thank you for the truth. Now, why?”

B actually looked surprised. “Because you’re Mark Tudor’s grandson.”

“What does that have to do with you keeping track of my whereabouts?”

B sighed. “I’ll be frank. Mark saved us. In the process, he made powerful friends, but also powerful enemies. Some of both are still around. We saw, in you, more than just his successor. We saw his legacy. He died with things… unfinished. We didn’t want you to end up killed off as a junior Peacemaker because you made a youthful mistake.” She nodded at the tracker. “That was a way of ensuring that we could watch over you to make sure that didn’t happen.”

“And who is we?”

“The GKU and, by extension, the Peacemaker Guild.” She cast a scowl at the device. “That damned thing was supposed to be undetectable.”

“Blame Netty. She was the one who detected it.”

“She is one sharp old gal. Anyway, this was our way of making sure you made it here. To today, as the Peacemaker you’ve become. There was too much riding on this not to take some sort of action.”

“What’s this?” Torina asked. “Everything. At least, everything since the war.”

I nodded. “Perry knows something about that. That the GKU and the Guild were embroiled in some sort of war. We saw some of the implications of it while we were at Reverie. The Tyrants, the Jackals, that thing called the Junkway—all of it was involved in this war.”

Perry spoke up. “And there we go. Unless there’s something else locked away, this conversation just brought down Mark’s firewall around my memories.” He flashed an amber gaze at B. “We assumed that this was the GKU and the Guild versus the Tyrants, with the Jackals thrown in there somehow. But it wasn’t. This was a civil war. Peacemakers were fighting Peacemakers.”

For a moment, there was no sound but the subdued white noise of the Righteous Fury’ s systems. I leaned forward. “There was a Peacemaker civil war?”

B nodded. “There was. And before you press me for details, I don’t have many. I’m not sure who does. Ultimately, Perry may know as much as any of us, and maybe even more. That’s because the one who did have all the details was Mark, and since he was obviously using Perry to keep them secure—” She shrugged. I turned to Perry. “No idea if you have anything else locked away, huh?”

“Nope, none. As far as I can tell, all of my memory space is accounted for. But if the amount of memory I have available is being falsified, then I’d have no way of knowing that some of it was still locked away.”

“And you don’t remember Van’s grandfather doing any of this to you?”

Torina asked. “Nope. I’m assuming it was voluntary on my part—Mark was a lot like you that way, Van. He treated me like a person and generally let me make my own decisions. But if the memory of him altering my memories has itself been altered—” He shrugged his wings. I sat back and looked at B. “I won’t pretend I’m not pissed that you’ve been keeping this from me. And, just to be clear, I was not blowing smoke about the 32 a short while ago. I don’t trust them, I don’t trust the GKU, I don’t trust the Guild—I don’t even entirely trust Gerhardt, Valint or, yeah, even you, B. That’s the price you pay for keeping secrets, the suspicion that there’s more of them.”

She nodded. “That’s fair. If I were you, I’m sure I’d feel exactly the same way. If it helps, though, Van, I am firmly on your side. The things I’ve

— we’ve—been keeping from you were for your own protection.”

“Do you realize how patronizing that sounds, B?”

A hint of her old fire sparked back to life. “Let’s assume it’s, say, four or five years ago, Van. You know about the Peacemaker Wars and your grandfather’s pivotal role in them. Now, you look at me with a straight face and tell me that knowledge wouldn’t have influenced what you thought or did. That you wouldn’t have gone and tried to find some of those powerful enemies of Mark’s I mentioned, or whoever killed your father.”

“That was the Fade.” I frowned. “Wasn’t it?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe?

Probably?

But I said powerful enemies, Van. Their reach is pretty damned long, so who knows?

Anyway, the point is that you’ve done a lot of good work. You’ve saved a lot of lives, both directly and indirectly. If you’d have known these things, would that still be true?

Would there be people dead today who aren’t?

Would the Schegith be extinct?

Would the ID theft scheme of the Sorcerers even have been uncovered, much less stopped?”

I tapped a finger on the table. I wanted to snap something back at B, something along the lines of, We can never know where the road we never took goes, now can we?

or, You should have let me decide that, instead of taking the choice away completely. But, she had a point. I was the Peacemaker I was today because of the things that I’d done and that had been done to and around me. Would I have been ready to deal with these things the way I was now, back then?

Torina seemed to be thinking the same thing. “There is one advantage to you being kept in the dark, Van. You’re going into this with no allegiances, no preconceptions, no agenda.”

“The bottom line here is that your grandfather was the one who ultimately wanted you protected from this until you were ready for it. I put

that tracker on your ship, but he was the one who gave me the key to the barn.”

“Another little fact conveniently erased from my memory. And, apparently, from Netty’s as well,” Perry said. B shrugged. “That was Mark’s doing. I swear, here and now, that I’ve never personally had anything to do with altering your memories, Perry, or Netty’s, or those of any other AI.”

I met B’s gaze, then nodded. “I believe you. And, yeah, it’s clear Gramps had his reasons for doing what he did. And I do trust him. For now, though, I have one more question.”

“Shoot.”

“This Peacemaker War—is it over?”

B hesitated, then slowly shook her head. “Not entirely, no.”

19

WE RECONVENED the whole group and pressed on with the business at hand. I reviewed everything that had happened on Earth. That included the fact that Manon Clemenceau, one of the most powerful humans who was also in the know, was part of an even deeper conspiracy profiting from illicit alien trade on Earth. “And, since we killed her brother, incinerated her ancestral family home, and have her mother in the brig, she’s probably not going to be all that well-disposed toward us,” I said. Gerhardt sniffed. “Oh, I think you’re understating that, Tudor. I suspect she probably despises you. Pitting the Equal Grasp against her was probably a smart move in the short-term, but as long as she’s around, she’s a threat.”

“Particularly since her mother was in cahoots with our mysterious friend Dohlennz. We have to assume she is as well,” B put in. I blew out an exasperated sigh. “How the hell can I leave Earth, then?

Miryam’s vulnerable. Tony Burgess and his people too—all of them could be caught up in a really nasty turf war between the Equal Grasp and Clemenceau’s faction. And as for the Equal Grasp, they are definitely an enemy-of-my-enemy sort of thing. I don’t consider them to be friends, either.”

But Gerhardt just smiled and touched a control on the console in front of him. “Petyr, are you there?”

“Right here.” Petyr Groshenko’s face appeared on the display in the center of the table. I immediately recognized the background—it was my kitchen in Iowa. “Uh, hello, Petyr. You raiding my fridge?” I asked. He laughed, then angled the image so that Miryam’s face appeared. “You’ve got a bachelor’s fridge, Van. What are we going to steal, the expired yogurt, the mostly empty bottle of mustard, or the pickles that were bottled during the Reagan Administration?”

“Besides, why raid your fridge when I can have this?” Groshenko said, holding up a bottle of bourbon. “Hey, stop drinking my booze!”

“Bah. Don’t worry, I’ll replace it with real liquor, by which I of course mean vodka.” He laughed, but then his face grew serious. “Anyway, Van, I’m here, on Earth, for the duration. I sure as hell don’t trust the Equal Grasp to have the best interests of our homeworld in mind, and this whole Manon Clemenceau thing is just more of the same.”

I smiled. Knowing Groshenko was looking after things on Earth was a huge relief. But—

“You’re only one guy, Petyr.”

“One guy with assets, on call and in strategic locations. And I’ve got more help, too, from a certain slug-on-a-ball who keeps trying to get me to drink wine.” He pulled a face. “Blech. Rancid grape juice and not alcoholic enough to be interesting.”

“And Tutsi Auffenberg,” Miryam put in over Groshenko’s shoulder. “She thinks about as highly of Clemenceau as Petyr does about wine. Her faction inside the Defense Intelligence Reserve is watching things. And before you ask, we’ll be looking out for Tony Burgess and his wacky friends—not to mention those two teenagers from Minneapolis who’ve taken to calling me their space grandma. Guess how much I like that?”

“Sounds like Earth is in good hands,” Rab said. I nodded. “It does indeed. Thanks, Petyr. You too, Miryam. That’s a huge load off my mind.”

“Okay, then. Well, Petyr and I are off to sweat up the sheets on your bed.”

“You’re—what?

Wait a second—”

“Goodbye, Van,” Miryam said, smiling sweetly. Groshenko swirled his bourbon, grinned, and cut the comm. Torina smiled. “What a cute couple.”

“Hopefully, Tudor, that puts your mind at ease regarding Earth,”

Gerhardt said. I nodded. “For the time being, yeah, it does, though I’m not entirely comfortable with them using my home as a love shack.”

Gerhardt gave me the rumor of a smile. “The vagaries of a human libido are not to be denied, Tudor.”

“Spoken like a true romantic,” I said, earning about a third of a smile. “It’s good of you to acknowledge that aspect of my personality. Now then, I have another assignment for you. There are currently three Synergists on Ajax, winding up a project with the Daren-thal. They traveled there on a chartered ship, and we’re not willing to have them return home to Arminsu-el the same way, given the current situation.”

I nodded. Given the target currently painted onto the Synergists like a laser designator, having them book passage on a charter ship was just asking for trouble. “So I gather we’re taking them back to Arminsu-el.”

“That’s right. Simple, but important. The Synergists are understandably reluctant to leave their homeworld. That, in turn, is jeopardizing several major reclamation projects across known space. They’ve agreed to travel with Guild protection, though—so we have to prove to them that they can do it safely.”

Rab raised a flipper-like hand. “Are they even safe on their homeworld?

The Synergists don’t seem like the types to have a fleet, or much in the way of defenses.”

“They do not. The Synergists eschew violence. They find confrontation physically uncomfortable—probably a side effect of whatever latent psionic ability they have that makes plants grow,” Gerhardt replied. “So they’re just hanging out there, unprotected?” Icky asked. “Not any longer. The Schegith have agreed to put Arminsu-el under their protection. They’ve moved a squadron of warships into synchronous orbit over the Synergists’ homeland, broadcasting a repeating message—

any hostile action against the Synergists will be considered hostile action against the Schegith Protectorate.”

That made me smile. “Seems like lots of people are getting in on the protecting vulnerable planets gig.”

“Your contact on Ajax will be Rovan,” Gerhardt said. “I’ll upload the details of the mission to the Fafnir shortly. Needless to say, this is a

classified operation, need-to-know only.”

The meeting ended, and we headed back to the Fafnir. It was good to know that we had Groshenko and his people watching over Earth—and particularly Miryam and the other people I cared about there. It was likewise comforting to know that the Schegith were on-station on behalf of the Synergists. I hoped we didn’t have to figure out how to protect too many more places, though, because we were running out of allies. At least, I thought, glancing out a viewport at the sleek bulk of Valint’s Stormshadow, of allies I trusted completely. And on that note—

I found Netty-P in the cockpit, readying the Fafnir to get underway. I took her aside, though, for a discreet word. “I have a question, dear,” I said. “What’s that?”

“Suppose I wanted to track something in space that didn’t want to be tracked. What options do I have?”

“It depends. Do you know it’s there for sure?

Or are we talking about a purely passive kind of situation, so you’re not looking for anything in particular?”

“Let’s say I know it’s out there, somewhere.”

“Okay. There are a few options.”

I nodded. “Good. Let’s hear them.”

“VAN, it’s good to talk to you again,” Rovan said. I smiled at his image on the center cockpit display. He didn’t look especially happy, but that was more a consequence of him looking like the titular Grinch from the old Christmas cartoon than him not being happy. “Same, Rovan. How’s Rovan-ir?”

Rovan glanced off-screen. A moment later, an enormous, bestial head, like a cross between a wolf and a crocodile, filled the image with teeth. “He’s fine,” Rovan’s voice said. “That creature looks enormous,” Funboy said. “And unsanitary.”

“Especially when you’re looking down his throat like that. I guess that’s pretty much the last thing whatever he eats sees, huh?” Icky added, waving a hand at the display. Gabby clapped her gelatinous hands. “He’s adorable!

I always wanted a pet, but my spawn-sire was allergic to them.”

Rab glanced at her. “What sort of pets do your people keep?”

“The most popular are called—” She said a word that didn’t translate, just remaining a garbled gurgle, like a stopped-up drain. “Hmm. Let’s see. I think the best translation would be—oh, I’ll try this. Protoplasmic blob.”

I grimaced. “Sounds cuddly.”

“They are!

They just wrap their pseudopods all around you, it’s adorable!”

“I’ll… take your word for it, Gabby. Anyway, Rovan, we’re about an hour out. We don’t have any particular coordinates for landing, though, so right now my destination is just the surface of your planet.”

“Understood. I’ll send you coordinates now. Unfortunately, you’ll have to land several kilometers away from the Synergists’ project location. It’s in a protected area, within which landings are banned.”

“Ah. So I guess we’ve got a walk ahead of us?” I thought back to my last experience on Ajax—long, arduous treks across endless, rolling grassland. Daren-thal like Rovan and his bonded companion Rovan-ir, maintained a traditional lifestyle of hunting across the steppes of Ajax. They used traditional methods and tech to do it, which meant their means of travel was feet. But Rovan shook his head. “Not this time. We’ll be traveling by flitterthopter. They’re the only type of vehicle allowed in the protected zone. It will be a lot faster than walking.”

Flitterthopter immediately made me think of the ramshackle contraptions from an old movie I’d once watched—damn, I couldn’t remember its name. I turned to Perry. “Old movie, about dashing young men in airplanes—”

“Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines; Or, How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes, 1965 British comedy. Classic.”

I turned back to Rovan. “I look forward to it,” I said, swallowing my unease about flying around in something called a flitterthopter. “We’ll see you when you arrive. I’ll have the rubber bands on the flitterthopter twisted up tight.”

“What?”

Rovan signed off. “This is gonna be fun,” Perry said. I curled my lip at him. “Yeah, you can fly.”

“Exactly.”

“OKAY, THIS ISN’T SO BAD,” I said, watching the grasslands roll past beneath the flitterthopter. It was, indeed, a contraption, and a spindly looking one at that. It resembled a cross between a small aircraft about the size of a twin-engine Piper Navajo, an old timey autogyro, and one of the wooden Waco gliders used by American airborne forces in World War II. While it looked spindly, it was anything but, being made not of wood, cloth, and prayers, but virtually unbreakable advanced materials. The pilot actually strapped themselves into a sort of cradle and controlled the craft through movements of their limbs and body. These were translated into the expansion and contraction of powerful synthetic muscles that operated the flight surfaces. A basic scanner suite gave the pilot good situational awareness, while a small gravity polarizer made it possible for the thing to lift a substantial load from a standing start. Perry wheeled past. “Yeah, have to admit, this particular flying machine is magnificent.”

I glanced back into the cabin. Besides me, Rovan, and Rovan-ir, we’d only brought Torina and Funboy. That left just enough capacity for the three Synergists on the return trip, which would max out the thing’s capabilities. Still, eight passengers plus the pilot was pretty impressive. “Enjoying the flight?” I asked. I didn’t even have to raise my voice, the only sound being the gentle rush of air past the fuselage. Torina nodded enthusiastically. “Very much. I kind of want one of these. It would be fun to learn to fly it around Helso.”

“I’m sure we can arrange to sell you one,” Rovan replied. “Yes, please!”

“How about you, Funboy?” I asked. He turned and looked pointedly at Rovan-ir, who was sitting on the floor beside him. “The conveyance is quite remarkable. Some of my fellow passengers are, however, somewhat… odiferous.” He picked something off his sleeve. “And hairy.”

I grinned. “Glass houses there, Funboy with the magnificent mullet.”

He picked off another hair. “Perhaps, but I don’t believe I shed quite so much.”

Rovan-ir turned and pointed his panting mouth full of leering teeth directly at Funboy, whose hair ruffled with the big Hunterloper’s breath. “Oh my. What a—” Funboy swallowed. “A remarkably pungent odor.”

Rovan laughed. “You should try sleeping with him pressed against you, breathing into your face all night. It’s wonderful.”

“I mean no offense, but that is an item I’m content to leave on my undone list.”

The pilot banked the flitterthopter, starting a lazy, spiral descent. The gravity polarizer whined to life when we were just a couple of meters above the ground, and the craft thumped to a gentle landing. We disembarked and took a moment to stretch. Brownish-green grass sprawled off to the north, west, and south under a lurid purple sky. To our immediate east, a line of low, rugged hills rose. A small camp of traditional, boxy Daren-thal tents was clustered at the base of the nearest, a couple of hundred meters away. As we swished through the grass toward it, another pair of Daren-thal hunters and their Hunterlopers appeared and watched us warily. When they saw Rovan, though, they uttered warbling cries, their Hunterlopers joining in with mournful but harmonic howls. Rovan and Rovan-ir replied in kind. At my bemused look, Rovan smiled. “It is a traditional form of greeting, a way for us to announce to those in earshot who we are, and that we’re in the vicinity.”

I nodded. “Very cool.”

I had enormous respect for the Daren-thal. They’d managed to find a perfect point of balance between their traditional ways and the use of new technology. As Rovan had once told me, they still roamed on foot and hunted with spear-like weapons similar to those used by their distant ancestors. But they also used state-of-the-art navigation aids, with their spears made out of advanced fiber-composite materials. “But we use no advanced technology to actually assist us in the hunt,”

he’d said, which made me glance back at the flitterthopter. “Can I assume you don’t use those to help you find and hunt game?” I asked him. He shook his head emphatically. “No. That would be disrespectful to our prey. When we hunt, we use only our own senses and those of our Hunterlopers. The flitterthopters are just minimally intrusive ways of getting around.”

I nodded. A society that had found a balance between the modern and the traditional. That was very cool. We found the Synergists, two Voculators and a Translator, sitting in a small circle and meditating. One of the Hunters nodded toward them. “They told us they’d be doing this until the sun touched that hilltop—”

He pointed. “So that’s about another hour.”

I smiled, taking in the scene around me. That was fine. It gave us a chance to enjoy some Daren-thal hospitality in the field. As rough and rustic as the camp was, it was still very comfortable. As we settled in, I turned to Rovan. “So what were the Synergists doing here?

Some sort of reclamation project, I gather, but you guys don’t have any industry outside of your built-up settlements, right?”

“Indeed.” He nodded up into the hills. “A ship departing from the coastal community due west of here suffered some sort of mishap and crashed in these hills. The wreckage was cleared away, but a variety of toxins entered the soil. The Synergists have been dealing with that, returning the land to a fertile state.”

Perry, who’d landed nearby, spoke up. “You know, it would be really interesting to see what happens to those toxic chemicals. I’m assuming the Synergists are bound by things like, you know, the Law of Conservation, so they can’t just make them go away.”

Rovan shrugged. “As I understand it, they have some means of encasing the toxins in inert material, which is carried away and dispersed by groundwater. How they do it, though—” He shrugged again. Torina, who’d been tentatively nibbling at a skewer of meat one of the other Hunters had offered, frowned. “I wonder if that’s part of it. Part of why the Synergists are being targeted. Somebody wants to figure out how they do what they do, and use it to their own ends.”

I stared into the fire. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s like the Schegith. Maybe the Synergists constitute some sort of threat.”

“To who?

Are you talking about Calamity?” Funboy asked. “Possibly. If the Vela have been compromised by Calamity, and the Vela are the ones preying on the Synergists, then there must be something about them Calamity doesn’t like.”

“I’m still not convinced that Calamity is the archvillain you’re making it out to be,” Torina said. “Isn’t it more likely that someone like Dohlennz is the one behind all of this, and Calamity is just one of the tools in his quiver?”

I smiled. “Mixed metaphors, dear. Arrows go in quivers, tools go in toolboxes.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s just reason number five thousand and sixty-two that we need to track down Dohlennz—as much to get answers from him as to stop him.”

“This creature seems to have some sort of affinity for me,” Funboy put in. Rovan-ir had again plunked himself down beside him and now lolled his tongue into Funboy’s face. “Oh, and look at that. He’s drooling. How endearing.”

“Pet him, Funboy. Show him you like him right back,” Torina said. Funboy extended a hesitant hand. He finally touched it to the side of Rovan-ir’s neck and patted it. “There, there—um, beastie. What a delight you are.”

“He seems to like it,” I said. Funboy nodded. “Indeed. I suppose that he is not so—”

Without warning, Rovan-ir opened his maw wide, then gently closed it around Funboy’s head. “Oh dear.”

We laughed. “Funboy, that’s his way of telling you he likes you,” I said. “And that he accepts you as a member of his pack. That is quite an honor,” Rovan added. Rovan-ir removed his mouth, leaving Funboy slathered in glistening saliva. He stared at me with wide eyes. “I have… died, Van. I have died, and my corpse isn’t aware of it yet.”

The Synergists abruptly stood and moved to Funboy, using their flowing skirts to wipe his face and head. He continued to sit, looking stunned. The Synergists tutted, and their Translator turned to me. “Is he always so fussy?

Does he not realize how honored he is to be accepted by such a

magnificent creature?”

“No. Sometimes he’s even worse,” Perry replied. Funboy sighed. “Oh dear.”

20

WE LOADED BACK UP aboard the flitterthopter to make our stately way back to the Daren-thal coastal city where we’d landed the Fafnir. The gravity polarizer whined harder as the pilot got us airborne, but once we were aloft, a few hundred meters up, the craft’s cunning aerodynamics took over and we sailed across the grasslands at a blistering pace. I called Icky on the comm. “We’re on our way back, big girl. You guys can preflight the Fafnir.”

“Not sticking around for some hospitality?” Rovan asked. I gave my head a rueful shake. “I’d love to, but there are about four other places I really need to be right now.”

Icky came back over the comm. “Hey, boss, I can see you guys very slowly approaching. Quite a machine.”

The flitterthopter had a transparent upper fuselage, sort of an observation dome, that could be dimmed or even made entirely opaque. With the sun low in the sky and blocked by the terrain ahead, I could see the town and spaceport hunkered on top of a stretch of high ground along the coast. The spaceport itself was bordered by a drop on the side facing us, steep cliffs probably a hundred meters high. Icky must be standing right on the perimeter, at the top of the cliffs. “Yeah, we’ll be there eventually,” I replied. “Not that there’s any rush

—”

I broke off when I noticed a ship, a small workboat, class 4 or so, that had been descending from orbit. It swept over the spaceport instead of

landing, though, and started directly toward us. “Rovan, isn’t this area off-limits to spacecraft?” I asked. “It is. No spacecraft are allowed on the landward side of the coast, except to approach and depart the spaceport.”

“Then why is that one coming straight at us?”

“A very good question—”

The workboat flashed past overhead. Then it banked hard and came back at us. Perry, flying alongside us, spoke up. “Van, he’s gone into fire-control mode.”

I cursed. Rovan started speaking urgently into his own comm. I got on ours, but before I could speak, the flitterthopter slewed to one side. A staccato burst of hard, sharp snaps, like cracking whips, erupted around us. Tracers flashed by and slammed into the grassland below in fountains of earth and dust. Curses and yelped exclamations erupted throughout the cabin. Since it flew so low and slow, never high enough to need pressurization, there were ports that could be opened in the fuselage to admit fresh air. Rovan slammed one open and stuck a long rifle through it. I looked down at The Drop. Yeah, right. But I drew it anyway, because why not. A second later, the flitterthopter abruptly sank, then slew sideways again. My stomach jammed itself up against my lungs. Another burst of weapons fire missed us. Rovan fired a shot at the workboat as it thundered past us, then turned to me. “These flitterthopters are sometimes attacked by kretch, large winged creatures, around the highlands north of here. The pilots are trained to dodge their attacks. The problem is—”

The craft slammed hard aside again, once more ripping sharp yelps from everyone. A projectile punched clean through her, leaving two neat holes but not hitting anyone and otherwise having no effect. I had a brief flash of memory, about how the British used a rickety old biplane called a Fairey Swordfish during World War II, a wood and cloth contraption affectionately called the Stringbag. Enemy AA fire, intended to shoot at more modern and substantial aircraft, would just pass right through them, leaving holes that were easily patched. We were aboard our own Stringbag, protected by the resilience of having no resilience at all. “—is that it’s going to take us longer to reach safety!”

I looked down. Landing would be pointless. We’d just be a bunch of people standing in the middle of a perfectly flat, grassy plain. Given the pilot’s skill at flinging the nimble craft around the sky, we were probably safer on board, making our slow but steady way to the cover of the spaceport. Which, unfortunately, had no defensive systems of its own that could engage our attacker. The Daren-thal faced no significant threats—at least until now. “Icky, get the Fafnir’s weapons—”

“Rab’s gonna lift her. She’s got no clear fields of fire sitting on the ground—hang on, here he comes again—”

The workboat arced around for another pass, sweeping beneath the cliffs bordering the spaceport. As it did, it suddenly staggered, then plunged earthward. With no altitude to speak of, it hit the ground and skidded and tumbled as it plowed a ragged furrow through the grass. It finally stopped a hundred or so meters later in a billowing cloud of dust. “Rab must have gotten off a shot,” Torina said, scanning the skies for more threats. “Or he misjudged and just flew himself into the ground,” I added. But Perry spoke up, contradicting both of us. “Nope. Icky dropped a rock on him.”

“She— what?”

“It wasn’t a rock. Well, it was, but it was a statue of a—I don’t know, some sort of bird thingy. It was the closest thing at hand,” Icky cut in. “So you just shot down a spacecraft—with a rock.”

“Yup, guess I did. You’re welcome.”

Rovan shook his head. “Those statues around the spaceport represent the klusth-kar, the spirit of far journeys. They are meant to bring good fortune to travelers. They must also weigh at least a hundred kilos.”

“I make it more like one-fifty,” Icky said. Rovan shook his head again. Torina grinned. “Well, it looks like they work. The spirit of far journeys certainly brought us good fortune.”

I nodded, my gaze pinned on the wrecked workboat. “But not them. So, let’s land and find out just who pissed off the spirit of far journeys.”

RAB CHECKED with Daren-thal traffic control authorities, who told him the workboat was credentialed as a routine cargo flight. It broke from the approach pattern, which flew ships in and out of the spaceport over the ocean, just before it landed. It had obviously been a carefully targeted and timed attack. We landed long enough for Torina, Funboy, Rovan, and Rovan-ir to disembark, then the pilot—to whom I offered a firm handshake and a hearty thank you—lifted again. He was taking the Synergists directly to the Fafnir, where they could be safely aboard. A trio of ground effect vehicles hummed toward us as we approached the wreck. Daren-thal magistrates and land wardens dismounted from them and secured the scene. I showed them my Peacemaker credentials so we could examine the wreckage ourselves. “It’s an absolute mess,” Perry said, circling above. I nodded. Icky’s dropped stone statue must have deflected the workboat’s trajectory just enough that it flew into the ground. A little higher and it would probably have easily recovered. Still, whatever worked. The result, though, was a mangled pile of twisted debris, within which lurked an antimatter containment pod. Funboy assisted the Daren-thal authorities to find it so it could be removed and taken somewhere to be made safe. The pod was essentially undamaged, being designed for far more energetic impacts than this one. “What we need is an ID on these bastards,” I said, whereupon Rovan-ir suddenly bolted away a few meters, grabbed something hidden in the grass in his mouth, and returned with it. It was an arm. Funboy peered at it in the failing light. “Oh dear.”

“Will that work?” Rovan asked. I nodded. “That’ll work just fine.” I scritched Rovan-ir’s head. “Thanks, big fella. We’ll take that off your—uh, mouth.”

Rovan-ir dropped the arm, then gave me a slurpy lick before withdrawing. “Van Tudor, I hesitate to be the voice of reason yet again, but that beast had a remains in its mouth, then licked you,” he said, shuddering slightly. Torina gave him a sidelong look. “And you’re our medical expert, huh?”

“That is why I have such an appreciation for hygiene and sterile procedures.” He looked down at the arm. “It would appear to have once been part of a Gajur.”

“I’d call that a solid lead. If your people find anything else in the wreck, please have them let us know. In the meantime, Funboy, can you get more details about the former owner of”—I pointed a toe at the arm—“that, using what we have aboard the Fafnir?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“We’ll share any data we get from any other remains with you as well,”

one of the Daren-thal magistrates put in. I nodded. “Almost as good as a signature. Although whoever it was who attacked us, they were pretty clumsy about it.”

“Probably someone without much military or similar experience,”

Rovan suggested. “Like a merchant, maybe,” Perry said. I nodded again. “Or a pirate.”

FUNBOY ATTEMPTED to discern what he could from the remains from the wreck, but the Fafnir’s capabilities were limited. I’d once considered adding a forensic module to the ship, which would offer us a full range of on-the-spot investigatory capabilities. We’d eventually decided that the added mass and expense just wasn’t worth it. Moreover, it would give us far more capability than we probably needed in the field while sitting idle the vast majority of the time. “I’ve confirmed that the owner of the arm was a Gajur, male, probably on the young side of middle age for the species. He was well-nourished but had an incipient degenerative bone disease that afflicts the Gajur. It would probably have become an issue for him in his old age. By flying into the ground at hundreds of kilometers per hour, though, he avoided that particular health outcome,” Funboy said. “Yeah, that’s definitely one way to avoid problems in your old age—

high velocity really keeps your skin looking good right up until impact,” I agreed, then told Funboy to pack up the arm and transfer it to the Daren-thal. They had a full suite of forensic services available, so we’d wait for whatever they could tell us. In the meantime, I talked to Gerhardt about the Synergists’ situation. There were apparently nineteen groups of them known to be involved in various projects around local space, all of them locked down on their job sites. I agreed with Gerhardt that keeping them there didn’t make sense. “It would be better to ensure they all simply return to Arminsu-el, where the Schegith can keep an eye on them, frankly,” he said. I nodded. “Well, I’ve got one of those teams aboard right now, so that leaves eighteen to go. Can we arrange for Guild escorts for all the rest?”

“Given the circumstances, I think it would be prudent for us to find a way. I’ll put out the word that the Synergists’ temporary diaspora is over. We’ll arrange to get Peacemakers—”

“That we trust,” I put in. Gerhardt gave me a keen look, then nodded. “Peacemakers that we trust to ensure their safe passage back to their homeworld. I will send you the list of said Peacemakers shortly, in case you have any… concerns.”

We were both talking around an obvious point, of course. For every Peacemaker like Lunzy, or Dugrop’che, or Jamberac—the ones that we trusted implicitly—there were others who were much more questionable. Some of them came from shady backgrounds, some of them had spotty service records, and some had spent long spells undercover. And then there was the unspoken menace of the Peacemakers’ civil war, which B had admitted was still simmering out there somewhere. “If there are issues with some of the Synergists getting back to their homeworld, we’ll develop a list of safe havens for them in the meantime. Null World, Helso, and Anvil Dark are obvious candidates,” Gerhardt said. “About the only obvious candidates, honestly. I can’t think of many other places I’d consider safe at the best of times.”

Gerhardt acknowledged and signed off. I checked on the Synergists and made sure they were comfortable aboard the Fafnir, then decided to head into town and meet with Rovan. “HAVE TO ADMIT, I’m not used to seeing you living in something that isn’t a tent. This is stunning,” I said, looking around at Rovan’s home. “Thank you for the hospitality.”

He lived near the top of another line of cliffs, in a place with a broad balcony opening onto a spectacular view. The sweep of grasslands over which we’d been attacked in the flitterthopter rolled off into the distance, crumpling up into the humped heights of the hills where the Synergists had been working. All of it was cast into deep night shades of blue-gray beneath a star-flecked sky. Rovan smiled—like a Daren-thal, anyway. “I must admit, I very much enjoy living with nothing but a hide tent between me and the sky. But, yes, I also enjoy a roof, comfortable furniture, and climate control.”

“Rovan-ir seems to like it, too,” I noted. The huge beast was curled up in a squooshy bed, looking far more pet-like than I’d ever seen him. It was also a little disconcerting. Imagine a werewolf snoozing in a dog bed in your living room, and that was basically Rovan-ir right now. But with more fangs. “He does. He will happily lope for hours after prey through the mist and rain—but he has a soft spot for, well, soft spots.”

I laughed. “Hey, who doesn’t—?”

A soft trill cut me off. Rovan raised a hand and wandered off, speaking to someone on a comm. I headed back out onto the balcony and took in the night. “Hey, boss!”

I yelped and jumped. Perry landed on the balcony railing a meter or so away. “Holy shit, bird, how about a little warning before you literally drop out of the sky?”

“Well, excuse me. However, it does mean that my feathers are all properly aligned. I am the night, silent, and deadly!”

“So are you just checking up on me?”

“Partly, yeah. It’s my job, remember?

Your combat AI and all that?”

I smiled. “Fair enough. Good to know I’m being watched from on high.”

“I also wanted to let you know that Gerhardt called and spoke to Torina. He put together a list of Peacemakers you were expecting and would like

your feedback pronto. I guess he wants to get the Synergists on their way back home.”

I nodded. “Okay, I’ll be back as soon as—”

Rovan reappeared, coming out onto the balcony. “That was our forensic magistrate’s office. They have some additional information on the remains from the wreck.”

“Huh. They’re working late tonight. I really didn’t expect anything from them until tomorrow,” I said. “Ah, well, an attack such as the one today is virtually unprecedented. In fact, the only similar incident was the attack on the ceremonial reception after you returned our stolen artifacts—the last time you were here,” Rovan said, his eyes narrowing. I gave him an apologetic shrug. “Sorry?

I guess I bring trouble with me.”

Rovan gave his smile. “Only because you are confounding some villains who deserve to be countered. Anyway, our people have been able to match the genetic signature of the remains to one of your Guild databases. Our dead Gajur friend was linked to a series of criminal operations related to someone named Tarannc. I gather this Tarannc figures prominently among your unsolved cases.”

I turned to Perry. He nodded. “Tarannc was another Gajur, an enforcer-for-hire. We know he was variously employed by the Stillness, the Reapers, and the Arc of Vengeance on a repeating basis, so I guess they liked his work.”

“He broke legs really well.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the usual performance measure for an enforcer. In short, he got debts collected and warnings made very, very clear.”

“I notice this conversation involves a lot of past tense. Where is this Tarancc now?” I asked. “Either loose organic material, or incorporated into other organic life-forms by now, I imagine.”

“He’s dead.”

“Very. He was killed, in fact, by a couple of mercenaries who also show up in our databases over and over again, an odd pair of humans named Hawkwood and Nagamori.”

“Okay, and who are they?”

“Good question. We don’t know much about them, other than the fact there were some suggested links between the one named Nagamori and the mercenary outfit called The Bulwark.”

I frowned. A vague memory plucked at me—

“Wait. We ran into them in the Procyon system, right?

They used some ancient Japanese insignia?”

“Ding ding. They do. They use the flower emblem of the Oda Clan, a faction that existed in sixteenth century Japan under a powerful warlord named Oda Nobunaga, aka the Demon King.”

“A mercenary with a Japanese-sounding name, linked to a mercenary company that uses ancient Japanese iconography. Huh. What a coincidence. So are these guys, Hawkwood and Naga—uh—”

“Nagamori.”

“Yeah. Are we saying that they’re linked to the attack today?”

“Eh, probably not. Hawkwood and Nagamori are mercenaries, but they’re mercenaries who seem to keep themselves on the side of the good guys. They don’t take criminal jobs—quite the opposite, in fact. However, lots of criminals do tend to die when they’re around,” Perry said. “So they’re vigilantes.”

“And very good at it. The Guild hasn’t put much effort into running them down.”

I chewed on that, wondering if the Guild was doing more than just turning a blind eye to Hawkwood and Nagamori, though. Or was there some backroom collusion going on?

Was someone in the Guild quietly using these guys to clean up things the law couldn’t touch?

Wouldn’t surprise me. The Peacemaker Guild was rendered in many, many shades of gray. “Anyway, this Tarannc ran afoul of Hawkwood and Nagamori in a region of space on the far rimward, anti-spinward margin of known space dominated by Agristun traders. It’s outside of Guild jurisdiction.”

“Who are the Agristun?” Rovan asked. “They’re humans, but thanks to some cryptic sort of cross-breeding, they’ve become more human hybrids with—something, it’s not really clear what. It’s given them a greatly increased lifespan, which has created a group of dissolute, obnoxious elitists bored by everything, endlessly in search of excitement and new experiences,” Perry replied. Rovan nodded. “I guess when you’ve seen and done it all, you’ve seen and done it all.”

“Yeah. That makes them a perfect breeding ground for all sorts of bad behavior. Once you’ve exhausted the things that are socially acceptable, well, then anything new and interesting is going to be—not that,” I said. “The Agristun do have a reputation for some pretty out there behavior. Remember the floating rave on that catamaran, with the sex dungeons and stuff?” Perry asked. Rovan tilted his head slightly. “I’m sorry, the what now?”

I grinned. “Don’t worry, it was way less alluring than it sounds, believe me. More… gross.”

“Anyway, what we found on those literal pleasure craft, the Agristun would call a Tuesday,” Perry said. “So if I understand this correctly, the brother, or cousin, or relative of this Tarannc, a vile and long-dead criminal, ended up here, at Ajax, with the express intention of killing someone aboard that flitterthopter. Have I got that right?” Rovan asked. “Sounds like it, yeah. I suspect he must have had an accomplice down here to help coordinate the attack—something you might want to look into,” I said. Rovan nodded. “The magistrates are already investigating that. But as for the attack itself—the Synergists must have been the target, no?

Or are you suggesting it was someone else?

You and your crew?”

I leaned back against the railing. “Maybe. We are a known quantity. But

—” I frowned. “I don’t know. That makes less and less sense the more I think about it. Torina and I are firmly connected now. Tor and Kay Milon would buy and sell the stars themselves to see someone who harmed Torina skinned alive under the light of Helso’s moons. And then there’s Urnak and Paxomar, who’d relentlessly hunt down anyone who hurt Icky—and Zeno’s and Rab’s extended family, who aren’t exactly without resources, either.”

I shrugged. “All of which is to say that, with the Equal Grasp’s bounty off the table, we’re just not a financially worthwhile target, at least for now.”

“So if it’s not about money, then what about enemies?

I have no doubt you have more than a few of those,” Rovan said. I stared at my feet for a moment. “Yeah, we do—but again, I don’t think so. Not in this case. Dohlennz would probably love to see us dead. But I

just can’t see him hiring a single Gajur in a workboat to do it. I mean, that could be what’s behind it, I suppose, but I have my doubts.”

“Well, I have no enemies that I’m aware of. I rarely leave Ajax, so if someone here wanted me dead, I likewise doubt they’d have tried it this way. So it must be the Synergists,” Rovan said. I nodded. “Kind of where this has been leading, if we ignore another player. The Vela. Don’t like them right now, don’t trust them right now, but

—you know what?

I think we still need to have a talk with the Synergists. We’ve been treating them as sort of a uniform whole, all under equal threat just for being Synergists. But that’s pretty facile. There might be more to it than that.”

“Well, there is one way to find out,” Rovan said. Perry and I both looked at him. He shrugged. “Why not ask them?”

21

PERRY and I returned to the Fafnir to find the Synergists in the midst of their evening period of meditation and soft chanting, which was distinct from their morning and afternoon periods in no discernible way. They spent a lot of their day meditating and chanting. It was actually Gabby who offered some insight. She took Perry and I aside from the Synergists, who were occupying the crew lounge, and lowered her voice. “They have a problem with sensory overload. They see more colors than a human would, and they see them more brightly. They hear sounds more keenly. In fact, it sounds like they have a synesthesia thing going on, because sight and sound and touch and taste kind of blur together for them, so they see and taste sounds, can taste things when they touch them, that sort of thing. I think it’s got something to do with however their psi abilities work.”

Torina, who’d joined us, nodded. “That would make sense. I remember the Synergists working on Helso saying something about being able to hear the sunlight, how it sounded when it touched the leaves and grass—how it was like music. And they had to bring it into tune and make it harmonious and—” She smiled. “And I assumed they’d been consuming some, uh—”

“Mind-altering substances?” I offered. “High quality, too.”

“Anyway, they need these times to sort of… recharge themselves,”

Gabby said. I glanced from the Synergists back to her. “How do you know all this?”

“I asked them.”

I smiled at that. I always found it a little awkward asking others about their different practices, cultural, religious, or otherwise. I guess I was worried about offending them, or just being told it was none of my business. I didn’t think Gabby even understood the concept of awkwardness. “Okay, well, they might be at this for hours. I need to talk to them, though.” I put my hands on my hips. “How do you interrupt—uh—”

Their chanting abruptly stopped, and all three of the Synergists turned. “It’s alright. We have no schedule for this. We just do it when it needs doing.”

“Oh.” I glanced at Torina, who looked back nonplussed that the Synergists had apparently been able to overhear us. I could tell from her expression that she was thinking the same thing I was— glad we weren’t talking shit about them. I walked into the crew lounge. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But we’re trying to figure out the nature of the threat you’re facing, so any information you can give us might be helpful, even crucial.”

Perry spoke up. “Um, ladies?

Yes, hi. I’m Perry, the handsomest Combat AI in known space.”

“You sound like glass,” one of the Synergists said. “I do, huh?

Is that a good thing?”

“It is just what it is. You are hard, too hard to bend or shape. And yet, most of the universe passes through you unchanged.” The Synergist tilted her head. “Most, but not all. Very strange.”

“Okay. I’ll take your word for it. Anyway, that attack on you today was incredibly risky. Do you have any idea why it might have happened?

Who might have been behind it?

Other than the Gajur flying that workboat, who was just acting like a lot of Gajur.”

“Probably because we’re of the Perfection Class.”

“While I think you’re indeed lovely, ah, can you—” I started, then shrugged. “What does that mean, the Perfection Class?”

The three Synergists were silent for a moment. I got the impression they were conferring, but not just as simply and tritely as speaking telepathically. It was more like they were sharing feelings, emotions, maybe something even deeper. “We don’t usually tell those outside about ourselves, but we trust you,”

one of Translators said. The Voculator gave a sage nod. “So we will explain to you, if it will help.”

“It might, yeah.”

“We are not personally perfect. No thing is. Except for our—” She hesitated. “This is difficult to explain to those outside. The best description you could understand is that of a song, with many harmonies. But those harmonies are more than just sound. They are also light and life and experience, the feel of things, how they smell, how they taste, their weight

—the sum of existence.”

I glanced at the others, who were also listening attentively. Torina, though, had the same frown of bemused wonder I probably did. “Okay.”

“You have heard of the Synclavion, the World Organ?”

I blinked at that, a blast from our past. “Yes. We traveled to it once, while we were trying to help the Schegith.”

“It is an icon to us. All Synergists make a pilgrimage to listen to its music, which is perfection rendered into something corporeal, into sound that can be heard. Perfection is otherwise rare. Fundamental particles, the protons and electrons and neutrons that make up all things are perfect. So are the mathematics that describe them and the reality they comprise. The potential for perfection in all things is—” She gestured around. “It is here. It is everywhere. Perfection is both profoundly scarce, and yet, it is implicit in all things. It is the song of creation itself. We, in our Class, are aware of it. We can… hear it, although it is not sound.”

“We can see it, although it is not visible,” one of the others said. “We can taste it, although it is not flavor,” the third added. “We are not the Class of Perfection because we are perfect. We are the Class of Perfection because we are aware of the great song that embodies it

—the music of creation that strives toward the same perfect as fundamental particles. Never have we failed to bring the universe closer to that perfect harmony.”

“You’ve never not… cured a site, the way you cured the land on Helso?” Torina asked. The Voculator held up a slim finger spangled with rings and a couple of twists of grass. “It is not correct to think that the things we imperfect beings do, the mining of ores and cutting of trees and all the things we must do to

survive is simply imperfection. They are a harmony in the great song as well, because we are a harmony in the great song. It is how they are done that creates those discords that must be put right.”

“And you’ve never failed to do that,” I said. “Only those who have never failed are part of the Perfection Class. As soon as we encounter a disharmony we can’t blend back into the great song of existence, we cease to be of the Perfection Class. The Second and Third Orders of the Remaining Class become our home. Our people of those Classes may still heal, but for every new harmony they find and restore, we of the Perfection Class find and restore eight, or ten, or—or more.”

“Eight or ten. Wow. Congratulations. So… every Synergist is a member of your Perfection Class until—well, they’re not?” I asked. “Yes and no. Yes, all of our people will belong to the Class of Perfection as of their birth, because all things have the potential for perfection, as written in their atoms. But our future is written in our blood. A single drop is enough for us to know if we will ever find a disharmony we can’t undo. Most of our people will eventually enter the Class of Remaining and will know that.”

“But if you believe that the threat against us originates among those who are no longer in the Perfection Class, out of some sense of dissatisfaction or shame,” one of the other Synergists went on, “it does not. There is no shame in it at all. As we said, it is written in our blood. It is just another aspect of the great song of all things. A failure is celebrated. It’s a joyous moment when one of our people is unable to bring a disharmony into harmony.”

“But some of you will never fail, and will remain in the Perfection Class all your lives?” Gabby asked. “Yes. I am one,” the Voculator said. Gabby turned to me. “I think whoever is attacking the Synergists is looking for that—perfection, I guess. If a rare Synergist is never going to fail to make discords into harmonies, and that’s expressed in some sort of psi power or whatever—”

I nodded, thinking about the horrific find we’d made in Belgium, the dead Synergist pinned into a case like a bug in a collection. That was a hard connection between the threat to the Synergists and Dohlennz. I nodded again, more vigorously. “Yeah. Gabby, I think you may be onto something.” I turned back to the Synergists. “Is this recorded

anywhere?

Which Synergists are always going to belong to your Perfection Class?”

The Voculator shook her head with a soft jangle of beads. “No. Every Synergist knows the truth about themselves. There is no need to record this.”

“So if someone was looking for Synergists that are always going to be perfect—” Perry started, but the Voculator cut him off. “It is not that we are perfect. It is that our potential for it will remain uninterrupted through our lives.”

“Sure. But those of you who are—well, that are always going to have that potential like yourself—are you identifiable in any way?

Do you wear, I don’t know, badges, or colored beads or particular arrangements of leaves or feathers that indicate it?” Perry asked. “No. It is not a source of pride, any more than not being of the Perfection Class is a source of shame.”

“Bingo. Boss, if someone were looking for the Perfection Class, and particularly the ones who are always going to be part of it—and if there’s nothing to indicate who they are—”

“Then every Synergist is fair game,” I said. “Which leaves the question of why. Why would Dohlennz, or anyone else, be looking for that type of Synergist in particular?”

“Because they want to steal it, steal that potential, that gift, and… bottle it,” Gabby said. Torina nodded. “Assuming Dohlennz is behind this, he must think that he can somehow replicate that potential for perfection—and, more importantly, the ability to use it to alter the universe the way the Synergists do.”

“But would that even be possible?

Could you put that onto one of those awful chips?” Gabby asked. I shrugged. “No idea. But Dohlennz is about more than just those damned chips. His so-called braiding was about merging organic life as much as it was about blending it with inorganic. He might think that if he can figure out how the Synergists’ ability to see the potential for perfection in the world works, he can bottle it, like Gabby said.”

“Which would give anyone who wants it the ability to influence the world around them the way the Synergists do,” Torina said. “But probably not to use it to help trees and grass and things grow back,” Gabby said. I thought about someone like Helem Gauss having the ability to influence the very reality around him with his thoughts. The implications of that sent a visceral shudder through me. “With this… project, he takes a great good and turns it into a commodity.” I shook my head in disgust. “No matter what, his song is always the same.”

WE LEFT the Synergists to their meditation and convened the crew in the galley. I turned to Perry. “Bird, you’ve heard me sing before—”

“Yes, I have, and it’s too soon, boss. Too soon. I’m still a little scarred by that… performance.”

“What?

You mean that time I sang ‘One Way or Another’ by Blondie?”

I asked, incredulous. “Is that what that was?

I thought maybe you’d developed a hairball. And what’s with you singing a song from the late 70s anyway?”

“Excuse me, but setting aside the classics, all the best music came out between 1960 and 1990, thank you very much. And it was nothing like a hairball,” I protested. “This revelation brings me relief. I was beginning to worry that the production of hairballs was a human trait I hadn’t encountered yet. That would have been an issue regarding our continued association,” Funboy interjected. “Humans do not have hairballs, no. Or, at least, the overwhelming majority of them don’t. I won’t presume to speak for all of humanity.”

“Good.” Funboy cast a conspicuous glance at Icky. “Now if I only had the same assurance about all of my crewmates.”

Icky glowered. “Got something you want to say to me, misery-bidness?”

“Such as, you’re a motile carpet the size of a workboat who sheds shocking amounts of blue hair?” Funboy shook his head. “No, I have no such thing to say to you.”

“Anyway, we seem to have concluded that Dohlennz is probably looking to steal—whatever it is that the Synergists were talking about, their ability to understand the music of reality and harmonize it, as they seemed to put it

—I think,” I said. Torina nodded. “It does all seem very metaphysical, doesn’t it?”

“It does. But putting all of the hows and such aside, the bottom line seems to be that the Synergists can influence the world around them using the power of their minds alone. All of the chanting and singing and dancing seems to help them focus it, but the actual ability is something inherent to them, probably something… psionic, for lack of a better word.”

I got sounds of agreement from everyone. The point landed. “Okay, then. So how do you steal something like that, and then replicate it?

Can you even do that?”

“Assuming we’re right about Dohlennz, he certainly seems to think so,”

Rab said. “Which means we should probably assume the worst, that he can,”

Gabby put in. I nodded. “Indeed. So, again—how does that work?

How do you transfer… psychic music?”

Perry shrugged his wings. “I’ve got nothing. My knowledge of transferring music consists of ripping tracks off of internet videos.”

I clicked my tongue. “Get a Spotify account or something, bird. Don’t steal music.”

“Yeah, you’re supposed to be upholding the law,” Icky said. “Well excuse me. Van, can I get one of your credit cards to set up an account?”

“I trust you with my life, Perry—but not my credit card information. Ain’t no one getting that. Anyway, it’s certainly a niche kind of thing, stealing and transferring psionic abilities.”

“Why don’t we go back to the one who got us involved with the World Organ in the first place?

Start with Schegith?

Even if she doesn’t know anything herself, she might be able to point us in the right direction,” Torina suggested. Again, nods all around. I offered one of my own. “A might is definitely enough to at least go and check.”

WE ARRIVED at Null World to find its entire northern hemisphere enveloped in another of its spectacular, globe-spanning lightning storms. After waiting a day for it to subside, we descended to the surface, to the Schegith subterranean city. The storm prevented effective comms with the surface, so we arrived cold, as it were. That said, we enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Schegith and her people, so we were ushered right into her presence. As we made our way to her sanctum, Gabby took in the artwork and murals adorning the tunnels. She’d had little experience with the Schegith and gaped at a larger-than-life rendition of one. “They are… unusual beings, aren’t they?”

I took in the bipedal, almost human-sized tardigrade remarking on how unusual the serpentine Schegith were and just shrugged. Frame of reference is everything, I guess. Schegith greeted us warmly from her dais, her pipe wafting smoke toward the stone rafters. Not for the first time, I was reminded of the Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, except many, many times larger. And far more skilled at war and diplomacy. “This one is always pleased to have you visit us, Van Tudor. You and your companions both.”

“And we’re always happy to be here. However, this isn’t just a social call,” I said, then went on to explain the reason for our visit. I told her about the Synergists and their latent psionic ability to perceive and influence the world in a manner analogous to musical harmonies. But I didn’t delve into the things we’d learned about Synergist society itself. The Synergists seemed to prefer keeping that to themselves, and I could respect that. “So is that even possible?

To transfer something like that from one being to another by some means, whether organic or inorganic?” As soon as I asked, I realized how presumptuous we were being. Were we being facile, maybe even insulting, by assuming that one race’s particular relationship with music, at least conceptually, was similar to another’s?

Schegith, though, simply nodded her enormous head. “This is possible, yes. This one’s people have a similar, cryptic quality that is psionic in nature. However, rather than using it to manipulate the world around, this one and this one’s people use it to communicate, to share impressions and feelings.”

“So you’re empathic?” Perry said. “Such is a simple way to describe a complex thing, friend bird. But still apt. This one is not surprised to see such perception from a being of your caliber.”

I pretended to measure Perry’s head. “Van, what the hell are you doing?” he asked me. “You have a way of letting compliments go to your head, Perry. Just want to be sure we can get you back through the Fafnir’s airlock and don’t have to use the cargo hatch.”

“Oh, ha ha. To reiterate something I’ve said many times before, ‘if it’s true, it ain’t braggin’.”

“Fair. So you’re an empath, Schegith”

Torina smirked. “Oh, babe. Isn’t it obvious?

Haven’t you always found her words carry a certain… ah, weight?”

That gave me a thoughtful frown. It was true—and important. Schegith had implied her empathic capacity revolved around sharing thoughts and feelings with her own people. But this meant it actually had a sort of spillover effect on other races. Was the same true for the Synergists?

Did we consider them inoffensive space hippies simply because they behaved in such a laid-back, peaceful way?

Or was there more to it than that, literal good vibes that they emanated like some sort of serene radioactivity?

And if so, how could someone like Dohlennz harness that sort of potential?

“I guess I’m an empath too,” Icky suddenly said. Funboy looked up at her. “I have my doubts.”

“Whatever, mopey. I say everything with conviction. People believe me when I say stuff. That means I’m—” Icky announced. “Emphatic?

Do you mean emphatic?

You’re—and this is your own fun new word—an emphat?” Perry asked, with obvious glee. “Oh. Never mind,” Icky said, cringing. “Empath is a deceptively simple word to describe a profoundly complex concept, but it’s adequate for the purpose of this discussion,” Schegith said. “This empathy was not overtly expressed in this one’s people, however. It was identified, then accentuated by means of genetic modification. It was an aspect of this one’s people that was in part created, and in part activated, at a genetic level. There were side effects, however. This one and this one’s people were not always so… plump.”

Hey, that means she’s an emphat too!

Perry said—in my ear bug only, which was very, very smart of him. I smiled. “I think you’re beautiful, Schegith. Superb, even.”

Schegith let out a booming laugh, then looked at Torina. “Van Tudor has been educated in the ways of being a husband, I see.”

Torina grinned. “I keep him in line.”

“The results are most acceptable. Although, this one notes that Van Tudor has always been kind and generous—at least to those he considers his friends. His enemies?

Perhaps not so much.”

I shook my head. “My ears are burning.”

Funboy looked up at me. “Are they?

Is this a recent affliction?

Do you require an ointment?”

“Do I—no. No, Funboy, it’s just an expression—” I shook my head again. “Anyway, what you’re saying, Schegith, is that there’s a genetic basis for this empathic ability of your race.”

“That is correct.”

“That fits what the Synergists told us about being able to see their peoples’ abilities written in a drop of blood,” Gabby pointed out. Schegith drew on her pipe, then exhaled pungent silver smoke. “Many species with the means to do so have altered their genetic code to enhance existing ability, or to activate latent ones. This one’s race did so because of long life and low birth rates. The population declined, so it was necessary to find a means of adapting, a way to make the remaining population more efficient and resilient. The method developed allowed this one’s race to explore latent potential and hidden traits, and ensure the propagation of the best and most useful talents.”

“That sounds like sophisticated genetic engineering, which may be groundbreaking in the details of your application of it, but isn’t particularly groundbreaking itself,” Funboy observed. Gabby nodded. “It’s one thing to find these things and switch them on in your babies, but—if I understand this, that wouldn’t make you or your living population empathic, right?”

“It also doesn’t really fit our problem,” Rab added. “We think Dohlennz wants to kind of bottle the Synergist’s ability to manipulate reality and sell it. Am I getting that right?

Install it in other beings of other races?

Otherwise, he’d be trying to corrupt living Synergists in some way, turn them into his—slaves, I guess.”

“Thanks, Rab, for introducing a whole new possible avenue of evil scumbaggery for Dohlennz to pursue. But you’re right, yeah. He seems interested in transferring the Synergist’s psi abilities, not just forcing Synergists to use them for his own purposes. At least, that’s what we’re assuming right now—but let’s put a pin in that thought,” I said, then turned back to Schegith. “So that’s the question, Schegith. Was this empathic capacity of your people discovered and switched on even before you were born?

And you got it the old-fashioned way, inheriting the way a baby inherits things like eye color?”

“No. This one was not born with the capacity. It was added later, although while this one was still young. And to therefore answer your implied question, yes, this one’s people developed the means to encode such genetic traits in one individual, and then transfer them into another with complete accuracy.”

“Another—as in another race?”

“This one is unsure. That was never attempted. But the method should, at least in theory, be applicable to any being whose genetic foundation is based on the DNA molecule. The genetic coding is incorporated onto a physical, crystalline matrix, so that it is imperishable. It was incorporated seamlessly into those of this one’s people who did not possess the desired traits. Their biology then adapted to express those traits.”

“Reminds me of the injections I got on Crossroads when I first became a Peacemaker,” I mused. “That was information only, though. It gave you skills and knowledge you didn’t possess, but it didn’t change your physiology. Your muscles and organs didn’t change, you just knew how to do new things,” Perry said. Funboy spoke up. “No, she is implying that if a particular trait being transferred required, say, a new organ, then the transferee’s body would grow that new organ. The effects of the genetic changes on their body would be applied retroactively. That is fascinating—but also horrifying. The potential for abuse is—” He shook his head. “It is mind-boggling.”

I gave a slow nod as Funboy’s horrific implications sunk in. Mutation of one creature into another was a staple trope of science fiction, usually as a result of radiation. Godzilla, the giant ants in the old movie Them!

, ghouls and super mutants in the Fallout series of games, and many more. All of them were existing creatures that had been forced into new forms by

genetic mutation. That wasn’t how it worked, of course—radiation really only resulted in things like cancer and birth defects. But, based on what Schegith had just told us, such mutations might occur—sort of. It still wouldn’t be possible to create giant lizards to menace Tokyo. But a motivated scientist could find some latent genetic trait in a species, switch it on, and have that species mutate to express it. Or, the trait could be transferred to another species and installed in it. The potential of this, both good and bad—very bad—was breathtaking. Torina echoed my racing thoughts. “If someone like Dohlennz could get their hands on this, weaponize it—”

I nodded. “Yeah. We assumed that the Schegith were attacked, what, a year and a half or so ago now, because their tech is immune to Calamity. But maybe there was another reason. Maybe their method for transferring genetic traits like files on a portable drive was a target as well.”

“Or the target,” Rab said. Again, I nodded. Calamity, Dohlennz, the ID chips, they were all starting to reveal themselves as different facets of the same vile gem, weren’t they?

“Schegith, please tell me that this tech, or method, or whatever it is of yours is somewhere safe,” I said. “Indeed. The method is secure here among this one’s people. It will be eradicated before it is allowed to fall into the hands of another with ill intent. The matrices containing the encoding are likewise in a safe place, but separate. Just as one does not store explosives and the means of detonating them in one place, this one’s people have divided the data and the means of using it into two remote, physical places.”

I thought about where in known space such a place could even exist. Maybe some remote, random asteroid, or an ancient comet wandering on the fringes of a nameless star system?

Possibly, but places like that were subject to all sorts of unpredictable phenomena. Or—

I smiled. “It’s a very safe place, isn’t it?

Safe—and quiet?”

Schegith laughed. “Perhaps you are an empath as well, Van Tudor. Or perhaps you are just very perceptive. Yes, The Quiet Room keeps in trust more than just bonds. The encoded genetic matrices of this one’s people are kept by them. And you are trusted, so this one will make the necessary arrangements for you to access them, if that will help your work.”

22

AS WE RETURNED to the Fafnir, Gabby pointed out just how much trust the Schegith were imbuing in us. “Letting us access their genetic code, when it's in a form that can be copied and pasted and stuff—now that is trust.”

“It certainly is,” I agreed as Netty-P ran through the preflight checklist and we settled in. “Hopefully, we can gain some insight into what Dohlennz is planning by checking it out. But—” I sat back as the Fafnir lifted off the desiccated hardpan and started climbing into the yellow-tinged sky. “But I don’t think that’s going to be enough. I think it’s about time we turn our serious attention to finding Dohlennz.”

Torina nodded. “Between Groshenko, Retta and—ironically—the Equal Grasp, Earth is in good hands. And Helso’s well-protected as well. Calamity is still apparently mostly dormant, so all roads do seem to lead to Dohlennz now, don’t they?”

“You know, there’s something I don’t get about Dohlennz. Why this gross, horrible braiding thing?

What’s the point?

We already know that the Flesh Merchants, aka Pont Alus Kyr, can grow entirely new bodies. Why didn’t Gauss just have one of those made for him?

Why did he want to be that monster we found on Adoration?” Icky asked. I watched as the barren surface of Null World fell away, the horizon ahead starting to bow into a curve. “Yeah, I’ve wondered the same thing myself. There must be some benefit to having a braided body, even if they do end up looking like something from a David Cronenberg movie.”

“Repulsive body horror, for you non-film buffs,” Perry stated. “Yeah, kinda figured,” Icky replied. “But what type of benefit would make existing like that worthwhile?”

“Immortality, maybe?

The ability to incorporate a lot more tech and other benefits in a normal body would make living forever highly appealing,” Rab suggested. “Maybe.” I pursed my lips. “Or it had something to do with whatever alien tech Gauss used to keep himself alive for three hundred years. For someone of his—inclinations, and desires—an ordinary body simply wasn’t going to work for him.”

“Or maybe some of all of these,” Funboy put in. “Yeah. In any case, the surest way to find out is to find Dohlennz.” I stared at the sky, which was now purpling toward black and starting to spangle with stars. “The question is, where to even begin?”

WE BROKE orbit and started out of the Null World system. About an hour into the flight, a data point appeared on the status panel at my left side. No

—two data points. I noted them, and we flew on. We were about twenty minutes from our twist point when the attack came. Three ships—a class 14 rivaling the Fafnir in mass, accompanied by two class 9s. They immediately accelerated directly toward us, lighting us up with fire control scanners as they did. I checked the overlay on the center console to my right. Assuming we didn’t start maneuvering, we’d face a ten-minute engagement window with them. I glanced again at the status display on my left, then stretched. “Uh—Van?

You want to do something about that?” Torina asked, waving a hand at the overlay. “Yeah, you’re kind of whistling past the graveyard here,” Perry added. I nodded. “Yup. I see them.”

“Your cool-under-pressure thing is awesome and all, but seriously, you might want to start getting a little worried.”

I turned to Torina. “Target the closer of the two class 9s with a salvo of missiles. We’ll use our energy weapons on the other two, please and thank

you, my dear.”

“Okay.” She glanced sidelong at the others. “And do you want to, you know, start shooting?

We are in missile range.”

Perry cocked his head at me. “What are you up to, Tudor?”

I smiled, just as the class 14 fired a salvo of its own missiles at us. “I’m running an experiment.”

“While I agree that experimentation is a useful means of gaining understanding about the world around us, I have… concerns about doing it in this situation,” Funboy said. “It is not unlike the time you so nonchalantly touched that predatory beast on your farm.”

“Predatory beast—you mean the feral cat that lives in the shed behind the barn?

The one I skritched after it killed a mouse?”

“It thoroughly dismembered the smaller creature in a wanton display of bestial aggression. And then you deliberately ran your bare hand over its fur, and then you never washed your hands afterward. This is a similar display of cavalier disregard for good sense.”

“Again, it was a cat, and I petted it. It did not, as you said at the time, have murder in its eyes, nor was it slathered with the blood of its prey.”

“I respectfully deny your assessment. As to our combat reality, however, we are about to get our assess whupped, as Icky would say.”

Perry stared at me. “Boss, what do you know that we don’t?”

“Torina, you can go ahead and fire the missiles at that class 9.

Then you and Rab can deal with the missiles inbound toward us.”

With a bemused smile, Torina loosed the missiles. As though on cue, a second barrage of missiles appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and streaked toward the class 14 and one of the 9s. Netty-P immediately painted the launching ship as an icon on the overlay, with a circle around it showing uncertainty in its exact location. “A cloaked ship,” Torina said as it loosed a second salvo. “Yup.” I activated the comm. “I’m not paying for all those missiles, B.”

She came on the comm, her eyes narrowed. “Good to see you, too, Van. Why do I get the sense you’re not surprised to see me?”

“Because I’m not. In fact, I’ve had Netty-P discreetly watching for you. That tracker you put on the Fafnir so long ago might not be active anymore, but I didn’t think for a minute that you were just going to quietly give up.”

We paused the conversation there. B had fired her missile barrage from a much shorter range than that between the Fafnir and our attackers. It gave

the enemy ships correspondingly much less time to react. Two of her missiles made it through the defensive fire of one of the class 9s, one of them achieving a rare direct hit and blowing the ship apart. Two more weathered the defenses of the class 14, both detonating close enough to shred her port flank with shrapnel. Rab and Torina now opened fire on the inbound missiles. With virtually all of the Fafnir’s firepower available for our own defensive fire and not tied up with other targets, they didn’t really stand a chance. None of them even got close enough to trigger our point-defenses. The class 9 our own missiles had targeted decided that discretion was the better part of valor. It flipped, burned hard, and decelerated. Since we were right on the edge of the Null World system’s critical gravitational threshold for twisting, the overlay decided our missiles wouldn’t be able to catch it before it twisted away. I therefore had Torina send the abort command to them, disarming them and cutting their drives. We’d be able to retrieve them and save some cash in the process. While this was going on, I watched the class 14.

It flipped, but it was badly damaged, its drive firing only briefly before cutting off. A moment later, a small object detached from it and accelerated away. It made it to about fifty klicks when the class 14 exploded. It was an uncontained fusion reaction, though, not an antimatter blast. B immediately changed course to intercept the pod and pick up the survivors—now prisoners. “Well, that was easy,” Torina said. “Fire some missiles, then recover them. Shoot down a few more, done. I could get used to battles like that.”

I sniffed. “Yeah, that’d be nice. I wouldn’t count on it, though.”

THERE TURNED out to be three survivors—an unconscious and wounded human, a Vela, and a Fren-Okun with a platinum ring through his nose and elaborate tattoos. Perry laughed when B sent the image. “It’s like an Ewok wandered onto the wrong set and got made up for a Mad Max movie.”

“Looks like we found the emo tribe of the Fren,” I said. “If he starts singing anything by The Cure I’ll—just sit and listen, actually, because that would be kinda cool,” Perry admitted. The human had outstanding warrants, a bunch of them. The Fren had one from Tau Ceti that amounted to a mischief charge for public indecency. “Not exactly the kind of crime you’d brag about in prison,” according to Rab. As for the Vela, there was nothing. We couldn’t even identify her. While Rab and Funboy took the Frankie to retrieve our missiles, which were now on a very long journey in the general direction of Andromeda, we docked the Fafnir with B’s ship to take the prisoners into custody. As soon as we stepped through the airlock and into the Vela’s sightline, though, she snarled and flung herself at me, her teeth practically bared. Icky intercepted her, grabbing her with all four arms. “Whoa!

Calm down, lady!”

The Vela just kept snarling, babbling incoherently while trying to yank herself free of Icky’s grip and throw herself at me. Icky actually struggled a little to keep her restrained, which was saying something. The Vela probably weighed a quarter of what she did. “What is her malfunction, anyway?” I asked. “Maybe Mommy and Daddy didn’t show her enough attention when she was a child,” Perry suggested. “What?”

“Kubrick.”

“Ah.” Icky, Torina, and Rab got the Vela shackled and restrained, then sat her on the deck. I crouched and looked into her eyes. Nothing but empty, wild hate looked back at me. It was so jarringly different from the bland serenity I was used to seeing in the eyes of the only Vela I really knew, Dayna Jasskin’s assistant Chensun. “This isn’t natural. This is—it’s programming,” I said. Perry nodded. “Agreed. There’s nobody home, boss. This Vela can’t help it.”

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I said to her, then stood. “She can’t help it, but maybe we can. B, can we arrange for her to get treatment?

Ideally, at Anvil Dark?”

“Don’t see why not. Is this a humanitarian impulse, or do you have some deeper reason?”

“Some of both. If the Vela are like the Usu and subject to being turned into digital slaves, then they deserve to be freed. And, by extension, we’re

going to have to figure out how to root this—conditioning, or whatever—

out, when and wherever it occurs. It’s like Calamity, but for the mind. Or, for those who incorporate digital components.”

I stayed silent on the matter of the Schegith methodology for transferring genetic instructions and potentially rewriting other beings’

DNA to order. I trusted B almost enough to share it with her. Almost. “What if it is Calamity, in another form?” Torina asked. “Well, then, we’ll have uncovered another of our enemy’s tricks, won’t we?

We’ll just have to find a way to defeat it along with all the others.”

GIVEN our human prisoner’s injuries, and the fact that the Vela was comparatively docile when I wasn’t around, we decided to just leave all three of them with B. As for the emo Fren, B said she’d handle interrogating him. “I want to know why, exactly, they attacked us, and why here. And why do we suddenly have this mixed bag of Vela, humans, Fren-Okun, and whoever else was aboard those ships involved in this?”

“Mercenaries, probably. But I’ll handle prying it out of them. Not that I don’t appreciate your gift for making people talk, Van, but time is of the essence, I think,” B said. “I don’t disagree—but why in particular?

Is something going on?”

She nodded. “The GKU—particularly the part that everyone’s calling the Ferals—are gathering information, hot signals, from a number of different systems. It seems like there’s a large-scale move getting underway on the Synergists. And while we don’t know for sure if Dohlennz is behind it, all signs are pointing that way.”

“What sort of large-scale move?” Torina asked. “Three planets for sure are under ecological threat, and I’m betting all of them are Dohlennz and his shock troops.”

I frowned. “Shock troops?

You mean—what, the Vela?”

“No. Much more insidious. Think biological. Fungi, mold, invasive plant and animal life. Anything that could threaten to crash a biosphere.”

“He wants to draw the Synergists in, like getting the Christmas presents put under the tree all ready to be unwrapped,” Funboy said. We all looked at him. “What?

I find the Earthly concept of Christmas fascinating. It is a remarkable convergence of beliefs and traditions, shared to widely varying extents by the people of Earth, but still somehow resulting in a mostly uniform whole. And the colored lights are really pretty.”

“Uh—yeah. This is what happens after one trip to Frankenmuth.” I turned back to B. “Okay, well, give us the details on these systems under threat and we’ll—do something about it. Not sure what. I mean, my first stop would be the Synergists.”

“The worst part is that if the Synergists don’t help these places, this nasty Dohlennz fellow is going to win anyway,” Gabby announced. “How so?

How does it benefit Dohlennz to break down a planet’s biosphere?” Rab asked her. “Oh. Well, because he won’t let that happen. If the Synergists don’t show up, he’ll arrange for the damage to be undone somehow. And he’ll do it in a way that makes us look bad, and him, or his organization or company, look good.”

We all just stared. “What?

It’s what I’d do if I were him,” Gabby said. “Although, if you guys think I’m really wrong, well, you’re the experts on these criminal type things—”

“No, Gabby, quite the opposite. I think you’re probably exactly right.” I crossed my arms. “Gabby, I want to try something out here. I’d like to add criminal profiler to your list of duties on the Fafnir. If you have any insights or thoughts to share on the motivations or expected behaviors of our bad guys, I want you to share them. Everyone in the crew, me included

—hell, me in particular—is going to listen to them, give them serious consideration,” I said. She dithered a little, then nodded. “Okay. If you think it would be useful

—”

“Gabby, one thing I’ve found, doing this for some years now, is that you never know what’s going to end up being useful. For instance, you’ve given us a possible course of action here. If the Synergists don’t show up to help these planets—”

“Then we need to see just who does,” Torina finished. I nodded. “Exactly.”

The crew headed back to the Fafnir, but I pulled B aside. She sighed. “This is about me tracking you again, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Van, I’m really just doing it to help—”

I waved her off, smiling. “I know. And if you want to keep shadowing us, using your spiffy stealth tech, then by all means. But you don’t need to keep it a secret from us. Because, honestly, you can’t. If you know to look for a stealthed ship and where it’s likely to be, there are ways of seeing it.”

“Yeah, I know. You had Netty-P watching, didn’t you?”

“I did. And I kept it between her and me, not even letting my crew in on it. I wanted to see if they’d have somehow noticed independently. They didn’t.”

“Was it that, or were you thinking one of them might be in cahoots with me?” she asked, her antennas waving. “No, absolutely not. At least, not willingly.”

“What does that mean?”

I sighed. “Torina aside, Perry has become one of the best friends I’ve ever had. But he’s a different sort of friend, one whose memories can be selectively blocked—or altered. For all I know, he could be in league with you, or someone else, and not even realize it.”

“Well, he’s not. I would never condone that sort of manipulation of someone like Perry.”

“Yeah, I know. But my grandfather didn’t seem to share that view. There’s no way of saying this nicely, but he’s been manipulating Perry—

from the grave, as it turns out. Gramps obviously had secrets, but lots more of them than I’d ever realized. Maybe more than any of us realized. Though I doubt he ever meant to, he’s put me in a tough position.”

“Not knowing if you can truly trust Perry. Or Netty-P, for that matter.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if he did set up any other sneaky little relationships or whatever involving them, he sure as hell never told me about it.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what to say, I’m sorry.”

“Well, how about this?

How about you tell my mother to come and take these prisoners to Anvil Dark, so you can help us out here in the field?”

B gave me a keen look, then smiled. “Did you get that, Jocelyn?” she asked the air. The answer came from her comm. “I did. I guess Van had Netty-P

looking for me, too.”

“I had her looking for stealthed ships. The fact that it was you was just a guess,” I said. “Oh, by the way. Hi, mom.”

She actually laughed. “Well, if I have to be outsmarted, it being done by my son kind of makes me proud, I guess. I’ll send a workboat over to grab the prisoners.”

“Mom, just a note. We don’t kill prisoners. Or harm them.”

A long pause. “I—guess I deserve that. Understood. The prisoners will arrive intact.”

“And alive, and unharmed.”

“That’s what I meant.”

I gave B a thin smile. “I’m sure it was.”

23

WHILE MY MOTHER took the prisoners back to Anvil Dark for processing and interrogation—or, in the case of the Vela, analysis and treatment—B

agreed to go and scout the nearest of the planets facing a manufactured ecological catastrophe. It was a habitable planet intermediate between Earth and Mars in size in the WASP-136 system. Owned by the Tau Ceti Alliance, it was a rich and diverse world, apparently prone to seismic instability. The collapse of its biosphere would not only ravage the planet’s ecology, but it would also put the nearly three hundred million inhabitants living on it at terrible risk. For our part, we decided to go to see Dayna Jasskin, to follow up on Schegith’s revelation that The Quiet Room was safeguarding her race’s encoded genetic data. We arrived at Procyon and proceeded to The Quiet Room’s facility there, calling Dayna along the way. “Van Tudor. What can I do for my favorite Peacemaker?” she asked on the comm. I smiled. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“I don’t call all of you my favorite,” she countered, adding a musical laugh. I grinned but got back to business. Time was, I knew, inexorably grinding on, and we needed answers. “Dayna, I need you to clear your schedule to meet with us. It’s important.”

“I—” She glanced off-screen, then nodded. “I can do that, sure.”

I frowned. “Are you alone?”

“No, Chensun is here with me.”

“Okay. Can we continue this call with you alone at the other end?

This is a very sensitive personal matter.”

She gave me a frown of her own, then nodded. She said something to the unseen Chensun, waited a moment, then nodded again. “Okay, it’s just me. And if you’re looking for relationship tips, I suspect your wife is sitting right beside you.”

“I am, and he’s not,” Torina said, then looked at me. “You’re not, are you?”

“No, dear. The first place I go for all of my relationship advice is not the bank.”

She grinned and blew me a kiss. “No, Dayna, it’s not really personal at all.” Although it wasn’t necessary, I checked the comm data for the link. It was, sure enough, encrypted end-to-end using the fearsome crypto entailed by a cop talking to a bank. “I just needed Chensun out of earshot,” I said, then went on to explain what we’d learned about the Vela. Dayna sat back and blew out a breath. “Oh, that’s not good. I’ve certainly heard about issues with the Vela, but none involving Vela already living and working in known space.”

“I’m sure Chensun is great. And I’m not saying she’s necessarily compromised in any way. But I just had a Vela whom I’ve never met try to tear out my throat with her teeth. It’s programming. And while that case was pretty egregious and obvious, there might be more insidious versions. Versions that turn the Vela in question into a— a spy, to put it bluntly. She may not be able to help it. She may not even be aware of it.”

As I spoke, I had uncomfortable memories of my recent conversation with B about Perry and Netty-P. Add to that the idea that organic beings could have their DNA and resulting physiology reprogrammed—

Everything suddenly seemed uncertain, even unreliable. I was starting to get a sense of how it felt to be delusionally paranoid. Except there was nothing delusional about this. Dayna didn’t think so either. “Chensun is intimately involved in most of my files. Simply cutting her off from them isn’t feasible.”

“I’m not suggesting you do that. I’m just suggesting that you take some measures to keep an eye on her. But I am asking you to not involve her any further in our dealings with you.”

Torina spoke up. “She must be aware of the situation, the fact that all Vela are implicated in some truly hideous crimes. It shouldn’t surprise her if you keep her away from our file.”

“No, I suppose not. So is that why you’re coming here?

To talk to me about Chensun?”

I shook my head. “No. But I don’t want to talk about it even over a secure comm. This has got to be a face-to-face discussion, behind firmly closed doors.”

“Is this about the Schegith?”

I stared back at her. “Why would you ask that?”

“I’ll explain when you get here. In the meantime, we have a facility here that pretty much epitomizes behind closed doors. I’ll see you when you get here.”

THE FACILITY for that turned out to be a conference room that wouldn’t have looked out of place in some Marriott or Holiday Inn Express—blandly comfortable, free of anything visually interesting and comfortably utilitarian. Dayna informed us, though, that it was one of the most effectively shielded locations in known space. Nothing, aside from neutrinos, could enter or leave it once it was closed and activated. Even the air inside was processed through a self-contained scrubber system, which was enclosed within the room’s security envelope. It also meant no comms with the Fafnir while we were inside. I warned Netty-P that she and the others would be on their own for a while. “Just imagine the discussions that have gone on here,” Perry said as he, Torina, and I entered and Dayna closed the door behind us. “Conversations that might have changed the course of commerce and politics, influenced the lives of billions.”

Dayna sniffed. “You’d think so, but what mostly goes on in here is long, convoluted discussions about how rich people and corporations can minimize their tax exposure. Oh, and spreadsheets. Lots and lots of spreadsheets. So many spreadsheets.”

“Hmph. I like my version better. Way more dramatic,” Perry muttered, standing on the floor. “Uh, that table is really nice wood. And those chairs

are really nice leather. Neither look up to handling these babies,” he said, lifting a gleaming foot. “They’re probably not. Guess you’re stuck on the floor, bird,” I said, taking a seat. “Oh. Sure. I’ll just be the disembodied voice from below, then, shall I?”

“What was that, Perry?

It’s hard hearing you from down there,” Torina said, smirking. “What a delightfully funny person you are, Torina.”

She reached down and patted his head. “Thanks, fluffy boy.”

“Tudor, corral your wife.”

I snorted. “Good luck.”

The levity quickly evaporated, though. I explained to Dayna why we were there. She nodded. “That explains the cryptic message I received from Schegith herself, then. That you were to be given access to any and all assets currently held in trust by us, for your examination.” She stood. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She left, and the three of us stared idly at walls that held paintings obviously intended to be as inoffensive and uninteresting as possible. “Taupe,” I said to break the silence. Torina glanced at me. “What?”

I gestured around. “Taupe. Another of those universal constants. It’s the bland color of meeting and conference rooms everywhere. Somewhere deep in our DNA, there must be chromosomes hard-coded to make us resign ourselves to tedious slide presentations, droning speakers, bad coffee, and stale muffins—”

Dayna returned. She carried a small case. When the door was sealed, she opened it, revealing six crystals, deep reddish black, with complex facets. “This is what Schegith told you about. Her people’s genetic information is encoded into four of these. And before you ask, I don’t know how—if each contains information for a bunch of Schegith, or which ones, or if they encode the information in some other way. You’d have to ask her about that.”

I indicated two of the crystals that sat in sockets in the case’s lining without labels. The others were each labeled with cryptic symbols that meant nothing to me. “Are these ones blank?”

“Yes. And yes, her message said you could take custody of one unused item, if you wished. Again, this meant nothing to me until you showed up.”

“Excuse me,” Perry’s voice interjected, “but what are you guys looking at?”

I took one of the blank crystals out of the case and lowered it to where he could see it. “These. Recognize them?”

“Nope. Some sort of complex crystalline lattice based on silica, but with other metals included—I’m getting boron and actinium in my scans. And organic material, which has been incorporated right into the crystal lattice somehow.”

“It was Mark Tudor who delivered these here, about sixty years ago now,” Dayna said. “Before my time. I just assumed you’d already know about them, Perry.”

“I wasn’t with him when he did this. We were side by side for decades, but sometimes he’d go back to Earth on his own, leave me on Anvil Dark. He must have done this on the sly.”

“I guess he was protecting you. He didn’t even want to have to put any memory you’d have of it behind a firewall. Some secrets are just that sensitive and… secret.”

“Preaching to the choir, boss. I’m the expert in secrets so secret you don’t even know you know them.”

I nodded and looked back at Dayna. “Okay, we’ll take this, then,” I said, lifting the crystal. “Do you think it will help with Dohlennz and the Vela?” she asked. I could tell she was worried, probably about Chensun. She obviously relied on her Vela assistant, and might even consider her a friend. I knew how she felt. I was going through exactly the same issue with Perry and Netty-P. It was one thing for something like Calamity to simply knock them offline. The idea that they could be subjected to insidious, corruptive programming like the Vela, though, turned into unwitting traitors—

I sighed and shrugged. “No idea. Right now, we don't know what will be helpful—so I don’t plan to pass on anything.”

WE RETURNED TO ANVIL DARK. I wanted to get the Schegith crystal analyzed, to learn more about it, but I was wary. We’d once had a head of scientific investigation in the Guild named Steve, an insectoid alien who’d been a great guy—but who was also compromised into working for the bad guys by threats to his family. I was leery of revealing too much to anyone, therefore, since almost anyone could be compromised. Which bothered me in another way. I’d gone through periods of feeling paranoid before, mainly when I’d had huge bounties on my head. Ironically, as far as I knew, I had no bounties on me at all—maybe a few old, low-value ones—but I was actually feeling more paranoid. Between Calamity and what was happening to the Vela, and Dohlennz’s unseen fingers seeming to be everywhere, a new, insidious sort of distrust was taking root. It was one thing to have a few million bonds on my head. That generally led to confrontations. I was starting to feel like I was punching at shadows, doing battle with cobwebs. I wasn’t sure if this was deliberate, if Dohlennz and his evil associates were trying to create a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, but that’s what was happening. So I took the crystal to Bester, telling him nothing about its origins. I just told him we’d found it and had no idea what it was, then asked him to oversee getting it analyzed, then return it and all available information about it to me. He gave me a somber look. “Why do I think there are things you’re not telling me?”

“Trust me, Bester, there are lots of things I’m not telling you. Kind of the nature of the job.”

He gave a slow nod. “I suppose. Okay, but there’s a cost—”

“Way ahead of you,” I said, extracting a ring from my pocket. It was my graduation ring from high school. I hadn’t worn it in years but kept it handy for just this occasion. For reasons no one really understood, Bester usually required a payment for his services, in the form of something with significance to the purchaser. He then took these things, filed them away in his vast archive on Anvil Dark and, as far as anyone knew, never looked at them again. It was like some very specific, very specialized form of hoarding. I decided to check in on the Vela my mother had transported back here. I found her in the infirmary, strapped into a bed, instruments arrayed around her. The doctor overseeing her case was a human woman named Huffman who’d been seconded to the Guild from Pont Alus Kyr. Given the number of organic-inorganic hybrid beings we were encountering, it seemed like a good idea to have the expertise available. “What’s her prognosis?” I asked her. Huffman shrugged. “Fine, I guess?”

I smiled. “That’s what I like in my medical professionals—decisive certainty.”

“Well, it’s true. Physically, there’s nothing wrong with her. All of her organic bodily systems and functions are fine. She is, in other words, perfectly healthy. It’s whatever has compromised her embedded inorganic systems that’s the problem.” She glanced at me. “Honestly, this is more of an information technology issue than a medical one. We’ve extracted what data we can from her inorganic implants—carefully, mind you, to keep it quarantined, because the last thing we need is another Calamity happening.”

“Understatement of the millenia there.”

“Anyway, one of your people, Lunzemor Nyatt, is going to take what we’ve extracted to Pont Alus Kyr once we’ve got it ready. I’ve got colleagues there who are better suited to evaluate it.”

I stepped closer to the bed, looking down at the unconscious Vela. When I did, all hell broke loose. An alarm shrilled. Huffman moved in beside me. “Her temperature—no, all of her vitals are spiking—”

The Vela’s eyes flew open and locked on mine, then she screamed. At the same time, she slammed against her restraints, howling, shrieking in mindless, bestial fury. More alarms erupted, adding to the sudden cacophony. Huffman pushed me back as other medical techs moved in, all of them chattering away about vital signs and responses and pushing this drug or that in tense but professional tones. The Vela, though, just flew into even more of a feral rage, foaming at the mouth, her eyes showing white all around, tracking me as I moved away from the bed. I heard something snap as she flung herself at her restraints. One of them that was on her leg actually broke free, the cuff torn right out of its mount. It took two techs to push it back down and desperately try to hold it. Huffman shouted for security, then started to call out something else. A wet thump cut her off. Dark fluid gushed from the Vela’s mouth, and she sank back, then went still and silent. Her eyes were still staring at me. The alarms cut out, except for one constant, unchanging tone. It was unmistakable, the mechanical pronouncement of death. Huffman gaped for a moment, blinking at the various monitors, then shook her head. She looked stunned. “Her heart. It… burst. Inside her chest. It just… blew apart.” She turned to me, her face a study in shock. “That shouldn’t even be possible.”

I took a long, slow breath. “Well. We know something else about Dohlennz now.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s perfected a fail-safe.”

UNFORTUNATELY, there wasn’t a great deal that our science people could tell me about the Schegith crystal—which was good. In fact, it had been part of the reason I’d asked them to do it. Even with the assistance of staff seconded from Pont Alus Kyr, like Dr. Huffman, they found the crystal largely impenetrable to their analyses. The technology involved in its creation was utterly cryptic, while its means of storing information seemed to involve quantum effects whose details were unclear. As the Head of Science put it, “I don’t know—give us a year, or two, or five, and maybe we’ll have answers for you. We just have to write a few new, groundbreaking books first.”

Why was this good?

Well, since the technology was unique to the Schegith, it probably meant that Dohlennz would be just as in the dark about how it worked. That wasn’t a guarantee, of course, but at least it was one worry I could kick a little further down the road. I’d intended to go back to Procyon, to return the crystal to The Quiet Room, but shortly after we left Anvil Dark, we got a call to divert—to Helso. When I told the crew, and particularly Torina, I hastened to add that it wasn’t because the place was under threat. “Quite the contrary. Schegith is

unwilling to host a bunch of strangers at Null World, so Helso is considered the next safest place. It is their protectorate, after all.”

Rab nodded. “I’ve seen those three orbital fortresses they’ve deployed. Now that they’re operational, it would take a serious fleet to even have a chance of attacking the place. I’ve even heard, through a couple of my old contacts, that Tau Ceti and the Eridani have made enquiries to the Schegith, asking how they can get versions of their own.”

“The Schegith do seem to have considerable expertise in the field of military technology. Remarkable for such a peaceful race,” Funboy said. “Maybe that’s why they’re peaceful. Who wants to attack someone who can just kick their butts?” Icky replied. But Gabby wasn’t so flippant about it. “Let’s just hope they stay a peaceful race. We don’t know much about their history, do we?

And they’re rebounding from nearly being wiped out. That’s gotta sting.”

I just shrugged, but Gabby did have a good point. Still, the Schegith were firmly on our side, so I wasn’t going to lose sleep about it any time soon. “THAT IS A LOT OF FIREPOWER,” Perry drawled as we twisted into the Helso system and started our trek toward Torina’s homeworld. And he was right. There seemed to be a small fleet of vessels in various orbits around Helso, a few of them familiar, a few not. Notable among the former was a Schegith battlecruiser, as well as B’s and Gerhardt’s ships. Valint’s Stormshadow was also present. So was my mother’s new ship, one she’d taken over from a subordinate after losing her own at the Battle of Null World and renamed the Retribution. Fitting name, Mom. Somewhere, Freud was coughing into his hand, and it wasn’t from the cigars. There were four other ships, all ominously dark and broadcasting the bare minimum of transponder data. I didn’t need to see their registry information to know that they were GKU—more specifically, part of the faction we’d taken to calling the Ferals. My mother was one of its de facto leaders, and probably its most powerful and influential one at that. Valint

kind of straddled the boundary, sometimes throwing in her lot with the Ferals, wanting little to do with them in others. More importantly, Valint was a moderating influence on them. Even among the Ferals, she commanded great respect. Hell, even my mother deferred to her. And that was good, because the GKU was already like the Defense Intelligence Reserve back on Earth—a black-ops organization, except with spaceships packing the power to destroy planets. And the Ferals were a loose cannon of a faction within the GKU. It was a hell of a lot of power with no real checks and balances to constrain it, other than its own conscience, and that of people like Valint. In fact, I’d never said this to anyone, not even Torina, but deep down I knew that the GKU would eventually have to be reformed, or just eliminated altogether. They were too wild a card in their current form. Until we could deal with Dohlennz and Calamity, though, things like that would have to wait. They were simply too valuable in the meantime. I really hoped those weren’t famous last words. 24

WE WALKED INTO A PROVERBIAL SHITSTORM. I’d assumed this meeting was going to be about Dohlennz, his ecological attacks, and the whole issue of the Synergists. It was that, but it was also reports of various types of attacks in several systems. Traffic control and nav buoys, stellar weather stations, and all sorts of relatively isolated, outlying facilities were being subjected to punishing hit-and-run raids. Worst of all, a big class 17 passenger liner had gone dark after departing Dregs, with no information at all about where it had gone—or if it was now nothing but debris and drifting corpses slowly freeze-drying into interstellar jerky. We convened a meeting on the surface in a conference room in an office building owned by the Milon’s a few klicks from their estate. And yes, it was taupe, because of course it was. I stared at the map Gerhardt had projected into the air over the meeting table. It was speckled with red icons highlighting known or suspected incidents, the intensity of the red indicating the confidence level. I stuck my hand into it and rotated it back and forth, up and down, looking for a pattern. I saw none. “How damaging are these attacks?” Torina asked. Gerhardt answered. “Some very. A traffic-control buoy in the Spindrift system was destroyed. Others have inflicted superficial damage. And some we just don’t know. The missing liner, for instance. It was carrying five hundred people. That would be a catastrophe.”

Valint jumped in. “The most sustained attacks have been at Wolf 424.

Whoever’s responsible has taken out a dozen marker buoys delineating mining rights, under the Guild-enforced mining policies for the system. That’s causing more than a little chaos, since there are constant arguments over who has the rights to what, even when the buoys are in place.”

I crossed my arms. “I can’t help feeling it’s a smokescreen, a bunch of seemingly random attacks intended to cover up something specific.”

Gerhardt nodded. “If we’re looking at fifty different incidents, we’re not looking at any one of them in detail. The question is—what’s the real target?

What is Dohlennz trying to avoid us seeing?”

“If it is Dohlennz who’s responsible for this,” Funboy said into the pause. That attracted everyone’s attention. He blinked and shrugged. “We’re assuming that it’s Dohlennz, but it may not be. It may be someone who’s hoping we’ll blame Dohlennz. Or, for that matter, it may be something entirely distinct and purely coincidental.”

“He’s got a point,” Rab said. “We can certainly assume it’s Dohlennz behind it, but we shouldn’t get target-locked on him to the exclusion of anything else.”

Schegith, who’d joined us by comm from orbit—most human facilities weren’t built for her bulk and particularly physiology—cut in. “This one agrees that remaining open-minded is worthwhile. However, working from the default assumption that this is Dohlennz remains prudent. He is the one who has demonstrated the motivation. He may be trying to distract us from the three ecological injuries he has inflicted. This one believes that his desire to exploit the psionic capacity of the Synergists remains his primary goal.”

“I gather that you’ve explained at least some of our recent conversation to everyone here?” I asked her. That had been the implication, but I wanted to make sure. It wasn’t my place to reveal the Schegith empathy-on-a-chip to anyone else. “This one has. This one has conferred with this one’s chief advisors, and all agree that this is knowledge that must be shared in general, even if the details are not. This one understands that you have taken one of the genetic encoding crystals from The Quiet Room for further examination?”

I nodded. “Your message to Dayna made it clear it was okay. I gather she told you.”

“She did.”

I extracted it from my harness pouch and held it up. It was dark red and vitreous, its facets sparking the light back at us. “The best minds on Anvil Dark and Pont Alus Kyr weren’t able to unravel how it works. And that’s a good thing, because it means that this technology, at least, is probably just as opaque to Dohlennz.”

“Could this be used to transplant, or whatever the right word is, psionic and other abilities from one race to another?” my mother asked, staring at the crystal. “In theory, yes. The specifics shall remain the proprietary knowledge of this one’s race, for obvious reasons. But particular traits and characteristics could be shared among species whose genetic foundation is DNA—mindful of unexpected physiological effects such as mutations, of course.”

Icky sniffed. “Mutations. Yeah, that doesn’t sound too ominous.”

I paused a moment, sifting a recurring thought I’d had since learning about the Schegith crystals. I hadn’t voiced the concept yet, but now seemed like the right time. “You know, I almost hate to suggest this, but—shouldn’t we test it?

To verify it actually works and isn’t just a theory?

I mean, if Dohlennz and the Vela are going to wage war on us, and this is one of the goals, then shouldn’t we determine if it’s even realistic?

Because, if it’s not, then there’s not much point in stopping them from chasing it, right?”

“Napoleon said it best. When your enemy’s in the process of screwing up, don’t interrupt him,” Perry said with a flick of his wingshoulders. I pointed at him, agreeing. “Exactly. If this is ultimately a dead end, then we can let them follow it and focus on other things. But if it’s not a dead end, well, we should know that too.”

“So what are you suggesting, Tudor?

That we actually try to transfer the empathic capacity of the Schegith, or the potential for the Synergists to psionically affect the world around them, into—someone?” Gerhardt asked. “I know it sounds crazy, but—”

“This one must interject. This one will not agree to sharing this one’s peoples’ empathic potential to another race.”

I held up a hand. “Perfectly fair, Schegith. I wasn’t suggesting that anyway. The last thing we want is to give someone access to your peoples’—uh, not hive-mind, but shared pool of feelings?

In any case, it would be a vulnerability that we just don’t want to introduce.”

“Not only that, but that’s apparently not what Dohlennz is after anyway,” Torina said. “He’s after the Synergists.”

“I agree. So, unless anyone objects, I’m going to get Netty-P to call up the ladies,” I said. Gabby looked at me. “The ladies?”

Netty-P cut in. “Actually, Van, the Synergists are already on top of this. Somebody contacted the Stratum of Conciliation and invited them to participate in this effort. They literally just contacted us to that effect. I was about to inform you, to confirm that this isn’t another bit of Dohlennz’s manipulation.”

“It’s not,” Gerhardt confirmed. “We’ve been in constant contact with the Synergists. I believe they’re tired of hiding and reacting, and they want to do something proactive.”

“They want to start hitting back at Dohlennz?

Not exactly that pacifistic, is it?” Rab asked. Gerhardt, though, hmph’d. “A common misconception is that pacifists won’t fight. They’ll often fight, and very hard, to protect themselves or things they believe in. They will indeed wage war, and often with devastating consequences to those who think them cowards.”

I leaned into the conversation. “Not to mention that one of the best forms of pacifism is to stop the fighting as fast as possible—or prevent it from happening in the first place.”

“Peace through superior firepower,” Perry observed. “A tale as old as time.”

WE SET course for the nearest of the planets under ecological threat, ignoring the various raids and random acts of vandalism that intervened. Gerhardt referred all of that back to the Guild at Anvil Dark, who would in turn refer it to the local authorities. The Ceti Alliance, Eridani Federation, and even the Seven Stars League were more than capable of taking care of those incidents. And for those outside their respective jurisdictions, like the entirety of Wolf 424, there were other Peacemakers who could take the cases. As we powered away from Helso, though, Perry came to me in my cabin. Torina had the ship, while I got caught up on new intel reports and sliced a little off the top of the pile of accumulated paperwork. “Hey, boss, got a minute?”

“If it’s to discuss old movies, no. If it’s about the case—”

“It’s about the case.”

“Then I am all ears,” I said, turning to him. He responded by activating a comm channel—one I wasn’t familiar with. As far as I knew, it was a data-only channel, used to move documents only. But when it activated, it was carrying a live signal, showing—a desk. “Uh—Perry, if you’re angling for some new office furniture, I’d point out that you don’t have an office—”

“Oh, ha ha, Tudor,” the desk said. “How could you have been in the Guild this long and not know who I am?”

“I’m sorry, but there are probably a lot of fixtures belonging to the Guild that I don’t know by name—”

“Van, this is Candler,” Perry said. Ah. I nodded. I’d heard the name often enough, and I knew he was an AI in the Peacemaker Guild. I might have even talked to him once, but via comm with no video feed. “Okay. Sorry, Candler, I’ve never seen you in the—uh—Formica, or whatever that is, so I’m afraid I didn’t realize it was you.” I glanced at Perry. “What’s this about?”

“Candler says he has some information that we’ll find very useful. I thought I’d save time and bring you in at the front end, rather than acting as a go-between. Go ahead, Candler, what have you got?

And I hope it’s good.”

“It is. And it’s a freebie, all in the name of the greater good and all that. Look, I know we don’t exactly see matrix to matrix—”

“You’ve got that right, shithead.”

I glanced at Perry again. There was obviously some history between these two. It reminded me of K’losk’s AI, Hosurc’a, who also struck sparks off Perry. I was starting to think the problem might be my smart-assed combat AI—

“Do you want this or not?” Candler snapped. Perry must have caught my sharp glance. “Yeah, we do. Go ahead—”

I hardened my gaze on Perry. “—with my apologies.”

I nodded. “Okay, so I’m part of a small group of like-minded friends who were investigating a network that included a lethetic mainframe in the Seven Stars League,” Candler said. “By which you mean that you and your dork friends were trying to hack a trade network to find price trends on imported goods so you could skim profits, am I right?

Or were you looking to find user IDs of whoever was using that lethetic mainframe, hoping to indulge in a little blackmail?”

I picked up a data pad and looked up what the hell lethetic meant. Apparently, it was something escapist, nonsensical or fantastic. Ah. Yes, I could see how engaging in lethetic activities in some sophisticated VR

could be fodder for blackmail—

Which didn’t explain what a sapient desk wanted skimmed or blackmailed profits for. There were so many questions, which would unfortunately have to wait for another time. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of sleazy,” Candler said. “Anyway, hear me out. During the course of our, uh, investigations, we found a network link to a twist-comm relay in the League that has a wide-open data port. Someone either screwed up, or it’s a honeypot that someone else is using for nefarious reasons of their own. Either way, there’s a lot of unscheduled comm traffic taking advantage of it.”

I nodded. “Free twist-comm time?

Sure, why not?”

“It is a crime, Van. It’s theft,” Perry said. “Oh, I know. But I suspect that Candler isn’t telling us about it so we can run down people stealing free long-distance call time. You found something in the comm traffic passing through it, didn’t you?”

“I like your boss, Perry. Right to the point. And yeah, you got me. Who could resist snooping on the calls other people were making illegally?

I call it gathering evidence.”

“What did you find?”

“A whole lot of nothing, a few sexy twist-comm calls between long-distance lovers, and a succession of encrypted messages. It took some work, but I managed to crack the last. It turns out that three ships are routing comms through this relay, but spoofing the metadata when they do it. To anyone intercepting the messages, or managing to see either end of them, it looks like the messages are passing through Spindrift.”

“Okay, so someone’s trying to conceal the details of their comm messages. Suspicious, yes, but what’s that got to do with our case?” Perry asked. “I’ll share the actual traffic with you, but the summary is this. These three ships are mentioning all three of the planets that the Guild intel bulletins say are under ecological threat, allegedly owing to the actions of one Mr. Dohlennz. The context is that they’re planning their moves from one of these places to another. There are some references to other ships involved in whatever they’re up to, but the details are scarce. Anyway, here’s the kicker. If they’re sticking to their own schedule, they’re currently sitting on the edge of the Wolf 424 system, waiting to rendezvous with those other unspecified ships.”

“That definitely sounds like Dohlennz, or some of his people, anyway. They’re coordinating their moves,” Perry said. I sat up straighter and straighter as Candler kept talking, until I was leaning into the display. I nodded at Perry. “Yeah. Candler, can you send us all of this?

Everything you’ve retrieved?”

“I can.”

“Candler, thanks for this,” Perry said. “You did me, and us, a solid here. I genuinely am sorry about being an asshole earlier.”

“Don’t mention it. When it comes down to it, I hate the same shit you hate, Perry. And, yeah, I admit it—I like being an asshole sometimes, too.”

“Send the data directly to me, Candler. And I know you said it was a freebie, but I’ll send you something in return anyway,” Perry replied. “Really?”

“Yup. I’m a bird of his word. Incoming in just a few. You’re my favorite piece of furniture in the whole universe, Candler. Cheerio.”

“Have you got the goods?” I asked Perry when Candler had signed off. “Yup. It’s all as advertised. Well, except for the sexy-time twist-calls. He didn’t share those.”

I stood. “No time for voyeurism, bird. Let’s go brief the crew and decide how we want to do this.”

WE FILLED in everyone else in the crew lounge. Before discussion began in earnest, though, Perry turned to Funboy. “Hey, mopey, I need a favor.”

“What a polite request. Would you like an equally polite response?”

Funboy replied, turning to face Perry with a bland half-smile. “Actually, I just need you to look at me, smile, and use both hands for that gesture I told you about the last time we were on Earth.”

“The one involving a single finger, intended as a visual metaphor for an anatomically improbable activity?”

Torina smirked. “Only improbable?

More like impossible.”

Funboy blinked at her. “There are some species with the means—”

“Yeah, yeah, send her links,” Perry said. “Come on. I made someone a promise to send them something.”

“So you’re sending them something obviously insulting?” Funboy asked. “Yup. To make them angry.”

“Oh, so a friend, then,” Icky said. Funboy slowly pushed his mouth into the tortured rictus that he called a full smile, then raised two fingers. “Like this?” he asked through gritted teeth. We all flinched a little. “Perfect. Aaaand—sent,” Perry said, turning to me. “See, told you I’m a bird of my word.”

“Fine. Now that that’s out of the way, can we move on?” I activated my comm and went on to summarize what Candler had told us. “So three ships of unknown size, design, and capability. And several more,” Rab said. “Sounds like we’re going to need help.”

I nodded. “I agree. Fortunately, our shadows aren’t even really trying all that hard to remain stealthed. B, did you and the gang get all of that?

Because I want to strike while the iron is hot, and do it soon.”

“Yup, we’re online. Valint and your mother as well. In fact, everyone who’s seen you naked is within a few light-seconds of you. Oh, and people used the term down-low in the 1930s. I know. I was there.”

“Huh. Share that story sometime. I sense there’s something to it.”

B’s eyes twinkled with wicked glee. “Oh, there is. About time I regaled you with my post-war Paris, ah… activities.”

“Now, this I gotta—” I began, then a new voice spoke up. “Awkward, but untrue, as Mary Patrice Vonderlichten isn’t likely out there.”

I turned to the source. “Netty-P?

Picking up the torch, I see. I doubt you were there, which means that someone else must have been,” I said, glaring at Perry. “And who, exactly, is this Mary Patrice Whoever who’s apparently seen you naked?” Torina asked. “A youthful indiscretion not worth mentioning. I was a senior in high school, I borrowed a convertible Alfa Romeo from my cool uncle to go to the drive-in—they still existed then, and it was a warm summer evening. But naked is so… brash. I’d choose another term that’s less judgy.”

“Uh-huh. You understand that there’s no statute of limitations on matters of this nature, dear?” Torina’s brow was up, and her smile was wide. “We are on it, Torina,” Icky said. “We’ll get a complete dossier assembled on this Mary Patrice character, her whereabouts, how pretty she is—”

“See?

Icky’s officer material, I’m telling you,” Torina said to me. I rolled my eyes. “Last I heard, Mary Patrice was happily married, with two or three kids, living in Houston, and if we’re now ready to move on from my sordid juvenile past, can we get down to the business of fighting a war?”

I turned to Netty-P. “Okay, so, my history with women aside, have you been able to leverage anything else based on Candler’s information?”

“I have. There are unique descriptors in all comm message metadata that are used to establish links. Basically, if you wanted to, say, talk to B

while she’s in another system, the twist-comm network needs a way of finding her. These ships have obviously spoofed theirs, meaning they can talk to one another, but no one else will be able to find them.”

“Unless they themselves have those spoofed IDs.”

“That’s right. Even then, though, they probably change them on an irregular basis in some predetermined way.”

I sighed. “So it’s a dead end.”

“I didn’t say that. I said they probably change the fake IDs. But they haven’t changed them yet. When Candler sent the data he and his friends liberated, it also included all the relay and network data they used to break into the system. I’ve had the hacked relay ping the faked IDs, claiming they

owe twist-comm fees, as though it’s just a low-level AI demanding payment. They haven’t responded, because of course they won’t. But I can confirm that they’re still at Wolf 424—and more importantly, where in the Wolf 424 system they are.”

I smiled. “Netty-P, you’re beautiful. Send that data to our little task force, so we can get underway. I want to take those bastards by surprise, and a best case scenario means we get a few of them alive and kicking.”

“Maybe we’ll even catch Dohlennz,” Rab said as we started for our flight stations. “Wouldn’t that be nice. Poetic, too, if despite all of his cunning deception, we catch the guy because he wanted to save a few bonds on twist-comm calls.”

“Hey, they got Al Capone on tax evasion,” Perry said. I pointed at him, a smile creasing my face. “Whatever works. Now let’s go catch a thief.”

WE CAUGHT ANOTHER BREAK. As I put out the call for assistance from other Peacemakers, Jamberac responded with a vital piece of information. “Gerhardt sent me here, to Wolf 424, to try and help unwind all the bullshit that’s suddenly occurred over mining rights. When I got your call, I decided to focus my passive scanners on the location you sent. And, yup—

there are ships out there. I make it a class 16, a couple of 12s, a 9 and two 8s.”

“Jamberac, I owe you a whole bunch of drinks. Just stay there, make it look like you’re focusing on the mining stuff, but keep your scanners peeled on those ships. Passive only, of course—I don’t want to spook them. If anything changes—some or all of them leave, more show up, whatever, you let me know right away,” I said. “You got it, Van.”

He signed off, and I turned to the crew. “Why does he have so many damned ships?

What’s he planning?”

“It’s a lot of potential firepower, depending on how those ships are configured. But it’s still not enough to take on more than a couple of

decently armed ships like the Fafnir—not with any guarantee of success, anyway,” Rab said. I nodded at that. “Dohlennz may be vile, but he’s not stupid. His track record is one of being very, very careful, only taking on fights he knows he’s likely to win. If he’s planning to hit some target, it’s probably something his little fleet is designed to overwhelm. The question is, what?”

“Maybe it’s nothing like that at all,” Gabby offered from the cockpit door. I raised an eyebrow at her. “Go on.”

“Well, you think he plans to threaten to collapse the ecological stuff on those planets, to draw out the Synergists, right?

And if they don’t take the bait, swoop in and save them himself. That’s got to take resources, all kinds of stuff. Engineers, ecological people, scientists, whatever.”

“Water Bear’s making a good point,” Perry said. “His flotilla may not be a bunch of warships at all.”

“I’d suggest that at least some of them are. The class 16 and class 12s were the first ones brought to our attention. The others are meeting them at this rendezvous at Wolf 424.

If we assume Dohlennz is likely to travel with the better-armed ships, then those first three are probably either warships, or close to it,” Netty-P offered. “At the very least, we should probably assume that’s the case, just to be safe,” Torina added. “Oh, one other thing, before I forget. Dohlennz probably doesn’t plan to save all three of the planets he’s set up. He’s only got to save one of them to look like the hero, right?

It’s about—it’s about perception. Not results,”

Gabby said. Torina gave me a somber look. “She’s right. If we don’t get the Synergists involved, he’s going to punish us for it.”

I hated agreeing, but they were undoubtedly right. Dohlennz had proven himself more than capable of complicated, layered strategies, ones in which he always emerged as the winner, at least in some way. And throughout, he was constantly feeding his own evil schemes with more resources, more bodies, more minds. It meant that it wasn’t enough to try to anticipate him. We had to anticipate him, then anticipate how he was going to anticipate us, and then factor that into whatever we intended to do. I was starting to let myself feel overwhelmed, but Perry cut through the bullshit, as Perry does. “Don’t overthink it, boss. They’re a single twist

away. We’ve got a window of opportunity here. Let’s not let it slam shut on us.”

I smiled at him, nodded, and turned back to the instruments. “Okay, we need to gather some overwhelming force of our own. The Fafnir, the Stormshadow, and my mother’s ship are a good start, but I’d like to get the Righteous Fury involved as well. And we can call Schegith, get her to—”

“Van, B here.”

Her face lit up the comm. “What is, B?

We don’t have much time—”

“Your mother certainly seems to think so. Hate to be a tattletale, but she just twisted away.”

“To where?” I asked—but I knew where. I knew it as surely as if she’d sent me the twist coordinates herself. She’d decided to charge in after Dohlennz. She’d probably assumed that I’d start second-guessing myself, getting wrapped up in planning and contingencies and fallbacks—which was true, I had started down that road. She’d decided that she knew me well enough that I would, probably viewing me through the lens of Gramps, and even my own father. But I wasn’t them, and that was her mistake. And mine. I thought I’d finally gotten to know her, too. That I understood her, saw some thoughtful, rational core beneath the layers of paranoid distrust and rash violence. She’d been her son’s mother, I’d been my mother’s son, and we’d both been wrong about the other. I swore with the fervor that only family members can inspire. “B, Valint, we’re going after my mother, because she’s going after Dohlennz. Weapons hot. Assume we’re flying into a fight.”

Torina took my hand. “She’s out of control, Van. What are you going to do when we catch up with her?”

I shook my head as Netty-P started the twist countdown. “She was never in control. And as to what we do, let’s start with surviving the brawl she starts.”

“And I thought my mother could be unreasonable.”

Icky barked out a laugh. “Your mother unreasonable?

Torina, hold my beer.”

25

IN COMPANY with B and Valint, we twisted in close to the coordinates on the edge of the Wolf 424 system Netty-P had teased out of the hacked twist-comm system. Sure enough, we arrived in the middle of—or, rather, almost the end of—a battle. My mother’s ship had just fired a volley of missiles at a stricken class 9.

The wreckage of a class 8, a small fast freighter, drifted nearby, trailing bits of debris and a plume of frozen atmosphere. There were no other ships in sight. I hit the comm. “Mom, what the hell are you doing?”

No answer. “Dammit, mom, that ship is no threat!

Send your missiles a disarm command so we can salvage something out of this situation—”

My mother came on the comm, voice only. “There’s nothing to salvage, Van. It’s time to end this. To end Dohlennz once and for all.”

The channel closed. I cursed and pounded the armrest of my seat. “Torina, Rab, can you take down those missiles?”

“We can try,” Torina said, her fingers flying over her weapons panel. I heard Rab doing the same behind him. But it was too late. Even with the added weight of fire from B and Valint, two of the missiles raced in for the kill. One failed to detonate. The other struck the class 9 just as it launched an escape pod, blowing the ship in half. The escape pod sailed free, pulsing a distress beacon. I turned to the comm again, opening my mouth just as my mother twisted away. I had to bite back a literal howl of frustrated betrayal. My instinct was to launch myself after my mother—although not knowing where she’d twisted was a definite problem. But I swallowed that knee-jerk reaction, too. There was a crew in distress, and we were obligated to help. So I punched the control that opened the distress channel instead. “This is Peacemaker Van Tudor. Sit tight, we’re on our way to retrieve you.”

A voice came back, probably Nesit from the intonation. His voice was weak, taut with pain, so he was probably injured. “They opened fire on us even though… we sent our credentials. We’re just… a transport. We didn’t—”

“Understood. Just hang on. How many people aboard?”

“Three—”

A flash, and the channel went dead. I looked around, blinking dumbly. “What the hell happened?”

“That missile that missed their ship—it must have suffered some kind of intermittent fault,” Rab replied, his voice low and flat. “Its seeker must have reactivated, so it attacked the escape pod.”

“Missiles are supposed to specifically not track things broadcasting distress beacons,” Icky said. Rab nodded. “I know. It must have been modified, I guess.”

I braced myself for another incandescent flash of rage. But it didn’t come. I felt—nothing. Just a sudden frigid calm, like ice over cold, dark water. I reopened the channel to B and Valint. “She—she has to be stopped,” I said. B’s reply was immediate. “I know.”

Valint took a little longer. “She does.”

I leaned my head back against my seat. “Netty-P, get me Gerhardt, please. Use emergency comm protocols.”

“On it, boss.”

I waited. No one said anything. That was good, because I wasn’t in a conversational mood. Gerhardt’s face came on the display. “Tudor, what’s going on?”

I explained what happened in clipped, efficient words and phrases that came out flat and devoid of emotion. Gerhardt’s face listened impassively. When I was done, he just stared for a moment, then gave a slow nod. “Tudor, I’m immediately issuing a Guild-wide order. Your mother is to be arrested and returned to Anvil Dark. The charge, at least for the moment, is murder during the commission of piracy. I’ll have Max send out a Writ as soon as we sign off.” He hesitated, then went on. “I’m exempting you from executing the Writ, of course—”

I shook my head. “No. You’re not. I’m one of the very few Peacemakers, maybe the only one, that she won’t just start shooting at the moment they confront her. The Retribution is a warship. I won’t have another Peacemaker’s life put in jeopardy like that. So I’m going after her. Master Gerhardt, what I really, really need you to do is get someone to spearhead the effort to find and deal with Dohlennz in the meantime.”

I could tell Gerhardt’s instinct was to disagree, because sending me to run down my own mother and bring her to justice certainly did sound—

inappropriate didn’t begin to describe it. But he also knew I was right. She might eventually try to kill me, but she’d immediately try to kill anyone else who challenged her. So, clearly unhappy about it, he nodded. “Very well. I’ll take over the operation to deal with Dohlennz myself. Although your mother has made that far more difficult. If he actually was at that rendezvous, he’ll no doubt have gone back into hiding by now.”

I frowned at Gerhardt’s image as things abruptly began to coalesce. Gone into hiding. Absolutely he would. Knowing that, we’d have to go back to basics, practically restarting our search from scratch. Which is what he was counting on. “He wasn’t here,” I said, almost surprising myself when I did. “How do you know that?”

“I—don’t. Not for sure. But I also do. Look, leaving his fingerprints on that hacked twist-comm relay like that—it was careless. But he’s not careless. Not at all.”

“You think it was deliberate?” B said. “But—how?

That AI, Perry’s friend, gave us the lead. How could Dohlennz have known he’d even do that?” Torina asked. “Candler is many things, but it’s overstating things to call him my friend,” Perry said. “But to answer your question, one of those many things

Candler is, is a little careless. He’s not entirely unknown in the criminal underworld—but, seriously, he’s a desk on Anvil Dark. Who’s going to come after him, right?”

“So you think Dohlennz used Candler to get the information about the rendezvous to you?” Gerhardt asked. I answered. “Yes, I do. And he knows we’re smart, and we’d probably use that to figure out the exact location of the rendezvous. And while we’re chasing that—”

“He’s doing whatever it is he really intends. Which makes me wonder, what is that, exactly?” Valint asked. “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s probably heading to one of the three worlds he infected. While we’re chasing our tails, he plans to save it, then bug out before we can react and get to him,” I said. “The question is, which one?

Our available forces are limited, so if we divide them in three—“ Rab started, but Gabby spoke up. “It’ll be the easiest of the three for him to do his rescue thing, right?

Because if what you’re saying is true, he’ll want to make it as quick as possible. If we can figure out which one that is, then we’ll know,” she said. “Makes sense.” I turned to Perry. “Do we have any idea—?”

“Sorry, boss. We never acquired the specific details of how those three planets were infected, much less the specifics of how hard it would be to fix each. It didn’t seem like information we needed.”

“Well, we need it now. Get it—”

“Actually, Tudor, that won’t be necessary,” Gerhardt cut in. “Why not?”

“Remember how I told you that the Synergists wanted to strike back at Dohlennz?

Well, the Stratum of Conciliation hired a group of mercenaries led by our old friend Pevensy to protect them. Then they went to one of the threatened planets, Bountiful, in the Seven Stars League, to start reclamation efforts.”

I sat up, cursing. “Why the hell would they do that?

They know that Dohlennz is after them—"

“I realize that, Tudor. But they’re a sovereign people and can make their own decisions—even if they’re rash.”

“The Seven Stars League, eh?” B muttered. “Still in chaos after their regime change, their new central government struggling just to stay on top of basic governmental stuff, their fleet still in a mess—”

Valint spoke up. “Which means that the League government isn’t going to be in much of a position to help protect the place. And with the Synergists already there—”

“That’ll be Dohlennz’s target. Shit. He’s probably already there.” I turned to Gerhart, but before I could say anything, he was already speaking. “I’m on it, Tudor. We’re going to converge on Bountiful. You go find and deal with your mother. The last thing we need is for her to get the Ferals involved, or this could get really ugly really fast.”

I clenched my jaw. I desperately wanted to go to Bountiful to rescue the Synergists and stop Dohlennz. But he was right. We needed to stop my mother. B cut in. “Van, I’m coming with you. Jocelyn won’t shoot at me, either

—at least, not right away.”

“B, I don’t—”

“Yes, Van, you do. I’m following you whether you like it or not, and this time I’m not making a secret of it. Besides—I have an ace up my sleeve. And I don’t mean the actual ace I have up my sleeve, which reminds me, we should play poker sometime.”

“B, what the hell are you getting at—”

“Your ship isn’t the only one with a bug planted on it, Van. Except the bug on your mother’s ship isn’t a mechanical one. I have… a friend in her crew. So I know where she’s gone.”

“Which is where?”

“Where she thinks Dohlennz has gone, because the ships that were here let it slip in their comms—another uncharacteristic bit of carelessness on his part, don’t you think?”

It certainly was. I sighed. “Fine. Master Gerhardt, Valint, we’ll join you at Bountiful as soon as we can.”

The Stormshadow twisted away. B sent over the nav data for our twist, which Netty-P used to start the countdown. I kept inwardly cursing my mother the whole time. We’d finally gotten a hard lead on Dohlennz—and thanks to her, we were heading almost exactly the opposite direction, chasing her while she chased ghosts. WE TWISTED TO 61 CYGNI, an unpleasant place charged with grim memories. Adoration, the headquarters planet of the one-time Enhancement Empire division of BeneStar was located here. It had been one of our first encounters with Dohlennz—or, rather, with the effects of Dohlennz’s evil work, in the form of the twisted abomination that was Helem Gauss. It was also the planet where Zenophir had died to put an end to him. No doubt Dohlennz thought that his history with Adoration and 61

Cygni would enhance its value as a distraction for us. After all, he might have kept a safe house here, or had something stashed, or allies who could offer him safe harbor. He wasn’t here, of course. But my mother was, and she now had four other ships in company with the Retribution. “Some of her Feral compatriots, I’d assume,” B said. “So how do you want to do this, Van?”

I applied thrust, setting a course directly for my mother’s flotilla. “By flying straight into my mother’s face and demanding her surrender.”

“Uh—really?

Have you met Jocelyn?”

“I don’t care, B. I don’t have the time, interest, or patience to draw this out into some convoluted negotiation.”

“Okay, Van—I get it. You’re pissed off at her. But we’re two ships to her five. She’s packing an awful lot of firepower—”

“She won’t use it.”

I could feel my own crew looking at me. Like B, they were doubtful. I glanced at them, then talked to them as much as B. “Look, I know you think I’m being—”

“Rash?” Torina offered. “Insane?” Icky put in. I shook my head. “I need you guys to trust me on this.”

“Van, how can you be so—so sure about this?” Rab asked. “Because, believe it or not, I know my mother. I’ve been hoping she wouldn’t fly off the handle and start doing stupid shit like she has—but I knew it was going to happen eventually. And I know what she’s going to do here. She’s going to surrender to me.”

Torina took my hand. “Van—are you sure?”

I nodded. “My mother loves me. She’s not going to harm me.” I sighed. “Which is what makes this whole bullshit ordeal that much worse.”

Torina squeezed my hand and nodded back. “Good enough for me.”

Icky shrugged. “What the hell. My schedule’s open.”

AS CERTAIN AS I WAS, though, I didn’t go in completely blind. I told B to hang back and stay ready to twist away. I also had Icky and Netty-P make sure the combi-drive was ready to engage. If I was wrong and things went south, I wanted to be able to get my ship and crew out of harm’s way fast—

and there was no faster way to do that than the combi-drive. We continued to close. I wondered if my mother might just twist away with her flotilla—although I didn’t really. She wasn’t going to run from me, any more than she was going to fight me. What she was going to do was try to persuade me that I was wrong, and she was right. That what she’d done was justified in the name of the greater good, which was the get-out-of-jail-free card used to rationalize horrible behavior since—

Well, probably since the first early hominid decided to wipe out another family tribe competing over a water hole, telling himself he was doing it to ensure the survival of his own. I flipped the Fafnir, lit the drive to slow our approach, then flipped again. My mother’s ship lay directly ahead, a hundred thousand klicks away. She still hadn’t tried to talk to me, nor I to her. She and the ships with her had illuminated us with active scanners, but not in fire-control mode. I waited. The comm finally lit up with an incoming message. I opened the channel. “Van, why are you here?” my mother asked. “You know why, mom.”

“Van—”

“Mom, you attacked at least two lightly armed ships without provocation. You killed their crews.”

“Without provocation?

They were Dohlennz’s people—”

“That’s not what a survivor told me. He told me that they were just a civilian freighter, and that was all he told me before one of your missiles blasted him to fragments.”

“You don’t seriously believe that, do you?

Innocent civilians who just happened to be at that rendezvous—”

“Well, I guess we’ll never know, will we?

At least, not without an investigation.”

“Van, listen to yourself. You’re talking as though this is the issue that matters.”

“You may have murdered innocent people, Mom. That always matters.”

“People die in wars, Van—”

“Oh, please. That same empty, dreary line has been used to gloss over war crimes—who knows how many times throughout history. But it’s even more important to protect the innocent during wartime. It’s why we have laws to do just that.”

Her voice dropped to a bitter hiss. “Laws in wartime. Please. The only thing that matters in war is winning it. You win it, and you put an end to it, and that’s how you put an end to the death and suffering—”

“I am not debating this with you, Mom. I’m here to arrest you. A Writ has already been issued by the Guild. Now, I want you to get into a workboat, come to the Fafnir, and surrender yourself into my custody.”

“You’re joking.”

A flash of anger ripped through me. “No, Mom, I’m not. What I should be doing right now is going after Dohlennz. Instead, I’m here, arresting you. Does that sound even remotely like a joke to you?”

“So why aren’t you chasing after Dohlennz?

Have I wounded your pride that much?

Made you feel so betrayed that this seemed more important to you?

Couldn’t you have at least waited until the real threat was dealt with?”

I felt my crew around me. That was good. I needed that, because this was hard, and just getting harder. “I am dealing with a real threat, Mom. As long as you’re out there, you’re a complete unknown. You should be an asset—but you’re not. You’re dangerous. You and all the Ferals out there. You can’t take orders. You’re just as likely to put a missile into a friendly ship as you are the enemy, if you think it’s the expedient thing to do. We’ve got an entire species at risk due to a homicidal madman, but I can’t deal with him if I have to spend half my time looking over my shoulder.”

I paused, blinking fast. Torina took my hand. “I’m afraid, Mom. Afraid of you. Of my own mother. You left me, and then I found you, and now, I don’t know for sure that you aren’t a murderer.”

“I’m not the only one who’s killed people, Van,” she said, her voice flat and toneless. “Oh, I know. I’ve killed people. But have I murdered anyone?” I took a shuddering breath. “I’ve been tempted. I’ve been so tempted. But I haven’t. I’ve walked to the brink, but I’ve stepped back. I’m not sure that you have.”

Another breath. “Killing and murdering are two different things, Mom. A soldier knows the difference. But you’re no soldier.”

A long silence, then my mother spoke again. “I thought you might be different, Van. Different than your grandfather, and your father. They had these—these pathetic ideals too. They sound good, they look good on paper, but they’re not real. That’s not how things work. I thought you were better than that.”

Icky spoke up, her voice hard and desolate. “I don’t know how you had a part in making Van. Thank whatever powers move the universe he did take after his dad and grandad. He’s good. You’re not.”

“You’re just a mewling child,” my mother snapped. “You don’t know what good even means.”

I drew a deep breath. “Jocelyn Wallis, I’m Peacemaker Van Tudor. You’re under arrest for suspicion of murder committed during an act of piracy. Surrender yourself at once.”

A wave of tension thrummed through the cockpit. Torina released my hand and moved hers to hover over the weapons panel. Rab did the same. Netty-P sent a command to Hodgepodge, the AI that controlled the combi-drive, to prepare to bring it online. Perry put his wing on my arm. The moment hung like that, charged like the air the instant before a lightning strike. My mother finally spoke. “Fine. I’ll surrender myself to you, Van Tudor, Peacemaker. We’ll take this to the courts.” She paused. “Maybe that will help you understand the ultimate truth out here. You need people who are willing and able to do the things that need to be done. Not soldiers. You’ve got lots of those. Killers. Killers of your own. Otherwise, you end up dead.”

I slumped back in my seat, feeling like I’d just run a marathon. “Maybe that’s true. But I know something else that’s true. Winning by turning yourself into the thing you’re fighting is no victory at all.”

I sighed up at the overhead. “But there’s an even more immediate truth, Mom. One that you’ve made… so clear. It didn’t have to be this way. The decision you made that brought us here, to this moment, wasn’t the one you made when you fired those missiles at Wolf 424.

It was the one you made while I was still a baby. The one that made you turn around, walk out the door, and leave me behind. At that moment, you decided you only belong to yourself. Not me, not dad, not anyone but you. And that’s been true ever since.”

I sat up. “I expect you here, to surrender yourself, within thirty minutes. Fafnir out.”

I snapped the comm channel closed, along with an entire chapter in my life. 26

SHE DIDN’T TURN herself in, and the clock kept draining away, each passing minute adding to my braided sense of anger and frustration at her sheer audacity. I’ve tried hard to develop as an officer. As a leader. As an adult, and friend, and now, a husband, too. But the silence of my mother’s refusal to admit her crime, and in turn her abrogation of my authority—

It was at the very limit of my abilities. In the gravid silence, I feathered a control, feeling everyone’s eyes on me. I licked my lips, straightened, and spoke into the open channel to my mother. “Of all the flaws you have, I didn’t think being childish was one of them.”

After a long moment, her voice came over the comm. “I’m here.”

“And yet, you’re not here. Do you see my conflict?

You’re not here, Jocelyn. So, are you in transit?

Yes or no. The time for talking is done.”

“I am.”

“Where?” I pressed. A proximity alarm sounded, and then another voice came over the channel, clear and bright. It was B. “She’s approaching your ship.”

“I see her,” I said. Torina lifted a brow, but I gave her a small shake of my head. We’d let this happen organically, and without violence. I hoped. Clunk. “She’s here,” Netty-P reported. “Boss?” Icky and Perry said at once. “I’ll handle this, thank you. We’re good,” I said. The lock cycled, and my mother stepped in. She was tall, and imperious, and beautiful. She was also exhausted. I could see it in the brittle look, the dark circles under her eyes—she was a woman drained by the weight of her own decisions, and she wore them like an ill-fitting suit. “Van,” she said, simply. I decided to play it cool. “Mom. Welcome aboard. Let’s get right to it, okay?

No cuffs. No weapons, either, but I won’t have you degraded beyond what you’ve done to yourself. You are, as of this moment, under my protection. You’re also under arrest.”

Without a sound, she began to disarm, dropping a stunning amount of personal weapons to the deck. Knives. Pistols. A flail. A flail. She was bristling. Or rather, she had been. Until this moment. Now, she just looked tired. “Come on. I’ve got stavosia and coffee and a place for you to rest. We’ll handle the details as they come.”

“Thank—thank you. Son,” she said, the word clumsy on her tongue. I saw her to the brig, which would remain unlocked and open, and was fitted more like quarters for a visiting officer. I couldn’t overcome my blood, it seemed, so I didn’t fight it. Returning to the bridge, I saw tension on every face. “What is it?” I asked. The other Feral ships still hung menacingly nearby for a time, then abruptly twisted away, the Retribution with them. Where they were going and what they intended to do, we didn’t know. Which took me from a state of resigned exhaustion to active anger. The last thing we should be having to do right now was worry about where five powerful warships were going and what they intended to do when they got there. “We’re going to have to deal with the Ferals. They’re just my mother writ large—a loose cannon we really don’t need rolling around on the deck all the time,” I said as they twisted. “They are a massive distraction,” Funboy agreed. “But they are also a powerful faction, so dealing with them is going to be—”

“Something to worry about another day.” I turned to the comm. “B, how are things over there?”

“Oh, just peachy. Your mother’s pals finally left, trailing a stream of hatred behind them. They make me nervous, Van.”

“That bad?”

“What do you think?

Anyway, I’m heading straight back to Anvil Dark. What about you?

Bringing your mother straight in?”

I glanced at the instruments. Everything was green, so the Fafnir was as operationally ready as she was ever going to be. “Got a better idea. Come get my mom, and we’ll head after Dohlennz. That means we’re hauling ass to Bountiful. We’ve pissed away enough time here.”

“I expect her to behave. Understood?” B asked. “She will. I think some of the fight is gone, and it ain’t coming back. I’ll have her ready in ten.”

“Be right there. B out.”

I let my mother eat, and looked in, seeing her sip coffee, her face in a fugue state. “Mom, I—”

She stood, managing a sort of smile. “I heard. I’ll behave.”

I sighed. “Thank you.” There wasn’t anything to add. B arrived minutes later, and the Fafnir was silent as a tomb. When my mother stepped back into the airlock, B was there, a pistol at her side and one hip cocked. “Jocelyn. What an unexpected surprise,” B chirped. My mom looked—resigned. “Cuffs?”

“Only for date night. Come on. Behave yourself, and spare your son the worries.”

My mother didn’t look back, and when B closed the airlock, I saw her give my mother a look that hurt me. It was—pity. Our ships parted, and no one spoke. Torina put a warm hand on my shoulder, and I broke the silence with a simple, “Well then. Here we go.”

I had Netty-P set the fastest possible course to Bountiful. I hoped that, at the very least, we could pick up Dohlennz’s trail, while it was still warm. And who knew, maybe we’d find him still there and could finally take a shot at ending his star-spanning reign of bullshit. I touched a control, my eyes locked on the screens as a new sensation roiled my guts. It was fear. And I hated it, right down to my bones. IT TURNED out that Dohlennz was still on Bountiful. But the circumstances around it were—

Calling it a shitshow is putting it mildly. As soon as we twisted in, I knew something was wrong. The tactical overlay lit up with ships in orbit around the planet—along with debris. Clearly, there’d been a battle, and a ferocious one. “Van, I’ve got Lunzy on the comm for you,” Netty-P said just a moment later as we started accelerating in-system. “Put her on.”

The image that popped on to the display hit me like a punch. Lunzy was suited up, with bits of debris drifting around her. Red lights flashed on panels behind her. “Holy shit—Lunzy, are you okay?”

“Me personally?

Yes. Well, got one bit of shrapnel through my calf, but I’ve had worse. My poor old Foregone Conclusion?

Not so much. She’s going to be in the shop for a long time.”

“What happened?”

“Gerhardt put out the call for all available assets to assemble here. That amounted to him, me, Dugrop’che, Lucky, Jamberac, and a few other Peacemakers. Turns out Dohlennz was very much here, and in force. It was

—” She hesitated. “It was one hell of a battle. We managed to pull it out of the fire, mainly because the Righteous Fury showed up in the nick of time. All of Dohlennz’s ships were destroyed, a few in orbit around Bountiful, the rest when they broke orbit to do battle.”

I stared. “Wait. So Dohlennz is… dead?”

“I wish. No, he’s down on the surface. He was down there when we arrived, and he’s stuck down there now, at least until he arranges another way of escaping.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “What aren’t you telling me, Lunzy?”

It took a moment for her to answer. When she did, her voice was taut and tired. “We lost Dugrop’che. His ship—it exploded, not far from mine, in fact. I think the shrapnel that got me was a piece of it.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“It… gets better, by which I mean it gets worse. Gerhardt led a party down to try and either capture Dohlennz, or to kill him, if that wasn’t going to be possible. He’s still down there. There haven’t been any comms with him for, oh, at least an hour, now.”

I leaned toward the display, my eyes hot with interest. “Where are they?” I ground out. “My AI’s going to send you all the data I’ve got.” Another pause. “Van, it looks like Dohlennz managed to overrun the Synergists’ encampment down there. That means he’s probably got hostages.”

I cursed, my face flushing crimson with anger, frustration—all the things an officer can’t afford. This was a mess. We finally had Dohlennz cornered, but if he’d overrun the Synergists, it must mean that Pevensy and the mercenaries they’d hired to protect them had failed. So some of them might be prisoners down there, too. And then there was Gerhardt, who had Lucky and Jamberac with him, as well as a GKU landing party from the Righteous Fury, according to Lunzy’s SITREP. We had no idea, though, what their status was, because there were no comms with them. They might be dead themselves, or captured, or just holding their position and waiting for—

What, exactly?

How could they have just lost comms?

“Netty-P, is there some comms jamming going on down there?” I asked. “No. Certainly no emissions characteristic of jamming.”

“So if Gerhardt and his team are silent—” Torina said, her voice trailing off. I just nodded. “Yeah, they probably need our help, and badly.”

I didn’t add, or are beyond needing it, because there was no need. “Anyway, Van, I’m out of the fight. I wish I could help more—”

“No, Lunzy, you get back to Anvil Dark and fill in the other Masters, especially Alic and Volffin. Make it clear that the Guild—it might need some damned strong leadership in the coming days.”

“Yeah. No shit. Van—” Another long pause. “How do I say this?

Hell, I just say it. Maybe the answer here is to just bombard it all from orbit and

call it a day.”

I stared at her for a moment. “Take care, Lunzy. Fafnir out.”

WE ARRIVED in orbit to find chaos. Tumbling debris marked all that remained of Dohlennz’s ships—and Dugrop’che’s. Gerhardt’s, Jamberac’s, and Lucky’s ships were still in orbit, on-station with the Righteous Fury. Several civilian craft were racing away from Bountiful in the meantime, intent on putting as much distance as possible between them and a maelstrom of combat obviously still ongoing. I conferred with the Fury’ s Captain, an utterly humorless Eniped named Varic. He was clearly advocating an orbital strike, followed by another orbital strike. “It’s the most logical course of action. The alternatives are a ground assault, which would likely be costly and unlikely to rescue many, if any of the hostages alive. Or, we could try to wait Dohlennz out, but that again does nothing for the hostages and introduces a host of unknown and unknowable risks,” Varic said over the comm. “So you’re proposing just to plaster the Synergists’ encampment with fire, definitely kill everyone, and call it a success?” I said. “Actually, we can’t even say that will definitely kill everyone,” Perry pointed out. “In the absence of any information at all, Dohlennz may have just killed all of his hostages already and fled. We’d just be bombarding a crime scene.”

“It still represents the most logical course. If it fails to kill Dohlennz, we’ll at least know he’s still on the surface,” Varic countered. “Uh, aren’t we forgetting something?

This isn’t a neutral planet. Bountiful belongs to the Seven Stars League. Shouldn’t they be part of this conversation?” Rab asked. But Varic shook his head. “We’ve contacted them. They clearly don’t want to get involved, as long as no harm is coming to their citizens. Frankly, their new revolutionary government is still mired in corruption, infighting, and trying to deal with elements still loyal to the old order. Even if they wanted to help, they probably couldn’t.”

“But it’s their planet!

Aren’t they worried about the ecological catastrophe unfolding down there at least?” Icky asked. “They may be, but being worried about it and in a position to actually do something about it are two very different things,” Varic said. Torina gave a derisive sniff. “The League has been a joke for a long time. Trust me, as someone from a planet they supposedly protected, I’ve got nothing positive to say about them. Even if this new government of theirs has good intentions, they’re pushing back against generations of corruption. It’s baked right into them.”

I sighed and crossed my arms. “I’m not anxious to get them involved anyway. I’m not convinced that they, or some of those elements within them that you mentioned, Varic, aren’t—in Dohlennz’s pocket, at least, if not actually on his side. Some of his bloody footprints lead back here. I mean, why do you think he chose Bountiful as his target and not a planet in the Eridani Federation or Ceti Alliance?”

“Okay, the League isn’t going to be any help. Fine. So where do we turn?” Rab asked. “Before you suggest landing forces from the Righteous Fury, just be aware that Gerhardt has already taken our available personnel down to the surface. Those left are needed to run the ship,” Varic said. I nodded. “Okay, then. It’s time to call in some favors.”

“From who?” Torina asked. “From everybody.”

AND EVERYBODY ANSWERED. Schegith immediately committed forces and started them toward us at their best possible speed. Panzygrus had a contingent of combat-capable bots ready to go who’d be transported here on the Iowa. Urnak answered as well, saying he’d be bringing some surprising help

—Rektorr, the good Usu, as I’d come to think of him, along with Paxomar and a contingent of Groshenko’s mercenaries who they’d pick up en route. Urnak was positively giddy about combat, a side of him I had suspected was always there, waiting to come out and play. One of Rab’s fathers had connections with the P’nosk military, who jumped at the chance to run down the man who they blamed for Zenophir’s death. A platoon of P’nosk soldiers were rebranded as “private security contractors” and immediately readied to come. The problem with them was getting them here—

Or, no it wasn’t, actually. I tended to forget that I was a bit of a shipping magnate, thanks to the strange bequeathal of a Fren-Okun shipping company to me. I ordered one of their freighters diverted to the P’nosk homeworld to pick up the troops and bring them to Bountiful. Torina’s father offered another contingent of troops from the Helso Self Defense Force. They were more of a decently trained citizen’s militia than professional soldiers, but they were able to provide logistics, medical, and comms support on the ground. “Holy shit, boss—I’ve tallied it up, and you’ve pretty much got a small battalion on the way,” Perry said. That prompted a bitter smile. When I joined the Army back on Earth, I had vague ambitions about someday becoming an officer and commanding my way up the ranks. Battalion commander would be a stop along the way. Of course, that had fizzled, but here I was commanding a battalion anyway. Although—

I called Varic up privately from my cabin. “We need to talk about command. You’re the ranking officer here,” I said. But Varic shook his head. “No I’m not. You are.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You’re a member of the 32, right?

One of the people who run the GKU?

And this is a GKU ship. You are officially my boss.”

I sat back. “Ah. Yeah, I guess.”

Varic frowned. More. Because he frowned all the time. “All due respect, but you need to embrace your command a little more enthusiastically than that.”

I nodded. “You’re right.”

“Now then, sir, I’m going to say it one more time. I believe that a ground assault is ill-advised. I still recommend that we bombard the site from orbit.”

I nodded again. “I understand. But if there’s a chance of rescuing any of the hostages down there, we have to take it. And, if there’s a chance of taking Dohlennz alive, I want to make a stab at that, too.”

“You will probably lose people.”

“I know.”

Varic held my eye a moment, then nodded. “Very well, sir. What do you want me to do?”

“For now, make sure that nothing lands at or takes off from that site down there without us knowing about it and stopping it. In the meantime, I’m declaring an exclusion zone around the planet, under the authority of Interstellar Convention Two, Article One. No traffic in or out of the planet until it’s lifted. Until everyone gets here, we’ll help enforce it.”

“Understood. The League authorities at least put out a traffic warning once the fighting started here, so most ships have already diverted until it’s lifted.”

“Okay, then. So now, we just—”

“Van, we have an incoming comm message. It’s from Jamberac, on the surface,” Netty-P cut in. I sat up. “Put him on.”

It was audio only, and full of static. “Van?

Can you hear me?”

“I can. What’s your situation?”

“It’s—not good. I’ve been wounded, but that’s not why. That, I can tough out. I’m hidden just under a hilltop overlooking the Synergist’s encampment. My comm took a hit, so it’s taken me a while to get it working again.”

“Where’s Gerhardt?

And Lucky?”

“Lucky, I’m not sure. I think she’s somewhere in the area, probably lying low like me. Gerhardt, though—”

Static crackled. “Damn it. Jamberac, say that again.”

“I said Dohlennz has him. The last I saw of him, Dohlennz’s people were dragging him into that damned encampment. There are a lot of them in there, Van. They’ve got a lot of firepower.”

I took a minute to digest that. “Okay. Thank you, Jamberac. Keep this channel open. You’re now our eyes and ears down there. As long as you’re conscious, anyway. How badly are you hurt?”

“Bad enough that it’s taken all of the fun out of this.”

I gave that a grim smile. “Understood. The cavalry is on the way, my friend. Just hang on.”

“Didn’t have any other plans. But—sooner rather than later, Van. That

—” He hissed in a painful breath. “That would be nice.”

THEY CAME FAST, converging from their scattered places upon Bountiful. Jamberac kept us updated, but since he only had audio available on his damaged comm, we had to go with his verbal descriptions to explain what we could see from orbit. I had Perry keep a constantly updated map and 3D

model of the besieged encampment, so it was ready to go when we had everyone finally assembled. When the Iowa arrived, Panzygrus had her bots cross-loaded to a sleek Schegith ship, a class 6 craft optimized for atmospheric flight. I joined them in the Frankie, our little workboat having become my personal gig, carrying me from one ship to another as our forces assembled in orbit. Cantullin grabbed me immediately upon boarding. “We’re ready, Captain Van,” she said. I frowned. “Ready for what?”

“For the assault, of course.”

I glanced at Rab, who I’d been keeping with me as a military advisor. He actually had more experience than I did, having served for a number of years in the P’nosk armed forces, then a few more as a private security contractor. “Cantullin, I’m not planning on having you guys join the assault—”

“Please, Captain Van—just come with me,” she said, then turned and scuttled off toward the Iowa’s cargo bay. I shared another glance with Rab, who shrugged, then I followed. She vanished into the bay. We followed, and as soon as we did, she snapped out two quick, sharp commands. “Attention!

Present!”

Twenty Conoku, most of the crew, stood arrayed in four neat ranks. At her commands, they came to the closest thing a crustacean could probably manage to the classic attention pose. Then sixteen thrust forward two brutal-looking coil guns, man-portable mass drivers. The remaining four bore heavy weapons—two had what should have been tripod-mounted

heavy sluggers strapped to their carapaces, while two more sported missile launchers that reminded me of Javelin anti-tank guided missiles. I gaped for a moment, as Cantullin turned to me. “What—where—” I shook my head. “Cantullin, what is this?

Where did this all come from?”

“We planned to show you this next time you were aboard the Iowa. We’ve been practicing for months now, so we can do boarding actions. Panzygrus and our father provided the weapons.”

Holy shit. You got that right, Perry answered in my ear bug. But I was already shaking my head. “Sorry, Cantullin, but it’s not gonna happen. There is no way I’m taking you guys into an actual firefight.”

I was all ready for the But Captain Vaaaaaan—!

that would inevitably follow, but that’s not what I got. Instead, Cantullin just kept her eyestalks fixed on me. “Captain Van, we’re not children anymore. You’ve got to stop treating us like we are. We’ve chosen to do this. We want to do this.”

I looked from her to the ranked Conoku—who were maintaining their steady, rigid pose, not fidgeting or bickering like I’d come to expect. No, they weren’t kids anymore. “Captain Van—we appreciate everything you’ve done for us. More than you know. You’ve helped us grow up.” She waved a claw at her siblings. “This is what success looks like.”

Surprisingly, Rab came to her aid. “Van, at the risk of being presumptuous, and with all due respect—you’re not refusing to take Torina down there, and she’s your wife. So if you’re reluctant, it’s not because of your relationship with the Conoku, is it?”

I sighed. “No. It’s because I do still consider you to be kids. But you’re right, Cantullin. You’re not.”

I let my gaze roam over the Conoku a little longer, trying very hard to remember them as the rambunctious, fractious gang of children they’d been. Gifted protégés, yes, but still children. I remembered them screaming with delight on the roller coaster in Florida—

I missed that. I missed them. But that was the nature of kids, wasn’t it?

They grow up. I sighed again and nodded. “Okay. You’re in. But”—I held up a finger

—“I’m still mindful of the fact that you’re all essentially one family, the

children of a very dear friend of mine who’s committed you to my trust. So, I have two orders that will not be violated. Breaking either of them will constitute breaking the laws that govern the crews of spacecraft and will subject the perpetrators to immediate and summary judgment. Understood?”

“Yes, Captain Van.”

“First, you will not be part of the main assault. You’ve got enough firepower here to be our base of supporting fire, and you can secure our flanks. How accurate are your troops with those coil guns?”

“We’re Conoku, Captain Van. Very accurate.”

“Even better. So that’s order number one. Order number two—as soon as you sustain your third casualty, you will all withdraw from the battle and prepare to leave the surface. Is that clear?”

“It is, Captain Van,” Cantullin said, throwing a smart salute—or as smart as a claw could manage, anyway. “Don’t worry, we’ll run between the bullets.”

I checked in with Perry to update him on the role the Conoku were going to play so he could factor them into the plan he was devising. “Got it, boss. Adding the Crustacean Light Infantry to the order of battle. And the P’nosk contingent just showed up. So that’s it. Everyone we’re expecting to show up is here.”

“Okay. I’ll be back at the Fafnir shortly. Let’s get a comm channel set up for all the players so we can brief them on the plan.”

“Will do, boss.”

I told Cantullin to be on the call, then started back for the Frankie. “I think we’ve got a good team assembled, Van,” Rab said. I just nodded. I knew we did. And I knew it was likely not all of them would survive the next hours. 27

I GESTURED at the display in the Fafnir’s crew lounge. The same imagery was repeated in all of our ships. It was a reconstruction of the encampment, derived from orbital observations and a detailed terrain model provided by the League government—their sole contribution to the operation. Jamberac, hidden on a hillside about one klick away, filled in the details. The encampment was a rough pentagon located on a small, flat plateau jutting into a river valley. It wasn’t a bad defensive position, but the Synergists hadn’t been looking for a defensive position. Rather, the north and most of the east side of the plateau were forested, the vegetation suffering from some sort of toxic fungus. The Synergists had chosen this place because it was close to where they needed to be. “It looks like Pevensy’s mercenaries, the ones the Synergists hired, established three fortified bunkers around their encampment, here, here, and here,” I said, pointing at the vertices of a lopsided triangle. I made my motions deliberate, so all of the various contingent commanders would be clear on what I was indicating. “And then Dohlennz’s mercenaries, who are apparently from the outfit called Bulwark, added in a couple more smaller positions, then filled the gaps between them with clingwire obstacles, creating a perimeter.”

“Clingwire. That’s nasty stuff,” Rab put in. “It is. You need to avoid coming in contact with it because it will wrap and contract itself around you. And considering it’s got a dozen little razors every five centimeters, that’s not going to be fun.”

I went on. “The encampment is this cluster of portable shelters in the middle—a half dozen of them. There are two more, one that seems to be a comms set up, and one that’s probably a storage cache. There’s a spring on the north side of the encampment, so they have fresh water. It forms a stream that flows down the northwest side of the plateau, along a ravine, until it eventually joins the nearby river.”

“So how are we going to assault this?” the P’nosk Commander asked. “The only way we can—with speed and violence. We’re going to open the attack with me, Torina, and Perry in the Frankie, and a workboat with Urnak, Paxomar, and Rektorr aboard. We’ll pass over the camp shooting mostly around the perimeter, but also taking aimed shots at any obvious enemies. That’s phase one.”

I continued, pointing at the forest. “For phase two, a squad of the P’nosk contingent, reinforced by the Conoku, is going to be pre-deployed here, about a klick away, and move through the forest, approaching the target from the northeast. As soon as phase one starts, phase two will start as well. The P’nosk, supported by the Conoku, are going to launch a noisy assault from the forest. It’s the most logical approach for an attack since it offers good cover to within just a few meters of the perimeter. This is mostly a diversion, though, for phase three.”

I pointed at the low ground south of the plateau. “And phase three happens here. Between phases one and two, most of the enemy attention should be directed upward, and to the north and east. So, once that’s underway, the rest of the P’nosk contingent and Groshenko’s troops, reinforced by Panzygrus’s bots, will land here. This is the main body, so the main effort, so this is where Icky, Rab, and Netty-P will be. Rab will be the on-the-ground commander. This group will launch a direct assault to breach the perimeter and break into the encampment. As soon as that happens, we start the last phase, phase four.”

I pointed at the center of the encampment. “As soon as we have a breach, Torina, Perry, and I are going to land in the Frankie and do whatever needs to be done. Hopefully, that will be rescuing the Synergists, Gerhardt, and Lucky if Dohlennz has them, and taking Dohlennz into custody.”

I left it at that. There was no need to say that the hostages may just be immediately killed when the attack started, or may even already be dead. Nor was there any reason to dwell on the idea of taking Dohlennz alive,

because everyone knew that while it would be nice, it probably wasn’t likely—or even desirable. “As soon as phase three starts, Funboy, Gabby, and a contingent of Schegith will land here, to the southeast, in this low ground. They’ll set up our casualty collection point, so this is where our casualties need to be taken. They’ve got four of Panzygrus’s bots to help with moving them.”

I finished by specifying a few details about the ships that would remain in orbit. They included the Fafnir, which was going to be left uncrewed. While she was well-armed, she was too well-armed for this type of operation. Even her weakest weapons, the point-defense batteries, would be like shooting bursts of fire from an Abrams tank into the encampment. If we were going to do that, we might as well just forget a ground assault and go with Varic’s plan to bombard the place from orbit. I was almost done. There was only one item left—the most important part. “Okay, folks, listen to this next part carefully. We have two objectives. Number one is to rescue all the hostages we possibly can. Number two is to preferably capture Dohlennz alive, but I’ll settle for his body. So, once the proverbial shit hits the fan and things start to come apart—and they will come apart—keep yourself focused on achieving those two objectives. Even if you somehow end up alone down there, it’s only those two objectives that matter.”

Now I was done. “Questions.”

There were a few—mainly specific details to coordinate the actions of the various groups, some contingencies and other administrative bits and pieces. When they were done, I nodded. “Okay, everyone. To your stations. H-hour is one hour from now.”

I hesitated a moment. “This is the part where I give you a rousing speech. But there’s nothing rousing about it. This is going to be hard, and dirty, and some of us are going to end up being hurt or worse, and some of the hostages will probably die. I’m saying that to you, instead of giving a pep talk, because I respect you all too much to offer up some empty slogans.”

I paused again, meaning to leave it there. But a few more words were needed. “I’ll just say this. I’m damned glad I’ve got you guys at my back. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”

Icky hefted her hammer and shook her head. “Nope. It’s us, Van. Us. I wouldn’t want to even be at anyone else’s back.”

I offered her a smile. “Thanks, big girl. Now, you’re probably itching to smash some heads.”

Her smile was animal. Pure animal. “Oh, you’ve got no idea.”

THE REGION around the target site was eerily reminiscent of some of the terrain near Pony Hollow in Iowa—relatively flat, punctuated by narrow, twisting, wooded ravines carved by small streams and scattered copses of trees. These were all much too blue, but that aside, I could have been flying the Frankie over any number of places surrounding the town of Elkader. Perry, Torina, and I were circling the Frankie in a wide arc, keeping ourselves several klicks away from the Synergists’ encampment. Urnak, Paxomar, and Rektorr were about a klick astern of us. We were waiting for our other forces to signal their readiness—but I’d also decided to take a last stab at resolving this in something at least resembling a peaceful way. We’d already made a couple of attempts to establish contact with Dohlennz. Both times, we’d been greeted by stony silence. This was our third and final attempt, which I sent with a clear warning that the alternative to de-escalating this and Dohlennz surrendering was effectively a death sentence. “Do you really think he’s going to just hand himself over?” Torina asked as we banked over a stretch of forest fringed pale and gray, ravaged by whatever botanical plague Dohlennz had unleashed on it. I shrugged. “Probably not. But you never know. Gauss did when he was cornered. If Dohlennz thinks he’s got some way of getting himself sprung from custody later on, he might go for it.” I glanced at her. “The trick is to make sure those cunning plans don’t ever get to—”

“Boss, there’s something going on at the site,” Perry said, zooming the optical scanner in and putting the imagery on the center display. Five figures had appeared, walking away from the shelter of their nearest bunker. Two of them, which I recognized as Vela, were dragging a

third, limp figure between them. Two more followed, cradling weapons. My gut twisted as I tried to make out who the limp figure was—

The two Vela lifted him so we could see his face. Even battered and bloodied, I recognized him. It was Pevensey. Without preamble, one of the Vela lifted their weapon and blew his head apart. They then tossed his body down the slope bordering the encampment. It slithered a short distance, trailing gore, until it came to rest against a gnarled tangle of scrub. The Vela turned and walked back to their perimeter. We sat, for a moment, in stunned silence. The callous, wanton cruelty of the little display had been—breathtaking. I heard Torina let out a slow breath. “I hated that man for what he did to my home, but—but he at least tried to make amends.”

“He didn’t deserve that, that’s for sure,” Perry said. “Dohlennz is just…

killing people. No negotiations. That’s beyond evil.”

I nodded once, then did Pevensey the honor of just looking on his remains for a moment. The man had been deeply flawed, but Torina was right—he’d at least sought a measure of redemption. And Perry was right, too. He hadn’t deserved to be obviously beaten into semi-consciousness, then executed and dumped into the dirt. That was no way for a soldier, or anyone else, to die. It was, indeed, our answer from Dohlennz. I nodded. “Okay. Perry, broadcast that to the rest of our forces. I want them all to know that’s what we’re dealing with. We are now officially weapons-free. And—” I was about to say, No quarter. None. But I took a deep breath. If I gave that order, I might as well drop the charges against my mother and let her go, because I’d be guilty of the same things she was. “And, per the relevant legislation and conventions, all hostiles are to be subject to lethal force unless they are clearly surrendering themselves,” I said. I felt Torina look at me. She understood what I’d almost said, and why I hadn’t said it. “Got it, boss. I’m filling the relevant articles and paragraphs and things as we speak. And everyone’s now reporting themselves ready,” Perry said. “Okay, then.” I banked the Frankie straight toward the encampment, while Torina readied herself to open fire. Urnak closed in to our right and astern. “Perry, signal all stations. Move out.”

I’D LEARNED ENOUGH about small-unit military operations while in the Army to know that coming up with a simple, robust plan was absolutely essential. I’d also learned that the plan would get you to the point of contact with the enemy, then it would fall apart and success or failure would hinge on the actions of your platoons, squads, fireteams, even individual soldiers. As one of my infantry school instructors put it, “Even an attack by a division is really just a shitload of squad attacks, all pointed in more or less the same direction, and all trying to achieve the same thing.”

It was why I’d made such a big deal out of the two key objectives for our assault. As long as everyone knew the ultimate goal, the end-state we desired to find ourselves with when the shooting finally stopped, it didn’t really matter if the plan started to unwind. It was when commanders insisted on maintaining tight control, their command and decision-making centralized and their soldiers largely ignorant of the point of it all, that things went truly wrong. And things did start coming apart almost immediately. “Van, we’ve got launch signatures from the site. Two air-defense launchers firing,” Perry said. The threat alarm shrilled as a missile came streaking up toward us. I slammed the Frankie hard through a sideslip, the grav plating giving the maneuver enough oomph that the missile couldn’t track fast enough and shoot past. Another missile streaked toward Urnak. I clenched my jaw—

He flung his workboat through a 180 and flicked its drive on and off, pulsing out a tongue of fusion plasma that slammed a powerful wave across the landscape. The missile simply vanished, vaporized by the incandescent flash. He kept the workboat rotating, though, until he was back on his original course. The whole maneuver had taken two seconds. “Holy shit, Urnak—careful with that. We don’t want to incinerate the target,” I said. “Sorry, Van—it’s a trick I learned a long time ago when I was running

—um, toys, for orphans, yeah. Yeah, that was my, ah, job. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

I allowed myself a smile, then we were racing over the site. The missile launchers tracked again, but Torina turned one to a cloud of debris with a quick burst of point-defense fire. The Frankie’s PD guns were smaller and

less damaging than those of the Fafnir, but they were still too indiscriminate to use freely. Urnak took a different approach. He’d opened the airlocks on his workboat, and now Rektorr and Paxomar fired aimed shots with coil guns as he sped over the site. “I think I got one!” Paxomar crowed. Rektorr’s reply was clinically flat in that Usu way. “You did. You struck a Vela with your projectile just below their left eye, resulting in catastrophic, hydrostatic, shock-induced trauma. And also, good shooting.”

I wheeled the Frankie through a hard bank to make another pass. As I did, I checked the overlay. The distraction force, the Conoku and the squad of P’nosk, had landed just as we’d started our run and were now somewhere in the trees approaching the site. The main assault was landing in the low ground to the southwest and had started disgorging the remaining P’nosk, Groshenko’s mercenaries and Panzygrus’s bots, along with Icky, Rab, and Netty-P. The workboat carrying Funboy, Gabby, and the medical detachment provided by Groshenko had likewise settled into place to the southeast. So far, so good—

That is, until one of Groshenko’s people, then one of the bots, and then two of the P’nosk all died in rapid succession, killed by sharp, deadly blasts as they started to advance. Mines. They, and my crew, had landed in a minefield. “SORRY, Van, we scanned with the best resolution we could,” Perry said. “We detected no mines. We’re still not detecting any. They’re damned stealth mines.”

I grunted my understanding but kept my focus on the shitshow now unfolding. Our assault force had abruptly bogged down in a minefield, which had been laid out—of course—under the enemy’s guns. They were now under fire, pinned, steadily taking casualties but unable to maneuver without triggering the mines. “Rab, you’ve got to get the hell out of there!” I said, wincing as the Frankie took hits from ground fire. Even in the absence of the missiles, both of whose launchers we’d knocked out, high-velocity coil-gun slugs

were still damaging the ship, a little bit with each hit. But that little bit was adding up. “I hear you, Van—we’re try—”

A thump over the comm, accompanied by a flash from the minefield. Someone had triggered another of the damned things. “We’re trying to find a way forward!”

“Can you pull back?”

“Maybe, but that’s not going to help the cause—”

He went silent as slugs cracked near him. I heard his BAG, his big-ass gun, return fire. “—is it?”

“Yes, but I’d rather you guys withdraw so we can try a different—”

“Captain Van!”

It was Cantullin cutting in. As far as I could tell, the Conoku and their attached P’nosk had achieved their goal, getting into position to bring fire onto the position from the northeast, from the trees. I despised the thought, but I might have to shift the focus of our main assault to them. If I did, though, they’d probably take more than three casualties. “Go ahead, Cantullin, but make it quick—”

A new voice cut in. It took me a moment to recognize it. “Van, Lucky here!”

“Lucky—shit, where are—” Rounds smacked into the Frankie. Torina tried to return fire, but the PD gun was a much blunter weapon for this sort of thing than we’d anticipated. “Where are you?

“I’m with your Conoku. I’ve been stuck down here since yesterday. Thought I’d make myself useful in case someone decided to do what you’re doing now. I’ve found a stream draw that’s dead ground almost right up to the enemy wire obstacle. I’ve mapped a path clear of mines.”

And there was another maxim of combat. Sometimes, things will also go unexpectedly right. I bit my lip for a moment, then made a decision. “Cantullin, you’re now the main assault. Let Lucky guide you up to that wire and see if you can bust through it. I’m on my way to join you.” Since they were the main effort, that’s where I needed to be. “Roger-dodger, Captain Van!”

I wheeled the Frankie toward the northeast side of the encampment. Torina snapped her helmet on and grabbed her weapon, a coil carbine. Perry moved to open the airlock. “Urnak, see if you can take some heat off of Rab and his people to the southwest. I’m going in on the assault.”

“Will do. Good luck, Van.”

28

I TOLD the flight control AI to bring the Frankie down just south of the dead ground, hold a meter off the ground while we disembarked, then take the ship off to the southeast and hold position near our casualty station until I called it forward. Then I hurried back, fastened my helmet on, drew The Drop, and stepped into the airlock. Perry launched himself out and took wing. Torina jumped out while we were still two meters up, landed deftly, and immediately took cover and started looking for targets. I followed her, landing hard on the slope. My boot stopped what could have been a broken or sprained ankle from being worse than just a twist. The Frankie lifted away. Rounds immediately snapped past me. Something smacked into my left arm but glanced off my b-suit. I crouched, rushing for the dead ground of the draw. I saw Lucky and several Conoku uphill, to my left, at the wire obstacle. More Conoku waited in the dead ground, the P’nosk soldiers behind them. Torina jumped into place beside me as I turned and, still crouching, clambered up the draw. Tough, thorny weeds scraped at my b-suit, gritty dust puffed from beneath my scraping feet. Perry, dodging and weaving groundfire, spoke up. “That wire’s electrified—!” he started, just as Cantullin and another Conoku grabbed it and with neat, sharp snips of their claws, cut it. My heart leapt, expecting a shower of blue sparks and scorched Conoku. But there was nothing of the sort. Their exoskeletons were apparently non-conductive. I wondered if they’d known that in advance. I pushed up behind them. By the time I got there, the wire was cut through. Cantullin and the other Conoku shoved it aside. She turned back. “Okay, Captain Van, we—”

A round punched straight through her, blasting out chunks of exoskeleton like bits of shrapnel. She dropped and went still. Torina hissed. “No—”

I snarled and charged forward, intent on breaking into the encampment and ending this. And if anyone got in my way, I’d kill them. I charged past Cantullin and kept going. Perry beat me to it, though. He stooped into a dive and slammed into the Vela who’d shot Cantullin, the impact like a thunderbolt from the heavens. Gone was Perry the loveable, smart-assed goof. This Perry was a combat AI, a living weapon of unbridled savagery. He blurred into a whirlwind of razor-edged alloy feathers and talons like diamond-hard spikes. Gore flew like an uncapped blender running on puree. When he leapt free seconds later, what remained was—organic. That was about all you could tell. Another Vela appeared. I double-tapped, using instinctive aim, and slammed both of The Drop’s big rounds through it. Lucky closed in to my left, Torina to my right. Both dispensed remorseless death one round at a time. The other Conoku, driven into a fury by the loss of their beloved Cantullin, scuttled forward, shooting at anything resembling an enemy. I saw one charge a Bulwark mercenary frantically trying to clear a misfeed from a slug rifle. It turned out Conoku claws can cut through body armor, flesh, and bone. The Conoku took off both of the mercenary’s arms, then left him there. I caught a glimpse of Urnak’s ship wheeling low over the far side of the encampment. He was pouring fire into—something. A steady brrrrrt erupted from his PD gun, lashing the ground beneath into billowing dust. I hoped he wasn’t killing hostages. But he knew our objectives, so I flicked my attention back to my immediate surroundings. The enemy fire had slackened. We pushed on into the encampment, and then I saw why the fire had abated. We’d been allowed to charge straight into a crossfire that lashed us from left and right, from two of the bunkers. I saw another Conoku go down. Lucky took a hit, cursed, and started limping. The P’nosk squad expertly used fire-and-maneuver to close on the bunker to our right, snuggle up to it, and heave a breaching charge in

through the fire port. A heavy thump, a gout of flame and smoke from the port, screams, then silence. Torina took a hit and staggered. I turned to her. “I’m fine,” she hissed, removing her hand from the impact in her gut. Sure enough, her b-suit was unbroken. “Hurts like a bastard, though,” she snapped, then spun as a Bulwark mercenary charged her, his slug rifle raised to butt-stroke her. She dodged, dropped her weapon, swept out an Innsu knife, and proceeded to gut the man with graceful, flowing strokes and sparkling sprays of blood. But the fire from the second bunker was still coming thick and fast. A P’nosk dropped. Another slumped down, then tried to crawl to cover. He got about a meter, then another hit killed him. We were forced into cover. I dove behind a small hump of outcropping rock. Torina dashed in beside me, spattered with blood. “We can’t stay here!” I shouted as slugs snapped and cracked overhead and around us, impacts kicking up rocks and dust. Torina dared to peer around the hump and took a hit in her helmet with a sharp clack. When she turned back, her visor was starred and cracked. “If we try to charge that bunker, we’ll be cut down,” she said. As she spoke, a small ship suddenly lifted from the far side of the encampment and soared skyward. “Shit!

If that’s Dohlennz escaping, I’ll hunt that prick ’til the end of time!”

Torina had a cooler head and called up Captain Varic on the Righteous Fury, which was still in orbit. “Captain, there’s a small ship lifting. Don’t let it get away.”

A terse reply. “It won’t.”

I nodded my gratitude to her and glared at the bunker. “We’re being cut down here anyway!

We’ve got to attack!” I said, gathering myself to assault the bunker about ten meters away. We had no other choice—

The bunker suddenly went quiet. I heard shouts, screams, a couple of gunshots, then silence. A hulking figure emerged from it, howled a fierce war cry, then charged toward the nearest enemy, a pair of mercenaries covering behind some cargo crates. A hammer swung. Swung again. Icky flattened one of the Bulwark mercenaries into the dust. The other tried to flee, but Netty-P appeared on top of the fallen bunker and coolly fired a single shot that took his head off. Rab came on the comm. “Van, we’re on the objective. Panzygrus’s bots led the way through the mines. Between them and Urnak hosing down the ground, we made it through the mines. All the bots are down, but we’re still at about—”

Gunfire. “—about eighty percent.”

I shuddered out a breath of relief. But we weren’t done yet. “Okay, fight through. Find Dohlennz and whatever hostages you can and secure them.”

“On it.”

Netty-P was a star, using her vantage point on top of the bunker to keep up a steady, remorseless fire aimed with AI accuracy. Covered by her shooting, Icky and Perry joined forward, slicing and bludgeoning their way through any opposition. I took off after them, Torina at my side. A few Conoku and four P’nosk, all that remained of their squad, followed. We pushed through the encampment, clearing opposition as we went. And then, the shooting stopped. Silence fell like the shroud of gray-brown dust that still wafted across the hilltop. Urnak’s ship swept in behind us, Rektorr and Paxomar dismounting. Paxomar looked entirely out of place, but his grim expression of resolve proved he wasn’t. Rektorr rose himself up to his full height and looked for targets, while Urnak lifted again. We carried on forward, crouching from cover to cover, our weapons ready. Icky had stopped and likewise taken cover behind another bunker, which was belching smoke. Perry lofted himself well overhead. Someone pushed in beside me. It was Rab. “The whole objective is secure up to here, Van,” he said. His visor was cracked, like Torina’s, and sealing foam marked a bad hit on his left arm. I could see the pain tightening his face. I nodded and touched his other arm. “Okay. Get yourself back to Funboy—”

“Van—”

“That’s an order, Rab. You can round up any walking wounded back there as you go. And call forward Panzygrus’s medical bots to help evacuate the wounded who aren’t walking.”

He nodded. “On it, boss.”

He turned and stumbled away. I put my attention forward again. One bunker remained untouched. We were facing its back side, revealing an

opening big enough for troops to duck through, to enter and exit. It was ominously quiet. “That’s all that’s left—” I started, just as a scream came from the bunker. A Synergist came stumbling out, spattered with blood. She got just a few paces before a figure appeared briefly in the opening and fired a single shot from a handgun. The Synergist screamed again, pitched forward into the dust, and went still. A new voice came over the comm, in broadcast mode. It was as cold and empty as the void itself. “I enjoyed that.”

WE JUST STARED, all of us, in horror. Another casual display of cruel violence, and then that laughing, mocking voice. “Last chance to save your clackers, Tudor,” the voice said, hissing like wind through a graveyard. “I’ll kill every last one of those bugs. And your people. But you?

No, you’ll be mine. A thing to own. And I’ll make you beg for death.”

Dohlennz. So he was still here. Whoever had been aboard the ship that fled, they’d apparently decided to abandon their master. That fact, and the over-the-top threat he’d just made, actually caused me to smile. “That was—let me guess, Klezmir who took off in your ship, right?

And he left you here to die, Dohlennz?

Good help is hard to find, isn’t it?

Not that it matters. We’ll have him in custody—about the same time we’ll take you, too.” I took a breath, digging deep to keep the vision of Cantullin being shot at bay. If I didn’t, I’d probably just collapse into babbled threats. “And to that end, I’m willing to take you alive. Just release your hostages and come out with your hands up,” I said. Silence. “Dohlennz, you’re trapped. If you don’t surrender, then you’re going to die. Personally, I’m good with either outcome. But since I’m a Peacemaker, I uphold the law, you son of a bitch, and now it’s time for you to face it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” was the reply, then screams and shots from the bunker. “They all die.”

I cursed and charged the bunker. Torina followed an instant later. Icky joined us, while Perry descended from on high. Behind us, Rab, ever the methodical one, shouted for our remaining forces to go firm and take up an all-around defense, just in case Dohlennz had more tricks up his sleeve. I didn’t charge into the bunker through the doorway, though. I stopped short, slapped Icky’s arm, and pointed at a second entrance, a smaller one. Probably used to pass ammunition and supplies through, it was closed over with a plate metal door. Icky nodded, ran up to the smaller access portal, and started slamming it with her hammer, boom, boom, boom. Perry used his own initiative, lighting up his dazzle effect in the doorway to the bunker. I leapt over him and through it, then let The Drop fall to hang from its lanyard and swept out the Moonsword. A Vela stood close enough to touch. I slashed it in half. A second one, to my right, tried to bring a slug carbine to bear at point-blank range. Torina slammed an Innsu knife through its eye, dropping it like a sack of cement. I peered through the dim light. This must have been Pevensey’s command bunker, because it was bigger than the others. I saw three more Vela, all wounded, two of them holding a Synergist between them as a hostage. Two more Synergists lay sprawled on the floor, alive or dead I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t smell the air through my suit, but I knew it reeked of blood and fear. Behind the three Vela stood—

A man. A remarkably plain, unassuming man. He could have been an accountant. I wasn’t sure what I expected—a towering, cloaked, and cowled figure of raw evil, I guess. Not someone you could have found yourself talking to about opening a savings account. In a way, it was worse. Banal evil like this was the sort that could be anywhere. You could pass it on the street. Dohlennz had a gun trained on a kneeling figure I couldn’t make out. He smiled at me, an expression of bland desolation, free of humanity. Free of life. “I do love the sound when they die,” he said, proving that he’d distilled all of his vile wrongness into his voice. It was the voice of a serial killer telling his next victim what was about to happen. “The Synergists. Their screams are so—so delicate. Peacemakers are much more uncouth when I

kill them. Perhaps this will be more interesting. I mean, I’ve never killed a Master.”

Dohlennz pulled the kneeling figure up to stand. It was Gerhardt. The Master was wounded, badly. He tottered on his feet. Blood, brightly arterial, pattered onto the gritty floor. Sweat beaded his deathly pale face. “Now, then, Tudor. Shall we talk?

Or, rather, shall I talk, and you listen?

Because you haven’t got much time to save your precious Master here. You see, I am going to leave this place. I have a ship secreted—not far from here. If you let me leave, I will give you your Master.” He glanced at the Synergists. “We'll take these along, as insurance for your continued cooperation. Once we are well and clearly away, I will release them, alive and—well, not unharmed, obviously, but without further harm.”

Gerhardt has minutes, maybe, to live, Van, Perry said in my ear bug. I see three mortal wounds on him. I can’t believe he’s even conscious. I said nothing. And was rewarded with a flicker of uncertainty in Dohlennz’s snake eyes. “You had better decide, Tudor. I have things to do, places to go—” He smiled almost beatifically. “People to see.”

I smiled right back at him. “Now do you really think I’m going to just let you leave here, unleash you on the galaxy—again?

And after I’ve gone through all this trouble to find you?”

Dohlennz’s smile flicked off. “Then your Master will die, and those Synergists will die, and I will die, and you will die, and—oh, is that your lovely wife I see there with you?” He clicked his tongue. “I wasn’t even invited to the wedding. Ah, well. I have a gift for you anyway. One of you is going to die first, so the other will get to see it happen—”

“Oh, would you please shut the hell up?” Icky roared, stomping up beside me. “You evil villains and your freakin’ monologues!

I swear, it's just all about the attention, me, me, look at me, I’ve got sinister plans, oooh!”

I nodded. “Right?

The bigger the asshole, the longer the speech.”

“Can we just crack his head open and call it a day?”

I raised a hand. “In a moment, Icky. I just need Dohlennz to—to really grasp what he’s doing.”

“Doing?

I’m doing work that will guarantee the future, Tudor!

I am rewriting what life itself even means—!”

Gerhardt roused himself and raised his head with monumental effort. “Do… what’s right, Tudor. Like… like you always do,” he murmured. And then he smiled. It was a warm, genuine smile. The smile not of a superior, but of a friend. He started to sag again, but he put out one last burst of strength, exerting himself so much that blood spurted from his wounds. He grabbed Dohlennz’s collar and let himself fall, his weight pulling Dohlennz’s head and face briefly into the clear. His eyes glittered with malice and—

And, most satisfyingly, a flash of genuine fear. A loud snap. A single shot cracked between me, Torina, and Icky’s two right arms. The round slammed into Dohlennz’s right eye, blasting the back of his head across the bunker wall in a spectacular display of gore. He looked—surprised. And then he fell on top of Gerhardt. I glanced back. Netty-P stood impassively in the doorway, her rifle still raised. Icky howled with rage and charged the Vela. Torina closed in with her. With Dohlennz dead, they chose not to resist—or were no longer compelled to—and simply gave up. I grabbed Gerhardt and dragged him out from under Dohlennz’s corpse. I looked up at the others. “Don’t touch Dohlennz. Don’t even get close. Biohazard protocols from this second forward. The Vela go to isolation.” I looked down at Gerhardt. I’d hoped—

But, no. There was no more hope. No more time. And no more of my Master. The man who’d been a mentor from day one. And would continue that role, even as I grieved. “Gerhardt— Master Gerhardt goes to the Frankie.” I glanced back, a little surprised at how—anticlimactic it all felt. Numb, even. I’m sure that wouldn’t last, though. “Nice shooting, Netty-P,” I managed. “I am unlikely to miss. I am even more unlikely to miss a shot at that kind of evil. I’m sorry, Van. We weren’t in time.”

I shook my head as I turned back to Gerhardt. He still had that smile on his face. “No. No, we weren’t.”

Torina crouched beside me, touched my arm. “Where will we take him?”

“There’s a place. For heroes. He belongs there.”

She nodded. “He does.”

WE COUNTED UP the butcher’s bill, while Funboy, Gabby, and the medical bots did their best to patch up the worst wounds. The supporting Schegith moved in to secure the site and start sorting through it, and the bodies, for any useful intelligence. Urnak used his ship to ferry the stabilized patients up to the Righteous Fury. They included Rab and Lucky, who’d both taken serious hits but would pull through. Icky retrieved Jamberac, who’d had to sit on the distant hilltop, grit his teeth, and just watch it all unfold. He’d been badly wounded, too, but again, he’d pull through. On the opposing side, we took six Bulwark mercenaries and eight Vela into custody. The latter had gone quiet, almost despondent, offering no resistance. We assumed Dohlennz’s death was responsible for their sudden docility but had no idea of the details. I hoped that, whatever Dohlennz had done to them, they could be wholly freed of it. The matter of their guilt or innocence, though—that was something else altogether, and I was happy to let slide for now. Just like I had for Gerhardt when it came to Cantullin, I’d hoped. But when I asked Funboy about her, he simply shook his head. “I’m sorry, Van.”

Eleven of the P’nosk had fallen, as had four of Gerhardt’s mercenaries. Only a few of us had emerged without any wounds at all. Two of the original seven Synergists had survived. All of Panzygrus’s assault bots had been destroyed, but they’d breached the unexpected minefield in the process. And, as Panzygrus said, “I can just put them back together. Your friends, though, Van—I’m so sorry.”

So was I. We’d lost Gerhardt and Cantullin. Which meant the rest of us had been badly wounded as well. EPILOGUE

MOST PEACEMAKERS ARE BURIED on their homeworlds, under the loving gaze of their families. Gerhardt had no family, though. He’d made the Guild his life. He had no siblings, no wife, no children. His parents were dead. There was an aunt, apparently, and some cousins, but they were just names in his file. Under Next-of-Kin, he’d specified me. So now we stood on Helso, not far from the pond on the Milon Estate. Quartz crystals glittered on the fresh dirt of Gerhardt’s grave. Torina and I stared down at it. The headstone simply gave his name, and beneath that, A man to be missed for all time. It was—enough. “He never told me,” I said. Torina looked at me. “Told you what?”

I swallowed. Swallowed again. “That he named me… his next of kin. I wonder… why?”

She took my hand. “Because he didn’t need to, Van. It would have just been… complicated, if he had. I think, if he’d had a son—” She ended just by looking at me. I nodded. I had had a father, a man whom I loved and respected deeply. It turned out, I actually had two. I just hadn’t realized it until now. Perry landed nearby. “Van, the Conoku are asking you to go up to the Iowa. They’re… taking the loss of Cantullin pretty hard.”

Aren’t we all. Icky, especially. She and Cantullin had both basically been kids when they’d first gotten to know one another. “Yeah. Tell them I’ll be up there soon. I just need—”

“Time. Got it. I’ll let them know.”

He flew away. “Van, this place—I understand why we’re here, but—"

“Same. I want to go home. This is—” I shrugged at the grave. “It’s all just too much. And, yet, not enough.”

She nodded. “Home, yes. But the Fafnir?

My parent’s estate—?”

“Doesn’t matter. Home is—Torina, home is wherever you are.”

She leaned into me. We stood a while longer, then turned as the shadows lengthened, and the day began to die. We walked away, leaving Gerhardt to rest under the trees that the Synergists had grown.