After what felt like forever, but was probably only a few hours, Galen stepped into the cool air of the Colony.

"Put your bag here," a woman in a black Watch uniform instructed.

Galen slammed his bag on the table, folding his arms as he waited for her to conduct her search. He didn't know what she was so grumpy about. She looked and smelled fresh as a flower, while he'd been standing in the hot tunnels below the city for hours behind that family of shifters that stank of the worst kind of musk he'd ever smelled. He'd heard about skunks, but he'd thought they died out back on Earth. Evidently the Titans hadn't killed their smelliest species off. Just like they tolerated Mer among them, knowing what they could do.

The woman took her time with his things, removing everything from the bag and inspecting the lining before she replaced everything, one item at a time. Everything except one thing. "What's this?" she asked suspiciously, holding up the first device Galen had ever created.

He reached for it, scared she'd drop it, but she stepped back, keeping it out of reach. Galen's arms dropped to his sides. "Please be careful. That's my...it's a music player. When I was a kid, I made it out of spare parts from the ship, so I could listen to the old Earth music my mother brought over with them. Those are the earphones, so only I could hear it, and it wouldn't disturb my parents while they were sleeping." He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. "It's all I have left of my family. They were killed in the war."

Her eyes searched his, as if reading more than just what she could see. She gave a little nod. "What kind of music?"

"All the classics from Earth, my mother said," Galen replied, spreading his hands. "Want a listen?"

She allowed him to place the earphones on her head, and closed her eyes when the music began to play. She stayed that way for a long moment, before gesturing for him to remove the earphones, which he did.

"It's not bad," she admitted, her lips lifting in a tiny smile. "Did you really make that?"

Galen nodded. "It's pretty rough, and I could probably do a lot better now, but it does the job. Nothing like as complex as this Colony here, though. I expect this place will keep me too busy to build toys like this. I'm the environmental engineer, so it's my job to make sure everything here works."

"Not just yours. I met one of your Maintenance crew this morning. A very nice Titan." She grinned widely, then hastened to add, "Not that there's anything wrong with Human, of course, but..."

That made the Human-looking woman a Titan, too, Galen guessed. He knew it was rude to ask, but he wanted to know what kind of creature she was. He worried that she was one of the ones who could read minds, even despite the implant he wore that was supposed to prevent that, though he'd never had a chance to test its functionality until now. He touched the scar behind his ear for reassurance. Of course it was still in place. Whether it worked, though...

The woman's eyes turned cold. "You'll pick up your accommodation and work assignment over there. Stay out of trouble, Human." She pushed his bag toward him and directed her attention to the next person in the queue.

Galen received his accommodation assignment and everything else he needed from a man he was almost certain was Human, but he still wouldn't have bet a single credit on it. Not even with the fifty thousand credits he'd been given when he accepted this assignment. If he made it through the duration of this strange social experiment in the Colony, he'd use his government payoff to fund his own company, inventing things. But that was more than five years away. After he'd completed the mission he'd been working on for a decade.

The Watch officer cleared his throat.

Galen realised he'd been daydreaming again. "Sorry, what did you say?" he asked.

"That one's headed to your dome. Take that aircar to your apartment," the man said, waving him away.

Galen squeezed into the packed aircar. The door slid closed behind him and the vehicle took off.

The trip was long enough for him to get a good look at his fellow travellers. A few Humans, a grey-skinned man whose attention was focussed solely on a particularly hypnotic girl who seemed too beautiful to be Human, and a large patch of dense mist that the others gave a wide berth. Peering closely into the fog, Galen thought he could discern a pair of eyes. He became certain of it when one of them winked at him.

"He looks like he's never seen a ghost before," the fog remarked, thickening until Galen could make out four distinct figures, all of them laughing at him.

He drew himself up. "Well, I haven't. I grew up on a Human planet and I was too young to fight in the war. There's lots of kids like me back home who have never met a Titan before. I figure if we're all going to be neighbours for a few years, I better get used to it, and quick."

Somehow, his matter-of-fact statement managed to kill all conversation in the aircar as it sped through the Colony to what Galen recognised from his initial briefing as the Nyx Dome.

So he had been given his first choice, then. The cold dome where no Mer could swim, so he'd be safe from them. Maybe it was childish, but Galen didn't care. Being able to sleep safely at night without fear of attack meant a lot to him. After all, he still had occasional nightmares about waking up alone in his cabin on the Poseidon, his headphones in his ears, the music drowned out by the emergency sirens blaring the ship's death knell. He'd stumbled onto the lifeboat with nothing but the music player, and the hope that his parents would be waiting for him when he was rescued. A forlorn hope, for sure. He'd been the only survivor from the Poseidon, and to this day, he still didn't know why. Had Halcyon chosen not to kill him, because he was a child, while slaughtering everyone else? If so, she'd made a huge mistake that day. That child was now a man, and one who wouldn't let anything stand between him and vengeance for his parents' murder.

The aircar announced his apartment number.

Galen unclenched his fists and stepped out of the aircar. It zoomed away, leaving him alone in the corridor outside his door. Outside what would be home for the next five years.

Galen took a deep breath, palmed open the door, and stepped inside.

Only to discover the apartment was already occupied.

"...I repeat, restrict temperatures within all living spaces to a lower limit of two...no, make it five degrees above the freezing point of water. Anyone who wants lower temperatures than that will have to apply to Maintenance and only if appropriate insulation is fitted to all the apartment's pipework will it be allowed," the woman said. A floor-cleaning robot hummed around her feet, siphoning water off the floor.

An electronic voice protested, "You do not have authorisation to impose controls on all living spaces, or this one. Resident number – "

"Space that!" the woman snapped. "My authorisation is ALI-407102 Maintenance override. Stick that up your circuits and do as you're told."

Galen liked her already.

"Processing," the recorded voice replied. "Authorisation confirmed. Any further orders?"

"Give me a damage report. How many apartments are affected by the burst pipes?"

A pause, then the electronic voice said, "Just those on this side of the inner ring of this level. No other apartments had sub-zero temperatures for an extended period."

The woman sighed, her shoulders relaxing along with her voice. "Good. I want temperatures matched to those in 407 until the ice has melted in all affected apartments, and I want floor cleaning robots activated in all of them. Get me every Maintenance worker we have in the Colony, and a load of replacement pipes. This is urgent."

"Implementing orders now," the voice said.

As if on command, the communications device on Galen's wrist sounded an alert.

The woman whirled around, so her surprised eyes met his. She wasn't more than a girl, really, despite her authoritative orders to the building management AI. Yet her dark eyes seemed to x-ray his soul, if he believed in such a thing.

Galen tried to shake off the effect of her hypnotic stare. Did that make her a Titan like the Watch at the entrance? "How many apartments have burst pipes?"

Her eyes widened for a moment. "Enough to keep me busy all day. Some idiot set these rooms to temperatures below freezing, without realising that some other idiot had forgotten to insulate the water pipes against freezing. Probably someone who'd never seen snow before, or what ice can do to pipes. My money's on a stupid ship-born Titan." Her brows drew so low they nearly met over the bridge of her nose.

Hating Titans made her Human, then. Just a really pretty one. Galen blew out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. Human and his type and here. Whoever she was, he wanted her.

"Aren't we supposed to be trying to get along?" Galen said. "You know, us and the Titans, now the war's over?"

The girl snorted. "Oh, sure. The war's over and we live under a peace treaty, so we're not supposed to kill each other, but there was nothing in the treaty about banning stupidity. So I guess we'll just have to live with that."

Galen laughed. She wasn't stupid, that was for sure. "I'm Galen," he said, extending a hand in greeting. "I'm supposed to be the environmental engineer responsible for the Colony, and while I don't think I've officially started work yet, I think your AI just conscripted me." He pointed at his comm. "I've changed a few pipes in my time. I did my apprenticeship on shipboard environmental systems. Nothing as state of the art as this place. Our ship was falling apart, cobbled together from spare parts and scrap metal in the first place. You'd replace one thing, only to find something else had fallen off while you were working. I can handle pipe replacements."

Her cool fingers meshed with his as she shook his hand. Her eyes lit up. "So you're the genius engineer Ira told me about. I thought you'd be older." Her mischievous grin did things to Galen's insides.

"I'm twenty-four, and I've been working as an engineer for a decade. Plenty old enough to know what I'm doing," Galen snapped to hide the tumult inside. She couldn't be any older than he was. In fact, she looked younger. And she was a Maintenance worker, which made her his subordinate. "How many apartments need replacement pipes?" he repeated.

The girl lifted her eyes to the ceiling. "Answer him."

"Fifty-two, not including the two already repaired," the electronic voice said.

"Twenty-six each, then," the girl said. She flashed another impish grin. "How fast can you fix pipes, genius? Want to wager something on it? Loser has to make the winner dinner."

How had she known he'd wanted to ask her to dinner? Galen shook his head. She hadn't. "You're on. One condition, though."

She raised her eyebrows, waving for him to continue.

"Tell me your name."

She let out a peal of laughter. "Sure thing, Galen. I'm Allie, and it's good to have you on board. Genius or not, anyone who can fix pipes is a good man in my book." Allie winked. "I'll go left, and you go right. I already fixed the pipes in your next door neighbours' place. A wolverine shifter family. Good thing the ventilation's still working well."

Galen watched her head down the corridor, unable to take his eyes off her.

Allie glanced over her shoulder. "Staring at my arse won't win you your wager, genius. Nor will it get you any closer to getting your hands on it."

Feeling his face grow hot, Galen turned away, but not before he heard her laughter ring out down the corridor. He had to win this wager, he swore. His reputation depended on it.

And maybe more besides, he thought, envisioning what she looked like without her standard-issue coverall. One day he wanted to find out how well fantasy matched the reality.