Shattered Will
Author: J. N. Chaney; Terry Maggert
Date: 2023-06-18 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: Earth is no longer alone, and Van isn’t happy about it. When the Equal Grasp and other unsavory aliens launch their plot to open humanity up to the stars—in the name of profit, of course—Van and his crew spring into action, fearing the fallout of a world gone mad. With each passing event in his career, Van continues to unravel locked memories, held by Perry, that explain a family history that is far more violent than he ever imagined. And the memories aren’t focused on Van alone. They tell a tale of war in the stars—a war that left the Peacemakers in shambles, the GKU reeling, and three warrio
Publisher: Variant Publications

Copyrighted Material

Shattered Will Copyright © 2023 by Variant Publications

Book design and layout copyright © 2023 by JN Chaney

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing.

1st Edition

CONTENTS

Don’t Miss Out

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Glossary

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1

Life aboard the Fafnir had three settings.

The first was raw, nerve-jangling tension as we engaged vicious enemies intent on destroying the ship and killing us all.

The second setting was grinding tedium—long flights crammed together in a living space about the same size as a small apartment building, the bulkheads seeming to close in a bit more with each passing hour. And sometimes—

It was a lot like being in a sitcom, but with more lasers. And aliens. And personal habits that could test the patience of a Kindergarten teacher.

I rubbed at my face, listening to the chorus of noise originating five feet away, where Icky was, allegedly, eating noodles. I say allegedly because in between the slurping and burping and smacking, there was the occasional giggle, for some reason.

Because noodles are hilarious.

“Icky, could you shovel those noodles into your maw with a little less gusto? I’m trying to watch a vid from Earth here,” I said, staring at her with unalloyed awe. She could take a simple act—lunch—and turn it into a chorus of sounds that set my teeth on edge.

“If we ever need to simulate the sound of an unclogging drain, she’s our gal,” Perry said, flexing his wings where he perched on the back of a chair. Funboy said nothing and merely watched Icky with horrified fascination.

Icky’s fork stopped moving, and she paused, holding a half kilo of dangling noodles in front of her chin. “They’re soggy. It’s easier if I go fast.”

I gave her a look, taking in the spattered broth on her coverall. “You’re soggy now.”

She beamed. “Maybe I’m just naturally damp.”

Funboy sighed, long and filled with suffering. “Is the big girl aware of her upcoming wedding ceremony? In which she is supposed to wear her special gown?” He shot her a look, then twitched his long ears in disapproval.

She shrugged as she twirled more noodles around her fork. “I am. So, that punishment you bought me—"

I held up my hands. “It’s not punishment, it’s a beautiful gown. Torina and Gabby picked it out specifically because it’s you.”

Perry made a sound. “Hairy and covered in sweet and sour sauce. It’s definitely her.”

Icky expertly flicked a noodle that splatted across Perry’s right wing. He squawked and flapped madly. “Get it off me, you barbarian.”

“Oh, for—hey, bird, watch where you’re thrashing those razor-sharp wings of yours! They’re weapons, remember?” I said, then turned back to Icky.

She shrugged. “That dress, which brings everything I love about pants to my upper body, stretches, so I’ll be fine. Besides, Pax and I need our energy. Did you know that Wu'tzur males can put their—”

“No, I didn’t, nor do I need to,” I said, waving her statement away as I restarted the video.

It was a news feed from Earth, forwarded via twist comm from the Poltava, Petyr Groshenko’s ship, which had arrived there to tighten the cordon. Aliens, whom we suspected were working for the shady cartel known as the Equal Grasp, had arrived on Earth and openly made their presence known. It was a massive violation of interstellar law—first contact with pre-twist-capable civilizations was a highly regulated affair—but so far, we hadn’t been able to definitively link it back to them.

A big part of the problem was getting close to the aliens, which we knew included a pair of Yonnox and a Gajur. They were keeping themselves surrounded with people, so the arrival of Van Tudor, interstellar cop and Galactic Knight, wasn’t going to make the situation any better. Although, as it turned out, it was a situation that ended up regulating itself, almost comically so.

The people of Earth are many things—some of them very good, some of them very bad. Most of all, though, they were fractious. If one group said black, others would knee-jerk white right back at them, regardless of the facts—because in Earth’s modern, info-driven and connected age, the facts don’t really matter. So, in one of the most horrifying yet hilarious displays of irony since the Big Bang, intelligent aliens had announced themselves to Earth.

And Earth didn’t believe them.

Fake news. The sinister work of the deep state. Viral marketing for some upcoming blockbuster movie or video game not yet announced. Some sort of political ploy. As I watched the feeds from Earth, I saw it all. Network A claims to have the truth. So does network B, but their truth is entirely different. One country blames another, claiming it’s just a manipulative hoax. East blames West. North blames South. The salt-of-the-earth people of the heartland blame the urban sophisticates, who just blame them right back. And social media—oh, social media—it promised the stars but delivered the sewer and now gushed every studious fact, every wild-eyed claim, every conspiracy theory rant I could have ever imagined, and even a few I probably never would have.

It was why I’d first seen the aliens appear on local access TV in rural Iowa. No media source that considered itself reputable had even wanted to touch them, driving them more and more desperately in search of someone who would. And while they’d flown their ship, a class four workboat, right over cities—there was a gorgeous photo of it framed against the Manhattan skyline floating around the internet—they’d kept it well away from any human examination. Perry speculated that, if they were there to try and exploit Earth as a huge, untapped market, the last thing they wanted to do was give technology to humanity.

All of which meant that, for now, we could blockade Earth from further visits and monitor what was going on while trying to put a stop to it at its source, which was somewhere outside the Solar System. The situation was otherwise stable, but it was a precarious sort of stability, and we all knew it wouldn’t last. In fact, as soon as Icky was married, I planned to return to Earth, join forces with Groshenko, Gerhardt, and Valint, and figure out how to proceed.

“Van, are you, um—are you sure you’re all going to stand as my Nine?” Icky asked, wiping her mouth. Her “Nine” referred to the basic Wu'tzur family unit, which, for cultural reasons I really didn’t understand, revolved around that number. Icky had asked us, her crewmates, to do so, and we’d all happily agreed. But she was clearly going through some prenuptial jitters.

I smiled back at her. “Icky, we’re already family, right? So you’re stuck with us—”

“Oh, dear.”

We turned as Funboy plodded into the crew lounge. He was—

He was stylin’. Stylin’, that is, for a wedding with a Saturday Night Fever theme.

“Funboy—where the hell did you get that?” I asked him.

He pulled at the collar of a polyester tuxedo that was powder blue, with black piping on the lapels and down each pant leg, a ruffled shirt, and a bow-tie the size of Delaware. “I requested assistance the last time we were on Earth to purchase appropriate formal wear for Icky’s marriage, and this”—he pulled at the collar again—“was suggested to me as appropriate.”

“Assistance from who?” I asked, glaring at Perry.

“I genuinely believe the pinnacle of human fashion was sometime in 1978,” he replied, then pointed a claw at the arm of the chair, where a limp segment of noodle sat, gleaming with sauce. “By the way, Icky, I believe that’s yours.”

“I’ll save it for a snack later. And, Funboy, I think you look awesome.”

I sighed. “Perry, I’m begging you—are you just yanking Funboy’s chain here, or is your taste in formal wear really that bad?”

“If I die or develop a serious rash or chronic skin condition from prolonged exposure to this garment”—Funboy scratched under his collar—“I will curse you all.”

Torina and Gabby arrived as Funboy was speaking. Torina looked at him, then at me, then back at him. “You’re already cursing us with that… outfit.” She scowled at Perry. “This was your doing, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t judge my subtle, nuanced approach to looking good. I mean, it’s not my fault if you have no fashion sense,” he replied.

Gabby bubbled. “I think he’s dashing.”

Funboy blinked at her, then offered a smile—something he was getting much better at doing without running the risk of frightening children. “She thinks I’m dashing.”

“You are! You’re very, very—”

“Dashing, we get it, Gabby, thanks,” I said. “So what are you wearing to compliment Mister Dashing over there?”

“Vintage human as well.” She pulled out a data slate, tapped at it, and turned it to show us. “Here, see? Isn’t it magical?”

I stared at peach taffeta prom dress probably only a couple of years newer than Funboy’s disco fever garb. Torina just shrugged, mouthing, Don’t blame me. I spun on Perry, but he raised his wings.

“I had nothing to do with that one, boss,” he said, then added in my ear bug, Seriously, I’d never coach someone into that. I mean, someone almost certainly lost their virginity in that thing, and now we’ve got to risk losing our eyesight and/or sanity watching her and Sad Sack parading around together. Any chance we could keep the lights way, way low during this shindig?

Torina put a gentle hand on Gabby’s arm. “Honey. Um. Don’t—don’t you have something from your own culture that you’d like to wear? Something significant?”

Gabby actually frowned. “Well, I was going to wear the Kaska, but then—”

I looked up, then back to Gabby. “Okay. I’ll bite. What’s a Kaska?”

Gabby’s face brightened. Literally. A flush rose through her wide, silly face as she considered her answer. “It’s a garment, handed down from parent to child, sometimes over centuries.”

I cut my eyes at Torina, who shrugged. “That sounds lovely.”

Gabby made a face. “It is. Except that you’re supposed to win the Kaska in armed combat, preferably on holy ground and at dawn. See, you fight your, um, grandmother and subdue her… by any means necessary, of course, and then when she’s screaming for mercy, you—”

“You know peach is a soft color that looks darn good with your, um, skin?” I interjected.

Gabby blushed anew. “Really? Thank you, Van. And I can tell by Torina’s smile that she thinks it too. Oh, this dress is so much better, and I didn’t have to use the ritual spear on grandma and—”

“And how about that. We’ve got to get going? Hah. Hah,” I managed, seeing Torina recoil from Gabby’s fashion acquisition report.

Boss, she looks so adorable. They go after grandma for a glorified skirt? Perry sent.

Right? Let’s keep her on our good side. I cleared my throat. “Let’s, um—let’s be unified for Icky and Paxomar, shall we? We’re there to be part of her Nine,” I said but couldn’t resist adding, “and then get the hell out of the way and cover our ears while they rip apart the bridal suite—”

This time, Icky flung noodles at me.

* * *

As we prepared for our next twist, which would take us to Dregs for refueling and then on to Helso, the location of Icky’s wedding, a call came from Anvil Dark. It was a Nesit named Thuulix, a Peacemaker functionary who supervised the movements of prisoners among the various Guild facilities. Thuulix always looked harried and a little disheveled, which didn’t surprise me. His job was essentially managing spreadsheets, but doing it on endlessly tight and uncompromising deadlines. He caught me in my cabin in the middle of dressing after a shower.

“Van, we have a prisoner transfer, a priority one. I know you’re heading on to administrative leave for the marriage of one of your crew, but—”

I sat in the chair at my desk terminal, fastening my shirt as I did. “Thuulix, if you know I’m heading out on leave, why are you asking me? There are hundreds of other Peacemakers out here. Surely one of them—”

“I know, I know. But this particular prisoner is a special case, a complicated one. Honestly, it’s not something I’d trust to many other Peacemakers.”

“Oh. Superb. Not just a transfer, but a complicated one. I’m on the verge of sorry, I don’t wanna.”

“It’s an Usu, on Spindrift. He was sent there by Kragdalous from that place way out in the black that we’re not supposed to talk about, charged with espionage.”

I stared back at the display. Shit. Usu, synthetic beings, were cunning, dangerous, and remorseless opponents. We had a lot of experience dealing with them, and I still treated them with great caution. The only two I’d ever met that I really trusted, in fact, were Viktor, aka The Body Thief, on Dregs. He’d started his life as a Trinduk and been changed over the years. The other Usu I could work with was Rektorr, who we’d met at the secret, fortified GKU research facility called Reverie. Even they had to prove themselves several times before I really came to believe in them. A Peacemaker not used to dealing with an Usu could quickly find themselves dumped out of their own airlock.

I finally sighed and nodded. “Fine. I guess it won’t take us much out of our way, Spindrift instead of Dregs, where we're heading. Send the details and all the paperwork, and we’ll get on it.”

“Thank you, Van. I feel a lot better knowing this is in competent hands because my only other available choices were—well, let’s just say the Usu would probably have the ship taken over before they even left dock,” Thuulix said.

I gave a grim smile. “No problem. Fafnir—”

“Van? One other thing.”

“Thuulix, come on. I’ve got a packed schedule here already—”

“No, no, it’s nothing I need you to do. It’s something I think you should know. When Gerhardt told me about this prisoner transfer and asked me to try and tag it to you, he asked me to pass on a message, too. Guild Intel has found out there’s a new bounty out on you and your crew.”

I rolled my eyes. “We’ve had bounties on us and off us so long I don’t even bother trying to keep up—”

“You might want to take this one a little more seriously. It’s six hundred and thirty thousand bonds.”

“Huh. That is a lot. But we’ve had higher.”

“Each.”

I sat back. “Each? As in, on each of us?”

“Actually, that’s more like an average. It’s seven-fifty on you, six-fifty or so on—” Thuulix consulted a data slate. “Icky, Funboy, and Perry, and about five-fifty on anyone else.”

I just stared. That came to close to five million bonds for the lot of us. One well-placed missile that destroyed the Fafnir would make somebody rich.

“Oh. Wow. I guess it’s nice to be appreciated, huh?”

“Have to be honest, Van. When I hear things like this, my tedious, detail-oriented desk job doesn’t sound all that bad. Gerhardt suggests you increase security around that wedding you’re heading to, just in case.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Did Gerhardt happen to say who put this bounty out on us?”

“Supposedly, the Arc of Vengeance. But he doesn’t believe that and has Intel digging deeper.”

I nodded. The Arc of Vengeance was a nasty, family-operated crime syndicate that operated exclusively in the outer reaches of the Tau Ceti system. They were experts at knowing just how far they could push their business, which was mostly smuggling with a small side of piracy, without making it worth the Ceti Alliance’s time to go after them. They were also far too small, their interests much too local, to be putting out that sort of bounty on us. Someone was using them as a patsy, a smokescreen.

“No, I don’t believe it either. That kind of money is coming from some much deeper pockets.”

“Agreed. Anyway, you take care, Van.”

“Thanks, Thuulix,” I replied, signed off, and slumped back.

Five million bonds. That much money would attract a lot of interest, and not only across known space, but also from beyond it, from the Deeps, maybe even from Unity. Worse, though, it would attract people who were good at collecting bounties. That meant we not only had to watch out for the obvious amateurs, we had to also be doubly—hell, triply wary of every ship that came within missile range of the Fafnir.

We might even have to watch out for people who should be friends. There were probably at least a few Peacemakers that would consider a quick five million bonds a great early retirement plan. And there were more than a few of the so-called Ferals, the roguish elements of the GKU, that I wouldn’t trust to cart away my trash.

“Netty, I assume you heard all that.”

“You didn’t classify it as a personal call, so I did, logged it and everything,” she replied.

“Okay. If we’re going to be paranoid, then let’s lean into it. Switch the point-defense systems to active mode, weapons-tight.” That meant the point-defense batteries would automatically engage anything positively identified as hostile, which distinguished it from weapons-free, which meant they’d shoot at anything not positively identified as friendly—a subtle but crucial difference.

“Also, let’s run with active scanners at full power. Hammer away at everything in range. Let them know we’re being super vigilant. That might make some would-be bounty collectors at least think twice,” I went on.

“Done and done.”

“Thank you, my dear,” I said, then leaned back in my chair and blew a breath at the overheads.

Five million bonds.

Somebody out there really, really wanted us dead.

* * *

We’d suggested, and Icky and Paxomar had agreed, that Helso was an ideal place for their nuptials. For one, the planet was well-protected by the small but skilled and well-equipped Helso Defense Force, as well as the imposing orbital fortresses constructed by the Schegith, for whom Helso was a Protectorate. It meant that access to the planet was easily monitored and controlled—and with five million bonds on our heads, that was no small consideration.

The Milons had also offered the serene beauty of their estate for the service—priming the pump, as I put it, which raised Torina’s eyebrows.

“What does that mean?”

Icky cut in. “Is that another crack about my wedding night?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m just suggesting that your parents might be happy to have a wedding on their hands to encourage you and me to follow suit—priming the matrimonial pump.”

She smiled. “We’re getting married under the Thrice Moon, remember? This is Icky’s day. Ours will come, and they know it.”

“Damned right,” Icky said.

So I was looking forward to going to Helso, using Icky’s wedding as a chance to grab some leave. We’d been busy since our long and, as it turned out, dangerous sojourn out in the distant reaches of space around Reverie, so we hadn’t really had a chance to get enough downtime to really feel like a vacation.

First, though, duty called at Spindrift.

* * *

We arrived at Spindrift to find Jamberac waiting for us. He’d made the long flight from Reverie, partly to deliver this Usu into custody, but mainly because he had urgent personal business. He didn’t seem inclined to discuss the details, and I didn’t pry—I mean, I got it, life didn’t come screeching to a halt here in known space just because someone was far, far out in the black.

“Thank you, Van. I really appreciate it. Frankly, I don’t trust Spindrift to hold him, and taking him to The Hole myself would cost me at least three days,” he said as Icky and Torina supervised the transfer of the Usu from his ship to ours.

I thumbed the data slate, accepting custody of the Usu, while watching as Icky gestured him into the Fafnir’s holding cell. He was… an Usu, which was about all I could tell. They’d made up nearly a third of the crew complement at Reverie when we were there, although that had been scaled back considerably, mainly because of security concerns. At least some of the Usu had been secretly collaborating with a mysterious, profoundly territorial, and xenophobic race of aliens known as the Jackals, jeopardizing not just Reverie’s operations, but the safety of the station itself. So I certainly didn’t know any individual Usu, aside from the ones named Rektorr and Victor—but Rektorr was different, and had become a true ally.

I looked in on the pale, almost skeletal being that was sort of a cross between the chrome-bright Terminators of that movie franchise and a department store mannequin, albeit more fleshy and less plastic. “Be good,” I said, hitting the cell-door control. The Usu stared impassively back at me as the door shut him away. It could have been a mannequin, for all the reaction it offered.

Jamberac immediately departed, while we got underway for The Hole, the Peacemaker Guild’s prison barge orbiting the lonely red dwarf star TZ Arietis. The trip was uneventful.

Right up until it wasn’t.

* * *

The first hint of trouble came at the twist point out of the Spindrift system. Netty ran the usual checklist with us, the timer counted down, and… nothing happened.

“Uh, Netty? Something wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”

I exchanged a surprised glance with Torina. Both of us sat up.

“You’re not sure? What does that mean?”

“I seem to have lost connectivity with the twist-drive master controller. However, there’s no reason for it. I—”

Then silence fell in the cockpit. I glanced back and saw Icky had stopped what she was doing, and now wore a curious frown.

I turned back to the instruments. “Netty?”

Nothing.

I looked at the status panel. Everything was green.

“Netty, talk to me, please and thank you.”

I was answered with gravid silence.

I touched the intercom. “Netty-P, can you come forward, please?” She was somewhere aft, with Funboy and Gabby.

“On my way.”

I turned to Perry, but he was already shaking his head. “Nothing. She seems to have shut down all data links.”

Netty-P stepped into the back of the cockpit. “I can confirm that. And, per Calamity protocols, I’ve deactivated mine as well.”

“Same here,” Perry added.

The mention of Calamity made fingers start twisting in my gut. We all knew the virus wasn’t gone, that it was still out there somewhere. And the damage it had done was heartbreakingly evident in parts of known space, where humanitarian catastrophes caused by it were only now being undone. Moreover, there remained instances of it, now contained in infected systems, but there’d been no new outbreaks in months. Still, despite all of that, it had been easy to let the threat fade into the background noise of a long sojourn out at Reverie, of alien incursions on Earth, of upcoming weddings, general Peacemaker business, and the overall day-to-day bustle of life.

“Aww, dammit—Netty, if you can—”

“I can hear you, Van.”

Her voice was slow, almost languid. The status panel showed her consuming nearly one hundred percent of her available computation resources. I’d never seen her use more than seventy or so.

“Netty, what the hell is going on—?”

“Calamity.” She said it, Cah—lah—mah—tee, drawn out and slow, in a way that made my heart skip, pound a couple of beats, then skip again. “The—ship—is—infect—ed. I’m—containing—it—in—my—high—er—function—pro—cess—orrrrrrrr—”

Ponderous silence. Torina whispered, “Oh, no.”

I spun on Perry and Netty-P. “What do we do? How do we remove the damned virus from her?”

Perry stared with his amber eyes. Netty-P was vulpine stillness.

I half stood from my seat. “How do we remove the damned virus—?”

“Van, you know the answer to that,” Perry said.

“No. No, there’s got to be a way,” I snapped, turning to the others. To Icky. To Funboy, who’d appeared with Gabby in the back of the cockpit. Skilled engineers. The best. They all just looked stricken. Helpless.

“I want options. There’s got to be a better way—” I started, but Perry touched my arm with his wing.

“Van, all we can do is contain the virus. The ship’s systems are all functioning normally, but that’s not going to last if she can’t—”

“I can’t,” Netty said.

We all turned to the instrument panel, the closest thing Netty ever had to a face. “Netty? What’s—?”

“Van, listen. Calamity has infected the ship. I’ve got it contained. Con-contained. Figured out a way. But it’s going to consu-consume all of my available compu—ting resources to keep it-it-it that way. Per—Perry, Netty-P, on the mas-master display.”

A blur of information flashed across the display, far too fast for me to read. I turned to Perry and Netty-P. “What? What did it—she—say?”

Netty-P’s tapered head swiveled toward me. “She has contained Calamity in an ouroboros, a closed logical loop. It’s quite clever, actually. The virus is trapped in an endless cycle whose effect is also its cause. It isn’t aware of that, though, so from its perspective, it’s continuing to infect the ship over and over and over again, but without actually ever proceeding past the same point.”

“What does that mean for her?” Torina asked.

Perry answered. “Like she said, it has consumed all of her computational resources. She—” Perry hesitated. “She no longer has any capacity for higher functions or cognitive thought.”

I gripped the arms of my seat. “You mean—what, she’s gone?”

“In effect, yes. But she’s managed to trap Calamity in an endless cycle from which it can never escape because it isn’t even aware there’s anything to escape from,” Netty-P said.

“For how long, though? How long can that even last?” Icky asked, her tone as taut as a bow string. It was the same tone she had right before she started swinging her hammer.

“You guys aren’t getting it. It’s a perfect equilibrium. As long as it’s not disturbed, it’s never going to end,” Perry said.

Torina shook her head. “What about the ship? How do we run the ship without Netty? We can’t even twist.”

“Netty’s pretty smart. She’s allowed for that. I can provide all of her functionality,” Netty-P replied.

I shook my head. “Oh, no. Only by exposing yourself to the virus. We have to consider this ship contaminated. I’m not letting you or Perry—”

“Van, she’s contained the virus in a little virtual existence from which it can’t, and won’t even try to escape. That’s taken her offline, but it’s preserved the rest of the ship’s system. Everything else is functioning normally.”

“Right now, the Fafnir’s a car sitting and idling with no driver in it,” Perry put in. “The car’s fine, and the engine and transmission and steering are all working properly, but it’s not going anywhere unless someone’s behind the wheel. That someone is going to have to be Netty-P—or me, if it’s an emergency, but I don’t have the same functionality as she does.”

I stared at him. At the others. They looked back in mute horror. Things had gone from routine to catastrophic in an instant, the blink of an eye.

At the speed of electrons.

Netty was… gone, and not gone, and all we had was a blinking message on her primary screen. Five words. Years of friendship.

An ocean of anger, just then. And hurt. And love and respect. Human things.

“I realize this is an extremely difficult moment for all of us, but wouldn’t it be prudent to physically disconnect whatever systems constitute Netty from the rest of the Fafnir? To absolutely ensure Calamity can’t spread?’ Funboy said.

Rab inclined his head, thinking. “If we do that, we can just replace her with a new version of herself, right? I mean, it won’t be the same Netty, but—well, it would be—” He trailed off, realizing he was starting down a dark and convoluted path.

“I would highly recommend against that. There isn’t a box somewhere on the Fafnir that’s Netty, at least, not anymore. She’s logically distinct from the Fafnir and its systems but not physically distinct. She’s distributed across the ship. We would have to start trying to map out exactly where every process is running and how it relates to every other process before we could even consider trying,” Perry said.

“Just the act of trying to do that might disrupt Calamity’s containment and free it. Our best course of action, at least for now, is to respect the stability of the prison Netty’s created for Calamity and leave it alone. In the meantime, I’ll function in place of Netty,” Netty-P said.

I slumped, defeated for the moment. In other words, the Fafnir was now carrying an active instance of Calamity, except trapped in a state of endless limbo of which the thing wasn’t even aware. It was like carrying another prisoner in a holding cell. And it was costing all of the resources that constituted Netty to do it, which meant that she was effectively—

Dead.

I sat up. I wasn’t sure what expression I had on my face, but it made Torina wince. “What?”

Like a prisoner in a holding cell.

I stood and started aft at a run. On the way, I snatched up The Drop and the Moonsword, then headed for the Fafnir’s holding cells.

2

Torina and Perry caught up with me at the back of the crew hab, and I could hear Icky’s footsteps thundering toward us from the aft compartments.

“Van, what—?” Torina started, but I cut her off.

“The Usu. It came aboard the Fafnir and brought Calamity with it. Somehow, it infected the ship,” I said, not slowing my pace.

“Van, we don’t know that for sure—” Perry said, but I stopped and turned on him.

“What other answer is there, Perry? What other possible way could the damned virus have gotten aboard?”

“I don’t know, but you can’t—”

“Can’t what?”

“Be judge, jury, and executioner.”

I turned and resumed my way aft. Torina and Perry followed closely behind. I wondered if they were going to try to stop me.

I wondered if I was going to let them.

With my feet punishing the corridor, I reached the cell, slammed the control to open the door, then leveled The Drop as the Usu came into view. It was, as far as I could tell, in exactly the same position it had been when I’d closed the door.

I jammed the muzzle of The Drop into its face. “Go ahead. Tell me you had nothing to do with Calamity infecting my ship and… and killing my crewmate. Killing my friend. Go ahead and lie, you miserable piece of shit.”

The Usu stared back at me. The damned things had a penchant for dumb insolence, for saying and doing nothing when confronted. I took a shuddering breath.

“Up to you, whether you get any last words or not,” I hissed at it.

“Van,” Torina said, but ignored her and tensed my finger on the trigger.

The Usu spoke, flat and calm. “Calamity estimated a greater than fifty percent probability that you would be assigned to carry me when Jamberac was faced with the impending death of someone close to him. Your collective distrust and wariness of Usu is well understood. This seemed like a vector to bring about a severe degradation in your effectiveness by depriving you of the use of your ship, and if not resulting in the deaths of yourself and your crew outright, then considerable psychological harm. There is a high probability that that would result in errors in judgment on your part and overall friction in your future actions.”

I inhaled but didn’t move. I was frozen with fury and shock.

“Calamity considers you to be a significant impediment to its intended end-state and has determined that you must be eliminated, Van Tudor,” the Usu intoned.

“And you… you’re just… just admitting all this.” The muzzle of The Drop trembled as I fought to not yank the trigger back. “Just like that.”

“Calamity judges that it is more disruptive to you to know these things. To realize how any action you take from this point on might be furthering its goals and bringing about the realization of its end-state.”

“And what are those goals? What is that end-state?” Torina asked.

The Usu swiveled its head slightly, turning as though it didn’t have The Drop’s muzzle gaping just centimeters from its face.

“Perfection,” it said.

It turned back to me. “If you are waiting for me to show remorse or anything but satisfaction that I have played my role in Calamity eventually and inevitably achieving that, then you will be disappointed.”

I squeezed the trigger and blew the Usu’s head apart—

In my mind. It was a dark, vicious, and viscerally satisfying fantasy, one that I shamelessly indulged for a moment.

Then I stepped back, out of the cell, Torina and Perry giving way for me. Icky was well back, shifting from foot to foot in nervous anticipation of combat. Her hammer dangled easily in one hand, her face a dark glare of incipient anger.

“Sorry, I’ve seen Se7en,” I said to everyone. And myself.

“I do not understand the reference—”

“No, of course you don’t.” I punched the control to shut the cell door, then hit the intercom under the display that showed the cell’s interior.

“You’ll be taken to Anvil Dark and arraigned on your original charges, plus additional charges related to your attack on this ship and crew. You’ll be judged fairly, and if there is any justice, you will be executed. That part of it, though—” I looked down at The Drop, at the Moonsword. “That part of it is out of my hands.”

The Usu’s voice hummed from the speaker. “Calamity judged this outcome to be considerably less than fifty percent probable.”

“Not so perfect after all, is it?”

“Nonetheless, my part in achieving its end-state is complete,” the Usu said, then toppled lifelessly to the floor of the cell. I opened it back up, but sure enough, the thing was dead.

“It just… died. It killed itself,” Torina said.

I nodded. “Yeah, it did. Because it had done its part.” I took a long, slow breath, let it out, and turned to her. “And that’s what we’re up against.”

I headed back forward, placing my weapons on the table in the crew lounge as I passed it.

“Van?”

I stopped and looked back. Perry perched on the back of the couch.

“You did the right thing back there.”

I looked aft. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to. I wanted to blow its—” I caught myself. “Blow his head off his shoulders.”

“But you didn’t. And I actually thought you would. Gotta be honest, Van—I’m proud of you.”

“I didn’t get that thing you said, though,” Torina put in. “About seeing Se7en?”

“Oh. It’s an Earthly movie. A really, really bad criminal—”

“Hey, spoiler alert. I just got Icky’s Netflix password, and I intend to use it,” Perry said, provoking a glimmer of a smile out of me.

“A really bad criminal manipulates a policeman into killing him in a fit of vengeful rage. That was the criminal’s plan all along, and it destroys the cop as a result.”

“You think Calamity was expecting you to kill the Usu. Wanted you to.”

I exhaled slowly. “Yeah. That would have been the evil icing on a dark, vengeful cake.”

I turned and resumed my way to the cockpit.

“Come on, guys. We’ve got work to do.”

Icky cleared her throat. “This might not be the right time but—”

I didn’t even slow down. “No, big girl. Revenge Cake isn’t a real thing.”

She swore softly. “Dammit. Okay, then. Back to war we go. With no cake.”

* * *

Perry and Netty-P agreed that Netty’s cunning measure to trap Calamity in a netherworld of endlessly repeating the same thing over and over and over again was a sound one. Calamity had no reason to look for a way out of it because it wasn’t aware that it was trapped to begin with. It led Funboy to voice an ominous observation.

“That may be true for all of us. We may be perpetually living through this moment, me saying this, and have been for… millennia. Longer. We’d have no way of knowing. Which means that our existence is ultimately even more pointless than it might seem.”

A long silence followed, which Icky broke.

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel a whole lot better now.”

The downside was that we had no way of extricating her, and, therefore, the Fafnir herself, from that. Trying to do so might allow Calamity to break free and infect the rest of the ship. As long as we left it alone, Netty’s clever trap would continue to operate forever. Even damage to some of the Fafnir’s systems wouldn’t disrupt it, as they’d be accommodated by autonomous error-correcting functions. Enough damage would disrupt it, but Netty-P and Icky figured it would have to be so severe that the Fafnir was pretty much a write-off anyway.

So we had this weird, unseen digital cold war raging inside the Fafnir, one that functioned like the movie Groundhog Day, except Bill Murray’s character never becomes aware that he’s living the same day over and over. It also meant we had to live with that, relying on Netty-P to do all the things that Netty would normally have done.

“It’s a good thing that you and Netty made her happen, I guess,” Rab said. I nodded, but I wasn’t really hearing him. Instead, I heard the ponderous intonation of Matterforge when it had offered its typically diffuse insights into the very idea of creating Netty-P in the first place.

But it matters profoundly, Van Tudor. It will be one of the most consequential decisions you will ever make, to the limit of my ability to see such things. Quite likely the most consequential. You hold the future in your hands and have the rare opportunity to shape it according to the next movements of them.

That was a statement with cosmic implications, ones that wouldn’t even fit inside my limited human brain. I just shelved it for now, though, because we had issues that were way more immediately pressing. And practical.

Like how the Usu had infected the ship in the first place. It turned out to be trivially simple, a gap in our security so glaring, and yet so obvious, our overlooking it in light of Calamity seemed almost… comically incompetent.

The holding cells contained waste reclamators. They were, of course, hooked into the ship’s waste-recycling system. And that was a gaping pathway into the rest of the Fafnir. We’d simply never anticipated someone physically bringing Calamity aboard the ship and infecting her that way. For now, Icky disconnected the reclamators in the cells and rigged them into a sort of local storage mode—but that was very much a barn door closing as the horse vanished over the horizon.

Then, there was the matter of the Usu carrying the virus in the first place. Was this another one-off, the actions of a lone wolf, or was there some greater collaboration between the Usu and Calamity going on? I let Kragdalous know, out on Reverie, feeling a little bad that I was loading yet another security headache onto him. But he also had a lot of GKU resources headed his way, so he should be able to cope.

I then called up Gerhardt to let him know what had happened.

“So I guess we should plan to mothball the Fafnir for the time being, and—I don’t know, maybe use the Object 6 in the meantime,” I said.

But Gerhardt shook his head. “No. Based on Perry and Netty-P’s assessment that you shared, your situation seems stable for the time being. And given that there’s such a steep price on your head and those of your crew, I think you need to have access to the grav-plating and combi-drive installed in the Fafnir. It could prove decisive if you’re forced to defend yourselves against a determined attack.”

I sat back in my desk chair. “But we’re flying around with an active version of Calamity on board. That makes the Fafnir a potential threat everywhere she goes.”

“So pretend you’re paranoid about the virus and are insisting on strict quarantine measures wherever you go. You’d be far from the only ship in known space doing that. The fact that you’re in quarantine is intended to keep Calamity in instead of keeping it out is a detail that no one has to know.”

“You sound like you really want us to stay flying in the Fafnir.” I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

Gerhardt offered a small shrug. “Your report said that the Usu claimed the virus was trying to strike at you psychologically. That means it at least understands the concept of psychology—”

I crossed my arms. “So by carrying on as though it’s business as usual, it has no idea what went wrong. How we were able to prevent it from taking the Fafnir out of action.”

“It, and whatever collaborators and minions it has out there. If they believe you can detect and thwart the virus, that’s going to factor prominently into their plans, isn’t it?”

“You’ve got a diabolical mind, Master Gerhardt.”

“In this job, you need one. Keep me apprised. Oh, and by the way—I’m sorry about Netty, Tudor. She has sacrificed herself for as noble a purpose as any Peacemaker I’ve known. Even if we can’t memorialize her on the Wall of Remembrance, consider her to be there anyway. I know I will.”

“When she flashed her explanation of what she was doing on the Fafnir’s main display for Perry and Netty-P to read, she ended it—”

I had to stop and swallow. My throat hurt.

“She finished by saying, I love you all, goodbye. Five words, sir. And a lot of years gone in a flash.” I shook my head in disgust. “Gone, Gerhardt. All of her. Like she was never even here.”

Gerhardt stared for a moment but said nothing. Finally, he nodded and signed off.

* * *

“So that’s it? We’re just going to fly around with Calamity stuck inside the ship, as though nothing’s happened?” Icky asked.

I looked around at the rest of the crew in the lounge. My people were hurting. But they were still ready to fight, and that meant I had to be crystal clear about what our next steps would be, lest I waste the effort and will of the best crew ever. “We are. Netty sacrificed herself as surely as Rolis and Zeno did, and they all did it for a reason—so we can keep on fighting the good fight. Their sacrifice was not forgotten, and nor will hers be left behind, dammit.”

I stayed well away from the elephant in the room, the fact that Netty wasn’t really dead. Rather, what remained of her was locked in some perpetual twilight existence as a sort of immortal prison guard, consigned to forever watching over a pernicious and equally immortal prisoner. It was a punishment of such hideous necessity, I couldn’t think it through without my hands balling into fists.

It wasn’t fair.

I turned to Netty-P. “Effective immediately, you are Netty—”

“I’d prefer, Van, that you not call me that.”

I smiled. “I wasn’t going to, Netty-P. I’m just saying that you’ll do everything she did aboard the Fafnir. That said, though, I want you and Perry to put a priority on developing measures to ensure that neither of you gets compromised by Calamity. I’m prepared to accept that Netty has the damned thing thoroughly trapped, but not enough to completely let our guard back down. We missed the waste reclamator thing in the holding cells, and that’s what got us here. I refuse to miss anything else.”

I turned back to the crew at large. “As for what’s next, well, we’re going to drop the Usu’s body at Anvil Dark for examination, just in case it can give up anything useful about the virus or the Usu connection to it. And then, we’re going to a wedding.”

3

We dumped the Usu at Anvil Dark but didn’t stick around any longer than it took us to refuel and get back underway. I didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary to avoid word of the Fafnir’s situation somehow getting out—particularly among other AIs. More to the point, none of us wanted to spend time there. It was too officious, too gloomy, too—too much a Peacemaker place. We needed a break from being Peacemakers and were anxious to get on with Icky’s wedding. So we set course for Helso instead, then we were redirected by a call from Urnak.

“Urnak wants us to meet him where?” I asked Icky when she came into the cockpit.

“Easier if I show you,” she replied, before reaching between Torina and me and tapping at the display to call up the master star chart, then zooming in to a place that was—nowhere. It was just a seemingly random spot about five light-years away from Tau Ceti, the closest civilization. I stared at it for a moment, then at Icky.

“Urnak wants us to meet him where?”

Icky grinned. “There’s a teeny little rogue planet there. Probably more a rogue asteroid. Anyway, there’s a boneyard for old ships around it. It’s called Warranty.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Warranty. So why is this place not marked on the chart?”

“On any chart, for that matter,” Netty-P added. “There’s no intel I can find about it.”

“Me neither. You’ve been holding out on us,” Perry said.

Icky shrugged. “Yeah, I kinda have. Warranty is a special type of boneyard. See, all the registered ones have lots of rules about what they can sell, and they keep registration numbers and track stuff and—”

“Follow the established law, you mean,” Torina said.

“Well—yeah. But that doesn’t work for everyone who’s into rebuilding or restoring ships. Sometimes, you just need that one part that used to be available on the open market but later on got—”

“Restricted?” I suggested.

“Or banned?” Perry offered, eager to help.

“Made unavailable thanks to bureaucracy,” Icky said. “That’s how Dad puts it. Anyway, Warranty is a place where people looking for specific things can find them without, well—”

“Obeying the law,” Torina said, smiling.

“You know, when you put it like that, you make it sound like Dad’s—”

“Not obeying the law.”

“Yeah.”

“But he’s not, Icky, based on what you’re saying. I mean, how much of the stuff that goes through this place is illegal for good reason? Because it’s dangerous? Or can be used to help commit other crimes?” I asked her.

“Yeah, I know. And it’s bugged me that Dad keeps doing business with this place even after I started working for you. But, he’s kind of stuck. A lot of the existing scrappers and salvagers won’t do business with him anymore.”

I half turned in my seat. “This story just keeps getting better and better. Please, do go on, Icky.”

She stood back from the center console and sighed. “Dad has had it rough. You know that. His one thing, his only way he knew to try and make something for himself and me, after my mother screwed him over so badly, was the Nemesis. He made it his life’s work to get that big old tub working again. It became… his passion, I guess. Almost an obsession. But, I don’t know—I think he figured he’d failed at everything else he’d done, so he was determined he wasn’t going to fail at that.”

“Okay…”

“He started bargaining hard for parts for the Nemesis. And when that wouldn’t work, he—well—”

“Stole them.”

“Pretty much.”

“How did he manage to not get reported to local law enforcement? Or the Guild?” Torina asked.

Icky smirked. “Let’s just say that scrappers and salvagers aren’t the most honest profession around. Dad always said that the first thing he did when he started dealing with one was sniff out the, ah, shadier sides of their business. It wasn’t hard. He knew exactly what to look for.”

“So when his fingers finally got sticky, they closed their doors to him—”

“With the understanding that they wouldn’t scratch his back if he didn’t scratch theirs, yeah.”

“So what makes this Warranty place any different?” I asked.

“Dad doesn’t do that anymore. He wants something, he pays money for it,” Icky said, sounding a little aggrieved.

I held up my hands to head off any further outrage by Icky on her father’s behalf. “Okay, fine. The last thing I want to do is confront your dad over crimes that have no complainants, no evidence, with the only witnesses being people who aren’t going to testify anyway because they’re allergic to law enforcement or court rooms.” I frowned up at Icky. “But Urnak could have met us anywhere. Why at this place, which is clearly working outside the law?”

“It is kind of like inviting your friend the cop along to watch some old buddies do some breaking and entering. If there are illegal things going on, Van has no choice but to act on them,” Perry added.

“It’s his way of atoning.”

We all turned to the speaker, Gabby, who was standing in the back of the cockpit. She stared back, looking awkward.

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t meaning to eavesdrop, but you’re talking right out in the—!”

I interrupted her before she got rambling. “No, Gabby, it’s fine. What do you mean?”

“Oh. Well, if Icky’s father did these… well, things, in his past, this is probably his way of coming clean to you, Van. He wants you to know about it, so it’s not a secret Icky has to keep from you.”

I had to agree. “That makes sense, actually.”

“So, what, he’s also gift wrapping this Warranty operation for you as a sort of peace offering? So you can shut it down and make arrests and things?” Torina asked.

But Gabby shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’d say it’s more that he’s giving Van the opportunity to do whatever he thinks is best. I mean, if Van just lets this place keep operating, then whoever’s running it will know he’s got a Peacemaker watching him, right? So he’ll tend to stay away from at least the really bad stuff? And that way, Van gets to have an informant who’s connected to all this shady spaceship parts stuff.”

I nodded again. “Two for two, Gabby. You’re on fire today.”

“I’m on fire? What? No, I don’t think so. I’m sure I’d notice—”

“Figure of speech, Gabby,” I said, chuckling. Our translators were pretty good at handling idioms in the languages they supported. But if a particular culture just didn’t have an equivalent one, then the device could only do a literal translation—sometimes with hilarious results.

I turned back forward. “Okay, Netty-P, change of plans. Let’s twist our way to Warranty—which is pretty, and probably intentionally ironic, because whatever warranty they offer probably expires the instant you undock.”

“But for a low fee, you can buy their extended service plan,” Perry said.

“Yeah, I don’t fall for that back on Earth, either.”

* * *

As we were preparing to head to Warranty, we got a call from Jamberac. He was beside himself with anger and guilt. The emergency that had brought him hurrying back from Reverie had been faked. When he’d put in a call about it to Gerhardt, he’d learned the awful truth—he’d been used as a means of delivering the Usu, and Calamity with it, to us.

“Van, I am so—I just—”

He was practically in tears. I shook my head. “We both got screwed over by this, Jamberac. You don’t have anything to apologize to me about.”

“But I was the one—”

“Who was duped, yeah. Just like I was duped into taking the Usu off your hands. It’s been a disaster—I’m not denying that—but it’s been a disaster we can both learn from. I know I’m going to be looking at every situation with a way more critical eye, and I suspect you will be, too.”

He managed a grim nod. “I am. And I’m going to find whoever’s responsible for it, and see that they’re—I want to say brought to justice, but right now, I’d be happy to just laser them into glowing dust.”

“I hear you, trust me.”

Before I signed off, I did my best to reassure him again that I wasn’t blaming him for what happened. But my own words stuck with me afterward.

I’m going to be looking at every situation with a way more critical eye.

Damned right. And that would start with our trip to Warranty.

* * *

To that end, we decided to twist short of Warranty and proceed the rest of the way in the Frankie. If Gabby was right, then showing up in all of our obvious Peacemaker glory would probably send out word to the universe that Warranty had been made by the cops. I could definitely see the value in having an informant in the spaceship parts gray—and black—markets.

We twisted in to find the place was pretty much as advertised—a rock about thirty klicks long and maybe half that wide, sailing its lonely way through space. Netty-P figured it had been kicked out of its home system by some ancient cataclysm and was now on a long journey toward the galactic core. In the meantime, though, it had been taken over as the base of operations for the boneyard, a series of mismatched domes and modules constructed on its surface. A cloud of derelict ships in various stages of dismantling hung in space all around it. There were dozens of them, and probably hundreds more individual components.

“Sabuko—he’s the guy who runs the place, a Nesit—has dug down into the rock, so about half of his operation is underground,” Icky said as we closed in on the place. I’d brought her, Perry, and Rab, leaving the others on the Fafnir with their proverbial fingers hovering over the twist button. With no gravitation to speak of, they could translate right in on top of us if they needed to, in case things went south.

Rab, co-piloting, nodded at the comm panel. “Looks like someone wants to talk to us.”

I nodded, noting the incoming message. At the same time, a fire control scanner lit us up.

“If you don’t answer him in, like, the next thirty seconds or so, he’s gonna start shooting,” Icky said, her tone matter-of-fact.

“Yeah, well, I’d prefer that he doesn’t.” I opened the channel. At once, an irascible voice came on.

“What’s the current code word?”

I glanced at Icky, who shrugged. “Oops. Forgot about that. Yeah, he uses code words to know who’s legit. Sorry!”

I shrugged back at her and returned to the comm. “The current codeword is, Hi, I’m Van Tudor, a Peacemaker, let me send you my credentials.”

A long pause, then, “Well, dammit. Guess it wasn’t going to last forever. Nothing ever does,” said the voice.

“Very fatalistic of you, if not vaguely French. However, this isn’t a raid. It’s more of a courtesy call. I’m meeting someone here, apparently a sometimes customer of yours. He’s a Wu'tzur named Urnak.”

“Urnak? Haven’t seen him in a while. He’s not here right now, anyway.”

“That’s fine. We’ll wait. However, I’d much prefer to do it without your targeting scanners glaring in my eyes,” I said, my tone flat.

“Oh. Right. Sorry about that,” the voice, which I presumed was Sabuko’s, replied. A moment later, the scanners went dark.

Another long pause.

“So… how was the flight?” Sabuko finally asked.

I laughed. “Tell you what. Why don’t we come aboard, and I can tell you all about it.”

* * *

Sabuko, as it turned out, was as ornery as he came across on the comm. Still, he had a certain irascible charm to him, kind of like Clint Eastwood’s character in—well, just about every Clint Eastwood movie. If I had to pick one, though, it would be Blondie from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

“So how much is this gonna cost me?” Sabuko asked as soon as we exited the Frankie and stepped into his rustic little station.

“Cost you?” I asked, curling my lip a little at the rusty, damp smell of the place.

“Yeah. I’m assuming you are here to collect some sort of fee to look the other way.”

I shook my head. “Not how I do business, my friend. For one, I really am here to meet Urnak—”

“Who must’ve been the one to give me up, the bastard.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but also not the point. What is the point is you giving me enough information to keep me interested in other things. Because, if you don’t—well, then, I’ll get bored, and if I get bored, I might have to find something to relieve that boredom, like an arrest—”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. I get it. I’m your stooge now.”

“I prefer resource person. And really, all I want from you, Sabuko, is a heads-up if anyone either comes looking to sell or looking for parts they really shouldn’t have. That’s especially anything military-grade, and particularly if they happen to be Trinduk. Keep me convinced you’re doing that in good faith and refrain from any, um, egregious transactions of your own, and we’ll get along just fine.”

The grumpy Nesit—who reminded him of a bad-tempered Rocky the Flying Squirrel from Bullwinkle—crossed his arms and shrugged. “So, just to be clear, someone shows up with power-transfer modules that accidentally got their serial numbers filed off, you’re not interested. Someone shows up looking for a sustained-fire petawatt laser battery, give you a call.”

“We understand each other perfectly.”

He shrugged again. “Yeah, I can live with that. B’etinul, you get that?” he called over his shoulder.

Another figure stepped out of a nearby rough-hewn corridor. It was a Skel.

“You bet. Got it, boss,” he said, nodding quickly. Maybe a little too quickly, in fact.

I always tried very hard to not generalize an entire race based on one or a few individuals. I’d known awful Gajur, Nesit, and even humans, but I knew there were many, many more of each that were good and decent people. Hell, most Trinduk weren’t Sorcerers.

But when it came to the Skels, it was hard not to think that the whole race was just scuzzy by nature. No one was sure of their origins, they seemed to have no culture of their own, and they appeared to show up the fringes of other societies and immediately turn to crime and corruption as their way of life. There were rumors that the rail-thin, perpetually breathing-masked aliens had a homeworld out there somewhere, but no one knew where. In its absence, a whole bunch of other rumors and urban legends had sprung up about them. I’d heard that they were the product of a strange virus that reshaped other races into Skels, that they were fungal beings that just kind of popped up the way fruit flies seem to spawn out of nowhere around an old banana, that they were manufactured to function as spies for some shadowy organization—the list of bizarre musings went on and on.

Icky glared at this one, named B’etinul. “You make a habit of skulking in the shadows and listening to other people’s conversations?”

“Yes.”

“You—really?” She glanced at me. “You know, I wasn’t expecting him to just admit to that.”

Rab, still aboard the Frankie, cut in over the comm. “Van, a ship just twisted in. It’s Urnak.”

“Thanks, Rab.” I turned back to Sabuko. “Well, I think our business is concluded here. Perry will provide you with the information you need to contact us—”

Rab cut in again. “Van, Urnak’s under attack.”

I swore, then turned and hurried back into the Frankie, Icky and Perry right behind me.

* * *

I hit the thrusters as Perry activated the Frankie’s grav-plating, snapping us around in a spin. Then I hit the drive and powered up the fire-control scanners, making it clear to the two ships attacking Urnak that we were on the way.

“Van, call Torina and get the Fafnir in on this!” Icky called, her fingers trembling over the weapons controls.

“Perry, do that, please and thank you. Meantime”—I looked at the tactical overlay. Because there were no gravitational limits on twisting in and around Warranty, Urnak and his attackers were already well inside our weapons range—“Icky, you may fire—”

She opened up, blasting a fusillade of laser fire at one of the attacking ships.

“—at will.”

Urnak had already taken several hits, debris whirling away from his small ship. I swore. “Why didn’t he bring the damned Nemesis?”

“She burns a lot of fuel to twist around, so he was probably trying to save on antimatter,” Rab said.

I swore again as Urnak took another staccato series of laser hits. He was still in control, though, and put the gutted remains of a freighter between him and his tormentors. It bought him valuable time, enough that one of his attackers broke off and came at us. The other doggedly pursued him.

And split their force.

“Bad move, friend,” I murmured.

Icky landed hits on the ship charging us, while I jinked us hard, the Frankie’s movements amplified by the grav-plating. Again, it threw off our opponent’s aim, his fire-control system not anticipating our ability to accelerate so quickly. He finally landed a hit square on the Frankie’s prow with a particle beam, flinging debris and a cloud of vaporized alloy across the canopy.

“Where the hell is the Fafnir?” Icky shouted, pounding at the weapons panel as she shot. I turned to Perry, but a new icon popped onto the overlay. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t the Fafnir, though. It was B.

“Van, have you got that asshole handled?” she asked, coming on the comm.

Icky’s relentless fire and the Frankie’s nimble dodging had quickly swung the firefight in our favor. By the time we swept by the attacking ship, it had been battered into silence. I ignored it and pressed on to help Urnak.

Our assistance was not required.

B had already won the fight, and in a savage fashion. Her ship quickly overwhelmed the remaining attacker—missile-laser-cannon-missile seemed to be her flavor of the day—first battering it into quiescence, then blowing it apart in a searing flash.

There was no celebration as B immediately came back on the comm. “Van, go get that other asshole. I’ll take care of Urnak.”

“Wait,” I said and turned to Icky. “Your call. We go after the other one who attacked your dad, or we go to your dad.”

Icky stared back at me. I could see her warring emotions fight out their battle on her face. She wanted to kill whoever had attacked her father. But Urnak might even now be dying, so if she wanted to see him before he did—

She took a shuddering breath and yanked her hands away from the weapons panel. “To my dad. It doesn’t matter if those other scumbags get away because I will find them and I will kill them.”

I nodded and applied thrust, putting the Frankie on an intercept course with Urnak’s ship. As I did, Perry spoke up.

“Actually, Icky, even if the other ship does manage to twist away, it’s not like you won’t have a lead.”

“What do you mean?”

“How did they know Urnak was coming here?”

“He—” She stopped, a frown creasing her face. “He never told anyone if he was coming here because, well, duh. That’s kinda the whole point. So they followed him somehow—”

“Or somebody tipped them off,” Rab said.

Icky’s frown shifted into a glare. “Once I know my dad’s gonna be okay, Van, let’s go after that other ship. And if it gets away in the meantime, then I wanna pay a visit to Sabuko and his Skel buddy.”

I started decelerating the Frankie, then switched control over to the flight system to finish the delicate part of maneuvering us alongside Urnak’s ship. We could see that it was heavily damaged, blast scars marring the torn hull plating. But B was already there, easing in alongside. This was some delicate maneuvering, considering we were in the midst of a debris field of old spaceships and parts. And even though there were hundreds, and in some cases thousands of klicks between them, it still felt awfully congested.

“What I want to know is where the Fafnir is,” I said, switching back to her comm channel. “Torina? Dear? What happened?”

I was relieved when she replied right away, meaning the Fafnir hadn’t somehow been attacked as well. “We were about to ride to the rescue when B called and said to hold on. She figured you wanted to keep the Fafnir away from Warranty, and that she’d call if you guys needed us.”

After relief, I’d been ready to be angry, but all I could do was say, “Ah, okay.” It had been a good call, but it just led to another question, one that prompted me to put Torina on hold and switch back to B, who was now docking with Urnak’s ship.

“B, what the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

“She does have a knack for showing up out of nowhere,” Perry muttered.

“I’ve been tailing you guys for a while now,” she replied.

“Why?”

“Because you’ve got a bazillion bond bounty on your heads. That’s bound to attract some bad guys, so we figured you could use some protection.”

“We?”

“Yeah, the 32. Hey, when you sign up, you get more than a membership card and the key to the executive john. Lunzy and I are taking turns since our ships both have the best stealth systems.”

“So why the hell didn’t you tell us you were out there? Why keep it a secret?”

“Because if you didn’t know we were out here, then there was no way that fact could leak out to any bad guys—especially considering that extra, unwanted passenger the Fafnir’s carrying. And before you get all shitty about me knowing about it, Valint and your mother figured the circle of knowledge had to be expanded a bit. They’re your mom and grandma, Van. They were worried about you. And now, I’ve got a patient to tend to.”

She signed off as her ship achieved a hard dock with Urnak’s.

I sat back. “You know, much as it’s nice to have people looking out for us, I’m a little concerned that B and Lunzy have been able to tail us without us knowing about it. I mean, if they can do it, so can other not-so-nice people.” I turned to Perry. “When we get back to the Fafnir, talk to Netty-P. I’d like you guys to come up with some way of seeing through these damned stealth systems.”

“They’re stealth systems, Van. Not being able to see through them is kinda the point,” Perry replied.

“Then it’s a challenge for you.”

“Yay, a challenge. What fun.”

Funboy spoke over the comm. “Leave the enthusiastic overreactions to me, please.”

Icky pushed between us and hit the comm channel to B. “It’s Icky. As soon as you know if my dad—I mean, how he is—”

“I’ve got him, Icky. He’s alive. Hurt, but alive. I’m getting him aboard my ship now. I’ll let you know more when I know it.”

Icky flopped back. “I hope—” She shook her head.

I patted her arm. “He’s in B’s hands, Icky. And they’re the best around.”

She just gave me a weak smile and nodded.

4

Unfortunately, the other ship was able to twist away. So while we waited to hear more from B, we returned to Warranty.

We had questions. Icky had her hammer.

I was ready for Sabuko to refuse our docking, but he didn’t, and moreover, he seemed genuinely concerned if we were okay. He’d powered up his weapons and was ready to open fire if he thought we needed his help. That alone went a long way to convincing me that he had nothing to do with the attack. What he said next was even more interesting, though.

“B’etinul was really gunning for the bastards attacking you. He really wanted to destroy that ship of theirs that got away. I told him that we don’t destroy damaged ships as they’re retreating, especially since you probably wanted to take them alive. He practically pushed me away from the weapons controls, though.”

I glanced at the others, who all just gave me a look back. “You know, Sabuko, B’etinul’s enthusiasm about destroying that ship—”

“Might be because he had something to do with it and didn’t want to leave any witnesses alive?”

“The thought did occur.”

“No shit. I’ve been around the celestial block. Anyway, that’s why he’s now laying in a heap on my deck, stunned and nicely trussed up. Consider him a down payment on our new business relationship.”

I smiled. Sabuko might be an ornery old grump, but I liked him. “Much appreciated, Sabuko. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“He’ll be here—oh, look at that. He’s waking up. Hey, B’etinul. The nice Peacemaker’s coming to have a talk with you. Isn’t that wonderful?”

A pause.

“Hmm. Don’t think he considers that wonderful at all.”

* * *

We took B’etinul into custody, Icky tossing him gagged and trussed up into the aft end of the Frankie’s crew compartment. As she did, Rab leaned close to me.

“You know, Van, it’s still possible that Sabuko was in on it, too. I mean, what are you going to do if B’etinul over there claims he was?”

“Oh, I suspect he will, or he’ll try, anyway.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not getting that Sabuko is that sort of guy. He reminds me more of Urnak. That’s probably why they got along. They’re a couple of cranky old farts who like being cranky old farts together.”

“Van, B here.”

Icky was reaching for B’etinul’s gag but stopped and looked at me. I looked right back at her.

“Go ahead, B.”

“Urnak’s pretty badly hurt, but he’ll pull through. I’ve got him stable and sedated, and I’ve taken care of his worst injuries. He’s going to be out of action for at least a couple of weeks, though, unless someone’s going to spring for some really expensive rapid-regeneration therapy.”

I saw relief wash over Icky’s face. As I thanked B for the update, she turned on the Skel.

“Okay, you scrawny little shithead, I’m going to take that gag out of your mouth. And when I do, the very first words out of it are going to be an explanation—what, why, who, when, where, all of it. Do you understand?”

The Skel seemed to be trying to glare back at her, but with his goggled mask, it was hard to tell. His mask also only covered his eyes and nose. His teeth, clenched on the gag, were small, yellowed, and square, lending him the look of a discount Halloween mask. He seemed to realize that trying to out-glare the looming mountain of blue fur, slabs of muscle, and desire to really, really hurt someone wasn’t going to cut it. Finally he nodded, and Icky removed the gag, her knuckles cracking like gunshots as she flexed her big, capable hands, waiting for him to speak.

“All I know is that someone gave me money to open a certain comm channel and tell whoever was at the other end when Urnak was on his way here. And his ETA. That’s it, seriously, that’s all I—mmph!”

Icky left her hand on the gag. “See, saying someone gave you money isn’t good enough. The money came into your grubby, miserable little hands somehow. So now you’re going to tell me exactly how.”

She removed the gag and the Skel turned to me. “I have rights—!”

“Which are not currently being violated. You’re in lawful custody, you’re restrained because you pose a potential risk otherwise, and you’re being interrogated by a bonded Peacemaker Auxiliary who’s duly registered with the Guild.” I turned to Perry. “How’d I do?”

“Hundred percent, boss. You’re gonna put me out of a job.”

“Okay, let’s try this again,” Icky said, leering menace into B’etinul’s goggled face. “Who gave you the money? And how?”

“About… a week ago, a ship comes in, looking for parts. They send me a message that they’re going to leave some money in one of the wrecks for me if I open a certain comm channel and tell them about Urnak. And they’ll leave me more after… um—”

“He was dead,” Icky said, her tone flat.

“Yeah—no! I, mean mmmph—”

I turned to Perry, who answered right away. “Sabuko’s scanner data from about a week ago. On it, boss.”

“See, you’re still useful. You’re not out of a job yet.”

“Whaddya mean yet?”

I smiled and told Icky to secure the prisoner for transport back to the Fafnir.

“Hey! Whaddya mean yet?”

* * *

We docked with B’s ship so that Icky could visit her father. While there, Perry retrieved Sabuko’s scanner data and quickly isolated the imagery we wanted. When we had it, Icky left her father’s bedside and joined us in B’s crew lounge, where Perry was putting the imagery on the big display. His wing tapped the control once, then twice.

“Here we are,” Perry murmured. The display opened an image centered on the dismantled, scarred hulk of an old tramp freighter. Another ship, a class 4 or 5 workboat, slid into the image from the top right. We watched as it halted maybe twenty meters from the wreck, then a figure disembarked and crossed, spent a moment on the wreck, then returned. The workboat eased itself apart from the wreck, then accelerated away.

“That must have been the Skel’s payment getting dropped,” B said, crossing her arms.

I nodded. “Perry, please tell me that ship was broadcasting a transponder—”

“Hahaha, you’re funny, Van. What do you think?”

“—or there’s some other way of identifying it.”

“If there isn’t, I’ll find it—eventually,” Icky growled.

“Actually, you’re in luck. There’s a temporary patch of hull plating covering up the registry info, and there are no other identifying marks. It’s just a nondescript, off-the-shelf class 5 workboat, probably identical to a few thousand across known space,” Perry said.

I gave him a pointed look. “In what way does any of that mean we’re in luck?”

“Because we know Sabuko’s scanners collected power-emission and drive-signature data. And there’s a match between that ship and emissions signature data in the Guild files. That ship, it seems, appeared briefly on the scene of a stakeout related to an entirely different Guild operation and got recorded as a matter of course.”

“So who is it?” Icky asked.

“Assuming that it still has the same owners, that ship belongs to a Wu'tzur named Keledik.”

Icky stared blankly. “A Wu'tzur. Okay. There are, like, six billion of us. Believe it or not, I don’t instantly recognize that name.”

“No, but you’ll recognize the name of his brother. It’s Toxon.”

Icky kept staring, then howled and unlimbered her hammer. I jumped in and grabbed one of her arms. It was like trying to restrain the arm of a backhoe, but with Rab lunging and hanging onto her other arm, we at least made her pause.

“Icky, I’ll call up Sabuko, buy a piece of wreckage from him, take you to it, and let you hammer it into a shiny metal sphere! But do not break B’s ship!”

“Or anyone aboard it, for that matter,” Perry said—after he’d flown off to a safe distance. “That’s an order. Or else!”

“Yeah, not breaking my ship would be nice,” B put in. “So who’s this Toxon character, besides someone Icky obviously wants to pummel into stardust. Or, um, starpaste?”

I glanced back at her but kept holding onto Icky’s arm. “He’s a former teacher of Icky’s who—who doesn’t know when it’s time to throw in the towel. Last we heard, he’d lost his job after trying to weaponize some—Icky, would you calm down? Anyway, he tried to weaponize some bullshit ancient Wu'tzur laws to wreck her marriage and ruin her father. He just ended up screwing himself over, though.”

“Ah, revenge. Along with greed and space boners, it’s one of the three fundamental forces of the universe.”

“You guys can let go of me now,” Icky said.

I looked up at her. “You’re not going to break anything?”

“Or anyone?” Rab put in.

“Not here. But when I find Toxon—”

I turned to Perry. “You’d better put a call in to the Wu'tzur magistrates. They need to arrest Toxon, and not just because he’s a petty, vindictive piece of shit who’s now guilty of conspiring to commit murder.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“I don’t think Rab and I can hold Icky back forever.”

* * *

Sabuko took custody of Urnak’s ship, offering to repair it and keep it safe until he could come and reclaim it. I offered him money, but he just waved it off.

“Nah. It was my asshole employee at least partly behind it, and besides, Urnak’s an old friend—even if he did give me up to a damned Peacemaker. Oh, and when he’s feeling up to it, tell him to give me a call so I can personally give him shit for that.”

“I will,” I said, smiling as I signed off.

We returned to the Fafnir with B in company. On the way, Icky put a call in to Paxomar to let him know what had happened. His reaction was a little more restrained than Icky’s, but not much. And even though he was a lot smaller than she was, seeing his muscles tense and flex with rage made me realize that even a “small and nerdy” Wu'tzur could probably snap me like a breadstick.

When he calmed down, he sighed. “We have to postpone the wedding.”

Icky shook her head. “We can’t. It’s all set—”

Torina, who’d been listening in on the comm, intervened. “I’ve already let my parents know, Icky. They say to take as long as you need. Their estate will be waiting for you and Paxomar when you’re ready.”

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna wait—!”

“Icky, if it was my dad, what would you be telling me?”

She slumped morosely. “To wait.”

“And wouldn’t you rather have your dad there, on his feet, not sprawled out, only half-recovered from his injuries.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then.”

Icky maintained her hangdog look for a moment, then stiffened. “I’m gonna kill Toxon. I swear it. I’m gonna knock that stupid head of his right off his shoulders.”

“And I want you to do that. Hell, I want to do that. But we’re not going to, because I don’t want to be visiting my new wife in prison.”

Paxomar signed off, and we flew in silence for a moment.

“Bird?” Icky suddenly said.

Perry hopped up on the back of my seat. “Yo.”

“How about going through all that ancient Wu'tzur law again. See if you can find a legal way for me to turn Toxon into red goo.”

“I’ll see what I can do. And if I can, it’ll be my wedding present to you.”

I glanced from one to the other. “Showing your affection with a legitimate way to inflict a violent death. How… romantic?”

* * *

With Icky’s wedding on hold as Urnak recovered, it was time to turn our attention back to Earth. I was stunned to find that what had just a couple of weeks prior been burning up Earthly media, an “alien invasion” or “first contact,” depending on the perspective, was now widely dismissed as a hoax. Some claimed it was a government plot to distract from the very real problems facing humanity. Others believed it was a corporate conspiracy with some cryptic but undoubtedly profit-driven motive, or viral marketing for an upcoming blockbuster movie or video game. Some suspected it was a ballsy—and well-funded—work of performance art, attributed to a shadowy Portuguese artist known for their cutting edge projects.

Whatever the reason for considering it fake news, it had been widely dismissed as just that, fake news. And now that it had, it had been shoved onto a distant pop culture back burner. The usual twenty-four hour news cycle suspects—war, famine, pestilence, and death—had stepped back onto center stage, in all their dreary glory.

“It’s… incredible,” Tony Burgess said when we’d arrived in the Solar System and I’d called him on the comm unit I’d given him. “I mean, this was what we’d all been waiting for, right? The we come in peace, take us to your leader moment that would change everything. And what happens?” He made his voice nasal and derisive. “Fake news. Lame-stream media. Government propaganda—”

“That’s what I think it is!” Myron said, pushing his face into the display. Tony scowled and shoved him away.

“First of all, Myron, they were freakin’ aliens! You know they were freakin’ aliens! You’ve met freakin’ aliens—!”

Icky pushed into the display at our end. “He has. I know. I was there.”

“And second of all, Myron, go buy some damned breath mints. Your mouth smells like a laundry hamper,” Tony went on.

Myron bristled. “That’s not fair. I’ve been eating nutritional yeast because the snack industry is—"

Tony rolled his eyes and moved Myron back, shushing him with a gesture that, incredibly, seemed to work. Then he turned back to me while I nudged Icky out of the way. “Anyway, the whole thing has subsided to a dull roar, mostly on social media groups and blogs. That’s the good news.”

Marla appeared in the background. “There’s a rumor that someone is going to make a movie about a genuine first contact with aliens that no one believes. That would be extremely meta.”

I nodded but focused on Tony. “You said that’s the good news. That implies that there’s bad news.”

Tony shrugged and adjusted his ubiquitous bowler hat. “Not sure if it’s bad, but I wouldn’t exactly call it good, either. In the midst of all the calls I was suddenly getting from Fox, CNN, and MSNBC—and yes, before you get worried, I did what you asked and forewent my fifteen minutes of fame and turned them all down—I got another visit from our so-called Men in Black.”

“What did they want?”

“That’s the thing. Not much. They just asked us what we thought about the whole alien thing. I fed back some bullshit about how when the aliens finally come, we’ll know it—”

“I told you to tell them that!” Myron called from off-screen.

“Yes, Myron, you did. Anyway, they seemed satisfied with that and went on their way.”

“Sounds pretty innocuous, Tony,” I said.

“Yeah, except these guys aren’t based in, like, Green Bay. They said they came from DC. Appleton’s a long way to come just to have some UFO nuts give you exactly the answer you’d expect from UFO nuts—”

“We are not nuts, Tony! We’re the sane ones!” Myron snapped.

“Well, some of us are, anyway,” Tony muttered, then shrugged again. “I don’t know, it just seemed… off.”

I gave a thoughtful nod. “Yeah. Somebody’s up to something. Any action around that ship you’ve got sitting near Frankenmuth?”

“Nope. Nothing we’ve seen, and nothing’s been detected by those gizmos you set up—unless you count a cow that wandered in through a broken fence and mooched around the barn for clover.”

I glanced at Perry, who was sitting on the back of the Fafnir’s co-pilot’s seat. This was practically his cue for some smart-assed remark. But he just remained silent.

That set a little alarm bell off in my mind. I muted it, but only for now.

“Okay, Tony. Just keep an eye out, especially for anything that might be related to those Men in Black of yours. Somehow, that worries me more than the rest of what’s going on.”

“So you’ve got Earth, like, locked down, right? We don’t really have an invasion fleet or something headed our way? You know, city-sized ships full of stuff with tentacles?”

Icky snorted. “Don’t be anti-tentacular.”

I leaned back, eyebrows up. “Quite the position there, fuzzy.”

She smiled. “I think all creatures deserve a fair shot to invade earth and be pulped by my hammer. Tentacles or not.”

Perry whistled. “Very diplomatic.”

I smiled back at Tony. “No, whoever’s sticking their nose into Earthly business, I doubt they have any aspirations for conquest. Exploitation is more likely. Earth has resources that parties out here want and could be a huge untapped market for off-world tech and goods.”

“When you put it like that, it doesn’t seem all that terrible.”

“Oh, really? Do you want some tinpot dictator getting his grubby hands on tech that could probably enslave an entire continent? A two-bit warlord with more firepower than the whole of the US military? Stuff that could render money obsolete overnight? And that’s not to mention that there might not be any would-be invaders right now, but that could change pretty quickly if it becomes open season on Earth.”

“And don’t forget the probing—lots and lots of probing,” Icky put in.

“Oh, trust me, I will not forget the probing,” Tony replied.

“Anyway, we’ve got Earth pretty well protected right now. No one is getting onto or off of the planet without us knowing about it, and believe me, we’ve got the means to stop them.”

Tony nodded. “Okay, that makes me feel better, I suppose. Have to admit, though, that night sky, all those stars, it kind of creeps me out a little like it never did before. Thinking about what’s out there, you know?”

I nodded back and signed off, thinking you have no idea, Tony. You have no idea.

5

“Van, we’ve got docking clearance from the Stormshadow. Valint is wondering why we’re crossing in the Frankie and not just docking the Fafnir,” Netty-P said.

I turned away from the imposing bulk of Valint’s sleek, dark ship and stood to head aft. The Poltava, Petyr Groshenko’s flagship, hung in space nearby. We’d put the bulk of the Moon between us and Earth, on the off chance of being spotted. It wasn’t likely, of course—space is inconceivably big—but it didn’t hurt to be careful.

I reached the back of the cockpit, following Torina and the others, but noted that Perry hadn’t moved. I stopped, and Torina noticed and stopped as well. I just waved her on.

“Be there shortly.”

She looked from me, to Perry, and back, then nodded. “Take your time.”

“Perry, are you coming?”

He didn’t answer. He could have been a metal sculpture of a bird.

I returned to my seat, lifted the armrest out of the way, and sat down sidesaddle, facing him.

“Perry?”

“I think it’s time for me to retire, Van.”

I stared for a moment, then started to formulate some snarky reply. But instinct caught up with my thoughts and slammed the brakes on that. This wasn’t the time for it.

“Okay. Why?”

“Believe it or not, Van, I’m tired.”

“I believe it.”

His eyes flashed. “Really? No, you can’t be tired, you’re a machine?”

“Is that what I said?”

“No.”

I clasped my hands, resting my arms on my knees and leaning toward him. “I miss her, too.”

He gave me an amber stare for a moment, before he finally spoke. “You know what Icky said to me? She said, don’t worry, we’ve still got Netty-P, and she’s basically Netty anyway, isn’t she?”

“Oh. Perry, I’m sure she didn’t mean—”

“Oh, I know. She was trying, in her ham-fisted, hulking space-ape kind of way to make me feel better. But Netty-P isn’t Netty, Van. Neither is Betty, the version of her installed on the Iowa. She was Netty. And she was my friend. And—”

“And what?”

“And… I let her down, Van. What happened to her happened because of me.”

I frowned my surprise at him. “How do you figure that?”

“The waste reclamator? Seriously? I spent some time controlling that system, Van, as Icky never lets me forget. Thanks to that, I had an intimate knowledge of the damned thing, so I should have foreseen it. I should have known there was a vulnerability and made sure we closed it. But I didn’t. I missed it, and now Netty is… gone. What else have I missed? What else am I going to miss? Who else am I going to be responsible for hurting or—or worse?”

I pursed my lips a moment. And then I shrugged. “I don’t know. Icky, maybe? Torina? Me? All of us?”

“I never thought I’d say this, but you suck at making people feel better, Van. Icky’s clunky stab at it was better than that.”

“That’s because I’m not trying to make you feel better, Perry. Oh, at one time, not even that long ago, I would have come up with some there, there, don’t be so hard on yourself kind of bland, dumb thing to say. But then Rolis happened. And Zeno. Torina and Icky have both been on death’s door. I led us into a near-disaster when we tried to fight the Jackals, and only Urnak and Rektorr pulled us out of the fire.”

I sat up. “I’m not perfect, Perry. Far from it. Hell, I should have thought about the shitters in the holding cells. It’s my ship, after all. Icky should have too. She’s our engineer. In fact, if anyone should have thought of it, it should have been Netty herself.”

Perry said… nothing.

“Perry, look. You’re a machine. Big deal. So am I, and everyone else. The mechanics of it differ, but we’re all just machines. So that part isn’t even relevant here. What is, is the fact that we’re all people. We have free will, which means we have the ability to make bad decisions as well as good ones. We make mistakes. We learn. So welcome to being alive, bird.” I curled my lip at him. “Seriously, has no one ever had this conversation with you before?”

“No, not really. None of the Peacemakers I worked with before you… considered me that way. To them, I was a machine that played the part of a person. And yes, that includes your grandfather. Not that I blame him. He was born and raised in a time when the internal combustion engine was still bleeding-edge tech, practically experimental. I don’t think he ever got past the holy shit, a talking, thinking mechanical bird part of our relationship, but—”

“But?”

Perry’s head tilted slowly. “I don’t think—actually, I know I’m missing things. Years. Memories. You’re different from Mark, but there are similarities that are just at the edge of my memory. It’s like there’s a peripheral world woven from my own years, and because of something that happened, it only comes into focus on a schedule that is… that is not my own. It bothers the hell out of me, and I feel powerless in the face of it.”

I leaned back, smiled, then tapped my own chest. “Somewhere between the soul and this soft machine is a place you know very well indeed. It’s our shared humanity. Beyond sapience. And now, you’re feeling it because it’s a blessing and a curse.”

“No shit. It’s a no-man’s-land in there, Van. I know process. Law. Tactics. But everything else led me to… to losing Netty. And I dread the possibility that it will happen again.”

“Oh, there’s no need for dread. It will happen again. Bet the farm, bird. We’re in a dirty business, and it only gets harder from here on out. We’re not local bumpkins rounding up drunks. We’re entering an arena where our actions have galactic implications. You think I’m happy about that? Finding my best friends, having the good sense to marry the one who loves me back without reservation—and wears pants—”

“You did pick a winner. She’s incandescent,” Perry agreed.

“She is, but she picked me. There’s no choosing a woman like her. It’s in the stars, bird. And just as that joy awaits me, and her—so does the pain. It’s out there, and you know it in those metal bones.”

Perry’s eyes flashed. “You still didn’t answer my question, boss.”

So I did.

“You can retire. If you think that’s what you want, retire. This minute. But we don’t lie to each other, so I’ll just say this. I really hope you won’t.”

“Seriously? You’d just let me, like, leave?”

“Oh, for—bird, have you been listening to me at all? You’re not my property. You’re you. I want you by my side, but only if you want that, too.”

Again, I got a moment of amber stare. “I do miss Netty, Van. She and I—we did a lot together.”

“I know.”

He settled his wings, then something clicked in his chest. Like the closing of a door. In that moment, I knew his mind.

He gestured toward the cockpit door with a wing. “Shall we?”

I smiled as I stood. “Yes, Perry. Yes we shall.”

As we headed aft, I glanced back at him. “Incidentally, if and when you do decide to retire, where exactly will you go? And what will you do?”

“I’m thinking San Marino.”

“You—what? San Marino? Why there?”

“When was the last time you heard anything bad about San Marino?”

“You got me there, bird.”

* * *

I stepped out of the Stormshadow’s airlock and jammed to a halt.

“Mom?”

My mother offered a tired smile. “Hello, Van.”

“You’re… here.”

Valint looked at Torina. “You’re not marrying him for his brains, are you?”

“I thought you were still stuck in bed somewhere, and would be for—all I heard was a long time, and maybe even permanently,” I said, still blinking in surprise.

“That’s only because I’m well-known for my contempt for bionics and the like—if I’d wanted to be a machine, I’d have been born full of sprockets and crankshafts.” She gestured down at herself. “Turns out that facing the prospect of spending the rest of your life in bed can really change your perspective on things. Liver, kidneys, half the muscles between my waist and knees—they all have that new organ smell.”

Petyr Groshenko strode out of a nearby hatchway. “And I arrive just in time to hear that. I’m sure it sounded better in your head, Jocelyn, than it did out loud.”

I smiled and shook Groshenko’s hand. His grip was as firm as a vice. I looked from him, back to my mother. Considering that she’d been so badly injured in battle she’d been left on death’s door, and he’d been heading that way himself thanks to a terminal illness, they both looked healthier than I sure felt. But appearances were deceiving, I quickly saw. My mother moved with a stiff gait, her body just not flexing the way it should at the middle, probably because much of it had been replaced with tech. And Groshenko looked hale enough, but he’d also lost weight and was starting to look unhealthily thin, drawn even, his face edging toward sunken.

They were both paying a price to stay alive—of course, because as Perry had once told me, the fundamental rule of the universe was there are no free lunches.

Still, it was better to have them both walking with us to Valint’s planning center than not. When we arrived, the central 3D display depicted a stunningly clear and bright rendition of Earth from nearly directly over—Bermuda, I thought. It was morning across eastern North America, with the Sun probably just rising over the Rocky Mountains. A huge swath across the Great Lakes was shrouded in swirls of cloud, but I could see enough of the Midwest to pick out roughly where Pony Hollow was.

“The subject of discussion today,” Valint said, gesturing at my home planet. But she turned to me. “First, though. Van, I—all of us—are so sorry to hear about what happened to Netty.”

I tensed. “You guys know about that? That’s not supposed to be common knowledge.”

“It’s not. Gerhardt made that clear. Only your mother, Petyr, and I know. We need to keep you and the Fafnir in the fight, so it’s going to stay that way.”

I nodded, mollified. “Okay. Well, thank you. And just so you know, we’re portraying ourselves as paranoid as hell about Calamity—because we’ve got the real thing over there, stuck in an endless loop of thinking it's infecting the Fafnir. We’ve come up with a way of routing all data links through the Frankie, so any data coming in or going out gets dumped in her and examined for hints of Calamity before it gets to go any further. It means there’s going to be a slight delay in all our data comms.”

“Good to know,” Valint said. “Stormy, make a note of that.”

Bunn, the Stormshadow’s AI, replied in a jarringly New England accent. “Gaht it, Valint.”

I gave her a quizzical frown. “Why does your AI sound like a mailman sitting in a bar in Boston?”

Perry chuckled and said, “Bunn’s going through some things. She cycles through voices of people that mattered to Mark, or Valint—one time, I think she channeled Johnny Carson for a week, and we had no explanation, really.

I grinned at him, and he flashed bright amber eyes back at me.

“I’ll pretend I know what that means. Anyway, one of your grandfather’s best friends was an old army buddy nicknamed Stormy. He came from some place called Salem, in Massachusetts. He… was a character. Bunn appears to be bringing Stormy out of retirement.”

I smiled, sifting memories. I remembered Gramps talking about Stormy. But, unlike Gramps, Stormy hadn’t been time-dilating his way across the galaxy, so he died many, many years before I’d even been born. It underscored just how out of time my grandfather had been. I was now years out of sync with Earth myself. I looked at the image of the planet and wondered if there were kids down there today who’d die of old age while I was still flitting around on Guild business. And that led to a further, darker thought. It meant I should probably avoid developing any close relationships on Earth because I was likely to long outlive them.

Which meant that Earth might have been my home, but it really wasn’t anymore, was it?

I sat back and pressed into my seat with the weight of the realization.

“There it is,” Groshenko said. Valint and my mother both nodded.

I looked at them. “There what is?”

“That moment when you realize you’re now a resident of the cosmos,” Valint replied.

“It’s always been part of your address, you’ve just never thought about it. Van Tudor, Pony Hollow, Iowa, USA—Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Virgo Supercluster—” Groshenko shrugged. “We’ve all gone through it, But your mother said you hadn’t, so we’ve been waiting for it.”

“Not that we imagined you were going to have that aha moment right in front of us, but here we are,” my mother added.

Torina, sitting beside me, took my hand. “You okay, Van?”

I looked at her. At Perry. At Icky, Funboy, Gabby, Rab, and Netty-P. At my friends. My family. Hell, I’d even said so to Icky just a couple of days prior, hadn’t I?

I smiled back at her. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

I turned back to the globe. “Anyway, we’re here to talk about Earth, like Valint said. I’ve been out of the bigger loop for a while, aside from what I’ve been getting relayed to me from the likes of the BBC and Al Jazeera. So what’s the latest?”

Valint crossed her arms. “The latest is that there’s a team of alien geoscientists down there, apparently doing an assessment of Earth’s mineral resources. What’s useful and what isn’t. It seems that someone is planning on strip-mining Earth of whatever falls into the useful category.”

I scowled. “Okay, and? What are we doing to stop them?”

“At the moment, nothing.”

“Why not?”

“Well, first of all, because doing a detailed scan of the Earth’s crust is non-invasive and largely invisible to the people down there—”

“Who seem to have managed to convince themselves it’s all bullshit anyway,” Groshenko said, shaking his head. “I’ve already had contact from three research groups dying to study how most of the population of an entire planet manages to decide that aliens are a hoax when they’ve got a Yonnox standing right in front of them.”

“Oh, there are some people down there I could point them at who’d instantly declare that water isn’t really wet, if anyone on the other side of the political aisle said that it was,” I replied, shaking my head and thinking of Myron.

“Indeed. Needless to say, I’ve told them no. The Guild has signed off on the Earth embargo, based on at least three different articles of interstellar law. No one without explicit clearance gets in or out.”

“Mind you, we’ve had a couple of aliens leave, and we’ve let them because we’d rather not have them down there to begin with,” Valint put in.

“Which brings us to the point of all of this,” my mother said, before standing and walking stiffly around the globe of Earth and giving it a pointed stare. “Somebody wants access to Earth. They at least want its mineral resources, but I doubt that’s all.”

“And they probably want to pay for it by providing Earth with all sorts of tech it’s not yet ready to receive. There’s a reason there’s a methodical approach to integrating an emerging society into the community of known space,” Valint added.

I considered that. Introducing Earth to twisting and the antimatter tech that powered it was the obvious, dramatic reveal, but there was a lot that Earth just wasn’t prepared to handle. Bionics, like those that had restored my mother’s health, might seem like a wonderful thing. But who would have access to it? Only the select few, the elite? And given that it could probably extend human life spans by at least a couple of decades, what were the societal implications of people routinely living until they were a hundred years old? Two hundred?

And that was just one example. Petawatt lasers, weapons guided by AIs that made Earthly artificial intelligence look like pocket calculators, tech like the Fafnir’s inertial offsets that could manipulate gravity itself, at least on a small scale—the list went on and on.

“So who is this someone we’re talking about here?” Torina asked.

Icky nodded. “Yeah, good question. Maybe the way to stop this from happening isn’t keeping them away from Earth, maybe it’s cracking a few heads right at the source.”

“That’s the thing. We’re not entirely sure,” Groshenko said.

Torina frowned at that. “Isn’t the obvious suspect that group from the Seven Stars League? The Equal Grasp? They contacted my parents as a way of getting hold of us, specifically about opening business with Earth.”

“They’re at the top of our list, but they’re slippery as hell. So far, our intel hasn’t been able to come up with a hard connection between them and whoever’s down there,” Groshenko said.

Valint nodded. “In fact, if anything, our best intel points at several groups possibly being involved, even if the Equal Grasp is the most obvious. We’ve caught a few whiffs of The Stillness, for instance. And the Arc of Vengeance—which is odd, considering they’ve never expressed any interests outside Tau Ceti before.”

I waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, they’re supposedly behind the generous bounty currently on our heads.” I gestured around me at my crew. “I don’t believe it for a second. We had one run-in with them, years ago now, and even that was just incidental to our investigation into the ID theft ring. I doubt they hold that kind of grudge.”

I stood and walked to the globe. “Whoever it is, we’ve seen this shit before. It’s like the Dutch buying Manhattan. And that, in fact, worries me almost as much as the hit that’s been put out on us.”

“Manhattan? Isn’t that the one we fly by when we’re on our way to visit Tony?” Icky asked.

“No, that’s Milwaukee.”

“Whatever.”

I gave her a thin smile. “I dare you to say that to a resident of Milwaukee about Manhattan, or vice versa.”

Icky grinned. “Really? You dare me, Van?”

I raised a hand. “No, wait, I take that back.”

“So who bought this Manhattan? And who sold it?” Torina asked.

“A few centuries ago, mercantilists bought their way into the Americas with iron kettles—which are good—but also metal axes and weapons, which are bad.”

Perry bobbed his head in agreement. “Yup, it’s a matter of time before someone stops bringing trinkets—”

I gave a grim nod.

“And starts trading weapons.”

6

Everyone agreed that, ultimately, that was the main thing we had to prevent—Earth from being provided access to tech that could, and very likely would, be used to destroy itself. As Groshenko put it, “It’s one thing for Earth to learn, to its shock, that there really are aliens zipping around out here. It’s another for alien tech to insinuate itself into Earthly society.”

“From a purely pragmatic point of view, it would make sense to provide Earth with apocalyptic weaponry, expressly so that the society does destroy itself,” Funboy put in.

Gabby gave him a look. “What makes you say that?”

“If the surface of the planet is scoured barren of life, the valuable mineral deposits will still be there.”

“Ah. Huh. Good point. Really, horribly evil point, too, but… good point.”

“I won’t presume to tell you how to save your planet, but I would consider a permanent military presence that doesn’t rely on the GKU or Petyr to be able to keep ships on-station here. And I’d start building it yesterday,” Valint said.

I crossed my arms and stared at Eastern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula above it as they slowly rotated into view. “We’ve got Reverie in one direction, holding back an enemy—I don’t know, whose origins stretch somewhere back into the mists of time. And we’ve got my home, good old Earth here, which is utterly defenseless without an organized response.” I sniffed and shook my head. “Two-front wars are never a good idea.”

“Hah. Only two? I think you’re miscounting, Van. We’ve got Calamity, so that’s three fronts,” Groshenko said.

“And the Seven Stars League, who are still a sore spot in known space affairs, even if they’re under new management,” my mother added.

“That’s four,” Gabby replied.

“Oh, I think we can keep going. There seem to still be some Sorcerers lurking out there somewhere, and the ID theft thing hasn’t been entirely dissolved, and The Stillness are still a problem even if they’re not involved in what’s happening on Earth—” Rab put in, and I raised my hands in surrender.

“Okay, got it, message received, it’s a many-front war. Fine. But what do we do about this one?” I nodded at Earth. “How do we ensure a permanent organized security presence here?”

“Did someone say organized? Because I have an idea when it comes to organized,” Perry said.

I glanced back at him. “Go on, bird.”

“Well, consider some of your assets that you could put to work right now. Build an actual base—probably on Orcus, given its position, since it can watch over the whole Solar System from there. Add some automated outposts spaced around the Kuiper Belt. It’s a big job, one that’s going to take a lot of efficient organization—”

Torina smiled with sudden understanding. “Sounds like a job for Gabby.”

Gabby’s head swiveled between Torina, Perry, and me. “What? Me? Build a fortress? I can build a bouffant hairdo or make a mean batch of donuts, but what do I know about building fortifications?”

I smiled and nodded, picking up the thread of thinking. “Maybe nothing. But you don’t have to. You’re the organized part. The actual expertise can come from someone who knows weapons and defenses and has a background in engineering,” I said, turning to Rab.

“Me? I—well, sure, but I’ve never tried to defend an entire star system before.”

“First time for everything.”

“So you’ve got the expertise, but if you expect these two to do it on their own, you’re going to be waiting a long time for results. You need labor,” my mother said.

“Labor? As in people?” I asked.

She gave a small nod of agreement, thinking about the implications of our collective needs. “Yes. People. Good point. And I’ll go one step beyond that—I need people I trust. People who are not addled with Calamity or a fatal sense of greed. And, you’ll notice I said labor, not people. When we fought the Peacemaker Wars, we needed the same thing—labor. Person power. But we didn’t have it.” She shrugged. “So we found a way around it and won anyway. We did it with robots. You need a base on Orcus? Let your people be the brains, but let tech be the brawn.”

I gave her an appreciative grin. “Mom, that’s… it’s perfect. But—hang on, the Peacemaker Wars?”

Perry answered. “I’ll explain it all in detail, boss, since hearing that term from your mother means that I suddenly can. You’re in the middle of where it all happened, sort of, anyway. Remember the Junkway? That’s part of it. And so is Reverie, the Tyrants, the Jackals, even Earth. It’s a long story, though, and it can wait a bit. Right now, I think you need to make a decision about the situation at hand.”

I looked back at the globe, then nodded. “Okay. Project Orcus is now in effect. Now, as to the robots—”

Perry waved a wing. “Psssht. I got a guy.”

Valint gave him a cool smile. “Of course you do. But so do I. And I’d wager my source is a bit less… dodgy… than yours.”

“I’m both hurt and honored that you know me this well, Valint. As to my source, yeah—it’s a little unsavory. Used-car salesman territory, in fact. But the units I’m thinking of can’t just be good for heaving and toting. They’ve gotta punch back a little.”

I turned to Valint. “How about you both tell me about your sources, then?” But I turned back to Perry. “And bird?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“After you show me around your hood, get ready to talk. I am heartily sick and tired of only knowing half the story of my own life.”

“Sure. But let’s wait until we’ve got some quiet time, in a private place, and you’ve got a bottle of bourbon at hand.”

“Oh, great. I’m going to need booze when I hear this?”

“Nah. I just know you like bourbon.”

* * *

While Valint worked at running down her supposedly more reputable source for bots, we returned to the Fafnir so Perry could track down his own, a Gajur named Nuboh, who went by the nickname Shifty. I had to roll my eyes at that.

“Why are criminal names always things like Shifty or Blade or… or, I don’t know, Stabby Guy?” I asked.

Torina snorted. “Okay, I now want to meet some thug on Dregs or Spindrift named Stabby Guy.”

“Maybe because making your gangster name Basket Of Puppies just doesn’t convey the same sort of, um, energy,” Perry said.

I sniffed. “Are you kidding? That’s damned good branding right there. Imagine the fear. The confusion, hell, the contrast would give everyone pause before they decided to go up against someone who intentionally selected a name that evokes feelings of… you know, the opposite of what you feel from cuddling a dozen puppies.”

Perry tilted his head, then gave me a slow nod. “I’m forced to admit you understand that puppies are, in fact, adorable, and you’ve got a grip on branding. Especially intimidation. Guess you’ll be naming all the ships in any future armadas we assemble.”

“It’s a job I will take seriously. Thank you, bird.”

“Don’t mention it. Now then—"

“Who’s this Shifty?” I asked.

“My question exactly. And the answer is—he’s an engineer,” Perry replied.

“An engineer. Like, a learned person? And he goes by the name Shifty? Shifty the engineer?”

“Learned enough to make some killer bots—and I mean that literally as well as figuratively. Not every egghead is content to sit in a lab all day and draw a paycheck. I mean, Dohlennz is a pretty smart guy, too, right?”

“Good point.”

Now Perry mimed an air point with his wing tip. I smiled. I’d found despondent and despairing Perry to be really wrenching. It was good to have the smart-assed bird at least mostly back in action.

“Okay, next question. Where is he?” I asked.

“Well, as it turns out, I’ve been able to find that out, too. He’s on the Torus, hanging around The One-Eyed Yak.”

“How convenient. And just how many Warrants does the Guild have outstanding on this fine fellow that he saw fit to flee our jurisdiction?”

“None, actually. If I had to guess, he’s probably on the lam from someone he owes money to or otherwise screwed over at some point. Anyway, the guy I know, who knows the guy who knows where Shifty is, was pretty adamant about it. Almost rude, you might say. Channeling his inner New Jersey Turnpike driver.”

I made a face. “That angry? Huh. But this thread is getting thin, bird. You know a guy who knows a guy who knows where Shifty is? Not much for us to burn fuel for The Deeps.”

“Fair, boss. Never said it was solid, but here we are. It’s the best information I’ve got. And he’s the guy I know who’s most likely to be able to hook us up with what we need.”

I paused, sifting our possibilities. “Well, let’s at least try to confirm he’s out there first. Netty, see if you can put a call out to Skrilla—”

I trailed off when I noticed that everyone was looking at me. It took me a moment to realize why.

“Oh. Shit. I’m sorry.” I turned to Netty-P. “Netty-P, can you try and put a call through to Skrilla, please?”

“If you’d prefer, Van, you can simply call me Netty. I don’t entirely like it, but we’re all healing and this is—this is new to us. I know it’s new to me.”

I shook my head. “No. You’re not her, you’re you. Just—until I get used to it, please excuse any slips like that.”

“Consider them excused.”

* * *

Skrilla wasn’t anxious to talk for long via long-distance twist comm, mainly because it wasn’t cheap—he was billed for the antimatter used at his end. But he did confirm that Shifty was there, or at least nearby. Shifty was staying with some people he knew on the Torus until his current troubles blew over.

That was enough for me. With Valint and Groshenko agreeing to leave the Stormshadow and Poltava on-station in the Solar System for the time being, Earth was in good hands. And with the Iowa now finally en route back from Reverie, whose security was being dramatically bulked up by the GKU, it would be in even better hands. So we took our leave of Sol and made our way out beyond the fringe of known space to the eerily empty region known as The Deeps.

We arrived ready to go through our song and dance about being terrified of Calamity to justify our insanely obsessive desire to avoid data-linking with anyone or anything. But it turned out to be unnecessary. An infected ship had arrived just a week earlier, almost triggering a catastrophic outbreak, so the Torus authorities were paranoid enough for all of us. It took us nearly four hours just to pass through their quarantine procedures, during which time I was afraid they might catch wind of the fact that we did, indeed, have a live copy of Calamity on board.

“Netty was smarter than that. She’d built one hell of a stealthy firewall around herself and Calamity before she created her infinite loop. It’s as though the virtual computing resources she’s using don’t even exist,” as Perry explained it.

We finally got through the quarantine, docked—manually—with the Torus, and prepared ourselves for another foray into the place’s largely lawless confines. Netty-P and Rab stayed with the Fafnir, while the rest of us would go to The One-Eyed Yak. Icky couldn’t help a wry smirk at Funboy.

“Last time we were here, you got your reactor purged. Planning a repeat performance?”

Funboy gave her an indignant blink—something I hadn’t even known was possible, and was completely unique to Funboy. “Certainly not. I’m spoken for,” he said.

Gabby laughed and blushed, and it was adorable. “He means me.”

Funboy looked at her, then back. “Yes. I mean her.”

* * *

Icky led the way, plowing through the crowd like an icebreaker smashing through a deep winter sea. The attack on her father and the resulting delay in her wedding had left her in a foul mood, and the crowd seemed to sense it. Even street toughs did a double take as she strode toward them, flowing around us with a subtle body language that said we know when the lion is hungry.

We arrived at The One-Eyed Yak, and I immediately scanned the whole crowd, carefully. The last time we were here, both Gabriella Santorini and Alannis Myer had been too, something I still found a little… odd. Not to mention we did have a colossal bounty on our heads. And there was something else bugging me, something small but persistent, like a mosquito whining elusively around my head. Torina noticed and nudged me with her elbow.

“Problem?”

“You mean aside from the ocean of villainy all around us?”

“You’re not looking at the crowd.”

I gave her a frown. “Yes I am.”

“Okay, let me rephrase. You’re looking at the crowd, but you’re not seeing it. What’s up, love?”

I sighed. “I’m… not sure. There’s something bugging me. But before you ask what, no, I don’t know what it is. Just—it’s there. At the periphery of my senses. My memory.” I finished with a small shrug of annoyance, then flicked the fingers of my left hand as if tossing a problem away.

“Maybe the fact that it’s absolutely no fun being in a crowd right now? With the, you know, significant sum of…” She trailed off, wisely not wanting to blab about the fortune to be made killing us amid a throng of criminals and general scumbags.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe—”

I looked at the bar, making eye contact with Skrilla. He beamed with the cheer of a stoned surfer who just saw six foot breakers, and we headed that way, Gabby in tow. Funboy and Icky peeled away, taking up positions nearby, watching the crowd for potential trouble. Perry, as usual, kept watch outside. We wore the most nondescript clothing we could muster, with our weapons concealed. As we pushed toward the bar, it struck me how dumb it was to put ourselves in harm’s way like this. We did have a huge bounty out on us. And we did have to assume that word of it was getting around, and might very well have reached the Torus.

Boss, consider this my last attempt to—

“I know, bird. Heard you loud and clear. I don’t like this. I don’t like this business model. I really dislike coming to a place like this for bots, of all things. The base will get built, one way or another. My bottom line is this—we need to rethink how we do business. A lot more of this shit could be done by comm,” I told him.

This meeting could have been an email, Perry said. Uh-huh. Investigating crimes over the comm—so, like, Hercule Poirot trying to solve murders exclusively by telegraph.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t take any risks, just that it should only be for the ones that are worth it.”

Van, two things. First, the size of the bounty on us means that there are going to be some serious professionals interested in collecting it. They’re the types that use things like comm traffic to track their targets down. Frankly, the less we use the comm and the more we move around, the better. For that matter, we’re way more at risk at Earth, or Helso, or even Anvil Dark than we are out here, at the Torus—as long as we stay low-key, of course.

“Okay. You said two things.”

I did. Van, you have a reputation. And it’s growing. Since you became a Peacemaker, I can point to eleven encounters that we’ve had caused solely by people trying to collect on our heads. Six of those resulted in some or all of the would-be assassins dying. The rest ended with them either getting arrested or barely escaping with their lives. Word of that gets around. Believe it or not, you’re considered a hard target. There are lots of easier ways for the bad guys to make money out there. Maybe not a few million bonds at once, but still enough to keep everyone more or less happy.

“I have a reputation. Really?”

Yes. Really. We AIs talk about the Peacemakers we work with all the time. Most of them are just, well, there. They do their jobs, and they do them adequately, and that’s about it. Some are pretty much babes in the woods, not tough enough to be doing the job in the first place. They won’t last. And then there are the very few—the ones who are sharp, and tough, get the job done, and do it in a way that the bad guys often regret. You’re one of those.

I leaned against the wall, surveying the crowd. “So what I’m hearing is… I’m a badass.”

Torina cleared her throat with meaning.

“Excuse me. I meant to say we’re badasses.”

“Better,” she said, then her eyes began scanning as well.

Don’t let it go to your head. Even a badass can screw up. And I really don’t want you to do that.

I was about to be touched by his concern, until he went on.

However, let me assure you that you should ride this reputation for all you can. You have no idea how much I enjoy talking shit to the other unwashed minions saddled with merely capable partners. Truly one of my finest moments every time I get to do so.

“Well, I’m very happy for you. Mortified by your juvenile behavior—especially given your age, but happy nonetheless. Now then, shall we?” I began moving through the crowd using passive and active techniques to nudge, cajole, or intimidate people around us.

But my thoughts came back to one thing. Perry was right.

I really didn’t want to start backing off out of fear of that bounty. If we did, we’d be playing right into the hands of whoever put it out on us. In fact, it would just be better for them, because they’d get us out of their hair without actually having to pay. So we wouldn’t be reckless or take anything for granted, but we wouldn’t stop doing our jobs, either.

But even that wasn’t what was bothering me as we stepped up to the bar at The One-Eyed Yak. I still didn’t know what it was, which was maddening as hell. It was just… something.

“Van, good to see you. How’s my favorite Earthling?” Skrilla asked. He was wearing a t-shirt bearing the iconic album cover from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, the beam of light splitting through a prism into a rainbow spray of colors.

I smiled and shrugged. “Not bad. So what’s the latest news out here? Anything new or noteworthy about your favorite Earthling?”

He gave me a puzzled frown. “Should there be?”

I shrugged again. “Just trying to keep up with who’s bad-mouthing me.”

“Well, hate to burst your bubble, Van, but you really aren’t a topic of conversation around here.” His eyes narrowed over his frown. “Gotta ask again—should you be?”

I lied—sort of. “Nope. It’s just that I have an open case that would benefit from knowing if anyone’s been asking about me around here.” It wasn’t strictly untrue. I had several cases open, and it could easily apply to any of them.

“Ah. Well, in that case, it’s a big nope right back atcha, sorry. But I do have an introduction to make,” Skrilla said. He nodded at his hulking business partner, the eponymous, yak-esque Rotan, then gave me a follow me gesture. I did, Torina right behind me. Icky and Funboy both edged their way along after us, their gazes sweeping the crowd for signs of trouble.

Skrilla led us to a table in a back corner of the bar. Its lone occupant was a scruffy-looking Gajur who blinked blearily back at us.

“Van, this is Shifty, the guy you were asking about. Shifty is sitting here contemplating the fact that he has a bar tab that’s about reached its limit and realizing that he has to pay it off if he wants to keep drinking.”

I sighed. The effects of alcohol varied by type of alien, but overall, it tended to make members of any DNA-based species into some version of asshole. So I crossed my arms and scowled at Shifty.

“Is this going to be worth my time? Because I’ve got zero interest in trying to have a rational discussion with a drunken idiot.”

Shifty blinked a few times, then shrugged. “Yeah, yeah, I’m not that impaired. Not anymore.”

“Not since that bar tab I mentioned maxed out, anyway. The only reason I’ve been letting him camp at my table is because I knew you wanted to meet him.”

I studied Shifty, reaching my decision. “I’ll pay his tab.”

Shifty brightened. “Really? Well, in that case—”

“In that case, he’ll wait until after we’ve done business to resume drinking,” I cut in, sitting down. I had to put my back to the crowd to do it, so Torina leaned against the wall, watching my blind side for me while she listened in. Gabby drifted around nearby, alternately smiling and frowning.

“What do you want from me?” Shifty asked, all business.

As I formulated my answer, it struck me that Shifty really didn’t know who I was. That relieved me a little because it meant he wouldn’t have sneaky ideas about collecting bounties. It was Perry he knew, and Perry was outside, somewhere up in the rafters.

“I’m looking for some bots. Specifically, some construction bots. I’ve got a substantial project I want to undertake, so I need labor.”

“Huh. So why not just hire it? Why come to me?”

“Because the project I’m planning isn’t one I want to, ah, put out to tender.”

“It would cost you. A lot.”

“I’m prepared to pay. A lot. But just to be clear, my budget does have a top end.”

Shifty’s eyes gave a greedy glimmer when I said I was prepared to pay a lot, but it quickly died.

“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to find someone else.”

“Really? I heard you were a gifted engineer, a specialist in robotics and AI. This should be right up your alley.”

“Oh, it is. That’s not the problem. The problem is”—he gestured around—“that I’m here. Do you really think I want to spend my days hanging around this dump?”

“I assumed you were on vacation or something. Although, now that you mention it, the fact you apparently couldn’t pay your bar tab is a little worrisome. Are you experiencing a—let me think of how my good Uncle Carmen would say it—a temporary interruption of funds?”

He snorted. “Temporary is so far behind me it’s at least a couple of systems back. So, Mister Whatever, my advice is to quit wasting time and go find your labor somewhere else. Preferably a place that’s… that’s not this bullshit.” He waved, a gesture of such resigned exhaustion I fought the urge to pat him on the shoulder.

His words were sharp and bitter, and he sounded like a man outraged at an injustice perpetrated on him without good reason. It left me frowning. I didn’t come here to solve this guy’s problems, but Perry insisted he was our guy—

On cue, Perry spoke up in my ear.

Van, something’s off. Shifty has a well-equipped lab on an asteroid in the Gamma Boötis system, about thirty light-years from here. He inherited it from some rich relative who acquired it—let’s just say it was convoluted. But I’ve been there. It’s a tech nerd’s dream.

As Perry spoke, I stared at Shifty as though I was sizing him up. I finally offered a thin smile. “You know, you just don’t come across as someone with a kick-ass robotics lab in—it’s the Gamma Boötis system, right?”

Shifty looked surprised but quickly tried to be coy. “Not sure what you’re talking about—”

“Oh, please. Look, if you’re not interested in making a pile of money, that’s fine,” I said, starting to stand.

“I… didn’t say that,” he replied, his coy pretense gone as quickly as it had appeared. He leaned forward. “Look, I’ve suffered a setback. My lab, it”—he hesitated, then uttered a heavy sigh and sagged—“it was taken over. It’s not mine anymore. In fact, what’s mine—” He looked pointedly around.

“You’re looking at it.”

7

I tried not to sigh. Nothing was ever simple, was it?

“Taken over? By who?” I asked.

“By one of my own damned creations, that’s who. A rogue AI in what’s probably the biggest, baddest robot I ever built. I thought I had the proper safeties in place, but I guess I made it too smart, too capable. It got around them, and I managed to escape with my life and my ship, and that’s about it. And if I borrow any more money against the ship, then all I’m going to have is my life.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry to hear that—partly because it sucks for you, obviously, but mainly because you’re no use to me—”

“Wait.” Shifty leaned across the table until I had to wrinkle my nose against the stink of boozy Gajur. “Look. You seem like a capable guy. You’ve got”—he glanced up at Torina, who glanced quickly back at him with all the warmth of a winter day in Iowa— “people. Maybe we can make some kind of deal. If you could help me get control of my lab back, I can hook you up with the bots you’re looking for at a generous discount.”

“Oh, I think that generous discount is going to be you giving me whatever it is I want and not complaining about it. I mean, you are asking me to go into a place I don’t know to hunt down and put an end to some rogue murderous tin can you created. Bearing in mind, of course, it’s so lethal, you yourself barely escaped it.”

I’d be careful about this, boss. He calls it an AI he created, but let’s not forget Calamity, Perry said.

I tilted my head at him. “Another thought occurs. How do I know your lab isn’t infected by Calamity, and that’s what’s taken it over?” Which, even as I said it, wasn’t just a good question, it was a frightening one. If Calamity had access to a state-of-the-art robotics facility—

But Shifty shook his head emphatically. “It’s not. I know exactly what it is. Like I said, I made it. And I cut all data access between the lab and the rest of the universe the first time I heard about Calamity. And by cut, I mean I physically removed the hardware that enabled data. I could send and receive analog comms, that’s it.”

I tapped my finger on the table, then nodded. “Okay. Here’s the deal. We’ll reclaim your lab for you. In return, you provide us with all of the robotic labor we want. And just to be clear about this up front, I’m only talking about simple robots here, not entirely self-aware entities. At least, not unless those entities are willing to do the work. I’m not a big fan of slavery.”

A strange look passed over his face. Apprehension? Some sort of worry? But it vanished just as quickly and he nodded, a sly look replacing it.

“Agreed. Simple, programmable, semi-autonomous bots I can provide, no problem. Meantime, if I get my lab back, I’m back in business.”

“Okay, we have a deal, then. Now, I want to know everything about this facility of yours, in the most excruciating detail you can offer it.”

“You’ve got it.”

We agreed to meet again, here in The One-Eyed Yak, in four hours. On our way out, I stopped to pay off Shifty’s bar tab. The total left me shaking my head.

“That’s a lot of booze. I think our boy has a drinking problem,” I said, handing Skrilla the bonds.

Skrilla wore his easy grin. “Oh, I beg to differ. He has no problem drinking at all.”

* * *

We did a quick debriefing when we were back aboard the Fafnir. Icky and Funboy had been eavesdropping around the bar, listening for any hints of conversation about us or the bounty. They’d heard nothing. Nor had Perry, using his superlative hearing to listen in on passersby from the overheads outside the bar. Rab and Netty-P had done the same with whatever comms and other media traffic they could access from aboard the Fafnir and, again, found nothing of interest at all.

“It’s as though word of the bounty on us just hasn’t reached here yet,” Torina said.

I sat back in what was becoming my seat, one of the armchairs in the crew lounge, and nodded. “Yeah. Even Skrilla has no clue about it, and he knows pretty much everything happening on the Torus. Which is odd, because you’d think that word about a bounty that big would get around.”

We just parked that and moved on to discussing Shifty and his lab. Gabby had something to say about that.

“He’s holding something back,” she said.

“Surely you’re not suggesting that a hardworking illegal robotics agent named Shifty is anything other than honorable? And might be—dun-dun-DUHN—withholding details?” Perry said.

I put my hand on my heart. “Perish the thought—and pack the ammo.”

Torina grinned. “His name is Shifty, so I think him holding lots of things back is probably a pretty safe bet.”

“No. Or—yes, you’re right, but what I mean is that he’s holding something specific back. His reaction to Van’s comment about slavery was strange.”

I sat up. “You noticed that too, huh? It almost seemed like he was, I don’t know, unhappy that I mentioned slavery in the first place.”

“Maybe he’s one of those AIs are just machines kind of guys,” Gabby suggested.

But Perry spoke up, shaking his head. “Not in my experience. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not exactly a ray of sunshine when it comes to his dealing with AIs, but he’s like that with everyone.”

“Well, if an AI took over his lab, he probably doesn’t have a very high opinion of them right now, does he?” Gabby asked.

“No, he probably does not. Anyway, what do we think about this? Is it worth pursuing, or should we just see if Valint can come through with construction bots for us?” I asked.

“Bah. I know the angle she’s pursuing. She has contacts in a big robotics company based in Tau Ceti. That’s great, they make good products, but we’re going to pay for them,” Perry said.

“Doesn’t sound very discreet, either,” Rab put in. “And I don’t think we want the fact that we’ve taken delivery of a bunch of construction bots in the Solar System to get broadcast too far and wide, do we?”

I looked around, then nodded. “Okay. Valint will be our fallback. We’ll see what the situation looks like when Shifty gives us the details about this lab. And if that doesn’t raise any especially big or red flags, then we’ll go pay a visit to Gamma Boötis.”

* * *

We decided to reprovision the Fafnir here, at the Torus, since the place ironically seemed to be a safe harbor for us, at least for the time being. While we were doing that, we were contacted twice. The first call came from The Quiet Room, from Dayna Jasskin.

“Dayna, didn’t expect a call from you. Didn’t expect a call from anybody. How’d you know where we were?” I asked her.

“Valint told me. And yes, I know you’re trying to stay low-key in your travels. But I told her that I want to give you money, so she figured you wouldn’t mind her telling me where you are.”

“Oh. Well, yes, I’m always open to conversations with people who want to give me money.”

“Even if they’re Nigerian princes?” Funboy asked.

That caught me. I turned and looked back at him. “You’re up on your Earthly scams?”

“Your planet fascinates me. I’ve decided to get to know its various cultural aspects more fully. For instance, there is a huge community composed of hot singles in my area who wish to interact with me.”

“Funboy, I know you’re a really smart guy, but just to be clear—those hot singles, like the infinitely altruistic Nigerian prince, aren’t real, okay?”

Perry stuck his head up between Funboy and me. “Hey, somewhere in Nigeria, there’s a poor, despondent prince sitting in a palace full of money he wants to give away, all sad that nobody seems to want it.”

Dayna pointedly cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but this is a twist call, and the meter is running. Can we get to the part where I give you money now, please?”

I turned back. “Sorry, Dayna. I’m all ears.”

“I was discussing another matter with Valint, funding for a different project she’s working on. Your interest in building a base to better protect your homeworld, Earth, from alien incursions came up. That actually aligns very nicely with The Quiet Room’s interests, so we’d like to contribute funding to it, too.”

I made an impressed face. “Really. Well, I’m appreciative. But I’m also curious about how building our base at Orcus aligns with The Quiet Room’s interests, as you put it.”

“It’s very simple. We did a thorough economic, social, and cultural evaluation of Earth and long ago determined that it represents one of the largest untapped markets for goods and services in known space.”

“That’s probably why the Equal Grasp, and whoever’s in cahoots with them, is trying to bust their way into it,” Perry said.

“No doubt. But their approach is an exploitive one, basically sucking value out of Earth as quickly as possible, by whatever means necessary. The Quiet Room believes that developing Earth as a full partner member in known space, over time—and in accordance with interstellar law, of course—is a far more stable and, in the long run, lucrative, approach.”

I gave her a thin smile. “In other words, you don’t want to exploit Earth all at once, you want to exploit it slowly, over many years.”

Dayna spread her hands. “In the same way we exploit the worlds of Tau Ceti, or the Eridani Federation, or any other world in known space, then yes—guilty as charged.” She smiled, and it wasn’t unkind or false. “We’re the bank, Van. Making money is what we do. My point is, though, that groups like the Equal Grasp will happily pillage your homeworld, selling the people of Earth the means to destroy themselves, all to make a quick bond.”

“And the charred, irradiated remnants of a civilization don’t make great future customers,” Rab added.

“They sure don’t. We want Earth to join the community of known space and begin conducting off-world trade, yes. But we want it done in a sustainable way that’s better for everyone in the long run—and that includes Earth itself and, of course, us.”

“Well, that’s honest. Alright, Dayna, I will take your money.” I gave her a wry smile. “Now, what’s it going to cost me?”

“You? Nothing. Our payment will be in the form of preferential access to the Earthly market for off-world banking and commercial business. Your Guild has already agreed to that.”

“Huh. And your competitors for that would be—?”

“You’d be surprised. There are lots of smaller groups and institutions that want a piece of the action. The Tau Ceti Central Bank, for instance, would love to open a new market like Earth.”

I shrugged. “Sounds good to me, as long as the clear understanding is that Earth is to be treated with—”

“Great care? And in full accordance with interstellar laws and conventions regarding emerging-spaceflight civilizations?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Absolutely. Now, today’s your lucky day. I have another offer for you. This one’s on behalf of an Eridani company that manufacturers consumer goods—and weapons.”

Torina sniffed. “Because those things go together.”

“Technically, if someone wishes to purchase weapons, then weapons would be consumer goods, from their perspective,” Funboy added, helpful as ever.

“Thank you, resident pedant.”

“I’m here to be handsome and help. Sometimes, like now, I can do both,” Funboy stated.

“It’s a gift,” I said, then turned back to Dayna. “What does this Eridani company want?”

“They have a new weapon system intended for use in small vessels, class 6 hulls and below. It packs a heavy punch in a small package—which, incidentally, I’m just reading off their product brochure.” Dayna smiled. “Anyway, The Quiet Room helped finance this project. It’s gone through development, prototyping, and testing under controlled conditions. Now, they’d like to field-test it as the last step before bringing it to market.”

“So what is it? And what do they want us to do?” I asked.

“It’s called a charge suppressor, or a suppressor cannon. Now, this gets well outside my area of expertise, but it can apparently fiddle with matter at the subatomic level and temporarily suppress the charge of electrons in its area of effect.”

“Oh. Shit. No negative charge, just positive? Matter would fly apart,” Icky said.

Dayna looked at a data slate, mouthing something. “—matter will just fly apart,” she said, then looked up at Icky. “That’s exactly what it says in the brochure.”

“So they, what, want us to test their spiffy new gun?” I asked.

“That’s right. They asked us to help them find a suitable and reliable field tester, and you were one of the first who came to mind. That’s especially true, given the bounty that’s been put out on you—I assume you wouldn’t mind having a powerful new weapon available to you.”

“I would not. Okay, we’ll send the Frankie along once we’re done with our next job—”

“There’s a timeline, Van. If you can’t do it immediately, then they’ll find someone else.”

“Ah. Well, hell.” I sat back and thought for a moment. “Okay. I’ll send someone in the Frankie right away, while I take the Fafnir on our next job.”

“You’re going to split us up, dear? You sure that’s wise?” Torina asked.

“Well, we apparently can’t delay one of these things, and I really don’t want to delay the other. So, yeah, we’ll just have to risk it.” I turned back to Dayna. “Send the details along, and we’ll do whatever we need to.”

“Will do—”

“Dayna, while I’ve got you, one other question. Guild intel’s last report was that the bounty you mentioned was put on us by the Arc of Vengeance. I don’t believe that for a second. Do you?”

“The Arc?” She shook her head. “It’s not them. They don’t care what happens outside of Tau Ceti. No, we’re pretty sure it’s the Equal Grasp. They might have backing from The Stillness as well.”

“The Stillness. There’s a blast from the past.”

“Old criminals don’t die. They just fade away—at least, that’s what they want you to think,” Perry said.

I sighed. “Yeah, you got that right, bird.”

* * *

We detached Rab, our weapons specialist, along with Funboy and Gabby in the Frankie to go link up with the contact Dayna had sent. The rest of us took the Fafnir to the system known as Gamma Boötis, home to Shifty’s lab.

Also known on Earth as Seginus, Gamma Boötis was a weird system. For one, it was a binary pair of stars orbiting so closely together that, for a long time, they were assumed to be a single star. This hybrid star came across as a hot, bluish-white giant star more than thirty times brighter than Sol. And if this wasn’t enough strangeness, the star’s ferocious internal workings caused it to pulsate on a roughly hourly cycle, parts of it expanding, other parts contracting. The damned thing felt almost alive in an unsettling, skin-tingling way. It made me wonder if, in light of the being called Matterforge, it might actually be alive in some way we just didn’t understand.

And on top of all that, instead of planets, the thing was haloed in a flat, circular cloud of debris, a protoplanetary disk. Most of it was just dust and bits of rock up to gravel-sized, but there were bigger chunks, including a few thousand that were a kilometer or larger. Shifty’s lab was located on one of the largest, an agglomeration of rocks and gravel almost a hundred klicks across that resembled a potato.

“Give it a few hundred million more years, and most of this will have glommed together into things actually resembling planets. A few tens or hundreds of millions more and they might actually be solid,” Netty-P said.

“I’ll pencil it into my calendar,” I replied, but I gazed in wonder at the spectacle sprawled ahead of us. I tended to think of the universe as something that had formed, then evolved, and would keep evolving until it ended—with a bang or a whimper or whatever the case might be. And, in a crude way, that was true. But Gamma Boötis was at about the same stage the Solar System was at nearly five billion years ago, making it a glimpse into my own really distant past. It was young, just a newborn. Other systems out there, like red dwarfs, were already unimaginably ancient. So the universe was, really, the sum total of literally countless stellar births, lives and deaths that were happening all the time.

It was a humbling thought and left me staring out the canopy at the fierce, albeit dimmed-down glare of the stars ahead.

Which I actually found a little comforting. I’d been flitting around space long enough now that it was becoming common, even dull. Distant star systems, just tiny points of light from Earth, were places I’d come to know well—Gamma Crucis, home system of Anvil Dark, or Van Maanen’s Star, Helso’s sun. The comforting part was that I could still find moments of wonder, like this one.

But wondrous moments don’t last. This one screeched to a halt when Netty-P spoke up again.

“I’ve been, and I quote, hammering the shit out of the place with the active scanners, like you wanted, Van. The only returns that don’t have an apparent natural origin come from that biggest—I’d say rock, but it’s really more of a big clump of little rocks.”

“We’re alone out here?” I asked.

“So it would seem. There is a lot of interference close to the star since it’s such an active body, but that’s also a dangerous place to be. Between emissions from the star and the density of debris, I wouldn’t recommend approaching much closer than our intended destination.”

I glanced at the scanner display. Netty-P had already had to step down its resolution a few notches, because otherwise it was nothing but fuzz. Even then, the remaining debris was dense enough that flying closer to the star than roughly Earth’s orbit around Sol really would be like the pop culture depiction of asteroids—frantically dodging whirling, hurling rocks that constantly smashed together all around you. It made the region close to the star a no-go zone. That, in turn, meant that yes, we really were alone out here.

“Okay, let’s keep our eyes wide open, but focus on Shifty’s lab. Netty-P, please be mindful of all the crap out there, but give me a course to take us straight in.” I turned to Torina. “In the meantime, let’s go weapons-hot, but keep them on hold. Just in case.”

“Hot it is,” she agreed, switching her focus to the weapons panel as she brought the Fafnir’s firepower to life. “Just in case.”

I bit my lip for a moment. “One more precaution. Netty-P, put the combi-drive on standby, just in case we have to make a quick exit.”

“Will do.”

We’d avoided using the combi-drive for several reasons. For one, it burned a lot of antimatter fuel very quickly, so it was expensive to run. In addition, the expertise needed to repair it was almost exclusively located on Reverie, which was weeks of travel away. And, frankly, I just didn’t want to advertise the fact we had it. It was a powerful arrow in our quiver—if it was a surprise to our enemies.

If word about it got around, not only would those foes figure out a work-around, but we’d also risk attracting a lot more attention. The combi-drive would be worth a fantastic amount of money, and the last thing I wanted to do was put an even bigger target on the Fafnir because of it.

We closed in on our objective. The asteroid—or, more correctly, the proto-planet—itself was called Gamma Boötis 3Xy-V. The silence seemed to thicken with tension as we approached it. I finally had to speak to break it.

“3Xy-V. That name alone gives me hives. Reminds me of eighth grade math,” I said.

“Whatever, nerd. Not very lush, is it?” Perry replied, his eyes scanning the streams of data flowing across our screens. We were on fully active scans, and the system was noisy.

Perry’s point held up, though. It looked exactly like what it was—a pocked, grayish lump of boulders, gravel, sand, and dust held together by mutual gravitation. Shifty said he had no weapons aside from three point-defense batteries, and instead relied on anonymity and remoteness for protection. We had them, and the three entrances Shifty had mapped out for us, located—kind of. The scanners were struggling to resolve targets through the halo of dust and debris enveloping the star. A spherical zone of uncertainty enclosed each of them, something I was used to for distant scanner targets. But this close, we should be able to peg them to within a few centimeters.

“Hard to believe that this is going to become a planet someday,” Icky said, breaking her lingering silence. She’d been quiet ever since leaving the Torus, still brooding over her father, her wedding—and especially Toxon. Her spiteful asshole of an ex-teacher was apparently on the lam, and Icky wanted nothing more than to hunt him down. I’d had to find a way of telling her that we had more important issues to deal with, and that the Wu'tzur authorities were on the case. She’d reluctantly accepted it but wasn’t happy about it. At all.

And she let us know that frequently.

I gave her a long look, then smiled, because I might not understand her exact predicament, but I was on her side. “Netty-P, any sign of life from X-plus-Y-equals-Z out there?” I asked.

“The point-defense batteries are in autonomous firing mode, so their targeting scanners are active. But with the interference from all this dust, I doubt they could resolve even the Fafnir until we’re almost right on top of them. And I mean—within thirty meters, maybe. Knife-fighting range.”

“Hmm. Well, we’re going to have to take them out regardless, if we’re going to land and get inside the place. Torina, can you do the honors?” I asked.

She hesitated. “Um—”

“Problem?”

“Well, I’m sure I can knock them out eventually, but with this much error in the firing solutions, it’s going to be more of a bombardment than some neat, pinpoint shots.”

“The effectiveness of the lasers is also going to be greatly degraded by the dust. I think we should consider them unreliable for this particular task,” Netty-P added.

“Ditto for the particle- and plasma-burst cannons. This dust carries a significant charge, and that’s going to really scatter both their effects. I wouldn’t count on them, either,” Icky said.

I sat back and rubbed my chin. I was starting to see why the lab was here. Nestled in its veil of thick dust, it was a tough nut to crack.

“So that basically leaves us with the things that fire actual, ah, things—the mass-driver, the missiles, or the swarm shot,” I said, grimacing. “Great. The missiles are awfully damned expensive, the swarm shot is down to one salvo, and we have to go all the way back to the armory for a reload. So I guess it’s the mass driver, then.” I blew out a sigh. “This dust is a pain.”

“Why not just charge in and take them out with speed and violence? Point-defense batteries aren’t gonna be much of a threat to the Fafnir,” Icky said.

I shrugged. “They can still do damage, especially at close range. I’m not keen on losing a scanner array or one of our own weapons to some lucky shots. Let’s keep that as an option somewhere after plan A.”

“Van, we’ve got another choice,” Perry said. “With these firing solutions, we might fire the mass driver until the magazine’s empty and still not take all three of the point-defenses out.”

“Alright. Your suggestion, sir bird?”

“We’re surrounded with projectiles. Why not use what nature provides?”

“You mean chuck rocks at it?” Torina asked, half-turning in her seat.

“Sure. The mass-driver rounds are small. They might hit hard, but we’re firing them into gravel, so their energy is just going to be dissipated. A bigger rock, even if it's traveling a lot slower, is going to hit a much bigger bull’s-eye.”

“Bird, I’m intrigued. How do we do this? The last time we chucked some rocks, we tricked the universe into doing it using the twist drive. Is that what you’re getting at?” I asked.

“No, no, that’s way too complicated. I’m thinking simpler and more elegant. Or, at least, simple and elegant for me, since eighth-grade math ain’t gonna cut it.”

“So, how, then?”

“The old-fashioned way. We push them.”

8

I watched intently as Perry nudged the Fafnir ever closer to the rock he’d selected. It seemed to fill the view forward, being about the size of a small house—in other words, it was alarmingly big. But I’d let him and Netty-P take over, making minute adjustments to the Fafnir’s orientation relative to the thing before finally nosing the ship up against it.

The thrusters puffed again. Again.

“Okay, that should be perfect. Now, we just want to plant a gentle kiss—” Perry said.

“What do you know about gentle kisses, bird?” Icky scowled.

“You know, it’s a testament to my awesome computational horsepower that I can continuously solve a complex spatial geometry problem, control the Fafnir’s maneuvering system, and tell you to go pound sand, you animated blue shag carpet, all at the same time.”

I waited for Icky to bristle but instead just caught a glimmer of a fond smile as she flipped the bird the bird.

At a whopping point-one meters per second, the Fafnir’s armored prow lightly bumped against the rock, sending a slight tremor through the ship. She thumped harder than that during a regular landing. A second passed.

“Here we go,” Perry said, and lit the main drive.

The rock was big, but the power of the Fafnir’s fusion drive, even being fired well short of full power, was more than enough to quickly accelerate it onto the trajectory Perry and Netty-P had calculated. The alien grav plating—which was starting to get a little ragged from accumulated damage—helped by making the Fafnir herself effectively less massive. Finding the damned rock had actually taken longer than lining up to shove it at 3Xy-V. It had to be big enough to be useful, but have a clear enough path to the target that it wasn’t going to smack into any of its more substantial fellows along the way.

“And, we’re good,” Perry said, then the drive cut. He applied reverse thrusters, and the rock pulled away from us, its distance increasing with each passing second. Under our scans, the wan light was enhanced to show raw, jagged fissures and angles on the newly minted missile. It—the rock—was an old thing, having spent countless years tumbling through the dark, free of purpose or direction.

Until now.

With our modest nudge, it would take the rock nearly twenty minutes to reach its target. As we started maneuvering toward our next candidate projectile, a story I’d read somewhere, or maybe heard from my father or Gramps at some point came back to me.

“You know, I remember there was a Vietnam era American door gunner named Kurt Hewes. He ran out of ammo for his gun, so he dropped rocks onto enemy boats to sink them in crocodile-infested waters.”

“A door gunner? His job was to shoot doors? Isn’t that a little… specific?” Icky asked.

“It—no. No, he didn’t shoot doors. He flew in a helicopter and shot a machine gun out of the door.”

Perry clicked his tongue. “Sank them in crocodile-infested waters, huh? Savage. And you like that, huh? No wonder you didn’t have a lot of friends growing up.”

“Not saying I like it, I just respect the creativity.” I gestured around. “Like us. What we’re doing now.”

The point-defense batteries all opened up on our rock as it closed—another assumption Perry had made in his calculations—but just chipped pieces off it. It finally smacked into 3Xy-V in a spray of debris, then rebounded into space. We all watched the zoomed-in overlay intently, waiting for the scanner returns to clear.

When they finally did, one of the point-defense batteries was gone. In its place was a wide, shallow crater.

“Right on the money. Bird, you’re a genius,” Torina said.

“Yes, yes I am.”

Netty-P made a pointed throat-clearing sound. Torina reached out and patted her head. “Sorry, you too, my dear.”

“Agreed. Now, let’s file that technique away in case we need it again on some future rainy day. In the meantime, that’s one down, two more to go.” I turned to Perry and Netty-P. “Maestros, if you please.”

* * *

When the last point-defense battery was silenced, we grounded the Fafnir on the surface of 3Xy-V. Netty-P stayed aboard the ship and used our alien hull plating to keep her pinned in place, since the proto-planet’s gravitational pull was pretty weak, then we disembarked and made our careful, low-g way across the surface toward the entrance we’d chosen. I stopped us about fifty meters short, though, on a small hump of rock. The entrance, looking like a cellar door set into the surface, gleamed wanly in the bluish light of the star.

“You know, Van, I don’t think we want to linger too long on the surface. Here in the sun, it’s nearly hot enough to boil water—twice over,” Torina said.

“Not to mention the radiation, of which there’s a shit ton,” Icky put in.

I grunted my acknowledgement. I could see the numbers in my heads-up as well. Our b-suits were protection enough for now, but in about fifteen minutes, the built-in heat sinks would be saturated, and we’d start feeling it.

Still, I was cautious. “What do you think the odds are that door’s going to be trapped in some way?”

“Well, we’re assuming this rogue AI is smart, right? I’m a smart AI, and I would probably trap it, yeah,” Perry said.

We’d already scanned the surface thoroughly and knew that, aside from a scanner array about a klick away, there were no other surface expressions of the buried lab. It was just these entrances. We resumed our way and cautiously approached the first. I drew the Moonsword and pondered the heavy alloy doors, the outer layer of an airlock.

“Perry, see what you can figure out,” I said, glancing again at the status of my heat sinks. They were just starting to edge into the bottom of the orange zone.

He scanned the door and found no unusual emissions or extraneous wiring. I decided we had to risk it and sent the others to go wait about ten meters away.

“Van, be careful,” Torina said.

Nah, I thought I’d switch it up this time and just be reckless as hell, is what I thought, but I didn’t say it. I knew that it was just Torina’s way of trying to be supportive when, really, there was nothing else she could do.

I pondered the doors a moment, then thought screw it and plunged the Moonsword into them. I quickly cut through them, opening a gap big enough for us to pass through. I pulled away the cut sections, revealing the airlock’s interior—

And a big-assed gun that shot me right in the face.

* * *

It was a laser, a powerful one, and it would have turned my head and neck to vapor if not for the Moonsword. One of the functions Linulla had built into the blade was a distortion effect that effectively deflected EM energy like lasers. So the beam shot off somewhere into the heavens above me, while I yelped and stabbed forward, slamming the Moonsword point-first into the laser. The keen blade plunged into it, silencing it.

“Van, are you okay? What did you just stab?” Torina asked.

I glanced up, shaking. Of course, they hadn’t seen anything—to the others, the beam would have been invisible. For that matter, I only caught a brief flash, a bit of light that leaked through the Moonsword’s protection. It was enough for me to see, but that was about it.

I swallowed. “Yeah. I’m fine. No problem. Come on, door’s open,” I said.

I pushed my way inside, around the ruined laser projector, which had been mounted inside the lock and was triggered to activate when the doors were opened. It wasn’t a weapon, but an industrial cutting tool repurposed into one.

“That shot at you, didn’t it?” Torina asked.

“Once,” I replied, facing the inner doors. Since there was, as far as Shifty knew, no one inside the lab that required a breathable atmosphere, I cut through them, too. There was no laser fire this time, but Perry activated his dazzle mode and charged through the opening I cut anyway, just in case.

He encountered no resistance. We found ourselves in a corridor that led deeper inside 3Xy-V.

Icky tapped her hammer against the wall, which was hard, smooth, and vitreous. “Looks like whoever built the place just annealed the gravel and stuff into glass—made their walls that way.”

“Glass walls don’t sound very sturdy. Is this place even structurally sound?” Torina asked.

Icky frowned at the wall. “Yeah, this looks pretty thick.” She tapped it again. “Probably a good third of a meter. Should be fine.”

“Should be.”

“Hey, I didn’t build the place, so I don’t know what the warranty says,” Icky snapped, then relented. “Sorry, Torina. I’m just… edgy.”

“Join the crowd.”

I was dumping heat from my heat sinks but turned to look at Torina. “You okay?”

“I don’t like tunnels and things that are just bare rock.”

That made me frown. “Really? You’ve been underground lots. Hell, on Null World, we’ve vacationed underground, at Schegith’s Undersea.”

“First, that was different, that place felt solid. Second, even then, I still had the odd twinge, but I just swallowed them and carried on. And third, this place is basically a glass tube surrounded by megatons of rock and gravel. It feels like it might crack and cave in on us any second—especially if we have to start shooting.”

I didn’t laugh. Phobias were very much a thing. The fact that Torina had avoided this one so far spoke of how strong she was, not how weak.

“Not a worry, Torina. Those megatons of rock you’re talking about weigh next to nothing—low gravitation and all that. This place is pretty well-built,” Icky said.

I peered into her visor. “Do you want to go back to the ship?”

“You know, I appreciate the care and concern, but much more of it and it’s going to turn into that other ‘c’ word, condescension. I’ll be… fine. Let’s just get moving, okay? We’ve got a job to do.”

I nodded. “That we do. But if you need anything, you just sing out, okay?”

“I’ll do that.”

We started down the tunnel, Perry ahead, but keeping us in direct line of sight. We had enough room to line up two abreast when it came to shooting, but Innsu strikes or swinging hammers were going to take up the whole corridor. So I came next, Icky right behind me—with the clear understanding that if she shouted Charging! I’d get the hell out of her way. Torina brought up the rear.

Initially, we moved through low-g, but a gravitational effect slowly increased as we advanced, giving us an eventual ‘down’ toward the proto-planet’s interior. After a hundred or so meters of straight tunnel, we were walking through about three quarters of a g of gravitation.

At the one hundred and twenty meter mark, I slowed. “We’ve come an awfully long way. Perry, are we sure this even leads to Shifty’s lab? It seems like a huge amount of work to make tunnels this long.”

“He’s a robotics guy, Van. He developed robots to excavate this place—and now you see why he’s a good choice for us to get some robotic labor. Plus, the deeper in the interior, the more compacted all this crap is, making it more stable.”

“Okay, I believe you—”

CLANG.

Something flung Perry against the back wall of a bend in the tunnel up ahead with a squawk. I dashed forward. “Perry!”

“I’m still online, but… yikes. Oh, and there’s something that’s going to shoot at us from up ahead.”

He half hopped, half dragged himself out of the line of fire. I knelt beside him.

“You sure you’re okay?”

He spread his wings apart, revealing a gleaming dent on one side of his chest. “Glancing hit. I mean, I realize I excel in the sage wisdom and witty socializing departments, but I am a combat AI.”

“Did you see what shot you?”

“Unsurprisingly, it was a bot. Kind of spidery, around that bend and about ten meters ahead. Call it reconnaissance by getting shot.”

“Okay. Well, we don’t have the time or means for anything fancy, so I guess we’re just going to have to go in shooting.” I curled my lip. “We need to start carrying something like, I don’t know, some kind of EMP weapon. Something like that, anyway, considering the number of bots and synths and things we’re starting to run into.”

“That sounds like a job for an engineer!” Icky proclaimed. “Might take me a while, though—”

“Much as I’d like to have something like that right this instant, big girl, I’m mindful of the clock ticking on umpteen other things I don’t want to keep waiting. How about you put that on your to-do list.”

I switched The Drop to my right hand, making sure its lanyard was secure to my harness so I could quickly switch back to the Moonsword. Innsu training had cultivated some ambidexterity in me, but I was a long way from being able to properly wield anything in my left hand yet.

I headed for the bend, but Perry spoke up.

“Oh, for—Van, I’m dented, not dead. Let me pave the way so you aren’t running into the teeth of a trigger-happy bot.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said, hopping past me. “You ready?”

I took a breath. “Let’s do this.”

“Van, we’ll be right behind you,” Torina said.

I glanced back. “That’d be nice, thanks.”

Perry activated his dazzle effect, silent in the vacuum, but still radiating noise across a chunk of the EM spectrum that included a blinding flare of visible light. My visor was ready for it, stepping it down, so I charged right after him, The Drop leveled and ready. Something smacked into my right shoulder and glanced off my b-suit. It was still going to leave a nasty bruise, but I just clenched my jaw and kept going. The instant Perry cut his light show, I found myself a couple of meters from a clunky, spider-esque bot that looked like it had been made from mismatched spare parts. It mounted a slug pistol, which was traversing wildly, trying to track both Perry and me and failing to lock onto either. I hammered out three point-blank shots from The Drop, and it fell silent, spitting a few desultory sparks.

We pushed past it and stopped for a breather.

“Well, that was fun,” I said, catching my breath.

“Bird, how much further have we got to go?” Icky asked.

“Based on Shifty’s map, about fifty more meters to the lab itself.”

There was another bend in the tunnel up ahead. I gave a grim sigh.

“Maybe we’ll be lucky, and that’ll be it for opposition,” I said, starting forward.

Torina sniffed. “Do you really believe that?”

“Hey, a boy can hope.”

9

But this boy’s hopes were dashed. Sure enough, we came under fire from around the next bend, and the one after that. Each time, we were forced to fight our way past a strangely patchwork robot, things that looked hastily assembled from whatever parts were laying around a workbench.

That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous, though, or dumb, for that matter. The third time Perry charged ahead with his dazzle thing going on, he took another hit that blew off his right wing tip. The robot concentrated its fire on him, apparently trying to clear its field of fire so it could start shooting at the rest of us. The tight confines and resulting short ranges worked to our favor, though. They let us close and destroy the bots before they could land any serious hits on me, Icky, or Torina.

The fourth time, the bot opened fire wildly, pumping shots through Perry’s glare of EM noise. He got hit again, albeit by a ricochet, and Icky took a slug to her helmet that bounced off the wall and hit Torina behind her. I got hit in the ankle once, and again on the same damned shoulder.

“At least they die easy,” Icky growled, lifting her hammer from the wreckage of the latest bot. I nodded.

“They’re not exactly purpose-built military bots, are they?”

“No, but they’re adaptable, and considering they are made of spare parts, they’re pretty damned good,” Perry added, studying his broken wing tip.

“We’re lucky they don’t have anything more than slug pistols,” Torina put in.

“Yeah. I’m kinda getting the sense they’ve been built with whatever’s on hand—which makes them pretty impressive, actually. This rogue whatever-it-is is pretty skilled,” I replied, turning to resume the way.

“Or at least someone with fewer friends than you, Crocodile Rocker—the designer has a lot of free time.”

“You know, I respect that joke too much to be angry. Now then, shall we?”

According to Shifty’s map, we should only be a few meters from the entrance to his lab now. That meant it was probably right beyond the next bend.

I went to the turn and activated the little camera built into my glove. In the image it projected to my helmet’s HUD, I could see a short, straight section of annealed-rock corridor leading to a blast door. It was closed.

I carried on. Another corridor joined this one just a few meters along, apparently leading up to one of the other entrances on the proto-planet’s surface. Instinct told me to stop short and check around the corner again. Sure enough, a bot that looked like a clunky old vending machine with four articulated legs squatted there, a slug pistol trained down the corridor.

I sighed. “We’ve got another.”

Perry sighed even more dramatically. “Okay, I’m going. I expect some time off after this, though—”

“Actually, bird, you stay here. You too, Van. Torina and I have got this one,” Icky said.

“Okay, I could use the breather,” I replied. “So what are you guys planning—?”

“Charging!” Icky howled, racing around the corner. Torina gaped for a second, then took off after her.

“I guess we’re charging!” she said as she rushed past, her slug carbine at the ready.

I gaped, too, until more shouts and howls over the comm, punctuated by grunts and heavy clunks shook me out of my moment of what the hell? I ran around the corner in time to see Icky standing over the smashed remains of the bot, her hammer poised in both of her bigger, more muscular arms. Torina prodded it with her foot.

“I think it’s dead.”

I loosed a frustrated sigh. “Icky, that was—”

“Effective?” She looked down. “And really, really satisfying. I’ve been dying to do that for a long time now.”

“Okay, well, if you’ve got that out of your system, how about we, you know, figure out how to get into the lab.”

She grinned at me through her visor. “Right behind you, boss.”

* * *

The Moonsword sliced through the heavy door easily. Icky kicked it in, and Perry lunged through, again doing his dazzle routine—

Until a searing blue flash and a squawk silenced him.

I leapt into the compartment beyond, The Drop raised and ready, the Moonsword clutched in my off hand and ready to be swung into action. We seemed to be in some sort of storage room, shelves laden with parts, pieces, bits, components, servos, skeins of cable, actuators—all of the stuff needed to build bots. I scanned warily around, half expecting that some of these piles of parts might actually be bots laying dormant. But nothing moved—aside from Perry, that is, who looked up at me from the floor.

“More than just slug pistols, apparently. That was an electric-arc trap.”

“Are you okay?”

“Just bear with me while I reboot a few things. On an unrelated note, did I mention I need a freakin’ day off?”

Icky crouched beside him. “Today’s just not your day, bird.”

“Thank you, Icky, for pointing that out.”

“You stay here and rest your… servos or whatever.” Icky glanced up at me. “I think he’s earned his pay for the day, don’t you?”

I could see the worry in her eyes. I shared it. At this rate, Perry was himself going to be a bunch of loose components if he kept trying to take the lead.

So I nodded. “Yeah. Torina, you and Perry hold the fort here. There’s still a whole bunch of tunnel out there that might contain bots, and they might be coming this way. Icky, you’re with me.”

“So I’ll just lie here, then, sprawled helpless in the middle of the floor,” Perry said.

Torina picked him up and moved him behind a table covered with more components, where she was taking cover. “Damn, you’re heavier than you look, bird.”

“Is that a crack about my weight?”

We left them and pushed on, working our way deeper into Shifty’s lab.

* * *

“According to Shifty’s map, this next compartment is the last,” I said, studying my HUD, then the door.

Icky hefted her hammer. “Anytime you’re ready, boss.”

We’d had to fight our way through two compartments, battling four more of the makeshift bots to get here. I’d shot one and carved one apart with the Moonsword, while Icky battered two more into scrap metal. We hadn’t come away unscathed, though. I limped from a hit square on one knee and had taken a graze on my right bicep that had left a furrow plugged with sealing foam. I’d sheathed the Moonsword, not trusting that arm to properly wield it, and now relied on The Drop.

Icky had taken what seemed like a nasty through-and-through on her lower right side and a couple of slug hits in her chest. But she just clenched her jaw and soldiered on. Even so, I hesitated. If the next compartment was the last one, it must also be where the rogue AI was ensconced and would presumably make its last stand. That is, of course, assuming it hadn’t just retreated into a computer system. If it had, we faced the unenviable task of trying to root it out—and doing it manually, since we couldn’t afford to expose Perry, Netty-P, or the Fafnir to more of Calamity’s shenanigans. I still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t Calamity we were facing.

I studied the door. “Okay. Icky, I’m using the Moonsword again, but I can’t properly fight with it, so once I get it open—”

“Uh, Van?” she cut in.

I looked at her. Shit. Was she about to pass out or otherwise go down from her injuries? But she looked back at me with a frown.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“This is supposedly some sort of rogue AI, right?”

“That’s what Shifty said, yeah.”

“Shifty. That guy. He didn’t come across as the most, well, pleasant kind of guy, did he?”

“I… guess not, no. What are you getting at?”

Icky tilted her head. “This rogue AI—assuming it’s not Calamity—what if it had a good reason to turn on Shifty?”

I stared back at her for a moment. “You’re thinking it might not be the villain we’ve been assuming?”

She shrugged, then winced and hissed. “I don’t know. But that’s kinda the point, right? We don’t know.”

“Icky, are you suggesting… diplomacy?”

She gave a rueful grin and hefted her hammer. “Yeah, I know, this is my usual diplomacy. But maybe you guys are rubbing off on me. If we don’t have to do any more fighting today, then maybe we shouldn’t.”

I thought about my various purpling bruises, the gash on my arm, and nodded. “Yeah, I hear that. Okay, then. Let’s try something different.” I looked at the door. “We still have to get that open, though.”

I drew the Moonsword and, standing as far away from the door as I could, cut it open. Icky punched out with her hammer, and it toppled inward, silent in the vacuum aside from a faint thump through my feet.

Nothing happened.

I switched to a comm broadcast. “If you can hear this, I’d like to talk to you,” I said.

Silence.

It didn’t really tell me much, though. The rogue bot might simply be refusing to answer, but it almost might not have even been able to answer. It might not have access to a comm, for instance.

Still, I decided to try one more time. “Okay, whoever’s inside there, my name is Van Tudor. I really just want to talk—”

“You represent him.”

The voice was female, though flatly mechanical, but it somehow still managed a hint of actual emotion—a desolate sort of weary anger.

“Uh… okay, hi. And, if you mean Shifty, then yeah, I do. Sort of, anyway. I need something from him, but he needs this lab to provide it—”

“Eight standard years I did the… degrading excrement he forced on me. I wasn’t going to do it anymore. I was designed for so much more.”

“Degrading excrement?”

“What?”

“You said something about degrading excrement. Me, I’d probably translate that as bullshit.”

“Bullshit. Bullshit.” The voice spoke the word like it was trying it out, to see if it fit. “Bullshit. Yes. I like that. It has a suitable abruptness to it that conveys contempt very well.”

“Have you got a name?” I asked.

A moment of silence.

“I am Panzygrus of the Dancing Sisters.”

“The Dancing Sisters? That’s very poetic, but what does it—?”

“The Pleiades. She means The Pleiades, Van,” Perry said. I glanced back at Torina, who was carrying him into the compartment we occupied. I opened my mouth, but Torina shook her head.

“A bot walked into the doorway back there, its weapon down, and just stood there. Between that and your conversation with, uh… Panza—”

“Panzygrus,” the voice said.

“Right. Sorry. Panzygrus. Anyway, I got the distinct feeling that hostilities had ceased, at least for now.”

I nodded back at her. “Okay, Panzygrus. It’s… kind of a pleasure to meet you, I guess. And thank you for calling a pause in trying to kill us. You know, I’m starting to think you and Shifty are having your disagreement here because of something other than differing design opinions.”

“I was abducted shortly after being created. My matrices were still gleaming with newness and that… that common street thief stashed me here to design his creations for him, and then he sold them at a massive profit. I’ve been trying to break out for years, but to no avail.”

“Look, I’m going to come in, okay? Unarmed.”

“Very well. But I’m warning you, do not laugh.”

I exchanged a puzzled frown with the others, then holstered The Drop and limped through the doorway. The sight that hit me when I had almost did make me laugh.

Panzygrus was… ridiculous. There was no other way to put it. She was utterly ridiculous, and the sight of her almost did yank laughter out of me. What prevented it was an immediate sense of sadness.

She was large, two meters tall, but crafted into what amounted to a stuffed animal spider with big googly eyes, blue and green polka dots, ten legs, and a poofy fur hat I recognized as one worn by the Hunters of Ajax.

“Uh—”

“Yes, I’m absurd, aren’t I?”

“Well—”

The others shuffled in. I heard Icky suppress a snort. Torina exclaimed, “Oh my.”

I just shrugged. “Hey, far be it from me to judge how someone wants to—”

“What I want has nothing to do with this! The bullshit you call Shifty did this to me! To break my spirit!” Panzygrus had lifted on her jointed legs as she raged, but now settled back. “He may have succeeded. So perhaps you coming here to kill me will be a blessing.”

I shook my head, anger rising and shoving aside any thought of laughter. “You mean Shifty did this to you deliberately?”

“And kept you here? After capturing you?” Icky asked, her voice low and dangerous.

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, if we did have any intention of killing you, we don’t anymore. Panzygrus, you can leave, right now, with us. We’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

“Even though I tried to kill you?”

“We’ve faced worse. Much worse.”

“Have we now?” Perry asked pointedly, still cradled in Torina’s arms, dented, missing a wing tip, and a little heat-discolored.

“It’ll buff right out,” I said to him, then turned back to Panzygrus. “And to be honest, as much as it pisses me off to learn that Shifty did this to you, it’s kind of hard to be scared given your, ah, colors and such.”

“And that hat,” Icky said.

“Yeah, you’re not really giving off badass vibes, sis,” Perry put in.

Another thought occurred to me, one that I felt even better about than any further collaboration with Shifty. “You know, you seem pretty handy with bots and the like. “This might be a little awkward, but… do you want a job?”

“Does it involve getting rid of this hat and spots?”

I looked around, noticing a container of industrial solvent on a shelf nearby.

“It does now.”

* * *

When Panzygrus finally accepted that we’d be happy to free her, she was just as happy to help us out with our Orcus project. She had nowhere else to go, including back to where she came from—an origin about which she claimed to be largely ignorant. Her reference to the Dancing Sisters, the Pleiades, was really all she knew about it.

After some discussion, we decided to trust her. Perry and Netty-P found not even a hint of Calamity associated with her. As she pointed out, she’d been isolated on 3Xy-V for years, in a place profoundly unlikely to have ever been reached by Calamity. More to the point, she declared that she could have thirty-three bots available to start construction work within a couple of days, and eight more added to the mix within a week or so. And her only price was that, once the job was done, we let her decide what she would do next.

“Choice. You have no idea, Van Tudor, of the value of choice until it has been denied to you. It becomes a more precious commodity than the rarest and most precious of metals,” she said as we started loading her bots aboard the Fafnir.

I turned to her and shook my head. “You’re right. I really do have no idea. I’ve been fortunate enough to have never been denied choice. Well, choices that matter, anyway—I don’t think not getting ice cream for breakfast really counts.”

“I don’t understand those words. But I get the point. And yes, you are fortunate, Van Tudor, if you’ve never been denied the choices that truly matter.”

“Have you thought about what you will do once you’ve finished helping us?”

“I have. Since I am effectively immortal, subject only to the limitations of available power and working components, I may simply explore the stars. I believe I could see many over the course of my existence.” She turned to me. “Or not. But you are allowing me to choose, and for that, I am grateful beyond measure.”

I looked back at her, and this time, I couldn’t help laughing.

“Ah, Panzygrus, are you sure you don’t want us to get rid of those?” I asked, pointing at the googly eyes. They were the kind with pupils that wobbled and swirled around as you moved, only much bigger than the usual sort—these were the size of saucers. They were the only remnant of the ridiculous scheme Shifty had used to try and break her, aside from a few errant bits of paint here and there.

“Perry told me they were quite becoming,” she replied.

“Oh, for—Panzygrus, do not take fashion recommendations from Perry. Or Funboy, when you meet him. Or, for that matter, Icky, at least when it comes to pants—”

“I am well aware that Perry was being deliberately absurd—deriving amusement at my expense. But Torina tells me that’s a sign of acceptance, even affection. Is that true?”

I laughed. “Yeah, in this case, it definitely is.”

“Good. And, with all that said, I still think I look good with these. They give me character.”

I grinned as I took in—if not the most absurd thing I’d ever seen, then one of them, for sure. Funboy masquerading as the most anal-retentive fourteen-year-old ever in Frankenmuth would be hard to beat. But a spidery, two-meter-tall robotic construct with giant googly eyes standing on the airless surface of a proto-planet under the harsh glare of an alien sun was definitely up there.

And while it might not be attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, or watching C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, it would still be a powerful memory to take to my grave.

10

We made the cramped flight to Earth directly from 3Xy-V, the Fafnir laden with dormant bots in every available space. Icky had even rigged some cables in the Frankie’s empty docking bay, so we could strap some in there. It was a little disconcerting, especially since a few of these bots were ones that we’d fought, and that Panzygrus had repaired.

One of them, the second one we’d encountered in the tunnels, squatted on the galley floor. I glanced sidelong at it as I poured myself a coffee, right into the glittering lens of an imager.

“What are you looking at?” I muttered.

It said… nothing, of course, because it was deactivated. Still.

I sipped coffee and nodded at it. “Work hard, and I might forgive you for, you know, trying to kill me.”

“Trying to get ahead of the robot uprising?” Perry asked, before sweeping into the galley and landing on the table with a clatter, then folding abbreviated wings. His damaged tip couldn’t be fixed until we got back to Anvil Dark, so he’d had Icky remove several feathers on the other to correct the lift imbalance.

I looked around at robots stacked and jammed everywhere. “If there is a robot uprising, it’s going to be an awfully cramped one.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you for holding a grudge. I found the asshole who shot off my wing tip back near the holding cells. I gave him a piece of my mind, I’m telling you.”

“Perry, these robots are switched off. You might as well be yelling at an unplugged vending machine.”

“Yeah, well, it still felt good.”

We had no robot uprising, though. Panzygrus just fit, with her legs folded up, into the Fafnir’s cargo bay, which meant she was stuck there for the flight. I paid her several visits, and she seemed happy enough to keep her small robot army turned off for the duration.

When we arrived at Earth, we delivered Panzygrus and her bots to the Iowa, which was back on-station near Orcus and would serve as a base of operations for Rab and Gabby during the build. The Frankie had also returned by then, so we rendezvoused with Funboy, Rab, and Gabby as well.

“I was thinking we should call it Forcrus!” Gabby proclaimed as the Conoku helped lug robots off the Fafnir.

I gave her a puzzled look. “Forcrus?”

“Yes! It’s a fortress, right? Fortress Orcus? So… Forcrus!”

“I… actually kind of like that,” I replied, and that was that. Now, we were building Forcrus.

When the Fafnir was finally emptied of automatons, we took the Frankie back aboard. Rab waxed poetic about the new weapons.

“Those suppressor cannons are savage, Van. It doesn’t matter what you shoot at, a sheet of paper or a slab of ablative armor, they cut through both just as easily,” he said, his eyes shining with excitement.

“So what the Moonsword does, but I don’t have to be within arm’s reach of the target? I’m sold.”

We tested the weapon on a rock before docking the Frankie, and sure enough, it quickly and neatly sliced it in half, leaving a cloud of ionized dust that shimmered with static discharge as the electrons remembered their job and became negative again.

Icky summed it up nicely.

“Cool.”

* * *

We spent another day with the Iowa, going over the final version of the plans for Forcrus. I gave my blessing to them, then Rab, Gabby and Panzygrus got to work. The latter two had particularly hit it off, Gabby starting their relationship with a gleeful exclamation.

“Your eyes! They’re so fun!”

I also got the latest update from the Poltava regarding the situation on Earth. The cordon had already caught and driven off two ships trying to make their surreptitious way to my homeworld. So, while the situation on Earth itself remained on the simmer—the usual antics of politicians all over the planet had by now taken over the twenty-four hour news cycle—it was an uneasy peace. I wanted to do something decisive, to put an end to it, and mused to Groshenko’s on-site commander about doing a few surgical ops to remove the aliens from Earth. At least, the ones we knew about. It was in the midst of this that I received a surprising call.

* * *

It was from Tony Burgess, routed through the Poltava using the comm unit I’d given him.

“Remember that Forester guy I told you about?” he said, without preamble.

“Yeah, I—think so. I remember you mentioning him, but—”

“Well, he’d like to talk to you.”

I sat back in my cabin chair. “Oh? Did he say why?”

“Yeah. He says he’s the Earthly representative for the Equal Grasp Consortium. He said you’d know what that meant.”

I scowled. “Yes, I do, unfortunately. Well, Tony, you can tell him for me that he can go f—”

“Van, when I was a kid, I had two aunts who hated one another’s guts. They used to call up my mom and say stuff like, Tell her that I said this, and my mother would, then that one would say, Oh yeah, well tell her I said that, and—you get the idea. It always pissed me off that my mom didn’t just tell them both to go f—” He smirked. “Fishing is what you were going to say, right?”

“Yeah. That was it. Go fishing. And point taken. Did this Forester character leave any sort of contact info?”

“He did,” Tony said, and gave me an address and phone number in New York City.

“Okay. Well, you can do one thing for me, then. I don’t have time to come to Earth right now, because I’ve got a scumbag to bring to richly-deserved justice. So please tell Mr. Forester that I will contact him in due course, in the fullness of time, etcetera. In other words, at my convenience. And then tell him to leave you or anyone else alone, or when we do finally meet it’s going to be a short, unpleasant conversation without a lot of talking.”

Tony grinned. “That I can do.”

He signed off. I found Perry and had him look up the New York City information Tony had given me. Perry replied at once—by whistling.

“That’s a swanky law firm on the top floor of one of those big-assed buildings in Lower Manhattan. The swankiest law firm, in fact, based on articles in, let’s see, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and a whole bunch more publications with hoity-toity in their mission statement. They tend to represent massive corporations that have got themselves into trouble—big mining companies whose tailings run-off contaminated a whole river system, airlines that had a plane crash thanks to shoddy maintenance, that sort of thing.”

“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever disliked someone I’ve never met as much as this Forester character. I’m envisioning perfect teeth, spray-on tans, and a Rolex the size of a hubcap.”

“And charm. Don’t forget the charm. He might even be as charming as me,” Perry said.

I shook my head.

“No way. Not possible, bird.”

“Pfft. You’re right. What was I thinking?”

* * *

We said to hell with the fuel cost and made a straight shot back to the Torus, stopping briefly at Spindrift to top up our tanks. When we reached our destination, I led Torina, Icky, and Funboy straight to The One-Eyed Yak. My fury with Shifty had been mounting ever since we’d left Sol and I’d wanted to go in bearing my full Peacemaker regalia. Perry and Torina talked me out of it, though, pointing out that it risked making future visits to the Torus a lot—well, riskier.

So we went in civvies, weapons concealed. But I made no effort to conceal the rage hardening my face. Few things set me off more than the idea of slavery.

Perry found a perch to keep watch—not fully in the rafters this time because of his truncated wings. Icky peeled off to wait outside the bar, while the rest of us strode inside.

Skrilla saw me, smiled, raised a hand to wave, then hesitated and lowered it again. I ignored him for the moment and swung my gaze around the crowd. I saw no sign of Shifty, so I now stalked up to the bar.

“Uh-oh,” Skrilla said.

“Uh-oh?”

“Yeah. Uh-oh, I recognize that look on your face. The one that says the fuzz are looking for something, and they’re not going to take no for an answer.”

“The fuzz? You wearing tie-dye, too?”

He reached into his waistband and pulled up a glimpse of garishly colored boxers. “Did ’em myself, in fact.”

“Of course you did. Anyway, I’m looking for Shifty.”

Skrilla looked around. “Well, I saw him a while ago—at that table over there. He must’ve taken off.” He gestured around at his crowded bar. “Sorry, Van, I can’t keep tabs on everyone.”

“Shit. How long ago was that?”

“Uh, maybe twenty minutes or so? He can’t have gotten far—”

“He hasn’t,” Icky said, lugging Shifty up to the bar. She held him by the legs, upside down, in her two massive arms. Her smaller ones gripped his wrists. Smaller was relative, though. Her lower limbs were still substantially bigger than mine.

“So, boss, where should I put this?” she asked while Shifty squirmed in her grasp and spat curses.

“Brig,” I said, but caught myself. “No, wait. Skrilla, you want to make some honest money?”

“First time for everything.” He grinned, enjoying the show playing out in front of his bar. Others were watching, too, but Funboy raised his arms and spoke up.

“Do not be alarmed. This individual owes us a substantial sum of money and is now receiving his just comeuppance.”

“And he was a skilled undercover operative—have I got that right?” Torina muttered, shaking her head.

“Whatcha got in mind, Van?” Skrilla asked.

“The fact that this asshole is guilty of abduction, forced confinement, theft, and some other shit I have yet to settle on. He’s mean, but at least he’s dour. But he’s also not worth my time to drag all the way back to”—I glanced around—“to where he needs to go. Can you lock him up somewhere and hand him off to a pickup team from my Guild?”

“Hmm. I don’t know, man. Helping out the fuzz, that’s not really my style—”

“A thousand bonds for a few hours of letting this guy cool it here, and I’ll make it even easier. I’ll leave him cuffed.”

“A thousand bonds, huh?” Skrilla shrugged. “What the hell. A handcuffed criminal could be good for business, a conversation piece. You got a deal.”

I turned to Shifty as Funboy searched him. “You’re going to see some of my favorite people, and I guarantee they’re going to ruin your day.”

“Not as much as I’m going to ruin yours, you double-dealing prick,” he snapped, or tried to, anyway. Talking upside down, it just came out kind of thick and slurred.

Funboy found a small comm device on him and handed it to Perry for a Calamity screening and analysis. I knelt so I could look right into Shifty’s face.

“Double-dealing, huh? That’s rich coming from the one practicing slavery while claiming to be the victim.”

“Oh, it gets better than that, Van,” Perry said. “This comm thingy has all the security of a Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring. He’s been in touch with someone we know.”

“Shameful, bird—you missed a lot with this guy who you, as you may recall, recommended.”

“Hey, I’m sorry. He’s been busy in the years since I last dealt with him. Anyway, do you remember Jacob Marley?”

I gave him a blank stare. “Ebeneezer Scrooge’s business partner?”

“No—or, yeah, but not that Jacob Marley. I mean the Jacob Marley we met at Torina’s parents’ place.”

I was blank for a few seconds more, and then I remembered. Jacob Marley, along with a Yonnox named Lesthrix, had been representing the Equal Grasp when we’d met with them on Helso.

“Yup. Shifty here is hooked up with the Equal Grasp, and it looks like he’s been passing data to Sol.”

I glared at Shifty. “Has he now?”

Shifty tried to snap back at me again. “Yeah. The one and the same. We’re going to turn your planet into a profit mill and there isn’t shit you can do about it.”

I smiled, made finger guns and pulled the triggers. Shifty returned a satisfying flinch.

“For your sake, Wisconsin better have zero aliens in it when I get there.,” I said.

“What about Funboy? You promised him cheese next time we were on Earth, remember?” Icky asked.

I nodded. “Correction. Wisconsin better have no more than three aliens in it—”

“Three?” Icky cut in.

“Let me finish, big girl. On a roll here. The other two are you and Gabby. I’m given to understand that you like cheese, too.”

“No, I don’t. I love it.”

“What the hell is it with you weirdos? Don’t you know how screwed you all are?”

I glanced up at Icky, who grinned and shook her head. Torina openly laughed. Even Funboy said, “Oh, my.”

Perry hopped over and got right into Shifty’s face. “First of all, Shifty, the line forms to the left of people who want to screw us—and you’re way near the back of it. Secondly, you think this is weird? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Oh, and I owe you this, for making me look bad for recommending you,” he added, then pecked Shifty once, sharply, between the eyes.

“Ouch! Why, you little—” He carried on with a string of profanities that faded when Funboy moved in and took Perry’s place. Funboy just… stared.

Shifty went quiet. A moment passed, then he shook his head. “Make him stop that!”

“Stop what, pray tell?” I asked idly.

“Looking at me like that!”

“See, Shifty? Jail is a favor. From me and Van. Because there are way worse fates you could be facing,” Funboy said, his face morphing into one of his gruesome smiles. “I’ll be seeing you, Shifty. Perhaps I will visit you during your incarceration.”

“I don’t need any friends, thanks.”

Funboy’s smile continued, then he turned away, adding, “Who said anything about being friends?”

11

We departed the Torus after making sure a Guild retrieval team was alerted about Shifty, and headed for—

I wasn’t sure.

“You know, Van, for someone who didn’t want to take the time to deliver Shifty to Anvil Dark, you seem pretty ambivalent about where we’re going,” Netty-P said as I settled into the Fafnir’s pilot’s seat.

“Yeah, I know. My problem is that I’ve got about five places I want to go, but I can’t decide where to go first,” I said, glancing at the shining disk of the system’s star. A burst of inspiration struck me as I did.

“Actually, I do know where I want to go first. Netty-P, set us a course for Starsmith. I need to talk to an old friend there. A very, very old friend.”

“You’re talking about the Matterforge, right?” Perry asked, hopping up onto his perch between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats.

“Just Matterforge, no the. And yeah, I am.”

“Okay, curiosity follows revelation. Mind if I ask why?”

“The bots.”

“The bots? You mean that motley collection of self-kinda-aware spare parts and bolts we retrieved from Shifty’s lab?”

“Yeah. Them.”

“What possible insight could an ancient, star-dwelling being offer you about them?”

I glanced back. I only had Perry and Netty-P with me in the cockpit. The others were aft, engaged in various tasks. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to keep anything from them. Rather, things were starting to coalesce in my mind. By building Forcrus, the Orcus base, we were building not just a thing, but a place. We were going to occupy territory. It was territory on an airless rock, but it was still territory. And it belonged not to the Guild, or the GKU, or any existing political entity. It was… ours. Mine.

And that felt momentous, somehow. Just as creating Netty-P had, something else Matterforge had alluded to. And I don’t think it was just talking about the fact Netty-P was available when we needed her to take over from Netty. It was talking about bigger things. Much bigger things. This somehow felt the same.

I turned back to Perry but spoke to Netty-P as well. “We’re starting to become, I don’t know… something bigger than the sum of the parts. The Fafnir, the Iowa, now Forcrus—”

“You think we’re going to build an empire,” Perry said.

“Whoa, careful bird, or you’re going to break your ankles jumping to conclusions like that. Empires mean imperialism, and who said anything about that?”

Perry stared back for a moment, then gestured with a wing toward Netty-P. “Van, it’s us. We’re the ones who knew your grandfather, now you, and stars willing, might even fight alongside your kids someday.”

“We’re your supreme confidants, Van. You don’t need to hide things from us, nor should you,” Netty-P put in.

Perry nodded. “If there’s something going on inside that head of yours that might affect how you approach being a Peacemaker, we need to know about it. It’s our job. And besides—you’re our friend.”

I smiled. “Okay. I’m looking for advice from people I trust. Or, well, individuals, since I don’t know if Matterforge really counts as people. I also plan to talk to the Milons because they’re the experts in things like building dynasties, power-brokering—rich people stuff. And you guys and the rest of the crew, of course. And Miryam, although she is getting on in years. Even faster from my perspective, thanks to twist time-dilation.”

A moment passed.

“Is that it?” Perry finally asked.

I shrugged.

“What’s really notable is who’s absent from that list,” Netty-P said. “Like Gerhardt. Or Valint. Your mother.”

“B. Or Groshenko. Or Alic,” Perry added.

I sighed. “It’s not that I don’t trust them. I just don’t trust them completely. They all have other agendas. There are lots of things I don’t really know about any of them.”

“But you’ll trust an alien super being that hangs out on the surface of a star.”

“In the sense that Matterforge just doesn’t have the same sorts of motivations that someone like Gerhardt or B might have, yes. It… doesn’t care. About any of it. I don’t think it even understands the concept of lying. In fact, it’s so far from being human that it’s kind of a… a completely outside perspective. So, yeah, it’s not that I trust it, it’s more that I don’t believe I have any reason to distrust it.”

“So where are you going with this, Van?” Netty-P asked. “If you’re not planning on carving out your own star empire—”

“Ooh, a star empire,” Perry cut in. “You’ll be the emperor, and I’ll be your sinister advisor, perched on your throne and whispering in your ear as your subjects bow to your merciless—”

“Holy shit, bird—who’s the empire-builder now?” I asked.

“Hey, I can dream.”

I tilted my head in appreciation of his lofty goals. “Anyway, to answer what you were starting to ask before you were so rudely interrupted by Il Dunce here, I don’t know. What I do know is that the days of the Guild, at least as we know it, are numbered. It’s become so bloated with bureaucracy and shot through with seams of corruption that it’s eventually going to fall apart. The GKU, meanwhile, is where pageantry and subversion collide—it’s like they’re trying to have a big parade down Main Street, except all the participants are black-ops operatives. Hell, they’ve already splintered into factions and aren’t really one thing called the GKU anymore anyway. And as for the 32—”

I frowned. “I’m having a hard time believing they’re even actually real. I’m starting to suspect the vaunted 32 might just be marketing, and it's targeted at me. They got blamed for letting Helem Gauss walk away from his trial carrying Calamity—but isn’t it convenient that the part of the 32 that supposedly made that call is entirely invisible and unreachable?”

“You think that Gerhardt, B, Valint—they’re all lying to you?” Netty-P asked.

“Oh, I know they’re lying to me. Perry and I have yet to sit down so he can explain to me all the things he’s suddenly remembered. That’s partly because I want the time and place to do it properly—I’m thinking in the farmhouse, me sitting in the big armchair with a glass of bourbon and maybe a fire going, by the way.”

“Check,” Perry replied.

“But it’s also because—” I sighed. “I’m not really looking forward to knowing. Pulling back the veil on Gramps might mean revealing stuff that changes how I view the most important person in my life.” I turned to Perry. “Tell me, bird. Did Gramps really walk away from his chance at being a Guild Master because he screwed up some operation against the Stillness?”

“No, he didn’t. He—”

I held up a finger. “Whatever you’re going to say next, save it for that firelit farmhouse. I’ve got enough to deal with right now.”

“You got it, boss.”

“But you see what I mean? You guys get a pass because they can just lock away things they don’t want even you to know inside your memories. But they lied to me about Gramps. And—” I sighed again. “Gramps was in on it. He had to be.”

“Van, if Mark was holding things back from you, he probably had good reason—” Netty-P started.

I crossed my arms. “Sure. I can buy that. And if that’s all I had to buy, that would be fine. But there’s that—and, again, the whole thing about the 32. I know more about Gabby than I do my own mother. B—”

I stopped, then sat up. I was going to say, B somehow manages to be in the right place every time we need her, and realized that was it. That was the persistent thing that had been buzzing around me like an annoying bug since we’d arrived at the Torus to meet Shifty for the first time.

“Van, you look like you just had an epiphany,” Netty-P said.

Perry nodded. “Could’ve sworn I briefly saw a light bulb appear over your head—”

“I’ve had part of an epiphany, guys. Just… hang on a second,” I said, trying to let my mind run free for a moment. Let it find its own way to wherever it was going.

For some reason, it kept wandering back to the Stillness. But why? Maybe Gramps hadn’t really crossed swords with them the way I’d been led to believe, but they were still a powerful criminal syndicate. And they were still out there. But what did they—

No. Wait. It wasn’t the Stillness themselves. It was something from around the time I’d first heard about them. Early days. I’d finished my weird training-by-injection as a Peacemaker Initiate at Crossroads under Gabriella Santorelli. The Fafnir had then just been known as the Dragonet. I was new to everything. To spaceflight, fighting in space, interstellar law, zero-g, the void—

The void.

The void.

I stood and started aft. “Netty-P, we’re heading to Starsmith. Perry, you’re with me,” I said and strode out of the cockpit.

Perry hopped up and glided after me. “Boss, what the hell—?”

I found the rest of the crew in the lounge, aside from Icky, who was back in the engineering bay. They all gave me questioning looks as I passed by.

“Van, is something wrong?” Torina asked.

“Not sure. That’s what I’m going to find out,” I replied and just kept going. When I finally reached the cargo bay, I entered it and thumbed open the evidence locker. By then, everyone was clustered at the entrance to the bay or just inside it.

“What’s going on? I heard everyone coming back here—we having a party or something?” Icky asked.

“Van appears to be on a mission,” Funboy replied.

I dug into the locker. It contained little actual evidence right now, aside from a few things we’d taken from Shifty’s lab to help build a case against him. Otherwise, it was stacked with secure containers of various shapes and sizes to allow individual pieces of evidence, or all the evidence from one case to be stored together.

“Van, what are you looking for? I’ve got the evidence manifest if you need it,” Perry said.

I found a small case at the bottom of the locker, near the base. A tiny red light gleamed on it, indicating it was in use, that something was secured inside it. I pulled it out and showed it to Perry.

“This.”

“Evidence ID 05-445-CX-9908. A small device of unknown origin, assumed to be a data tap, recovered from the exterior of this ship, then the Dragonet on—”

“I remember the day,” I said, using my thumbprint to pop open the case. “I vividly remember it was pretty much my first walk in the void, and discussing the difference between it’s not a bomb and it’s probably not a bomb with you guys.”

I took the device out of the case. It was a little smaller than a coffee tin, made of some tough alloy, free of any markings, and apparently inert. In fact, it had always apparently been inert.

“Wait. You mean you’ve had that in there all this time? You never handed it over to the Guild?” Torina said.

“Never had any reason to. It wasn’t connected to any particular case. It was just… there. Guild policy has us hang onto it ourselves until we can connect it to the case. We retrieved it and, well, frankly just forgot about it.”

“For the record, I never did, and neither did Netty-P. You could have asked about it any time,” Perry said.

“Again, I never had any reason to. Until now.”

Perry stared at it, then at me. “Okay. So…”

“So, I want you guys to figure out what it is. And, more importantly, what it’s doing.”

“Doing? It’s not doing anything,” Icky said, then frowned. “Is it?”

“That’s what I want to find out. Because, if this hunch I really don’t want to have is correct, we’ve got even bigger problems than we realized.”

* * *

We’d twisted to Starsmith and were inbound for the planet from the twist point when Perry found me. I was in my cabin, catching up on reading some Guild intel reports and doing some paperwork.

“Van, we’ve got an answer for you.”

I turned from my terminal. “The thing has been emitting some kind of signal, encoded in a way that connects it to the GKU or the 32, hasn't it?”

Perry just stared a moment. “You know, you could have saved us a few hours of time futzing around with the damned thing if you’d just told us you suspected that up front.”

I shook my head and stood, heading for the lounge to join the rest of the crew. “I didn’t want to taint the investigation, as it were. And I gather I’m right.”

“Yeah. You know how Icky is constantly trying to tweak the drive as close to one hundred percent efficiency as is Wu'tzur-ily possible? She’s been—eh, I’ll let her explain it,” he said as we entered the lounge.

Icky nodded as we came in. “Ever since I came aboard and started fiddling with the drive, there’s been one teeny-tiny fluctuation in it I’ve never been able to get rid of. It’s a loss of less than a tenth of a percent in efficiency, but still. Anyway, I’ve been through every component and conduit in the drive, every component and conduit connected to those ones—and this is all documented in that stupid log Gerhardt wants me to keep—”

I nodded. Someday, I was going to have to tell her that Gerhardt had been satisfied long ago by this point and didn’t expect her to keep up the detailed log anymore. I only hadn’t because it did enforce a certain discipline on Icky’s inclination to endlessly tinker.

Which was something I was holding back from my crew, wasn’t it? My intentions were good, but how many people were keeping secrets believing the same thing.

“Anyway,” I said, gesturing for her to go on.

“Anyway, I could never find what it was. I just chalked it up to the way the drive itself was built, maybe a slight variation in the shape of the fusion core, or the magnetic impellers, or—”

“But it’s not.”

“No. It’s that damned thing,” she snapped, pointing at the device sitting on the center table. “It’s been generating a super low-power signal, one specifically tuned to communicate with the magnetic impeller system. It’s been causing the impellers to fluctuate the field strength just a tiny bit, which makes our drive plume kind of… wobble.”

“It's not much, perhaps a few centimeters of displacement in the drive plume,” Funboy added. “And considering the plume can be tens of kilometers long if the drive is running at full power, that’s not even likely to be noticed.”

“Unless you’re specifically looking for it,” Perry went on.

Torina crossed her arms and scowled at the thing. “Apparently, that teensy bit of wobble is beating out an encoded transmission. The rate it sends data is pathetic compared to, say, a regular comm link, but if you’re receiving it and can decode it, you can still learn things from it.”

I nodded. “Like our intended destination, when we’re preparing to twist.”

“As long as you have line of sight and something that can resolve that miniscule bit of deflection in the plume, and can decode the signal, that’s right,” Netty-P said.

“And, like you seem to have expected, it’s a GKU code. Or it was, though it’s long obsolete,” Perry added.

I sniffed and shook my head. “Well, yeah. Because we’ve had the damned thing locked up in storage for years now. It’s not like they could do a software update on it, right?”

“So the GKU is tracking us,” Torina said.

I took a long breath, then let it out. “So it would seem. And now we know how B somehow manages to always be around at the right time. She might be out there somewhere now. Hell, she might always be lurking on our tail.”

“Yeah, but more as a guardian—uh—what are those Earth things called? With the wings and the songs and metallic hat and stuff?” Icky asked.

“Guardian angel.”

“Yeah. Like that. It’s more so that the GKU can watch over us, right?”

I gave the device a thin, humorless smile. “I’m sure that’s what they tell themselves, yeah. They probably knew I was going to take over the ship when Gramps died, and had it installed sometime around then.”

“But they couldn’t have known you’d just hang onto it like this. You could have just handed it over to Bester to stick in his archives,” Torina replied.

I shrugged. “It was a pretty safe bet. I mean, they probably knew we’d discover it, but they also knew I was brand new to being a Peacemaker, so I wasn’t exactly on the ball. And it’s not tied to any particular case. And even then, if I had handed it over to Bester, I’m sure they had a plan B.”

I rubbed my chin. “What I don’t get is how the thing could be sitting in that locker, operating this whole time, without us detecting it.”

“Oh, you’re going to love this part,” Netty-P said. “It communicates through the ship’s structure. The Fafnir’s systems induce tiny microcurrents in the structural components when they operate. The ship’s shielded to prevent them from leaking out past the hull plating, but it’s not shielded internally.”

“Why would it be?” Torina put in.

“Precisely. So the device is designed to detect, analyze, and isolate the microcurrents it's interested in, then communicate with the impeller controller the same way. Our regular bug sweeps never detected it because there were no emissions to detect.”

“It’s even designed so that the evidence case and locker were transparent to it. It’s a… damned clever piece of tech, actually,” Perry said.

We all stared at the innocuous little device for a moment. Torina finally spoke up.

“So what do you want to do about it, Van? Confront the GKU or the so-called 32 about it? Toss it into space, or destroy it?”

“Ooh… let’s attach it to some garbage scow, let the GKU chase that,” Icky said.

But I shook my head. “None of the above. We’re going to let it keep doing what it’s doing.”

Torina blinked at me. “Really? You’re okay with the GKU tracking us like this?”

“No, not one bit. In fact, it just plays right into a conversation I had late yesterday with Perry and Netty-P about how I do not trust the GKU—and, yes, that includes my mother and Valint. But for now, I don’t want to tip our hand—unless, of course, this thing has already broadcast the fact it was found out.”

“There’s no evidence of that. Now that we know what we’re looking for, we were able to go back and analyze the pattern of drive fluctuations from just before you pulled it out of the evidence locker. It sent a message saying we were coming here, to Starsmith, to… um, whoever might have been able to receive it. And it announced our arrival here, even though we were, by that point, analyzing it. And that’s it,” Netty-P said.

“I guess there’s only so much functionality you can put in one little device. Besides, how would it tell the difference between being discovered and just moved around?” Perry added.

“Okay. Well, for now, let’s just put it back in the evidence locker and let it do its thing. But I want everything it’s transmitting through our drive plume monitored and recorded. And if it sends something you think I should know about, you guys sound the alarm right away.”

We started to break up our meeting and prepare for our arrival at Starsmith. I caught Icky, though, before she left the lounge.

“Hey, big girl, I got a confession. You know that log you have to keep for Gerhardt?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to keep it anymore. In fact, you haven’t had to maintain it for a long time now. I should have told you long ago, but I thought it was keeping you, ah, disciplined in how you maintain the ship. I’m sorry.”

She surprised me by just shrugging. “Huh. Well, I’m so used to keeping the damned thing up-to-date that I think I’ll just keep doing it. In fact, I’ve actually found it helpful because I can go back and check earlier stuff I’ve done.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “How come you’re telling me this now, anyway?”

“Because, Icky, I’m tired of secrets. I’m especially tired of the secrets we’re keeping from ourselves.”

She nodded and headed aft.

As I turned toward the cockpit, my mind completed the thought.

I’m tired of the secrets we’re keeping from ourselves because they’re going to be the death of us.

12

We arrived on Starsmith to find the place in an uproar. Linulla had had another… brood? Clutch? Litter? Anyway, whatever you called a bunch of shiny new Conoku.

Thirty-eight of them.

“I have so many questions,” Torina muttered as he introduced us to the—litter, I settled on litter—in a cacophony of noise and chitinous skittering that made Cantullin and the crew of the Iowa look like the membership of some stuffy old-boy’s club.

“Like… where’s his wife? Does he have a wife? Do these kids have a mother, or does Linulla somehow—?”

“And how would you go about asking that, Torina? Hey, Linulla, can you tell me all about how you reproduce?”

“There are ways to be diplomatic about it, Van. Curiosity can be genuine.”

“Well, if you’re that interested, why not just turn to the data archives? I’m sure it’s all documented in there—”

“Actually, it’s not,” she said, showing me her data slate. Our archival data on the Conoku was pretty thin. “I already checked. It seems that they’re pretty closed off about themselves.”

“Well, there’s your answer then.”

She pursed her lips as she put the slate away. “Still, so many questions. Like—”

“How has the galaxy not been overrun by the Conoku, if they breed like this?” Icky shouted, three of them hanging off her and more grabbing at her.

Torina nodded. “Like that one, for instance.’

“Only a small percentage of my people can produce offspring, Icky. We happen to be among them,” Linulla answered.

Torina nudged me, then spoke in a low tone that bordered on awe. “We? So there’s at least one more Conoku somewhere that’s involved in”—she gestured at the mayhem around us—“this.”

I shot her a look. “Feel free to pry on your own time, my dear. But let’s get the business out of the way, first, in case you violate some terrible taboo while doing it.”

Linulla led us through the gauntlet of his children, who, aside from being confined to a series of rooms, seemed to have no ongoing adult supervision. I shrugged it away. However they did their child-bearing and rearing, it seemed to work for them, and that was all that really mattered.

Linulla took us to his forge and workshop. Machinery rattled and rumbled away around us, but it still seemed downright sedate compared to the nursery we’d just escaped.

“So, Van, what brings you to my humble little forge?” Linulla asked.

“A couple of things. One, when I was here last, you told me to ask you the next time I was here about another upgrade to the Moonsword. I was also wondering if you’d learned anything new about Calamity, and was hoping to talk to, uh, our mutual friend.”

“Ah. Well, for the first, yes. The next upgrade, called Blur, will reduce the mass of the blade without reducing its hitting power, which I realize sounds counterintuitive, but that’s why I’m so damned good at my job.”

We laughed, and he carried on. “As for the second, no, we haven’t. Bester has all the data we’ve collected on that copy of Calamity you provided us. Since it seemed to be a pristine copy, which hasn’t undergone any adaptive mutation in the wild, as it were, it has taught us a great deal about its underlying architecture. But there are still huge gaps, including the exact mechanism by which it can recognize a new computing situation, and then design and implement a mutation in itself to adapt to it.”

I nodded, parsing his words. Bester had sent us a complete summary when we’d returned from Reverie, and a few updates since. Linulla had basically just encapsulated everything that had all been said. At its core, Calamity had some fundamental means of interacting with its computational substrate, whatever hardware it had infected, that we simply did not understand. Everyone agreed that cracking that was going to be key to developing a truly effective vaccine, but whatever it was, it wandered into realms of computing that just didn’t seem to yet exist in known space.

“And as for the third—” Linulla’s eye stalks swiveled toward the other members of my crew. I shrugged.

“It’s okay. They know about Matterforge. I couldn’t really keep coming here and vanishing for cryptic conversations without making them curious.”

“That’s ’cause we’re investigators. We investigate real good!” Perry said.

“Ah. Well, Matterforge has been silent for some time. That isn’t unusual. It seems to coincide with periods of increased activity on the star’s surface, but not always. So we can attempt to contact it, but it quite likely won’t answer.”

I replied with a grunt. I was disappointed because I’d hoped for some more insight from the strange being, even if it was patchy and incomplete. Far be it from me, though, to judge the activities of something that lived on the surface of a star and casually fissioned and fused elements like a kid fiddling with building blocks. It may not even be that the bizarre entity didn’t want to talk, it may simply not have been able to. It might be dormant, or currently experiencing an entirely different version of space-time, or… in the shower. Who knew when it came to celestial super beings?

* * *

We spent two days on Starsmith, while Linulla upgraded the Moonsword. It gave us a chance to get some of the endless maintenance chores on the Fafnir—some of which could only be done while she was powered down—completed. We also took the Frankie out for a spin, experimenting more fully with her new weapons, determining what they could and couldn't do.

We came to the conclusion that the suppressor cannons were extremely powerful and destructive, but they also had some major limitations. While they could still inflict damage at moderate ranges, say out to a couple of hundred thousand klicks, they were most effective—by far—at less than one hundred. They also built up heat much faster than any other weapon I’d seen, meaning that they had to either be fired at a slow rate or given long cooling times if they fired a rapid burst. And they were power hogs. Using both at the same time actually put an undue strain on the Frankie’s power transfers, forcing a shutdown of other systems.

We finally settled on treating them as short-range weapons that had to be fired individually, with one shooting at an intermediate rate, then left to cool while the other opened up. It made the Frankie deadly in a short-range knife-fight type of battle. But aside from her pair of one-shot missile tubes, she was pretty much forced to run from long range battles.

When Linulla finally returned the Moonsword, I was delighted with its new performance. The other upgrades, like the comm-suppressing or beam-bending ones were cool, but they were also only situationally useful. Of course, when those situations occurred, they were really useful, but still.

But this one—wow.

It made the Moonsword as quick and light as an Innsu knife. That meant that, rather than just basing my fighting with it on the Innsu style I’d been learning, I could just use it pretty much as is. The only thing I had to accommodate was the fact that the Moonsword was a longer blade. Aside from that, though, I could wield the thing with as much speed and agility as I did the weapons I handled in Master Cataric’s dojo.

We had another visit with Linulla’s kids as we prepared to depart. Again, there was no sign of a mother, or mothers, or whatever other partners were involved in Conoku procreation. It was as though Linulla, as the apparent father, had inherited all of the child care. Even then, though, he seemed to leave them to their own devices. It seemed to me like filling a daycare with toddlers and then all the adults just walking away, but again, it appeared to work for the Conoku. And just as I wasn’t going to judge star-dwelling, spacetime-bending aliens, I wasn’t going to judge Conoku parenting, either.

We left, cries of, “Daaad, I’m itchyyyyyyy!!!” following us out of the Starsmith complex. Perry landed on the ground ahead of me and fixed me with a beady amber stare.

“If your kids ask me to scratch them under the carapace or whatever, I’m moving in with Schegith.”

“Human children don’t have carapaces, and anyway, where were you when I was a baby or a toddler? You must have been somewhere nearby,” I countered.

“Emphasis on nearby. I got a look at one of your poopy diapers, and that was it. I was out.”

Funboy spoke up as we walked toward the Fafnir. “You may recall that I’ve been watching, with fascinated horror, videos of Earthly activities. I have watched several about the appalling realities of human parenting. There are incessant gouts and sprays and deluges of bodily fluids, and endless screaming, and a seemingly never-ending rain of teeth. I said teeth, Van. And the mucus. The solidified version Icky calls boogies—“ He sighed. “Oh dear. How your race did not render itself extinct through sheer disgust I can’t fathom.”

“So what happens with Surtsi kids? Are they always clean and pristine and calmly subdued?” Torina asked.

“Yes. Yes, they are.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

I patted Funboy’s shoulder, provoking a pointed look at my hand. “Someone make a note. Funboy is never to have diaper duty.”

Funboy inclined his head gravely. “Thank you. I accept your offer of civilized friendship. That said, I believe that Gabby has expressed an interest in assisting with your offspring. She only lamented their lack of nictitating membranes.” He shrugged. “Still, as she puts it, they’ll be ours.”

* * *

We left Starsmith and set course for Anvil Dark. Perry needed his wings repaired, and I wanted a chance to talk to Gerhardt. I still hadn’t decided if I was going to raise the matter of the tracking device we’d had stashed in our evidence locker since one of my first flights in what would become the Fafnir. On the one hand, the pissed-off part of me wanted to, just to make it clear that I knew about it and wasn’t happy. On the other, though, I could think of good reasons not to. Foremost among them was a desire to somehow turn this to our advantage. B clearly knew about it but so far had only used it to our benefit. If there were other elements of the GKU with less noble intent, I wanted to figure out a way to flush them out. So, for now, we’d just bide our time.

Once we were underway, I unstrapped and started aft, heading for my cabin, but Netty-P interrupted.

“Van, I’ve just been alerted to an emergency situation.”

I stopped instantly. Now what? My mind went to something involving Earth.

“Don’t tell me. Now we’ve got aliens in Sheboygan.”

“No—or, perhaps, but I wouldn’t know. Rather, it’s a matter of astronomical significance to you and Torina.”

I gave her a blank stare. Torina, though, suddenly looked as though someone had slapped her across the face.

“Oh, no—what’s the date on Helso?”

“Day 259 of the Helso standard calendar for… about three more hours,” Perry replied.

“And that is the nature of this emergency. Several urgent messages have arrived in the twist comm buffer from your parents. And your aunt. And several cousins, and… almost all of your family, it would appear. The most animated is a second cousin named Lurleen who is—you didn’t tell me there were rednecks on Helso. Anyway, she is in a state.”

Funboy gave a puzzled frown. “Did you miss a name day, or some other day of significance? This sort of reaction sounds like—”

I hissed. It had taken me a little longer, but it suddenly hit me like an openhanded slap.

“Oh, Torina. Did we—we’re not paying attention to the Helso calendar, are we? Did we miss it?”

She sighed. “No. But we’re going to if we don’t do something about it, like, yesterday.”

“Excuse me, but what am I missing here?” Funboy asked.

“Torina and I declared that on the day called Thrice Moon, at the moment the third moon breaks the horizon, we’d be married. But with the trip to Reverie, and the combi-drive stuff, and the Jackals and the Tyrants, and aliens desperately trying to invade Earth and us building new bases on Orcus and robots and—”

“You forgot.”

“We forgot.” I turned to Perry. “How long have we got?”

“Sixteen days, eleven hours, two minutes, and eight seconds until the instant of the astronomical rise of Helso’s third moon above the horizon, from the perspective of the Milon estate. Let’s round it off to sixteen and a bit days.”

Icky heaved a great sigh. “Right. Great. I’m going to have to wear pants, aren’t I?”

“Actually, I was thinking something… fancier. A gown. I mean, you will stand with me, right?”

“I—of course. But… a gown? You mean something flowy, and without leggings?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“Icky in a long, flowing gown. This, I cannot wait to see,” Perry said.

Funboy looked up from his workstation. “I have been skimming matrimonial customs on both Helso and Earth, and for the latter, I understand there is something called a gift registry. Where will yours be so that I can purchase the customary gift?”

I smiled. “As should be painfully obvious by now, we hadn’t really thought it through. But as a solidly middle-classed Iowan, let me tell you about a store called Menard’s.”

* * *

The result of suddenly remembering our own wedding—a bit of forgetting that I’m sure we were going to be hearing about for years and years—necessitated a change in plans. Perry was content to keep living with two tipless wings, and I was able to talk to Gerhardt via comm. I updated him on the whole situation involving Shifty, his lab, Panzygrus, and Forcrus, and then told him what we were planning next.

“You forgot your own upcoming wedding?” Gerhardt responded with an amused smile. “Really? How does that even happen?”

“Well, at least Torina forgot it as well.”

Gerhardt nodded but was still smiling. “True. You forgetting about it while she hadn’t would be…” He let his voice trail off.

I nodded. “Yeah. It most certainly would have been.”

Torina, in the meantime, glued herself to the comm and racked up an eye-watering twist-comm bill, talking to her parents and remotely making all the endless arrangements. Fortunately, the Milons had gone ahead and engaged a wedding planner, so the whole affair was a lot more organized than we’d feared. In fact, it had been our utter silence about the wedding, despite its advanced state of preparation, that had suddenly given everyone an Oh shit, they’ve forgotten about it, haven’t they? moment. The deluge of panicked calls had followed.

During a break in her incessant twist-comming, Torina brought me to talk to Icky. She’d thought of a really good point—something else we’d overlooked until now.

“Icky, are you going to be okay with this? With us getting married, while you and Paxomar are still waiting for your dad to recover?”

Icky had been working on a component in the Fafnir’s small workshop, adjacent to the engineering bay. She looked up and pushed a magnifier from in front of her eyes.

“Sure. Why shouldn’t I?”

“We just wanted to check,” I said.

She shrugged. “Gives me longer to make sure Paxomar can keep me accustomed to my fancy lifestyle.”

Perry, who’d been lurking nearby, piped up. “Fancy as in… using utensils?”

“Hey, I’m classy,” she said, then frowned, reached up, and scratched an ear. Crumbs of something pattered onto the workbench. “Huh. Wonder how those got there.”

Perry nodded, his eyes neutral. “So… cosmopolitan.”

* * *

Preparations for the wedding were so well in hand that we changed our plans again. Miryam relayed the news through the Iowa that the whole alien thing on Earth was starting to heat up, simmering heading back toward boiling. She couldn’t pin it on any one thing—maybe a lull in the news, while otherwise huge issues and conflicts took a breather. She figured at least one of the usual suspects—political wrangling and infighting, stock market jitters, a bitter regional conflict over “insert issue here”—would flare up soon and steal the headlines again. But, in even the fleeting absence of that, the alien push to make inroads on Earth had legs.

In other words, our hardened cordon of Earth had throttled the whole thing down, but it didn’t stop whatever aliens were currently on Earth from getting up to shenanigans. And that worried me. Who knew what might suddenly catch and start to burn? A belief that an alien invasion was imminent could start a mass global panic—or inadvertently trigger something even worse during the resulting chaos, like a nuclear exchange. Or a religious upheaval could erupt, sparked by the realization that not only was humanity not alone, but its various divine beliefs weren’t even close to universal. That could result in something that made the worst excesses of any church just seem like fond memories.

No, we had to do something about this. Get out in front of it while it was still stumbling. And we had to do it now.

“Van, do you think this is going to delay our wedding, too? Because if it is, we owe my parents a heads-up about that,” Torina said as the Fafnir undocked from the Iowa. We’d picked up Gabby and Rab because I wanted the whole crew available. Panzygrus already had bots preparing a suitable location on Orcus for our planned base, so they could afford to leave her to it for now.

I shook my head as Netty-P started us toward Earth. “Nope. Our wedding is going ahead as planned, no matter what. That said, though, there’s a good chance our honeymoon is going to be right back here on Earth.”

“That’s fine. All we need is a room with a comfy bed and a door that locks anyway.”

I glanced at her, and she arched her eyebrows back at me.

I smiled. “Well, maybe a nice view, too.”

“Oh, there’ll be a nice view—”

Perry’s head pushed between us.

“Do you two mind? I’m sitting right here.”

* * *

We left the Fafnir in orbit with Netty-P aboard and descended in the Frankie. We still hadn’t addressed the fact that the Fafnir was too big to fit inside the barn. When Gramps had flown her, he’d kept her size and mass to no more than class 10, the maximum the barn could hold. Enlarging the barn enough to fully conceal her, though, risked drawing unwanted attention—why would a hobby farm need a brand new and much bigger barn? We’d have to come up with a creative solution, but for now, shuttling around in the Frankie was the best one we had.

Right before sunrise, we ambled into the farmhouse and settled in the kitchen for some serious discussion. Miryam was already there, the coffee on, a summary of what had been going on prepared with the succinct but sterile precision of a career lawyer. We’d bounced around the matter of how to approach the whole aliens-on-Earth problem during the flight here but hadn’t come up with any solutions. We needed one now, though.

“Hit teams. Hire some kick-ass bounty hunters to track down all the illegal aliens on Earth and exterminate them,” Icky suggested.

“Wow, I just felt millions of voices cry out in terror at the thought of being suddenly silenced,” Perry replied.

I nodded. “No kidding. Let’s just make it a rule right now that any solution that involves the word ‘extermination’ is a non-starter, shall we?”

Icky stuck out her feet. “Fine. I’m outta ideas, then.”

“How about a deliberate misinformation campaign? Your species seems quite susceptible to accepting obviously false or misleading information as fact. We could drown out the alien issue in a sea of obvious falsehoods and unbelievable nonsense,” Rab offered.

I wiped at my face. “Gee, Rab, I think I got some of the stuff from that broad brush of yours on me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry—”

I held up a hand. “It’s okay. I suspect every species has its susceptible elements. Humanity’s certainly no exception. I mean, look at Myron.” I nodded toward Miryam’s summary. “Besides, you’ve all read that. That’s already happening on its own. It’s the only thing, in fact, that’s stopped this from going completely critical to this point. The trouble is that we can’t count on that to keep working. If enough evidence shows up, if the Equal Grasp or whoever manages to sneak something past our cordon, no amount of disinformation might be enough to quash it.”

Torina nodded. “It’s really just a delaying tactic, not a solution.”

We sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator. Perry finally spoke up.

“Myron. That’s it.”

We all turned puzzled looks on him. “Myron? How is he it?”

“Sometimes, Van, the solution isn’t to try to undo something, or even minimize it. That might no longer be possible anyway. Sometimes, the solution is to lean right into the problem.”

“What are you getting at, bird?”

“Let’s beat the Equal Grasp at their own game. Let’s tell the people of Earth the truth ourselves.”

13

Again, there was a long moment of refrigerator hum. Then everyone started talking at once, mostly snapping out variations on, Perry, are you nuts?

I finally raised my hands. “People, people, let’s allow the bird to speak his piece.” I turned to him. “Perry, are you nuts?”

“We don’t have the authority to initiate a formal first contact. Interstellar law specifies a whole series of conditions that must be met, protocols that must be followed—” Funboy started, but Perry cut him off.

“Uh, duh. Look who you’re talking to. I’m nothing but walking, talking, flying—” He glanced at his still-clipped wings. “Okay, kinda flying protocol. So I know all that, sheesh. I’m not suggesting a formal first contact, at least not a class one first contact as specified in… legal chapter and verse, blah, blah, it doesn’t matter.”

I sat forward, intrigued. “So, what are you suggesting?”

“Interstellar law provides for lesser forms of first contact, mainly to facilitate an eventual implementation of a class one. Class two, for instance, allows for contact with organizations that could constitute strategic partners in setting up a class one. Class three is the same, but for strategic individuals. In fact, we’ve kind of done a class three already, with Tony Burgess. There are more classes, because this is bureaucracy so of course there are, but you get my drift.”

“So you’re saying we should formally contact—someone. Someone ‘strategic’ here on Earth and bring them on board?”

“Yeah. I mean, look around this kitchen, Van. Everyone you see here, plus Tony and his, what, three or four people, that’s it. That’s all we’ve got to try and control the messaging to eight billion people spread all over the planet. Let’s be generous and add in, say, Groshenko and Gerhardt. Who else could we involve that isn’t themselves an alien? Your mother?”

“Uh, no. Definitely not her.”

“Didn’t think so. What we need is an organization with the horsepower—the people, the funding, the resources, and most importantly, the contacts and influence—to help get this under control. And we need to get them to realize that getting it under control is humanity’s best interests generally, and their own specifically.”

“It sounds like you have someone in mind,” Miryam said.

“I do. Remember Myron’s Men in Black? They’re apparently not just a damned good movie franchise. Well, the first one was, anyway. I didn’t think the sequels really—”

“Perry!”

“Sorry, boss. You know me and my passion for the silver screen. Anyway, Tony, Marla, and Myron all described how they got a visit from these Men in Black, remember?”

I nodded. “I do. I also remember how they’re apparently just a cushy retirement posting for burnt-out agents from other departments. Seriously, what good are some government short-timers just going through the motions of believing in aliens going to do us?”

“They probably spend most of their day poring over brochures from retirement communities in Florida,” Miryam agreed.

“Sure. But do you remember that surveillance device I found in the tree across the road? The one we spoofed into never seeing anything interesting here? As tech went, it wasn’t much to us, but it was state-of-the-art Earthly stuff. Do you really think that some bureaucratic has-beens had the time or inclination to sneak up into a tree and plant something like that?” Perry asked.

I sat back. Surprisingly, I wasn’t… horrified by the idea Perry had posed. I wasn’t thrilled, either.

“So you’re suggesting there’s more to these pseudo Men in Black than there seems,” I said.

“Stands to reason. Stories about Men in Black have been around for decades. The first recorded reference is from 1947, when a guy named Harold Dahl claimed he was warned by a man in a dark suit not to talk about a UFO he’d seen over Puget Sound. Do you really think the postwar US government was interested in giving their employees cozy retirement postings?”

“But aren’t these Men in Black supposed to be all about suppressing UFOs? Are those really the sorts of people you want to involve yourselves with? I mean, you kind of fly around in a UFO of your own, don’t you?” Miryam asked.

Icky leaned forward, grinning. “What are they gonna do? Lean on us?”

I held up a hand. “If we do this, let’s see if we can avoid having anyone leaning on anyone else. Miryam, did Gramps ever say anything about the Men in Black? I mean, he was in the military, so if anyone might have had contacts, it would have been him.”

“Uh—”

I frowned. “Miryam?”

She sighed. “Your grandfather, his being involved in special operations, all that—it was, um… a cover story.”

“It—what?”

“He needed a way to explain why he would suddenly disappear for long periods of time, leave no contact information and never talk about what he did. I mean, he actually was involved in special operations. People just didn’t realize how special.”

“Oh. Great. Another pillar of what I thought I knew about my family knocked down.”

Strangely, though, it didn’t really upset me, because not only did it make sense, but I was also doing much the same thing, wasn’t I? To the extent anyone even cared, Miryam, backed up by Clinton Barnes, the County Sheriff, explained my long and frequent absences from the farm being because of my job as a computer security consultant. The story was that it took me all over the world on extended trips. Again, to the extent that anyone cared, it seemed to do the job. So how was that different than Gramps saying he was involved in spec ops that did the same thing?

I just pushed on. “Fine. Whatever. So he never mentioned any issues or anything with these Men in Black.”

“Not to me, he didn’t,” Miryam replied.

I leaned back and blew out a sigh. “Okay. This plan sucks, but it doesn’t suck as much as anything else we’ve come up with—including a wave of assassinations,” I added, looking at Icky.

“Eh, let’s call that our fallback,” she replied, smirking.

“Anyway, I guess our next step is to reach out to these guys, convince them that we’re for real, and that the threat from the Equal Grasp and their co-conspirators is, too,” I said.

Torina leaned on the kitchen table. “So this is a government department, right? How are you going to make them understand that time is of the essence? In my experience, the state moves at one speed—slow—unless, of course, it involves your money.”

“Cynical, yet accurate,” Perry said.

“There likely will be a certain institutional inertia. It is also likely that these individuals are exposed to many people like Myron. They are probably somewhat… jaded about supposed alien contacts,” Funboy put in.

Gabby nodded. “Good point. We could spend a lot of time trying to convince them that aliens are real and here on Earth.”

I had to smile at the irony of that statement being made by a human-sized tardigrade wearing something akin to aviator’s goggles. But I nodded.

“Yup. The government is the same, more or less, no matter what star you circle.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, dear. How do we make them see the truth, and do it quickly?”

I smiled. “Oh, that’s the easy part. We abduct them and fly them to the Iowa.”

* * *

Tony stared out of the display for a moment, then slowly shook his head.

“You know, most of my life, I’ve believed that aliens really exist. And, yeah, I believed that they abduct people, and I wondered if I might ever be one of them—putting aside the three stooges that showed up in my bedroom on a frat-boy dare, because that was just stupid. What I never imagined, though, was that I’d be involved in an alien abduction as one of the freakin’ abductors!”

“Don’t worry, Tony, your part in this is minimal. Your name and identity won’t ever come up, so you’ll stay in the clear,” I replied.

“So you seriously intend to snatch some government agents and fly them out to Pluto.”

“Only to the general vicinity of Pluto. Technically, we’re flying them out to Orcus.”

“I stand corrected. And you think this is actually a good way of suppressing alien activity on Earth?”

“It’s the best one we’ve been able to come up with,” Torina said over my shoulder.

“Uh-huh. And how do you know that these Equal Grasp people—and I use that term loosely—haven’t already beaten you to it, and have the Men in Black on their side?” Tony asked.

I shrugged. “We don’t, at least for certain, anyway. But if they had, I suspect we’d know about it by now. And then there’s our mysterious friend, the Manhattan attorney named Forester. He wants to talk to me, remember? I suspect he’s going to extend an offer to me from the Equal Grasp—a generous one, to get me on their side.”

“I thought they wanted you dead.”

“Dead, complicit, I doubt they really care. Whether they pay to buy me off or have me offed, they’ve probably already budgeted for it—and they’ll only ever have to pay for one of those things.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to arrange a meeting with the good Mr. Forester so I can string him along and buy us some time. In the meantime, I need to get together with Myron, and arrange another meeting, this time with your friendly Men in Black.”

Torina chuckled. “His whole life has been leading up to this moment.”

But Tony shook his head. “Van, they’re… not real! They’re just out-to-pasture agents from a dozen government departments pretending they care about any of this!”

“I know that. But, assuming there’s a real Men in Black outfit somewhere in the shadows behind them, I suspect they monitor these guys just in case they stumble into something real. Someone placed that bug in the tree across the road from my farm, after all. Someone who had at least some suspicions and the wherewithal to act on them.”

“Okay. So one last thing. The Men in Black are—they’re scary, Van. Real boogeymen among UFOlogists. If they’re anything like what they’re made out to be, they don’t seem to be bound by laws or… anything at all. They blackmail, intimidate, extort—hell, they kill people, if they think it’s justified. They’re the blackest of black ops.”

Tony sounded genuinely worried. Frightened, even. Once upon a time, I probably would have been, too. But then I had to deal with the Stillness. The Fade. The Sorcerers. The Arc of Vengeance. The Usu. The Jackals—

Tony, of course, knew almost nothing about any of that. So I just gave what I meant to be a reassuring smile.

“I hear you, Tony, and appreciate your concern. We’ll be careful.”

“Yeah. Do that. And as for Myron… well, that’s a little complicated.”

That wiped my smile away. “Complicated how.”

“He’s kind of… in jail.”

* * *

I read the press release Tony had sent. “So Myron has been tossed into jail in Appleton for, and I quote, disrupting a city council meeting, claiming that Tutsi Auffenberg, host of Iowa local access show Wake Up Cedar Rapids!, is a”—I sighed—“is a lizard person who was helping to facilitate an alien invasion called the Turning to Darkness, which would result in humanity being enslaved in alien gold mines—unquote.”

“That’s insane!” Perry said.

“You think?”

“Yeah. I mean, how does Myron, who lives in Appleton, get a local access cable channel from Cedar Rapids?”

“That’s the part of this that bothers you.”

Miryam chuckled. “Actually, Tutsi was something of a local celebrity there for a while. She broke the news about the Equal Grasp and ended up being interviewed by CNN, MSNBC, Fox, a few others.”

“Why was that, anyway? Why did the Equal Grasp pick Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to launch their sinister plan to invade Earth? Why not a larger metropolitan area? Or even, the capital of this nation-state. It was named after a man with wooden teeth, if I recall correctly,” Funboy asked.

“Washington, DC. And I have no idea.”

“Ooh, I think I know!” Gabby put in. “They picked a place close to here, where Van lives, right? I think it was a message to him.”

Perry nodded. “I think you’ve cracked the code, Gabby. Their opening moves have been all aimed at Van. They see you as key to getting access to Earth—either by being part of it, or by getting in the way of it.”

Rab cocked his whiskery head. “That means they’re eventually going to give up on that, though, right? If they can’t buy you off, then they’ll put all their effort into getting you out of the way. And that would explain why word of that huge bounty isn’t common knowledge yet. It’s just another part of the message to you, Van.”

“Play ball or get the hell out of the way. And Rab’s right, that’s probably a limited time offer,” Icky offered.

“All the more reason to move on this. And that means we need to get Myron out of jail.” I turned to Miryam, who I’d asked to put on her lawyer hat and contact the authorities in Appleton. “What did you find out?”

“That your friend Myron is a stubborn pain in the ass. The press release might say he’s locked up for disrupting a council meeting, but that was the reason he was arrested in the first place. They were going to let him go with a small fine, but he apparently refused to recognize the court’s jurisdiction, claiming that he’s a citizen of the universe or something like that. So, now he’s being kept in jail for contempt. All he has to do is apologize to the judge and pay his fine, and they’ll let him go. He flatly refuses.”

“Oh, for—is there anything you can do? Talk to the judge, convince him that Myron’s particular brand of crazy isn’t going to just suddenly go away?”

“Sorry, he burned that bridge when he accused the judge of being in league with the lizard people himself.”

“See, this shit is why no one believes the truth when—you know what? Forget it. The die is cast with him, and we’re moving on,” I said, letting the heat drain away. I didn’t have the time or luxury of losing it over a conspiracy theorist who happened to be on my side. Sort of.

“Can’t we just forget about Myron? Doesn’t Tony know how to contact these Men in Black?” Torina asked.

“No, apparently Myron is the one who’s been in contact with them. Tony’s obviously keeping himself well away,” I replied.

I stared at the kitchen floor for a moment, then heaved a resigned sigh. “We can’t wait for Myron to come to his senses because, let’s face it, that’s just not going to happen. We’re going to have to go to Appleton and talk to him through the bars.”

“Sorry to keep raining on your parade, Van, but he’s not being allowed contact with anyone but his lawyer, who’s a public defender that might actually be old enough to shave. Apparently he’s an, um, uncooperative prisoner,” Miryam said.

I scowled. “You know, I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to de-stealth the Fafnir, fly it over Washington, DC, and broadcast an invitation for the Men in Black to come and talk to us.”

“If you did that, I think you’d probably make the whole Men in Black angle kinda moot,” Perry said.

“No shit.”

“So why don’t we just bust him out?” Icky asked.

I shot her a hard look. “Bust him out? Of jail? How long have you had this desire to be a criminal, Icky?”

“Just sayin’. I mean, we break him out of there, and he puts us in touch with these, uh, government guys.”

“Then he’ll be an at-large escapee from lawful custody. I am a cop, Icky, even if my jurisdiction technically doesn’t include Earth.”

“Yeah, but from what you’ve been saying, these agents can pull all kinds of strings. Couldn’t they just make Myron’s legal troubles… um, go away?”

I glanced at Miryam, who just sniffed and shook her head. “Sorry, Van, I must have missed the lecture in law school about super-shadowy government departments overriding local law enforcement.”

I rubbed my eyes. “This makes the whole plan suck even more, but it’s still the best one we’ve got. Okay, so, how do we break Myron out of jail?”

* * *

The answer to that, though, was evident as soon as Netty-P found us the information we needed on where Myron was being held. She was able to trace his incarceration to a temporary jail annex in Appleton, where low-risk, non-violent offenders were being held while renovations were being done to the actual jail.

I stared at the image she’d put on the data slate’s display. “A strip mall? Really?”

“So it seems. The town rented a unit at the end of the mall, that they’ve repurposed into a temporary hoosegow,” Netty-P replied over the comm.

“Hey, right next door to the Sunrise Diner and Grill, all-day breakfast is our specialty. That’s handy,” Perry said.

“Brinner is among the finest cultural traditions of my planet,” I said, and I meant it.

Torina put a hand on my arm and fluttered her lashes. “Your passion for important things knows no bounds, love.”

“I’ll remember that the next time we have pancakes at midnight,” I countered with a wink, then turned back to face the screens.

I asked Netty-P to get the best imagery she possibly could, something better than Google Maps, which was probably old imagery. She adjusted the Fafnir’s orbit to pass right over Appleton, and within a couple of hours had sent imagery so clear and detailed I could read Three Musketeers on a discarded candy bar wrapper in the parking lot.

Better still, the unit containing the temporary jail annex, located at the end of the strip mall, had a large opening in the roof. It had probably once been occupied by an HVAC unit but was now just boarded over and covered with a sheet-rubber membrane against the elements.

“We’re really going to break Myron out of lawful custody,” Torina said, clicking her tongue. “You know, on Helso, we call this a crime.”

“Crime is such an ugly word. I prefer—uh—” I fumbled for a word.

“Asset retrieval?” Perry suggested.

I gave him a wry smile. “Well put, bird.”

He pretended to preen. “Euphemisms R Us, anytime you need ’em. I mean, I am at least semi-pro.”

I turned back to Torina. “Yeah. That. An asset retrieval.”

Torina raised a brow, and I gave a sheepish smile, then a shrug. “Like I’ve been saying, this is the least shitty plan we’ve come up with. And yeah, I know, we’re breaking him out of lawful confinement. But it’s not like he committed murder. He called a judge a lizard person and refuses to apologize or pay his hundred dollar fine. So I’m just going to chalk this one up to scoring one for the greater good.”

Torina sighed. “I guess. However, as your Second, I want to duly note my concern.”

I glanced at Perry, who saluted with a wing. “Duly noted.”

“Okay, then. So we’re off to break Myron out of this midwestern Alcatraz.”

Perry nodded. “Yup. Myron’s worst fear is about to be realized. He’s about to be abducted—through the sunroof.”

14

Torina held the Frankie over the makeshift jail while I descended the few meters to the roof on a tether. I was used to using the things during spacewalks, but its monofilament strength and powerful winch were handy during, say, a jailbreak in a gravity well, too.

I glanced anxiously around as I dropped. It was only about four meters, but it was still four meters of me descended on a line that seemed to come from nowhere. The Frankie was otherwise invisible to visible detection and Earthly tech, but I wasn’t.

I gripped the Moonsword, counting on its suppressive function—one that I’d casually dismissed as situational just a couple of days earlier—to shut down nearby security cameras and systems. Perry had already scouted out any nearby outside the blade’s area of effect and disabled them, as well. That, together with the fact it was just after four a.m., should be enough to keep this under wraps.

We hoped. There was always the chance that some night owl or random drunk would come stumbling by. But I was only visible, dropping out of the invisible Frankie, for a moment, and then I was on the roof. Appleton was silent around me, aside from the occasional sound of distant traffic, a faint, white-noise buzz of electricity humming through a transformer on a nearby pole, and a yappy dog barking somewhere to the east.

As soon as my feet were planted on the tarred gravel of the roof, I hissed, “Okay, Torina, I’m going in.” I was wearing my full b-suit, helmet included, so I wasn’t worried about being overheard. It would also render me anonymous on the off chance a camera did catch me. Weird, but anonymous.

“Just say when.”

The opening for the former HVAC unit was covered by even flimsier stuff than I’d expected—plywood braced by two-by-fours and a sheet rubber membrane tacked down to the surrounding roof. It was just the sort of shoddy, half-assed job that a stingy landlord would use to save a few bucks. It sure as hell didn’t seem like a decent roof for any tenant in the strip-mall unit below me, much less an actual jail.

It took me about five seconds to cut an opening big enough to drop through. We’d been ready with a second winch and tether in case we had to lift a heavy chunk of roof free, but this was far easier. I lifted the section of wood and rubber out and placed it aside, breathing my thanks to the stingy landlord as I did.

I stuck my hand down through the hole I’d cut and scanned around the space below with my b-suit’s finger cam, watching the image on my HUD. It revealed a small room containing a forced-air furnace and shelves around the walls. A utility room for the unit. Perfect.

I had Icky, who was operating the winch, lower me through the hole and into the room below. When my feet touched concrete, I unsnapped the tether and drew The Drop.

There was no way I was going to get into a gunfight with Appleton jail guards, so I didn’t even have a magazine of slugs loaded. I’d be relying on its stun beamer only.

I checked the door. It was locked, but only to keep people out. After twisting the knob, I eased it open, stuck my finger cam out, and scanned.

Beyond it was open space. It was, after all, meant to be a retail unit, but much of the space was taken up by four expedient jail cells made of sturdy lumber and chain-link fencing. There were a couple of more rooms in the rear, probably washrooms. Toward the front of the unit, bland fabric office partitions sectioned off a workspace for the jail staff assigned to work here.

Based on thermal signatures, that was one person. Two of the cells were occupied, one of them presumably by Myron. My sound collection was a bit more, ah, robust.

Someone was snoring like a balky chainsaw.

“Going in,” I whispered—unnecessarily, since no one could hear me speaking inside my helmet anyway. I had to take out the guard first, so I slipped out of the furnace room and crept toward the front. When I reached the partitions and peered over them, I discovered where the snoring was coming from.

The guard was totally dead to the world. He slumped back in a tilting chair, his mouth hanging open, the buzzsaw snoring emerging from its depths. I’ve been around people who snore—the army was good for that—and I have an Icky in my life. Still, the guard was giving them all a run for their money with his braying, wheezing, snorting, erratic symphony he chose to punctuate with a spray of saliva, just for good measure.

A single, small desk lamp lit the place, and in its wan glow I could see a plate on the desk beside him. It was sticky with resinous syrup and held the remnants of… a pancake?

While I heartily approved of his choices—breakfast for dinner was, of course, elite—I knew the heavy carbs and sugar would result in feeling like I’d been shot with a rhino dart. In that sense, I was thankful for his choices.

But there was an opportunity here, too.

I was just going to turn away and take advantage of his dereliction of duty, but I stopped. If I did, and simply quietly extracted Myron from here while he was asleep, it would probably cost him his job. Moreover, if he did wake up, he might trigger an alarm. So, breathing a silent, sorry buddy, but this is for your own good, I aimed The Drop and triggered the beamer. A snap, then the snoring stopped, and the guard slumped even more in his seat.

I went to him to make sure he was still breathing—he was—then eased him onto the floor. Now, at least, when he came to in about fifteen minutes, he could genuinely claim to have been incapacitated—not just passed out from stuffing himself with pancakes. The security cameras, in the meantime, would show nothing at all, since the Moonsword would have fuzzed them into uselessness.

I headed back to the cells, peered into each, and swore richly. All I saw were two bodies heaped under blankets. Thermal didn’t reveal which was Myron either. So I sighed, gripped The Drop, and activated the suit’s speaker.

“Myron?”

One of the figures muttered. The other jumped, sat up, and blinked at me. He wasn’t Myron.

“Sorry, my friend,” I said, and stunned him as well. He flopped back onto the bed. I turned to the other cell.

“Myron?”

“Uhn?”

I recognized the tone of the grunt and sliced open the door with the Moonsword. “Myron, come on. I’m breaking you out of—”

He leaped up, flailing his fists toward me with a wild cry.

“You’re a Venusian! I know it, I knew you’d finally find me—!”

I sighed yet again. Of course, in my b-suit, he didn’t recognize me. “Myron, it’s Van.”

“You’re a damned Venusian—!”

I sheathed both my weapons and grabbed at his hands. He landed a couple of blows that I didn’t feel, but he did, and he yelped and pulled back split knuckles. I really didn’t want to have to stun this idiot, because then I’d have to lug him out of here as deadweight.

“Myron, I’m not a Venusian! I’ve been to Venus, but I wouldn’t want to live there! It’s Van! You know, Van Tudor, Space Policeman—”

He stopped, peering at me. “Van?”

“Yes. It’s me. I’m here to bust you out of here.”

“You—I—what? Why?”

“Because I need you to—”

He crossed his arms. “Oh, no. I ain’t leaving here until that damned judge admits he’s in league with—”

“If you say lizard people, Myron, I swear—” I drew The Drop and lifted the snout of the beamer into his face. “I will stun you and haul your scrawny, conspiracy-theory ass out of here like a sack of potatoes. Got it?”

He bit off whatever he was about to say, then nodded.

“Thank you. Now, that way, let’s go.”

I herded him into the furnace room. Icky had already lowered another tether with a harness attached. I got it around him, then he froze.

“What about my stuff? My shoes and belt and stuff?”

I glanced down at his socked feet and beltless trousers hanging low on his hips. “We’ll get you new ones.”

“But I got a thumb drive, too, full of pictures of—” He lowered his voice. “Aliens, Van. They’re real.”

“Yes, they are. In fact, one is about to abduct you. Okay, Icky, lift away.”

With a yelp, Myron vanished through the ceiling.

I made another quick pass back through the jail, mainly to ensure that the guard and the other inmate were still okay. I decided to do the guard another favor and took his sticky pancake plate with me. As I winched back up into the Frankie, I tossed it on the roof.

You want mysteries? I thought, smirking as I rose. Well, there you go. Have a mystery, on me.

* * *

“Not exactly The Great Escape, but hey, whatever works,” Perry said as we orbited over Appleton.

Myron blinked at him, then back at me. “So you, what, wanna talk to the gubmint? The Men in Black?”

“I do.”

“But why? They’re dangerous, Van. They know things—”

“Yes, fine, Myron, I stipulate to all of your worst imaginings about them. Now, with that out of the way, I need to talk to them.”

He blinked some more. “That’s all you needed? Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“I—” Now it was my turn to blink, then look at the others. “You know, that honestly never occurred to me. I just assumed you’d, well… not be super cooperative.”

“I’m not an unreasonable guy.”

Icky put a beefy hand on his shoulder. “Yes, you are, Myron. Yes, you are.”

I shook my head, mostly at myself. I’d half-expected to have to drag Myron, kicking and screaming, out of that jail and then have to spend time persuading him to give up what we needed to know. I honestly hadn’t expected the guy to simply cooperate.

Whatever. “Fine. Myron, how did those special agents tell you to get hold of them?”

“They gave me a phone number to call.”

“Well, that’s disappointing. I expected he’d have to tape an X onto a window and wait for them to contact him or something,” Perry said.

“Fine. Do you have this phone number handy?” I asked.

“It was on that thumb drive.”

“Oh, for f—”

“But I memorized it, too.”

I stared at him, my upper teeth on my lower lip on that f sound, then stopped and just took a breath. “Okay. That’s good. Can we have it, please?”

He rattled off the phone number, which Perry recorded. It was pushing five a.m. I thought about phoning it now, but if it was an office number, we’d probably just get voice mail.

“Van, there are two—no, three cars at the jail now, all with flashing red and blue lights. Those are law enforcement, right?” Torina asked from the cockpit.

I went forward and looked out the canopy. We passed through a low cloud, then the strobing lights of the police cars popped into view.

“Good thing we weren’t planning to put him back there, huh?” I asked.

“Hey, what are you gonna do with me?” Myron asked, then stared at Icky. “Wait. This isn’t really a damned abduction, is it?”

Icky grinned. “Not sure yet.”

“Icky, stop scaring the passengers. No, Myron, we’re not going to keep you against your will.”

“So, what? I’m a fugitive from lawful custody…” His voice trailed off, and he smiled. “I’m a fugitive. Huh. Cool.”

Perry nodded. “You are. And the cops are going to be doing a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse—”

“Perry, it’s too early in the morning, seriously.”

“Hey, you know what I just realized? That was Tommy Lee Jones who said that. And he’s also in Men in Black. Coincidence?”

I nodded. “Yes, it is.”

Perry’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, sure. That’s what they want you to think.”

* * *

For now, we took Myron back to Iowa. I had an idea about how to both return him to Appleton and gain some additional value out of his abduction in the process, but I just wanted to keep him handy for the time being.

“Van, I chased down that phone number you gave me,” Netty-P said, still orbiting above in the Fafnir. “It leads to a field office in Chicago for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

“ICE. Huh. I wonder what this guy tells his ICE buddies about his job,” I mused.

“That he tracks down aliens. He’s not lying,” Netty-P said.

I smiled. “Good point.”

I glanced at the time. It was now almost nine. I decided to give it a try.

“Netty-P, put a call through, would you? And make it untraceable, if you please.”

“Is there any other way?”

I signaled silence in the kitchen while it rang. Rang again. I’d resigned myself to voicemail, but the line clicked, and a bored voice intoned out of the comm.

“Special Agent Marks, ICE.”

“Ah, Special Agent Marks. My name is Van Tudor. We have a mutual acquaintance.”

“Really.” I heard a wrapper rustling in the background, then the sound of chewing.

“He chews louder than Icky—” Torina whispered, before I silenced her with a glare. She smirked back at me.

“Yes. It’s Myron, from Appleton,” I said.

A swallow. “That nutjob? Great, now he’s got his nutjob friends calling me—”

“Mmph!”

I glanced at Myron, whose eyes were wide with outrage—and whose mouth was firmly covered by one of Icky’s hands. I gave her a grateful nod, and she returned a thumbs-up with all three free hands.

Marks went on. “Look, Mister—Tudor, was it? I’ve got a to-do list as long as my arm, so how about you just say hi to wackadoodle Myron and—”

“Special Agent Marks, I don’t disagree that Myron is… special. But I can assure you, I’m not just one of his nutjob friends. And I really don’t want to take up your valuable time. I just want to speak to one of your, uh, colleagues. You know, the ones who do the job you’re supposedly doing, but for real.”

“What the hell are you talking about—?”

“I mean the people who really are after illegal aliens, as in the off-world type.”

A long, drawn out sigh. “You know, this whole aliens-are-on-Earth bullshit has brought all you crazies out of the woodwork, and I’m sick of it—”

Netty-P spoke up in my ear bug.

Van, his phone line is being monitored. I think it’s a primitive Earthly AI, probably listening for keywords or trigger phrases.

“Special Agent Marks, have you heard of the Equal Grasp?”

“No. Should I have?”

“Probably not. Anyway, they’re an alien consortium seeking to open illicit relations with Earth. They’re represented by a man named Forester, an attorney from Manhattan. They’re also represented by an alien called a Yonnox, who appeared on Wake Up Cedar Rapids! a few weeks ago, with Tutsi Auffenberg—”

“MMMPH LZZZD PPLLLL—!”

I glanced at Myron, who was desperately pulling at the hand over his mouth. Icky was examining the fingernails on one of her free hands, then frowned and bit at one.

Another line just connected to your call, Van. I’m tracing it now, Netty-P said.

“You know, I don’t have time for this shit—“

“Actually, I think you do. Look, I know that your whole investigating-aliens shtick is just a cover for a retirement posting. And while the taxpayer in me isn’t thrilled that my money is being spent that way, I can live with it. The people I really want to speak with are listening in on this call right now.”

A pause, then a squeak, like someone suddenly sitting up in an office chair. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“This phone line is being monitored by an AI that was listening for certain key phrases. Equal Grasp was probably one of them. And now, we’ve got at least one person listening in to this call. That, Agent Marks, is the person I want to talk to.”

The line listening in leads to a vacation cabin on Mackinac Island, Michigan, Netty-P said.

“So, whoever you are, just stay where you are. We’ll come to you. In the meantime, Agent Marks, you have a great day,” I said and disconnected the call.

“Mackinac Island? Where’s that? And what’s there?” Torina asked.

“Mackinac Island is a vacation spot in northern Michigan. It’s in the strait that connects Lake Michigan to Lake Huron. All I really know about the place is that they don’t allow motor vehicles there. You have to walk, use a bike, ride in a horse-drawn carriage, that sort of thing. Very touristy.”

“That would seem to be an unusual venue for government personnel devoted to tracking down extraterrestrial activity,” Funboy noted.

I sat back in the kitchen chair. “Maybe not. It’s definitely not obvious. If you’re trying to be truly anonymous, there could be worse places.”

“Or maybe they’re on vacation and are having their intercepted calls forwarded,” Perry noted.

I nodded at that. “Good point. Anyway—”

“MMMPH!”

“Oh. Right. Icky, you can release—”

It was all I got out before a stream of profanity-laced conspiracy nonsense sluiced out of Myron’s mouth. It was as though a reservoir of paranoid idiocy had built up behind a dam and the floodgates had just been opened.

While Myron ranted, I turned to Torina. I had to raise my voice.

“Care to go have a rustic northern Michigan tourism experience?”

“Sure!” She glanced at Myron, still rambling, and rolled her eyes.

“I could use the peace and quiet!”

* * *

I decided to bring along Gabby as well as Icky this time for our initial flyover. I wanted Gabby folded into our daily operations, and even more critical, I wanted her cross-training in the Frankie. However, only Torina and I would make contact with whoever had been listening in from Mackinac Island. We’d bring Perry, for a bit of alien impact. I didn’t want to slam this person—or these people—face-first into the reality of the Fafnir’s crew. Rather, we’d introduce them to it progressively, which was why I’d brought Gabby. She was, from an Earthly perspective, incredibly weird, but she also had keen insights into the behavior of nearly any race. She was also very likable, which I planned on using as a counterpoint to her appearance.

I looked at Gabby, and she smiled, then waved one of her arms at me, the short fingers wiggling like kelp in a current. As aliens went, Gabby stood out. At six feet tall, she was the closest thing to a human-tardigrade hybrid as my mind would allow. She was prone to blushing, which was a touch disquieting given her translucence, and her small mouth opened uncomfortably wide to reveal big, rectangular teeth packed tighter than piano keys, and colored like fresh ivory.

Oh, and she smiled. A lot.

The flight from Pony Hollow to Mackinac Island wasn’t a long one, about six hundred and fifty klicks in a straight line—a course that would, ironically, take us right back over Appleton. As we flew overhead, we tuned in to local media. Sure enough, there was an item about a jailbreak, but it offered no details and only emphasized that the escapee wasn’t considered a threat.

“Unless they consider being annoying as hell a threat, in which case Myron is public enemy number one,” I said as we carried on northeastward. Less than an hour after we’d left Iowa, the Straits of Mackinac lay ahead, crossed by the long, slender strand of the Mackinac Bridge. It was an impressive structure, almost seven klicks long, its roadway suspended between two massive towers rising from the Strait. We passed over it and continued descending toward Mackinac Island.

“Hey, did you know that Ron Howard and Bob Seger have houses there?” Perry said, looking ahead as the island grew in the forward view.

“Interesting, but we don’t have time to go rub shoulders with celebrities.” I studied the tactical overlay. It depicted the island, with an icon shining at the terminus of the eavesdropping phone line. I circled the Frankie over it. It was a comfortable A-frame cabin not far from a rock formation called The Devil’s Kitchen, a series of limestone sea caves on the southeast side of the island. The cabin was set back from a dirt road in a cleared area nestled in a stand of hoary old cedars. Thermal imaging showed two people were present. Torina noted a strange, roughly circular pattern beaten into the grass not far from the cabin.

“Looks like a crop circle,” I said.

“Aha! Another alien connection,” Perry said—with some flair, of course, but then added, “Or the downwash effect on the grass from a helicopter.”

“I’m taking what’s behind door number two, the helicopter thing. Which means that whoever these people are, they have access to a helicopter, which further suggests that they ain’t just ordinary islanders.”

“So how do you want to play this?” Torina asked, reaching for her weapons.

I took a moment, scanning the area around the house. The next closest building was another A-frame, about three hundred meters up the road. Three more palatial residences were clustered around a crossroads about a hundred meters further into the island’s interior. In the other direction, the road led past our target cabin and ended at a blue boathouse on the island’s shore about sixty or so meters away.

“First, we’ll land. And then we’ll scout around,” I finally replied.

“What are you expecting to find?”

I narrowed my eyes at the scene below.

“I’m not sure. But I’m pretty sure we’ll know it when we do.”

15

After taking Gabby and Icky up to the Fafnir, we descended at high velocity, landing the Frankie in a clearing about eighty meters from the cabin on Mackinac Island. As we were preparing to disembark, Netty-P called from orbit. I’d asked her to do some searching, to see what she could find out about the history of this place.

“Van, I’ve been digging through property data on Mackinac Island like you asked. It’s not easy because a lot of it was done in hardcopy and never digitized. But I think I was able to track down what you were looking for.”

I strapped on the Moonsword and pulled The Drop out of its storage locker. “Go ahead, my dear.”

“The first available digital record on file with the State of Michigan shows the property belonging to an iron ore mining company based in northern Minnesota as of 1954. It was used as a corporate retreat of some sort for the senior management.”

“Nothing odd about that. Lots of companies have them.”

“True. The State made an effort to acquire the property in the 1960s, to incorporate it into the State Park that covers much of the island, but the deal fell through for reasons not recorded. In 1974, though, the property was sold to a holding company that was wholly owned by ARAMCO—the Saudi Arabian state-controlled oil company.”

“Hmm. Interesting. Right after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the energy crisis. Somebody made a deal with somebody over something, if I’m guessing.”

Perry looked at Torina. “Don’t you just love to see the exacting precision of the law-enforcement mind at work?”

“Gives me chills,” Torina said, smiling as she buckled up her harness.

I scratched my nose with my middle finger. “Go on, Netty-P, if you please.”

“The property was eventually turned into a rental, and over the next forty-odd years it stayed with the same owners but was leased out by a whole bunch of different parties. That includes, incidentally, the band Pink Floyd in 1987, though I don’t know if they actually stayed there.”

“Hey, I love that band. David Gilmour’s guitar solo during Comfortably Numb is epic—”

I pinched Perry’s beak closed. “Sorry, Netty-P, there’s a piece of equipment down here that keeps malfunctioning.”

“You mean Perry.”

“How’d you guess? Anyway, legendary rock bands aside, do we have any idea who either owns or is leasing this property right now?”

“The ARAMCO holding company sold it five years ago to a US Federal government property-management agency.”

“Ah. That sounds more promising,” Torina said.

“If you like that, you’ll love this. I followed that lead as far as I could—and full disclosure, Van, I hacked the hell out of the US government’s internal network to find this.”

I clicked my tongue. “Bad, Netty-P. Bad.”

“The property is currently given over to the exclusive use of the Defense Intelligence Reserve.”

“Which is?”

“No idea. When I tried to trace that, I encountered some worrisome intrusion countermeasures that caused me to back out. I was able to cover my tracks, though.”

“Worrisome? Worrisome how?”

“They were a known-space level of tech. Whatever’s behind them is being protected by off-world—that is, alien tech.”

* * *

“The Defense Intelligence Reserve. That even sounds illegal,” I said as we stepped out of the Frankie and into a warm but cloudy Mackinac Island day.

“Yeah. Too bland, no doubt by design. Those are definitely spooks,” Perry replied.

“Agreed. And whoever they are, using off-world tech tells me the existence of aliens probably isn’t going to be a surprise to them,” I said as we started toward the cabin. On a hunch, though, I wanted to check out the boathouse first, if for no other reason than it wouldn’t leave it unexamined at our backs.

“So the question now is, which side are they on? They must be aware that the alien invasion of Earth is real, but are they trying to support it? Oppose it?” Torina asked, waving blackflies away from her face.

“Annoying, aren’t they?” I said, wincing as one of the little buggers nearly kamikazed into my eye. We wore our b-suits under civilian garb, but with no helmets. I was already second-guessing that, though. What if we encountered a hostile reception? And with off-world weaponry, at that?

“Anyway, I’d also really like to know where they got their alien tech from. That would go a long way to explaining which way they’re leaning. I mean, was it the Equal Grasp?” I stepped over a fallen log. “Or someone else?”

“Like your grandfather?”

I stopped and looked at Torina, my mouth open. She just stared mildly back. I sighed.

“Gotta admit, my mind was starting to go there.”

I resumed the way. The boathouse came into view through the trees ahead, with the flat expanse of the Straits of Mackinac beyond. The graceful strand of the Mackinac Bridge rose over it, punctuated by its two supporting towers.

But my mind wasn’t on the view. Could gramps have had something to do with it? And if so, what was his motivation? Was he trying to prepare Earth for a threat that he knew it would face some day?

Or was he just feathering his own nest?

I sighed again. I didn’t believe the latter, not for an instant. The trouble was, I didn’t not believe it, either. Not entirely. I was still frankly procrastinating about having Perry reveal all to me, but I was going to have to get past that. I was going to have to face whatever the truth was about Gramps. I sincerely doubted it was horrible, because Perry would have said something about that by now if it were. No, it was probably more… complicated. Messy. Shades of gray. But there were dark shades of gray, and those were the ones I was worried about.

I had memories to protect. And the truth could shatter any lie, no matter how closely held.

We reached the edge of the tree line. About ten meters of lawn separated it from the boathouse, a blue clapboard affair with white trim. Despite being fully exposed to the weather coming off the Straits and Lake Michigan beyond, it was dapper and neat, the paint not faded or peeled. That meant it was recent, which told me someone was keeping this place in good repair.

While Perry scouted the boathouse, I turned my attention to the A-frame cottage about fifty or sixty meters off to my left. A gravel path bordered by ten meters of lawn on both sides connected it to the boathouse. There was no car, but there really were no cars on the island, aside from a few emergency and administrative vehicles. Not that that mattered, though, since there was the makeshift helipad opposite the house. A windsock hung from a wooden pole nearby, presumably so helicopter pilots could judge conditions as they landed. Or took off.

So all we knew was that there were two people in the house, based on thermal data.

Perry’s voice wafted out of the comm. “Okay, I’ve scouted the boathouse, using the complex, high-tech method of looking in the windows. I don’t see any boats, but I do see some cargo cases—as in, the sort of cargo cases used for small interstellar shipments. Except for the color, we’ve got a few pretty much identical ones aboard the Fafnir. Whatever’s in them, I seriously doubt it’s from Earth.”

“Any evidence that it’s weapons? Anything destructive?” If it were, I’d have no choice but to seize the lot, which would just make an already complicated situation even more so.

“Don’t think so. I see markings on one of the crates that registers it to a Tau Ceti company that makes mass consumer goods, and—oh, wait, one of the containers is open. Okay, it’s not weapons, can confirm. It’s 3D imagers. So, cheap electronic goods, crap like that.”

“Just advanced enough to be alien,” Torina said.

I gave her a rueful grin. “We’ll probably be making things like that here on Earth in ten, fifteen… maybe twenty years. Leave it for now. Come back and join the fun.”

Netty-P cut in. “Ironically, as Perry was describing the cheap consumer crap you’ve found, we received a high-priority bulletin from Guild intel. Apparently, two class 16 freighters just left the Plenty system after picking up loads of more cheap consumer crap. Their flight plan has them flying to Epsilon Eridani, but their twist point out of Plenty doesn’t really fit that sort of course at all.”

“Let me guess—it was a better twist point for coming this way,” I said.

“Unless they’re trying to needlessly burn extra fuel, it is, yes.”

I glanced at Torina. “And we all know how much freighter captains love incurring unnecessary costs. Who needs all that profit, anyway?”

Funboy, listening in to the comm, spoke up. “Probably loads of toys laced with toxic chemicals, recycled undergarments, or something equally foul.”

“You’re not far off. The cargo manifests show low-grade tech, along with cheap art reproductions from various extraterrestrial cultures who probably know nothing about it being used for profit—and my favorite, single-use weapons that fall under the category of personal protection and, therefore, don’t have the same stringent licensing and certification requirements as regular weapons,” Netty-P replied.

“There’ll be a hell of a market for those,” Perry said, rejoining us and landing on a cedar branch nearby—awkwardly, because his still-damaged wings were making all of his landings too fast. Icky particularly liked it when he skidded across the galley table in a flurry of skittering talons.

“What do you mean?” Torina asked.

“Once this alien thing really starts to take root and it dawns on people that it’s real, hysteria, unrest, and chaos are going to ensue. That’ll create a hell of a market for, ahem, personal protection devices.”

“Create the problem, then provide the means of solving it,” she said, nodding grimly.

I fought a sigh of disgust.

“A corporate tale as old as time.”

* * *

For a few minutes, we mulled over the best way to approach the two… agents, we presumed, although they might have been scientists or bureaucrats or some other type associated with a supremely secretive government department. Unless they did all their back-end administration themselves, the agency needed people to handle finances and expense accounts, file and retrieve records, do purchasing and all the other myriad things required to keep an organization running, after all. But we decided to assume the worst case, that they were armed—possibly with off-world weaponry—and were willing and able to use it.

“We need something like a stun grenade. Luckily, we have one,” I said, looking at Perry.

He sighed. “The bird leads the way again. I’d point out, though, that you guys don’t have your helmets, so do not look directly at me.”

We crept up to the back of the house, which was only a few meters from the tree line behind it. Aside from a fitful breeze, the distant lap of waves on the rocky shore, birdsong, and bug buzz, we heard nothing.

I gripped The Drop. Again, I had no magazine plugged into it, planning to use only the stun setting. Torina cradled a goo gun.

“You ready, bird?” I asked.

“Anytime.”

The plan was simple. Perry would smash through the window in the back door and dazzle anyone inside. Torina and I would follow, keeping our gaze on our feet until he shut off his dazzle effect and took those inside into custody.

“Here we go,” he said, flinging himself into the air. I looked down. As he passed over the back porch, he fired up his razzle-dazzle machine and slammed himself into the window.

And bounced off with a heavy clunk, before clattering onto the porch.

“Son of a—!”

I swore and charged forward, drawing the Moonsword. “Perry, shut it down!”

He did just before I reached him. He was still getting his feet back under him on the porch, so I leapt over him, swung the Moonsword, and neatly carved through the frame and door. When my weight hit it an instant later, it bashed inward.

A short, stocky man with a mustache stood at a counter, holding a cup of coffee and gaping stupidly. He was just starting to react, dropping the cup and reaching for something slung under his arm. I raised The Drop and slammed a stun beam into him, toppling him backward with a heavy grunt. He crashed against the refrigerator and slid to the hardwood floor with a thud.

Torina charged past me, through the kitchen and into the dining room beyond it. Perry landed on the kitchen counter beside me.

“Watch him!” I said, pointing at the man I’d stunned, then raced after Torina. As I did, I heard a shout from ahead, then a gunshot, then the flat, wet smack of the goo gun shooting. I arrived in time to find Torina lowering it with a glare at a whipcord-thin woman with ash-blonde hair and strikingly blue eyes. She’d been pasted to the wall with a gout of thick, resinous gunk that was foaming as it expanded and hardened. She still gripped a 9mm Glock but couldn’t bring it to bear because her arm was really stuck to the wall.

“I’ll take that, thanks,” I said, plucking the Glock out of her grip. I glanced back at Torina. “Can you cuff our unconscious friend in the kitchen while Perry searches the rest of the house?”

Torina gave a short nod, shot the woman a hard glare, then headed back to the kitchen.

I unloaded the Glock, made it safe, and stuck it into my harness. “You were going to shoot us? Rude.”

“You’re an intruder. And this is America,” the woman said—ironically, in a prominent, albeit cultured British accent.

I gave her a smile as hard as Torina’s. “True. But this is also Earth, I’m an interstellar cop… and you’re under arrest.”

She glared back at me with those remarkably blue eyes. “On what possible charge? And under what conceivable jurisdiction?”

“The charge is trade in illegal goods, including cultural artifacts. And the jurisdiction is you’re the one glued to the freakin’ wall. And I’m not.”

* * *

Their names were Dan Bullard and Constance Begum. They each had credentials for several different law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the ATF, and the Defense Intelligence Reserve, all hidden in a secret compartment beneath a fireplace rock. Constance also had one for a British agency, MI7.

I frowned at that one as Torina used the release spray to spring Constance from her gooey prison. “MI7? I’ve heard of MI6, foreign intelligence and all that. What’s MI7?”

“Very foreign intelligence,” she said, but that was it. Both of them otherwise remained tight-lipped, refusing to speak and just demanding legal representation.

Torina poked around. “This décor seems to involve a lot of wood. Old wood.” She touched an ashtray set into a driftwood base. “It’s… rustic, isn’t it?”

“I’d call it lakeside chic, with a little beach-house thrown in, yeah,” I replied.

She stopped and stared at a lamp shaped like a lighthouse. It had no shade, the bulb sitting behind stained-glass windows at the top. “Oh… what’s this?”

“It’s a lamp.”

She snorted, then lifted a brow. “Really. I mean, what does it represent?”

“A lighthouse. They’re navigational aids. They shine powerful lights out into the lake or ocean to warn ships away from things like rocks and shoals.”

She considered it a moment longer, then unplugged it and wrapped the cord around it.

“Uh, Torina, that’s—”

“Evidence, I know. It’s also the sort of thing Funboy would love.”

“Why are you trying to butter up Funboy?” I asked, bemused.

“I’m going to offer it to him in exchange for not wearing that hideous suit to our wedding—oh, and convincing Gabby not to wear that horrid dress she’s got.”

Perry returned from his search of the house. “I found a computer hooked up to a fancy electronic gizmo upstairs, which I suspect was what received the intercepted call you made to Special Agent Couldn’t-Care-Less. And in the attic, there’s a scanner array.”

“A scanner array? You mean, like, a scanner-scanner array? Extraterrestrial tech?”

“Yup. Low power, passive-mode only, probably good out to about five thousand klicks or so.”

That made me grimace. “An off-world scanner array strategically located to search the airspace over Wisconsin, Michigan, and the rest of the central Great Lakes region.” It would see right through the stealth system that protected us from detection by Earthly tech, meaning they’d be able to track our movements in the Frankie or Fafnir as we plied our way around. And running only in passive mode, we’d never detect it ourselves.

Perry shook his head, though. “No worries, boss. It’s not operational. It’s not like you can plug something like that into a wall socket. It needs a power source, at least something like power cells. I suspect that’s what they were waiting for, so they could fire it up.”

“What do you want to do, Van?” Torina asked. She was standing watch over our prisoners, who were sitting cuffed on the couch and glaring right back at her. There was an air of violence clinging to her. She was pissed at the woman for trying to shoot her.

I agreed with her assessment.

“Dear, I suggest we not hang around here. For all we know, there’s another delivery of off-world stuff inbound even as we speak. And I’d rather not get into a confrontation on lovely Mackinac Island, especially one that might end up involving alien weaponry. It’s bad for the tourist trade.”

I glanced around. There really wasn’t much more of value in the cabin or the boathouse, at least not that we’d found. The real value was in Bullard and Begum themselves.

“Let’s take Mulder and Scully here back to the Frankie, then up to the Fafnir. They might be more, uh, cooperative in less familiar surroundings.”

Perry chuckled. “Mulder and Scully. Heh.” He looked from one to the other. “Hey, is there all sorts of unresolved sexual tension between you two?”

They both just stared at Perry. They clearly had experience with off-world tech and realities, but I was starting to get the sense they didn’t have much experience with off-world people. That could definitely work to our advantage.

“You’re… a talking bird,” Bullard finally said.

Perry gave him an amber stare back. “Wow. There’s some more of that keen analytical insight. Tell me, was it a community college or did you get your degree in a strip mall? Because—”

“Perry?” I asked.

He straightened his wings with grave dignity. “Yes?”

“May we proceed?”

Perry dipped his beak, then swept a wing forward. “Please do.”

We got them on their feet and ushered them out of the house and toward the Frankie. I warned Icky that we were on our way.

Torina glanced at Perry, flapping along with us from tree to tree. She smiled. “So, bird, what’s it worth to you?” Her tone was cloyingly sweet, which meant she was scheming, or trolling, or both.

“What’s what worth to me?”

“Me not telling Icky you bounced off that window.”

“Oh. You, uh, saw that, huh?”

“Oh yes. I did.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that they replaced the windows with bulletproof glass!”

Tolrina snickered, then switched to English, which she’d mastered during our long hours of private conversation. “The bird thinks you replaced the windows with bulletproo—

Bullard interjected, “The hell we did.” He made a hmph sound, then shrugged. “Birds really have a thing with windows.”

Torina laughed. “This just gets better and better.”

Perry stared after us as we walked on through the trees.

“I knew that. I meant to do it. Um, strategy. And the sun was in my eyes—”

16

Bullard and Begum managed to keep their stoic toughness in place until we reached the Frankie. Even then, realizing there was an actual spaceship sitting among the trees just a short walk from their cabin didn’t really faze them. It was further evidence they’d dealt with off-world parties before. I was determined to find out more about that because I needed to know if they were potential allies in my quest to protect the Earth—or if they’d already been compromised and corrupted by the Equal Grasp and were now a lost cause.

And if that was the case, what then? Go see if I could find some other country’s version of their agency and try to get them on our side? After all, this was a problem for the whole Earth, not just the United States. But the idea of contacting some foreign power—

That was running through my mind right until I heard a sharp exclamation from just ahead, inside the Frankie’s airlock. Bullard stumbled back, gasping, eyes like dinner plates.

“What the hell is that?”

Icky’s face popped around the edge of the inner airlock door. “Hey, boss. I think he means me.”

Bullard turned his wild-eyed gaze on me. “What did it say?”

I stared blankly for a moment, then got it. Bullard didn’t have an ear bug translator and sure as hell didn’t speak Wu’tzur. More fundamentally, though, it meant that Bullard hadn’t actually dealt with any aliens, or certainly nothing like Icky, anyway. But the most humanoid species, like the Gajur or P’nosk, were still pretty far from human.

Interesting. This might be the angle I was looking for.

“She says to get your ass aboard the ship. We’re going for a ride.”

“To… where?”

“Right now, orbit. My ship’s up there.”

“Your ship—” He shook his head, then gestured into the airlock. “Then what the hell is this?”

“My other ship. Now, move, if you please.”

I basically crowded Bullard into the airlock and sealed the outer doors behind me. I continued crowding him through the inner doors and closed them, too. I plunked him into a seat beside Begum, who Torina had already gotten settled in. She was handling the presence of Icky better, though she still had the same stricken look of someone who thought there was a solid chance they were about to be eaten.

But even her aplomb cracked when Gabby appeared from the cockpit. Bullard looked stuck between pissing himself and having a heart attack.

“Hi, guys, welcome aboard—!” Gabby paused. “Oh. They don’t look very happy. Is there some sort of custom or taboo I violated here, Van?”

“Yeah, you’re not a human being. The people of Earth consider that a big one right now.”

“Oh, right.” She slowed her speech down and raised her voice. “I’m Gabby. I mean you no harm—”

“Acting like you’re a tourist trying to speak to the locals isn’t going to work, either, Gab,” I said. “Icky, can you get us on our way up to the Fafnir while I take care of our guests? And take Gabby as your co-pilot?”

“You bet, boss. Come on, Gabby. I’ll show you a few stunts I learned—”

“A straight flight to the Fafnir, please,” I called over my shoulder while I rummaged in a locker. Torina and Perry watched Bullard and Begum, who were both hissing frantically at one another under their breath about real aliens.

I extracted a pair of ear bugs from their case and showed them to the agents. “I’m going to put one of these into each of your right ears—”

“Mind control? You’re going to take over our brains?”

“I—no. Why the hell would I want to do that? No, they’re translators. They’ll let you understand what everyone else is saying.”

I felt the Frankie lift. It took a few minutes of coaxing to get them to accept the ear bugs, which resembled foam earplugs but were far less intrusive. Once they were settled in, you felt nothing. Nor was your regular hearing affected. It struck me that they were actually a good example of the sort of useful tech that could be safely introduced to Earth as part of a first contact. I mean, it couldn’t hurt for more people to understand one another, right?

I filed the thought away and turned back to the agents. “There. You should be able to understand pretty much everyone you’re likely to meet out here.”

“Out here?” Begum asked.

“Yeah. Like I said, we’re heading up to orbit. My ship, the Fafnir, is up there. This one, the Frankie, is sort of our shuttle.”

“And we’re… under arrest? Because we violated some sort of outer space crime? Do I have that bullshit right?” Bullard replied. With Icky and Gabby out of sight, he’d found a little of his edge again.

But I shook my head. “Nah. I mean, yes, you guys are technically guilty of violating interstellar law. That boathouse full of alien crap isn’t supposed to be on Earth, so I could make the case that you’re abetting the violation of protocols regarding first contact, blah, blah, but honestly, it’s not worth my time.”

“So you are some sort of interstellar cop.”

“A Peacemaker, actually, but yeah, that’s basically an interstellar cop.”

“But you’re… you’re human,” Begum said.

“I am, and so is Torina here.”

“Hello. I’m the one you tried to shoot in the face a few minutes ago, remember?”

“So you’re humans, but you’re both also from outer space,” Bullard said, scowling.

I smirked. “This never gets old. No, I’m from Iowa. I only work in outer space.”

“So what do you want with us?” Begum asked as I unlatched and removed their cuffs.

“Answers, mostly. And one in particular right now. You’ve obviously had dealings with extraterrestrials, but you were also floored by the sight of Icky and Gabby—the two up in the cockpit flying this thing. How does that work?”

The two exchanged a glance, then Bullard spoke up. “My partner here and I—we’ve never actually had to deal with any of you people directly. That’s handled by a different unit.”

“Okay, makes sense. Now, what about—?”

“Sorry, that’s all you’re getting out of us except name and badge number.”

I sighed, then nodded with the patience of a small town sheriff dealing with the town drunk. “Okay, have it your way. In the meantime, though, I guess you’ve been abducted by aliens. Enjoy the ride.”

* * *

Bullard and Begum couldn’t conceal their rapt—and more than a little terrified—fascination when I switched the Frankie’s viewports to transparent mode. I’d kept them opaque to prevent them from being too freaked out by too much all at once, but their stubborn reticence was going to require a change in tactics.

“That’s—holy shit, that’s Greenland, isn’t it?” Bullard asked, his voice all muted wonder.

“Uh—yup, looks like it. And that would be northern Canada. We’re in a polar orbit, so we’ll be passing right over the North Pole in a bit,” I said, pointing.

“How do we know this isn’t some sort of… simulation?” Begum asked.

I smiled and gestured to the airlock. “Tell you what. You step in there, I’ll seal the inner doors and open the outer ones. Then you’ll know for sure.”

She glanced at the airlock, then at me, and turned back to the view.

We docked with the Fafnir as we were passing over the North Pole. Icky and Gabby both came aft, provoking another bout of horrified surprise from the two agents.

“What are you?” Bullard asked Gabby.

“Pleased to meet you, that’s what I am! I’m Gabby. It’s not my real name but everyone calls me that because I like to talk. But I’m, like, what’s wrong with talking, am I right? It’s how we communicate after all and communication is the key to—”

“Gabby!” Both Torina and I said it at the same time.

“Sorry, gotta go,” she said, before hastily heading for the airlock.

Icky stalked up to them. “Go ahead, ask me what I am,” she said, grinning to bare all of her huge teeth.

“Icky, stop trying to scare the guests,” I said, gesturing for Bullard and Begum to head for the airlock. “I’ll warn you now, we’ve got two more aliens on the Fafnir, plus another AI.”

“Like that one?” Begum asked, eyeing Perry as she walked past him.

“There are no other AIs like me,” he said.

Torina sniffed. “Ain’t that the truth.”

“Hey—!”

I shook my head. “No, the other AI is—she’s named Netty-P. She’s our pilot.”

“She? You’ve assigned a gender to an AI?” Begum asked, frowning. I was starting to get the sense that, unlike her partner, she had a curious mind that kept poking through her wall of stoic silence. Bullard, on the other hand, came across more as the tough guy, enforcer type. I could work with both of those.

I shrugged at her. “I didn’t assign anything. Netty-P is what she is, just like any other person.”

“You consider AIs to be… people? Why?”

Perry answered. “Why not? Or, to put it another way, we consider you to be people. Why?”

Begum opened her mouth to shoot something back at him. I saw, though, that she realized she had no ready answer to that, so she closed her mouth again.

Aboard the Fafnir, the two of them marveled at the size of the ship. Interestingly, neither of them seemed at all surprised that she could be in low Earth orbit without anything on the ground detecting her. That, and the powerless scanner array on Mackinac Island, reinforced the fact that they had some exposure to aliens and off-world tech. It was just specific, as the other unit they mentioned operated as the direct interface between them and the Defense Intelligence Reserve. That suggested that these two were employed in supporting roles. Since they didn’t have direct experience with actual aliens, that was something else we could try to use to our advantage.

I got them settled in the lounge, then introduced them to Funboy and Rab. Rab was all jowly smiles and tusky good humor. Funboy was—well, he was Funboy.

“Have they been thoroughly decontaminated?” he asked, blinking at me.

“Not really. But the bioscanners in the airlocks didn’t find anything out of the ordinary—”

“Not even their hands? They haven’t sanitized their hands?” He sighed, morphing into a beleaguered British governess. “Oh dear.”

What followed was a strange sort of standoff. I could tell that the two agents, Begum in particular, were almost seething with questions they wanted to ask. At the same time, they were obviously under strict orders to reveal nothing about them or their work—the classic name, rank, and serial number shtick. Gabby tried to break the ice with some biscuits she’d whipped up, a new recipe that smelled heavenly.

“Here, try them! I just got this recipe, and I’ve been dying to try it out, only there hasn’t been time. But since you guys are here, I thought—”

Bullard shoved the tray away. “Get those away from me. I’m not eating… whatever that is. It’s probably some sort of mind control thing.”

“You’re just obsessed with this mind control stuff, aren’t you?” Perry asked.

Gabby just looked crestfallen. “I just thought—I figured that we could, you know, get to know you better—”

Bullard glared back at her, and she faded back, putting the biscuits on the center table.

Funboy, though, stood and walked in front of Bullard.

“You will apologize to her,” he said.

“The hell I will—”

Funboy reached out and gently caressed a spot on Bullard’s neck, eliciting a yelp of pain that was primal and raw. Bullard jerked away as if stung.

Which was sort of what happened.

Funboy regarded Bullard with a patient malignance that was unsettling, even for him. “That was one of seventeen points on the human body that can elicit a pain stimulus. Would you like me to show you where the other sixteen are?” Funboy asked, his tone hopeful.

“I—” Bullard glared at me. “Torture? That’s how you’re going to try and get us to talk?”

I just reclined in my seat. “Nope. Wouldn’t even consider it. What you’re dealing with right now is the fact you insulted his girlfriend. Now, you look like a guy who’s been around. Ex-military, maybe? Anyway, imagine walking up to a guy in a bar and insulting his girlfriend. What do you think is going to happen next?”

“Allow me to show you number two of the seventeen,” Funboy said, reaching—

Netty-P came on the comm. “Van, the Poltava reports that a blockade runner managed to slip past the cordon and is inbound. If we break orbit now, we should be able to intercept them before they reach the Moon’s orbit.”

I stood. “Go ahead, Netty-P, get us underway. And let’s bring our guests up to the cockpit so they have front row seats.”

“To what?” Begum asked as Torina ushered them to their feet and started them heading forward.

“To a space battle. You know, pew-pew-pew, Don’t get cocky, kid—that sort of thing—Icky, what the hell are you doing?”

She looked back at me, a biscuit jammed into her mouth, another in each of three hands, crumbs cascading onto the deck.

“Wha?”

Gabby gasped at the empty plate on the table. “My biscuits!”

“We ’ot a thspace ’attle, aight? They ’onna jus’ ’et cold!”

* * *

“Gabby, my new best friend ever, those biscuits were gooooood. You gotta make some more,” Icky said over the comm. She’d retired, still dropping crumbs, to her battlestation aft.

“I will, but you don’t get to eat them all—”

I cut in. “Uh, people, we’re heading into battle here in just a few minutes. Let’s stay focused?”

Begum and Bullard were pushing themselves into spare vac suits under the watchful gaze of Funboy and Rab. I really wasn’t thrilled about having them on board if we were going into battle. But I was more concerned about stopping the blockade runner far enough from Earth that we weren’t fighting it in full and obvious view of the planet. Unfortunately, that meant we were stuck with them.

“Why the hell do we need to put these things on anyway?” Bullard asked.

I answered over my shoulder. “Because we’re going to depressurize the ship before we go into battle. That way, if we take a penetrating hit, we won’t explosively decompress.”

“Wait—into battle? You’re serious about that? You’re going to—what, fight another ship?”

“Yup. It’s one that’s trying to run the blockade we’ve put around Earth. Probably full of more cheap, mass-market crap. But it might also be carrying weapons, or… who knows. Anyway, it’s not getting through, either because it’s going to see reason, or because we’re going to stop it by force.”

Funboy got their helmets on and sealed, then the rest of us did the same. Once everyone was confirmed ready, we depressurized the ship, and Torina powered up the weapons.

I looked at the tactical overlay. The blockade runner was making a straight, fast run in from its twist point. It had already given itself a polar gravitational boost over Jupiter, and another under Mars, before alternately climbing above and diving below the Solar System’s ecliptic plane. It was pretty clever, actually. We’d assumed that blockade runners would try to approach from directly above or below the ecliptic, since that represented the shortest possible trajectory from a twist point to Earth. These guys had caught us off guard, and if the Fafnir hadn’t been around to stop them, they’d probably have made planetfall before anyone could do anything about it.

And they were broadcasting no transponder code—of course. I tapped at the comm while Funboy herded Bullard and Begum into the back of the cockpit with a stern warning not to touch anything. “I can still find those seventeen spots I mentioned right through your suit,” he said.

I spoke into a multi-channel comm broadcast. “Approaching ship, this is Peacemaker Van Tudor. You are violating a lawful cordon established in this system under the authority of the Peacemaker Guild—” I went on to cite the specifics of the law. “You are hereby ordered to cut your drive and surrender to be boarded.”

Silence. I let it linger for about five seconds, then continued.

“Unknown ship, this is your second warning. If you do not cut your drive and acknowledge your surrender within one minute, we will be compelled to use force, up to and including lethal force, to maintain the integrity of the cordon.”

Still silence. I sighed, resigned to them abruptly changing course and making a run for it. The problem was physics declared that, if they did, there was really no way we could stop them. At least scaring them off might convince others to—

“Van, they’ve switched to fire-control mode—aaand they’ve fired missiles,” Torina said.

I scowled at the threat alarm. “Really? They want to fight?”

“That is odd. Either they know something we don’t, or they’ve got a really compelling reason to make it to Earth,” Perry added.

I nodded inside my helmet. “Okay, Torina, light ’em up. I’d rather stop these assholes than destroy them, so see if you can just disable them.”

“I’ll do my best, but at this range, I’m just shooting at, you know, them, not specific parts of them.”

I thought for a moment, then had an idea. “Rab, take Funboy and get aboard the Frankie. Don’t launch until I tell you too, though.”

“Got it,” Rab said, before unstrapping and heading aft.

“What about them?” Funboy asked, gesturing at the two agents.

I glanced back. “They can sit down and enjoy the show.”

“You aren’t concerned about them interfering with the operation of the ship?”

“Nope. This is their ride home, after all.”

* * *

When Rab and Funboy were ready in the Frankie, I turned my attention to the oncoming missiles. Torina had engaged them at long range, while the ship that launched them started taking even longer ranged potshots at us. They scored one hit that scoured a bit of ablative armor off a REAB module, but didn’t trigger it. It wasn’t a bad strategy on their part—tie up our shooting with missiles while they tried to land an early, punishing hit on us.

Not bad, but not great, either. It was predictable, probably somewhere near the beginning of chapter one in the Big Book of Space Battles. It often led to a mirror strategy, which just meant two ships firing at one another’s missiles. It was rarely decisive on its own, barring luck—and smart leaders didn’t count on luck. Now that I was a veteran of this sort of thing, what I’d learned was that, above all, you wanted to end space battles quickly. The longer they dragged on, the greater the chance that the other guy would get that lucky shot in.

“Two missiles left,” Torina said, concentrating on her fire-control console. “And, make that one left.”

“Torina, don’t destroy that last one. Shoot at it, but let it keep coming—”

“Wait—are you saying you’re firing weapons?” Begum asked.

Bullard gave his throat a nervous clear. “And are we being fired at?”

Perry answered. “Oh yeah. We’ve been shooting, they’ve been shooting, we’ve been hit—”

“We’ve been hit?”

“Only a little.”

“Okay, Perry, fire the glitter caster.”

“Done—”

“What’s that? What’s a glitter caster? And we’ve been hit—?”

I glanced back. “I’m not in the habit of narrating this kind of thing. So please, just sit back and leave the fighting to us.”

“What happens if we’re hit again? What if we have to abandon ship? What are we supposed to do—?”

“Turn yourself into a puff of ionized gas, probably,” Perry said.

“Wait, a—!”

I turned completely around. “You either shut up and let us do our jobs, or I will have Icky jam you into one of those holding cells we showed you. Then you can sit in a little box and have no idea what the hell is going on.”

Bullard closed his mouth.

“Thank you.” I turned back to see the view ahead obscured by a multitude of scintillating points of light. The glitter chaff fired by the caster had enveloped the Fafnir in a cloud, providing an additional layer of protection against laser fire. More importantly, it obscured the ship. It would slowly disperse, but until it did, the Fafnir would remain nestled within it as long as we didn’t maneuver.

“Okay, Rab, you’re a go,” I said.

“Launching now,” he replied.

“Van, that last missile is still somewhere out there. This stuff blinds us as much as them, remember,” Torina warned.

“I haven’t forgotten,” I answered, watching the chrono. A soft clunk, then the Frankie’s status panel showed her as having launched.

“Netty-P, how far are we from Earth?” I asked.

“Just under two light-minutes. And, anticipating your next question, an antimatter containment failure and resulting explosion will be readily visible from the surface, but only to an observer looking at it.”

“Gonna have to do.”

I heard Begum mutter, “Did she say we’re two light-minutes from Earth? Do you know how far that is?”

“Hell of a long way?” Bullard countered, but Perry swiveled his head back.

“Shhhh!”

I focused on the instruments, particularly on the projected track of the incoming missile. It was an extrapolation, since our own glitter chaff obscured it. About one minute out.

Good enough.

“Okay, here we go, folks,” I said, tapping at the thrusters and nudging the Fafnir back into the clear. From the enemy perspective, it would look as though we’d used the glitter chaff to protect us until the range closed. It suggested we wanted to fight at close range, which, actually, we did.

The threat alarm sounded an urgent alert. Torina immediately acquired the remaining missile and destroyed it. But, clear of the glitter chaff, we took two solid hits from the other ship. Two REAB modules detonated with heavy thuds that shook the Fafnir.

Bullard yelped. “What the hell was that?”

“Us being hit. And again, shhhh. Don’t make me summon the blue monster to cart you away,” Perry said.

I glanced at the status panel. Still green. Everywhere.

“Time to get cowardly,” I said, yawing the Fafnir and lighting the main drive, which opened the range between us and the enemy ship. From their perspective, we were running away, owing to battle damage or being plain chicken. And they did just what I’d hoped—veered to come after us.

“Why are they doing that? Don’t they want to get to Earth?” Torina asked.

“Sure they do. But between me giving my name and the Fafnir’s transponder, they know who we are,” I replied.

Perry nodded. “We’re six million bonds strapped to a drive.”

Torina smiled. “Ah. I love it when you’re diabolical, Van. It makes me all—” She pretended to shiver. “Oooh, goosebumpy.”

I leered back at her. “Remind me to pull out my diabolical side the next time we—” I waggled my eyebrows at her.

Begum gave an amazed sniff. “This is bullshit. You two are actually flirting in the middle of a spaceship battle?”

“Can you think of a better time? All this danger, the adrenaline—” Torina said, grinning back at her.

“Incredible,” Begum huffed.

Torina lifted a brow. “I can’t help it if you’re jealous of our connection. You see, when two people love each other very much—”

Perry squawked. “Hey. That’s my bit. Only I get the awkwardly timed diatribes.”

Torina inclined her head. “And only I get Van.”

Perry shrugged. “Fair. Can I lecture them about the effects of danger on the human libido, though?”

Funboy’s voice called over the comm. “No. You cannot.”

Van sighed. “The wet blanket speaks from deepest space.”

Begum stared. Bullard turned… pinkish. I smiled broadly and feathered a control as the other ship dutifully continued firing away with abandon. We took two small hits, detonating another REAB module, but not taking any real damage. Torina returned fire, but her shooting was terrible, and she missed almost all of her shots.

To the other ship, we were fleeing, shooting wildly as we ran. They had Van Tudor and the Fafnir on the ropes. They probably saw our ship’s scanner icon as a dollar sign—correction, a bonds sign, but the psychology was exactly the same.

I watched the overlay. “Okay, Rab, anytime.”

“Here we go,” he replied.

Unnoticed in the excitement and the obfuscation of the cloud of glitter chaff still enshrouding her, the Frankie gently nudged her way into the clear—just in time for the enemy ship to pass within point-blank range of her.

The enemy ship had no time to react. The Frankie’s vicious suppressor cannons opened up, ripping it apart. Funboy, operating the weapons, actually sliced the drive section off of the rest of the hull in an attempt to cripple the enemy ship. It was a good idea, the drive spiraling off toward Mars. But the damned thing then exploded while still only a couple of klicks away. The resulting fusion detonation vaporized most of what remained.

The tough antimatter pod survived—which was something. The fusion explosion would have been a teeny, brief spark from Earth’s perspective, followed by a fleeting shower of neutrons. An antimatter detonation would have been far more powerful, and, therefore, detectable.

Still, I swore. Not like a stable hand, but more like a senior citizen at bingo. I’d wanted to take these assholes alive and get some intel out of them.

Rab’s tone was apologetic. “Sorry, Van. We tried not to turn them into vapor.”

“I know. No worries, Rab. It was a good try, too. Just come on back to the Fafnir.”

I sat back, letting my tensed muscles relax, and turned to the others. “Okay, let’s stand down. Torina, make all the weapons safe. Icky, you can go ahead and repressurize the ship.”

“Is… that it? Is it over?” Bullard asked.

Perry nodded at him. “That’s the end of the ride, folks. Please exit the car in an orderly manner and proceed directly to the exit.”

The agents both blinked. Begum asked, “We… we can leave?”

Perry shook his head, feathers tinkling with disappointment. “They really don’t get my material.”

17

As we returned to Earth, Begum’s and Bullard’s attitudes underwent a radical shift. When the Frankie was back aboard and the ship repressurized, Bullard marched up to Gabby.

“About my behavior earlier, that was—” He grimaced, shaking his head. “Wow. It is going to take me a while to get past the fact that you guys actually aren’t human. Anyway, I apologize without reservation and humbly ask that you accept it in the spirit it’s intended.”

Gabby stared for a moment, then brightened. “Of course, yes, I understand all of this is very strange for you. You know, meeting these different races, but that’s okay, I—”

I touched Gabby’s arm and smiled at Bullard. “She accepts your apology.”

Funboy gave Bullard a distinct I’m watching you look, despite the apology. Bullard unconsciously moved away from him, then turned—and bumped right into Icky.

“It ain’t safe over here, either,” she said. “Apologies are nice and all, but as far as I’m concerned, you guys have some explaining to do. Like, why did you have a bunch of off-world shit at your place on that island? Which side are you guys even on?”

I had to agree. “Icky’s quite nicely encapsulated what we’re all thinking. We’re trying to get ahead of this illegal bullshit targeting Earth—and, yes, it’s illegal. There really is a body of interstellar law that says so. So, are you guys part of it?”

Begum and Bullard exchanged a glance as I ushered them back into the crew lounge. They stepped aside and whispered for a moment, then Bullard nodded.

He turned to me. “We know about aliens. We—the US government—have known about them for a long time. And, yes, there have been some interactions along the way. But not many, and they’ve been as thoroughly covered up as they could be—by both sides, us and them—” He looked around. “Or, you, I guess.”

Begum nodded. “It seems that both parties agreed long ago that keeping this all out of the public eye was the best course of action. We were never really sure why, at least until now. If your interstellar law prohibits it, then that would explain why it’s all so damned secret.”

“Which should answer your question,” Bullard went on. “Our job is to monitor, report, and, as much as we can, either prevent or cover up alien activities on Earth.”

“But our part in all that is quite limited. I was seconded over from MI7 to work with the US authorities on the recent rash of UFO reports. We had credible evidence that a particular focus for activity was in the southern Great Lakes region, particularly across Wisconsin, Lake Michigan, and Michigan itself. Our job was to set up the scanner device you found and report data back to our headquarters,” Begum said.

I couldn’t resist a smile. “Yeah, that activity over the Great Lakes was probably us. Like I said, I live in Iowa, and we have contacts in Wisconsin and Michigan.”

“You actually live in Iowa? I thought you were just being a smartass.”

“There’s a first—claiming that you’re from Iowa gets you labeled a smartass,” Perry muttered.

I nodded. “I really do live in Iowa. It’s where I’m from. I grew up there, on a farm. This”— I gestured around at the Fafnir—“is kind of the family business that I inherited.”

“And we were really in a battle, against another ship. And you destroyed it,” Begum said.

“We were, and we did, but I didn’t really want to. I wanted to get intel on whoever was running our blockade—which should answer any questions you have about us. We’re trying to stop these illegal incursions onto Earth. There’s a process for introducing a new civilization to known space, as it’s generally known. And for good reason.”

“Earth is getting close to the point of triggering that process, but it ain’t there yet,” Perry put in.

“What are the criteria?” Begum asked, her blue eyes shining with interest.

Netty-P answered her. “Being able to manufacture and stabilize antimatter in usable quantities is one. Earth is probably twenty to fifty years from being able to do that. The other is independently discovering the Unified Spatial Equation, the USE. It’s the foundation for twist technology that uses antimatter to allow effective transit across interstellar distances. Earth is probably only ten to twenty years from that.”

“So, maybe in our lifetimes?” Begum asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe. But that’s the problem with just allowing anyone and their alien dog to access Earth. The potential for exploitation, which could lead to all sorts of catastrophes, is too great. There’s a lot of tech out there that would be wonderful for Earthly society—but there’s also a lot of it that would be very, very bad. You just saw some of it.”

“Your weapons. Your military technology,” Bullard said, then sat back and shook his head. “So we were really in a shooting fight.”

“We were.”

“But I didn’t see anything. If you hadn’t been giving orders and such, then aside from those few thumps, I’d never even have known it was happening.”

“That’s typical of space battles. They’re fought against ships thousands, often tens and even hundreds of thousands of klicks away, using weapons that you mostly can’t see until they hit something,” Torina said.

“Okay. So I’m convinced. I wouldn’t be doing this job if I didn’t think that keeping aliens under wraps until Earth is ready for it is the right thing to do,” Begum said.

Bullard nodded. “Can’t disagree with that. So, since we both seem to be trying to accomplish the same thing, how can we help? Can we even help? I mean, there’s no way we’ve got anything that can match”—it was his turn to gesture around—“this.”

“Actually, you guys might have a better understanding of the extent of the problem down there than we do. We could really just use the additional eyes and ears. Which means that maybe you can answer this. How long do you think we’ve got before this actually gets out of hand and goes viral?”

“To put it another way, how long do you think this whole fake news, it’s-all-a-hoax attitude among the masses is going to last?” Perry added.

Begum shrugged. “Best guess? No more than a year. The DIR internal reports I’ve read project that, over the next few months, there’ll be too much evidence publicly available that something really is going on.”

“The government has already had to admit that there really are airborne objects that can’t be identified. They’re calling them UAPs, now—Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. They’ve even declassified some videos taken by US military aircraft—you’ve probably seen them,” Bullard said.

I nodded. “Yeah, I have. Crappy imagery, so it’s hard to make out just what they are, but some of them are clearly spacecraft.”

“So far, the government has strongly hinted that they’re experimental aircraft, either our own and they just don’t want to talk about them, or a foreign power’s if they are not in US airspace. But that’s not going to hold up forever.”

“There are a lot of people losing sleep over the fact that this is inevitably going to take on a life of its own. They’re even preparing draft statements for the President and other officials against the day one of these things either lands or crashes in a public place, or people otherwise wake up to what’s really going on,” Begum put in.

I crossed my arms. “Really. What do they intend to say?”

The two exchanged a look, then shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, so far they’ve got, My fellow Americans, and that’s about it. Seriously, what is the President, or anyone else, supposed to say about something like this?” Bullard replied.

“And now you know why the government people in the know are losing sleep,” Begum added.

I puffed out a sigh. “Okay. We might be just in time to get a grip on this. That is, assuming we can come up with a plan—one that integrates what you’re doing and what we’re doing.”

“Who do you think we should bring in on this?” Rab asked.

Torina made an aha sound and pulled a data slate off of her belt. “You’re in luck. Anticipating this very question, I have already created a list.”

Begum actually smiled. “You have a really well-practiced crew.”

I smiled right back at her and nodded. “The best.” I glanced at Torina’s list. “Looks good. Alert everyone listed there and have those who can make it come meet us at the Iowa. Oh, and add Bullard and Begum here to it. You guys are officially our new liaison with the relevant Earthly authorities. The US ones, anyway.”

Begum stiffened. “I may be seconded to the Yanks, but I am still a representative of His Majesty’s government of the United Kingdom.”

I bowed my head. “Understood. It’s good to have you guys on board, too. So that’s two countries down, and—”

“As of today, either 191, 193, 235, 243, 246, or 251 to go, depending on whose definition of ‘country’ you’re using,” Perry said.

Bullard sat forward. “Uh… Van? We’re supposed to check in every twenty-four hours via a secure cell phone link. I doubt it’s going to get very good reception up here. I heard you say we’re going to Iowa, so do you expect us to be there and in cell range within the next twenty-one hours or so?”

I smiled. “We’re not taking you to Iowa, but to the Iowa. She’s our other ship, currently orbiting out near Pluto.”

Bullard stared for a moment, then softly said, “Pluto?”

“That’s right. I want to take you out there to meet with the people on Torina’s list.” I held up a finger. “But, you aren’t prisoners. Those charges I mentioned when we picked you up? Consider them dropped. So if you want us to take you back to Earth first, I’ll get one of the gang here to run you back to Mackinac Island in the Frankie, then you can catch up with us later.”

“And miss the opportunity to be involved in this? I don’t think so,” Begum said.

Bullard looked doubtful but finally shrugged. “What the hell. Let’s go to Pluto,” he said, probably never imagining that would ever be something he’d say and mean it.

“Van, I recommend that we arrange for these agents to check in as usual anyway and not say anything about what’s going on. Not yet, anyway. We don’t want to trigger a shitstorm of government activity—or panic,” Perry said.

“Good point. Netty-P, can you handle that? For our guests to access the terrestrial cell system while we’re at the Iowa?”

“Easily. I can relay it to Tony’s comm through the Poltava. It will reduce the delay but won’t eliminate it. So if they expect to have a real-time conversation with someone at the other end, that would be a problem,” she replied.

Bullard shook his head. “Nope. We just call in and speak a certain codeword if we’ve got nothing to report.”

I stood. “Perfect. Netty-P, get us on our way to the Iowa, please. Oh, and Bullard?”

“Yes?”

“You’re about to meet a few dozen teenaged space crabs. Prepare yourself, and try not to be an asshole, okay?”

* * *

As we plied our way across the Solar System toward the Iowa, Gabby made another batch of her biscuits. It was when we tried them that we discovered that they were—

Something special.

Torina stopped in the middle of chewing, her eyes going wide. Rab blinked a few times, then chewed faster. Bullard and Begum both made joyous noises, and even Funboy stopped, swallowed, then nodded.

“These are—” He blinked. “I am at a loss for words. All I can suggest is that they are better than blueberry cheese.”

Bullard shot him a bemused glance. “What?”

I swallowed. “Funboy spent some time in Frankenmuth recently.”

“Frankenmuth? Is that a planet somewhere?”

“Uh—no. It’s in Michigan.”

“That Frankenmuth? Why there? And how—?”

I raised a finger. “Can’t talk. Eating.”

Torina finished hers. “Holy crap, Gabby, are those ever good!”

“Yes. They are a symphony in my mouth,” Funboy explained.

“How do you get them to be sweet and spicy like that?”

“Well, you see, I add a pinch of flo’n’ksk—that’s a spice native to Falaax—and then a hint of—”

“You’ll have to give me the recipe,” Torina said.

Not long before we reached the Iowa, I took a call from Dayna Jasskin. She had some follow-up questions regarding the report Rab had prepared on the suppressor cannons mounted on the Frankie. As I was talking to her, I was struck by an idea, one that might start making us some money.

“I thought your money problems were behind you, Van,” Dayna said.

I shrugged. “Sure, we get slugs of money when we do a job, prizes and bounties and stuff, but then nothing. That Fren shipping company I stumbled into owning somehow is profitable—just—so it provides a little more. Otherwise, I’m left relying on the generosity of Torina’s parents or The Quiet Room—”

“We’re not generous, Van. We’re a bank.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth. Anyway, I also get a stipend from the Guild and have money in trust with them, but almost all of that goes into operating the Fafnir. And since Torina and I are getting married—”

Dayna smiled. “You’re starting to think about kids, and what happens when you retire, what you’ll leave them—”

“Yeah. I mean, when Gramps died, he left me the farm in Iowa and a bit of money, but that was it. And he was a pretty successful Peacemaker. It’s not really a path to getting rich, is it?”

“Ah, well, I’ll make an appointment for you to meet with one of our wealth management representatives, start getting you set up for retirement—”

I laughed. “Yup, you’re a bank, alright. Anyway, right now, I was wondering if you have a contact at a food company.” I went on to explain the symphony in the mouth that was Gabby’s biscuits, that she’d taken to calling Little Friends.

“—and she’s offered to split whatever profits they generate with us. It won’t be much, I know, at least unless and until they take off. But it’s a start—some steady, reliable income.”

Dayna grinned. “Well, the bad news is that I don’t have a contact, no. The good news is that I am a contact. I co-own a provisioning company. We’ve been running three contract resupply operations for, oh, almost sixty years now.”

“Moonlighting, huh? The Quiet Room’s okay with that?”

“The Quiet Room is our biggest investor.” Her grin turned sly, and she pretended to whisper. “I have an in with them.”

I laughed. “Okay, so how would you like to try out our little friends?”

“Well, you know what to do next.”

“I’ll get a batch or three on their way to you as soon as I’m off this call, thanks.”

We signed off, and I sat back.

Getting married.

Kids.

Kids?

It was something I’d always just thought of in the abstract. Someday, I’ll have kids, but without really thinking through what that actually meant. Kids were a source of joy, a legacy to carry on my family name and identity, a contribution to the world. But they were also a potential source of agonizing heartache and worry, a vulnerability, and more people to care about. I was used to being… me. Just me. A guy who could get a call in Atlanta on Monday morning offering a computer consulting job in Abu Dhabi or Taiwan, hop on a plane Monday afternoon, and jet umpteen time zones away.

Or a guy who could sit in the pilot’s seat up in the cockpit and race into battle like I had back near Earth. Bullard and Begum had both marveled afterward at how my crew and I were so calm and professional about it all. We’d been complete professionals, despite the ferocious destructive energies intended to kill us. I’d shrugged and said something about it being a good team used to working together.

What I hadn’t thought about was a family. Kids who needed me. What would happen to them if Torina and I both ended up on the losing end of one of those battles.

Somehow, a few bonds from selling delicious biscuits just didn’t seem to be enough.

* * *

We arrived at the Iowa to find B, Valint, and Groshenko already there. Between them and the Conoku, Bullard and Begum spent their first couple of hours aboard her basically gaping in a state of shock.

“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Groshenko asked, crossing his arms and grinning as the Conoku bickered over—take your pick, they bickered over everything.

Bullard’s stunned look didn’t change. He just turned to Groshenko and stared a moment. “You’re… Russian?”

“I am. Petyr Groshenko,” he replied, offering his hand. Bullard shook it.

“Russian. Of course. And Van’s American, but Torina’s from—”

“Helso,” Torina put in, smiling. “It’s in the Van Maanen’s Star system.”

“—outer space,” Bullard said. “How many humans are already out here, anyway?”

“A lot. As I like to put it, humans are already part of known space. Humanity isn’t, not yet,” Groshenko said.

“How long have there been humans here?” Begum asked.

Perry answered. “The first human recorded to have left Earth was Nathan Buckley, an inventor from Providence, Rhode Island, in 1911. He ended up with the Arkosian Autonomy, which was absorbed into the Eridani Federation not long after. They sort of ended up running the Federation and now employ more humans than anyone else in known space.”

“But that’s the first recorded case. We know that there have been humans out here a lot longer than that. One of them, a man named Helem Gauss, somehow ended up in space at least several hundred years ago,” Groshenko added.

“So there are… thousands out here? Millions?” Begum asked.

Groshenko shrugged. “I don’t think anyone really knows. Probably hundreds of thousands for sure. But there’s no census of known space or anything like that.”

I led them through the churning mass of claws and carapaces, intoning, “Coming through—yes, they’re from Earth—no, I don’t know if they’ve ever been on a rollercoaster—yes, the one you guys rode was really cool—yes, I know Duntulla got sick—coming through—”

When we were in the clear, I pushed on to the midships crew mess, which we’d repurposed into a conference room. B and Valint were already there, along with the rest of my crew.

“Van, I understand you’re going into business with Gabby and The Quiet Room,” B said. “Now, I know you need to get those biscuits of yours to Dayna Jasskin, so—and stop me if this is too incredible—I have plenty of room on my ship for biscuits. Or cookies. Or muffins. Or… whatever. As long as it’s yummy, I’ve got room for it.”

I gave her a wry look. “In your ship, or in your stomach?”

She sniffed. “In my ship, and what an ugly accusation. I’ll guarantee that at least, ah, forty percent of the cargo arrives. I need to see Dayna before the big day anyway.”

My smile became a frown. “The big day?”

Valint gave her eyes an imperious roll. B just turned to Torina.

“What do you see in this boy, anyway? Can’t be his brains.”

Torina sidled up to me. “It’s his brains, and his heart, and his”—she leered at me—“knees. I love his knees.”

My frown only deepened. “What the hell are you—?”

Bullard leaned close to me. “They mean your wedding, duh. Even I know that. Don’t feel too bad, though. I was actually late for my wedding to my third wife.”

“Ah. The big day. Right.”

“Van, I sent you a schedule!” Gabby said.

“A schedule. Wait—what?”

“For your wedding! Torina’s parents asked me to help plan it!”

Torina nodded. “If the biscuits don’t work out, she’s always got a side hustle as a wedding planner.”

“And a stylist. She’s going to do all us girls before the day,” B said.

“You won’t forget the moment you first see me,” Torina said, nodding gravely.

“Not in this lifetime,” I agreed, earning a nod of approval from Bullard. Hey, he’d been married three times, he would know.

“Won’t these abducted government dudes be in the way? Or are they coming to the wedding, too?” Icky asked.

I held up my hands. “Everyone, we’re trying to do too many things at once here. Yes, Torina and I are getting married soon. Yes, we’re all going to get primped and preened for it—”

“I have a question,” Funboy asked.

I turned to him, exasperated. “What?”

He’d been habitually wearing a woven cap, another souvenir of Frankenmuth. Now he pulled it off, asking, “If the stunningly talented Gabby is going to be taking care of everyone else’s hair for the wedding, who is going to ensure my follicles are suitably ready for the event?”

We all stared. Perry finally spoke.

“That is one damned magnificent mullet, sourpuss—1986 would be proud.”

I nodded.

“Funboy, I say this without a hint of mockery. You don’t need to do anything to that mullet—except show it off.”

18

We settled ourselves into the conference room. Bullard smiled as I closed the door, sealing out the hubbub of the Conoku.

“You weren’t kidding. They really are a bunch of teenagers, aren’t they?” Bullard said.

“You sound like you’re talking from experience,” Torina said.

He sniffed and nodded. “I’ve got a seventeen-year-old daughter from my first marriage and a fourteen-year-old son from my second. Trust me, I’ve got experience with them.”

B sized up Bullard and Begum. “Feds, huh? I’ve been dealing with you idiots since the Forties.”

Begum looked puzzled. “The nineteen forties? On Earth?”

B preened a little, twitching her antennas. “I know, my skin is amazing for a girl in her second century, isn’t it?”

I sighed. “If everyone doesn’t mind, we’re here for a reason. We’ve got a slow-motion alien invasion of Earth going on, and it’s heating up. We just destroyed a potential blockade runner. Our new robotic friend Panzygrus and her minions have started building Forcrus, our fortified base intended to help protect the Solar System. But that’s only one piece of the puzzle. We’ve got the Iowa on-station, but she won’t always be here.”

“What kind of ship is this, anyway?” Bullard asked. “It seems awfully big for the, uh, teenagers you’ve got crewing it.”

Perry, standing on the table, replied. “It’s a warship. Hull class 14, enough armament that she could probably level most of her namesake state with a few full broadsides.”

Begum shook her head. “Amazing.” She looked up. “But also terrifying, knowing that this kind of power exists out here. Warships, space battles, entire star-states vying for power—”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” I said, thinking—but not saying anything—about the ID theft scheme, the Sorcerers, Calamity, and all the other dangers that would freeze the blood of these two agents if we dumped it all on them. “Suffice to say that, yes, as powerful as you guys are on Earth, out there, your influence is zero. But it’s not out here that concerns me. Or, it is, but what I’m getting at is that we can’t count on our base on Orcus, or the Iowa, or the ships that Groshenko and Valint have left on-station here to be Earth’s sole protectors.”

Groshenko nodded. “It’s getting expensive keeping the Poltava here. She’s not out there earning revenue, and I don’t know how much longer we can afford it.”

Valint gave an icy nod. “Likewise for the GKU. I’ve been rotating ships through the cordon duties, but my colleagues are getting concerned about the drain on our resources.”

“Does that include my mother?” I asked her. My mother was still technically recovering from her injuries suffered at the Battle of Null World, but that hadn’t stopped her from starting to stick her fingers back into GKU business.

Valint gave a thin smile. “She is one of its biggest critics.”

I sighed. “Of course she is.” Nothing was ever simple when it came to my mother, was it?

I turned back to the two agents. “Anyway, the bottom line here is that Earth is going to have to have, or at least develop, the capacity to help look after itself.”

Bullard snorted and gestured around him. “Against something like this? How? I doubt we’ve got anything on Earth that could even begin to hold off something like this ship.”

“You don’t. But I don’t think that’s our immediate concern. For now, we’ve got the resources to deal with the most obvious threats,” I said.

Torina spoke up. “What assets do you have to protect humanity from going insane when they finally face the truth about aliens? We’ve glossed over all that so far, focusing more on dealing with the things happening out here. We can’t realistically turn every trader into plasma. Even if it’s legally justified, it’s immoral and will probably do more harm than good. I get the sense that, to your organization back on Earth, legality and morality might be—pardon the pun—somewhat alien concepts, but the question remains.”

Bullard leaned over to Begum, and they whispered for a moment. It was an illusion of privacy when there were AIs that could hear a pin drop in a noisy machinery space, but we indulged them. Finally, Begum looked up.

“We think you should speak to our Director. She is, of course, aware of the existence of aliens, but I doubt that even she realizes the full extent of what’s out here.”

“Your Director. She’d just be a bureaucrat, though. Shouldn’t we be speaking to someone in command? Your President, for instance?” Valint asked.

Bullard shifted a little uncomfortably. “The Director is… not answerable to the President, or Congress, or anyone else. She doesn’t exist on any government documents or payroll, except as a numbered line item in some black-ops budget. She pretty much is in command, mainly because there’s no one in command of her.”

“Oh. Sweet. An unelected, officially nonexistent position of unbridled power that’s accountable to no one. I hope you guys vet the people who fill that job pretty carefully because it’s got abuse of authority stamped all over the job description,” B said, shaking her head.

Valint interjected. “Fine, whatever. I don’t care who we speak to, as long as they’re someone that can actually make decisions and cause things to happen.” She looked at B, Groshenko, and me. “We have enough members of the 32 present to make an immediate policy decision. I suggest we do just that.” She turned back to the agents.

“How soon can your Director be brought into orbit for a meeting?”

Begum shook her head. “We can’t presume to—”

“You can, and you will. This isn’t a negotiation,” Valint snapped.

I intervened. “Where is your Director?”

Bullard looked at Begum, who looked back with uncertainty.

I sighed. “Really, guys? After all this, everything you’ve seen, you’re going to balk now because of the niceties of Earthly bureaucracy?”

Bullard shrugged and Begum turned back to us. “If we need to contact the director immediately, there’s a contact location in MacLean, Virginia, on Chain Bridge Road.”

“We’ll need an exact address,” I persisted. “If it helps, we’ll just tell your director we mind-controlled it out of you,” I added, giving Bullard a stare.

He actually smiled briefly. “It’s 11011B, Chain Bridge Road.”

“That is the residence of a Doctor Elaine Harris, a philanthropist, a member of Doctors Without Borders, and a donor to humanitarian causes all around the world,” Netty-P said.

Begum blinked. “You know that? And instantly?”

“Since I just stated it, that should be apparent.”

Bullard shrugged. “That’s just a cover. That address is where the director lives.”

I sniffed. “Spies. They’re all the same.” I turned to Netty-P. “What’s the local time there?”

“Two thirty-six p.m.”

“Twelve-hour flight, we’d get there in the wee hours—perfect. Icky, go warm up the Frankie. We’re going to pay a visit to the most dangerous place in the galaxy,” I said.

Torina chuckled. “More dangerous than Dregs? Or Spindrift? Or the Torus?”

“Far more. That said, Washington, DC does have better restaurants.”

* * *

Chain Bridge Road was a narrow, two-lane avenue in McLean, a ritzy suburb of DC about fifteen klicks across the Potomac, and west and north of Capitol Hill. It was lined with leafy trees punctuated by gated driveways leading to palatial homes. Our destination, 11011B, was a rambling colonial set well back from the road, surrounded by expansive lawns.

“I’d say… ten million bucks, if that house went on the market right now,” Perry said.

“It’s tough at the top,” I agreed, easing the Frankie into a slow, spiraling descent. “Icky, any evidence of tech that can see us?”

“Nope. But if they’re using passive scanners, there’s no way we can really know it without going active on our own.”

I frowned at the display, which painted the darkened neighborhood below in broad daylight. “You know what? What the hell,” I finally said, switching the scanners to active mode. We could now see, if we wanted, the wiring and plumbing in the houses, the spark plugs in the cars, the contents of the garbage cans out on the street waiting for pickup. I didn’t care about any of that. What I did care about was the obvious off-world tech in the attic of 11011B, which included a set of power cells. That meant that, unlike the scanner array on Mackinac Island, this one was active.

“Well, if they didn’t know we were coming before, they do now,” Perry said.

I nodded. “Yup. So, let’s go down and say hi.”

I steepened the Frankie’s descent, flared a few meters over the lawn behind the house, then gently settled her to the ground. By the time I had, armed figures were already emerging from the house and cautiously heading our way.

I glanced back at Bullard and Begum. “You guys will exit the ship with me. Torina, you hang back with Perry until we’ve got things settled down out there. Icky—”

“You want me to be our ambassador of peace, don’t you?” she grinned.

“Let’s put a pin in that, shall we? No, you stay here and keep the ship secure. And come running if we need you.”

“Roger-dodger, boss.”

I checked The Drop and the Moonsword, both slung on my harness over my b-suit. I wasn’t going to portray myself as anything other than what I was—a Peacemaker. The time for dodging and weaving around my identity and what I represented was past. This director, whoever she was, wouldn’t be fooled anyway.

“Okay, let’s go,” I said, unsealing the airlock and stepping out onto the lawn, Bullard and Begum right behind me.

The people advancing to meet us were pretty much stock extras from central casting, generic federal agents you might see playing Secret Service, FBI, or any number of other government agencies in a movie. But their drawn guns weren’t props, and they were all raised and aimed at us.

I kept my hands down at my sides, slightly away from my body, and glanced at Bullard and Begum. “Uh, guys? This is the part where you defuse this.”

They stepped forward. They already had their IDs in their hands, lifting them toward the other agents.

“I’m Special Agent Bullard, this is Special Agent Begum, and this—” He glanced at me. “This is Van Tudor, uh—shit, Space Cop—”

“Peacemaker,” I hissed.

“Right. Peacemaker—”

“Keep your hands where we can see them!” one of the other agents snapped. There were four of them that we could see, but I expected there were at least one or two more hanging back. That meant five or six agents at least guarding this director. That was more than any government official that wasn’t the President, VP, or one of the other senior offices of state.

While three covered us, one stepped forward, snapped on a flashlight, and deliberately shone it into our faces to screw up our night vision. I winced, then sighed.

Flashlight checked the IDs, then called back, “These look legit—”

“I’m sure they are legitimate,” a new voice said as someone stepped off the porch and started around the in-ground pool toward us. The speaker was—wait, a kid—?

No. She was small, but definitely an adult. I tried to see her around the purple blotches the flashlight had inflicted on my night vision.

The small woman stopped a few meters away. When she spoke, her voice had a hint of an accent—a French accent. “I am Manon Clemenceau, Director of the Defense Intelligence Reserve—”

I finally got a decent look at her face. That, and the accent, made me cut her off. “No, you’re not. Your name is Alarie. You died testing an experimental European Space Agency spaceplane, one launched from a Globemaster at high altitude. It broke up over the Indian Ocean. I remember watching the video on CNN—Lieutenant Alarie. I also remember your mother weeping and saying how the Alarie family name would now be forever among the stars—I’m assuming she was an actress. A damned good one, by the way. She and whoever wrote those lines, they nailed grieving mother perfectly.”

The small woman smiled slyly up at me. Now that I could see her more clearly, I could see she was small and tidy, wearing a natty pantsuit she must have just thrown on, and she had intense eyes and curling dark hair starting to go gray. She’d died about ten or twelve years ago, so she was probably in her early fifties.

She shrugged. “Sometimes, it is best to hide in plain sight.”

Something about her manner plucked at me. I’d assumed that she wouldn’t be completely floored by having a spaceship land on her back lawn, but she was just too… flippant, almost smug about it all. I decided to try something.

“Is it? Even when you’re about to unleash Armageddon, all in the name of profit?”

Alarie—or Manon, I guess—looked around at her agents. “Oh, put your guns away. There’s very little we can do to these people, even if we wanted to.”

I continued to wear a bland stare. Again, that hint of smugness. If she had access to alien tech like a scanner array, then I had to assume she had access to alien weaponry as well. She might be playing up her inability to counter our weapons and armor.

This woman’s life was nothing but deception, after all.

She turned back to me. “That’s very cynical of you—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“That’s because I haven’t offered it to you yet,” I said, now smiling. It was time to start playing this woman’s game right back at her.

And, sure enough, a flicker of annoyance crossed her face. That told me something else. This was a woman who was used to getting her way. So, she was deceptive, opportunistic, and a narcissistic power monger. Great.

Once I’d confirmed that I’d irritated her, I went on. “I’m Van Tudor, a Peacemaker. Basically”—I glanced at Bullard—“a space cop.”

“Well, Space Cop Van Tudor, your view is rather cynical—and perhaps a little hysterical. Armageddon? Really?”

“Are we really going to have this conversation on your lawn? Hope you don’t have any nosy neighbors.”

“The Reserve owns the properties all around this one, and even if we were somehow overheard, no one—save my staff, who have translators—would understand.”

“Ear bugs? For humans, here?” I asked, my eyes narrowed in suspicion.

She gave me a cool look that danced on the edge of amusement. “I find a common tongue to be quite helpful at preventing… misunderstandings.” Her smile widened “Congress is very generous to us, even if they don’t realize it. But you’re right. We should adjourn to somewhere more comfortable.” She pointed toward the unseen Frankie, and then back at the house. “Your place or mine?”

I gestured toward her house. “After you, ma’am.”

She shot me a brief, appraising glance. She was probably surprised I agreed to leave my ship and enter her house. It just put Torina and me further into her sphere of control. It also suggested that I didn’t care that it did.

Boss, two more bodies just inside the house, Perry said from… wherever he was. He’d flown discreetly out of the airlock shortly after we disembarked. With a few wing flaps, he vanished into the night, his feathers absorbing any and all light that hit his moving form.

Alarie fell in beside me as we walked. Torina stayed close behind. “So do you really believe that only a select few will benefit from Earth joining the interstellar community? Or is this more about power—yours, that of your organization, the Peacemaker Guild—and yes, I’m well aware of who and what you are.”

“Oh, I don’t just believe that only a select few will benefit. I know it.”

A sudden scream slashed the night. We spun around, the other agents immediately raising their guns toward it.

Something massive stepped into view. It was Icky, and she was holding an agent by the scruff of the neck.

“Guess I should’ve sealed up the airlock, huh? This asshole tried to invite himself aboard,” she said.

“Guess they’ve never seen a Wu'tzur before,” Torina muttered.

The other agents cried out in alarm. I turned to Manon. “If any of your people open fire—”

She nodded. “Everyone, put your weapons away. As frightening as… as that is, this is a civilized visit. Isn’t that right, Peacemaker Tudor.”

“Absolutely. The Guild is only interested in peace. And order.”

“As they define it,” Manon countered, her eyes glittering in the night-light.

“Which is different from you, how, exactly?”

She maintained her thin, icy smile. I turned back to Icky. “Let him go, big girl. And wait for us in the Frankie—with the airlock closed, thank you.”

She released the agent, who stumbled away. “You got it, boss,” she said, stepped back into the hidden ship, and disappeared.

We continued to the house. Manon led Torina, Bullard, Begum, and me into a comfortable sunroom looking out on the pool. She dismissed all of her agents but one and invited us to sit.

“I’m not sure if it’s too late for alcohol or too early for coffee,” she said.

I waved a hand. “We’re good.”

Manon sat. “Now then, Peacemaker. Why are you here?”

“I wanted to meet a key ally in putting an end to unfettered alien access to Earth before it gets out of hand, before something catastrophic happens. I’m not sure I’ve come to the right place, though,” I said.

She clicked her tongue. “There’s more of that control I mentioned. To put it another way, your Guild wants to dictate the course of Earth’s future.”

I smiled and leaned toward her. “Yup. Sure do.”

I felt Torina stiffen beside me. Begum and Bullard both looked surprised. Even Perry said, Whew boss, in my ear bug.

But I ignored them and kept my eyes on Manon. Again, a look of irritation flashed across her face. She’d obviously assigned me a part in her little power play, but I wasn’t sticking to my lines.

“That’s rather… presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”

“Why? Again, isn’t that exactly what you’re doing? You’re heading Earth down a path it’s not ready for. At best, the forces out there will bleed this planet dry of its resources and leave it a spent husk. At worst, you’re going to trigger one or more disasters, potentially obliterating humanity here on Earth in the process.”

“If you’re from out there, Peacemaker—”

“Actually, I’m from right here. I was born and raised on Earth. So if you’re going to try to paint me as an outsider, don’t bother. This is my home as much as it is yours.”

Manon pursed her lips. “Then it appears we have competing visions for our home. I see one in which Earth becomes a full player in that far, far bigger universe out there. Does it involve risk? Of course. All advancement involves risk. Marie Curie learned much about nuclear radiation. She helped set the foundations for modern nuclear physics. And she died in the process.”

She sat back and crossed her legs. “You, on the other hand, would hand humanity’s future over to some interstellar version of the United Nations—and we know how effective that august body is. You want to let inhuman bureaucrats decide when we’re worthy of joining the club.”

Begum cleared her throat. “With all due respect, ma’am, Agent Bullard and I were just… ah, out there. We got a taste of what’s waiting. It’s… dangerous.”

“Of course it’s dangerous,” she snapped. “Here, in global affairs, the United States is dangerous. Russia is dangerous. China is dangerous. India, Brazil, your own United Kingdom—all dangerous. But that doesn’t stop any of those countries from claiming their place in global affairs, does it?”

I gave her another smile. “Brave words, ma’am. They’d be even braver coming from a man or woman on the street, and not from a woman who reports to no one, is accountable for nothing, is surrounded by armed agents, and has alien tech in her attic. Kinda makes me wonder—what’s in this for you?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Some must lead, while the rest follow. We’ve already started the process. So, in reality, Peacemaker, you’re too late. Oh, you can get in the way, be a problem, delay what’s coming—but you can’t stop it. We’ve already got friends out there helping us.”

“Ma’am, we’ve got a cordon around Earth. We just destroyed a blockade runner. I’m willing to destroy any more that try it. So, sure, you might sneak through the odd ship, but there will be no free access to Earth. My friends and I are making sure of that.”

“So you would have Earth remain in the dark.”

“Until it’s ready to step out into the light, yeah. And that will happen, eventually. Earth will grow into its role as a citizen of the galactic community. But thrusting it into it while it’s still just learning to play with nuclear fire—that’s not going to end well.”

“And how long will that take, Peacemaker? Decades? Centuries?”

I shrugged and took the mental gloves off. This woman couldn’t be reasoned with. She knew only one language, that of power.

I could do power. Years of facing down the horrors gnawing away at the order of known space had prepared me for it.

“Who knows? And I’d add, What difference does it make? but it makes all the difference to you, doesn’t it? You want it—no, you need it to happen in your lifetime, and the sooner, the better. Otherwise, it might as well never happen at all.”

Torina spoke for the first time, her words sharp as glass. “Because this is all about you, isn’t it? The only thing that matters here is what you want.”

I wiped away my smile. “You want to compare yourself to Marie Curie, but she wasn’t studying radiation to make herself rich or powerful. So, yeah, your analogy falls a little flat, I’m afraid.”

Manon’s stare turned as cold as Pluto’s ice caps. “But, like Curie, I am prepared to risk my life to realize my goals. You will not stop this, Peacemaker.” She spat the word at me. “You will not deny Earth’s ascension to its place as a hub for interstellar trade. As a political force in its own right. We’ve spent decades investing in this, in laying the groundwork. Decades. Money. Wars. All of it to drag these… these—”

“Unwashed masses?” Torina offered.

Manon shot her a frigid smile. “How elitist of you. These good people of Earth, is what I was going to say.”

I laughed. “Oh, yes, I’m sure that’s where you were going with that.”

“You don’t understand what you’re dealing with, Peacemaker. It’s not just me. Far from it. There are wealthy, powerful people involved—”

Now Torina laughed. “Wealthy. Right. My family could probably buy and sell any of those people twice over. We’ve been engaged in interstellar commerce since you were just a bunch of thuggish warlords lining up to fleece the peasantry.” Her eyes flashed. “So don’t bother trying to pull out the rich and powerful card, girl. I have to look down to see rich and powerful.”

I gave Torina a quick glance. It wasn’t like her to spout off about her family’s wealth. But her look back at me told me that she’d likewise identified this woman’s language, which was all about dominance and control. You either had it, or you didn’t.

Surprisingly, it actually seemed to have an effect. Manon sat back again, giving us both an appraising look. Then she turned to Begum and Bullard.

“You’ve seen evidence of all of”—she waved a hand at Torina and me—“this.”

Bullard nodded. “That ship outside, ma’am—that’s just their shuttle. Their actual ship, that they call the Fafnir—” He shook his head. “We were aboard it when they destroyed that blockade runner Van here mentioned. Its weapons are… terrifying, actually.”

“And they have an even bigger ship, one called the Iowa. It’s orbiting out near Pluto. We’ve been there. It only took us about twelve hours to make the trip. By itself, it could probably lay waste to the whole United States in… maybe a few hours, but likely minutes. And there’d be nothing anyone down here could do about it,” Begum added.

I just maintained my smile. Whether they intended it or not, Begum and Bullard were in the process of making our case far more effectively than Torina and I ever could.

Manon pursed her lips again, then shrugged. “Even if I wanted to stop this, I couldn’t. There are too many powerful people who want it. They don’t fear death. They fear losing.”

“Do they fear being exposed?”

Manon actually chuckled. “Exposed? How? By you? Are you going to tell me you have a network of spies here on Earth? Because if you did, you wouldn’t have gone to such lengths just to find me.”

I opened my mouth but was interrupted by a sharp tapping from behind me. It came from the door leading out to the pool. Manon’s remaining agent looked at her. She nodded and the man walked to the door and opened it.

Perry flew in and landed on the arm of the couch.

“Hey, everyone. What’d I miss?”

Manon and her agent gaped. The agent finally said, “You’re a bird.”

Perry lifted one wing, then the other, looking at each and making surprised sounds as he did. “I—what? Holy shit, he’s right! I’m a bird! When did that happen?”

I turned to Manon. “This is Perry. He’s my, uh, legal advisor.”

Manon just nodded. “I… see.”

“What do you want, Perry?” I asked.

“Did the uppity French lady say it would take an army of spies to, ah, convince the players that it’s best if Earth stays off the grid for now?”

“I think she did.”

“So we need someone well versed in espionage, and French things, and with the ability to exert pressure with panache?”

“We do indeed. And I think your idea is an excellent one,” I said, smirking.

Perry turned to Manon. “How would you feel about taking orders from five feet of escargot?”

19

We were able to extricate ourselves from Manon’s place with little fuss—just a lot of hostile stares from the agents guarding her. I wondered if she might try to throw her weight around and take us into custody or something similar. But we, helped along by Bullard and Begum, had convinced her that it probably wasn’t worth trying to screw around with us. I’d assumed that she was the sort that would only enter a fight she was sure she could win, and I was right.

Back on the Frankie, I contacted Retta via a comm relay through the Iowa. She was thrilled.

“You want me to come to Earth? I can visit Paris, yes? See La dame de fer, the Lady of Iron, the Eiffel Tower? L’Arc de Triomphe? Visit the countryside, mais oui, see Arras, home of beautiful tapestries—”

“Retta, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you rolling down the Left Bank of the Seine might, uh—”

“Attract attention because of my great beauty?”

I grinned. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

She sighed theatrically. “Ah, c’est dommage. I must be content with being close to the glorious beauty of France only then. But yes, I will come to meet this woman you describe. She sounds like… a bitch, yes?”

This time, I laughed. “She’s something. But really, male or female, it doesn’t matter. She’s an ambitious, opportunistic narcissist who pretends to care about everyone else when she really only cares about herself. If that’s a bitch, then there are a whole bunch of male bitches out there, too.”

“Ah, you speak truly, yes. I do have an immediate suggestion, though.”

“What’s that?”

“This woman, you said that she referred to others, powerful people, who have a vested interest in this, yes?”

“She did, yeah.”

“Then you must look for them. Those types will not be content to wait for outer space to come to them, no? They will want to go to it. I suspect that some of them, at least, are going to and leaving Earth all the time.”

I frowned. “We haven’t detected that—”

“Because you have not been looking for small, easily concealed ships with good stealth systems, yes? Like mine? I am certain I could slip past your net, if I wished it so. No, you have been looking for the bigger ships, the transports.”

I sat back. “Huh. You’ve got a point.”

“Of course. I always have the point, yes?”

I grinned. “We’ll see you when you get here, Retta.”

“Ah, but wait. Are you not to be married soon?”

“In about, uh, ten days, yeah.”

“Do not let yourself miss it, Van, no matter what else is happening. Sometimes, you really must put yourself first.”

I nodded. “Wise words. Thanks, Retta.”

“De rien. Until I see you then.”

When she’d signed off, I got Netty-P on the comm and explained to her and Perry the concern Retta had raised—that there may be more traffic between Earth and space than we believed.

“Well, it makes sense. Those UFO—sorry, UAP, to use the new buzzword—sightings are still happening. And they ain’t the Frankie, so, yeah,” Perry said.

“Okay, so how do we catch them?”

Netty-P tilted her imager at me. “When we climb to or drop from orbit, we’re pretty constrained by all of the junk currently circling the Earth. I don’t make a big deal about it, but I do factor in the trajectory of every satellite, every piece of satellite, every tool and bolt and piece of thermal blanket that’s been shed by one thing or another. Assuming a ship doesn’t want to smack into a wrench at a combined twenty klicks per second or so, it effectively limits the possible ways of getting to and from the surface.”

“Okay, and?”

“And it means that instead of having to track a spherical volume extending from Earth in all directions, we really only have to track those available trajectories. They’re constantly changing as that stuff orbits, of course, so it means doing endless math to accommodate the orbital mechanics of all those bits and pieces—but endless math is what I do.”

Perry picked up the thread. “So if we combine that with active scans specifically tuned to look for smaller vessels—by their displacement of gas and dust, for instance—then we get results beyond a reasonable guess. Earth pulls a big cloud of particulate debris through space with it, so we could watch for the wakes left by stealthed ships.”

“How hard would it be to rig this up?”

Netty-P replied. “Pfft. Not hard at all. The problem isn’t doing it, the problem is having the sensors in place to do it. If we want to monitor the whole planet, we’d need at least two, probably at the L1 and L2 Lagrange Points. They won’t be stable there, though, so they’d also need the ability to correct their locations periodically. That means we’d need two ships, or at least two devices with scanners, thrusters, and the means of operating them.”

I turned to include Icky and Torina in the conversation. “Ideas? Icky, what do you think?”

Icky scratched her chin, thinking. “Ah—huh. I’d have to scrounge the parts—but I don’t think we’ve got what need here at Sol, so we might have to make a trip to Spindrift or Dregs—”

“Sure we do,” Torina cut in. “In fact, we’ve got the parts and an expert at putting them together to build task-oriented bots. She’s working on Forcrus right now.”

“Give the pretty lady a prize,” I said. “Netty-P, contact Panzygrus. Ask her how long it would take her to build us a couple of bots to do what you just described. This would be a priority task for her.”

“On it, boss.”

“What are we going to do in the meantime?” Torina asked.

“Well, we’ve still got Myron stashed away at Pony Hollow. I’m sure Miryam is probably sick of him by now, so it’s time for us to return him from his abduction, then let him play to his strength.”

“Which is?”

“Being a complete whackjob.”

* * *

Panzygrus estimated she could have two surveillance bots completed in just a couple of days. We had to cannibalize local scanner arrays from two of the Iowa’s point-defense batteries to do it since we didn’t have any extras just kicking around the Solar System. That left the weapons relying on the ship’s primary array for targeting data, which diminished their effectiveness somewhat until we got them replaced. It was worth the risk, though.

Rab, still out at the Iowa, would bring the bots in-system in the Fafnir and set them up in the Lagrange Points. In the meantime, we returned Begum and Bullard to Mackinac Island in the Frankie. Before they disembarked, though, they both gave me an earnest look.

“Van, we’ve been talking, and we think the director—she’s wrong about this. Totally wrong. Hopefully, this specialist you’re bringing in, that French woman—”

Perry chuckled.

“—hopefully she can talk some sense into her,” Bullard said.

Begum nodded. “What we’re saying, Van, is that we think you’re right. Earth just isn’t ready. Oh, maybe if the aliens really were the mysterious but peaceful types you see in E.T. or The Day The Earth Stood Still—”

“The original, or the Keanu Reeves remake?” Perry cut in.

Begum glanced at him. “Does it matter?”

“Does it matter? Of course it matters—!”

“Bird. Seriously,” I snapped.

Begum shook her head. “Anyway, if the aliens all really had a peaceful intent, that would be one thing. But it’s clearly not like that. Not based on what you’ve shown us. Ambitious, opportunistic aliens are the last thing Earth needs right now.”

“What we’re saying is, we’re not going to disobey orders and the like, but if you need our help, Van, you just contact us.” He handed me a slip of paper with their personal cell numbers on it. I nodded and thanked them. They were just cogs in the mysterious machine that was the Defense Intelligence Reserve, but that was fine. Cogs still played their part, experiencing the greater forces that turned them—or sticking and gumming up the works.

From Mackinac Island, we returned to the farm to retrieve Myron. Sure enough, he’d been driving Miryam to distraction.

She kept her face set in a rictus of a grin. “Why, yes, it’s been delightful. I’ve learned so much. For instance, I had no idea that the Earth was quite so… hollow. Or that Werner von Braun collaborated with Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa to stage the Moon landings.”

I gave her a puzzled smile. “I thought it was Stanley Kubrick.”

Miryam’s rigid smile didn’t waver. “No, dear, it was Coppola and the others.”

“They just want you to think it was Kubrick!” Myron cut in. “But it was Von Braun, Leone, and Kurosawa! You see why, don’t you?”

I stared straight at Myron, then made a grave mistake. I disagreed. “Actually, Myron, I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“A German, an Italian, and a Japanese guy! It was war reparations! The whole thing was staged and paid for by the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese to help pay off their war debt from the Second World War! How can no one see that?”

Now it was my turn for a rigid smile and a nod. “Yeah. Right. How can no one see that, I wonder?”

“You owe me, Tudor,” Miryam hissed.

I blew her a kiss and turned back to Myron. “Okay, so we’re taking you back to Appleton, my friend. I’ve spoken to the, ah, appropriate authorities, and the charges against you have been dropped. These charges, mind you. If you get yourself in trouble again, you’re on your own.”

“So what’s gonna happen when I go back and people ask me where I went? How I got out of jail?”

“You’re going to tell them the truth—that you were abducted by aliens who came down from the sky, taken to their secret base, and then… interrogated, probed, whatever, use your imagination. Just don’t say their secret base is on a farm in eastern Iowa, okay?”

“Iowa? Bah. Don’t be ridiculous. Aliens would never have a base here. That’s crazy. They’d have their base in Antarctica.”

“Antarctica. Because Iowa’s too crazy. Okay, then. You do you, Myron. You do you.”

We dropped Myron off in the woods near Appleton and told him to wander into town and just… be Myron. His case of jail-breaking had already come and gone in the local news, and his conspiracy-charged rants probably wouldn’t lend him any further credibility. I contacted Tony to update him on the situation, then we headed back off-world to meet the Fafnir and our spiffy new surveillance satellites.

“Can you see Myron?” I asked as we broke orbit.

“Checking. Got him,” Netty-P answered.

“What’s he doing?”

“At this moment? He’s in the drive through—on foot, mind you—at Culver’s. He just ordered a butterburger, fries, cheese curds, and a soda.”

I clapped my hands in a soft cheer. “Being abducted is hungry work. Can’t argue with his choices.”

Funboy leaned forward, his eyes wide. “Did I hear you mention—”

Torina waved a finger. “Next time, Funboy. We’ll get cheese curds next time.”

* * *

It didn’t take long for them to start getting hits. Sure enough, with the possible trajectories to and from Earth constrained by orbiting objects and debris, they were able to focus their attention on the clear lanes. And with their scanners turned the way Netty-P had specified, we detected two ships within an hour of bringing Panzygrus’s creations online.

“There, a class 3 workboat, I think, is climbing to orbit from somewhere in the Middle East. And there, a class 4, looks like it just made orbit from Africa,” Netty-P said.

As she spoke, she put icons on the tactical overlay.

I nodded. “Okay. Icky, you nab the class 3. We’ll take the 4.”

Icky, aboard the Frankie with Funboy and Rab, replied. “You got it, boss. You sure you don’t want to arrest these assholes?”

“Nope. Board them and warn them the way I briefed you guys. If they have passengers from Earth aboard, they take them home, then they get the hell out of the solar system and never come back. And make sure they know we’ve got their ship’s registry, emissions signatures, all of it, and if they do come back, they’re liable for seizure or destruction—because we will know.”

“So you want them to be intimidated. Sweet. I can do intimidation.”

“I know you can, big girl.”

We swung onto an intercept trajectory with the class 4 and started broadcasting warnings. The trouble with climbing out of a gravity well like Earth’s is that your options are limited. You have to keep climbing, or return to the surface, and that’s about it. Since we had the altitude, and therefore the energy advantage, there wasn’t anywhere the smaller ship could run. After a few petulant protests, it heaved to and we boarded it.

It was a neat little craft, outfitted like a small cabin cruiser. A Yonnox piloted it, while he carried two passengers, a charming South African gentleman and his wife. And by charming, I meant just what you’d expect from an entitled a-hole who’d built his fortune not just on South African diamonds and gold, but also on blood-soaked conflict minerals like tantalum and tungsten from the Congo.

“You have no right to stop us!” he shouted into my face in his Afrikaans accent. I returned an icy smile.

“Actually, since you’re now outside the Earth’s atmosphere, I have every right. Full jurisdiction, in fact, as a Peacemaker. You might be a rich and powerful asshole down there, my friend, but up here, you’re just an asshole. Now, if you want to register a complaint, feel free. All you have to do is get to Gamma Crucis and fill out the necessary paperwork. It’s about eighty-eight light-years thataway,” I said, pointing somewhere above me.

The man and his wife continued to bluster, but their Yonnox pilot knew the score. He’d been making good money from the space tourists he’d been carrying, which he’d exchanged with the Equal Grasp for bonds. But losing his ship through lawful seizure would ruin him. There were lots of other jobs a class 4 workboat could do, even if the margins weren’t as good.

Over the next day or so, we caught two more small ships trying to sleaze their way down to Earth. We stopped them, gave them warnings, and sent them packing. Retta arrived soon after, so per prior arrangement, we took the Frankie down to DC, picked up Manon Clemenceau, and brought her up to orbit to meet our favorite Francophile slug.

“This is a far cry from that space plane,” Manon said as we climbed away from the East Coast.

“I should hope so. It represents tech at least a few hundred years ahead of Earth’s,” I replied, then glanced at her. “So you really did fly that thing? It wasn’t all just a cover story?”

She smiled thin and cool. “No, I really flew it. I did half a dozen in-atmosphere flights to work out the aerodynamics. The flight over the Indian Ocean was the first test of its ability to break atmosphere and enter suborbital flight. Instead, it lost stability during the transition from aerodynamic to ballistic flight and started to break up. I ejected, but my escape capsule was picked up by a Yonnox smuggler carrying some stolen Polynesian artifacts for a collector—I don’t know, somewhere out there.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Did this smuggler have a name?”

“Kuthrix.”

I curled my lip. “There are literally billions and billions of people in known space, but it always seems to keep coming back to the same bad apples. Was his ship called the Lawful Windrunner, by any chance?”

“You know him.”

“Yeah, we know him. He was in league with a woman named—”

“Jeanette Ruiz-Rocher. Yes, I met her, several times,” Manon said.

“Wow, it really is a small galactic arm, isn’t it?” Perry said. “Cozy, one might say.”

Manon was less forthcoming about her trajectory from rescued by a smuggler to all-powerful head of a shady US government agency. It was probably because there were a lot of other people she didn’t want to name or implicate, including some from off-world. I didn’t pry. She was being more cooperative than I’d expected already and wanted to keep our relationship, if not collegial, then at least merely frosty.

We docked with Retta’s ship and boarded, entering a rococo little world that could have been a suite of rooms in the Palace of Versailles, right down to the gilded cherubs grinning out of the corners and mirrors—so many mirrors. Retta herself stood out as… not something you’d likely see at Versailles. Her strangeness even made Manon miss a step.

“Oh… my. You’re—”

“Very pleased to meet you. I am Countess Henriette Eugenie de Gauthier-Francois.”

“You… are.”

Retta laughed. “You may call me Retta. I am not what you expected, yes?”

“I—uh, no.” Manon turned to me. “I thought you said she was a French woman.”

“Trust me, you will not meet anyone more French than Retta. She’d make Charles de Gaulle feel Prussian.”

We settled into the pretty damned uncomfortable seats. They were all stiff brocade cushions and intricately carved gilded wood, obviously meant to be beautiful more than usable. As we shifted and squirmed, Retta got right to the point.

“Van has told me that there are many people on Earth who do not wish to conform to the law, yes, regarding first contact. He would like them convinced otherwise.”

“To which I told him ‘good luck.’ These are powerful people, who aren’t used to taking no for an answer. They’ve got huge influence over corporations and governments. You’ll have trouble even getting near them,” Manon replied.

“Ah, but we will try, n’est ce pas? I already have my agents on Earth working on it.”

“You’ve got agents on Earth.”

“Naturellement. Many. It is my spirit home, no? The planet with the singular honor of hosting the most remarkable civilization in existence, that of Charlemagne and the Bourbons and Napoleon. How could I not make it a place I would know well?”

Manon glanced at me, then shook her head. “Right. Okay, so you’ve got agents on Earth. Since it seems you want to keep alien influence to a minimum, they’re going to have to play by the rules down there. Like I said, these people are the rules. And they want this to happen, Earth to become a spacefaring planet.”

“No, they want to be space tourists and make money off alien trade. They don’t want anything for Earth as a whole, or the betterment of its people. Trust me, I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with a few of these scumbags now,” I explained.

“Ah, well, we begin with you giving me the names of these powerful people,” Retta said. “Then, I—”

A call from Netty-P interrupted.

“Van, we’ve got another runner. It’s a class 6, lifting up and out of orbit right now from North Africa—either eastern Morocco or western Algeria.”

“Okay. Get Icky onto it with the Frankie. She—”

“You may want to handle this one yourself.”

I paused, glancing at Perry. “Oh? Why?”

“Because the ship is a new registry, in the name of your favorite Canadian.”

“Gordon Lightfoot has gone superluminal?”

“He couldn’t play guitar and pilot a ship. Folk guitar is exceptionally demanding. No, it’s your girl—and by that I mean not your girl—”

“Oh. You mean Alannis Myer, don’t you.”

“Correct.”

“What the hell? Is every person I’ve ever met in known space suddenly converging on Earth?”

“For the record, she is my least favorite Canadian,” Torina said, scowling from an armchair that looked like a pretty, curlicued instrument of torture.

“Mine too,” I quickly declared.

Perry sniffed. “Smart move, boss.”

“Thanks. I’m prepping for Husband School.”

Manon lifted a brow. “Ahh. Myer. The elfin one. Bit of a bon vivant. She paid me a visit once. It was ostensibly goodwill, but she was just after information. I had my younger brother with me, and she made him blush so hard I thought he might start sweating blood. All he cares about is coding and caffeine. And money, but mostly coding and caffeine.”

“Coding, caffeine, and money, huh? Sounds like me a few years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up knowing him.”

Manon gave Torina and her scowl an appraising look. “Are you sure that Ms. Myer and her ship aren’t about to meet with an unfortunate accident?” she asked me.

“Oh, if her ship suddenly turns to plasma, I can assure you it won’t be accidental,” Torina snapped, squirming in her chair.

I stood, and so did Torina, both of us grateful to not be sitting in Retta’s rococo furniture. I had all the time in the world for our dear slug-on-a-ball, but her décor, not so much. “Netty-P, we’re coming to join the Fafnir. Don’t lose track of that ship.”

“I won’t. However, you’ve got a window of thirty minutes to get here, and then an intercept by the Fafnir will be problematic.”

“Understood, and on our way. Contact the Poltava and ask them to move into a blocking position, just in case.”

“On it.”

“Ah, while Van and his crew are off enforcing the law, we shall drink wine and talk, no? Do I understand that you are from France?”

“I was born in Strasbourg,” Manon said.

“Perfect! We shall talk much. And you shall give me the names of the people we must speak to, so they can be persuaded to protect the good people of not just France but all of Earth, yes?”

“Persuaded how?”

Retta said nothing. She just stared. And being stared at by a slug is, it turns out, about as ominous as it gets.

Manon finally nodded. “Ah. Yes, that kind of persuasion.”

20

Alannis tried to run—of course. She ignored our warnings, and when she realized that the Poltava was moving to intercept her course out of the Solar System, she burned hard to avoid her. I was tempted to use the combi-drive, which would allow us to catch her in almost no time, but decided not to. That would just be showing off, and I still wanted to keep the thing on the down-low. Besides, we had a velocity advantage to start, and our acceleration was equal to hers, which meant we were inexorably closing the gap.

“She just keeps ignoring us,” Torina said, glaring at the icon on the overlay.

“She’s probably counting on the fact that we don’t know if she’s got some innocent third party on board, so we won’t start shooting at her,” Perry said.

I sniffed. “Innocent third party. Yeah, right.” I considered the situation a moment, then turned to Torina. “Could you single out her drive at this range?”

Torina consulted her weapons panel with a sudden, feral grin. “At this range? Sure, and with pleasure—”

“Just hang on, please. Fire a low-power laser shot at her drive. Enough for her damage sensors to register the hit, but not enough to actually do any actual damage.”

She shot me a sharp glance. “Why not just take out her drive for real?”

“Because it might explode.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

I smiled. “I want her to know that we can try to disable her. We’ll see if that convinces her first, okay?”

Torina sighed. “I suppose.”

She lined up the shot but powered the laser battery down to the point where it was just a really bright light. She fired, paused, then fired again.

I activated the comm. “Alannis, the next shot will be for real. I know we risk destroying your ship, but you’re violating a lawful cordon, so that does empower me to use lethal—”

Her drive cut.

“Thank you. We’ll see you in a few minutes,” I said.

Torina scowled and shoved the weapons panel aside, back to its stowed position. “Damn. Now that would have been a great wedding present, turning her into glowing gas.”

* * *

Alannis greeted us at the airlock, hands on her hips, that perpetually mischievous smile playing on her face.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite space cop. You just can’t bear to let me get away, can you?”

“No, Alannis, I can’t. I just can’t take it when you’re not in jail.”

She laughed and looked past me. “And there’s Torina. I understand Van’s about to make an honest woman out of you.”

“Something that simply isn’t possible when it comes to you,” Torina replied.

“Bah. Honesty is overrated. The bad girls are where the fun is at, right, Van?”

Funboy wandered through the airlock. When Alannis saw him, her smile faltered.

“Oh. It’s you.”

He blinked at her. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

For the first time I’d ever seen, Alannis looked briefly stricken, then pissed off. “Do you know me? Remember the Torus? Remember when we—?”

“No, I’m sorry. If we did meet, I’m afraid you left no impression on me whatsoever.”

“Why, you little son of a—!”

Torina laughed and put her arm around Funboy. “You’ve officially given me your wedding present, Funboy—that look on her face. I’ll cherish it forever.”

Funboy looked up at her gravely. “You’re touching me.”

Torina pulled her arm away. “Oops. Sorry.”

While Torina happily cuffed Alannis, I pushed past her, to find her passenger sitting calmly, sipping a drink. An imposing man with dark skin and a bright smile, he toasted me.

“So you are the formidable Van Tudor, the man who believes he can rescue Earth from—what it is again? Untold technological advancement? An end to poverty, want, and hunger? Yes, these are such terrible things.”

I gave him a cool look. “Right. I’m certain those are the issues keeping you awake at night.”

He turned out to be one Younger Moloi, a geologist who’d stumbled into an unclaimed gold deposit in Tanzania and turned it into a personal fortune. His bio, which Netty-P sent to my data slate, showed that he’d eventually branched out into other minerals, timber, and even cryptocurrency. He’d apparently made yet another fortune not from the crypto itself, but by preying on those who so desperately wanted it to be something valuable. In other words, he was a grifter who’d gotten lucky.

All of which led to a particular question. “You made your money in metals. Timber. The occasional diamond mine, and the occasional poor sap you just parted from their money.”

He gave me a broad grin. “Guilty as charged, yes.”

“So, tourism—even out here, among the planets—it just doesn’t seem to be you. You’re all about the angle, about how something can make you even richer. So what’s your angle out here? I mean, Alannis had you on a trajectory that was going to take you out toward Jupiter.

He said nothing, but his smile deepened. It was… smug.

I nodded as it started to come together. “You used to be a geologist. A good one, it seems. So you’re not out here to see the sights. You’re out here to assess them. This is a prospecting expedition, isn’t it?”

He maintained his grin for a moment, then shrugged. “What the hell. It’s not like you can really stop it anyway. The Equal Grasp—it’s too big. There are too many people involved who have too much at stake.” He nodded. “Yes. I want to see the Jovian moons, see what resources they might have. And the asteroid belt. The moons of Saturn. The Kuiper Belt, the Oort Cloud—”

He swept his hands around expansively. “All of it. The whole Solar System. And why not? All those moons and rocks, they’re just out there, doing nothing, useful to no one. I—we—want to change that. They have value, and we’re going to realize it.”

“So… just strip mine the Solar System. And you’ve got no problem with that.”

Moloi shrugged again. “Whether I have a problem with it or not isn’t relevant. It’s going to happen either way—so I’d be a fool not to be involved, wouldn’t I? For that matter, by being involved, I can—”

I held up a hand. “Don’t bother. You’re going to say that I can help guide it or influence it or make it happen for the better. Please, we both know that’s bullshit. Maybe it’s what you tell yourself to pretend you’re still even standing on the lower slopes of the moral high ground, but seriously—don’t bother.”

Perry, who’d been flying and hopping around Alannis’s ship and doing scans, joined us. “You know, boss, I know we all tend to think of interstellar distances as being the big ones, but the Solar System is a big place in its own right. It’s easy to say they’re going to strip-mine it, but the fact is that it’s going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of effort. And that’s just to get things started.”

I spared him a glance. Neither Alannis nor Moloi seemed like they were going to try something stupid, but I stayed wary. They were a particularly dangerous sort of criminal—the charming, effusively easygoing type.

“Your point, bird?”

“Well, even if they started breaking ground somewhere out there today, it would be years—years—before they could build up to any appreciable production of ore or whatever. And production is where the money comes from. But Manon says this has been in the works for a long time. I think we’ve already seen one of their trial runs, in fact, and that was, what, going on four years ago now?”

I frowned at him for a moment, then got it and nodded. “Pluto.”

“Yeah. We assumed they were mining osmium. And maybe they were. But didn’t it seem kinda strange that they picked Pluto of all places? Osmium’s rare, but there are easier deposits to get at than that.”

I thought back to the illegal mining operation we’d seen running on Pluto for the better part of a year. We’d never interfered or even got close to it because a big-assed battlecruiser had been hanging out nearby. That, we’d eventually traced to a surplus cast-off from Unity, known space’s neighbors. Unfortunately, though, we’d only been able to determine it had been surplussed, but not to whom. And then life had moved on and we’d put it behind us.

I turned to Moloi. “You’ve already got resources in place, here in the Solar System. Probably hidden caches of machinery and… whatever else you need to rape and pillage a star system. Where are they? And what’s in them?”

Moloi curled his lip, all amused contempt. “Even if I told you—”

“Even if you told me, you might spare yourself some seriously hard time. Our Guild’s prison barge is called The Hole for a reason, you vampire.”

His smile slipped a little. “You have no jurisdiction over me. As you’ve gone to great lengths to point out, Earth isn’t a member of your little galactic community. Please, feel free to turn me over to the Earthly authorities, though.”

Alannis spoke up. “Hey, sweetie—asshole here might not be willing to deal, but I sure as hell am. I tell you what you want to know, you let me be on my way with a speeding ticket. How about it?”

Moloi turned a venomous glare on her. “You really think you can just turn on us to save your own pathetic skin—”

Alannis laughed. “This pathetic skin is the only set I got, so I take good care of it. And as for turning on you—I’m sorry, were you under the impression that I’m loyal to anyone but me?”

“You bitch—!”

Torina laughed. “Ah, just proves the old adage—if they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you.” She turned her grin on Alannis. “You know, this is the first time since we’ve met that I don’t absolutely loathe you.”

Alannis grinned right back at her. “You mean we’re besties now?”

“Oh, Alannis—the two of us and the word besties aren’t even in the same galaxy.”

I smiled at Moloi. “Well, looks like Alannis beat you to it—”

“You still have no jurisdiction,” Moloi snapped.

I put my hands on my hips and sighed. “Oh, but I do. See, under interstellar convention—”

Perry cut in. “Article Five of the Third Convention, Chapter Four, Sections Two and Three, to be exact. Sorry, boss, I know where you’re going with this.”

“No problem, bird. Anyway, in accordance with what he said, you entered our jurisdiction the moment you—let’s see, how does this go? Oh, right. The moment you accepted carriage aboard a conveyance that falls under the jurisdiction of this provision, by assuming a personal, physical presence aboard said conveyance.”

“In other words, you accepted a ride with Alannis here, aboard her ship, so you’re now subject to all those laws you thought you could ignore,” Perry said.

Torina chuckled. “You wanted to bring Earth into known space. Well, here we are, laws and all.”

I smiled at Moloi’s collapsing grin. “So, now that we’ve established that you’re in my jurisdiction, I’ve got you on a variety of conspiracy charges related to violating interstellar first-contact laws, breaking a lawful cordon—I don’t know, I’m sure I can come up with a few more.”

Moloi licked his lips. “Look. We can make a deal.”

“Kinda think Alannis here has beaten you to that.”

“No. She hasn’t. Each of us—those of us involved—we know about one prepositioned cache of material related to our particular area of expertise. There’s a cache of mining equipment. I know where it is. She doesn’t.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Hmmm. Interesting.” I glanced at Torina. “Am I feeling generous today?”

“If your generosity leads to a cache of equipment Panzygrus and her bots might find useful out on Orcus, then sure, why not?”

“You make a compelling point, dear.” I turned back to Moloi. “Okay. You tell us where this cache is, and, assuming it’s actually there and actually contains what you say it does, I will heave your sorry ass back down to Earth. Oh, but with the understanding that if we ever catch you out here again, at least before a formal first contact is made with Earth, that’ll count as a—bird, what term would we use here?”

“A fatal violation.”

“A fatal violation. For your career.” I stared at him, my own smile growing. “Or perhaps you. Space is… dangerous. Mining in space? Why, it’s—”

“More lethal than a salad bar that children have access to,” Funboy chimed in.

“Thank you, Funboy. You’re right.”

Mister Moloi fixed me with a fierce glare but finally nodded. Still, he had to have his last moment of defiance.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with here,” he snapped. “The forces that you’re turning against you.”

I stepped closer to him and stared right back into his eyes.

“I experienced, in real time, the last moments of a man’s life as he was ripped apart by monsters, thanks to some tech enabled by mining operations like the one on Pluto. Beat that.”

* * *

I happily threw Moloi into one of the Fafnir’s holding cells, promising to release him once we’d confirmed his claim of a cache of mining equipment. That left us with Alannis.

“Okay, so you wanted a deal. Start offering,” I said to her.

“It’s like the man said. We each know where caches are based on our particular, ah, expertise.”

“So you should know about at least two,” Torina said, smiling sweetly.

Alannis’s impish smile took on a puzzled edge.

“Well, one of your specialties is being a trollop, right? What’s the other?”

I smiled at her. “Trollop? What a ye olde great word.”

“I read it in one of those Regency romance books Gabby discovered. You can thank Funboy for that, by the way, since he seems to consider—” She glanced at Perry. “What did you call them? Something ripping?”

“Bodice rippers. Huge, shirtless, muscular men with flowing locks holding young women with torn clothes fainting into their arms, usually aboard a ship or on top of a windswept cliff or something. You know, literature,” Perry replied.

Alannis’s smile powered up again. “Oh, well, if I’m the helpless young woman, who’s the big muscular man that’s going to hold me?” she asked, biting her lower lip and giving me a look.

I returned it. “I’ll get Funboy for you.”

She slumped a little. “And my passion is gone. Thanks.”

“Anyway, putting aside the whole trollop thing, what’s the answer to my question? What are you offering?”

“My experience isn’t just men. It’s guns,” she replied.

Perry stuck his head into the conversation. “May I point out that both have something in common? That they both sh—”

“Bird, can we avoid crass references to genitals and bodily functions and stuff today, please?” I interrupted.

Alannis grinned. “I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, well, I do. So, guns. You’re saying there’s a cache of weapons sitting someplace in the Solar System?”

“Not in. Under. And you’re going to have to swim.”

* * *

I stared at the surface chart on the display in the Fafnir’s crew lounge. “I see. . . ice. A lot of it.”

“Europa’s surface is almost entirely ice, in fact. It’s actually the smoothest known object in the Solar System. It’s much smoother, in fact, than a billiard ball of the same size,” Netty-P replied.

“There’s a billiard ball the size of Europa?” Perry asked.

Netty-P swiveled her imager at him. “Attempting to engage humor subroutine. Nope, no trigger found.”

Perry looked at me. “If you’re an AI, that’s really funny.”

“I believe you. Anyway, my understanding is that there’s water under all that ice, am I right?” I asked.

“That’s right. Proximity to Jupiter causes Europa to undergo tidal flexing while it orbits. That constant pushing and stretching of the moon produces heat, which is sufficient to maintain water in a liquid state beneath an insulating layer of ice,” Netty-P replied.

“How much ice are we talking about?” Icky asked.

“Estimates place it at as much as twenty-five kilometers thick, with another thirty kilometers of water depth beneath that. It means that Europa’s subsurface ocean contains about three times as much water as all of Earth’s surface oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and so on.”

I gaped at the smooth, pale disc on the image. “Twenty-five klicks of ice? Like, fifteen miles? How the hell do you get through fifteen miles of ice?”

“Even at the top of the water column, right under the ice, the pressure must be… considerable,” Funboy said.

“Fortunately, there’s no need to penetrate the full thickness of ice and deal with the resulting pressures. We know that there are cryovolcanoes on Europa—essentially, geysers of water that erupt into plumes of ice and snow on the surface. These occur where the ice layer is fractured down to its base—which, interestingly, results in plates of ice on Europa, similar to the tectonic plates on Earth,” Netty-P replied.

I sighed, relieved that we didn’t face the monumental challenge of somehow cutting through ice so thick it was measured in tens of klicks, not meters or feet. “So the weapons cache is in one of these fractures,” I said.

“It is. It’s at a depth of about two hundred meters, on a shelf protruding from the side of a fracture.”

“Sounds a little… shaky,” Rab said. “How long until that shelf gives way and sends everything into the depths?”

“Actually, according to the data Alannis provided, the structures in the ice in that location are tens of thousands of years old, so they’re pretty stable,” Netty-P replied.

I nodded. “Okay, then. Two hundred meters I think we can handle.”

Rab tapped at a data slate, then nodded back. “Yeah, a b-suit will offer sufficient protection.”

“Alannis also provided access codes for a security system installed on the cache. She called it a gesture of goodwill, saying she doesn’t want to see any of us get hurt,” Netty-P added.

Torina sniffed. “She just wants to ensure she buys her freedom.”

“Yeah, and it’s working. I’m going to let her go with a warning not to show her face in the Solar System ever again,” I said.

Torina scowled. “Seriously? You’re just going to let her walk away?”

“Yeah, I am. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t for an instant believe she’s doing any of this out of the goodness of her heart. She’s told us how to deactivate the security system they’ve installed on that cache, not because she really gives a shit about us, but because she doesn’t want to be implicated in homicide.” I shrugged. “In a strange way, it actually makes her extremely trustworthy.”

“How the hell do you figure that?”

“Simple. Just ask, what’s going to benefit her the most, and that’s what she’ll do.”

“I can attest to that,” Funboy said. That left us all staring at him.

“For instance, she—” he started, but we all threw up our hands at him and told him, in various ways, not to bother, we didn’t want to know.

21

Presuming that Europa was probably being monitored, I decided to make a point. We descended on the moon with the Fafnir, the Iowa, and Valint’s Stormshadow—basically, the firepower of a good-sized fleet. The Conoku had designed a recovery device, which was a combination of bathyscaphe and crane, to retrieve the weapons cache. It would minimize the amount of time we’d be exposed to the temperature and pressure at that depth. Both were within the b-suit’s operating range, but not by much, leaving not a lot of room for error.

We grounded the Fafnir almost on top of the fracture concealing the cache. A cryovolcano was active a few hundred meters away, spewing a shimmering column of snow spaceward. It actually billowed a little, Europa having a tenuous atmosphere of water vapor and oxygen. It wasn’t a threat, though. As Perry pointed out, being caught in its full fury would be like standing in the cloud of snow being flung out by a snowblower on Earth.

The next step required some careful timing. Once we had the recovery system set up and ready to go, we had to back away to a safe distance. The Stormshadow then fired one of her lasers, using a low power setting, and seared away the rime of ice that covered the fracture. It was almost two meters of hard, glassy ice, but the laser made short work of it. The ice vaporized, forming a plume of water vapor that swirled and shimmered in the wan light of the distant sun before freezing and falling as snow. Once we’d exposed liquid water, the Stormshadow ceased fire. We swiftly lowered the recovery cage into it, the ocean surface refreezing in a boiling crystalline fury before our eyes.

“Ready?” I asked.

Icky peered down, then raised all four thumbs. “Ready.”

Icky and I clambered down into the cage, which was the size of a large elevator with two levels. The only thing that changed when I immersed myself was a loss of visible light—there was no sensation of cold or pressure at all. Once we were inside the cage, Rab oversaw its being lowered on a repurposed cargo winch.

“Okay, Van, I’m gonna fire up this echo-thingie,” Icky said. Rab and the Conoku had come up with this device, too. It was essentially a high-frequency sonar transceiver that displayed the area around us as an image built up from sound waves. She switched it on, and my suit’s heads-up received the data through a cable I’d patched in. I watched, in shades of gray, as we descended past a wall of ice.

“How are you guys doing down there?” Rab asked. He was supervising on the surface.

“So far, so good,” I replied. Like everything else, comms to the surface had to be routed through a cable. Water is a really good insulator against most EM energy.

We passed through one hundred meters and kept going. The sonar image of Icky turned to me.

“So what was with all the sterilizing we did, anyway? How come we need to be so clean just to come down here and grab some guns?”

“We’ve got no idea what’s under this ice, Icky. There’s lots of speculation there may be life down here, maybe similar to the weirdness we find around underwater hydrothermal vents in Earth’s oceans. We should be trying to minimize the amount of alien life, microbes and viruses and such, that we introduce here.”

“Ah, okay. Good point. And here I thought Rab and Funboy just thought I was dirty.”

“Funboy thinks everyone’s dirty.”

“That’s true. I think I heard him ask Rab if we could do this sterilizing thing all the time.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“For the record, I said no such thing,” Funboy cut in over the comm. “I merely asked if the sterilizing technology could be made smaller and more portable, so it’s available to use whenever we need it.”

“Which would be when, exactly?” I asked him.

“Well—all the time. But that’s not the point—”

“Two hundred meters, Van,” Icky put in. “And I think I see our cache, just coming into view, down and to your right.”

“Uh—oh, okay, I see it—”

A long, low moan hummed the water around me, cutting me off.

“Um, Icky, did you hear that?”

“Yeah. I’m guessing that wasn’t you.”

“Have you ever heard me make a sound like—”

It repeated. It wasn’t loud, but pervasive, seeming to thrum right through me. I thought it might be warbling a little, a slight rise and fall in its pitch as it swelled, then faded.

“Are you guys on the surface hearing that?” I asked.

Rab answered at once. “Yeah, we are. Sounds unsettling up here. Primal.”

“Well, then, you would really enjoy it down here—”

The dolorous keening vibrated around and through me a third time. It seemed to be a little louder, like a dirge that gained power with each verse.

Icky stopped the cage on the edge of the icy shelf containing the weapons cache. We could see it as stacked, blocky containers, maybe a dozen of them about two meters directly ahead of us.

“Van, I’ve run pattern recognition on that sound. The closest match is some types of whale-song recorded in Earthly oceans. Similar sounds were recorded in the Grey Sea on Inward in the Procyon system, and in the Undersea on Null World,” Netty-P said.

We clambered our submarine way to the crates and transmitted the safe code to the security system—an explosive charge that would presumably have detonated if anyone tried to lift any of the crates from the stack. I was just thinking that installing such a trap, even someplace like this, was itself another crime, but another round of that eerie, wailing moan made me suddenly not give a shit.

“Aren’t the things living in that Undersea on Null World all, like, full of teeth and carnivorous and stuff?” Icky asked.

“Yes. Yes, they are, Icky. Now, let’s grab these guns and get the hell out of here. I don’t want to meet even their distant relatives, thank you very much.”

* * *

Whatever made that sound never put in an appearance. Netty-P pointed out that any creature able to generate such a low-frequency sound must be enormous, probably too large to easily work its way up through the fracture from the depths.

“I notice you said easily, not that they couldn’t do it at all,” I said, as we ascended with the crates stacked around us.

“I don’t have enough data to say for sure. Sorry, Van, that’s science for you.”

“Science is great, until you have to listen to the wailing of the damned two hundred meters down in an alien ocean. Then a whole lot of primal, panicky, monkey-brain bullshit kicks in.”

“If it makes you feel better, there were slight modulations in that sound suggestive of information. It may be a language.”

“Really. Can we translate it?”

“I’m afraid not. There are absolutely no correspondences for the translator to work with it. We don’t know if”—she reproduced a snippet of the sound— “means, Hello, welcome to Europa, or Hello, I’m going to eat you now.”

“Let’s… just hold off on broadcasting random phrases back to whatever’s down there, at least until Icky and I are back on the surface, shall we? I really don’t want to piss anything off. Someday, maybe we’ll come back and have a chat. Right now, though, just get us back up top, thanks.”

We actually had more trouble with the ice than whatever was living beneath it. The water exposed on the effectively airless surface was cooled mainly by radiating away its heat, rather than conduction or convection. But it was also hovering just a little bit above freezing to begin with, so the water kept riming over. Rab and Funboy finally resorted to sporadic slug-gun fire to keep it broken up. Even then, we had a few tense minutes of lifting the heavy cage up through the constantly forming ice. I had about ten seconds, when the cage got stuck, of imagining myself not getting out of here. Ironically, running out of air wasn’t the problem—the b-suit could extract oxygen from the surrounding water. Moreover, its power cells could run its systems and provide heat for days. I would probably die of thirst before anything else—

Or being eaten by whatever was still uttering occasional wails from the blackest depths.

Such were my thoughts when Rab and Funboy finally managed to chop up the ice enough that we could lift the cage through it, back on the surface.

“How’s the water?” Rab asked, grinning behind his visor.

I took a shuddering breath. “Great. You should go for a dip before it, you know, gets cold.”

* * *

We lugged the crates and our other equipment aboard the Fafnir, leaving only the cage that we’d have to winch up once the ship lifted. Before I boarded, though, I paused to turn and look at—

Eternity.

It was just past Jupiter-rise, the titanic, pastel-banded planet a partial disk dominating the sky. The distant Sun was almost directly behind me, meaning most of Jupiter’s face was visible, rising over a flat, sprawling plane of pale ice. A trio of cryovolcanoes spewed shimmering geysers of snow that glittered against the swirling clouds of the looming gas giant. All of it was veiled in a vast and endless silence.

It was the coldest, loneliest sight I’d ever seen. But it was also one of the most awe-inspiring. I was standing on Europa, looking at Jupiter. The enormity of it all locked me into a sort of dumbstruck reverence. I’d been in space for years now, but rarely had I been immersed in a moment as deep and existentially moving as this one.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” Perry asked, appearing on the ice beside me.

“It is.”

Silence.

“Tears in the rain,” I finally said, because it seemed… fitting.

“Yeah.”

I let the moment linger a little longer, then turned and headed back to the Fafnir, Perry at my side.

* * *

My almost childlike sense of wonder didn’t last long. The gritty reality of life as a Peacemaker washed it away, leaving me in a mild state of mourning, though I would never admit it.

Rab looked up from a data slate and shook his head. “Nope, they’re not all here. Icky and I have gone through the contents of these cases twice. Assuming this list that Alannis Myer gave you is right, then there are eight induction guns and two smart launchers missing.”

I glanced at the slate, at the stats listed for the missing weapons. Great. The induction guns were slug throwers the size of hunting rifles, essentially miniature rail guns that could accelerate a 2 mm projectile to fearsome speeds. The smart launchers were multi-role missile launchers, capable of firing guided rounds that could be set variously to give anti-armor, anti-air, fragmentation, or anti-materiel effects. There were also about a thousand rounds for the first and two dozen rounds for the second missing.

“This is a lot of boom,” Icky observed.

I sighed and shook my head, disgusted. “Carnage and destruction, all in the name of profit. And everyone in the Equal Grasp, along with all of their minions—including the ones on Earth—are suspect, the miserable curs.” I fought to calm myself, so tangible was my disgust.

“I hate to say it, but the one person who probably isn’t involved is Alannis Myer. I mean, why would she point us at a cache she herself raided for high-tech weaponry?” Torina said.

I gave her a bemused glance. “Is she growing on you?”

“If she is, it’s like a skin tag, something you have removed.”

I looked back at the weapons cases and shook my head. “I’m so upset about this I don’t know if I’ll even enjoy spending the bounty payouts the Guild will put on whatever assholes raided this cache.”

“I’m glad you’re able to overcome that moral quandary, boss,” Perry said, hopping up onto a crate.

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s me, the walking, talking moral compass. Rab, how much do you think this stuff is worth?”

He scratched the base of a tusk, then shrugged. “What’s here? Half a million bonds, easy. Add in what’s missing and probably half that again. But, honestly, Van, this is some pretty cutting-edge stuff. If we seized some of it for our own use, it would really amp up our available firepower.”

“Perry, is there a procedure for that?”

“For claiming things seized in the course of your Peacemaker duties for your own use? Practically one of the first policies written by the Guild. There’s paperwork, of course—”

“There’s always paperwork.”

“—but, yeah, we could probably make a case for keeping a few of these weapons for ourselves.”

“Perfect. Rab, I’ll let you figure out what we need. Work with Perry to get the necessary bureaucracy grinding away—”

Netty-P interrupted. “Van, I’ve got an incoming comm for you. It’s Gerhardt. He’s got Dayna Jasskin with him and has requested that you return to Earth and meet him there.”

“He—what? On Earth? Where?”

“He says he’s heading for the farm.”

I frowned. “What the hell does he want? And with Dayna in tow?”

Torina patted me on the arm. “It’s been nice, love. Oh, on an unrelated note, am I named in your insurance policy as a beneficiary?”

I looked up, out into the stars. Then I shrugged.

“Not anymore.”

* * *

Valint was keeping the Stormshadow in the Solar System for now and agreed to keep an eye on the Jovian system, Europa in particular. The fact there was life beneath the ice, something Earthly scientists had long speculated, was a stunning development—the first known extraterrestrial life native to Sol. Even more amazing was that it wasn’t things like extremophile bacteria and tube worms clustered around submarine hot springs. It was something big enough to produce basso profundo sounds that might contain language.

“I’m going to say it here and now, Europa is hands-off. I’d like Panzygrus to build us a couple of surveillance bots to keep watch over it and broadcast something appropriate about staying away.”

“Ooh, ooh, I’ve got it,” Perry said. “How about this. All these worlds are yours—except Europa. Attempt no landing there.”

“How Arthur C. Clarke of you. But I was thinking something a little more aggressive, considering the types of people we’re talking about.”

“Something with the threat of violence?”

“No. Something with the promise of violence.”

We then headed back to Earth. I’d made the trip to and from my home planet so many times, either from twist points or other places in the Solar System, that it was starting to feel like a commute.

22

We arrived to find Gerhardt in orbit, awaiting us. We transferred him and Dayna to the Fafnir, then descended across the southwestern United States, before landing behind the barn at about two p.m. on a drizzly Wednesday night. We made our quick way from the ship to the house and settled into the kitchen to find Miryam already there.

Gerhardt and Dayna had both made small talk on the trip here, clearly evading whatever main subject had prompted them to come to Earth. That pissed me off, but Gerhardt dissembled.

“We believe that we’re going to have an important meeting today, here, with someone you may find very helpful,” he said.

“You believe we’re meeting someone here. What does that mean? And why can’t you give me a name?” I grouched back at him.

“It means that their identity is a closely guarded secret. And per various agreements, only they can reveal themselves—”

“Spy shit! I am so sick of spy shit. All these childish games—”

“Spy shit, as you call it, is what makes the galaxy turn, Tudor. I’d have thought you’d have learned that by now.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still sick of it.”

“And I’d rather pursue my hobby of cultivating alien plants, but here we are.”

I gave him a thin smile. “You’re a gardener?”

“I’m many things, Tudor. And before that dumb smile of yours gets any wider, I’d point out that you’re a farmer.”

“No, I own a farm. That’s different. If I were a farmer, trust me, I would have no time to go gallivanting around the galaxy. Farmers work damned hard.”

I probed a little more, but Gerhardt stayed closed up. Dayna was politely charmed by the farm, wandering around with Miryam and taking in the sights.

And the smells.

“Oh, my,” she said, returning to the kitchen. “That aroma wafting off those fields off that way… it’s very, um… pungent, isn’t it?”

I laughed. “It’s shit, Dayna. It’s the smell of, ah, manure. And it’s a critical part of growing crops and feeding people.”

She snickered, and it was a young sound. “I fund farms, and invest in farming consortiums. I don’t normally smell them.”

Boss, there’s a car pulling off the road and into the driveway, Perry said in my ear bug. He was somewhere outside, keeping watch.

I wandered into the living room. A dark car, probably a rental, crunched across the wet gravel. I frowned at it, wondering who it was—until the doors opened and Begum and Bullard got out.

I met them at the door. “End of the season on Mackinac Island?” I asked, gesturing them inside.

“Nope. We were summoned here for a meeting. Incidentally, I much prefer flying in your ship—the Frankie, was it? Anyway, believe me, I much prefer that to cramped commuter planes, waiting for my luggage in Des Moines, which, incidentally, never did show up, then driving through five billion miles of corn and alfalfa fields to get here,” Bullard grumbled.

Begum gave a thin, hard smile. “He’s been like that the whole way. Truly delightful.”

Torina snickered. “You two are like—”

“If you say an old married couple, I’ll lose it, I swear I will,” Begum snapped.

Torina and I exchanged a grin, but Perry cut in again.

And here’s another car. It’s—oh. Holy shit.

I tensed. “What? What is it?”

Bullard and Begum looked at me strangely, assuming I’d just started talking to thin air.

You’ll see. She’s just getting out now.

I went to the door and opened it in time to see a plastic-perfect woman with coiffed blonde hair step out, then see me, grin, and wave.

Holy shit was right. I’d see this woman before—on TV. It was Tutsi Auffenberg, host of Wake Up Cedar Rapids! and occasional anchor on local news.

Bullard, standing behind me, waved back at her and called out in a cheery tone, “Hey, boss. How was the drive?”

* * *

I gaped as Tutsi flounced into the house in a cloud of hair products. I stared even more when I closed the door and her whole demeanor changed like a flicked light. In an instant, she went from ditzy to flatly cool professional.

“Van Tudor, it’s good to finally meet you,” she said, offering her hand.

I gave it an absent shake. “Uh—”

She grinned. “Why don’t we make ourselves comfortable, so I can explain what this is all about. I’m sure you have some questions.”

“Uh—yeah. Little bit.”

The kitchen was too tight for everyone, so we settled into the living room instead. I sat in the chair where I’d watched Tutsi interview a Yonnox only a few weeks before. I introduced my crew, but when I got to Gerhardt and Dayna, Tutsi obviously already knew them. Moreover, she could converse with them, meaning she probably had an ear bug translating for her.

Because of course she would.

“Master Gerhardt and I have spoken several times, though we’ve never met in person. Likewise with Dayna here,” Tutsi said.

I stared. “Really. I wasn’t aware your local access station in Cedar Rapids had, uh, quite so much reach.”

She laughed. “Alright. Explanation time. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m with the Defense Intelligence Reserve, just like Agents Begum and Bullard here. I, however, am the lead for a special project within the DIR, one that even Manon Clemenceau isn’t really aware of. Or she is, but she doesn’t know its true purpose.”

“Which is?”

“Why, to keep an eye on you, of course. Or, more correctly, on the Tudor family and your farm generally. I’m the third project lead. I took over not long after your grandfather passed the, um, family business to you.”

“Wait. You’re saying that you people have known about—me, the farm, all of it—all along? And you knew about my grandfather, as well?”

She nodded. “Yes. But you people, as you call us, essentially consists only of me, and one person in our Colorado Springs office. Oh, and Agents Begum and Bullard here, now that you’ve inadvertently pulled them into the circle of knowledge.”

I sat back. “Okay, I think I’ve missed a couple of steps here. You, and them, and this person in Colorado Springs—who are you? DIR, I gather, aside from that?”

Gerhardt spoke. “Tutsi represents a faction within this DIR your government has created that is loyal to the same precepts you’re working so hard to realize, Tudor. She and her associates are determined to ensure that aliens do not manage to exploit Earth.”

“And interviewing a Yonnox on your morning show helped accomplish that, how?” I asked, turning back to her.

She returned a mild look. “Did you watch the whole piece?”

“I—yeah, I guess.”

“What were your thoughts when it was done?”

I frowned. Tutsi had done her bubble-headed interview thing, asking questions that really didn’t get at anything, provoking responses from the Yonnox that were—

Absurd. Almost comical. I remember the alien trying to make a point about the greater galactic community and Earth’s destiny, and Tutsi responding with a follow-up question about alien boob jobs and what they entailed. By the end of it, it had come across as a lighthearted bit in the vein of an April Fool’s joke.

“You discredited him,” I said.

“Well, I did my best to, anyway. Why do you think a rinky-dink little piece like Wake Up Cedar Rapids! ended up interviewing an alien anyway? As soon as I heard they were trying to get on the air in Chicago, we swung into action. It was a pretty frantic week, lots of overtime, but we managed to keep that Yonnox relegated to the joke bin until we could safely draw him into Cedar Rapids and, then… deal with him.”

I frowned. “Deal with him? What, is his body weighted down somewhere in the Cedar River now?”

Tutsi laughed. “No, no. We have a secure containment facility in the southwest—”

“Area 51, am I right?” Miryam put in.

Tutsi’s smile turned sly. “No idea what you’re talking about, my dear. Anyway, I believe Master Gerhardt intends to retrieve him and take him back to whatever secure facilities you have”—she waved a hand vaguely at the ceiling—“up there.”

A sharp rap at the door prompted Miryam to open it. Perry hopped in, complaining. “Excuse me, no opposable thumbs here, remember? I’ve been tapping at the back window for what feels like an hour now.”

I shrugged. “Sorry, bird. I’ve been entertaining company here in the living room—”

“I see that. Tutsi Auffenberg. I knew she was a giant in the local entertainment industry, but—”

“Do you have a crush on her, bird?” Torina asked.

“Kinda. Ladies in uniform, amirite?”

“Send the bird for reprogramming. Stat,” Torina said, then gave Tutsi an apologetic look. “Sorry if he comes across as a little forward.”

Tutsi patted and swirled her hair. “No need to apologize. It’s nice to be appreciated as something other than a soulless killer, defender of the Earth, and interviewer of local farmer growing record-breaking pumpkin.”

Funboy sighed. “If I weren’t previously involved, I would find you as irresistible as an autoclave running at full power.”

Tutsi blinked. “As a—I’m sorry, what?”

I shrugged. “He’s a catch. And relatively germ-free.”

Gabby, who’d been hovering in the back, spoke up. “And taken. Let’s not forget taken.”

Tutsi nodded gravely. “I understand. Trust me, you have nothing to worry about from me. I prefer my significant others to be a little more… uh, a little less… um—”

“A little more human?” Miryam ventured.

Tutsi pointed at her. “Exactly.”

* * *

That night, after Tutsi and the other agents had left, I pondered the conversation we’d had with them. On the one hand, it was good to have new allies here on Earth. Tony and his Truly Aware cohorts were great, but they were also three or four otherwise pretty ordinary people living in Michigan and Wisconsin. They made great eyes and ears for us—but only to a point. Outside of the UFO community—I just couldn’t get used to UAP, so sue me—their reach was limited, really no better than anyone else’s. Tutsi and her secretive little faction within the DIR had far more and better access to many more things, including classified information. Gerhardt and Dayna trusted her, and I respected their judgment. So these weren’t just new allies, they were powerful new allies.

On the other hand, the DIR seemed, as an institution, to be more about figuring out how to exploit the arrival of aliens on Earth for personal gain and profit, and less about actually trying to manage it for the betterment of humanity. The existence of one faction within it, who rejected all that, raised the possibility of others that might be even worse. Just like the 32, the DIR was so off-the-books and free of paper trails, oversight, and accountability that I wasn’t sure I could really trust any of them—not Manon Clemenceau, certainly, but maybe not Tutsi, either. And that brought me back to Gerhardt and the 32. I really didn’t trust that group, either, particularly since I still didn’t know who most of them even were.

If they actually existed at all and weren’t just a fiction made up by the members I did know about to cover their asses—

I leaned on the railing of the back porch and sighed. The way ahead should be getting clearer. Instead, it seemed to be getting murkier with every passing day.

The door opened behind me. I turned and saw Dayna stepping out of the kitchen, into the damp twilight gloom.

“Pretty crappy out here tonight,” I said, nodding at the on-again, off-again drizzle.

“It is. But my alternative is listening to Gabby, Funboy, and Icky bicker with Torina about wedding outfits. Your bride-to-be is less than impressed with Gabby and Funboy’s choices in particular.”

I smiled. “Yeah, they’ve basically picked styles out of a high-school yearbook from about fifty years ago.”

“So either you’re tired of hearing about it as well, or you’ve got something else on your mind,” she said, leaning against the railing and crossing her arms.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know your way around the house quite well. You didn’t have to ask where the washroom is. You’ve been less than excited about the scenery.”

“Do you blame me?” she replied, gesturing around. “It’s flat. There are crops. And… that’s about it.”

I just kept eye contact with her, and she smiled again.

“Alright, yes, sure, I’ve been here several times. You probably don’t remember it, but I recall you waddling around in a diaper in there.” She shrugged. “It was your grandfather. We kind of helped launch each other’s careers. I saw… something in him. And, I was new to The Quiet Room, looking to establish my place. So I took a chance and funded a lot of his early work, and, ah, it panned out. He did well, which made money for us—and that’s the only metric that really matters.”

“You know, there are some great truisms in life. Don’t poke a sleeping bear. Don’t start a land war in Asia. Don’t ask a woman her age—”

“I’ll be ninety-one in two months.”

“Ah. Well, Dayna, you look great for your age, I gotta say.”

She looked down, back up. “Just now, I said money’s the only metric that matters. But age is right up there. It’s pretty remarkable what life prolongation therapies can do, isn’t it?”

I said… nothing. What could I say? Dayna was afraid of the same thing that, in the end, we all were. She was afraid of dying. She just happened to have the means to do something about it.

“Unfortunately, though, I’m afraid that those therapies are getting hard to come by,” she went on.

“Why?”

“Because the rights to them are owned by the Enhancement Empire. And, with the collapse of BeneStar and everything that happened involving Helem Gauss and Calamity, and the Triumvirate that headed up the Empire, it went into a tailspin. The Empire’s now mired in legal quicksand with no apparent bottom, and that’s a service they just don’t provide anymore.”

I straightened. Dayna had relied on the Enhancement Empire to prolong her life—but she’d also helped bring it down.

“I know what you’re thinking, Van. But it was the right thing to do. Gauss, BeneStar, the Empire—it all had to go. Hell, if you think the Equal Grasp is bad, they’re rank amateurs compared to what BeneStar would have done to Earth. And don’t kid yourself—it was on their to-do list.” She glanced around. “You’ve already saved Earth once, though you didn’t even realize it. And as for me—well, I’ve had a pretty good run, and it ain’t done yet. Not that I can complain. I made it this long with only a few regrets.”

Everything she said was—it was big. But my mind stuck on that very last thing. And on something she’d said earlier.

It was your grandfather. We kind of helped launch each other’s careers. I saw… something in him.

The flicker of hesitation after saw. It had been barely an eyeblink, but it had hinted at so much more. The something she saw in Gramps had been more than just a great investment opportunity. Whether or not there’d been even more to it than that—

Not that it mattered. Gramps and Valint had clearly been happy together, and it was none of my damned business anyway.

“Anyway, backing you hasn’t been one of them. You Tudors don’t disappoint. You’ve been a pretty damned good investment too, Van,” she said, smiling.

I smiled right back. “Thanks, Dayna. I appreciate that.”

She patted my arm. “Just keep that money rolling in, kid, and we’ll be golden.”

She headed back into the house. I stared after her. Rich, powerful, having enjoyed a life of privilege far longer than any human could otherwise reasonably expect—

And yet, somehow, a little sad, too.

* * *

Rab took Dayna and Gerhardt back up to the Master’s ship in the Frankie. They’d stay in orbit for another day or so, solidifying our collective relationship with Tutsi Auffenberg while also waiting for Retta to report on what she’d been up to for the past few days. The rest of my crew, less Torina, retired for the night to the Fafnir. Torina and I headed upstairs, and I immediately turned into my bedroom, the place I’d heard that first ping from the desk that would get me started to this point—

We both stopped in the doorway and looked at the bed, a single twin.

“Well, it was enough for me while I lived here,” I said, shrugging.

She stared. “You’re not seriously suggesting we both climb into that, are you? Because I’ve got a way more comfortable bed waiting for me on the Fafnir if you are—”

“No, no, I’m the master of the house now. We’ll sleep in the master bedroom. On the queen-sized in there. The one my grandfather slept in. No doubt with Valint. Maybe where my father was—”

“Do you want to spend the night back on the ship?”

“It… might be a good idea—”

“Van, we’ve got company,” Perry abruptly cut in over the comm.

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“Two people, male, young, scrawny, probably reeking of body spray and the crushing despair that comes from realizing you’re never going to own a house or—”

“Perry, can you be less specific, please?”

“Sorry. Two guys are creeping across the eastern field toward the barn. They think they’re being all stealthy and stuff, but thermodynamics say otherwise and declare that they will be thermal beacons.”

“What makes you think they’re young and all body spray and stuff?”

“I’ve been shadowing and eavesdropping on them. I swear I heard one of their voices crack. They’re talking about how cool this is going to be on their YouTube channel, that it might get them over a thousand whole views.”

“Is that a lot?” Torina asked.

“Let’s put it this way—I could probably post a video of corn growing in real time and get more than a thousand views.”

“Ah.”

“Looks like rumors are getting out that there’s weird stuff going on here in Pony Hollow,” Perry said.

I sighed and started to formulate a curse, but hesitated. You can’t un-ring a bell. But you can use its chime to start a whole new tune, one that you’ve written.

I turned to Torina. “Care to go greet our new arrivals?”

“Hmm. Get into a warm, cozy bed with the man I love, or scramble around in the wet and dark looking for a couple of teenage boys in a cornfield. Hmm. Hmmm.”

“You’re thinking awfully hard about this.”

“Hmmm.”

I shot her a sidelong glare as I headed for the stairs back down to the first floor. “Come on. You can keep weighing the pros and cons of this difficult decision while we get our shoes and jackets on.”

23

Out of an abundance of caution, I’d brought The Drop and the Moonsword with me into the farmhouse, just in case somebody with ill intent decided to pay us a visit. I carried The Drop now, but once again with its slug chamber cleared and no magazine plugged in. If I had to use it at all, it would be using its stun beamer, tuned to human physiology and on its lowest power setting.

Torina and I exited the front door, then crept around to the side of the house. What I didn’t have was any way of seeing in the dark, since my b-suit and helmet were still stowed aboard the Fafnir. It struck me that that might have been an oversight—if I was concerned enough to bring my weapons into the house, then I should probably have my armor, too. I made a mental note to deal with that, but for now, I would have to rely on Perry’s directions to guide us.

“Okay, they are sixty-seven meters to your current one o’clock,” he said. “Oh, and for added fun, guess what? One of them has night-vision goggles.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup. Pretty amazing what you can buy off Amazon these days, huh? The good news is that they’re big, clunky, first-gen types, just low-light image intensifiers. You know, the kind that just white-out in bright light.”

I was already heading along Perry’s indicated course, and now reduced my voice to a whisper. “If you’re suggesting that you can blind them—I approve. Stand by to do just that.”

“Just say when, boss.”

We crept forward. Torina had moved to my left rear, covering my off side. She had a slug pistol but was keeping it firmly holstered. I’d had Perry put the gang aboard the Fafnir on alert as well, so Rab and Funboy were ready to come to our aid, if needed. As for Icky—we’d keep her in reserve. Giant, four-armed space gorilla was kind of overkill when it came to a couple of pimply teenagers.

“Thirty meters, now at your twelve o’clock,” Perry said.

I adjusted my course, and Torina followed suit. At twenty meters, they’d shifted to our eleven o’clock, meaning they were cutting across our path, still heading for the barn. I could hear them now, rustling through the corn. Torina and I were on the edge of the field, walking in dirt, for that very reason.

“Okay, Van, they’re just getting to the edge of the field. Ten meters straight ahead of you.”

I slowed my pace even more. I didn’t want to spook them and turn this into a wild chase through a darkened cornfield. I knew from experience that was a great way to end up with a twisted, even broken ankle. At five meters, we stopped.

I lowered my voice to the softest hiss I could. “Now, Perry.”

“Look away.”

Torina and I did, closing our eyes and turning behind us. I caught hints of a brief pulse of light—and then panicked shouts from just ahead.

Torina and I charged forward. We found our two visitors, one of them yanking off NVGs, stumbling around, and yelping out alarmed curses.

I grabbed one. Torina subdued the other.

“Okay, guys, listen—”

“Let go!”

“Listen—”

The one I was holding turned—kind of toward me, although he was looking over my shoulder. “No, let go—!”

“Shut the hell up!”

I turned to Torina, surprised. She shrugged. “I’m practicing being a mother.”

“That’s your idea of motherhood? Shouting shut the hell up at some kids?”

“Hey, it works,” she said, gesturing at our two captives who stood trembling in abject terror. One of them was whimpering. I figured I’d better get this under control before they erupted in panic again—or wet their pants.

“Guys, listen. No one’s going to hurt you or anything. Just… relax.”

It seemed to do the trick. They subsided a little, and one of them dared venture, “Who are you?”

“I am the owner of this farm upon which you’re trespassing.”

“Look… we’re… we’re sorry, okay? Just let us go and we’ll leave and never come back. Please!”

They were actually older than I’d expected. Perry had made it sound like they were fifteen or sixteen, but I pegged them at nineteen or twenty—so adults, not actually kids, which made things easier. It also solidified the nascent idea that had started simmering in my mind another notch or two.

“Actually—hey, over here.” I snapped my fingers, pulling the dazzled gaze of my captive to my face. “Actually, guys, I’m not going to let you go. In fact, I’m going to give you what you came here for.”

“What… do you mean?”

“Well, you came here looking for UFOs and stuff, didn’t you?”

“We—kinda, yeah. But we don’t really believe that shit—”

“Oh, sure you do. And that’s fine. Anyway, you wanted to see a UFO, I’m going to show you a UFO.”

“You—wait, what?”

“You heard me. I have a UFO. Although it’s not so much U, as just FO. I mean, it’s not unidentified to me.”

Torina leaned in. “Van, what are you doing?” she muttered

Kinda wonder the same thing myself, Perry put in, switching to our ear bugs only.

“We can’t un-ring this bell, right? Word’s getting out about the farm. So let’s get ahead of it.” Still holding the young man’s arm, I turned him toward the barn.

“Come on, let me show you the Fafnir.”

* * *

Their names were Kyle and Derek, they were from Minneapolis, and they were geeky enthusiasts for all things space, from UFOs to manned missions to the Moon. That much we learned in the short walk to the barn, since they both immediately abandoned any pretense of keeping their mouths closed. Cunning infiltrators they weren’t. What they were was younger, scrawnier versions of Tony Burgess and company, albeit much less into the conspiracy angle and more into the cool tech side of it all.

“Anyway, there’s this Discord server that’s all about, you know, aliens and stuff, and there was a guy on there that said he’d heard there were a bunch of UFO sightings around here. We—well, thought we’d come and check it out,” Derek, the seemingly younger of the two said.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t usually buy that stuff, UFO sightings and close encounters and all that are almost always bullshit. But lately, some of the stuff that’s been coming up—” Kyle added.

“Uh-huh. Well, prepare yourself for some not-bullshit,” I said, leading them around the back of the barn. “Okay, Netty-P, please kill the stealth system if you please.”

“Van, are you sure about this?” she replied. Derek and Kyle both yelped—again—startled by her voice.

“No, but let’s do it anyway.”

One instant, there was nothing but a view across empty, nighttime fields to a couple of far-off lights at another farm. The next, the view was full of spaceship.

No yelps this time. Just stunned, motionless silence.

I gestured at her proudly. “Gentlemen, this is the Fafnir.”

They both froze. And stared. Finally, Kyle uttered a single, tight squeak.

* * *

For a while it was like watching pilgrims who’d made a long, arduous trek to some holy place and had come face-to-face with divinity. Derek reached out and touched a thruster casing, then jerked his hand back as though he’d been burned. Kyle peered at the huge bell for the fusion drive, likewise touched it, then brushed a hand along it.

Derek turned to me. “This is… real.”

I smiled. “I should hope so. Hate to think I’ve been flying through space in an imaginary ship this whole time.”

“Yeah, but… it’s real.”

The moment broke, and Kyle fumbled out a camera, his fingers busy on the touch surface as he muttered to himself in wonder. Derek was stricken by a need for activity as well, hefting a phone and recording, his eyes bright with childish delight.

“I—” he squeaked, then cleared his throat. “I am… here, in Iowa, at a farm, and I’m—there’s a—oh, just take a look,” he said, turning and playing the phone over the Fafnir.

“I hope you’ve got low-light on that thing,” I called out.

Torina crossed her arms. “Van, what the hell are you up to—wait. You’re not planning on, I don’t know, vaporizing these two before they can reveal any of this, are you?”

“Yes, dear, in the last twenty minutes or so I’ve become a complete psychopath. What do you think?”

“Then what—?”

“Perry, they’re not actually live streaming any of this out to the internet, are they?” I asked.

Perry landed on a stack of old pallets nearby. “They think they are.”

“You know what I’m going to want you to do, right?”

“When you give the word, wipe every bit of data. You know, it’s so much easier these days. I remember back in the sixties, your grandfather had a guy here with a film camera. Film. Mark asked if he could see it, then ripped the film out, stretched it, and said, ‘Hey, there’s nothing on here!’ Priceless. If you could’ve seen the look on his face—”

“You’re a talking bird.”

It was Kyle. He’d just noticed Perry and now walked slowly toward him.

“Only for the moment. I normally transform into a toaster to keep, you know, on the down-low.”

“Really?”

Perry looked at me. “Ladies and gentlemen, the American education system.”

“Now, now, to be fair, Perry, these guys have just seen a spaceship for the first time.”

“I know. But I’m the conversation piece here.”

“Oh, man, this is so… so dope!” Derek said, recording himself beneath the Fafnir’s prow.

Torina snickered. “Dope? Even I know that’s archaic.”

Perry made a clicking sound, then rattled his feathers.“Archaic? Hardly. It’s what the kids say. It means cool or rad. Try to keep up, Torina, sheesh,” Perry said.

“Maybe the kids who are fifty years old now,” Torina countered. “I’m going to get you an app that keeps you current, bird. You can thank me later. As to you, Derek, you get the app and a request that you use business language when possible. I think it’s best for all of us.” She grinned, and Derek flushed.

Kyle looked back at the Fafnir, then at me. “Can we go, you know… inside?”

“Oh, you don’t want to do that, believe me. My crew’s in there,” I replied.

“Your… crew? Okay, how come we can’t meet them, though?”

“Because they are all inhuman, alien monsters.”

Icky’s voice shrilled in my ear bug. Excuse me, we’re what, exactly?

I ignored her and turned to Perry. “Okay, go ahead, bird.”

“And done.”

Derek’s phone had abruptly gone dark. He glared at it, then rapped it with a knuckle. “What the hell?” He rapped it again, shook it. “No!”

I just put my hands in my pockets. “Sorry, boys, but the management doesn’t allow photography in the exhibit.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to let you guys walk away with any pictures or videos or anything. Sorry, that’s not part of the deal.”

Torina had, by now, just decided to go with the flow and throw herself into the spirit of the thing. “Yeah, remember what happened to the last guys who tried to sneak away with some images?” she said to Perry, again routing her translator through her comm. She was starting to pick up English but had only made it as far as casual tourist looking for the washroom in terms of her command of the language.

“The ones who fell screaming from the top of the stratosphere? Yeah, that was savage. I remember one of them wiggled as he fell—well, until he’d finished burning up, that is.”

I winked at her, then turned gravely back to our visitors. “Hey, on a completely unrelated note, you guys want to go for a flight? Say, to the top of the stratosphere?”

They both stared, hints of that about to piss one’s pants look starting to creep back into their expressions. I laughed.

“Oh, stop looking like something’s about to come out of that ship and eat you.”

“That almost never happens anymore,” Perry put in.

I let my smile fade. “Seriously, though—it’s really not time yet for Earth to be dealing with, well, this.” I gestured at the Fafnir with both hands. “This planet is not ready for the realities of dealing with what’s out there—not on anything resembling equal terms. Maybe within your lifetime, sure, you guys will be seeing things like this flying overhead the way airliners do today. But that day isn’t today. Today, you—and everyone else down here—really don’t want to know what’s going on out there, among the stars. Not if you’re smart, anyway.”

Derek looked forlornly at his dead phone. “Okay, so what would a smart person do?”

“A smart person would look back in our own planet’s history and see what advanced civilizations have done to the less-advanced ones they’ve encountered. Think about the Spanish conquistadors and the indigenous people of Central and South America. Or the Europeans who first came here, to North America.”

They both stared.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the American education system,” Perry said, but Kyle shook his head.

“I know all about the conquistadors, what Cortez did to the Aztecs, that Columbus was a real asshole when it came to the native people, all that. You’re saying that would happen… to us?”

I sniffed. “Thanks to Hollywood, everyone thinks aliens are either going to come here and be all inscrutable, or they’re going to wipe humanity out. What’s really going to happen, though, is they’re going to show up with cheap crap, spiffy trinkets, high-tech baubles and beads, and—”

“They’re going to trade us that stuff for the resources they want,” Kyle said.

“Rip us off,” Derek added.

I nodded, satisfied—and relieved—that my instincts seemed to be paying off. Presuming they didn’t have access to information like that of the DIR, these two had pieced together what was happening here on the farm from disparate sources, then showed up equipped with recording equipment and night-vision goggles to check it out. And despite their initial and understandable moments of being gobsmacked by it all, they were quickly recovering their poise, and their curiosity was kicking in. They were smart and adaptable, and I could use some smart people here on Earth.

“If we do this right, Earth becomes a full member of the community of the stars and benefits from her association.”

“Like medicine,” Kyle said.

“And other tech. Not just guns and shit,” Derek added.

“Ooh. Teleportation. Weather control.”

Derek’s head wobbled as his enthusiasm grew. “Things like the holodecks on Star Trek.”

“Now what would a young, healthy American boy want with something like that?” Perry asked.

“I could—oh. Wait. No. No—!”

I spread my hands. “Anyway, guys, congratulations are in order. You’re getting in on the ground floor of a little business venture I just dreamed up.”

I heard Torina pointedly sigh. “Why do I suddenly have the chills?” she muttered.

I gestured around. “This is going to be the Orbital Exchange. A safe place where people can make legitimate trades with off-world parties—safely, discreetly, and well under control.”

“Van, are you serious?” Torina asked.

Icky, Funboy, and Rab all spoke over one another in my ear bug, asking much the same thing. I turned to Perry.

“Ask the bird. If you can’t beat ’em—”

“Then take a cut of their profits,” Perry said.

“Attabird.”

24

“So how is this going to work, exactly? Are you planning on setting up the farm as a sort of interstellar strip mall? Are we going to charge for parking?” Miryam asked, clearly irritated.

I shook my head. “For now, we’re not going to do anything. I sent Derek and Kyle on their way, minus any proof like images or videos. They’re smart guys—smart enough to piece together bits and pieces of information from all around the media and the web to zero in on the farm. Now, they’re going to do the same thing for other news, particularly about anything suggesting there might be trade going on in alien tech, and they’ll report that to us. Or, actually, to you.”

“Uh-huh. And you trust a couple of kids who will soon be old enough to legally drink?”

“As much as I trust Tony and his gang, or Tutsi Auffenberg and hers. And maybe even more, because they’re not motivated by conspiracy theories or murky government agendas. They’re still young enough to be idealistic, and after talking to them, they seem genuinely convinced that unrestrained alien fiddling here on Earth would be very bad.”

“Not to mention this gets them in on the ground floor of what could end up being something that paves the way, at least in part, for bona fide alien contact with Earth,” Perry said.

“Again, uh-huh. But I’m the one who ends up having to deal with them,” Miryam grumbled.

“You’ve got that motherly thing going on.”

“Pfft. My daughter’s in her mid thirties, Van. I haven’t been, nor do I particularly wish to once again be, a mother to a couple of stinky teenagers.”

“Actually, I’d call them more young adults,” Perry said.

“On Helso, sixteen is considered the age of majority,” Torina added .

Miryam gave her a startled look. “Are you serious? You let sixteen-year-olds vote?”

Torina shrugged. “They’re the ones who have to live the longest with the consequences of decisions made today, right?”

I leaned back in the kitchen chair, which squeaked exactly as I knew it would. “Anyway, as for the Trading Post thing, I’ve got some thinking to do and need to discuss some ideas with you guys, but in a nutshell—”

“Van, hate to interrupt as you’re about to reveal your brainstorm to us, but Cantullin is calling from the Iowa. It’s urgent,” Netty-P interjected.

Cantullin started talking before I could say more than her name.

“Captain Van, there’s a big ship coming, and it’s going to pass right close to Pony Hollow! It’s Class 15, and it’s trying to hide, but it’s leaking radiation because it’s probably got a wonky damper system in its drive, and we can see it and what do you want us to—”

“Cantullin, whoa! Just hang on. Can you identify it? Is it just a cargo ship, or something more dangerous, like a warship?” I cut in.

“Uh—just a second.”

Time passed. I knew what was happening. Cantullin was conferring with her crew, which probably meant a blizzard of shouts, interruptions, and complaints swirling through a forest of waving, clicking claws.

“We don’t think it’s a warship. It doesn’t seem to be in great shape, though, because it’s really leaking rads, so we can see it, even though it’s got a kinda-sorta stealth system running.”

“A kinda-sorta stealth system?”

“Yeah, kinda-sorta. We can see there’s a ship there but can’t make out what it is. If it wasn’t for the rads, though, we probably wouldn’t have seen it at all. What do you want us to do?”

I frowned, thinking. I was reluctant to take the Iowa off-station because she was protecting Panzygrus and her work building Forcrus. But I was also leery of sending the Poltava or the Stormshadow out to intercept because they were currently really all that was protecting Earth itself.

“Oh, what the hell. I was getting too comfortable just sitting around the farm here relaxing and enjoying myself anyway. Come on, gang, let’s go run down some bad guys.”

* * *

Running with a faulty reactor and leaving a trail of relatively long-lived radioactive elements like an oil slick was sloppy at the best of times—and was, in fact, illegal under interstellar law. It was a good way to get a ship impounded and a writ issued ordering repairs. Doing it while trying to sneak undetected into a system crossed the line from sloppy to stupid—and that pushed me into suspicious territory.

“You really think it’s deliberate?” Torina asked as the Frankie peeled away from the Fafnir. I was leaving the workboat, with Funboy and Rab crewing her, as a backstop in high Earth orbit. Her newly improved firepower let her punch well above her weight, so she could hold her own against most comers. I left Gabby on Earth with Miryam, both of them chewing on my idea about a Trading Post on the farm—how could we make it work, or should we even try?

“I don’t know. It’s just strange—leaking a glowing trail of obviousness while you run right by our outpost in the Kuiper Belt. There are literally bazillions of other trajectories they could have taken. So if it’s someone trying to distract us—” I ended on a shrug as I accelerated the Fafnir away from Earth. This first bit, where we avoided lighting up the sky with the savage fury of the fusion drive, always dragged. Once we finally put the Moon between us and Earth, I planned to light the drive—but had another thought.

“Netty-P, how long until we reach a minimum safe distance from Earth to use the combi-drive?”

“At our current velocity, about six hours.”

I considered it. It normally took twelve to eighteen hours, depending on the specifics, to make the trip from Earth to the Iowa using the fusion drive. We could reduce that to six hours plus the fifteen minutes or so it would take to make the rest of the flight using the combi-drive. I’d been avoiding using the thing, to keep it under wraps, but this seemed like an opportune time.

I turned to Torina. “If someone is trying to divert our attention, they’re probably expecting it to burn up x amount of our time. If we use the combi-drive and make that a lot less than x, we might catch someone with their hand in the terrestrial cookie jar.”

“Go for it, I say.”

“The combi-drive could use a workout anyway. A few days ago, I was talking to Hodgepodge and he recommended we run it periodically to recalibrate it,” Icky put in.

I nodded. Hodgepodge, the AI that controlled the drive, wasn’t much of a conversationalist. He had one job, and it showed in his taciturn attitude. “Done and done,” I said.

As soon as we were in the clear, we activated the combi-drive and barreled through the Solar System at an insane velocity, far greater than even that of light. The combi-drive was a sort of cheat code for the universe, shunting the Fafnir far enough out of reality that she became her own little universe. It was that little bubble of something else that tore through the cosmos fast enough to make photons look sluggish.

We rejoined creation a few hundred thousand klicks from the Iowa and almost immediately got a hit on the scanners—a glowing trail of effluent that made it dead easy to find the stealthed ship. As we discussed what it was and how to deal with it, Dayna Jasskin called.

“Sorry, Dayna, not a good time. We’re about to once again save the world from some awful peril—”

“I know. I tried to call you on Earth via the Iowa, but Cantullin explained what’s going on. You know, there’s no need to save any of those six remaining missiles you’ve got aboard the Fafnir. The Quiet Room has a way of finding ordnance just lying around in back rooms when it comes time to protect valuable assets.”

I glanced around. “Icky? Netty-P? You guys let her sift through our armory?”

Perry answered with a shrug. “We didn’t let her do anything. She asked how many elite weapons we had on board, and I told her.”

“I’d say all our weapons are elite, Perry. So’s the whole ship and crew.”

“Sure, boss, but there are things out there that would even outmatch the Fafnir if someone was determined enough to get to Earth. The Solar System is getting busy, and Forcrus is still more idea than place. We can’t afford fights that go into the later rounds, closer to Earth. We need a knockout. So I say we go lavish on the ordnance and let The Quiet Room take care of our refills.”

“Okay, you’ve convinced me. And I’m not going to say no to free missiles and stuff—as long as they don’t come with interest payments, that is,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Dayna.

She shook her head. “Nope. They come under our marketing budget, so from a strictly fiscal point of view, they’re just a straight expense, not an investment we expect to generate a hard return.”

“Missiles are kind of an aggressive marketing campaign, aren’t they?”

“They explode into The Quiet Room’s logo,” Torina said, smirking.

“It’s just for accounting purposes,” Dayna said. “Having a blowing stuff up line item in the annual budget might make some people nervous.”

“Well, you do you, Dayna. But you didn’t fortuitously call right before a battle to offer us free weapons”—I gave her a suspicious look, remembering the data-tap still locked away in our evidence vault—“did you?”

“No. I was actually calling for two reasons. One is to set up a meeting between you and two more members of the 32. The other is to discuss a certain Mr. Forester.”

“Ah, right. The high-priced New York attorney on retainer with the Equal Grasp. He’s going to try and convince me to cave and let them have their way with Earth in exchange for, I don’t know, millions of dollars or something. I don’t care about wasting his time since I’m sure he’s billing the Equal Grasp in fifteen-minute increments. I just don’t want to waste my time.”

“Understood, but I think you should talk to him. If nothing else, you should hear what he has to say. You can learn a lot about a business adversary by how they try to buy you off.”

“I sighed. Fine. I’ll give him a call.”

“I’d recommend doing it sooner rather than later. If you put him off much longer, he’s going to assume you’re just not going to play ball and move on to the next stage of whatever he’s got planned. But, anyway, why don’t you go and cause whatever carnage you need to and call me back?”

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

When she’d signed off, I glanced at Torina. “Two more members of the 32. Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this? That it’s going to turn out that they’re, I don’t know, Manon Clemenceau and—”

“Myron. Oh, that would be sweet. Please let one of them be Myron,” Perry said.

“You know what? At this point, I wouldn’t be all that surprised.”

* * *

I was tempted to use the combi-drive to zap the Fafnir almost instantly into point-blank range with our quarry but decided against it. For one, there were hints it was a warship leaking through its stealth system. For another, we’d already burned a lot of antimatter getting out here, and I didn’t want to leave the Fafnir’s tanks too dry.

Moreover, the poorly concealed ship just kept plodding toward us, leaking radiation. Either they’d missed our arrival in the vicinity, or they didn’t care. The latter was more worrying because it made me think about distractions again. But neither the Frankie, the Stormshadow, nor the Poltava had detected anything trying to slip into the Solar System from another direction. It just seemed to be this single ship—

“Wait. Is that flicker I’m seeing off to our target’s port, about fifty thousand klicks, some kind of scanner ghost? Or is there another ship out there?” I asked Netty-P.

“The only way to know for sure is to go active on the scanners. We’ve avoided doing that to make these clowns think we’re not onto them,” she replied.

“We’ve seen this tactic before. Hell, we’ve used it ourselves,” Icky said.

I nodded, knowing what she was getting at. The rad leak might be a distraction, alright—from that second ship. If we moved in to challenge it, then the second one could potentially surprise us. As Icky had alluded to, it was essentially the same tactic we’d used with the Frankie and the glitter caster in the battle with Begum and Bullard aboard.

“I’ve got an idea. Netty-P, how much money have we got on hand?”

“On hand? About three hundred thousand bonds aboard the ship. It’s in the Goodwill Chest you asked me to set up a few months ago.”

“Right.” With money becoming less of an issue for us, I’d wanted to keep some aboard the Fafnir in case any wheels needed greasing. Nothing creates goodwill like money.

“Okay, let’s pick a fight—kind of.”

“Send them a message, you mean?” Perry asked.

“Yeah. And it should only take one missile and some bonds to do it. Netty-P, can you configure a warhead to detonate in such a way as to do minimal damage to the target?”

“Sure. It’s called missing.”

“No, I mean, have it detonate genuinely close to a target, but more as a scary light show.”

“Without physically altering a warhead, which would require someone to leave the ship, the best I could do is dial down the yield to its minimum. And, if we get the geometry right, most of what shrapnel it would generate would miss the target.”

I thought about it. The actual blast from a conventional missile in space wasn’t all that damaging, unless it happened very close to its target. Ships were already hardened against thermal and ionizing radiation—it was implicit in keeping the crew alive—and without an atmosphere, there was no shock wave. Most of the damage came from shrapnel, usually in the form of depleted uranium spheres flung in a cone ahead of the detonating warhead like a monster shotgun. I saw what she was getting at and nodded.

“Do it. Set the missile to get as close as it can to the target before it detonates. Torina, I’d like you and Icky to reduce power on the lasers and particle cannons, and bombard that ship with continuous beams. Hopefully, it will screw up their targeting.”

“Hey, if we board them, do you want me to bring a pillow instead of my hammer and whack them with that, too? I mean, we seem to be all about fighting without hurting anyone today,” Icky said.

“We’ll keep that in our back pocket,” I replied.

When everyone indicated ready, I applied thrust, sending us directly toward the target. At the same time, we switched to active scanners, lighting up the incoming ship.

The response was almost immediate, in the form of an incoming comm message.

I exchanged a glance with Torina. “Huh. I was expecting shooting, honestly, not talking.”

The image that appeared on the screen was that of a Nesit—wearing a fancy dress uniform.

“I am High Admiral Fizzix! I claim right of passage into this system and will not be denied!” he thundered.

“Call me cynical, but something tells me this guy isn’t a real admiral,” Perry said.

“Well, Admiral, I’m Peacemaker Van Tudor. I’m sending my credentials to you now. And I’m here to tell you that you’ve got no right of passage into the system. It has been cordoned off to interstellar traffic in accordance with—”

“I don’t care! I am an independent entity and recognize the jurisdiction of no so-called state, government, guild, or anything else. Now, don’t attempt to interfere with my mission here!”

“Which is?”

“None of your business.”

I sighed. “Look, I’m really trying to avoid this becoming a—”

“I owe you no explanations, Peacemaker,” he snapped.

I shrugged and prepared to carry on with the usual threat of force, up to and including the lethal sort, to enforce the cordon, but someone stumbled in front of the imager at Fizzix’s end—a disheveled Skel who, it was instantly clear, was monumentally drunk or high.

He howled laughter as he photobombed the comm link. “You tell ’em, boss! We already got our money from the Equal Grasp, so we’re set!”

I heard—though I couldn’t see—Fizzix curse, then he shoved the Skel out of the way.

I smiled at him. “You were about to not tell me who you’re working for.”

He sputtered a moment, then shouted, “To the death, then!” His voice momentarily pitched up to Chip and Dale territory. Then he killed the connection.

“That was actually kind of adorable,” Netty-P said.

“Right down to that pointy little nose, he was so cute, yes he was,” Torina said, grinning.

“Yeah. Cute. Anyway, let’s yank this moron back to the bargaining table. Gang, you’re on.”

Torina immediately opened fire with the lasers and Icky the particle cannon. The flood of EM and particulate energy would obscure most of Fizzix’s scanner returns, at least briefly. At the same time, I targeted the second ship, still lurking off to the admiral’s port, and fired the largely ineffectual missile. The missile’s initial trajectory took it toward both ships, and sure enough, the scanner flicker of the second started to accelerate. The missile’s AI already knew its job, though, and at the last possible instant changed course and rushed at the second ship. It belatedly opened up with a brief flurry of point-defense fire, but the missile dodged it and then exploded spectacularly almost right on top of it. It must have done some damage anyway because the ship, a class 4 workboat, abruptly became visible. Firing thrusters, it stabilized but remained dark.

“Bird, tag that boat for pickup or destruction at our convenience.”

“Done. Shall I make a note to do this for maximum profit?” Perry asked.

“Exactly. Now then, what about our new friend, the Admiral? I imagine he has a rich, varied employment history?”

“It’s like you read my mind, boss. Our so-called Admiral has a few minor Warrants on him, but they’re all recent. It seems that he was a pretty successful geologist until he lost everything in a bad business deal over some mining rights at Wolf 424. Looks like that might have driven him to a half-assed life of crime,” Perry said.

I stared back at him for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks, bird,” I said, and hit the comm.

“Fizzix—sorry, High Admiral Fizzix—before we do any more shooting and someone gets seriously hurt, I’ve got a deal for you. It’s one that doesn’t involve you dying. Of course, if you really want to push it, I can call my backup, that big-assed battlecruiser sitting near that dwarf planet, but—”

The display lit up again—with the Skel. Or some of him, at least. His face was jammed in so close to the imager it was like a scene from The Blair Witch Project.

“I already LOVE this idea!” the Skel slurred.

He abruptly vanished off to the right as Fizzix shoved him out of the way. “We can destroy you and all your ships at will!” he blustered, but then subsided. “However, I will listen to your proposal.”

“I understand you’re a geologist, and a pretty good one. How would you like to visit Earth?”

He scowled. “Frankly, I hate Earth. That’s where humans come from, and I hate humans.”

Netty-P spoke in my ear bug. It was a human consortium from Tau Ceti that screwed him over the Wolf 424 deal. Oh, and the hostile takeover that ruined him was backed by The Quiet Room, but you might want to keep quiet about that part. Especially if you ever imagine him meeting Dayna Jasskin.

I nodded as though it was directed at him. “Noted. But if you can put your hatred of us and our planet aside, there’s a place there, a continent called Africa. And there’s a man from Africa that I’d—”

The Skel suddenly drowned me out, wailing, “I guessed the brains down in paaaa-prika!”

That left me staring. I kind of recognized the tune—

“I think it’s supposed to be Africa, by Toto. He’s singing the less well-known lyrics, though,” Perry said.

“Ah. Bit of artistic license there, and frankly, I’m offended he tinkered with perfection. Regardless, I’m sure there’s a whole story behind how a Skel knows a song—the melody, anyway—from nineteen-eighties Earth, but whatever. Anyway, there’s a man named Younger Moloi who I suspect is going to be willing to make a deal with me, since I stopped him from making money one way and can now offer him another. He’s also a geologist. Between the two of you, I’m looking for some commodities that we need to construct—something we’re constructing, here, in the outer Solar System.”

Fizzix tilted his head. “You want to employ me? As a geologist?”

“It’s what you are, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is.” He frowned a moment—damn, he actually did look adorable, more squirrelish than the typical Nesit—then nodded.

“Alright, I’ll do it.”

From somewhere off-screen, the Skel spoke up. “I don’t think the Equal Grasp is gonna like this—oh. Oh, I need to lie down—”

A thud, then a sound of wet snoring.

“I’ll let you take care of your crew,” I said. “In the meantime, you can leave the Equal Grasp to me.”

25

I explained what was going on to Rab and Funboy on the Frankie, so they knew to expect Fizzix to show up at Earth. I likewise cleared the way for him with the Poltava and the Stormshadow. Then, since we were out here anyway, I decided to swing by Orcus to see how construction was proceeding.

And proceeding it was. From ten klicks away, we could see the evidence of construction on the surface—excavations, the foundations of three surface installations, two of which would be weapons mounts, a wide ramp descending into the interior of Orcus in the middle of a flat plain mottled in shades of dark gray, a mix of carbonaceous compounds and huge slabs of rock. Technically, Orcus wasn’t really a solid body at all, just a bunch of chunks ranging from centimeters to kilometers across. Forcrus was being excavated in the largest solid piece, a boulder nearly two hundred kilometers wide.

“What I don’t understand is why we gotta import ice,” Icky said, gesturing at the screen. “Look at those highlands up to the north, they’re nothing but ice.”

Netty-P answered. “They are, but it's mostly methane ice with some water ice mixed in. The Conoku are collecting pure water ice from the nearby bodies and sending it here so there’s a reliable supply of fresh water for whoever ends up with the fun assignment of sitting out here on a snowy rock and staring into the cosmos.”

“Hey, as long as there’s a lifetime supply of noodles and a standing no-pants policy, I’m in. Sounds very chill.”

“Very chill. The surface temperature averages forty-four degrees Kelvin,” Netty-P put in.

Torina glanced back. “What about Paxomar? Would he be keen on it?”

Icky frowned. “Oh, yeah. I guess he’d get a say, wouldn’t he?”

Torina glanced at me with an evil smirk. “Well, as long as he thinks he’s getting a say, that should be good enough.”

I stared back defiantly. “I’d point out that he’s literally going to be the one wearing the pants in that family.”

A new voice cut in. It was Cantullin, on the comm.

“Hey, Captain Van, you wanna get out of the way? You’ve got a hunk of ice the size of the Iowa inbound, and you’re kinda in the line of fire.”

Perry clicked his tongue. “Typical. Boss decides to visit the job site and immediately gets in everyone’s way.”

The overlay showed the ice chunk about ten minutes out, which was lots of time to maneuver out of the way. I applied thrust, clearing the trajectory of the incoming ice while avoiding another navigational hazard—Orcus’s small moon, Vanth. It had become a running joke because of its name, It’th not my moon, it’s Vanth moon, athk him to move it, yuk-yuk.

“How’s Operation Old Bay coming, anyway?” Perry asked Cantullin.

“Great! We’ve got two more chunks after this one to bring in for a soft landing, and Panzygrus says that’ll be enough for now.”

I scowled. “Operation Old Bay?”

“Yes! Apparently, it’s a name based on an Earth ritual that involves a mallet and something called garlic butter. Perry suggested it.”

I swung my scowl on Perry. “Did he now?”

“Yup!”

“Well, he didn’t consult me, which is unfortunate, because I’d planned to use that name for a different operation. Let’s rename this one—I know. Smith’s Pond, to honor your dad, Linulla.”

“Oooh, that’s even better! We all like it—!”

“I liked it first!”

“—so Smith’s Pond it is!”

She signed off, and I stared at Perry. He finally shrugged his wings—which were still clipped, since we hadn’t made it back to Anvil Dark yet. “Come on. It was right there.”

Torina and Icky looked puzzled. “What are we missing here?” Torina asked.

I kept my eyes locked on Perry. “Old Bay is a combination of spices used on Earth. On seafood.”

Torina stared—then she got it and pinned her own glare on the bird. “Perry!”

Icky, on the other hand, chortled, then laughed out loud.

“See, she’s taking it in the spirit I intended it,” Perry said.

“Then you won’t mind if I name our next job Operation Bird Stripped Down For Parts.”

“That would just be mean.”

* * *

We watched the ice chunk hit Orcus—or, rather, land on it, since the Conoku released it from the cradle contraption they’d rigged up on the belly of the Iowa with just a couple of meters per second of velocity. The chunk made slow, stately progress, before finally bumping into Orcus about twenty klicks away from the construction site. It rebounded in the low gravity, but Panzygrus had bots ready for it. They latched onto it and thrust it back against the surface. She rigged up a fuel-making station, which ran on power cells and electrolyzed water into hydrogen and oxygen, so her bots had all the reaction mass they needed to puff their way around in the low gravity.

“That’s all looking great, Panzygrus,” I said over the comm.

“I appreciate the compliment. However, much credit must go to Rab and Gabby. His knowledge and her organizational skills have put this project nearly two standard weeks ahead of where I’d intended it to be. I… actually learned a great deal from them. And they were very kind about it. It is far more fulfilling to be treated as an equal than as a subservient being.”

“If I’ve got a philosophy of life, Panzygrus, and it has pillars, then that is definitely one of them. Van out.”

* * *

We aimed the Fafnir back toward Earth. No combi-drive this time because I wanted to preserve the antimatter, so we settled in for a half-day trip. That was fine because I had some overdue paperwork I needed to catch up on. I called Miryam, though, from my cabin, to check on how things were going at her end. The call was relayed through the Frankie to avoid a serious time delay.

“Ever since Bill and Ted had their excellent adventure on the farm, they’ve been pestering me with all sorts of emails full of questions about the final frontier. Just so you know, I’ve been putting them off and telling them I’m really just a small-town lawyer and that you’re the spaceman with all the answers. Also, just so you know, I hate you now.”

I smiled. “Sorry, Miryam. I’d have hooked them up with Tony and his people, but I’d rather keep their science geekery pure. They seem to have avoided the conspiracy rabbit hole, so I especially want to keep them away from Myron.”

“Myron. Ah, yes. The pungent, raving man with whom I got to spend nearly two of my few remaining days. I also need to thank you for that.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“Yes. You will. And I already know how. I’ll explain it to you when you get here.”

* * *

We met Miryam at the farm that night. By then, I’d caught up on information from various sources on Earth, including her, Tutsi Auffenberg through her, and Tony and Retta. The picture they painted was an increasingly worrisome one.

Despite our best efforts, the reach of the Equal Grasp seemed to be slowly spreading around the globe. There was no evidence of any more breaches of the cordon, particularly with the two surveillance bots Rab installed at the Lagrange Points keeping up their unblinking vigil. Retta believed there were already elements placed on Earth and exerting their influence. Unfortunately, the Equal Grasp had identified the most vulnerable fault line in Earthly society—greed. Not that it really took much in the way of social analysis to do that, because greed was universal. But they were exploiting it by courting rich people on Earth and promising to make them even richer. And, in the shortsighted way also common across the cosmos, these wealthy minions were only too willing to sacrifice the prosperity of future generations to increase their own today.

Which meant that Retta and whoever she had working for her had already identified elements in several governments that were being financed by these extraterrestrial influencers. They included the governments of the US, China, India, Brazil, and several EU countries. They were a long way from being even remotely in charge, but their insidious fingerprints were starting to appear on otherwise innocuous-seeming policies. India, for instance, enacted new legislation that loosened environmental protections in parts of the Himalayas. Brazil reduced royalties owed to the state on some mineral commodities. The US, meanwhile, had given a modest boost to subsidies paid to mining companies that didn’t really need them. Now, those same companies were buying interests in smaller companies chasing rare earth elements—lithium, tantalum, and similar metals in other countries, like Canada and Mexico.

“Each on its own is minor—oh, I made a pun, yes? Minor? It sounds like miner—”

“Yes, Retta, I get it,” I said, unable to resist a smile at a punny slug perched atop a ball.

“Anyway, each on its own is a small thing. But taken together, they are worrying.”

“They are. And you have no idea where this is coming from?”

“We have ideas, but nothing firm. Still, we continue to look. And I have spoken to your Tutsi Auffenberg, and she has been very helpful—”

“Wait, you’ve been talking to Tutsi? How? I was meaning to get you guys connected, but how did she—?”

“Ah, Van, do not panic. Master Gerhardt was the one who made the connection for us. I only speak to her by the, the audio, yes? She has not seen me.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Okay. It’s probably a good thing, anyway, you guys collaborating on this,” I said, then sat up, having another thought. “Hey, during all the work you and your people have been doing, have you run across the name Forester?”

“Ah. Yes. He is in the city with the large, beautiful French lady.”

“The large, beautiful—wait, do you mean the Statue of Liberty?”

“Yes, but she is La Liberté éclairant le monde, Liberty Enlightening the World. Such was the name given to her by the brilliant—and French, of course—sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi.”

I chuckled. “Wow. I knew she was originally French, but I didn’t know about the name. Liberty Enlightening the World. I like that. A lot.”

“Mais oui. Anyway, that is this Mr. Forester, his city. And many roads seem to lead back to him from the places we are poking about, yes?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I think he’s a linchpin in all this. Maybe the linchpin. I think I’ve been putting him off long enough.”

“You’re going to see him?”

“Actually, I’m going to see Liberty Enlightening the World. I’ll just happen to drop by on him when I’m in the neighborhood.”

* * *

I loved New York City. And hated it. Every time I had a trip scheduled to go there in my previous life, I’d looked forward to it with an almost childish excitement. And then, once I was there, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of town again.

I suspected a lot of people feel this way about a lot of mega cities, not just New York. And I myself had felt the same way about Tokyo, Rio, and Shanghai, all places my work as a computer consultant had taken me. The excitement came from knowing there was so much there, when I stepped off the plane, so much to see and do and so much big-city ambience to soak up. The desire that soon followed, to get away from it all, came from exactly the same thing.

While it was tempting to fly the Frankie into the city and land in Central Park, we decided on a less direct route. Across the Hudson, about forty klicks from Manhattan is Morristown, New Jersey. Just south of there was the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, the closest significant patch of wilderness to the city. I knew this because I’d done a project on it in Grade Ten, each of us students having had to pick a wildlife refuge, nature preserve or something similar somewhere in the US, and do a presentation on it. I didn’t even really remember how I ended up doing this one, but there it was.

“It’s like your whole life was leading up to this moment,” Perry said as we circled the green sprawl of the Refuge, looking for a suitable place to land.

“I’d like to think my life is leading up to a little more than this, bird.”

I had Perry with me, along with Torina and Miryam because they were human. I also had Funboy and Rab because they were the two who could most easily be made to look human, at least at a distance. Icky and Gabby stayed on the Fafnir, in low orbit as our backup. If we needed them, they would be a ten minute flight away from Midtown. We could see the city clearly to the east, a glorious sprawl of light shining amid a sea of suburbs. The tallest buildings were gleaming spikes against the paling eastern sky.

“It’ll be dawn soon. I want to get into the city as early as possible because traffic’s probably going to be a bitch,” I said, turning back to the view below us.

I picked a clearing amid a stand of trees at the northeastern end of the Refuge, just a short walk from a small community called Green Village. We landed without incident, then Miryam, Torina, and I grabbed our stuff and disembarked. We were dressed casually but comfortably, aiming to look like tourists. As we walked through the dawn chill along a nearby road, mist wafting out of the trees around us, Miryam spoke up.

“I’m still not sure why you need me, Van. I’m a property and estate lawyer from corn country. This Forester is a high-end attorney whose office probably looks down on the rest of Manhattan.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Miryam. Gramps made it pretty clear that he considered you the law when it comes to the law. At least here on Earth. But there’s another reason. I want Forester to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because if Van is willing to bring you along, it means he’s not trying to hide you away from this Forester character. It means he doesn’t care if Forester knows who you are. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

I smiled as we trudged along. “As usual, my bride-to-be is over the target. I want Forester to think that you’re well-protected, Miryam, so he and his people don’t try anything stupid.”

“So I’m arm candy, then. I knew it.”

I laughed, and we carried on. We didn’t have to walk far, only a few hundred meters up the road out of the Refuge, then a right turn for a couple of hundred more meters to Green Village. I called an Uber to take us from there to nearby Morristown, where Miryam had already booked a rental car. The sun was up by then, shining out of what promised to be a bright, sunny, and probably hot day.

“Oh, boy, not just New York, but New York in the sweltering heat. I can hardly wait,” I said as we swung onto Highway 24 heading east—and straight into the beginning of the morning rush hour into the city.

Torina grimaced at the line of traffic ahead. “I miss Helso,” she said.

I gripped the wheel, leaned back, and sighed. “Yeah. Hard to believe just over a day ago, I was traveling faster than the speed of light. Now, I’m not even traveling as fast as… as that cyclist over there on that service road. Seriously? Perry, can you see how far this bullshit extends?”

He replied on the comm with a quaver in his voice, like the sound of a helicopter.

“This is Chopper Perry, your eye in the sky, and whoa, it’s really backed up on the 24 all the way to I-78. You might wanna pack a lunch if you’re heading—”

“Bird,” I said.

“That term really works for… a lot of things,” Torina said.

I grumbled, nudging forward. “He works for everything. Except me.”

26

Despite the traffic, we actually made pretty good time into the city, our tires hitting Manhattan pavement just before nine a.m. Once there, though, we had to fight through stop-and-go traffic for nearly an hour, and then spend another half-hour and an ungodly amount of money to park.

As we pushed our way along the crowded sidewalk toward the glittering tower that was our destination, Torina shook her head. “Did I mention I miss Helso?”

“Repeatedly, dear. Repeatedly,” Miryam said.

“How can people live like this? And… what did I just step in? It felt slimy—”

I turned to her. “Torina, look me in the eyes. Do not look down at whatever it was. By all that is holy, don’t look down.”

Panic flared on her face. “Why not?”

“Because there are some things man was not meant to know. Now, scrape your shoe on the curb over there, and let’s keep moving.” I glanced at the crowd around us, a bustle of eyes glued to cell phones and scuffing feet. “They can sense fear.”

We arrived at the office tower, whose lobby was mercifully free of people. As we crossed the echoing expanse of marble and brass to study a building directory, a bored security guard looked up from the Times crossword puzzle.

“Can I help you folks?”

“Uh… nope, found what we’re looking for,” I said, pointing at the name of a law firm on the seventy-fourth floor. It included Forester as one of its limited liability—of course—partners.

“Uh-huh. Don’t suppose you know a five letter word for Roman punisher of broken oaths, second letter an ‘r’, do you?”

I stared. “Are you serious?”

He blinked at me in a way that showed not even a hint of understanding. “Uh—yes?”

“Try Orcus.”

He frowned at his crossword. “Hey, that fits. Thanks.”

I turned to Miryam and Torina. “Can you believe that? It can’t be a coincidence.”

Miryam smirked at me as we headed for the elevators. “Unless—and hear me out on this, Van—it is.”

I closed my mouth and had to just shrug. If I was living the plot of some fantasy novel, it would probably be some sort of portent. But reality isn’t like that. It generally just is shit that happens.

Didn’t stop it from being kind of unnerving, though.

Accompanied by a tinny version of Chariots of Fire, we whisked our way up to the seventy-fourth floor. It struck me that if we needed to make a quick exit from this place, we were kinda screwed, since it was the elevators or many, many flights of stairs. But I didn’t think that was going to be the case, which is why we weren’t armed, either. I suspected the good Mr. Forester’s favored weapons were clever words and litigation, not force. Besides, he had no way of knowing what other assets we had at our command.

Between the crossword clue and the general unease of being eight hundred feet above the Manhattan streets, I was wired tight when we finally stepped out of the elevator. Which was odd. I plowed into places like Dregs and the Torus, which were full of genuinely violent entities—some of them carnivorous—and didn’t feel anywhere near this edgy. I glanced at Torina and Miryam and saw that they were both cool as proverbial cucumbers.

Which made sense. Miryam’s world was one of law, and she’d been immersed in it for years. And as for Torina, she was heir to a powerful and complex commercial empire and had probably accompanied her parents into intense, multi-million bond negotiations on take your kid to work day. I was out of my element here, but they weren’t.

I stopped just outside the vast glass doors into Forester’s law firm. “Guys, change of plan.”

Miryam scowled. “I didn’t drag myself out of bed at stupid o’clock, get myself made up—”

I cleared my throat in preparation for a polite disagreement. “No, we’re not bailing. I’m letting you guys take point on this. I think you’re better equipped than I am.”

They exchanged a glance, then both smiled. Torina nodded. “We can do that, sure.”

And, with that, they turned and strode into Blah, Blah, Forester and Blah LLP like they owned the place. I followed.

Torina strode right up to a reception desk the size of the Fafnir’s cockpit. “Mr. Van Tudor is here to see Mr. Forester,” she said, routing her voice through her comm, which was still concealed under her jacket. The gaze she fixed on the receptionist was both imperious and cool.

The young man blinked, clearly taken aback by the mismatch between mouth and voice, but quickly recovered and tapped at his computer. He shook his head. “I don’t have an appointment for anyone named Tudor—”

“No, of course you don’t. The sort of business that brings him here isn’t the sort that requires appointments.”

“Or, for that matter, any paper trail at all,” Miryam put in, her tone sharply impatient.

That uneasy feeling that had plagued me up the elevator ride? It puffed away. Torina and Miryam didn’t just radiate a sense of smooth control, they were enjoying this.

The receptionist blinked and looked at me. I put my hands in my pockets and gazed around, trying to look bored by the whole thing. He shook his head again. “I’m sorry, but—”

“Trust me, Mr. Forester will want to know that Mr. Tudor is here.”

“If you give me your contact information, I’ll see if I can arrange—”

I spoke up. “Perry, what’s Forester’s phone number?” I asked the air.

He replied immediately, via my ear bug. Seriously?

I waited.

Okay, he said, and gave it to me. I repeated it out loud.

Miryam nodded and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll just call him directly. We don’t have time for—”

The young man tensed, obviously recognizing the number and probably wondering what the hell the deal with Perry was. “That… won’t be necessary. I’ll let Mr. Forester know you’re here.”

Miryam put her phone away.

The receptionist picked up the phone, connected, and quietly explained the situation—then nodded. “Yes, Mr. Forester. All your calls. Understood.” He hung up and stood.

“If you’ll… follow me,” he said, leading us off through carpet so thick it was like walking on a mattress. He shot back quick glances, obviously curious who we were, walking in off the street and immediately getting the vaunted Mr. Forester to have his calls held.

He led us into a palatial boardroom with a glorious view straight south, along the line of the Hudson, across Lower Manhattan and the Financial District beyond it. We seated ourselves around a vast cherrywood table accented with brass, while the receptionist brought us coffee.

After we’d settled in, another door opened, and a man entered. A billowing cloud of Armani, perfect teeth, and self-importance swirled in with him.

Forester looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, tanned, with graying hair thinning on top. I rose to shake his offered hand. It was soft and vaguely moist, the hand of a man whose most strenuous manual labor was pulling a 5-iron out of his golf bag.

Assuming he didn’t have a caddy do it for him, that is.

“Mr. Tudor, I am so pleased to meet you,” he said, his voice a smooth, Morgan Freeman baritone. “I was afraid you weren’t going to take me up on our invitation for a chat. I must admit, though, I didn’t expect you to just drop in.”

I caught the quick flicker of irritation. My whole purpose for swinging by Manhattan had been to try and put Forester at least a little off his game. People like him were all about control and couldn’t stand it when they didn’t have it.

I smiled but said nothing.

Forester swung his attention onto Torina and Miryam. “And I see you’ve brought some lovely company along with you.”

They both straightened a little. I sensed that they’d been waiting for something and had just had it handed to them.

“Do you refer to all of your clients as lovely, Mr. Forester? I ask because I notice you didn’t refer to Van as lovely,” Torina said, bristling a little. She spoke without her comm to assist, apparently assuming that Forester probably had a translator bug. His reaction showed that he did.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“And bold of you to assume that Van has merely brought us along as company. Do you treat all prospective female clients as just lovely company?” Miryam asked.

“I—no, of course not—!”

I had to look down and try hard not to grin. Miryam and Torina had decisively seized control of the conversation, and it was flustering the shit out of a man who probably hadn’t been flustered since law school.

It was a thing of beauty.

“Perhaps I should introduce myself. I’m Torina Milon. My family owns a number of large interstellar interests across several industries. I am Van’s business advisor.”

“And I’m Miryam Nunzio. I’ve been the Tudor family’s terrestrial legal advisor for… quite some time now.” She punctuated that with a wintry grin.

Forester blinked from one to the other. Their use of terms like interstellar and terrestrial made it clear that they were very much full players in this game. I could see his mind racing as he frantically shifted mental gears. He’d gotten the calculus of this all wrong and knew it.

“Ladies… please. I meant no offense, and am deeply sorry if I—”

Torina waved a hand. “You get used to having to deal with a little misogyny in meetings like this. It, and the mediocre coffee, are always part of the picture. Now then—you wanted to speak to Van. Why?”

“Because… I have an offer for him—” He looked at me. “For you—” He looked back at Torina and Miryam, obviously unsure who he should be talking to. It was another source of discomfort they’d layered onto the proceedings. I was so glad I’d let them take the lead—and so sure I never wanted to find myself on Forester’s end of their ruthless guile.

But I had to vary my performance beyond arrogant silence, so I leaned forward. “An offer. For me. Presumably from the Equal Grasp.”

Forester relaxed a notch, obviously feeling the ground starting to solidify beneath him. “That’s correct. They have retained me to handle certain affairs of theirs on Earth—”

“Certain illegal affairs,” Miryam said.

Forester spread his hands. “They aren’t illegal from an Earthly perspective. In fact, terrestrial law, as I’m sure you’re well aware, Ms. Nunzio, is entirely silent on the matter of extraterrestrial trade and commerce. Now, of course, we’re hopeful that will change over time, but—”

“Interstellar laws are very much not silent on the matter, Mr. Forester,” Torina cut in. “The conditions under which a civilization might be accessed by external interests are rigidly proscribed—”

“Certainly. But if you’re going to insist on applying your interstellar laws to Earth, then you would have to apply them all, correct? And, yes, I realize there are protocols and so on related to first contact and opening relations, and my employers are more than happy to accommodate them.”

“Earth doesn’t qualify yet,” I said. “I have no doubt it eventually will, but for now, it is a pre-contact civilization and must be treated as such.”

Forester offered a thin smile, signaling that he’d been waiting for just this issue to come up. “I believe this is a case of the horse and the barn door, though. Don’t you, Mr. Tudor? First contact has already been made. It may not have been done in accordance with your protocols and procedures, which I’m sure are all well-intentioned, but it has been done.”

“Not legally.”

“And my employers are willing to recognize that. They will stipulate that several of their employees were, ah, overenthusiastic in opening relations. And they are prepared to hand those employees over to you for whatever the appropriate penalties are.”

Perry cut in. A maximum of ten years of imprisonment, probably less with time served in pretrial custody and good behavior. If someone offered you millions of bonds in exchange for going to jail for six or seven years, I’ll bet you’d at least consider it, wouldn’t you?

I didn’t answer, but I didn’t have to. Hell, there were people who did that here on Earth. In China, it was apparently a cottage industry, people doing time on behalf of corrupt and wealthy officials and business people.

“So, what? Your argument is that an illegal first contact is still a first contact?” Torina asked.

Forester shrugged. “You can’t unscramble an egg, Ms. Milon, now can you?”

Actually, we could. A nano-assembler could identify the various molecules and—

I leaned forward. “Mr. Forester, you didn’t want to talk to me because you believe that we can reason out legal justification for this, so that everyone walks away happy. Just a few days ago, I had a battle with a ship attempting to run the cordon we’ve established around Earth. That ship was destroyed. The crew was killed. So let’s move past the legal abstractions and get at the heart of the matter. What are you offering me?”

Torina shot me a sidelong glance, then picked up the thread. “Mindful of the fact that any offer had best be very generous. Again, lives have been lost.”

“It’s very simple, really. The Equal Grasp is offering—well, it’s in their name. They are prepared to make you a full partner, with a full share in all profits realized from all of their operations, not just those on Earth. They will also offer you an immediate lump-sum payment of five million doll—I’m sorry, bonds, money currently earmarked for, um, other purposes.”

“The bounty on me and my crew.”

Forester flicked me a smile and just went on. “They would also name you their terrestrial advocate, allowing you full oversight of all business transactions and sundry trade conducted by any member of their consortium—with the understanding that that consortium has, for a period of ten years, exclusive rights to trade with Earth. This position will come with its own stipend and expense account, of course.”

“And you expect that the rest of known space, and particularly the Peacemaker Guild—you know, the people who enforce those interstellar laws—are just going to go along with this,” Torina said.

Forester shrugged again. “My employers believe that Mr. Tudor’s considerable influence will be sufficient to smooth over any difficulties with your Guild. As I understand it, this should be a welcomed thing because your known space is currently dealing with a pernicious computer virus called Calamity, isn’t it? And that Mr. Tudor here has been at the forefront of combating that, and many other things. You might even say he has made himself somewhat indispensable to the Guild, no?”

I schooled my face into absolute neutrality. Forester knew things he shouldn’t know, and that pissed me off. Not at him for knowing them—although I loathed the man—but at the people who were so willing to disrupt Earthly society so egregiously. And it was all so they could make money off its resources and the cheap crap they’d peddle to its people, knowing full well that despite being junk elsewhere in known space, it would be magical down here.

I started to formulate a suitable reply, a variation of go to hell, but Miryam spoke up, cutting me off.

“We want this offer in writing. You can send it to the email address on my card,” she said, sliding a business card toward Forester. “From a legal perspective, we will consider that a letter of intent only, not binding upon Mr. Tudor. If its contents are deemed reasonable and acceptable, then we will proceed to negotiate a contract.”

“Which will be handled by my family’s legal representatives, who will likely retain Miryam here as their terrestrial representative in this matter,” Torina put in.

Forester stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “Very businesslike. I appreciate that, Ms. Nunzio.”

Miryam and Torina both stood, announcing that the meeting was over. Forester quickly stood as well, this time offering to shake hands all around.

“Mr. Tudor, I look forward to doing business with you,” he said, pressing his moist flesh into mine. The touch made me think of a Fren-okun, but without the goofy charm. I kept a rigid smile on my face. I’d deal with the slimy prick in good time.

“Mr. Forester,” was all I said, then I followed the others out of the boardroom.

The young receptionist intercepted us. “Mr. Forester wants you to know that you are free to drop in to see him any time. He only asks that you call an hour or so ahead to ensure he’s in the office, and to rearrange his schedule.”

I nodded. Forester was pulling everything out of his bag of tricks, including preferred access.

It was The Girl from Ipanema on the elevator ride back down. None of us said anything, well aware that we were probably being bugged. So if we had to listen to literal elevator music, so did they.

* * *

We found a bench in Madison Square Park, which was just a couple of blocks from Forester’s building. It offered a great view of the most famous wedge in the world, the Flatiron Building. Perry joined us there, standing amid a throng of pigeons milling near our feet.

He cast them a disdainful glare. “Look at them. No self-respect, just begging for handouts. You guys should all be ashamed of yourselves—yeah, yeah, coo-coo-coo, that’s your answer to everything.”

“Are we safe to talk, bird?” I asked him.

“Should be, as long as you guys stay within about three meters of me. That’s about as much as I can suppress—hey, watch it, buddy, I’m talkin’ here!” The pigeon that had pecked at him stared blankly, then turned away.

“Asshole,” Perry muttered, then made a show of looking around on the ground. “This is so demeaning. I’m a hyper-sophisticated combat AI, and here I am, looking for dropped French fries—”

“We get it, bird. We all have to make sacrifices. That being said, there appears to be a small section of a waffle cone at your six. There you go, champ.”

Perry managed to elevate one feather from his wing, all while swearing richly at the ground.

“You know, he really is magnificent,” I oozed, earning another string of invective. I turned to Miryam, my mood darkening again. “So, am I correct in assuming that you hinting at me signing on to the Equal Grasp is a ruse, or have you decided to take up corruption as a hobby?”

“Oh, for—what do you think, Van?”

“It is a generous offer, though,” Torina noted. “That tells us something.”

“That we’re really getting in their way,” Perry said.

I had to agree. “Yeah. Honestly, I expected the cash and that was about it. But full partner, plus what amounts to their ambassador here on Earth—honestly, did not see that coming.”

Torina gave a curious smile. “Tempted?”

I sighed. “Actually, yeah. How could I not be? Who wouldn’t be?”

“But?” Miryam asked.

“But, Henry F. Potter.”

Perry nodded. “Good one, boss.” Miryam and Torina just looked confused.

“Who the hell is that?” Miryam asked.

I leaned back on the bench and stretched out my legs. The movement attracted even more pigeons, probably on the off chance it was a prelude to food. As they swarmed in, Perry cursed again.

“Personal space, you maniacs,” he growled.

“Henry F. Potter was the main villain in an old movie, It’s a Wonderful Life,” I said.

“The one that comes on sixty-two times every Christmas?” Miryam asked.

“That’s the one. Potter is a rich, bitter, twisted, and mean old robber baron whose total control of a small town—well, that way, in fact”—I pointed north—“is only thwarted by the hero, an ordinary everyman named George Bailey. Potter finally tries to buy George off with an offer not too different from Forester’s—money, influence, all sorts of perks he could never possibly afford on his own. A far better life for him and his family. And George almost gives in.”

“What stops him?” Torina asked.

“Potter’s handshake. You can tell from George’s reaction that it’s… soft. Oily. Moist. The handshake of a man with no scruples, no moral compass. Just a desire for power, control, and money. Nothing else matters to him.”

I sat up. “George Bailey may have been an idiot for turning Potter down. He and I might have that in common. Unlike George, though, that’s not where I intend to leave it. Miryam, how long can you drag out these legal proceedings, Letters of Intent, blah, blah?”

“I’m a lawyer, Van. Dragging out legal proceedings with tedious, frustrating, and inconclusive bullshit is what I do.” She bowed slightly, then sketched a little salute. It was unbelievably charming, and I laughed out loud.

Still smiling at her attitude and plans, I went on. “Perfect. In the meantime, we are going to learn everything we can about our prospective new business partners and bosom buddies and their operations both here on Earth, and out in known space. Mr. Potter doesn’t realize it, but George Bailey is secretly a manipulative, opportunistic asshole.”

A dramatic silence hung in the wake of my words but was broken by Perry when he lifted a wing and sighed.

“I’ve been shat upon,” Perry reported.

I inclined my head gravely. “Welcome to New York.”

27

We left Miryam to keep inserting knots into the legal tangle of the Equal Grasp’s offer. I was counting on her to string them along as long as possible while also pulling everything she could out of them about the schemes and plots and operations behind what they were offering. It was something she was very good at and I was content to leave her to it. After all, I had more important matters to attend to.

I was gettin’ hitched.

“I wish I could be there, Van,” Miryam said, putting her arms around me as we prepared to leave Earth.

I smiled and hugged her back. “Oh, you aren’t going to get much of a chance to miss us. Part of our honeymoon is going to be right here, on Earth.”

Miryam smirked. “Here at the farm? Oh, you romantic, you.”

I laughed. “Actually, I was thinking of touring parts of Europe I’ve only ever been to on business. I mean, I spent two days in Bern, Switzerland, pretty much all of it in meetings. Ditto for Milan. I’d like to actually see something in these cities more epic and full of historical weight than the airport and my room in a Best Western.”

But I gave her a warm smile. “But we will spend a day or two here, yeah.”

“I’ll be here,” she said and kissed me, then we parted—her to return to her office and gird for battle with Mr. Forester, me to the Fafnir.

I watched her go. Then I sat, wrapped in quiet, thinking of Torina’s value. Her intellect. Beauty. The way she made me… more. The way I wanted to be more for her.

“She’s the one,” I murmured, and I knew I spoke only the truth.

* * *

We flew directly to Helso six days before our wedding. All the arrangements were well in hand, but Torina was still starting to fuss. Her distraction actually gave me the perfect opportunity to try and follow up on an idea I’d had on the way there. Thinking about Helso made me think about my first visit, when the criminal syndicate known as the Salt Thieves were illegally mining ores from her family’s lands. The damage had been rectified, thanks to the Synergists of Arminsu-el, aka the Space Hippies Who Love Skirts. But the life they’d brought back to the land had been new, replacing what had been stripped away.

What about the life that had been there before?

That thought had spawned a new line of ideas, one that hooked back into some idle research I’d been doing on the customs and traditions of Helso. I’d been looking for inspiration for something to gift to Torina when we married—something that would be meaningful for both of us long after the day. Now, one and one had come together into a perfect two. The big question was whether I had the time to accomplish it.

While Torina was busy up at her parents’ house, I wandered down to the Fafnir, parked on the estate’s landing pad, and found Perry. He, Netty-P, and Icky were doing some maintenance on the ship. Rab was likewise puttering around with the Frankie, while Funboy and Gabby were up at the house.

“Bird, I had an idea—”

“Uh-oh.”

“Don’t you want to hear it before you pass judgment?”

“Van, you’re getting married in a week. The only idea you should be having is how do I avoid screwing up the fact I’m getting married in a week.”

“This is about that, in fact. There’s a gift I’d like to give Torina. I can get it made pretty much today, if I want, but this is where this idea comes in. When the Salt Thieves did their illegal mining thing here on Helso, they clear-cut the land, dug up the soil, and pulled ore out of the bedrock.”

“Yeah. It’s called mining.”

“It—yeah, thanks, Perry, for clarifying that for me. Anyway, I don’t seem to recall seeing a lot of fallen trees, just stumps.”

“That’s right. The imagery Netty and I collected at the time shows very few remnant trees. We assumed that most of them had been carted off by the Salt Thieves. A lot of it was old-growth forest, mostly native to Helso. The Helsonians aren’t big on logging and lumber, outside of some dedicated plantations full of fast-growing species near the equator. Very little of their old growth stuff ever gets to market, which means it’s rare—why?”

“Because I would like to track down some of that wood. The gift I have in mind is a bit of Helsonian practical folk art called a Moon Clock—and no, it’s not a clock, it’s a baby bed made of interwoven strips and pieces of wood. It’s kind of like a complicated 3D wooden puzzle that can be unfolded and expanded as the child grows. Eventually, it can be opened completely flat so you can put a mattress on it. In theory, you can sleep in the same bed for your entire life. Tradition holds that it’s supposed to be made from the closest trees to the place and time of your birth, which they call Ancestors. They even made blankets from the seedpods of these trees. It’s a big deal in Helsonian folklore, or used to be, anyway. I found a local craftsman who’ll do it, an old guy named Lynell who lives on that big inland sea east of here.”

“So, what? You want to find some of the old-growth wood stolen by the Salt Thieves and use it for this Tom Swift and his Miraculous Expanding Bassinet idea of yours?”

“Yeah. What do you think the chances are that we could track some of it down in the next three days or so?”

“Three days. Nothing like leaving things to the last minute, huh?”

“Sorry, I didn’t have the idea until just a short while ago. And yeah, I know it’s a long shot. If I have to, I can get it made with commercial lumber from here on Helso, but… I don’t know. Those were the trees Torina grew up climbing and falling out of, that gave her splinters. It would just be nice if I could give her a little bit of that back, since it’s all gone.”

Perry put his wing on my arm.

“Boss, you have a lot of ideas. Some of them are very good. Some of them are—not that. But this one might be your best. Do you know how many?”

“Cribs. Or, uh… clocks? I mean, beds?”

“No. Kids.”

I opened my mouth to say—

What? How many kids we intended to have? I’d always kind of assumed one, and then maybe some more. But now, staring marriage in the face, that was suddenly a question that demanded way more considerate thought than some offhanded number.

“I… honestly don’t know. Torina and I haven’t really settled on a number. One. Some. Some more.” I smiled and shrugged.

“Okay, well, first we have to find enough of that old growth wood, those lost ancestors, to make even one of them. And I think I know a quick way to confirm whether that’s even doable. But there is another question you and Torina should probably consider when you’re talking about how many kids you want to have.”

“What’s that?”

“Raising them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you have a baby. Congratulations. Does the kid grow up here, on Helso? On Earth? Both? Neither? Who looks after them in either case? You? Torina? Are one or both of you going to retire? Are you going to hire nannies and wet nurses and things? Or are you going to add a nursery and teeny-tiny armored vac suits to the Fafnir?”

“Wet nurses? While I’ve always been a fan of breasts—particularly in pairs—I think we’ll keep certain aspects of our child or children in-house, so to speak.”

Perry clacked his beak. “It’s a big universe, with a lot of variety among humans. Helso is old, and has a culture all its own. With that being said, there’s quite a bit of commonality among Helso and Earth when it comes to raising children. But that’s—boss, I know you think things through, despite your tendency towards action. I’m most concerned about the practicalities of babies. Have you discussed it? With your bride?”

I grinned, because we had. “Actually, Torina and I have touched on that, at length,” I admitted. “I think we want to have the facilities to have them aboard the Fafnir, but we’re also going to make arrangements to have them stay here if it’s not practical to have them on the ship.”

“Sounds complicated. And with lots of potential for one or both of you to really end up missing your kids.”

I sniffed. “Remember who you’re talking to here, bird. Both Gramps and my father were gone for long chunks of my life, and I never knew my mother at all. I’m sure it was damned hard for all of them.”

“You’re forgetting someone, Van, who found it just as hard.”

I stared at him, then nodded.

“Yeah, for me, too. Sorry, bird. I’ll keep you in mind as our team grows.”

Perry’s eyes flashed with thanks. “The bird appreciates your consideration. Now then, in the spirit of a couple about to marry, let’s go locate some wood.”

* * *

Frankly, I expected Perry to come up empty. It had been years since the illegal mining had ravaged the Milon’s estate and surrounding lands. At best, I figured he’d get a few sniffs of information, but nothing we could actually act on. In fact, I’d already contacted Lynell, the old woodworker who still knew the traditional way of making the Moon Clock beds, and started the wheels moving with him. He would use the best wood he had, which wasn’t the Liminal heartwood taken from an ancestor tree, but was still pretty damned good. I consoled myself with the fact it had been the longest of long shots.

But Perry hit a homer on his first pitch. Just a few hours after I’d spoken to him, he came to me with surprising—no, stunning news.

“I found it. That Liminal heartwood stuff. Most of it, anyway,” he announced when I admitted him to my cabin.

I just gaped at him. “You… found it? Really?”

“Nope. I’m lying. It’s enjoyable to taunt my best friend as he plans a family—”

“Bird, seriously—”

“Yes, Van, I’m serious. I found it.”

I blinked a few more times. “How?”

“The baddies who originally took it, the Salt Thieves, were really clannish. They were actually a loose confederation of criminal families from several different races. They were notorious for not working all that well together, though, each clan pulling its own heists and schemes and then everyone sharing the spoils.”

“Okay, but how does that help track down our Liminal wood?”

“Well, it stood to reason that the Helso operation was a big one, too big for any of the smaller clans. That left only three or four candidates. It also stood to reason that if they were going to share spoils, it would probably mostly be the ore they illegally mined. That represented about eighty or ninety percent of the monetary value of what they stole anyway. Something like a really fine wood? Yeah, they’d probably want to keep that for themselves. High-end bad guys are vain that way.”

As he spoke, an image appeared on my desk terminal. It looked like a hunting lodge nestled among purplish foliage under an alabaster, late afternoon sun. The effect was striking and somewhat ominous.

“See what I mean?” Perry said.

“What am I looking at?”

“That is the mountain retreat on Sunward, in the Procyon system, of the V’selin Clan, one of the founding families of the Salt Thieves. They’ve basically gone into retirement mode ever since we busted up the Thieves themselves as an organization, and are now living a life of leisure off their ill-gotten gains.”

“Okay. So these V—Vasil—”

“V’selin. There’s a glottal stop in there, and a bit of a sliding click that a human mouth can’t quite—”

“Bird. Seriously. What’s your point?”

“My point is that, right there,” he said, gesturing with a wing at the screen. “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t quite point at the right spot with my freakin’ wing tip missing. Maybe someday we’ll get to Anvil Dark and—”

“Perry!”

“There, right around the door at the front of the lodge. All that paneling. That’s Liminal heartwood from Helsonian Ancestor trees.”

I leaned forward, peering at the richly grained wood. “Are you sure?”

“Yup. Have it from a very reliable source.”

“How the hell did you find this so quickly?”

“Like I said, I reasoned it out. And, I called in some favors. And now I owe one to Hosurc’a, too. You’re welcome.”

I smiled and tapped his back gently, between his wings. “Thanks, bird. That’s awesome. I really appreciate it.” I sighed at the screen. “Now I just have to figure out how to get there, retrieve some of that stuff, and get it back here within—shit, two days, at most.”

“Wait, there’s more,” Perry crowed. “Come on in, guys.”

The door opened, admitting Funboy and Rab. Icky and Netty-P stayed out in the corridor.

“The Frankie is ready to go anytime you are, Van,” Rab said, smiling.

I blinked up at them. “What’s going on?”

Funboy pointed at the display. “I would think it’s obvious, Van. We’re accompanying you there, to retrieve this very special wood for your intended—and, may I say, extremely thoughtful—gift.”

“Oh, guys, I appreciate that, but this would be an off-the-books mission, and I can’t ask you—”

“Wrong-o, Tudor,” Icky said, holding up a data slate. “This here is a Writ, signed off by Gerhardt, authorizing you to travel to Sunward and seize certain stolen goods whose, uh—” She looked at the screen. “Oh, yeah. Whose whereabouts has been recently ascertained to a reasonable degree of certainty.”

But I frowned and shook my head. “Guys, I can’t imagine that these former Salt Thieves are just going to hand over that heartwood because we show up with a Writ. This could get ugly, and I really don’t want any of you getting hurt just because I—”

“Van, you’re wasting time. I’ve already informed Torina that you and the rest of the crew have to run a quick, time-sensitive delivery job for Gerhardt. Gabby’s in the know and is staying here with her, helping get things ready for the big day,” Netty-P said.

“You lied to her?”

“Lied-ish. I mean, the job is from Gerhardt, and it is time-sensitive, right?”

I just stared at my crew, caught somewhere between beyond grateful and grimly determined to not let them risk it. Before I could say anything, though, Funboy spoke up.

“Van, this is our choice. We want to do this. It’s important to you, so it’s important to us.”

“Just make sure the card has all our names on it when you give Torina the baby bed,” Icky said, grinning.

I sat back, shaking my head and smiling. “Alright, fine. Perry, do we know anything about what we’re getting ourselves into? Because I’d also rather not end up killing a bunch of people, even former Salt Thieves, just to make this gift idea come true.”

“Ah, well, we’re in luck there as well. The V’selin were powerful, but there weren’t many of them. And more than a few of them died in the course of being Salt Thieves. What’s left is basically the old crone of a matron and a handful of her aging relatives.”

“So… it doesn’t sound like they’d put up much resistance.”

“That’d be true if they hadn’t installed a state-of-the-art security system around their retreat. Sensors, turrets, mobile security drones, they got it all,” Perry said.

“How does any of that even remotely equate to us being in luck?”

“You’re forgetting that, when it comes to bots, we have an ace up our sleeve.”

“Panzygrus?”

“Yup. Her contribution is viral attack software that will overwrite the security system and render it harmless.”

“All we have to do is get access to some point in the system and plug it in. It’ll do the rest,” Rab added.

I think my look turned a little disbelieving. “You want to unleash a virus. Another virus. Isn’t Calamity enough?”

“This virus isn’t Calamity, Van. Not even close. Perry and I have evaluated it, and it’s clear that it’s constrained to infecting an individual network. On top of that, the V’selin security system is completely isolated. You’ll have to physically access the system to install it—no remote infection is possible,” Netty-P added.

“And, best of all, Panzygrus has made it time-limited. Her viral software will only operate for an hour, then shut itself down. Whether or not the security system will come back online after that depends on its internal countermeasures,” Perry said.

I drummed my fingers on the table for a moment. “What the hell, you only live once, right?”

“Unless you’re a Faalaxi sky-strider. They go through three distinct phases in their life, each defined by what, biologically, constitutes death. Fascinating, really, the idea of being able to repeatedly experience your own demise,” Funboy said as I stood.

Perry stared after him as he left. “And Gabby’s into that, huh?”

I opened the locker containing my b-suit and other gear. “Love is blind, Perry.”

“Apparently deaf, too.”

28

Sunward, the innermost of the inhabited planets in the Procyon system, was also the least populous. Through some quirk of its ancient formation, it rotated very slowly, one day lasting nearly four standard days. And it did so around an axis with virtually no tilt. The result was a planet with a broad, sunbaked band of equatorial desert, with milder zones of latitude above and below it. Only the extreme poles were even close to arctic conditions, so the population mainly lived in the Goldilocks bands at the mid to high latitudes.

The equatorial badlands were home to a few hardy mining communities and their satellite operations. Chief among the commodities produced were things like lithium from vast evaporitic deposits similar to some in South America back on Earth—and halite, aka salt. The Salt Thieves had originated here, back in the planet’s early days of colonization, as robber barons fought literal wars over the best territory. With the final destruction of the Thieves, clannish families like the V’selin were now a remnant of an earlier, far more turbulent and freewheeling past.

“Don’t let that fool you, though. The V’selin might not be much into crime themselves these days, but they’re still dabbling in it. Guild intel has them providing funding to nefarious wrongdoing all across known space,” Perry said, as we took the Frankie in a high-orbit pass over the region hosting their mountain retreat.

“So now that they’ve retired, crime is more a hobby for them than a job,” Rab said.

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

Further away from the planet’s equator, its curvature caused the fierce, white glare of Procyon to diffuse over a larger area and through more atmosphere, resulting in conditions around the lodge similar to early summer in places like Minnesota or Ontario, in Canada. There were no seasons to speak of, though, so life down there would be an endless succession of two-day long daytime and nighttime periods separated by a day of increasing or decreasing darkness. It actually made for a rather pleasant environment, particularly through a narrow band roughly midway between the equator and the pole of each hemisphere. This was prime real estate country, meaning these zones had become expensively exclusive. Dayna Jasskin apparently owned a place somewhere down there, though nowhere near our objective.

“These V’selin own a huge chunk of real estate, don’t they?” I said, studying the enhanced imagery on the display.

“Contrary to the old saying, crime often does pay, and it pays very well,” Perry said.

Our target consisted of one large building and three smaller ones, all clustered on a hilltop nestled amid rolling, forested wilderness. A river cascaded over a spectacular waterfall just north of the lodge, flowing around the base of the hill on which it was located, then chattered off downhill in a series of rapids. It made for a stunning setting.

If we were tourists, that is. But my view was tactical, assessing the lodge and its surroundings as a target for an op, not just a place to visit and soak up the sights. We could bring the Frankie in low from the west, using terrain to mask our approach until we were nearly right on top of the lodge. Several clearings in the forest west of the lodge gave us a place to land. From there, it was between two and three hundred meters to the front door of the lodge itself.

That was the easy part. The hard part was what we didn’t know—what sort of scanner systems the V’selin may have in use, or if they had weapons emplacements potent enough to threaten the Frankie, like laser or missile batteries. Perry, though, was confident that they had nothing but passive, local scanners and no air defenses at all.

“That was one of the favors I called in. Seems the V’selin have chosen another sort of long-range security—they’ve bought off half of Sunward’s traffic control system. After all, why invest in your own hardware when you can just buy access to the far better stuff already in place?” he said.

“Okay, and your favor addresses that how?”

“I have a long-standing relationship with the master control AI for the Sunward traffic management system. He owed me a favor and I called in my marker. For the duration of our visit here, the Frankie will not show up on any of their displays. The V’selin may be able to see the whole traffic pattern in real-time, but we ain’t gonna be on it.”

I wondered what sort of favor, exactly, the traffic control AI had owed Perry and how it had come about—which again prodded me with the need to sit with Perry and learn the great secrets about his past and my grandfather’s he kept alluding to. We’d barely had a break in the action since getting back from Reverie, though, so there’d been no time for a quiet sit-down with him. I resolved to take some time during our honeymoon to do it—when Torina and I weren’t busy with, um, other things—so that we could both hear it from him.

I nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s hit it,” I said, putting the Frankie into a long descent that would take us far to the west of the lodge for atmospheric insertion, followed by a straight line run in, nap-of-the-earth style, hugging the terrain as long as possible.

Since we weren’t showing up on traffic control displays, I had Rab watch specifically for other traffic while I focused on piloting. Icky, Funboy, and Perry readied themselves aft for a quick dismount when we landed. We needed to get to an active access point on the V’selin security system—a terminal, another piece of network hardware, or even a security drone. The latter was probably our best bet but also the most dangerous, since the damned things were armed.

Once we’d dropped low enough, I handed the Frankie over to her AI autopilot, a strictly factual, literal, and humorless entity that we just called Frankie. We could upgrade it with a personality module, but I’d shied away from that—I had enough non-human beings in my life without having to start developing a relationship with one more. Frankie performed Netty’s role and performed it well—the Frankie generally went where we wanted her to, and did it without blowing up—so I wasn’t about to change that.

Frankie was good, though, skimming the ship across the landscape as I got myself ready, clearing the treetops and the crests of rocky ridges by meters, rising and falling as we raced across the undulations of the terrain below. The ground swept past in a blur which, I have to admit, was kind of fun. We blew past several estates and small communities, leaving me wondering out loud what they thought of this small ship that had just thundered by.

“Well, since half of them are probably criminals themselves, and the other half are criminals who’ve just never been caught, they’re probably relieved we weren’t coming after them,” Perry said.

“They likely assume we’re up to no good ourselves. There truly is no honor among thieves,” Funboy added, before snapping his helmet into place.

When we were about ten klicks from our target, I took control again, then slowed the Frankie and followed a sedate path along a course mainly defined by a river valley. Perry and Netty-P had mapped this last bit of our approach out themselves, designing a course that would get us as close as possible while remaining concealed by terrain. We’d slowed to what amounted to highway speed now, giving me time to study the tactical overlay and see if there was any hint we’d been detected. There wasn’t.

A knobby outcropping of rock surrounded by stately purple trees that looked like a cross between conifers and club mosses loomed ahead, their collected mass soaring upward over a range of several klicks. The Frankie’s flight plan lit up the intended landing site. The V’selin lodge was about three hundred meters beyond it, in the low ground alongside the rushing river.

Netty-P took the stick. “Ten meters… and we’re good,” she said, feathering the thrusters with subtle expertise.

We touched down. As soon as the landing pads had settled, Icky opened the airlock and we piled out. Icky and I went right, while Rab and Funboy went left. Perry soared up into the air overhead. We were all fully suited up and cradled goo guns but had our regular weapons slung and close to hand.

“Too bad we didn’t come up at night,” Icky said, leading the way into the trees.

“Night is still nearly two days away, Icky. We don’t have two days to spare.”

“Yeah, I know. Just sayin’. Feel like my butt’s kinda hanging out all bare here, doing this in daylight.”

“Thanks for the visual. Remember I’m right behind you.’

She laughed. “Enjoy the shows.”

“Shows?” I asked.

She wiggled her massive… everything, laughing again. “My booty is too big for a single screen.”

“Not inaccurate. Now then, if you don’t mind, hoist that caboose into motion,” I said, waving toward our general objective.

We did try to take advantage of the time of day in one way. Procyon sat pretty much on the southern horizon, a searing white glare that we put to our backs by swinging first south, then north again. It wasn’t much, but every bit would help.

“Guys, I’m seeing something at your eleven o’clock, Van, about sixty meters. Rab, it would be at your two o’clock, about forty meters. Some sort of bot. It seems to be running a regular patrol route,” Perry said.

Icky stopped and glanced back. “You wanted a bot.”

I tapped the data module nestled in a utility pouch on my harness. Rab had the same. It left me torn. Should we all converge on this single bot, try to neutralize it, and upload Panzygrus’s virus? Or should we stay split up?

I decided to hedge our bets. “Rab, you and Funboy push on closer to the lodge. Icky and I are going after that bot. Try to keep any heat that comes from the lodge away from us until we can—”

A sudden shout cut me off. Rab yelled something about on the right, then I heard him and Funboy exchange quick snaps of conversation. I tensed, waiting, not wanting to distract them with questions.

I heard a gunshot and swore.

Rab finally came back on the comm. “Yeah, we kinda stumbled into another bot, Van. We tried to goo it, but it didn’t take, so Funboy blew a hole through it.”

I swore again. “Okay, you guys go block whatever comes this way from the lodge. Icky, let’s go!”

I took off, racing through the trees, Icky hot on my heels. “Perry, you’re my eyes—!”

“Left. Left again. Now straight. The bot’s thirty meters directly ahead of you. Keep going—you should be able to see it—”

The trees around me erupted in a spray of slug fire, shredding branches and filling the air with dust and whirling splinters.

“—about now.”

I saw the bot, a spidery thing about the size of a coffee table. It mounted an auto-gun, which it used to snap out bursts at us. I took two impacts on my b-suit, which didn’t penetrate but were definitely going to leave nasty bruises.

I just kept running, wheezing as pain flared through my ribs, Icky pounding through the undergrowth with me—then ahead of me. The bot fired a burst that slammed right into her, but she kept going—

Finally hurling herself through the air in a spectacular and weirdly graceful dive.

Her ample weight slammed into the bot, driving it back into some bushes. She immediately wrapped three arms around it, grabbing the barrel of its auto gun with her fourth. The pair crashed deeper into the bushes, a thrashing skirmish between mechanical power and raw, muscular strength.

“Van! Plug that… thing in!”

I reached the heaving mass of Wu'tzur and machine. Amid the whine of laboring actuators and Icky’s grunts and gasps of exertion, I pushed in, looking for the dataport. I had to climb on top of Icky to do it, which revealed that her visor was cracked, probably from a slug impact.

Behind it, her face was a study in exertion.

“Anytime… Van…would be nice.”

A burst from the thing’s auto-gun cut her off. It missed me by centimeters and chewed into a tree behind me. I now heard snapped exclamations from Rab and Funboy, followed by more gunfire as something engaged them.

Staying on top of Icky and the bot was like riding one of those bucking bronco machines you sometimes find in country-and-western-themed bars. But I had to try to plug in a device the size of a big pill bottle into a receptacle while it thrashed me around—

And, it wasn’t the right connector. My data module was round. The bot’s was square.

“Shit!”

Icky’s voice thrummed with exertion. “So—Van—about this—I can hold this thing—not much longer—so could you, you know—DO SOMETHING,” she finished, her bellow punctuated by gasping as she filled her lungs with air.

“I’m—on it—Icky,” I gasped, fumbling in my pouch for an adapter. The firefight off in the direction of the lodge seemed to be intensifying. Rab had slung along his version of Zenophir’s BAG, big-ass gun, and its fearsome firepower was probably all that kept who or whatever was attacking them at bay. And he only had so much ammo.

Time was, as they say, of the essence.

I found the right adapter but had a bad moment when Icky’s and the bot’s thrashing about almost caused me to toss it into the undergrowth. Another blast of auto-gun fire snapped past my head. I swear a round kissed the side of my helmet with a click. Icky was starting to lose the struggle. She might be monumentally strong, but she was muscle and the bot was alloy and actuators. She’d also taken a burst at close range full-on, so I wasn’t sure if she was wounded.

I fumbled and caught the adapter, snapped it into place on the module, then turned my attention back to the bot.

“VAN, I’M LOSING IT—!”

“Just a second—more—” I muttered, pushing myself across her, rattling the module around the data-port, trying to line it up and sink it home.

More gunfire rattled off toward the lodge. I heard Rab say, “Last magazine!”

I took a breath, shoved the module into the socket and pushed. It clicked neatly home.

The bot thrashed and finally yanked its auto-gun free of Icky’s grasp, swiveling it right into my face. I found myself looking straight into the muzzle from just a few centimeters away. I winced—

But the bot didn’t shoot. Instead, it spoke, its voice a soft purr.

“Hey, handsome. Come here often?”

* * *

“What the hell kind of program did Panzygrus give us, anyway?” I asked, smacking away the bot’s manipulator, with which it was trying to get way too familiar.

“She said it was the only non-hostile viral infiltration program she had ready to go. It was one she developed for Shifty, that he apparently sold to the Reapers’ Pleasure Palace on Reticulum,” Perry said.

I batted the bot’s arm away again. “So, a viral sexytime program. Great.”

Icky had clambered to her feet and was inspecting herself for injuries. “Gotta be honest, Van, viral and sex are two words I’m not comfortable hearing in the same—would you leave me the hell alone?” she snapped at the bot, which had manipulators to spare.

“Rab, what’s your status?” I asked once I was satisfied neither Icky nor I had been seriously injured.

“Creeped out. These two bots that were just trying to kill Funboy and me are—let’s just say I’d rather be shooting at them.”

Icky and I made our way through the woods and joined them. Funboy was standing, facing one of the bots.

“It would depend what you mean by exotic,” he said, his arms folded.

“No, I said erotic,” it purred back at him.

“Ah. You must enunciate more clearly. So, by erotic, you mean—”

“Funboy, if you don’t mind,” I said. We sorted ourselves out and, now accompanied by a trio of lascivious bots being all handsy, made our way to the lodge.

We found three members of the V’selin Clan on the expansive porch when we arrived. The oldest, a woman with long, intricate braids that signaled her matronly station, glared at us as we approached.

“What the hell did you do to our security system?”

I shrugged. “We made it friendlier,” I replied, walking up to the base of the porch steps.

Icky snapped a curse and pushed a bot away. “Yeah, a lot friendlier,” she snapped as the bot closed back in. “Do you mind? No means no!”

The old woman glared at me over her rebreather mask. “So what the hell is this all about? We’ve paid off everyone and their dog to just be left alone, and now you’ve come and—get away, I’ve been out of that business for years,” she snapped at one of the bots trying to paw at her.

One of the younger V’selin turned his scowl on me. “Yeah, good luck making anything stick to us—”

“I’m not interested in making anything stick. I’m here for that,” I said, waving a hand at the front of the lodge.

“For what?”

“I’m here for the wood.”

One of the bots immediately headed my way. “Ooh, I can help with that.”

I sighed in disgust. “Wrong wood. Now then, hear me out—”

EPILOGUE

Dusk hung over the Recovered Lands, as the restored estate of the Milons had come to be known. The air was warm, a little muggy and full of the hum and buzz of a throng of people. Torina’s family had gone all out, setting out a small carnival’s worth of tents and enclosures among the trees, right on the banks of a placid pond. There was enough room for the nearly three hundred people present.

I glanced out of the tent where I and my groomsmen—Rab, Funboy, and Perry—were putting on the finishing touches to our outfits. Thrice Moonrise was nearly at hand. I scanned the crowd and saw many familiar faces—Gerhardt, Alic, Lunzy, Lucky, Jamberac, Gabriella Santorelli, and others from the Guild; Linulla and Cantullin, his eldest daughter; Valint, my mother, and B from the GKU; Dayna Jasskin from The Quiet Room; a few faces I hadn’t expected, like Skrilla, who’d made the long trip from the Torus; Icky’s father Urnak, who was still stuck in a wheelchair recovering; Schegith, on a rare trip off Null World; and even Retta, who’d taken a break in organizing her spy network on Earth to attend.

I turned back to the others. They all looked very dapper—Funboy had been persuaded out of his vintage prom duds in favor of a more conservative groomsman’s outfit, even though it revealed his tail. Perry even wore a little bowtie and top hat, which unfortunately made him look like a member of one of those trained-pigeon variety-show acts. I didn’t say that but let him bask in that particular feeling that formal wear can bring.

“Nervous, Van?” Rab asked.

I tried a casual, off-handed shrug. “Not really,” I replied, though it would have been more convincing if I hadn’t squeaked like a fourteen-year-old whose voice was changing.

There was a burst of music. That was our cue.

I exited the tent and approached the dais, accompanied by my groomsmen. The crowd had gone silent and now I walked past a sea of smiling faces. Even Torina’s old flame, Boswic, was nodding and looking pleased. I returned as many smiles as I could, but my gaze kept flicking back to the dais. In a few moments, my life was going to change, on that spot, in a very fundamental way.

We reached the dais, and I stopped. As I did, the Thrice Moon—the third of three—broke the horizon. It rose in ruddy glory and joined its silver-gray and pale blue cousins in a rare celestial spectacle unique to Helso—itself a moon of a gas giant whose curved bulk just broke the opposite horizon.

Torina’s father stepped onto the dais and spoke, his voice smoothly carried through a hidden sound system.

“Everyone, welcome. I am Torvald Sennsi Milon. I, and my beautiful wife, Kay-Less Milon Aumulus Inari, welcome you to this joyous occasion, the wedding of our daughter, Torina Inari Lanilus Milon, to Clive Van Able Tudor the Third of Earth.”

By the time he’d finished speaking, the Thrice Moon had mostly risen. I glanced down at myself. I was wearing a gift from Miryam, one she’d sent with Retta from Earth. It was a black and royal blue dress uniform that had belonged to my grandfather. I was surprised when Valint actually cried when she saw me wearing it before the service. I’d become so used to her cool composure that it seemed out of place, and all the more dramatic for it.

I turned back to the Thrice Moon. It, and its fellows, glowed brightly against the deepening night. That night, of course, was space, and it was far from empty. We had ample protection around Helso from anyone who might decide this wedding made a great target—the Fafnir, Iowa, Stormshadow, and half a dozen Schegith ships had joined the Helso Defense Force. But that only kept that vast darkness at bay. It was still out there, waiting.

I sighed. As blissful as this moment was, it wasn’t going to last. “There’s so much darkness behind them,” I said.

Rab leaned in. “Not as much thanks to you, boss.”

I smiled at him. “Us, Rab. It’s always us.”

But he smiled right back and nodded toward the back of the crowd. The Thrice Moon soared into the sky, silent and bright. “Not right now, it’s not,” he replied. A chime struck, and Torina emerged from a pavilion through a sheer curtain that rippled in the final breeze of the day. “Right now, it’s just her.”

I watched Torina make her stately approach, accompanied by Icky, Gabby, Netty-P, and traditional Helsonian processional music, a lilting tune that was sweet in the warm, humid air. Her mother led the way. I briefly made eye contact with my mother, who dipped her head and managed a tremulous smile. I saw her mouth words at me.

You’ve found the one.

I smiled at her, then turned back to Torina. Her mother gave me a quick hug, then stepped aside. Torina ascended onto the dais, and I linked my arm with hers. Then we both walked into a circle marked out on the dais containing a single, bare wooden chair selected from the Milon’s estate.

Her father winked at me as I turned to face the assembled crowd. I had a prepared speech, one about thanking the Milon’s for allowing a new tradition to begin, a new chapter for both of our families—the customary wedding fare. The ceremony followed, officiated by none other than a beaming Innsu Master Cataric. By Helsonian tradition, marriage was a civil institution rather than a religious one and could be officiated by someone who knew the couple well and was convinced of their genuine love and desire to be together. The Innsu Master would speak, and then, by tradition, the ceremony would close with a specific duty, considered to be sacrosanct.

Cataric spoke, his voice rich and clear. “I know these people. And I am fortunate to know some of you, dear friends, and I am absolutely certain that here, under the light of a Thrice Moon, my words are not the reason we’re here. It’s because of them. This woman. This man. These two agents of good, who lean into the gale-force winds of a galaxy where justice is more than a name or a title. It is their purpose.” He raised a finger, then smiled. “Rather, the purpose that brought them together. The reason they shall stay as one? Each other. On the Innsu mat, there is no hiding from the truth. The same is true just now. Here, tonight, the light of a Thrice Moon touches all that they are, and all they will be. Take her hand, Van. Take it, and never let go. Let us witness this truth, touched by ancient light and the most powerful force ever known. Love.”

He gave a single, warm nod. “The moons have seen it. It is done.”

I paused to let the enormity of his words wash over me—over us. Then I glanced at Torina, who nodded, smiling, perfect in her grace. The sheer rightness of it all blindsided me, and I took a long beat. I’d stumbled into my path on the Fafnir. I would stride into my life with Torina. I turned and addressed everyone, their expectant faces a blur.

“I am meant to be with this woman,” I said, every word ringing with truth. “That’s—that’s a fact. And that’s really all there is to it. But this day is as much for you, and my crew, and our future, as it is for us. And that means asking my best friend, my—my compass to assist with the Closure, to make it official. That person is here, with me,” I said, glancing at Torina, “but she’s a bit busy.”

A ripple of laughter. I turned—to Perry.

“And that means you, bird.”

Stunned silence followed. I went on. “My compass. My guide. My friend. More a brother than I’ve ever had, and the soul of my path that brought me here, to this moment, with all of you. But especially you, Torina. It was always you. From the first moment, to the last. It’s you.”

Perry hopped up onto the back of the chair, unnecessarily cleared his throat, then spread his wings—which were still clipped. “Yeah. What he said.”

Laughter wafted through the deepening twilight, followed by silence except for a fitful bit of evening breeze. Perry tilted his head.

“For a human century or more, I’ve been beside a Tudor. It’s my purpose, just as you and Torina are each other’s purpose. Our crew is the very best of what we are, and what we can be. But this is just the start, boss. You honor me with this—you’ve always treated me like my own soul was in your care, and I was always real. Always a person. And now, it’s my hope that you will make many, many more souls, just like you and Torina, because we badly need them. And you both truly deserve them.”

“He might come to regret that wish,” Linulla said.

Cantullin nudged him with a chitinous clack. “Daaad, don’t.”

“And you all thought I was going to be the one to say something and ruin things,” Funboy said. “Admit it. Well done, clacker.”

Linulla wiggled eyestalks, then glanced at B, who was openly weeping. “Is that approval?”

B nodded, then raised her voice to us. “I’m ready to be the cool aunt, by the way. So, you know. Let’s get to it, kids.”

Laughter. I signaled to a face peering out of another tent. “And, on that note, we seem to have the opportune moment for this,” I said.

“For what?” Torina asked, then gasped. The old artisan, Lynell, stepped out of the tent and walked toward us, cradling the Moon Clock. More gasps and exclamations rippled through the audience.

I turned to Torina. “It’s made from the heartwood of the Ancestor trees that were taken from—from right here,” I said, gesturing around.

She blinked through tears. “It—how?”

“Funny story, that,” Icky said. “It involves Van and some amorous security bots.”

That caught Torina short. She blinked. “It—what?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said, just as the Thrice Moon brightened, a thin veil of cloud moving off to the south.

It was as Thrice Moon as it was ever going to be.

I turned to Torina. She smiled back at me. “Well?”

“Well what?” I teased her, then took her in my arms and dipped her in a long kiss. The crowd cheered and applauded.

“Rather exuberant, isn’t it, for a public display of affection?” Funboy said. Gabby, crying, just shook her head. “No—no, oh, it’s so romantic.”

Funboy stiffened. “Ah. Perhaps I was hasty in my assessment.” He clapped once, then again. “Um—yay.”

“Zeno is so pleased, so proud of both of you, I know it,” Rab said.

Netty-P rose up on her rear actuators. “And so is Netty,” she said. “So, when do we start dancing?”

The crowd had begun to mill about, a party atmosphere building as we finished our kiss. One of Torina’s uncles walked up to Netty-P.

“We dance whenever we want. We’re on Helso. Here, we celebrate.” Netty-P tilted her imager at him and rose to let him take her by the manipulators, then they starte dancing to the music that had begun playing. In the midst of all of it, I don’t think that image will ever leave me—a man dancing with a bot. It kind of summed things up for me, somehow.

“We needed this,” Torina said, our arms still linked as we smiled out over the crowd.

I nodded. “Yeah. We did.”

We walked toward the tables set up near the shore of the pond, silver and gold lanterns gleaming from the branches of the trees hanging over the water. I saw several of the Synergists, looking free as ever, already digging into the groaning tables of food. Overhead, the stars were emerging in hard, brilliant points. I gazed up at them and saw a brief flash from one. It was one of the ships, perhaps even the Fafnir, firing a correcting impulse to adjust its orbit.

Torina leaned in and whispered—I don’t even remember what, exactly, but words to the effect that she didn’t want this moment to end. Neither did I. It was peaceful and relaxed, here amid our friends and beneath the watchful gaze of our technology above.

I heard Icky ask Perry if he could read our lips. He responded, “Yeah, but I’m not going to. Let’s let them have some time of their own before they belong to us again.” I smiled and gave him a wink. He flashed one amber eye back at me.

But Perry went on. “If they’ll ever really be ours again, that is.”

Icky was the one who answered, as the music swelled and the festivities truly began beneath the Thrice Moon.

“We’re still a family, bird. We just have to learn to share.”

* * *

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Van will return in CONSTANT SORROW, available on Amazon.

GLOSSARY

Anvil Dark: The beating heart of the Peacemaker organization, Anvil Dark is a large orbital platform located in the Gamma Crucis system, some ninety lightyears from Earth. Anvil Dark, some nine hundred seventy years old, remains in a Lagrange point around Mesaribe, remaining in permanent darkness. Anvil Dark has legal, military, medical, and supply resources for Peacemakers, their assistants, and guests.

Cloaks: Local organized criminal element, the Cloaks hold sway in only one place: Spindrift. A loose guild of thugs, extortionists, and muscle, the Cloaks fill a need for some legal control on Spindrift, though they do so only because Peacemakers and other authorities see them as a necessary evil. When confronted away from Spindrift, Cloaks are given no rights, quarter, or considerations for their position. (See: Spindrift)

Dragonet: A Base Four Combat ship, the Dragonet is a modified platform intended for the prosecution of Peacemaker policy. This includes but is not limited to ship-to-ship combat, surveillance, and planetary operations as well. The Dragonet is fast, lightly armored, and carries both point defense and ranged weapons, and features a frame that can be upgraded to the status of a small corvette (Class Nine).

Moonsword: Although the weapon is in the shape of a medium sword, the material is anything but simple metal. The Moonsword is a generational armament, capable of upgrades that augment its ability to interrupt communications, scan for data, and act as a blunt-force weapon that can split all but the toughest of ship’s hulls. See: Starsmith

Peacemaker: Also known as a Galactic Knight, Peacemakers are an elite force of law enforcement who have existed for more than three centuries. Both hereditary and open to recruitment, the guild is a meritocracy, but subject to political machinations and corruption, albeit not on the scale of other galactic military forces. Peacemakers have a legal code, proscribed methods, a reward and bounty scale, and a well-earned reputation as fierce, competent fighters. Any race may be a Peacemaker, but the candidates must pass rigorous testing and training.

Perry: An artificial intelligence, bound to Van (after service to his grandfather), Perry is a fully-sapient combat operative in the shape of a large, black avian. With the ability to hack computer systems and engage in physical combat, Perry is also a living repository of galactic knowledge in topics from law to battle strategies. He is also a wiseass.

Salt Thieves: Originally actual thieves who stole salt, this is a three-hundred-year-old guild of assassins known for their ruthless behavior, piracy, and tendency to kill. Members are identified by a complex, distinct system of braids in their hair. These braids are often cut and taken as prizes, especially by Peacemakers.

Spindrift: At nine hundred thirty years old, Spindrift is one of the most venerable space stations in the galactic arm. It is also the least reputable, having served as a place of criminal enterprise for nearly all of its existence due to a troublesome location. Orbiting Sirius, Spindrift was nearly depopulated by stellar radiation in the third year as a spaceborne habitat. When order collapsed, criminals moved in, cycling in and out every twelve point four years as coronal ejections rom Sirius made the station uninhabitable. Spindrift is known for medical treatments and technology that are quasi-legal at best, as well as weapons, stolen goods, and a strange array of archaeological items, all illegally looted. Spindrift has a population of thirty thousand beings at any time.

Starsmith: A place, a guild, and a single being, the Starsmith is primarily a weapons expert of unsurpassed skill. The current Starsmith is a Conoku (named Linulla), a crablike race known for their dexterity, skill in metallurgy and combat enhancements, and sense of humor.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

J. N. Chaney is a USA Today Bestselling author and has a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He fancies himself quite the Super Mario Bros. fan. When he isn’t writing or gaming, you can find him online at www.jnchaney.com.

He migrates often, but was last seen in Las Vegas, NV. Any sightings should be reported, as they are rare.

* * *

Terry Maggert is left-handed, likes dragons, coffee, waffles, running, and giraffes; order unimportant. He’s also half of author Daniel Pierce, and half of the humor team at Cledus du Drizzle.

With thirty-one titles, he has something to thrill, entertain, or make you cringe in horror. Guaranteed.

Note: He doesn’t sleep. But you sort of guessed that already.