Chapter 3
Intersections of Space and Time
LOG ENTRY
FSV Vagabond
REGISTRATION KL54796
TYPE: Armed Expeditionary Cutter
OWNER: Vagabond Ventures, LLC
MASTER: Vraz, S. R.
SOULS ABOARD: 14
PORT OF REGISTRY: Golan-Globus Spaceport, Planet Jericho, Sentinel Stellar Union
STATUS: Underway
In a matter of hours, we will be entering the Albion Star System. My contact here is our best bet for getting top credit for the Obscura we’ve obtained. The Albion System has an ultrawave communications relay and unlike a lot of other places, the locals constructed it, own it, and operate it themselves. This means they’re on the hook for finding the Obscura the thing needs to function.
My usual client on Albion Prime is a man named Jacques (Jack) Arsenault-Lancaster, proprietor of the Arsenault Imports and Exports Company. He pays above market prices (above most black market prices, even) for Obscura, even low-grade, Martian-manufactured stuff. Jack has never admitted this, but I’m confident that his business operates as a cutout for the Albion government, allowing them to acquire Obscura without Alliance authorities hearing about it and demanding their share (or worse, buying it directly from the Alliance and paying the inflated price).
I suppose one could argue that I’m effectively engaging in smuggling, if one were inclined to be uncharitable. The reporting requirements fall on the receiving entity, however, not the carrier, which means I’m not legally liable. As my wife likes to say, if it’s legal on a technicality, it’s still legal.
Albion Prime is an odd place. In some ways it feels almost quaint, like visiting a museum or a historical reenactment. It’s an old colony, founded by refugees fleeing the oppression of the Late Terrasphere Era. It was one of several efforts from that period to preserve, or in some cases, resurrect, cultures and traditions that had been long suppressed by the Terrasphere. Albionites claim that they can trace their cultural lineage back to the British Isles of Earth in the ancient, pre-space era. How much of this lineage is real and how much of it was adopted is a matter of some debate, but in the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Albionites tend to be suspicious of technology, despite having relied upon it for survival. By law and tradition, they often eschew technology that’s taken for granted on other planets. They enforce the restrictions on artificial intelligence mandated by their membership in the Interstellar Alliance, but their local laws go beyond that. All but the most rudimentary forms of machine learning are circumscribed, and autonomous systems are strictly controlled.
Consumer robotics are rare. The upper class hires human domestic servants instead. Neural interfaces are unheard of, and cybernetic augmentation is generally only used to replace missing or damaged body parts. Biomedical engineering is heavily restricted as well.
My client isn’t native to Albion Prime, but I can see why he chose to settle down there. I don’t think I’d want to live there, but it does have a certain charm to it.
—Sterrance Vraz, Commanding
The Freelancer Spacecraft Vagabond
Deep Space
Albion System
With an orb of visible distortion and a burst of X-ray radiation, the spacecraft Vagabond reappeared as its warp soliton collapsed. Coasting along on a ballistic trajectory, the ship began triangulating her position in the Albion System.
At one hundred and seven meters from nose to tail, the Vagabond was on the small side for a warp trajector, but her relatively low mass improved the efficiency of both her warp impeller and her aether drive propulsion system. She was large enough to haul a decent amount of cargo but small enough to be maneuverable, a critical survival trait for space combat. At full afterburn, her three engines could push her to five gravities, a level of performance that larger ships couldn’t match.
On the ship’s command deck, Sterrance Vraz, her owner and commanding officer, sat strapped into his acceleration couch. His attention was focused on several different displays, which he monitored closely as the ship’s computers cycled through their post-jump diagnostics. Touching a button on his console, Vraz adjusted his couch from the reclined, acceleration/maneuver position to the upright/sitting one. They were still in microgravity, but he could see his crewmates better this way. The command station, Vraz’s acceleration couch, was slightly elevated so that he could observe the other stations.
“Status report,” Vraz said. They had spent eighteen subjective hours in warp during the six-light-year trajectory from Hyatt-244 to Albion, and Vraz had been standing watch the entire time. He was tired and wanted to head to his rack, but there was much to be done first.
Occupying the number two station was Amaja Dolezal, a young watch officer on her first interstellar cruise. Her hair was tied up in a tight bun to keep it under control in free-fall. “System checks are at eighty percent,” she said, not taking her eyes off of her screens. “Ninety percent. Aaaand…done. Everything looks good, Commander.”
Omri Fisher, the ship’s first officer, chimed in from the number three station. “My boards are showing green, Vee. Engines are idle. Reactor output has leveled off at nine-point-two percent. Aether slurry tankage is currently at thirty-nine percent.” He looked at Vraz over his left shoulder. “Everything’s five-by-five.”
Vraz looked at his own displays. “I’m showing the same.” Superluminal travel and the transition back to flatspace had a way of confusing computers; it was customary to have separate, redundant systems perform the same post-jump diagnostics, to make sure they agreed on everything. “Systems concurrence confirmed. Go ahead and bring ZORAC back online, Fish.”
“Roger that,” the first officer replied. A few seconds later, a ball turret with a cluster of camera lenses appeared from a compartment in the overhead. It rotated 360 degrees, as if getting its bearings, before focusing on Vraz.
A synthesized, bassy voice emitted from the intercom speakers. “Good morning, Commander.”
“Good morning, ZORAC,” Vraz answered, looking up at the camera turret. “Everything as it should be?”
“Affirmative, Commander,” the artificial intelligence said. “System checks complete. No errors to report. Warning: I detect hull damage consistent with laser weapon strikes.” Vraz’s screen changed to one showing a diagram of the ship. Some areas were highlighted in red, indicating damage. “I recommend we proceed to a safe port and undergo repairs.”
Vraz knew about the damage and the AI knew that he knew, but ZORAC was programmed to bring any damage or problems to the crew’s attention whenever he was brought online. “Thank you, I’m aware. Return to observation mode and stand by.”
“Aye aye, sir,” ZORAC replied, and said nothing more.
Vraz tapped a button on his control panel. “Navigation, report.”
Nova Aziri, the Vagabond’s navigator and warp geometer, answered a moment later. She was still suspended in her isolation tank, submerged in a liquid emulsion of oxygenated perfluorocarbon and neuroactive compounds colloquially known as quintessence. She couldn’t really speak while breathing the liquid; instead of appearing on screen herself she was represented by a cute, animated avatar she’d designed, controlled through psychotronic linkage. “Hey, Commander! Flatspace navigational systems are online. Data from in-system navigational beacons concurs with our triangulated position. We’re right where we should be, three million klicks from Albion Prime.”
“Excellent work.”
“Sorry I couldn’t get us closer,” she said. “The way our trajectory from Hyatt-Two-Forty-Four lined up, shooting for the minimum safe warp threshold would have brought us closer to the star than I was comfortable with.”
Vraz smiled. At nineteen Julian Years old, Nova was the youngest member of the crew, but she nonetheless took great pride in her work. “You did fine, Nova,” he assured her. “There’s no reason to push our safety margins if we don’t have to.”
The cartoon avatar beamed at Vraz through his screen. “I sent you a trajectory to Wayfarer Station at Albion Prime’s L5 point,” Nova said. “Our total travel time should approximately seven hours.”
Vraz looked at the trajectory his navigator had plotted. The initial burn was almost three and a half hours, to correct their course and accelerate them toward Wayfarer Station. The crew would appreciate a few hours of one g after so much time spent in transit. “That looks good to me, Nova. Send it to the flight deck then go ahead and decant. You’re relieved.”
The animated avatar smiled and saluted. “Aye aye, Commander. Navigation out!”
Cosima Frey was the third officer of the Vagabond, who specialized in sensors, communications, cryptography, and electronic warfare. She looked over her shoulder at Vraz from the number four station. “Passive and active sensors are online. Our transponder is online and broadcasting, Vee. I have sent our registration, the flight plan from navigation, and our Alliance Warrant of Trade to system traffic control at Wayfarer Station. They have cleared us to approach.”
“Thank you,” Vraz acknowledged. He then contacted the ship’s pilot, who was at his station up on the flight deck. “Raff? You awake up there?” While the ship could be controlled from the command deck, the flight deck was a separate compartment dedicated to the purpose. From there the Vagabond could even be flown manually, if necessary. There wasn’t much for the pilot to do during superluminal travel, as the ship couldn’t maneuver while enclosed in the soliton of warped space-time, but it was Vraz’s policy that the flight deck be manned whenever the ship completed a warp jump.
The pilot, Rafael Aziri, answered promptly. “Standing by,” he said, tersely.
Vraz chuckled to himself. Raff was a very serious young man and was laconic to the point of sounding curt if you didn’t know him. He was the navigator’s older brother and had more or less the opposite of her sunny personality. “Did you receive our plotted trajectory?”
“Affirmative. Trajectory confirmed, course laid in.”
“Very good. Let’s get underway. Execute the burn.”
“Executing,” the pilot repeated. Raff then broadcast his voice over the ship’s intercom. “Stand by for maneuvers, stand by for maneuvers.” A few seconds later the Vagabond’s maneuvering thrusters fired, aligning the ship with the plotted trajectory. Once that was done, he spoke over the intercom again. “Stand by for acceleration, one gravity.”
The ship shuddered as her three engines ignited, harshly at first, like driving down a rough, unpaved road. The roughness smoothed out to a barely noticeable vibration as the engines settled into the burn. Vraz felt a welcome sense of weight come over him.
“Heat dusters redeploying,” Amaja said. The ship’s dusty-plasma radiators were generally shut down for the transition back to sublight travel, to avoid odd interactions of their magnetic fields.
On one of Vraz’s screens, a three-dimensional rendering of the ship displayed in real time its current configuration and status. A pinion of dust and ferrous plasma, held in cohesion by a magnetic field, materialized from each of the ship’s three engine nacelles. They extended from the Vagabond like fiery, ethereal wings, glowing red-orange in contrast to the blazing, blue-white incandescence of her engines. “Magnetic fields are stable, heat transfer confirmed,” she continued. “Solid radiators are cooling.”
“My boards are still showing all green,” Fish said. He turned and looked at Vraz. “Smooth burn.”
“Well done, boys and girls,” Vraz said. His crew knew what they were doing, and it wasn’t really necessary for them to verbally relay everything to him like that. All of that information was available on his command console’s multiple displays. Vraz liked to encourage good verbal communication between his crewmates, though, especially coming out of warp. Superluminal travel required the unnatural bending of the fabric of reality itself, and it could be as hard on the human mind as it was on equipment. Getting the crew talking was one of the ways he assessed their alertness and mental state.
Vraz unbuckled his restraints and cautiously stood up, holding onto the armrests of his chair. He looked up at the camera turret on the overhead. “ZORAC.” The turret spun around and settled on Vraz again. A chime sounded, indicating that the AI was awaiting a verbal commander. “Put an announcement out ship-wide. All-hands meeting in, say, two hours. Mess compartment, as usual. Make sure there’s hot chow ready for everyone, too.”
“Affirmative, Commander,” ZORAC replied.
“You have the ship until relieved.”
“I have the ship,” ZORAC repeated.
Vraz looked around the compartment as his crewmates began to remove their restraints. “Nice work, guys. Take a break. I’ll see you all at the meeting. I’ll be in my compartment until then.”
On a ship as small as the Vagabond, space was at a premium. By this standard Vraz’s quarters, though cramped, were quite luxurious. He was a lifelong spacer and would have considered it almost a waste if he’d had the small suite to himself, but he shared it with his wife.
“Honey, I’m home,” Vraz said as the door slid shut behind him.
She answered him from the next room. “I’m in here, Sterr.”
The door to the bedchamber was open and that’s where Vraz found his wife, Aurelia. Built into the bulkhead behind her was their shared sleeping compartment. Like all such apparatuses on the ship, it was a padded enclosure long enough for a person to comfortably lay down and tall enough to sit up in. It even had its own emergency life support systems in the event of depressurization. The difference was, the one Vraz and Aurelia shared was more than twice as wide as a standard one and was a bit more comfortable. Being the commander had its benefits.
Vraz leaned against the side of the doorway, folded his hands across his chest, and smiled. “Hello, beautiful.”
She looked up at him and smiled back. “I’ll be done in a moment.” As she did most mornings, Aurelia was practicing yoga. She had a foam pad affixed to the cool, metal deck of their sleeper compartment with magnets. She stood on her right leg alone, leaning forward, with her right arm extended in front of her. Her left leg was curled up behind her, held in place by her left hand. “Are you just going to stare at me?”
“I think I will,” Vraz said, still smiling. He’d been married to Aurelia for ten J-years, but she still took his breath away. Especially dressed as she was in skintight shorts and an athletic bra, with beads of sweat glistening on her fair skin.
Aurelia was of the Vanyar people, a genetically enhanced subspecies of humanity. Like all of her race, she had elongated, pointed ears. Tall and fit, with long legs and toned muscles, she was stunningly beautiful. Her perfect figure required little maintenance on her part and her health was barely affected by extended periods in microgravity. She was older than him but looked years younger; she would almost certainly outlive him. Her long, platinum blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail.
She wasn’t just a pretty face—Aurelia was the co-owner of the ship, the chief financial officer of their business, Vagabond Ventures, LLC. On top of that, she was a rated pilot and could competently handle most non-engineering duties. The younger crewmembers found her easier to approach than Vraz with some issues, leading to a running joke about the couple being the crew’s mom and dad.
Finishing her pose, Aurelia smiled at Vraz, her bright, violet eyes shining. He crossed the compartment and embraced his wife, kissing her deeply. “Did you just wake up?”
“Just before we came out of warp,” Aurelia said. “Are we having a meeting?”
“Not just yet. I wanted to take a shower and put on a clean uniform first.” The private head, complete with its own zero-gravity-capable toilet and shower, was probably the thing Vraz liked most about his quarters.
“Well then,” Aurelia said, arms around his neck, smiling as she gazed into his eyes. “You should join me. I need a shower as well.” She took him by the hand and led him toward the shower, pausing only to doff her top.
Vraz followed, grinning all the while.
The crew of the Vagabond was assembled in the mess compartment when Vraz and Aurelia walked in. The automated galley had prepared chow, and he was pleased to see that everyone was enjoying a hot meal. Fish was standing at the head of the room, talking to the crew when Vraz entered. Nobody stood up or announced his presence; the Vagabond wasn’t a military vessel and Vraz didn’t see the need to maintain that level of formality, but the chatter died down. The ship’s entire complement was only thirteen and the mess compartment was large enough for everyone.
Vraz and Aurelia joined Fish at the head of the compartment where everyone could see them. “Good morning, everyone,” Vraz said, raising his voice to make himself clearly heard. “Thank you for coming down today.” Timekeeping terms based on a terrestrial day/night cycle were meaningless in space, of course, but maintaining a cyclical, twenty-four-hour schedule was quite common on interstellar ships.
Fish and Aurelia sat down as Vraz began his briefing. Tapping his wrist-top device, he brought up the presentation he’d prepared and sent it to the eight-foot-wide screen mounted to the bulkhead behind him. A top-down map of the Albion Star System appeared, with each planet labeled. “Welcome back to Albion. Some of us haven’t been here before, so let’s have a refresher.” All this information had been readily available to the crew, of course, but Vraz liked getting face time with his people. He’d served on ships where most of the communication was through electronic means and had learned that it sometimes led to misunderstandings.
The screen zoomed in on the second planet from the star. “Our destination is Albion Prime, the only planet in the system’s habitable zone. Colonized over four hundred J-years ago, Albion Prime sits at the intersection of interstellar trade routes and is in possession of an ultrawave communications relay. It’s the largest trade hub in this sector of the Alliance frontier and we can usually find work here.”
The screen changed to a series of charts, comparing the local calendar to the traditional Earth one. “Albion Prime has an orbital period of one-point-two-five years. Each local year consists of four hundred and thirty-three days, and each day is twenty-five hours and fifteen minutes long. The year is divided into sixteen months of twenty-seven days each. It’s late spring at our destination, so plan on mild-to-warm days, cool nights, and the possibility of rain. Surface gravity is almost one gee exactly. The current system population is about two billion. The planet is relatively cold and most of the population lives in the Torrid Zone, where it’s warmer. The higher latitudes are largely buried under ice.”
A hand rose from the audience. It was Mateo Alcatraz, his chief engineer. “I’m going to recommend we stay for scheduled maintenance on the aether furnace, the fusion reactor, and the engines, Boss,” he said. “We’re now overdue by two months.”
Cosima Frey spoke next. “Vee, if we’re going to go on another long-haul mission, we should see about getting depot-level systems maintenance done as well.”
“Not to mention the hull damage,” Fish added.
“Okay. Guys, we’ve got a few hours until we reach Wayfarer Station. Do your normal post-trip systems checks and make a list of every issue that needs to be addressed. Everything, big or small. Try to prioritize them as best you can. When you’re done, submit them to Mr. Fisher.” Vraz looked at his executive officer. “Fish, when you get everybody’s maintenance requests in, sit down with the Chief and prioritize them all. Once that’s done, send the list to me, and my lovely wife will figure out how much of it we can afford.”
“You got it, Vee,” Fish replied.
Vraz continued. “Moving right along, we have a few contacts here. After making the delivery to our current client, and I’ll see if we can’t scare us up some more work. If nothing comes up, we’ll start making our way back to Sentinel. Sound good?”
The crew murmured and nodded. Satisfied, Vraz continued. “As always, stay flexible. I’ll make sure everyone gets some ground time while we’re here. Read up on local laws and behave yourselves down there. Off-worlders are prohibited from carrying ranged weapons of any kind, and energy weapons are banned outright; don’t try to leave the ship armed. I don’t want to have to spring anybody out of the cooler before we can depart.” The crew chuckled. “Alright, that’s all I’ve got for now. Nurse Temple, give us the medical briefing.”
“Yes, Commander,” a young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair said as she stood up. Kenzi Temple, an astromedical nurse, was the ship’s senior human medical practitioner. She wore a white flight suit with light blue accents and a blue Star of Life with the Rod of Asclepius in it on each shoulder. While not revealing, her work uniform was tight enough to show off her figure. The Vagabond had a fairly relaxed dress code.
“Good morning, everyone!” Kenzi said, smiling. “As you’ve probably guessed, Albion Prime requires updated inoculations for any visiting spacer. Without them, you’ll have to spend time in quarantine, and nobody wants that. The Doctor and I have reviewed the relevant regulations and pathogen information. We have everyone’s metagenomic data on file and should have a vaccine battery available by the time we make orbit. Don’t forget to stop by the Med Bay before disembarking.”
“Thank you, Kenzi,” Vraz said. “Anybody else?” Various crewmembers looked at each other, but nobody said anything. “Okay. Everyone, enjoy your meal.” Aurelia stood up and joined Vraz as he headed for the door.
“May I have a talk with you, Commander?” It was Bruce, an Assistant Engineer and one of the Vagabond’s two non-human crewmembers. He was of the Gretch, an ancient, spacefaring race that was so named because of the word for their species in their native language. The Gretch bore a superficial resemblance to terrestrial reptiles, despite being warm-blooded and walking upright. As was typical for his race, Bruce stood only four feet tall. His scaly hide was dark green with blue accents. Two bony frills protruded from his head, and his mouth resembled a turtle’s beak.
Vraz paused and looked down at the stocky alien. “Sure, what’s on your mind?”
“I request to stay on the ship during the scheduled maintenance.” He spoke through an electronic voice decoder that translated his native language, which to human ears sounded like hisses, clicks, coughs, and growls, into Terran Standard English. Gretch didn’t have lips and found pronouncing human words nearly impossible. “I do not require leave and would like to oversee the process.”
“You don’t want to leave the ship?” Aurelia asked. “You did last time we were here.”
“I’m not going to make you go if you don’t want to,” Vraz said, “but you don’t have to stay aboard. We have a Warrant of Trade and you’re a registered member of my crew. You are allowed to visit.”
“That is correct, but there are none of my people on Albion Prime. I was an interloper. I was photographed and pointed at. Most locals had never seen a member of my race. I did not like the attention.”
“That’s awful!” Aurelia said.
Bruce shrugged. It was a very human-looking gesture, and Vraz wondered if it was something the Gretch did naturally or if they’d learned it from commingling with humankind. “It was a thing that occurred. I was not in any danger. I reacted in a similar fashion the first time I saw a human.”
“If that’s what you want, I’m happy to accommodate you,” Vraz said. It was unfair that he felt he needed to stay aboard so as not to be a novelty attraction. “But let me see what I can do. We may be able to get you some leave time in a less public setting, if you like.”
“I would enjoy that if it is possible, Commander,” Bruce said. He dipped his head in a manner that expressed gratitude.
Vraz patted the Gretch on the shoulder. “Not a problem. I’ll let you know when we get closer.” With that, Vraz and his wife left the mess compartment.
The Stanley-Stark Estate
County Clarington
Albion Prime
It was a lovely spring day in County Clarington as Eddy Lancaster arrived at the Stanley-Stark Estate. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and there was a pleasant breeze. He got a good look at the sprawling estate from the rear passenger compartment of his personal aerodyne as they came in for a landing. The house was huge, made of local stone but reinforced with modern materials, and was surrounded by outbuildings. It sat on over four hundred hectares of forested private land. The Stanley-Starks were old money even by Albion standards and their generations of accumulated wealth were on full display.
Mason, a skilled pilot, was at the controls of the aerodyne. Normally Eddy liked to ride up front, where the view was better, and occasionally sat in the right seat and piloted the thing himself, but that wouldn’t do for a formal arrangement such as this. He sat in the luxurious rear passenger compartment and watched out the window as Mason deftly maneuvered the aircraft.
They slowed to a stop over a large landing pad in front of the house and gently descended, touching down in a perfect vertical landing. The muffled whine of the aerodyne’s thrust-vectored jet engines died down, and a red indicator light in the cabin turned green.
“We have arrived, sir,” Mason said, over the intercom.
“Nicely done, Mason,” Eddy said. “Your flying skills are unmatched. The autopilot could do no better.”
“Thank you, sir,” the valet responded. “A polite reminder, sir, please wait for me to come meet you at the door before getting out.”
“Of course, of course. Wouldn’t want to be seen getting out of the craft unaccompanied. It would be scandalous!”
“No, sir,” Mason said, as droll as ever.
Eddy brushed the wrinkles out of his jacket as he waited for the valet to meet him at the door. Mason had picked out for him proper attire and he felt confident. His suit was a fine herringbone tweed, brown in color, worn with a white collared shirt and a plaid, silk tie. On the left lapel of his single-breasted jacket was a white rose boutonniere, complemented by a white pocket square in the breast pocket.
Underneath the jacket he wore a powered, thermoregulating waistcoat that kept the wearer comfortable in changing weather conditions. His normal, large-screened personal codex was replaced with a smaller, “pocket watch” type, carried in a pocket in the waistcoat and secured by a strap. It was connected to the active waistcoat and monitored his body temperature. Completing his look was a pair of brown leather derby wingtips and matching brown leather gloves. It was the perfect attire for a picnic luncheon in the country, and with any luck, Miss Stephanie Stanley-Stark would find it terribly dull.
The door to the aerodyne’s passenger compartment slid rearward and daylight poured in. Mason, as prim as ever in a three-piece houndstooth tweed suit and bowler derby, stood near the door with his hands folded behind his back. He wore a small gold pin, engraved with the crest of the Domestic Servants Guild, on his left lapel. Eddy stepped out onto the landing pad, placing his brown tweed flat cap upon his head, and the door slid shut behind him.
“We have arrived precisely on time,” Mason said. “I have confirmed with the staff that everyone is ready. They will greet us in the foyer of the house.”
“Right-ho, Mason, lead the way.”
They followed the cobblestone path from the landing pad to the front entrance of the house. It was a large, three-story affair, with many bay windows and ornate stonework. Jutting forth from the main part of the house was a large entranceway, with a central pediment supported by four square columns. A pair of tall, arched double doors served as the primary entrance to the stately manor. The doors quietly swung open as Eddy and Mason approached, and both men doffed their caps as they stepped inside.
The foyer of the house was grand. The floors were polished granite, and it was flanked on either side by swooping staircases leading to the second floor. Large bay windows filled the room with warm, natural light. The walls were coated with sound-dampening material to cut down echoes. Two people, a man and a woman, were waiting for Eddy and Mason.
“Welcome to Stanley Manor,” the man said. He was an older gentleman, bald, dressed in a black coat and striped, gray trousers. “I am Mr. Ribbens, butler to the Stanley-Starks.” He indicated the woman to his left. “This is Miss Sanghvi, lady’s maid to Miss Stephanie.”
“How do you do,” the woman said, bowing her head slightly. She was a prim and proper maid, Eddy thought, perhaps a few years older than her client. She was dressed properly in a black, below-the-knee skirt and a matching jacket.
Mason and Eddy took turns shaking hands with Mr. Ribbens and Miss Sanghvi. “Pleasure to meet you both,” Eddy said. He noticed that, like Mason, they both wore gold Guild pins.
“Mr. and Mrs. Stanley-Stark wish to meet you, Mr. Lancaster,” Ribbens said. “If you’ll follow me, they’re waiting for you in the parlor.”
“Allow me to take your hat, sir,” Mason said. Eddy handed him his flat cap. “I will wait here.”
“Very good, Mason.” Eddy turned to Ribbens. “Lead the way, if you please,” he said, and followed the butler into the house. The interior was tastefully decorated without coming across as opulent or excessive. “I must say, the house is simply stunning.”
“Isn’t, it though?” Ribbens said with a smile. “It’s two hundred years old. The descendants of the Stanleys have lived here the entire time. This isn’t just a home, it’s a part of history.”
“Mason tells me he got his start with the Guild working here.”
“Indeed, he did,” Ribbens said. They came to a stop at another heavy wooden door. “Here we are. This is the parlor, where the master and lady of the house are waiting for you.”
Eddy straightened his tie. “I shall endeavor to make a good first impression.”
“Very good, sir,” Ribbens said. He touched the panel next to the door, and it quietly swung open. Entering the room, he announced, “Mr. Edwin Lancaster, here to call on Miss Stephanie.”
“Thank you, Ribbens,” a man said. It was Zachary Stanley-Stark, and he struck an imposing figure. With him was his wife, Honoria. The butler nodded and exited the room, leaving Eddy alone with his date’s parents.
Eddy clasped his hands behind his back and spoke earnestly. “Thank you for welcoming me into your home sir, madame,” he said, nodding at each of them in turn.
Honoria Stanley-Stark smiled and offered her hand. The resemblance to her daughter was unmistakable. She was tall, with a slender figure and long brown hair. She wore a dark blue dress that came down past her knees. “It’s lovely to meet you, Edwin. Your aunt has told me so much about you! I have to say, it’s nice to see young people who still honor the old traditions. I met Zachary at university and, after we graduated, he came calling on me the same way.”
Eddy took her hand and politely shook it. He was willing to bet that Honoria and her husband had dated during their university days, and that only after they had returned home did they bother with the rigmarole of formal courtship expected of them. There was an unspoken but solemn rule amongst the Peerage that what happened at university stayed at university, and youthful indiscretions were politely ignored. One did not talk out of school, as it were, if one wanted to remain in good social standing. “Yes, well, it wouldn’t do to show up unannounced.”
“It’s good to see you, lad,” Zachary said, shaking Eddy’s hand. He was a big man, easily 195 centimeters tall, with broad shoulders and a firm grip. He wasn’t wearing a suit coat, and his arms were bulging at the sleeves of his shirt. “I knew your father, and I think he’d be proud to see what a fine young man you’ve grown into.”
“Thank you, sir,” Eddy said. “That’s very kind of you to say.”
“Now, did my eyes deceive me, or was that his old Phantom-III aerodyne you showed up in?”
Honoria chided her husband. “Zachary, Edwin is here to see Stephanie, not gush about aerodynes with you!”
“It is indeed his Phantom,” Eddy said. The sleek, vertical takeoff aircraft had been bequeathed to him by his late father. “Living in the city, I don’t use it terribly often, but it’s nice to take it out for a cruise now and again.”
Zachary grinned. “I still remember when he bought that thing. One of these days, I’ll have to tell you about the time he disabled the safety governor to see what its real top speed actually was.”
“I look forward to hearing it!” Eddy said. He’d heard rumors about that incident but had never been able to find out the specifics. Apparently, it had resulted in the aerodyne being impounded by the Aerospace Safety Bureau for unsafe flying.
“But as my beautiful wife said, you’re here to see Stephanie. She should be down momentarily.”
“She tells me you have a country picnic planned,” Honoria said with a smile.
“Indeed,” Eddy said. “I’ve reserved a landing pad and a pavilion at Gloster Park. A short flight in the old Phantom and we’ll be enjoying the lunch Mason has prepared.”
“That sounds lovely,” someone said. Eddy turned around and found himself almost face-to-face with Stephanie Stanley-Stark. “You must be Edwin,” she said, offering a hand.
Eddy gently shook her hand. Curly brown hair spilled over her shoulders. Her skin was fair with a small spattering of freckles. She was dressed smartly, too, in a gray, tweed, single-breasted riding jacket over a patterned shirt and a dark blue vest. She wore tight, hip-hugging riding breeches, dark blue in color, and knee-high boots.
She was beautiful, and that still photograph hadn’t done her justice.
“N-nice to meet you,” he said, stammering a little.
“Shall we go? I’d like to see this Phantom of yours.”
“Right! Yes. Let us be off.”
“Have fun, kids!” Honoria Stanley-Stark said.
At the landing pad in front of the house, Stephanie Stanley-Stark walked along the side of Eddy’s aerodyne. She ran her fingers across its glossy black fuselage as Mason climbed into the cockpit. It was a large and sleek machine, nine meters long and weighing several tons. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “They ended production of the Phantom-III over a decade ago. It’s been replaced by the Phantom-IV, which is something of a downgrade, aesthetically.”
The cockpit of the aircraft, up front, had seating for two, a pilot on the right and a passenger on the left. The separate passenger compartment in the rear could be accessed from sliding doors on either side and could comfortably seat six. Its turbine engines were mounted on either side of the fuselage, blending in with it aerodynamically. Four vectored-thrust fan-jets, two in the front and two in the rear, could transition it smoothly from a hover to forward flight. It was not an aeroplane, however, and only a minimal amount of lift was generated by the shape of its body. It needed the constant thrust of its engines to stay aloft.
The door to the rear passenger compartment slid open. Eddy offered Stephanie a hand as she climbed in. He followed suit and shut the door behind him. She sat in the rear row of seats, which faced forward. Eddy sat in the rear-facing front row, across from her, so they could talk during the flight. “I see you’re something of an aerodyne aficionado.”
She smiled. “I’m not some shrinking violet, you know. Father was a full colonel in the Guard. He taught me to fly aerodynes when I was just a girl.”
“Well, as I said, this one belonged to my father and was bequeathed to me. I do my best to make sure it’s well-maintained. I have many fond memories of this machine. When I was a lad, barely old enough to ride a bicycle, he’d take me on long flights in it. Sometimes my older brothers would come along, but often it was just him and me. My Uncle Jack taught me to fly it when I was just a teenager. I actually had my aerodyne license before I had one to operate a ground car!”
The aerodyne’s engines spun up, and it lifted gently off the ground. Once it was twenty meters in the air or so, it smoothly transitioned to forward flight, and they were off. Stephanie sat with her legs crossed, looking Eddy in the eye. “Such a graceful takeoff! I take it you’ve invested in the premium autopilot?”
“Not at all,” Eddy said. “That’s Mason’s doing. He’s quite a skilled pilot.”
Stephanie tilted her head slightly to the side. “Well, Edwin Lancaster,” she said, playfully, “you certainly know how to make a good impression.”
“Please, just Eddy,” he said. “I take it you’re enjoying yourself?”
“I am!” she said. “When Mother suggested that you and I go out, I confess I was a little skeptical. I’ve been home from uni for less than a year and she’s been scheming the whole time, trying to get me married off.”
“I know the feeling,” Eddy admitted.
“After a couple of dreadfully boring outings with dull fops I almost said no.” She caught herself and blushed a little, which Eddy found to be positively adorable. “Forgive me, it’s rude to talk about other dates like that. I’ll just say that I’m glad I gave you a chance. You called on me properly and were gracious to my parents. Now you’re taking me for a ride in a beautiful, vintage aerodyne! It’s all lovely!”
Eddy hesitated for a moment. “It…is?”
“It is,” she repeated. “I was warned that you can be very charming.”
“Right, well, I’ve always said that if one is to be a fop, one should strive to be a charming fop. I hope you will find the meal as enjoyable as the flight. My valet prepared it himself, and he’s a fantastic chef.”
“Oh, I can’t wait!” Stephanie said, beaming. This was not going at all how Eddy had expected. Mason, he thought, what have you done?
Nearly four hours had passed by the time they returned to the Stanley-Stark Estate. To Eddy’s surprise and dismay, the whole thing had gone swimmingly. The meal Mason had prepared was delicious, as expected, and the weather at Gloster Park had been absolutely perfect. It was more than that, though—Eddy had found himself quite enjoying Stephanie’s company. She was easy to talk to and didn’t leave him feeling like he had to be especially guarded about what he said. She had been feisty and playful while not coming on too strong or being too forward. On top of that, she was funny! She’d made Eddy laugh out loud more than once.
As Mason masterfully set the aerodyne back down on the landing pad, Eddy could scarcely take his eyes off Stephanie. The valet waited with the aircraft as Eddy walked his date back to the house.
“I had a lovely time,” he said, as they came to the grand entrance to Stanley House.
“I did as well,” she said, gazing up into his eyes, holding his gloved hands in hers. “You were a perfect gentleman, and I feel like a princess.” She reached up and brushed some lint off of the lapel of his jacket. “Such a swish sense of style, too. I like a man who can properly dress himself.”
Eddy was going to say something but caught himself. This was supposed to be the end of it, but he didn’t want it to be the end. “Stephanie?”
“Steph,” she said. “Only my parents call me Stephanie. My friends call me Triple-S. You should call me Steph.”
“Very well, Steph…I…I should very much like to see you again.”
“I would like that too,” she answered, looking into his eyes again. “I’ll have the number to my personal codex sent to you. Call me soon?”
“You can count on that,” Eddy said with a smile.
“Good,” Steph said. She reached up and kissed him, briefly, on the corner of the mouth. “Until next time.” Without another word, she turned and walked into the front door of her home, quickly glancing at Eddy just before the heavy wooden door swung shut. With a big smile on his face, he headed back up the cobblestone path toward the landing pad and his parked aerodyne.
His smile faded when he saw Mason standing near the aircraft, waiting for him. Eddy strode purposefully up the steps to the landing pad, then marched over to his valet. “Mason,” he said, pointing an accusing finger, “a word, if you please.”
Mason, for his part, seemed unperturbed, and raised an eyebrow. “Is something the matter, sir?”
“You know very well something’s the matter,” Eddy insisted. “The whole purpose of this date was to leave Stephanie Stanley-Stark completely uninterested in me!”
“Is that not the case?” Mason asked. He was so calm and collected that you’d never realize he was being coy if you didn’t know him.
“No! In fact, she agreed to see me again! She even gave me a peck on the cheek!”
“How dreadful.”
“Don’t give me that!” Eddy was getting flustered. “I am sorry, but I cannot help but feel that I am the victim of an elaborate scheme. Not a scheme, a conspiracy!”
“A conspiracy,” Mason repeated.
“Yes, a conspiracy! Aunt Deidre was surely in on it. Who else? The Stanley-Starks? Their staff? I see the Guild can pull strings from the shadows when they wish.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All this pomp and circumstance was supposed to dissuade her, but she loved it! You said she wouldn’t like it!”
“Forgive me, but I believe I said that most women her age wouldn’t find such a display appealing. I’m afraid I don’t know Miss Stanley-Stark all that well.”
“A likely story,” Eddy said, “but I’m onto you. I’ll have you know I’m not the wally everyone assumes! I see what’s going on here.” He took a breath and habitually straightened his suit jacket. “Well? What have you got to say for yourself?”
“Mr. Lancaster,” Mason began. It always got Eddy’s attention when addressed him by his name, as it did it so rarely. Had he gone too far? He was only venting a little. “My contract requires that I provide you the best service that I can, and stipulates that my duties include keeping you healthy, happy, and safe. This afternoon you had a pleasant outing with an attractive young woman, and it went so well that you both wish to see each other again. Is that an accurate assessment of the situation?”
“It is,” Eddy said, “but—”
Mason interrupted him, something that he had only done once or twice before. “Then I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re angry about, sir.”
“I’m…not angry,” Eddy said, slouching a little. “As it happens I can’t wait to see her again.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Well played, Mason, well played. Give my regards to Aunt Deidre. Now, what say we head home? I could use a drink.”
“You needn’t wait, sir. There are drinks in the passenger compartment.”
“On the contrary, I do have to wait,” Eddy said, loudly cracking his knuckles. “It would be terribly irresponsible of me to fly while under the influence, wouldn’t you say?”
“Fly, sir?” Mason asked, hesitantly.
“You heard me. I’ll be taking the controls for the trip home. Zachary Stanley-Stark mentioned an incident where my father attempted to see what the top speed of the Phantom is, and now I’m rather curious myself.” He slapped his valet on the shoulder as he made his way to the pilot’s seat. “Strap in, my good man, because we’re going to have some fun.”
The color drained out of Mason’s face, ever-so-slightly. “Of course, sir.”
Arsenault House
The Crowley District, City of Exeter
Albion Prime
Jacques René Arsenault-Lancaster, or Jack, as he generally went by, stood on his balcony, alone with his thoughts, enjoying the evening. It was pleasant out, cool and with a light breeze, as the white sun slowly sunk toward the western horizon. The Crowley Hills, upon which the upscale Crowley District had been constructed, marked the southwestern corner of the Exeter metropolitan area. Arsenault House stood upon the outermost road, which ran along the backside of the hills. He didn’t have a view of the city from his balcony; he was on the wrong side of the hill for that. Instead, his view was of a grassy, rolling plain, which extended for as far as he could see.
It was beautiful, especially in the evenings, and tonight’s sunset was particularly breathtaking. The natural beauty of the region wasn’t what usually brought Jack out to his balcony, though. When he’d finally made enough money to purchase his home, he’d specifically chosen one on the backside of the hill. He loved this view because he had a practically unobstructed view of launches from the Exeter Spaceport, a hundred and twenty kilometers distant. He’d found that twilight launches were most spectacular, and watching them brought back so many memories.
Good and bad.
Jack looked over his shoulder when he heard the balcony door slide open. It was Ferrand, a young Guild journeyman who served as his personal assistant, pilot, and bodyguard. Like all Guild members, he didn’t discuss his personal life, but Jack could tell the young man was also from Jack’s homeworld of Nouveau Corse. His Terran Standard English was excellent, but as a fellow native speaker of Français Classique, Jack could recognize the slight accent he had. He also had the look of someone with Franco-African ancestry.
“Sorry to disturb you, monsieur,” Ferrand said.
“Is it time?”
“Oui, monsieur,” Ferrand said. “Your secure call is scheduled to commence in six minutes.”
“Just enough time then,” Jack replied. He once again looked to the southwest, and waited. Just as the sun disappeared below the horizon, a blazing, blue-white light caught Jack’s eye. It slowly rose into the sky, brighter than any star, brighter than Merlin, Albion Prime’s moon.
As the ship climbed into the sky, Jack’s cybernetic eyes overlaid its transponder information. She was the MV Huxley, a ten-thousand-ton freighter bound for Wayfarer Station and beyond. Hers was a simple design, a flat-bottomed sphere a hundred meters across, with four powerful engine pods mounted evenly around her spaceframe. As she climbed higher into the darkening sky, the massive vessel throttled up and arced southward. Below her, a blue-white exhaust plume glowed with ionized, superheated air.
Jack pointed to the aurora-like halo that bloomed in the Huxley’s wake. “That shimmer is the telltale sign of an aether drive engine in atmospheric mode,” he said to Ferrand. “They cut the exhaust velocity to three percent of what it’s capable of, inject more fuel mass, and mix it with air. This is the only way it can function in an atmosphere without catastrophic failure.”
Ferrand glanced at the departing ship, then looked at Jack. “Oui, monsieur.”
“The aether drive has to be in a vacuum for it to function at full power. The exhaust velocity is so high that the plume would instantly kill a man from a hundred kilometers away!”
Ferrand nodded. “Shall we go, monsieur?”
Jack smiled. Ferrand was always patient enough to listen when he rambled on about spacecraft design and technology, but didn’t insult Jack by feigning interest. It was the kind of honesty that Jack valued in an employee. “You’ll have to forgive an old man his enthusiasm. Watching launches makes me feel like a schoolboy again. As a lad on Nouveau Corse, I’d climb up on the roof of our tenement tower to watch ships take off and land at the Orléans Spaceport. I’d spend hours up there, dreaming of blasting off into space, leaving my world behind. My mother, God rest her soul, would have to send my brother Louis up there to bring me down.”
That seemed to have caught Ferrand off guard. “Orléans, monsieur?”
Jack nodded. “Indeed, my boy. Fourteenth Arrondissement. Le Misérable Quatorzième, that’s what we called it.”
The Guild man hesitated for just a moment. “I…I’m familiar with it, monsieur.”
It was the policy of the Guild that servants should not become too familiar to the people they serve, lest the professional working relationship they have become compromised. Ferrand wouldn’t discuss his life or his history with his employer, but that brief moment of recognition had told Jack much. The Fourteenth Arrondissement was notorious. It was there that the underclass of Orléans, housed in massive, poorly maintained tenement blocks, struggled with generational poverty and hopelessness while living at the mercy of gangs.
For all its notoriety, Le Misérable Quatorzième was something only locals would have even heard of. From the way Ferrand reacted, Jack wondered if his servant hadn’t also grown up in a dangerous, dehumanizing apartment block. He turned, patted Ferrand on the shoulder, and gave him a knowing look. “I suppose I shouldn’t be late for my call.”
A few minutes later, Jack walked into his study and closed the door behind him. His home was as resistant to snooping as was technologically feasible, but his private study offered an additional layer of protection. The room was soundproofed and routinely swept for surveillance devices. He hadn’t found one yet, but such was the nature of the business.
Jack’s console activated automatically as he sat as his desk. He had a cluster of five translucent screens, the largest of which was centered in front of him. He signed in to his encrypted communications program, authenticated, and initiated the call. A box on the screen informed him that there’d be a 1.3 second delay, each way, because of the distances involved. The screen read CONNECTED. PLEASE STAND BY. A moment later, Jack found himself face to face with Commander Sterrance Vraz and his lovely wife, Aurelia.
Vraz grinned and spoke. “Jack!”
Jack waited two seconds before replying. “It’s good to see you, my friend! I was beginning to worry!”
The spacers were quite the mismatched pair. Vraz, on one hand, was an unassuming looking man. Jack recalled that he was tall, perhaps 186 centimeters, and had broad shoulders, but was otherwise unremarkable. He didn’t have the thin build often associated with spacers; on the contrary, he was somewhat thickset, probably weighing in at a hundred kilos. His hair was dark brown, his face clean-shaven, and he had the pale complexion of a man who spent most of his life in a sealed metal can.
Aurelia, on the other hand, was a woman of remarkable beauty. She was Vanyar, and like most Vanyar women she had the body of a goddess. Her platinum blonde hair was tied back to keep it under control in free-fall. She wasn’t wearing makeup and, as far as Jack was concerned, didn’t need it. Her porcelain skin was fair and unblemished. Her eyes were a bright violet color, giving her a mesmerizing gaze. Both wore transparent eyepieces over their dominant eyes.
Vraz had definitely married up, in Jack’s estimation. The spacers were both strapped into seats in what appeared to be a small compartment, probably the Vagabond’s communications center.
Aurelia gave Jack the sort of smile that could melt men’s hearts. “There was no need to worry, Jacques. We said we’d be back.”
“It has been a while, though.” Vraz noted. Time was relative, however, and Jack doubted that he and the Commander would agree on exactly how long it had been since they’d seen each other last. By his reckoning, it had been two local years. “Longer than I anticipated. We had some other things come up since last time.”
Jack didn’t know what those other things were, and he was polite enough not to ask. He’d never gotten confirmation, but he was certain that Vraz and the Vagabond were part of the Strategic Reconnaissance Initiative, a secretive program maintained by the government of the Sentinel Stellar Union. Sentinel was a single-system nation caught between two great interstellar powers, the Ordered Dominion of Man and the Interstellar Alliance. The Dominion in particular had long threatened the independence of Sentinel, going so far as to launch a surprise invasion of the Sentinel System once.
The Dominion onslaught was repelled but Sentinel very nearly lost that war. The Strategic Reconnaissance Initiative was one of many strategies launched after the armistice. The goal was to give the Sentineli any possible advantage in a wildly asymmetrical conflict.
The actual scope and workings of the SRI were a closely guarded secret, of course, and Jack suspected that some of the stories he’d heard about it were more than a little embellished. Jack further suspected that the Sentineli themselves promoted such embellishment as part of their own propaganda and psychological warfare efforts.
In any case, Vraz had long been a reliable contractor for Jack, and he trusted him as much as he trusted any spacer. He had repeatedly delivered valuable returns and Jack hoped that this time would be no different.
“I’m always happy to hear from you,” Jack said, “but I assume this isn’t merely a social call.”
“You assume correctly,” Vraz answered. “We have wares that I believe you’ll be interested in.”
The call was secure and there was no sense in prevaricating any further, so Jack got down to business. “Obscura?”
Three seconds ticked by. “Affirmative,” Vraz answered. “It’s Martian, but it’s high grade. More importantly, the spectral signature has already been scrubbed.”
That got Jack’s attention. The Martians attempted to track every gram of Obscura they manufactured by doping the substance with trace exotic isotopes. “You’re sure?”
Three more seconds. “Affirmative,” Vraz repeated. “The gamma ping test came back negative, so we ran a sample through the mass spectrometer. No Iridite-192m, only Iridite-191. Minimal lattice displacement damage, no stress fractures, no optical defects.”
Jack exhaled slowly. Iridite-192m was a metastable isotope of iridium that the Martians used to mark their Obscura. When hit with a pulse of gamma radiation, the isotope emitted a signature gamma line, a 1.44 mega-electron-volt gamma photon, as it relaxed back into its metastable state. Removing this tag without degrading the Obscura’s crystalline structure required applying a neutron or ion beam to the material, transmuting the Iridite-192m to Iridite-191.
Iridite-191 did not produce the telltale gamma line when tested with a gamma pulse. This meant it was much easier to smuggle and could even pass customs inspections. The only way to tell it was altered was to destructively test a sample of the Obscura, as Commander Vraz had done, in a mass spectrometer. Given its value, few end-users had the inclination to sacrifice even a tiny portion of their Obscura reserves for such testing. Thus, Obscura could be effectively “laundered.” It was a difficult and risky procedure, but if done correctly, it would leave you with an incredibly valuable commodity without any inconvenient documentation.
“Only a sophisticated operation could spectral-scrub Obscura without degrading it,” Jack observed.
Vraz grinned, and it wasn’t his usual affable smile. It was the smile of a hunter who’d just come back from a successful outing. “It was a sophisticated operation, yes. Well-defended, too, for all the good it did them.”
“It was a scrap,” Aurelia added, “but we came through just fine. We are in need of some repairs, however.”
“I see,” Jack said. He was curious about what had transpired, but this was a business call. “How much Obscura are you willing to part with?”
Vraz looked at his wife. She smiled pleasantly at Jack and leaned in a little closer to the camera. “We have twenty-five hundred grams on offer, if you’ve got the funding.”
Jack’s face was a mask, but that had taken him by surprise. That was a lot of Obscura, easily worth hundreds of millions of Interstellar Alliance Credits or Commonwealth Sterlings. Now he really wanted to know where Vraz had gotten it. He rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I believe I can secure the funding, provided your spectrometry results can be verified.”
“We will make planetfall soon, then,” Jack said. “We’ve been underway for a while, and the crew could use some ground leave. There’s only the matter of customs. We haven’t declared our cargo or requested permission to land yet.”
“I understand. I should be able to secure an inspection waiver and landing permission for you. I’ll rent a pad for your ship at Exeter Spaceport.”
Vraz nodded. “Very kind of you, Jack. As always, it’s a pleasure doing business with you.”
He was about to terminate the call, but Jack asked him a question first. “Commander, a successful venture like this is worth celebrating. I’m thinking of putting together a little dinner party, if you’re interested.”
Vraz didn’t look entirely thrilled with the proposal, but Aurelia’s face lit up. “That sounds wonderful, Jacques. Of course we’ll attend! What level of dress are you thinking?”
“My dear, I’m sure you look stunning in anything,” Jack said. “It will be a private party, nothing too formal.”
“This sounds like the perfect excuse for a shopping trip,” Aurelia said, smiling at her husband.
“A shopping trip!” Vraz repeated without enthusiasm. “Yay! Seems like I’ve got my orders, Jack. We’ll be there.”
Jack chuckled. “I have an ulterior motive, I’m afraid. There’s a business proposal I’d like to discuss with you both.”
Vraz perked up at that. “Now you’re talking. We’ll be there. Oh, hey, I almost forgot. Is it alright if I bring another crewman along?”
“I can accommodate your entire crew, if you like,” Jack said.
“I, uh, don’t know if that’s really the sort of shindig most of my crew would be interested in,” Vraz said, “but one of my crew would prefer a more private venue for time off the ship.”
“It’s our assistant engineer, Bruce,” Aurelia said. “He’s a Gretch.”
“Ah, yes, I recall you having a Gretchen crewman,” Jack said. “Any member of your crew is welcome in my home, of course.”
“I appreciate it,” Vraz said. “Apparently last time we were here, he accidentally made a scene just by being Gretch. Bruce is kind of shy and doesn’t like that much attention.”
“We don’t get many Gretch on Albion Prime, it’s true,” Jack replied. “I’ll make sure my staff prepare a meal that’s suitable to his palate.”
“Thank you so much, Jacques,” Aurelia said. “It’s a date.”
“I should have all the details for you by the time you land. Until then.” With a smile and a nod, Jack terminated the connection. He tapped his wrist-top codex and raised Brighton, his butler.
“How may I be of service, monsieur?” Brighton asked.
“We have a dinner party to plan, old friend.”