Table of Contents

The Red Sea

Adrift

The Policeman’s Daughter

Peregoy’s Wolves

Chasing Your Tail

Bagala Devi Objective

Sacrifices

Humanslayer

The Hero Business

At the Seams

The Red Ship

Preferred Seating

Baen Books

Free Stories 2020

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

The Red Sea © 2020 by Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin

Adrift © 2020 by Frank Chadwick

The Policeman’s Daughter © 2020 by Wil McCarthy

Peregoy’s Wolves © 2020 by Nancy Kress

Chasing Your Tail © 2020 by Peter J. Wacks

Bagala Devi Objective © 2020 by M.T. Reiten

Sacrifices © 2020 by D.J. Butler

Humanslayer © 2020 by G. Scott Huggins

The Hero Business © 2020 by Tim Akers

At the Seams © 2020 by Jacob Holo

The Red Ship © 2020 by Marc Miller

Preferred Seating © 2020 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

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www.baen.com

eISBN: 978-1-62579-780-3

Electronic Version by Baen Books

www.baen.com

The Red Sea

Mercedes Lackey & Cody Martin

This entire weekend was going to completely suck for Wanda. She felt as if it was a certainty, and the gloomy weather—normally a comfort, especially for a pale specimen like herself—wasn’t helping the way she had hoped it would. She was stuck in Silence, more so than usual, while the rest of the gang was in Wolfe’s Neck State Park enjoying a weekend camping and LARPing event. Even Jake and Riley had come out for it, which had surprised the lot of them. Ever since the events at the Blackthorne Manor, over the course of their junior year, Jake and Riley both had sort of retreated a little bit from the group. They still came to play at the Dungeons and Dragons—or whatever weird tabletop role-playing game Seth had scrounged from Ebay or mail order over the course of the week—but didn’t really hang out much outside of that. I mean, I totally get being weirded out by monsters and elves and monster elves, and having to fight all of them with iron blades and weaponized caffeine. Not exactly the sort of extracurricular activities that the Perfect Couple, or any of us, were at all prepared for.

But being all alone—left out—sucked majorly. She didn’t want to resent the others—not even Jake and Riley, despite their withdrawal after the battle at the Manor—for their fun, but it had grown increasingly hard to stand the loneliness after they all left Thursday night. Even Tim had gone! He’d closed the shop, saying he needed a break, to volunteer as the ride and chaperone for the entire group so everyone could go.

Everyone except Wanda, whose parents had pitched a bitch fit, even though she’d only said “camping” and never mentioned LARPING. And now it was Saturday morning, when they’d all otherwise be starting an all-day session of training, finishing with a late-night D and D run, and . . . she was stuck back in Silence, literally kicking rocks while she paced the beach.

She had made sure to steer further north from the popular section of the beach; on the other side of a fair sized cape. There was one of the more iconic cliffs between her and the few Silence denizens that had chosen to patronize the beach that overcast day. She might have been lonely, but she wasn’t that lonely.

“No effing fair,” she muttered. Maybe I should have lied and said there was going to be a church service out there Sunday morning? Naw, they would have wanted to come and attend, if I had gone that route. My folks, in their Sunday best, in the middle of a LARP event . . . okay, maybe I should have told them that.

But no. As amusing as the thought was . . . bad idea, because that would, guaranteed, get her banned from ever seeing any of the gang or going to the bookstore again. She’d probably have found herself grounded forever, or at least until she was old enough to legally leave the family and try and make it on her own. She didn’t hate her parents; she just hated all of the nonsensical rules, and the non-stop preaching.

The mp3 player that she was listening to shuffled to a Nine Inch Nails song as she continued to plod along. I should have more perspective, she scolded herself. After all, her entire life had been turned upside down only a couple of months ago, they’d all nearly died, and there she was, upset about not hanging out with her friends at a LARP event.

But there it was, her life, her view of reality, and everything she had believed in before had been totally turned upside down, and perspective was pretty hard to get right now.

Of course, it was all due to a single person. The new girl in town, Staci Kerry, had inadvertently involved her, Seth, Riley and Jake in a revelation that the world was chock full of magic, monsters, and worse. She had learned that the bookstore owner, Tim, whom she had known for years, was in fact a master mage, living a secretive, withdrawn life from the world of magic, and been inescapably drawn back into it by Staci’s actions. Wanda had seen things that she hadn’t thought possible, and even stuck a few of those things with knives made of Cold Iron. It was all so . . . bizarre, but not nearly as bizarre as how quickly she’d accepted it. Granted, some of that was due to being Goth; the weird and supernatural had always interested her, much to her family’s chagrin. But being interested and experiencing it up close and personal were two different things altogether. It was one thing to listen to creepy and sad music and dress like you were going to a funeral, and another to have to stab a Red Cap to keep it from killing you.

Maybe I have more in common with Jake and Riley than I thought.

Seth had also adapted surprisingly quickly. Then again, he was a sponge for knowledge, and what was mythology and magic if not just another knowledge base to assimilate for their Nerd In Chief? With some prompting from Staci, who had apparently become Tim’s protégé, Tim had opened up parts of his “special” library to the rest of the gang. Seth had immediately dove in, soaking up as much lore as he could.

He’d already adapted parts of the new research into some of their D and D campaigns. “Think of it as more training,” he’d said. Never mind that the real-life versions of monsters and creatures usually ended up being far tougher than their D and D counterparts, and thus the group’s adventures became that much tougher. Okay, okay, but that’s just a game and we get resurrects all the time. No such thing as a reboot-potion or a cure-serious-wounds spell in real life. Is there?

For Wanda’s part, she had grappled with learning how to use weapons as best as she could. Seth, for some bizarre reason, was focusing on how to build and set traps, in addition to learning every scrap of lore that he could about the magical world. Wanda supposed that might be useful for some monsters . . . but when did things ever go to plan for the gang anymore? It was hard to gin up a trap in the middle of a fight. Pulling a dagger and planting it in the eye of some mean-nasty? Definitely not easy, but much more doable, at least in Wanda’s eyes.

And . . . she liked it. So far, she really liked using throwing knives and a bow; Tim had called her a “natural marksman,” which had made her feel proud. If nothing else, it was something concrete that she could rely on, and didn’t make her head hurt the same way that Tim and Staci’s magical talk could.

That’s a thought. She could go and practice instead of moping around at the beach . . . but then she remembered that almost all of the weaponry and gear was locked up back at Tim’s shop. Whatever. It’s not the same without the others there, anyways. Wanda imagined all of the fun that she by all rights should have been having right then as she wound up for a particularly vicious kick to one of the many rocks in her path. The steel toe of her boot connected with the stone just right, and sent it skittering and bouncing along the ground until it disappeared over the edge of a drop-off . . . and instead of a satisfying splash, was followed by a surprised howl of pain.

“What the hell?” There shouldn’t have been anyone this far north along the beach; everyone always hung out at the pretty and friendly spots further to the south, instead of the rocky and craggy mess that Wanda liked.

If I hit someone I’d better find out if they’re okay. “Um, hello?” she called, but got no answer. Cautiously, she made her way to the lip of the drop-off. After all the mess that happened with the Blackthornes, Wanda was a lot more careful about being curious about strange things in the wilderness. I really, really wish I had more on me than just this dinky little fixed blade knife. She hadn’t become used to carrying around any of the more substantial blades that they had ordered from Greenwood Armory yet, so a slim, three inch dagger was all she had decided to grab to keep on her as a carrying-knife. It was easy to conceal, and quite a bit more legal to keep hidden on her person, but not exactly the most intimidating weapon, unless she was going to fight Brownies or something. The critters, not the little girls.

Her right hand rested on the handle of the knife as she reached the edge. “Is someone there?” Cautiously she peeked over the top of the rocks.

And nearly fell on her ass with surprise.

The only reason she didn’t fall on her ass was because her other hand had been clutching the rocks, and to be honest she wasn’t entirely certain that she hadn’t hit herself on the head with that rock, because sitting half-in, half-out of the water, holding both hands onto the top of his head (with a little blood trickling down his temple) was . . . a merman.

What else could it be? Although . . . the tail wasn’t scaled, it looked more like a dolphin tail, and the gray of the dolphin-skin faded up into the human skin well past his chest. But his head and neck looked human enough, as did his head of shaggy surfer-blond-streaked hair. He was in a tide pool, surrounded by little fish. He seemed so preoccupied with his injury that he didn’t even notice she was there.

Aaaand, yep, his head was still bleeding. Better go apologize to the weird fish-man, Wanda. Well, not fish-man, if that’s a dolphin tail. “Uh, hi. I think I accidentally did that,” she said, pointing to where the merman was massaging his scalp.

“ACK,” he yelped, ducking under the water quickly enough to send a splash of droplets across Wanda’s boots . . . but not deep enough to get his hands and the very top of his head under the water. He stayed there, eyes watching her from under the rippling water for a few moments before he slowly rose again.

“ . . . you’re not a vampire, are you?”

Wanda blinked. “No. Why do you ask?”

The merman yelped again when she spoke, darting back under the water before slowly rising again. “You’re dressed all in black, and pale, and I’m bleeding, and—”

“Well, I’m not a vampire. But thanks for the compliment, I think.” The merman didn’t yelp this time, or try to “flee” back under the water of the shallow pool. Slowly, Wanda squatted down to get a closer look at the merman. Merboy, more like it. He doesn’t look much older than me . . . but who knows how mer-people age? He was skinny, and kind of goofy-looking, with large ears sticking out from his head and through his surfer-blond mane of hair. Kind of like Seth . . . if Seth had been transported to California as a baby.

“If you’re not a vampire . . . then you’re human!” The merman surged forward quickly until he was at the edge of the pool, and Wanda fought the urge to yelp or leap back herself. He didn’t seem as if he was threatening her, though; the smile seemed genuine, and his eyes were curious instead of calculating. “I’ve never met a real, live human before! Come to think of it, I’ve never met a real, dead vampire, either. Though there was that one time . . .”

“Riiight,” Wanda said, taking a moment to breathe. “This is really weird for me, too. So . . . my name’s Wanda. Wanda the human. Not Wanda the vampire. Are you okay? I’m sorry I hit you with that rock. I didn’t think anyone else was here. What’s your name?”

He got a puzzled look on his face, as if so many questions at once confused him, and then locked onto one. Or at least, she thought that was what he had done, because he opened his mouth, and out came a series of clicks, whistles and squeaks. Then added. “Ow, you hit me with a rock,” putting his hand up to the rapidly-rising lump on the top of his forehead.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I don’t really have much that can help, unfortunately. I don’t carry around bags of ice or Advil. Anyways, do you have a name?”

“I do!” He beamed. “Like I said, it’s—” and again came the clicks, whistles, and squeaks.

“Oh. Uh, I don’t think I can pronounce that.” A thought occurred to Wanda just then. “Hey, come to think of it, how do you speak English, anyways? I thought you said that you’ve never met a human before?”

“That’s easy! My family taught me, and some of them have met humans. Or if they didn’t, then one of their aunts, or uncles, or sisters, or cousins, or brothers, or—well, you get the idea! All us merfolk are natural polyglots; it’s super useful, since just about everything in the ocean speaks a different language.” He paused, as if thinking for a moment. “Selkies are okay, I guess, but they gossip too much. Lobsters aren’t really that good for conversation, but boy, the younger ones taste great! And don’t even get me started on crabs—”

Wanda could already tell that this young merman would keep going on a tear if she didn’t put a stop to it. “Oh! I won’t, don’t you worry.” She frowned. “Well, I’ve got to call you something. Is there a shorter form of your name, maybe? Something that, you know, I can pronounce.”

The merman screwed up his face in concentration for several long seconds, then smiled . . . and squeaked once.

“Squeak it is, then.”

The merman—Squeak—beamed at this. “A human named me! I mean, it’s kind of short and boring, but still! I can’t wait to tell everyone I know!”

Wanda looked around. “Are there . . . more of you here? Y’know, merfolk?”

“Huh?” The smile fell from Squeak’s face, and he looked down. “No. I got . . . separated from the pod. There was a big storm, and I had been playing on the surface, and got confused with all the wind and the waves. The storm looked really cool, but it kind of threw me around.” He raised his eyes to look at Wanda again. “And then I got here to . . . where am I?”

“Uh, you’re off the coast of a town called Silence.”

“Oh, right. You humans call places weird things, you know. Anyways, so I got here to Quiet-Town, and, well, kind of got in a fight. But I didn’t start it!”

She set aside the fact that he seemed very anxious she not think he started this “fight,” whatever it was over, and just asked “Who’d you get in a fight with?”

“The Farraige Olc,” he whispered. “The merfolk part of them, anyway. We’re not supposed to fight, we’re supposed to be keeping the peace between us, but they’re mean and bullies and always hungry.”

“I have no idea what you just said.” She shook her head. “Well . . . what do they look like? And are you safe here?”

“They can’t air-breathe,” he said confidently. “They won’t come into shallow water. They look sort of like me, except sharky. And they have gills here—” he cut both hands in at the level of his lower rib-cage.

“So . . . sharkmaids. Mersharks. Merman-sharks. Got it.”

“Too many teeth too,” he said, and shuddered. “And like I said, always hungry. Like the lamia, but there weren’t any of those here. Just the pistriskin. You know what’s the worst thing about them?”

“Obviously not, since I didn’t know any of you guys existed before five minutes ago,” Wanda replied, not sure if she was more amused or annoyed by how air-headed he was. Or did he have water on the brain?

He laughed with delight. “You’re funny, Wanda-human! Okay, the worst thing about them is that they don’t always eat you right away. Sometimes they take you somewhere else and play with you, letting you think you can escape, then hauling you back until you’re totally exhausted.”

“That’s . . . pretty brutal, Squeak.” The merboy grinned at her, and she decided right there and then; if nothing else, talking with Squeak was amusing. And a sight better than kicking rocks along the beach. “How about this? You tell me about merfolk and all that sort of thing, and I’ll tell you about a bunch of human stuff. Sound like a good deal?”

His eyes literally sparkled with glee. “Me? You’d talk to me about landside?”

She smiled, sitting down and letting her boots dangle over the edge. “Yup. Just so long as you promise not to try to eat me or anything.”

He made a face. “You’re not a lobster or a crab or a herring—boy, herring are good—or a flounder or an oyster or a—”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” she laughed. “So tell me about your pod. . . .”

#

Wanda stood up, careful not to fall into the tidal pool, and stretched. Damn, time really got away from me. She had spent the last few hours talking with Squeak about . . . well, everything. It turned out that merfolk, to the best of their considerable ability, avoided interacting with people; given what Wanda knew about human nature, that was an exceedingly good policy. As a result, however, Squeak’s knowledge about the world of man was . . . spotty, and wildly inaccurate in some instances. He delighted in even the most mundane details of everyday life; cars, grocery stores, how shoes worked, all of it. He desperately wanted to know more about television; it confused and amazed him in equal parts.

For Wanda’s part Squeak’s narrative felt like the best underwater documentary ever—one where someone who actually knew what other creatures were thinking could tell you what was going on. Although she learned details about dolphin sex that really were TMI. Squeak had no filters. That part was definitely not going back to the gang, if any of it did. To be honest, it was very tempting to keep all this to herself. Staci and Tim had all this arcane stuff they shared, and Seth was deeply into all that even if it was on a theoretical basis. Riley and Jake had each other. This was the first time Wanda had ever had something that was all hers, alone.

She wanted to continue, but it had gotten late, and her stomach rumbled its protests; she hadn’t eaten anything that day, and was in dire need of food.

“You know, Squeak, I was totally not expecting this today . . . but I’m glad I found you, and that we got to talk. This was fun.” He beamed at her.

“I thought I was just going to have to sit here and be bored until the pistriskin left so I could sneak out!” He looked around himself at the tide pool. “There’s enough urchins here I can have a great meal, I’ll think I’ll do that and have a nap. If you think it’s safe and no more people are going to come here.”

“Oh, no one ever comes this far up the beach, dude. Just me. You’re definitely safe here.” She stretched again, working the kinks out of her shoulders. “I’ve got to get some food myself—no, I don’t want an urchin, but, uh, thanks anyways. If you’re still here tomorrow, maybe we can talk again?”

“Sure!” he said, plucking a sea-urchin off the side of the pool and somehow cracking into its shell without getting stuck full of spines. He slurped up the contents that made her stomach lurch to look at. “If I’m still here that’d be way better than hiding here like a flounder!”

“Okay.” Wanda chuckled. “Enjoy your dinner, Squeak. I’ll see you when I see you.” The merboy waved to her, and she waved back before she made her way towards the southern part of the beach where her bike was parked.

That was super pleasant, she thought. Part of her still wanted to tell the others all about her encounter with a merboy named Squeak, but she was fairly confident that she’d keep today all to herself. After all the secrets that Tim and Staci were sharing, it was pretty sweet to have something this epic all to herself. Even the weird looks she always got from the other beach goers couldn’t ruin her mood, and she almost always got a lot of weird looks. It’s hard work hauling the Goth flag alone in Silence, but someone has to do it. She was almost to the parking lot where her bike was chained to a rack when she heard a shrill scream coming from the beach.

Wanda immediately whipped around, her hand going to her knife instinctively. “What the hell?” A group of the few remaining beach goers were gathered around a woman who kept shouting and pointing towards the water, hopelessly distraught. Oh, crap. Her kid got sucked in by a riptide or something? Stomping through the beach sand, Wanda made her way closer, but froze in her tracks when she could understand what the woman was saying.

“—I’m telling you, sharks! Weird sharks, they took my son! Please, someone, help!”

Sharks were rare off the coast of Silence; they usually didn’t range this far north, though there were the odd sighting or two per year. Wanda already knew in her gut that it wasn’t just a regular shark. Squeak’s bullies, the mersharks. Crap. She opened her mouth to speak, but then snapped it shut. There was no way that anyone there would believe her; a weird Goth girl, coming up and saying that shark-men were really responsible? Even if they did . . . what could any of these people do to help? It dawned on her, another sickening realization. They can’t help the kid . . . but maybe I can. Squeak said that the mersharks like to play with their food, so maybe he’s still alive.

She considered trying to take her bike to get back to Squeak’s hidden pool faster, but discounted the idea; the beach sand sucked to try to bike through, and it would have been impossible to bike at all once she got to the rockier parts of the beach. Shank’s mare it is, she thought as she sprinted back the way she had come.

#

“Squeak!” she yelled, as she got close to the tidal pool. “Squeak! Emergency! Mayday Mayday Mayday!” Would he understand that? Well, it was a universal emergency call for ships. . . .

Running in platform Goth boots was not ideal, and combining that with crossing sand and rocks, Wanda was completely played out by the time she reached the merboy. Her running had become loads better after the training sessions had started in earnest with Tim and the rest of the gang, but she still had a long way to go before she’d be competitive in even a half-marathon.

The shaggy blond head popped up from the edge of the pool just as Wanda skidded to a halt, breathing hard. “Wanda-human? Is it tomorrow already? I dozed off.”

“Kid. Taken. Shark-men,” she said between gulps of breath. “Gotta. Find him.”

“The pistriskin?” His eyes grew wide, and he darted back under the water.

“Oh, damnit,” Wanda breathed, standing up and putting her hands on top of her head like they’d practiced at training. “Squeak! C’mon, listen!”

Slowly, Squeak’s head rose above the water again.

“They took a kid, Squeak. A little boy. We’ve got to do something. You said they play with their food for a while, so he might still be alive.”

“They took a calf?” Suddenly, the merboy went from merboy to merman in his posture and bearing. “Have you a weapon? Wait, I have one.” He made a huge leap over the rocks out to the ocean—she had no idea how he’d mustered the strength to get over those rocks, but he had—and vanished under the water. He came back up a second later, brandishing an old-fashioned boathook over his head, the kind with a sharp point and hook, made of tarnished brass.

“Well, that’ll definitely work.” She started unbuckling her boots; this was going to get wet, and she didn’t want to be weighed down by the clunky things getting full of water. “Do you know where we need to go?”

“Yes. I can taste them in the water,” he responded immediately. “Hurry, Wanda-human! Take your skins off and get into the sea! There is no time to waste!”

“Skins? Oh. Uh, turn around.”

Squeak cocked his head to the side, then shrugged, turning in place in the water. “Humans are weird.”

Wanda stripped out of her clothes, but kept her bra and underwear on. She wanted to keep everything on, but knew it wasn’t practical. “This is going to be stupid-cold.” Undressed, she gingerly stepped into the water, and hissed. “No, not just stupid-cold. This is ridiculous.”

“There is no time to waste!” said Squeak, urgently.

“Oh, to hell with it.” She took a breath and then jumped in. The cold water hit her like a wrecking ball, and she sputtered when she came up. “Oh! This is such a dumb idea!” Squeak had shoved the boathook into her hands as soon as she submerged, and she hadn’t dropped it, luckily. It was heavy, too heavy for something with a wooden shaft. Was it all brass? “We’ve got to hurry. This water is really, really cold for humans. That kid can’t be doing too well. What now?”

“Grab my fin!” he said. “Hard. Don’t let go!”

She grabbed the low fin that grew between his shoulder-blades as ordered. And as soon as she had, he was off like a shot, practically yanking her arm out of the shoulder-socket. Holy . . . he might look skinny, but Squeak is strong.

This was not as easy as it looked in movies and anime. Squeak swam just like a dolphin, a rolling up-and-down motion that threatened to drag her head underwater every time he went down. Eventually she got the bright idea to time her breaths to when his head rose, and use his explosive outer breath as her cue for her own intake. She clamped the boathook to her side and pointed straight ahead to keep it from getting ripped out of her grip. And within a couple of minutes both her arms were screaming about the abuse she was putting them through.

Just when she thought that she couldn’t hold on any longer, Squeak slowed, and then stopped, coming to a rest near an outcropping of rock.

“The pistriskin,” he whispered, gently pulling her off of his back—again, surprisingly strong for such a scrawny kid—and over to the rock so that she could hang onto it. “They’re in this cove.” He ducked his head under the water, waited for a few moments, and then came back up. “The calf is still alive.”

Wanda nodded, shivering. “Thank goodness.” Clutching to the rock, she slowly moved to a better position so that she could see into the cove. Sure enough, there was the kid; a young boy, crying quietly while he treaded water. His lips were blue; Wanda had no clue how long he’d been in the water, but it’d clearly been too long. And circling around him were three fins. “What are the shark-dudes doing?”

“One moment,” Squeak said before his head disappeared under the water again. When he finally emerged again, he looked grim. “Well, these are definitely the same ones that I got into a fight with. They’re currently arguing about who gets the first bite.”

Wanda looked up, rather than down, and it was obvious why the kid didn’t just escape by getting onto the shore. He couldn’t. Huge, slippery boulders rimmed the edge of the cove, and even she wouldn’t have been able to climb them.

“That might work to our advantage,” she said through chattering teeth. “You got away from them before. Can you do that again?”

Squeak’s brows furrowed. “I . . . I don’t know, Wanda-human.” Then he looked over to the child. “But we must try anyway. The calf is not going to last long when they finally decide to feed.”

“Okay, Squeak. We wait for a break; they seem distracted. When there’s an opening, we grab the kid and run for it. I’ll fight them off with the boathook.”

“That’s . . . not much of a plan.”

“No choice,” she replied. “Just be sure the kid gets a hold of your fin. We only have one shot at this.” She didn’t fancy their chances taking on three sharkmen without the element of surprise. They either got the kid and got away the first time, or all three of them would probably end up as dinner. I’m not going to let that happen.

#

“Okay, this was a really bad idea!” Wanda shouted as she swung the boathook at the nearest mershark. It had all gone really well in the beginning; they had waited for the sharkmen to get distracted with their arguing, and then swooped in and retrieved the kid. And that was the last thing that had gone right. Turns out, Squeak was faster than the mersharks . . . but not when he was carrying two people on his back. Instead of getting away clean, they were in a near dead heat with all three of the mersharks, and it was only through a combination of fancy maneuvers from Squeak and Wanda’s “skills” with the boathook that they hadn’t been chewed to pieces yet.

The mersharks themselves were even uglier than Wanda imagined. And they were pissed. “Back, you!” She stabbed at one of the nearest mersharks with the point of the boathook, and actually scored a hit, sinking the point into the flesh of the sharkman’s shoulder. It fell back, but one of the others surged forward to take its place. Between the snapping jaws of the mersharks and trying not to drown from Squeak’s erratic swimming, Wanda was having a tough go of it. The kid seemed completely frozen to Squeak’s back, hanging onto his fin for dear life.

“I can’t keep this up!” Squeak threw a backhand at one of the mersharks on the left, hitting it across the bridge of its nose, causing it to veer off.

The only good thing was that these creatures didn’t have huge shark mouths. They were going to have to grab one or both of the humans with their actual hands, and every time they made a grab, they lost speed.

“No kidding!”

They couldn’t create any distance between themselves and the mersharks, and the mersharks were keeping them penned in from going towards shallow waters. Something had to change, and fast. She got another hit in on the mershark on her side, but this time it grabbed the boathook’s haft. He yanked, hard, and almost pulled her off of Squeak, and she prayed that her grip wouldn’t go. A second shark swam between the trio and the mershark with the hold on the boathook, and actually bit through the shaft.

I guess it wasn’t all brass after all.

“Great!” Wanda threw the chunk of the shaft she still had, and managed to actually catch the sharkman in the face with it. She was out of weapons; her dinky little knife was back on the beach with the rest of her clothes. Besides, she didn’t want to have any of the mersharks get close enough to have to use something like that. Though right about now, anything would be better than harsh language, which is all I’ve got right now.

There was something in the distance, though Wanda could hardly make it out through the ocean spray. Tall, white . . . a boat!

“Squeak! Aim for the boat!”

“But—”

“Just do it, I’ve got an idea!”

“I thought this was your idea?”

She punched him in the shoulder, then pointed to the boat. It was further out to sea, away from the shallows that they needed to reach, but it was their only hope at this point. She kicked at one of the mersharks, almost losing her grip. She could tell that Squeak was getting tired; he was slowing, and the breaths he was taking every time he surfaced were becoming more ragged. But he still pushed, putting all of his energy into a final effort. Almost . . . c’mon, Squeak, we’re almost there.

The boat was one of Silence’s fishing vessels, probably returning to the docks after a day of work. “Kid, get ready! Squeak, I want you to aim right for it! At the last second dive under it, scrape our backs if you have to, but make it tight!”

Somehow Squeak put on a last burst of speed, and Wanda screamed “Breathe!” as she sensed him starting his dive.

She reached across his back and grabbed the kid’s wrist; a good thing she did, too, because she felt him lose his grip at the same moment that she felt the keel of the fishing boat scrape her back and got the terrifying glimpse of the rotating, churning propellers that were way too close to her shoulder for comfort.

Then they surfaced on the other side of the boat, as she heard two thuds and. . . .

Well, from the sudden spreading red in the water as they rolled away, the third sharkman hadn’t missed the propeller the way she had.

#

Wanda sat in her favorite chair at Tim’s, sipping on a cup of freshly made coffee. The others had returned earlier that morning, and they had all decided to meet up in the afternoon. They were all sorry that Wanda hadn’t been able to attend, but still shared stories of the event. She smiled, asked questions, and volunteered to refill coffee cups when her friends ran out. Through all of it, she still thought back to her weekend with Squeak. After they’d gotten back to shore, they’d dropped the kid off further up the beach—far enough that no one would see Squeak clearly, near enough the kid could make out his mom from where they were. He’d become animated, then, and ran back to where his mother was tearfully talking to a cop. Meanwhile Wanda and Squeak slipped away. No doubt he would tell everyone about the sharkmen, the merboy, and Wanda . . . but he was a kid, so it was unlikely anyone would believe him. Wanda had gotten dressed once they reached the cove, and a good thing, too; she was shivering so badly, she knew that she had to be on the verge of hypothermia. A quick goodbye to Squeak, and she left. If she had been hungry before the chase with the mersharks, she was ravenous afterwards. Squeak had promised to stop by Silence every once and a while if he could, so maybe she hadn’t seen the last of the merboy. He had definitely earned her respect with the bravery he had shown. Not bad for a fellow nerd.

“What about you, Wanda?”

Wanda looked up from her reverie. Staci waited expectantly, an identical cup of coffee cradled in her hands.

“Hmm?”

“What’d you get up to while we were gone?”

“Oh, nothing, really,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “Just kind of wandered around to be out of the house and away from the ‘rents.” She paused for another sip. “By the way, do any of you know if mermaids exist? I mean, we’ve run into some pretty weird stuff.”

Seth shrugged, sitting down in a chair next to her. “There are stories, but not a lot of lore for them. How ‘bout you, Tim? Ever met one?”

Tim shook his head, leaning on the counter at the front of the store. “Nope. Haven’t met anyone that has, either.” He narrowed his eyes at Wanda, arching an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” she said, smiling. “Just wondering.”

* * *

This story is set in the world of Breaking Silence by Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin, a new entry in the SERRAted Edge series, out in February. Mercedes Lackey is the New York Times best-selling author of the Bardic Voices series and the SERRAted Edge series, the Heralds of Valdemar series, and many more. She's the coauthor of the contemporary metahero SF series The Secret World Chronicle. Among her popular Baen titles are The Fire Rose, The Lark and the Wren, and also The Shadow of the Lion and Burdens of the Dead with Eric Flint and Dave Freer. She lives in Oklahoma.

Cody Martin is a coauthor with Mercedes Lackey of five other books in the metahero saga The Secret World Chronicle, including entries Invasion, World Divided, Revolution, Collision, and Avalanche. He is also the coauthor of the previous entry in The SERRAted Edge series, Silence. Martin is an avid gamer, but spends his extra time chained to a computer, writing. Originally from Scottsdale, Arizona, he currently resides in Florida.

Adrift

Frank Chadwick

The Estate of the Honorable Arigapaa e-Lotonaa on the Planet Hazz'Akatu, about three hundred light years from Earth

Day 11, Tenmonth Waxing, Year 301 of the Cottohazz (28 December, 2133 Earth Dating)

Alex was crying—probably hungry. Marrissa unbuttoned her blouse, picked him up, and as he fed, she walked out onto the broad balcony on the east side of the main house. This close to Hazz'Akatu's equator, there were only two seasons: rain and dry. Although they were going into the rainy season, the skies were clear today. Aurora would have a smooth flight in. Marr looked across the east grounds. Sasha and Tweezaa were running laps on the track below, the track whose grey crushed stone surface traced a long oval around the two large topiary sculptures which hid surface-to-air missile launchers—not that anyone attempting an attack would be surprised by them. The ornately trimmed trees were meant to conceal the launchers from the family's view. Everyone knew they were there, but there was no need for a constant visual reminder of their necessity.

Sasha and Tweezaa rounded the near turn and ran past her below the balcony, both waving without breaking stride. human and Varoki, running in step. Where else but here? Marr smiled and waved back. A year ago, Tweezaa had struggled to keep up with Sasha. Now she clearly was holding back, letting him keep up with her. How could she have grown so fast?

A glint in the eastern sky caught Marissa's eye and, as she watched, it grew into an atmospheric shuttle on its approach path for the landing pad beyond the tree line. A ground car was already waiting there to bring the shuttle's passenger up to the house. As the craft flared to land, she pointed to it and turned Alex so he could see.

"Look, Alex. Your Auntie Aurora is coming to see you."

At least that's the excuse Aurora had given for the visit. Marr had her doubts.

*****

After Aurora had finished her first round of hugging, kissing, and teasing Alex, but still holding him in her arms, she turned to Marrissa.

"I have some wonderfully juicy gossip from the city, but I'd rather not say it until we're alone. It's too hot." She gave an evil laugh to underscore the thought.

Gossip? Marr didn’t believe that for a moment, but she smiled and nodded. "Let's go to the breakfast sun room. We can have some privacy there and still enjoy this beautiful morning. Who knows how much longer we'll have it?"

If Aurora didn't want to say it even in front of the few servants they had—all of them very loyal to the family—whatever Aurora had must be "hot" indeed. Marr felt her anger begin to mount. Aurora knew how strongly she felt about not getting involved in human politics, and yet here she was with something too dangerous to say in front of the staff.

Marrissa was fiscal guardian of the e-Traak's inheritance until Tweezaa reached her majority, when that inheritance would make her the wealthiest person in the Cottohazz. The most important asset of the inheritance was the largest single privately-owned block of stock in STTS (Simki-Traak Trans-Stellar), the largest manufacturer of interstellar jump drives in the Cottohazz. Marrissa also sat on the board of governors of STTS, the only human governor of it or any other Varoki major trading house in history—and the only female as well. humans could not even own stock in STTS, only Varoki could. But Marrissa's position as guardian of the e-Traak shares meant she had to—by law—be given a seat on the board of governors, a necessity the corporation had accepted after only two lawsuits.

If there was any one being half the fiscal and political Varoki elite of the Cottohazz wanted to catch in a misstep, find a way to topple, it was Marrissa Marfoglia. And here was Aurora, her husband Sasha's sister, probably with another dangerous crackpot scheme. Marr took a breath to calm herself and was careful not to slam the door behind them.

Aurora looked around the bright room and nodded, either in approval or appreciation, Marrissa couldn’t tell which. Aurora walked over to a table by the far wall, moved Alex onto her left hip, and with her right hand picked up a slender vase filled with fresh-cut flowers. She carried it back to Marr and held it out as an offering.

"Presenting me with a vase of my own flowers?" Marr asked.

"Presenting you with something to throw at me. I know you've been dying to ever since I got here."

Marr took the vase and set it back in its original position.

"And you must know why," Marr said without turning to face her, instead moving the vase slightly to the side, to center it on the table.

"Of course I do. Here's crazy Aurora again, with more high intrigue and dangerous ideas. Well, you're right."

Marr turned and leaned slightly back against the table. She kept her voice calm to avoid upsetting Alex. "Do you have any idea how much danger it would put my family in if I did half of the things you want me to?"

"Yes," Aurora said, looking at little Alex in her arms, "I do. I'm not sure I always did. I have a certain immunity from repercussions due to my celebrity status: The Heroine of Sookagrad and all that. But I'm beginning to realize my immunity is limited, and that of my friends and family is all but nonexistent. And yet here I am again."

There was something different about her attitude, Marr thought. She seemed completely aware of the hazards, and yet . . .

"How is the holovid production coming?" Marr asked to change the subject for a moment, or maybe just put it off.

"Sookagrad Calling? Stalled in post-production, some sort of artistic disagreement between the director and the effects software designer. It's scheduled for release in Sixmonth next year, but who knows?" She simply looked at Marr and said nothing for a few moments. Then she shrugged. "What I want to tell you is actually perfectly legal to know. In fact, you have unrestricted access to the information. The thing is, if you don’t know to look for it, you'd never notice it.

"I think it's possibly the single most important piece of information I've ever known, and given my work, I come across a great deal of important information. There are two things which need to be done. I can do one, but I cannot do the other. You may be able to. I don’t know of anyone else who could."

Marr shifted her weight from one foot to the other and fought the urge to fidget. This was unlike any attempt to persuade her Aurora had ever tried before. To her surprise, Marr found her interest piqued.

"You say knowing the information is perfectly legal," Marr said. "Is what you want done legal as well?"

"Of course not."

No, Marr thought, of course not.

"Not only is it illegal," Aurora went on, "it probably constitutes a breach of your fiduciary responsibility to Tweezaa."

"Well, that makes it impossible," Marr said.

"I know," Aurora said.

Aurora knew it was impossible to agree, and yet there she stood? Yes, there she stood, silent and calm as a statue.

"Well, if the information itself isn’t illegal, you may as well tell me."

*****

After their conversation Aurora spent half an hour visiting with Sasha and Tweezaa, and then the ground car drove her back to her shuttle and she was off, bound for the Old Tower Needle near Sakkatto City, across the border in the Commonwealth of Bakaa. Marr would be heading to Sakkatto City herself in little more than a week for a STTS board of governors meeting. Sakkatto City was not only the capital of Bakaa, it housed the headquarters of most of the largest Varoki multi-stellar corporations, including AZ Simki-Traak Trans-Stellar. It also housed, she knew, the headquarters of CSJ, the Cottohazz secret police. She had never been there . . . yet.

"Gapa," joined them for lunch. Usually he kept to the north wing during the day, although they often dined together. Gapa—Arigapaa e-Lotonaa—was technically their host, although in truth he had become family. He and Tweezaa were Varoki, but that didn't matter as much to Marr as it once had, or to any of them. They had been through so much together, she felt closer to them than to most humans. Tweezaa had been almost like a daughter to Marr, still was, despite the fact Gapa had adopted her. He was her legal guardian in all things except her finances. In that area Marrissa remained the Guardian Court-appointed manager of Tweezaa's fortune, the largest single private fortune in the Cottohazz.

They had a pleasant lunch. Alex was feeding himself now, alternating a bottle with breastfeeding, and holding the bottle himself. Tweezaa told Gapa about the Lara'i Bada Karo martial arts training she and Sasha were now taking together. Sasha had never studied martial arts when he was . . . well, why sanitize it? When he was a violent criminal. Now he studied it and Marr had once asked him why he hadn’t before.

"Before it was just me to look out for. If I fucked up, it was on me, you know? Now if I fuck up, it's your and Tweezaa's asses on the line. Sorta changes your perspective."

He hadn’t run regularly in those days either. His body was harder now. She'd fallen in love with who he was, but she had no complaints about who he was becoming. Everyone changes, grows. She wondered if they would ever grow old together, really old, old enough to slow down and just study the world for its beauty, not its potential dangers. She wondered if they would even have the capacity to enjoy it if they lived that long. Mental habits cut deep paths in a person. How could they change their habits if the world—the Cottohazz—did not change its?

"You're pretty quiet, pal," Sasha said to her.

She looked up and blinked and then smiled. "Sorry. Just thinking too much about work."

"That is why the other governors of STTS detest you," Gapa said. "You actually think about your responsibilities. They have assistants to do that for them."

"You don't think their hatred has something to do with her being a human?" Sasha asked.

"And female?" Tweezaa added.

Gappa tilted his head to the side, the Varoki equivalent of a shrug. "Your arguments are well-founded," he said, "but I for one think they would hate her nearly as much were she a Varoki male. She simply makes them look like the lazy, entitled time-servers they all are."

"All but e-Drapaank," Marr said. "He has a brain and he uses it."

Gapa paused and then nodded. "Yes, e-Drapaank is impressive, the best second governor STTS has had in as long as I can remember. Pity he is on the other side."

"Yeah," Sasha said. "Why can’t everyone just get along?"

And then they all laughed. Marr laughed with them because they expected her to, but today she found the dark humor simply darker than usual.

*****

Half an hour later she sat in her office with Alex settled into his crib beside her for his afternoon nap. She blinked up the commlink for Gaisaana-la, her Varoki senior executive assistant.

Yes, Madam, she answered immediately, the voice simply registering in Marr's brain from the commlink.

"Have the updates on the STTS Stressed Asset Report come in yet?"

Yes, Madam, in the data dump two hours ago. I haven't looked through it yet but I can do a quick search if there's something you're interested in.

"Thank you but no, that's not necessary. I just want to scan them to make sure I have a good handle on the components of the stress-to-base ratio before next month's board meeting. I've got a window of time right now."

Marr waited for the data transfer, pulled up the report on the surface of her smart desk, and began paging through it, keeping the pace deliberate. Sometimes she stopped to examine a page longer, concentrating on pages with reduced-value assets. She thought the records of her smart desk usage were secure, but nothing was secure from a CSJ court-authorized full investigation. Better not to leave even a hint of what she was looking for, nothing a prosecutor could say, Ah ha! Here is the clear evidence of her intent.

Not that she intended to do anything but look.

Stressed assets were those which current risk placed in a lower potential future value category. Anything carried as an asset, and which was still physically in existence, was logged and evaluated as to probable remaining value. Setting aside physical plant and other immovable assets, star drives under lease to starships were among the largest tangible assets held by Simki-Traak Trans-Stellar. Over a third of all star drives in the Cottohazz were manufactured by STTS, and none of them were sold; all were leased and remained the property of STTS. Every jump drive builder followed the same procedure, just one more way of ensuring the intellectual property of the drive's operating principle remained the sole property of the joint patent holders. That was the technological and economic strangle hold the e-Varokiim, the wealthiest of the Varoki families, had on the other five races of the Cottohazz: the monopoly on manufacturing star drives.

She found a page with three stressed assets—commercial star drives—one with its likely value written down to twenty-two percent. She left that page open on her desk for a long time, as if she were studying it. After several minutes she moved on.

Ten minutes into her scan she found what she was really looking for: a summary of assets lost and stressed due to the first major space battle of the war being fought by Baka against a coalition of human nations. The battle had taken place four days earlier. Four days was not long for that distance, although military updates probably had some sort of priority access to unmanned jump couriers.

Seven STTS-owned drives had been present at the battle, four on the humans' side and three with the uBakai. None of the human drives had been destroyed, but that seemed an extraordinary piece of luck for STTS. AZ Kagataan, their principle competition, had lost several drives, the almost gloating footnote to the entry observed. The battle had been such a punishing loss for the human fleet overall that the risk assessment department had marked down the expected future value of the four human STTS-built drives to twenty-two percent.

The three Varoki-manned ships with STTS drives had fared differently. One was listed as a total loss from a catastrophic jump mishap, marked down to zero percent. One was in an undamaged cruiser with an assessed future value of forty-seven percent. And then, there was the third one.

KBk-429, which Marr now knew, having looked it up beforehand, stood for "Starcruiser, uBakai, hull number Four-Two-Nine."

KBk-429's drive value was now assessed as one percent. Only one percent. Why?

Because the cruiser suffered battle damage which caused the drive's anti-tamper defenses to activate, the factory-installed weapon designed to prevent anyone other than factory representatives from examining the actual internal design of the drive. The defense system flooded the jump drive's engineering spaces with a microbial solvent and neurotoxin which ate through most things it didn't kill. The cruiser's captain had followed protocol and immediately jettisoned the entire drive module in order to save the rest of his ship and crew. Now the drive module was floating out there somewhere in deep space . . . but only the cruiser's hull had actually been damaged. The drive was still operational.

Marr sat back in her chair and thought about that—an operational star drive floating in deep space. For decades human physicists had hungered for the chance to examine the interior of a jump drive, find out how it worked, maybe make a start on reverse engineering it. Was this their chance?

No, it couldn’t be. STTS, and every other trading house that manufactured drives, tracked each drive meticulously—just like in the document she was reading now. Damaged drives were recovered immediately. Those with compromised defense systems were usually launched into a gas giant or a star to prevent the defensive microbe from spreading to other vessels. At least that was the story given to the public, but the real reason was the repair cost of a drive with an activated antitamper defense system exceeded the drive's remaining value.

At least that was the story they had given her, and she was a corporate governor, so it must be the truth. Or so she had always thought. Now she wondered. But in any case, recovery or disposal vessels would be on the way.

She looked at the appended explanatory notes on KBk-429's jump drive: Recovery currently impossible due to ongoing hostilities in K'tok System.

Oh, of course! The one thing in the entire history of the Cottohazz the jump manufacturers had never had to deal with before was a genuine interstellar war.

She paged on past the entry and for the next ten minutes she continued her methodically irregular scan of the document, but she saw nothing of what was on the pages. Her mind grappled with what Aurora had asked her to do, and with how she might go about doing it.

Not that she had any intention of doing so. It was insane. But . . . how would someone go about doing that insane thing?

*****

An hour later Marr found herself knocking on Gapa's study door. The door swung open as the middle-aged Varoki diplomat looked up from his desk and smiled. The sunlight from the window caught the iridescence of his skin and made one side of his face seem to glow.

"Why hello again, Marrissa."

"Hello, Gapa. I was wondering . . . am I interrupting?"

"Nothing important. I had been reading the diplomatic update on the fighting in the K'tok system. Quite distressing, so I had switched to a historical adventure novel by Hakata e-Kirjailija. Simply escapist fiction. What can I do?"

Yes, Gapa would be receiving periodic updates himself. Although he was currently between postings, Arigapaa e-Lotonaa was one of the senior officers of the Khap’uKhaana, the corps of diplomatic and legal experts for the Cottohazz Executive Council. Despite that, she trusted Gapa absolutely. Tweezaa was the most important person in his life. He knew his adopted daughter shared the long-term goals of her late father Sarro e-Traak, and Gapa had embraced those goals as well. That involved somehow making good the damage the e-Varokiim had done to humans in the last hundred years, somehow making humans equal citizens in the Cottohazz—in reality rather than just in name.

"Well, perhaps you can help me with a problem," Marr said. "A hypothetical problem."

"A hypothetical problem?" His broad ears fanned out a bit at that. "If I can help, I'll be delighted, but hypothetical problems are often the most difficult to solve."

"Why do you say that?" she asked as she sat down in the chair in front of his desk. It was made for a Varoki and so her legs barely reached the floor.

"Hypothetical problems generally lack details, don't they? It's my experience that the solution of a problem is usually in the details. But please, share your problem."

"Well . . . suppose a starship jettisoned its jump drive due to some sort of a mishap. Legally, who is responsible for directing the recovery, other than the manufacturer of the drive?".

"No one," he answered. "Legally the manufacturer has the sole responsibility to coordinate recovery of the drive, although the military would cooperate in such an effort unless prevented by exigent circumstances." He paused there and looked directly at her. "Such as . . . let us say, hypothetically . . . an interstellar war."

Marr felt herself color. It must have been obvious to Gapa as well, because he smiled broadly and shook his head.

"Marrissa, say no more. Although I will always do everything I can to help you, there are times when, due to my position and visibility, my involvement can be a liability instead of an asset. I do not say that is the case now, of course, because this is all purely hypothetical. If we finish now, if called upon I can honestly report that at no time during our conversation did either of us mention KB . . . well, any particular ship."

She sat quietly for five or ten seconds and then shrugged. "No, and why would we have?"

"No reason I can imagine," he answered, still smiling.

*****

Marrissa returned to her office, where Alex was still sleeping in his crib. She touched the soft feathery crown of black hair on his head, as fine as goose down. What would happen to him if she agreed to this reckless adventure? She still didn't know if it was even possible, but so what? Yes, Gapa had gotten her one step closer, but how could she put Alex, Sasha, Tweezaa, all of them at such risk? Things go wrong, she knew that. She had seen it often enough. How many careful plans end up unravelling into chaos and blood? Most of them, in her experience.

She needed to clear her mind, concentrate on something positive. She keyed her commlink

"Gaisaana-la, we put off the Sookagrad Project update for the meeting with my sister-in-law this morning. Let's take care of that now, if you have the material ready."

Absolutely, Madam, she answered.

During the coup in Baka the previous year, most of the slum settlements that had sprung up in the open ground between the seven enormous arcologies that made up Sakkatto City had been heavily damaged. But the human squatter district Sookagrad—so-called by its mostly-Slavic inhabitants—had been nearly levelled. Sasha had been trapped in that fighting and she had almost lost him. She might have stayed longer, gotten caught herself, but she was carrying Alex. She got to Gapa's estate to protect her unborn child, and so in a sense Alex may have saved her.

Tweezaa had requested Marrissa to set up a charitable foundation in her name to continue the work her father Sarro had started, the work which had resulted in his widespread denunciation by many other Varoki as a "race traitor." The hate eventually led to the murder of both Tweezaa's father Sarro and her older brother Barraki. Marrissa had gladly set up the Barraki e-Traak Foundation. Its first project was to take over funding of the human clinic Sasha had established on the planet Peezgtaan. They had other projects, but for the last year their largest one had been the rebuilding of Sookagrad as a clean, safe community within Sakkatto City. That seemed like an ambitious project, but also fairly straightforward. There had been a considerable store of admiration for the human Sookagrad resistance to the uBakai coup, admiration throughout the Cottohazz and across all species boundaries, so the municipal authorities had cooperated fully with the project from the start.

But there had been problems. The first was that the Varoki inhabitants of the surrounding squatter communities, which had also been badly damaged in the fighting, resented all the funds and attention lavished on the comparatively small human community, and with some justice. That could produce future friction between the Varoki and human communities, and that was the opposite of what they wanted. After consulting with Tweezaa, Marr had broadened the project to include the Varoki communities, and the Kataami community in the slum district as well. It had become a broad-based urban renewal effort.

Now there were increasing calls for the establishment of racially homogeneous neighborhoods. Logistically it made some sense, since the six intelligent species of the Cottohazz were made up of unique and incompatible protein chains and so could not consume each other's food without dying a fairly quick and unpleasant death. But this wasn't just about food.

"They don’t want to live in the same building with humans. That's it, isn’t it?" Marr asked after reviewing the latest complaints and proposals. Gaisaana-la shifted in her chair and her large ears folded back, perhaps in embarrassment.

"Madam Marfolia, you should know we are receiving similar requests from the human citizen's advisory board in Sookagrad."

"The humans?"

"The truth is that, after all the violence following the coup, many of the humans only feel safe living among other humans. They can defend themselves if they are together. That is a lesson they learned from the fighting."

Marr looked at the planning diagrams, with the overlay of the old neighborhoods superimposed, and she felt light-headed with the realization of where they had ended up.

"Oh my God," she said softly. "We're just building another ghetto, aren’t we? A lovely pastel foamstone ghetto, complete with its own green space suitable for mass graves."

More mass graves. The Cottohazz had discovered several large graves holding human remains—hundreds of corpses—after the coup had been suppressed. Those had been turned into memorials. Were her engineers now surveying the sites of the next memorials?

"Madam?" Gaisaana-la asked.

Alex began crying. It was time for his afternoon feeding but for a moment Marr felt disoriented, unsure where she was and what to do next.

"Madam Marfoglia, are you all right?" Gaisaana-la asked, concern in her voice.

Marr passed her hand over her face and nodded.

"Yes, I'm fine. I just . . . I just need to feed Alex. Would you excuse me, please?"

Gaisaana-la left. Marr rose and crossed to Alex's crib and picked him up. She held him close for a moment, and then unbuttoned her blouse to feed him.

"Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Naradnyo-Marfoglio, what is to become of you, my little man?" she whispered, and she felt tears on her cheek. "Did you save my life just to end up in a mass grave yourself?"

*****

Sasha met her on the east lawn, beside the running track, and they walked together toward the tree line, but only because they had to walk somewhere, This was a walk with a destination, but not a geographical one.

"How's your day going?" he asked as they walked.

"I've had better," she answered.

Sasha nodded. "Kinda figured. Aurora get under your skin again?"

"More than that."

Sasha glanced at her, his eyebrows ticking up in interest, but he said nothing. After a few more steps she began telling him everything: The original nugget of information about a Varoki cruiser having jettisoned its jump drive, Marr's discovery of the record, the dislocation of the recovery effort by ongoing hostilities, Gapa's confirmation that sole responsibility for recovery rested with STTS.

When she finished, they walked on for a dozen steps before Sasha spoke.

"She really got her hooks in you this time, didn't' she?"

"She didn’t tell you any of this?"

"Nah, she knows not to bother. I've got professional responsibilities which preclude playing that game."

Marr felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment, or perhaps shame. She had responsibilities, too. What was she thinking? Beside her, Sasha must have sensed her feelings.

"See, my professional responsibilities are simple: keep you and Tweezaa alive. Your professional responsibilities are a lot more complicated. Mine deal with protecting you two in the present; yours deal with protecting Tweezaa's future. The thing is, Tweezaa's already decided the sort of future she wants, and it ain't that," he said, pointing back toward the camouflaged surface-to-air missile launchers.

"People say we brainwashed her," Marr said.

"Yeah, bullshit. She's her father Sarro's daughter when it comes to politics, and I think from what The'On says, she's her mother's daughter when it comes to heart."

The'On, short for The Honorable, was Sasha's nickname for Gapa. No one else called him that.

Well, actually Tweezaa still sometimes called him BotiOn—roughly Uncle The'On—when she wanted to coax a special favor from him. She had begun calling him that years before, back on K'tok where they had first met.

"So the thing is," Sasha went on, "if I think something's dangerous, it's out. If you see something that's dangerous, well, your job's the future, and the future is dangerous. Any of the roads we take may end up killing us. What made you take the hook this time?"

"Alex," Marr whispered. "What sort of future does he have? We live here, pampered and protected, but that's today. What about tomorrow? What about when Tweezaa is old enough to take control of her own life?"

"If we want it, we'll always have a home with her," Sasha said. "We're family."

"I know that. But is that the future we want for Alex? To grow up the protected, idle friend of a Varoki heiress? And as you said, Tweezaa doesn’t want to be an heiress. She already has me putting as much as I can into the charitable foundation—as much as I can get away with without the Guardian Court replacing me with someone who'll do a better job protecting her net worth. When we're gone, you and I, what sort of world will we leave behind for Alex?"

Sasha smiled and put his arm around her shoulder as they walked.

"And for Tweezaa," he said. "It'll be her world, too. So, what do you need me to do?"

Marr sighed and for the first time since Aurora had commed her early this morning, she felt some of the tension ease out of her.

"Well, this is the first chance anyone other than a Varoki has ever had to actually look inside a jump drive and see how it works. I'm not sure if they'll be able to reverse engineer it, but it's the only chance we have to get out from under the jump drive monopoly. For that to happen, we need two things: humans to know about that drifting jump drive module and Varoki to forget about it.

"Aurora is taking care of the first part. She apparently has a girlfriend in Ukrainian naval intelligence, who has a backdoor contact to United States naval intelligence. They're the lead service in the Outworld Coalition, the human alliance fighting in the K'tok system."

"Okay," Sasha said, "so that leaves making the Varoki forget. How do we do that?"

"It's simple, but very difficult," Marr said. "The STTS core records on stressed assets contain the current estimates of future value. As long as there is a non-zero value assigned to the drive, it will be automatically tracked and eventually recovered or disposed of. But if we can alter the base estimate of value down to zero, it drops out of the tracking queue and nobody cares anymore." She paused and took a breath before continuing.

"What we need is someone at STTS with access to the e-Synaptic core memory, preferably in the asset appraisal department, to reset the estimated value to zero. Failing that, we need someone on the outside who can get through their security system remotely and make the change."

"And without triggering any data alarms," Sasha added with a grimace.

"Exactly. I know you've been assembling our security team very carefully these last two years. Everyone in it was handpicked by you. What connections do they have to any of the human resistance groups?"

"None," Sasha said.

Marr stopped walking and stared at him. "Don't joke about this."

"I'm not. I told you, I deal with today, not tomorrow. The last thing I want is some closet revolutionary on your security detail. CSJ finds him and turns him and then we've got a government mole in the organization. That or the rebel decides to do something crazy on our dime."

"Like this," Marr said.

"Yeah, exactly like this. Because if we're going to do something crazy, and I think we are about to, we need to be the ones pulling the trigger, not some loose cannon."

"But . . . if we don't have a contact to any sort of resistance group, what do we do?" she said.

"Aw, most of the resistance groups I've seen were pretty amateurish. Hell, remember Rakanka Highstation? Couldn’t find their ass with both hands. We're better off steering clear of that clown show."

Marr put her arm around his waist and they stated walking again. "My husband the philosopher."

"That's a polite word for what I am."

"A very, very polite word," Marr said, laughing. "So if not the resistance, who? Do we have any other options?"

"You want into a Varoki organization, you talk to Varoki," he said. "You remember that shadow brotherhood we ran into back on K'tok? They called themselves End of Empty Dreams?"

"Takh Pashaada-ak," she said, the memory returning instantly.

"Yeah, whatever. They been in contact with me for the last year. They're still dedicated to Sarro e-Traak's dream of the future, and especially committed to Tweezaa's survival. They been a big help in that department a couple of times. The important thing is, they have infiltrated and absolutely infested the STTS corporate live infrastructure. I think they may have started there. They keep saying they want to help with 'The New Dream,' as they call it. Okay, I say let's give them their shot.

"But before we do this, I want you to understand something, Marr. The odds are we aren’t going to win this fight. The odds are, if it gets won, it'll be by somebody else, and we probably won't even be alive to see it. The odds are a lot of people are going to try and lose before somebody wins, and there's no guarantee even that will ever happen. Do you understand all that?"

They walked for a dozen steps before she answered, her voice quiet.

"I do. I was just remembering . . . something you told me back before we were married. I'd forgotten it until now. You said, we are what we choose.

"My husband, the philosopher."

* * *

This story is set in the world of the novel Ship of Destiny, the March 2020 entry in Frank Chadwick’s Cottohazz series. Frank Chadwick is the New York Times number one best-selling nonfiction author of over two hundred books, articles, and columns on military history and military affairs, as well as over one hundred military and science fiction board and role-playing games. His game Space: 1889 was the first Steampunk game and remains a cult favorite. His other game writing credits include legendary fantasy game En Garde!, groundbreaking SF role playing game Traveller: The New Era, and many others. Chadwick’s SF novels include Cottohazz series novels Come the Revolution, How Dark the World Becomes, Chain of Command, and Ship of Destiny, as well as steampunk thriller The Forever Engine, all from Baen Books.

The Policeman’s Daughter

Wil McCarthy

1.

Bourbon, Interrupted

The courier didn't come bearing packages, or letters marked Carmine Strange Douglas, esq., Adjudicant, Juris Doctor and Attorney at Law. He didn't need to. Instead, he came barreling down the hallway like a team of horses, shouting "Door!" at the wall of my office. When a rectangle of frosted glass appeared and swung inward, he jumped inside.

"Carmine. I have something for you," he panted.

"Did you run all the way over here?" I asked him. "There are quicker ways—"

But the courier didn't answer. Instead, he approached the fax machine—a vertical plate of gray material, vaguely shimmery in the wellstone light of my office—and said, "Reconverge." Then he threw himself at the plate and vanished with a faint blue sizzle.

Reconverge, hell. I'd sent two couriers out to question potential witnesses in the Szymanski divorce, and one had self-destructed rather than share his waste of time with me. The other, apparently, had come back with something both critical and hard to explain. Go figure.

Myself, I'd just finished researching the details on the case, poring over written documents and public records, mental notes and fax traces in an effort to figure out who, if anyone, had promised Albert the cabana boy permanent residence on that tiny estate. Certainly he'd made the claim in public several times, within the hearing of one or both Szymanskis, and neither had corrected him.

This by itself carried a certain legal weight, even if the original claim was baseless, so if the Szymanskis sold the property—and it looked like they were going to have to—Albert's claim might have to be bought out at his own named price, or sold along with the property as an easement in perpetuity. And in a world without death, perpetuity could be a long damned time! Oh, what a jolly old mess.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon, late enough to kill brain cells with a clear conscience, and I'd just cracked the seal on an opensource bourbon of excellent pedigree. Damn. Sitting open to the atmosphere would not improve it. Still, the courier's news sounded important in a pay-the-mortgage kind of way, and like most decent bourbons this cost almost nothing to print. And when you're immorbid, baby, there's always tomorrow.

Sighing, I got up from my desk, from my too-comfortable chair, and strode over to the fax's print plate. "Confirming reconvergence, all parameters normal." Then I followed the courier through.

Stepping into a fax machine is like falling face-first into a swimming pool. The sensation isn't cold, or liquid, or electric, but it's just as distinct. There is, of course, no sensation of being inside the fax machine, since the part of you that passes through the print plate is immediately whisked apart into component atoms. Technically speaking, there should be no consciousness at all as the head disappears, as the body is destroyed and rebuilt, sometimes in combination with other stored images. But consciousness is a funny thing, an illusion that struggles to preserve itself against any insult. The courier and I stepped out of the plate only a moment after I'd stepped into it. Facing into the room, now, not out of it.

The courier was, of course, myself. We were one and the same, briefly split and now rejoined in that seamless ball of wonderfulness that was Carmine Strange Douglas. Like any good investigative counsel, I did this five or six times a day. Hell, if not for plurality laws—three thousand copy-hours per month, rigidly enforced by the fax network itself—I'd do it more than that.

Anyway, now that I was one person again I knew details of my—of the courier's—meeting with Lillia Blair, and I knew all the details of my morning and afternoon research. Reconvergence: the collapsing of two waveforms into one. Like any scattered thoughts the pieces took a few seconds to come together in my mind, but when they did, the legal strategy was clear.

"Call Juniper," I said to the wall.

The wall considered this for a moment before answering, "I assume you mean Juniper Tall Szymanski."

I glared at the wall without answering, irritated because I'd already called June Szymanski twice this week, and the only other Juniper I knew—Juniper Pong—I hadn't spoken to in months. Taking the hint, the wall patched the message through, and created a hollie window beside the open doorway.

For two seconds it displayed nothing but gray; that deep, foggy, three-dimensional gray that some people—myself included—use for a null screen. But then, presently, June Szymanski's face appeared in the hollie, and behind it her living room. She might as well be standing right outside my office. She might as well be solid, physical, here. I've had some practice in distinguishing real windows from hollies, but it takes a microscope and some patience.

"Hi," June said, looking both anxious and pleased to hear from me. "What've you got?"

People are always glad to hear from Carmine while their case is unresolved, and especially when the strategy hadn't been figured out yet. At times like these, I'm everybody's best friend. If the issue came to trial, I figured June and I would be friends for another week, week and a half. But in light of what I'd just figured out, a trial seemed rather unlikely.

"According to Lillia," I said, "Albert's exact words were 'I can stay until I decide to leave.'"

"So?" she asked, absorbing that without really getting it.

"So, that's a very different thing from 'I can stay forever,' or even 'I can stay as long as I want.' Because 'decide to leave' is a distinct event in time and space. It can be measured, logged, and read into the court records. And we can make a case—a strong one—that simply setting foot outside that cabana will bring the implied contract to an end."

"Huh. Meaning what? I can evict him?"

Can anyone evict anyone these days? "No," I told her. "Not now, and not without a lot of work. But you can inform him that leaving the poolhouse is grounds for eviction."

Juniper's face relaxed. "Oh, my God. Thank you so much. I do want to be civil about this, but I can't have that . . . I can't face this . . . well, this makes everything a lot easier. You're a genius, Carmine."

And that was true. I was a genius, I am, but so are all the other lawyers in town. These days it's impossible practice law—to practice much of anything—if you aren't unimaginably good at it. Because if you're not, someone who is will simply print an extra copy of him- or herself, and take over another chunk of your market.

False modesty is bad for business; I'm not ashamed to say I aced my bar exam, went to the best schools and did well in them. I reckon I'd make a good generalist, not only in the practice of law but in a range of other fields. I was 100 years old, immorbid, and absorbed knowledge voraciously.

But even that wasn't enough to hold a job in Denver anymore. You had to be generalist and a specialist. You had to be broad and brilliant, but lensed down to a unique pinpoint. You had to get your name associated with some particular little quirk or gimmick of the business so that people, when they ran afoul of it, would know whom to call. Even 'interpersonal disputes' cut too broad a swath for a viable legal practice. And anyway it was boring: the same disputes over and over again, with only the names and faces changing. And anymore the faces—sculpted by faxware to beauty and perfection—weren't so different either.

But I've always had a flair for the dramatic and a nose for the bizarre. My directory ad said it all: "If you've been wronged, call a lawyer. If you've been stranged, call Carmine Strange Douglas."

"This could still turn ugly," I warned June. "That's a wellstone cabana, right? Fully programmable, no restrictions? And he's got his own fax machine in there. Creme brulee and ostritch bisque, anytime he likes. If he decides to make a siege of it, he could hold out for a long time."

"Can't we just shut off the electricity?"

"Ahem! No. And even if you could, he's got the right to generate his own. Wind, sun, and rain—the Free Three, as they say. Albert has taken sides, Mrs. Szymanski. Specifically he's taken your husband's, and he's not going to vacate just because you ask him nicely. He wants this to be difficult.

"I'll write a threatening letter if you want, give him something to think about, but my advice to you as a friend is to talk things over with your husband. It's all right to get bored with each other—if we're going to live forever, it's almost inevitable. But somebody's got make a gesture, here. This is no way for two people to behave, who ever loved each other."

At this, Juniper Szymanski's face closed down. "You don't know anything about it, Carmine. Beyond the bare facts. I'm guessing it's a long time since you've been hurt."

And then she cut the connection, and her hollie window winked out.

What a small-minded thing for her to say! I'd been hurt plenty, and bad. In the broken-heart shuffle that began the moment people stopped dying, everyone got hurt. Or maybe they always had, and always would. This was just one of those facts of life, which you could put out of mind if you didn't happen to be an interpersonal lawyer. Divorces were far and away the worst part of the job, and if I didn't get the strange ones—the ones snarled hopelessly in unique legal challenges—I don't know what I would've done. Soldiered on, probably; an eternity of less-than-happy labors.

"Close door," I said to the wall, and it obliged me by swinging shut that rectangle of white frosted glass and, with a slight crackle of programmable matter, merging it back with my yellow marble decor again.

Too late, I realized there was someone out there in the corridor. There came a polite rapping on the wall outside, and a muffled voice murmuring, "Door. Door."

With a whispered command, I could make the wall perfectly soundproof. I even did it sometimes, but only when I was really busy and wanted the world to go away. Generally, I liked to feel I was part of the world.

Anyway the office would, of course, not obey the commands of a stranger, so I said, "Door." And like some crayon rubbing on a bas relief, the door magically reappeared, then clicked and swung open with a phony creak of phony hinges. A man stood on the other side with his hat pulled down and his shoulders hunched, glancing furtively to his left and then his right. He stepped inside, then quite rudely pushed the door until it swung closed again, engaging with a click of imaginary latches. "Carmine Douglas," the stranger said, "I hear you solve people problems."

"I help people with problems," I answered guardedly.

"That's fine," the man said. "That's close enough. It's good to see you, Carmine. You're looking well."

The lighting in my office—yellow spotlights and venetian-blinded daylight—created pools of atmospheric shadow, and the man had gravitated into one of these, denying me a clear view. But suddenly there was something very familiar about his face, his voice, the way he moved. "Double apparent brightness," I told the room, though I hated it the way that washed things out. "And whiten it up a bit. Kill these shadows."

The windows and ceiling did as I commanded, and there, plain as day, like a ghost from the past, was the face of Theodore Great Kaffner, my old roommate from my last three years at North Am U. He hadn't aged a bit, which shouldn't surprise me at all, since I'd never known anyone who did. But still, the sight of my old friend was a shock, a discontinuity. How many decades did that image leap across?

"Theddy?"

"Hey, Carbo. It's been a long time."

"You look terrible," I said, because that was true as well. "What sort of problem are you having?"

Theddy seemed to cringe at the question. He pointed to the windows on the office's other wall. "Can we darken those? D'you have some sort of privacy mode, here? A really strong one?"

I did, though I rarely used it. Speaking the commands, I watched my prized yellow marble and peach plaster melt away, turn cold. Within moments the whole room—floor and walls and ceiling alike—was seamless, featureless gray steel, and would obey only my commands, and only from within.

"All right?" I asked, waving my hands at the new decor.

"No," Theddy said. "Conductive surfaces block EMI, but lend themselves to transmissive tampering. We need an insulating layer on top."

Did we, now? How interesting. "Glass?"

"Glass will do."

I gave the appropriate commands, then gave my old friend an annoyed "Well?" sort of look.

And when Theddy shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, I advised him, "Nothing you say will leave this office, or be recorded in anything but my own brain, and yours. But be advised, with a proper warrant the court can search those. They can also take this room apart electron by electron, recording the quantum traces. Nothing is ever truly secret."

"It isn't secrecy I'm concern about," Theddy said, eyeing the walls warily, "it's security. Someone very clever is trying to kill me."

Naturally this statement brought me up short, because it was virtually impossible to kill a person in the Queendom of Sol. Oh sure, you could kill their body, could destroy whatever memory they'd built up since the last time they stepped through a fax machine, or stored their atomically perfect image in an archive somewhere. But the archives themselves were unassailable. People had died in the chaos of the Fall, eighty years before, and since that time a lot of precautions had been put in place. A lot of precautions.

Fearing some sort of transient mental illness in Theddy—a delusional paranoia?—I chose my next words carefully. "Thed, that sounds like a matter for the police. If what you say is true, they can have a team on it before you draw your next breath. We can make the call from here."

But Theddy was shaking his head. "I'm not an idiot, Carbo. This isn't a criminal matter. It's civil, or maybe administrative, or something which if I knew what it was, I wouldn't need you."

"Slow down, Theddy," I tried. "You're stringing words together, but you're not making sense. Administrative murder? What's that? Who exactly is trying to kill you?"

And here, Theddy fixed his old roommate with a level, half-panicked gaze. "I am. And I'm doing a good job of it, too."

2.

Xerography, Complicated

Generally speaking, keeping old copies of yourself was like keeping anything else. Found objects, hobby collections, treasured letters or artifacts from childhood—whatever. You could only fit so many in a shelf or cabinet, so at some point you boxed them up and stuck them in the attic, or fed them into the fax to be stored as data. And once that happened, chances were you wouldn't see those things again, nor ever miss them.

Archive copies were exactly the same way: there were people who kept only one, the latest and greatest incarnation of their perfect selves. There were even those who, for financial or aesthetic reasons, stored only the differences between themselves and some idealized manikin of human perfection.

But with either strategy it was possible to make a mistake, to internalize and record some experience which weakened or cheapened or traumatized the soul. And you couldn't always know that this had happened, and if you'd overwritten your earlier backups then you were pretty much stuck with the results for eternity. You could also, in the same way, lose track of what you were supposed to look like, lose track of your God-given body which had been really good at baseball or algebra, which had just felt right somehow. Most people had a bit of this disconnection in their lives—it was pain of an ordinary sort—and admittedly the real horror stories were rare.

But they happened, and in fact I'd encountered enough victims in my practice—their circumstances ranging from tragic to absurd—that for more than half my life I'd been following the costlier and more restrictive change control regimen favored by the various mental health councils. This involved archiving my entire self every five to ten years, and storing each copy, with annotations, alongside the previous ones in a facility that was guaranteed to remain uncorrupted by natural forces for a minimum of ten million years. Effective infinity, in other words, because even if I somehow lived that long, I reasoned that I'd be unlikely to care what I'd thought or felt or looked like as a mere centenarian.

Theddy had apparently followed a similar practice, though in some dangerous and backward-looking way. "Being unhappy with your life doesn't mean you necessarily want to scrap the whole decade and start over. We all have our troubles. I like the wisdom I've accumulated, but along the way I seem to have lost the spirit I had as a younger man. Some of it, enough of it. And shouldn't we, as immorbid beings, have both? I guess I was mixing and matching."

"You guess?"

"Listen, I was attending a matter programming conference on Mars. The rest of me were all back home, taking care of personal and professional minutia. Or so I presume. So I infer from the circumstances, as an outsider. As for what I was thinking, what exactly I was doing, I can only speculate."

I thought that over. People had different viewpoints on plurality; some even claimed that every copy of them had its own unique soul. Fortunately, the law rarely ruled in their favor with a legal twinning, or the world would quickly overpopulate with nearly identical people. Xeripollution: the arrogant assumption that the world needed more and more and more of your precious, perfect self. And that question had been settled—with fire and blood—in the Dallas of the Late Modern era, and I doubted very much whether society wanted to repeat the experiment.

I personally liked to keep my copies close together in both time and space. I didn't send myself on vacation while the rest of me worked. I didn't cover multiple long-term assignments in parallel, and then reconverge afterward. It just gets confusing, when the experiences of your copies have diverged that much. My sense of self was, I suppose, a small thing: capable of encompassing only a handful of very similar instantiations. But while Theddy Kaffner had his fair share of faults, timidity was not among them.

Nor, tellingly, was malice. The Theddy of old was an irate fellow, but never a hurtful one. If he pushed someone down the stairs every now and then, he did it in the spirit of horseplay, knowing that no permanent harm could possibly result. Broken bones were just a fax plate away from their old glory, right? And Theddy, the programmer, was far more likely to just hack your shirt's wellcloth with a smear of ink or something, or throw himself down the stairs for a laugh. He'd been full of rages and frustrations, but he'd channeled them into useful hobbies, which included running and acting and the building of wooden models. The idea of his committing a murder, or even threatening one was . . . strange.

"What do you mean by mixing and matching?"

Theddy's stressed-up expression relaxed for a moment, into a smile as wistful as I had lately seen. "You're the food freak, Carbo. You know how it is: a pinch of this, a dash of that . . . a soupcon of my angry young self, to spice up my flavor a bit. I suppose I overdid it. Angry Young Theddy was a force to be reckoned with; did even I, myself, underestimate him? Did ten percent of him overwhelm ninety percent of the canonical me? Or maybe it just felt good. Maybe I kept turning the knob, adding more and more of him until it was too late."

I spread my hands, unsure what to say. "More than anything, Thed, this sounds like a communication problem. Have you tried talking to yourself?"

"Yeah, briefly," Theddy said, the stress snapping back down over his features like a new matter program. "Until I kidnapped myself, with a force of three Theddies. These guys, who said they were me, they lifted me right off the floor. They were going to throw me through the print plate of my own goddamn fax machine in my own goddamn living room. Can you imagine? 'You're the last one,' they said, 'and it's one too many.' The way they were laughing, the way they were—I don't know, handling me. It went beyond contempt, Carbo. This was hatred. 'How could I turn into a fuck like you?' That was what Angry Young Theddy said to me.

"But he underestimated the power of fear. They meant to kill me, erase me—there was no question about that. They weren't fighting for their lives, and I was, so in the end they couldn't hold me. I felt their bones breaking. I felt an eyeball pop. As long as I live, I never want to feel a thing like that."

Okay, yeah, this was complicated. If there was a right place for Theddy to come to with this problem, my office was probably it. But where to begin?

"I'll need a full power of attorney," I said for starters, "and since you appear to have valid concerns for your physical safety, it may be best to store you here, in my office fax, under a seal of attorney-client privilege. The state can open that—the state can open anything—but you can't. The pattern that comprises you right now, right here, will be preserved no matter what Angry Young Theddy thinks or does."

"He's cleverer than you suppose," Theddy warned.

But I just laughed. "Nobody's cleverer than I suppose."

There was a bit more to it than that, but Theddy wanted help, and wasn't in a mood to argue. His agreement was not difficult to secure, and neither, as a result, was his physical person. It didn't take three guys to push him through the plate, and truthfully, I wasn't sure three guys could have stopped him if they'd been here to try. It was a safer place, and he wanted in.

3.

A Pedestrian Encounter

When you traveled by fax machine—and who didn't?—no place in the solar system was more than a few hours away, and if you were the one being transmitted, not the one waiting around at the other end, then from your point of view the journey was instantaneous. With a handful of steps, I could have found myself on the landing outside any home or apartment, anywhere. It was a funny thing, though: Theddy had lived less than a mile from my office for almost twenty years. How strange, that we should live so close for so long without realizing it! But living forever can be like that: it's easy to put things off, to assign them to the infinite and amorphous future. Even important things; even close friends.

Anyway, Denver was a historical preservation zone where walking was actively encouraged. In the eight square kilometers of the downtown district, faxing was actually illegal for anything but official business or the direst emergencies, and the city was adorned for tens of kilometers all around with roads and sidewalks, trails and quaint little bridges arching across the streams and rivers. This classic look was a large part of the city's appeal, and I wasn't about to abuse it by teleporting six blocks. The walk might take me twenty minutes, and might represent more exercise than most people got in a year, but my body, rendered eternally youthful by the fax filters, was surely up to the job. Whose wasn't? People who don't like walking, who don't like mountain views and fresh air and strangers on the street, well . . . they should live someplace else. Denver was not made for indoor souls.

Still, once outside I felt a twinge of regret for my decision, as the November afternoon rolled over me with shocking, unseasonable heat. "Mild winter" didn't begin to describe the weather we were having that year, but I kept forgetting. I kept dressing for wind and fog and the possibility of snow. My jacket did its best to fight off the heat (blasting it behind me in a stream of warm air), but in the shade of downtown's towers it had no ready power source, so there wasn't a lot it could actually do.

There's an irony for you: on a hot day it's cooler in the sun than the shade! But the shirt underneath was having a hard time as well, and I couldn't remove the jacket without revealing the sweat stains it was failing to disperse from under my arms. Life can be so unfair.

Anyway, Theddy's case was heavy on my mind, and June Szymanski's still hadn't left it, and the two were filling up very different pieces of my brain. So I was deeper than usual in thought, and found the bustle and jangle of the crowds annoying. Some street wisdom I heard that day:

"Hollywood is a plant, Gabriel. The city, they were calling it that way before they started making hollies there."

"There's nothing noble about boredom, aye? Are there people you could be helping? Societies you could enrich? Don't you give me that look, you vegetable."

"Oh, of course you have the right to design a new life form. Everyone does. But for criminy's sake, John, that doesn't mean you have the right to instantiate it in the real world."

Yeah. Real pearls, those. The streets of this city had always been crowded, or nearly always, but even I, a mere centenarian, could remember a time when the crowds had all had someplace to go, some purpose in their steps. As often as not it was someplace they were forced to go, to stave off economic ruin in a scarcity-based economy, but still. The city's loitering laws had never been repealed, and ought at least occasionally to be enforced.

With its bright colors and piled-high fashions, its buskers and mimes, its living sculptures "dancing to the din of a dozen decades," the city resembled a carnival that day as much as a center of business or residence or learning. And for some reason I found this deeply irritating.

On the other hand, it wasn't like anyone was holding a sword to my neck, forcing me to interact, to be here at all. I was a champion of strangeness, and these, for better or worse, were my people. And anyway it was a short walk before I found myself in front of Theddy's apartment building, a retro-opensource brownstone in the twenty-second-century style.

"How may I help you, sir?" The building asked, in what was surely its politest voice.

"I'm here to see Theddy Kaffner."

"I'm afraid Mr. Kaffner isn't in at the moment," the building clucked, with quite a good semblance of regret.

"It's a serious matter," I told the building. "A legal matter, I'm afraid. If you have a buffer copy of Mr. Kaffner on hand, and I imagine you do, then I must request you print him and allow me to speak with him at once."

The building's intelligence didn't like that one bit, and sounded cross. "On what grounds? You're not a police officer." (And this was true, although I knew a lot of police, and had once loved a policeman's daughter.) "Nor do you bear the carrier signal of a government official. By studying your face I can make a guess as to your identity, but I would prefer that you simply explain yourself."

Fair enough. "My name is Carmine Strange Douglas. Mr. Kaffner's attorney. The rest I'll say to him, if you don't mind."

"I have no record of this association," the house said skeptically, "although your face and pheromone signature match that name, and the social network archives indicate you have fraternized with Mr. Kaffner in the past. Do you have any proof that this arrangement exists?"

I held up a bonded, self-notarizing copy of the power of attorney, and the building opened instantly, curling aside a broad doorway of gold and pearl and other substances I couldn't identify. "Please come in, sir, and excuse my rudeness in detaining you. One can't be too careful these days, and in any case my security settings are at legal maximum."

"No offense taken," I assured it, since the thing was only doing its job, following its program, and had no actual feelings. Or so the law declared. Inside, among furnishings assembled from white puffy pillow-cubes, I found Theddy in deep conference with the wall.

Presumably, he was receiving a briefing on this turn of events—my arrival and such—since from his own perspective he had just moments before stepped through the fax machine on his way to somewhere quite different. This was a buffer copy, probably not more than a few hours old, and he had no way of knowing why I was here.

When Theddy saw me, he looked up with an expression of wonder. "Carbo? My God, man, what're you doing here? It's great to see you! But when exactly did you become my lawyer?"

"About half an hour ago," I said, extending a warm handshake. "There's a copy of you in my office who claims he was assaulted. By you, or rather, by several instances of you. I was hoping you could shed some light on the subject."

Theddy's hand withdrew from mine, and his face grew cautious, and right away I could see there was something different about him. He was less like the Theddy in my office, and more like the one I'd remember if I really thought back. The angry prankster. A composite sketch of New Theddy would be all broad lines and shallow curves, but while Young Theddy looked the same, he wore it differently. Here was a fellow of edges and points and sharp, staccato movements.

"There was an altercation," Theddy admitted, "but he started it. All I did was defend myself."

"Against what?"

Theddy's answering look was not quite a sneer. "That copy must have got some bad poison along the way, Carbo. He was irrational, and slow. It would have taken a lot of patience to get any sense out of him, and who's got the time?"

Well, that sounded believable enough.

"Did you try to push him into the fax?"

"It was the only way I could think of to, you know, figure out what his problem was. Merge a little bit of him with a lot of myself, and see what was on his mind."

I'd never been one to beat around the bush, so I came right out with it: "Theddy, have you been mingling your image with archive copies of yourself? Would a personality scan reveal sudden, dramatic changes in your character?"

"Yes," Theddy said, as if it were the most normal thing the world.

"Hmm. Well, listen, this allegedly deviant copy of yourself is the contemporary version. It's who all his friends and neighbors and colleagues are used to seeing. If he were in fact stored in your personal fax machine, per your plans, would you ever print him out again?"

"Hell no," Theddy answered, with that same matter-of-fact, self-righteous conviction. As if people did that sort of thing every day. Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy. Some dangerous cocktail of thoughts and experiences had come together in this copy's brain. Theddy—the real Theddy—was right to be afraid: this man was not only capable of self-murder, but felt it was, in some way, his legal right. And I wondered: where was the case law to prove otherwise?

And to think I'd thought the Szymanski divorce was a mess! "What we have here," I said cautiously, "is a case of disputed identity. Two divergent copies of the same individual, laying claim to editorial rights over each other. That being the case, I personally have a conflict of interest, and must make no further contact with you, except if necessary in court. If you intend to prosecute your rights in this matter—and I find it difficult to imagine otherwise—you'll need to retain your own counsel. I cannot advise you in this."

Theddy scowled. "Oh you can't, can't you? Maybe the years have eroded your memory, dear friend, but you and I have an agreement which predates any contract you may have with . . . that other bloke. That failed experiment. That shriveled old creature who does not deserve to wear Theddy Kaffner's skin."

Though it might be a breach of ethics, I took the bait. "What agreement is that?"

"I'll find it."

Theddy stepped to the wall and began whispering to it. A hollie window appeared there, displaying lists of text with little thumbnail images beside them. Theddy poked at the display several times, muttering, and finally said, "Ha! Found it."

A beer-stained cocktail napkin tumbled out of the fax machine, into Theddy's waiting hands. He scanned it briefly, nodding, then handed it to me. It said, in appallingly familiar handwriting,

I, Carmine Douglas, through the power vested in me by the state of inebriation, do solemnly swear that I will never lose my faith or spirit, and that I will look out for my friend Theddy come what may, for all eternity and throughout the universe.

It was signed and even—though the hologram was hard to make out—notarized.

"You can't be serious," I said, waving the thing as if to dry it. "This isn't legally binding." But even as the words were out of my mouth, I realized it might not be so. There were times in the historical past when what was legal and what was right were two different things, when valid arguments could be crafted to excuse almost anything, but the Queendom of Sol took a dim view indeed of broken promises. Theddy saw it in my face, too; he was a hard man to hide things from. I sighed and asked, "What do you want? What does it take to make this thing go away?"

Theddy sneered in youthful triumph. "If you want to go legal on me, old friend, I can only respond in kind. I do want my own counsel, as promised to me in this old contract. I want you. Not this stuffy alien creature you've become, but the young, angry, lovesick Carbo I went to school with. Well, I suppose you'd have to add a couple of years to that, or he wouldn't be a lawyer yet, but you see what I mean. I want my old roommate to defend me."

With a sinking feeling I realized that might just stick. Theddy might just have a point which the law, in its finite wisdom and limited experience, had never yet addressed. The right of archive copies to be revived? To seek the company of their peers? To repudiate their future lives?

"Call my office," I said, sighing uneasily. "I'll authorize it to set something up. Not because I have to—and certainly not because I want to—but because you've raised an interesting point, and it needs to be properly explored. Even a younger me, a green me fresh out of school, is better qualified than most attorneys to wrestle this particular alligator. In fact, if I didn't buy into it voluntarily, the court might well assign it. In which case they'd offer you a disposable copy of me, which would self-destruct once the dispute was resolved. And that, my friend, is an involuntary servitude I would not wish on my younger self, who was an innocent and charming lad."

All of which was true, insofar as it went. Unlike Theddy, and with a single and quite excusable exception, my own younger self could be trusted. So why, in my heart just then, did the prospect of unleashing him bring nothing but dread?

4.

Passions, Revived

Rummaging through the archives took a lot longer than I expected. The storage companies are happy to take your money to capture the backup, but when it comes time for the free restore they're a lot less helpful. Wading through the layers of bureaucracy and "technical assistance" proved so difficult and involved that in the end I had to print out a dedicated copy of my recent self, who spent several days working on the problem exclusively.

Of the fifteen images I'd stored at one point or another in my life, the best fit for young Theddy seemed to be a Carmine two years out of law school, working at a big firm in Milan and flush, for the first time in his short life, with the income and respectability of gainful employment.

Memories washed over me. Those had been good years, but turbulent ones, too. Money and power and youth were a potent combination, and bred the sort of arrogance that led to personal troubles. And if there was a god of Love—and Strife, for they were bound together as a single entity in Queendom mythology—then poor Eros had spent some busy seasons that year, looking after the torrid romance between myself and Pamela Red. Even now, more than seventy years after the fact, the memory brought a poignant flutter of excitement and pain. I'd had a number of lovers before her, and quite a bit more after—I'd even been married twice—but when I looked back over the conquests and treaties, surrenders and defeats of my immorbid love life, Pamela's shadow seemed to loom over all of it. She was the standard against which all others were measured.

This was of course no great novelty in the Queendom, where the phenomenon was common enough to have its own name: the guidepost affair. And rumor had it that if you lived long enough, if you loved well enough, your guidepost would fade, would be replaced, or even—strange thought—subsumed entirely by the one true love of your life, who would stay with you forever. A guidepost affair was, by definition, buried deep in your past—something that didn't or couldn't or wouldn't work out. Something painful. But ah, we still believed in a higher sort of love than that, else how could we face eternity?

Not that there wasn't other strife in that era, as well. Like any human being, the Carmine of that day had had a sackload of mundane troubles which to him seemed very serious and immediate, though today I could scarcely remember them. But I did my best to align myself with that mental space, in the hours and minutes—and finally the seconds—before Angry Young Carmine stepped out of the fax.

"Welcome," I said to myself, for I remembered this young man with great fondness and admiration. Angry Young Carmine, looking me up and down, recognized me at once, but the first thing he said was, "Hello, Carmine. You look . . . different. Considering the fact that I've just this second archived myself, for the benefit of my future self, I can only assume that some years have passed."

"Correct," I said, beaming at this lad's quick mind.

"Something has gone wrong, then. Ah, Carmine, have you been poisoned? Traumatized? Worn down or worn out with the passage of years?"

"There is a problem," I agreed with gentle amusement, "but not with me. It's Theddy."

"Theddy needs an archived copy of me? That sounds damned peculiar, and complicated. Brief me on the specifics, if you would."

And here I felt the first tingle of irritation, for I was clearly the senior partner in this endeavor, and this young man had no right to give me orders. But without noticing or without caring, Young Carmine pressed on: "I also need to orient myself. I'll need news highlights for each of the intervening years, and if you don't mind, a sampling of the clothing and music fashions as well. And the food."

"Ahem. Young man, you might find it helpful to let others get a word in now and then. The time capsules you describe are in the fax's buffer memory right now, awaiting your attention."

"Ah. What year is it, anyway?"

I told him, and watched his expression tense briefly and then relax.

"That's a long time, old man. I assume it's a short-term assignment you've woken me for?"

"It is."

Young Carmine's smile was pained. "Reconverging our experiences could be problematic when this is finished. You should probably check with a doctor, or maybe a quantum physicist, but I'm not sure consciousness can bridge a gap that large."

I adopted what I hoped was a look of patience. "My plan is to filter you in as a percentage, to reintegrate a tincture of you with my current self. Carefully, of course, but everything admirable about you will be preserved and magnified, and with luck our flaws will mask one another."

"Oh really. I see." Young Carmine's tone was skeptical, poised on the cusp of anger. "And what percentage, exactly, did you plan on granting me? Twenty-five percent?"

At this, I was afraid to answer truthfully, because the actual figure I had in mind was .25%, or possibly .5%. But to this living, breathing young man, that would sound like murder. I had the legal right to do exactly that, to print disposable copies of myself and then, you know, dispose of them. But I'd never done it when there were major life experiences at stake. Why would I? I wouldn't want to be the disposable copy whose memories died, and I wouldn't want to be the one who lived on without those memories, either. A no-win scenario.

But this was different, right? Everything important about Young Carmine was preserved in me. I was a superset of him, and in that sense his erasure would mean nothing, cost nothing, hurt nothing. Except from his point of view. And to enforce the right of erasure against his will . . . To enforce the right, I might have to print extra copies of my current self, and overpower Young Carmine, and hurl him forcibly into the fax. Or contact a lawyer of my own, and let the courts decide. And didn't that put Theddy's case in an interesting light?

Afterward, I was never sure what my younger self read in my face at that moment, but whatever it was, he answered with an obscene gesture and a barked command at the office wall, which, recognizing the voice of its owner, opened a door and let him out.

"Ah, hell," I said, following behind, trying to put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him. To reassure myself. But Young Carmine was having none of that, and in fact took the gesture as a hostile one. Which might not be too far from the truth. Young Me jerked his shoulder away, then ducked and ran down the hallway.

I said, "You're going to want—you'll need—hey!" But the lines of communication had broken down entirely, and the next comments I received from Young Carmine would, I realized, have a letterhead at the top. Damn. My body hadn't aged a day in all this time, and I supposed I could simply run after myself, tackle myself, fight it out physically and force myself to listen. But I'd be hard pressed to win against so equal an opponent, and if the concept of "youth" meant anything at all in this day and age, would it really be so equal?

What I actually did, like a useless old man, was race down the hallway and scream down the stairwell at myself: "You stay away from Pamela Red, do you hear me! You caused her enough trouble when you were . . . back when you were . . . " Real.

5.

The Daughter's Policeman

The next morning found me on the far side of the moon, in a scenic dome at the pit of Jules Verne crater, with the sharp-toothed hills of the crater lip rising up all around. Here it wasn't morning at all, but early evening by the Greenwich Mean shift clock and somewhere close to midnight by the actual position of the sun. Given the full moon in Denver last night—always a peak time for strangeness—it made sense that the moon's sulking farside, faced always away from Earth, should be bathed in darkness.

Any school child of the early Queendom knew that on that big, pre-terraformed moon, the sun rose and set every twenty-eight days. But unless you'd spent time on Luna yourself, it was hard to appreciate just how irrelevant the daylight really was. Aside from the anachronism of gravity tourism, Luna didn't really offer anything the rest of the Queendom particularly needed, and as a result the great dome cities at Tranquility and Grimaldi were money pits, gone to seed in a state of not-quite completion. The moon's million permanent residents were mostly scattered in small, economically depressed communities, and the great bulk of its housing was underground. You lived there because you loved it, basically. Because you'd bought into the romance of it: a wild frontier on Earth's very doorstep.

And on that frontier, for some historical reason I'd never bothered to learn, the clocks were set, planetwide and regardless of longitude, to British time. Not that it really mattered to me—the hour or the darkness. Such transitions—day to night, winter to summer to hard vacuum—were common to the point of dullness in a faxwise society. That's just the way things were.

In any case, Verne was a small town inhabited mainly by astronomers and small-time trelium prospectors, who had taste enough to keep the dome lights low and green. Night lights, so that the stars could shine down in all their glory through the near-invisible wellglass of the dome. I'd seen this place in the daytime once—on a sadly similar errand—and the dome had been frosted a translucent blue-white which didn't mimic an Earthly sky so much as pay homage to it. Good for the soul, I reckoned at the time. Better for the plants and animals than the searing unfiltered light of Sol herself.

Also tasteful was the way Verne's visitors were encouraged, through transit fee structures and hierarchical addressing, to enter through the fax ports in the park level immediately beneath the dome. It wasn't a big park as such things go, but its colored brick pathways folded back on themselves many times, with the view of grassy meadows blocked here and there by stands of dwarf bamboo and twisty, lunar-tall apple trees. So it felt bigger than it really was, and the walk from fax to elevator took a good three minutes. An actual elevator, yes; to get to any particular home, office or storefront in Verne you had to find the right color-coded shaft, and ride the elevator down to the appropriate subsurface level.

As a longtime resident of Denver—a city similarly trapped in the romantic past—I could only approve. Beauty was so much finer a thing than convenience! Even (or perhaps especially) when you were in a hurry.

Too bad it was guilt, not beauty, that brought me there that day. But hey, even that guilt, that shame and worry, could ultimately be blamed on beauty. On one particular beauty, in fact, which I had sought above all others. Nearly to my ruin, yes, and I might spend the rest of eternity shaking off the consequences, but in this sense I regretted nothing, and would do it all again if I could.

By blue starlight and the green glow of the dome's perimeter, I trod a path of yellow bricks in platinum-white mortar. My bootheels clopped and rang. I'd come here expecting to ask directions, from a wellstone pillar if not a live human, but I found to my surprise that my feet still knew the way. Through the gloom of an orchard and back out into starlight again, I came to a low pink cottage with the words GOVERNMENT AND UTILITIES carved into its lintel and glowing that same soft green, with modestly animated crests on either side to emphasize the point.

I entered the building, and found myself in a traditional lobby complete not only with elevators but with a human security guard seated behind a desk. This might seem laughable in an age where superweapons had nearly obliterated the sun, but the man's gray uniform—bearing the five-pointed star of the Verne Crater Sheriff's Office—was thicker than ordinary wellcloth, and lent him a formidable air. In time of trouble, the suit would no doubt extend to cover his face, his head, his hairy-knuckled hands, and the thing's capacitors and hypercomputers would be prepared to amplify his strength, to shoot all manner of energy beams from his fists, from his eyes, from the edges of any wound an attacker might somehow manage to inflict.

This, too, was nothing special—most cops dressed this way most of the time—and anyway a pair of gleaming, hulking Law Enforcers lurked robotically in the corners behind him, just in case anyone still had any thoughts about getting cute.

"Carmine Douglas, Attorney at Law," I said, although by now the guard must already know this. Like all professionals everywhere, he'd be unemployed if he weren't uncannily competent. "I'm here to see Waldo Red."

"Yeah?" The cop looked me over with a bored expression. "What for?"

"Personal business."

The guard thought that one over. "I don't have you on my visitors list. Is he expecting you?"

"No. Well, possibly." Depending on what Angry Young Carmine had or hadn't done, Waldo might well be drafting a warrant for my arrest. Or tying a hangman's noose. "But he knows me."

"So he does," the cop said, glancing down at some social network display on his desktop. He tapped the surface several times in quick succession, like a harp player working the strings. "He . . . will see you. But—whoa. According to my stats, there's a ninety percent chance of verbal confrontation and an eight percent chance of violence. On his part; you're down in the noise, an innocent victim of potential attack. My goodness. Do . . . you want an armed escort?"

"No," I said. "Thank you. I'm here to make peace."

"Huh. Well, go on ahead. Level nineteen, end of the hallway and turn right."

"Thanks."

The guard shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. "Hey, buddy? Uh, you don't have to answer this or anything, but, I mean . . . Deputy Waldo isn't exactly a thug. What does a guy have to do to burn him off like that?"

"Sleep with his daughter," I said, and turned for the elevator.

6.

The Law

The first thing Waldo said to me when I walked into his office was, "Hmmph. So now you're stalking me."

And there was a lot of evidence coded in this statement: it meant that Young Carmine had gone to see Pamela, and that the visit had been less than welcome. It meant that she'd called her father afterward, and that he considered the incident, at least in his heart, to be a criminal offense. Which was silly, because that old restraining order had expired forty years ago, and I had no history, either before or since, of criminally rude behavior. But then again, there was no telling what Young Carmine might've said. Or done. Truthfully, I had forgotten how forceful and intense I'd really been as a young man. And pointlessly so, for it had only gotten me in trouble.

I held up my hands in mock surrender. "Hi, Waldo. I'm sure you're angry—and not without reason!—but it's not what you think. There's an old, old copy of me running around."

Waldo studied me, thinking that one over. Whatever he'd expected me to say, that wasn't it. Waldo was seated on his desk, which had gone soft beneath him in response. His arms were crossed, and his single, heavy eyebrow was pulled down in an almost comical frown. In his harrumphy way he said, "Rogue or authorized?"

"A little of both," I answered, unsure what else to say about it.

Waldo digested that, and finally nodded. "Hmm. Humph. Yeah. One of those."

A bit of the tension went out of the room. The details must surely be unique, but Waldo had been a cop for a hundred years longer than I'd even been alive. He'd seen his share of weirdness, and understood that the law was gray. What cop didn't know that? The law was designed for assaults and robberies, angry neighbors fighting over the pruning of a tree or the disposition of its fruits. By definition, you couldn't legislate the unanticipated, and existing laws—sensible laws—sometimes yielded perverse or even contradictory results. Do we divide the child in two?

And in this age of plenty there just wasn't all that much thuggery. The sorts of things that had value anymore were not sorts of things you could steal at gunpoint, and anyway such obvious crimes were always solved, always punished. With enough decades behind them, even the most hardened criminals eventually got the message.

So what did that leave? Juvenile mischief, and the weirdness at the margins of the grown-up world. The need for cops and courtrooms would never go away.

"Why are you here?" Waldo asked with less hostility.

I tried on a half smile. "It seemed . . . more polite than going directly to Pamela. I figured he'd go and see her. I knew he would. He's an archive copy from when that . . . issue was relatively fresh."

"So why'd you print him?"

"Contractual obligation, I guess you'd say. I'll spare you the insipid details."

"Hmmph. Thanks. Are you going to get rid of him?"

I could only shrug. "I'm not sure I can, Waldo. He's defending another person's archive copy against exactly that procedure. Removing him would be a form of pre-trial tampering, and if his case prevails—which it very well might—then it's anyone's guess what my legal rights are. Pray for a wise judge."

Waldo didn't like that answer. "Really. How convenient. There's a little Carmine running around from the period of the restraining order—and believe me, you were a nitwit back then—and he's got all the rights of being you and none of the responsibilities of being himself. He can bug my daughter all he likes, unless I file an updated order against you. Which I guess I'll just have to do."

And that made me angry, because the revival of a seventy-year old restraining order would look bad on my record. It would hurt my image, hurt my business, hurt my pride. And for what? "You know, Waldo, your darling Pamela wasn't exactly an innocent in all this. If there were courts of law for faithless lovers . . . "

"You were a nitwit, and your friends were nitwits, and you made her sad. The only surprise is that it took her two years to realize the fact. And like a shit, you refused to crawl back under your block. You just couldn't leave it alone. You wanted to own her. You tried buy her like a doll."

At that, in a wildly uncharacteristic gesture, I slammed the wall sideways with my fist, hard. "I wanted nothing of the kind, Deputy. Even now, you refuse to acknowledge my point. It was simple enough for a small town cop and his daughter to understand, if they put their minds to it. For years I licked the wounds she inflicted so casually. For years. Like an old tree, I got whole again only by growing around the scar. Burying it inside me, surrounded it with strong, healthy tissue. But the defect itself is permanent."

"Love always is," Waldo lectured, as if to a child. "We all have our little scars. It doesn't give you any special rights. And just for your education, punk, you fix a tree by printing an undamaged copy. If that 'wound' of yours is so terrible, why do you keep it?"

"You've been in love, Waldo. You know why."

The old cop sighed and harrumphed. "I don't know where you crawled out from, pal, and I don't care, but understand: we keep the peace here in Jules Verne. You know how many arrests I've made this year? Six, and three of them were the same guy. You know how many times I've called the Constabulary in the past decade, to solve some capital crime of Queendom-wide importance? Zero."

"Congratulations."

Waldo answered with a mocking expression, and then a more seriously threatening one. "I may not have jurisdiction outside this crater, Mr. Douglas, but you've got five minutes to get your ass out of here before I throw it in jail. Don't let me catch you here again, ever."

And this was a strong statement indeed, because Waldo Red would never die, never grow old and retire. Never forgive a young man's trespasses.

Well, I had my own rights to worry about, and said so: "If you do that, or file an injunction of any kind, I'll sue for defamation. I'll make it stick, too."

And with that I stomped out, feeling in spite of everything that the visit had gone better than expected.

7.

Pamela, Read

Pamela herself, whom I visited next, surprised me by being a lot more understanding.

"Daddy called," she said by way of introduction. "I heard about your little . . . technical difficulties."

Her house was one of nine at the summit of Mt. Terror, on Antarctica's Ross Island overlooking both the volcano's active caldera and the Ross Sea coast, aglow in the lights of McMurdo City and, across the water, of Glacia and Victoria Land. It was nighttime here as well, in a place where night was winter, or in this case early spring. And Pamela's foyer, like many in cold climates, was poorly insulated on purpose, to discourage surprise visitors.

My wellcloth suit did the best it could, but it had been out of the sun for hours now, and its power reserves were getting low. It settled for swathing me in black velvet, lined with some crinkly, unbreathable superreflector that left my skin feeling hot and suffocated, even as my body heat bled away through my uncovered hands and head.

"You look cold," Pamela said, ushering me in through her open doorway. "You want some coffee? Soup?"

"Spiced almond chowder," I answered gratefully, following her inside. There was no such thing as a poorly furnished home in the Queendom of Sol, but there were copyrighted patterns available only to those with money, and there were expert decorators and geomancers who could customize a space to its owners with striking—and strikingly expensive—skill. And everyone had access to a fax machine, if not in their own houses and apartments then, by law, within forty paces of their door. But to fill a house with fax machines—I counted five in my first quick look around, including the one in the foyer—took resources. And the view, also not free, was spectacular.

"Looks like you're doing all right, here," I said, while she stepped up to her dining room fax to fetch my soup. "I hope you don't mind my saying so."

"Not a bit," she laughed. "But I'll be the first to admit, I got lucky. Matter programming is funny that way: sometimes you hit the right combination, and this substance you've just invented is gorgeous, and it's waterproof, and it's diamagnetic, and some construction outfit on Pluto is offering you cash up front and a ten percent share of their leasing profits."

"Sounds nice," I told her, fighting to keep any deeper feelings at bay. For the moment, I was succeeding; it had been a long time, and seeing her now was more nostalgic than painful. "Theddy became a programmer, too, you know, but he doesn't live like this."

She smiled. "Theddy. My goodness, how is he?"

"In trouble," I said.

"Well, that figures. I suppose you're representing him?"

"Yeah."

"That figures, too. As for my alleged wealth, don't be too jealous. It won't last. Unless I get lucky again, I'll have to sell this place in a few centuries. Maybe move back to farside, although they're still talking about evacuating the entire moon, and crushing it to boost the surface gravity. You can't go home again, isn't that what they say?"

Thinking about that, I looked her over, studying my feelings as they unfolded. Things weren't the same as they had been long ago, that much was definite. Her mere presence no longer panicked me, made me stupid or impulsive. Which was probably just as well, although there was a part of me that would always miss feeling that way. You can't go home, indeed.

"That would be a shame," I said, "destroying the moon like that. Where would all the shady people go?"

She could easily have taken that the wrong way, but she chose not to, and chuckled instead as she pulled my mug of steaming soup from the fax. "The shady people always find a place, Carbo. Isn't that what keeps you in business?"

"Well," I admitted, "sort of. It's the rich shady people that can afford my services. The poor ones get their legal help from software, which is worth every penny of the nothing they pay for it."

"Their matter programming, too," she said. And suddenly we were laughing together, just like old times. It felt good. Cleansing. If all our times had been like this . . .

"Look," I told her, "I want to apologize for inflicting Young Me on you like that. I hope he didn't scare you."

"Not in the least. Actually, he was quite charming." She handed me the soup, and I tasted it. It was good, and here too I sensed some vague tincture of money, some subtle designer flavor to which I myself had never been privy. And I was not exactly a poor man, nor a gustatorial simpleton.

"What did he do? What did he want?"

"The usual," she laughed. "A bit of me for his collection."

Suddenly I found myself fighting down anger again, for the second time in a single morning. Because it wasn't funny, damn it. Not to me it wasn't. The request had seemed simple enough at the time. Pamela and I had archived ourselves at the height of our passion, wanting—literally—to preserve that glorious feeling for all eternity. Later, when things had soured, when we started fighting and she finally turned me out, I had asked her to revive that feeling. Not even in her own skin, necessarily. Couldn't she print out an alternate copy, an older, younger version who was still in love with Carmine Douglas? Wasn't that the whole point of the backup?

But apparently it wasn't, at least in her mind, and apparently I had pressed the point too firmly. Well, no "apparently" about it; love could make a man do stupid things, and no force in heaven or Earth could make him regret them afterward. In love especially, we behave as we must.

In any case, my defense had taken me all way to the Solar Court itself, where my stalking and harassment convictions were narrowly upheld. I was clever enough not to lose my license over it, but the court forbade me to have any contact with Pamela Red, or her friends and family, for three long decades. The mark would be on my record forever: Carmine Douglas, sexual deviant. What was funny about that?

"Look," she said, catching my expression, "We were young. We applied our passion to each other, and when it didn't work out we applied our passion against each other. It's the oldest story in the world. I'm assuming we both got over this a long time ago, like good little grown-ups, so let's not start fighting now. Okay? I'm genuinely sorry, about all of it."

That stung too, its own way. "About all of it? You're sorry it even happened?"

And to my surprise, her face melted in a strange mix of amusement and dismay. "Sorry it happened? What . . . What are you even talking about? We were fresh, we were new, we were burning with passion for the first time in our tiny little lives. What's the point of living forever if you only get to feel that way once? Carmine, Carbo, baby doll, it was the hottest fling of my life."

What came next made perfect sense, because if I'd ever had any willpower in the Pamela Red department, we wouldn't be standing there talking about it. And if she hadn't loved me—truly loved me with all her heart, at least for a while—I wouldn't have had anything to press her about, to get in trouble about. An explosion could not occur without heat. But it was one more bit of strangeness, and I honestly didn't know if there were any law or rule or ethical guideline being broken. Would society prevent me from hurling myself on this additional complication?

It hardly mattered. Yes, I tumbled into bed with her, and she with me. Heedless of the consequences, we remained there for three days, refusing all calls. And it was worth any price.

8.

Orders

When I finally got home, my head was clearer somehow. It was one thing to stir up ghosts from the past, but quite another to have them walking around spouting threats. But making peace with Pamela—making more than that!—put a different face on things. Anyway, I did what I should've done in the first place, which was to file a motion for Division of Self for Theodore Kaffner, and another for Carmine Douglas.

Divisions of Self—so-called twinnings—had a sparse but readily traceable case history, and seemed the most appropriate vehicle for dealing with this mess. True, no one had ever and attempted an involuntary twinning before. Generally, they were granted to individuals who had lost a genuine twin somewhere along the way, or who could, for whatever reason, prove some tangible need to divide themselves into two legally distinct individuals. Because they'd grown in different ways, and no longer believed they were compatible.

Angry Young Theddy's argument was quite different: that he should have the right to delete his later self and try his whole adult life over again. But if the older and younger Theddies were two different people, then this desire would be nonsense from a legal standpoint, and acting on it would be murder. Which, to my thinking, sounded about right.

And Young Carmine's position was different still: having been granted the flesh and breath of life, he simply wanted to continue. He didn't want to be erased, and truthfully neither would I, if our circumstances were reversed. And the law was supposed to mean what was right, right?

The next step was to file a temporary restraining order—actually four restraining orders—prohibiting the various Theddies and Carmines from harming one another, or having any sort of contact all outside a courtroom setting. We could send legal communiques to one another through the proper channels, and that was all. Sadly, this would be another mark on my own record, another opportunity for me to look like some sort of mad stalker, but since my name was on the order as both plaintiff and defendant, it would seem more strange than incriminating. And anyone researching my background that deeply would know, should know, that Strange is my middle name.

Then I did another thing I should've done right away, which was to call my parents and let them know what was happening. "Aren't you a bit old for shenanigans like this?" my father wanted to know.

"I'm beginning to think so," I answered.

For good measure, I called Theddy's parents as well, and found to my mild surprise that Angry Young Theddy was actually staying there with them, having vacated his apartments in Denver. This of course forced me to cut the conversation short, but that was all right. The Kaffners were drunks and dreamers, with never all that much to say to me, nor I to them.

And since these orders were of the sort that could easily be handled by hypercomputer, the so-called Telejudges—I had a stack of bonded approvals in hand within a few minutes. The Telejudges of course demanded a flesh hearing, ten days hence, so a human judge could review the facts of the case and decide the long-term disposition of the orders, and of the humans tied up in them.

And that wasn't so hard, really. Strangeness is nothing more than the shock of the new: a thing never seen before, never felt or tasted or lived through. But strangeness by itself it didn't make this thing intractable, nor guarantee in any way that the future—the Theddies and Carmines and Pamelas of centuries hence, indeed all of society—would find them unusual. Indeed, to the extent that society took any notice of this case at all, it would be as one more precedent in the legal definition of identity. No big deal of all. Or so I reasoned at the time.

And so, somewhat anticlimactically, I found that my job was complete. With those orders posted, there wasn't a fax machine in the Queendom that would reconverge the older and younger Theddies, or a door that would open for them, if the opening might place the two in the same room. My client was safe, and so was I. And I found, also to my surprise, that I was shaking with relief. How about that! This was another thing my job had going for it: no matter how long I did it, there was still this aura of excitement and danger and fresh discovery. Most especially when it was about me.

After that there was only one thing left to do: call my office fax machine and retrieve Theddy—the real, contemporary Theddy—from storage.

9.

Wine, Interrupted

My apartment at the time was a pseudopenthouse—its large balcony was roofed over but otherwise genuine, and the rooms themselves were on the thirteenth floor of a hundred story building. But the balcony's overhang was programmed to look like sky—an illusion so good that I myself sometimes forgot—while the apartment ceiling was a fiction of dormer vaults and skylights looking up at the other tall buildings as though the higher stories of my own did not exist. This was not an extravagance; the patterns had to be customized by experts and hypercomputers, but it only took an afternoon. A team from Sears-Roebuck had done it for less money than I made in a week. Why, hundreds of people in Denver alone had the exact same decor, probably an even dozen in that very building. But low-cost and cheapness were not the same thing, and most visitors found the effect both striking and laudable.

In this, Theddy Kaffner was no exception. He leaped from the fax all stiff with anxiety, but once I'd explained the situation to him, and handed him a glass of wine, the first thing he did was look around and say, "Jesus Christ. Nice place."

The fireplace was also an illusion—you couldn't jab it with the ornamental poker or wave your hand through the flames—but it looked perfect, and crackled just so, and gave off exactly the right amount of heat for a November evening that was suddenly, finally beginning to feel like fall. I faxed up some throw pillows, and the two of us sprawled in the firelight, chugging our drinks and laughing like we had in the good old days.

The purveyors of copyright bourbon tended to regard their products as perfect, and thus subsisted mainly on royalties, reinvesting little or none of it back into research and development. Which was a losing strategy in the long run, because the opensource and public domain recipes got a little bit better every year. Not the same as the copyright brews, obviously, but just as good in their own way. This meant that spending real money on bourbon didn't make sense, except as a way of flaunting one's wealth. Since I rarely had enough to flaunt, I tended to stick with the cheap stuff.

But the wine industry, long accustomed to change and adaptation, had seen the writing on the early Queendom's walls, and rolled with the times. They still grew their grapes the old-fashioned way, with robot labor and nano-optimized soil conditioners, and while they copyrighted every vintage, they actually copied and sold only the best of the best. But except in rare cases, they revoked the old recipes at the end of every market year, replacing them with new ones from the latest crop. If you really liked a particular vintage, you were obliged to buy as many bottles as your cellar would hold, because its like would never come again. So you either had to fill a cellar with the stuff, or pay the aftermarket prices on the collectors' market. Ouch.

I, however, belonged to the Wine Resistance movement. If you knew a bit, and were a good researcher of long-dormant archives, you could dig up the pattern of some ancient vintage whose creators had died heirless and alone. The public domain wines were mostly swill, but I had personally discovered two of these grayware vintages, which could be freely duplicated to my heart's content, and I'd bartered them for a dozen more on the semisecret Resistance exchange.

They were always the same, alas, but so were the "perfect" bourbons. This particular bottle was an atomically exact Delle Venezie Pinot Grigio, from 2203 at the tail end of Late Modernity. Possibly the oldest surviving Pinot Grigio, as delicate and fruity as the day it was archived. And it was excellent, even when chugged.

"You'll never guess who I saw this week," I said to Theddy as I uncorked our second bottle.

"Pamela Red," Theddy answered immediately. Was I that transparent? A lawyer really did need a better poker face than this, because Theddy read even more from my expression. "Oh, you saw her, did you? In the biblical sense? Did you run into her as well? Come across her, so to speak? Good for you, old boy."

I suffered some more teasing of an even less gentlemanly sort, until Theddy finally asked, "How's she doing, anyway?"

"Well. Very well. She's got a gorgeous house down in AntiLand, on the top of Mount Terror. You should see it sometime."

"She got that on a programmer's salary?"

"Well, she calls it a fluke, and I believe her. But yes, she's a programmer. Specializing in materials design."

"Mmm," Theddy said around a heavy swallow of dirt-cheap Pinot. "That would explain it. That's where all the glory is, where all the money is these days. If you ask me, my job is harder: making sure the materials actually work. However wonderful your brick may be, if it's wellstone you've still got to run power and data from point A to point B. You've got to manage waste heat, and if there's gas and fluid transport involved, the plumbing has to go somewhere. Also, a lot of materials aren't structural without an impervium mesh woven through them, and if you ever want the brick to be anything else, to be programmable like the rest of the world, then you'd better have some computing elements listening for commands. These things don't happen by themselves."

"I thought hypercomputers did all that."

"Everybody thinks that. That's why the job doesn't pay well. But hypercomputers don't feel, Carmine, not like we do. You can load them with algorithms for aesthetics and common sense, but it doesn't make them human. It's a human world we want, right? Computers are always seeking pathological solutions—you know, kill the cockroaches by roasting the whole apartment and then faxing fresh people. That actually happened! And if nothing else it takes a human to add those boo boos to the common-sense database. No do, you stupid machine.

"But we do a lot more than just that. There are copyright issues, security and permissions issues. Hypercomputers will follow the letter of the law every time—they have to—and they're practically paralyzed as a result. To no one's benefit. And there are always profiteers exploiting loopholes, sneaking adware materials onto private property and then wrapping themselves up in the law. Sanctimonious jerks. Half my house calls are to defeat some security system or other, because the wellwood stopped working or the window glass is suddenly demanding back royalties."

"So it's an art," I said, "like everything else that matters."

"Yeah."

"Speaking of which, are you still involved with the theater?"

"Indeed I am," Theddy said. "In fact, that's where my troubles began. I was going to so many plays, and posting so many opinions about what I saw, that one of the news services finally signed me on as part of their appreciators pool."

I knew about of those, yeah: appended to the remarks of professional reviewers were the Aficionados' and People's Choice scores, along with occasional snippets of commentary from their discussion boards. I'd even considered, at one point, quitting law to become a poverty-stricken food appreciator. But I didn't see a connection to Theddy's case, and said so.

Theddy's glass was empty again, and he waved it for a refill, which I provided. "See, the other appreciators were getting really burned off with me. 'You've already got a job,' they said. 'Why're you hogging an aficionado slot as well? You're taking a livelihood away from someone on Basic Assistance. Someone who loves the theater as much as you do."

"Now that's pathetic," I said.

But Theddy's take on it was more forgiving: "There are a lot of people who have nothing else to contribute, Carbo. They make good spectators, and where would the arts be without good spectators? But they can be really pushy about it. Really defensive. Some of these people, it means a lot more to them than it should. They started getting ugly, making threats."

"Ah. And you thought Angry Young Theddy could help."

"Well, yeah. A bit of him, anyway. The fire of youth to temper the iron of wisdom. But fire is tricky."

Those were Theddy's last words, and for the record, when the Constabulary had reconstructed the events that followed, I was fully exonerated of any negligence or inaction. The tampering with my home and office records had occurred during the moments while Theddy's image was in transit, and had triggered no firewall alerts or quantum decoherence flags. The camera that appeared in my ceiling was a mesh of microscopic sensors which my eyes could not possibly have discerned, even if I'd known where to look.

And although I was in fact looking right at Theddy—pouring the last of the Pinot Grigio into his glass, in fact—when the wellcloth of the pillows beneath him crackled and turned to metal, when the floor became a grid of high-voltage lines . . . I'll feel terrible about it for the rest of my life—forever, in other words—but I didn't know what was happening, or why, and even if I did there was really nothing I could have done about it.

When the corners of Theddy's lips drew backward and upward, exposing his teeth, I thought at first that he was smiling. But then his body began to jerk, and smoke, and his eyes grew milky, and I hope to God that the brain damage happened early, because if it didn't, then Theddy, paralyzed and twitching, felt his own hair catch fire, his own skin blacken and peel away. Was the general alarm the last thing he heard?

These were not only my speculations, but those of an entire Queendom of voyeurs, for there hadn't been a lurid murder in twenty years, nor an electrocution in over a hundred. And such events—even before they'd become rare—had always been strange.

10.

Judgments, Final

The trial was only two hours long, and very nearly a formality. Theodore Great Kaffner, Sr.'s only physical body had been murdered, and the only recent copies of him—in the fax buffers of my home and office—had been expertly deleted. Angry Young Theddy did not deny his involvement in these acts, and even if he'd tried, he wouldn't have gotten very far in light of the Constabulary's overwhelming evidence.

On the face of it, he was guilty as sin, but Young Carmine, true to his beer-soaked promises, had mounted a spirited defense. Theddy was guilty, yes, but of what, exactly? Young Carmine consistently used the term "voluntary file maintenance" to describe the incident, and insisted that at the time of said maintenance, Young Theddy had had no way of knowing he'd been legally partitioned into a pair of twins. Thus, he was incapable of criminal intent in the commission of these acts, and if any loss or suffering resulted, it was—to Theddy's mind—of a self-inflicted sort which the law could frown on but not actually forbid.

It was, I thought, quite a savvy maneuver for a counselor so young. It made sense, and if justice were a purely logical affair, or an attempt to move forward with the minimum social damage, it might possibly have prevailed. But the other function of law is to frighten, to make examples, to discourage further thoughts of wrongdoing in the hearts of human beings. And the facts of the case remained incontrovertible: one legal individual was killed through the deliberate and premeditated actions of another. In the end, Young Carmine did about as well for Theddy as anyone could expect: malicious negligence resulting in death.

Tragically, of the durable archives Theddy had stored over the course of his life, the most recent was nearly twenty years out of date, and when it was printed and briefed and placed on the stand to provide commentary for the sentencing, all it could do was hang its head and weep. There was just too much missing from its life. It couldn't make sense of the actions of older or younger Theddy, nor of the circumstances it found itself awakened to. When the court asked if it wished to be marked disposable, and thus erased, the copy nodded slowly and was led away by the bailiffs.

As for Young Theddy, he was sentenced to 100 years' hard labor, without the possibility of parole, and since he was barely twenty-five years in subjective age, this was about as close to a death sentence as a person could get, without murdering thousands or attempting to destroy the sun. A century of subjugation, of cheek-to-jowl contact with humanity's hardest customers. When that was over, nothing would remain of the Theddy I went to college with. Theodore Great Kaffner had managed to destroy himself, and this date was one I would always remember as the true time and place of his death.

There have always been tragedies, and perhaps there always will be: sad events with a momentum of their own, which benefit no one and which make the world a poorer place. And yet, in a way, this was a fitting end for a prankster like Theddy. Hoist on his own petard, indeed. What a lark! I sobbed off and on throughout the trial, dabbing at my tears with a wellcloth handkerchief, but even so I could not avoid the occasional giggle or snort. Even Theddy's younger self, doomed to ruin, seemed on some level to appreciate the irony. He smiled and waved as they led him away, and would no doubt make friends in prison by throwing himself down the stairs.

Ever mindful of the convenience of its patrons, the court had scheduled my own case next on the docket. And this one really was a formality, for I had sent an offer to myself the night before, and accepted it gratefully. I, the older Carmine, would cede that portion of my wealth which the younger Carmine had rightfully earned, and Young Carmine would cede the name, changing his own to Ralph Faxborn Douglas. He would also move to a different city, seek new acquaintances, and change his face and hairstyle in minor but telling ways. As for Ralph's ongoing maintenance, I offered a generous five-year stipend, to give him a chance to get on his feet, to find a job or found a business somewhere. But Ralph, awash in notoriety, had no shortage of job offers, and had already licensed his story—our story—for a tidy sum which I agreed not to dispute or attach in any way. No further settlement was needed.

On the stand I was asked by the judge to confirm that yes, these were the terms I had agreed to. And I felt a momentary pang before answering, for letting go of my youth was a hard thing to do. But I spoke clearly for the record: "Yes, Your Honor. Ralph Douglas and I are in full agreement."

It was a sad affair all the way around, made all the more stressful and surreal for me by the presence of Pamela Red in the audience. What was she doing here? The question plagued me throughout both trials, only to be answered at the end, when I watched her fall happily into the arms of Ralph Faxborn. This was not my Pamela at all, the Antarctican matter programmer, but rather the archived student, still burning with passion, over whom I had pined for a decade and more, risking nearly everything. I watched the two of them, warm and happy together, and wondered if I'd ever feel a thing like that again. Was youth a necessary component?

Against my better judgment, I went over to talk to them. "You two look . . . happy together."

"Thank you for everything," Ralph said. "For life itself. I apologize for not trusting you."

And I answered him sternly: "Never apologize for being cautious. The world is full of nasty surprises, and lawyers, at least, must stand prepared. Until I'd thought about it, I was going to erase you." I paused a moment and then added, "Look, I've learned a lot over the years, about being you. We should sit down. Have a chat."

"And turn me into yourself?" Ralph laughed at that. "Another generous offer, sir, but I'll have to decline. Is my own future not bright? If you survived our trials and tribulations, I reckon I won't do any worse. And time will tell, sir, but I reckon I have a certain advantage as well, coming to this world as a traveler from its past. It gives a certain outsider's perspective which ought, I think, to be useful. So if it's all the same to you, I will ignore you as I would my own father. Fair enough?"

"You're a clever boy," I said, and it wasn't entirely a compliment.

All the while, young Pamela had been looking me over with great curiosity. And if this was painful, why, returning her gaze was like leaping into a furnace. "And you, young lady," I said as evenly as I could manage. "I'm quite flabbergasted to see you here."

"I imagine you are," she said, with a sympathy that was agonizingly genuine, and equally condescending. "I don't know your history, and I don't care to. But it upsets me to think I've caused you pain."

And that one really knocked the stuffing out of me. Young Pamela had always had a knack for that, for hitting me where I was weakest while trying, in some vague way, to be nice. And suddenly I was able to forgive her for that, for all of it. Because she was just some kid, and didn't know any better. How could she?

I nodded slowly. "Yes. Well. The intent behind your words is appreciated. Have you spoken with . . . yourself?"

"I have," she said, "and it's her you should be talking to, not me. I felt her letting go of a lot of anger. If you want to . . . you know, pounce in a moment of weakness . . . well, now would be time."

"Thanks for the tip," I said, laughing in spite of myself. And then, more thoughtfully: "She and I fought such battles over you. It's ironic, and rather sad, that she didn't surrender you sooner."

Pamela just looked at me then, with a wise sort of weariness, and said, "Love isn't a surrender, but a gift. Sometimes we return it unopened, but we never fail to appreciate it. If you're going to talk about me like a thing, at least have the right sort of thing in mind, all right? The real question to ask yourself is why she suddenly feels like giving."

God, she sounded so good. So lovely, so perfect. And Ralph, too, was everything a mutant, sexually deviant father could hope for. Surely here was a young man who could do no wrong, no matter what the provocation.

"I wish you both the very best of luck," I said with conviction.

And the two of them smiled at me as they might a distant relative, and then turned, arm-in-arm, and walked away. The perfect couple, yes. This was no longer the world they'd been copied from, and they were not those people. Not quite. Maybe things would be different this time.

The smart thing for me to do then would have been to go back home and get to work. There was plenty of work for me, always. But life was too short for that, yes? Even if it lasted forever. I had a flair for the dramatic and a nose for the strange; it was time to take a risk.

Still, it took all my strength to keep from shouting after them, "Fool! She's five months from dumping you!"

* * *

"The Policeman’s Daughter" is set within the world of Wil McCarthy’s novel The Collapsium, out in April 2020 from Baen Books. McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine and science columnist for the SyFy channel, where his "Lab Notes" column ran for ten years. His short fiction has graced the pages of magazines like Analog, Asimov's, WIRED, and SF Age. His novel Antediluvian is out from Baen Books. Lost in Transmission, an entry in McCarthy’s Queendom of Sol series is out from Baen, and The Collapsium, The Wellstone, and To Crush the Moon will appear in all-new Baen editions throughout 2020. McCarthy has also written for television, and appeared on the History Channel and the Science Channel. In addition to fiction and journalism, McCarthy also writes patents for a top law firm in Dallas.

Peregoy’s Wolves

Nancy Kress

As soon as he emerged from his cabin, Jedson saw the girl. At first she was just a blur of red at the base of the snowy mountain on the western side of the small valley. He blinked on visual augmentation and there she was, dressed in a crimson thinsuit so form-fitting that it didn’t look warm enough. He knew it was, and what she was. Her shuttle must have come down somewhere in the trees, and they must have figured out tech to make the landing silent.

She was the first person he’d seen in seven or eight years.

He stood staring, an old man in a ragged parka, boots patched with pieces of other boots, a pail dangling from his hand. He needed clean snow to melt. Last night a fresh fall had covered the heavy, crunchy snow on slopes and valley. Also, he’d hoped to catch another glimpse of the young wolf he’d spotted at dawn. The girl stood nearly where the wolf had been, as if in mythic transformation.

“Hello,” she said, and her voice sounded at normal volume right before him, materializing in the vapor from his breath. More new tech.

“Hello.” His own voice, so long unused, sounded scratchy. Could she hear him?

She could. “Who are you?”

He debated giving his name, but could see no reason not to. In a sudden spirit of mockery he said, “Ethan Louis Jedson III. Who are you?”

“Mary.”

No surname. Significant? He said, “From which of the Three Worlds?”

“Mary Peregoy.”

He hadn’t expected that, and looked more closely at the girl.

Tall, slim, with brown curls cascading from under her hood and over the shoulders of the thinsuit. She looked in her early twenties but could be much older; even Jedson, who hadn’t left the Arctic in twenty years, knew about rejuv treatments. He’d been fifteen when the last colony ship left the ruined Earth. In the fifty-five years since, he’d picked up some news from orbital-monitor chatter, but his equipment failed decades ago. Still, he knew that one of the three worlds reachable from Earth by the alien gate had been claimed, settled, and ruled by the powerful Peregoy family.

“Why are you here, Mary Peregoy? Curiosity? Environmental study? Romantic nostalgia?”

She laughed, and in the pleasant chuckle Jedson heard the painful echo of his wife, dead decades ago in one of the bio-wars. He banished the memory instantly. Memories weakened him.

Mary said, “Romantic nostalgia over this place? Not likely.”

And yet “this place,” which once had had a name in what had once been northern Alaska, was the best that Earth could still offer. Jedson, and the surviving wildlife, could scrape out subsistence here, as no one could do in the howling deserts of the middle latitudes, where on a summer day the temperature could reach 150 degrees and the dust storms 100 miles per hour. She knew all that, of course she did.

He repeated, “Why are you here?”

“’Environmental study’ is close enough. Why are you here, Dr. Jedson?”

So she had ocular data access without even raising a screen. Envy stabbed him. He said dryly, “Environmental study.”

“That wasn’t your field.”

“No. But it is now.”

She chuckled again, and this time he felt neither pain nor envy. Her body had shifted slightly and he saw the weapon strapped to her back. A precaution? Or . . .

She said, “You’ve survived here alone for . . . how long?”

“Twenty years.”

“In this same place?”

“Yes. You’re seeing it in winter. It’s different in summer.”

“Better?”

“Worse. Insects, temperatures, the constant risk of fires. But you already know that from orbital monitoring, don’t you?”

She ignored the question. “Why didn’t you go to one of the enclaves? There are a few left, struggling along. You’re an educated man, Dr. Jedson, and an enclave would at least have some minimal civilization.”

“I didn’t want to live caged in a mostly underground enclave.”

“So instead you live in a this barely surviving wilderness.”

“Yes. What are you looking for, Mary?”

“Do you count all the game? Catalogue plants? Accumulate data on what survived climate change and biowars?”

“I do.”

“And what will you do with all your data? If you like, I can take it back to the Eight Worlds, if you have a means to upload it to my shuttle.”

“I don’t. It’s on paper.” Preciously hoarded paper, covered with the tiniest possible writing, and still the paper had run out a year ago. He did not say that. “So there are eight settled worlds now?”

“Yes. More stargates were discovered since your time.”

As if his time was over. Well, it nearly was. He said, “If you come down to my cabin, I can give you the papers.” The chance almost took his breath away. To get his data to other scientists, no matter how different their training or mind-set had become in the hundred years since the Great Escape began . . . a chance he’d never dared hope for.

But Mary laughed again, and this time it was not a pleasant chuckle. “Come to your cabin, where you can try to kill and rob me? I don’t think so.”

Which told him all he needed to know about her.

He said, “You possess nothing I want.”

Her mouth pursed in disbelief. His own expression must have reacted to that, because she said, “You have visual augmentation.”

“As do you.”

She shrugged: Of course.

Somewhere to the east, a wolf howled, probably the same one Jedson had seen at dawn today, twilight yesterday. This time, however, there was an answering call. The girl’s entire body stiffened and she unsheathed her weapon.

Jedson said, “That’s not necessary. The wolves won’t attack you.”

“Are they a pack?”

“I haven’t seen a wolf pack here in years. But I think that call-and-response is an attempt to form one.”

“I thought wolves always lived in packs. Don’t those two have a pack already?”

“My guess is that they’re dispersers. Leaving packs too big to include them and looking to mate.” February, breeding time.

“I see,” Mary said. But she kept hold of the rifle and looked speculatively in the direction of the first wolf call. Her body shifted again and her lips curved faintly upward.

No. No no no.

“Excuse me a minute,” Jedson said. “An old man’s urinary tract.” He put down the still empty pail, went into the cabin, and took down his rifle. There were fewer than a thousand bullets left, and no more coming, ever. Jedson had served in the National Guard, back when there was both a nation and anything to guard. He had killed, during the Seattle Food Riots. A long time ago, and even as a young soldier he’d hated killing. But he was not going to let some touristy, would-be game hunter get cheap thrills from shooting one of the few remaining large mammals on—as far as he knew—the entire planet.

He went outside and aimed the rifle at Mary. She smiled. “You’re out of range, Doctor. Do you think I didn’t data-check on that rifle the second you opened the cabin door?”

God, how fast was her data retrieval?

She went on, “To hit me at this range, you’d have to be a phenomenal shot. And anyway, I’m not going to kill your wolves. That’s not why I’m here.” A drone cleared the ridge, undoubtedly launched from the shuttle. Small, disc-shaped, featureless, it hovered over Mary’s head like a detached silver halo.

Jedson said, “You’re going to tranquilize and capture the wolves. Or at least, you think you can.”

“I can. You have no idea how the tech has improved since your day.”

“Why capture wolves?”

“Sloan Peregoy wants them. He’s the CEO of New California now. The Peregoy family—”

“I know who they are.” Or were, anyway. One of the three unimaginably rich people who’d first wrecked Earth and then fled it during the Great Escape, taking their families and hangers-on and businesses and respective cultures with them. Samuel Peregoy, Kezia Landry, Patrick Fenton. When Jedson was a child, growing up between the feedback loops of run-away climate change and the stupid tragedy of biowarfare, everybody knew those three despised and worshipped and envied names.

He tried to keep his voice steady. “Why would this Sloan Peregoy want wolves?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s my job to go get them.”

“And you always do your job.”

“I do.” She smiled again and he saw that he’d been wrong, misled by rejuv tech. This was no young girl; she was an experienced and cynical woman. “And I do my job well, including prep. I know there’s no elk or bison or caribou left and the wolves eat mice and insects and pretty much anything else they can find. I know their denning and marking and hunting habits. I know what diseases they get, or used to get.”

“You don’t know as much as you think you do. Wolves die in captivity.”

“No, they don’t. But even if this pair does die, Director Sloan is prepared to create clones from their DNA, carried to term by dogs. You don’t have any dogs left, do you? But there are dogs on New California. I myself have a pink toy poodle. Very cute.”

She was taunting him. Jedson said, “Wolves need freedom.”

Mary said, “Really? You’re a proponent of unrestricted freedom? That’s what got Earth into this dismal state in the first place. Everybody free to wage the war of all against all. We don’t permit that on New California.”

“Freedom didn’t wreck Earth. Unbridled technology did. Your New California would be an alien environment to wolves. Different microbes, different food, different ecology.”

“We have techniques for microbe alteration and we breed mice brought from Earth. Sloan will construct an artificial ecology for the wolves.”

“An alien cage.”

“This northern ecology of yours won’t last much longer. The sixth extinction is well underway, you know that. So is it better for these wolves, or their clones, to live in an alien cage and flourish or to die undernourished and ill here?”

The old argument, as old as the walled cities of Sumer: safety or freedom?

Stubbornly, he repeated, “These wolves will die if you take them to New California.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. As I said, we know a lot about wolves. What I didn’t know about was you. I’ll make you a proposition.”

Jedson said nothing.

“You were a noted wildlife biologist. You have a lot of first-hand information, on those papers you mentioned and in your head, information that our scientists would like to have. Put down your antiquated rifle, take off your boots and parka, and walk toward me. You won’t freeze in that short a time. I’ll tanglefoam you, bring you aboard the shuttle, and we’ll capture the wolves together. Then I’ll take you with me to a better life on New California. I have no reason to want you dead, Dr. Jedson. You must know that.”

He did know it. He was too irrelevant to her, to the worlds beyond the gates, to kill.

When Jedson didn’t answer, she added, a bit impatiently, “It’s a generous offer. Earth emigration was officially closed decades ago.”

“And you have enough standing to flout that decree. Sloan Peregoy must want those wolves pretty badly. Thank you, but no.”

Silence, before she said, “You’re a fool, Doctor.”

“Oh, for my entire life, so why stop now.”

At her smile, her first without sarcasm or condescension, he thought, Once I would have liked her, even been attracted to her. The thought was unsettling.

The drone stopped hovering and flew east. Despite himself, Jedson said, “What will it do?”

“Shoot them with tranquilizers and then drop a net over them, singly or together. There’s a cage prepared on the shuttle.”

He pictured it, and felt sickened.

They stood there in the snow, facing each other across the small valley, Mary’s crimson thinsuit glowing all the more brightly as the sun rose higher. Behind her, the mountain loomed white—but for how much longer? Jedson had hoped that Arctic snow in winter would last his lifetime. But, then, both had already continued longer than he’d expected.

Mary’s gaze followed the drone.

#

He could not stand outside, watching, the whole day.

He could not hike around looking for the wolves; the drone would follow him and anyway, what good would it do? Jedson busied himself with things he could not concentrate on. Then, in the late afternoon, he snowshoed a long circuitous route partway up the western mountain and then down again, sneaking up on the shuttle to see if it was still there. It was.

Her voice came from the hulk of gleaming metal. “The drone didn’t find them.”

“Not a very intelligent drone.”

“I knew wolves were mostly nocturnal, but I read that they also will hunt by day.”

“If they have to,” he said, “and aren’t preoccupied with mating.”

“My offer still stands, Dr. Jedson.”

“So does my answer.”

His muscles ached from his calves clear up to the base of his skull. The trip back to the cabin was hard, and he had to rest often, leaning on a stick. He was too old for this.

But at twilight he heard a wolf again. Not a call-and-response; this was different. The male was establishing territory, warning off all other canines: This area has been claimed. Jedson would have bet there were no other canines to warn, not jackals nor coyotes nor other wolves, within fifty miles. But the atavistic territorial impulse continued: Mine, mine, mine. Hunting grounds, planets.

The howl sounded again, closer.

He threw on his parka and rushed out of the cabin. The wolves were crossing the ridge line to the east, lit by the dying sun and waxing moon. Mary was not visible. But the drone was, driving forward from above the trees on the western slope. The wolves started to run, two gray shapes against the snow. Jedson blinked on augmented vision.

The male, his large head carried at the same height as his sloping back, loped along on powerful legs. Jedson’s heart hurt at the female’s fur patchy with sarcoptic mange, and at how skinny she was. A low-ranking member in her old pack.

The drone dropped low enough for the male to turn, raise his head, and snarl, teeth bared. It made no difference, of course. Jedson didn’t see the tranquilizer darts, just the two animals dropping onto the snow as the sun sank below the western mountaintop. The drone hovered for a few minutes above the prone bodies, making sure they weren’t moving. Then the net shot out from the belly of the drone and enveloped the animals. How did its filaments, which Jedson could barely make out in the dying light, get under the wolves’ bellies? More technology that Jedson would never understand.

The drone lifted and, more slowly than Jedson would have dared hope, began ferrying its quiescent weight across the valley.

He did not have much time.

His cabin stood halfway between the drone and the shuttle. He ran, falling into snow, getting up again, too driven to feel the cold. The valley darkened with February night and, despite the half moon, he needed his ancient headlamp. Faster . . . faster . . . he could go no faster. He was an old man, and the drone was state-of-the-art Peregoy technology from the Three—no, Eight now—Worlds beyond the stars. The drone vanished behind the trees, easily beating him to the shuttle.

How long would it take her to get the wolves aboard, untangled from the net, and into their cage? Would she give them some drug, hidden in the kind of meat they had not tasted their entire scrawny lives, to keep them calm on the journey? Maybe the tranquilizer would wear off too soon, while she was still handling them, and one or both would attack her. Maybe.

He knew that would not happen.

Finally, in near-darkness, he came in sight of the shuttle. Now he turned to his second fear: what if his explosive had decayed over time? Much, much time. He didn’t know, and for so long he’d had no way to find out. No military manuals, no internet.

Jedson stood a quarter mile from the shuttle. He pressed the detonator. You don’t know as much as you think you do, he’d said to Mary Peregoy. But, then, who did?

She didn’t know anything about kinds of snow, how it fell, accumulated, moved. New California, Jedson had read, had no axial tilt. No seasons.

The explosion split the gloom, sound without light. The snow on the mountain began to slide. It made its own roar as the avalanche gathered momentum. Jedson had been careful where he’d placed the munition. Huge flaky clouds, ghostly white in the moonlight, barreled down the mountain a safe distance from the shuttle.

The door flung open and Mary leaned out, her lovely face contorted in fear. Had she ever thought how afraid the wolves must have been of the drone? The thought strengthened Jedson enough to raise his rifle, even as his mind screamed, I can’t I can’t.

He did. His first shot took her in the breast, and he knew he wouldn’t need a second. The top of her body fell backward into the shuttle but then, because she’d been leaning so far forward toward the source of the noise, the center of gravity that was her rump slid forward and her she slid out of the open door, down three shallow steps, and halfway into the snow, smearing blood behind her from the exit would.

Jedson moved slowly forward. If there had been any other way . . .

He hadn’t been able to find one.

She lay face-up, eyes open, dressed in something women must sleep in now, flimsy white pants and short-sleeved top. Water froze on Jedson’s eyelids. He reached down to move her off the steps so he could climb them and free the wolves.

The second he pulled her off the steps, the shuttle door closed. The steps retracted. A moment later, the craft began to hum.

“No!”

But there was nothing he could do. She’d programmed it to launch automatically if she couldn’t launch it, if her mission was unsuccessful and herself dead. A report back to whoever was supposed to be informed of the outcome, maybe Sloan Peregoy himself. Jedson had not anticipated that. He had not known enough about the tech of her world.

He watched the shuttle rise from the ruined planet toward the unseen gate orbiting somewhere near the moon, the gate that would take the wolves to the stars.

He would never know what happened to them.

#

It was hard work to drag her body, wrapped in a blanket already wet from Jedson’s flailing in the snow, across the valley. In the light from his headlamp, the valley seemed to grow wider and wider. Eventually, exhausted and soaked and freezing despite the effort, he brought her inside, where animals could not tear at her flesh. Then he stripped off everything and collapsed onto his bed.

In the first light of morning, he buried her a few hundred yards from the cabin, in a patch of sunlit dirt already free of snow. Even ten years ago, his shovel would have hit permafrost a few feet down. Not now.

In a place like this, two hundred years ago, had been found the oldest known wolf fossil, a tooth a million years old. Three hundred years ago, there had still been 10,000 wolves in Alaska and 60,000 in Canada. In ancient Greece, wolves had been associated with Apollo, god of light and order. In the Pawnee creation myth, the wolf was the first animal brought to Earth. Wolves were survivors.

But—

His shovel hit a rock. Too tired to move it immediately, Jedson leaned on his shovel, panting. An old Inuit song came to him:

“I think over again

My small adventures, my fears,

Those small ones that seemed so big

For all the vital things I had to get and to reach—

And yet there is only one great thing:

To live and see the great day that dawns

And the light that fills the world.”

Jedson heaved the rock out of the hole, dug the grave deeper, and lowered Mary Peregoy into it. In another two or three hundred thousand years would come another dawn, another great light. Geologic weathering, cold-water absorption of CO, and a host of other slow, slow processes would bring Earth’s climate to a new equilibrium. The planet, too, was a survivor.

And humanity, if it still existed, might return to Earth. Jedson didn’t believe they would bring wolves back with them, but maybe he was wrong.

He hoped so.

* * *

This story is set in the world of Nancy Kress’s novel The Eleventh Gate, out from Baen Books in May 2020. She is the author of thirty-three books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and has been translated into two dozen languages, including Klingon. In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues, including a visiting lectureship at the University of Leipzig, a 2017 writing class in Beijing, and the annual intensive workshop Taos Toolbox, which she teaches every summer with Walter Jon Williams.

Chasing Your Tail

Peter J. Wacks

The Franklin Home

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Colony

December 22, 1758

Prrrrrrrrrrr . . .

Even asleep, Mouser’s rumble of a purr disrupted Sally. The infernal cat seemed to always get in the way. She smiled at the thought, then her eye drifted to the ledger and her smile vanished. She sighed—she knew what she ought to be doing . . .

She should be working on the books for her mother. Her father had gone to some trouble to make sure she was given lessons in accounting, which her mother had never had, and it was obligatoire that she apply those lessons to the family businesses during his lengthy absence.

She’d really rather be reading. Unconsciously, her hand drifted to the side, hovering near her new copy of Smollett’s The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. . . . It would take her forever to get through the accounts and tote them properly.

Still staring at the ledgers, she let her hand wander aimlessly. She reached through the pocket slits in her gown into the pocket tied around her waist underneath to grab a feather she kept there. Flicking Mouser’s nose gently, she was rewarded with one eye opening. A few more swooshes, and she had Mouser chasing the feather all over the desk.

She giggled and pushed the chair back. Mouser paused, hunched down while sticking his butt in the air and twitching his tail. His eyes darted back and forth, tracking the feather in Sally’s hand. In a flash, the ink had been spilled and the little work she had accomplished was ruined, as well as much of the previous month.

Her mother chose just that moment to enter. Deborah Read Franklin was a plain-spoken, serious businesswoman who constantly embarrassed Sally—who worried others would figure out how uneducated her mother was. Good businesswoman or not, Debby was not one for books, reading, or writing, which happened to be the things Sally loved most in the world.

“Sally! Whatever are you doing?” Debby rushed forward to assist in reining in disaster. “This is unacceptable!”

Sally scowled and tucked away the feather, much to Mouser’s disappointment. “This drudgery can wait for another time, Mother. I want to read my new book!”

Debby gave Sally a sideways glance as she continued dabbing the ink. Better to sacrifice the apron and preserve the work. “At least help clean up the mess you’ve made.”

“I didn’t make it. Mouser made it.” Sally made an ineffectual attempt at helping, mostly just moving things out of the way that she cared about.

“Would you stop talking to that cat and ignoring your responsibilities? Attend to the task at hand.” Debby pursed her lips tightly to try to leave it at that.

“You wouldn’t understand, Mother. You can barely read and write. You have no life of the mind, no depth of feeling, as I do.” Sally dramatically spun away, clutching her arms to her chest. “I am carried away not by the books but by the stories the authors have set forth on the page. They are heroic, full of the ways of the world! You know nothing about these things.”

Debby rolled her eyes, “Having never been fifteen myself, I see why you would think these thoughts, Sally.”

“But you aren’t clever! You don’t know what it means to be clever. I’m not going to live a life of drudgery as you have, Mother.” Sally’s eyes were bright with passion, but blind to the casual cruelty of her words. “Because I can read and write, I’ll be able to choose to live more in the world than you could ever imagine.”

Debby’s shook her head, “Foolish girl. Letters don't make you clever. Thinking makes you clever. I’d like to see letters put food on the table.”

“You don’t even know how wrong you are!” As was usual between the two, Sally stormed off, angry at how little her mother understood her.

* * *

Debby swapped her ink-stained work apron for a finer one in the visiting room just as Jemima ushered in Isaac Norris, the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly.

“You must tell me, Mrs. Franklin, how you are faring with Ben so far from home?” Isaac settled into the seat he was offered with a satisfied sound.

“I am sure, Mr. Norris, you would know better than me,” Debby returned, well aware that Ben corresponded more with his political and scientific friends than his family at home. Whatever others may think, he trusted her with his businesses and only sent letters as needed, or with small missives and gifts. “You know I am not one much for letter writing, and his dispatches for you are sent on only the swiftest packets.”

Isaac shrugged, “Other than how many impediments he meets in his efforts to best the Penns, I am not privy to his comings and goings. I had heard from other sources that his health had suffered upon his arrival in England and through his first winter, and I was hoping you would be able to reassure me that he had seen no return of that affliction when the weather again turned cold.”

Debby nodded, “I can say that his reports from his lodgings are that he is well, that and that William is well. He sends me pretty fabrics and he sends Sally books, and I am well satisfied that he reports truly.”

“I appreciate the distinction you make. Have you heard? Reverend William Smith has seen fit to accuse Ben of claiming for himself all the credit for the experiments with electricity and omitting the contributions of Ebenezer Kinnersley and others. Ebenezer publicly refuted the characterization immediately, but you see the image of Ben that Reverend Smith is trying to paint. There are far too many who would welcome the chance to take Ben down a peg or two.”

Debby scowled, “Reverend Smith seems very busy with his pen recently. I have just heard that he wrote a pamphlet questioning the loyalty of the Catholics here in Philadelphia and suggesting that they were finding ways to support the French in the war.”

Isaac nodded, “I have seen that pamphlet. I also heard the Jesuit Robert Harding respond quite eloquently in defense of our English Catholics. It seems every few years someone must agitate the populace against our Catholic neighbors. Happily, they are yet willing to bear these accusations, and everything else in their power, in hopes of preserving their privileges as Englishmen. Lord knows, the younger Penns try hard enough to strip us of those privileges, which their father, William, worked so diligently to bestow upon us.”

Debby looked quizzically at Isaac, “I haven’t heard of Robert Harding.”

“Ah, yes,” Isaac rejoined wistfully. “He is the recent replacement for the old vicar of St. Joseph’s Church, Father Greaton, after his passing.”

There was a slight clank of dishes at the door as Jemima, one of the house slaves, brought in tea and refreshments. After serving her guest, Debby returned to the conversation.

“Ben was an advisor to Father Greaton in the building of St. Joseph’s. I don’t know that they were close, but there was mutual respect.”

Isaac was not surprised that nearly everything they spoke of returned to Benjamin Franklin. He knew Debby missed him, as he felt, all of Philadelphia must, with all Ben’s vigor and civic commitment. He decided to turn the conversation in a different direction. “You do seem a little out of sorts, if I may venture such an observation.”

“I must admit, I am having some difficulties with Sally these days.”

“Oh,” Isaac leaned forward with some concern, “in what ways?”

“Well, you know she has always been energetic in her pursuit of knowledge and attentive to all her lessons, always so amiable and eager. Yet she seems given over to discontent and boredom. She insisted on French lessons, because some book she read said every accomplished woman should have it mastered, and her father went to some trouble for her to have lessons from Father Greaton, who studied in France, so that her accent would be suitable. But some few months into the arrangement, she abandoned the work. More tea?”

Isaac shook his head, “Thank you, no.”

Debby poured herself some more tea, “All I hear is about how great the world is and how small a life I’ve built. I worry that she will head off into some foolishness.”

Isaac was silent a moment, then said, “As you know, my Polly is just a few years Sally’s elder and just now eighteen. Don’t worry, Mrs. Franklin. They grow into their strengths. She will eventually return to the girl that looks up to you. Though, these years are difficult, and I very much sympathize with your quandary. Perhaps, as both of the girls share a love of books, we can arrange a tea? Other influences could be good for her, as it can’t be helpful for Ben to be away for so long.”

“Yes,” nodded Debby a little miserably. “And we have yet no idea of when he might return.”

* * *

Debby had confiscated Sally’s new Smollett, and though Sally had spent the afternoon and early evening trying to repair the havoc she and Mouser wrought, her mother was steadfast in denying her the return of the book—until she could show she was responsible enough.

Sally picked up Mouser, who was following her as usual, and looked him in the eye. “It’s so unfair. I can’t just do something to prove it to Mom. Why does she have to make such impossible goals? This is no way to spend such a beautiful Friday.”

Mouser climbed up her arm and settled across her shoulders, purring against the back of her neck.

“You’re right, Mouser! Take charge of our own destiny we shall!” She had devoured all her books in the house multiple times, but there were surely other books in the house she hadn’t read. If so, they would be in her father’s laboratory—which was one of the few places in the house where Sally could get some privacy. Deborah Franklin could hardly bring herself to enter the space without Ben around, and the servants were equally intimidated. Only Sally felt no hesitation. It was where her father had practiced his magic, and it was the one place in the house she felt free to do the same.

“He has to have a good book stashed around here somewhere,” Sally started rummaging through desk drawers while Mouser watched intently from her shoulders. She found glass lenses, metal pieces, keys, screws, gears, silk string, and other items related to her father’s research into electricity.

In a cabinet near the back of the room, she was finally rewarded with an intriguing sight—a loose back panel. She hurried over to her father’s workbench, sifting through his things till she found a chisel that looked like it would do the job. Annoyed at all the movement, Mouser hopped off her shoulder, butting his head against her calf once down.

Sally crawled into the cabinet until she had a good angle and prized the loose panel off with the chisel. She was rewarded with a hidden cubby containing two journals the size of quire books, each with a strange symbol in the lower corner. Opening one, she was surprised to see a hodgepodge of languages on the pages. She took it over to a betty, skimming in the flickering light until she recognized Latin and Greek passages. Finally, there was a passage in French that she could read.

Comme la comète apparaît, la puissance aussi. L'utilisateur de magie doit se préparer pour que des événements extraordinaires se produisent.

“L'utilisateur de magie?” Sally asked Mouser. “‘The user of magic?’ Is this a book about magic?’ She kept reading the snippets she was able to decipher.

Pour que l'utilisateur soit vraiment libre de tout obstacle, la croissance de la puissance ne sera obtenue que par exposition au métal de l'étoile. L'identification d'un objet en métal . . . facteurs: Unum, in quantum est stella metallum. Duo propinquitatem ad imbuendas . . .

Sally sighed. It was so frustrating that there were only bits and pieces she could understand. If only old Greaton was still around, he’d have been able to help her, though he might have balked at the content. Even Jesuits have their intellectual limits.

. . . And yet.

“Mouser, there might really be something in these. And if people really can make a living selling translations, as Roderick Ransom tried to do, maybe there is a way I could sell these as works of fiction. Or maybe my magic will become strong enough to allow me to be free of Mother’s constraints. Father found a way, after all.”

She snapped her fingers, and Mouser twitched, perking up at the sound, “I know, I heard Billy Myerscough is back from his Jesuit training college in France! Shall we go to St. Joseph’s tomorrow? He was always easy to convince to get into mischief with me.”

* * *

The Franklin Home and Saint Joseph’s Church

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Colony

December 23, 1758

It was a clear, bright Saturday morning as she headed down Fourth Street towards the church. She carried a basket laden with her older half-brother’s copy of An Introduction to Latin Syntax, her copy of La Jeune Américaine et les Contes Marins, and some harpsichord music. At Fourth and Walnut, she paused to greet Juliana Van Rensselear on the northeast corner of the intersection as she swept the front step of her family’s dry goods establishment. Mouser eagerly leapt to attack Juliana’s broom, a game that diverted all three of them for a moment.

Taking her leave with a wave, Sally and Mouser walked further down the block, turning in at Willings Alley to the obscured entrance to the church. Ben Franklin had advised Father Greaton during the planning for the church, the first Catholic church to be built in Philadelphia and a source of some controversy among its Protestant residents, to tuck away the entrance as an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. It had been completed just this last year, and Sally had only visited once before. Before the construction of St. Joseph’s began, she and Billy had taken French lessons from Father Greaton, but that was some time ago.

Faced with a door she must open, Sally was suddenly nervous. She knelt and petted Mouser, “I’m not sure how well the Jesuits like cats, no matter how well behaved, in their churches.” Mouser mustered all his dignity to adopt a nonchalant pose in the courtyard outside the entrance, turning his head away from Sally to sniff the air, then popped up rear paw and began grooming himself. Sally drew a deep breath and entered the church.

“Sally Franklin,” Father Myerscough, only a couple years her senior, had grown much since she had played with him as young Billy. He met her in the nave and shook her hand vigorously. “I haven’t seen you in so long. How are you? How is your family?”

Sally demurely tucked her chin down and felt her cheeks flush, “Father Myerscough, I am well, my family is well. Father and William are in England, and Mother is working hard to keep everything going here.” What are you doing Sally? Why are you acting like this?

“Delightful, delightful! Call me Billy, please. No need for us to be so formal.” Father Myerscough paused, then when it was clear that was as much as Sally was going to offer, smiled and asked, “So, what brings you here on this fine winter day? Surely you don’t plan to get me to sit on the riverbanks and eat apples to practice our French?”

“The way I remember it we would always get chased out of our larder by Jemima before we could steal the apples.” Sally took a deep breath and looked up, meeting Billy’s eye and slipping him a wicked grin. There. Ha. No need to be nervous. “I have an old journal I am trying to translate that has both French and Latin phrases, and I was hoping you might have a willingness to step into Father Greaton’s shoes and provide some tutoring to help me with my task.”

Billy considered her a moment, “Intriguing. Let’s walk to the clergy house where we can make ourselves more comfortable.”

Sally hesitated. “Would it be all right if I bring my favorite cat along? He’s waiting in the alleyway. Mouser is very well behaved. I wouldn’t exactly call him obedient, but he is fairly open to suggestions and never leaves my side.”

Billy laughed, “Of course you have a cat who follows you around like a dog. Only you, Sally Franklin. I think we can sneak him in.”

* * *

Day had turned to night while she and Billy were working the translations. He believed the journal to be the work of an old alchemist and was fascinated with the mix of languages, and between them they even made sense of some of the Greek, Latin, and French, though most of it was very old-fashioned. Billy suspected some of the passages were in Old English and Anglo-Saxon runes, and perhaps with some work they would be able to puzzle out bits. They set a time for the next day to continue the work.

Sally and Mouser walked through the night, and she wondered what time it was, having forgotten to check before she left. But she was full of vim and vigor and thought it might be possible to make some use of the knowledge she had already gleaned. The passages had specifically mentioned that l'utilisateur de magie would find their efforts improved if they were in contact with what Billy and she puzzled out to mean “metal of the stars.” She resolved to not head home quite yet, though the hour was late enough that she shared the streets with only her cat.

An inkling of an idea was beginning to form . . . Sally was in the habit of eavesdropping, viewing all conversations in the Franklin household as parts of her personal narrative, therefore of utmost importance to her—whether or not other people thought of them as private. In particular, after the first night of spying on her father as he mastered a tiny incantation, she had developed a keen ear for all the little secrets of the household. People had mixed feelings about his newfound skill being something so obviously unchristian—though her father presented the case well that what seemed magic was merely an extension of natural philosophy.

One such overheard snippet had been after her father and William had observed the unveiling of the bell for the Assembly. Ben had shown strange symptoms, including a bloody nose, and he had argued with her older brother that he could sense the bell. Perhaps . . .

“I think we should go check out that bell,” Sally whispered to Mouser.

Instead of heading home up Fourth Street, they turned up Walnut Street, heading for Sixth Street. At the corner of Walnut and Sixth, in the public square located to the southwest corner, Mouser darted in front of her and went on alert, back arched, hair standing on end. Sally paused and crouched down. There was a commotion coming from the square.

Cautiously, she approached the action, hiding herself behind a tree. Mouser went ahead and climbed the tree, selecting a good branch to observe from.

Momentary flashes of light illuminated unnatural darkness. Sally’s eyes went wide. She saw a woman in a cloak and a man who might have been wearing regimentals standing several yards apart on the edge of the green.

She heard a woman’s voice, “Begone, agent of evil. I have no dealings with you.”

“Agent of evil? Cor, ain’t you a dramatic one, then.”

“The comet is just coming into the Earth’s influence. Be careful who you attack.” The woman blew into her hand, then made a dramatic motion, flinging a whirlwind of leaves.

“Macht nichts.” The man made a slicing motion and the leaves floated to the ground. “You think a minor glamour can harm me? Ha! Now, I think you do has dealings with me, see. I heard you was looking for the Manydoor. I want to know what you know, seeing as how I have the same mission.” The woman sprinted away as he went on, but only made it a couple steps before the man jerked his hand into a claw, “Macht kleb!”

The woman fell to her knees in a cry of pain, clutching at her throat. She writhed in place as the man slowly advanced, hand outstretched like a claw.

Magic! Without thinking, Sally sprinted forward, then between them. Her imagination conjured up a moment where she had observed—unseen—her father light a fire. She remembered what he had said. She shouted, “Lux!” throwing her arms wide as she slid to a halt in front of the attacker. A font of sparks flew out in all directions, erupting from both of her palms. Not quite what her father had accomplished with the word, but effective, nonetheless. For a moment, all combatants were blinded, and the man instinctively shielded his face with his arms.

With every ounce of strength that she could muster, Sally drew back her foot and kicked the attacker between the legs as hard as she could. He collapsed with a scream, and Sally spun, grabbing the cloak-clad woman by the arm and hauling her up.

“Run!” she gasped.

They made it blocks deeper into Society Hill before the two slowed down, sure their pursuer was lost to the night. Sally turned as they finally paused, glancing briefly down to make sure Mouser was with them.

The grey and black cat rubbed against the ankle of the cloaked woman, and Sally could finally see the face within the hood. "Jane Loxley?”

Jane stood a little shakily, catching her breath, then shook the dried leaves from her skirts, brushing away the detritus of the attack. “So, another Franklin has access to the skill of magic. I appreciate your assistance, but I’m afraid that isn’t the last we’ll see of him. We should get you home, young Sally.”

Jane swiftly recovered herself and, taking Sally by the arm, began to escort her back down Walnut Street.

“Now wait a minute!” Sally pulled her arm away. Mouser watched the two of them, fascinated by a kitten standing up to an adult. “I can’t believe you can do magic, too! Why was he chasing you? How did you do that wind thingy? Who is he? Who are you that you know magic? What did you mean ‘the comet’?”

Jane stopped cold for a moment under the onslaught, blinking. Sally was legendary for being precocious and fearless, but Jane had not experienced this side of her on previous visits to the Franklin home.

When Sally hesitated a moment, Jane seized the opportunity, still walking the girl toward her house, and interjected, “You must not speak of this to anyone. Anyone. Promise?”

Sally admired Jane Loxley, who dressed in more elegant and stylish clothing than her mother and who was a lettered and accomplished woman, able to speak and read multiple languages and play harpsichord even better than Sally. She was even known to hold salons to discuss the latest ideas from England. And now, to learn that Jane could work magic, Sally was beside herself with joy. Finally, a woman who would understand her, who knew how to live the sort of life Sally wished to live. “I promise. But who was that man after you?”

Jane smiled, “I can see your curiosity will not be so easily sated, young Franklin. It is too late by half this evening, and the walk to your house too short, for me to acquaint you with the business at hand. I’ll call Monday morning and ask your mother if I can have the pleasure of your company to assist me with some letters of invitation I must write. Now here you are. In you go.”

Sally smiled happily, nodding her agreement. “I’ll see you Monday. Thank you so much!”

Sally had been practicing different things to say to her mother about being out all day and into the night, but she was surprised when she got home to find her mother was already in bed, and she did not have to explain her absence to anyone.

* * *

St. Joseph’s Church

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Colony

December 24, 1758

The next day, Sally was more eager than ever to return to the clergy house. Again, she slipped out before her mother was awake, hoping to spend time with Billy before Sunday Mass. She and Mouser made good time, arriving at St. Joseph’s an hour before the first Tridentine Mass began. Billy greeted her enthusiastically, and they got straight to work. Sally pulled out the journal and the translations they had worked out up to that point, both of which she handed to Billy.

Billy opened the journal carefully, finding the spot he had left off, and squinted at the page, “I don’t have much time before I have to help with Mass. I’ll come back in as I can over the course of the day.”

Though Sally’s only break was for a quick lunch, they only made it part way through the journal and had to skip whole sections that were too obscure. Billy, bound as he was by his duties, had only minutes at a time to spare throughout the day. Nonetheless, Sally came away confident about two conclusions. One, she had to use words in a language that was important to her, not just Latin like her father used. And, two, she had to try her magic near the bell. She was positive it was “imbued, as Billy had translated, and contained the “metal fallen from the heavens” that was so key. Since tomorrow was the day Jane had promised to retrieve her and tell her what was going on, she told Billy she would not be by, but that if it was acceptable, he could expect her the day after that.

Again, reluctant to go home, for although it was already dark, it was only six o’clock, Sally determined she and Mouser would go visit the Assembly bell. She chose this time to go up Third Street rather than Fourth and avoid the public square entirely. It was a quick walk to the Assembly Hall grounds, and into the empty hall. She climbed the stairs until finally she was at the top, able to touch the bell.

A little nervously, Sally reached out her hand to the bell and touched it. She felt the magical resonance immediately. She had brought a piece of kindling and she pointed at it, as she had seen her father do with the fireplace. She thought carefully and repeated the intention of the spell, but instead of the Latin her father used, she tried the French, “Lumière.” A large flame burst from her hand and completely incinerated the piece of kindling. Mouser jumped away from the unexpected burst of light, and Sally flinched back, falling on her butt. Pulling off her cloak, she rolled forward and beat out the flames, scared that she was about to burn down the Assembly Hall.

Sally scooched back against the wall and got her breathing under control. She couldn’t tell if she was excited or panicked, but either way, her hands were shaking. “Wasn’t that an adventure, Mouser?”

The cat, for his part, stared at her calmly, then flopped onto his back, exposing his belly for petting. Sally giggled as she stroked Mouser, who in turn batted at her hands playfully.

Finally, staring at the bell, Sally stood again. It was time to see what she could do, and from how far away she could draw on this extra magic.

* * *

The Franklin Home

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Colony

December 25, 1758

Sally woke early, excited beyond reason, and dressed in her neatest cap and gown. Mouser opened one eye, yawned, stretched, then went promptly back to sleep, leaving the crazy kitten to do whatever it was crazy kittens did at this time of day. Mouser didn’t do mornings without the bribe of treats.

Sally sifted aimlessly through her clothing one last time, still not seeing anything that could truly be called elegant, but she would do her best to at least look respectable. She went to the kitchen where Jemima had the breakfast waiting. She was so nervous she could hardly eat anything. Instead, she set to work on some embroidery in the visiting room, though she made little progress.

The knock at the door finally came and Jemima answered it. She heard her ask Jane to wait in the foyer while he looked for Debby. Sally peeked her head out of the visiting room and gave Jane a quick wave and a smile, which was graciously returned. Sally returned to her seat, on pins and needles.

At last, Debby met Jane at the door. She invited Jane to join her in the visiting room, but Jane declined.

Jane and Debby had never managed to find a shared ease as friends the way their husbands had. Jane saw Debby as plain, simple, and while she respected the elder woman’s ability to stitch up the modern patterns, she knew that Debby Franklin would never be a trend setter. For her part, Debby found Jane to be full of airs, and was endlessly distracted by the younger woman’s ability to prattle on about things that should only interest the men. They didn’t hate each other; they just fundamentally didn’t connect.

Knowing her audience, Jane got right to the point. “I can’t stay long. I just stopped by as I had some need of assistance, and I was hoping you might be able to spare Sally for the day.”

Debby hesitated, “Exactly what sort of assistance do you require of Sally?”

“I’m preparing to have another salon, and I need someone’s help to write out all the invitations. She has such an even hand. I don’t know anyone else I would trust.” Seeing Debby continuing to hesitate, Jane countered, “Or even if it is just for a couple of hours. Any amount of time she could spare would be ever so helpful, Mrs. Franklin.”

Debby’s back stiffened. “She could spare? She could spare, indeed. I regret to say she will not be able to assist you, as she has responsibilities here that she has yet to fulfill. I appreciate the kind things you say about her handwriting, many have praised it. Unfortunately, she is not available today.”

Sally flew out of the visiting room, tears flowing down her cheeks. “You must let me go, Mama, you must!”

Debby shook her head. “You need to complete your work on the ledgers before you turn your hand to other things. Now back to the kitchen with you, this is unseemly in front of a guest.” Debby tried to scoot her daughter out of the room.

Sally pivoted away from her mother. “You never want any good thing for me. You just want to hold me back,” Sally raised her voice, turning red with anger.

“I must apologize, Deborah.” Jane nodded her head at Debby. “I had no idea of the situation. I beg your leave.” Jane then turned to Sally, “I’m sorry, Sally, but perhaps sometime soon you will be free to assist me. In the meantime, you must make yourself useful to your mother.”

Sally ran to her room and slammed the door.

* * *

Sally heard Debby and Jemima depart to go to the market. Debby didn’t even come up to ask if she wished to join them. “Of course she wouldn’t!” Mouser stared at her, unblinking. “I don’t agree Mouser. I’m not the one being unreasonable, she is!”

“Mrowr?” Mouser began grooming himself.

“Fine. Be that way.” Sally flung herself to the side on her bed and picked up Gulliver’s Travels for the hundredth time, wishing she could just disappear into the book and never come back. After an hour of reading, she decided she was hungry and headed to the kitchen for a snack. As she demolished some cheese, feeding nibbles to Mouser too, she was surprised to hear a noise coming from her father’s laboratory.

Her eyes went wide, and Mouser’s ears twitched. She shoved the hunk of cheese into her mouth, wiping her hands on her skirt. She and Mouser crept stealthily down the hallway, sliding through the shadows until she was snugged up against the edge of the entry. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. The outer door to the laboratory was open, the door handle broken, and a well-dressed man in clergyman’s attire stood casually sifting through her father’s things.

What the . . .?

“Hold up there,” she commanded, stepping out of the hallway and pointing an accusatory finger at the man. “This is not your place to be.” Mouser charged into the room, arching his back and hissing.

The man turned around, and Sally was startled to recognize the Reverend William Smith, the pastor of her family’s church. He was also the man who had recently begun writing very disparaging things about her father, even going so far as to accuse Franklin of not properly attributing his contributors in the study of electricity. He may be a man of the cloth, but Sally didn’t feel he was a man to be trusted.

“Ah, Sally,” Reverend Smith smiled confidently “Just who I was hoping to see.” He spread his hands wide, as if he was speaking to a congregation. “I know your father has taken up sorcery as a hobby, which I am happy to keep quiet about, but he has some things. Some magical things. And I need you to give them to me.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Sally said nervously. “I wouldn’t know what you could be talking about. And, it seems to me, you are breaking into our house.”

“No one will believe that a man of the cloth broke in. You are a trouble causer and just a girl, one who doesn’t know her place. All I have to say is I saw the door broken and came to help.” William Smith shook his head, “Now. I think you do know exactly what I’m talking about.”

He made a quick move and grabbed hold of Mouser by the scruff of the neck, undeterred by the hissing, the spitting, or the cat claws digging in at every possible opening. His hand was bloodied, and the man grimaced, but he cuffed the beast along the side of the head hard and Mouser hung limply from his grasp, out cold.

Enraged, Sally flung herself at the reverend. He stepped back and hit her across the head the same way he just had to Mouser. Sally collapsed, crying and dizzy.

“I’m taking your cat with me. You can have the beast back when you bring me what I seek. Come to the church. If I am not there, my curate will know where to find me.” William kept careful hold of Mouser, with his fingers wrapped around Mouser’s neck, and departed.

Sally sat unmoving, hands in fists, crying in anger and frustration, until the room stopped spinning. She must find Jane. Jane would know what to do.

* * *

Sally found the journals where she had hidden them and hurriedly stuffed them in a soft bag. Wrapping herself in her great cloak, she bolted out of the house, jamming the broken door shut behind herself, and ran all the way to the Loxley’s.

She arrived breathless and distraught, hammering on the door.

Jane answered her knock. “Sally, sweetie, what is this then? Has your mother released you so soon?”

“Can I come in? Please? It’s urgent.” Sally wiped at the tears she hadn’t even realized were streaming down her cheeks once more.

Stepping aside, Jane beckoned the young Franklin into her home. “Of course. The visiting room is this way.” Jane shut the door behind them. The room was cozy and warm, a roaring fire illuminating the windowless room with dancing shadows.

Jane prepared to offer the young Franklin vittles, but the girl interrupted her, desperate and frenetic.

“He’s got Mouser, and he says I can’t have him back until I give him ‘something,’ he wouldn’t say what, but I think he meant these.” Sally pulled the journals out of the bag and held them out imploringly to Jane.

Jane’s eyes went wide, and she held out her hand and took hold of them. “Wherever did you get these? And who is this ‘he’ who has Mouser?”

“I found them in Father’s study. I’ve started translating them. They . . . they . . .” Sally shook her head. “Reverend Smith has him. He wants these or he’ll hurt Mouser.” She stifled a sob. “What do I do?”

“You are right about that, I think. He would want these. Anyone who even suspects that magic is real wants these.” Jane nodded as she stepped toward the fire. “Unfortunately, neither you nor your father, nor anyone else should actually have them.” Swiftly, in one smooth motion, Jane pitched them into the roaring fire.

“What have you done?” Sally shrieked, lunging toward the fire.

Jane grabbed the younger girl, holding her back. “I have done what my master commanded and destroyed the journals. There are forces at play here that are well beyond you. I am sorry you got mixed up in this, but the less you know now, the better. Reverend Smith has the ear of the provincial proprietors. He is very powerful. We cannot hope to match him. You are young and naïve, mademoiselle, and this is for the best.”

Sally stared numbly at the fire, silently crying. She’d never seen a book burnt before, such a precious object, whatever it meant to anyone else. She had begun to feel a kinship with them, as if they were teaching her directly, personally. And now they were gone, and so was Mouser.

And so was Jane. Sally stared numbly at the woman. “Why? I thought . . .I thought you were special.”

“I was someone who you had created in your young girl’s wishes. I’m sorry, but the world is cruel. I will stand and defend you, always, Sally, but I cannot let those books continue to exist. Too much harm can come from them.”

“So, me and Mouser have to pay the price, because you say so?”

Jane sighed. “Sally. This is so much larger than you. Handing those books over would have cost so many people, and so much. It is best this way. It is just a cat. You will heal.”

Sally felt her hands ball into fists. “Just. A. Cat?” Her nails dug into her palms. “I thought you were different, but you’re just as stupid as everyone else. Just as cruel. He’s my best friend. Everyone else can go hang.”

Jane stiffened and her jaw clenched. “I’ll thank you to leave now. Someday you’ll understand.”

Sally departed without a word, lost in a confusing swirl of anger, hatred, desperation, and fear.

* * *

Sally walked back home in a daze. She threw the front door open, yelling for her mother.

Jemima met her outside the door to the kitchen, “Sally, what is going on?”

Sally paused, trying to catch her breath, still dazed, “I need Mother.” She clutched Jemima in a tight hug.

Nodding, Jemima replied, “She’s gone over to Josiah’s place to see about that rental property in Boston that burnt to the ground. You go along, I’ll tend to the house.”

Nodding and sniffling, Sally turned and ran for her cousin Josiah Franklin Jr.’s home.

She made it to Cousin Josiah’s in under five minutes and hammered on the door.

“Sally! What a pleasure,” Josiah himself met her at the door. “You seem in a state. Have you come to help your mother?”

“Yes, please, can you show me to her?”

Josiah nodded and led her directly to her Debby, who was in a back room of the house. She was helping Josiah sort the rental properties in preparation to sell off at least one of them in the coming months. Ben had left the deeds in her care, though Josiah managed the properties.

Debby was hard at work, one desk covered with papers, another holding burnt metal objects and half-full boxes scattered between them. Her mother hadn’t looked up yet, and said, “I saw that you somehow broke the doorknob to your father’s lab. Cousin Josiah has a few nice ones salvaged from the rental property we had in Boston that was lost to a fire. She reached her hand out toward Sally, still carefully scrutinizing the ledger she wrote slowly in, handing a doorknob to her with her free hand. “This one seems nice. It’s by far the fanciest, and my favorite amongst them.”

Blankly, Sally took it, and with a shock, knew it was star metal. How?? She instinctively slid it through the pocket slits in her skirts and into one of her pockets. It was amazing to find something else made from the same material as the bell, but that wasn’t what was important right now. “Mom?”

Debby looked up, and blanched, “Sally,” she exclaimed as she rushed to her daughter to give her a hug. “Whatever is wrong?”

With that, Sally broke down in sobs, her mother beginning to make out the gist of the story between Sally gasping for air.

Reverend Smith.

Mouser.

Jane.

Journals.

Finally, Sally looked up at her mother. “What do I do?”

Debby looked at intently at her, then gave her a good squeeze, “What do we do.”

* * *

Debby and Sally left Cousin Josiah’s and headed down Fourth Street to their home. Before they could open the front door, Jemima opened it for them, a worried expression on her slender face.

“Jemima,” Debby instructed, “Let’s go into the visiting room to sit and discuss what’s going on.”

Sally felt herself start. She couldn’t remember a time when her mother had invited Jemima into the visiting room to sit.

Once they were all settled, Debby said to Jemima, “Sally tells me that she discovered Reverend Smith breaking into the laboratory this afternoon while we were at the market. Remember when we found the door handle to the laboratory broken?”

Jemima nodded, “I do, ma’am. It was very peculiar.”

“It was Reverend Smith that broke it, not her as I feared.”

“I wouldn’t have thought so, not from young Sally,” returned Jemima with the satisfaction of vindication in her voice. “But still, a man of the cloth?”

“For evil reasons of his own, he has taken Mouser, and he struck my daughter. I intend for Sally and me to go get Mouser back and make the good reverend answer for hitting my daughter. He has Mouser at the church, of all places.”

Jemima’s eyes opened wide, “Do you think that particularly safe? To go confront this man over our housecat, even if it is a favorite?”

“Mouser may be a cat, but he is a Franklin. And no, it is not safe,” agreed Debby, “which is why I am going to send you to find Mr. Norris. Tell him about Reverend Smith breaking into Ben’s laboratory and taking Mouser. Tell him he struck Sally. Tell him we will be at Christ Church trying to persuade the rogue Reverend Smith to return Mouser to us. Ask him if he could join us and if he could bring a constable. We might end up needing to make use of him.”

Sally started to speak, but Debby put up a hand to hold her off, assessing the grim look on Jemima’s face. “Jemima, do you feel comfortable with that plan?”

“Yes, missus, I do. I think that is a good plan. I know his home address too well, having delivered many a meal to Mr. Franklin there when they were working on their politicking mischief.”

Debby laughed, “Mischief indeed. Then, Jemima, please go find Mr. Norris and request his aid on our behalf.”

After Jemima left the room, Debby rose and shut it behind her.

Sally, who was bursting to speak, waited for the signal from her mother, and began the moment she received it. “I can do magic, Mother. Just like Father! I can . . .”

Again, Debby held up her hand, and again Sally obediently silenced herself. She had never seen her mother so forceful and determined, “I know, Sally. How could I not know? But I am keenly hopeful that you will not need to expose that skill to Reverend Smith. Be as reticent as you are capable of being. Nay, more than that even. These people are dangerous. Come now, let’s away.”

Christ Church, Reverend Smith’s parish church, was just around the corner up 3rd Street and over on Church Street. The closer they got, the larger the enormous steeple loomed above them. Sally thought it never felt more imposing. The towering steeple had only gone up in 1754, four short years ago, but already she couldn’t imagine the city without it.

They passed through the main entrance but came up short when they found Reverend Smith in an argument with another man wearing a regimental coat, cut off at the skirts. The man’s skin was pitted with scars from smallpox.

Debby pulled Sally close, and Sally whispered, “I recognize that man. He battled using magic with Jane Loxley. I think he’s English.”

This revelation caused Debby to stare at her daughter for a moment, but she returned to the matter at hand, “That gentleman,” she said, “is a deserter. I recognize his description from the Gazette announcement. Here,” Debby rifled through her carryall and pulled out a sheet from the Gazette. “I carry these with me anytime I go to the market.”

Sally’s eyes went wide. There was a sketch that matched the man in front of her, and she quickly read the listing:

Uriah Brooks; private Soldier in Captain John Vaughan’s Company, aged about 26 Years, 5 Feet 8 Inches high, fair Complexion, pitted with the Smallpox, dark brown Hair, short necked, born at Reading, in England, a labouring Man, went off with his Firelock, Steel mounted, and his Regimental Coat cut short in the Skirts, and the Brim of his Hat cut very narrow.

At that moment, Reverend Smith and the deserter noticed them. The two men broke off their quarrel, and both turned to Debby and Sally. The deserter seemed to have the reverend at a distinct disadvantage.

“Why are they here?” the deserter asked.

“We have an appointment,” Debby calmly replied. “With Reverend Smith.”

“Do you now? Well I reckon your appointment is with me now.” He looked closely at Sally, “Wait a minute. You? I recognize you. You’re that brat what threw sparks at me in the square. We’ll have none of that here.”

With that, the deserter reached out his hand and twisted it into a claw. “Macht kleb!” he shouted.

Sally felt something grab her throat and yank her backwards. She struggled to breathe, unable to talk, kicking as she went down backwards. Reverend Smith went pale and threw his hands up, backing away. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Debby didn’t scream, didn’t yell, didn’t panic. Her daughter went down, and she strode forward, pulling a cinder-encrusted flat iron out of her carryall. She swung hard, without a word spoken. The blow caught the man under the chin, and he spun to the side and fell to a knee, blood pouring from his split jaw.

“Macht kleb!” he shouted, focusing on Debby, and violently jerked his arm to the side.

Debby was picked up bodily by the invisible force and tossed to the side. Her ankles caught a pew near the cowering Reverend Smith, and she crashed down between the rows.

“Mamma!” Sally gasped as her airflow returned.

Uriah Brooks, the deserter, turned his attention toward her once more. This time, Sally was ready.

“Lumière!” Sally pointed both hands at the soldier. Fire erupted in a gout, streaming with the force of her anger at him.

“Macht nichts!” he crossed his arms in front of himself, then flung them out to the sides right as he incanted the magic. The fire vanished. “Macht kleb!” he pointed at Sally and a fist of pure force caught her in the stomach. She grunted as she fell to her knees, but smiled. She got it now. He only knew how to do two things. She might not be as strong as he was, but she was clever.

Clever because of thinking.

She slipped her hand through the pocket slit in her skirts, grabbed the star metal door handle tucked away in one of her pockets, feeling the raw power coursing through it, and borrowed some of that power. She slapped one hand down on the ground, shouting, “Faire taire!” Then she focused all her will on holding it.

All noise in the church vanished in a cacophony of perfect silence. She could see it all. The soldier, confused, kept mouthing words that produced no sound. Reverend Smith cowered. Next to him, behind the soldier, Debby rose from the broken pews, bruised and bloody, but unstoppably swinging the flat iron, gripped tightly in both hands.

Sally was almost instantly dizzy. Even seconds of this was more than she could handle, but there wasn’t a choice. She had to . . .

The flat iron connected with the back of Uriah’s head just as comprehension dawned in his eyes. The soldier crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

Sally gasped, releasing the spell. The world spun and noise rushed back in.

“Sally, are you okay?” Debby was facing the cowering Reverend Smith, brandishing the flat iron.

“Mmmm. Tired. Mouser?”

“Reverend Smith. You have made off with a Franklin. You can return him to my daughter and be hailed a hero for catching an army deserter, for surely us womenfolk could not do such a thing . . . or . . .”

Smith looked up, “Or?”

“Or you helped him. Decide quickly, for Speaker Norris is bringing a constable.”

Smith’s shoulders slumped. “The cat is in a cage in the pew beyond that far column. Over there.” He pointed.

“Fetch him now.” Debby menaced the reverend with the flat iron once more.

Reverend Smith walked the length of the worship hall to the designated pew, Debby escorting him the whole way. He knelt, released the latch, and was met with a full Mouser launched into his face. Debby escorted the now bleeding-from-cat-scratches Smith back up the aisle, chuckling under her breath as he dabbed at the slices on his face with a handkerchief. As they reached the back of the worship hall, Speaker Norris and a constable walked in.

Debby quietly returned the flat iron to her carryall and attended to her daughter, who was now sitting in a pew and whose joyful reunion with Mouser was dampened only by her extreme fatigue.

Now that he had an audience, Reverend Smith—ever aware of Debby’s baleful eye on the back of his neck—proceeded to create a story that preserved his respectability, his reputation, and most of his pride. He referred little to the Franklins, only suggesting that they were aware he would be meeting with a rough character and out of great concern for his safety had arranged for Speaker Norris to bring the constable. For which, he confessed, he was truly grateful.

The deserter was taken into custody, the reverend was a hero, and the ladies were safe.

Speaker Norris gave Debby a few long, hard stares during the reverend’s discourse, which she ignored, but in the end did not say anything to any of them. Silently, he escorted all three of them home.

* * *

The Franklin Home

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Colony

December 28, 1758

Sally was on her knees in front of her father’s laboratory door, installing an ornate new door handle. The power coursed gently through her, pulsating from the star metal. Mouser was keeping an officious eye on her, occasionally pausing to lick a paw. Since the incident with Reverend Smith, he hadn’t let Sally out of his sight.

Debby came down the hall. “I see you finished the ledgers for this month and started on the work for the next. Very nicely done. And now you are installing door handles. Your skills multiply—and are multiple. You truly are a Franklin.”

Sally smiled in return as pride swelled in her chest, “I learned from the most efficient woman in Philadelphia. I like to think I’m also a Read.”

Blushing a little, Debby shook her head, “Too much flattery.” She held out The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, “But you have more than earned this book back. You’ll have to tell me about it.”

Sally stood up, shaking the dust of her skirts, careful to turn away so as not to entice Mouser to attack them. Sally gave a dainty curtsey, “Thanks, Mother. I am forever in your debt.”

Debby smiled back, “Indeed, you and Mouser both are.”

They turned and looked at Mouser who, though engaged in a full body bath, froze mid-maneuver, his hind leg in the air and looked up at them, as though asking why they weren’t following his example and doing the same.

Sally and Debby both laughed. The moment of laughter ended as Sally stared around the Franklin Laboratory. “I miss Father.”

Debby walked to her daughter. “I do too sweetie. I do too.”

Little did either of them know, as Halley’s comet raced ever closer overhead, how much his mysterious reappearance would change everything.

* * *

This story is set within the world of Caller of Lightning by Peter J. Wacks and Eytann Kollin. The novel is an entry in the Arcane America series, which includes Dragon Award winner Uncharted by Kevin J. Anderson and Sarah A. Hoyt, and Council of Fire, by Eric Flint and Walter H. Hunt. Caller of Lightning features American wizard Benjamin Franklin facing down the forces of evil both at home and abroad after the 1759 passage of Halley’s Comet brings magic to Earth and sunders the Old World from the New World for most people. Peter J. Wacks is a cross-genre writer who has worked in various capacities across the creative fields in fiction, gaming, television, film, and comics. When he isn't working on the next book, he can be found practicing martial arts, playing chess, drinking Scotch or IPA, or fighting with swords.

Bagala Devi Objective

M.T. Reiten

Bagala Devi

Melody Varnam pushed into a gentle arc away from the RB240 explosive applied to the rock inside her asteroid, Bagala Devi. Mel yanked the tether on the drilling laser and let it drift to her gloved hand, satisfied with her preparations. Suddenly the hollowed-out chamber went blurry under her suit lights. Dust hissed and pebbles pinged off her helmet from every direction. On reflex, she checked the explosives planted at the bottom of the chamber. Pristine. A massive shockwave had just passed through Bagala Devi and she hadn't caused it this time.

Mel thumped into the far side of her fresh excavation. She felt another shock and scrambled across the handholds sunk into the chamber wall. The open hatch above was rimmed with red and yellow hoarfrost, the frozen byproducts from her hollowing effort.

She was alone on this rock floating at the L4 point between the tug of Earth and the Moon. If her cargo had somehow detonated, her mission was over. If her prospector ship was damaged, she was dead. No one, except the Objectivity Project, knew she was out here. Mel pulled herself through the open hatchway.

Mel's ship, anchored several hundred meters away, sprouted plumes of gas and tumbling white fragments of ceramic hull. Above her ship lurked another ungainly prospector, holding station and launching rockets toward her ship. A goddamn claim jumper! But why? Bagala Devi had nothing worth mining. The Objectivity Project had staked out this useless lump of rock and iron for that precise reason. To go unnoticed. Mel immediately dimmed her suit lights.

Another ship, flat black and menacing, rose over the very near horizon. The newcomer blotted out stars and reflected little solar light. Tiny flares of attitude jets rotated the silhouette. A bulbous turret on the nose of the conical ship made it look like an evil badminton shuttlecock. The turret rotated toward the attacking prospector and Mel thought she was being rescued. Then the turret fired lasers that perforated her attacker and her own ship without discrimination.

Mel ducked into her hole and listened to static on the radio. Harsh flashes, like silent lightning, came through the open hatch. Mel pushed to the interior wall, where she might be safe, but that was where the explosives were. She shook, suddenly cold, and tried to slow her breathing, ragged gasps inside the helmet. She had been compromised. And now she was going to die here. Alone.

Mel tried not to cry, but there was no one here to judge her as weak. And, goddammit, what better time than this to cry? She blinked at the distorting lenses of the tears clinging to her eyes and shouldered the drilling laser. The laser was focused to punch holes in rock within a meter of the barrel, next to useless at range. But she needed the illusion of protecting herself, so she pointed it at the open hatch anyway.

That hatchway would hold atmosphere once she had finished venting the excavation byproducts. As soon as she established a sealed environment, she was supposed to declare sovereignty and protection under UN law. But construction sites had no protections. She had filed no trajectory plan, so she couldn't accuse her attackers of piracy. And her long-range comms were being blasted as she hid like a gopher at the bottom of her not-too-deep hole.

No one should have noticed a lone prospector ship. Everyone's eyes were turned toward the massive construction of the generation ship Station One at L3. Mel thought about Station One with engineering jealousy. The billionaires' consortium did it right. Big power budget to melt huge quantities of asteroid metal and feed massive extrusion printers. Hundreds of contract astronauts and fabrication specialists. Someone to help when you needed it.

Mel was solo because it was economical. This job required at least two crew, but that meant more life support and propulsion mass. She used explosives to burn up the rock, because it was cheap. The Objectivity Project had far deeper ideals than pocketbooks. All so they could get their new quantum computers into a microgravity environment out of Earth-side jurisdictions.

What exactly about the Objectivity Project had seemed like a good idea again? Mel's fear and self-pity burned into anger as she rested against the explosives, stared through the drilling laser's sights, and waited for imminent death.

Station One

Gustavo Santos’ wrist console buzzed an alert. 0440 Greenwich. Madre de Dios. He staggered off his cot in Station One’s Mission Control and replayed the distant lights on the big screen. Nobody in here but him, a human backup to the security programs that monitored near space for possible hazards.

Blink, blink, then a blur of blinks. He disliked those little bastard lights over at L4. Everything was black there now, so probably no danger to Station One. Only junk was left at L4, dust and scattered asteroids.

Gustavo yawned and sat in the boss chair. He moused up the magnification on the overhead screens and replayed the suspicious lights, watching them bloom and die again. There was separation in time and distance between the pixels of that second blur. If it was mining, it was damned sloppy. Combat, probably. He’d seen enough of that chaos. He directed Station One’s cameras and spectrometers to where the lights had been.

"What operations are current at L4?" he asked the console.

The display covered the blips of light from minutes ago, an unregistered operation. Six months before that, two white zigzag lines traced by small West Coast Conglom vessels on sampling runs. West Coast schedules showed nothing at L4 now, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t still out there.

Anybody else watching? Gustavo checked Moonbase feeds. Nothing.

He scanned L4 again at the highest magnification, looking for reflections from nearby rocks, but nada. He dove into Station One’s database, scrolled the timeline back to August, yawned, and found a reflection marking an unremarkable Type C asteroid in the correct place.

A place where someone in the small hours of his watch was blowing things up.

Was this the beginning of something or the end? Gustavo leaned back and rolled his head from side to side, feeling the creaks and pops in his neck that hadn’t been there five years ago. He got out of the boss chair and started fresh coffee.

Bagala Devi

The flashes subsided. Mel placed her gloved hand against the chamber wall. The staccato tremors faded from the rock. Something sped outside the open entrance hatch. Too fast to identify. Parts of her ship? Chunks of the asteroid? An attacker searching for her?

This ambush was not a random claim jumper. But two bad guys at the same time? How was that even possible? Mel recalled her crash course in orbital mechanics after she volunteered for this mission. If Mel had been compromised by a single leak, the available fast trajectories from Earth would dictate that the bad guys would appear about the same time. Not only possible, but probable.

Mel bit her lip in frustration. She really wanted to beat her head against the inside of her helmet, but the ergonomics of the suit kept her from smacking her forehead into the faceplate.

This mission had seemed so ideal like in the old dramas, standing against impossible odds for truth and justice. The Objectivity Project had wanted her to establish Bagala Devi, named after a Hindu goddess of truth, and get their quantum computer running. The cryogenic temperatures and microgravity available on the asteroid would enable what they told her was a "polygraph for the Internet." They had to get it off Earth for the ultrahigh performance computing it required and to keep it out of the crosshairs of various nation states that subsisted on lies and propaganda.

So Mel took off alone in a Belt prospector loaded with computers, cryogenics, and explosives, to the Trojan asteroids stuck in L4. She welcomed solitude for a while, but now . . . There was a difference between solitary and alone. Solitary was alone by choice.

Mel approached the frost-rimmed hatchway to assess the situation. But that might get her head shot off. At least that was faster than slowly asphyxiating. Definitely more painful. Not much of a choice, was it? She took a deep breath, futile but reflexive, and poked her head out, sweeping the drilling laser muzzle from curved horizon to steeply-curved horizon.

The battle was over. Only the sharp points of stars and blinding sun lit her hunk of damaged rock. Mel saw the attacking prospector ship receding sunward in an uncontrolled tumble. That meant it was totally disabled, since no pilot would let that happen to her ship. The other ship, the black one, drifted overhead at the same rate as Bagala Devi rotated, parked in a mutual orbit. The black ship also seemed out of action, although with less visible damage.

Then she saw her own ship and whimpered. Her ship had remained anchored to the rock. But beyond that it had become a mess of tubes and wires holding shattered eggshell bits of fuselage. The control cabin was a gaping wound smeared with carbon. Not the sort of puncture a meteor patch could seal. Shards of viewports and slivers of ice glinted around the remains of her blasted ship.

Before she could curse her rotten luck, she realized that if either attacker had shown up alone, they would have destroyed her unopposed. But they got kicked right in the karma instead. Immediate retribution.

Why didn't that make her feel better? Because her own poor ship, the only habitable environment on this asteroid and her home for the past few months, was squashed like a bug.

Mel scrambled from the hatchway, shattering the chemical hoarfrost. The route to her ship was more of a climb than a walk. She pulled herself along a line held in place with pitons, using the reinforced toes on her boots to keep from bumping into the surface as she glided over the uneven rock. At her landing site she inspected the damage.

Her ship had been holed with expert precision. The oxygen tanks were blasted. The hull had vented. The water reservoir that doubled as radiation shield was ruptured and sublimating. Missiles had trashed the propulsion. The high gain antenna, her only way to call back to Earth, had been sliced away by the black ship's laser.

The experts at the Objectivity Project had not developed protocols for this situation. Why the hell hadn't they? What they planned was in the legal gray area of space exploration. Hadn't they considered someone might try to stop the Project? People with money and power and a vested interest in the status quo? It was as if the Objectivity Project hadn't planned her mission to succeed.

Mel entered through the sprung airlock and maneuvered into the cockpit. What did she have? The portable reactor had managed to survive, so she would have power. The ship's Wi-Fi worked and the omnidirectional antenna hadn't been cut. The omni-antenna was meant to relay from the excavation site to the ship. Not enough gain to reach back to Earth, at least not with the Project's limited receiving capability.

Screw secrecy. Mel needed help. She keyed her mic and cleared her dry throat. "This is Prospector Seven Six. Mayday. Mayday."

"Go ahead, Seven Six."

Someone could hear her! That meant they were nearby. She grew giddy with hope. "Request rescue. My status is red. Low on O2. Hull breached. Located on Trojan 2295, L4. Over."

"Hold tight, Seven Six! Help is on the way!"

"Oh god, thank you." Mel sighed.

"Ha, ha, no. I'm kidding. You're going to die."

Station One

Gustavo looked for reports from Moonbase or other stations about the explosions at L4, but nothing.

"Show all info on Trojan 2295, L4," Gustavo asked the Station One systems. The sparse results showed that that particular rock had never piqued anyone’s interest—or no one had admitted it publicly if it had.

Gustavo stared at the projection of black-on-black space where the lights had flared, stray photons now augmented by algorithms from near-Earth satellites and whichever of Station One’s cameras were rotating past L4, adding information pixel by pixel. A halo of gas surrounded the black lump of 2295. Analysis columns grew on his screen, nitrogen, O2 and H20, traces of iron and some longer chain hydrocarbons.

Station One always needed volatiles, now that the embargos were enforced. Even a trace could imply good stuff and the consortium would alert companies who could mine them and haul them over rather than up from Earth. However, this didn't look like natural outgassing or a mining operation. Drones didn’t need molecular oxygen. Someone had just lost their breathable atmosphere.

Gustavo sipped his coffee to relax that tight spot in his throat, the one that made him smell burned dust from long-ago desert battles. Station One's computers sifted through weak archived signals, mostly resulting in random noise.

Then Gustavo caught a Mayday broadcast, garbled and reconstructed, from a frequency band used for short range comms. Someone was out there and in trouble. Moonbase should also receive the signal, unless the crew operating at L4 was purposely avoiding detection.

Time to wake his boss.

Wensley McDougal, current Charge of Station, looked stern on Gustavo's screen, but the pillow behind his head softened it. "Do I need to come over there?"

"Yeah. Somebody’s exploding a rock over at L4. Somebody’s inboard atmosphere is now smeared all over it."

"Okay," McDougal said skeptically.

Bagala Devi

"Who is this?" Mel demanded.

"Just another contractor." The guy at the other end of the radio had trouble breathing when he laughed at her.

Mel stared at the black ship through the gaping hole in her own vessel. Her attacker must still be up there. It stood to reason that he was unable to do more than verbally taunt her, otherwise he'd be shooting.

A flash of blue in her peripheral vision reminded her that she was unshielded. The stray gamma had passed through the liquid in her eye and scintillated. The water blivit on her ship had been the main radiation shelter while she clung to this asteroid. But now it was empty except for evaporating frost and offered no protection. She had to get on with surviving long enough for rescue. Dammit, think! Where to start? O2, duh!

"What do you hope to accomplish?" asked the raspy voice.

"Outlive you," Mel said. The snark felt good. The mercenary pilot was getting what he deserved. Then she imagined him trapped in a disabled ship, slowly dying. Alone. She felt a pang of empathy. No one should die like that. Not even murderous human scum. But if he was talking, he had atmosphere. If she could get his air, maybe she didn’t have to die, too. He might also have a high gain antenna that could reach to Earth.

She wriggled around and pushed aft. The emergency storage was intact and she yanked out the escape bubble by its handles. The tough polymer would inflate into a ball to rescue someone who didn't have a functioning suit. The little tank of O2 would last a few hours. She clipped the escape bubble to her belt. So now all Mel had to do was get to the black ship, save the merc pilot, and steal his life support. She could use her rock chamber for shelter and perhaps even make that broadcast claiming sovereignty. Then await rescue.

"You still down there, little rabbit?"

"Yep." Mel realized the merc pilot, instead of welcoming her rescue attempt, might try to finish his job if she got face-to-face with him. Mel dug through the scattered tools and found the titanium crowbar. Ideal for rescues or defending herself in close quarters.

"So," the merc pilot said with menacing joviality. "What brought you to this bit of the solar system?"

"As if you don't know," Mel scoffed. She hauled her gear out of her ruined ship and tilted backwards to see the black ship above her. "I'm busy."

"Busy doing what? Saving the world? That's my job, little rabbit. Saving it from terrorists like you."

"I'm not a terrorist," Mel objected, but she could tell from his utter self-assurance that the merc pilot was a true-believer. Too late for him after a lifetime diet of lies and propaganda. "The Objectivity Project prevents the spread of misinformation passed off as truth."

Mel scrambled hand-over-hand to the aft landing gear. Its clawlike grip had broken free from the rock and dangled listlessly as she hefted its mass. The landing gear doubled as harpoons to snag smaller asteroids or reel her ship to the larger rocks, holding her fast to the surface. Right now, Mel needed a harpoon.

The merc pilot nattered on in her ear. "You all mean to generate weaponized information. Destabilize the situation on Earth into full anarchy."

"No." Mel shook her head as she muscled the landing gear free. Slow and gentle. "We want a veracity scrub for the Internet. Flag fake news and propaganda, so people can make up their own minds based on objective facts."

"Veracity scrub? Oh, that's rich, little rabbit. Read that in their brochure?" He wheezed out an approximation of a laugh. "No one that naïve deserves to live."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll find out."

Station One

More words resolved into coherence now that Station One’s phased-arrays had a focus on their source. No reason to re-transmit the conversation just yet, Gustavo figured, not until he had an idea of what the fight was about. Help on the way; that sounded good.

"Ha, ha, no. I'm kidding. You're going to die," a male voice said.

"Bastard!" Gustavo shouted as McDougal slid into the chair beside him. "Not you, boss."

McDougal nodded, his weathered face devoid of emotion.

"There’s two vessels out there." Gustavo listened to the reconstructed feed. "One shot the other to pieces."

"One of ours?" McDougal muttered a command to the computer to replay what had happened so far.

"No. Something mentioned about the Objectivity Project." Gustavo tapped his keyboard, querying for information. Specs on the Objectivity Project appeared. Earth-based and modestly funded. Why did an information campaign need an asteroid?

"Objectivity Project won't mount a rescue," McDougal said, peering at Gustavo's screen. "It’s a pissant little company, no resources and not responding."

Gustavo checked for vessels who might answer a Mayday near L4. None with registered trajectories. Indie prospectors had picked over L4 long ago. Gustavo requested stats for a shuttle from Station One, L3, to 2295, L4, minimum transit time. The answer was three days out, four days back. "Yeah, L4 is in the wrong direction for a fast Moonbase orbit and nobody is closer than we are. No response to the Mayday. No one has heard this but us."

Gustavo pushed off the desk and got to his feet.

"Going somewhere?" McDougal asked.

Gustavo pointed at the screen. "Someone’s alive on that asteroid."

"Itching to get out there?" McDougal gestured for Gustavo to sit.

"Yes, sir." Gustavo sat.

"What are the odds the pilot is still alive? Hulled vessel? You’ll arrive in . . . ?"

"Three days," Gustavo said.

"Three days. Possibly into hostile territory. A bunch of folks don’t like us, remember? That's why we keep a constant lookout. That’s why someone sits here around the clock." McDougal waved at the screens in front of him. "They see us as stealing money, materials, and seed stock that could be used right now on Earth and will go to extremes to get it back."

"There’s been no activity on that asteroid since that first exchange," Gustavo said. "They aren’t shooting anymore because they can’t."

McDougal nodded, his eyes absorbing the streams of data on the displays. "And you figure there’s something interesting there?"

"Otherwise no one would be blowing it up." Gustavo pushed his chair back.

"You’re thinking Earth would love one of our shuttles going on a rescue mission. You’re thinking the PR from the drama might draw positive attention. Maybe we could sell more lottery tickets for a chance at a life on Station One, because we’re good guys."

"No, you’re thinking that," Gustavo said. "But it sounds right to me."

McDougal frowned. "We’re scheduled to kickstart the fusion torch in four days. This is a critical time for Station One. It’s a lousy time for a rescue mission."

"There’s never a convenient time for a rescue mission."

"It'd be different if she were one of ours," McDougal offered.

Gustavo stood and made it to the hall before McDougal called out, "Where are you going?"

Gustavo slumped his shoulders. "It’s time for real bed. It’s your shift now."

Bagala Devi

Mel aimed the landing gear claw at the black ship. She had to make the capture on the first attempt. Without puncturing the hull. That would really suck.

The claw shot away in a puff of reaction gas. The nanotube braid spooled out behind. The remains of her ship shuddered. Mel tried not to hold her breath, keeping the steady rhythm she thought would minimize her oxygen consumption.

"What are you doing?" the merc pilot demanded.

"Guess."

The claw made contact near the laser turret and clamped down. The line went taut. Mel sent the command to reel in the ship. The claw slipped, then tightened its hold. Mel backed off the motor.

"Come on," the merc pilot said. "I've got a surprise for you."

Mel ignored his needling chatter. She managed to ignore him all of two minutes.

"So how bad off is your ship?" the merc pilot asked in an irritatingly conversational tone.

"Can't gauge your own handiwork?" Mel stared at the straining line. The vibrations from the electric winch ran along the line and changed their sinewave dances under the flicker of her helmet lights. She kept the torque agonizingly low, because the line could not break and her own ship could not lose its anchor on Bagala Devi. Mel had nothing as backup. Her only hope for survival moved imperceptibly closer.

Shuttle Three

Gustavo watched Station One fall away behind him, a partially completed habitat ring with a graceful central spire. She would start her interstellar journey in the next decade, a seedship to preserve life from Earth and get it to a new home. Gustavo was a fool to risk his slot on Station One for any reason, much less on rescuing a stranger nearly half an orbit away.

Gustavo itched for the engine burns to throw him toward L4 before he could get recalled. After that he was committed to the fast trajectory. He had rations, water, air, a med rescue pack from stores. He’d return with something, one way or another, to justify his disobedience. Or he’d come back with nothing and face the consequences. If he'd pulled something like this back in the desert, he'd have been court-martialed. But he'd also have fewer ghosts haunting him today. Station One was supposed to follow a different way. A better way. And McDougal hadn’t ordered Gustavo not to do this. Well, not exactly, anyway.

The faint signals coming from L4 were relayed to the shuttle's displays.

"Gustavo," McDougal said over the flight control channel.

So much for claiming he was in his rack. "Go ahead."

"Tell me you got lost on the way to your quarters." McDougal snorted bull-like into his microphone as he waited for Gustavo to take the offered way out.

"No, sir. I’m exactly where I need to be." The main thrust kicked on. The pilot’s chair gimbaled to distribute the acceleration. No turning back.

McDougal lowered his voice. "Why the hell are you doing this?"

"Because we are the good guys," Gustavo said.

Bagala Devi

"My handiwork?" The merc pilot wheezed and then sighed. "Not making excuses, but I was preoccupied with the interloper. Seems you got popular, little rabbit."

"Heavens knows why," Mel said.

"It's the quantum computers."

Mel knew she paused too long before she said, "What computers?"

"The ones that the Objectivity Project stole from my employers."

Mel paused, this time from genuine surprise. "Stole?"

"Did your handlers tell you they were their own design? A bunch of techno-anarchists came up with a better crypto-hacking unit than a well-funded spy agency?" He didn't wait to hear her answer. "Nuh-uh."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Mel stuck to her cover story, but wondered how much of what she believed as truth was just another story. Lies and propaganda. "I’m a prospector trying to hit it rich."

"Selling ore to Station One, right?" The merc pilot sounded weak. Fading. "Just tell me if the quantum computers are destroyed or not. Is that so hard?"

"What have your handlers told you?" Mel sniped back.

"They won't write off that high-end tech. National security level. They'd rather have them destroyed than captured. Connect the dots, little rabbit." The merc pilot grunted in pain. "So are they down there with you?"

"I didn't leave them in my ship," Mel replied.

"Hmm." Grudging approval. "So, you're not completely stupid."

Mel concentrated on the black ship. The mutual orbit between it and Bagala Devi hadn't been a perfect match. It had seemed directly overhead when she fired the claw, but as the line grew shorter, the black ship fell further behind her position. She tweaked the grappling motor, bleeding extra angular momentum into the asteroid's rotation without tearing everything free. She only hoped Bagala Devi wouldn't break apart with the additional strain.

Eventually the black ship bumped onto the asteroid's surface. Her eyes felt dry and Mel forced herself to blink. She knew it was her imagination—her suit scrubbers were cleaning out the CO2—but her helmet felt stuffy as she clambered toward the captured black ship. The asteroid surface gave her a curious mixture of agoraphobia and claustrophobia. The star-filled sky was overwhelming, yet the horizon was tiny and cramped. Everything felt dreamlike as she put gloves on the sinister vessel.

The merc pilot startled her when he spoke. "So, what are your plans for me?"

What was she going to do with the merc pilot? Mel had avoided that thought. "What do you mean?"

"If you kill me, you'll have twice the life support. Only fair, right?" His mic was close to his lips. Wet ragged breathing. His question posed the basic calculus of survival. "I did try to kill you."

"I'll decide when I get there." She had wanted to sound menacing, but she only came across uncertain. Her grip on moral superiority slipped as she realized she dreaded finding the merc pilot alive and actually having to decide.

Mel examined the dark exterior of the stealth ship. No airlock? Only instrument ports and access panels. Mel rammed the crowbar into a large radar-absorbing panel. She pried it open exposing tubes and wiring. The crowbar ripped into another panel. Just the guts of an autonomous drone sent to kill her ship. An unmanned drone. No life support whatsoever to salvage.

The merc pilot snickered over the radio. "Heh heh! Wish I could've seen your face."

Mel looked up at the tumbling silhouette of the distant prospector ship receding toward the sun. Of course, the merc pilot had to be in there. He had led her on even when his death was inevitable. He'd played to her assumption that he was in the less-damaged black ship to waste precious time and even more precious O2. Her chances to survive were now close to zilch.

Shuttle Three

The hard burn of the shuttle’s drive left Gustavo feeling uncomfortably heavy. When it ended, he flexed his fingers and maneuvered the displays to the positions he liked. Shuttle Three observed the tumbling dot of a disabled ship departing 2295 L4. It was extremely unlikely to be a threat on that out-of-plane trajectory.

Gustavo muted flight control to concentrate on the signals from the asteroid prospector. He caught a broken conversation between the female voice and the bastard tormenting her. So they were still alive for now. Then he heard a reference to "quantum computers" and "national security" and the woman admitting she had them. His hunch had been right. There was something worth fighting over on that asteroid.

Microgravity, near-absolute cold. Station One had those on the docking spire. An array of quantum computers—currently export controlled from Earth-side—could improve the odds of Station One making it to the next star. Gustavo would claim salvage rights.

"2295 L4, this is Gustavo Santos in Shuttle Three out of Station One, responding to your Mayday. En route to your location. Update status, please?" Gustavo increased the volume on his headset and waited.

And waited.

The pilot might be dead. There was nothing he could do about that. Gustavo put the message on repeat. He’d been awake too long, and he drifted off amid the hiss of the universe.

Bagala Devi

Mel sat in her ruined prospector. She should get into the shelter of her "rabbit hole," but the rads she soaked up on Bagala Devi's surface would take years to kill her. More immediately, she had sixteen hours of O2 including the bottle on the escape bubble. If someone could get a fast courier out toward her, it would take three days to arrive. But that required the Objectivity Project to receive her distress signal. They wouldn't be actively listening, to keep unwanted attention off the asteroid. The only other people who knew she was out here had tried to murder her.

Mel found nothing to scavenge from the black ship. Propulsion mass vented during the brief combat. Batteries drained to power the laser weapon. No communication antennas that she could recognize, probably guided by an AI with orders to shoot anything that looked like her prospector ship. Now, it was a spent bullet, fired, forgotten, and dead. A husk pulled down to Bagala Devi.

Enough worrying about the things she needed but didn't have. What did she have? The cryogenics. Maybe she could freeze herself and then get thawed when they rescued her? She giggled and then checked her CO2 levels when she realized it wasn't funny. Not hypoxia, just stress and morbid humor. She had RB240 explosives—a rock burner formulation—stuffed in her rabbit hole. More of a hazard than solution. Then there were those quantum computers in a nearby crevasse, to be set up in Phase II of the plan. What would she calculate anyway? How long until she suffered permanent brain damage from rising CO2 levels in her bloodstream?

To hell with that. Mel was a survivor. She had been when she ditched her ex and finished her degrees. She had survived through the Belt prospector training. Mel would survive this somehow.

Maybe. Just maybe. She could use the explosives as rocket propellant. Or rock propellant. Maybe blast off rock as reaction mass to shove Bagala Devi into a retrograde orbit? Let the Moon catch up so someone could receive her distress signal? But that could take months if she considered the asteroid's mass and the total chemical energy stored in the few tons of explosive. She didn't have days, let alone months.

Her transceiver bleeped.

"Gustavo Santos . . . en route to your location . . ."

Shuttle Three

"I don’t believe you."

The defiant voice in his headset startled Gustavo. He’d given up on getting an answer.

"Damn it!" Gustavo shouted. "I mean . . . Hello. I’m glad you’re alive."

"I don’t believe that, either," the woman said.

"Look, I received your Mayday. I’m Gustavo Santos on Shuttle Three off Station One. I am incoming and I will get you out of there. Give me your status. Are you hurt?"

She took longer than six seconds to reply. "No."

"What’s your O2 reserve?"

"I’m good."

Gustavo chewed on that a little. "I was on watch when your Mayday came into Station One."

"You are sounds coming out of a speaker."

"And the last guy you talked to tried to kill you," Gustavo said.

"You caught that?"

"I didn’t catch much on Station One," Gustavo said. "If anyone else heard, they haven’t said so. For practical purposes, no one is listening except me. How much life support do you have?"

He waited for a while.

"Tell me how many days to get here!" she demanded. "You know I've got next to nothing left, so why ask?"

"I’m trying to save your life. What’s your name?"

"My name?" the woman asked. "What difference does it make?"

"Well. Actually. I’ve got a plan that might keep me from being kicked off Station One for rescuing you. But I need your resumé."

"My resumé?"

Gustavo realized how ridiculous that must have sounded. "I can pull your resumé from Earth-side. I want to get you a job on Station One."

"Oh. My. God. Offer me false hope, I promise I’ll kill you when you get here." The noises Gustavo heard sounded like a mixture of sobs, laughter, and sniffles. In a helmet, that was hell. "I'm Melody Varnam," she admitted.

"I’ll be there in sixty-six hours, Melody. More or less," Gustavo said. "I’m trying for less."

"Call me Mel." Her voice was hushed. "I don’t know if I’ll make it that long. Gotta go now."

Bagala Devi

Mel had under fourteen hours left, including the escape bubble’s O2. She kept still as she thought. How could she stretch fourteen into an extra fifty hours? The new voice—Gustavo—seemed earnest and as panicked as she was. Not what she’d expect from another assassin. That gave her a speck of hope.

She moved toward the rear of her wrecked ship and rechecked the atmosphere tanks, clearly punctured, and took stock of what she did have. Two shipboard scrubbers had survived. Maybe she could suck out the residual O2 in them? She’d have to be careful not to release the trapped CO2. The nitrogen buffer would still be in there, too, so not as useful as pure oxygen. O2. CO2. N2.

She took a sip from her drinking tube. H2O. "Melody Varnam, you are an idiot," she whispered. She already had tons of gas in a very compact form. Her rock burner explosives would detonate into O2, N2, CO2, and H2O. Of course, the extra O2 was intended to consume the rock during excavation. She called up the energetic materials handbook and scrolled to RB240. This formulation would yield 70 percent N2 and twenty percent O2 plus water and CO2 and proprietary trace chemicals. She had solid atmosphere and lots of it!

"I’m good. I’m good," she repeated in relief. But how did one turn explosive into a breathable atmosphere?

Shuttle Three

Gustavo accessed Melody Varnam's CareerNet site and downloaded her official resumé. Belt prospector course, middle of her class. Engineering degrees, but nothing spectacular.

How could he make this work for them both? McDougal had been right. Melody wasn’t Station One’s problem. But Gustavo was determined to make her part of Station One's solution.

The lag in data comms to Station One annoyed Gustavo. But his network access hadn’t been revoked. Yet. Not completely out of luck. He slotted Melody into the org chart to justify her immediate hire. He filled in the forms as they popped onto his screen. Resourceful and capable of independent work. Unique skill sets. Normally these were just buzz-words. Gustavo hoped he’d get past the automated filters on the Human Resources system.

Who would have thought a rescue mission would depend on paperwork? He had to wait when he wanted to charge ahead.

"Gustavo?" Melody asked. "Are you still inbound?"

"Yes," Gustavo replied. "Um, fifty-five hours ETA."

"You sound distracted. All okay on your end?"

"The irony of the universe is taking a toll. That’s all."

"I wanted to warn you. You might see more gas plumes from Bagala Devi. My asteroid."

"Are you under attack?"

"No. I am going to do something scary-crazy. But it's my best shot."

"What can I do to help?" Gustavo asked.

"Get here faster." Mel chuckled. Gustavo heard a hint of mania at the end. "I'm going to explode an atmosphere down the hole I've been digging."

"Is that possible?"

"The chemistry mostly works out. I'm worried about the CO2, but I can rig scrubbers to drop it to breathable levels."

"Wow." Gustavo knew his reply was insufficient, but honest.

"Still going to hire me on?"

"Without a doubt," Gustavo replied.

"This is the worst job interview I've ever had," Mel mock-grumbled. Gustavo heard scraping in the background. "Sorry. I've got to conserve my suit O2. So I'm not going to talk."

"Understood. Want me to keep talking? Keep up your spirits?"

"Nope."

Bagala Devi

Mel powdered a kilo of RB240 in the galley of her wrecked ship. The handbook said RB240 was resistant to friction. She hand-crumbled the yellowish explosive in a plastic bag and then minced the bits with a titanium fork. It reminded her of playing with Play-Doh.

The volume of her rabbit hole was close to a 2.5 meter sphere. If she released enough gas to get to one atmosphere pressure, that volume would be about 65 cubic meters. She'd need 16 cubic meters per day to survive, so that would buy her another 95 hours. More than enough time for rescue.

However, detonating RB240 would produce a shockwave that would burst the hatch and vent the gas. If she deflagrated it—burned it in little crumbly bits—it wouldn't produce a shock. But the hatch on her rabbit hole was rated for 1.2 atmospheres. If she burned too much, she'd still pop the hatch off and she'd be dead when her suit O2 ran out in four hours. Too little pressure and she'd have to start over. And probably die in four hours desperately trying to get another batch ready.

She took the crumbled RB240 to her rabbit hole. The shaped charges from the perforated walls were stashed in her wrecked ship.

"This is Gustavo checking in."

"Roger," Mel mumbled as she moved with slow precision. The rabbit hole hatch cast a cold shadow. Mel glided inside cradling the bag of RB240 against her belly.

Mel taped the bag at the bottom of the rabbit hole on a curved hunk of ceramic hull from her ship. The two scavenged scrubbers were positioned along the sides with more hull fragments protecting them. Check. The portable reactor to power the scrubbers was attached to fresh bolt holes near the entrance. Check.

The black crates holding the quantum computers were tucked inside as well. Check. Her insurance policy if rescued. They were worth two missions to kill her, so those might buy her way back to Earth or, if she dared think it, onto Station One.

Mel closed the hatch and her rabbit hole went black. Only the status display from the reactor twinkled. Her suit light shined on the yellow-brown mass on the white ceramic. Incense in a porcelain bowl. She poked the detonator into the bag and climbed to the top, spooling fiber as she went. She clung behind the reactor for protection. If her estimates were off and the RB240 detonated, it wouldn’t matter where she was in the sealed chamber. She would become a particularly sticky patch along one wall.

"Wish me luck," Mel said to Gustavo. But he didn’t reply, because she couldn’t broadcast out when the hatch was sealed. She should have anticipated that, but she was down to less than an hour of life support.

She gripped the remote firing unit. She flipped the safety catch and hit the toggle. The chamber lit up and an expanding sphere of flame enveloped her.

Shuttle Three

"This is Gustavo checking in." He waited. No response. Melody had always answered. Not with many words, but right away.

The prompt from Flight Control flashed at him. It had blinked continuously since he launched from Station One. Gustavo finally answered it. "This is Shuttle Three, go ahead."

"You want me to authorize a hire package for this Melody Varnam?" McDougal didn’t even sound mad, just incredulous. And tired.

"A five-year contract earns her free passage to Station One," Gustavo said. "She'll be one of ours."

"She’s still alive?"

"Yes, sir." Gustavo embellished Mel’s future as a valuable Station One colonist. He hoped it would be true. If not, he'd deal with it later. "I’ve also confirmed top-grade quantum computers to be salvaged on 2295. Computers they've embargoed against us from Earth-side. That’s what the fighting was about."

"Hmm? Is that so?" McDougal would be leaning back in his chair as he considered the options. "Okay. No survivor’s benefits until she sets foot on Station One."

"You’re all heart, boss."

"You think it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission?"

"Yes, sir."

"That’s only true if you succeed,” McDougal warned. "Let me speak with her."

"About that, we’ve got a little problem."

Bagala Devi

Mel’s suit sensors read 0.96 atmospheres. She had done it! Mel clambered through the smoky mist and turned on the scrubbers. The air—most definitely air!—began to clear. She heard the fans inside the vibrating scrubbers. Water vapor condensed into droplets on cold rock walls and the computer cases. She wiped her visor with her glove. Oily marks smeared her suit.

The CO2 levels dropped, but then remained steady. The scrubbers ran full blast, but the CO2 levels hadn’t changed in ten minutes. It was over six percent. That would kill her even though the O2 was pushing eighteen percent. So much for her brilliant plan.

She ran the scrubbers' diagnostics. Only two of the ten cells were flowing. The smoke residue had clogged the adsorbent. The scrubbers were designed to pull half a liter of CO2 per hour from a small prospector ship. This was a significant portion of a kilogram delivered in microseconds that, judging from the residue, hadn't combusted fully.

Unless she dropped the CO2 below four percent, the air she had created was lethal or, even if rescued, would produce severe brain damage. What did she have left? She looked at the quantum computers.

Mel took the drilling laser to the thinnest rock near the hatch. She bored a narrow hole to the surface. A whistle of escaping atmosphere reached through her helmet, but it lessened as she thrust her external suit antenna through the hole.

"Gustavo. I’ve got an issue." Agonizing seconds passed.

Gustavo jumped in. "Do you accept the job?"

"What?"

"I need a verbal on this now."

"Yes," Mel said to shut him up. "Now, my problem, okay? I’ve got atmosphere, but I can’t bring the CO2 down. I’ve got comms for the moment, but I’ll have to remelt the hole. This is the last you'll hear from me. I’ve got one last idea."

"What is it?"

"You’ll have to rescue me to find out." Mel sealed the hole by fusing her antenna to the rock with the drilling laser. She had minutes left.

Shuttle Three

Forty-eight hours of tedium and agony. Gustavo heard nothing from Melody. Nothing. But she was sharp and resourceful, so she had to be alive. He didn't want to reach the site of the firefight and find everyone dead this time. This was a different desert. He had a different mission.

Gustavo stared at 2295 L4 on the screen, a misshapen rock under harsh solar light. Hyperspectral displayed the false-color red of infrared in scattered hot spots. Missile impacts? No discernable movement among the wreckage of not one, but two ships. A standard issue Belt prospector and the other a stealth craft Gustavo couldn't identify, but its military design was obvious. More salvage. Near the civilian prospector’s hulk, he saw the glint of a metallic disc, like a coin wedged in the surface. A hatch!

"Flight Control, descending to surface of 2295 L4."

Gustavo brought Shuttle Three down on clamp landing gear near the hatch. He suited up and snagged the rescue kit. He clipped an escape bubble to his harness and cycled through the airlock.

The military ship and the smashed prospector on the too-near horizon made for a surreal post-combat scene. 2295 had only the vaguest sense of down. Gustavo tethered himself to Shuttle Three and crawl-climbed his way over the surface.

Gustavo reached the hatch. A standard size for mating, but only half an airlock. The Objectivity Project had really skimped on Melody's mission. He banged on the hatch and pressed his faceplate against the bare steel. He strained to listen. Melody had atmosphere inside, she had said, so she would hear him.

Nothing. Gustavo banged again.

He had tried to warn her. He prepared to move fast. If she was at full atmosphere inside, the chamber would vent before he'd be able to close the hatch. Gustavo popped the hatch.

Gas whooshed out, buffeting him, yanking the hatch out of his grip. Gustavo nearly lost his toeholds, but pushed inside against the weakening rush. He yanked the hatch to reseal it.

The spherical cave was pocked by hundreds of tiny holes sprouting ice crystals. The interior was lit by the control panels of a trash-can size reactor and high-end computers, an array of black gravestones. Halos of white frost rimmed cryogenic elements jutting from inside the computer cases. The chamber hovered at -75 C and would have been brutally cold when it had atmosphere seconds ago. Suits were designed for vacuum and had a hard time with convective losses.

Then Gustavo realized the ice on the cryo-elements was solid CO2. The CO2 gas had condensed into dry ice on every cold surface, but Melody had kept her cavern warm enough to not have the other gasses liquefy.

Gustavo found Melody curled in her own escape bubble, next to the reactor. The seal had popped into place as designed when the chamber depressurized. But the little tank of O2 was missing, so she only had that limited volume to breathe. He moved her bubble gently. Her visor was up. Her lips looked bluish and her face was ashen. Then her eyelids fluttered and her teeth chattered. She managed a smile.

"Let's get you home to your new life." Gustavo snapped his spare O2 cylinder to Melody’s escape bubble and hoisted her out of the chamber. He returned her safely to Shuttle Three.

Station One

The newcomer barely stumbled after the days in transit under microgravity as he located the entryway to Customs. Tall and slender, disheveled hair, haunted eyes, an enviably straight and narrow nose. Over one shoulder, he carried a reinforced backpack typically found in warzones.

"You are . . . ?" Mel asked from the Contractor Entry desk as he approached. His name and picture were already on her screen. A routine formality and a body language check.

"Bastiaan VanderOort." He handed over his crypto-data card with a flourish. He raised a skeptical eyebrow at the extruded-metal walls. "Fairly austere. Thought billionaires would demand luxury."

"A work in progress." Mel downloaded his card. "What is your business here?"

"I program computers."

"You must be quite good to be brought in so late." Mel watched his micro-expressions.

"Quite specialized." VanderOort met her gaze intently to convince her of his sincerity. Nothing touched his eyes when he gave her a lopsided smile. "What do you know about quantum computing?"

"Only delivered some."

VanderOort nodded and attempted to redirect the conversation. "Did you buy in as crew or on long contract?"

"Not lottery either." She tucked her hair behind her regrown ear that she had lost to frostbite seven years ago. "I’m a rescue they decided to keep."

Mel slid his card across the table and waved him on. "Welcome to Station One."

After VanderOort departed to baggage inspection, Mel looked down at the console window where Gustavo's expectant face appeared. She frowned. "He's hiding something, boss."

"We'll monitor him for now."

"Roger." Melody Varnam had fought for the truth and found a way to the stars. No one would take her new home from her.

* * *

This story is the winner of the 2020 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award given each year in conjunction with the National Space Society. JBM winning stories highlight a positive vision of humans taking to space. M. T. Reiten served in the military, with deployments to Bosnia and Afghanistan, and works as a scientist at a national lab, proving that there is such a thing as too much research for writing science fiction. He practices aikido, makes pizza, and lives in New Mexico with his beautiful wife and daughter. A Writers of the Future winner, he has published stories in several anthologies, including S. M. Stirling's The Change. He placed third in the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest in 2017 and 2019 before winning the Grand Prize. His website is www.mtreiten.com.

Sacrifices

D.J. Butler

“That’s the shipwreck.” Fix pointed at a mass of timbers lying around a cluster of gray, kelp-veiled rocks. The tide was out, and a gull watched the two men from the highest of the timbers.

“It’s a shipwreck,” Indrajit conceded. “How do you know it’s the wreck of the ship bearing the Pelthite ambassador?”

The two men stood on the track running along the headland above the sandy, rock-spiked beach. No highways ran south from Kish to the Free Cities; most of that traffic went by sea. The land-routes out of Kish ran south and east, toward Ildarion and the King of Thunder Steppes. Toward the bit of coastland where Indrajit’s own people lived.

If they still lived.

The late afternoon sky was overcast, the clouds sinking in iron bands to encircle the headland, the rocks, and the waves themselves, so that the breaking surf was only barely visible. In this weather, there could certainly be more than one recent shipwreck.

“Look at the curve of that prow,” Fix said. “Pelthite. Aren’t your people seafaring?”

“We’re fishermen,” Indrajit said. “In the first place, that means that we make our own boats for fishing. In the second, we make small boats. We don’t need to sail to Pelth or anywhere else, we just get out far enough in the water to catch food. So I wouldn’t know a Pelthite prow from a Maliki mainmast.”

“You’d better be able to tell a prow from a mast. Don’t you have a kenning that would help?”

“I know the parts of a ship.” Indrajit sniffed. “I see you missed the alliteration entirely.”

“Ah,” Fix said. “Pelthite prow, now I hear it. I see alliteration better when it’s written down.”

“Poetry that has been written down isn’t poetry,” Indrajit said. “It’s just the dead remains of poetry. An Ylakka skeleton is not the same thing as an Ylakka.”

“But a century after its death, I can still examine an Ylakka skeleton and learn from it. An hour after a living Ylakka walks across this headland, no one will have any idea that it has been here.”

“You belong in the Hall of Guesses,” Indrajit said, “with the other scholars.”

“If I wanted mere knowledge, I’d have stayed in the ashrama.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Indrajit clapped his shorter friend across the shoulders. “Shall we get down in there with the prow and the mainmast and see if the ambassador went down with the ship?”

“If the ambassador died, there’s time to find that out.” Fix scanned the headland and Indrajit looked with him, spying a cluster of huts at the base of a cliff ten minutes’ walk away. “Besides, if he died, he’s probably under thirty fathoms of seawater. But if Wopal is right and someone else is interested in the ambassador, and the ambassador is alive, then we need to get to him first.”

Grit Wopal was the spymaster of Orem Thrush, the Lord Chamberlain. Indrajit and Fix worked for him, not as spies, exactly, but as men of all competence. Investigators, observers, enforcers, messengers, bodyguards, and more. Usually, they worked in the Paper Sook, which was the financial market of the city of Kish, but on this day, Wopal had sent them on an urgent errand to find a shipwrecked ambassador.

“If I wrecked on this shore,” Indrajit said, “the first place I’d go would be those houses. For food and shelter, to get wounds tended, to get a message sent off to Kish.”

“Unless you just walked straight to Kish,” Fix suggested.

“We’d have passed the ambassador on the road,” Indrajit said. “With your keen wit and my broad vision, we’d have seen him. What about the necropolis?”

The necropolis stretched to their left. It was larger than the city itself, having once been a city in its own right before being converted into a massive burial complex. From where they stood, it was invisible, shrouded in fog.

“If I knew the lay of the land,” Fix said, “and I thought I was being pursued . . . maybe. Or if I was a stranger, and mistook the necropolis for Kish itself.”

“So first we try the huts.”

They walked to the cluster of hovels. They were on foot because Indrajit didn’t know how to ride. But Fix didn’t complain, and, in any case, they were close enough to the city that it probably didn’t really matter.

But not knowing how to ride limited Indrajit’s ability to be effective. He should probably learn how. He had resisted it, partly out of pride and partly because, on the few occasions he had ridden, the placement of his eyes, far apart on the sides of his head, when he was perched atop a big, fast-moving animal, had quickly made him queasy with vertigo.

“I should learn to ride,” he said, as they approached the village.

“Fine,” Fix said.

There were more huts, visible once they drew close, than Indrajit had realized: half a dozen, all told, none more than twenty cubits to a side and most closer to ten. They huddled around a linear depression in the beach, a slash that created an inlet of water running right up to their doors, fed from a spring in the rocks of the headland. Skin coracles lay upside down beside the huts, which were made of a gray plaster and roofed with bundles of grass.

Indrajit and Fix rattled down a natural staircase made by a tumble of boulders spilling down the headland, hallooing and waving, hands nowhere near their weapons, to catch the attention of a single visible person who huddled in the lee of a cottage beside a tiny fire, smearing pitch from a pot over the fire along a coracle’s seams.

“Hello!” Indrajit called. “We’re friendly!”

“We’re men of peace!” Fix added. His high-pitched voice made him sound very earnest.

The coracle-mender looked up from the work. Indrajit had seen this race of man before in Kish, among the fishermen of the East and West Flats. They had grayish skin, not pale so much as leached of color, with very wide foreheads and very narrow chins, giving their faces a triangular appearance. Along their chins and jawlines, where other men might sometimes have beards, these fishers instead had fringes of noodle-thin tentacles that bounced when they spoke.

“What do you want?” The coracle mender rose to stand. “We owe no one!”

“We’re not collecting taxes,” Fix said. “And we’re not buying fish.”

“Then we have no business!” The coracle mender cracked his knuckles, but made no motion to return to the work.

“We work for the Lord Chamberlain,” Indrajit said. “And we’re investigating a shipwreck.”

“We’re fishermen.” Triangle Head sniffed. “Not wreckers.”

Indrajit looked at the village, with its rickety boats and its worn nets and its thatch roofs. He noticed that the sand, much disturbed by many footprints, bore the distinct marks of the passage of men with tails. “We believe you. Is it just you and your family here?”

Triangle Head nodded warily. “We’re all kin.”

Fix was watching the fisherman intently. He must also have realized that Triangle Head was lying, concealing the presence here of other men. Were they wreckers, after all?

“There’s a shipwreck just up the coast,” Indrajit said. “Recent. I gather you didn’t see any survivors.”

Triangle Head snorted.

“Can you ask your family?” Indrajit asked. “Maybe they saw someone. Maybe ask them to come out and talk?”

“There’s a reward,” Fix said, smiling.

Triangle Head grunted and set down the stick he had been using to smear pitch. He shuffled into the nearest and largest of the huts.

“There’s no reward,” Indrajit said.

“He’s lying,” Fix answered, “and we’re about to fight whoever is hiding in that house.”

“Zalaptings,” Indrajit guessed, “maybe others.”

He shrugged out of his tunic, wrapped his hand in it, and picked up the pot of melted pitch.

“Good idea.” Fix drew his falchion in one hand and his fighting ax in the other.

Indrajit thrust the smearing stick into the fire; it ignited instantly. “Why will no one every cooperate with us? We are so obviously men of peace.”

Fix positioned himself in front of the cottage door, a thick slab of knotted wood hanging on leather hinges. He scanned the village with his eyes, making certain no one could shoot him out of any windows. “They think they can get a better outcome by lying to us or killing us.”

“I suppose that must be it.”

Indrajit touched fire to the pot of pitch, which burst instantly into flame. Then he threw the pitch onto the thatched roof.

“Come on out,” Fix called. “We’d rather not hurt anyone. We’re just here for the ambassador. But we have set fire to the building.”

Indrajit heard a whirring sound behind him and dove to the side, trying to avoid the sling bolt that he knew was coming. The projectile struck him in the upper left arm, hard enough to make him drop the pot.

“Get the door!” Fix yelled. The shorter man was already bounding toward the boulders above the spring, where two Zalaptings, short, lavender-skinned men with long snouts and tails, crouched and spun their slings again to fire a second time.

“Come out and die like men!” Indrajit bellowed, in his loudest, angriest voice.

Then he gripped the plaster wall, wrapping his fingers around the faintest of protrusions and sinking toes into the shallowest of cracks. Indrajit, like all his people, was a good climber, and he quickly vaulted up onto the burning rooftop.

Indrajit drew his leaf-bladed sword, Vacho, the Voice of Lightning. Eyes watering from the smoke, he peeked over the front of the building, and saw no one. Under his feet, the thatch was ablaze. Timbers were exposed, and through the smoke, Indrajit could see an upper loft over half the building’s footprint, and a single large room below, with sleeping platforms and pens for geese and pigs.

Stepping as lightly as he could manage, Indrajit dropped onto the loft. It was an untidy nest of sleeping furs, clothing, and personal oddments, and a ladder led down into the main room.

“What was that?” he heard.

“The cottage is burning, you moron,” a second voice snarled, deeper than the first. “Soon it will fall down on top of us. Now get out there and kill those two.”

“We don’t know that there are only two.”

“So send the fisherman first. Use him as a shield.”

Indrajit crouched and waddled to the edge of the loft, which had no rail. He saw Triangle Head and a group of other people who looked like him; Triangle Head stood with slumped shoulders and bowed head, and the others, seven or eight of them, were tied hand and foot in the corner. He saw six Zalaptings, and a man four times Indrajit’s size, with mottled red skin, a carapace, and lobsterlike claws where Indrajit had hands. At the red giant’s feet lay one more person, a young man with a yellowish Pelthite complexion. The Pelthite wore loose purple silk pants and a bright red sash for a belt.

He seemed a bit young to be an ambassador. Maybe he was politically connected.

“If we wait,” one of the Zalaptings was whining to Lobster Hands, “Payot will come down from Kish with more men.”

“If we wait, Payot will find us roasted. Go!” Lobster Hands snapped his claws. He grabbed Triangle Head and pushed him out the door.

Indrajit had to act now or lose the initiative. He jumped.

He crashed down feet-first, his sandals striking the back of Lobster Hands’s neck and driving the man to the ground. Geese honked and pigs oinked furiously, but Indrajit had no time for the livestock.

“The Protagonists!” he yelled, staggering to his feet and sweeping his sword. The name of their jobber company might not yet strike fear into enemies’ hearts, but if Indrajit kept yelling it as he ran into combat, eventually it would. He struck down one Zalapting and the other three scattered, bouncing into the smoky corners of the cottage.

Lobster Hands groaned and rolled over onto his back.

Vacho’s blade was sharp, so Indrajit cut through the ropes tying the feet of the triangle heads quickly, and then stood, just in time to meet the two Zalaptings returning through the front door. The first ran at him with a short stabbing sword extended, and Indrajit swung with all his strength. Indrajit was tall, with longer reach than the Zalapting, and had a longer blade—the Zalapting’s point was nearly a cubit short of Indrajit’s breast when Vacho bit into the side of the Zalapting’s head, sending the little lavender man into a silent pile in the corner.

The blow left Indrajit off-balance and exposed to the attack of the second Zalapting, but Triangle Head jumped the little man from behind, dragging him to the ground and headbutting him.

Indrajit turned to menace the other three Zalaptings. They huddled in the back of the cottage, among squealing pigs.

“You burned my house!” Triangle Head yelled.

Indrajit scooped up the Pelthite and slung him over his shoulder. “But I saved your family!”

“You burned my house!”

Indrajit had no time to argue. He stooped to move through the small front door. As he drew breaths of fresh air on the outside, stumbling toward where Fix stood pulling his ax from the body of a Zalapting, a flash of green caught his eye. A lizard the size of a smallish dog burst from the flaming cottage behind him and raced toward the headland.

Lobster Hands would be standing soon. Indrajit wanted to get out of sight before the larger, scary-looking man came searching for him.

Fix gave Indrajit a hand up the boulders, and they scrambled up to higher ground.

“Is this the ambassador?” Fix asked.

“We’ll ask him when he wakes up,” Indrajit said. “Right now, there’s a big ugly fellow about to come swarming out of that cottage with blood in his eye, and also someone named Payot coming down from Kish with more fighters.”

“We need to hide,” Fix said quickly.

“I bet you read that in a book somewhere.” Indrajit nodded toward the necropolis, just visible as a wall of gray in the gray mist. “The necropolis it is.”

The lizard bounded on ahead. It had a long, muscular tail, a wide ruff around its neck, and a snout like a needle. Its scales were a shimmering green, dimmed by the fog.

When he reached the wall, Indrajit cast his eyes about, looking for pursuit. The sea was invisible behind them, the land simply disappearing where the headland dropped to the beach, and there was no one following. He saw no one on the road, either.

But the damp ground held his and Fix’s footprints, glaringly visible even to the eye of someone who had never been a tracker.

“Frozen hells,” he muttered.

The wall was low and crumbled at this point. Once, it had defended living inhabitants within, in this remote neighborhood of Imperial Kish, or perhaps in this far-flung suburb, or satellite fortress. Now Indrajit climbed up onto the wall without setting down the Pelthite, and the wall defended nothing, but only marked the line between the land of the living and the land of the dead.

Within the wall were crumbling brick houses. Tall, spiny yellow grass thrust its way up into the fog, knocking aside cobblestones and asphalt, and grim, tenacious black lichen sank invisibly tiny fingers into the cracks between bricks, gnawing at the mortar and striving with centuries-slow growth to tear down the remaining monuments.

“We have to get out of sight.” Fix jogged deeper into the necropolis, turning twice to get buildings between him and the sea. The lizard scampered at his feet, gazing up at him and Indrajit both with a thoughtful expression.

Indrajit followed, slightly more slowly. His burden was beginning to tire him, but the knowledge that they could be easily tracked spurred him on. “Get onto a highway,” he panted. “Let’s get a mile between us and the lobster. Or better still, a league.”

“Lobster?”

“That’s what he looked like.” Indrajit coughed up and spat bitter phlegm. “Really big, reddish, a shell, claws.”

“I’ve seen those before,” Fix said. “They come from down south somewhere. Easha or Hith, maybe.”

“Makes sense they’re from far away,” Indrajit grunted. They reached a stretch of tarred road that wouldn’t hold tracks—or at least, not any ordinary kind of tracks—and jogged northward along it. This was good, this might let them get on the other side of Payot and his men, and get back into Kish, where the Lord Chamberlain’s power would protect them. “I don’t know any kennings about such men.”

“We need to wake this guy up and confirm he’s the ambassador,” Fix said. “Because if he isn’t, we have to go back.”

Indrajit grunted his reluctant agreement. They took a right turn, heading east, away from the city, to cross a stone-paved plaza whose flagstones were mostly intact. The buildings surrounding the plaza were whole, and their windows and doors had been bricked shut.

Once shops and offices and dwellings of the living, they were now mausoleums.

Beneath ancient Kish ran a maze of tunnels and caverns in multiple levels. Stories suggested that was true of the necropolis as well. Did that mean that strange creatures fed on the dead interred here?

Or that if someone was buried who was . . . not quite dead, he could escape and walk around?

They walked beneath the gaze of a statue. It was carved of marble but thoroughly weathered, and new features had been painted on the statue, and new words painted over the words that had been chiseled into the pedestal. Indrajit couldn’t read, but he could see that the statue had been carved as a bearded man, and had been painted to resemble a woman with green skin and long hair.

Fix saw him looking. “Old Imperial sculpture. I don’t recognize the name, might be a god or a hero or some long-forgotten banker who was once important. He’s been converted into a burial image for a priestess named Artazia.”

Indrajit wasn’t quite sure where the sun was, given the fog, but he thought it might be getting low in the west by now. He took a deep breath.

“Okay, this is the moment of truth.” He knelt and stretched the unconscious young man out on the stones, as gently as he could. The green lizard rushed up and perched on the crumbled, two-cubit tall remains of a stone column. Its bright pink tongue flicked in and out, and it seemed to watch Indrajit closely. “Wake up . . . how do you address an ambassador?”

Fix grunted. “‘Your Excellency’?”

“I’m going to stick to ‘sir,’” Indrajit said. “If it’s wrong, it’s at least respectful, and doesn’t sound like a comic exaggeration. Wake up, sir.”

He cut the ropes binding the young man, listening for indications of pursuit as he did so. Nothing.

He patted the unconscious man’s cheeks. He was still breathing, but his breath was a little erratic, and he groaned. The Pelthite had long, dark eyelashes, and curly dark hair that fell around his ears and covered what would have been a very high forehead.

Fix handed Indrajit a waterskin. “Try this.”

“It feels impolite,” Indrajit said, but he took the water.

“We need to know, and we need to know now.”

Indrajit nodded, and splashed water in the young man’s face. The Pelthite gasped, opened his eyes, and sat up.

“Banus!” he cried.

“No, sir,” Indrajit said. “My name is Indrajit, this is Fix. You are not our prisoner. In fact, we rescued you. If you are the Pelthite Ambassador whose ship wrecked yesterday, we are here to bring you to the Lord Chamberlain of Kish.”

The lizard scampered between Indrajit and the Pelthite, climbing onto the young man’s chest and laying its head alongside his. The young man grew noticeably calmer, his breathing slowing and his posture relaxing.

“Are you the ambassador . . . sir?” Indrajit asked.

Then young man hesitated, then nodded.

“You seem quite young.” Fix’s statement wasn’t exactly an expression of doubt and it wasn’t exactly a request for an explanation.

“I am a prince of the blood,” the Pelthite said, “born on the rabbit fur. Banus is my name.”

Indrajit looked at Fix, and both men shrugged slightly.

“The Lord Chamberlain is to be my host,” Banus said. “How do I know you serve him?”

“We don’t carry badges,” Indrajit said, “and if there’s a password, he didn’t tell it to us. So I guess your choices are to go back to those guys who had you tied up, or try to get to Kish on your own, or come with us.”

Banus hesitated, doubt in his face. “May I have some water?”

Indrajit handed him the waterskin and Banus drank.

“If you want to strike out on your own,” Indrajit told him, “you can take the water. I should warn you, we’ll follow you and try to protect you, so you’ll still see us. And, if you weren’t sure, Kish is that way.” He pointed. He didn’t like losing the waterskin, but if that was what it took to keep the ambassador alive, so be it.

Fix handed the young man his fighting ax. “Whatever your decision is, you should go armed.”

“You should definitely go armed.” Indrajit laughed. “Welcome to Kish.”

Banus stroked the lizard, pressed his cheek to the creature’s cheek, and struggled to his feet. The lizard stayed perched upon his shoulder. “I will come with you.”

“That leaves us a choice,” Fix said. “Walk back in the dark, or hide here for the night?”

“I don’t like either of those. If we hide here, they might catch us, or we might encounter worse threats, living among these stones, Indrajit replied.” He peered into the deepening shadows, imagining cannibal cults, walking dead, and evil things too old to have names.

“I’d be tempted to dismiss your fears as ridiculous fantasy,” Fix said. “But outlaws and smugglers use the necropolis. We don’t have to encounter any eldritch unnamed thing to meet our end out here tonight.”

“But between the necropolis and the Caravanserai, on the south side of the city, is open ground. Flat as a frying pan.”

“Is that an actual kenning from the Blaatshi Epic?” Fix kept a straight face, and Indrajit couldn’t tell whether he was being teased.

“No, it’s a cliché. There is an actual kenning for broad, flat meadows, and it’s earth asleep, still as breathing, wide face of earth unending.”

“You’re a poet,” Banus said.

“Sort of,” Fix answered.

“I am the poet,” Indrajit said. “I am the four hundred twenty-seventh Recital Thane of the great epic poem of my people.”

“You wouldn’t believe how impressive people find that,” Fix said.

Banus nodded solemnly.

“If we try to cross the open ground, we’re easy targets,” Fix said, finishing Indrajit’s thought. “Of course, with the fog, it might be hard to see us.”

“And it might be hard for us to see Payot or Lobster Hands sneaking up on us. And it might be hard to find our way to the city. We might walk all night toward Ildarion.”

“Which one of you is the boss?” Banus asked.

“You have divined the weakness in our management structure,” Fix said.

“It’s not a weakness.” Indrajit snorted. “It’s a strength. We decide unanimously. But I think there’s a third possibility.”

“We go south,” Fix suggested. “Walk a week to the Free Cities, book passage on a ship, and sail back.”

“Close, actually. We sneak back to the fishing village under cover of darkness. We borrow a coracle and paddle it up the coast to Kish.”

Fix was quiet for a moment. “Yes. I think that’s a good idea.”

“Unless they expect it,” Indrajit said. “In which case, they might be waiting in ambush for us. Again.”

“That’s true of any choice we make,” Fix pointed out. “And I think this seems like a pretty unexpected maneuver.”

“I don’t really want to find out what this place is like after dark. And, even if it’s just smugglers, I don’t want to meet anyone else out here.”

Fix pointed. “Back that way is west. If we can get to the wall and take shelter near it, we can easily walk straight out to the coast once it’s dark.”

“Or a few hours later.” Indrajit started walking.

The journey back westward was easier in that he was no longer carrying Banus. The Pelthite prince kept pace with Indrajit and Fix easily, even though the lizard rode on his shoulders. He spoke a lot, but kept his voice down, and most of what he said was innocuous to the point of being vapid. “That’s a big building . . . I wonder what kind of people used to live here . . . ooh, this must have cost someone a pretty penny, once upon a time . . . I can imagine that this would have been a lovely street, with a cooling breeze from the sea.”

Perhaps ambassadors specialized in small talk with no content. Banus kept his voice down, and Indrajit didn’t object. He and Fix took turns grunting laconic agreement with whatever the ambassador said.

The journey wore on Indrajit’s nerves, though, because the shadows grew deeper and darker. Rattling and slithering noises that he had ignored in the afternoon, assigning them in his imagination to birds and snakes and marmochucks, he now imagined to emanate from the footfalls of assassins and cannibals and masked hierophants with stone daggers in their hands.

They reached the wall. Here, it rose to its former height, with a parapet and a walkway. A stone’s throw away, a tower stood athwart the wall, its peak staring out over the battlements, a yawning entrance and the bottom of a flight of steps at its base. The sun was down and the entire tower lay in shadow. Only the toes of the lowest two steps were visible in the gloom.

“Who wouldn’t feel safe, surrounded by such walls?” the Pelthite prince asked.

“A prisoner.” Indrajit smiled, the expression lost in the darkness that had fallen. The lizard on the prince’s shoulder made a rasping sound that sounded like laughter.

“I’ll go first.” Fix started up the stairs, falchion probing ahead of him in the shadow.

The prince with his lizard followed close behind.

Indrajit turned, leaf-bladed sword in hand, and stood at the base of the stairs. He heard his friend and the ambassador climb, steps fading to hushed whispers the higher they went. He took a single step back into the shadows and scanned the murk of the necropolis.

He heard Lobster Hands coming before he saw the man. At first, he heard footfalls, and though his imagination conjured up slithering eyeless crypt denizens, toothless eaters of the flesh of the dead, and asymmetrical, lurching monsters with three wings and a single fang, he held still, breathed deeply, and tightened his grip on Vacho. But then he heard the sound again, and knew it for the heavy tread of a foot. And then he saw Lobster Hands, walking directly toward him.

The man came from the north. With him came two Zalaptings—Kish had absolutely too many of the lavender-faced little men, and they seemed to fill out the cheap sacrificial ranks of every jobber company in the city. Should the Protagonists get a few Zalaptings? If they died, you didn’t have to pay them, and in Indrajit’s short experience working as a jobber, the Zalaptings always seemed to die first—and in greater numbers.

But until they died, they’d want to get paid. And if he asked Fix, Indrajit expected to hear that, with employees, the Protagonists would have to enter into more risk-merchantry contracts, to be able to pay out death benefits to the families of jobbers who were killed while working. Which might make Zalaptings a spectacularly bad choice for employees, since if they all died, you’d have to pay benefits to all their families.

But maybe less, since their deaths were so likely? Indrajit shook his head, trying to shake thoughts of risk-merchantry from his head. A few short weeks in the Paper Sook had already left their mark on him. Like a man immersed in a latrine, he now carried the stink of joint-stock companies and risk-merchantry contracts and future currency purchases with him everywhere he went.

In addition to the two Zalaptings, Lobster Hands walked with three Kishi, the dark-haired, brown-skinned, common man of the city of Kish. Lobster Hands appeared unarmed—other than his giant claws—but the other five carried spears. They scanned the shadows, swinging their spear blades back and forth at the darkness, prepared for a fight. They had numbers, and they had reach.

Indrajit had the advantage of surprise. Jump out and attack them from behind? Or try to quickly kill one or two, and then lure the others into a narrow fight up the stairwell?

But they were too many. He faded back up the stairs, intending to let them pass unmolested.

Only the step behind him crumbled as he put his weight on it, dropping a tiny avalanche of rubble onto the step below it. Lobster Hands heard the falling stone and looked into the opening at the tower base—

Locking eyes with Indrajit.

“Frozen hells,” Indrajit murmured.

The six men charged. In a desperate bid both to warn Fix and to misdirect his attackers, Indrajit stepped out of the doorway and waved his arm as if signaling to someone deeper inside the necropolis. “I’ll meet you at Kish!” he hollered. “Run!” If Indrajit was to be sacrificed, at least his sacrifice would accomplish something.

Then he scooted back up the stairs.

He held his ground first just a few steps up, at a point from which he could see an irregular rectangle of light, or, if not light, lesser gloom, around the entrance to the bottom of the staircase. From the outside, he knew, his own position would be concealed in complete darkness. Kishi had very ordinary powers of vision, and as far as he knew, so did Zalaptings.

There was the possibility that Lobster Hands had special sight and would be able to attack Indrajit in the darkness. There was also the possibility that any of the five attackers had some magical ability to detect him in ambush, but he was willing to take those risks.

He raised Vacho, ready to chop downward with the blade, and tried to control his breath.

The scuffle of feet raced to the opening—and then halted.

“Get in there,” a deep voice growled. Lobster Hands.

“But shouldn’t we . . . ?”

Lobster Hands bellowed, and a Zalapting flew in through the opening. He wasn’t running, he was being thrown, and he slammed against the wall and crumpled onto the bottom steps.

Indrajit had planned to attack the first man onto the stairs, but this was no attacker—this was bait. And because the Zalapting was lying on the steps rather than standing, attacking him would require Indrajit to expose himself more fully than he liked.

Grinding his teeth silently, Indrajit eased back up the stairs, away from his attackers.

The Zalapting looked up at him. “Fish Head!”

Indrajit wanted to hit the Zalapting, but instead he ran. Taking advantage of his long legs and risking the unseen hazards of the steps in the darkness, he pressed his left hand against the central column around which the stairs spiraled and raced upward.

Below, he heard his attackers fumbling on the first steps, and the squeal of at least one Zalapting getting trodden upon. Good; that meant his enemies couldn’t see in the dark any more than he could.

He made it up the stairs awkwardly and emerged onto a narrow stone walkway with crenellations to one side and empty space to the other. He forced himself to reason; the wall must run north and south, with the crenellations outside, hence on the west. Fix and the ambassador should be moving south, to meet at the fishing village, so Indrajit should lead Lobster Hands and his crew north. Which meant crenellations to his left.

He turned, touched the stone defenses to be sure they were there, and jogged. “I do not have a fish’s head!” he yelled. “My eyes are just set farther apart than yours, you pink rat!”

The stars were still obscured by the fog, and Indrajit could barely see the walkway before his feet. If he ran too fast, he risked falling off the side, or running off the end of the walkway if the wall failed.

Had he given his pursuers enough indication that he was running northward?

He’d risk it.

Indrajit sheathed Vacho and levered himself up into the crenellation. The wall wasn’t higher than twenty cubits, he was sure. He was a tall man, and he lowered himself over the other side, letting his legs dangle to their full extent. Subtract another five cubits from the drop for his height, it shouldn’t be more than a fifteen-cubit fall.

Unless there was a ditch.

He heard feet running toward him along the top of the wall.

There could also be rocks.

Help me now, Sea Mother. Indrajit let go of the wall.

He hit water. It wasn’t the sea, but he splashed down into marshy earth. Stagnation filled his nostrils, and something slithered away across the mud. He stood and his feet sank. Indrajit trembled with the excitement of the chase and with fatigue, but he wasn’t injured.

Thank you.

“Something jumped off the wall!” Lobster Hands bellowed.

Frozen hells. Indrajit yanked one leg up, trying to move out of the bog—

And left a sandal behind.

“No way of knowing how far the drop is!” a Zalapting whimpered.

“There’s one way,” Lobster Hands rumbled.

Indrajit scrambled and got out of the marsh, onto dry land. He kept his second sandal on his foot, but there was no going back for the first one. He ran, southward, back along the wall.

Splash!

“You aren’t dead, are you?” Lobster Hands called.

“I don’t think so!” The Zalapting’s voice wavered.

Behind him, Indrajit could hear his pursuers continue to come down the wall. He turned right, crossed the road he’d ridden south with Fix, and then nearly ran over the top of the headland in the darkness. The sounds of pursuit behind him were indistinct, and as the waves grew closer, they grew harder still to hear. Dropping to his backside and then flipping over onto his belly, Indrajit kicked off the second sandal and probed with his toes, lowering himself down the steep pile of clammy boulders.

The tide had come in, and probably was now going back out, because when Indrajit reached the bottom, he was standing on wet sand. Turning southward again, keeping the mass of boulders on his left, he was able to see a narrow, winding strip of sea-licked beach before him.

The gray strip led him around a small bay and then a promontory, and Indrajit could see that the waters were receding quickly now, so that the sand on which he ran felt cool and firm, but not wet. He didn’t hear voices behind him, but the fog got thicker as the night went on, and he didn’t dare slow his pace to see whether he was being followed. The beach got noticeably rockier as he traced the edge of a second promontory, and then he ran into the fishing village.

He knew it was the same village that he’d been in earlier, because one of the buildings had burned, its thatch and timbers entirely gone and its plastered rocks scorched black. There were no lights, and there was no sign of any of the triangle-faced people who lived here.

Indrajit stepped on a stick.

Looking down, he saw an arrow, made by laying out sticks, that pointed down the narrow channel of water toward the sea. He could barely make it out, but scratched into the sand beside the arrow was the heraldic image of Orem Thrush, the Lord Chamberlain: a horned skull.

Indrajit looked down the stream and saw a dim flicker of moment, halfway down the lengthening beach to the rolling waves. That had to be Fix.

His legs ached, but he forced them to run. At least here, the sand was smooth and pure and his bare feet were not a disadvantage. He was just leaving the huddle of cottages when he saw a smudge of movement in his peripheral vision. Turning his head, he saw a creature like a centipede—long, segmented, chitinous body, many legs—emerge from the burned hovel, climbing right out of the top of the building.

It was like a centipede, only it was the length of a horse and the height of a dog, and it had a man’s face on the front end. A man’s face with two long mandibles.

Indrajit stopped and pointed at the thing. “Payot!” he shouted. “They need you up at the necropolis!”

It was a guess, and a bluff, and it almost worked. The thing—Payot—stopped and stared at Indrajit. There was enough dim light on its face that Indrajit thought he could see Payot frown and then blink.

“The Lobster Hands guy,” Indrajit said, pushing his luck. “He sent for you.”

Payot laughed and charged.

Indrajit turned and ran. He gripped the sheath with his left hand as he galloped and he pulled Vacho out. Payot didn’t want him, he reminded himself. Payot was after the ambassador. Indrajit could slow Payot down and then get out of his way, and Indrajit could probably slink off without being pursued.

“Run!” he bellowed.

He could see Fix and the Pelthite prince now. They were carrying a coracle between them and they were lurching down toward the waves. They raised their heads when Indrajit yelled, and then ran faster.

A chitinous noise rose in volume behind Indrajit, and he spun about. Payot lunged toward his legs, mandibles clacking together—

Indrajit leaped into the air, vaulting up and over Payot’s head. He came down with both bare heels in the center of the centipede’s back.

Payot squealed and veered sideways, throwing Indrajit off. Indrajit managed to keep his grip on Vacho and land on his shoulder, then roll to his feet. Payot swerved and spun himself in a continuous circle, hissing angrily.

Shouts from the top of the beach told Indrajit that others were coming. He ran.

He nearly stepped on the lizard, which ran just behind Banus, but the creature leaped nimbly aside as Indrajit caught up.

The shouts behind were closer.

He could hear Payot’s hissing and the chitinous rattle again.

Their feet splashed into water. Fix and the prince threw the coracle into the waves and the lizard leaped in first.

“This won’t hold all of us,” Fix grunted.

“I’ll swim,” Indrajit said.

With a sudden scream, Banus tripped and fell into the surf.

“Frozen hells!” Indrajit sloshed to a stop and turned. Zalaptings rushed down the beach in his direction. Behind them came Lobster Hands and Payot. He grabbed Banus by the elbow and tried to raise the young man, but the Pelthite only thrashed about and whimpered. “Hold the coracle!” he shouted to Fix. “I’m coming!”

Only he wasn’t coming. He was stuck, trying to get Banus to his feet, and exhaustion or panic or some cause Indrajit didn’t know was keeping the young man trapped.

Indrajit was going to be overrun and killed. He spread his legs and stood over the prince, swinging Vacho before with a bravado he didn’t feel in his heart.

The lizard appeared, thrashing through the waves, and climbed onto Banus’s face. Would the comfort of his pet reptile help the prince rise? Indrajit stepped aside as the prince rolled over—

And then the lizard tore open the veins of the young man’s throat.

The surf was cold and the young man’s blood was a hot jet on Indrajit’s ankle. “No!” he roared.

The lizard rose onto its hind legs and looked him in the eye. “I am the ambassador,” it said in a low whisper. Then it raced into the water and scrambled up the coracle. Fix started rowing.

Indrajit stared at the young man in his death throes, but only for a moment. He had no choice but to believe the lizard—it could be telling the truth, and in any case, Banus was dead already. Indrajit sheathed his sword, ran until the water was up to his thighs, and then dove in. The salt water was cold and bracing, and the strength of the waves gave Indrajit something to push against. The swim invigorated him.

A bowshot from the coast, he caught up to the coracle and held on. Was he just getting used to the darkness, or was the fog lifting? Overhead, Indrajit saw several of the brighter summer stars.

Fix paddled the coracle slowly and talked with the green lizard. On the beach he could see Payot and Lobster Hands and a dozen Zalaptings dragging the body of Banus up the sand; none of them followed into the water.

“I would have left a written message,” Fix said, amusement in his voice, “only you insist on refusing to learn to read.”

Indrajit ignored him. “How do we know you’re the ambassador?” he asked the reptile.

The lizard fixed him with a cold eye. The ruff around its neck splayed out and grew stiff, which made the lizard look formal and important. “In fact, it doesn’t really matter. The boy is dead and you’ll take me to Orem, because I am all that remains of this task of yours. But since I am the ambassador, Orem will be pleased at your success. But if it helps you in the meantime, ask yourself this: what is more likely? That the ambassador’s pet lizard killed him to escape, when no one was seeking the pet? Or that the ambassador sacrificed his pet man to escape?”

“Banus never claimed he was the ambassador,” Indrajit said thoughtfully, “but he did tell us he was a prince.”

“Do you know how many princes Pelth has?” the lizard asked. “He was a disposable nobleman, with no wealth and no power. He was given to me at my appointment, to be my bearer.”

“How does one address a Pelthite ambassador?” Indrajit asked.

“‘Sir’ will do fine,” the lizard said. There might have been a hint of a grin on its needlelike snout.

“That’s not the strangest thing I’ve ever heard,” Fix said. “It is . . . a little surprising.”

“Why kill your . . . bearer?” Indrajit asked.

The lizard made a rattling sound in its throat that might have been a sigh. “I saw your compassion and self-sacrifice. You gave the prince a weapon. You offered him your water. You split up to try to divert pursuit. You stayed behind to slow them down. You risked yourself for him, or rather, for the ambassador you thought he was, before, and you would have done it again. I admire your impulse to sacrifice yourself, it is noble. But in this case, I could not permit you to indulge it.

“And Banus had to be left behind. They thought he was the ambassador, he was the only sacrifice that would stop pursuit.

“If I had tried to persuade you I was the ambassador, you wouldn’t have believed me. Even a delay while I tried to persuade you likely would have proved fatal. You both would have stayed and died on the beach, fighting for that pretty, but useless, young man. Then I would have been left alone, to try to make my way to the city without a guide and without protection. My work and my mission are too important. It was time for a sacrifice, and the sacrifice had to be my poor Banus.”

Indrajit had nothing to say. In other circumstances, the sacrifice could just as easily have been him, and then this lizard would have been sitting in the coracle, explaining to Banus and Fix how important it had been to kill Indrajit.

Fix just paddled.

“Let us finish the journey in silence, then,” the lizard said. “We will grieve Banus together, and drink a cup the Lord Chamberlain. For Banus, and for sacrifices.”

Indrajit shook his head. He held the back of the coracle and swam.

* * *

This story is set in the world of July 2020’s In the Palace of Shadow and Joy by D.J. Butler, a far-future planetary adventure novel in the spirit of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser tales and the Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories. D.J. (“Dave”) Butler grew up in swamps, deserts, and mountains. After messing around for years with the practice of law, he finally got serious and turned to his lifelong passion of storytelling. He now writes adventure stories for readers of all ages, plays guitar, and spends as much time as he can with his family. He is the author of the Witchy War series from Baen Books, including Witchy Eye, Witchy Winter, Witchy Kingdom, and the upcoming Serpent Daughter. With Aaron Michael Ritchey, he is the coauthor of Dust-Bowl-era fantasies The Cunning Man and the upcoming The Jupiter Knife, both from Baen. Visit Butler’s web site at http://davidjohnbutler.com and follow him on Twitter, @davidjohnbutler.

Humanslayer

G. Scott Huggins

At the foot of the mountains at the cold edge of the world, a dragon lay dying.

Fresh snow fell on him. It was stained a deep and sticky red where he had clawed his way up from the pit. The stake driven through his thigh should have killed him already. Cutting through it and escaping the trap had taken all his strength, and now he could do no more than twitch feebly.

He drew in a breath half-muffled by the snow that enfolded him. He held it until he was forced to exhale through the red-hot pain of his broken jaw in a gargling groan. His broken jaw! That was the wound that had ultimately killed him. Even in this weak and useless human form, he could have called upon the Theurge. Stopped the bleeding in his leg. Healed the torn muscle and smashed bone in a matter of hours, and conjured flame to keep him warm.

He was going to die of irony, and bad luck. But mostly, came the thought that hurt more than his wounds and chilled him more than the snow, from his own stupidity.

It could not have been an hour ago that the young dragon had congratulated himself on his cleverness and observation: when he had found the human hunter’s body, lying so peacefully in the snow. The ritual that had enabled him to transform into the likeness of a human had taken a full day, but altering his face into one that the humans would know and trust had been the work of mere minutes

And then he had run from the body and plunged through the snow-covered trap not thirty paces away. And it had killed him. His body just hadn’t let him go yet. But it would, soon. The snow was beginning to feel warm, like the gentle breath of his mother. In the distance he heard shouts. The shouts of humans. To have come all this way and not even to have seen the enemy. Darkness pulled him down like poisoned gravity.

He woke into the agony of broken bone, his arms and legs flailing out of his control. “Hold him! Hold him down!” A gurgling wail broke from him, and a crushing weight bore him down. He drew in a breath, and suddenly his mouth was full of a choking, sweet liquid. He swallowed desperately and drew in another breath. Pain hammered at his face. Nightmare. Let me wake. But it was sleep that took him.

When next the dragon awoke, he was too weak to do more than twitch his fingers. Waves of pain washed through his body, like those of the shores of the Ocean Aeternam. They broke gently but insistently on his thigh, throbbing with a deep, burning pain. At his jaw they pulsed with a fiery heat.

He opened his eyes. His teeth were bound together with some sharp-smelling apparatus of animal hide that wrapped his face and head. The bone was set. That much he could tell. He did not dare move his head, but his eyes roamed.

He lay on another animal hide with the fur still attached, and another such hide covered him. He was warm. He lay in one of the humans’ caves, stuck off in some deep alcove. The exit was screened off by a mat of thin strips. Beyond it, the glow of a fire flickered, and the shadowy forms of humans moved.

The silhouette of a human drew the curtain aside and entered. Was he a prisoner? Would it question him? No, think, he told himself. Why cure you when they could torture you so much more by leaving you wounded?

There was only one conclusion. His disguise had worked.

The human bore awkwardly in its hands a steaming bowl. The aroma filled the small room.

Dragons and humans had this in common: they both killed and cooked their prey. But surely even a human could not imagine him capable of chewing food? Or was it merely going to eat in front of him?

It sat beside him. He could see the outlines of its face and body — her face and body, he realized — dimly outlined on the glow of the fire. Young, he thought. Dressed in the thin furs all the humans wore. She laid a gentle hand on his forehead.

“Don’t try to speak, now. Your jaw is broken. I’ve brought you soup. Can you sit up?”

She didn’t wait for any feeble efforts on his part, but put her hands under his shoulders and heaved. Panic seized him, but the hide bindings kept his jaw from moving, though not from stabbing him with fresh pain. A whimper escaped his swollen lips.

“I know, it’s going to hurt for some time,” she said. “But you should eat, if you can. You’ve been asleep for two days. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

She would?

She sat beside him and dipped a stick with an even smaller bowl on the end of it into the bowl, which was filled with hot water. She slipped the stick between his lips, and he found that he could suck in the liquid, as if he had been doing it all his life. This human body knew how to meet its needs, even if he did not.

The taste was unlike anything he had ever experienced. It tasted like liquid meat and flavors he had no name for, revolting and delicious at the same time. And his body was hungry. The hunger overcame even his pain. He slurped it down.

Faster than he could believe, he was full, and warmth lapped him inside and out. But the pain of his injuries still hammered at his leg and face. The woman rose. She put the bowl down, and drew something from her clothing, something he couldn’t see. Then she returned to his side. “I . . .  I can ease your pain,” she said, voice trembling. “Will you let me?”

Let her? Who would stop her?

Her hand returned to his forehead. “Thystur klishain mnoyu,” she chanted. His eyes snapped open. She was invoking the Theurge!

“Male’ain volnoi eth brathan.” A wave of cool power flooded his body. The pain receded. “I haven’t healed you,” she said “Don’t try to rise. I’ll be back in the morning. But you should be able to sleep now. Sleep, Eorlan.”

And with a swish of the curtain, she was gone.

Sleep did not come for the dragon, even as the light of the cave’s fire dimmed to a red glow. Even under the furs, it was cold. Colder than he had ever been at night, except out in the snow.

He had never expected to have to sleep in this strange human body. To be injured, yes. Perhaps even to be killed. That was the chance every young dragon took to earn a place among the Exalted. Any dragon could dive on a party of humans, incinerating them in a storm of fire. And, like as not, most of the humans would have scattered and hidden, leaving the dragon to lumber about the hillside, never knowing whether or not he had ever killed the little monsters. Such a thing was not even worthy of a name for a young dragon. Even more humiliating, such a dragon might be pierced by one of the humans’ poison-tipped arrows.

But to face humans in their lairs, to slay them with their own weapons and in their own form, to wipe out a whole nest of them, well, that was an accomplishment. Or even better, to take the weapons of their warriors, and leave them knowing that he had passed among them like a ghost of a flame, and them none the wiser—that would have been a coup that would truly have won him a High Name.

And what was he instead? Lying broken at their mercy and fed like one of the animals they bred for slaughter. Branded with a Human name. Humiliation whose only consolation was that none of his weorre would ever know of it.

And comforted by human sorcery.

That thought would not go away. So Humans could invoke the Theurge? Why didn’t they do so more often? If the human truly believed that he was one of them, why had she merely lessened his pain, and not healed his bones? If he could only speak, he could have done it himself. Well. Dragons were the people of the Theurge. He had changed his form, but he was still a dragon. In a week, no more than two, he would be healed anyway. He might be able to accomplish his coup yet, and reclaim everything he had set out to.

Despite this comfort, it was long before sleep claimed him.

“Are you awake, Dragonslayer?”

His eyes snapped open. Daylight streamed through the cave mouth beyond the speaker who stood in the doorway. The speaker was a broad man, thick with muscle, wrapped in furs. He held up a hand. “Don’t try to talk. You are tough as mammoth hide, I’ll give you that. Still, you’re lucky we found you when we did. We’d all given you up when you didn’t return from that blizzard. Might as well have been an avalanche. Three days ago, now. And torn up like you were . . . ” He shook his head in wonder.

“But that’s what makes us who we are, eh?” The man laughed aloud and slapped him on the shoulder. Throbbing pain erupted in his leg and jaw and he winced. Then he brightened, for the woman who had tended him last night came up behind the newcomer. He hoped she would cast her spell again. He hoped she had food, for he was ravenous again.

The newcomer, however, seemed not to have noticed the woman. “Fertha’s relieved. I don’t know what scared him more: that you were dead or you weren’t. I know he wouldn’t have wanted to face you if you’d come back at the head of a raiding party. Besides which he’d have had to find someone willing to take his daughter again.”

The dragon was irritated. Who was Fertha? And what did his daughter have to do with anything? Did he dare try to speak? He settled for a grunt and a wave.

The newcomer raised his eyebrows. “Oh, Clod’s here with your breakfast.” He edged aside, making her squeeze past him. “I don’t envy you the soup you’ll be eating for months. Feed him up, Clod. And don’t make it worse by spilling it on him,” he said, shaking a finger at her.

The furs he wore dropped aside to reveal the mail he wore underneath them. Shimmering scales caught the dim light. Dragonhide. A spasm of rage and pain passed through the dragon. So. A dragonslayer: one of the humans who had himself climbed the Wall of the Night to hunt and slay his people. And dared to wear them as trophies. A proud man. One he would take special pleasure in humiliating.

He turned to go, and met an older man, coming in. “Chief Fertha!” he exclaimed. “Your line of dragonslayers is preserved!” He snorted. “Potentially, at least.”

The old man gave him a sour glare. “Kerdan Dragonslayer,” he said, evenly. “I’ll need you to take over Eorlan’s duties until he is well. And by the grace of the Dead and the Absent Gods, I hope to find out how soon that will be.”

“I’ll see if I can find the time,” Kerdan said, in the same expansive cheer, clearly not caring a whit. “No rest for the bold, eh? Farewell, Eorlan Dragonslayer!” He strode off, leaving the dragon staring after him. Then he — that is, the man whose face he wore — had also been a dragonslayer? He felt ill.

The girl approached him. “Don’t spill it on him, Clod!” snapped the old man. “I’m sure the Dragonslayer can feed himself.” He snatched the bowl from her hands, slopping the steaming broth over his fingers. “Gods damn you, girl, must you overfill the bowl? Go clean my chambers!”

“Yes, father,” she said, tonelessly.

No pain spell? The dragon took the bowl in his hands, grunted, and pointed to the girl. But she was gone, and the human chief ignored him. He lay back and winced. A gnawing chill awoke in his gut.

There were still splinters deep in the wound. They wouldn’t stop a dragon’s healing, but they would slow it down significantly, and they hurt. “Gods be praised you’re back. What happened out there?”

Was the man so stupid? “Eorlan” cocked his head. The older man blinked. “Oh, of course. Your jaw. Two months to heal, Peliar says. And I don’t sleep easy these days, not when deathwalkers can seemingly wipe out whole septs encamped for the winter.”

The dragon ignored him and began to eat the soup. It was hot, and every touch of the spoon against his lips bruised them, but it tasted like life itself, despite its strangeness. Fertha rattled on. “Sept Gorlim of the Altui clan. We just got a runner from their High Chief. They found the whole camp, slaughtered. All of them, down to the babes and the elders. Slaughtered like animals, he said.”

So, one of his wingmates had accomplished what he himself only hoped to. And had doubtless received his High Name even now.

“Bad enough our hunting parties and harvesters are slaughtered and run off by dragons in the autumn,” the human chief went on. “At least we have the bravery of men like you and Kerdan to fight that, eh? But to have our winter hideouts devastated by evil spirits! It’s more than a man can bear, that.”

The dragon stared at him. Bravery? The humans thought they were brave to attack dragons torpid in the heat of summer? In their dens, where they could barely move? Cunning and smart, perhaps, but brave? Too much to think of. The pain in his jaw and thigh were building again. Throbbing.

The old man clapped him on the forearm. “I don’t have much more fight left in me,” he whispered. “It’s time for a younger man to take up the longspear. Watch out for Kerdan. I know you two have been friends a long time, but I think he’ll fight you for it, when it comes to that. Heal fast.” He rose.

The dragon caught his arm. He grunted, gesturing at the door.

“Yes? What do you want?”

How to make him understand. Could he say the girl’s name? Clod? Why did they call her that? “Gl-gl-gl.” He nearly choked. His tongue was too swollen.

The old man shook his head.

“Gld!” Eorlan grunted, at length. He pointed at his chin, then at his thigh.

“Oh!” Fertha’s eyes brightened. “Well, that’s a good sign. And at least she’s good for something,” he muttered. “I’ll send her back.”

It hadn’t been ten minutes when the girl came back. Her shoulders slumped, and she looked defeated. Sad. He would never have known how to read a human face when he was in his right body. The body knew things he did not. Or did the transformation even alter his mind? There was a disturbing thought. She sat down beside him, watching him with a peculiar, almost a fearful intensity. What did she have to fear?

She reached a hand under his furs, and he waited for her to invoke the Theurge, but instead her cool hand traveled up, carefully avoiding the wound to his thigh. Further up, until . . .

He twitched and squealed. Pain ripped through his jaw and thigh. She jumped back. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry, I thought . . .  Father said . . . ”

He gestured to his thigh, and then to his jaw, groaning. For long seconds, she just stared at him. Clutching handfuls of fur through the pain, he tried to approximate the words of the invocation: “Hhshtrrr. Klshn. Myuu.” He pointed again to his wounds.

If anything, the girl’s eyes popped wider, and she hissed an indrawn breath. “You . . . ” She steadied herself. “You want me to do the sorcery?”

“Ehsssh.”

“You . . .  you listened to the words.” She was staring at him in wonder.

Had the real Eorlan not known of her link to the Theurge, then?

“Ehssh,” he said again.

She tottered forward, touched his head as if he might burn her. “Thystur klishain mnoyu,” she intoned. “Male’ain volnoi eth brathan.” Again, the pain receded in a cool wave. He lay back, muscles unknotting. He picked up the empty soup bowl and brandished it at her. “You want more? All right.”

He spent the time it took her to get the soup wondering what she had thought her father had wanted her to do to him. He reviewed the conversation in his mind. But even after she brought him back the soup, it made no sense.

She was in and out for the rest of the day. He discovered the indignity of having to piss while moving his torn leg as little as possible. The splinters were maddening, far too deep to dig out, even if he’d had a suitable knife. There was more of the broth at evening. Each meal was filling, and yet he was hungry in a couple of hours. As the light from outside gave way to the bright red of the cave’s central fire, she returned to him in the company of an older woman who carried a pair of small jugs. Even he could see the resemblance between the two. This must be her mother. Clod balanced another bowl of soup awkwardly in her hands. He took it from her gratefully.

“Ruath, take one of these and set it out of the way. I’ll just put this here. Fertha says it’s in tribute to your courage, and it’ll help with the pain.” She put the jug within easy reach. It smelled like spoiled fruit. “It’ll help you forget the pain, of that I’ve no doubt. Hold still. Don’t worry, I shan’t violate your spirit with sorcery. Thystur klishain mnoyu.”

So this was where Clod — or was it Ruath? — had received her link to the Theurge. Her mother muttered another command, but nothing happened that the dragon could see. She peered at him and made gestures.

“I don’t see any further injuries that we missed,” she sniffed. “I only hope we got all the dirt and wood out of that leg. Well, if we didn't, we can't keep opening it back up to dig around. Ruath will be with you tonight.”

“Mother, if I sleep here, I might hurt him,” she said hesitantly. “Can’t I . . . ”

“We have no doubt you’ll take good care of him. Just make sure to sleep soundly.” She addressed him. “Get better soon. We all need your strength.”

The girl looked at him. Why did she have two names? “It’s not that I don’t want to sleep here, but . . .  I’ll be careful.”

He blinked at her and grunted what he hoped would be taken as an assent, while wondering where she was going to sleep.

“Would you like some of the wine?” she asked. She sounded afraid of the answer.

He lifted the jug and sniffed at it. They drank rotten fruit juice? He grunted and put it down. She stared at him. Then she approached.

He went rigid with shock when she climbed into the woven-reed bed beside him and tucked herself under the furs. She edged away from him, so that she was almost right up against the stone wall. The dragon’s mind reeled. Then . . .  this Clod was his — Eorlan’s — mate? And the chief’s daughter? It made a kind of sense. A chief of the humans would choose a dragonslayer to protect his daughter, just as a queen dragonne would choose dragons of High Name to fly her daughters. He cursed his fickle luck: the man whose face he had assumed was not only known, but trusted with leadership. But he could take no advantage of it until weeks of healing had passed.

Sleeping was awkward. It was his right thigh that was injured, and his jaw was broken on the right. He rolled onto his side and faced the woman. But his right arm was balanced awkwardly on his side. If he moved it forward . . .  he could not do that without touching her. But they were mates, were they not?

Tentatively, he rested his hand on her side. She tensed, and almost he recoiled. But then she breathed again. Slowly, she inched closer, and his arm draped over her side. She was warm. Warmer than he could have guessed. Sleep fell like a soft hammer.

The next few days went by in a slow blur. The pain got better and worse as his bones healed. He learned gradually the names of several other people. Clod/Ruath’s mother was Peliar. Kerdan came to see him every day or so, sometimes in the company of other Human hunters. Some wore dragonscale armor. He listened to their reports. They watched the dragons. Tracked their movements. Few of them were dragonslayers, a title reserved for the men who had crawled into dragon lairs and killed with blade. Kerdan and Eorlan were men admired. And one of them froze to death in a blizzard. So much for the great dragonslayer, he thought.

And so much also for the great dragon warrior who fell into a pit and broke his jaw, he was forced to admit.

But as they spoke, he learned better of them. All of these men carried poisoned arrows and longbows, prepared to defend their herds and farms against the dragons that dove shrieking out of the sky. They were not the size of his head. And yet they were ready to loose their poisoned splinters against a firestorm that could strip their flesh from their bones.

They spoke of how huge the dragons were, and how difficult it was to kill one even with a poisoned blade. Kerdan himself had nearly died in achieving his title. One arm was a mass of scar tissue where he had been burned by the breath of his target.

And they spoke of legendary humans, who had managed to take scales, and even teeth from dragons while leaving them alive. They counted coup for a title, if not a name. The dragon was forced to admit something he had never suspected.

These were not cowards.

Kerdan made suggestions to him and the dragon grunted agreement. From time to time, Clod-or-Ruath would come in and bring more broth. When they noticed her, the men called her Clod. Was Ruath a title that meant “daughter,” then? Only to be used by a mother? At night, she eased his pain and slept beside him. The cold meant that they huddled together for warmth.

By the fourth day, the swelling in his jaw had gone down, but pain and itching was throbbing through the healing bone. Kerdan and two hunters were in the room, going on about herds and dragon sightings. Clod-or-Ruath was busy in the corner of a room, arranging something-or-other.

He grunted for her, but she could not hear him over the loud conversation. He grunted again. And again. He waved his hand but her back was to him. Kerdan noticed. “Hm? What is it, Eorlan?” He pointed to his jaw.

“Oh, pain, eh? Here: this will bring it down.” He held up the jug of spoiled fruit juice from where it had lain untouched.

Irritably, the dragon waved it away and grunted, pointing at the girl. The hunter before him misunderstood. “What, you want me to feed it to you?” he laughed. “How sick are you?”

The itching was driving him mad. She wouldn’t turn around. “Gl-gl-gl . . . ” he sputtered. He couldn’t get her usual name out. He took a deep breath and as slowly as he could, took a chance. “Rrrruuuuathsh.”

The hunters shut up. “Rruath,” he said again.

She turned to him, staring like she had never seen him before. “What?” she whispered.

“Rruathsh,” he said again. “Please.” He pointed to his jaw. “Hrrts.”

“He wants Clod to bring him the wine?” whispered the hunter.

Kerdan snorted. “What’s wrong with you, Eorlan? Drink up, Dragonslayer. Wash your pain down.” He waved the jug in “Eorlan’s” face.

“Nrrh!” grunted the dragon. “Rruathsh! Please!”

As if in a dream, she approached him. The hunter rose. “If that fumbler is doing sorcery, I’m leaving.”

Kerdan, remained seated, locked eyes with “Eorlan.” He took a deliberate sip of the wine. “A man’s drink,” he said, grinning. The dragon had seen such grins before. They immediately preceded a blast of fire, in dragons. “But I’ll leave you to what you need.” He took a bigger gulp of the wine. “Let me know if you need help finishing that off.” He rose, the challenge clear. “Take care of him, Clod.”

When they were gone, the girl stepped forward and invoked the Theurge, touching his face gently. The pain and itching receded. But when it was over, she continued holding his face in her hands, staring into his eyes as if searching for something. “What happened to you?” she whispered.

The dragon could only stare back. Clearly, she meant something beyond just his injuries. But what?

The real Eorlan would have acted differently. Would have drunk the wine, obviously. Should he? His stomach roiled just thinking about it, and what it would feel like to vomit with his broken jaw bound shut didn’t bear thinking about.

What did humans say to their mates? He didn’t even have any experience of what dragons said to their mates, yet! He raised his hand to her face. She flinched, and then let herself lean into it, never breaking eye contact. “Nnnthing, Rruath. Feel better,” he managed.

Tears started from her eyes. Why? What had he said wrong? Should he have called her Clod, instead?

“There . . .  there are splinters in your leg,” she whispered. “I could try to remove them?”

She knew? Then why hadn’t she done so before? “Esh!” he grunted.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Bared his leg. Drew in a breath. “It’s healed very quickly,” she said, voice trembling. “I’ll try not to hurt too much. But there will be pain.”

Did she really think he feared pain? Wasn’t this Eorlan a warrior? He gave what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze on her arm.

Ruath placed her hands on either side of the closed wound. Invoked the Theurge. Repeated her ward against pain. This time the cool wave of her sorcery almost dizzied him. “Xecora derev’a!”

Red-hot needles lanced upward through his wound. Unconsciously, he gritted his teeth and then regretted that decision. Stars exploded in his vision and a hoarse cry ripped from his throat.

When his vision cleared, she was looking at him fearfully. A dozen or more reddish-black shards of wood protruded from his reopened wound. Shakily, carefully, she removed them. The dragon lay back. Already, the stabbing pains of the past week were gone. She had removed them. A tear ran down his face. “Hhnk you,” he managed.

Staring at him, she rose and departed without a word.

Without the splinters, the dragon’s healing accelerated.

Two days later, he was able to put weight on his right leg for the first time since his fall. He would limp for a bit, but he was mobile. He tried only when he was alone, at first. If he were to carry out his coup, he needed to be fit enough to run. But he did not want the humans to suspect his true strength. The day after that, he felt confident that his jaw had knit, and he was hungry enough for solid food that he could wait no longer. As the cave outside took on the colors of sunset, he limped over to a chest and discovered a sheathed knife. He cut the leather brace from around his jaw. He invoked the Theurge. Five minutes later, he was healed.

When Ruath returned, she shrieked. “Be very still, Eorlan,” she whispered. “If you move it the wrong way, you could . . . ”

“It feels well enough,” he said. His voice was rough with disuse, but clear. “You are a good healer, Ruath.”

Her face flushed a sunset red, and her mouth dropped open. “It can’t be . . . ” she whispered. “It can’t.”

“Why are you afraid?” he asked. After his long silence, his curiosity overcame his caution. “Why do you fear to use your power?”

Something awoke in her. She looked deep into his eyes. “I thought . . .  you would not want me to use them. It is a dragonslayer’s part to bear pain. To trust in his own strength. Not in sorcery or in the care of women. So you and Kerdan have always said. And I am clumsy.” She knotted her hands in her furs.

Ah. Kerdan’s behavior made more sense now. The dragon had shown weakness, by his lights, in asking for her aid. Stupid, but it made a kind of sense.

He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Pain may have taught me new wisdom. You are a good healer.” Her face shone in wonder at the praise. “Could I please have something to eat?” he asked. “Something not liquid?”

As in a daze, she brought him stewed meat with some sort of spongy food. “If you feel any pain, stop chewing,” she said. He ate it all, even the spongy stuff, which tasted like nothing he’d ever heard of before, and asked for more. When at last he was full sleepiness descended on him like a heavy fur. He was scarcely aware of her crawling into bed beside him.

When he woke in the firelit night, he felt her hands brushing his face. He opened his eyes and saw hers shining like globes of water. She froze. In this light, so close, he could almost imagine her as a dragon, face ruddy in her own fire.

He was holding her in his sleep, and felt her softness. She moved against him and suddenly he was aware of another feeling: a growing heat. His hands tightened on her and she let out a shuddering breath. Her face moved forward and just for a moment he wondered if she was going to bite him. Then their lips locked together and their hands moved. His breath came faster and faster. Part of him — a part that was dazed and half-asleep — was revolted by what he was doing. With a human? But the body knew how to meet its needs. His hands rose and cupped the roundness of her breasts and she moaned Eorlan’s name.

“Ruath,” he whispered, and entered her. For a long time, nothing mattered but her. But his body and hers. He had never guessed what it could feel.

Afterward, he lay in the dark, feeling the human woman where she had curled up inside his arms.

His coup was in his grasp, he knew. With the Theurge again at his command, and his own strength, he could rise, take his weapons from the wall, and kill every human here. Those who saw him would trust him until it was too late. He would be accorded a High Name by his weorre. A name of valor.

All he had to do was kill her people. Which would kill her, leaving her shattered and defenseless.

And if he instead executed a coup? Stole the weapons of their warriors and destroyed their stores of food? In the middle of winter, that would only be a slower method of killing them. Of killing her, where she lay, helpless.

His planned act of valor wasn’t better than those of the human dragonslayers. It was worse. The path to honor and glory, so clear before him, had vanished in the night. Sleep came hard.

He awoke with her arms around him.

Half awake, the dragon studied them. There was a mystery here about this girl, who seemed to be afraid of him and care for him at the same time.

Eorlan would have understood it, he thought.

Her hands were so small. He held one of them in his own. And yet in the night, next to him, she had been as big and as strong as any dragonne.

He blinked, and looked at her hand again where it lay in his own.

It had four fingers.

She had no thumbs.

He looked from her hands to his own and back again. Where his fingers were straight and more or less the same length, her eight fingers were differently sized. One on each hand was almost the length of his own. Some were almost full-length, and some had only a single joint. Where his fingernails were smooth and round, hers were narrow and curved. Some protruded almost like dragon claws.

Claws. Clawed. That’s what they had been calling her. Not Clod.

The pieces fell together like a flood filling a valley. They disdained her because of her deformity. It was why she handled everything awkwardly. Without thumbs she had no firm grip. Was clumsy.

And he had not noticed. All the humans looked strange and awkward to him. What was one more little difference? But now he could see it. And they mocked her because of it. The one human who had truly eased his pain, who had tended him while he was wounded. Who, unlike any other in this rat hole, could command the Theurge itself.

And how had Eorlan, her mate, treated her? He remembered her fear, and her amazement when he had called her by her name. He thought he knew.

Anger built within the dragon. These men, these tiny proud men, were defiling something precious, because they could. They were able to do so because they were small of mind, just as they were able to worm their way into dragon lairs because they were small of body. He owed them something for their defilements. He remembered Kerdan’s grinning face. For their challenge. He looked at the sleeping woman who shared his bed. He owed her something as well. He rose, and she woke. “Ruath,” he said, gently.

She sat up, and he noticed the way she hid her hands under the furs, as if he should not have to look at them. “Yes, Eorlan?”

“I am well. Bring me my clothes. I would go hunting.”

“Eorlan,” she quavered. “You can’t be healed so fast.” Then she looked at him and it was almost as if she knew what he was. “Can you?”

“Trust me, Ruath,” he said, hefting his bow. “Bring me my clothing.”

When he stepped out into the main room of the cave in his dragonscale armor and his furs, armed with his bow and honed dragonbone longknife, the shock on every human face was plain to see. They had, after all, expected him to be abed for at least two moons. “Eorlan Dragonslayer!” “By the Dead and Absent Gods!” “Eorlan Ferthasson!” The shouts rang around him, and men slapped him on the back.

It did not take long for word to reach Fertha and Kendar. The other dragonslayer reached him first. “By the Dead Gods,” he exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a man revive so quickly! Why, you look ready to go out and cut down another dragon, not like you were half-dead just two days since, whining for sorcery to deaden your pain.” And he smiled, but the bared teeth seemed to “Eorlan” to be less than delighted.

Eorlan returned the smile, grasping the other man’s hand. Both tightened their grips. “And you look like a man who deserves a just reward for his words and deeds while I was wounded.” They released each other.

“Well, I think this calls for a feast!” shouted Fertha. “A feast in honor of Eorlan Dragonslayer!” A cheer went up on all sides, and the humans began preparations to honor their miraculously recovered hero.

The tables were laden with meat and the spongy food the humans called “bred,” which the dragon devoutly hoped was a misunderstanding of the same sort as “clod” had been. In addition, there were steaming mounds of more kinds of vegetation than he had imagined could be eaten. Humans were omnivores, of course, but he hadn’t realized just how much that word encompassed before he had seen a Human banquet.

Fertha gestured him toward the head of the table. Looking around, he intercepted Ruath and clasped her hand. Reflexively, she pulled away. “Eorlan, my place is . . . ”

“With me,” he interrupted her. “Are you not my wife? And my healer?”

Stunned, she opened and closed her mouth. “Well, yes, but . . . ”

“Your place is at my side tonight.” He led her to where a place had been cleared for him. Eyes widened as he sat Ruath down beside him. A thick slice of roast, red and dripping with juices, lay on his plate, and a large mug of the spoiled fruit juice stood beside it. Fertha rose.

“Tonight, we celebrate my daughter’s esteemed husband, Eorlan Ferthasson, the dragonslayer! He was dead, and is alive again, and is healed beyond our hopes! We feast!”

There was a great cheer, followed by the plundering of the table of bread, fruits, and other dainties the like of which the dragon had never seen. But Ruath sat as though invisible, and reached for nothing.

That wouldn’t do. The dragon rose and gathered up choice breads and fruits, anything he saw others grabbing, and dumped it on Ruath’s plate. Then he turned to his roast. It was large, far too large to eat. He saw that around him others were slicing their portions with knives. Ruath handed him a short knife from her belt when she saw him looking. He cut his roast into several slices. Then he cut hers and returned it to his belt.

“Oh, pardon me, Clawed, but I didn’t get any of the apples,” called a cheerful voice. Kerdan plucked one of the shining fruits off her plate. “By the way,” he continued, “I hope you washed that knife since Clawed touched it. It might spoil the meat, otherwise.”

Ruath bowed down under the name and the laughter that followed.

The dragon’s hand shot out and arrested Kerdan’s hand. “Her name is Ruath,” he said.

The table went silent. “Excuse me?” said the dragonslayer. “You want to let go my hand, Eorlan.”

The dragon rose to his feet. Then he raised his voice. “Ruath is the one responsible for my recovery. If you dishonor her, you dishonor me. Call her by her name.”

Kerdan wrenched his hand free. “Is this a joke? You’ve called her Clawed since before you married her. Since before you thought you could sleep your way into the chief’s chair instead of fight your way there. And you didn’t stop calling her that when you settled for fucking her because you were in love with her father’s title. I’ll call her what I please.” He snatched up a mug and took a gulp. “And I won’t stop for a milksop who begs for sorcery because he can’t even hold his wine.” He drained the mug, and then spat a mouthful in “Eorlan’s” face.

A roar went up from the crowd and the dragon wiped his eyes to clear them, but Kerdan was already on him. A solid right slammed into his ribs. He backpedaled and ducked the hammerblow left. With both hands, he shoved his opponent backward. It gave him just time enough to see Kerdan charging at him. They caught each other by the wrists

The dragon knew that if he invoked the Theurge, he could end the fight now. But winning by sorcery would not be a victory among humans. They had to know that Kerdan had been beaten, not ensorcelled.

Suddenly, Kerdan’s forehead shot forward, and the dragon ducked just in time to take the force on the left side of his jaw rather than his nose. Pain shot through him, and Kerdan’s foot caught him right over his wounded thigh.

The dragon let out a grunt of pain. If he had not healed himself, or the splinters had not been removed, the fight would have ended right there. And Kerdan knew it should have. His eyes widened in puzzlement. The dragon stomped down on Kerdan’s foot and felt toes crack. The man grunted pain.

But Kerdan was not a man to be daunted by pain. He was also far more experienced at fighting as a human. He slipped his left hand out of the dragon’s grip and landed a solid blow to his stomach. The breath was driven from his lungs. Kerdan overbore him, taking him to the floor. The hand drove for his throat, and the dragon barely caught it in time.

“You’re weak,” Kerdan grated. “Relying on women when what you needed was strength.” He forced the dragon’s hand inward. Any second now, Kerdan would slip his grip and have him by the throat.

The dragon’s eyes lit and he smiled. With his last breath, he said, “But my woman was more reliable than your strength.” And let go. The meaty hand closed on his throat and sealed his windpipe shut.

The dragon’s hand found Ruath’s knife at his belt and stabbed upward eight times in rapid succession. Kerdan looked puzzled, his grip slackened, and he rolled off the dragon.

Staggering to his feet, the dragon paced back to the table and pulled the dazed Ruath to her feet. He placed the bloody knife in her hand. He raised his mug. “To my wife,” he said into the silence. “Her name is Ruath.”

He lifted the wine to his lips. It tasted like counting coup. It tasted like victory.

Later, in their chamber, he told her, “No man will ever call you Clawed again.”

She gazed at him, like a woman afraid that she would wake from a dream. “I have something to say to you,” he said, “and it will not be easy for you to hear. I am not the Eorlan that you knew.”

She turned her gaze down. “I know.”

“You know?” He gaped.

From beneath her furs she drew a knife chipped from a dragontooth. “Eorlan was dead,” she said. “He was out too long, and the cold was too fierce. But my father made us go out anyway. When we found you, you were wearing furs such as any hunter might wear. But not the ones I had dressed you in. And you did not have this, your most prized possession. You valued it above all else. When they picked you up, I stayed to look. Your footprints, after the blizzard, were fresh, running straight into the trap. I followed them back . . .  to you. And this.”

He could hardly breathe. “Then what did you believe I was?” he whispered.

“I didn’t know,” she said. “Perhaps a miracle? Or a ghost? A curse? But whatever you were, you could hardly have been worse. What are you?”

He told her.

“And what is your name? Your true name?”

“When I return,” he said, “it will be Eorlan.”

“When will you return?”

“When do you want me to go?”

It was the next year when he succeeded old Fertha. And another cold night when he awoke, Ruath snuggled against him in their new chambers.

Something was wrong.

He could feel it in the air of the cave. It had been a better winter this year, and under his guidance, the humans had been able to hide their herds from the dragons, for the most part, and drive off those that had found them.

But now he felt the strength of the Theurge building in the cave, and he knew that it was no human using it. He took his longknife from the wall and crept out.

The stranger was just emerging from one of the countless rooms of the cave. His sword, man-made iron, dripped on the floor. Shorter blades decorated his waist: a trophy belt. His head snapped around and he took in the sight of Eorlan, watching him. He grinned. The air about him shimmered with heat, held there by the Theurge. “You dare face me with that sliver?” he said. “Human, you have no idea what you face.”

“But I do, young one,” Eorlan answered. “And I say this once: you will win no High Name here.”

The dragon’s jaw dropped. “How do you know of the High Names?”

Eorlan cocked his head. “How do you think?”

The younger dragon struck out with the Theurge. Eorlan whispered his own command and the air solidified before him in a wedge, deflecting the blast to either side. His assailant charged out of the fire, blade coming down in a savage arc.

Eorlan sidestepped and let his attacker’s momentum carry him onto his knife. The younger dragon crumpled, the light going out of his eyes. “How?” he choked.

“How do you think?” Eorlan said sadly.

The next day, Eorlan commanded the Theurge and showed the people what had attacked them. The news spread to other septs and clans. Slowly, the dragons learned, and sent fewer of their young to win High Names among humans.

It was forty years later when Eorlan took Ruath out into the woods secretly one night at the end of a summer. Her hair was gray, and she was weakening. They spent a last night together before he began his transformation.

When at the end of it, he emerged, his copper scales and bronze wings shining in the morning sun, she gazed up at him in wonder.

“You are beautiful,” she said.

“You Always Were,” he answered. He lowered his head. “Shall We Return Home?”

“Your home?” she said. It had been long since he had heard her afraid.

“So Long As You Are There, It Will Be Our Home.” She smiled, and mounted his shoulders.

“Will they give you a name, at last?” she asked, s his wings stretched.

“I have a name,” he said. “And they cannot add to it. Let us tell them.” And he launched them into the brightening sky.

Copyright © 2020 G.Scott Huggins

“Humanslayer,” by G. Scott Huggins is the grand prize winner of the sixth annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award. The award recognizes the best original adventure fantasy short story in the style of fantasy greats like Larry Correia, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Andre Norton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and David Weber. Scott Huggins lives in the American Midwest. When he is not teaching or writing, he devotes himself to his wife, their three children, and cats. He loves bourbon, bacon, and pie. His website can be found here.

The Hero Business

by Tim Akers

The Ren Faire was a maelstrom of mud and ale and slightly burned turkey legs, populated by an odd mix of mundanes and temporally displaced dreamers. Suburban dads in pleated khaki shorts rubbed elbows with knights-errant in full plate, and damsels in a distressed state of corsets and leather pants wove their way through packs of soccer moms. Bands of drunken bards wandered the crowds, singing a slightly bawdier version of Tub Thumper, while a constant parade of elven rangers, half-dressed barbarians, and the occasional Klingon strained all manner of credulity. The air was filled with boisterous laughter, even more boisterous song, and the smell of cooked meat, spilled beer, and period-authentic body odor.

Bethany stood at the entrance to the park, hands on hips, frown firmly plastered across her face. She was dressed for the event. Loose fitting pants were bolstered by leather armor at thigh and calf, and boots were subtly spiked along the soles, to aid in climbing and other tomfoolery. Her vest was snug but modest, and the bracers on her arms concealed a wide variety of sharp and mischievous tools, at least two of which were illegal in this state, and one that harkened from a mythical realm on the border of reality. Two black braids ran down her back, and a pair of shovel-tip daggers lay cross-holstered on her belt. She was short but deceptively strong; strong enough that most folks never made a second joke about her height.

A man in jeans and a faux-brass muscle cuirass with a PBR in one hand and a katana in the other shouldered past her. It was all Bethany could do to not leg sweep him into the mud. Instead, she took a long, impatient breath, then let it out in a longer and even less patient sigh.

“I hate this place,” she muttered.

“Come now,” Clarence said, nudging her shoulder. The big knight smelled like burnished leather and fine tobacco, and his armor was so period-accurate that most historians would assume it was a museum quality restoration, rather than the giant-forged working original that it was. “Wasn’t that long ago that we fished you out of a place just like this. Sneaking around, playing at the rogue, palming cheap trinkets and climbing trees like some kind of feral child.”

“That was different,” Bethany answered. “That was before.”

“Yes, well. Everything was different before,” Clarence said. He clapped her on the head, then strolled toward the archway that marked the border between suburban carpark and medieval fantasy land. “Come on. Esther says this is the place. There’s something squirming under the skin of the world. Keep your eyes sharp!”

Bethany sighed again, to clarify how she felt about being dispatched to a Ren Faire in the middle of summer, in the middle of America, in the middle of a soccer field. This wasn’t the job she signed up for, when Esther and the others approached her three years ago. Hero Business, they had promised. This didn’t feel like Hero Business. It felt like watching a bunch of posers strutting around a muddy field.

The guy at the entrance to the park was fussing over Clarence’s sword and misericorde dagger, applying the traditional peace-knot with special care. Clarence watched with detached amusement.

“You know, you really shouldn’t be bringing a sharp into the faire at all,” the man was saying. “No one’s going to see anything more than the hilt, anyway. The blade could be wood, or bar stock, or foam rubber, for all it matters. And there are thieves . . . ” His eyes briefly flicked over Bethany and her bracers of many tools. “This has to be a thousand dollar sword, right? If you were to lose it—”

Clarence whipped his sword out of the sheath before the man could secure the knot, holding it up to the sun’s golden light. The blade shone like crystal, and the sound of its drawing was a song of steel and leather. Clarence gazed up at it lovingly.

“Wanderlust was forged by Glostnir, blacksmith of Halpsburg, in the fires of Hel and with steel borne from the stars by a flight of Valkyries, in accordance with the ancient pacts. I bear it as a sign of my sworn oath, to protect the innocent, to defeat the wicked, and to expose the corrupt to the sweet light of justice,” Clarence pronounced. “It is my solemn duty, nay, my privilege, to carry Wanderlust into battle, until such time as I die, or it chooses another champion to bare its steel and quench its blade in the blood of the unrighteous.”

“That sounds . . .  special . . . ” The park attendant backed slowly away, watching Clarence’s beatific face with growing concern. Bethany cleared her throat and stepped forward.

“He was getting into character on the way over,” she said apologetically. “You know . . . ” She grimaced, then mouthed the word “GAMER” to the attendant. “He’ll be good. I promise.”

Clarence glanced down at her, then the attendant, and realized his mistake. He blushed profusely, then sheathed the blade and submitted to the peace-knot. With that taken care of, Clarence paid for his admission ticket with a roll of quarters (the old knight couldn’t get his head around the idea of “paper money”) and went inside. The attendant turned to Bethany.

“All right, young lady. Looks like we’ll have to knot those two daggers. Got any other blades on you?”

“I hope you have a lot of rope,” she answered.

## ##

Bethany was more knot than leather by the time the nervous attendant released her into the park. Clarence eyed her with wry amusement as she approached.

“You could have lied, you know. That seems very much in line with your roguish persona.”

“Oh, I did lie. These are just the ones he found,” she answered. Brushing past Clarence, Bethany stepped behind an ale vendor’s tent and shook her entire body. The knots fell to the ground like leaves from a tree. “Such a waste of time. We’re here to protect them, and they treat us like criminals!”

“In their defense, my dear, you are a criminal. It’s what makes you such a valuable member of the team. Now . . .  where’s Tembo?”

“He and Saint Matthew are already supposed to be here,” she said. Bethany fought an urge to check her phone. It had been three years since she carried a phone, or drove a car, or used a microwave . . .  all of the various technological restrictions associated with membership in Knight Watch. Out of all of it, the dietary restrictions were the worst. She just wanted something fried, or stuffed with sugar, or gloriously processed into neon paste. Maybe she could swing by Ye Olde Twinkie Hutte before they met up with the others. . . .

The crowd grew thicker and thicker, and eventually she and Clarence had to stop, pulling Bethany out of her daydreams of fried monoglycerides and fructose. A familiar head, bald and black and oblivious to the scene he was causing, waited at the center of the crowd. Clarence gave her a nervous look.

“Get in there and figure out what the old boy has done, will you? We’re here to stabilize this place, not send it tumbling back into the 1400s,” he said.

“Yes, yes, contain the mage. Got it.”

Bethany wove her way through the crowd, slipping like a pick through a well-oiled lock. At the center of the crowd, with several feet clearance between himself and the onlookers, stood Furaha na Nguvu ya Tembo. Or just Tembo, if you don’t have half an hour to say someone’s name. Tembo waited serenely with his hands folded at his waist, a smooth staff of cocobolo wood leaning against his chest. That wasn’t unusual. The lanky mage rarely seemed perturbed, no matter what sort of madness they faced. What was unusual, at least to the eyes of the mundane faire-goers, was his robe. The voluminous purple robe, trimmed in silver finery and hung with fetishes, billowed around his body as though it had a life of its own. The surface of the robe shimmered with inner light, and the hem fluttered and snapped, though there was no wind. Bethany stood in front of Tembo, clearing her throat several times before eventually waving her hand to catch his attention. His face lit up when he saw her.

“Bethany! I was wondering if you and Sir Clarence were ever going to arrive. Esther was right, there is something very odd about this place. I saw a man eating mud, and another dressed entirely in feathers. Though to be fair—”

“Tem? Buddy?” Bethany interrupted. She pointed down at his robes. “I think your clothes are alive.”

Tembo looked down, realization dawning on his face. With a gesture from his broad hand he dismissed the spirit animating his clothes. The robes fell still, settling gently over his body. Bethany spun on her heel to face the crowd.

“Show’s over, folks! Just a little trick with . . .  balloons? Air currents? Anyway, it wouldn’t be a trick if we told you how it worked.” She made broad sweeping motions with her hands. “Come on, get moving!”

“I am sorry, Bethany. I was too warm, and did not think anyone would notice,” Tembo said, embarrassed. “It is hard to remember what is strange to these people, and what is perfectly normal.”

“Just keep a lid on it,” she answered as the crowd dispersed. Clarence strode up, his eyes still twinkling with amusement. “This place is already halfway into the Unreal. We don’t want to be the ones to tip it over the edge.”

“Yes, you are correct. I can sense an anomaly in the air, just waiting to breach the mundane.” Tembo scowled at the offending air. Light began to swirl around his right eye. “I think I can almost pin it down.”

“Tem, enough with the magic tricks. If something breaks through, it will be obvious enough. All we have to do is keep a low profile until it shows itself, then do the Hero thing.” She looked past the mage at the rapidly dispersing crowd, trying to spot their other friend. “Speaking of heroes, where’s the saint?”

“Back at Mundane Actual,” Tembo said. “He forgot his censer and I only had enough juice for a single portal. I thought he was going to catch a ride with you?”

“We didn’t see him,” Clarence answered. He and Bethany had ridden to the faire aboard a flying Viking longship made entirely of toenails . . .  a gift from Valhalla, for keeping the rebel Freya in her place during the Second World War. It was so utterly strange that hardly anyone noticed it flying overhead. It was currently parked between a tan SUV and the dented remains of a Volvo station wagon that appeared to have been abandoned sometime in the mid-‘70s. “That’s disappointing. I don’t like going into battle without the proper blessings.”

“And I don’t like going into battle without my healer,” Bethany said. “Should we go back for him?”

“No time, I suspect. Our anomaly could rear its head while we were gone, and then the whole operation would be a waste,” Tembo said. “I would not worry about it. We can manage without a healer just fine.”

“Easy for you to say,” Bethany grumbled. “You stand in the back throwing lightning like it was popcorn. Nearly took my head off during that outbreak of talking mushrooms last month.”

“Maybe stop jumping in front of my targets,” Tembo said. He folded his arms and looked away, as close to an angry tone as he ever took. “You do not have to hop around like oil on a griddle all the time.”

“And sometimes there’s a solution to a problem other than LIGHTNING BOLT!”

“If you say so.” He sniffed. “But I have yet to meet a problem that a lightning bolt does not solve.”

“Enough bickering,” Clarence broke in. The older man often had to step in between the members of Knight Watch, if only to settle nerves. Well. He often had to step in between Bethany and the other members of Knight Watch. “Look, we don’t have a healer. Nothing to be done about it. It just means we’ll have to be extra careful. All of us. For now, we need to figure out why the Actuator sent us here. Until our little problem shows up, try to blend in. Shouldn’t be too hard in this lot.”

They broke up. Tembo headed to the muddy stretch of tents that served ale and other spirits, while Clarence made his way to the entertainments. Bethany took the tournament fields. Honestly, she was glad to be on her own. Clarence was too polite, and Tembo seemed to go out of his way to embarrass her.

The tournament grounds were off to one side of the rest of the faire, with its own entrance directly to the parking lots. A line of archery targets lined the edge of the grounds, while picket fences divided the rest of the area into various competitions. Crowds milled about between the arenas, while weekend warriors fought in the rounds, whacking at each other with rattan swords and belting out great yelps whenever they scored a touch. It was a chaotic scene. For once, Bethany felt right at home. She circled through the crowds, mostly resisting the temptation to pick pockets and cut purses, if only because she had little use for the credit cards and cell phones that would inevitably spill out. After doing a round in the acrobatic dagger competition, and mistakenly winning that branch of the tournament, she settled into the audience and watched the sword fighting.

The knights of the soccer field were a varied bunch. Most were past their athletic prime, or perhaps had never ascended the heights of physical prowess that had once been the norm for fighting men and women of the past. Their armor was a hodgepodge of forged metal, repurposed foam rubber, and a lot of duct tape. Some of the combatants forwent armor entirely, choosing instead to gird themselves in alcohol and bravado, hurling insults like darts, and flexing carefully cultivated abs as though they would turn aside steel.

“There’s certainly nothing magical about male pattern baldness and crossfit,” Bethany mused as she watched the competition progress. She was about to turn away when a particularly loud voice drew her attention.

“I am KRACEK! Destroyer of Worlds! Champion of the Chaotic Wastes! Scourge of a thousand souls and—”

“Yes, yes, Kracek, I have already announced your titles,” the marshall said, intervening. The man proclaiming himself Kracek sucked air, staring at the much smaller officiant, his eyes straining to burst from his head. Kracek was dressed for battle, if battle were done in a bathtub of lard. He wore only shorts and a pair of high sandals, with a pair of bandoliers that crossed a chest of unbelievably chiseled muscle. He carried a small buckler and an enormous sword, and prowled his side of the arena with all the menace of a caged tiger, or a suburban soccer dad on his third beer yelling at the officials at his son’s match. The marshall cleared his throat and addressed Kracek’s doomed opponent.

“Sir John? Are you ready?”

Sir John did not look ready. Sir John looked scared shitless. He was tall and thin, scrawny even in the padded armor. There was a white banner tied to the pommel of his sword, probably the favor of his unfortunate lady, but given the fight he was about to face, it looked more like a flag of surrender. John swallowed noisily and addressed the marshall.

“Could we . . .  I mean . . .  has he been checked for drugs? Or at least a criminal record? I feel like pecs like that are outlawed by the Geneva Convention.”

“Now this should be interesting at least,” Bethany said, settling against a nearby tree. Sir John looked around helplessly, as though he was looking for someone to step in and save him from this monstrous lawyer turned barbarian. His eyes settled on her. In fact, he kept staring at her for much longer than Bethany was comfortable with. She raised her brows, and John turned three shades of pink and ducked his head.

Kracek let out a mighty roar and charged across the field, even before the marshall had given the order to commence. To his credit, Sir John dropped into an easy defense, deflecting the brunt of Kracek’s well-oiled assault and falling back to the edge of the fighting circle. Kracek blundered forward, trying to hammer his opponent out of the field of play, but John slipped to the side. A section of the picket fence came down as Kracek barreled into it. The marshall sounded his horn.

“Demerit! Voluntarily leaving the field of battle. Point to Sir John Rast. Reset!”

“BATTLE IS NOT A GAME OF POINTS! BATTLE IS BLOOD AND GLORY!” Kracek howled. Sir John and the marshall exchanged a tired glance, then moved back into position. Kracek shouldered John aside as he returned to his side of the field. They exchanged words. Whatever Kracek said drew a laugh from his opponent.

“Have you met my mother? No, I don’t think that’s how it’s going to go, big guy,” John said. “Especially not when you’re waving around a compensation unit the size of that sword. Sheesh!”

Kracek rounded on the much smaller man. His eyes flashed fire, and his lips pulled back in a sinister grin. His teeth were small and sharp, and the distinct flicker of flames curled around his tongue. Bethany stood bolt upright.

“Oh, hell and a handbasket,” she whispered. Then, louder. “Guys! I think I found our anomaly! Guys!”

But of course Clarence was somewhere among the ale tents, and Tembo was browsing the other entertainments. Neither of them would hear her until it was much too late. It was up to her. She took a step forward as the marshall reset the combatants and signaled the start. Bethany pushed her way through the crowd just as Kracek bellowed his fury at Sir John Rast.

A column of flame erupted from Kracek’s mouth. It roared past the marshall, burning his voluminous beard into a crisp before striking Sir John full on. Some primeval instinct brought John’s shield up, but the thin metal and wood of the heater wasn’t made to turn aside a dragon’s breath. Streamers of burning pitch curled off the face of the shield, sizzling as they hit the grass. The flames cut off as quickly as they started, leaving a cloud of drifting embers in the air. Someone screamed. It was Sir John.

“What the hell was that!” he shouted. “You can’t tell me that was legal! What kind of circus freak are you?” John turned to the marshall and continued his tirade. “Demerit, right? Demerit for . . .  whatever the hell that was!”

The marshall, now devoid of beard, eyebrows, and dignity, stared at John for two long heartbeats. Then he dropped his officiant’s baton and fled the scene. He wasn’t alone. A lot of the crowd was on the run, carrying Bethany with them. John threw his arms up in disgust.

“Just going to run away, then? Just going to let him get away with it? Fine, fine, whatever. But I’ll be lodging a complaint with the HOLY SHIT!”

This last part was because Sir John had finally looked over at his opponent. Kracek was no longer Kracek. Or, more accurately, Kracek was no longer wearing the guise of a suburban lawyer with an unhealthy crossfit fetish and an anger management problem. No, because Kracek had cast off his mundane form and assumed his true mythic self.

Because, you see, Kracek was a dragon. Still an asshole, mind you, but also a dragon.

His form was still changing. Kracek’s boots burst open as scaly talons grew from his feet, and his leg grew and twisted and bent backward. His abs swelled and became armor plates, while a pair of wings erupted from his muscular shoulders. Even his receding hairline, combed and greased into a thin shield of masculine power, soared into a crest of horns. He grew and grew, until his serpentine neck towered over the surrounding trees. Kracek lifted his jaws to the sky and bellowed out a scream that echoed across the faire grounds. He turned his fury on the faire, spraying flames across the crowd, the vendor stalls, and Sir John Rast.

The blast threw the aspiring knight off the field of battle and sent him tumbling into Ye Olde Alee Stande.

“Enough screwing around,” Bethany spat. The crowd around her lay flat on the ground. Some of them were never getting up again. Flames flickered among the grasses and on some of their clothes. Bethany vaulted over the bodies, blurring as she slipped her physical form into the shadows, taking great leaping steps. She charged into the charred circle that surrounded the dragon and drew her blades.

“Someone call for a hero?” she shouted. The dragon craned its neck at her and smiled wickedly.

“I have no quarrel with you, munchkin. Go back to your bunker and dream of better days,” he growled. “The mortals pushed me too far. They have forgotten their fear. It is time someone reminded them.”

“You’re the one who’s forgotten his fear,” Bethany answered. She whirled her daggers, and sparks of light traveled the lengths of the blades, to trail in glowing circles through the air. “The fear of the Knight Watch!”

Kracek erupted in laughter, coughing gouts of flame across the field and catching a stand of trees alight. A band of bards, who had apparently been hiding in the trees, fell to the ground like drunken, leather-clad apples.

“Knight Watch! Oh, that is the worst name. I can’t believe you guys still call yourself that,” Kracek said. “Do you have to explain to everyone how there’s a K on knight? I mean, every time I hear that name, I just—”

“It’s not my name, okay? I didn’t come up with it. It’s just . . . ” Bethany cut herself off, muttering to control her rage. “Look, you know the rules. No manifesting around the mundanes. No using your powers to affect the real world. And certainly no burning a renaissance faire to the ground!”

“Yeah, well.” Kracek wiped a sizzling tear from his eye, then shrugged shoulders the size of a Buick, and an old Buick at that, none of these new, flimsy Buicks. “What are you going to do about it.”

Bethany scowled, then summoned her mythic self. The light from her daggers flashed like lightning, and wind howled around her shoulders, snapping her cloak. She curled tight against the ground, then prepared to leap, already drawing a line in her mind's eye that cut straight through the dragon’s heart. Kracek reared back on his hind legs, let out a furious roar, and raised a wickedly taloned claw to strike her down.

“Elderwood!” Sir John yelled, his voice cracking. He shouldered Bethany aside and charged at the dragon. His clothes were tattered and burned, his left arm singed from the heat of his melted shield, and he was waving a bar of metal over his head that might have been a sword in some former life. Kracek watched as the man stumbled drunkenly toward him. John reached Kracek’s upturned claw, braced himself, then swung with the blunt sword. The dull metal struck one of the black talons with a resounding gong. The vibration shook the sword from John’s hands. Kracek stared at him.

“You first, I guess,” Kracek said, then swiped at the knight.

Clarence appeared out of nowhere. His shining sword met the attack, slicing through the talon as though it were butter.   Kracek howled and drew back. Sir John blinked up at Clarence like he was staring into the sun.

“Who the hell is this guy?” Clarence asked. “Is he trying to get himself killed?”

“Just some idiot,” Bethany said as she rolled out of the mud, spitting grass and vitriol. She trotted past John. “Get out of here, mundane. Leave it to the heroes.”

“The young lady is correct, I’m afraid,” Clarence said. John was still staring at him, dumbfounded. “There is little that you can do here. Best you hide, sir.”

“You’re a . . .  um . . .  a knight?” John sputtered.

“Yes, very good,” Clarence said patiently. “And you’re in a great deal of danger. So . . . ” He nodded to the car park. “Best you make your way to someplace a little less infested by flame-breathing lizard things, yes?”

“A . . .  a dragon,” John said.

“Yes, a dragon. Which doesn’t really exist, does it. Now why don’t you—”

“Gods, Clarence, kick him aside and focus!” Bethany yelled. She vaulted off the ground, cartwheeling in mid-air as she approached the dragon. She landed on Kracek’s back and started stabbing, her daggers making a whirring sound as they cut into the beast’s scaly flesh. Kracek howled and flailed his head in the air, flames billowing from his slavering jaws.

Bethany buried her daggers into Kracek’s spine and hung on for dear life. The dragon bucked and fought, trying to throw her off. Finally she saw an opportunity and jumped clear, tumbling as she hit the ground. Kracek’s black claw cratered the ground behind her as she sprinted into the trees. Trunks cracked and tore from the ground as Kracek chased after her. A wall of flame rolled across the field, engulfing Clarence and the still cowering John. Out of the corner of her eye, Bethany saw a bubble of purple light surround them just as the flames closed in. At least Tembo was finally on the scene.

Hiding behind a line of porta-potties, Bethany collected herself. Her cloak smouldered, and her knives sang with latent energy. There was a long gash down her leg, a blow that Kracek must have struck while she was still in mid-air. It stung, but wasn’t enough to slow her down. She listened to the battle raging on the other side of the treeline. The staccato crackle of thunder echoed off the trees, and Clarence’s sterling voice cut through the sounds of streaking flame and Kracek’s frustrated bellowing. Satisfied that the attention was off her, Bethany started to creep through the ruined trees. It was always best when the enemy forgot about her. The small copse had been reduced to ashen stumps and a cloud of burning leaves, but at least the smoke was thick enough to cloak her approach. She waited at the edge of the obscuring cloud, tapping into her mythic self, fading into the shadows. There was a thunderous explosion of fire, and Clarence’s strangled scream.

“No more time to waste,” Bethany muttered to herself. She ghosted out of the shadows, her form little more than a ripple of darkness in the smoke.

Kracek stood over Clarence’s fallen form. The knight was in bad shape. Blood streaked his pale face, and his armor was charred and wrinkled in a way that metal was not supposed to bend. His sword lay on the ground nearby, the blade splintered, like a tree that had been struck by lightning. Tembo knelt beside him. Arcs of purple light flashed across the mage’s body.

“It seems the age of heroes is over,” Kracek growled. “You lot have always thought too much of yourselves. Perhaps you’ll learn to not meddle in the affairs of dragons!”

“Perhaps you’ll stop being such an asshole,” Bethany whispered as she struck.

A bolt of twisting shadow and rage, she flew across the field and crashed into the dragon. Her blades cut a tattoo across Kracek’s shoulder, slicing deeply into his scales and turning one wing into a tattered flag of bleeding flesh. Kracek howled and whirled on her, swinging one massive claw, but she was already gone. Riding the waves of shadow that echoed through the air, Bethany zipped to the other side of the dragon’s body. She caught a glimpse of Clarence’s broken form and the worry in Tembo’s eyes, but pushed the worry aside and focused on the dragon. Kracek was still thrashing at where she’d been, tearing deep ruts in the sod. She ran up his tail, each step taking her higher and higher into the air, until she came down on the bony ridge of his spine. Kracek felt her boots on his back and flailed around, trying to crush her under his swollen body. She leapt into the air, crossing her daggers overhead and drawing a thick strand of magical light into their steel. As he crashed to the ground, she fell on his exposed belly, glowing steel first, like a bolt out of heaven.

Kracek caught her in one blackened claw, batting her out of the air like a fly. She screamed as his talons pierced her armor and dug into her skin, scraping against bone. Her daggers flew from her hands, their light dissipating as they spun into the air. Kracek pinned her to the ground, sinuous tail lashing back and forth as he righted himself. She squirmed under his iron-hard talons, gasping for breath as he pressed her deeper and deeper into the torn sod of the soccer field. He lowered his enormous head, putting slavering jaws inches away from her face. His breath smelled like sulphur and boiling Monster Energy Drink.

“I have had enough of your meddling, thief,” he growled. “This is how you die. Not like a hero. No glory. Just a bug, squashed by her betters.”

A sound reached Bethany’s ears. It was a low rumble, accompanied by screeching metal and a wavering scream. Kracek paused, serpentine neck twisting to follow the commotion.

From the direction of the carpark barreled a metal behemoth. It was the Volvo, the one Bethany thought was abandoned, slewing back and forth as it rocketed across the deeply rutted field. Sir John Rast was behind the wheel, screaming as he roared toward the dragon, his voice breaking and his eyes as wide as saucers. He nearly ran over Clarence—the old knight only saved by Tembo’s quick action and the erratic flight of the station wagon. There was a terrible moment when Bethany thought she would be plowed under by the charging car, but at the last moment, the Volvo struck a pile of torn dirt and launched into the air. She stared at the underside of the car as it flew overhead.

“What the hell—” Kracek said, just as the front of the car crashed into his jaw.

Car and dragon skull mingled in an explosion of blood and bone and screaming metal. The two impossible objects, living dragon head and flying station wagon, cartwheeled through the air, finally crashing into the ground. They dug a rut, leaving behind streaks of oil and smashed dragon brains, finally coming to a stop at the far end of Kracek’s neck. The dragon rolled slowly onto his side, freeing Bethany. Flames guttered from the ruined end of Kracek’s neck, licking around the crumpled wreckage of the Volvo. Bethany bounced to her feet.

The wrinkled door of the station wagon creaked open. John’s seat belt popped open, and the young man crawled out of the wreck. He took two steps, looking in stunned disbelief at the dead dragon, the remnants of his car, and the ruins of the faire ground. Finally his eyes locked on Bethany. He raised his arm to wave.

“Hello, my name is—” And then he tumbled face first into the mud with a mighty splat. Bethany ran to his side. He was still breathing, but he was covered in scratches and dragon blood, which was slowly eating through his clothes.

The clouds parted with the sound of dissonant chimes and high pitched singing. Two angels, dressed in hazmat suits and carrying a basket between them, swooped low over the ground. Saint Matthew dangled precariously from the basket, which was much too small for his body. He tried to direct his descent, waving panicked arms and pointing.

“No, no, not there! Over here! And slow down, will—” He hit the ground with a thump. The basket shattered around him, and one of the glowing ropes looped around Matthew’s foot as he flopped into the mud. The angels immediately rose into the air, heedless of their passenger. Matthew was dragged through the mud for several seconds, bumping along the grass and yelping as he struggled to free his foot. Finally he slipped free of the immortal bonds, splaying into the mud with a startled shout. The angels returned to the clouds, and their inhuman song stopped.

Matthew gathered himself, dusting off his clothes, while only succeeding in further spreading the mud across his vestments. He wasn’t really dressed for the occasion. A white blazer, now thoroughly besmirched, and period-inappropriate jeans, along with biker shades that hid the glowing light of his eyes. Once he was settled, Matthew looked over the dead dragon, the wrecked station wagon, Bethany’s pierced and bloody form, Tembo and Clarence and the ruin of the faire. He cleared his throat and addressed Bethany.

“So,” he said casually. “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing,” she answered. “The usual. Hero business.”

Then she collapsed to the ground. Everything would be fine. The healer had arrived.

“The Hero Business” is set in the world of Knight Watch by Tim Akers, out from Baen Books in September. Tim Akers was born in North Carolina. He moved to Chicago for college, and stayed to pursue his lifelong obsession with apocalyptic winters. His website can be found here.

At the Seams

Jacob Holo

"Another week. Another successful test flight." Sarah Schoeffel raised her beer bottle in a toast.

"I'll drink to that." Her father, Kim Schoeffel, clinked his bottle against hers.

Sarah took a swig and lounged back in the patio chair. A cool breeze blew across her father's spacious back yard and rustled the leaves of the trees at its edge. The mighty crowns of old-growth oaks and beeches formed a green horizon with only the blocky white silhouette of the Chronoton Research Center marring its natural beauty. Stars had begun to dapple the clear, darkening sky.

"This is nice," Sarah sighed, a content smile on her face.

"Yes," her father echoed, his tone possessing a far-off dreaminess.

"You remember when we used to sit on the porch at the old house and watch the storms?"

"I remember your mother yelling at me for it."

"Yeah." She chuckled and took another sip. "Good times."

"Oh?" He turned in his seat. "That's only because she'd send you to bed with nothing worse than a scolding. Whereas I had to listen to her pontificate all blasted night!"

"Like I said, good times." Her eyes sparkled with laughter.

Kim shook his head, smiling back, and drank from his bottle.

"You have no idea." He cleared his throat and raised the pitch of his voice. "'Did you know there's a five-point-three percent uptick in nano-smog density today?' she would say. 'The back porch isn't screened! Do you want our daughter to have lung cancer when she grows up? At least put on your damn respirators when you go out! People who wear them religiously have a sixteen-point-six percent longer life expectancy, even in this climate.' And on and on it would go. I swear, the woman was a walking encyclopedia."

"Gee, I wonder what you two saw in each other?" Sarah teased.

Kim flashed a sly half-smile at her.

The porch grew quiet after that. Talk of her mother always dredged up a convoluted mixture of competing emotions.

Sarah had grown up as a typical daddy's girl. She'd idolized her father The Scientist, so much so she'd dreamed of becoming one herself someday. Before she understood what that meant. Before she came to realize what he and her mother had sacrificed to pursue their passions. They did their best to shield her from the suspicion, public ridicule, and yes, even the death threats, but the other children at school had ostracized her all the same.

She eventually came to understand just how hard her parents had willingly made their lives. Even if they'd tried to hide it from her.

The world had never fully recovered from the Nano War, even two centuries after the final weapons had been dispersed. The lingering fallout from that war was one of the reasons why her mother had researched nano-climate manipulation with such fervor, why she'd been an outspoken advocate for developing self-replicating machines to clear out the nano-storms still plaguing parts of the world.

But fear of science, of how unfettered progress had nearly ended the human race, had rooted itself deep within humanity's collective psyche. It took guts to be a scientist in this day and age. Guts and a stubborn resolve to see matters through to the end.

Fortunately, the Schoeffel family had those two traits in spades. But even so, accidents still happened, and only an empty casket rested in her mother's grave.

Sarah took a deep breath and enjoyed the unfiltered crispness of the air.

"She would have loved it here."

"One of the advantages of being forced out to the middle of nowhere," Kim grumped.

"Out of sight, out of mind," Sarah mused, thinking on how the Research Oversight Bureau had consciously decided to build her father's research center on the far side of the planet from the World Union capital in Moscow.

"I suppose," he sighed.

His phone vibrated.

"Oh, for the love of . . ." He sat up and reached into his pocket.

"Don't," Sarah urged. "Whatever it is, it can wait."

Kim paused for a moment, then smiled at her and leaned back.

"You're right. Let's at least finish our beers."

They clinked their bottles together again.

Sarah's phone vibrated against her hip, and she grimaced and switched it off.

"Yours, too?" Kim deflated with a sigh. "We seem to be popular tonight."

"You starting to hear things?" Sarah took a long draught from the bottle. "My phone's been off this whole time."

"Right." He chuckled.

Floodlights switched on around the Chronoton Research Center's airfield, outlining the trees with halos of light.

"A little late for that, don't you think?" Kim said.

"Whatever it is, it's someone else's problem."

The sleek, silvery form of a World Union Air Force VTOL took off from the airfield. Its four turbojets rotated, and it sped off over the horizon.

"Still seems a bit odd for a Friday night," Kim said.

"Knowing Pushkov, this is another one of his pointless drills. I bet you anything he sits in his office and uses his CompuCore to calculate the worst possible times to run them."

"Oh, he's not that bad."

Two more VTOLs took off and headed after the first.

"Doing anything fun this weekend?" her father asked.

"Nothing much. Heading to the beach with a few friends. Might do some scuba diving while we're there. We'll see."

"Is Pavel coming along?"

"No." Sarah raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, just wondering. Just wondering."

"Well, you can stop wondering."

"Not your type?"

"He . . ." She sighed. "First of all, he's a coworker."

"A single coworker with an exemplary record at the Center."

"But he's so boring! You know what he does for fun?"

"Can't say that I do."

A fourth VTOL took off and spun to face a different heading.

"He paints these little plastic figures and then drives two hours each weekend so he can line them up on a table across from some other boring guy. And then all they do for hours is roll dice at each other until someone ‘wins.’"

"Oh. So he's into tabletop gaming? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, except . . ." She trailed off as the newest VTOL flew toward the house, and the engine whine eclipsed their conversation.

The craft rotated its turbojets and hovered above them, forcing Sarah and her father to cover their ears. The craft lowered itself onto the back yard, a sliding door opened on the side, and a tall man in an orange nano-hazard suit stepped out.

Sarah grimaced, and both she and her father stood up. Seeing a nano-hazard suit was bad news on any day, but at least Deputy Minister Pushkov hurried up to the porch with his helmet in the crook of his arm instead of his suit fully sealed.

"Doctor. Lieutenant," Pushkov greeted them over the whine of the idling engines.

"Minister," Kim replied, a twinge of fear in his voice.

"Doctor, I need you to come with me. There's been an incident."

"What sort of 'incident'?" He eyed the minister's suit.

"We're not sure. I'll brief you on the way."

Kim set his beer down and was about to step off the porch when Sarah put a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw the hard look in her eyes, then nodded slowly to her.

"Can the lieutenant come, too?" he asked the minister.

"If it'll make you get on board faster," Pushkov replied bluntly.

* * * * * * * * * *

The VTOL sped over the lush forest, and Pushkov unbuckled once they were at cruising speed. He retrieved two nano-hazard suits from a supply locker and set them out for the other two passengers.

"Put these on," he ordered.

"Are we dealing with a nano-plague outbreak?" Sarah asked. It was the only kind of disaster she could recall that would instantly mobilize World Union assets, even those assigned to research centers.

"We're still assessing the situation," Pushkov said.

Sarah grimaced. In her book, that was code for "We don't have a clue."

"It's not a case of Mercury Rain, is it?" Kim asked, pulling his suit up to the waist.

Sarah shivered at the thought. It had been years since she'd read about a case of Mercury Rain liquefying someone, but the graphic photos still stuck with her.

"No, it's not that, at least," Pushkov stressed. "It's . . . something else. We're treating it as a potential outbreak, but we haven't spotted any of the usual replication patterns."

"Then what have we spotted?" Sarah asked, sealing her suit's neck ring.

"This." Pushkov unfolded his phone into tablet mode and turned it around for them to see. Sarah and her farther both recognized the chart; it was raw data from the center's Chronoton Detection Array.

"But that's . . ." Kim breathed.

"A spike in chronometric activity," Pushkov finished. "Centered right over the disaster area."

"May I?" Kim asked, extending a hand to the minister's phone.

"Certainly."

Kim took the phone and scrolled through the raw data.

"The chronotons in the area started moving into the past all at once. Normally they're split fifty-fifty between wiggling backward and forward in time. That would imply time travel. But the scale. The power requirements!" He shook his head and handed the phone back.

"You don't think the prototype caused this, do you?" Sarah asked.

"I don't see how," Kim said. "We couldn't create a disruption this large if we tried. Not with a hundred prototypes."

"I'm inclined to agree," Pushkov said. "Before I left, I had the center's main CompuCore cross-reference all previous test flights. None of them came close to the site's physical coordinates." The VTOL slowed, and everyone grabbed the handholds hanging from the ceiling. "We're here. We run this as a by-the-book outbreak containment until I say otherwise, understood?"

"Perfectly, Minister," Sarah said.

"What do you need me to do?" Kim asked, donning his nano-hazard helmet.

"Assess the disaster site. Determine as best you can if we caused this or not. And if not, figure out what did."

"I'll do what I can," Kim said doubtfully.

"And I'm coming with you." Sarah fitted her helmet on. The suit's CompuCore checked the seals, and indicators in the HUD lit up green.

Kim flashed a faint smile her way.

Pushkov clipped his suit's fall arrest cable to a hook on the ceiling and slid one of the doors open. The VTOL hovered above a rural two-story high school. A few dozen cars were parked in the adjacent lot, and lights shone down upon the football field. It was a twenty-meter drop to the ground.

The other three VTOLs hovered nearby, encircling the football field.

A robotic arm extended from the passenger compartment, and a loop of metal rope spooled out. Sarah clipped onto one of several clamps waiting on the arm and then stepped out of the VTOL. Her fall arrest cable caught her, and the clamp rode down the rope. Her boots touched down in a grass field, and she clipped off.

Her suit's plague detectors showed all green. She checked her surroundings in a full circle but didn't spot any of the usual visual indicators of an outbreak, such as unnatural radial patterns for Spiral Death or uncharacteristic glossiness for Meltdown. The field lights all stood at odd angles, which she found unusual, and the back of one of the spectator stands blocked her view of the field. It too sat at a slant.

Kim dropped off next to her and unclipped.

"The playing field," Pushkov radioed to them. "That's the epicenter."

"Were there casualties?" Sarah asked.

"Yes."

Sarah swallowed hard, steeled her nerves, and marched around the stands.

Then she froze, trying to understand what she saw.

She imagined a varsity game in progress. Just a bit of friendly competition between rival schools, one decked out in red-and-black, the other in green-and-white: players in formation out on the field or sitting on the bench, coaches pacing the yard marks, referees moving into position, parents cheering their kids on, and the two bands playing their hearts out.

And then everything started sinking. Not just the stands and lights into the ground, but people into the stands, or people sloshing into other people as if each had turned into jelly! She imagined the field and stands morphing into a horrible collage of objects and beings interposed in ways that should never be.

There was blood everywhere, too. Blood on the field, where players had slammed into each other, only to splatter through their opponents' bodies. Blood in red streaks down the stairs, drained out from men and women bisected by the benches they once sat upon. Blood pooled in brass instruments pushed through band members.

Blood, blood, and more blood.

"Oh, God," she managed at last.

"This is . . ." Kim bent over and retched dryly.

"Father, are you okay?" She rested a hand on his back, thankful for a reason to look away.

"No, but I'll manage." He forced himself to stand straight. "I can't let this upset me."

"I've never seen anything like this."

"I have."

She looked him in the eyes as he gazed at the horrible scene.

"Not on this scale, of course. And not with people, thank God. But yes, I've seen this phenomenon." He gave her a haunted look. "It can happen when an object is pushed out of phase with normal matter—by initiating time travel, for instance—and cutting the chronometric field off." He let out a slow, ragged exhale. "In those circumstances, you can have one object phase back in while overlapping something else."

"Then is it possible we caused this?" Sarah asked, horrified by the implications.

"I want to say no, but I also don't see any other explanations." He unfolded his phone and tapped the haptic screen.

"What are you doing?"

"Establishing a remote link with the Detection Array. I'm going to focus it on my current position, try to achieve maximum resolution. Maybe there's some residual activity. Some clue that can help us understand what we're seeing."

She watched the screen with him, and they waited together for the massive exotic matter array back at the Center to align its many components in their direction.

"No," Kim hissed, then shook his head. "There's nothing here. We're at maximum resolution, and the chronotons around us are perfectly normal."

Sarah sighed, then gazed back at the field and all its carnage. She wondered again what the event might have looked like as it happened, what the players and spectators had been doing in the seconds right before they started phasing into their surroundings.

Wait a second, she thought.

"There's nothing to see now," she said aloud.

"Yes, I know," her father agreed, not looking up.

"No, there's nothing here now." She turned to him. "What you need is data from the event itself. As it was happening."

"Yes, but how am I going to . . .?" He stopped, paused, and looked up at her, realization dawning on his face.

"I'll get you that data," Sarah said with absolute confidence. "Because as soon as we return to the Center, we're going to make an unscheduled launch."

* * * * * * * * * *

Sarah stopped at the security checkpoint in front of the prototype's hangar where six World Union army soldiers awaited her arrival. She handed over her identification card and stepped into the body scanner, a process she'd become familiar with through repetition. All six of the men wore full body armor and held their rifles ready as if an enemy would come marching down the hallway at any minute. Tension cloaked them in an almost palpable aura, a distinct change from past weeks when the men would mill about, helmets off and rifles slung.

"ID confirmed." The guard saluted. "Lieutenant Sarah Schoeffel, you are cleared for entry."

She saluted back, then accepted her ID card. A second guard used his badge to open the door, and she stepped through.

Traveler One wasn't the prettiest craft she'd ever flown. But then again, it had been designed to travel though time, not air. The black vessel sat on sixteen wheels grouped into clusters of four at each corner of the chubby main body, while the spike of its time drive extended out the back. Most of the internal space was taken up by the chronometric impeller's support mechanisms, the high-density capacitors that powered it, a chronoton detection dish, and liquid propellant for the four thrusters. All that equipment left just enough room for a modest two-seat cockpit at the nose. Overall, the time machine spanned thirty-five meters in length and a little over ten meters in width.

Doctor Pavel Obruchev was already waiting for her at the hatch. His hands were stained with blotches of black paint.

"In the middle of something when Pushkov called?" she asked, climbing into the cockpit.

"Just basecoating a new model." Pavel joined her inside and sealed the hatch. "Nothing that can't wait. You?"

"Drinking beers with my father."

Sarah strapped in, performed her preflight checks, then clicked the radio.

"This is Traveler One to Control. Requesting permission to depart."

"Traveler One, this is Control. Your departure is authorized. Opening the hangar now."

The hangar doors split down the middle to reveal a wide field of concrete illuminated by harsh floodlights.

"Thank you, Control. Traveler One departing."

She eased power to the thrusters, and the time machine taxied onto the runway. Once clear of the building, she spun the thrusters and applied additional power, lifting the time machine into the air. She waited until they'd reached an altitude of five hundred meters, then rotated the thrusters to accelerate them toward the disaster area.

"How bad is it?" Pavel asked.

"Have you eaten dinner yet?"

"No."

"Then you should be fine."

He didn't say another word the rest of the short flight over.

"Target area reached," she said, viewing the school from high above via a belly camera.

"Impeller's all warmed up," Pavel reported. "Exotic matter permeability set. Ready to energize on your command."

"Execute."

Pavel punched the power button, and the capacitors discharged a portion of their stored energy into the impeller. Exotic matter energized, transformed, and then began to block chronotons moving into the past. Chronometric pressure built along the impeller, and the time machine's phase state changed.

Gravity vanished. Sarah switched the thrusters off and felt herself float up against her restraints.

"Phase state looks good," Pavel said, checking his instruments. "Transit speed is stable at eighty factors. We should be at the target in one hundred seventy-five seconds, absolute."

Sarah let out a slow breath, not eager to return to the school.

The sky outside brightened as the timer ticked down to zero.

"And . . . phase out!" Pavel switched off the impeller.

Gravity reasserted its hand, and Sarah engaged the thrusters. Traveler One hovered over the same rural high school, roughly four hours into the past. That placed them two hours before the event picked up by the Chronoton Detection Array.

She eased off the throttle, and Traveler One descended in a gentle corkscrew. She circled around the field, checking it with the onboard cameras and her own eyesight. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. No crooked light poles, no slanted stands.

And no blood.

No kids or parents, either. That made matters easier for the moment, but she'd have to deal with them once people started showing up for the game. She knew there was nothing she could do for these poor folks. Her actions in the past would have no effect on the present. Time would slip back into its original shape no matter what she and Pavel did.

But a part of her still wanted to spare these poor souls the agony that awaited them. Even if it wouldn't make any difference.

She set the time machine down behind one of the stands.

"Whoa!" Pavel exclaimed.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. The readings from our dish were fine a moment ago, but then everything went nutso. I've never seen anything like this. Give me a moment." He tapped one of his monitors, expanded the charts, and replayed the last few seconds. "Yes, there's significant chronometric activity. And it matches the pattern the CDA picked up. Normal chronometric environment, then poof! Every chronoton starts racing into the past. We're definitely on to something."

"But that can't be right," Sarah protested. "The incident doesn't happen for another two hours. We came here early on purpose so we'd have time to set up a detector ring around the football field. Are you sure we're at the right phase-in point?"

"The position of the sun says so." Pavel gestured out the window. "And my instruments, too, in case you were wondering."

"Then maybe the incident started earlier than we thought?"

"Maybe." Pavel rubbed his chin.

"Should we head back even further?"

"Let's hold off for now. Something's going on here, and we need to collect as much data as possible. I say we set up the detectors as planned, gather what we can, and then head up the timestream and repeat."

"Okay. Sounds good." She switched the flight systems off.

Pavel opened the hatch and stepped out. Sarah grabbed a large duffle bag and followed him out. She set the bag on the ground, unzipped it, and took three of the detection tripods into her arms. Pavel picked up the other three.

"I'll head clockwise around the field." He hefted the tripods. "You take counter-clockwise. Meet you on the far side."

"Got it."

Sarah circled around the field, picked an open spot, and unfolded the first detector tripod. A display lit up on the side, and she bent down and confirmed its connection to Traveler One before moving on.

She rounded one end of the field and planted the second detector directly behind the goal posts. Pavel waved at her from the far end of the field, then disappeared behind the empty stands with his last detector. She hustled toward the stands from the opposite direction, but a gale came out of nowhere and knocked her over.

The wind died as quickly as it came.

"What the hell?" she muttered, picking herself up.

She checked the last detector for damage, found none, and started toward the stands again when a tearing sound drew her eyes toward the center of the field. A section of the green turf collapsed into the ground before her very eyes, and then the hole widened to a few meters across.

"Hey, Pavel!" she shouted. "I think we should get out of here!"

No one answered.

"Pavel?" she called out.

Nothing. The field was silent except for the wind.

A sense of dread overcame her, but she pushed it aside. She set up the third detector and hurried behind the stands.

"Pavel, you better answer me!"

She turned the corner, then slid to a stop with a yelp.

The ground gaped open before her, its edges hazy and immaterial. Like a smoky aberration of the real thing. The hole expanded, yawning deeper and wider, almost like it was reaching out toward her. She skirted around it and started running again.

"Pavel!"

She raced back along his half of the perimeter and spotted his last detector on the ground on its side.

"Pavel, where the hell are—"

The words caught in her throat when she realized the detector wasn't actually touching the ground. It was being held up by Pavel's hand, thrust vertically up out of the dirt. Blades of grass pierced through his forearm, and blood dripped out of the wounds. She saw no sign of the rest of him beyond a dark, ominous stain in the soil.

"No!" Tears she didn't know she possessed for the young man burned her eyes.

The spectator stands creaked and began to sink, and years of training and survival instincts took over. She cut back toward the time machine and sprinted as if she were going for the gold. More holes gaped open around her, the light poles teetered, and one of the goal posts toppled over.

She weaved through the chaos, eyes locked on her ticket home. A gust of wind shoved her to the side, but she righted herself, raced across the clearing, and leaped into the cockpit. She grabbed the hatch and slammed it shut.

The time machine shifted, listing to the side as if sinking, and she stumbled back into the hatch.

"You're not getting me, too!" She pushed off the wall and smacked the emergency recall button. Automated systems set the present as her destination, and power thrummed through the time drive. Gravity vanished, but the time machine bucked wildly around her.

Sarah kicked off the wall, pulled herself into her seat, and strapped in. She grabbed the control stick and fought to regain control of the craft. Traveler One phased through solid ground, layered sediment visible outside the cockpit, and she had only a few minutes before the time drive automatically phased her back in.

She checked her console, found her bearing, angled the craft straight up, then shoved the throttle forward. All four thrusters fired at maximum. Acceleration slammed her into her seat, and the ship flew up into the air.

The timer ticked down to zero, and she arrived at the True Present.

There was no future beyond the True Present because it hadn't been created yet. This was the endpoint of Time, and the impeller switched off automatically upon arrival, unable to push through the bulwark of chronotons forging the future. Gravity jerked her back into her seat, and she pushed forward on the control stick, angling the craft, stabilizing it above the disaster site.

She was out of danger.

She sank back into her seat and took a slow, deep breath. Her hands shook as she set her course for the Chronoton Research Center, then keyed the radio.

"Traveler One to Control, I have a . . ." She glanced at Pavel's empty seat. "I need to speak with Doctor Schoeffel. Urgently."

No one responded. She double-checked the channel setting and keyed it again.

"Traveler One to Control, respond please."

Nothing.

Was her radio damaged?

She ran a diagnostic, but all systems came back green. The time machine had suffered no damage, as far as the CompuCore could tell.

She pulled out her personal phone and tried to call her father, but an automated message stated all lines were currently in use.

"What's going on here?"

An alert appeared on one of Pavel's monitors—a pulsing red light in the corner of her eye—and she leaned over and expanded it.

"'Abnormal chronometric activity detected'? Yeah, no kidding."

But then she realized the timestamp was from a moment ago. After she'd arrived in the present. The alert was for something happening right now outside the ship, and she activated the belly camera.

Traveler One flew over a dense forest, but a surreal cancer spread veins of nothingness across it. Trees sank into the earth, and chasms gaped wide, spreading so fast she could see them tracing outward from her high vantage.

"Oh, no," she breathed.

How far had it spread? Had it reached the Center?

"Father!" She shoved the throttle forward.

Traveler One rocketed back home.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sarah flew over a new canyon a kilometer wide and twice as deep, spotted the Chronoton Research Center on the far side, and sped in as fast as she dared. She spun the thrusters at the last moment, applied full retro-thrust, and brought the time machine to a halt in its hangar.

She threw the hatch open so hard it rebounded and clanked shut behind her as she ran inside. No one was at the checkpoint, and she raced through the complex, passing men and women weeping, praying, reaching for phones to call their loved ones. One young woman pressed her face against the glass and gawked up at the night sky in disbelief. Sarah stole a glance in her direction and saw the Moon.

Or what was left of it. There was a hole in the Moon now, right through the middle, as if an unspeakably massive gun had put an equally giant bullet through it. Reality was vanishing before their eyes, but surely her father could figure out what was going on. Yes, that was it! He'd invented time travel, for God's sake! He'd know what to do!

Desperate hope welled up within her, fueling her, driving her legs to pump faster—

—until at last she reached her father's office, and that last faint ember flickered into darkness. She found her father hunched over a monitor, pale as a ghost. One look into his eyes answered all her questions.

But a part of her refused to give up, and she motioned toward the door.

"Father, come on! I need to get you out of here!"

He shook his head, much like he had when scolding her as a child, whenever she stubbornly refused to see reason. He turned back to a monitor scrolling with raw data from the Chronoton Detection Array and sank into his chair's deep, sighing leather.

"There's no running from this," he began. "This is the end of everything. Time itself has become unhinged. Now is falling into then, and I have no idea what is causing it."

"But surely . . ." she protested, her voice trailing off.

"The magnitude of this is incredible. Unimaginable!" He shook his head. "I ran a quick calculation to see how much exotic matter it would take to even slow it down. But I . . ." He shuddered and shook his head. "I stopped when the numbers surpassed the mass of Jupiter. I'm sorry, Sarah, but there's no saving our world."

"Father?" she said softly, reaching out to touch his forearm.

He stared at her for an instant, then sucked in a sharp breath and shoved up out of his chair.

"Come with me, Sarah!"

"Where?" she asked hopelessly, twitching her head at the monitors.

"There may be one hope," he retorted, then grabbed her hand and pulled her out into the corridor.

"Run, Sarah—run!" he snapped, and she found herself following him, retracing her steps through the complex, back to the prototype.

She took the lead and hurried through the abandoned security checkpoint.

"The ship's field," her father panted behind her as she threw the time machine's hatch open. "If it can't protect us, nothing—"

CRACK!

A push from behind, even as her ear identified the gunshot.

She fell into the time machine.

Her father slammed the hatch behind her.

Two more gunshots.

She turned to see him smile at her. His lips had moved. She couldn't hear his last words through the hatch viewport, but she didn't need to. She knew what he'd said, and her eyes filled with tears as he slumped out of sight, his fingers leaving bloody streaks down the port.

Oh, yes. She knew.

"I love you, too, Daddy," she whispered.

Then a World Union security guard slammed the butt of his rifle against the hatch and shouted at her, his face a mask of desperation, like a cornered animal that needed to reach the safety of the time machine at any cost. She spared one instant to snarl at her father's killer, then turned and raced for the controls. She flung herself into the seat, punched the button to power the impeller. The time machine quivered as it came online, she reached for the control stick—

—and then her world tore itself apart.

She hurtled forward, her forehead had smashed against the controls, and everything went dark.

* * * * * * * * * *

The CompuCore built into Traveler One was not an artificial intelligence. Its software had been written to efficiently filter and compile the data coming in from its various systems, prioritize the data based on urgency algorithms, and present any information deemed Of Importance to the crew in a streamlined manner.

The pilot's flight suit provided a wealth of biometric data, which the CompuCore crunched through. It activated a medical analysis subroutine, which concluded the pilot had suffered severe blunt trauma. Her neck, two ribs, and one arm were broken.

Algorithms determined this to be Of Importance, and a Task was created to notify the pilot when she regained consciousness.

In the absence of a conscious pilot, the CompuCore activated an emergency response subroutine, and followed its first Task, which was to collect data on its current situation and summarize that data before sending out a request for support.

The CompuCore began processing the feeds from its many external cameras, its detection dish, and its onboard diagnostic systems. The cameras revealed a rocky debris field of some kind phasing in and out of existence around the craft. A white building materialized above the craft, its dimensions a seventy-two percent match for the Chronoton Research Center. A boulder smashed through the gut of the building and blasted out a trail of concrete, glass, and people.

The building phased away as quickly as it had appeared.

Algorithms could not determine the craft's physical coordinates.

Algorithms could not determine the craft's temporal coordinates.

The CompuCore failed to summarize its current situation, and the emergency response subroutine stalled in an infinite programming loop before it timed out and aborted. The CompuCore continued to collect data, and a Task was created with a retry interval of one minute. The emergency response subroutine began executing at regular intervals with the same bugged results.

A city severed from its native landmass materialized ahead of the time machine, and ethereal currents pressed the vessel down against one of its wide boulevards. The CompuCore attempted to identify the city, but the urban identification subroutine did not have enough data to confirm a match.

The CompuCore remained unable to summarize its current situation and continued to collect data.

External cameras identified an approaching vessel. The mysterious vessel took the form of a gunmetal ellipse with a long spike at one end, roughly one hundred and fifty meters in length and thirty-five meters at its widest point, many times larger than Traveler One.

The CompuCore activated a vehicular identification subroutine. No present day or historical match was found in its database.

The unknown vessel descended on what could possibly be a collision course with Traveler One. Algorithms determined this to be Of Importance, and a Task was created to notify the pilot when she regained consciousness.

The unknown vessel flew in along one of the unidentified city's boulevards, and the front of the vessel opened. A twisted cylinder of metal larger than Traveler One tumbled out of the vessel's open front as it flew in closer, skirting the boulevard. Its bulk crushed a flatbed truck before Traveler One slipped inside, and the front of the vessel sealed shut.

External cameras confirmed the time machine was now inside a vessel of unknown type, origin, or affiliation. Algorithms determined this to be Of Importance, and a Task was created to notify the pilot when she regained consciousness.

The CompuCore remained unable to summarize its current situation and continued to collect data.

Three people came into view at the rear of the chamber, two men and a woman, each wearing grayish green uniforms with golden eye and bared sword patches at the shoulders. The CompuCore activated a uniform identification subroutine, which failed to find a match. In an effort to collate the incoming data, the CompuCore created temporary designations for each individual, labeling them as Male of Unknown Affiliation One, Male of Unknown Affiliation Two, and Woman of Unknown Affiliation.

"Everyone ready for an impromptu first contact?" asked MUA-1, the noticeably larger of the two men.

The CompuCore activated a language identification subroutine, which detected a mixture of English and Chinese words that combined to form gibberish.

"Not really," said MUA-2, the smaller of the two men. "I wish Kleio was online so we could load up on Russian linguistics."

"Speaking of which, do either of you know what that says?" The woman, WUA, pointed to the designation emblazoned across the prototype's flank.

"Nope," MUA-1 said. "You, Doc?"

"I relied on auto-translators for this sort of thing even back in the twenty-first century, let alone after I got my wetware upgrades."

"Then I guess that's another wait-for-Kleio question."

The trio reached the front of the prototype.

"That looks like blood." MUA-2 pointed at the bloody handprint smeared across the hatch. "And these could be bullet impact points."

"That's a little ominous." MUA-1 knocked three times. "Hello! Anyone in there?"

MUA-2 rounded the corner to the front window and wiped away a circle of grime with his sleeve. He shielded his view with both hands and pressed his face against the glass.

"I can see someone inside! A young woman. She looks injured!"

MUA-1 tried to open the hatch. The CompuCore ran an entry request subroutine but could not locate the clearance level for the individual. It kept the hatch locked.

"Blocked," he grunted.

"Then bust it down!" the woman replied.

The larger man backed up for a running start, then sprinted forward and smashed his shoulder into the hatch. The CompuCore ran an impact analysis subroutine and classified the action as an attempt at forcible entry to the cockpit. Algorithms determined this to be Of Importance, and a Task was created to notify the pilot when she regained consciousness.

"No good!"

"Try the window!" MUA-2 suggested.

MUA-1 hammered a fist into the window. A previous impact had already weakened it, and a web of cracks spread from his fist. Two more punches and the window shattered. Jagged edges tore at his sleeve and skin, but he raked his arm across the opening, breaking off glass teeth, then grabbed the window frame and vaulted inside.

"Philo, warm up the medical bay!" MUA-1 slid his arms under the woman and scooped her up. "You've got a patient incoming!"

The CompuCore watched the three persons of unknown affiliation leave with its pilot. Algorithms determined this to be Of Importance, and a Task was created to notify the pilot upon her return.

* * * * * * * * * *

Agent Raibert Kaminski of the SysPol Gordian Division set the young woman down in the recovery casket. The glass top closed, and robotic arms began to blur around her, mending her wounds. He turned at the sound of Agents Benjamin and Elzbietá Schröder entering the Transtemporal Vehicle Kleio's medical bay behind him.

"She'll live," he told them, then looked down at the woman once more.

"There's that at least," Elzbietá said heavily. "Poor thing. She could very well be the only survivor from her universe."

"I know," Raibert replied, his eyes dark with the memory of a different dead universe. "We found ourselves swept up in this mess too late to be of any help. Hell, that phasing debris almost killed us, too. But it didn't kill us, it didn't kill her, and together maybe there's something we can do about it."

"Where there's life, there's hope?" Benjamin asked.

"Right you are, Doc," Raibert said, more to reassure himself than the others. "Right you are."

This story is set in the multiverse of the Gordian Division series by David Weber and Jacob Holo, which includes novels The Gordian Protocol and The Valkyrie Protocol, available in October 2020. Jacob Holo is a former Ohioan/former Michigander now living in sunny South Carolina. He is a writer, gamer, hobbyist, and engineer who started writing after his parents bought him an IBM 286 desktop back in the '80s. He’s been writing ever since.

The Red Ship

by Marc Miller

Aboard CM Kugganzir above

Gvur 2302 Karrksinarka C886400–8 Ni Ga

I awoke to the sounds of impacts (was it missiles?) and the sizzle of comm static. I dispensed with my normal response process and spoke, "Who is in command?"

"I am Captain Lagash, Agent. We are cruiser Kugganzir.  We have an Edict 97 situation, but scrubbing has not resolved it."

"Why was I not awakened earlier?"

"This is, in fact, your second awakening.  You ordered the first scrubbing from our sister, Shamash."

"Bring her up on comms."

"That's the problem, Agent. Shamash was destroyed five minutes ago."

I decided that more information was needed. I opened my eyes, "Situation report."

Through the transpex, I caught the flash of a gigantic black spike, hurtling towards us.  Three seconds later, Kugganzir shuddered with impact.

There was no Rule for this, but I long ago learned that any action is preferable to inaction. “Break off! Take us out of the attack zone.”

A Marine guided my hand to a grab bar. “The compensators at higher accelerations are iffy.” Even as he spoke, I felt hesitations jerk me briefly in random directions.

I felt, in my other hand, a paper note, which I raised and read.

“He likes a flight jacket with Agent on the back.

Two frontarms with lethal and non-lethal options.

My name is ______.”

The blank was completed with a scribbled “Shugili.” My leather sleeve implied flight jacket, and so I assumed that Agent was written across my shoulder blades. On my chest were red and yellow grips. I imagined my host, aided by some capable yeoperson, reading that note, making nervous preparations, and then inserting my wafer in his jack.

“Captain Lagash, tell me where we are?”

He responded with a standard four-point who-where-why-how situation report in brief phrases. “Our squadron is three Legend-class cruisers reinforced with two Battle-Siege pairs from the Vargr locals.

“In the Karrksinarka system, about 40 parsecs beyond the border, generally coreward. This is Vargr-dominated space: scatters of constantly changing petty empires.”

“We’re on a joint anti-piracy patrol. We found the local mining colony on a satellite of the ringed gas giant. Everyone there was dead of some plague.

“Plague activates an agent, even out here, and you ordered the base scrubbed as a Quarantine step. We were doing that from orbit when the pirate fleet swarmed out of the gas giant ring. Emping first, and then ramming with those big black spikes.”

“Have they followed us?”

A rating at a console spoke, “No, sir. Some few smaller ships are still at Shamash. Their largest is dreadnought-size. Uncharacteristically red, rather than black. They are all moving back toward the ring. We’re not seeing any comm traffic.”

“Then bring us to stationary. Captain, what about our companions?”

“Per protocol, they have moved with us. They are similarly unpursued.” He gestured at a screen with circles and arcs and points of light.

So, we were safe for the moment. “Captain, it strikes me that command of this squadron has fallen to you?”

“Yes. I have assumed that responsibility with the loss of Shamash. Commodore Appray was my friend as well as my superior.”

“Then let’s call you Commodore.” Rule 3 and Rule 5.

“Commodore, we have also omitted some required formalities. Tell me who is Emperor?”

“Zhakirov sits on the Iridium Throne.”

Confirming I would use the male pronouns. I turned to face the bridge crew; gestured to the Marine sergeant. He shouted an “Ears Up!” and heads turned to me.

“I am Agent Shugili of the Quarantine. My authority is Imperial Edict 97. I speak with the voice of the Emperor himself, and he wants us to handle this situation.”

The Commodore responded with “We all serve the Emperor.” He suggested that we move to the Chart Room. Once there, a server provided beverages while I asked questions.

“Who was the Agent on Shamash? What were his instructions? Do we even know?”

Lagash said that we knew little beyond our basic scrub instructions; the loss of Shamash was completely unexpected. No one had seen a need to mirror routine bridge planning conversations to the rest of the squadron.

I needed to know a lot more before I could make any decisions. “Get me the Ship’s Troops commander.”

Within minutes, the Marine Force Commander presented herself. I showed her my wafer: withdrew it from the nape of my neck, let her turn it in her fingers. When she handed it back to me, I returned it to its jack, and gave instructions. “There’s a dead Agent in the wreck of Shamash. Someone can show you what he looked like. I need his body. Failing that, his wafer like mine.”

A spacer knocked and stepped in without waiting. “Captain, we have a problem.” I waved the Force Commander away and we returned to the bridge.

Comm screens showed two canids—the sophont Vargr of this region—clearly on different ships, arguing with growls and spits while a crawler translated with text below. They both looked the same to me: grey fur around long snouts and black eyes. One had a bright red neck device; the other a scar above his eye. I labeled them Red and Scar, sufficient for my current purposes.

I watched for a few beats. I knew Vargr small group hierarchies were stable until disturbed; then a new leader emerges based on dominance. They had accepted Commodore Appray, but Lagash was an unknown; I was a double unknown. Neither was prepared to accept Lagash as Commodore, although they also did not agree on which of them should assume the role. These rival captains were evenly matched and their snarling could continue for some time. Much was for show to their crews; ultimately, they would meet for some sort of duel.

I looked around, found the weapons console and its operator, and spoke briefly. The gunner apparently understood Vargr hierarchies as well, and set about touching tabs and speaking to loaders at a turret.

“Commodore, please insert me into this conversation.” He gestured, and I started talking. The rivals shifted their attention to me.

“We have important work to complete, and your dispute disrupts our progress. Commodore Lagash commands our ships for the good of the overall mission, and at the direction of the Emperor.” Somewhere, on our end or theirs, my words were translated.

Scar spat words in a growling Anglic. “He is your emperor, not ours. He is months distant and you are guests in . . .”

The bridges for both Scar and Red flashed alarm lights and blared alarm sounds, and both turned their attention to local displays.

One of our screens showed an exterior tracking schematic. Two torpedo symbols streaked from us to them, evading snakes of anti-missile beams that were clearly ineffective. “Show time to impact.” Digits in a corner enlarged and counted down 5-4-3-2, and at 1 bridge illumination flickered on both viewscreens. Red winced. Scar stood unmoved.

I directed my attention to Scar. “The next ones won’t be dummy warheads. We have more important business than to argue about precedence.”

Scar submitted without submitting. “For now.” I complimented him on his composure under fire, and he visibly softened, “You have damaged my forward tanks.”

“We shall repair them better than before. For my first shot, I targeted a nonessential component.

“We have plans to make. Come join us on Kugganzir. We can discuss our next steps. Invite your companion commander as well.”

I turned to an officer. “Find out their names, ranks, whatever else we know. And what they eat.”

I was suddenly tired and asked where I could refresh myself. The Commodore walked me to guest quarters near his own suite. “Why am I tired? It has been less than an hour.”

“Lieutenant Shugili has been directing operations for two watches. When we needed a wafer jack, he volunteered. It is his fatigue you feel.”

“I understand. I want to see the Marines as soon as they return.” I shrugged off my jacket, dropped my chestplate and frontarms to the floor, and fell to the bed. My last awakening had been a false alarm, followed by weeks of routine patrol. Awakening to this was jarring. I slept.

Consciousness returned with a knock at the door, followed by a shouted, “The Marines are back.” I roused, rearmed myself, and stepped into the corridor.

The Marine Force Commander was waiting as I stepped to the bridge; she looked tired. She waited until I called her over. “Were you successful?”

“Yes, sir.” She extended a hand. In her palm a transparent envelope held a wafer smeared with blood. “I apologize, sir. Snith cut it out of a crushed skull. I was uncertain if cleaning would in some way damage it.”

“Yes.” I took the envelope and began to examine it. She made that unique Marine salute gripping the pistol holstered on her armored chest. I absentmindedly did the same to dismiss her as I turned to a yeoperson. “Rinse this with clear water; return with it immediately.”

I recalled Rule 5. “Force Commander.” She stopped and turned. “You and your force have done well. Tell your Marines that the Emperor himself is pleased with your work today.” Someone told me later that four Marines died in the operation.

By this time, yeoperson and wafer had returned, and I needed to remember everything it held. I looked at his nameplate. “Commodore, please assign Spacer Draan as my aide. I need perhaps an hour in quarters. Draan, come with me.”

We talked as we walked. I gave basic instructions about food, communications, gatekeeping. He seemed to understand; I hoped he understood.

In my quarters, I cautioned him to watch and not interfere; I would ask for help as I needed it. I removed my wafer, and inserted the new one. Knowing what to expect did not reduce the piercing pain throughout my brain. There was an accompanying brightness through closed eyes and screaming in my ears. Suddenly the events on Shamash were memories that had always been there. Draan stood silent as I suffered. At last, I started to feel better, and I made plans, instructed Draan, and then slept.

That evening, Commodore Lagash and his senior officers entertained me and the two invited Vargr. I insisted that Draan attend as well. This was not a time for planning or coordination, but rather our own cultural convention to establish and reinforce hierarchies. One element was the after-dinner stories.

Tale-telling is a tradition in ward rooms. Each story has entertainment value, but it also says something about the teller.

Lagash told of a tense encounter with a Zhodani patrol ship along our mutual border. A local distress call forced them to cooperate to save several locals. Lagash believed that he and his opponent had each gained a grudging respect for the other.

Scar told of a puphood escapade, filled with evasion and trickery, stealing fruits from a farmer’s field. It nicely showcased his ability to direct and lead others. In the end, they found the fruits post-season and now sour. His companion commander Red was silent.

I invited Draan to tell a story, and he was pleased to be asked.

“This ship, Kugganzir, is named for the very old Vilani legend of a powerful hero who held off an invading army at a narrow bridge. My homeworld is Ilelish and we have a parallel legend of the Ghost Fleet. It goes something like this.

“Long ago, when starfaring was new, the Empire sent a fleet to punish Ilelish for building its own ships instead of buying them from Vland. This was First Empire, thousands of years ago; it’s not about today. Anyway, when the imperial punitive fleet massed for its final assault, the mysterious Ghost Fleet flashed out of nowhere and destroyed them all. For several centuries after, Ilelish built its own fleets on the Ghost Fleet pattern. Then the empire finally came in and absorbed us. It’s all just an obscure part of very old history. It’s not even a morality tale, because ultimately, Ilelish lost. So what’s the point?

“The Ghost Fleet pattern is a hierarchy of tapered cylinders: fighters, escorts, frigates, and battles; all dead nonreflective black. They emp to disable their targets, then attack with missiles and kinetics, and the big ones ram.

“If we weren’t more than a year away from Ilelish, as well as on the far side of the Great Rift, I would say that we are attacked by a legendary Ilelish Ghost Fleet.”

Draan was gratified by the appreciative laughter.

I chose to make a speech rather than tell a story, both for hierarchic dominance, and to reflect my mission.

“There are more wonders in this universe than we can imagine. There’s a sort-of stasis bubble on a world in Deneb sector that reaches a thousand kilometers above the surface. It slows time by the cube root of 73. The people who made its generator have been dead for a million years.

"There are more dangers in this universe than we can imagine. I have seen slugs that take over men’s minds, and stars that explode for no reason we can discern.

"And yet, the arrow of progress is ever forward. Our Empire is the greatest interstellar community in history, embracing the diversity of a thousand sophont species working together for the greater good of all, to exploit the universe’s wonders and avoid the universe’s dangers. We are rightly proud of our past, and for what the future holds.”

I raised my cup, and the others raised theirs. “To the Emperor.”

The officers echoed my sentiments. Scar and Red elected to not participate. For some reason, Draan didn’t either.

After dinner, I met with Scar in a common area, in sight of others but isolated enough that we could converse. I asked, and Scar pronounced his name to me. Daellvoztillakug. I repeated it slowly: Dal Voz Tilla Kug. I repeated his slight correction: Dayel Voz Tilla Kug and he indicated that I was now correct. I repeated the syllables enough to embed them in my memory.

“Daell is my rank. Voz is my male parent. Tilla is my female parent. Kug is my personal identifier. Daellvoztillakug. We pronounce it as one multi-syllabic. Daellvoztillakug.”

He turned his attention to me. “So explain to me your name structure.”

“Yes, mine is more complex than it appears. This host is Agent Arc Shugili.”

“You wear the triple sunburst of naval Lieutenant. That isn’t part of your name?”

Hierarchy is important to them, I thought. Even now, he is expressing an attempt at dominance. “It’s optional. Agent is a rank outside of the normal structure, an exception. Arc is the personal name. Shugili is the male parent name, and by extension, his male parent, and then his male parent. Theoretically, it extends back for hundreds of generations.”

“All of that refers to this physical body.” I now emphasized my personal pronoun. “ ‘I’ am Jonathan Bland. Personal name Jonathan; male parent name Bland.”

I’ll express some dominance here myself, I thought. “I am entitled to prefix ‘Sir’ to my name, granted by the Emperor himself.”

I reached back, withdrew my wafer, and displayed it between my fingers. I found myself telling this non-Human more than I would be comfortable telling my Human comrades.

“A skill wafer,” he said.

“Yes, but also not. It’s a variant of the technology, in many ways obsolete, in other ways more powerful. This contains the Jonathan Bland personality. Insert it in a host—like Arc Shugili—and my Bland personality takes over. In about a month, Bland evaporates and Shugili reappears, generally unaffected. The Bland memories of this period are retained on the wafer. The next time it is used in a different host, I will remember meeting you, this conversation, and everything about this particular mission.”

“Rrrr.” Daellvoztillakug puzzled through the logic. “You remember the previous mission, and the one before that.”

“Yes, in a long stutter of awakenings that reach back several centuries.”

“You are immortal?”

“Long-lived would be a better term. It’s very confused in my own memories. There are several hundred wafers with me on them. From time-to-time, they are synchronized, consolidated. Each contains the compiled memories of the Jonathan Bland personality since the beginning of the project. It helps to address subsequent instances of similar crises. I am very experienced at addressing crises.”

“My political leader would adopt this technology to live forever. Your emperor must already use this to reign in secret I think.”

“Fortunately, no.” At least, I thought that was the case. “Each instance lasts only a few weeks. I am dependent on crew to activate me. I am dependent on the power of naval regulations for people to obey me.”

The other conditions lurked in the corners of this mind: my host had to be male and genetically Human, and never more than once in a specific host. Perhaps there were others. Or exceptions. These were details not important to this conversation.

“Would you obey your political leader in an ever-changing body? Or perhaps simply discard his wafer at an opportune time?”

Daellvoztillakug crooked an ear in some sort of body language that I assumed was assent.

At the end of the evening, I invited Daellvoztillakug to participate in an expedition to the Red Ship. I believe he took it as a challenge, and accepted. I left it to the Marines to specify equipment and details.

123-675

Boarding the Red Ship in the Gas Giant Ring

Gvur 2302 Karrksinarka C886400–8 Ni Ga

The next day, we approached the Red Ship in three assault shuttles. I sent a duplicate of my wafer in a volunteer: Draan.

We were starting blind. Deep scanners showed only layered homogeneity behind that initial hull wall: densities “consistent with” hydrocarbon polymers, whatever that means. For that matter, it was densities consistent with water. Was it really hydrocarbon?

Our assault shuttles accelerated toward the target. The technology was mature. Full acceleration, and at some point partial deceleration. Our gravitics slowed us from the speed of a rifle bullet to the speed of a pistol bullet, and in the last ten seconds to zero. Compensators handled the G forces; if they didn’t, we would be a jelly of broken bones and flesh.

Our three shuttles slammed into the red hull simultaneously. Directed explosions ruptured the surface, blast doors opened, and sections dashed inside. Was I expecting an interior void?

We emerged into a sea of fluid. Darkness through which our beams probed. My point of view shifted. The inner surface of the hull became my down, and that inner hull surface curved away left and right, and much less so fore and aft. Two man-heights above us was a ceiling. Around us were filaments: finger-width, arm-width, body-width, stretching from our floor to that ceiling. Free-floating rods, black hulls in miniature hung motionless, or in swarms with apparent purpose.

The fluid resisted us, but the powered assist in our suits brute-forced us where we wanted to go. A Marine clambered up a filament to the ceiling, touched it with a parcel, and it parted. I felt a shock wave crash over me through the fluid. His comm told us it was the same above as here.

A different voice on a different comm gave a warning, alerting us to flashes of light from aft: a cacophony of strobes converging on someone. He narrated rods prodding gently, like curious eels, and then with alarm told us one had prodded his headlight more forcefully, extinguishing it. A leader told him to pull back. Telltales for his suit went dead as black rods turned their flashing lights toward the main group.

Two distinct battles began. The Marines in their maroon battle dress responded with precision. Needles of fire hit individual rods that simply stopped to hang motionless in the fluid. More rods appeared from the darkness, strobing as they advanced, and the Marines escalated to burners that boiled the fluid and incinerated their targets. The rods were surprisingly agile in their response.

The Vargr were more agitated. Their lasers traced dashes of bright as they sliced black rods. I observed that their beams were apparently color-coded for some sort of tactical control.

Someone gave a command across all channels to extinguish visible lights and implement natural light intensification. Suddenly, we were in darkest of night, punctuated by black rod flashes and our own weapons bursts. Some filaments flowed with an eerie light.

The rods now concentrated on our weapon discharges, which was suicidal for some, but not all. Several troop indicators on my visual overlay changed from live to out-of-action and I decided that we knew enough. I touched the tab that sounded recall, and turned myself to that hole in the hull that led to our assault shuttle.

Blocking my path was a mass of black rods. The one before my faceplate showed dead-on a mouth rimmed by shiny black grains. Another attached itself to my arm; yet another to my leg. Directly before my eyes, I saw how those grains worked as they rotated to abrade my helmet transpex. I manipulated my burner without success, abandoned it for my combat knife to slice that eater to motionlessness. Instants later, simultaneous pain in my arm and leg was accompanied by a rush of foul-smelling fluid. My memories ended at that point.

123-675

Aboard CM Kugganzir above

Gvur 2302 Karrksinarka C886400–8 Ni Ga

At long last, some of them returned. Daellvoztillakug. The Marine Force Commander. Not Red. Not most of the rest. Not Draan, and thus not me.

Sensops retrieved recordings and images from the shuttle. That data, after processing, would be information, and with interpretation, intelligence. I sought out Daellvoztillakug and a bypass directly to experience.

He approached with a limp, which I ignored. When he saw me, he immediately offered my raw, blood-covered wafer. I took it and raced off to my quarters. Daellvoztillakug followed.

I removed mine. Inserted the new. The pain was intense, and my knees buckled. He reached to support me, and I waved him away. Leaned on a chair and raised myself up.

This wasn’t memories flooding back. They were already there; had always been there. I could call up the dark chamber of the Red Ship. The ever-present fluid. The filaments. The shiny black rods and their strobing. The chaos of energy beams, burners, and lasers. The pain of leg and arm, and the horrible mouth of abrading teeth. And then nothing.

I had another piece of the puzzle. These Black Hulls are organic. I couldn’t say if they were intelligent, but they clearly grew. What biology was it that scaled a single pattern across of spectrum of sizes from finger to dreadnought? Where were they from? Why were they here? Those were clearly questions for another time.

But now, I had a decision to make. Were these things a threat beyond this system? We eliminated Hot Plague on Vland millennia ago with vaccines and sanitation. We preserved tigers despite the occasional Human casualty.

I decided. At my authorization, we unlocked the nukes and remotely implanted them on the Red Ship. Staff made calculations and promised me that it would be utterly vaporized.

150-675

Aboard CM Kugganzir above

Gvur 2302 Karrksinarka C886400–8 Ni Ga

We were at a lull in our activities, and something had been nagging at the back of my mind. “Where is our physical report? How was it sent off?”

My new aide looked at a rating, who tapped a screen and showed it to him. “It would be on the hangar deck, at outgoing. To be transshipped once we return to Imperial territory.”

“Let’s go see.”

We walked the length of the ship, ultimately arriving at the hangar deck tucked between our two massive maneuver drive outputs. To one side was a small office and accounting console.

There were basic introductions. “This is Freightmaster Masic.”

He saluted and I returned it. I saw an older man, his uniform marked with the various bits of cloth and metal that said he was dependable, loyal, and had avoided trouble across his twenty-five years in service.

I started right in. “You have a shipment containing our report. Is it here?”

“I have many shipments. I am certain that it is.”

I told him my concern. “Some time ago, I sent a similar shipment, and when last I checked it had not arrived.”

If I were not an officer, he would have been patronizing, or dismissive. Traces of condescension showed through. “Transit times are counted in months or years. You must allow enough time.”

“It has been more than a century.”

He accepted the illogic of my statement without comment, but something in his attitude changed.

“You say a similar shipment? How similar?” Even as he spoke, his fingers touched tabs and made selections on a screen.

“Quite. Similar contents. I prepared it myself.”

He was now looking at details on a display. “Similarly addressed?”

“Identically, to a repository on Reference.”

“I see your problem. Your metadata is extremely detailed.”

“I take great pride in a detailed metadata. It helps ensure the material is properly cataloged.”

“Your specific metadata shares too much. I see at least three flagged entries and a prohibited string.”

“Oh?”

“The Suerrat word Nurikreh triggers an alert; it’s Anglic equivalent Ghost Fleet does as well. I don’t know why it flags Emp, but it does. Finally, you use Niikiik Luur three times, and that glows red as a prohibited phrase.

“Your parcel is addressed to the archives on Reference. It will almost certainly be diverted to the restricted archives annex on Vland without any Human intervention. In all probability, it will be stored in the same section as your previous shipment.

“I can edit your metadata. Actually, we should start over so the deleted phrases don’t show up in the audit trail. If we clean the text, and with travel times, it should deliver to your specified destination in about twelve months.”

I told him no. “Leave it. Perhaps someday, I can find them both. It would be helpful if they are together.”

That night, as I fell asleep, I contemplated my coming evaporation. I had already spent one of my many lifetimes searching for that lost shipment, and now sheer chance had given me the answer. What other pieces of the puzzle was I missing?

Copyright © 2020 Marc Miller

“The Red Ship,” is set within the world of Marc Miller’s November book Agent of the Imperium. Legendary game designer Miller is one of the founding partners of the Game Designers Workshop, and one of the original designers of the best-selling Traveller science fiction role playing game. He is the recipient of many game design awards, and has written many short stories and novellas set within his gaming universe.

Preferred Seating

by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Say what you might about foolish valor—and Can Ith had said his share—the mission had provided an interesting piloting exercise, and fortunate it was that he had been home on leave, if one could conceive of such a thing.

They had made excellent time to this faraway port, three small tradeships, pod-stripped, one of Ixin's, showing the Moon and Rabbit with some reluctance—but what else could they do when Korval's two vessels flaunted the Tree-and-Dragon and never thought to do otherwise?

So, three small ships, as traders went, pelting through space as though pursued, which was only . . . somewhat . . . likely. Port was raised, and permission gained to offload the cargo, which was done, shuttle-load by shuttle-load, none of the captains being quite so gallant as to risk the big ships at dock.

Can Ith had drawn shuttle duty, which would not have been so ill, had he not drawn second seat, and his cousin Sin Jin first. Still, it wasn't as if they needed to speak to one another, and the off-loading went quickly.

It wasn't until the last of the cargo was down and off, that the mission acquired a complication, and red tape tied the shuttles to the dock.

It seemed that there were tests to be administered to the cargo, and those found to fall short were to be returned to the ships. The number of those failing was as of this port-morning had been three, which was not so high a percentage. Still, their contract had been to make delivery here, offloading Safely and fully before turning back to the homeworld.

Safely and fully had its own power, in contracts; and if it had not, even Sin Jin would have been hard-put to justify simply abandoning the culls at the dock.

It was decided in consultation between the captains that the Rabbit's ship was best placed to take up the rejected, as there was another port open to them, which would not necessarily welcome a Dragon. The shuttle Firsts were dispatched as a group to place this plan before the portmaster. Assuming it found favor, Korval's ships would be free to return to the homeworld. In theory. Can Ith's faith in theory was . . . not non-existent, and of no matter in any case. Scout captain he might be, but family, so the saying went, kept its own rank, and Sin Jin was his elder by two Standards, and was further favored by the delm, for the sake of his mother.

The Firsts had been away for some time. Rather longer, Can Ith considered, than they ought to have been, had the portmaster been inclined to the proposal. That was worrying, for personal reasons. Home-leave from the Scouts only seemed to last forever, and he was running close to time. Mission planning had not considered the possibility of a lengthy layover. If the proposal was accepted, and Korval's ships given leave to depart, and they flew home with the same vigor with which they had flown away . . .

. . . he would arrive on Liad in good time to make his bow to the delm, and report to Scout Headquarters.

If the proposal was not accepted, Can Ith would need to find his own way home, and that quickly.

He accessed starmaps and trade routes—which only proved his fears. If they did not leave this port, soon, he would not raise Liad before his leave was over.

He might, of course, pinbeam Scout Commander and his team second, to apprise them of his projected tardiness. Neither would be pleased, but—

The hatch-open light flashed on his board; the security screen at the bottom right of his array came live. Sin Jin was back and not seeming particularly buoyant.

Can Ith was on his feet when his cousin hit the bridge.

"Are we free to fly?" he asked.

That earned him two raised eyebrows—he and his cousin were not friends, and scarcely spoke.

Can Ith raised his eyebrows in answer, and received a small, malicious smile.

"So eager to raise Liad? Cousin."

"Truly, my need for Liad is temporary, merely I must pass through on the way to Scout Headquarters. My leave is running out, and I would prefer not to have to explain a tardy arrival to the commander."

"Oh, is that what distresses you! I am pleased to be able to do proper duty of kin and relieve you of anxiety. You will not be tasked to give an accounting of yourself to the Scout commander—ever again. The delm has sent that you are required by your clan, and has removed you from the roster of active Scouts."

The deck moved—Can Ith thought so, but his cousin stood steady, so it had merely been the force of the information—which was surely false. So he told himself. He knew his cousin's malice of old; it would be like him to lie for the simple pleasure of causing consternation.

"I see that you don't wish to believe me!" said Sin Jin. "I assure you, it is so. You no longer owe duty to any but to Korval. The delm has found Lezina yos'Phelium unfit for the more strenuous duties attending the second speaker. You will assume those, as Lezina's assistant."

Can Ith stared, still not wanting to believe. Assistant to the second speaker, who had served, all honor to her, for forty years, before she fell into dotage? It was a paired cruelty to force her to continue in a position she could no longer understand, and to name the new second-speaker-in-fact a mere assistant.

Yet, Can Ith admitted, there was a certain terrible logic to it, from the viewpoint of a delm. Korval was the author of this current folly, robbing the Council of Clans of its scapegoats.The clan could not show weak, or in any way vulnerable. To replace so notable a personage as the second speaker at such a time . . .

No, Can Ith thought.

Sin Jin was not lying.

It was true.

The only wonder was that his cousin had managed to contain himself thus long before delivering the blow.

And even that was scarcely a wonder. Why blurt the thing out, when a little waiting would eventually produce a situation where the payoff in dismay would be so very much higher?

Numbly, Can Ith reached for his jacket.

"Where are you going?" his cousin asked.

"Out," he replied. "I'm overdue leave."

Can Ith didn't stay to hear what first chair might say, or even looked at him at all. He turned on his heel and walked down the hall to the hatchway.

#

The port was scarcely three streets deep, and no more than four long. For all of that, it was divided into lawful and less-lawful sections, with the less-lawful including those things most of interest to a spacer on leave—drink, gambling, companionship, and rough entertainments. The lawful side encompassed a casino, a restaurant, a luxury hotel, and a theater, those being both overpriced and chancy for persons new on port. Also, the restaurant at least, where the captains and the pilots had dined with the portmaster and the receiving committee, was perhaps not so fine as the locals believed.

It was instinct to turn away from the lawful port, where proctors waited to discover the unwary spacer in violation of a law—and to approach the less-lawful side, where a pilot might drink in peace, with only the occasional threat of footpads. In his present state, the opportunity to lesson footpads would only be a relief.

He had taken a heavy blow, but he was not entirely lost to good sense. He did not seek the downright dangerous streets off of the port proper; indeed, he made for the bar his opposite number on the Rabbit shuttle had recommended as a decent and quiet place to have a glass or two of tolerable wine, and a tray of the local breads and cheeses, which she represented as excellent. She had warned him that there was live music, adding that it had been easy to ignore, and that apparent attention to the musicians had not been interpreted by the locals as a desire for company.

So it was that he turned into the well-lit doorway of an establishment styling itself the Dancing Colors, entering a room slightly less well-lit, and moderately full of patrons. There was music; he traced its source to a back corner, where two persons sat on a low dais, one holding a stringed instrument across her lap; the other playing a pipe.

The result of their efforts was moderately pleasing, certainly nothing that would intrude upon his thoughts.

He decided against a stool at the crowded bar. Rather, he took a table near the musicians and sat with his back against the wall, and most of the room before him—his preferred seating in such situations—and smiled up at the server.

#

The musicians left the stage for their break, and Can Ith was considering calling for a second glass of very tolerable wine. He had ordered the bread and cheese plate, which arrived with a separate small bowl of "akashi, sir," which he was given to know was a local fruit, and this its season.

He sampled the small loaf of crusty brown bread—still warm inside, and tasting of malt. It paired well with the hard yellow cheese, and he made a mental note to thank the Rabbit copilot for her information.

Despite the good flavor, it was not food—nor even wine—that he wanted. What he wanted was Sin Jin's throat between his hands—which, unhappily, was no new desire.

Can Ith sighed. It was not done, to murder one's cousin. Nor was it done to disobey the delm, though he was less rigorous on that point. He was, after all, a Scout, trained to think outside of Liad's customs and the strict clan hierarchies. No, he might easily disobey his delm—if he could realize a profit.

Can Ith accepted as truth that the Recall Clause had been invoked. Even if it were possible to manipulate Korval into declaring him dead, he could not return to the Scouts. Once recalled, a Scout was dead to the service.

He sighed, and looked down at his folded hands, the Jump Pilot's Ring a glittering chaos on his second finger.

Taking a deep breath, he cleared his mind, put aside distress and considered the future his delm had chosen for him.

Second speaker—that was a position of some consequence with the hierarchy of the clan. He was not to be second speaker, however; but assistant, and no guarantee that he would rise to her honors when she gave up her soul to the stars.

He laughed, softly, in self-ridicule. Rise to her honors, indeed! he jeered inwardly. Will you give the rest of your life over to organizing seating charts?

He might, he thought, go eklykt'i—fade away into the city, or the outback. Everything he needed was in his jacket; he might go at once.

Despair lifted as he realized that choice existed. Indeed, a very generous choice existed. If Sin Jin had possessed anything like an imagination, he would have tried to keep Can Ith from leaving the ship. No; he was unjust; Sin Jin possessed a very fine imagination, else his mischiefs would not be half so effective.

But Sin Jin had not had the benefit of Scout training.

Sin Jin believed that one must—always—obey the delm.

So, Can Ith thought, finishing the last of his glass. He would call for the check and go.

Let Sin Jin search, if he cared to—and, here was a jest! Of course he would search! To return to the delm with news that he had exposed her plans to Can Ith beforetime, whereupon he was vanished?

Oh, Sin Jin would search.

Much good it might do him, Can Ith thought, suddenly feeling quite cheerful. It was trivial for a Scout to remain unfound. Sin Jin must at last go home and face Korval, while Can Ith would return to port the moment it was safe to do so, and search about him for a ship—Terran, by necessity—in need of a pilot, or a mechanic, or a cargo master.

Yes. It would do.

Having taken his decision, he looked up—and met the thoughtful dark gaze of a brown-haired Liaden woman. To Scout eyes, she looked worn with long care and too little food. At the same time, there was an excitement in her that drew him, who had only just taken an exhilarating decision of his own.

"Captain yos'Phelium," she said.

"No," he answered gently. "Merely Pilot yos'Phelium."

"But a yos'Phelium is never merely a pilot," she said.

He laughed, and intercepted her glance at the bread and cheese tray. Hungry, yes. And her jest suggested that she was one of the culls.

Well, he could afford to be generous.

"Sit," he invited her, "if you have a taste for chancy company. I was about to call for more wine. Will you join me?"

"Thank you," she said, and took the chair at his left, which put her back to the wall, the room open to her gaze.

He glanced 'round—and the server was there immediately, receiving his order and the coins that paid for all. There was a stir at the back of the room; an over-shoulder glance discovered the musicians mounting the small stage once again.

"If you were not here for the previous set, you may find the music of interest," he said, playing the host with what charm he could muster. It was the least he might do for his sudden guest. Gods knew what she had endured on Liad, and her good luck that she had made it to the relief ships.

There came a tootling from the pipe, and some plucking of the strings. He looked again, seeing the woman slowly winding pegs on her instrument's neck, plucking, twisting, plucking—until her face blossomed into a smile.

A shift of shadow warned him, and he turned back as their glasses were placed on the table, and more bread, too.

"Cook's gift," the server said to his uplifted brow. "Crowd's thinner than her baking tonight."

"Our thanks to the cook," his companion said with fervor.

The server nodded and swept away.

"The bread is very good," Can Ith said; "and the cheese even better. I did not much care for the akashi fruit, but you may find otherwise. Please, make yourself free."

She smiled at him then—fully, as would a comrade, or a friend, or a lover—and raised her glass.

"To the fullness of fortune," she said.

He raised his own glass, pleased to find a toast he could meet.

"To the luck," he answered.

They drank. His companion helped herself to cheese and bread, tasted of the fruits, head tipped consideringly to one side—and returned to bread and cheese.

The musicians began to play, quietly. He listened with half-an-ear, as he watched the room, and also his table mate.

Eventually, he spoke.

"You were looking for me—specifically, for me."

Dark eyes met his straightly.

"Yes," she said.

"Ah."He sipped wine. "I don't wish to be rude, but if there is something you wish to say, you must speak. I'm soon away."

"Yes," she said again, and then—"You have very strong shields."

"So I am told. I hope you will not ask me to lower them, for I haven't the least notion how to do so. The shields came with me into this life."

She smiled.

"My name is Kishara jit'Luso, Pilot. I am lucky, so my delm cast me out, in order that the clan take no damage from sheltering faulty genes."

Sipping his wine, he considered her.

"Forgive me if I am impertinent," he said, "but, being as I am I know little of those who are gifted.It is true that my entire clan is lucky—and risky. I wonder if you put yourself in danger by seeking me out."

Amusement crossed her face, and he saw that she was younger than he had at first thought.

"As the moth is endangered by the candle flame?" she asked. "You are kind to regard it, but no. I think in this moment, our lucks reinforce each other, to the betterment of both."

"Ah?" he murmured politely.

"Yes," she said, taking up another slice bread with cheese. "You see, there's about to be a pirate raid."

He blinked at her.

"A pirate raid?" he repeated, as the front door smashed open.

#

Three bravos rushed in and split up, each overseeing a third of the room, weapons leveled, faces grim.

There was a brief hurrah from the clientele, voices raised, chairs and stools noisily overturned as people leapt to their feet. Can Ith stood silently, keeping his hand deliberately away from his weapon, and watched the scene unfold.

From the side of his eye, he saw that Kishara jit'Luso had risen as well, moving somewhat closer to his side. Possibly, she wished to partake of his luck, he thought, and snorted lightly.

From the center of the room, a chair came flying, and another. The barkeeper ducked beneath the bar, coming up with what looked to be a laser rifle left over from the AI wars.

She got off one shot, burning a gash into the floor a whisker's width from the boots of the nearest bravo, who spun, weapon dropping into line, finger tightening.

Can Ith twitched forward, felt his arm caught in a surprisingly tight grip, just as a shadow moved in the doorway, and one of the most astonishing figures Can Ith had ever seen, outside of a melant'i play, strolled into the bar.

He was, at a hazard, Liaden, wearing a space leather jacket over sweater and pants. His boots were new; a multitude of gleaming necklaces festooned him; his hands were a-glitter with rings. He held a halfling Terran girl negligently by her wrist. Her eyes were fixed and flat, and Can Ith wondered if she might be blind.

"Friends, friends!" the new arrival cried in an oddly resonant voice. He held his freehand up, showing it empty, and looked mildly around the room.

"There is no reason for dispute. We are here to pick up supplies and funds, and perhaps personnel. Please, all be calm."

Everyone froze. Can Ith took a breath, felt the hold on his arm tighten, and drop away.

The new arrival pointed a finger at the bartender.

"Put that down," he said chidingly; "you will do someone a hurt."

The bartender put the rifle on the bar.

"Very good," said the Liaden coolly. "Now, if you please—go to the storeroom, and pack up three cases of your best liquor and wine. Bring them here." He pointed at the near end of the bar.

Without a word, the bartender turned, and walked down the bar to a door that must lead to the stockroom.

The Liaden shook the halfling sharply.

"How is that weapon disarmed?"

"Push ... red ... button ... stock."

He pointed at the nearest patron, sitting blank-faced on her barstool.

"You—disarm the rifle."

The woman leaned forward, pushed the red button on the rifle's stock, and sat back.

"Good."

He raised his voice.

"We will now accept donations," he said, his voice washing against the back of the room.

"You—you—you!" He pointed at three frozen patrons, one from each third of the room. "Take a plate or a bowl from the table. Empty it."

He waited while this order was obeyed, food and liquids dumped onto tabletops.

"Now, go to every person in your section. They will give you all their valuable items."

The three turned, and Can Ith watched as every person at every table reached into pockets and pouches, dropping rings, necklets, coins, arm-clasps and other precious things into the proffered container. No one protested. No one appeared to be aware that they were being robbed.

The collector for their section was approaching. Can Ith deliberately held himself still, and made his expression flat. It would appear that the entire room was ensorcelled, under some compulsion that left him, and, seemingly, his companion untouched. He assumed his natural shielding was the cause of his continued liberty. Perhaps Kishara's faulty genes granted her immunity.

The collector was before them. Kishara surrendered half-a-dozen small coins and a silver ring. Can Ith gave the money from his public pocket, and, with a pang he did not allow to inform his movements, pulled the Jump Pilot's Ring from his finger.

The collector passed on, face blank, movements precise and unnatural, pausing to take the stringed instrument, the flute, and the bowl of coins from the frozen musicians.

"Bring everything to the bar," said the compelling voice, and this, too, was done.

"Go back to your places," he told the collectors, and they did. He stepped to the bar, dragging the halfling with him, and ran his fingers through those things that had been gathered.

"Wait—what is this?"

He turned, Can Ith's ring in his hand. Frowning, he subjected it to a long moment of scrutiny before holding it high.

"Who gave this? Raise a hand!"

Teeth grit, Can Ith raised his hand.

The Liaden strolled down the room, pulling the halfling with him. He stopped before Can Ith, looking him up and down, his smile growing wide.

"Well! Pilot, is it? Jump pilot, in fact? You will be coming with me. And who is this—ah . . . lady? What is your relationship with this pilot? Speak true!"

"We are partners," Kishara lied, her voice flat.

"Very good. You also will take employment with me. What is your name?"

"Pelli azSulo."

"What is your name, Pilot? Speak true!"

"Sin Jin Isfelm," Can Ith replied, keeping his face and his tone flat.

"They now belong to me, as you do. Follow."

There seemed to be no choice, here and now. Perhaps an opportunity would arise. Perhaps—well, thought Can Ith—perhaps he would get lucky. Though the reason that Kishara had tied herself to him—partners, indeed!—eluded him. He could wish for a private moment to find what her scheme was, but—

They had arrived at the bar. Their captor pulled a sack from an inside pocket and threw it into Kishara's face. She made no move to catch it, and it settled across her shoulder.

"Pelli! Gather all the donations into the sack."

She plucked the sack up, shook it open and did as she had been ordered, her movements wooden, her face blank. Can Ith observed her as he could—plainly, she was an expert at this game.

"Sin Jin!" his supposed master snapped. "Pick up that case from the bar and stand aside. You and you!" A finger indicated two patrons seated placidly at the bar. "Pick up the other cases, and stand aside."

This was done, and Pelli—Kishara—stood forward, holding the sack, and also the two instruments. Their captor frowned, grabbed the stringed instrument in his free hand, lifted it, and smashed it against the bar. Can Ith stiffened, expecting a scream from the musician, but none came. Grinning, the man dropped the pipe to the floor and slammed his boot heel down, the sound of splintering wood perfectly audible.

"Carry the sack," he told Kishara, and turned to face the room.

"We are done here," he said in coolly, and Can Ith saw the captive halfling shudder.

"All of you!" He pointed out over the room. "Forget our faces. Forget what happened."

He turned, striding to the door, the halfling stumbling in his wake, then turned, pointing deliberately at Can Ith, Kishara, and the two nameless patrons.

"Follow me!" he ordered, and perforce, they did.

#

They arrived at a shuttle. Those who had carried were dismissed with a command to forget. The Liaden looked at his bravos, and said a single word:"Go."

They went, taking their weapons with them.

Can Ith considered his options. If the man would release the halfling, he thought, and felt pressure against his side. Kishara, warning him to be still. He considered that. How if she were, herself, part of this pirate raid?He shifted slightly, centering himself—but the moment was past.

The Liaden jerked the halfling forward, pushing her palm flat against the plate, forcing her chin up with his other hand, so that the scanner got her face and eyes.

The hatch slid open. The Liaden snatched the halfling back against the shuttle's side and pointed at Can Ith and Kishara.

"Stow the goods."

Almost, Can Ith balked, but it came to him that the odds of his survival, Kishara's, and the halfling's, rose significantly, once he was aboard a ship. He carried the case within, as ordered, stowing it.

Kishara brought in the second box of alcohol, and he bent close to her ear.

"I'll want an explanation," he breathed.

"No time," came the answering breath. "Trust me."

Snorting, he turned and went back for the last case, reflecting ruefully on the unlikely fact that he did trust her.

The Liaden watched, leaning against the hull, the halfling in one hand, the sack in the other.

When Can Ith stepped back into the shuttle, the Liaden came after, shoving the halfling before him.

"Sin Jin will pilot. Pelli will take the jump-seat. I will have the copilot's chair. My carte blanche will kneel, so."

He shoved the halfling down to her knees on the decking, wasting no gentleness. It must have hurt her, yet she gave no cry, nor even blinked, her blind eyes staring.

Can Ith sat in First Seat, and glanced down at the board. The pilot had properly cleared and taken the key. He could, of course, fly the shuttle without a ship's key, though it would require him to do some work behind the board, which would take initiative. He was in receipt of the notion that their captor supposed him dead to initiative.

A full minute passed—two—while he wondered if he would betray his unensorcelled state if he asked—

Beside him, the Liaden made a little purring sound.

"You will want this," he said reaching to his belt. He held out a ship's key, recognizable, though coated with a brown substance that Can Ith greatly feared was blood.

"Take it," the Liaden snapped. "Dock us with the ship Merry Mushroom. Do not contact them."

Can Ith took the key and slotted it. It was sticky, and left red-brown smudges on his fingers.

The board came live. He located the Merry Mushroom, and filed intent to lift with the port. The ack came back as he was making sure of his webbing; and they were away.

#

The halfling spoke to the ship, her voice thin and expressionless. The shuttle docked, and they disembarked.

The Liaden went first, shoving the halfling ahead, and it seemed to Can Ith that she dragged her feet somewhat.He heard a definite whimper when she was pushed hard against the wall as the Liaden put her palm to the plate.

The door slid open to a common room. The Liaden threw the halfling in; she hit the floor with a cry, rolling, as crew started up, alarm dawning on their faces.

"Sit down and be calm!" the Liaden said, firmly, in just such a tone as had gotten results down below.

The crew hesitated, looking from one to the other, and from the floor, the halfling screamed, "Kill him! He killed Father and Sinda!"

#

After, Can Ith and Kishara sat with the crew, and the halfling Jaim Evrit, daughter of Trader Ban Evrit and Pilot Sinda Mark, and told over what had happened.

"The field is peculiar to the planet," Kishara said. "I felt it ebb, as we lifted."

She threw a conscious look at Can Ith.

"I was in the same test group. We had all felt the effects as soon as we hit planet, but he—" she waved toward the lock door, where the body rested—"he understood the possibilities more quickly than the rest of us, and did not hesitate to act for his own advantage."

Can Ith inclined his head.

"All well and good," said the first mate, a grey-haired woman called Vina Greiz. "My question is what we're to do now. Trader's gone, pilot, too. Young Jaim –" She threw a worried look at the halfling slumped in her chair.

"I'm not certified," Jaim said, her voice considerably stronger than Can Ith would have supposed. "Can't run the trade."

"We'll have to marry Shroom to the Mikancy Family," said another of the crew from the back.

"No." Young Jaim's face set.

"What else then?" came yet a third voice. "Sell out and stay downside?"

"Not that either." She took a hard breath and gave Can Ith the full force of her eyes—not blind, after all—determined.

"You're a Jump pilot."

He glanced down at the gaudy ring, rescued from the sack and back on his finger.

"That is so."

"Are you at liberty?"

"I am," he admitted.

"I," Kishara said from beside him, "was raised in a trading house. I can advise, as required, and you need not marry to your disadvantage."

Jaim's smile was grim.

"I'm family," she said. "I can offer contract."

Kishara bowed, and Can Ith did.

"I think we might manage," Jaim said to her crew. "And not impossible to borrow a Second Trader from one of our friendlies, if we gotta."

"We trust them?" asked the first mate.

"You'd rather the Mikancy? You know their style. We'll be lucky to be set down on a back world alive."

The crew was silent. The first mate threw up her hands.

"We trust 'em, then. What's next?"

"Gotta cover the route," Jaim said. "Need to get goin'."

"In that wise," Can Ith said slowly. "Let us first make up a pod, with the stolen goods, our late friend, and a locator. We will inform the port authority before we Jump out."

"Yes," said Jaim, and looked to the first mate.

"Vina, show Pilot Can Ith to his seat, please.

Copyright © 2020 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

This Liaden Universe® story is set in the milieu of December series entry Trader’s Leap. Maine-based writers Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have written dozens of short stories and twenty plus novels, most set in their star-spanning Liaden Universe®. Before settling down to the serene and stable life of a science fiction and fantasy writer, Steve was a traveling poet, rock-band reviewer, reporter, and editor of a string of community newspapers. Sharon, less adventurous, has been an advertising copywriter, copy editor on night-side news at a small city newspaper, reporter, photographer, and book reviewer. Both credit their newspaper experiences with teaching them the finer points of collaboration. Sharon and Steve passionately believe that reading fiction ought to be fun, and that stories are entertainment. They maintain a web presence at korval.com.