Eternity's End

Prologue Pirate Patrol: Freem’n Deutsch

Riggers, take her down.

The voice of the raider captain crackled through the net with cold authority. The lead rigger obeyed with a tilt of his head and a flash of input from Augment Foxtrot. The acknowledgment of his two flank riggers came silently through the net, augment to augment, and with a swift coordinated kick they sent the raider ship Flechette down into the Flux like a spinning bullet.

The start of the patrol began as it always did—with a sideways dance through the maze of Flux currents that isolated raider Outpost Ivan from those who might come spying.

Lead rigger Freem’n Deutsch had been on more pirate patrols than he could count, but still he began each patrol with an almost inexpressible dread. He felt it as keenly now as he had from the very first, when he had been forced to fly missions as a captive of the raider colony. It was a dread compounded of rage and fear, of a desire not to attack the innocent, and—perhaps if he looked deeply enough—also of a secret delight in the fear and smoke and mayhem that usually followed. The dread was always there. But having been offered the choice of flying for the pirates or dying at their hands, Deutsch had learned to approach his duties with a certain resignation—managing his emotions with the assistance of the augments, and keeping them isolated from the other riggers in the net.

It would all change, once they were genuinely on the prowl. But for now, there was only the dread, like a weight in his belly—and the discipline to keep it concealed.

Though far from the largest or most powerful raider in the fleet, Flechette was a formidable threat to any ship. She bristled with flux torpedoes, beam weapons, and flux-distortion antennas to deceive and confuse any enemy. She carried a boarding party of twenty-four pirate commandos, of varying degrees of biohumanity. Her captain, Te’Gunderlach, was himself more cyborg than human, and was known for never retreating once a battle was joined—a trait that made him a fearsome warrior. Deutsch sometimes imagined that it might also make for a disastrous failure if one day Flechette met her match.

Today Deutsch flew with, if anything, a greater-than-usual sense of unease. A premonition? He couldn’t say. He’d felt a premonition of trouble on the day, nine years ago, when his Elacian freighter was attacked by pirates—and by the end of that day, his life had changed forever. But he’d also felt his share of premonitions that had come to nothing.

Lead rigger, we seem to be going a little fast here. Is there anything I should know before we hit the chute?

Deutsch brought himself back to the present, carefully concealing his surprise at the speed with which the ship was moving toward the exit point, where they would leave the clouds that kept the fortress concealed in the Flux. He sent a signal to the other riggers to reduce speed, then answered the captain with a breezy, No difficulty, sir. We are simply eager for the hunt.

Very well, said Te’Gunderlach. That is good. I feel that this will be a fruitful voyage.

Indeed, replied Deutsch.

Take us away, then.

Aye, sir.

The ship roared left, then right, and leaped into the chute. It was like the first big hill of a v’rticoaster—screaming hurtling down a streamer of energy that crackled as they dove—and finally, with a great gout of fire, spat them out into the freedom of the open Flux.

The early part of Flechette’s voyage was routine, a passage through a little-traveled no man’s land where the currents tended to be weak and unpredictable. It was a challenging enough region to rig through in its own right, requiring a thorough knowledge of the terrain; but the main reason few outsiders came this way was that these currents didn’t really go anywhere, in terms of normal-space destinations. That, of course, was what made it a perfect place for hiding a pirates’ fortress. Few would come looking, and if anyone did, the chances were excellent that they would lose their way. Golen Space in general was a risky place for the unwary rigger; this particular pocket of Golen Space was avoided even by raiders from other outposts.

Rigger Deutsch led his crew through an atmosphere of oddly swirled clouds, seemingly frozen against the sky. The clouds appeared unmoving; and yet within their coiled vortices were narrow ribbons of movement, and it was along those ribbons that Flechette’s riggers threaded their way. Gradually, the clouds thickened and became more solidly sculpted, and the strength and visibility of the currents picked up. They were beginning to move out of the no man’s land of secret places, toward regions where starship traffic might be found.

Deutsch was not privy to the exact nature of their mission; the captain was as tight-lipped as ever. But rumors had been whispered that their orders were somehow different this time, that they were going after an unusual prey… that they were searching for a particular prey, and they might allow others to pass unimpeded. If so, this was a significant change from the norm. On the other hand, it was possible that the rumor was nothing but wind and vapor.

They would just have to wait and see what the captain revealed, at the moment of contact.

Droom. Droom.

The low rumble quivered through the net, and fire began to flicker around the edges of Deutsch’s vision.

The morale programs.

Deutsch hated them, but there was no escape, for him or anyone else. He could resist their effects for a time; but in the end, they were a foolproof system. They were channeled through both the augments and the net itself, and if the augments found insufficient effect, the morale input was increased automatically. As program images emerged in the net, they came to seem a part of the natural landscape, part of the larger vision, and the riggers formed and shaped them as they banked through the energy streams of the Flux.

Fire. Flames coloring the energy streams.

Droom. Droom.

They were the flames of the hunter on the prowl, the flames of the corsair. Soon the flames would spread, and would reach out into the nets of other ships; they would strike fear into the heart of the prey. Already, Deutsch could feel his own adrenaline starting to pump. There was no ignoring the beat; it was like a military march, an orchestration driving the blood lust of a hunt. It was primal and inescapable, tapping somewhere into the reptilian brain. After the first few minutes, Deutsch and his fellow riggers no longer wanted to stave it off. Resistance, revulsion, and fear gave way to inexorable desire.

The flames would soon lick higher still. Higher, and fiercer, and hotter. But not yet. Not until Flechette had found her prey. Then and only then would they burn their true burn.

Chapter 14 Pirate Search

Did you hear something back there? Legroeder glanced behind them through the eerie undersea passage. They had been gliding through an endless, watery corridor, irregular and enigmatic, like an abandoned structure from some lost civilization.

Voco, the phlegmatic stern-rigger, answered, Just an echo. Always echoes in places like this.

Oh, said Legroeder, straining to peer back through the mists.

If the Narseil mission plan still made him uneasy, their riggers had nonetheless impressed him with their prowess in the Flux. They seemed to have an uncannily clear sense of where they were going, so clear that it left Legroeder a little breathless. They were prowling like rangers on a patrol through a wilderness. They seemed to notice signs in the Flux that Legroeder could not begin to fathom, subtle changes in current patterns that his implants translated for him as “smell” and “feel,” but only after the Narseil had pointed them out.

Lacking any specific knowledge of where to look for pirate ships, they were trying to find their quarry by acting like prey. The plan was to shadow the shipping lanes that grazed the boundaries of Golen Space, lanes where the risk of pirate attack had lately been on the increase. It was a region where few ships would ever have ventured, were it not for an accident of astrography that put Golen Space squarely between two long arms of more civilized and heavily traveled space. Shippers journeying between the two arms faced a choice of a dangerous passage skirting Golen Space, or a much longer way around, as the Flux currents went. Many, indeed, took the long way. But there were always shippers—and passengers—who deemed the risks worth taking, in exchange for shorter travel times. Some even went through Golen Space for the fastest trips; but the majority chose pathways just outside the boundaries, which offered at least the illusion of greater safety, combined with speed. It was in such a passage that Ciudad de los Angeles had been attacked.

H’zzarrelik, however, was well to the galactic south of where that attack had occurred. The Narseil hoped to attract the attention of a different band of pirates, by seeming to have lost their way along the edge of Golen Space. They had, for a time, kept H’zzarrelik on a flight path such as an ordinary liner might have taken; but a few days ago, seven days into the journey, they had slipped off into the borderland, where ships losing their way might blunder. And where, presumably, raiders might lurk. They hardly needed to pretend. One mistaken twist in a current could easily send them off course. It had taken no great effort for Legroeder to imagine them actually lost.

A couple of days after their passage into the edge of Golen Space, they had entered a region that seemed particularly murky and mysterious. The undersea imagery was a natural, almost inevitable, choice. The submarine image had given way to a sleek forcefield that flowed back from the lead rigger, and up and over Legroeder’s head, so that he could sit in a cross-legged yoga pose, facing the oncoming stream. It was purely an illusion—his real body was reclining, motionless, in the clamshell rigger-station—but it felt as real as flesh to him. His main job, just now, was to be alert for features that the Narseil, with their alien perceptions, might miss.

They continued gliding through the olive-oil-green seafloor structure, the ship stretched out behind them in a sinuous ribbon of silver. It seemed to Legroeder that the foreboding eeriness emanated not just from the surroundings, but also from Ker’sell, in the keel station. Ker’sell was the one Narseil rigger who seemed suspicious of Legroeder, and seemed drawn in general to darkly moody images—a trait with which Legroeder, ironically, could empathize. Legroeder couldn’t do anything about Ker’sell’s moods, so he concentrated on smoothing out their movement as they glided down channels and corridors and tunnels, like ghostly miners pursuing memories in a flooded coal mine, or archaeologists pursuing the past.

Twice now he’d thought he had heard sounds in the passageway, sounds not from their own ship. In all likelihood the Narseil’s explanation was correct: he was probably hearing disturbances of their own passage, altered and reflected as echoes in the net. Still, he felt a nagging unease, wondering if something might be out there, shadowing them. If so, it was concealing itself well.

H’zzarrelik slowed and, rocking slightly, slipped around a corner in the tunnel. Another drop lay ahead; the tunnel had been descending in a long series of steps, each drop affording only limited visibility ahead. Do we have any idea where this will end? Legroeder asked.

Not really, said Palagren, his head turning from side to side as he scanned the edges of the tunnel. I’ve never been able to hold such a structured image so long before. I’d guess that the hard-edged form will end of its own accord before much longer. It must be associated with a dense nebula or some such thing.

The ship slipped downward over a sharper step, then another. Pinga-ping. There was another faint sound—like a distant, clanging buoy. The current seemed to be speeding up. Legroeder felt a sudden chill of fear, as he imagined a submarine shadowing them through this labyrinth, torpedoes ready to fire.

Don’t let your imagination run away with you, he cautioned himself. Still… Was that our own echo I just heard?

Voco answered from the stern, I heard it, too. I think it was our own, yes.

And I think, said Palagren, that I see the end of this tunnel.

Legroeder peered ahead, past the Narseil, where he glimpsed a shifting of light. Yes, now he could see the labyrinth opening. What’s that up ahead? he murmured. Before anyone could answer, the ship picked up speed and shot out of the tunnel like a bird out of a chute.

The undersea image evaporated, and the ship sprouted long, slender wings as it flew into a cloud-filled sky. Legroeder could feel the craftsmanship of Palagren and the others at work on the image, but really they were just refining what was here: a skyscape of great, sculpted clouds, and currents slipping among them like dancing breezes. The clouds looked like top-heavy savanna trees leaning with the wind; sunlight glowed on their tops, and great caverns of open air yawned in their shadows, where complex and convoluted Flux currents wound among the cloud bases.

While the Narseil riggers conferred on a direction, Legroeder stretched his arms out in the net and felt the wind whisper through his fingers. He rocked the wings a bit. Off to the left, and a little behind, he glimpsed a flicker of lightning among the clouds.

What is it, Legroeder? Anything wrong? asked Palagren.

I guess not—just a flash of something back there. Just some weather, probably.

The other riggers seemed puzzled.

Didn’t you see it?

No, I didn’t—began Palagren, but was interrupted by a distant rumble of thunder. The sound seemed to echo among the clouds for a few moments, then faded away.

You may be right about the weather, Voco said from the stern. I see a thunderhead moving off to the port side. We’d better keep a watch on it.

Palagren began a wide turn away from it. Wait, Legroeder said. Do you mind if I do this for a moment? he asked, nudging them back toward the left.

I sense a difficult passage in that direction, Palagren said cautiously.

I just want to check something, Legroeder said, banking the ship a little more sharply. He thought he saw something dark among the shadows under the clouds; something darker than the shadows… I’m not sure… hold on a sec’…

What is it?

Legroeder thought he heard a faint booming sound. Maybe it was just a reverberation of thunder, but he felt a little shiver of apprehension; he wasn’t sure why. But the view had changed now and he saw nothing. Shrugging, he returned the ship to the right bank that Palagren had initiated, and gave control back to the Narseil.

He remained unsatisfied, though. Closing his eyes, he searched back in his memory, analyzing the sound and feel of the thunder. His stirring of apprehension turned into genuine fear as some connection clicked into place, some pattern in the sound. Opening his eyes, he said softly, Don’t be alarmed, but we need to change the image and see if we can get a clearer view under those clouds. He hesitated. Palagren, I think you should inform the captain and the commander.

The ship became rounded, a domed flying saucer, with all-around visibility. The clouds began to change in color and density as they shifted the image through different combinations of filters. Inform them of what? Palagren asked.

To ready their defenses.

He felt Palagren’s surprise, then heard the soft mutter of the Narseil passing his words on to Ho’Sung and Fre’geel. And the captain’s voice: What exactly have you seen, riggers?

Legroeder answered, Nothing I can explain easily. But it’s the lightning and thunder. Somehow I have a sense—

Before he could finish, there was another flash, like heat lightning in the clouds ahead of them. As he listened to the rumble of thunder, he felt that there was something not quite natural in the sound. He felt the recognition as a tightness in his chest. To the left and astern, he saw a fleck of darkness moving against the underside of a cloud. His stomach dropped. Mother of stars…

Legroeder, Palagren said, what are you sensing? It does not seem—

Legroeder interrupted. It’s behind us, port side and thirty degrees above! Prepare for attack. This is it!

He felt Palagren’s puzzlement as he sent the message on to the captain. The Narseil didn’t feel his certainty; but then, they had never rigged with pirates. Expect a lot of light, and a lot of—

I hear it. Coming now—! Palagren called.

A second later: B-D-DOOM-M-M! B-D-DOOM-M-M!

The sound crashed through the net with a dissonant rumble, as if reverberating from all directions at once, a hundred echoes arriving out of synch with each other. The Narseil riggers looked jarred and confused—too many inputs funneling through the tessa’chron. Legroeder called, This is the beginning of an attack! Don’t let it shake you!

Palagren, recovering, called back, I’m all right. Captain, we are under attack!

Audio attack only, so far, Legroeder added. No sign of weapons fire yet.

Very well, came Ho’Sung’s voice. Let’s act like victims, until we determine their intentions. His voice became more distant, probably directed elsewhere on the bridge. Let’s have that hail ready.

Act confused but don’t be confused, Legroeder thought.

B-D-DOOM-M-M! B-D-DOOM-M-M! B-D-DOOM-M-M-M!

The reverberations shook the net, making it harder to steer a level course. They were hitting turbulence, as waves of sound crashed over them like a pounding surf. The fleck of darkness that Legroeder had spotted was gone. It was impossible now to localize the direction of the sounds.

The pattern was familiar enough to Legroeder—did all raider bands use similar tactics?—but it also felt different enough to reassure him that this pirate ship was from an outpost other than DeNoble. It was not his former captors.

The captain’s voice rang through the net: All weapons and stations are on full alert. Is the attacking vessel in sight?

Palagren answered, Not yet. Legroeder—do you see it?

Negative. He’d lost it in the clouds. The pirates could make their approach from any of a dozen directions. The terrain of the Flux was so convoluted here, the number of places to lurk almost limitless.

Sending our hail now, Ho’Sung said.

A moment later, a recorded voice echoed into the Flux. THIS IS NARSEIL STARLINER H’ZZARRELIK. PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELVES. REPEAT, PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELVES. The message repeated, in five different languages.

Legroeder waited, holding his breath.

B-D-DOOM-M-M! B-D-DOOM-M-M!

The sounds were growing louder and more frightening. Legroeder shut his eyes, trying to suppress the memories of countless raids that were welling up in his mind. He felt himself begin to shake. He thought of all those weapons hidden within H’zzarrelik’s structure and imagined them coming to life. He thought of the weapons carried by the pirate ship, and began to shake harder. He had never gotten used to combat, and his stomach was knotted. (Calm… calm…) he whispered to himself.

// Use an image to quiet yourself, // one of the implants suggested, vibrating to life. It offered an image of waves lapping on a shore.

He seized on it gratefully; even as more thunder shook the net, he felt his trembling abate slightly. He scanned the shifting mists of cloud. There it is! he shouted, spotting a flicker of light ahead of them and off to the left.

Moving this way, said Palagren.

The object turned toward them with a flare, and accelerated toward the Narseil ship with remarkable speed—either riding a powerful sideways draft of turbulence, or using internal fusors to drive it across the streams of the Flux. As it flew toward them, a great curtain of red fire lit up the clouds behind it. The fire grew into an enormous canopy of flame spreading outward and forward like great outstretched wings. In the space of half a minute, it curled around H’zzarrelik as though to engulf them. It seemed to shout a warning: Fire… death… destruction…

Steady, Legroeder murmured. It’s just an effect. Slow and steady as we wait. His heart was pounding, and he had to remind himself that the effects were not nearly as powerful as they seemed. Their greatest power was to frighten.

The thunder was now an incessant din… DOOM-M-M… DOOM-M-M!… making it hard to think or communicate. The Narseil crew and Legroeder kept H’zzarrelik on a steady course, turning neither to flee nor to attack. Steady, steady, like an unarmed ship…

With a blast of static, the net suddenly came alive with a yammering of voices, crying in a cacophony: SURRENDER! SURRENDER! THERE IS NO ESCAPE! THERE IS ONLY DOOM-M-M… DOOM-M-M… DOOM-M-M! From the clouds there came an enormous, rumbling thunder like the sound of a tornado passing; and the nose of the oncoming ship spat half a dozen bursts of neutraser fire, which lit up the clouds on all sides of H’zzarrelik with dazzling green light.

Multiple thunderclaps followed each of the firebursts. The net of the Narseil ship shook and sizzled with energy. Legroeder gritted his teeth. If one of those bursts had truly connected with H’zzarrelik, they might all be gone now in a blaze of energy. But the pirates didn’t come out to destroy; they were here to capture, to pillage.

Legroeder, what’s your assessment? Ho’Sung asked quietly through the net.

Legroeder drew a harsh breath. Captain, I don’t think they’re out here to talk. They’re trying to frighten us into submission. This is a standard attack pattern. And damned effective, even against those who knew the strategy for what it was.

You don’t believe this is a pretense? Ho’Sung asked.

Hell no, I—

Protect yourselves! cried Palagren.

Their words were cut off by the flare and crackle of a fresh neutraser burst, directly in front of H’zzarrelik’s bow. Fire blazed through the net. Legroeder cried out in pain. It felt as if they had passed through a wall of fire. The Narseil net was sputtering and crackling with energy. It took several seconds for the energy to dissipate, leaving the net tight and sluggish. That was more than a warning shot; it was intended to disable.

The pirate ship was coming into full view now. It was a menacing-looking frigate—not the largest Legroeder had ever seen, but powerful enough to challenge even a naval cruiser. Ripples of fire danced through her net, outlining the ship, and flashing at node points that probably represented the positions of her riggers. Legroeder imagined the crew of H’zzarrelik targeting those rigger-stations with their concealed weapons, and for an instant, he felt a pang. Those riggers who were attacking him—how many of them were captives as he had been? He drew a sharp breath and forced the thought away.

A powerful drum beat was growing in the Flux now, booming through the net like the rumble of kettle drums. Then a braying voice:

HEAVE TO! HEAVE TO OR BE DESTROYED! NO DELAY! THERE WILL BE NO SECOND WARNING!

To punctuate the words, two more bursts of neutraser fire flared off the bow of the Narseil ship.

Ho’Sung’s voice reverberated in reply: THIS IS THE NARSEIL H’ZZARRELIK. WE ARE SETTING OUR STABILIZERS AND PULLING IN OUR NET! WE REQUEST A PARLAY. REPEAT, WE REQUEST A PARLAY. Then he ordered in a more muted voice, Riggers, shut down and withdraw!

The net rocked with laughter, broadcast from the other ship. The three Narseil and Legroeder pulled the net close around the ship, set the autostabilizers, and withdrew. The last words Legroeder heard in the net were: THIS IS FLECHETTE. STAND BY FOR BOARDING…

Legroeder emerged from his clamshell to a scene of deadly calm on the bridge of the Narseil ship. The captain and commander were each at com posts, murmuring instructions. The weapons control panels were alight. The Narseil weapons crew, led by Agamem, were stone faced, motionless, awaiting orders.

Ho’Sung conferred in a low, hissing voice with mission commander Fre’geel, then turned back. His manner was intense, but he seemed very calm. “Riggers, stand by to return to your stations on my order!” He spoke into the ship-to-ship com. “Flechette, our net is down. We have unarmed civilians aboard—”

One, anyway, Legroeder thought.

“—please do not shoot again! What are your orders?”

The answer was a staticky shout: YOU WILL OPEN YOURSELVES TO BOARDING, OR WE WILL BLOW YOU OUT OF THE FLUX!

Ho’Sung stood silent for a moment, then looked at Legroeder. “You’re the expert in human behavior. They’re not responding to the prearranged signal. Do you see any reason not to regard this as a hostile contact?”

Legroeder shook his head, swallowing. “I think we have a fight on our hands.”

Ho’Sung gestured a go-ahead to Fre’geel.

There was no further communication from the pirate ship, now framed in the long, narrow band of the monitor across the front of the bridge. The raider was nearly bow-on to H’zzarrelik’s flank, presenting the smallest possible target while keeping its bow weapons trained on the Narseil ship. Three lines fired out from the frigate, snaking through the glowing mists of the Flux to attach with a thump to the hull of H’zzarrelik.

A company of small, suited figures emerged from the side of the raider ship. The pirates moved with alarming speed along the lines between the vessels. They would be at the airlocks in less than a minute, and they would be none too concerned about whatever damage they might cause boarding the ship. “Open the airlock hatches,” ordered Ho’Sung.

Legroeder stared at the screen, fighting back memories of a pirate boarding, long ago…

“Pinpoint all targets,” said Fre’geel, to Agamem and the weapons crew.

Legroeder held his breath.

“Ready,” said Fre’geel calmly, as the pirates approached the ship, “to destroy targets, fire… now.”

The screen erupted with light. The sides of H’zzarrelik blazed as the concealed neutrasers fired. The beams were too fast for the eye to follow, but Legroeder saw the nose of the pirate ship seem to explode, and smaller, multiple explosions zip like lightning along the boarding lines. Cinders that had been suited raiders were blown off into the Flux like so much pepper.

Before anyone could exult, the raider ship released a blossom of return fire against H’zzarrelik. The deck shuddered beneath Legroeder’s feet as the first blast hit, but by the time he had caught and steadied himself, Agamem and his crew had pinpointed and destroyed those weapons on the pirate’s flank.

H’zzarrelik was yawing in the grip of the raider net. She was damaged—how badly Legroeder couldn’t guess—and Ho’Sung was shouting commands for damage control. But what about the enemy ship and its riggers? Legroeder couldn’t tell. This was a perilous moment: the Narseil had eliminated the nose weapons on the Flechette, plus a couple of side weapons. But the fight was just beginning; the raider captain had most likely just revised his plan from “capture” to “destroy.” H’zzarrelik held a momentary advantage due to surprise. It was possible they could even destroy the pirate ship right now, if they wanted—but maybe not without destroying themselves in the process. The ships were too close together to use the torpedoes. And that wasn’t what they had come for.

Ho’Sung and Fre’geel were snapping out orders. Deep in the belly of the ship, Narseil fighters were preparing for their own assault. If H’zzarrelik could survive long enough to get them on their way over to the enemy…

“Maneuvering fusor! Portside stern, hard!” Ho’Sung shouted.

A loud groan passed through the hull, and in the long screen—part of which was now dark, knocked out—Legroeder could see that the Narseil ship was rotating away from the raider, into a more protected nose-on position. But hardly had the maneuver begun than Legroeder heard a shout of “Torpedoes in the Flux!” Three jets of light streaked from the pirate ship. Three missiles shot away into space, and then looped back, bearing down on H’zzarrelik.

“They’re mad!” hissed Palagren. “They’ll kill us both!”

Agamem already had the Narseil defenses in action. A flash of neutraser beams took out one of the torpedoes with a splash of light, and a second went spinning away. The third streaked inward unhindered, until with a shudder, the side of H’zzarrelik vomited a torpedo of its own. The two connected about a kilometer from the ship, near the edge of the enemy’s rigger-net. The torpedoes exploded together in a curtain of fire.

An explosion in the Flux was not like an explosion in the vacuum of normal-space. The energy from the explosion blossomed like a jellyfish, enveloping the two ships. Some of the energy flared outward into the Flux, but much was focused inward, drawn to the nets. The Narseil net was withdrawn, but the pirate’s net was fully deployed, and it blazed up like a sparkler. A moment later, it went dark, dropping its hold on the Narseil ship.

“Maneuvering power!” Ho’Sung shouted. “Riggers, return to your stations!” The Narseil captain darted across the bridge, giving orders to his crew. Legroeder and the others scrambled to their rigger-stations.

If the curtain of fire from the explosion did not hit the ship directly, the waves of turbulence in the Flux did. The ship had begun to lift and turn, shaking horribly. Legroeder was halfway into his rigger-station, the clamshell still open, when the strongest wave hit. In the screen across the bridge, he saw the ship turn sideways to the pirate ship, then begin to tumble. He drew a fearful breath as the clamshell closed around him.

Reentering the net was like pulling on a tight bodysuit of unraveling fabric. The net had been seared, even in its withdrawn position; but it was still workable. He shouted, Ready! as he strained into position and stretched his arms into the Flux. The other riggers joined him, and they began expanding the net.

It was like sticking his hands out from a spinning raft into the base of a waterfall. The Flux had taken on the look of a cosmic maelstrom, and across the whirlpool of light, the raider ship was a chip spinning on a swirling stream. The pirate captain had badly miscalculated in firing those torpedoes. The two ships were some distance apart now, but the currents seemed as likely to slam them back together as to carry them further apart. It was probably a good time to counterattack, while the other ship was helpless; but H’zzarrelik was nearly helpless, too. Maneuvering was going to be very difficult.

Ho’Sung clearly understood that. Get us out of here, but keep the enemy in sight if you can, he ordered.

Let’s steer out toward the edge, said Palagren. I’m going to change this to an undersea image—

Legroeder cried out, without even thinking, No, not the undersea! It’s a whirlpool of light; it’s a galaxy; I can keep the raider in sight if you let me form it for you.

Startled, the Narseil leader gave Legroeder the con over the net. Legroeder worked quickly, repainting the churning mists into a vaster, grander picture of violently exploding nebulas and spinning stars. The ship was being pulled hard, and it took all of their strength to keep them in a current moving in the direction he wanted—downward, and to starboard. The Narseil riggers, confused at first, gradually understood what he was doing and found the leverage points to help him, moving H’zzarrelik away from the center of the maelstrom. At last they were able to turn and watch the raider ship, a small black dot caught in the currents of light.

I think their net was shredded by that blast, Legroeder said. It might well have killed their rigger crew.

They’re helpless, then, if we want to go after them? Ker’sell asked, from the keel position. It was a moot question, because H’zzarrelik was now riding a stream away from the raider.

Although the image looked like a disrupted galaxy, the power of the stream dissipated fairly quickly. As the riggers brought the ship around in the slowing current, the captain called: Are we in a position to go after them?

Palagren took a quick poll of his team, his gaze at last coming to rest on Legroeder. You’re the expert on pirates. Can we do it?

Legroeder thought hard, staring out at the small black object still spinning in the stream, disabled by its own weapon. No, he said at last. I don’t think we should go in and risk getting caught in that turbulence again.

But isn’t this is our best chance to get them? asked Palagren.

Yes, it is. But not by going in. Legroeder grinned at Palagren across the ghostly veil of the net. I think I know where he’s going to come out. And I know right where we want to nail him when he does.

Chapter 15 Capture!

All right, we’ll follow your lead on this. Go ahead, Rigger, and—The captain interrupted himself in the middle of his communication. Legroeder could hear him shouting to someone on the bridge. “What do you mean they got into the airlock? Do you have it under control—?” There was a moment of silence, and then he came back with: Get us clear, riggers! But stay ready to engage! Then he was gone—light-years away, it seemed.

Palagren looked to Legroeder to see what he had in mind.

Take us deeper into the Flux, Legroeder said, praying that his certainty was not misplaced. Now. While they can’t track us.

But we’ll lose sight of them, Palagren protested.

Didn’t you bring me along to tell you how the pirates think? We’ll pick them up again.

Palagren reluctantly complied, stretching out the battered fabric of H’zzarrelik’s net to draw the ship deeper into the multidimensional layers of the Flux. As the glowing mists darkened and became less focused, Legroeder explained his reasoning. It was likely that the pirate ship had suffered severe damage to her rigger-net when the torpedo had exploded. There was no way to know how much damage, or how long it would take to repair, if it could be repaired. But Legroeder knew what most raider captains would do, in a case like this. They’ll try to sink into the deeper levels and get out of the turbulence.

Palagren sounded skeptical. There’s not much movement down there. Are you sure they’ll try it, without a working net? It’d be hard enough to steer there normally.

Legroeder nodded, scanning the surroundings. They were sinking into a level of the Flux that was comparatively sluggish. Ordinarily no one would choose to enter such slow-moving currents, but he had learned, with the raider fleets, that the underlayers made good hiding places at need. This is far enough, I think. Legroeder could still perceive the whirlpool shape of the region they had left; it looked ghostly now, on the verge of vanishing. For visual clarity, they viewed it as a cloud stretched overhead.

What now? asked Palagren.

Well—they’re in serious trouble. And if their captain is anything like the ones I knew, they’re going to try to slip into hiding while they make repairs. Even without their net, they can move into deeper layers by manipulating their flux reactor, just like a submarine flooding ballast tanks.

The usually stolid Voco sounded surprised. This is true? They would do that?

Oh yes, Legroeder said, scanning the ghostly region. It sounds primitive, and you need careful coordination between the flux reactor and the net sensors, or you can lose control and wind up so deep you’ll never get out. But it works.

They had lost sight of the raider vessel. The turbulence in the levels “above” had not affected this layer at all. There was a slow, steady movement of current away from the point at which they had entered. Legroeder pointed ahead and to the left. If we take a looping path around, it’ll bring us back to where we can intercept them when they drop to this level. The Narseil riggers agreed, and they took H’zzarrelik in a slow arc, searching out currents one by one until they had achieved the sweeping movement he wanted—almost an orbit around the place where he guessed the raider would come out.

So far so good. They hadn’t heard back from the captain or anyone else on the bridge for a little while now. Legroeder assumed that Ho’Sung and the rest of the crew were busy with emergency repairs. They had taken a couple of good hits from the pirate ship, and some of it showed in the sluggishness of the rigger-net.

We’re on the verge of losing maneuverability, Palagren warned, as they slipped unevenly through a transition layer.

All right, Legroeder said. Let’s edge back upward a little. If we hug those clouds, we should still be in good position to spot them.

Stretching their arms out, they worked to nudge the ship upward. The clouds sparkled more brightly, and they felt the streams of the Flux stir around them with a little more force. Beneath them, the gloom of the deeper layers remained quiet, scarcely moving.

I’m concerned about what’s happening on the bridge, Palagren muttered. No one’s answering—

There he is! Legroeder interrupted. A small, grey shape had just dropped out of the clouds toward the darker underlayers.

Captain, we have the adversary in sight, Palagren reported.

There was still no answer from the bridge. Legroeder found this worrisome, but there was nothing they could do about it now. The riggers focused on carrying out their last orders, bringing the ship into position for an intercept. They climbed a bit more, for mobility and for greater cover in the light-and-dark lanes of the misty whirlpool. At the same time, they scanned for currents that could carry them to the enemy more quickly than the pirate could move away. Legroeder’s plan was to approach with both speed and stealth.

Palagren continued calling to the captain. As they drew closer to the pirate ship, now from above rather than below, they could see that it was still tumbling slowly; its crew had not yet regained control. But that didn’t mean it was harmless. If Legroeder and the Narseil were to attack successfully, to take out the enemy’s remaining weapons, they would have to coordinate closely with H’zzarrelik’s gunners. The moment they were in a position to strike, they would become a target, as well.

Palagren tried once more to raise the captain. Finally he said, Ker’sell, take a look outside the net. See if the com is down.

The keel rigger acknowledged, and vanished from the net.

In the instant he disappeared, there was a momentary outcry—from Ker’sell—followed by an alarming silence.

Popping the clamshell of his rigger-station, Ker’sell was surrounded by noise and smoke and chaos. Lights flared, and he heard the crackle of beam weapons. He cried out in alarm, and rolled forward out of the rigger-station—just as a laser beam slashed across the open clamshell. He started to shout to the captain, but someone grabbed his neck-sail, yanking him sideways and down, behind a bank of consoles. It was Agamem, the weapons officer. “Enemy boarders on the bridge!” Agamem hissed. “They got in through the airlock!”

“How is that possible?” Ker’sell protested. “I thought you hit them all.”

“We did, too. But they were fast. They killed our guards at the airlock. We didn’t know any had made it on board until they were halfway to the bridge.” Agamem was cradling a neutraser, waiting for a target to appear. Across the bridge, a raider commando was firing from behind the cover of another console, keeping several of the Narseil pinned down. “There were two of them. I don’t know where the other is. They disabled the door, so right now we’re—”

The flash of an energy beam cut off his words.

Ker’sell whispered an oath. What a disaster. Leave it to these two-ringed humans to engage in such treachery. “What about ship’s weapons?” he whispered to Agamem. “We’re coming into attack position on the pirate right now. What does the captain want us to do?”

Agamem’s eyes flashed. “The captain’s dead. We’re trying to keep the weapons panel protected here—but we can’t possibly—”

A figure of rippling silver leaped overhead, sparkling with laser and neutraser-light. Agamem twisted to follow, firing his neutraser, but the commando was too fast, taking cover again behind the rigger-stations. There were shouts, Narseil voices, somewhere in the smoke-filled room.

Ker’sell glanced over at the rigger-stations, like boulders looming out of a fog. He was useless out here; he needed to get word to Palagren, if he could do it without being killed in the process. “Com to the net—is it down?” he hissed.

Agamem nodded.

“Then I must get back in the net, to warn the others.”

“I’ll cover. Be fast,” Agamem said.

Ker’sell hummed his understanding and crouched to spring to his station. But before he could move, he saw in a tessa’chron blur another flash of silver as his station exploded in fire.

We’d better hear from someone soon, Palagren said to the others. H’zzarrelik had moved into a downwelling current that was taking them in an arc toward the raider ship. In a minute or two, they would be in a perfect position to fire.

Legroeder fretted at the shout they had heard from Ker’sell as he left the net. Clearly there was trouble on the bridge… and if they made a run on the raider without weapons, it would be suicide. Do you want me to take a quick look?

As he spoke, the raider ship below them was rolling its full flank to them, presenting a broadside target. Yes! Tell them to fire right now if they can!

Legroeder started to pull out of the net.

WAIT!

Palagren’s shout brought him up short. He saw the reason at once: the pirate ship was glittering with neutraser fire—aimed at them.

Take the keel, Legroeder! Palagren was already twisting the net sharply, to bring them about. Into the clouds! Back up into the clouds!

The first neutraser beams burned through the Flux below them, lighting up the keel of the net just as Legroeder reached down. A searing pain flashed up his hands as he reached through the sparkling fire at the keel. He gritted his teeth and held on, warping the keel to help bring them around and into an upwelling. If they could get just a little higher, the boundary layers would block the enemy’s weapons.

The next shots grazed the net, sending another flash of fire up his arms. They were nearly out of range now. The bottom layers of mist curled around, then closed under them. The neutraser shots glowed beneath them, dissipating in the clouds.

All right, Legroeder—take a look outside. But don’t leave your station!

Legroeder took a deep breath and dropped out of the net. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and his eyes went dazzle-blind as he opened the clamshell. He heard a scream and leaned forward. “Sweet Jesus!” He rocked back as a laser beam flashed in front of his face. The bridge was full of smoke and ozone.

“Legroeder, get back in the net!” he heard. It was Ker’sell, shouting from somewhere in the smoke and confusion. “We have no weapons! My station’s destroyed! Call off the attack!”

Before he could respond, there was a bright flash to his right, and a silver-suited raider commando spun in the air, firing everywhere. Something else made of silver was flying toward it…

Legroeder snapped the clamshell closed and dropped back into the net so abruptly that it buzzed like an electric cloud around him. Boarders on the bridge! he cried. No weapons! Abort the attack!

Palagren’s voice was soft with dismay. Boarders! Rings alive—

They heeled the ship over in a slow curve through the clouds, trying to keep the raider located through breaks in the cloud, while keeping themselves out of sight. They were going to have to dance through the clouds, praying that the enemy was hurt more than they were. In fact, the raider ship seemed nearly helpless in the Flux. But though Legroeder and his companions held the flying advantage, he could not escape the thought that just outside the plastic shell that enclosed him, enemy soldiers were trying to kill him. For all of their power over the movement of the ship, he and Palagren and Voco were as helpless as babes in a crib.

Ker’sell, choking in the acrid smoke, saw the enemy figure whirl as a bright mesh sailed through the air toward it. The enemy fired at the mesh, but it might as well have been trying to shoot a fishnet. The mesh caught the raider and enveloped it, and there was a moment of struggle—and then a blinding flash. A sharp retort cracked the air, as the net discharged into the raider’s suit. The raider fell to the deck.

“He’s down! Get him out of here!”

“Get the fans going!” someone else shouted.

Soon the air began to clear, and it became possible to see what was going on. The raider was indeed down, his forcefield disabled, his hardsuit smoldering. He appeared dead, but two of the Narseil fighters, taking no chances, were dragging him away. Someone had gotten the doors to the bridge open, and a handful of Narseil soldiers rushed in. Was that raider the only one left on the bridge? Ker’sell hoped so.

He hissed with dismay as he rose, taking stock of the mayhem. Several Narseil were down, possibly dead. A lot of people were trilling and hissing. Who was in charge now?

“Ker’sell!” someone called behind him. “If you’re free,

can you help me get this console turned back on?”

Ker’sell half turned, waving a negative reply. “I must know who is in command!” he shouted. “Can this ship fight?”

Several of the crew turned toward him. “Do you think we have not been fighting?” one of them asked, neck-sail fluttering as he bent over the still form of the captain.

“We’re closing with the enemy ship!” Ker’sell shouted. “We need weapons, now!” He pushed his way to the weapons console, where several injured crewmembers were just getting to their feet. “And we need com to the net!”

One of those staggering to his feet was Mission Commander Fre’geel, aided by Cantha. Fre’geel was bleeding maroon blood; his neck-sail was half torn off. He looked as if he had been knocked across the bridge in the fight. “You heard Ker’sell,” he rasped, struggling to stand. “Do we have weapons?”

Agamem was working at the weapons console. “Soon, I hope.” He glanced at the front of the bridge. Only one short segment of the external monitor was working. In that narrow window, for just an instant, there was a glimpse of the raider ship, visible through swirling mists. “I need power restored to this console—”

A bright flare of light made everyone duck and turn. “Enemy on the bridge!” someone shouted, as a second raider commando was suddenly flushed out of hiding. The raider swung around to lob a grenade toward the rigger-stations. One of them was already smoking. Ker’sell’s breath froze. There was another flash of silver in the air. Before the raider could complete his throw, someone had tossed a shock-web into the air, curling toward the raider. The grenade hit the web and detonated—and with a whump! the raider was knocked backward toward the exit. The explosion must have shielded the raider from direct contact with the web, because in an instant he was back on his feet. He fired one last shot, then fled from the bridge, pursued by two Narseil soldiers.

“Holy spirit of the mist!” Fre’geel gasped. Wincing with pain, he held up a hand to Ker’sell. “Report on the net! Are we maneuvering?”

“Yes—but com to the net is out! When I left, we were on an intercept course to the raider. We’ve got the advantage, if we can fight! If I could just get back in!” He gestured toward the shambles of his rigger-station, and suddenly realized that the next one was smoking, too.

Fre’geel hissed with alarm. “Damage teams—weapons console and net communication! We need them now! Is Ho’Sung alive?”

“He’s dead. He was one of the first hit,” someone reported from across the bridge.

“Then I have command. Get me an intruder report. I want that raider subdued, and I want to know if any others got in through the airlock.” Fre’geel glared around, silently urging the crew back to their stations, regardless of their injuries.

Ker’sell wished desperately that he could get back to his. But his rigger-station was gone, and this one… there was a laser hole in it, venting smoke. He pressed the override release and opened the station. A cloud of noxious smoke billowed out. Ker’sell peered in—and wept at the lifeless form of Voco, burned through the head by the raider’s last shot.

Voco! Palagren was shouting. Voco!

The stern-rigger had uttered a silent, wordless screech, then vanished abruptly from the net. Legroeder reeled from the wave of pain; it echoed like a death cry.

Voco’s gone, Palagren said, stunned. You and I must do it now. I’ve lost sight of the raider. Do you have it?

No, Legroeder grunted. They were now in a dance of desperation. Two riggers down: Ker’sell unable to get back to the net and Voco—what? Dead? Sweet Christ, they’d had the raider ship; they could have ended it that instant. And now he and Palagren, straining like two oarsmen trying to steer a wallowing ship, were bringing H’zzarrelik around through a layer of mist, struggling to stay in concealment while keeping track of the enemy’s position—and all the while frantic to know what was happening on the bridge. It seemed insane to think of engaging the pirate ship; but they had no order to retreat.

Legroeder saw something moving through the mists. There! he called. The raider was slipping along, just at the edge of sight. He and Palagren had climbed and circled, and now were overtaking the enemy again. Another minute or two and they would be in perfect position to drop and fire. If they had something to fire with.

Legroeder, keep a fix on it, said Palagren. I’m taking a fast look on the bridge.

Legroeder barely moved a muscle. Palagren glanced back, and their eyes met for an instant before the Narseil vanished from the net. Legroeder’s hands were stretched out far into the Flux, serving as both keel and rudder. He just had to steer straight… straight and level… and pray that when the time was right to bank over and dive, like an old-time fighter plane, it would be more than just him in the net, waving empty-handed at their foe.

“Stay, Palagren! Wait!”

Ker’sell raised a hand to the lead rigger, who had just opened his station. “Voco’s dead—com’s still down—” Ker’sell turned his head back to Agamem, hissing in frustration at the weapons console. Suddenly Agamem made a shrill sound of satisfaction and slapped a hand on the console. Ker’sell glanced at Fre’geel, who made a click of approval.

Ker’sell shouted to Palagren, “We have weapons! We have monitors on keel and starboard bow only. If you can put us where we can see the enemy, we’ll fire when we can. Go!”

Palagren’s station slammed shut.

Legroeder had started a banking turn to the right, but changed his mind when Palagren explained the situation. Keel and starboard bow? This won’t work, Legroeder said, as Palagren returned to the lead-rigger position. We’ll need a different angle of approach.

What’s your recommendation? asked Palagren, peering around at Legroeder’s refashioned image for the ship: an ancient, tiger-nosed fighter aircraft. An ancient fighter with extremely modern weapons.

Bring us a little to the left, and extend our run out ahead, Legroeder said.

We’ll lose him.

No, we won’t, Legroeder said, glancing down as the pirate ship disappeared beneath the mist. As long as their net’s still down, he added silently. We’ll be making our dive to the right. He was falling back on maneuvers he’d learned years ago in flight wargames.

He waited impatiently, watching their progress; then he called, Now!—and with Palagren’s help, heeled the ship over into a steep, diving right turn.

They were now dropping not just vertically but also deeper through the dimensional layering of the Flux. He could feel his implants trying to help him coordinate the rush of data; but, afraid of the distraction, he kept them at the edges. His thoughts narrowed with concentration, as he let all of his instincts and experience flow to his fingertips. The plane/ship flew like a bird of prey, swooping down…

Spirit of the mist, let them have those weapons working, Palagren breathed, as they gathered the deeper layers of the Flux around them, building momentum for the sluggish currents ahead.

Legroeder’s gaze swept the parting clouds. He spotted the pirate ship, drifting below. The enemy had almost pulled out of its tumble, but as it grew beneath them, Legroeder saw the tattered sparkle of a rigger-net and knew they were still mostly dead in the water. He drew a breath. Keep them on your right, Palagren, and let me face them as we pass.

They hit the slower current like a swimmer hitting a cold layer. He’d tried to prepare for it, but it was jarring… and the moment was now for turning, and they banked hard over, putting the enemy off their lower right bow…

The neutrasers blazed from the H’zzarrelik, dancing like ghostly laser beams on the other ship. The raider’s nose and net flared and darkened. There was a sput sput sput in the Narseil net, and three torpedoes twirled out and away from H’zzarrelik, curving wide, then back in toward the enemy’s weapons bays.

Legroeder and Palagren pulled away, exposing H’zzarrelik’s belly for a moment but also aiming the one remaining sensor for the benefit of their own gunners on the bridge. Legroeder saw a flicker of neutraser fire as they twisted away from the enemy—the pirate ship firing back wildly. And then three blazing flashes, as the flux-torpedoes exploded. He was pretty sure at least one had connected.

Let’s move off and take a look, Palagren said. They approached the cloud layer overhead and wheeled around in a circle, peering down at the enemy ship. The raider’s net was dark, and there were several black holes in her hull. One neutraser on the side of the pirate ship was firing erratically into empty space.

Should we make another pass?

We don’t want to destroy her, Palagren answered.

Better her than us, Legroeder thought silently.

The net crackled with static, and Legroeder nearly jumped out of his skin. A voice was trying to reach them—inaudibly at first, and then becoming clear. This is Fre’geel… can you hear me in the net?

The two riggers cried out at once, then Legroeder shut up and let Palagren report to the commander.

Keep a safe distance, said Fre’geel, while we discuss terms of surrender.

For a moment, the two riggers stared at each other in breathless amazement. Legroeder had never in his life heard of a pirate ship surrendering. So who, he felt himself wanting to ask, was surrendering to whom?

Mission Commander Fre’geel was leaning over the com unit, shouting to make himself heard over the static. “To whom am I speaking?”

Ker’sell listened for the reply. The voice that answered was human. Ker’sell was no expert, but he thought the voice sounded shaken. “My name is… Deutsch,” rasped the voice over the short-range fluxwave.

“And you are—?” demanded Fre’geel.

“…lead rigger…”

Fre’geel snapped to Ker’sell, “Call Legroeder out here at once.” As Ker’sell obeyed, Fre’geel continued on the ship-to-ship, “Why is a rigger answering? Let me speak to your captain.”

“…captain is dead… most of the bridge crew dead… all of the other riggers,” said the distant voice, straining. “I have the con… am prepared to surrender.”

As Legroeder climbed out of the rigger-station, Ker’sell pointed to Fre’geel, who motioned the human over. Fre’geel barked into the com, “Say that again. I could not quite hear…”

At the other end of the bridge, Agamem was working furiously to bring the rest of the weapons and internal security systems back up. There was a flicker on one of the screens. He muttered an oath, and then finally had an image on the internal security monitor: a sweep of the ship’s corridors, some of them empty and some with crew members running. Pressing the augment-link to his temple and focusing his thoughts, he set the system scanning for intruders…

The monitor flickered and froze, displaying the portside main corridor, amidships. There was a streak of silver, almost too quick to see; it was the escaped raider commando, suited and heavily augmented, darting into hiding. Agamem focused again: that was a replay, two minutes old. Where were his own soldiers?

“Security,” he hissed into the intercom. “Intruder is—” Then he saw four Narseil crew running into view of the monitor, pointing weapons and searching. He keyed the intercom again. “Port Corridor Two—intruder has gone into—” he checked the location data “—the exercise room. Proceed with caution.”

The Narseil acknowledged and gathered around the closed door. One of them opened the door, and two of the four darted inside.

Agamem switched to the monitor inside the exercise room. At first, he didn’t see the pirate. Then he did. “Rings,” he hissed. His men were moving cautiously along the edge of the pool. And there was the enemy—underwater in his armored spacesuit, about two feet below the surface, close to the pool wall where the soldiers couldn’t see him. Weapon up, ready to fire up through the water the moment someone peered over the edge.

Agamem keyed the intercom again. He’d wanted to capture the pirate alive, if possible. But his people were too close—and he hadn’t forgotten Voco and Captain Ho’Sung lying dead on the bridge. “Get out of the room and seal the bulkhead door,” he ordered.

His crew moved quickly, obeying without hesitation. Agamem pressed the augment-link to his temple again, and focused. It took half a second to arm the weapon at the bottom of the pool, and another half second to confirm. Then he shut his eyes, sending the command to the security system.

Whump!

In the monitor, water shot up in a geyser. And with it, a silver-suited figure, twisted and broken.

A tremor shook the deck. Then stillness.

Legroeder looked up in alarm, and saw that he was not the only one. Fre’geel was already asking for a report. “The antipersonnel weapon in the pool,” Agamem answered. “The escaped raider has been subdued. No further casualties on our side.”

Fre’geel acknowledged and turned back to Legroeder, with a muted hiss. For the first time, Legroeder realized how much pain the commander must have been enduring; his metallic green neck-sail was practically shredded from the battle on the bridge, and was crusted with clotted purple blood.

Moving and speaking abruptly, Fre’geel said to Legroeder, “What about a rigger in command of the other ship? Can we believe that?”

Legroeder had listened to the ship-to-ship communication. “It might be true,” he said. “Those shots could have killed the riggers in the net, certainly—and quite possibly the rest of the bridge crew. If the ranking officers were killed, the lead rigger would take the con, yes. Assuming some miracle had kept him alive.”

“And would he be in a position to surrender?”

“He might even want to, if he’s a conscript like I was. The problem is—”

“What?” Fre’geel towered over him, green eyes flaring.

“Well—if there are still commandos aboard, they’re not going to want to surrender.”

Fre’geel hissed, looking at the front monitor for a moment. The pirate’s main power appeared to be down. Its sole remaining gunner had ceased firing. But there was no telling what other weapons they had left. Fre’geel turned back. “How many commandos would you expect on a ship that size?”

Legroeder frowned. “Hard to say. They’re usually organized in squads of twelve. Two squads, maybe three.”

Fre’geel spoke into the ship-to-ship com. “How many crew do you have aboard? And how many commandos?”

There was a short pause, before the rigger on the other ship said, “We started with thirty-four ship’s crew, and twenty-four commandos. I don’t know… how many are still alive. But all of the commandos went out. I think you… killed them…”

Fre’geel shot Legroeder a questioning look.

“That’s plausible,” Legroeder said. “Did you get a recording of the attempted boarding? If you knew how many were—” His voice caught, as he thought of the commandos blown off into the Flux. What was it like to die, adrift in the Flux, slowly suffocating if the neutraser didn’t kill you? It was said that a prolonged naked-eye view of the Flux drove men mad.

“Cantha is checking now,” Fre’geel said. “But if you look around, you will see that it was not merely an attempted boarding.”

Chagrined, Legroeder nodded as he looked around the bridge. Bile rose in his throat at the sight of the bodies, and the shambles. He gazed at Ker’sell’s destroyed rigger-station, and the small laser hole that had killed Voco—and he turned away with a shudder.

“Captain Ho’Sung is no longer with us,” Fre’geel said. “We have lost others, as well. I don’t know if you knew that.”

Legroeder shook his head.

Fre’geel gave an almost human nod, then spoke again into the com. “Hear this, raider ship Flechette. Any remaining commandos and all gunners will gather in your main airlock and prepare to exit, without weapons. If any fail to comply, or if any of your crew resist, your ship will be destroyed. Is that understood?”

“Understood,” said the voice from the enemy ship. “I do not think there are any of the boarding team left on our ship. But I am checking now.”

“Very well.” Fre’geel turned to Cantha, who was reviewing the monitor log. “Are you getting a count of boarders?”

“Almost. Yes—Captain, it appears that there were—I count twenty-four suited boarders leaving the raider ship. It is difficult to verify how many were destroyed by our weapons—possibly as many as twenty-two. And we know that two were killed aboard our ship.”

Fre’geel turned back to the com. “Flechette? Have you made your determination yet?”

It was another minute before an answer came.

“I am told there are no commandos left aboard. I have instructed all weapons operators to suit themselves and to prepare to exit the ship, unarmed—as soon as I can assure them of safe passage.”

“Safe passage?” Fre’geel hissed under his breath. “If they do not resist, they will not be harmed—provided that the rest of your crew cooperates, as well. Otherwise, we will burn them down. That is your safe passage.”

A momentary hesitation. “Agreed,” rasped the com.

Fre’geel raised a hand for attention on the bridge. He keyed the shipboard intercom. “H’zzarrelik crew, we are about to take possession of the enemy ship. Commando teams, prepare for boarding.”

Fre’geel turned to Legroeder, his vertical green eyes glinting in his reptilian face. “Rigger Legroeder, good job so far. Now, get back to the net. You and Palagren will bring both ships out to normal-space.”

Chapter 16 Out of the Ashes

For Freem’n Deutsch, the nightmare had come true. He surveyed the remains of the raider Flechette’s once-proud bridge. The captain and most of the bridge crew had died instantly when the massive neutron burst had flooded the nose of the ship, with the failure of the net and the forcefield protection. What had Te’Gunderlach been thinking, firing torpedoes at such close range? Stars knew how many men were dead now. And the ship? Most of her weapons were shot out; and her rigger-net was dead, burned out by flux-torpedo and neutraser fire.

It was their own damned arrogance that had killed them—Te’Gunderlach’s arrogance, assuming that the Narseil commander was going to roll over for them. Well, this time they had met their match. From the moment that torpedo explosion ripped through their net, nearly killing Flechette’s rigger crew, they were crippled; and it was just a question of which damaged ship would recover first. That question had been answered soon enough. The only reason Deutsch himself was alive was that he’d been off the bridge, assisting with an emergency adjustment of the flux-reactor.

Te’Gunderlach and his blood-lust: he was dead now, and there was some justice to that. How ironic that as lead rigger, Deutsch—forced servant of the Republic—was now in command. During the pitch of battle, the augments had kept him burning with an adrenaline fever; but that had faded in the aftermath, leaving him with a cold, weary uncertainty. He’d felt something terribly strange during the battle; for an instant it had felt like a priority command message through his augments. (An order to break off the fight? That seemed unlikely.) Whatever it was, it had been swept away in the heat and chaos of fighting. And then his external-control augments had gone silent, when the central control in the ship’s computer was destroyed.

Acting on his own judgment as ranking officer, he had made the determination to surrender. Ironically, it was what he had long ago abandoned hope for—a chance to give himself up and escape from the Kyber Republic. Now that he faced the prospect, he found it frightening.

“Ganton,” he said, floating on his levitators toward a young smoke-begrimed ensign awaiting orders. “Go to the muster deck and make sure all of the weapons crew are there. I want you to inspect them, and see to it that they’re suited and unarmed.”

“But Rigger Deutsch,” protested the ensign, “they won’t stand still for me inspecting them, will they?”

Deutsch gazed at him grimly. Ganton was a promising young spacer—reasonably intelligent and if anything, excessively loyal. He probably had no idea how despised the Kyber were in the rest of the galaxy; he probably thought the Narseil had attacked them for no reason. He would learn; but there were small lessons to be learned as well as large ones. “Ensign,” Deutsch said, “they will stand still for it, because I have given the order, and I am in command.” He almost added, Because our captain is dead. But there was no need; the captain’s body lay in plain sight. The ensign grimaced, saluted, and hurried away.

Three crewmen arrived on the bridge, and Deutsch waved them over as they looked around in horror. “You three—get this bridge cleaned up. Take the bodies to—” he had to stop and think “—the starboard airlock.” As he pointed to the bodies, caught in various expressions of agony, he suppressed a shudder of his own. The stench of death had nearly overcome him earlier, even with his autonomic nervous system augments.

As the crewmen trudged forward to obey, Deutsch closed his eyes and connected to his inner com. “Narseil ship,” he muttered low in his throat, “we are gathering crew as ordered. Do you have further instructions?”

The answer came quickly. “Flechette, prepare for normal-space.”

Normal-space? Deutsch thought. If he were Te’Gunderlach, he would have seized on that as one last chance to level the playing field. He hoped none of the crew would have ideas of that sort. He wanted this to be a clean surrender. “Understood,” he replied.

He turned to the pilot standing watch over the bridge controls. “You have the con. Keep the ship stable, but do nothing more. Cooperate with the Narseil and be polite if they speak to you. I’ll be on the muster deck.”

Deutsch rotated in mid-air, and glided off the bridge and down the smoky passageway.

This wouldn’t be easy, with only two in the net. Legroeder and Palagren brought H’zzarrelik alongside the pirate ship. Its hull was dotted with craters where the remaining weapons had been carefully eliminated. Close enough? Legroeder asked, feeling as if he could reach out and touch the pirate ship’s hull with his hands.

I think so, Palagren answered. Let’s extend the net and see.

The glittering spiderweb of the net expanded as they drew more power from the flux-reactor. The net had suffered damage in the explosion of that first torpedo, and they dared not stretch it too far, or too fast. And yet, they needed to encircle the other ship. It would have been impossible if the net had not been overdesigned with this mission in mind.

All right, Legroeder—reach under. See how far your arm can stretch.

The net gave, as Legroeder stretched his “arm” all the way under the raider ship and up the other side. Palagren reached over the top. Their fingers met on the far side of the pirate vessel, and interlocked to complete the grapple. After checking the strength of the net, they began drawing the two ships upward through the shifting, sparkling layers of the Flux. It was a hard labor, with the increased mass and just the two of them in the net. Soon Legroeder was straining, and having difficulty focusing his efforts.

// Let us help… //

Before he could respond, he felt strength flowing to him from within, from his Narseil-installed implants. He was startled for a moment, then realized that they were not providing actual power, but simply helping him to channel the strength flowing into the net from the flux-reactor, like a surge of electricity. The two ships rose, turning like a lily petal on the surface of a pond, as the clouds of the deeper Flux gave way to the expanding circlets of light of shallower layers—and finally the cold dark of interstellar space, dotted with the fires of a million distant suns.

The two scorched ships floated, bound together, a ludicrous emblem of human and Narseil power against the majesty of the universe.

Normal-space, Palagren reported to Commander Fre’geel.

The muster deck was full of shocked and sullen crewmen when Acting Captain Deutsch arrived. About half were suited for vacuum, and the rest were standing around waiting for orders. Ensign Ganton was just completing his inspection. He handed Deutsch three sidearms removed from crew members. “They all check,” the ensign said softly. “Except for… Gunner Lyle. He refuses to give up his weapon.”

Deutsch looked down the line of crewmen. Lyle was an older crewman, a veteran of dozens of buccaneering flights, a former commando, now a ship’s gunner. He was silversuited, but with his forcefield turned off. He sneered as Deutsch approached. “Gunner Lyle, surrender your weapon,” Deutsch said, holding out his hand.

“I don’t surrender,” Lyle said, glaring down at the rigger. He stood about half a meter taller than Deutsch.

“I see. Do you obey orders?”

Lyle’s head jerked a little. “I answer to the captain. And you aren’t the goddamned captain.”

Deutsch rose on his levitators to gaze straight into the eyes of the pirate. “I am now. Are you planning to dispute my authority?” His voice was beginning to sound ominous, echoing from the twin speakers on his armored chest.

“Captain Gunderlach—”

“Is dead,” Deutsch said, letting his voice turn to hardened steel. “As you will be, if you do not obey your new captain.”

“The captain,” Lyle snarled, “would never give his ship up to Narseil.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “And he wouldn’t give up his crew, either.”

“That’s right,” Deutsch said softly. The beating red flame of anger that drove him so effectively in the net was beginning to rise again in his thoughts, and he didn’t try to keep it from his voice. “He wouldn’t have. The captain thought he was invulnerable. And that’s why he and a lot of your friends are dead right now. And if you don’t obey my orders, a lot more will join them.” Deutsch beckoned to Ensign Ganton. “Ensign, remove this man’s weapon.”

He could see fear in the ensign’s eyes. He also saw Lyle’s hand moving toward the sidearm at his waist. Deutsch caught Lyle’s defiant gaze—and an instant later, Deutsch’s telescoping left arm shot out to twice its normal length, and he caught Lyle’s gun hand in a hydraulic vice-grip. Lyle’s face went pale.

Deutsch chose not to break the man’s wrist. Instead, he used his network of fingertip sensors to locate the faint aura of nerve pathways in Lyle’s wrist; and as Deutsch smiled at the man, he searched his augmented memory-stores for the image he wanted. He sent it out, amplified: an irresistible image of a crushing force closing on Lyle’s wrist, a vice slowly splintering the bone, and pain like nothing the man had ever dreamed of…

Lyle sank to his knees, trembling. His breath escaped with a gasp, and then a curse. Deutsch released his wrist unharmed. But Lyle remained on his knees, cradling his right arm in agony.

Deutsch motioned Ensign Ganton over. “Remove his weapon.” The terrified ensign obeyed, taking care not to touch Lyle’s arm. Deutsch accepted the gun and amplified his voice as he spoke to the other stunned crewmembers. “We have already paid the price of our failure. We paid it in blood. But it’s done. As your acting captain, I command that no more shall die needlessly.”

At that moment, he heard a small inner voice, providing an update from the bridge. He acknowledged, then linked to the intercom and announced ship-wide, “We are now in normal-space. All suited personnel move into the airlocks and open the outer doors. You are to offer no resistance to the Narseil. Essential systems crew only, remain at your stations.”

Deutsch watched as the suited weapons crew flicked on their silversuit-forcefields and moved into the airlock. Lyle rose, silent with rage, and activated his silversuit. A sneer crossed his features an instant before his face turned to a blank mirror. Then he followed the others into the airlock. Deutsch waited until the inner door closed and the outer door opened, then turned his attention to the rest of the crew.

Legroeder had a clear view from the net as the Narseil boarders, looking like large metal insects, floated across space to the pirate ship. They moved efficiently, but more cautiously than their raider counterparts had. Their first priority was to scan the suited pirates who had come out of the Flechette’s airlocks and to secure them as prisoners before entering the pirate ship itself. Who knew what traps might await them aboard Flechette? Legroeder did not envy them their job.

As he watched, along with Palagren, Legroeder sensed a chromatic flicker in his vision, and certain chimelike inner sounds; and he realized that his implants were busily recording, buzzing with analysis and observation. Their progress was displayed to him as streaks of color-coded light at the edges of his inner vision. He exhaled slowly, trying not to let it distract him.

In the space between the two ships, the Narseil commandos were corralling the silversuited pirates into groups. Others were preparing to move into the enemy ship. Something didn’t look right to Legroeder, and he nudged Palagren and pointed to one of the clusters of pirates.

Is that raider commando moving out away from the others? Palagren asked softly.

Yah. Legroeder realized that three of the Narseil commandos were already moving to encircle the figure. But before he could even distinguish what was happening, there were two flashes—and one of the Narseil went tumbling backward. An instant later, the fleeing raider dissolved in a cloud of sparkling silver particles, expanding into the darkness of space.

Deutsch saw it happen on the monitor. Saw his man—had to have been Lyle—pull out a concealed weapon, take one idiotic vengeful shot, then overload his forcefield suit as the Narseil fired back. An instant later, he was ionized dust. What the hell was he trying to do, take a Narseil with him to show how brave he was? And maybe take all of his shipmates, when the Narseil decided to exact punishment? Lyle, you stupid sonofabitch bastard. Deutsch turned and shouted to the roomful of men, all of whom had seen it on the monitor. “Listen up! If any of you is thinking of doing some brainless asshole thing like that, tell me and I’ll put you out of your misery right now. If we don’t all get killed for what Lyle did.” He glared across the room. No one moved. “Good.”

Shaking his head furiously, he linked his primary implant to the ship-to-ship com. “H’zzarrelik, this is Flechette.”

“This is H’zzarrelik.”

“About what just happened, Commander—”

He never finished, because at that moment the first wave of Narseil marines erupted through the airlock door—and there were more weapons than he could count, aimed at him and all of his men.

A report came back from Ker’sell, who had remained outside the net, on the bridge. It looks as if there was one rogue pirate who didn’t want to surrender. Our marine was not seriously injured.

Legroeder growled to himself, thinking, Just one rogue pirate? Or will there be more?

Ker’sell continued, The airlock deck has been secured, and the raider’s acting captain insists that all his crew have been ordered to cooperate. But the boarding party is taking nothing for granted. The commander says to pull the net in. We’re backing to a safer distance.

Legroeder peered over at Palagren as they drew the net in. The Narseil rigger seemed to be regarding the pirate ship thoughtfully, as though wondering whether it had been worth the price they had paid for it. Legroeder wished he knew himself.

Explosion on the Flechette! There’s been an explosion.

The call from the bridge filled the withdrawn rigger-net like a jolt of electricity. Legroeder and Palagren extended the net instantly, ready to dive away from the pirate ship at the commander’s order.

The silence that followed seemed to last forever.

Although H’zzarrelik had pulled back from the raider, Fre’geel had left the riggers in their stations as a hedge against the unexpected. There was always a chance that he would have to order a fast retreat in an emergency—such as a suicidal self-destruct of the pirate ship. Their quickest escape would be straight down into the Flux—though of course they would leave behind a lot of Narseil marines that way.

They waited.

How long had they been in this net, anyway?

The pirate ship floated, silent and enigmatic, off their port bow. Whatever was happening aboard it was invisible to the eye.

The com hissed. Cantha’s voice: Riggers, withdraw from the net.

Legroeder stared at Palagren in surprise. Did he just say to come out? he said in a whisper, afraid to shatter what might have been an illusion.

Let’s go, said Palagren, and winked out of sight.

Legroeder followed.

He rubbed his eyes, looking around the bridge. Although the place was a shattered mess, a good deal of cleanup and repair had been done already.

Fre’geel, his neck-sail encased in a clear gel bandage, turned from the center console. “We had one last holdout on the raider. He blew up an engine compartment, and himself and a shipmate with it. But we had no casualties, and the raider ship is now secured.” He touched his long fingers together thoughtfully. “It occurred to me that you might be ready for some relief.” He gestured to a pair of Narseil backup riggers, standing by to take the stations. “I think they can get us out of here in a hurry as well as anyone can. But I doubt it will be necessary.” Fre’geel’s mouth remained slightly open, and for a moment his noseless face looked as if it were wearing a human smile.

Legroeder stared at the commander in amazement. He felt relief, and dread, and a dozen other emotions he couldn’t yet sort out. They had captured a pirate ship. And now they were going to… what? Fly it back to its owners.

For all of his tangled feelings, when he glanced at Palagren, their eyes met in satisfaction. For this moment at least, satisfaction.

Chapter 17 Faber Eridani

“You sure we’re on course?” the man asked, checking the satmap display for the thirteenth time. The aircar had covered hundreds of kilometers over forested terrain since they’d left Elmira, and he still wasn’t sure they’d passed over the right landmarks. His personal augments weren’t calibrating properly on the data streaming to him from the flyer’s instruments; apparently his realignment to Faber Eridani standard hadn’t quite taken. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the ground below or the visual display.

His partner rolled her eyes as she scowled down over the rolling woods. “Ye-e-es,” she said, “we’re going the right way. It’s another ten, twenty kilos.”

“What about the woman? She okay back there?”

His partner sighed and punched a couple of buttons on her compad. “This says she’s alive and in a coma. Does that count as okay?”

The man shook his head in annoyance, wishing for the hundredth time they’d gotten clearer directions from command on this operation. …Secure and transport the woman… observe evasive protocols… keep secure for further instructions…

Further instructions. He had no idea why this woman was important, just that she was. And that others would soon be looking for her. But who? It was a hell of a way to run an undercover operation.

“Any idea who they’ve got meeting us up there?”

“We’ll find out when we get there, won’t we?” his partner said irritably. A couple minutes later: “Looks like we’re coming in.” A town was beginning to emerge from the woodland ahead. “You ready to take over?”

He grunted. The aircar was descending now over street breaks in the forest cover; the autopilot was bringing them down into the outskirts of the town. “You got the directions to the rendezvous?” he asked, kicking off the autopilot. Gripping the yoke, he glanced at his partner.

“Look out!”

“Why, what—?” He saw the car come out of the blind spot to his left just as his manual controls kicked in. With a squawk, he jerked the car hard over, trying to avoid the other vehicle. There was a slight, glancing impact, putting them into a skid, about five meters above the ground. He fought the controls until the car straightened itself out and dropped the rest of the way to ground level. “God damn these Faber cars! How the hell are you supposed to—”

“You just ran that guy off into a field,” Lydia said, looking back. “Christ, Dennis. Get us out of here before the police show up!”

“Well, don’t blame me!” Cursing, he careened down the nearest side street and slammed the power to the floor, hoping their human cargo was still in one piece in the back seat.

El’ken inclined his head as the human woman Harriet bowed to him. “Academic, I am grateful for all of your assistance,” she said gravely.

“And I for yours.” El’ken gestured toward the stars overhead in his dome—in the general direction, he hoped, of where Legroeder had disappeared two weeks ago. His expression of gratitude was quite genuine. He wished he could have kept Harriet here longer, but his concerns were somewhat allayed by the recent departure of the Spacing Authority cruiser.

Harriet appeared to understand the gesture. “Let’s hope some good comes to both our peoples from that venture. But now it’s time for us to get on with our investigation. We can’t let Legroeder do all the work.”

“May I inquire how you hope to proceed?” El’ken asked the question out of genuine curiosity.

Harriet fiddled with the eyeglasses hanging from a chain around her neck—a peculiarly human mannerism. “We hope to find the trail of Legroeder’s friend Maris. And find out who killed Robert McGinnis. And why Legroeder was framed.” She paused, looking reflective. “And with your generous offer of transportation and diplomatic protection, we might actually stay out of jail long enough to do these things.”

El’ken regarded her with a certain inner tension. He desired to tell her more, and yet he couldn’t, without violating the conditions of his contact with the other side. He was not wholly certain of his knowledge, in any case. He hissed a breath through his gills and consoled himself with the thought that it would be worse to pass on wrong information than none at all. “You have people to help you, yes?”

Harriet nodded sharply. “Oh, yes. Peter, my PI, is quite good. A Clendornan. He may need to work miracles, though. Maris could be anywhere now—if she’s alive at all. When we find her kidnappers, I suspect we will have found the people who killed McGinnis.”

El’ken hesitated before speaking. So many deaths and possible deaths—all, in a way, the result of Rigger Legroeder’s escape to freedom. Ironic. But it presented great possibilities, as well. El’ken hoped he had not erred in sending Legroeder to join the undercover mission. But the Narseil urgently needed intelligence about the Free Kyber—and they even more urgently wanted to find Impris, and not just for the sake of clearing their names in history. With Legroeder they had a better chance of accomplishing both than without him.

El’ken focused on Mrs. Mahoney again. “Do not be certain that her kidnappers are the same as McGinnis’s killers,” he said finally, deciding he could say that much, at least. “And do not presume that you won’t find her alive.” And how would you know that? he thought to himself rhetorically. “I… feel… that you might find good news about this. I cannot exactly say why.” Nor could he exactly say why Robert McGinnis had died; he wanted to know that, too. He drew a soft breath and added, “And if you do learn more about these matters, I hope you will send word to me.”

“I will,” said Harriet. “Thank you. And good-bye.”

“Safe journey back,” El’ken said, extending a down-turned palm. “To you and your daughter.”

Harriet nodded, and hurried away. After she was gone, the Narseil sank back into his pool and settled slowly to the bottom. For a time he just rested there, staring up at the shimmering surface of the pool, and imagining the stars that lay beyond, out through the dome… and wondering if he had done the right thing.

“Well, are we off?” Morgan asked, looking up as her mother returned to their room.

“We are off.” Harriet went to put her last few things in her bag, then glanced back at Morgan, who was moving restlessly around the room. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Morgan snapped.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I just told you.”

Harriet sighed. “How long have I been your mother?”

Morgan shrugged and snapped her bag closed. “I don’t know. Seems like forever.”

“My. What’s eating you?”

Morgan sighed. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I’m just worried about Legroeder, that’s all.”

“This is professional concern, I assume?”

Morgan let out an exasperated sigh. “No, mother—I’m carrying his child. Jesus. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, dear. I was just wondering if you’d developed an emotional attachment, that’s all.” Harriet raised her eyebrows, then turned to snap her own bag shut. As she was finished, she looked back at her daughter. “Are you?”

“What?”

“Carrying his child.”

Morgan snarled softly. “No, mother. I am not carrying his child.” She grabbed both bags and headed for the door. “Let’s go, shall we?”

“Testy, testy.” Harriet followed her out of the room, chuckling.

The Narseil embassy ship was both more comfortable, and less, than the corporate ship that had brought them to the asteroid. It was larger and more luxuriously appointed, with comfortable, private compartments—at least two of which had been adapted for human occupancy. On the other hand, for all of the comforts, it felt alien to Harriet. All of the surfaces seemed either too smooth or too rough, and the light was too green, and everywhere the ship seemed to have little pools and streams that looked like instant catastrophes in the event of loss of gravity. The Narseil crew were courteous, but left them alone.

That gave them plenty of time for planning; the Narseil ship was making a leisurely trip of it back to Faber Eri, in hopes of attracting less attention from the Spacing Authority. They knew from Peter’s last communication that Harriet, at least, would be subject to arrest if she set foot outside of Narseil diplomatic territory. She was wanted on suspicion of complicity in the murder of Robert McGinnis, as well as suspicion of aiding and abetting the escape of Renwald Legroeder. She still had enough friends in influential places to have some assurance that the Narseil diplomatic protection would be honored, at least for a time. But she was going to have to come up with evidence of her innocence fairly soon—which could prove difficult, locked in the Narseil embassy.

She was more grateful than ever for Peter’s assistance. She was also determined not to stay locked up one day longer than necessary.

Rather than landing at Elmira Spaceport, the embassy ship docked in low orbit with a small diplomatic shuttle, which took them planetside and landed directly on the roof of the Narseil embassy compound. Morgan and Harriet were led inside and met by an assistant ambassador, a tall Narseil named Dendridan, who conducted them directly to their quarters. They were given adjoining bedrooms, plus a work room that already had been outfitted with a secure com-console. “We have been in touch with your investigative representative—the Clendornan?—and have set up a secure com-link for your use,” Dendridan said.

“Thank you.” Harriet looked around, surprised and touched by the Narseil’s thoughtfulness. Apparently El’ken’s recommendation carried some weight here.

Dendridan touched his embassy robes absently. “Officially, our reason for granting you asylum is to facilitate investigations crucial to the righting of historic wrongs against our people. Naturally, if you need to locate certain persons, or pursue information tangential to that investigation—purely as stepping stones, of course—we find no reason to disallow that.” He gave a small bow, and said, “If you require nothing else just now, we will leave you to your work.”

Harriet returned the bow. As soon as the Narseil was gone, she activated the console. She brushed past the security confirmations. “Peter? We’re here. What do you have for us…?”

Peter, she was sorry to learn, had little on the McGinnis case. The security forcefield had finally gone down, but only after the house had burned to the ground. The police still had the property cordoned off. But Peter had learned a few things about the disappearance of Maris. Security-cam records from the hospital had produced a description and partial registration number for the vehicle in which her abductors had driven off. That was enough to identify the vehicle as a rented aircar, later returned in another city, Bellairs, two hundred kilometers to the west of Elmira. However, the same vehicle had earlier turned up in Forest Hills, a town four hundred kilometers to the north of Elmira, where it had been involved in a minor traffic incident, but had fled the scene. Peter had investigators working in both cities, but his money was on Forest Hills.

“One more thing,” he added, before ending the call. “You remember, they never found Jakus Bark’s body?”

“For all the good that did us, yeah. Do you have something more?”

“Possibly. Someone fitting Bark’s description was seen leaving the planet two days ago. On a ship registered off-planet, but suspected of being connected to Centrist Strength.”

Harriet whistled. “Very good—I think. Any hard evidence we can use?”

“Unfortunately, no. If it was Bark, he traveled under an assumed name. We’re still checking, though.”

“Well, good work, Peter. Keep on it.”

Not long after, another call came in. This time it came through the regular embassy switchboard. On the com was a stern-looking woman who began, “Spacing Commissioner North, to speak with Harriet Mahoney…”

“Commissioner, I don’t know what you expect me to do. It is true that my client has left the star system, against my desires—” which wasn’t quite a lie “—but that doesn’t change his basic dilemma, or mine. The fact is he was framed on patently trumped-up charges. And your office hasn’t done a thing to dispel those charges.”

“Mrs. Mahoney—please believe me—” Commissioner North spread his hands in appeal “—we are conducting a thorough investigation, right here at the highest level. If we find any evidence of unfair treatment, I can assure you that heads will roll.”

“Commissioner, I would dearly love to believe you—”

“Well, then, let’s talk.” North placed a forefinger against his temple, and seemed to be searching for conciliatory words. “I believe if I speak to the D.A., I might be able to arrange for you to be free on bail. It’s not in my hands, obviously—but you certainly have a long-standing reputation in the community, and if you want to make a gesture of good faith by meeting me, say, at the police station—or any neutral location you would care to suggest—I might be able to prevail upon my colleagues at Justice to give you some breathing room. Wouldn’t that be better than staying holed up in the Narseil embassy?”

Harriet hesitated before replying. She had no certain knowledge of where in the Spacing Authority the corruption lay. It was possible that North was innocent. But she would have to be out of her mind to take a chance.

“Mrs. Mahoney?”

Harriet shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

“But surely you realize—”

“Commissioner, look at it from my point of view. My client, who not only escaped from a pirate outpost, but brought you a captured pirate ship, was framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Then, while in my company, seeking information on a matter related to his defense, he narrowly escaped an attempt on his life. On both our lives. Finally, to top it off, we were both framed for the death of Robert McGinnis, who sent us away in his flyer because he knew he was coming under attack. Now, what would any intelligent person’s response be to a pattern like that?”

North looked troubled. “That depends on whether it’s all true, doesn’t it? I hardly have to tell you how the police see it. You lack physical evidence for your assertions, and the fact that you left a burning house with a dying man inside, taking the man’s flyer, is problematical. Unless you can produce evidence of your explanation, of course.”

“We’re searching for the physical evidence now, Commissioner. I expect we’ll be finding some as soon as there’s a thorough examination of the McGinnis property.”

North scratched his sideburn. “Well, we’re all eager to see what turns up there. But Mrs. Mahoney—I’m concerned that you’re making your case worse by your insistence on taking refuge with a bunch of—well, I mean, with the Narseil.” He leaned forward. “The thing is—from the point of view of the prosecutors—how do they know that you were at McGinnis’s house just to discuss Impris?”

“What else would we have been—?” Harriet caught herself, struck by a sudden realization. “Who told you we were discussing Impris?”

North’s gaze sharpened. Was that a flicker of dismay in his eyes? “Well, your statement—”

“Did not specify the content of our discussions with McGinnis. It said only that we were seeking historical information.”

North was silent for a moment. “I guess I must have assumed…”

“Yes,” said Harriet. “You must have assumed.” Or you knew from the start, because your people had their hooks into McGinnis.

“Well,” North said brusquely, “let’s not get sidetracked on that. Mrs. Mahoney, if you change your mind and want to talk, you know where to reach me. Yes?”

“Yes,” Harriet said, reaching forward. “Thank you—” she cut the connection and finished in a mutter “—for your concern.”

She sat mulling the screen.

“Mother?”

She looked up at Morgan, who had entered the room halfway through the conversation. “Yes, dear?”

“What was that all about? Was he just asking you to turn yourself in?”

Harriet blinked and slowly returned to the present. “Yes. Yes, I guess he was.”

“You didn’t consider it or anything, did you?”

Harriet sighed. “Well, if I had been thinking of it, he just ensured that I won’t. Ever.”

Morgan rested a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Good. I want to know that I can trust you to stay put here, when I leave.”

“Leave?”

“There’s no arrest warrant out on me. And if someone’s going to go looking for Maris, there’s a good chance they’ll need some legal advice—especially if they can’t prove that those hospital release papers were fraudulent. If you’re stuck here, that leaves me.”

Harriet stared open-mouthed at her daughter. She’d been so busy wishing that she could get out and be useful, she’d failed to consider what her daughter could do—besides put herself in harm’s way.

Morgan hugged her. “What, did you think I was going to stay here and serve you tea the whole time?”

“That’s exactly what I want you to do,” Harriet said, laughing uneasily.

“Mother—”

“At least until Peter assures me it’s safe…”

Irv Johnson liked working for Peter, the Clendornan PI, but there were times when he wondered what he was getting himself into. For the better part of the last two days, he’d been hanging around the grounds of the McGinnis estate, chewing on the stems of weeds, waiting for the fire investigation team to finish up so he could ask about their findings and maybe take a look himself. Fair enough. But this business about the dog…

When Peter had told him to keep an eye out for McGinnis’s runaway dog, he’d had that glint that he sometimes got in his eye. In Peter’s case, the glint was real: Clendornans had a sort of steel-wool fuzz at the backs of their eyes, and when it lit up, you noticed. What it meant, as far as Irv could tell, was: my intuition is telling me something and I’m not sure what it is, but I think it’s important. Peter’s intuition was pretty exceptional, and when he got that glint, there was usually good reason.

The client, Mrs. Mahoney, had said that McGinnis’s dog had run away from the burning house and gotten out through the forcefield. It was probably somewhere in the woods right now, starving. Peter had been quite clear in his instructions: find the dog if he could, and bring it in.

Dogs made Irv nervous, and he had no idea what to do if he saw the animal. Whistle and hope for the best, he supposed. He spat out his weed and walked along the edge of the clearing. The house was a charred ruin. There was nothing anyone could have done to save it. With the forcefield up on internal power, the fire crews had had no choice but to wait until it burned down into the basement and destroyed the forcefield generator from the inside. By then, about all they could do was sift through the ruins and carry out the bones of the lone inhabitant. The remains were being examined at the regional coroner’s office, but there wasn’t much doubt as to whose they were. McGinnis’s implants were pretty readily identifiable.

The fire inspectors were on the far side of the house now, looking for evidence of foul play or electromechanical malfunction. They’d told Irv they suspected some kind of power feedback in the house wiring. But until they were done he was to stay out of the way. That was fine with him. The smell of the charred remains was sickening, even way over here. The sooner he headed back to Elmira, the happier he’d be.

He’d already gone over the rental flyer and taken pictures of the lasershrap burns on its side. Earlier today, the regional authorities had trucked it away for further analysis. That left looking for the dog.

Irv sighed, picking his way along the edge of the woods. Here, doggy doggy. He scanned the trees, thinking he’d seen something moving in there. Maybe a bird or two. But no dog.

He yawned, remembered the thermos of coffee in his flyer, and started walking that way. After a few steps, he heard something and glanced back.

The dog leaped up, missing his nose by about an inch.

“Gah!” He jumped back, heart pounding.

The dog darted skittishly away. “No, wait! Come back! Good boy!” Irv stepped nervously toward the dog, snapping his fingers. “Come back here. Good dog! You snuck up on me. How did you do that? Huh, boy?”

The dog circled, making a low growl. Irv wasn’t sure whether he looked fearful or aggressive. Irv drew a slow breath, studying the animal. It seemed to fit the description Mrs. Mahoney had given. Dark brown, medium-haired, long muzzle. It was panting, and looked hungry and probably thirsty.

“Good boy,” Irv murmured, wishing he’d brought some food.

The dog stopped growling and stepped toward him.

Now what? Irv thought. Don’t hold its gaze; he remembered Peter saying that. But the dog was holding his gaze. There was something damned peculiar about this dog, something intense, even for a starving, homeless animal. He tore his eyes away with a shiver.

The dog barked, piercingly.

“All right, damn it! C’mere, boy.” He held out a hand again. “C’mere, for chrissake.” The dog sniffed at his fingers, but when he tried to grab its collar, it backed away.

It barked again, making a mouthing, quavering sound. Damn if it didn’t sound like it was trying to talk.

Irv squinted. “You want to come back with me? Smart dog.”

The dog stared back warily.

Irv lunged, just missing. The dog sprang away with a yelp, tearing into the woods. Irv lit out after it, yelling. Then, realizing he was being stupid, he slowed to a walk. “Come on back!” he called. “I didn’t mean to scare you!”

The dog’s face peered out at him through some bushes. It was panting frantically, and making little whimpering sounds.

Irv whistled.

The dog just stood there with its tongue hanging out and its chest heaving.

“Listen—lemme go see if I got something I can give you to eat.” Irv backed away, moving along the edge of the clearing toward the flyer. The dog trotted after him, still keeping its distance.

Across the way, the investigators seemed to take no notice of him or the dog. When he reached the flyer, he opened the gull-wing door and leaned inside. Maybe he should call in; maybe someone could tell him how to catch a dog. He hoisted himself into the seat, keeping an eye on the dog through the open door.

“Peter? Is Peter there? Yeah—I found the dog.” He leaned forward, making sure the animal was still nearby. “That’s right, Mrs. Mahoney’s dog—I mean McGinnis’s. Yeah. I’m having trouble catching it, though. What do you think’s the best—yoww!” He rocked back, startled.

The dog gouged his lap with its nails as it sprang into the flyer, scrambling over him to get into the righthand seat. It sat there, panting like a steam locomotive, peering around wildly. It gave a long whine.

Irv stared at it, mouth open. He gulped and yanked the door closed. “You want a sandwich? Wait a minute.” As he rummaged through his pack, conscious of the dog’s hungry stare, he remembered the com and thumbed the key. “No problem here. Look, I’m bringing the dog in, Peter. Just like you said. I’ll see you soon.”

Finding a half-eaten roast beef sandwich, he tossed it to the ravenous animal. Then, taking a deep breath, he fired up the motors and took to the air before either of them could change their minds.

Chapter 18 Meeting of Minds

For several shipdays, intensive repair efforts had been underway on both H’zzarrelik and Flechette. On the pirate ship only a bare skeleton of the original crew remained; the rest were in confinement aboard H’zzarrelik, undergoing interrogation. Nine Narseil had died in battle—a spiritually significant number in the Narseil Rings religion—and the atoms of their bodies were cast to the interstellar winds with ceremony and mourning. Of the raiders, something on the order of forty were dead; and the atoms of their bodies were scattered, too, with considerably less ceremony.

For a time, it was unclear whether the mission would be able to proceed. Flechette was badly shot up, and no one knew if it could be made to fly again. If not, H’zzarrelik would return to base with prisoners and no doubt a great deal of useful information from a thorough examination of the Kyber ship—but with the primary mission unfulfilled. On the other hand, Legroeder had seen the Narseil engineers at work, and had a healthy respect for their capabilities. Even so, he was amazed when, three days after the surrender of the pirate ship, he was ordered to report to Flechette to help test its rebuilt rigger-net. It was Cantha who brought the news, and when Legroeder rose to follow, thinking he might be gone for a few hours, Cantha chuckled. “You must bring all your things, my friend. We are moving aboard, you and I. Fre’geel has called a strategy session for later in the day.”

Legroeder blinked with astonishment, followed by a chill of apprehension. They were going forward with the original plan, then. He ought to have been prepared, but it was a jolt to realize that it was really happening.

Gathering his gear, he joined Cantha at the main airlock. Enveloped in a forcefield silversuit, he hooked his tether to a cable that joined the two ships and jetted toward the pirate ship, weightless and reeling from vertigo. He had never felt quite so exposed to space as he did during that crossing, surrounded by an awesome myriad of stars, suspended untold light-years from the nearest world. The net felt nothing like this, even when he was looking at the same view. In the net, he was anchored and secure; here, he could fall forever. He floated into the airlock of the raider ship with a gasp, and when the airlock door sealed behind him, he uttered a silent prayer of gratitude.

The air on the pirate ship assaulted him with the residual stink of smoke and burned insulation. But walking through the ship, he was struck by the ubiquitous repair work—fiber panels and plasteel patches and jury-rigged pumps and field generators. He peered down a corridor sternward and saw a maze of cables snaking through a blown-out wall. Shaking his head, he followed Cantha forward to a meeting room amidships, where he found Fre’geel, Palagren, and much of the crew he’d worked with on H’zzarrelik. They had all moved into quarters on the pirate ship.

“Rigger Legroeder,” said Commander Fre’geel, “there is someone you need to meet, as soon as you’ve gotten settled.”

“I thought you wanted me to work on the net.”

“I do. As soon as you’ve spoken with—”

“Their rigger crew—?”

“I would be pleased to have you not interrupt me. Yes, with their lead rigger and acting captain. Deutsch is his name. I want you to establish a relationship with him.”

Legroeder let out a silent breath. “Excuse me?”

“You are to establish a relationship. Make friends, if you can,” said Fre’geel. “And you might as well get used to the idea,” he added, noting Legroeder’s incredulous reaction. “Everything’s going to be different now.”

“You cannot be serious!” boomed the synthetic voice of the pirate rigger, Deutsch.

“But we are,” said Commander Fre’geel, sitting tall on the other side of the meeting room table. “You are to lead us back to your base.”

Legroeder watched the exchange with confused emotions. Curiosity, trepidation, hatred of what the pirate stood for, and, to his own surprise, sympathy. Freem’n Deutsch was a stocky man-machine. Legless, he moved around by floating in the air; a round, brushed-titanium housing where his hips should have been apparently contained the levitators. Around his chest was a complex assortment of armor and cyborg-augmentation, including speakers for his voice. His round face was one-third chrome, with glowing cyberlink connectors on his temples, and four lenses—two hemispherical mirror lenses over his eyes, and two smaller ones mounted on the sides of his cheekbones. Presumably the four eyes gave him enhanced peripheral vision; they also made it nearly impossible to read his emotions.

Legroeder suddenly realized that Fre’geel was waiting for him to say something. “We’d have thought you’d be glad to go back,” he said, with a shrug.

Deutsch made a low ticking sound. He rotated one way and then another, as though to see who was listening. “I am not eager to return to the outpost with a chain around my neck,” he said finally. “Truthfully, I would prefer not to return at all.”

Legroeder frowned, realizing what his opening question should have been. “Were you—how shall I say?—not a volunteer in the raider fleet?”

The pirate made a metallic cawing sound, which Legroeder took to be laughter. “Volunteer? Are you mad? I am a captive! Can you understand that?” Tick tick tick. “It has been so long that I sometimes have trouble remembering. But having been forced to serve, I—” there was a slight catch in his voice “—well, I have tried, I suppose, to serve well.”

Legroeder replied softly. “You might be surprised what I can understand.” He didn’t care at all for this man’s looks, or for the memories that Deutsch’s presence stirred up; but he found himself unable to hate him, either. A fellow captive, impressed into pirate service—apparently far more assimilated into the raider culture than Legroeder had become. But what would he be like, if he hadn’t had the opportunity to escape, or if his captors had forced him to take implants?

“I was planning to ask for asylum when you took us back to your worlds,” Deutsch said.

Fre’geel’s eyes contracted to narrow, vertical slits. “That will not be an option,” he said. “Unless, of course, you help us in the completion of our mission, and come away with us.”

Rigger Deutsch gazed at the Narseil commander for a long moment. “Why do you want to do this? You will be killed—or if not killed, taken prisoner and forced into service.” He lowered his voice. “There are not many live Narseil captives in the Republic. I… understand they don’t incorporate well into the system.” Deutsch looked at Legroeder as if to say, you’re human, you at least should have some sense.

Legroeder sat silent, his stomach churning.

Fre’geel answered, “It is not our intention to be taken prisoner… exactly.” He seemed to consider his next words carefully. “Tell me something. Are you aware of a movement within the Kyber organization—a movement that wishes to make contact with the outside worlds?”

Deutsch took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Something seemed to flicker across his face, some expression, but the mirror-lensed eyes made it impossible to tell what it was. “No,” he said.

Fre’geel glanced at Legroeder, who stirred uneasily. Legroeder had no idea whether Deutsch was telling the truth, if that was Fre’geel’s unspoken question.

Fre’geel said to Deutsch, “If you hear any information of such a movement, you will inform us at once.”

Deutsch cocked his head.

“Please,” Legroeder added.

Fre’geel’s gaze seemed to sharpen at that, but he said nothing.

Deutsch nodded slightly, moving his gaze around the room. Clearly, while he did not feel free to challenge the commander of the ship that had just nearly destroyed his own, he found all of this incomprehensible.

“Now, then,” said Fre’geel, “I know you two riggers have a great deal to discuss—rigger paths to the outpost, and so on. I will leave you to your work.” He gathered the other officers, leaving Deutsch and Legroeder alone in the wardroom with a single Narseil guard.

The two riggers sat staring awkwardly at each other. Vanquished and conqueror. Would-be refugee and would-be infiltrator. Legroeder cleared his throat. “I note that you seem fairly well equipped with augments.”

Was that a slight flicker in the lenses covering Deutsch’s eyes? “How did you guess?” the raider said finally, his voice modulated and dry.

Legroeder chuckled silently without answering. He blinked as Deutsch’s right arm suddenly telescoped out a meter and a half to the end of the table and plucked a cracker out of a bowl there. The metal arm retracted silently back into its fabric sleeve, and looked more-or-less natural as Deutsch took a bite of the cracker.

“Yes, I have many augments, supplied by the technical units of the Free Kyber Republic,” Deutsch said finally, and this time, Legroeder clearly detected the sound of sarcasm in his voice.

Legroeder nodded in acknowledgment. “Tell me—do you ever let those lenses go clear so we can see your eyes?”

“These are my eyes.”

“Oh.” Legroeder frowned, more uncomfortable than ever. “I guess I might as well tell you—I was also a guest once of the—what did you call it?—Free Kyber Republic? They didn’t use such a fancy name at DeNoble, where I was a prisoner.”

Deutsch tipped his head slightly, and the shifting glint of the ceiling light on his lenses made it seem as if he were somehow tracking movements all around him as he listened to Legroeder. “You rigged… for the Kyber?” Deutsch asked, his voice a whisper. If his eyes didn’t convey emotion, his voice did. “DeNoble. I have heard of the outpost…”

Legroeder felt a sudden heaviness in his chest, remembering. “The reason I ask about the augments… is that I need to know if they are critical to our getting back to your base.”

“I would find it difficult without,” the pirate said.

“Then I may require some coaching from you.”

Deutsch leaned slightly, as though to examine the side of Legroeder’s head. “Unless I am mistaken, you appear to have augments of your own.”

“That is true. But they’re new. I haven’t used them long.”

Deutsch’s mouth curled with an unreadable expression. “You rigged well enough in combat with us. You and your people… fought very well. While we fought—recklessly?”

Legroeder cocked his head.

“You fooled us completely. We were not expecting you to fight back. You disguised the nature of your ship well.” Deutsch’s voice held no hint of reproach. “I must say I did not expect Captain Te’Gunderlach—” Deutsch hesitated, as if wrestling with some thought or other “—to launch a flux torpedo at point-blank range.” His voice was grim and matter-of-fact.

Legroeder did not argue. It was foolish, what the raider captain had done.

“I always knew it would end this way,” Deutsch said.

“What? That you would be defeated? Or that someone would come after you?”

Deutsch shook his head slowly. “That Captain Te’Gunderlach would destroy us with his pride. He seemed more machine than man—much more machine than I am—and yet a machine with pride, a machine that could not accept the possibility of defeat. Or retreat. If he had retreated from your trap, and taken time to recover, we would still be out there on patrol. You would still be looking for your mark, and we would not be… begging for mercy.”

Deutsch laughed again, with a caw. “But then… here we are. You’ve captured us, and you want to turn yourselves in—to the gracious governance of the Kyber command.”

“Well, not quite. We hope to be somewhat cleverer than that.”

“I’m sure you do.” Deutsch’s mouth closed in a frown, and he shook his head a little. It struck Legroeder as odd the way Deutsch’s mouth displayed expression even as his words came from the speakers. “I don’t know what you hope to do there, but you’ll have to be mighty clever indeed. And in case you fear that I might act to expose you once we’re there—”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“You’re probably right, I would.” Deutsch stared at him again, and his face had become utterly expressionless again. “But mainly out of the small hope of lessening the penalty my crew and I will pay for our failure.”

Legroeder nodded. The Kyber security systems were formidable, as he well knew; he also knew that they were not invincible. “You know,” he said, “there may be a way to do this that will help both of us.” It would take smart work and luck. But he had beaten the Kyber before.

The captured pirate only stared at him with those indecipherable eyes.

The rigger systems had been transformed into a crazy-quilt network of Narseil and Kyber equipment. Narseil repair crews had labored long, replacing burned out components and bringing the flux-reactor and net-generating equipment back up to power. “It’s amazing,” Legroeder said to Palagren, with real admiration. He waved Deutsch closer. “You don’t have to keep a respectful distance, way over there. We’re going to need your help.” When Deutsch didn’t reply, he tried joking, “You’ll be teamed up with the best. It could be the high point of your rigging career.”

Deutsch said stiffly, “This is where my crewmates died. I do not think that flying on this bridge again will be a source of pleasure to me.”

Legroeder opened his mouth, shamed by the rebuke. He had quite blotted from his mind the fact that Deutsch might have had friends here on the bridge, regardless of how he felt about the Kyber regime.

Fre’geel spoke up. “Pleasure or not, you will still rig.” He said it in a husky tone that might have come across as a threat to Deutsch; but Legroeder knew it to be a tone of understanding, and even compassion. Fre’geel had lost friends, too.

Deutsch levitated to his assigned station, and Palagren and Legroeder went to theirs. As there were two each of Kyber and Narseil-designed stations, Legroeder had a choice. He chose the Kyber. No time like the present to check out their design specs.

He energized the net and stretched out into the starry sky. Palagren was already there, and Deutsch joined them a few seconds later. There was a moment of awkwardness as Palagren assigned Deutsch, the former lead rigger, to the stern position. Deutsch took up the place without comment, but there was a dull reluctance to his presence in the net. Legroeder knew that it would be up to him to talk to the pirate rigger if there was a problem, but for now he decided to let Deutsch decide on his own how to cooperate.

They began a series of tests of the net, stretching out in various directions, and dipping the fringes of it into the beginnings of the Flux. Deutsch did what was asked of him, but no more. And that, Legroeder decided, was probably okay for the time being. They were not yet ready to fly—there were many repairs still to be completed. But the time was drawing near.

Riggers, if you are satisfied with your test, please come out, said Fre’geel, on the com.

I find no problems, said Palagren. Legroeder?

Seems okay.

Rigger Deutsch?

Legroeder turned to Deutsch, resting in silence at the stern. You must give your judgment. You are the one who has flown this ship.

Even in the net, Deutsch’s glass-lensed eyes gleamed enigmatically. Yes, he said at last.

Then let us meet on the bridge, said Palagren.

The debriefing was conducted over a light meal in the galley; afterward, Fre’geel dismissed them for the night. Legroeder, mindful of his assignment, approached Deutsch. “Is there someplace we can go to talk in private?”

Deutsch stared into space. “Talk about what?”

Legroeder shrugged. “We’re going to have to work together. I have to know if I can trust you. And you have to know if you can trust me. So I thought—at least, we ought to know something about each other. Know what we’re capable of. What to expect.”

Deutsch’s expression was utterly unreadable. Disdain? Dismay? Embarrassment? He answered in a soft voice, “In order that we may take you to your imprisonment that much sooner?”

“If you want to put it that way.”

Reluctantly, it seemed, Deutsch turned his hand up. “We can use my cabin, if you wish. Your commander magnanimously allowed me to keep it.”

“All right. Let’s go, then.” Legroeder spoke to the Narseil marine assigned as guard, and asked him if he would keep his vigil outside Deutsch’s cabin.

Behind the sliding, metal-composite door, Deutsch’s quarters were small but well appointed. The walls had many curtains and hangings, as if in counterpoint to the mechanically hard shininess of Deutsch’s own person. An odd sort of reclining seat occupied one side of the room where a bunk might have been; on the other was a desk and a flat-seated stool, plus a straight-backed chair pushed back against the wall. On the desktop, a clear case held half a dozen luminous, faceted shapes, each glowing a different color in the light of the desk lamp. Legroeder felt a rush of wistfulness. “Meditation crystals?” he asked. Just the sight made him long again for his pearlgazers.

Deutsch’s eyes gleamed. “You know them?”

It had been so long. “I had pearlgazers once. I lost them when my ship was—when I was taken prisoner.” In his early years of rigging, the pearlgazers had been a valuable training tool, a focus for image-creating. Later, they’d been a comfort in times of loneliness. His sessions with the pearlgazers had been rather like a prayer time.

Deutsch floated over to the desk, opened the case, and lifted a ruby-red crystal into the light. “Mine were taken also. I bought these a couple of years after. They were my first purchase when they put me on a cash rating.” He peered over at Legroeder. “Without them, I think I would have gone mad long ago.”

Legroeder didn’t answer. When he lost the pearlgazers, he’d lost the meditative habit—not that he’d had much opportunity for quiet reflection as a prisoner, anyway. But now, as he stared at Deutsch’s crystals, it all came back in a rush.

Deutsch seemed to be reading this thoughts. “Would you like to try them?”

Legroeder started, then shook his head reflexively. Losing himself in a meditative trance in the presence of a just-conquered enemy was probably not the best way to establish authority. Bad enough he was having to do this at all. What was his purpose here—to win Deutsch over? Or to find the pirate’s weak spots, so he could be controlled? Legroeder hated this, hated being someone’s handler, which was more or less what Fre’geel wanted him to be.

“If you haven’t tried it with implants, you may be underestimating their value.” Deutsch gazed at him probingly. “You said you wanted communication.”

Legroeder blinked. “So?”

“Well, they’re good for solitary meditation, of course. But they can also interact. Your augments could mediate that—if you want.” Deutsch hefted the crystal in one hand.

Legroeder frowned. He hadn’t thought about communicating with these. But he was the one who’d said they needed to learn about each other, to gain trust. Maybe Deutsch had a point. If they were to have even a prayer of penetrating the raider fortress, they needed to have some understanding of the place ahead of time. It would be better yet to see it through another’s eyes. Still… there was an intimacy to this sort of joining; it was something you did with friends. Good friends.

“No need, if you don’t want to.” Deutsch replaced the crystal in its case and floated to his recliner. The levitator housing that passed for his hips settled into a recess in the seat, and the entire apparatus tilted back about fifteen degrees. It looked as though it reclined fully for sleeping.

“Perhaps—” Legroeder began, driven more by some inner momentum that he didn’t understand than by logic “—perhaps a short session would be useful. At a moderate level.”

They were not friends. And yet, they were already linked in a way that reminded him of his bond with Maris—brought together by circumstance, by the condition of being fellow prisoners. Could the same bonding force work here? Was it something that could be summoned? In the back of his mind, stirred perhaps by his own implants, he felt a growing curiosity about Deutsch.

Deutsch gazed at him assessingly. “You might find these somewhat more powerful than your pearlgazers.” He said it as though they were two men standing in a shop talking about the latest innovations in meditation gear, the tensions of the recent battle forgotten.

Legroeder nodded. “May I?” He reached out to touch the tip of a long, blue crystal. Deutsch’s arm telescoped out and picked the crystal out of the case and handed it to him. Legroeder sat back in the desk chair and held the sapphire-like gem up to the light. It appeared to have its own inner fire: threads and facets of self-contained light.

“We start separately,” Deutsch said. “The interaction between the crystals will come, as we meditate. If that’s a problem…” His silver eyes peered at Legroeder. Legroeder shook his head. “All right, then.” Deutsch held the ruby crystal almost reverently in his hands.

Legroeder allowed his gaze to drift downward into the depths of the crystal. It already felt different from the pearlgazers: more active, more alive. And yet the approach was the same, to let his thoughts flicker inward… to let them settle into the object’s inner fire, until the stirrings of the subconscious sent them swirling in a new direction.

He heard his augments urging him on; then they melted out of sight.

Slow, deep breathing…

He felt himself slipping downward, drawn by the crystal. His thoughts came together in sparkles of cerulean blue, like plankton in the sea… or particles of knowledge in a datanet, forming threads of light, commingling and joining. Voices chattered in the distance. His own thoughts? The implants?

He became aware of droplets of light moving against darker surroundings, sketching zigzagging paths outward. The augments, reaching out… as if they knew what they were doing, even if he did not. He watched, hypnotized by the patterns drawn in liquid light…

Only gradually did he become aware of crosstalk between crystals, voices murmuring distantly. So many inner voices… asking why he was doing this. Why he was doing the mission.

Because I must.

But why?

For my friends… for me…

A tangled vine of voices, his own inner voices, curling around the knots of questions.

To strike at piracy… to find truth…

But who’d appointed him a seeker of truth and justice?

There was a strange shifting sensation in his mind, as the voices wrapped around and around…

To learn the truth of Impris… to find answers among the Kyber…

Shift…

There may be others interested in these questions…

He felt a sudden confusion. Not all the voices were his, or his implants’… and he noticed certain color patterns that had come together, ruby and cerulean reflecting and joining in halos… and the implants, his and Deutsch’s, were skittering and handshaking and opening tiny dialog boxes of thought…

(Is it your thoughts I’m hearing?) he said to Deutsch.

(Didn’t you know?)

He hadn’t been sure, at first. It wasn’t threatening, so much as startling. (It’s strange,) he whispered. They were joining across a distance: he and Deutsch standing on two stages in darkness, each spotlighted, calling out to each other. To share? Through stories on stage?

The Kyber rigger shut down half the lights on his side, and turned the rest to standby illumination. (You can darken or illuminate what you want. For a rigger, it should be easy.)

Legroeder practiced flicking lights on and off, revealing and unrevealing. (Perhaps,) he said thoughtfully, (it would be useful to share some history.) He found himself going back in time, his subconscious spinning an image, which sprang to life on his stage like a holo projection.

A ship under attack…

*

It was the Ciudad de los Angeles, caught in a surprise attack by the raider, pummeled by Flux distortion and wails from the pirates’ amplifiers. A torpedo exploded, threateningly close.

And then, with a subconscious edit, the image cut to:

The bridge—officers shouting, captain trying to raise the pirates on the ship-to-ship fluxwave (this image a little blurry, but Legroeder hadn’t been there; he’d been in the net at the time; this was a reconstruction).

Cut to:

The rigger-net, where terror and bewilderment raged like a forest fire. They were under assault and their captain was wavering. Should they fight? Flee? Lightning flared in the Flux, indistinguishable from the fire of weapons.

Then word came through from the bridge:

Let the raider ship grapple them… the battle was over…

*

(Your ship?) murmured a faintly metallic voice.

(Yes. “Ciudad de los Angeles,” she was called. “City of the Angels.”)

(Bad…)

*

Bad enough, but it wasn’t over…

His imagination supplied the images he hadn’t witnessed personally—the battle raging, a nightmare uncorked—terror in the corridors, commandos overrunning the ship, killing in reaction to the slightest resistance, seizing passengers and crew without mercy, without concern for age, mothers and children alike…

Cut to:

A small boy, Bobby Mahoney, hauled screaming from his cabin, terrified and kicking; finally shot with a stunner and dragged off to the hold of the pirate ship…

Cut to:

Riggers stumbling out of the rigger-stations to face armed commandos, then herded off to similar holds…

And later taken back to the raider fortress, and forced into service as riggers aboard pirate ships that would go out and start the same thing all over again…

*

The final image quivered on the stage, until Legroeder breathed it away with a sigh. It was a terrible burden, and yet a relief to let it out. He had tried so long not to think of it.

On the facing stage, Rigger Freem’n Deutsch was mulling over what he had seen. (Very disturbing,) he said, with an inflection of uncertainty. (Would you mind if I—?)

His voice faded into silence. The lights came up on his stage.

*

For several heartbeats, nothing.

And then, in the spotlight glow, a lumbering freighter—and coming alongside it, a raider. There was no contest, once the firing began—except, unaccountably, on the bridge of the freighter, where the captain lost his head and screamed to his men to resist…

Like Legroeder’s image, this one had the hazy outlines of reconstructed memory. Deutsch was just coming out of the net when the fighting on the bridge began. It didn’t last long, just enough time for shouts of outrage and several bright flashes of laser fire, and then…

Searing pain, followed by numbness…

Deutsch fell, aware of his legs no longer holding him up.

Blackness…

*

He came to, twice. Once, for an instant, to the corridors bumping past at a dizzying sickening angle; something felt very wrong, but he didn’t know what, it was a mind-wrenching blur. Then blackness again.

The next time was in a narrow infirmary cot, with ghostly sensations and nothing else where his legs used to be. And in his head, the buzzings of his new augments, testing the connections to the auxiliary equipment being integrated to his body…

*

Legroeder was stunned. (They saved you? The ones who took me would have left you there to die.)

(These would have, too, except my crewmate José…)

(Rigger-mate?)

(Yes, he carried me like a sack; told them I was the best rigger in the fleet; they couldn’t lose me. He risked his life, insisting.)

Legroeder marveled at the courage. Would he have done that? (Where’s José now?) He felt a sudden chill. (He wasn’t… on the bridge here…?)

Deutsch’s thoughts darkened, the lights lowering on the stage. (He died, his first flight out with the raider fleet. I think he wanted to, by then. He was sorry he’d saved me; sorry any of us lived to be put to this kind of work.)

I’m sorry too, Legroeder tried to whisper.

(It was bound to end one way or another. Those who live by the sword…)

*

The raider ship Flechette, coursing through scarlet-glowing clouds of the Flux, joining battle. Nose flickering, lightning flashing, booming sounds reverberating through the Flux. On her bridge, a cyborg captain bent on leading them into conquest.

And in Deutsch’s head, a tiny jangling, an implant or an instinct telling him something was not right. When the captain ordered them in for the kill, the jangling got more insistent, as though he should do something to stop this. For an instant, he imagined a Priority One command message trying to get through; but within seconds, it was lost in the chaos and confusion…

Cut to:

Blinding flare of a flux-torpedo, and the wrenching upheaval of the Flux shearing the net. Smoke and ruin on the bridge. People screaming; the captain glaring, eyes blazing, against the back wall—dead. Crewmen crumpled from the radiation burst.

Deutsch, staggering from the fluxfield chamber, where fate and the chamber shielding had protected him from the burst. He surveyed the devastation in horror and disbelief… and finally numbness as his implants shut down the worst of the awareness so that he could function. But they could not shut out the sight of his fellow riggers, smoking in their stations…

Cut to:

Darkness.

*

Legroeder felt his own darkness welling around him, felt himself mourning Deutsch’s friends. What a strange feeling.

From across the gulf of darkness: (We were both forced into service. Your story could have been mine. We have both suffered great loss.)

(Yes. And you thought you were dead—and then hoped you were free. And now you wonder…)

Deutsch stared across at him from his stage. Questioning with his eyes the scenario that Legroeder proposed: returning to the very heart of darkness, the pirate outpost.

Legroeder thought he sensed a flicker of something—some inkling of hope, or maybe destiny, that even Deutsch didn’t recognize.

(You can show us the way in, and the way out. And how to find the information we need.)

Deutsch’s image shook its head. He didn’t have to say: Why should I? If he helped the Narseil and got caught, he could be hung, or tortured, or mindwiped…

Legroeder searched for that flicker of hope again; perhaps he had only imagined it.

But the connection with Deutsch had become compelling. He wanted to keep the momentum alive. (There are other things I can show you,) he whispered…

*

A more neutral memory: crewing a ship called Lady Brillig, with three riggers named Janofer, Gev, and Skan. A happy crew, for a time. But though all three of the men were smitten with Janofer, only Skan found the way into her heart, and even that didn’t last. It seemed almost inevitable that the chemistry could not hold, and in the end it didn’t.

Later, much later, he saw Gev Carlyle again; but this time Legroeder was flying under duress for the raiders, and Gev Carlyle was the prey.

(And was your friend captured?) Deutsch asked.

Legroeder remembered the terrible risk he had taken, to fake unexpected turbulence in the Flux. (I found a way to free him.)

The next image was of the stinging rebuke he and his fellow riggers received—and yet, they persuaded their captain that it was bad luck that had caused them to lose their quarry. Now, recalling the moment, Legroeder wondered why he’d never found the courage to save others the same way he’d saved his friend.

Deutsch seemed to recognize the feeling, and for a few moments, there was a subdued silence in the connection. (It was brave of you,) Deutsch said finally, and the images that followed seemed to reflect his confusion over how to respond. It was a series of fragmentary images, glimpses of raider society in a bewildering order, all suffused with an emotion that Legroeder had trouble recognizing. Was it regret? Or Deutsch’s own guilt for the degree to which he’d allowed himself to be absorbed into the raider culture? Flickering through the images were glimpses of that jangling alarm that Deutsch had heard at the start of the battle with H’zzarrelik, and then lost in the confusion.

Legroeder tried, in frustration, to follow.

But rather than clarify, Deutsch changed to images from his more distant past, from times before his capture by the raiders. Learning to fly as a youth, in the balloon fleets of Varinorum Secundus. Later, as a rigger, flying a race down the Grand Canyon Nebula, a strange formation that extended deep through the layers of the Flux. Legroeder sensed echoes of the exhilaration of the race, still alive in Deutsch’s memory. It was enough to make him think that perhaps now was the time to raise another subject…

*

A mighty and storied ship, soon to be lost in the streams of the Flux, Impris gleamed against space, and cut through the mists of the Flux like a speedwhale of Cornice III. Her passengers enjoyed a view that few but riggers usually saw. As she passed by the Great Barrier Nebula, the sight caused even the most jaded of star travelers to draw a sharp breath.

Dissolve to:

The same ship, somehow untarnished by the years, slipping out of the mists like a ghost on a fog-shrouded moor—wailing for help, and drawing the innocent to their doom.

Cut to:

A raider ship closing in on would-be rescuers…

Cut to:

Loss. Darkness. And through the darkness a man, Legroeder, searching the skies with a tireless gaze, searching for answers, searching for the lost Impris…

(I know of this ship,) murmured the other rigger.

Startled, Legroeder cast his gaze to the other stage. (You do? Can you tell me more?)

(I know of it. I have not seen it myself.) Deutsch hesitated. (There is knowledge of it at the outpost.)

Legroeder suppressed a rush of excitement from Deutsch’s words. (Do you think there might be a way to—)

(No, no…) Deutsch shook off the question, and before Legroeder could rephrase it, Deutsch was speaking again, illuminating his stage, sidestepping the question of Impris and offering new memories, new stories…

*

They went back and forth for a time, but eventually Legroeder found his focus slipping, and questions he wanted to ask were vanishing from his thoughts before he could raise them.

(We must stop,) he said, and slowly withdrew his thoughts from the glowing interior of the crystal. He rubbed his eyes, bringing them back into focus in the real-time and real-space of Deutsch’s cabin.

Deutsch’s mirror eyes glinted as Legroeder carefully replaced the crystal in its case. Legroeder couldn’t tell if Deutsch was watching him or staring still into his own ruby-colored crystal. “This has been… interesting,” Legroeder said. “But I must be going. It will be a difficult day tomorrow.” He hesitated. “Thank you.”

Deutsch remained motionless, as though he had not heard. But as Legroeder was turning to leave, the Kyber’s voice rumbled, “You’re welcome.”

Legroeder made his way back out into the corridor, and then to his own cabin. He was stunned to realize, as he fell into his bunk, that three hours had passed in the company of the Kyber rigger. And he was aware, drifting off, that he was by no means finished with this experience. This was going to be a night filled with dreams.

Many dreams…

Chapter 19 Into the Heart of Darkness

Freem’n Deutsch remained lost in the world of the gazing crystal for a long time after the other rigger left. His good-bye to Legroeder was generated by a general services augment, which took over the niceties of social interaction when his real thoughts were busy elsewhere.

And busy they were: pondering the visions Legroeder had shown him, and his own memories that Legroeder’s had awakened.

He was stunned to realize how completely he had shielded himself from memories of his own life—memories of a time when he, too, had been an innocent rigger, reveling in the freedom and exhilaration of the net. Memories of the time before he was taken by storm, legs burned off, life transformed to the darkness of captivity and forced labor. His story was remarkably similar to recollections Legroeder had shared, and the remembrance had primed his thoughts for the emergence of far darker visions…

Right now his augment-matrix was struggling to control those visions, to keep them from erupting and destroying his mental equilibrium. It wasn’t quite working; the visions were too powerful to keep out; having begun, they were now an unstoppable force, wracking his mind and body with nausea and revulsion.

It was one thing to have endured an attack as victim; but the other kind of darkness came from living through the maelstrom as an attacker, loosing the great waves of fury that sent the quarry reeling in terror…

*

Doom doom doom…

The drumming would reverberate in his sleep as long as he lived, even when his protection circuits were supposed to suppress it. And rising from the drumming was the growing din of other sounds… the screams, the crackle of weapons… gunshots echoing in the canyons of his mind…

And the smoldering crimson glow of fire, illumining all of his memories…

Deutsch shuddered, struggling to make it stop. Why weren’t the protection circuits working? Something was wrong, something gone squirrelly, something not keeping the damn memories under control.

Almost as though the augments wanted him to remember…

*

Before the trade to Ivan, rigging under the flag of Carlotta, it had been even worse than under Te’Gunderlach. No, damn it, stop. He didn’t want to relive…

The attack on the Melanie Frey.

They’d savaged the ship like an animal with newrabies, tearing at its own body and its enemy alike, no awareness of boundary between self and other. DeMort was the most bloodthirsty of all the captains he’d served under, and his own riggers had no more certainty of safety from his fury than did his victims. It made them fight harder—out of fear, to deflect the madness outward—at someone else, anyone else.

The Melanie Frey’s crew had resisted. Stupid, maybe, but the raiders had come upon them so suddenly that they probably had no time to think. They had fought instinctively, not realizing the futility. The battle destroyed the ship, costing the pirates a prize vessel, plus three quarters of its crew and passengers. Captain DeMort, infuriated by the resistance, sent a berserker impulse through the command-link into the implants of the boarding crew. For a full hour, the commandos ransacking the ship had gone mad…

And into the net, to give his riggers a taste for blood, DeMort had fed a live image of the fighting.

Not fighting: carnage.

Of all the horrors, the one that most pierced Freem’n Deutsch’s heart was the sight of a young boy set upon by a maddened commando. The boy fought heroically, for the moment or two that he lived, after clawing with his hands at the face of the armored pirate.

That commando, and a dozen others, never emerged from their berserker state and instead had to be ordered into stasis. Whether they were mindwiped upon their return to base, or simply terminated like useless equipment, Deutsch never knew.

None of the riggers were capable of flight for some time afterward. The pirate ship drifted away from its prey, sickened and helpless, like an animal that had swallowed poison.

It was Captain DeMort’s last voyage in command of a raider ship. But it was not Deutsch’s last as rigger of a raider…

*

Under Te’Gunderlach of Outpost Ivan, it was also brutal, to be sure, but Te’Gunderlach maintained at least a veneer of rationality behind his tactics. Still, it was no surprise when Te’Gunderlach’s aggressiveness, in the end, put the ship into a trap from which there was no escape…

*

P1 alarm, P1 alarm…

Deutsch’s heart pounded as he relived the memories. He tried to slow it, but his augments resisted his efforts. Why did he keep thinking about a P1 intervention? What was going on here—an autonomic system failure? No, there was a response from his central monitor: // High heartrate necessary to assist in coping and processing… we are reanalyzing your memories of a Priority One code… //

Deutsch remembered the jangle of an alarm during the fight with the Narseil, and a momentary conviction of wrongness about what Te’Gunderlach was doing. He recalled now an inner maelstrom that had passed too quickly before—voices calling out to him, from or through the augments. He couldn’t tell what they were trying to say; but then, the net had taken some bad jolts during the fight. Had his augments suffered damage, scrambling the P1 message?

// All circuits are intact; however, there may have been loss of data… //

Loss of data… echoes of voices… and the oddest resonance between those voices and his sharing just now with Legroeder…

He shivered with uncertainty. Where could such a message have come from? The echoes were strangely powerful. And alongside them was the image of what Legroeder had done—something that he, Deutsch, had never found the courage, or the opportunity, to do. Legroeder had risked his life to save a victim from capture.

Risked the wrath of a raider captain.

And now this preposterous plan of the Narseil.

Through the ringing dissonance of the memories, Deutsch found himself asking the question: Would he ever find it in himself to risk his life that way? Would he?

Legroeder blinked awake from a dream about Bobby Mahoney… and about the bosses of Outpost Ivan. Strange. He had never laid eyes on Bobby Mahoney in the flesh—and of course, he had never met the bosses of Outpost Ivan. Yet the images—one a reconstruction by his own mind, and the other someone else’s memory—were replaying in his mind now with the clarity of real life. The gazing-crystal joining with Deutsch had left a more powerful impression than he would have guessed. Feeling unsettled, Legroeder had a cursory breakfast in the galley before reporting to the bridge.

Fre’geel was there with Palagren. “We’re going to get underway today,” Fre’geel told him, looking up from the captain’s console.

“So soon?” Legroeder asked in surprise.

“We can’t keep drifting. We’ve pulled enough nav data from their library to get us going in the right general direction. How are you doing at persuading our prisoner to help us?”

Legroeder hesitated. “I’ve started to get to know him a little. He’s not eager to go back, that’s for sure. And I can’t promise he won’t betray us if we do make it to their base. And yet…”

“What, Rigger Legroeder?”

He scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “Well, he has no love of the Kyber, that’s for sure. I believe he might actually have some sympathy for our cause.”

Fre’geel’s eyes gleamed. “Did he tell you this?”

Legroeder shook his head. “Not in so many words. It’s something I sensed. A feeling.”

“A feeling,” Fre’geel echoed. He studied Legroeder for a few dozen heartbeats. “Very well, Rigger. Today we will fly with our own crew and see how we do. But afterward, you will continue in your efforts to secure Deutsch’s cooperation.” Fre’geel made a burring sound. “And you will report to me on your progress.”

Legroeder nodded. “He was a free man taken prisoner, same as me. I think we can talk.”

“Let us hope so.” Fre’geel turned to the other waiting riggers. “Take your stations, then.”

The two ships parted in silence, in the Flux. H’zzarrelik fell astern of the captured pirate ship, drifting in the gently flowing current. Soon the Narseil ship looked like a toy model behind them, small and silver in the orange mists.

The Narseil ship, piloted by her secondary crew, would follow Flechette for a time. Later, as they drew closer to the raider base, H’zzarrelik would vanish into hiding in the mists of the Flux, monitoring Flechette’s progress as best they could with long-range instruments. If Flechette got into trouble, there was little the Narseil ship could do to help. H’zzarrelik’s mission was to await Fre’geel’s team’s return—or a transmission of data—and to safeguard the information already captured. Efforts to contact the nearest Narseil Navy ship for a transfer of prisoners had proved unsuccessful, so the return of H’zzarrelik was crucial. If Flechette failed to make contact or reappear, H’zzarrelik would slip away like a spirit in the night and carry the existing data and prisoners back to the Narseil authorities.

To say that Flechette and her Narseil crew were expendable would have been an extraordinary understatement.

Legroeder tried not to dwell on that, as they flew deeper into Golen Space, and farther from any possible help. Palagren was humming in the net before him, seemingly unconcerned with danger. In the keel, Ker’sell muttered darkly to himself. Neither of them had said a word to Legroeder about their thoughts on trusting Deutsch. But Legroeder could guess what they were thinking.

They flew through streamers of cloud that morphed slowly from something out of a bright, sunny afternoon to a sky full of scattered thunderstorms. They cautiously skirted the dark weather. They were still learning the ways of this ship, and didn’t want to push too hard, too fast.

Still, Legroeder was relieved when they set the stabilizers and left the net to the backup crew of Narseil riggers for station-keeping.

According to the guard at the door, Deutsch had not emerged from his cabin since Legroeder had left. “Unless he snuck out through the ventilation system,” the Narseil commando said huskily, with an unreadable expression. Humor? Legroeder wondered.

He signaled at the door. When there was no answer, he pressed the handle. The door slid open and he stepped in, blinking in the gloom. The room smelled like a sauna. “Freem’n?” The only light came from the ruby crystal in the hands of the Kyber rigger. Deutsch was sitting exactly where Legroeder had left him; he seemed not to have moved a muscle. But the crystal in his hands was glowing far more brightly than before, casting a blood-red glow over Deutsch’s half-metal face.

“Freem’n?”

There was a long pause. Finally he saw a shift in the pirate rigger’s gaze—not the main eyes, but the two peripheral-vision eyes atop his cheekbones. Just behind them, the augments on his temples were flickering erratically.

The voice-speakers crackled, “Rigger Legroeder.”

“Yes. Are you all right?”

“No,” said Deutsch, with a series of clicks.

“Do you need help?”

For a long moment, Deutsch sat utterly still. Legroeder was wondering whether to call for medical aid when Deutsch spoke again. “How sure are you that you want to do this thing, going back to our base?”

Legroeder turned up his hands. “There are no if’s about it. That’s why we came.”

Though Deutsch’s eyes were inexpressive, something in the shape of his mouth conveyed pain. “I do not wish to go back to that life,” he said finally.

“Neither do I,” said Legroeder. “That’s why we’re going. To take some action against it.”

“And… you hope to learn something about that ship, yes? Impris?”

“Yes.” Legroeder hesitated. “And we have reason to believe there are people at your outpost sympathetic to our cause.”

Deutsch’s lips pursed. “Your commander spoke of an underground movement.”

“Which we hope to contact. But regardless, we’ll continue our mission.” Legroeder cleared his throat. “I have to know what to tell the commander. Will you cooperate?”

Deutsch sighed. When he spoke, his voice was ponderous, as though he were deep in thought. “It’s the strangest thing. I feel as though… for reasons I don’t entirely understand… I may be meant to do this thing with you. I don’t know why. Or how. But the feeling… comes from deep within.”

Legroeder blinked in surprise.

“I’ve been giving the matter considerable thought,” Deutsch continued. “And I’ve reached a decision.”

“And that would be?”

Deutsch’s breath came in a strained sigh, even as his voice reverberated from the speakers. “I hope it’s not a foolish one. But I will help you get to the outpost. And after that, I’ll… well, I’m not sure, exactly. Perhaps I can help you gain your information.”

Legroeder stared at him in amazement. “What made you change your mind?”

“Don’t ask.”

Legroeder raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t ask,” repeated the rigger, his temples pulsing with light.

“I have to ask. We have to know that we can trust you.”

Deutsch breathed in and out a few times. “Let’s just say… I think it is intended. And besides—” his facial muscles twitched “—I don’t want to be returned as a prisoner. If you win, I want to be on your side. And if you don’t—I’d just as soon get it over with. They can smoke us all.”

Legroeder scowled as he inclined his head in acknowledgment.

Legroeder and the Narseil kept a close eye on Deutsch in the following days. Legroeder knew that if anyone was going to notice any deceptiveness or backsliding, it had better be him. Deutsch’s support seemed genuine, as he guided the riggers in the net—not enthusiastic, perhaps, but determined. While Legroeder wondered at the inner forces that had caused Deutsch to agree to cooperate, the result seemed to be decisive.

In the ensuing days, Legroeder spent considerable time in conversation with the pirate rigger, and began to feel that he was gaining some sense of the man. Deutsch was somber, almost fatalistic in his determination to lead the ship back to port; he somehow looked as if his years of captivity were a leaden weight on his shoulders. Nevertheless, Legroeder had the oddest feeling that Deutsch was a man who, under other circumstances, would probably laugh a good deal. Legroeder found himself wanting to hear Deutsch laugh.

With input from Deutsch on what to expect when they reached Outpost Ivan, the Narseil commander and crew began to refine the plans for their arrival. According to Deutsch, one thing in their favor—if their goal was to get in, get information, and get out—was the modular design of the Kyber docks. It was at least theoretically possible to take control of an isolated docking center and hold it—if they were lucky, without tripping system-wide alarms—while they did their spying and tried to contact the Kyber underground. The hope was for a nonviolent contact, but it was a modest hope. The Narseil commando teams were already in full-scale rehearsal for a docking-port capture, which was how they would proceed if they hadn’t made friendly contact prior to docking. Contingency plans were also being shaped up for Legroeder’s role in the event the Narseil were captured.

In the net, the riggers continued flying in formation with H’zzarrelik. At times, the clouds turned an eerie green, like a sky ripe for tornadoes. Though no whirlwinds actually appeared, Legroeder was constantly aware that this region of the Flux could contain many surprises. When the image changed to a nighttime scene, as it did from time to time, he could just discern the ghostly Wall of the Barrier Nebula towering over them. They were venturing ever deeper into the forbidden realms of Golen Space, farther than he had ever gone in this direction.

He found himself thinking of Maris, and wondering if she was still alive. Had either one of them, in the end, really escaped? It was a sobering thought, and he flew for hours after that in a very dark frame of mind.

The Narseil commander paced back and forth in the briefing room as Palagren and Cantha reported privately on their progress so far. Fre’geel was burning to hear what his own people thought of the work of the two humans together. He trusted Legroeder—mostly, anyway—but had a suspicion that the human might be prone, when in doubt, to presenting an overly optimistic view of his own work. And there had to be some doubt about Deutsch, no matter how cooperative he appeared.

Palagren expressed cautious optimism about the performance of the joint rigger crew.

“Nothing to suggest that Deutsch is hiding anything from you?” Fre’geel asked.

“Well, he’s not shown us the whole of the route to the outpost. But that would be difficult to do, anyway. He seems to be feeling his way through.” Palagren stroked the side of his head with a long fingertip. “I believe him when he says that the Flux is highly changeable throughout the area, and the way in is a little different each time.”

Fre’geel blew air through his gills. He resisted an urge to scratch the neck-sail behind his head. Recently out of the gel bandage, his neck-sail was still healing, and it itched ferociously. The makeshift mist-chambers they’d set up on the pirate ship were no substitute for proper Narseil pools. Fre’geel envied the crew still aboard H’zzarrelik. He turned to Cantha. “What’s your view?”

Cantha, as a rigger-science researcher who was not himself a rigger, had a more objective if less intimate view of what was going on in the net and the Flux, and of what they might expect as they approached their perilous destination. “It appears to me,” Cantha said, “that Rigger Deutsch is performing well with our crew. The question is whether he’s doing so because he’s really decided to join us, or because he’s hoping to earn a bonus for turning us all in the moment we arrive.”

Which of course was precisely what worried Fre’geel. How could they know whether to trust this man? There were myriad justifications for believing him—he was a captive like Legroeder, he hated the pirates, there could be a link between his augments and the underground, and so on—but what it really came down to in the end was deciding whether or not to trust him. Fre’geel turned back to Palagren. “Could he hide it from you in the net, if he were planning to betray us in the end?”

Palagren answered carefully. “If he were like Legroeder, I would say no. Legroeder has a clearly defined personality, which as far as I can tell has not been greatly altered by his augments. But with Deutsch—who knows? He’s been augmented for a long time. His augments may be able to conceal what his natural personality could not.”

“That sounds more like blind trust than I care to risk our mission on,” Fre’geel said, with some edge in his voice. He turned to see Ker’sell joining them. “What do you think about it?”

Ker’sell didn’t surprise him. “I think that he’s a human on a Narseil mission, and we can trust him to act like a human.” The blandness in Ker’sell’s voice belied the distrust they knew he felt—even toward Legroeder, whom he’d had plenty of time to get to know.

“Meaning what?” said Fre’geel.

“Meaning, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no telling what he’ll do,” answered the dour rigger.

Palagren’s narrow eyes winked shut momentarily. “I see no choice, really. We have to trust Legroeder to be attuned to the possibility of betrayal by Deutsch. If he doesn’t detect it, we probably won’t, either.”

“And that’s the real question, isn’t it?” Fre’geel asked. “Can we trust Legroeder to observe accurately?”

“Aren’t we already trusting him with more than that?” asked Cantha. “If things go wrong, we’re practically counting on him to take over the mission for us. I’m sure he’s not eager for that to happen. But he accurately spotted the Kyber attack coming before any of us had a clue. And his instincts got us out of trouble in the fight. So shouldn’t we trust him to think clearly now?”

Fre’geel puffed his gills and stared off into space for a long time, leaving the question unanswered.

When Deutsch reported that they were nearing the general region of the outpost, they signaled farewell to H’zzarrelik and watched the Narseil ship slip out of sight behind them. H’zzarrelik had sophisticated Narseil tracking equipment, so there was some chance that her crew would know where Flechette was, long after the converse was no longer true. While Flechette approached the raider outpost, H’zzarrelik would be listening—silently, like a sub at the bottom of the sea.

The raider ship, under Deutsch’s guidance, flew through a series of gray clouds—and for a time, something like rain came through the air in sleeting gusts. They emerged to find themselves winding along an ocean coastline, at the altitude of a small airplane. Deutsch flew in the lead position at the bow, threading them this way and that along the intricate filigrees of coastline, occasionally obscured by wisps of cloud. Without my old crew, the whole sense of the place is different, he said. I have to feel my way into it. But a few minutes later, he added, I think I’ve found it. I’m looking for an updraft now.

To look, Legroeder thought, is to find. Soon they were rising through a skyscape of mountain-shaped clouds that gradually stretched out in flattened angles until they looked like outstretched arms of coral. When they finally topped the clouds, they entered a sky filled with streamers of white sunlight, like an artist’s vision of Heaven.

There, said Deutsch.

Where? Where’s the entrance?

Deutsch almost managed a chuckle. Think of this as camouflage over the door. You’ll see, as we go through.

The sun bloomed into a sinking, crimson orb, as Deutsch nosed the ship down again. The sky darkened.

We still okay? Legroeder asked.

More than okay. We’re going through the door.

The sun gradually diffused to a burnt, reddish-orange, subterranean glow, ominous against the darkness. The change took Legroeder’s breath away, and he glanced at Palagren, who was stirring with obvious unease. We are close now, said Deutsch.

Legroeder’s heart began to pound.

They flew into the glow, with darkness above and darkness below. Legroeder found it comforting to imagine he was gazing through a thick brown beer bottle into a bright candle flame. But as he thought of the danger ahead, the vision turned to a more perilous one, the fire of a smoldering volcano.

Very close, said Deutsch. Now. He nosed the ship into a layer of almost impenetrable darkness. Palagren muttered worriedly, and Legroeder wondered if he should intervene. But to do what? He waited breathlessly, in near darkness. Only tiny, gleaming position markers at the edges of the net interrupted the night. Almost there, said Deutsch.

And then Legroeder saw it: the burnt-orange glow reappearing from the gloom, but as a series of vertical striations. He had trouble interpreting the perspective: one moment it was a background of dying-fire light, with black columns before it; the next it was columns of living fire, standing watch over passages of darkness; then, with a disconcerting reversal, it was again pillars of darkness guarding passages into great depths of fire.

Are those actual openings in the Flux? Palagren asked softly.

Indeed, said Deutsch.

It’s very strange, whispered Legroeder. Is it a natural formation? Or is it… manmade? He’d seen navigational buoys in the Flux, but never anything as elaborate as this.

A little of both, said Deutsch. Structure imposed on natural features. You’ll see it better soon. Instruct your com operator to be ready to send the authorization code I gave him.

Legroeder passed on the message to Cantha, with growing trepidation. They were approaching a critical moment, and Fre’geel would likely have to make a split-second decision, depending upon the response to their transmission. Would the authorization code get them the clearance they needed, or would it get them blown to kingdom come? Would the underground pick up on it? The message would contain a reference to an encounter with the Narseil navy. If the underground was monitoring arrivals, that ought to alert them. But even so, there would be little time for response.

Freem’n, Legroeder said sharply, where exactly are we now? Have we reached the outer perimeter? In the last few moments, the structure ahead had brightened until it seemed to vibrate almost to the point of inducing vertigo.

Reaching it now, said Deutsch. Transmit the contact and ident code.

Fre’geel acknowledged.

Any answer?

Autoresponse only, reported Cantha.

All right. I’m taking us toward one of the outer docks for damaged-ship arrivals, Deutsch said.

I don’t see any docks, said Legroeder.

Then watch carefully, if you want to see how this works.

Legroeder grunted. In the keel and top gun, the two Narseil were stirring anxiously. Now was the time when any reasonable scenario would have them bringing the ship out of the Flux into normal-space. Deutsch had told them it wouldn’t happen that way, but hearing it described wasn’t the same as experiencing it.

As they moved inward toward the surreal column-structures, a few tiny blips of traffic became visible in the distance. Deutsch steered them toward the extreme left opening between dark pillars. Legroeder’s augments were abuzz, seething with interpretations of what he was seeing. As their destination grew before them like some glowing, mythical gateway, he finally realized that those columns were not just channel markers; they were physical foundations of the outpost, anchored right in the Flux.

We are docking in the Flux, he whispered.

I told you that.

Yes, but… He hadn’t quite believed it. Is the whole damn city embedded in the Flux?

It was one thing to have vessels floating in the Flux, but he couldn’t imagine the power it would take, and the coordination of riggers, to maintain a city in the Flux. It was inconceivable.

Now you understand, said Deutsch.

I don’t understand anything, Legroeder said. How—?

There are maintainers who keep it anchored. Like riggers… but… don’t worry, they won’t notice us. Deutsch banked farther to the left. Time to send the second set of codes.

Cantha reported the codes sent.

Legroeder saw the glint of other ships moving past the strange structures. He worried for a moment about being seen—but they were flying a raider ship, with a pirate rigger in the lead. There were still plenty of ways for them to die; but probably they would be okay on the approach, if the codes passed muster. (Are you following all this?) he asked his implants.

// We are recording. We are also initializing routines for contact and impersonation, for when we get there. //

(Thinking ahead. Good.)

The structure grew until it displayed a hundred entry points to a strange, fabulous city, each entry point marked by a set of pillars glowing a pumpkin orange. At the left edge, the pattern was more distended, with wider dark patches in between. The orange gates there were disconnected from the larger structure. That was where captured ships, and damaged ships, came in—ships that might, for example, explode without warning. Deutsch pointed to the last gate on the left. That’s where we’re going. He hesitated visibly, then glanced back at his rigger-mates. Gentlemen, if you haven’t heard yet from your underground, this might be a good time for your commander to set his alternate plans in motion.

Legroeder swallowed hard as Palagren passed the word.

The entire Flux seemed to vibrate around the net as they approached the fiery pillars marking the last dock. Deutsch called for one last set of codes to be sent—and then made a com-call directly from the net. This is Freem’n Deutsch, lead rigger and acting commander of Flechette, requesting clearance to dock.

Legroeder held his breath.

The pillar of light somehow softened, and opened; and within it, Legroeder could see a tunnel of indeterminate dimensions, and… a docking cradle. I don’t believe it, he whispered. He and the Narseil silently withdrew to the innermost part of the net, making themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

The ship was soon surrounded by a hazy orange glow, as if they had floated into the interior of a wood-burning stove. Deutsch guided them smoothly into the docking cradle, peering one way and another as snakelike arms of the cradle emerged to grapple the ship. Finally he said softly, Time to shut down the net.

Palagren spoke to the commander, and the order came.

The net darkened, and Legroeder rubbed his eyes as he climbed out of the rigger-station.` He gazed around the bridge, his heart pounding so loudly he could scarcely hear what was being said around him. They were now squarely in the grip of the pirate empire, and the next few minutes could determine whether they would succeed or fail.

The Narseil commandos were already on the move.

Chapter 20 Raid!

The riggers stayed on the bridge, watching on monitors as two commando groups deployed, in full armor. The first group marshaled in the regular airlock, to confront the Kyber docking crew. The second team was already outside the hull of the ship, splitting up to make their way to the station’s fore and aft emergency access ports.

Deutsch had his implants connected to the bridge console and was doing something that none of them could follow—including Legroeder, who was connected right beside him. Deutsch was linking somehow to the intelnet on the station, but all Legroeder could pick up was flashes of input—a flicker of bitter-red and sour-orange, then a quick, sweet taste of lemon. He didn’t know what it meant and didn’t dare interrupt Deutsch to ask.

Deutsch turned to Fre’geel. “There are thirty-seven crewmen stationed on the docks. I have informed the intelnet that Flechette has battle damage, and only a part of its crew is intact. I have advised we are having difficulty with the airlock and require assistance. That may give you the diversion you need. I will now attempt to interrupt the comlink to the main outpost.”

“Very well,” said Fre’geel. He waited until Deutsch nodded again, then transmitted the go-ahead to the number-two commando group. In the outside monitors, the Narseil warriors were barely visible, moving along the outer pressure hull of the docking bay in camouflage armor. In the Flux they appeared as little more than momentary, shimmering distortions in the hazy glow. With luck, any Kyber watching from inside the station would miss their movement altogether.

In another monitor, the first group was gathered around the airlock hatch. Presumably, the docking crew working to open the hatch were expecting Flechette’s raider crew, injured and weakened—not Narseil commandos.

Fre’geel waited until group two reported ready to begin their breach of the portals. He asked Cantha one last time if there was any signal from the underground. When Cantha answered in the negative, Fre’geel called to the commando groups: “Go.”

The main airlock ballooned open. Group one moved like lightning, overpowering the surprised docking crew. The first puffs of neural gas left the Kyber crumpled outside the airlock, before any alarm could be sounded. Group one flew into the station in all directions, neural gas billowing ahead of them. By this time, group two had entered the station at both emergency portals and were fanning out, pouring gas into other compartments.

Legroeder’s stomach knotted as he waited. Once the commando teams were in the station, direct transmissions were cut off. Would they be able to subdue the entire raider crew before a cry for help went out?

Legroeder glanced at Deutsch, who was immersed in the comlink. Some part of Deutsch was aware of his glance, because he gestured urgently to Legroeder to join him in the link. Complying, Legroeder found himself at the outer fringes of the docking station’s local net. He waited while Deutsch connected to security monitors inside the station. Seconds later, the interior view blossomed around him.

At first glance, it was chaos. Narseil commandos raced through the corridors past the crumpled figures of unconscious Kyber crewmen. A handful of Kyber, more cyborg than human, were still on their feet, fleeing or hiding. Several were shooting back. They were soon brought down by gas or neutraser fire—but not before a Narseil went down.

The commandos moved swiftly to secure the com stations. Within the intelnet, Deutsch was working to keep communications with the main outpost cut off. Because an abrupt failure was as likely to attract attention as an alarm, Deutsch was trying to make it appear a momentary glitch, an accidental triggering of safety firewalls. Legroeder’s job was to make sure Deutsch did his—as if he could do anything about it, anyway.

By the time Deutsch verified that the com “glitch” was working as intended, the commando action was over. One Narseil was wounded, two pirates were dead and two wounded, and the rest were unconscious. Legroeder dropped out of the comlink to report to Fre’geel, just as word was coming back through the airlock: The docking station is ours.

Fre’geel’s face was a study in piercing concentration, his dark Narseil features taut, his vertical eyes flicking this way and that, the gills under his neck pulsing rapidly. He voiced the question everyone was thinking. “Any sign we were detected from beyond the station?”

“I don’t believe so,” answered Deutsch. “It all looked isolated from here.”

“How long do we have?”

“Impossible to be sure. Minutes? An hour or two, maybe? Probably no more.”

Fre’geel bobbed his head. “And in your estimation, can you run your intelnet search from here?” His glance included Legroeder in the question, but they all knew who was going to answer.

Deutsch’s luminous glass gaze seemed to sweep the bridge. “Better bandwidth from on board the station. And from there, we can use the sweeping tools and storage nodes.”

“Go, then. Both of you. At once!”

Legroeder and Deutsch hurried from the bridge.

Legroeder’s heart was thumping like a drum as he raced through the station, his breath rasping steamily in his facemask. The air was probably clear of gas now, but no one was taking chances. All around them Narseil commandos were busy pulling unconscious and semi-conscious pirate captives out of the corridors. Deutsch led him to a maintenance control center, where a half-circle of consoles sat glowing. Deutsch floated before them, studying the controls. “I think this will do it,” he said in a metallic whisper. “It should enable access to the intelnet. If we can keep from tripping any alarms…”

Legroeder slid into a seat on Deutsch’s right. Glancing at an external monitor, he saw a startling image: a great, luminous city stretched out into darkness, into the Flux—with crossmembers and pillars reaching both down and up, and fading away where they appeared to extend out of this layer of the Flux altogether. He felt the implants buzzing with interest as a dozen questions leaped into his thoughts; but there was no time now.

“Yah,” Deutsch grunted. He unfolded a pair of shiny extensions from the console and jacked them into metal plates on his chest. “Let’s go,” he said, his amplified voice turned down to a mutter. “If you can’t use these arms, see what else there is.”

Legroeder found a headset and adjusted it, as Deutsch was setting up a channel to Cantha, back on Flechette. Cantha would be recording everything.

Legroeder took a deep breath and focused his thoughts downward into the link. He entered the station’s local data matrix, a dark place full of yelling voices and colored, smoky lighting. The voices were not other users, he realized after a moment, but helper-engines within the system. Banks of flickering strobes pulsed through the steaming murk, churning up a stink of oil and plastic and ozone. They were somewhere in the data sections used by station maintenance. All around him were vague mechanical shapes, connections full of repair specs and technical detail.

(Still receiving?) Legroeder murmured back to Cantha, and received a single-bit acknowledgment in reply.

He wondered if there would be anything useful here in the local section. Up one level, he heard music: a thrumming bass rhythm. Enviro controls? Yes—and what else?

They needed to get their bearings quickly, and move into more useful areas of the intelnet. There was still hope that they could discover a link to the underground; but failing that, their job was to gather strategically meaningful information and get the hell out.

Legroeder sensed Deutsch moving through the matrix like a monkey through a set of climbing bars, graceful and quick, never lingering. With practiced speed and the power of his augmentation, Deutsch was conducting a search of the local node, far more efficiently than Legroeder could have. He didn’t linger long; apparently he didn’t regard much of it as relevant to their goals. Legroeder followed him into what appeared to be a technical library connection, filled with datastores like tiny, spinning whirlwinds. There was no time to comprehend the material; but as they passed, Legroeder tried to judge by smell and feel, and spun copies of some of them down the line to Cantha, in case there was something useful buried in them.

But where was the important stuff? It wasn’t as if data on the defenses of the raider outpost, or on Impris, or anything that might lead them to an underground movement, would be laid out for casual perusal.

(We’re not finding the tactical and strategic info that Fre’geel wants,) Deutsch said. (We should get out of here and make the jump to the main intelnet.)

(All right,) Legroeder answered. He whispered their intentions back to Cantha.

Deutsch was already analyzing the severed links to the city, trying to figure out which might safely be restored. (Legroeder, you stick out like a sore thumb. Until you can find a way to blend in, you’d better let me handle the approaches.)

Blend in? Legroeder thought. Fat chance of that.

// We are preparing your camouflage now, // the implants informed him, holding up his false-ID information with a quick flicker for his approval.

He glanced at it and waved it away. (Fine, fine…)

Deutsch was unraveling some of the knots he had tied in the links to the main outpost. He tested carefully, leaving as much of the “glitch” in place as he could. Finally he opened a single channel, under the cloak of technical maintenance. They were going to try to slip into the main intelnet using the technical library connection as a gateway. Legroeder felt a sudden movement, like a swiftly flowing current.

(We’re passing through the comlink now. Stay close…)

Deutsch was following the link like an underground spring, delving toward its roots. It was like slipping down a silver thread into an utterly different world…

Deutsch felt himself driven by an increasing sense of urgency. (Keep moving, Legroeder!) He wondered if he was losing his mind, even to be attempting this. Something more than just practical expediency was driving him onward, some sense that this was what he was supposed to be doing. But why? To aid Legroeder and the Narseil in some quixotic blow for freedom? Partly that, perhaps. But there were also those jangling echoes of voices at work in his mind, almost inseparable from his own subconscious. They made him feel as if he were, somehow, connected to the Kyber underground.

Ridiculous. But he couldn’t deny wishing that such a thing could be.

He cast the thought aside. He needed full alertness to get through what lay ahead.

They were in the intelnet of the main outpost now, somewhere deep in the technical libraries. The stream was carrying them through musty-smelling caverns of data, where Legroeder would certainly have gotten lost on his own, and even Deutsch could easily enough have done so. He’d caught Legroeder’s mental image of a subterranean stream, exploring the roots of a mountain range, and it was true enough. They were flowing through deep passageways, sniffing and tasting the waters as they went. Deutsch wasn’t quite sure where they were going, but he trusted his instincts as he took them from the technical library into the general stacks.

They were no longer alone in the network; others were moving through the datastores on business of their own. None took note of them, and Deutsch did his best to veer quietly away from any that drew too close. He scanned the branch indices: …maintenance, personnel, planning, production, shipping… But what about the ones they really wanted, such as armament, fleet operations, chains of command…?

But were those the ones he really wanted?

Move on, move on. Somewhere in here, he felt sure, he would find better information, maybe even a thread leading to the rumored Kyber underground…

Legroeder struggled to cope with the massive flow of information.

// We are sorting… categorizing… setting priorities… //

Yes, but what about his own control? They were flying past vast tracts of information, and he was caught between the risk of detection and the danger of missing data useful to the Narseil.

Deutsch seemed to be steering them upward through the layers, moving through one library after another. Legroeder felt a sudden fear that Deutsch was leading him straight into the hands of the enemy, or at least taking him in so deep he could never hope to get out by himself.

As if sensing his unease, Deutsch spoke, softly. (Are you getting a look here? Some of this might be worth a scan.)

Legroeder moved in for a closer inspection. Deutsch had found stacks of archived planning sessions; Legroeder paused for a microsecond, perusing them. (Look at all this talk about expanding the settlement.) He thumbed and riffled a moment. (More like building a goddamn empire.)

(True enough…)

Legroeder zipped up a packet and sent it downlink to Cantha.

(Let’s keep moving,) said Deutsch.

The earlier image persisted: they were moving upward through the roots of the mountains, searching for sunlight. Shadowy shapes were all around, the repositories of data. But far above were splinters of light that suggested change. Maybe more than change, maybe access to the indices that would let Deutsch run his sweeps. Legroeder held his breath, trying to remain inconspicuous.

There was a sudden flash of light—and then a series of light beams fanning past. Before he could react, Legroeder felt a breathless rush, as though he’d taken a deep lungful of oxygen. He realized dizzily that he had just absorbed a burst of data; his augments were madly trying to interpret.

(Sweep working… we’re getting somewhere now,) Deutsch said.

More and more splinters of light were breaking through the ceiling. Deutsch’s sweep was darting among them. But Legroeder’s own implants were signaling for his attention: a sharp aroma of peppermint stung his senses until he allowed a window to open…

// Tracking a thread… multiple references to Impris found… //

(Impris?) Legroeder echoed. (Freem’n, wait—!)

Deutsch was a beat behind Legroeder in recognizing the reference. He turned in surprise. (What’s that about Impris?) He caught the data streaming from Legroeder’s implants. (Yes, I see it now. How did I miss that?)

He quickly ran his sweeps up the splinter of light that Legroeder had found, and saw a thread that electrified him. (Take a look at this, Legroeder! It’s not just Impris. Do you remember asking me about a Kyber underground? Here it is! In the same stream!)

(Not really,) said Legroeder.

(It’s right here.) This was perfect, Deutsch thought; it seemed too good to be true.

And usually, he realized an instant after he started up the thread, when something seemed too good to be true…

Kyber underground? And Impris in the same thread? Legroeder sent a flash summary back to Cantha and flew up the thread after Deutsch.

A fraction of a second later, it occurred to him that perhaps there could be more to this than met the eye. Why would a connection to these two things be linked? Was the underground concerned with Impris? Or was it a…

A new sound came up suddenly in the back of his head—a wiry, nervous sound like a buzz underwater. It came first from one direction, then another, and suddenly grew to a hollow gonging that filled the space all around them. (What the hell is that?)

(It’s an alarm,) Deutsch answered. (We may have tripped something. We’d better back off. Fast.)

Legroeder cursed and hurried after the ghostly, retreating Deutsch. He felt a sudden, terrible suspicion. Had Deutsch triggered the alarm on purpose? Was this all a setup?

Deutsch’s voice echoed, (If we don’t get out of here, they’ll be down on us in no time.) Deutsch peered back at him. (What’s wrong?)

For a heartbeat, Legroeder was frozen with doubt and indecision. Could he trust Deutsch, or should he flee? But where could he—?

(Legroeder, MOVE!)

That snapped him out of it. (Coming!) Legroeder fired himself down the thread after Deutsch—his friend, yes?—trying to outrun the buzz of the alarm. Whatever his doubts or fears, they were in this together.

Endless picoseconds later, they were back in the smoky room where they had started, in the docking station’s intelnet subsystem. It still smelled oily and metallic, but the bass rhythm was more subdued now, and overlying it was a kind of harmonica sound. A persistent and growing harmonica sound. It made Legroeder increasingly uneasy. (Freem’n, did we do that? I’ve got a bad feeling—)

He shut up when he realized that Deutsch was already scanning all connections into and out of the smoke-filled room. Legroeder could see little rays of light shooting this way and that through the data-matrix, as Deutsch unleashed his inner search machines, trying to localize the alarm. Trying to stay out of Deutsch’s way, Legroeder conferred with his implants.

// We have stored data to 13% of our capacity, which we are currently analyzing. We believe the sounds you have identified are indeed alarm transmissions, possibly with autonomic blocking attachments. There may be danger. We recommend attending to your personal safety. //

(Meaning what? Should I get out of the intelnet?)

// Quickly, if possible. //

Legroeder hissed his breath out into the sudden chill of the data-matrix. Deutsch sensed it and turned. (What is it?)

(My implants are telling me to get the hell out. Is there a security squad on the way?)

Deutsch’s voice seemed seared by a dark pain. (I think there might be. I don’t know that we can do anything about it. You’d better pull out and warn the others.)

Legroeder blinked hard. (Okay,) he whispered.

So close, he thought. So goddamned close. And now…

He pulled out of the intelnet.

“He’s out!” called a Narseil voice.

Fre’geel strode across the room, his face half covered by a transparent breathing mask. “What have you found? There are alarms going off all over! Did that pirate set them off?”

Legroeder gulped air. He felt as if he’d just come out of a cocoon. “Not on purpose. Everything I got went out to Cantha. I got—I’m not sure what all, but—” He closed his eyes for a moment and saw a streaking flash of emerald: an enormous amount of data. But any of it useful?

“Should I tell Cantha to transmit?” Fre’geel demanded.

Breathless, Legroeder tried to think. It might be their last chance to get a message out to H’zzarrelik, and at that they would have to be very lucky. But if they did transmit, it would telegraph their presence and their intentions to the entire Kyber defense—if they weren’t already known. That would not only endanger them, but would also betray the presence of H’zzarrelik, hiding out in the Flux.

“Should we transmit?” Fre’geel asked, his voice suddenly iron. His hand, much larger than Legroeder remembered it, was reaching out as though to seize Legroeder by the throat. “Did we get information worth transmitting?”

Meaning, if they had, this was the time to make themselves expendable. But if not, their next best hope was…

Legroeder shook his head, his stomach knotting. “I don’t think so. We were just on the verge. Dammit.”

“The verge of what, Rigger?”

Legroeder peered anxiously up at the Narseil commander. “Just before we tripped the alarm, we’d found a thread connected to the Kyber underground. There were also references to Impris. It could have been a trap, I suppose—but why? Unless there really is an underground out there.”

Fre’geel’s expression stopped him. He was squinting in the odd sort of way only a Narseil could squint, working at a decision. An army of Kyber troops was about to descend on them. But if they sent what they had, or boarded the ship and tried to flee…

No. Legroeder didn’t want to die for the sake of a bunch of planning commission reports. “I think there’s still a chance we could get what we came for. Impris. Maybe contacts that could make a difference if…” If they could hook up with a Kyber underground. But as captives?

“Are you prepared to take on your role, then?” Fre’geel said with a sharp glance upward. Footsteps could be heard through the ceiling. Fast and hard. “Rigger Legroeder—”

Legroeder could barely draw a breath; the thought filled him with dread. Yes, he said, then realized it hadn’t come out. He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

Fre’geel’s gaze snapped around to check the positions of his people, then back to Legroeder. “Very well. Begin your role now. And Rigger Legroeder, I hardly need to say—”

“Yes.”

“This radically alters the mission. I will do what I can to protect my people. But you must leave us to whatever happens. The next step is yours.” The Narseil’s gaze held him like a steel pin. “Deutsch. Will he help you?”

“I think so,” Legroeder said softly. He picked up his headset and put it back on. “Dear God, I hope so.” And with great deliberation he turned away from Fre’geel.

Fre’geel watched with terrible unease as Legroeder returned to the intelnet connection. He had just dropped an enormous responsibility on Legroeder’s shoulders. Would the human botch the job and bring the entire mission to an end? Would the pirate rigger betray them all?

It was out of the Narseil’s hands now.

Fre’geel turned, touching his com-implant. “Cantha,” he said, calling to Flechette.

“Here,” said Cantha.

“Inform the crew to prepare for boarding and capture. Do not resist. We have turned primary control of the mission over to Rigger Legroeder. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Cantha, and Fre’geel knew that in that simple word were many emotions that Cantha would not reveal. The officer had developed a great fondness for the human, and was well aware of the risks. “Will there be a transmission to H’zzarrelik?”

“No,” said Fre’geel. “Store what you can in your augments. Erase the rest.” Risk all that they had gained so far, in hopes of gaining more later.

“Understood,” said Cantha.

Fre’geel broke the connection. The Kyber troops were in the corridors outside. His voice tightened involuntarily he called to his crew of commandos, “Lower your weapons and prepare to surrender!”

Fre’geel’s voice echoed in Legroeder’s thoughts even after he was immersed in the net. The next step is yours…

In the data-matrix, everything was so confused that he had trouble even finding Deutsch. Before, the station had been a tech shop stinking of oil and smoke; now there were jets of steam everywhere, and lights flashing behind the billowing clouds of mist. (Freem’n!) he called, need overcoming caution.

There was no direct answer from Deutsch, but he heard a tap tap tap somewhere on the other side of the dataspace, beyond the clouds of steam. He tried to move that way, and called out again, but there was still no answer from Deutsch. Tap tap tap.

(Freem’n?)

A blast of steam shot out in front of him, sending him staggering backward. He cursed, steadying himself. It felt so real, he almost forgot it was just a rush of data, probably a security-sweep protocol. He hesitated, crouching, then launched himself past the dissipating billow, searching for Deutsch. (Freem’n, where are you?)

He passed by several darkened pillars. The whole chamber looked different now, and yet was recognizably the same. He came upon a collection of large steel drums, grimy and covered with illegible warning signs. God knew what was in them, or what they represented. He squinted and tried in vain to read one of the inscriptions. As he straightened and moved on, he suddenly saw Deutsch. The man was sitting on a crate, on the far side of the collection, leaning back against one of the drums.

Legroeder hurried to him.

Tap tap tap.

The sound was coming from Deutsch. It was his metal arm, shorn of the garment that had covered it, twitching and vibrating as if trying to move, stuck in a half-extended position. At first Legroeder thought it was tapping against the drum; then he realized that it was the arm jerking against itself in some kind of internal jam.

(Freem’n, do you need help?)

Deutsch seemed to gaze directly at Legroeder, but showed no sign of recognition, or any awareness at all. His eyes glowed like tiny light bulbs behind dusty, dark-colored glass.

Jesus, Legroeder thought.

What the hell could have happened?

The implants stirred.

// Likelihood: he may be trapped in an electrocution-web matrix. Any attempt to free him could result in injury to him or to you. //

(I can’t just leave him here. How will he get free?)

// Likelihood: he will be freed when he is freed. Likelihood: whatever intelnet agent detected and trapped him will release him again when it chooses. There is probably nothing you can do. //

Legroeder circled around, studying Deutsch from various angles. (Freem’n, if you can hear me—if I knew how to free you, I would. If you can speak, now is the time.)

Deutsch, unblinking, appeared to drool.

Legroeder made his decision grimly. (I have to go ahead with the job, then—as we’d planned, in case of problems.) He hesitated, afraid to say too much. He started to turn, then swung back. (I’m sorry I doubted you for a moment back there, Freem’n. If I can find a way to help you—inside the intelnet or out—) He ran out of words. What more could he say?

With a final wave, he rose on the clouds of steam and looked for a place to hide himself while he sorted out what to do next.

The plan, at this point, was of necessity vague. But he could feel, welling up through the augments, a series of datapacks intended to help him.

// We have prepared all the elements of a working ID for you. Are you ready to assume your new identity? //

(As ready as I’ll ever be. Do you think it will work?)

// We analyzed the situation while you were exploring. Recommended action: create the impression that you set off the alarm against the Narseil. We can plant tracking indicators in the intelnet to convey this. Shall we do so now? //

He swallowed hard. It was one of the options in the plan—but it was difficult. (All right.)

// Please stand by. We will attempt to establish your ID in the system. //

Legroeder held his breath, as a flower of light blossomed out from where he stood and rose into the upper layers of the intelnet interface. Its shoot vanished into the mists like a beanstalk.

A moment passed. There were flickerings of light at the top of his vision—the implants at work in his skull, doing whatever the hell they were doing. He felt a sudden blip between his eyes, and the space around him seemed to brighten suddenly, as though a dimmer switch had been nudged up.

// ID established. //

// Attempting to place tracking records. One moment… //

He waited anxiously, as a pattern of streaks shot up and out, twinkling as it spun a spiderweb path through the surrounding matrix. An instant later, it all came back, like a holo in reverse.

// Done. //

He felt a chill up his spine. (What now?)

// For your own protection, you may wish to inspect your physical surroundings. //

Physical surroundings. Christ. Legroeder started to back out of the intelnet, then realized he could check from here. A series of windows opened around him like shutters: monitors showing the room he was sitting in and the surrounding corridors.

Full of raider commandos.

Full of Narseil with their hands clasped awkwardly behind their heads. Their face masks had been removed.

And seated at the console, two motionless figures. He recognized Deutsch first, then himself. He had nearly forgotten what he looked like, with his flaring, umbrella-cut grey hair.

Surrounded by the enemy.

// Reminder: you have an ID now. You are a member of this society. //

There was a brief flash of images. When it was over, he knew that according to his ID, he was a raider being transferred to this outpost, by way of having served as a spy on the Narseil ship. It should not be surprising if he had trouble finding his way around the station.

He drew a breath and pulled out of the intelnet. He found four cyborg commandos aiming laser weapons at him. Several others were flashing bright handlight beams around; all but the emergency illumination had been cut off. Beside him, Deutsch sat motionless as a statue, still plugged in. A raider gestured sharply. Legroeder raised his hands and lifted the com-helmet from his head. He glanced around, moving only his eyes. Fre’geel and several other Narseil were being held on the other side of the room. They were watching him closely.

An amplified baritone voice said, “Did you sound the alarm?”

It took him a moment, squinting through the shifting beams of light, to find the raider who had spoken—to make sure he was the one being addressed. He started to answer, then simply nodded, swallowing his words. His gaze drifted back to the Narseil. Some of them knew the role he was to play, but not all of them. Would they believe he’d betrayed them? It was necessary, to be convincing. His face burned as he forced himself to speak. “Yes. I set off the alarm. Along with him.” He nudged Deutsch.

“You’ll come with us, then,” said the raider. “What’s wrong with him?” He pointed his weapon at Deutsch.

“He—” Legroeder’s voice caught as he tried to formulate an answer “—he got caught in a system loop, trying to help me get the alarm out. He… needs to be released. I don’t know how.” Legroeder hesitated, looking away from his crewmates as he uttered the words of betrayal. “I… was planted with the Narseil. Undercover. I’m from another outpost.”

“Is that so?” The Kyber made a squawking sound and stepped up to slap his palm to a connector on the console. A second later, Deutsch slumped forward. A pair of guards lifted him effortlessly and carried him from the room. “We’ll see to him,” said the lead Kyber to Legroeder. “You come with me.” He turned and made a sound like a grate opening. The other guards barked commands and raised their weapons—and for a terrible moment, Legroeder thought they were going to kill his friends on the spot. To his relief, they began herding the Narseil from the room.

Legroeder was escorted separately. Out in the corridor, he was pushed to the right, away from the Narseil. He felt a lump in his throat as he turned his back on his shipmates.

// It is part of the plan, // said a voice in his head.

(Yeah,) he muttered, and after that, the implants were silent.

The raider soldiers marched him through a maze of corridors and finally into a transport capsule set in a large vertical tube. He glanced at the stoic faces of the soldiers and wondered if, with experience, he could learn to read the expressions on those cyborg faces. He suddenly thought once more about what he was doing. It had taken him seven years to escape from a raider stronghold. Now he was walking into another.

The transport doors irised closed, and with an upward surge, they were moving.

Chapter 21 The Kyber Law

Legroeder felt a steady vibration through his hands, pressed to the back railing of the transport capsule. He couldn’t tell where he was going—there were no windows in the capsule—but he could feel it streaking in a great long arc, and he imagined that they must be shooting away from the docking station toward some other part of the Kyber outpost. He glanced around, trying to gain some clue from his three escorts.

There was little expression on any of their faces, nor had anyone spoken to him since they’d left the control room. But the leader was busy talking to someone; his lips were moving silently but continuously, his gaze shifting back and forth between Legroeder and a small control panel near the door. Finally he nodded and touched a control, then settled into an alert stance with his eyes on Legroeder.

After several long minutes, the movement of the transport slackened. Legroeder gripped the rail as deceleration kicked in. No one stirred until the transport came to a stop.

The door irised open. The soldiers nudged him out into a concourse, brightly lit and full of people. Legroeder was amazed to see people walking around as though conducting normal, everyday business; he felt as if he had just crossed into another universe. This place looked nothing like the raider outpost at DeNoble, where he had been imprisoned; it was more like a spartan version of a space station in the Centrist Worlds.

The soldiers led him through a maze of corridors away from the concourse. They finally stopped at an arched doorway shrouded by a glimmering, translucent privacy-screen. Through the screen, Legroeder could make out the shape of a person sitting at a desk. The leader seemed nervous. “Time to speak to the law,” he said.

The law? Legroeder wondered. At DeNoble, the law meant the autocratic rule of pirate bosses, with fear as the strongest motivator, and favoritism the next strongest. Would this be any different?

He followed the guard through the screen and found himself in a small anteroom facing—what? A receptionist? It was a woman—apparently—whose face was a chrome mask grafted onto a natural head, with tightly curled red hair. She had seemingly normal human limbs, but a torso of articulated metal. She sat on a swiveling stool, surrounded by suspended holograms of faces and incomprehensible designs. Most of the holos appeared to be rotating, or changing too quickly for Legroeder’s eye to follow. The woman was turning back and forth, touching one holo after another. Each twinkled as she touched it, and she seemed to be subvocalizing at a tremendous rate of speed. What was she doing? Legroeder wondered.

The guard made a soft, guttural sound. For a moment, there was no response, as the woman continued with her silent conversations. Then the holos winked out, and she suddenly focused her attention on the people before her. “The new arrival?” she asked, her voice metallic and high pitched.

“Yes, Ma’am,” the soldier said, and stepped back.

The woman looked at Legroeder. “State your name.”

Legroeder froze, thoughts racing. What the hell name had he been ID’d under?

// Is there a problem? //

“Legroeder,” said the woman. “Is that your name?”

(Did you ID me as Legroeder, for chrissake?)

There was a momentary hesitation in the system; he imagined the implants blinking at each other disconcertedly. // We presented the options. You didn’t specify another name. //

Legroeder tried to recall the moment, but everything had been chaos. (You didn’t include a picture with that ID, did you?)

// That is the normal procedure. // And then, with what might have been a hint of contrition, // Should we not have? //

(What picture did you use?)

// We took it from your memories. //

His heart sank as he saw his own mental image of himself. It was, of course, Legroeder as he had seen himself most of his life—as he had appeared before Com’peer and the Narseil med techs had remade his features. As he had appeared at DeNoble.

“What’s the matter?” said the half-metal woman. “Your ID says Renwald Legroeder.”

“Um—yes.”

“And you have just arrived from a mission with one of the affiliates?”

“Yes, that’s right.” His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Kyber affiliates.”

The woman’s two eyes pulsed in alternating waves of intensity. Her gaze flicked for a moment to a new holo, another point of attention; it flicked back. “I didn’t think you meant Narseil affiliates. You just turned in a shipful of Narseil infiltrators. Is that correct?”

Not trusting himself to speak, Legroeder nodded.

“Good. Then you will be seen for debriefing.” Her glance shifted to the lead guard. “Take him in.”

The guard gestured to Legroeder to circle around the receptionist, leaving the other two guards to wait. A whole new set of holos sprang up around the woman, who appeared to have already forgotten Legroeder.

A glowing doorway appeared behind the receptionist, and they passed through it into a darkened space. It was a room lit only by the glow of consoles—a great many consoles, lining the circumference of the room, and the ceiling, as well. Some displayed data, others holo-images. In the center of the room was a high-backed swivel chair, turned partly away from the door. Legroeder could just make out a woman in the chair, scanning a bank of consoles. A faint spatter of light seemed to flicker in the air in front of her.

The guard hesitated—and finally Legroeder himself cleared his throat. Before he could speak, a voice broke the silence. “You may leave him with me and return to your post.” It was a female voice, but electronically distorted. He thought it was the voice of the woman in the chair, but it came through speakers around the room.

The guard nodded, turned, and left the room hurriedly.

“Step forward.”

Legroeder circled around to approach her from the front.

The woman in the chair was more human looking than the receptionist, but also more startling. She seemed to have all the normal human body parts—but her face was alight, sparkling with fire. At first he thought it was all reflections from the consoles; then he realized it was coming from her face—rather like a dance-floor laser, spinning out dazzling rays faster than the eye could follow. At first he could not see her actual eyes; then she turned her head and he saw a pair of smoldering embers. He shivered, before realizing that she was wearing some kind of clear mask on her face, and that was the source of the dazzling light and glowing eyes.

Legroeder started to speak, but the woman raised a hand, pressing it against thin air. Her other hand was busy manipulating something on the left arm of her chair. “You are Renwald Legroeder?” she said after a moment.

“Yes.”

“I’m Tracy-Ace/Alfa. I’ve been expecting you.”

Expecting me?

She leaned forward, staring at him. “Correct me if I am wrong. It is my understanding that you have come to us, indirectly, from an affiliate Kyber settlement. And that you were—what was the word?—a ‘plant’ aboard the Narseil ship that encountered Flechette. Are those facts correct?”

// That is how you were ID’d, // his implants informed him.

“Yes,” Legroeder answered.

“You look different from your ID photo.” Half question, half accusation.

He stiffened. “Yes, I—” He hesitated, then decided that the truth might be as good a cover as a lie. “The Narseil made some changes to my appearance, to conceal my previous identity in case of capture. I’d… persuaded them that I’d joined their cause.”

Her eyes glowed brighter. “And had you?”

Legroeder’s face burned. “They think so.”

“Explain.”

“I was aboard a Narseil vessel, purportedly to help them defeat the Kyber in battle. I didn’t really think they would; in fact, I expected we would be captured. But once the Narseil defeated Flechette, I persuaded them to try to penetrate your facility, to gain intelligence.”

Tracy-Ace/Alfa studied him for a moment. “And did you?”

“What?”

“Penetrate our facility? Before sounding the alarm, I mean.”

Legroeder frowned, and waggled his hand noncommittally.

“I see,” said Tracy-Ace/Alfa. “Does that mean a lot, or a little?”

“A little,” Legroeder said, with a shrug. “I tried to make a good show of it—and I pretty much coerced your Rigger Deutsch into going along with me—but I really didn’t know my way around. We didn’t get anything that was very heavily guarded.”

Tracy-Ace/Alfa’s face sparkled. “I see. I’ll accept that for the moment.” Though the mask on her face was clear, it was impossible to interpret her expression. “I understand that your H’zzarrelik took quite a toll on our ship. A dreadnought, it was supposed to be. Were you unable to… shall we say, temper the Narseil counterattack?”

He turned his hands palm up. “How could I? I was posing as a member of their crew. If I had turned against them in battle, they would have killed me at once.” He hesitated. Perhaps it was time to put in a plug for his friends. “They are, I must say, excellent fighters.”

Shots of light came from her eyes. “Are they, now? You can tell me more, in our full debriefing later. But in view of the disastrous mission of Flechette—good Lord, brought in as a captive of the Narseil, all but one of our crew dead or taken by the enemy—we come to the fact that you seem to have been something of a hero.”

He started to speak, but his voice caught. This was what his ID was supposed to convey, yes?

She cocked her head slightly, and continued, “Against all odds, you brought us a captive Narseil crew. And before they could do too much harm at the docking station, you managed to alert us through the intelnet—thereby saving us untold costs. Fair statement?”

He cleared his throat, amazed that his cover story appeared to be working—though he still wondered what had really set off the alarm. He shrugged. “It was all pretty confusing, to be honest. I wouldn’t want to take more credit than I was due. But I—hope that my actions were helpful.”

“You not only captured the Narseil, you thwarted their attempt at espionage.”

“I suppose so,” he admitted. In his head, he felt a circle of crimson light expanding like a ripple on a pond. The implants hastened to reassure him, // You are only confirming what we implied in the traces we left. //

(Right. It’s okay.) He felt dizzy. Was it okay? He wasn’t contradicting information already in the intelnet; that was the important thing.

“We’ll have to decide later on the proper disposition of the Narseil prisoners,” Tracy-Ace/Alfa continued, an unreadable shimmer moving across her face. “Execution… or whatever. After interrogation, of course.”

Legroeder drew a slow breath; he was certain she was watching him for any sign of reaction. “I’m sure,” he said carefully, “that they can prove valuable as prisoners.”

“No doubt,” she said. “Meanwhile—for our planning purposes—I need to learn what you can tell me about the Narseil and their treachery. Then, if your debriefing is satisfactory, I will arrange for you to be integrated into our world here.”

Integrated? he thought grimly. Or assimilated? But that’s what he was here for, wasn’t he? To gain information. And how better to do it? He felt the implants suppressing his involuntary shiver.

He thought he heard a cold chuckle. The flickering on Tracy-Ace/Alfa’s face began to subside, along with the coal-fire glow of her eyes. “Renwald Legroeder,” she said softly, and this time the voice seemed to come from her mouth rather than speakers around him. “I think we can speak face to face.” Her natural voice was strong, though mild in comparison to the reverb she’d been using until now.

She reached up and gripped both sides of her face mask, pushing it up and over the top of her head. She blinked her real eyes for a moment and peered at Legroeder. Without the mask, she looked like a fairly normal young woman: with human skin of a pale tan hue, eyes, nose, mouth. Her eyes flared green, just for an instant, before she shifted her head, putting them in shadow. Her face was bejeweled with augments: an array of tiny ones clustered around the outer corners of her eyes, and slightly larger ones stretched back like gemstones along her temples.

Legroeder blinked, his breath catching. He was staring; he glanced away for a moment, then back. There was a hard-edged look to the young woman, and yet in a way, she was curiously attractive. There was a chameleonlike quality to her eyes, her mouth, her entire face. Every little movement seemed to reveal a different quality: one moment, an inquisitor; the next, a potential ally in finding his way in this strange place; the next, something more personal, a… what? Friend?

Don’t be an idiot.

“In case you think I trust you a little too much,” Tracy-Ace/Alfa said casually, “you should be aware that there are no fewer than twelve security lasers focused on the interior of this chamber. All under my direct control.”

“Ah,” he said, keeping his voice equally casual. “Well—pleased to meet you, Tracy-Ace/Alfa.”

She produced a wry smile and leaned forward in her chair to shake his hand. Her grip was wiry and strong. “You may call me Tracy-Ace.”

“Tracy-Ace,” he echoed. “Is Alfa your last name?”

“Alfa is my node designation.” She gestured with one hand toward the profusion of consoles and God-knew-what arrayed around the room.

“Then” he said carefully, “it is through this node, Alfa, that you connect to the intelnet? And through that you—?”

Tracy-Ace laughed, a short bark.

Legroeder swallowed the rest of his question. “What did I say?”

“I do not connect through node Alfa,” Tracy-Ace said. “I am node Alfa. It is a part of my being, and without me, that portion of the intelnet would not exist.”

Legroeder absorbed that in silence. A part of the intelnet…

// It is a logical extension. If you wished, we could help to expand you in the direction of such capabil—” //

He cut off the inner voice with an image of a hand closing into a fist.

“If we have been sufficiently introduced,” Tracy-Ace said, “then let’s go complete a proper interview. But not here, I think. Are you hungry?”

Legroeder started. This wasn’t quite what he’d expected.

“Although we have no insect life here, I suggest that you close your mouth,” Tracy-Ace said with dry sarcasm. She stepped out of her high-backed chair. He saw for the first time that she was dressed in black sim-leather pants and tunic, with various belts and attachments in silver. Her black hair was clipped with bangs in front, and to the mid neck in back. He was startled by her height, a good three centimeters taller than he was. “All right,” she said with a shrug. “But don’t blame me for what you swallow.” She beckoned him as she turned and strode toward a door on the far side of the room.

Legroeder closed his mouth and followed.

Tracy-Ace led him down a deserted corridor lined with a panoramic holo of the open Flux. It was a far broader view of the outpost than he had seen from the ship’s net: a sprawling array of glowing and shadowy structures, each apparently separate, but joined together by a spiderweb of luminous, arcing threads that looked more like thought than matter.

Legroeder paused, squinting. He thought he saw movement in those threads, but couldn’t be sure. He recalled what Deutsch had told him, about maintainers who kept the outpost anchored and stabilized in the Flux. A swarm of questions rose in his thoughts, but Tracy-Ace was already gesturing impatiently.

“Sandwich and murk okay?” Tracy-Ace asked, turning a corner away from the view.

Murk? Moke? He suddenly realized how hungry he was. “Uh, sure,” he said. “Fine. Um, where are we going to do the debriefing?”

She glanced back at him, without breaking stride. “Well, we can do it in an inquisitor’s cell, with the truth enhancements of your choice—” she paused as he scowled “—or we can do it in a joe shop I like. Which would you prefer?”

He wondered if she was mocking him. He decided to treat it as a straight question. “Given that choice, I’d prefer the latter.”

“So would I. Here it is.”

They turned another corner and were suddenly walking along a row of small shops—with people moving about, in and out of storefronts. The joe shop was third on the left. Through the door, it was dark; and as Legroeder’s eyes adjusted, he saw that it was also dingy and nearly empty. Tracy-Ace chose a booth off to the right, three steps up from the main floor. She slid onto a bench seat facing the entrance, and motioned him into the other.

Legroeder glanced around. What a strange place this outpost was, nothing like the stronghold of DeNoble. That had been more like a military encampment, with a large population of prisoners. This seemed a real city, for people with human needs. And yet, evidence remained that it was a pirate stronghold. Here and there, he had noticed electronic monitors winking out of recesses in walls. Nearly everyone he’d seen was visibly fitted with augmentation, and many of them carried sidearms. Judging from this joe shop, creature comforts were minimal, but not altogether absent. There was only one other person in the shop, a man sitting in the shadows near the back.

Legroeder faced Tracy-Ace across the table. “Do you mind if I ask a question?” he said, placing his hands on the table.

Tracy-Ace waited, silent.

“Why bring me here for a debriefing?”

“Why? Isn’t it good enough?”

“I don’t mean that. But it seems more… informal… than I expected.” To put it mildly.

Tracy-Ace seemed to be assessing him. “Let’s just say, I like to get a personal sense of people before I download.”

“Download?”

“Put out your hands,” Tracy-Ace said. “Palms up.” As he turned his hands, Tracy-Ace examined them, then grunted in dissatisfaction. Her own palms glittered with connectors. “How the hell do you do it?” She looked up at his face, then leaned sideways to inspect his temples. “There?”

“Do wh—?” he began, and then realized what she was talking about. “This isn’t going to be verbal—?”

“Verbal? For a debriefing?” She peered at him incredulously, with silver-green eyes. “Why in blazes would we talk, instead of downloading?”

His face burned, as he realized that he was doing a poor job of impersonating a Kyber. He decided, again, to tell the truth—part of it. “Sorry. I’m not used to all this.”

Tracy-Ace’s eyebrows went up. “What the hell do you do with those augments, then?”

“Well, I didn’t have them at the other outpost. I got them from the Narseil, so I’d fit in with their crew. I haven’t quite mastered them yet.”

Tiny lights flickered at the corners of her eyes. “So you’re not prepared to give me the download?”

“Uh—” He focused inward. (Can we?)

// Certainly. We’ll be ready in a moment. //

“Yes,” he said uneasily. “I can do it.”

Tracy-Ace looked vaguely relieved. “All right. Where shall I connect?”

// Ask her to wait a moment longer. We’re preparing something. //

Legroeder blinked, raised a finger to ask Tracy-Ace to wait, then thought: What’s that tingling in my arms? Now it was in the palms of his hands.

“Where shall I connect?” she repeated impatiently.

“Sorry. One second.” Legroeder focused inward. (Are you making connectors in my goddamn hands?) He saw an interior image of a glowing red ribbon snaking, branching, reaching out into a skeletal hand; suddenly it turned green.

// Yes. Try making contact, hand to hand. //

(How the hell did you do that?)

// We simply directed the microrobots. //

The microrobots! For godsake, were they still in his body?

Tracy-Ace was scowling. “Look, if you can’t—”

Legroeder took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m ready.” He opened and closed his hands a few times, then stretched them out, palms up. “Let’s give it a try.”

Tracy-Ace looked at him curiously, then placed her palms onto his. “All right?”

He blinked, with a heightened awareness of her touch. A few minutes ago, she’d touched him; but this time it was different. A tingle of his inner senses…

// We are establishing contact. Do you wish us to filter out the emotional component? //

(What emotional component?)

// Your reaction to the contact. //

(I don’t know what you—yes, dammit, filter it out.)

Tracy-Ace was scowling again. “Relax, will you? I’m getting a confusing interface.”

He drew a long, slow breath and let it out.

Something was flickering inside him; he couldn’t tell quite what. It glimmered twice, three times, then for several seconds was much brighter. Something was stirring in his thoughts, but he couldn’t identify it. Then it stopped.

Tracy-Ace lifted her hands and rubbed them together, frowning thoughtfully.

“Couldn’t you make contact?” he asked.

For a moment, she simply looked at him. With what: Curiosity? Disdain? Humor? Legroeder experienced a sudden flush of what felt like attraction, as though something meaningful had passed or grown between them, without his knowledge. He felt dizzy. The feeling faded, as her expression changed to one of puzzlement. “I got what I needed,” she said finally. “Is something wrong?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, took a silent poll of the implants. (What did she get?)

// Our report. Exactly as we intended. // There seemed to be a slight air of cockiness in the answer. He clucked silently; he didn’t approve of cockiness among implants.

Focusing on Tracy-Ace, he forced a smile. “No, no—it’s just that it was very quick. I could hardly feel it. I wasn’t sure if you’d made contact.”

“You,” she said, resting her chin on one hand, “are an odd one.” She stared at him hard for a few seconds, perhaps processing the information he’d uploaded to her.

He started to answer in his own defense, then realized he didn’t know if she’d meant it as an insult or a compliment.

“Would you like something to eat?” Tracy-Ace flicked at the air with her fingertips. A stout, half-bald waiter seemed to appear from nowhere, wiping his hands on a soiled white apron. After reeling off a list of specials in a bored voice, he took their orders for sandwiches and moke, or rather, murk. Legroeder stared at the man, thinking he was the only one around here who didn’t look like a pirate. But was that a faint glimmer around the edges—?

The waiter belched and winked out.

No wonder he’d appeared out of nowhere. Legroeder looked at Tracy-Ace with raised eyebrows. She shrugged. “Just our way of remembering the home worlds.”

Legroeder cleared his throat and looked around the joe shop while they waited. The lone man on the other side of the shop seemed to be watching him. For a moment, Legroeder thought he saw the man glow. He rubbed his eyes and the impression was gone. He looked back at Tracy-Ace. She seemed preoccupied, and didn’t speak again until a panel suddenly slid open in the wall next to the table.

“Sandwiches and murk,” Legroeder heard, and bent to peer through the open panel. The waiter’s face was peering back. A tray slid out onto their table, bearing two plates and two mugs. The panel slammed shut.

“Friendly service,” Legroeder remarked softly. Tracy-Ace gestured, and he pulled a plate toward himself. He took a swallow of the murk, and shuddered.

Tracy-Ace didn’t seem to notice his reaction. “You didn’t seem afraid of me,” she said suddenly, lifting her sandwich. “Why?”

Legroeder was still working his tongue to get rid of the taste. “Huh? Why should I have been afraid of you?”

“When you were brought to me. The guards who brought you were scared to death, you know.” Tracy-Ace took a bite.

He kept his lips puckered, but in a scowl. “I was wondering about that. Why were they afraid?”

“You really don’t know?”

He spread his hands. “I’m new here, remember?”

She chewed thoughtfully, arching one eyebrow, then took a sip of murk. “I wouldn’t have thought it would take much explanation. At your old outpost, weren’t you nervous when you were brought into the presence of a node holder?”

Legroeder felt a flash of memory: of fear, and hatred, and longing, and… He cut it off with an internal throat-slashing gesture. “There were things that made me scared, yes,” he said. “But we didn’t have… node holders.”

Her eyes narrowed. “No node holders in Barbados?”

“Well, none where I worked, anyway.” (Barbados? Am I supposed to be from Barbados?)

// We told you that. //

(You did? Is there such a place?)

// There is reason to think so. In any case, the goal was avoid connecting you with DeNoble, since you are presumably a wanted man there. //

Clearing his throat, he tried to shift the subject back before he said something provably false. “So then, because you have that name, Tracy-Ace/Alfa, they’re afraid of you?”

“Oh, yes.” Her lips tightened. “Indeed they are.”

“Because—”

“Because of certain… powers of authority… that I am occasionally called upon to exercise.” Her gaze seemed intense for a moment, and then the strain seemed to subside from her eyes. One corner of her mouth turned up. “Powers that… it does not appear I will have to exercise in connection with you.”

Legroeder felt his eyebrows come together. He sat stone still, thinking. Concluding nothing. He raised his cheese sandwich and took a large bite. Finally, when it was clear she wasn’t going to continue, he said, “That’s good. I guess. Isn’t it?”

Tracy-Ace’s implants glittered as she peered at him. Abruptly, she laughed out loud. “Yes, it’s good. Very good. Now, finish up. Based on our briefing, I think I can make you a useful citizen here. There’s a lot I have to show you.” She drained her mug. “That’s assuming you decide to stay, and we decide not to ship you back to Barbados. But there’s plenty of time to decide.”

He cleared his throat. “Ah. Well… I do want to stay…”

There was a sudden movement off to his left, and he saw the shop’s other occupant stirring. Tracy-Ace was glancing that way now, and for a moment, her expression seemed to become still, almost frozen. But her implants flickered energetically, and for just an instant, Legroeder had a chilling sense that something was passing between Tracy-Ace and that other man. Legroeder squinted, and saw that the man was bald, and dressed in light colored shirt and pants, and had an unsettlingly luminous quality about him. The man nodded in their direction, and Tracy-Ace nodded back. Just as Legroeder started to shift his gaze back to Tracy-Ace, the man abruptly vanished. Winked out.

Another hologram? Legroeder shot an inquiring glance at Tracy-Ace. “Who was that?”

Tracy-Ace shrugged; she seemed slightly uncomfortable with the question. “Just someone I know.” She slid out of her seat. “Good. So let’s go get you settled. Ordinarily I’d have someone else take you to your quarters, but I’m off duty.” She paused, pursing her lips. “You know, you seem like a very interesting man, Rigger Legroeder. I believe I want to oversee your case myself.”

He nodded cautiously, wondering if this was a good development or an ominous one.

“Come on. We’ll take the flicker-tube.”

He took a last bite and dusted his hands together. “What’s a flicker-tube?” he asked, braving one last swallow of murk.

“They don’t have flicker-tubes on Barbados, either?”

Legroeder thought a moment. They did not, he decided.

Tracy-Ace shook her head. “Rings,” she said, “I don’t know how your people manage. Let’s go.”

Legroeder bristled on behalf of his fictitious home, and followed her out of the joe shop.

Chapter 22 Outpost Ivan

It seemed, as they walked through the halls, that everyone they passed was moving quickly, as though on urgent business. Even so, Legroeder felt that something was missing, some element of ordinary random bustle. Or maybe it felt emptier than he expected. “I thought there’d be more people around,” he murmured, half unconsciously.

Tracy-Ace glanced at him sharply, and he wondered if he’d said something wrong. But she answered calmly enough, “There’s been a big shift of personnel lately. More and more people have been sent out into the field, to work in fleet preparations.”

Legroeder tried to hide a twinge. “Fleet preparations?” Preparations for what?

Tracy-Ace glanced sharply again. Was he being tested? He took a stab. “Are you talking about the pirate fleets?”

That brought a laugh.

“What’d I say?”

“Usually, it’s the people who don’t like us who call us pirates,” she said abruptly. “The preferred term around here is raider.” She was silent for a moment before adding, “Usually defined as ‘raiding for that which should be ours.’ ” She laughed again, in a hollow echo of the first.

Legroeder tried to interpret the sound. Was she making a commentary on the raiding—or on his naiveté? “I guess I’ve picked up some of the Narseil’s language,” he said apologetically. “Most people on the outside, you know, do regard the Kyber fleets as pirate ships.”

Tracy-Ace cocked an eyebrow at him and lengthened her stride. “Well, that’s not the fleet I meant, anyway.”

“What, um, fleet did you mean?”

“You really don’t know?”

He shook his head.

“The colony fleet.”

Colony fleet…?

At that moment, they came around a corner into a brightly lit area that looked like a transit platform, except instead of cars, it was filled with clear vertical cylinders.

Legroeder blinked at the sight.

“You’ll see later,” she continued. “This is where we catch the transport between sectors.”

He was struggling to keep up with the cascade of new information. Transport between sectors… He remembered it had looked as though the sprawled-out structures in this outpost were anchored separately in the Flux. It had seemed an unlikely arrangement.

“The habitats float independently, but they’re joined by the flicker-tubes,” Tracy-Ace said, as though reading his mind. “It avoids certain instability problems of large structures, and gives us greater safety in the event of an attack.”

“Have you ever been attacked here?” Legroeder asked, remembering uneasily that part of his mission was to gain intelligence that might permit just such an attack.

Her eyebrows bristled. “No. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. And if it did, we could absorb some hard punches and still survive. Our leadership has always been very strong on taking the long view.”

As they talked, people were crossing the platform in both directions, stepping in and out of the clear cylinders. Those who stepped into the cylinders sank out of sight through the floor; others emerged from below like slow-rising pistons.

Tracy-Ace led him to a pair of empty cylinders, side by side, and touched the two simultaneously. “We’ll be linked. Go on and get in.” She stepped into one capsule as Legroeder stepped into the other. The capsule closed around Legroeder with a puff. “You with me?” he heard.

“Yup.” His breath went out with a whoof, as the capsule dropped away from the platform. He looked down. They were falling, Tracy-Ace before him, into a glowing, golden tube of energy. It curved downward and away, seemingly to infinity. In the distance, he could see the arc of the tube intersecting with other strands like threads of a spiderweb. Tiny droplets of light were moving through the tubes; he guessed them to be other passenger capsules in transit. It was impossible to judge his velocity.

“So this—” his words came out in a gasp “—is a flicker-tube?”

Tracy-Ace’s voice was a chuckle in his ear. “This is a flicker-tube.” He could almost imagine her standing beside him. “Okay, now I can fill you in…”

“I, uh—” He cut himself off as a shower of images sprang up around him, painted on the blurred inner surface of the tube. The images changed with an almost cinematic flicker as they shadowed him in his glassy chariot. He reeled from the sheer volume and speed: strobing glimpses of faces and ships and places, and fast-changing shots of what looked like space-station construction. “What the hell is this?” he breathed.

“It’s the flicker feed,” Tracy-Ace’s voice said. “It conveys news and information to people when they’re in transit. It makes use of slack time.”

Legroeder wished he had something physical to hang onto. The motion through the tube was a blur, and the images were now a blur, too. “How is this conveying information? I can’t make out a thing.”

// We are processing… //

“If your augments are any good,” Tracy-Ace said, “they’ll be picking it up and storing it for you. Don’t worry about trying to follow it consciously—”

Thank God. Legroeder closed his eyes for a moment. He was startled to find that he was still seeing the images. (What’s going on? I thought it was being projected on the tube wall.)

// Meant to look that way. But no, it’s coming through us. //

(Oh…)

“—but you are meant to be observing sensations and context, to help you integrate it,” Tracy-Ace continued. “It would be better if I kept quiet now and let you watch.”

Legroeder breathed slowly and deeply, trying to stifle the thoughts racing through his mind. A hundred images flashed by every second. After a while, he was only dimly aware of the Flux outside the tube wall; he almost came to feel that it was normal to be surrounded by swirling patterns of light woven through with holographic images, and the murmuring of recorded voices, some in languages he could not identify. It was like listening to multiple conversations and understanding none of them—but absorbing it all, so that later, perhaps, he would be able to sort and translate and comprehend. From within, the implants murmured repeatedly…

// …relax and listen, do not concern yourself with comprehension… //

All right, then, he wouldn’t…

Several times, they passed tube intersections in a molten blur. And then, at last, he was startled to see a habitat looming over his head and drawing closer; he was ascending headfirst toward a terminus. How in the world had they flipped without his noticing? In other tubes, he could see capsules dropping away from the habitat like beads down a chute. Overhead, Tracy-Ace was disappearing into the building.

As his own capsule decelerated and entered the structure, Legroeder was aware that he had just acquired, in several minutes, considerable knowledge about this Free Kyber world known as Ivan. Not that he could put his finger on any of it this instant, but he knew that it was tucked away somewhere in his cranium. His implants were likely to be working long into the night, sorting it all out.

The capsule came to rest on a platform distinguishable only by color—blue—from the one they had left behind. As he stepped out beside Tracy-Ace, he felt an unexpected pleasure, as if he were glad to see her, an old and comfortable friend. He stopped in his tracks, stunned by the feeling. Why did he suddenly feel as if he had known her for years?

“What?” Tracy-Ace said.

He let out his breath, banishing the thought. “Nice ride,” he muttered.

She peered at him with obvious curiosity. “We go this way,” she said, pointing to the left.

As they moved on, he began to suspect that she was puzzling over him as much as he was over her. (Did you pass personal information between us during that download link?) Legroeder muttered to his implants.

// If you mean information about your past, and your true identity, no. //

(Good.)

// But there was a certain amount of handshaking involved, and personal protocol exchange. Most of it was strictly augment-exchange protocol. //

(Do I hear a “but”—?)

// But there had to be certain personal-preference exchanges to establish how and what would be transferred. To establish “trust,” as it were. That could be part of what you sense. //

He wondered uneasily just how much “personal preference” information had been exchanged. How could protocol exchanges make him feel not just warmth, but a certain actual attraction toward this pirate whom he hardly knew? These augments were beginning to scare him.

// We’re only here to serve. //

(Mm.)

“…be staying here in this sector,” Tracy-Ace was saying. “This is where we put visitors and people who are… between jobs. You know, like unemployed heroes.” She flashed a grin at him—and he flushed, realizing that he felt such a palpable attraction that he had to shove his hands firmly in his pockets to keep from reaching out and touching her. He countered the thought by thinking about his imprisoned comrades, and wondering when he might dare to ask about them.

Tracy-Ace had quickened her long-legged stride. They walked, rode lift-tubes, walked some more. When they finally stopped at a closed door, they might have been in the hallway of a cheap apartment building anywhere in the known galaxy. Tracy-Ace pressed her hand to the plate beside the door. “Number 7494,” she said. “Remember that.” The door paled and she ushered him into a room the size of a crew cabin on a starship. “Your new home.”

Legroeder surveyed the place. It was plain but neat: narrow bunk, tiny desk with com, table, sling chair. Perfect for a monk. Heaven, compared to what he’d lived in for seven years at DeNoble. His bag, which he had last seen in his cabin on Flechette, was sitting on the bunk. They were efficient here. He could forget about any hopes he might have had about sneaking back one day to transmit a message from Flechette.

// That was hardly a serious option, you know. //

(Well, yes, but…)

// The underground. Finding the underground is your only real option now. //

(I am aware of that, thank you.)

“You ought to be comfortable here,” Tracy-Ace was saying.

“Thank you.” He struggled to find words, and hoped she wasn’t reading his thoughts. “I guess—it’ll take time to learn my way around. And to figure out—I don’t know—what I’ll be useful for.” It was starting to hit him all over again how alone he was here. With the unraveling of the Narseil plan to get in, get info, and get out, it was really all up to him. Suppose he couldn’t contact the underground. What then? Sign on to another ship, and try to broadcast a message in flight, before they killed him? H’zzarrelik would wait out there for fifteen days before heading back with their prisoners. Once they were gone, there would be nobody to broadcast to.

“You’ll learn fast,” Tracy-Ace said, touching his arm. “I’m going to set you up with some study programs, to get you oriented.”

He’d felt an electric tingle at her touch, and was trying to pretend he hadn’t.

“We’ll find things for you to do, don’t worry.”

He forced a nervous smile. “Okay—what’s next, then?”

“What’s next is I go back to work. And you—you look like you could use some sleep. When you’re ready, here’s where you can call up the study programs.” She stepped over to the desk and showed him the controls. “Why don’t I come back later to show you around?”

He nodded, covering his surprise. He couldn’t deny being pleased by the personal attention. “I guess I could stand to sleep a few hours.” He was exhausted, actually, and the adrenaline was starting to wear off. “What time is it? When do you sleep?”

Tiny lights sparkled at the corners of her eyes. “It’s third-quarter evening. A lot of people will be on sleep cycle during the next six or eight hours. I’ll be working, myself; I don’t need much sleep. My programs handle REM processing right in the node, so I can pick up sleep functions while I work.”

Legroeder didn’t know whether to be envious or sympathetic.

“I’ll be free in about ten hours. Will that give you enough time? We have to confine you to quarters until your case has been reviewed. But if you get hungry, you can call up some snack pantry items on the com here. Anything else you need?”

Yes, he thought. The com address of the underground. “I guess not. Is it okay if I play with the com system a little?”

She gave him a look. “As long as you don’t try to access anything that it wants you to stay out of.” She touched his arm and moved toward the door. “Bye, then.” He couldn’t answer; he was mesmerized by the tingle. “Oh—if you need to reach me, use this code.” She turned to the desk com and placed an index finger on the reader-plate. “There, it’s stored for you.”

As she went out and the door opaqued behind her, he felt a pang of self-recrimination at the pleasure he’d just felt. She’s the enemy, remember? What the devil are you thinking?

Sighing, he tossed his bag off the bunk and lay down. He had no idea how long it had been since he had last slept, but he knew it was way too long.

Sleep, however, did not come easily. When it did, it was a troubled affair, blurred with wakefulness. It felt as if his brain were continuing to fire at a scattergun pace—his dreams and the activities of the implants intertwined with one another, synaptic impulses rocketing up and down in a frenetic series of discharges. Even asleep, he was aware of the intense activity… dreams coming silently and escaping again, pushed out by the next, and the next, in an unending cascade. Images from the flicker-tubes, from his long-ago past, from battle, from the gazing crystals…

He awoke at one point, exhausted but unable to keep his eyes closed. Without thinking about it, he stumbled to the desk and switched on the com. He glanced briefly at the study programs, but found he was too groggy to concentrate. He idly began running searches. After noodling aimlessly for a few minutes, he narrowed his search. Prisoners… Narseil… Freem’n Deutsch… He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for; he just wanted to know if there was reason to hope for their safety.

The implants flagged him briefly, asking if he really wanted to proceed. He brushed the caution aside irritably; he didn’t know why the Kyber trusted him, but Tracy-Ace had said it was okay to play around.

He wasn’t making much progress; but somewhere into his third attempt, he finally woke up to what he was doing. Dear God, what an idiot. Was he giving himself away, showing his concern about the Narseil? He sat back, feeling sick.

The implants spoke up. // Our monitoring did not show you betraying any incriminating data. //

(Except my doing the search in the first place. Why didn’t you stop me?)

The answering voice was clearly meant to be soothing. // Our programming does not include interference in personal activities, barring clear and present danger. //

And I assured you it wasn’t dangerous, he remembered, rubbing his forehead. What the hell time was it now? Fourth-quarter two. What the hell did that mean? He didn’t understand the time-keeping system here.

// If you like, in the future we will note such activities as dangerous… //

(Fine.) He reached to turn off the com.

The implants stopped him with: // You have a message waiting. //

(What? Where?)

And then he saw it, a tiny dingbat at the corner of the comspace. He blinked at it, and it expanded, and he heard Tracy-Ace’s voice saying, (Sorry, Rigger Legroeder, that com-search is off limits. But I’ll tell you what you need to know, next time I see you. In the meantime, if you can’t sleep, why don’t you give those study programs a try.)

For several heartbeats he sat absolutely still, neither moving nor breathing. And then he realized that she hadn’t sounded angry or suspicious. Maybe, after all, it was okay for him to wonder what had become of his former shipmates—even if they theoretically were the enemy.

Tracy-Ace wasn’t done. (Someone I know’s going to want to talk to both Deutsch and the Narseil crew, by the way. So don’t worry about their being executed in the near future.) She chuckled. (Now, get some sleep.)

The message dingbat closed.

Legroeder stared in dumb amazement at the com for a full minute. Then he sighed, rose, and went back to the bunk to try to follow her suggestion.

It was no use, he thought after a half hour of tossing fitfully in the bunk. Once more, he went to the com console. This time, he brought up the orientation programs, and sat for over an hour listening to droning voices and watching images of station layouts and command hierarchies as the workings of everyday life and lines of authority were explained to him. He was aware, as he followed in a semi-daze, that much more was being conveyed through the augments, and that they were going to be even busier digesting the new load of data than any of them would have guessed possible.

As he threw himself back onto the bunk for one more attempt at sleep, it occurred to him that he had just been given, with almost no effort on his part, some of the very information he had come here hoping to steal.

Amazingly, he did sleep, though not peacefully. He dreamed of mysterious machineries relentlessly thrumming, surrounding him and filling him with incomprehensible activity.

At one point he stirred to the piping of a com signal and he half-woke with the memory of the frenetic dreams fading like a half-forged, coded message. But he didn’t quite make it to wakefulness before he drifted back under and this time was swept up by a wave of images and sounds like a breaker crashing in from the sea.

Memories of Golen Space. The Fortress of DeNoble. Barracks of the captives, more a warren than a human habitation. The bunk on which he rotated shifts with three other men, the mattress that smelled of things he tried not to think about. The raider flights. And between missions, days spent working on weapons arrays and flux-modulation reactors. Days spent dreaming of work stoppage, of suicide. And each day, walking past the window of the punishment center…

Stop… please… he whispered, struggling to wake; but the memories were like a surround-holo, relentless. He couldn’t move, couldn’t shut his eyes or his ears. Prisoners who tried a work stoppage? They were only tortured for a few days with electrosynaptic shock. But those who tried suicide or sabotage? They were strapped into chairs, gnawed by alien parasites, condemned to a lifetime of screaming agony, dying slowly… only to be resuscitated by robot life-support systems. They were the examples: suffering the boss’s eternal wrath for defying the law of the fortress. According to rumor, the boss had once led a bizarre religious splinter sect, inspired to ever-higher standards of torture by ancient legends of purgatory.

Why do I keep remembering…?

And one other memory: he never knew her real name, but among the prisoners she was known as Greta the Enforcer. A woman of exquisite beauty and deadly malice. What her actual position was in the DeNoble hierarchy, Legroeder never knew, either; but in his one encounter, begun as a seeming invitation to special “favors,” he’d been left shaken, dizzy, heart pounding with fear and humiliation. It was rumored that she used pheromones and charm equally as weapons, and just as no man could resist her appeal, neither did any escape the pain that she enjoyed inflicting.

Legroeder, in the depths of sleep, groaned, wondering how he had survived as long as he had at DeNoble, wondering how he’d ever found the courage—or madness—to escape.

And now, to return voluntarily to it all, to new punishments… torture and incentive, reward and punishment… all in a blur that he could only imagine, shivering… struggling to awaken… visions of Tracy-Ace/Alfa and the pirates of Ivan strapping him into a chair alongside his Narseil comrades…

Bzzzz… bzzzzz… bzzzz…

What was that noise, like killer bees swarming—?

Bzzzzzzzz…

He sat upright in bed, shaking. “What—what—?” he stammered.

The door paled and Tracy-Ace strode in.

He shuddered, the aftershocks of the final dream-quakes still rocking back and forth in his mind.

“You’re alive,” she said, looking as if she were surprised to find him still breathing. “Rings—you look awful! I’ve been trying to call you for hours. Why didn’t you answer? Are you sick?”

He rubbed his forehead, struggling to fight his way out of the dream fog. “Uh—I guess I was really asleep,” he said thickly, sounding as if he had marbles in his mouth. “How’d you get in?”

“I overrode the lock.” Tracy-Ace squinted at him. “You don’t look like you slept very well.” She got him a glass of water. “Should I come back later?”

He took a few sips, choking, as he tried to process her question. He thought of his dream and wondered: Are you the one who orders the tortures here?

// Hold, please. We’re working to compile relevant information for you… //

His head reeled. But indeed, some of the information he’d gained was starting to swarm into focus. This outpost was different; they used different methods of persuasion here. He knew more about Outpost Ivan than he’d have guessed possible in such a short time. In the midst of all that dreaming chaos, his implants had been processing the info-dumps that the flicker-tube and the study programs had given him, half a lifetime ago.

// We’ve been comparing past and present… //

(Wait a minute,) he thought with sudden bitterness, (are you saying that I dreamed all that stuff just so you could analyze it?)

// It helped us to establish a perspective, yes. //

Perspective, he thought, shaking his head. Christ.

Tracy-Ace was frowning. “Does that mean yes or no?”

He blinked. “Huh? What did you ask? Give me a minute here, I, uh—”

Tracy-Ace cocked her head. “Are you having a flicker-tube hangover, or do you always wake up this way?”

“Flicker-tube… hangover,” he mumbled. “That must be it.” He squinted, looking around for the time. “How long was I asleep?”

“About fourteen hours. Look, I’ll give you a few minutes to get showered. Then I think we’d better go get some breakfast into you.”

He nodded, rubbing his eyes. He suddenly realized that she’d changed clothes since he’d last seen her. She looked more than a little sexy, dressed in a short gold skirt over black tights, and a patchwork black-and-gold blouse. Her temple implants were flickering, drawing his eye. Now why did he think that made her look good? He drew a sharp breath, thinking of… Greta. This is the face of the enemy. Remember that.

“Great,” he said huskily. “Thanks.”

After she was gone, he tossed off the thin blanket and stepped into the mist-shower, aware of his nakedness as he wondered vaguely: what was one supposed to wear while touring a raider compound with a lady pirate, anyway?

Walking with Tracy-Ace, later, he discovered that the implants had done a pretty thorough job of organizing his headful of new information. He found himself with a silent guide in his head, producing tiny captions for him as they passed through the station.

// …To your nine o’clock, note the flicker-tubes leading to the new docking port construction site. Just under a thousand workers there… //

He glanced left. (New docking port? You mean they’re expanding this place?)

// And further to your left, a departure portal to the location of Outpost Ivan’s contribution to the Free Kyber colonizing fleet… //

Legroeder staggered a little, his heart pounding. He turned to peer back at the flicker-tube portal they had just passed. The colonizing fleet. He had managed to put that out of his mind.

“Something wrong?” Tracy-Ace asked, pausing. She’d been talking all this time, he had no idea about what.

He drew a slow breath. “No,” he said, forcing himself to rejoin her. “Nothing wrong.”

They continued walking.

Colonizing fleet. He was dying to ask her about it. Terrified of what she might say.

He hardly noticed as Tracy-Ace tugged him faster along the promenade, while he contemplated the thought of the Kyber worlds moving out of Golen Space, colonizing… the Centrist Worlds? No, that didn’t make sense.

It must be something else…

He only gradually became aware of the tingling in his arm, mostly after Tracy-Ace took her hand away to gesture toward a food-plaza. “Breakfast,” she said.

Breakfast. Legroeder tried to think what he had been feeling a moment ago. She’d been touching his arm—but as a polite gesture, or a personal touch—or was she making a data connection? He cocked his head at her. “Were you reading my mind a moment ago?”

Was that a twinkle in her eye? “And if I was?”

That startled him; he’d been expecting a denial. “Usually people ask first.”

She gazed appraisingly at him. “What if I said I was letting you read my mind?”

“Uh?”

Tracy-Ace raised her chin slightly. The gems around her eyes glittered with reflected light from the ceiling. “I thought it might be helpful,” she said. “During the download yesterday, I caught a few things about you—”

He drew back.

“Nothing profound. But I sensed you didn’t quite trust me. And if we’re going to—” she paused “—work together… I thought it might help if you knew more about me.”

Legroeder felt flattered and puzzled at the same time. Why, he started to ask, would you care if I trusted you?

Before he could voice the thought, he was startled by the appearance, inside his head, of two converging arcs of ruby light signifying new information about Tracy-Ace. She was twenty-seven years old, Free Kyber standard calendar. No immediate family, but a couple of cousins who might have been real biological relatives. Parents, from one of the old Kyber worlds: came to join the Free Kyber alliance, and died in a border dispute when she was four. (Oh.) Raised by the local childcare collective. Adept in the system; rose to the ranks of node administration before most of her contemporaries had even finished school. For three years, Node Alfa.

She was peering at him, emotions unknown.

Liked the challenge and the responsibility—and the proximity to power. Socially unattached, but willing to consider unusual liaisons. Had a fondness for rebels.

He felt his blood rise, wondering if he qualified as an “unusual liaison.” Or a rebel.

// That part of the analysis is ambiguous. Shall we probe further? //

(No, thank you.) He cleared his throat. But Tracy-Ace was talking—about him—and he’d missed the first part of it. Something about his being useful to the outpost.

“…have skills we need, and knowledge. Possibly for special operations. I believe my boss will want to talk to you, soon.” Tracy-Ace was studying him again. “I see you wondering. But part of my job is to evaluate people and situations, to look for the unexpected. To make judgments for the benefit of the outpost. And the Republic.” And the colonizing fleet? At the outer corner of her left eye, a tiny red bead glowed for a moment, as though she were photographing him for a security check. A smile flashed across her face. “Besides—I rather like you.”

He felt a moment of lightheadedness. Was it the implants, fracturing away all of the normal inhibitions? Everything seemed accelerated here. A momentary vision of Greta the Enforcer flickered across his mind, giving him a shiver.

If she noticed or understood his shiver, she didn’t show it. He was still trying to think of a response to her statement that she liked him. The face of the enemy.

“Let’s get some food,” she said. “Then there’s something I want you to see.”

He followed her through the food-plaza. The choices were some kind of bread, some kind of curd, and some kind of soft cereal. He took a small serving of each, plus a cup of murk. Tracy-Ace led him to a line of tables looking out over a huge balcony. No, not a balcony—a holo.

Legroeder stared out at an enormous view of the Flux. In the foreground were sprawling structures that he hardly noticed, because behind them were swirling gas clouds that seemed vast, almost galactic in scope. They might have been a bright emission nebula, a star-birthing grounds. But this was something different. His rigger’s intuition told him: this was a boundary layer. Not the boundary between normal-space and the Flux, which would have been impressive enough for structures to be anchored against. No, this—he felt with absolute certainty—was the transition zone between the familiar layers of the Flux where starships flew, and another place deeper and more mysterious, and far more perilous.

“You know what it is?” Tracy-Ace said.

He opened his mouth, but couldn’t speak. The Deep Flux. He knew it by name only. It was an underlying region of the Flux so unstable and unpredictable that riggers avoided it, always. He had never heard of anyone flying in it and returning, though the Narseil Institute had reportedly done some experimenting along the border regions. But the Kyber—? Was this just an impression-image, a work of art?

“Is it real—this view?” he murmured.

“Oh yes,” she said, gesturing to the lower part of the image, at the indistinct structures in the foreground.

He couldn’t quite make out what they were. Man-made, certainly. A station? Docking ports? Ships? He shivered at the thought of man-made structures hovering on the edge of such cosmic instability.

“Let me change that view a little,” said Tracy-Ace.

There was a shimmer as the perspective shifted, magnifying the foreground. His breath left him in a rush. It was a fleet of a hundred or more glittering starships, gathered around what looked like a cluster of asteroids. Long, curved limbs like sea-urchin spines arched out from the central bodies to the starships.

Legroeder felt as though his heart had stopped beating. “What is it?” he whispered.

“The colony fleet,” she said.

He swallowed. “Headed toward—?” Not the Centrist Worlds, surely.

“New hunting grounds,” she said softly, watching his reaction. “What do you think?”

His voice caught. I am a Kyber, unafraid of bold Kyber initiatives. Unafraid… “It’s—” he said, trying not to stammer “—impressive. We, uh—don’t have anything like this in—Barbados.”

Tracy-Ace stared at him for a moment, then laughed out loud. “No,” she said finally. “No, I guess you don’t.”

“Don’t have what in Barbados?” asked a familiar metallic voice.

Legroeder turned.

Freem’n Deutsch was floating toward them.

Chapter 23 The Maintainers

“Freem’n!” Legroeder cried. “Are you all right?”

Deutsch floated to the table. “As all right as ever. Mind if I join you?”

“Please do,” said Tracy-Ace.

“We’ve met before, I believe. Tracy-Ace/Alfa?” Deutsch said.

“Yes. Good to see you again.” To Legroeder she explained, “I asked him to meet us here. Since you were wondering about him.”

Legroeder opened his mouth and closed it. Finally he let a smile crack through. “How did you—the last time I saw you, you were frozen in some kind of—”

Deutsch waved a cybernetic hand. “Leghold trap. I saw the damn thing coming, but not in time to get out of its way.”

Legroeder winced at the memory. “It looked painful.”

“Infuriating as hell, I can tell you that,” Deutsch said. “When they finally killed the switch, it knocked me out cold. I woke up in the infirmary. That’s where I’ve been until about an hour ago.” He nodded to Tracy-Ace. “Thank you for bringing me out. I’m looking forward to getting back to work.”

Are you? Legroeder thought. This was a danger point, when Freem’n had to make his own reentry into the Kyber world. Just how closely would his interests coincide with Legroeder’s now?

Tracy-Ace was watching them both with obvious interest. Freem’n seemed to be doing an excellent job of acting. He had to persuade his superiors, presumably including Tracy-Ace, that his actions with the Narseil had been taken either under duress or in order to sabotage the Narseil mission. Had he already been debriefed? Legroeder could read nothing from Deutsch’s face.

“That’s what we were hoping to hear,” Tracy-Ace said. “In fact, there might be another job coming your way soon.” She glanced at Legroeder, who realized he was holding his breath. He let it out slowly, hoping that Deutsch wouldn’t decide to explain what really had happened.

Legroeder shifted his gaze back to the holo, momentarily forgotten in the excitement of seeing Deutsch again. The Deep Flux. The waiting Kyber fleet. “Weren’t you about to tell me about that?” he asked Tracy-Ace.

“The Free Kyber Republic Joint Fleet?” she said. “What would you like to know?”

“Well—for one thing, why do they appear to be poised at the edge of the Deep Flux?”

Tracy-Ace chuckled. “That’s right, you don’t know about this on Barbados. Well, they’re poised there because they have a long way to go. I’m not free to discuss the specific destination. But as I said, new hunting grounds. Away from the Centrist Worlds.”

Legroeder tried to think through the implications of a vast pirate fleet setting out to colonize new worlds. If the Kyber were going away from the Centrist Worlds…

Good riddance?

That seemed unlikely.

“But why the Deep Flux?”

Tracy-Ace’s gaze was steady. “That’s the shortcut our planners have chosen. Too slow, otherwise.”

“But…” Shortcut? To slow death? “…the Deep Flux is unnavigable. It’s unstable; it’s unmappable. I’ve never heard of anyone rigging it and coming back alive.” Or coming back at all. Where could they be going that it would be worth risking the Deep Flux? The very thought reminded him, with a shiver, of the way Impris had vanished.

Tracy-Ace cocked her head slightly. “All that used to be true.”

“Used to be?” Legroeder blinked. “Are you telling me that you know how to navigate the Deep Flux? Go in and come back out again? Go where you’re supposed to go?” Not possible. Was it? Dear God.

Tracy-Ace gave the slightest of nods. “There are some problems, still. But it does work.”

Legroeder glanced at Deutsch. His cyborg friend was sitting silent and expressionless, easy enough to do with those damn silvered lenses for eyes. “Problems?”

“Perhaps Rigger Deutsch could explain it better,” Tracy-Ace said. “Rigger Deutsch?”

Freem’n whirred for a moment. “You know some of it already, Legroeder. The differences in our rigging techniques—”

“You mean the augments?”

“Of course. In our experience, the main problem with navigating the Deep Flux is the huge range of complex sensory elements that have to be translated and decoded before they can be perceived clearly. For that, we think you need augments.”

Legroeder stroked his temple, trying to consider Deutsch’s words without seeming to be puzzled. He didn’t want to make Barbados seem like a complete backwater outpost. He was certainly aware that the augments changed the overall look of things in the Flux; it was one reason for his aversion to them. He didn’t want the look of the Flux changed from something he could understand intuitively.

Deutsch seemed to read his thoughts. “It is one area in which the use of augments is superior.” Deutsch paused. “I take it the Narseil, in your observation, haven’t made much headway in this regard?”

Legroeder shook his head slowly. He was supposed to have been a spy among the Narseil. He had better be ready to convey intelligence about them. “None that they mentioned to me.”

“But they do have their own areas of great strength, and versatility, when it comes to rigging, yes?” Deutsch said.

“Certainly,” Legroeder answered, wondering why Deutsch was making that particular point now.

Tracy-Ace interrupted the chain of thought. “So, yes, we do have the ability to go through the Deep Flux. It’s not been perfected. But it’s good enough… or nearly so…” She pressed her lips together with what seemed a flash of pain, looking at the holo.

Good enough to risk an entire colony fleet? Legroeder was stunned by the thought. He wasn’t sure which dismayed him more, the thought of risking a whole fleet of ships in the Deep Flux, or the thought of new colonies being started by a band—an armada—of pirates.

“Legroeder?”

He blinked, turning.

“Come back.”

He exhaled slowly. “Sorry. What did you say?” He carefully lifted his cup of murk to his lips.

Tracy-Ace angled a curious gaze at him. “I was just wondering—does that view, by any chance, make you think of Impris?”

Legroeder choked on the thick, black liquid.

“Are you all right?”

He cleared his throat vigorously. “Yes—” he managed “—it does. I don’t, uh, know that much about Impris, actually.” He tried to control the flush in his face. “But I take it—you do?”

“Well, sure, we track it. Or rather, we don’t—but we receive reports on it from time to time from the outpost whose rotation it is to follow it.” She frowned. “Not very clear reports, mind you. If Kilo-Mike/Carlotta weren’t so damned chary with their data, I’d be able to show you its location on a chart.” Mercifully, she did not ask whether or why they did not have such information on Barbados.

He decided to head off the question anyway. “Really. I’ve always been interested in the ship—Flying Dutchman of the Stars, and all that—but I was never privy to that sort of information.”

“Bosses,” Deutsch interjected in a pleasant baritone. “Half of them won’t give you the information you need. And then they complain when you don’t get the job done right.”

Tracy-Ace eyed Deutsch with an unreadable expression. “Careful, there, Rigger Deutsch. You never know what a boss might hear.” Her cheekbone implants blinked. “Still, you do have a point. Some bosses delegate responsibility better than others. Certainly the bosses of different outposts do things in their own ways.”

// Shall we fill you in on that? //

Legroeder nodded as the internal voice provided details. The outposts of the Free Kyber Republic were joined in a loose confederation of worlds and fortresses—each with its distinctive culture and bosses. Each stronghold made its contribution to the group goals, such as the colonizing fleet; but rancorous disagreement was more common than not. The bosses made their own rules, treated their own people as they chose, and determined such things as when or how to raid Centrist shipping. Some gave their captains near-complete autonomy, with reward systems for bringing in booty such as captured ships and slaves. Others exercised tight control…

“Legroeder, are you listening?”

“Uh—yes.”

“I was talking about Impris. You said you were interested.”

“Yes. You say someone tracks her all the time?”

Tracy-Ace peered at him closely, which made him nervous. “Theoretically, someone keeps a ship in her vicinity at all times—though when the rotation changes from one outpost to another, things can go to hell pretty fast. She’s been lost more than once.”

Legroeder stared at her, wishing he had this conversation recorded.

// You do. //

He bobbed his head, trying not to show any reaction. “Why the, uh—rotation?” he asked, trying to sound guileless. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

Tracy-Ace shrugged. “It’s hardly a secret. When Impris is in a participating boss’s territory, she makes a powerful bait for drawing in passing ships. It makes for such an easy kill.” She shook her head in apparent disdain. “Especially when the captains of the target ships are on the take, as has happened more than once.”

Legroeder thought of Hyutu, captain of the L.A.

“I never thought it was very sporting, myself,” she added. “But some of the bosses love it so much they fight over whose turn it is—especially since Impris seems to hopscotch around a lot, for reasons I don’t personally understand.”

Legroeder stared at her, blood pulsing, wishing he could be standing in court on Faber Eridani right now, listening to Tracy-Ace repeat all of this under oath. He tried not to let his voice tremble. “Do you know anything about the ship itself? Her crew? Her passengers?”

Tracy-Ace gave her head a shake. “As far as I know, there’s never been any contact. It’s hard to imagine that anyone’s alive on her, though. After all these years?”

Hard to imagine, maybe. But they are alive. I heard their voices, crying out. It was no illusion. I know what I heard. Legroeder swallowed, then said hesitantly, “Would you mind if I—researched the subject a little, while I’m here? It’s a sort of… well, hobby, I guess you could call it.” A hobby? Christ.

As Tracy-Ace raised her eyebrows, Deutsch began to stir. Was he uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation, warning Legroeder to back off?

Deutsch pushed himself back from the table. “If you would excuse me—” a sharp glance in Legroeder’s direction seemed to confirm Legroeder’s fear “—I’m just about due for a meeting with my crew chief. Miss Alfa, thank you for bringing me here. Legroeder, it’s good to see you. If you need me, just use my name on the com system.”

Legroeder raised a hand in farewell as Deutsch floated away on his levitators. You’re on your own again. Be careful. If only he knew what being careful meant.

Tracy-Ace was also gazing after Deutsch. “We have to find a place for him. Not routine flights, not after what he’s been through. He did a remarkable job under the circumstances.”

“Yes, he did,” Legroeder said uncomfortably. He looked down and realized that the food in front of him was cold.

“Try the bread,” Tracy-Ace said, spreading some syrup on a piece of her own. “It’s pretty good.” She tucked it into her mouth and chewed quickly.

Legroeder toyed with the bread and nibbled a piece. It was tasteless. “Yah. Listen—um—” The discussion of Deutsch had wrenched another subject to mind, one he’d been avoiding. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about. What are you—I mean, what’s going to happen to the Narseil crew?”

The augments lit up at the corners of Tracy-Ace’s eyes. “What do you think we should do with them?”

“Well, I don’t—I mean, I—”

Her eyes hardened momentarily. “It has been suggested that we put them out an airlock. They cost us heavily in that battle.”

Legroeder felt his face turn pale. He remembered the dream…

“I didn’t say I was taking the suggestion, though,” Tracy-Ace said. She looked away, stroking her cheek in thought, then glanced back at him. “I get the feeling that you got to be pretty good friends with some of the Narseil during your time together…” She raised her eyebrows.

Legroeder shrugged, but his throat tightened.

“It would be surprising if you hadn’t,” Tracy-Ace pointed out. “I was thinking, you might be able to smooth the way to getting some information from them.” Her eyes changed expression, but he still couldn’t tell what the expression was. “We would be foolish to waste all that knowledge and talent, after all. And whatever else my boss is, he isn’t foolish.”

Legroeder nodded uneasily. “Then, I take it… it’ll be your boss who makes the decision about the Narseil?”

Tracy-Ace cocked her head quizzically.

“You know, they were just—fighting for their ship—and their people,” Legroeder said, and instantly regretted blurting it out like that.

“That is true,” Tracy-Ace said. “It remains to be seen just what their fate will be—and how the decision will be made.” She frowned. “I think you just need to trust me on this.”

Trust her? Could he?

“Did you get the message I sent you last night? If you weren’t on the com in your sleep?”

“Uh—”

She glanced carefully around before continuing. “There are people who are interested in talking to the Narseil. Important people—who are interested in seeing some changes.”

His hands froze in midair. The underground? He struggled to act as if he had heard nothing of import.

Tracy-Ace had a smile at one corner of her mouth, her finger stroking her cheekbone. One eyebrow arched slightly. “Why don’t you finish eating, so I can show you around some more? My schedule is clear for the rest of the day.”

Legroeder felt such a sharp tingle in his nerves, he wondered for an instant if she had a hand on his arm again. But no; her hands were folded in front of her. Legroeder took a last bite of bread and nodded as he swallowed, and whispered silently, yes, I think I’d like to do that very much. I would.

One could do a lot of walking in Outpost Ivan. Maybe that was how everyone got their exercise—although it wouldn’t have surprised him to discover that he could absorb exercise impulses from the flicker-tubes, while riding like a salami from one place to another. For two hours now, they had walked—surely covering the length of the station several times over. Tracy-Ace pointed out this and that, giving him a sense of the general layout of the place. His implants were frantically integrating this new knowledge with the information they had gained during the night and in the flicker-tubes; it was probably just as well that they weren’t riding the flicker-tubes again, because he thought he’d absorbed about all he could handle at one time.

For the most part, the implants stayed out of his way and let him observe at his own pace. But he always had the feeling that somewhere in the back of his mind a structure was growing, a steady accretion of bricks and mortar and grains of sand—not just a gathering of factual knowledge about the Kyber and Outpost Ivan, but a basis for understanding how it all worked together. Maybe the implants weren’t such a bad thing, after all; without them, he would have spent weeks learning what he’d learned in the last twenty-four hours here.

Perhaps the strangest observation was that life here seemed considerably more like life in the Centrist Worlds than he had imagined. He caught glimpses of citizens performing the necessary work of keeping a world of eleven thousand people running: building and repairing infrastructure, growing food in culture-factories, packaging and transporting it and preparing it for consumption. At one point, they passed a troop of children being herded along by their monitors or teachers, though Tracy-Ace told him that for the most part the children were housed and educated in a different habitat.

There was one question that hadn’t been answered yet; it had started as a back-of-the-mind thorn, ignored at first, but steadily growing in his thoughts. Finally he voiced it, as he stood with Tracy-Ace at an overlook to a cargo hub, a kind of indoor railway yard where pallets of food and other goods were being unloaded and sorted. He had not yet seen any visibly oppressed workers. “Where,” he asked, framing his words with care, “are the… captive workers?” The slaves.

As he turned toward Tracy-Ace, he saw her expression darken. For a moment, she didn’t answer; and then her voice took on a distant quality as she said, “The… nonvoluntary workers are mostly out in the fleet preparation area.”

He waited for elaboration; she looked as though she had more to say. But she turned without meeting his eyes and said, “Let’s go this way.”

He had to hurry to catch up with her, and by the time he did, she had her outward expression firmly under control and began pointing out other sights of interest: the corridor toward enviro-controls, security, medical. Finally Legroeder interrupted to say, “Should I not have asked that, back there?”

Tracy-Ace jerked her head toward him, her implants firing rapidly. Frowning, she shook her head, her hair swinging violently back and forth. “I can’t talk about that right now. This is a time for you to see what we have; it’s not a time for you to ask about our policies.”

“But I wasn’t—” he began, and then shut up. Don’t push it. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t ask.”

She nodded sharply. “Good.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and seemed to be coming to a decision. “Listen,” she said, propelling him by the arm in a new direction. “I know something you’d like to see. As a rigger. Voluntary workers. Come on.”

Down a lifttube and along a winding ramp.

“It’s early for me to show this to you, but I think you’re ready for it. But before I do, I have to tell you that this is a top security area.” She stopped and turned to look him squarely in the eye. “There will be security features there that you don’t even see. Their order of business is to shoot first and ask questions later. Can you observe quietly and save your questions for later?”

Legroeder’s voice caught. “Uh—sure, yes.” What the hell else could he say? And why was he being taken to a top security area?

“Good.”

A short distance further on, they came to a door that said Maintainer Staff Only. The door was flanked by two guards bristling with sidearms. There were also various lenses in the walls. Cameras? Lasers? Legroeder opened his mouth to ask, then closed it. Tracy-Ace spoke briefly to the guards, who nodded deferentially but not without a close inspection of Legroeder.

The door paled at Tracy-Ace’s touch. Legroeder followed her into an antechamber, where there were more guards and security instruments. Tracy-Ace had to establish two separate augment links with the security panels to get past this station, and Legroeder was scanned and then fitted with a security badge. It felt like a bulls-eye on his chest. With Tracy-Ace, he passed through another door into a large, semidarkened room. He blinked, looking around. The walls were dark; but in the center of the room, six heavily augmented Kyber men and women were seated around a circle of consoles. In the center of the circle, various holos were dancing and glowing, with views of the Flux. At the consoles were rapidly changing schematic readouts. Were these the riggers who kept the station anchored in the Flux?

At a nod from Tracy-Ace, Legroeder stepped forward cautiously, peering over the shoulder of the nearest crewman. One of the crew glanced up, then immediately returned her attention to her work. Legroeder could not follow all the information displayed on the screens, but he saw enough to be pretty sure: these weren’t the maintainers. They were the people maintaining the maintainers, watching to ensure that whatever was happening out there in the Flux was satisfactory. Legroeder stepped back. Tracy-Ace angled her head to indicate that he should follow her through another door.

More security.

As they stepped into the next room, he was surprised to find that they were enclosed in a ghostly forcefield bubble. To protect us from what’s inside? Or to protect whatever’s in here from us? A glance from Tracy-Ace seemed to confirm the latter interpretation.

This was a very different sort of room: a cross between a holocinema and a medical intensive care ward. Abstract light impulses flashed around the walls of the room, in chaotic patterns, making him feel as if he were in a cinema watching the play of light, without seeing the actual images. Music filled the air; at least, he decided to think of it as music—a sort of atonal chant that he found vaguely disturbing.

In the center of the room were four—no, five—rigger-stations, he guessed, though they resembled no rigger-stations he had ever seen. They looked like a cross between scaffolds and exoskeletons. Ensconced within them were five humans. At least, he thought they were humans. To call them augmented would have been an understatement; they looked like Christmas trees. They were encased in what looked like clear gel sacks, with spider-webs of tubes, wires, and fibop cables running in and out of the sacks.

“The maintainers?” he asked.

“The maintainers,” said Tracy-Ace.

For all their apparent confinement, the maintainers were constantly in motion: small movements—hands clenching and unclenching, arms swinging a few centimeters one way and then another, heads shifting this way and that. But looking at what?

A technician walked over in their direction; Legroeder decided it was a woman, though she was heavily suited, with a strange-looking helmet encasing her head. Tracy-Ace spoke to her briefly through a private com-link, then glanced back at Legroeder.

“Do they just stay here—constantly in the Flux?” Legroeder asked in amazement. The rigger-stations looked like permanent wombs. Were the maintainers even breathing air? It looked as if they were receiving their oxygen through some kind of amniotic fluid.

Tracy-Ace nodded absently. “Constantly,” she murmured. Her voice sounded oddly distracted; she was looking off toward the flashing lights on the wall, as though she had forgotten why they were here. Were those lights hypnotizing her?

The technician spoke. “They live there. It’s their life.”

“Mm?” Legroeder said. He suddenly realized he was fighting the same distraction he’d noticed in Tracy-Ace. “But… what about rest?” He squinted at his own words; it took him a moment to realize that he was asking not about physical rest, but regeneration of the psyche. Connection with the real world.

“It all happens right here,” said the tech, waving a gloved hand around. “All this provides cortical stimulation. It’s only partly random. Plus there’s other input, to modulate REM phase and so on.”

Legroeder suppressed a shiver; the light-stimulus and the music were sending a strange glow through him. Was that why the tech was wearing a suit, to isolate her from this? He squinted at the flickering lights. Something nagged at him about that; there was something he wasn’t seeing.

“They’re not all actively monitoring the station at the same time, of course… they work in rotation…”

(Are you getting a handle on this?) he asked his implants, as the tech’s voice droned.

// We are… seeking to adapt… to the unfamiliar stimulus… //

(What is it about… these lights? What am I missing?)

// Patterns… complex patterns within… //

He stopped listening, because he suddenly knew what it was. There were patterns in the lights, all right; there were whole images embedded in the patterns. If he could just see it. Let go. Let it come. His breath sighed out, and the pattern collapsed inward; and with a sudden perceptual transformation, he saw what was in there. It was a view of the Flux again. But it was a far more intimate view than the holos that the crew outside saw; it was the Flux as the maintainers saw it. The rest of his breath went out in a gasp, because he suddenly felt as though he were afloat in the Flux, stretched out in a net that extended much farther than any ship’s net. It stretched out for a very long way… and down…

Far down… toward another layer… toward a network of moving shadows. It was like gazing into the depths of a fast-running river, and imagining falling in…

He drew back with a shudder, blinking.

“What is it?” Tracy-Ace asked.

“I don’t—Jesus—these people are reaching all the way down—” He swallowed.

Tracy-Ace cocked her head. “Down to what?”

“Down to the Deep Flux,” Legroeder whispered. “Why are they doing that? It’s… it’s…” He shook his head; it felt full of cobwebs.

“What did you see? Where?” Tracy-Ace demanded.

He breathed deeply, pointing vaguely into the room. “It’s there—in the patterns on the walls—” He gulped for air; he was trembling, as though he’d made an emergency scram from a net. “I saw… currents down there—deep—dangerous—”

Tracy-Ace gazed at him, her face flickering. “I would not have expected you to be able to see that,” she murmured. “Even the maintainers barely see it. We’re not in the Deep Flux. They monitor its location, to make sure we don’t drift down there.”

He gulped, only faintly relieved.

“They know the area very well,” the tech said. “They spend a lot of their lives keeping watch on it.”

“Good,” Legroeder breathed. “What do they do when they’re not watching that?”

The tech shrugged. “Living in whatever worlds they make for themselves out there, I suppose.”

“That’s their existence?”

“They’re all volunteers,” Tracy-Ace said, with an aggressive edge to her voice.

Legroeder gazed at her, trying to conceal his doubt.

The tech said in a more severe voice, “They have their reasons. Some of them are just drawn to it. Some have… severe physical handicaps. This gives them a way to serve.”

“But to spend their lives…”

Tracy-Ace’s eyes narrowed. “It’s just another reality. I thought you, of all people, would understand.”

“There’s a reality to it, yes. But—” Legroeder shook his head. To spend their lives in it?

“Without them,” Tracy-Ace said stiffly, “the station would be adrift in the Flux. This is a duty—and an honor—that they have chosen.”

Legroeder didn’t answer. If you weren’t an outlaw outpost that had to hide in the Flux, it wouldn’t be necessary, would it? But he knew he’d already said too much.

Tracy-Ace seemed to guess his thoughts. She spoke briefly to the tech, then turned and ushered Legroeder out.

In the corridor, with the cortical stimulation and the last security checkpoint behind him, Legroeder felt as if a blessed silence had descended around him. He felt his nervous system slowly coming down from whatever state it had been in.

Tracy-Ace was clearly experiencing some of the same effect. But she recovered quickly enough to say sharply, as they walked away, “You didn’t approve of that, I take it.”

Legroeder opened his mouth, and shut it. He wondered why she had even shown that to him.

“What I said was true, you know—about the maintainers being honored volunteers. It would hardly be in our interest to put unwilling draftees in the position of maintaining our station in the Flux.”

He kept silent.

“They do lead interesting lives, you know, while they…” She hesitated.

“While they what?” Legroeder blurted. “Live?”

Her hesitation stretched a moment longer. “Yes.”

He thought of how much it took out of him to stay in the Flux for an extended period, and he wondered how well the human mind and body could hold up to that kind of immersion. “How long do they live?” he asked, trying to sound merely curious, and knowing that he failed.

Tracy-Ace picked up her pace, avoiding his gaze. He thought she was going to avoid the question, as well. Then she said softly, “On average? About ten years, on the job.”

Ten years. “And… how long after they retire?”

Another hesitation. “They don’t usually retire… exactly.”

“You mean, they die on the job?”

When Tracy-Ace didn’t reply, he glanced sideways at her. Her temples were flickering, and she was scowling. It was a moment before he realized that she was nodding.

Oh.

She turned on him suddenly, her eyes flaring, but not from the glow of augments. Was she angry? He thought she was angry. “You think we’re so heartless. Come with me.” She grabbed his wrist and changed direction, down a side corridor. He practically had to run to keep up. There was surprising strength in those slender arms.

Was that a connection he felt between their implants? He focused inward. (Are you connected to her?)

// No. //

Then what the—? Her surge of anger, or passion, was so powerful he could have sworn it was a direct link. But no, it was just raw human emotion. She was boiling over with a need to do something and do it now, a burning that was working its way out from within. Was it always there, but under tighter control? Whatever it was she was burning to do, it was important and dangerous—and it involved him. Was this where Tracy-Ace the Law was going to reappear?

He swallowed back his apprehension. “Where, uh… can I ask where we’re going?”

She didn’t look at him, but her fingers tightened around his wrist. “Flicker-tube,” was all she said. Grimly.

Chapter 24 Joinings

Fre’geel paused in his round of the detention cell area and peered out through the gate. Nothing, no sign even of the guards. He resumed his tireless walk among the crew. Most sat on the floor, or on benches, muttering to themselves or each other. Fre’geel gave an occasional hiss of encouragement as he passed among them. They needed it, especially those who did not understand what their human shipmate was trying to do, under the guise of betraying the Narseil.

Soon it would be time for another exercise period. Fre’geel intended to make sure they kept moving and active. It was the best he could do. It had been too long since any of them had had a proper soak in a pool. They were all drying out, and he was seeing far too much rubbing at sore and itchy skin, and scratching at neck-sails. He’d asked the Kyber guards, politely, if something could be done. The guard had laughed—a particularly ugly human laugh—and sauntered away. It had occurred to Fre’geel afterward that perhaps he should have asked to speak to a superior. He was not thinking all that clearly himself.

Cantha drifted his way, and they paused to confer. “I am told that the crew in the next compartment are becoming agitated,” Cantha murmured. “Some of them are blaming Legroeder for turning us in, and they’re beginning to vent their anger.”

Fre’geel blinked his gritty eyes. Were his people forgetting their training? “We all knew it could happen this way,” he sighed, as much to himself as to Cantha. It would only get worse if he didn’t find a way to control it. “Perhaps the guards will permit me to go in and speak to them.”

As he turned toward the security door, he was surprised to see it opening. Two Kyber guards stepped into the detention cell. “Where is the commander?” one of the guards called, in a barely comprehensible Kyber Anglic.

Fre’geel went forward. “I’m the commander.”

“Someone to see you,” said the guard. He motioned to Fre’geel to follow him out of the room.

The guards left him alone in a holding room with a human Kyber female. She was standing at a one-way glass staring into the prison cell. Fre’geel allowed her a slight nod—and suddenly saw Rigger Legroeder standing on the other side of her. For a moment, he was caught speechless—overjoyed to see Legroeder alive, and apparently healthy. Then, with a mental jerk, he remembered his role. He turned toward Legroeder and hissed: “You. Traitor. Human.”

Legroeder’s eyes widened, and for an instant he too seemed nonplused. “Fre’geel,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “I’m glad to see you. Are you all right? What about the others?”

“They haven’t killed us yet, if that’s what you mean.” Fre’geel flexed a long finger threateningly. “You lying—murderous—”

“Are you the commander of these forces?” interrupted the Kyber woman.

Fre’geel bit off his words and made a head-inclining gesture of acknowledgment. “I am. And I should address you as—?”

“Tracy-Ace/Alfa.” The female, dressed in gold and black, with considerable cyber augmentation on her face, appeared to be examining Fre’geel from head to toe. He wondered if she found him satisfactorily alien. “Commander Fre’geel, we are here on a courtesy call, to inquire as to your condition. I must tell you that there are others who will wish to speak to you soon. In spite of the destruction you have caused, I believe it is possible that we might find ways to work together.”

Fre’geel let his breath out in a slow hiss. “We did not come here to collaborate with you. Ma’am.” He flicked his eyes over to Rigger Legroeder, wishing fervently that he could read the human’s mind, or speak privately with him.

“No?” she responded. “Well, then, perhaps you’ll be able to explain why you did come here. In the meantime—” she crossed her arms over her chest and furrowed her brow “—tell me—is sufficient care being extended to your people?” Her gaze seemed both to invite complaint and to challenge it.

Fre’geel refused to rise to the bait. Complain? That he would not do. Despite his determination to address the question of—

“You look all dried out,” Legroeder said, interrupting his thought.

“What do you mean?” the female asked, turning to Legroeder.

Legroeder gestured toward Fre’geel. “They need a pool they can soak in, for their skin. They’re amphibians, you know.”

“A pool? You think we keep pools in the detention area?”

“If not a pool, then bathing areas. Showers. Something. They’ll get sick and be of no use to you, otherwise.”

“Is this true?” Tracy-Ace/Alfa asked Fre’geel.

The Narseil nodded.

Tracy-Ace/Alfa looked thoughtful. Rings only knew what was going on in her augmented mind. But whatever it was, she astonished Fre’geel by saying, “All right, then—it will be done.” She cocked her head. “Is there anything else you need, to maintain your health?”

Fre’geel overcame his surprise enough to decide he might as well take advantage of the opportunity. “A bit of room to exercise in would be helpful,” he allowed. With a twitch of his eye, he glanced at Rigger Legroeder. The human was wearing a stony expression. But was that an approving twinkle in his eye?

“Exercise.” Tracy-Ace/Alfa peered through the one-way pane at the crowded detention cell. It was just one of three that the Narseil were crammed into. “Very well.” She turned back to Fre’geel. “You may return to your cell, Commander. You will be called when the time comes.” With that, she gave a nod that was not quite dismissive, and the guards reappeared immediately.

As Fre’geel turned away, Legroeder murmured a farewell, and Tracy-Ace/Alfa said, “Think constructively, Commander. Think constructively.”

Fre’geel said nothing, but was thoughtful as he walked back to rejoin his crew.

“I wanted you to know,” Tracy-Ace said, biting her words as they made their way back to the flicker-tube, “that we do have some ability to take care of people here. Even our prisoners.”

Legroeder had no immediate answer; he was stunned by her assertion. Is that why you were in such a rush to take me to see the Narseil? Because you were afraid of what I thought, after the maintainers?

“Thank you,” he said finally. He was pleased by her concessions to the needs of the Narseil, but a little worried, too. Had he betrayed too much interest in their well being?

Tracy-Ace said nothing more about it, as they got into the tubes. She didn’t speak during the ride, and Legroeder, his head already spinning, used the stop command to turn off the flicker-feed. The silence was restful.

Stepping out at the end, he rejoined a troubled-looking Tracy-Ace. “What is it?” he asked, falling in beside her as she strode away. He realized that he’d felt a sudden impulseto reach out to her. What was he going to do, take her by the hand? Put an arm around her shoulder? Jesus. He clasped his hands behind his back, to keep them out of trouble.

Keeping pace with her wasn’t easy. She kept turning abruptly, and hurrying him along. Her temples were flickering madly; her mouth was pursed in concentration.

“Can I ask where we’re going?” he said finally.

She stopped at an intersection, frowning. It must have been time for a shift change, because the corridors were bustling with people. “We need to talk,” she said. Eyeing the crowds around them, she added, “In private.”

Legroeder remained silent, wondering at the sudden urgency. Was this still about his remarks about the maintainers, or was something else going on? You can still blow this, you know.

She seemed to take his silence for assent, not that it mattered. Peering at him with sudden intense concentration, she rubbed at the corner of her mouth with a knuckle, as though to stop a tic. “Let’s show you where the law lives.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him along again. There was something dark in her tone that reminded him that he was a prisoner.

En route to wherever they were going, they passed a heavily guarded sector. Section 29, said a sign over the entrance. A tall, red-skinned man had walked into the area just a few seconds before, and Legroeder could feel Tracy-Ace tense up beside him. The man hadn’t seen her, but she waited until he was out of sight before hurrying Legroeder along. “The command center,” she muttered as they passed the entrance. “We’ll get to that later.”

“Who was that guy?”

Her breath hissed out. “Someone you won’t need to worry about, I hope. This way.”

Legroeder followed, uneasily. Some distance further on, she stopped at a food-plaza, which she picked up a carton of Asian noodles and broc, plus something to drink. A few minutes later, they were in a sector that looked more like living quarters. Tracy-Ace’s hand found its way to his arm again; this time he felt the slight twinge of a data-connection, though nothing came through the connection to tell him why she was tense.

He suddenly knew where they were going, though.

The corridor outside Tracy-Ace’s apartment was more decorative than the one outside his; it was rose colored and obviously more recently refinished. This was the abode of the Law? Her hand touched the door. Unlike his, it opened with a click and swung inward: a solid door. Legroeder followed her in. The room was three times the size of his, finished in a russet two-tone. The basic appointments were similar: bunk in one corner, desk in another, counter with cupboards, doorway to the bath. The bunk was larger, but more striking was the modified com-console over the head of the bed, with linkup arms folded like a spider’s legs against the wall. “Do you sleep hooked up to that thing?” he asked, with perhaps more distaste in his voice than he’d intended.

Tracy-Ace grunted noncommittally and set the food cartons on the counter.

On the pillow directly under the console was a brown plush animal. Teddy bear? Legroeder turned, refraining from comment. On the wall were two pieces of framed holoart: one an alien landscape, orange and smoky-looking with a huge, luminous red sun; the other a terrestrial farmhouse standing beside a woods. He peered at the two pictures. Some intuition told him that the farmhouse had some meaning to her, and something else told him not to ask just now. Below the farmhouse holo, her lounge chair was festooned with even more cyber-attachments than the bed; it was a smaller version of the command seat in which he’d first met her. “Is all this stuff for business or pleasure?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

Her eyebrows went up halfway, and for the first time in a while, she allowed herself half a grin. “Both, I suppose.” Her expression darkened again. “We can talk here,” she said. “It’s private. It’s safe.” She hesitated a moment. “That’s why I brought you here.”

Not an attempted seduction, then. Probably just as well. Greta the Enforcer was not so far in his past. But then, Tracy-Ace didn’t seem anything like Greta, or so his instincts told him. And wasn’t he, as a rigger, supposed to trust his instincts? And weren’t his instincts telling him…

Jesus, get a grip. He exhaled tightly. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman, and just being in this room with her made his groin ache. Even tense, she was surprisingly attractive. “Would this be a good time to tell me what’s wrong?” he said suddenly, to take his mind off the subject. “Something is, isn’t it?”

She looked at him sharply for a moment, and he had a sudden terrifying vision of her hissing, Yes, we’ve just figured out that you’re a spy. And you know what we do with spies…

Then her gaze shifted, and she seemed to study the blank wall over his shoulder for a while. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said finally, in a voice that was metered and precise. “I get the impression that you don’t exactly approve of everything we do here at Ivan. Is that true?”

His throat constricted, until it was all he could do to manage a husky rasp. “Well, I—”

Her gaze shifted to probe his. “In addition, you seem to have a highly developed sympathy for the Narseil—and Rings knows who else, on the outside.”

He swallowed. His vision was turning out to be frighteningly accurate.

Tracy-Ace pressed a finger to her lips, as one of those infuriating expressions that he couldn’t identify flashed across her face. “Furthermore—when you first made your presence known here at Ivan, you were seen following a data-thread that indicated a connection to—”

He could hear nothing now except blood rushing in his ears. To the underground. Admit it. The knot in his stomach tightened. He tried not to let it show on his face. But hadn’t she hinted earlier—?

Tracy-Ace seemed to be reading his thoughts. She nodded and completed her sentence: “—a connection to some of us who are dissatisfied with certain practices of this outpost, and of the Kyber Republic.”

Huh? Legroeder started. “Dis… satisfied—?”

“With the treatment of certain groups of people, for example. And with the way we… pursue some of our goals.”

Legroeder tried to swallow.

There was a catch in Tracy-Ace’s voice as her expression softened. “As it happens, Legroeder, I am one of those people. One of those… hoping to change things.”

His pulse was pounding now. He felt as if he might fall over in a faint. Was this a trap? It was, wasn’t it? Tell me it’s not a trap.

“You probably think I’m trying to trap you,” she said. “I’m not. Really. It’s no coincidence, you know, that you were brought to my attention when you explored that particular thread. And if you are looking to be put in touch with others…” She paused. “I can do that for you.”

He tried to draw a breath, but someone was sitting on his chest. “I—”

“It will have to be set up carefully, of course.”

“Uh—”

“Which I will do. But in the meantime—”

For all the speed of their direct connection, he felt as if he could barely keep up here. He hadn’t been expecting anything at all like this. And that expression on her face—he was blinking at her, trying to understand; it looked like something he’d never seen on her face before. Vulnerability. She was taking a risk. She was afraid. But of what?

“You must speak of this to no one outside this room,” she continued. “Not your friends. Not even me, unless I tell you it’s safe.” She rubbed one of her now-darkened implants. Meaning… others might be privy to what her implants heard?

“Do you understand?” she asked, and he nodded slowly.

“Good.” She sighed, her breath a long, slow whisper, and the tension seemed to drain out of her. She glanced at him with a hint of a smile, then looked away, as though embarrassed.

It seemed impossible. Legroeder frowned, caught for an instant between impulses. If she’s another Greta, you are in deep, deep trouble. Without allowing himself another thought, he reached out. She met his hand halfway, took it with surprising strength. His implants came to life, and he felt a shock of surprise at the intensity of the connection. Understanding flowed through the link and blossomed in his mind; and suddenly he realized why she felt vulnerable. Tracy-Ace, the dreaded node-commander, was appalled by the Kyber methods. But any attempt to change the system could backfire at once. For an instant, he glimpsed Tracy-Ace as a troubled young woman, caught in a maelstrom of shifting currents of power. Then the glimpse was gone, replaced by the confidence of Tracy-Ace/Alfa, the node-commander. But he had seen it; it was there.

If he could believe it. If she was telling the truth.

What would she gain by lying? She already had him as a prisoner, if that was what she wanted.

He squeezed her hand; she squeezed back, hard. Then she was up, padding across the room in her bare feet. When had she taken her shoes off? “Are you hungry?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she opened a cabinet door and took out bowls and a pair of slender glasses. Legroeder watched silently as she served the noodles; his head was still ringing like a bell from that contact. What had it touched in him?

“Glass of wino?” Tracy-Ace asked.

He barked a laugh. “Glass of what?”

She brandished a semiclear carton of red liquid. “Wino. It’s synthetic, but it’s not too bad. What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he said, suppressing a chuckle. “Sure, I’d love some.”

She opened the carton and poured. Legroeder accepted a glass and held it up to the light. Clear burgundy color. He sniffed at the liquid. Could it be worse than what he’d drunk at DeNoble? He held his glass up to hers. “Clink them together,” he said. Tracy-Ace looked puzzled, but clinked. It felt satisfying. He took a sip, hoping it would taste as good as the gesture had felt. It didn’t, not even remotely; but somehow that didn’t seem to matter. Tracy-Ace was watching him for a reaction, and when he smiled, it felt genuine.

She handed him a bowl and fork and gestured to the only place for them both to sit. They perched together on the edge of the bed—not too close together, but close enough to make him wonder what he was doing here. What he was doing about his mission. Quite a lot, dammit, he snarled to himself. The Narseil are getting a bath, and we’ve met the underground. That’s not too bad. And it wasn’t, really. But it didn’t answer the question of what he was doing sitting on a bed with Tracy-Ace/Alfa. What did it mean that he liked sitting on the bed with her—liked it quite a lot, now that he thought about it?

He took a quick bite of noodles, then a sip of wino, then stole a glance at Tracy-Ace. It wasn’t as if it had been love, or even lust, at first sight. And yet… he was aware now, almost hungrily aware, of her physical attractiveness: her lanky grace and energy, the almost elfin delicacy of her face. The vulnerability. Funny, that a woman who controlled so many lethal weapons should seem vulnerable.

And then there was the connecting touch they had shared, not just once but several times. As he gazed at her—no longer a stolen glance, but a steady gaze—he had the dizzying feeling that he had known her for years.

She smiled, and the effect was electrifying. Putting her fork down, she stretched out a hand. He watched the gesture in detached silence for a moment, then took her hand in his. He knew at once that this was something more than a handshake. “Pleased to know you, Tracy-Ace/Alfa,” he said in a husky voice.

“Pleased to know you, Renwald Legroeder.”

The tingle this time started not at the juncture of their hands, but at his toes. It moved up his body in a languid wave, more a physical sensation than a joining of minds. He felt a brief flash of fear—but a quick glance inward at his implants showed only a faint sparkling against darkness where he expected to see an active connection. This felt less like an uplink/downlink than like lowering himself into a tub of hot water, the heat flowing up his body. It wasn’t exactly sexual; it was more like a rising awareness on multiple sensory levels. It was as if his connectors were being tuned, enhanced, made ready for a heightened response. But a response to what?

The wave moved up through his loins with a fleeting tingle, then into his torso. He gasped as it passed his diaphragm; Tracy-Ace let out a little sigh at the same time. He blinked and focused on her. She seemed to be staring at nothing, at space, through him or past him. Is she who she seems? She noticed his gaze then—and her eyes sharpened. Her lips turned up, in a smile that took his breath away.

The final rush came quickly, like a vapor filling his skull. He felt a sudden, euphoric clarity, as though he had breathed in a lungful of clear mountain air.

He peered down at their clasped hands and found he wanted to squeeze her hand tighter, to renew the sensation of physical touch. Her eyes brightened as he squeezed, and he felt a second wave pass through him. This time it came from his hand and went straight up his arm. It was accompanied by a strange itch.

It took him a moment to realize that the itch was a tremendous spike of uplink/downlink. They were exchanging knowledge in a great exhilarating rush…

Snippets of his childhood play, on the long rolling beaches of Claire Marie—pleasure darkened by a certain melancholy, and by his unease with the water. Flashes of the joy and release of an unrestrained dash through the streams of the Flux…

Entwined with his flashes were hers—early memories of a farmhouse and grandparents, then coming of age in an utterly alien place, a culture in hiding. Achieving at an early age, mastering the inner life of the intelnet, of the implants and the knowledge systems…

Legroeder was filling like a vessel with her challenges and fears, and also her excursions into hopefulness. And against that, his own joys and friendships blazed into relief—Janofer and Gev and Skan—and hints of bitterly dark times…

Legroeder was teetering on the edge of a complete surrender to the exchange. He felt a sharp pang of fear; this is stupid, I’m going to betray everything! Or his implants would; or hers would somehow find everything he was hiding. But she already knew that he wanted to meet the underground; the only question was whether she was lying to him. His fear was countered by a silent reassurance from his implants: You’re not an open book if you don’t want to be. But his implants had slipped up before.

He was more aware of outward signals now, as he peered at her through half-closed eyes: the body language that he might otherwise have missed, or misread: her eye movements, beckoning, the pressure of her hand, the angling of her legs toward him, a certain openness, a readiness.

I don’t think she’s lying about this.

She wanted him. And he wanted her. He hadn’t been sure before, but now he was. There was not yet a feeling of urgency, but something was happening between them, and quickly. In an extraordinary way, it did not feel rushed at all, but a naturally flowing development. In this strange communion, all of the courtship and wondering and mutual exploration were passing in a blur, a blending of pigments on a living canvas, colors glowing and shifting and fusing. And through it all a slowly rising breath of desire…

“Renwald,” he heard, and wondered for a moment if he had heard the sound through the air, or through the joining. My name is Legroeder, he murmured with mock indignation, the thought slipping out through their joined hands.

“I know,” she whispered, “I know.” But I like Renwald, I like the way it rolls off my tongue, I like the way I feel when I say it, the way I’ll feel when I hold you in my… And suddenly she broke off with an embarrassed inner laugh, as though she had not meant to let all of that slip.

You can call me Renwald, any time you want, he murmured, intending to speak it aloud… but no, it was another thought slipping through the link. There in front of him now was his hand, almost like a separate entity, moving up her arm; it paused, squeezing her shoulder, before sliding back down to clasp her hand with a tingle. Out of the blue, before he could stop it, the thought floated up out of his mind and into the connection: Are you the face of the enemy?

For an instant he feared that she had heard, and would be furious; and indeed she had heard, but her response was a soft laugh: Do you think I’m your enemy? And before he could even think that through, her other hand was running up his arm, and then kneading the back of his neck; and he wasn’t really even sure how he got to this point, but they were kissing, and he was tasting her lips and shuddering a little from her tongue darting here, and there, and now his breath and hers were both coming faster.

The stream flowing through them was more than just knowledge now; it was like a song, its notes and phrases echoing round as if they had been leading up to this for a year, perfecting this song. And yet he also knew now of the three men and one woman she had made love to before, and of her desire for him; and she knew of the scattering of women he had known, only one with genuine love; and the next time he was aware of his left hand, it was stroking her bare right breast (how had it become bare?), caressing and squeezing the swollen red nipple, and feeling a tingle there between the tip of her nipple and the palm of his hand. Another pathway opened, and a memory came to him through her nipple, an image of a bright red sun breaking through a bank of clouds on the only planetary world she had ever known, as a young girl, a world called Carrie’s Dream… and he squeezed again, and a new image came, this time a memory of her first trembling orgasm… and he felt slipping out through his fingers, into the firmness of her breast a memory of his own, the first time he had slipped into the warmth of a woman, a woman three years older than his nineteen years, and his own shuddering…

She sighed into his neck and pressed his head down, and he took her hard nipple in his mouth, and for an instant felt as if he were inside her skin looking out, and he reached out and touched himself, her, himself… momentarily confused as to which body he was in.

Now. I want you now…

He was aware of her augment-controlled immune protections sliding into place. It is safe… no need to worry…

He heard the sigh, and for a moment wasn’t sure whose… but whichever, or both, their bodies were beginning to move in concert. Their remaining clothing was coming off, hands were darting and exploring; there was some awkwardness, and then everything was off, and they were entwined, not just in thought but in body as well; and she was holding his hardness, and he was stroking her softness; and a little later her mouth was on him hotly, and he was breathing her musky fragrance; then as he slipped into her warm center, the connecting tingle began from that piercing point and flowered outward…

*

Implants flickering, blazing with exhilaration, heart pounding, his net of awareness stretched out beyond her… but toward what? For a frozen, pulsing moment he felt as though he were joined to a far greater network, the intelnet…

*

That sensation flickered away, and in its place was something different, the web of his senses stretching out into time, into the past and future; her past and his past, and visions of the future… two futures, like thin silver ribbons interweaving toward a place that couldn’t be seen…

*

And behind it all, the joining that was like a choir, given physical shape by sound and music, and urgent movement, joined harmonies rising and straining and falling, the sweet sounds of harp and deep thrumming of bass, all growing, building toward a climax…

*

The brightness at their center flared with desire and urgency. For an instant that seemed disconnected in time, his gaze caught her deep green eyes and there was a breathtaking, liquid connection between them. Their movements joined, growing faster. Her heat was building around him, drawing him out farther and harder, breath coming sharper and sharper… and for a moment they were suspended in time, electrified… and then they came together, in expanding circles of fire against darkness; she was squeezing him in shuddering gasping release, and around them in the darkness of space were bursts of light and sharply drawn breath, and sounds wrapped in silence; and the web blossomed out and exploded with liquid light, raining crimson and gold and pearly white, pulsing until all of the fire was gone. And then a great quilt of darkening comfort closed around them, and they collapsed in quiet release.

“Jesus, Ace,” he whispered, his face against her cheek. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” She laughed softly, trying to keep him from pulling free, but it was too late.

“Fireworks?” He shifted, propping his head, and looked down at her. “I mean, really—fireworks?” He gazed appreciatively over her body, which he’d hardly had a chance to do the entire time they were making love. He drew a deep breath, awed by her long-limbed beauty. He stroked her hipbone, cupping the angles.

“I want you to know I don’t do that with every new arrival who comes into my node,” she murmured, kissing his ear. “Did you like it?”

“Like it?” He laughed softly, pressing his lips to her temple, beside the flickering augment. Her hair was damp with sweat. “Did I just die and go to Heaven?” He paused in reflection. (Have I just made love, with deep-cyber augment, to the Kyber Law? What have I done?)

// Isn’t that how spies are supposed to do it, according to your folklore? //

He gazed into space, considering. Maybe so, but that was just in crazy male fantasies.

“Good,” said Tracy-Ace, pushing him up with a hand on his chest so she could see his face. She grinned, kissed her own fingertip and touched it to his lips. Rolling out from beneath him, she slipped out of his reach and stood up facing him. She was breathtaking, naked, staring down at him. He thought his heart might jump out of his chest. Crazy fantasies were beginning to crowd his thoughts. Along with the fears. (You’re being set up, used.) But what a way to be used.

“I’m glad you liked that,” Tracy-Ace said. “Really glad. Because I like you, Renwald Legroeder.” She bent down, leading with her nipples, and kissed his forehead, lips, chin. His heart pounded as she straightened up again, then almost stopped as she whispered, “I think pretty soon we’re going to have to go introduce you to the Boss, don’t you?”

Chapter 25 Yankee-Zulu/Ivan

To his relief, Tracy-Ace hadn’t meant now. One thing led to another, and they were busy for a while longer after that.

They fell asleep half tangled together. Or rather, Tracy-Ace did. Legroeder drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep, his thoughts reverberating between a blissful euphoria and a terrifying conviction that he had blundered in the most appalling way. He awoke once with a start, imagining Kyber guards breaking down the door and thundering in to drag him away. His heart pounding, he peered across the room in the glow of tiny indicator lights, and saw nothing moving. Nothing except the slow rise and fall of Tracy-Ace/Alfa’s breathing. He sighed and closed his eyes.

Doubts crowded in, warring for his attention. How could he have let himself do this? Was he a complete idiot? How could he know he wasn’t being used? Manipulated. Set up.

He glanced in her direction. She was sound asleep with her back to him, but snuggled close. Peaceful as a lamb.

What’s the matter with you? Can’t you just enjoy, without wrecking it by worrying?

Enjoy what—sleeping with the enemy?

His ears were ringing as he drifted back off to sleep.

He awoke to find Tracy-Ace’s arm flung over him, her face against his shoulder, her hair against his cheek. She stirred, pressing a leg against him before flickering an eye open and murmuring, and any thought he’d had of drawing away vanished instantly.

She pulled him out of bed and into the shower. Engulfed in a haze of warm mist, Tracy-Ace was just drawing him close again, sending a rush of arousal up his spine, when a memory surfaced in his thoughts, a conversation with Com’peer back at the Narseil station. The surgeon and her team had just finished changing the DNA in his gonads. “That’s where raiders like to do their testing… more humiliating that way…”

He swallowed and tried to divert his thoughts, but there was no hiding the loss of arousal.

“You okay?”

“Uh, yes—fine!” he wheezed. He forced a grin, then seized her in a fierce hug. What have I done? Thinking with my gonads. What have I done?

She nuzzled his neck, but clearly wasn’t fooled. “Let’s get dressed and get something to eat,” she said, hurrying out of the shower. “Then let’s go talk business with the Boss.”

“Yes, let’s,” he muttered, trying not to sound as if he had just been punched in the solar plexus.

The Boss. The single syllable, even in the silence of his thoughts, made him shiver.

After a barely-touched breakfast, they walked to Section 29, which they had passed yesterday. It was, she said, the nerve center of the station, and indeed of the entire Outpost Ivan organization. The security at the entrance was just as threatening as at the maintainers’ facility.

Inside, though, the operations center had a surprisingly cobbled-together look, with a great deal of electronic equipment, and people sitting at stations of indeterminate function. Legroeder tried to cover his apprehension by peering over some shoulders, but Tracy-Ace pulled him onward. “This way,” she said, heading to the back of the room.

This way. Legroeder kept his eyes open for anyone who looked like a Boss. Would he be a walking display case of augmentation? Tracy-Ace brought him to a semicircular alcove in back, several steps up on a kind of dais, where a swivel chair sat in the middle of a cluttered array of at least fifty tiny console monitors. The chair was facing away from them; blue smoke billowed up from it. Tobacco smoke, with a sharp, pungent sweetness. Legroeder wrinkled his nose. He hadn’t smelled that since DeNoble. He hated it.

The chair rotated to face them. A bald-headed man without a trace of augmentation rose, waving a cigar in his right hand, as Tracy-Ace led Legroeder up the steps. “Legroeder, this is our Boss, Yankee-Zulu/Ivan. YZ/I, Rigger Renwald Legroeder.”

“Legroeder,” said the Boss. “We meet at last.” He puffed from his cigar and blew a cloud of smoke upward.

At last? Legroeder wondered, staring at the Boss. Why—was I expected? And where had he seen this man before? Yankee-Zulu/Ivan was extremely pale-skinned, especially on his bald pate, slightly heavy of build, and a few centimeters taller than Legroeder. He did not seem particularly augmented. Not at first. A moment later, Legroeder’s impression of that changed. The Boss’s eyes were cerulean blue, glowing from within. But it was not just his eyes; his face was suddenly aglow, as well, with a pale golden light. And now his hands—and through his silken shirt and pants, the rest of his body.

An illuminated man.

Now he remembered where he had seen this man before. It was in the joe shop, where Tracy-Ace had first debriefed him. The Boss had been quietly observing, from the back of the room. And for one instant, Legroeder had seen him aglow.

Yankee-Zulu/Ivan stuck out a hand, and as Legroeder shook it uneasily, waves of light rippled up the Boss’s arm, shining through the shirt sleeve as though it were gauze. Legroeder could not keep his eyes off the moving light. As it passed over the Boss’s shoulder and torso, it disappeared. But a moment later, pulsing threads of green, blue, and red became visible beneath the Boss’s skin.

“Are you wondering if you should run away?” Yankee-Zulu/Ivan asked, with a rumble that grew into a hard-edged laugh.

Legroeder drew himself taller, but didn’t answer.

The Boss turned to Tracy-Ace/Alfa. “You didn’t prepare him for our meeting,” he said.

“Oh, we did some preparation,” Tracy-Ace murmured, with a sideways glance at Legroeder that made him flush.

“Is that so?” said another voice, behind the Boss. A tall man, dark haired with red skin, stepped out of an unnoticed shadow in the back of the alcove. “Will you introduce me to your friend?”

Tracy-Ace tensed; her expression turned sour. This was the man they had seen walking into the command center yesterday. Someone you won’t need to worry about. “Hello, Lanyard,” Tracy-Ace said. “How nice to see you here. Rigger Legroeder, I’d like you to meet a colleague of mine—”

“Come on, now,” said the tall man. “You can call me a friend.”

Tracy-Ace ignored the comment and continued speaking to Legroeder, taking him by the wrist as though to lead him through the room. “This is Group Coordinator Lanyard, who is a member of Outpost Ivan’s Ruling Cabinet.”

Legroeder felt his implants flicker to life as information flowed to him through his wrist. // Lanyard/GC is not just a member of the Cabinet, which oversees Outpost policy, but also of the current political opposition to this Boss. There may be a balance-of-power struggle here; he is considered a potential threat. Tracy-Ace was not expecting Lanyard/GC to be present, and isn’t pleased. He formerly had a… relationship… with Tracy-Ace/Alfa, which ended badly. //

Legroeder did his best to hide his scowl.

“Lanyard is here as—?” Tracy-Ace paused and stretched out an inquiring hand.

“An observer,” said Yankee-Zulu/Ivan at once, which seemed to bring a frown—quickly concealed—to Lanyard’s face.

Legroeder’s augments flashed him a quick schematic. // The command hierarchy places Yankee-Zulu/Ivan at the top of the power structure. However, he remains in power at the pleasure of the Cabinet, which does not make day-to-day decisions, but grants him authority. YZ/I oversees the outpost from this operations center, through direct feeds to his internal augments as well as visual information in this room. //

Legroeder nodded inwardly. Here it was, then. All this way he had come, to learn what he could about the operation of the fortress; and here was the man who ran it—if he really was a man, under all that glowing skin. Except, apparently his power was not absolute.

YZ/I was watching Legroeder with evident amusement. He puffed out three smoke rings and watched them disperse, then glanced back at Lanyard before asking Legroeder, “So—have you found our world here to your liking?”

Legroeder opened his mouth, and closed it, moving his head to avoid the smoke. He glanced at Tracy-Ace, but she had turned poker-faced.

As his gaze shifted back to Yankee-Zulu/Ivan, Legroeder drew a sharp breath. Instead of a man, he was gazing at a man-shaped holo, an image of the Kyber armada coursing through the swirls of the Deep Flux. The colony fleet. Was it underway already? Bound for…? He wanted to ask, but YZ/I the man seemed to have utterly vanished into the image. Legroeder glanced to the side and suddenly realized that all the monitors around him were filled with images of space, forming a mosaic curtain. It was a picture he recognized: the Sagittarian Dust Clouds, inbound across the galactic sea. It was a course toward the rich star clusters known by various names in the Centrist Worlds, the clusters a war had been fought over.

The Cloud of a Thousand Suns.

The Well of Stars.

“YZ/I, I already told him about the fleet,” Tracy-Ace said, with an edge of impatience in her voice.

“Is hearing the same as seeing?” boomed a voice that seemed to come from the deeps of space where the pirate fleet was hurtling. The image of the fleet rotated until it seemed that the ships were flying straight toward Legroeder. The holo blinked off, and Yankee-Zulu/Ivan was standing there as a man again. He stuck the cigar back in his mouth.

Behind him, Lanyard looked annoyed. “Do you really think it’s wise to show him that, as if it’s your personal toy?”

YZ/I shrugged. “What’s he going to do with it, Lanyard? He’s here, with us. Anyway, he’s going to have to know that we’re serious—and why. Is that okay with you, Rigger Legroeder?”

Legroeder, unsure what to say, jerked his head toward the monitors, where the image remained. “Is that where the fleet is headed? The Well of Stars?”

“That’s right.” YZ/I’s voice grew deeper. “It’s the biggest colonizing fleet in the history of the human race! And it’s going to be launched within the year!” His lips suddenly curled into what at first looked like a sneer, then seemed to be a wince of pain. “If we can solve a few little problems.” He stroked his lips as though to rub away the previous expression. “What do you think of it, Rigger Legroeder?”

What Legroeder thought was that he was having trouble breathing. It was a magnificent fleet. Setting out to populate the galaxy with pirates. It would be a really fine thing if he could think of a way to stop it. But how?

YZ/I was still waiting for an answer. Legroeder moistened his lips, then asked, “Why did you show that to me? Were you thinking I might want to join up?”

YZ/I stared at him for a moment with those glowing eyes—and suddenly broke into a long, iron-hard guffaw. “No, Rigger Legroeder, I didn’t really think you’d want to join up. Not after your experience at Barbados—or should I say, your seven years of captivity at DeNoble.” Legroeder froze in sudden terror. YZ/I’s eyes gleamed. “DeNoble. What a goddamn scum-pit of humanity. To think they’re part of our Republic.”

Legroeder felt paralyzed like an icecat in a spotlight.

“And you’re mad as hell about it,” YZ/I continued sourly, “and you’ve come to see what you can do to try to wipe us all out for good. Do I have it right?” He puffed smoke in a stream toward the ceiling, where a vent fan seemed to push it back downward rather than draw it away.

Legroeder struggled to draw a breath. How did YZ/I know about him and DeNoble? What else did he know? He closed his eyes to a squint, focusing inward in fury. (Did you betray that information—when I was with Tracy-Ace—?)

// We did not. We carefully monitored the passage of information. //

(Then—) He blinked his eyes open.

Tracy-Ace was touching his arm. He glared at her in silent indignation. He was afraid to think… didn’t want to ask… or to admit…

Do you feel bad because you lied to her and then made love to her… or because you got caught?

He got his breath back at last, but felt her gaze burning back at him.

“Oh, for chrissake, Legroeder, don’t try to deny it,” YZ/I said.

Legroeder jerked his eyes back to the Boss.

“Legroeder,” Tracy-Ace murmured in a strained voice, “I’ve known all along. We’ve known.”

He jerked his eyes back to her. The world was tilting under him. How could you have known? But Tracy-Ace had already turned to YZ/I, her implants flaring. “Did you have to drop it on him like that?”

Legroeder slowly followed her gaze, and saw that the man had ripples of light flickering up in waves from his feet to the top of his head. YZ/I shrugged. “He can take it.” He glanced at Lanyard, and in a voice that seemed calculatedly casual, continued, “Rigger Legroeder, there are a great many things that we know—things on the outside, in the Centrist Worlds. But you must not assume that we are like those who held you captive at DeNoble. We’re not.”

Aren’t you? Legroeder felt his face stinging with humiliation. His cover was gone, had never been there in the first place.

But YZ/I wasn’t gloating over the revelation. Instead, he was turning to speak to Lanyard. “I believe you had another appointment, Group Coordinator? Don’t let us keep you.”

Lanyard stiffened ever so slightly. “I think, given the circumstances, that it’s probably more important that I hear—”

“What’s important,” YZ/I interrupted, “is that we conclude these sensitive discussions in private, for now.”

Lanyard’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Don’t try to shut us out, YZ/I. If you go too far along this course, you might find—”

“I promise to give you and the Cabinet a full report,” YZ/I said soothingly. “I assure you, we will not go too far along this or any other course. But just now… well, I’m sure you understand. Rigger Legroeder is on the spot—and he doesn’t need to hear about our internal concerns. Compre-hendo?”

For a moment, it looked as if Lanyard would argue further. Whatever went between them did so in silence. Lanyard closed his eyes, and a line of augments flickered on his earlobes. Abruptly, he blinked his eyes open, nodded brusquely, and strode away.

As soon as he was gone, a privacy forcefield shimmered into place, enclosing the three of them. YZ/I laughed quietly. “I wouldn’t laugh too hard,” said Tracy-Ace, with a distinctly unhappy look on her face. “He could cause us trouble.”

“Well, you’d know that about him, wouldn’t you?” YZ/I said with a little chuckle, causing her face to darken even further. “No, Lanyard is okay; he’s just fond of poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. We’re going to have to be careful of that.” YZ/I paused, then said to Legroeder as if they had not been interrupted, “Rigger Legroeder, Tracy-Ace/Alfa did not betray you to me.”

Legroeder stirred, filing the Lanyard encounter away. “Then who did?”

YZ/I rubbed his jaw. “If you must know, I’m the one who told her. We’ve known from the beginning about your escape from DeNoble. For Rings’ sake, we brought you here. We have things to discuss with you.”

“What do you mean you brought—”

YZ/I waved a hand in the air. “Our contacts with the Narseil indicated an interest in communication.”

The underground. Legroeder swallowed, not speaking.

“We had things to talk about—but we couldn’t be too obvious about it.” YZ/I nodded to Tracy-Ace. “We have appearances to maintain. Very important. Power structures and so on.”

Lanyard. The Ruling Cabinet.

“But you sent out… I mean, your ship tried to destroy us,” Legroeder protested. “Destroy the Narseil.”

YZ/I’s breath hissed between his teeth. “That idiot, Te’Gunderlach. If he hadn’t been killed in the fight, I’d do it myself. He was ordered to find you. Capture you. Not kill you. That’s why Freem’n Deutsch was programmed to—”

“Deutsch? Programmed?”

“Must you interrupt? It didn’t work. Deutsch was supposed to get a priority override if the captain got carried away.” YZ/I shook his head. “Damn augments are probably what drove Te’Gunderlach berserk, and by then Deutsch’s override was too little, too late. Fortunately, you made it here nevertheless—so everything worked out—”

“Not for the dead people we left behind,” Legroeder interrupted.

“That is true,” YZ/I said flatly. “I do not like losing ships or crew.”

I wasn’t thinking of your crew.

“In any case,” YZ/I said, steepling his fingers, “due credit to you for a well-executed infiltration. We must guard our perimeter better, in the future. We had no idea that Flechette was being flown by you and the Narseil. But you came—wisely probing through the intelnet, and you triggered one of our signal points—and so we made contact. And here we are.” YZ/I spread his hands.

Legroeder took a moment to absorb it all. There seemed no point in further denial. He exhaled slowly. “What about the—” he hesitated, struggling to say the word, “underground?”

White light rippled up YZ/I’s shoulders and neck. He puffed from the cigar. “As I said—here we are.”

Legroeder’s mouth opened, closed. “You?”

YZ/I extended his hands. “Us. The underground—such as it is. Ready to undertake change for the betterment of the Republic, and so on. But—” he cautioned “—not too publicly. There are people—” and for an instant, the monitors behind him filled with faces; one of them was Lanyard “—who might regard this as sedition, and use it as a pretext for attempting to seize power.” YZ/I raised his chin. “Question. Are you ready to talk?”

Legroeder let his breath out, stunned. He glanced at Tracy-Ace; in her eyes there was only serious business, no sign of the playful lover. “Why did—you wait so long?” he stammered finally. “Why didn’t you talk to me right away? Why are the Narseil down there in jail, while I’m—?” He didn’t finish the question.

YZ/I’s face flickered. “Do you feel that the Narseil are being mistreated, after what you’ve seen elsewhere?”

Legroeder swallowed. It was true that they, and he, were being treated far better than anything he’d ever seen at DeNoble.

“We don’t accommodate everyone so well. But we needed time. Time to get to know you. Find out what kind of a man you were. TA here was entrusted with that job.” He grinned, all teeth.

Legroeder felt blood rushing to his face. Tracy-Ace gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. It wasn’t just that, she seemed to be saying. Or was it, You fool…

“We brought you here,” YZ/I continued, “partly to talk to you and your Narseil friends on matters of common interest—and partly because we have a job we think might interest you.”

Legroeder barked a laugh. “Why would you think I’d be interested in a job, if you knew what I went through at DeNoble?”

YZ/I carefully stuck the cigar back in his mouth and talked around it. “But there was also what came after, yes?”

“Meaning what?”

YZ/I shrugged. “All those attempts on your life on Faber Eridani? Who do you think was responsible for that? And for your being framed for the attack on Ciudad de los Angeles? And the attack on Robert McGinnis?”

Legroeder felt weakness and rage mixed into one. “Are you claiming responsibility?” He wanted to look at Tracy-Ace, and found he could not. Say no. At least say she wasn’t involved.

“Me?” YZ/I replied. “Rings, no! Not my way of operating. Not at all. And certainly counterproductive to what I hope to do.”

Legroeder slowly began to breathe again. “Then who? I take it you know.”

“I know in general terms.” YZ/I waved his cigar in a circle. “For starters, I imagine it was Centrists, not Free Kybers, who did the actual deeds. Kyber-sympathizing Centrists, mind you. Not connected with Ivan.”

“Then who were they connected with?”

YZ/I extended a hand toward the back of his working alcove. A holoimage appeared in the wall, showing a raider stronghold. Not Ivan. It was reminiscent of the stronghold from which Legroeder had escaped, in Golen Space. “This particular outpost is run by a boss by the name of Kilo-Mike/Carlotta,” said YZ/I. An image of a dark-haired, heavily augmented woman appeared, giving Legroeder a shudder. YZ/I nodded toward the image. “KM/C and I don’t get along too well. But KM/C has a great many connections in the Centrist Worlds—particularly, as it happens, on Faber Eridani. She—”

“Wait a minute,” Legroeder said. “Connections I could see. But why would anyone on the Centrist Worlds have the slightest sympathy for pirates? Unless they’re getting a kickback—”

YZ/I snorted. “Of course, they’re getting kickbacks. But that’s not what turned them into sympathizers.”

“Then what—?”

YZ/I took a puff on his cigar. “Betrayal.”

Legroeder remembered El’ken recounting the Centrist betrayal of the Narseil. But he didn’t think that was what YZ/I meant. “What do you mean?”

“Betrayal of their own world’s vision and purpose!” YZ/I thundered. He interrupted himself. “Christ, I’m being a poor host. TA, could you grab a couple of chairs for yourself and the rigger? Thank you.” He paused again to study the burning end of his cigar. “A fanatical sense of betrayal. And they’re right. The Centrist Worlds defeated the Kyber worlds—not us, but the worlds our ancestors came from—in the War of a Thousand Suns. You know that, right?”

Legroeder nodded, ignoring the implied insult.

“And then, having won among other things the right to be first out to the Well of Stars, what did they do?” YZ/I shook with rage. “You tell me!”

Legroeder hesitated. “Not much, I guess. There were some surveys.” And meanwhile, drawing inward while rebuilding, regaining prosperity. And then… nothing. Isolationism.

YZ/I snorted contemptuously. “They won their racist war, then congratulated themselves and sat on their fat asses! Did they take risks to explore the worlds they claimed they were fighting for the right to colonize? NO!” He stuck the cigar back between his teeth again. “So that is what our fleet is going to do now. Seems pretty clear they’ve abdicated any right—” He stopped and glared. “What?”

Legroeder wondered why he was even arguing with this man. Nevertheless… “The Centrists wouldn’t even have won that war—if you can call it winning—if they hadn’t betrayed the Narseil. Turned their backs on an ally and made a deal with the enemy.” The enemy they hated. The enemy that was more implant than human. “And if they hadn’t broken up their rigging partnership with the Narseil, maybe we would be on our way to the Well of Stars right now.”

YZ/I grinned. “You learned from El’ken and McGinnis. Very good. You know, I was sorry to learn of McGinnis’s death. He was a worthy man.”

“Yes, he was,” Legroeder snapped. “And if you knew what those people were doing, why didn’t you stop them?”

YZ/I stubbed out his cigar in a receptacle behind him. “I didn’t say I could control them, for Almighty’s sake. Just that I knew about them. KM/C has a lot more people on Faber Eridani than I do. And believe me—those sympathizers are very angry about their world’s failure to act. Angry enough to collaborate with their supposed enemies, the Free Kyber. Imagine that.”

Yes, imagine, Legroeder thought numbly. Imagine consorting with the Free Kyber. He met Tracy-Ace’s gaze for a fraction of a second and jerked his eyes back to YZ/I.

“Some of them are in positions of authority, where they can make a pretty good show of opposing Free Kyber activity—”

“You mean piracy?” Legroeder asked carefully.

“Whatever.” YZ/I waved a translucent hand. “All the while turning a blind eye to it. How do you think the Free Kyber fleets have been assembled so quickly? These are isolated outposts—many of them embedded in the Flux as we are, with practically no access to raw materials! That’s why we need to colonize! We know we’re living on borrowed time!” He paused. “You know, there’s an old proverb, ‘Where there’s no vision, the people die.’ Well, all the vision has gone out of the Centrist leaders. But there are others who haven’t lost it.”

“You mean people like Centrist Strength?” Legroeder asked sarcastically.

YZ/I shrugged. “They’re not someone we deal with, but yeah. Same principle. Lemme ask you—why do you think, for decades now, the Free Kyber have drawn their tax from the wealthy planets, almost without opposition?”

“Tax?” Legroeder echoed sarcastically.

“Let’s not quibble over terminology.” YZ/I waved his hand in annoyance. He looked as if he missed the cigar, now that he’d put it out. “The point is they’ve been helping the Free Kyber build the colonizing fleet. Most of the ships in that fleet came from the Centrist Worlds—with the help of Centrists who’d rather see Free Kyber colonists move out to the Well of Stars than no one at all. Plus—” YZ/I waggled his hand “—there’s the smell of profit for them. Of course.”

“Of course,” Legroeder murmured.

YZ/I gazed at him for a moment. “I believe someone you once knew is among them. A Captain Hyutu, formerly of the Ciudad de los Angeles?”

Legroeder was stunned. “Captain Hyutu!”

“A captain now in the fleet of Kilo-Mike/Carlotta. A nasty, mendacious son of a bitch, by reputation.”

Legroeder swallowed back bile.

YZ/I’s eyebrows went up. “You know, neither Hyutu—nor, for that matter, KM/C—will much like what I’m going to suggest. I suspect there could be some personal satisfaction in it for you, though.”

Legroeder raised his chin. “What are you going to suggest?”

“Oh, nothing much.” YZ/I focused on his fingertips for a moment. “Just that I thought you might want to go out and find Impris for us and see if you can bring her back in one piece.”

Legroeder stopped breathing. He heard blood pounding in his ears and felt suddenly detached from reality. Was his heart still beating? Had this man just said what he thought he’d said?

“You okay there?” said Yankee-Zulu/Ivan, in a voice that seemed to echo in Legroeder’s skull.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in… yes, I am okay. He nodded, not trusting his voice.

“I was afraid I’d given you a heart attack or something.”

You damn near did, Legroeder thought.

“What do you think? Want to do it?”

Legroeder cleared his throat. “You want me to find Impris—”

“Find her, see if anyone’s still alive on her, make contact, do a full investigation. Bring her back, if you can.”

The feeling of dizziness was passing, but slowly. “I didn’t, uh, realize that Impris was lost. From your point of view, I mean.”

“Well, not completely. KM/C knows more or less where she is, no doubt. They’re the ones currently using her as a siren lure to bring in ships. But I don’t know where she is… precisely. And even KM/C can’t reach her.”

“Then why—”

“Because I want, very badly, to know why she disappeared.”

Legroeder stared at him. “Why do you care?”

Yankee-Zulu/Ivan rose from his seat and stretched out a hand. The image of the fleet reappeared behind him. “See this fleet?” he rumbled. “This fleet is the pride of our Republic!” He was actually breathing hard from the apparent intensity of emotion, and it took him a moment to get his breath back. “And I don’t want this fleet disappearing the way Impris did!”

Legroeder shook his head. “Why would it?”

YZ/I’s face turned into a glowing network of veins and arteries. “Because… we have suffered losses. Unexplained losses. Not just Ivan, but other outposts.” He turned his hands palm up.

Tracy-Ace tapped her feet impatiently. “Why don’t you just tell him, YZ/I?”

Legroeder looked from one to the other.

YZ/I seemed annoyed. “Well, all right—for one thing, ships have been lost that were shadowing Impris too closely.”

And you want me to fly close to her? Legroeder thought. He drew a breath, stretching his lips over his teeth. “Maybe you guys have just been shooting each others’ ships up. Anyway, why don’t you just stop flying so close to her?” And why don’t you stop using her for piracy, while you’re at it?

“Well, the shooting part isn’t as far-fetched as you might think,” YZ/I said thoughtfully. “But no—we’re pretty sure whatever’s happened to them is related to what happened to Impris. And we need to find out what the hell that is.”

This time Tracy-Ace looked annoyed. “Tell him, YZ/I.”

YZ/I sighed and rubbed his jaw, setting off little sparkles of color in his cheeks. “All right, it’s not just ships near Impris. In the last three years, we’ve lost four probe ships headed to the Sagittarian Clouds. Advance ships for the fleet…” His voice trailed off, as he waved a hand back at the monitors. “I’m used to losing ships, but… with the whole fleet getting ready to go…”

“Tell him about your brother,” Tracy-Ace said.

A flash of light went up YZ/I’s face. With obvious irritation, he said, “And men who are like brothers to me are commanding ships in that fleet. All right?” Tracy-Ace stared, and he growled. “Anyway, it’s not just that. We’re going to commit an entire fleet to the Deep Flux. We need to know what’s going on.”

The Deep Flux…

Tracy-Ace continued staring at YZ/I. “Tell him about your brother!”

YZ/I put his fingertips to his temple, as his face flashed dark and light. “All right,” he said, as though suppressing a pain. “Come on.” Rising, he led them across the dais and down the steps to a large holotank monitor. It took him a few seconds to get the image he wanted: an outpost floating in the reddish mists of the Flux. Not Ivan, not DeNoble, not KM/C. It was shaped rather like a skyscraper tower, but with its lower end simply fading into the Flux. “This is… was… Outpost Juliette.”

“Was?” Legroeder asked.

“Yeah. It was anchored in the Flux, like Ivan. Only it had its foundation in the slow layers. They thought it would be safer that way, keep it anchored better.”

“Only it didn’t,” Legroeder guessed.

YZ/I changed the image. “This holo was taken by a ship coming in from patrol, just as this happened.” As he spoke, the image suddenly began to quiver and dance, as though they were looking at it through heat waves rising off a desert floor.

“What’s that? What’s happening?”

“Watch.”

The quivering worsened, and the recording became jerky, as though the camera were moving. The surrounding mists flickered and then darkened, and in that moment the tower suddenly became transparent. One heartbeat it was solid; the next it was a ghost. And then it vanished altogether, leaving behind the blood-red mist.

“Just like that,” YZ/I said. “It was gone before the ship could approach for docking. They felt turbulence in the Flux, and sheared off. And then the outpost was just… gone.” YZ/I suddenly looked old and care-worn. “Never found so much as a trace of it. And my pain-in-the-ass kid brother was on it at the time.” He rubbed his forehead, wincing, then straightened as Legroeder absorbed that blow. “I can tell you, no other outposts are anchored in the lower layers now. Impris, as far as I know, is the only one of these ships that’s ever reappeared where we can see it.”

Legroeder regarded him in horror and fascination, thinking of all those people caught, perhaps for all of eternity, in a ghost realm that no rigger knew how to navigate. Impris had been… half a legend, and half a terrible, isolated reality. Just one. But now… So many ships? And an outpost?

“If I knew where to look, I’d send you after my own ships,” YZ/I said.

“But you think they all somehow strayed into the Deep Flux, and couldn’t get out?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t have to ask you to go find out, would I?”

“I guess not. But why me?”

“Why not you?”

Legroeder stirred angrily. “Give me a reason!”

YZ/I raised his eyebrows. “All right. You’re a rigger, and you’ve seen the ship, and you have good reason to want to find it again. Don’t you?”

Legroeder shook his head stubbornly. “Maybe I do. But why did you bring me here to do this? It wasn’t for my benefit. Why don’t you send your own riggers to find it?”

YZ/I took a deep, hoarse breath. “Do you think we haven’t tried?” His voice softened to a growl. “And we’ve lost two more ships trying. So no, we didn’t go to all this trouble just for the fun of it.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. What do you think I can do that your riggers can’t? I told the Narseil that your riggers have tricks we could learn from.”

YZ/I looked pained. “Our rigging may be different from yours. But that doesn’t necessarily make it better.”

Legroeder was startled by the admission. “All right, then—different. I don’t know how your people function with all that augmentation, to be honest.” Legroeder rubbed the implant on his right temple. “I’m lucky these things didn’t ruin my ability to function in the net. I’m sure it’s only because they stayed in the background.”

“Exactly,” said YZ/I.

“Huh?”

“Sure, we have AI augmentation that can run rings around yours, and it’s very useful. We couldn’t take on the Deep Flux without it. But we also have riggers who are dependent on it, who I think have lost skills that you take for granted. The intuitive element, the human element. They’re starting to lose it.” YZ/I jabbed a thumb at himself. “You think I’m crazy, saying that? I’m just telling you what’s happening.”

He paused. “So let’s talk about Renwald Legroeder—who not only has had an encounter with Impris, but escaped from Fortress DeNoble, escaped through a passage that to anyone else would have been suicide alley. We had a ship visiting there at the time—they saw the whole thing. Do you remember it? What do they call it, the Chimney?”

Legroeder shivered at the memory: the frantic, terrifying dash through the minefield, and then the Chimney, the Fool’s Refuge… chased by raiders and flux torpedoes and fear, and somehow finding his way. He hadn’t thought much about how he had gotten through, except to be grateful that he’d been so monumentally lucky.

“You think other riggers could have done that? I understand quite a few have tried, and died.”

Tracy-Ace, Legroeder realized, was gazing at him with a strangely penetrating expression, and a hint of a smile on her lips. He shrugged, not to her but to YZ/I.

“And according to Rigger Deutsch’s report, you led a pretty good chase through the bottom layers of the Flux when you were engaging Flechette. Well, okay—maybe some other riggers could have done that.” YZ/I was staring unblinking at him now, ripples of light running down his arms and torso. “But I don’t know any riggers—except maybe a couple of our maintainers—who could have seen those features of the Deep FLux that you picked out in the maintainers’ net. And you weren’t even in the net! You were just watching an image on the wall!”

Legroeder felt a sudden dizziness, remembering. Yes, he had seen those features. But so what? What did that mean?

“You don’t even know that you’re unusual, do you? At DeNoble, they were too dumb to recognize what they had.” YZ/I cocked his head and gestured to Tracy-Ace. “Why do you think she took you into a high-security area like that? For your health?”

Open-mouthed, Legroeder turned to Tracy-Ace. “I thought it was—I don’t know—that you were trying to gain my trust.”

She inclined her head. “Yes, I was. But that part didn’t work so well, did it?”

YZ/I chuckled. “Of course she wanted to gain your trust. But I also wanted to know what you would see there. And what you saw… tells me you’re worth taking a gamble on.” His voice became almost solemn. “You have the vision. You see deeper than my people. Or at least, differently. That’s why I want you to go.”

“Well, I—”

“And I want you to take some of your Narseil friends with you.”

Legroeder closed his open mouth. For a few seconds, he was speechless. “You want the Narseil to go?”

“Yes, because they’ll see things that no human will see. Don’t you get it? I want to send out the full spectrum—my people with their augments, you, the Narseil. Everyone together.”

Legroeder’s voice caught. “I’m having just a little trouble believing this. You want to work with the Narseil?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I? Do I have to repeat everything?” YZ/I reached into a compartment on his chair. “Do you want a cigar?”

“No. Thank you.”

Looking disappointed, YZ/I withdrew his hand. “Anyway, yes—I think it’s time we and the Narseil talked. It might be very useful for us to exchange information.”

Legroeder gave a harsh laugh. “And it might be useful if you stopped raiding innocent shipping!”

YZ/I grimaced and reached into his cigar compartment again. His hand seemed to war with his mind for a moment, before he snapped the compartment shut, empty handed. He drew himself up. “As a matter of fact… that could be on the table, too.”

Legroeder blinked, startled.

YZ/I looked pained and angry, and not eager to say more. Tracy-Ace looked as if she wanted to kick him. Instead, she turned to Legroeder. “The free ride. YZ/I, unlike some of the other bosses, has begun to recognize what some of us have been saying for a long time—the free ride may be coming to an end. The raiding. The tax. We’ve been living on it so long now—”

“It’s made us soft,” YZ/I growled. “Soft and lazy. And we’re supposed to go out and colonize the Well of Stars?” He snorted.

“I think what YZ/I is trying to say,” Tracy-Ace said slowly, “is that, in addition to making us soft, all the raiding has made us vulnerable.”

Legroeder didn’t hide his confusion.

“Look, we know that there are some, like the Narseil, who are getting ready to come looking for us. With guns. The ship you came on was just a start.”

“Well—”

“We know you came here to talk, if you could,” Tracy-Ace said. “But you also came to gather intelligence to wipe us out, if you could. We’re not idiots.”

“Oh hell,” YZ/I muttered. “If you’re going to tell him everything. Don’t get cocky, Legroeder. We could fight your fleets. But sometimes—” sparks of light shot through his face, as though it hurt to say it “—sometimes, it makes more sense to talk. And that’s what I want to do with the Narseil. Talk. And… go after something of mutual benefit. So, are you interested?” He rocked back in his chair.

“I’m interested,” Legroeder said. “But what are you offering in return? Besides some vague promise to talk?”

“Why, you—” YZ/I cursed in a tongue Legroeder didn’t recognize, but there was no mistaking the tone. He reached into his seat compartment, grabbed a cigar, and snapped the end of it alight. He blew an enormous cloud of smoke into the air. “Isn’t Impris enough? I send you home with your friends, and you get to clear your name. Plus we open lines of talk. Isn’t that enough?”

Legroeder held his breath until the smoke cleared, thinking, it wasn’t as if he was in a position of power here; but on the other hand, YZ/I had gone to a lot of trouble to enlist him. “Seems to me,” he said, with a cough, “that there’s more at stake here. You mentioned a willingness to end the piracy.”

“Rings!” YZ/I shouted. “I didn’t say I would discuss it with you!”

Legroeder shot back, “You didn’t say you wouldn’t.” He took a breath, gestured with one hand. “Look, you’re telling me all about how you want to talk with the Narseil, and share with the Narseil, and give up the free ride.”

YZ/I waved the burning tip of his cigar. “Your point?”

“And you’ve told me all about Carlotta conspiring with the Centrists, and Carlotta this and Carlotta that, but you haven’t said a word about yourself. How do I know you’re not as involved in piracy as she is? Not to mention slavery.” A rush of memories from DeNoble threatened to overwhelm him. He forced them back down, and glanced at Tracy-Ace out of the corner of his eye. How do I know you aren’t involved in it, too? he wanted, and didn’t want, to say.

YZ/I shrugged. “We keep our ear to the deck on the Centrist Worlds, if that’s what you mean. But we don’t have our hooks in their governments, like KM/C. The raiding—okay. I see it can’t last. Carlotta, she doesn’t see it. Neither do some of the other bosses. We’ve got a disagreement in that regard.” YZ/I raised his right hand and held it so that he could look into his own palm, as though studying the threaded pattern of light there. “With all the things we don’t agree on, it’s a wonder we’ve gotten this fleet assembled at all.”

He eyed Legroeder. “So if we do this thing, KM/C isn’t going to like it. And she isn’t going to like our collaborating with the Narseil. These are things I have to think about. I don’t live in isolation. Carlotta likes her cozy arrangement.”

“But wouldn’t it be to everyone’s benefit to find out why ships are disappearing?” Legroeder asked. And wouldn’t it also be to the benefit of that Kyber fleet that I want to stop? Hell and damnation.

“Yeah, but it wasn’t Carlotta’s probe ships that got lost, so what’s she care? You rescue Impris and that’ll interfere with a lucrative raiding setup.” YZ/I shrugged. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”

Legroeder thought about getting KM/C even angrier at him than she was already…

“So needless to say, I’m taking one hell of a risk just underwriting the mission. So don’t give me a lot of crap about what other risks I ought to be taking on.”

Legroeder closed his eyes. Had he pushed as far as he could push? Probably he would be smart to stop here, and just agree to it. Bring Impris back, clear his name, get people talking. What were Harriet and Morgan up to now? And Maris? They seemed a universe away, another lifetime. He was supposed to ask about Bobby Mahoney. Jesus Christ, he’d almost forgotten. But this wasn’t the time…

“And yet,” he found himself saying, “you continue to fly, and fight, with forced labor.”

YZ/I glared in astonishment. “Christ, you don’t give up, do you, boy?” He coughed on the cigar smoke; the stench was making Legroeder dizzy. “Yeah, we fly with captives. It’s part of our history. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Give it up.”

YZ/I gave a long, sputtering laugh. “Give it up!” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that!”

“You said you were the underground. You want things to change.”

“Yeah, we’re the underground,” YZ/I said slowly. “And the reason we’re the underground is you don’t just change things overnight. People like Lanyard—they’ve got friends.”

Legroeder felt as if he were sliding on ice, unable to stop. “You’re getting soft and lazy, preying on the innocent.”

YZ/I stood up and shouted, “Fuck… you… boy! Don’t you talk to me that way!”

Legroeder realized he had involuntarily raised an arm to ward off a blow.

YZ/I stood before him, his face a meteor shower of fury. Then he shifted his glare to Tracy-Ace. “What are you looking at?” he shouted.

Tracy-Ace raised her eyebrows.

“Rings.” YZ/I chomped his cigar and turned his back to them for a moment. Then he sat and shook his head. “You have to understand some history here, for chrissake. Jesus! You don’t know what it was like.”

But I’m about to find out…

“The Centrists cut us off. Treated us like scum, like nonhumans. Sure, they made peace. Peace.” YZ/I snorted. “Peace with no future, peace as long as no one with hardware in their brains had a planet to live on, or worlds to conquer. They cast us off, cut us off, and sent us to live in Golen Space. And you wonder why the Free Kyber started raiding shipping, three generations ago? What else were they supposed to do?”

Legroeder opened his mouth, closed it. “But you said you want to change it.”

“Yes! We need each other! I know that! But it can’t be done overnight. There’s just no way.”

Legroeder leaned forward. “So make a start. Start it here. This is your chance to make history.”

YZ/I glared, his anger clearly rising.

Tracy-Ace rubbed the flickering augments by her left eye, and said softly, “He’s saying what I’ve been saying, YZ/I.”

“Do me a favor,” Legroeder said, “and put up that image of the fleet again. The colony fleet.”

The monitors changed to the fleet image.

“Big fleet. Must be hundreds of ships.”

“Over a thousand,” YZ/I said.

Legroeder nodded. “And it means a lot to you to have the fleet get through safely. A lot of effort. Resources. Lives.” Legroeder pressed his lips together. What am I talking about trading here? His head was pounding.

YZ/I stared at him furiously.

“End the piracy.”

YZ/I spat to one side. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“You’re asking me to risk my life. And you want me to trust that we’ll talk about it? Send me and the Narseil home with Impris. You can have all the information we get from her. It could save your fleet.”

YZ/I snarled and blew smoke at him.

Legroeder let the smoke pass. “If we’re going to deal, make it real.”

YZ/I flung down his cigar. “Guards!” he shouted.

Before Legroeder could finish drawing a breath, there were four heavily armed and augmented Kyber soldiers surrounding him on the dais. Tracy-Ace was staring at YZ/I, wide-eyed. Legroeder’s heart was pounding so hard he could barely hear YZ/I’s next words.

“You think you can just waltz in here and tell me what to do! Guards, take this man to—” YZ/I suddenly broke off and jerked his gaze over to Tracy-Ace. They stood facing each other with silent glares, joined as though by a high-voltage charge. Legroeder watched them in numb bewilderment, trying not to think about the neutraser muzzles that were pointing at his chest. Tracy-Ace’s implants were pulsing at a frantic rate; YZ’s face looked like a contained explosion. What the devil was going on between them?

Suddenly Tracy-Ace cried out in pain, staggering. YZ/I turned with a curse to one of the soldiers. “Stand down your men. I’ll call you if I need you.”

The soldiers melted away. Tracy-Ace rubbed her temple and stood straight again, scowling.

YZ/I looked down at the floor where his cigar lay smoldering. Then he looked up at Legroeder. “I will negotiate—not with you, but with the Narseil commander—on a timetable for ceasing hostilities. If we come to agreement—and I think we will—you’ll do the mission. Agreed?”

Legroeder forced himself to draw a breath. “One more thing.”

YZ/I’s eyes danced with fire. “What, damn it?”

“A small thing—to you. There’s a boy…” He told YZ/I about Bobby Mahoney and Harriet. “Would you try to find him? See if he’s okay? Release him?”

YZ/I’s gaze softened and he sighed. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

Legroeder nodded thanks, his head spinning.

“Any agreement we reach is for Ivan only,” YZ/I continued. “I can’t speak for the other bosses.”

Legroeder nodded again. “What about information about Impris, and a ship?”

“You’ll go with the best we’ve got. KM/C could cause us trouble, so we’ll have to send some escort.” YZ/I rubbed his temple in thought. “Not too much, though. Can’t have it looking like an armada.”

Legroeder’s heartrate was slowly easing. “Who are you sending with me?”

“I think… two or three Narseil riggers of your choice, and—Freem’n Deutsch, as well. He will represent our own rigger force. You, however, will be the lead rigger.”

“Me?”

“You have the experience and the will to see the job done right. Don’t you want it?”

Legroeder shrugged. “All right.”

“Good. We’ll begin preparations immediately.” YZ/I called an aide from the ops room and began muttering in the man’s ear.

Tracy-Ace stepped closer and squeezed Legroeder’s hand. He felt a surge of the link, and a bewildering array of emotions, triumph and gratitude among them. This struggle had been as much between her and YZ/I as between the Boss and Legroeder. He found himself wishing he were alone with her.

“Oh, yes,” YZ/I said suddenly. “In case you’re wondering, Tracy-Ace/Alfa will not be flying with you. I have other things I need her for. But what the hell—it’ll give you something to look forward to when you get back, eh?”

Legroeder felt his face redden.

YZ/I laughed in satisfaction. “You’d better get going, if you want to be the one to break the news to your Narseil captain.”

Tracy-Ace gave Legroeder a tug. It took no further persuasion to get him moving from YZ/I’s presence.

They finally got a chance to talk, on the way to the detention area. “I misled you about what I knew,” Tracy-Ace said, when they were in a corridor with no one around. “I’m sorry.” She turned to face him.

He swallowed, licking his lips. “You, uh, weren’t the only one to do that, I guess.”

“No.” A smile flickered across her face. “But, you know, we might not have gotten a chance to know each other… the same way… if we hadn’t.”

Legroeder remembered the anger he’d felt when he first realized that she had deceived him. He took her hand. “I guess not. I’m glad, anyway… about last night.”

As their hands joined, he felt a tingle, and a flickering of augments. And… not quite a voice, but a presence. Did it because I wanted you… couldn’t help it… not just a job. Do you believe me? I believe you, he thought; want to believe you. How could so much have happened, in such a short space of time? The answer was flowing through his fingertips, of course; it might otherwise have taken years. He felt a knot in his stomach, a vague dizziness. Like a lovesick puppy. Memories of a few hours ago were popping like camera flashes in the juncture between them, and his blood pressure was starting to rise.

“Let’s get going to see Fre’geel,” he said raspily, afraid he would lose all ability to control his thoughts.

She drew a slow breath and they turned and continued down the corridor.

Legroeder could not help chuckling as they hurried toward the detention center. Fre’geel and the others, he guessed, were going to be very, very surprised.