5

 

 

COEI Daybreak

‘955.01.21 EN

1390

 

From a distance, Hintubet’s bloody, red light was insufficient to allow the courier’s basic sensors to gather much detail about the double-jovian system: a blurred, over-magnified image of two red balloons tied together by a twisted silver string was all Roche could see, little different from the pictures the Box had procured from the orbit of Gatamin. No doubt the probes dispatched earlier would be sending remarkable pictures to the Ana Vereine, wherever the ship was, but only as the courier drew nearer did Roche have the chance to appreciate the uniqueness of her destination.

Individually Kukumat and Murukan might once have been unremarkable gas giants, both roughly a quarter the mass of Jagabis; together they formed a dynamic partnership as mysterious as it was fascinating. The most obvious detail separating the pair from the other planets in Palasian System was that it followed a retrograde orbit around Hintubet. Planetary scientists generally agreed that the pair had probably arisen out of a near collision between two previously independent worlds, one natural to the system and the other an interstellar wanderer. Although no actual collision had occurred, each planet had captured the other, and the shared momentum of the two had cast the pair into an entirely new yet stable orbit.

Under normal conditions, Kukumat would have been a brilliant, white-streaked yellow. Storms considered enormous even for a gas giant raged from equator to pole, the constant flashes of lightning through the thick, turbulent atmosphere casting weird strobelike patterns across the face of the planet. Now and then Roche imagined she could sense a pattern forming in the inconstant light, as though some unfathomable machine at the heart of the planet was trying to communicate with her.

Murukan, though only marginally larger, was radically different. Regardless of the light that fell upon it, the gas giant presented a deep, bloody red face. Instead of the thin streaks and whorls boasted by its brilliant neighbor, Murukan possessed massive upwellings of heavy gases, spewed high into the atmosphere by unknown processes deeper within. These upwellings bloomed like flowers at their peak, spread in overlapping petals that changed color and smeared laterally as the gases comprising them slowly reached the apex of their explosive rise, then began to descend.

Roche didn’t doubt that the extreme atmospheric activity of the two planets owed much to their proximity; on close examination she could see tidal bulges many kilometers high sweeping across the face of each planet as it rotated with respect to the other. It amazed her to think that the situation was stable at all. But it was, had been for hundreds of thousands of years, and would have been for many more had not the Gauntlet arrived to change the system irrevocably.

By the time the courier managed to locate Mok—the single moon of the double system—the system’s other unique feature had attained a tantalizing prominence. KM36 was an ion bridge linking the magnetic fields of the two planets. Although the link itself was constant, it arced—and was therefore visible—only once every thirty-six minutes. Each arc lasted approximately seventy seconds, and Roche was fortunate enough to catch an entire event broadside-on, from the best possible perspective. The ion bridge looked like a lightning bolt strung out between the two planets, flickering and snapping almost too quickly to follow in close focus, yet undulating like a plucked wire in slow motion from a distance. Its light was so bright it cast a shadow on Mok, lending it, briefly, a silver-white face.

Watching it, Roche was reminded of why she had joined COE Intelligence in the first place. It hadn’t just been to escape from a difficult upbringing, but for sights such as these.

And perhaps, she thought, that was enough to explain the dream....

 

* * *

 

She was standing, cold and wet, on the foredeck of an oceangoing vessel made entirely of stone. The mass of the ship was so great that she felt no movement beneath her as it cut through the choppy waters, and the surety of its progress made her feel as safe as though she were standing on solid ground.

The stars above were as icy as the wind, however, and although the spray from the waves never struck her, she was soaked to the skin and trembling.

“Are you frightened?” A man’s voice came from behind her, scented and hauntingly familiar.

She turned. The man, clad in white, his skin ashen and dry like dust, stood at the starboard rail of the foredeck.

“No,” she said, clutching herself. “I’m cold. Aren’t you?”

“No. But we could both be lying,” he added, the glint in his yellow eyes like the lightning in Kukumat’s alien skies.

“I am neither cold nor afraid,” came a second voice, this time from the port rail. “But I am here.”

The newcomer was dressed in red; his complexion was ruddy, his skin moist. A fat-petaled flower protruded from a buttonhole of his greatcoat. And again, a familiar odor, but this one different from the first.

They know each other, she thought, with some surprise.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” the red one said, as if answering Roche but looking at his white counterpart.

“Although I suspect we have less in common than I once thought,” said the white man.

“Appearances can be deceptive,” said Red.

“Perhaps it’s time to end the pretense,” said White.

“Do we have any choice?”

The red man nodded ahead of them. “We’ll find out when we get there.”

The brief exchange had changed them: the one in white had become paler, his skin drier, while the red one had begun to exude blood. And the smells, once disparate and only vaguely familiar, suddenly merged to become something all too familiar to Roche. Now she could smell death; she could smell war...

The two men faced each other, a silent but tense confrontation. They retained only the shape of Humanity, now; the essence of their true beings was almost too much even for that.

Roche backed away until her spine made contact with cold, wet stone. Two huge masts towered above her like giant antennae, visible only as silhouettes against the sky. The tremendous momentum with which the prow cut through the waves remained unchecked, only now it seemed a matter for concern.

She looked again at the two men and realized just how alike they really were. Despite their differences, they could easily have been mistaken for brothers. Or even twins...

 

* * *

 

The anxiety induced by the dream had stayed with her upon waking. No matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn’t shake free of it, and she longed for Maii’s gentle touch. The epsense adept could have soothed her, eased some of the dread and foreboding that filled her. But the reave was far away, left behind on an unfamiliar station, captive of a man who had somehow outthought them all.

For a moment, she felt despair. How had she come to this? She certainly wasn’t responsible. It must have been COE Intelligence, or the Kesh, or the Sol Apotheosis Movement, or...

No. There was no point assigning blame. She just had to keep moving, to do her best to rectify the situation and find a way out of this mess. Find a way to rescue Maii and Cane and—

“Morgan?” said Haid.

She turned from the image of the double-jovian at which she had been blankly staring, and faced Haid. It was only when she did that she realized it had been the third time he had called her name.

“You okay?” he said.

She nodded, but felt it was unconvincing. “What’s up?”

“We’re detecting radio emissions.”

Immediately focused, Roche took a step toward Haid. “Where from?”

“Mok. They spike every time the ion bridge flares, as though someone’s using the discharge to cover emissions.”

She concentrated on his explanation; it made sense. “Any idea who this ‘someone’ might be?”

Haid shook his head. “The transmissions are coded to look like static, and I can’t translate them without the Box’s help. If I had to guess, though, I’d say it’s the outriggers talking among themselves.”

“And the two spines haven’t moved?”

Another curt shake of the head. “They’re still in orbit around Murukan.”

While still some distance from the jovian pair, they had detected the muted navigation beacons of two outrigger spines—spindly structures comprising little more than intrasystem engines and fuel tanks shaped like bare-boned trees with lots of branches for waldoes to cling to. The spines appeared to be undamaged, but, apart from the beacons, showed no signs of life.

Roche had never encountered outriggers before, but had heard the stories of whole tribes of people crossing the gulfs between stars on the backs of such flimsy vessels. Their only protection was an “all-suit,” essentially a miniature spaceship in its own right within which each member of the tribe would spend his or her entire life. Although outriggers came from many different Castes, they were a society completely unto themselves, separated from the rest of the galaxy by the time-debts they accrued by traveling at relatavistic velocities; some had wandered so far and for so long that they were rumored to be thousands of years old. Outriggers earned a living mining systems considered uneconomic for prowling mines or other large-scale automated means. That explained what they were doing so far out from the primary of Palasian System, where solid bodies were few and very far between but the total mass of unexploited minerals was considerable.

Beyond that, Roche knew little. What the spines were doing so close to a large planet—the sort of gravity well outriggers normally avoided—remained a mystery.

Similarly, there had been no repeat of the distress calls that had brought them to the double-planet. She was resigned to traveling closer to find out what had happened.

“How long until we reach Mok?” she asked Haid.

“One hour.”

“Okay,” she said. “Show me the pictures we’re getting.”

Disisto chuckled quietly from behind Roche. “It’s probably not going to be what you’re expecting.”

“How do you mean?”

“See for yourself,” he said.

Disisto was right. The little moon was highly unusual: in size barely a thousand kilometers across and consisting of dark-hued dusty rock, with no atmosphere and a relatively low specific gravity. There were craters, Roche observed, but these looked suspiciously regular and similar in size, as though they were holes or tunnel-entrances rather than ancient impact sites. Between them stood odd protrusions resembling curved spikes or giant hairs growing out of the rock—as though the moon were covered in a large-scale version of Velcro. Each of the “hooks” was over ten meters high.

“Weird,” she mused. “Are they artifacts?”

“Unknown. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Haid stared intently at the images filling most of the available screens and tanks. “There’s no movement, so the chances are they’re not alive.”

“They might once have been,” said Disisto. He was still on the couch where Haid had strapped him hours earlier. “The sun’s changed; the difference could’ve killed a photosynthetic plant, for instance.”

“The light would always have been poor out here,” Haid said, shaking his head. “My gut says that they were made, but I have no idea what purpose they’d serve.”

“Or even who made them,” said Roche.

“Exactly,” Haid agreed. “Those ruins are old. They could be the remains of a Transcended civilization, or even a dead High Human. You looked into the history around here, Morgan. Any records of such a thing in this area?”

“No, but it wouldn’t hurt to look again.”

“The chief was hoping the ruins might contain something related to Primordial Humanity,” said Disisto. “An old base or colony, perhaps, with records intact. We have so little information to go by with respect to Humanity’s origins. Any scrap at all could be helpful. If we’d known it was something like this, we would’ve come much sooner.”

Haid looked back at the security chief. “I didn’t know you were such a history buff.”

Disisto shrugged. “Work with the chief long enough and it rubs off, I guess.”

Roche didn’t respond. His casual banter hid the underlying tension between them. Neither had forgotten their last conversation, when he had maintained his allegiance to Linegar Rufo. She couldn’t afford to forget, though. Although she knew he meant well deep down, that they were forced to work on opposing sides made it all the more frustrating.

“Congreve Station?” Roche prompted Haid, keeping them on the subject at hand.

“There, at the pole.” One image ballooned to reveal a low, blister-shaped installation near the moon’s equator. “It’s cold. Looks like no one’s touched it for years.”

KM36 chose that moment to flare. White light radiated from the screens as the ion bridge crackled into life.

Roche and Haid watched the instruments for more signs of concealed signals coming from Mok.

“Almost nothing, this time,” said Haid. “Just one pulse at the beginning.”

“I saw it. Like a warning tone, telling everyone to shut up.”

Haid looked over at Roche. “They know we’re here,” he said.

Roche nodded. “But we still need to talk to them anyway.” She pointed at a rough map of the moon’s surface. “According to the instruments, the pulse came from that crater.”

The image showed a black hole leading into the moon, not far from its equator.

“Deep,” commented Haid. “Could hide anything.”

“No different from the others, though. A simple jaunt to look wouldn’t hurt.”

He glanced up at her. “And who gets to do the honors?”

“I do, of course. Unless you fancy an EVA with your new implants?”

Haid smiled. “Well, I’m game.”

“Yes, but you’re not stupid,” she said seriously. “You know I’m the best choice.”

Haid nodded. “But you are going to try talking to them first, right?”

“There’s no point. They’re obviously in hiding; they’re not going to want to talk to anyone, no matter what we say. Best to go knocking and see if they’ll let us in.”

“And if they blow you out of the sky?”

“Then they’ll become targets for retaliation.”

“We could send him.” Haid jerked a thumb at Disisto.

“Would you trust him?”

“No,” said Haid. “But it wouldn’t bother me so much to see him blown away, either.”

Roche glanced at Disisto. The security head’s expression was blank, neither offended by nor laughing at what might have been a joke.

“Don’t think it would bother me too much, either,” she said. “Nevertheless, it still has to be me that goes down. Give me half an hour and I’ll be suited up and ready for the drop.”

 

* * *

 

Roche waited in the airlock as Haid completed the final checks and brought the courier into the optimum position. Her suit was sealed and ready to go: armored, powered, and equipped with enough thrust to repel the moon’s low gravity for several hours in total. The courier would drop her high above and at some distance from the target crater. Using gravity and the thrusters when necessary, she would approach with all due caution under cover of the ion bridge.

She carried a number of weapons at the ready, plus several concealed in the thigh and underarm compartments of the suit. If she encountered trouble, she would be as prepared as she could be.

“Drop in two,” said Haid. “No activity. Arc due any time now.”

“When you’re clear, assume a geosynch orbit and wait for instructions. I’ll switch on my beacon once you’re out of the area.” During preparations for the jaunt, she’d reconsidered her decision to go in completely unannounced. Broadcasting a navigational pulse would let anyone in the area know she was coming without giving too much away. If the worst she was facing was a bunch of outriggers, the suit would be able to take care of her; if not, not even the courier would be much use. “Maintain radio silence once I’m off-ship.”

“Understood. One minute to drop.”

She inclined her head so Haid’s view through the airlock camera’s included her face. “And don’t do anything rash while I’m away, okay?”

A slight laugh filled her helmet. “Trust me, Morgan,” he said. Then: “The bridge is arcing now. Thirty seconds. Hold tight.”

Roche braced herself against the frame of the airlock, more out of habit than necessity, since the chamber had already been evacuated. A chronometer inside the helmet of her suit counted down the seconds. When it hit five, a series of dull clunks traveled from the bulkhead, along the rigid structure of the suit, and to her ears, then died as she let go and allowed herself to drift.

The outer door slid aside as the chronometer hit zero, and she kicked the thrusters to life and shot out of the airlock. A minute later, she switched on her beacon.

Her attention was focused on eyes-up navigation displays in her visor and artificial sight as she accelerated away from the courier; she barely glimpsed the red-tinged, craggy surface of the small moon rolling beneath her. The courier’s engines fired the instant she was at a safe distance, propelling it precipitously away from her. For a brief, disorienting moment, she had no idea where she was.

Then the moon swung into view, and she rolled herself about so that her legs were pointing in a rough approximation of “down.” She let herself fall, following the navigation prompt rather than trusting her own instincts. Orbital mechanics was difficult enough to calculate without the view she was diving into acting as a distraction.

Mok... the ion-bridge flashing... Kukumat and Murukan looming impossibly large nearby... and no stars to be seen, apart from one hanging blood-red in the distance. ...

For a second she felt very small and insignificant, and momentarily regretted her decision to investigate the signals alone. But the feeling was irrational. She knew outriggers would prove a vital source of information on what had happened in the system, before the arrival of Galine Four and after. She had to approach them on their own terms, not cozy and safe within the courier. In their shoes, she would put her faith in nothing less.

The surface of the moon approached, and she changed her heading until she was flying through near-vacuum above its mottled surface. The ambient temperature, at 125 degrees kelvin, was higher than expected. The forest of hook-trees, or whatever they were, marched without apparent pattern or function over the disconcertingly close horizon. She was tempted to drop lower and examine one at close quarters, but forced herself to concentrate on her mission. One puzzle at a time.

Five minutes into her flight, she changed course to avoid flying over another crater but didn’t veer so far away that she couldn’t see into its interior. It truly was a shaft, not a crater, about five meters across; radar pulses failed to return, so she had no way of telling how deep it was. The walls seemed smooth, as though machined, but there was nothing else to suggest that the hole served any purpose. There were no ramps or ladders, no elevator shafts or windows, no doors or platforms; it was just a hole, lipped slightly at the top, with nothing inside it. Nothing that she could see, anyway.

It took her fifteen minutes to reach the target crater—dubbed Shaft-1 on the map produced by the courier’s sensors—which looked identical to the one she had flown by ten minutes earlier. After circumnavigating the edge of the hole and learning nothing new, and feeling slightly bored at her lack of progress, she decided a flare would be her best option. The next arc was due in twenty minutes; she didn’t want to wait that long.

Backing away and arming the first of six flares her suit was equipped with, she primed it to ignite in a way that would offset the dull red light cast by Hintubet, then fired it from her suit.

Moments later, a sustained burst of light came from a point high above her and to her right.

Finally, some color. In the shaft she could make out gray-brown walls descending into the moon, polished smooth by some unknown process. Nothing stood out: no detail of any kind. Swinging the suit higher to get a better view, she eased herself closer to the edge of the shaft and used scanning algorithms to analyze the view in more detail. Almost immediately, she had a result.

A segment of the visor formed a separate screen and zoomed closer, revealing a glint of reflected light under the lip of the shaft opposite her. Too small and too far away for her to identify, she quickly tagged the location of the object so she wouldn’t lose it when the flare faded.

She lifted herself higher still, in order to look into the shaft while she could. The walls seemed to narrow as they fell away into the depths of the moon, but she knew that to be an illusion. She was certain now that the shaft was artificial: nothing naturally formed could descend so perfectly straight. As far as the light reached into the shaft, she could make out no deviation, no variation at all. Only at the very edges of shadow, deep in the moon, did she suspect that something changed, but even then she couldn’t tell if it was an end to the shaft, an opening off it, or just an optical illusion.

Then the flare flickered and faded, and all was red-tinged darkness again.

With the gain on the eyes-up display on high, she flew by instruments around the shaft to where she had noticed the glint of light. When her eyes had completely adjusted, she eased herself slowly over the lip of the shaft. Her suit lamps were no substitute for the flare, but the object was barely hidden at all, and she had no trouble catching a second reflection off it. It consisted of a silver device barely larger than her palm, attached to the rocky inside of the shaft.

Extending a slender probe, she touched it from two meters away, eliciting no response. Moving closer to touch it with her suit glove, she discovered that it was stuck to the wall by little more than a tacky gel, suggesting it wasn’t a permanent fixture. A simple tug pulled it free, exposing instrumentation on the underside. Roche knew what it was immediately: a simple relay designed to confuse anyone listening in the area, and presumably planted there by the outriggers. Instead of being the source of the transmissions, Shaft-1 was just a decoy.

As such, it was something of an anticlimax. Nevertheless, it did provide tangible evidence that someone was in the area—someone who was transmitting to others and making at least some attempt to remain hidden.

“Morgan?”

Haid’s voice over her suit-speakers startled her.

“Don’t reply unless you have to, but I’m moving to encrypted channel thirty-one in two seconds.”

The line went dead abruptly, and she shifted her communications channel to the one he had indicated, wondering as she did why he was calling.

“I know I’m supposed to keep quiet,” he continued, his voice fuzzy from compression, “but I thought you should know that we’re picking up a faint signal from deeper in-system. It’s in that code Cane recognized—the Sol Wunderkind command language. I can’t work out what it’s saying, and Disisto says he can’t either. But the weird thing is, it’s being beamed right at us, from roughly where Galine Four was when we left it. I’d say someone’s trying to communicate with someone else out here, and I’d hate to think what they might be saying...”

Haid’s voice trailed off into silence as a chill swept over Roche.

Linegar Rufo was a specialist in antiquities. He knew about the Sol Apotheosis Movement. He knew a Sol Wunderkind was loose in the system. He had mentioned that transmissions had been received from near the jovian pair. He hadn’t actually said the transmissions were from survivors of the Wunderkind’s attack. If he had found some reference to the Wunderkind language in a forgotten archive, and if he suspected that the source of the transmissions would understand it...

Rufo was trying to talk to the Sol Wunderkind. Not only that, but he believed the Wunderkind was hiding somewhere near Mok.

Roche thrust herself up and out of the crater, alert for any sign of activity on the moon’s surface. There was none, but that didn’t reassure her. If Rufo was right, then she had more to worry about than just a motley bunch of outriggers.

She vacillated for a moment over whether to return to the courier or not. Haid would know she was still alive, so there was no need to reply to the signal. To return might just place him and the others at greater risk. And they were all at risk, just from being in the area. If the Wunderkind got his hands on another ship...

That brought her up cold. What would he do with the courier? He had already abandoned it once. Its slow-jump drive was slag, so he couldn’t use it to escape the system. Likewise with the outrigger spines and Galine Four; no vessel in the system had a working slow-jump drive, except the Ana Vereine—and that, she vowed, would be kept well clear until she was absolutely certain it was safe.

Potentially, then, the Wunderkind wouldn’t want to make himself vulnerable by exposing himself. That didn’t make her feel much safer, though. An attack on a courier would undoubtedly be noticed; an attack on a single person, however, was something else entirely...

She decided that it would be best if Haid picked her up. That way they could explore the moon from orbit without risking anyone’s life. And if she was right, if the Wunderkind wouldn’t attack the courier itself, they would all be safe—at least until they actually found him.

She turned the suit around in a slow arc, angling upward. At the same time, she opened the encrypted communications channel.

“Ameidio, it’s me. Work out a rendezvous. I’m—”

An ear-splitting squeal cut her short. The channel was swamped by noise, overriding her signal and any Haid might be trying to send. She hunted for a source of the interference, and after a moment realized it was the transmitter she had left behind in the crater.

Rather than fly back, she armed the suit’s impulse weapon, targeted and fired. The relay was small and the distance increasing, but with the help of onboard systems, the projectile crossed the gap easily, impacting with a short-lived flash of light.

The interference didn’t cease entirely, but it did ebb enough for her to hear Haid call:

“Behind you, Morgan! Behind you!”

 

* * *

 

As long as she lived, she knew she’d never forget her first sight of an outrigger all-suit.

It loomed over her like a biomechanical starfish with a ribbed halo surrounding it—almost thirty meters across, drooping slightly in the moon’s low gravity, resembling the frills of an angry lizard. Toward the center were dozens of instrumentation spines and jointed waldoes, all directed at her. In the center was nothing but light: a powerful laser dazzling her despite her suit’s protective visor. An ion beam lifted the all-suit above her, its spray of white fire disturbing the moon’s surface in an angry manner.

She retreated, and it followed. Her sensors registered an incoming transmission, superimposed upon the jamming signal.

“Identify,” was all it said, its tone coldly artificial.

She aimed numerous weapons on the laser source. Behind it, instruments made out the shape and location of the central thorax, a pressurized pod large enough to contain a single Human and the equipment it needed to survive for a lifetime in space.

“Identify yourself,” she replied.

Movement to one side caught her eye: another all-suit, its extensible antennae unfurling as it approached. It too fired a laser at her location, this one at a slightly different frequency to the other.

“Identify!”

Roche’s suit issued a warning as a third laser hit her—this one from farther up. The three combined lasers were threatening the integrity of her faceplate; much more of this and she would have to opaque the helmet, or risk being burned and possibly even blinded.

“Identify!”

Roche sighed resignedly. Surrounded by three all-suits, she was hardly in a position to be defiant.

“Morgan Roche,” she said, “ex-COE Intelligence and commanding officer of the independent vessel Ana Vereine.”

“The Dato ship?” asked a voice that was hostile but at least Human.

“By design only. It no longer serves the Military Presidium.”

“How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

“You should’ve asked yourself that before you asked me anything at all.”

“Indeed,” chuckled a second voice, a female contralto. “So, why are you here?”

“I’m looking for survivors.”

“Why?” The voice of the third outrigger was male and sharp with suspicion.

“We picked up a distress call.”

“We didn’t send one.”

“Well, someone did.” Roche suppressed an urge to snap. “Regardless, I need to know what happened in this system so we can stop it happening elsewhere. You can help me do that.”

“How very commendable,” said the first voice. “Your superiors must be proud of you.”

“I told you: I’m independent. I don’t have any superiors.”

“You come looking for us in a COE Intelligence courier vessel, wearing a COE Intelligence suit, and you expect us to believe that you no longer work for them?”

“I don’t care what you believe,” said Roche. “And really, does it make any difference who I work for?”

The waldoes on the third all-suit shifted. “I think we should space her,” said the accompanying voice.

“Private channel, you idiot,” said the second outrigger, all humor gone.

For a moment the outriggers ignored her, only the slight motion of waldoes and antennae betraying the fact that some sort of interaction was taking place. Clearly the all-suits acted in much the same way as normal bodies for their inhabitants, with a peculiar form of body-language to match. Only the lasers didn’t shift, aimed squarely at Roche through the helmet of her suit.

After a minute of silence, she opaqued her faceplate and had the suit display the view artificially. Haid was pinging her, sending her a repetitive signal through the interference to let her know he was watching and ready to act if needed. That was reassuring, but she wanted to keep him out of it if possible; she had to earn their trust on her own, without using force.

The outriggers shifted around her. She tensed, ready to defend herself if attacked. Instead, two of the lasers dimmed, then snapped off. After a few moments, the third did likewise.

“We’re taking you to a quorum,” said the second outrigger.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and kill the interference so I can talk to my crew.”

“You’re in no position to make any demands,” said the third outrigger.

“For the last time, Yul,” said the second, “shut up and let me do the talking. She’s here to help us.”

“I’d like to,” Roche cut in. “Insofar as I can, at least; if you’ll let me.”

“Exactly. I’m Idil, and this is Yul and Eli.”

Now the lasers were off, Roche could see the all-suits properly. Mil’s was painted entirely in a color that might have been orange but looked pink in the light; Yul’s had four silver bands around its midriff; Eli’s was angular, almost rhombohedral in shape.

“We’re from Long Span spine. Auditor Byrne says you can talk, but the ship you came here in is not to change its orbit. If it comes near the spines, we’ll retaliate.”

Roche grunted as the interference faded. She used the same encrypted channel Haid had requested earlier.

“Ameidio? You there?”

“Yeah,” came Haid’s voice. “You okay?”

“Fine. They’re taking me somewhere to negotiate. I don’t want you to do anything else but wait until I come back.”

“How long?’ he asked.

She relayed the question to the outriggers.

“A couple of hours,” Idil said. “Or never. The quorum may decide it doesn’t need your help. And if so, it might not let you return to your ship at all.”

Roche privately doubted the outriggers’ ability to damage her suit, but wasn’t keen on testing her theory just yet. “Give them three hours, Ameidio, then use your judgment.”

“Will do.”

“And if you hear from the Box, tell it to stay away. We don’t want the drive falling into the wrong hands.”

“I understand,” said Haid. “And should anyone make a move on me, I’ll get the hell out of here, but I’ll try contacting you first. Any idea where they’re taking you?”

“To one of the spines, I guess. They haven’t said.”

“Well, I’ll keep the channels open.”

Roche turned her attention to the outriggers. All three suits were oriented toward her, their antennae spread wide like eyes watching her intently.

“Okay,” she said, readying her suit to take her up into orbit, toward the spines. “Let’s go.”

But instead of up, they took her down.

 

* * *

 

She lost direct radio contact with Haid the moment she followed Idil into the shaft. She could still hear the regular ping broadcast by the courier, but only as a series of faint and highly peculiar echoes, as though the shaft was absorbing the signal, interfering with it, then broadcasting it back at her from a dozen locations at once. She didn’t know what would happen if she tried to contact him. Maybe nothing out of the ordinary, or he wouldn’t hear her at all.

It was too late to worry about that now.

She followed close behind Idil, watching as the antennae of the outrigger’s suit were enfolded to prevent damage to fragile components. The other two, somewhere behind Roche, were no doubt doing the same. The shaft itself was lit by the searchlights of the three all-suits and her own suit, giving her an intriguing glimpse into the moon’s interior. The shaft’s smooth rockface faded after a hundred meters or so; beyond that it shared the color and albedo of bronze, although it could easily have been something else. At one hundred and fifty meters, the shaft doglegged, first upward with respect to Roche, then to her left, then down again, then twice to her right. The turns were always at right angles, but the distances between them were irregular. Navigation was tricky, using thrusters and the occasional limb—or waldo, in the outriggers’ case—to correct miscalculations. After several more such turns, Roche started to feel disoriented, as though trapped in some bizarre cosmic plumbing.

They passed a tunnel opening to her left, unlit and with the same radius as the shaft they were traveling along. They passed two others before moving “upward” into a fourth. From the inside, it was the same as the one they had left. She could see no markings, no fixtures, no artifacts of any kind. Nothing but endless tunnels, crisscrossing through the heart of the moon.

Only then did she realize that she had literally lost all sense of up and down—and so had her suit. It was obtaining readings consistent with being in free-fall, regardless of which way they traveled. Something in the tunnel walls, or elsewhere, had dampened the low gravity of the moon to nothing. Why, or how, she couldn’t imagine.

Ahead of Roche, Idil began to slow. The all-suit issued a burst of white noise, and a hole in the pipe-wall opened to one side. No, not opened, Roche corrected herself; it had always been there. The holographic generator concealing it had simply been switched off.

Idil led the way through the hole, into a spherical chamber one hundred meters across, from which many other such openings led. Otherwise, the walls were smooth, ranging in color from the bronze of the tunnels to a deep cherry-red at the points farthest from the holes. The walls radiated light of a frequency not dissimilar to that of Hintubet.

The space within the chamber contained a thin atmosphere, held in place by some sort of boundary-field across each hole, and a further seven outriggers drifting in free-fall. Each was slightly different from the others. With instruments retracted, they looked like escape capsules, capsules made by ten different companies for ten different Castes; when instruments did appear, they did so in unique configurations and combinations. There were no portholes, no indications as to the appearances of their occupants at all, but it was easy to tell them apart.

Idil, Yul, and Eli dispersed once they were in the room, and the seven others seemed to rearrange themselves slightly to accommodate the newcomers. Within moments Roche was the only thing moving in the center of the chamber; the outriggers had, perhaps by instinct, arranged themselves in a way that maximized the space between them.

“We want to know why you came here, Morgan Roche.” The signal came from an outrigger whose all-suit was shaped like a teardrop, tapering at its aft end to a menacing point. Even this close and in an atmosphere, the outriggers still communicated by radio.

“I came here to find you,” she answered. “Survivors, anyway. We were picking up signals from this region.”

“Not from us, you weren’t.”

“No. I know that now.” She paused for a second, then asked: “Why are you hiding down here?”

“Because we don’t want to die, like the others,” said one, his suit marked with concentric green triangles.

“You saw what happened?”

“Wide Berth spine lost almost a full complement over the spaceport on Aro. All hands of Long Span remained at a distance, and so we survived.” This voice, thickly accented, came from an all-suit striped diagonally in black. The effect it had upon Roche as it slowly rotated was dizzying. “We came down here when the Galine station arrived because we suspected we would not be safe near it.”

“We will never be safe in this system,” said the green triangle outrigger in sharp disagreement. “We’ve already lost seventeen since we’ve been here.”

“The short term is all that matters—”

“The short term is all you ever think about, Lud. When the one who killed the clan on Wide Berth comes looking for us, he will find you sitting here still, the easiest target in the galaxy.”

A babble of argument broke out. Clearly the quorum was divided on what to do about the Sol clone warrior, just as Idil, Yul, and Eli had been about Roche.

She smiled to herself. This was everything she’d hoped for. If she could only keep them talking—

She caught a flash that might have been leakage from a private laser communication, then the teardrop all-suit spoke:

“We shouldn’t squabble within the clan,” she said. Her voice was firm, and resembled Mil’s in inflection if not pitch. “We came here, Morgan Roche, to escape Wide Berth’s fate. We have watched events in the system carefully since then, awaiting any sign that the one behind the attack on Wide Berth was coming here. So far, there has been no such sign. Your arrival caused a moment of concern, but it’s clear that you are not the one. Your approach was too open, too blatant. I fear that the one we anticipate will be upon us before we even suspect.”

“The data you collected—” Roche broke in. “May I—?”

“Access it? Certainly.”

So easy? Roche couldn’t help but be suspicious.

“Why?” she asked. “I thought you wanted to interrogate me?”

“We do. But the clan teaches that all answers lie in the questioner’s own heart. If we exchange information, perhaps you will see for us what we do not.”

Roche nodded. “Perhaps,” she said.

“What do we have to lose?” The teardrop’s blunt end unfolded like a flower, peeling back shielding to expose delicate machinery within. “You are not the one we feared. I therefore put my trust in you, Morgan Roche. I have faith you will not abuse it.”

Roche was slightly taken back. “Just who are you, anyway?” she asked.

“My name is Byrne, auditor of Long Span spine. In situations such as these, when time is of the essence, I am the one that makes decisions.”

“So their lives are basically in your hands?” said Roche.

“As mine is in theirs,” she replied. “We are one, even when we disagree.”

“You are their voice,” said Roche.

The blunt end of the all-suit began to close. “I am also the one that asks the questions, and right now I would ask again: Why are you here, Morgan Roche?”

Roche was still a little stunned by the odd turn of events, but she knew that if she was going to get anywhere with the outriggers, then she was going to have to talk to Byrne, and that meant answering anything asked of her. So she outlined her reasons for coming to the system and what had happened to her since arriving. No point was covered twice, until the end, when Roche was asked to recapitulate her relationship with Adoni Cane. Many of the outriggers assembled for the quorum were hesitant to trust someone who had links with another Sol Wunderkind—albeit one who seemed less destructive than the one who had destroyed Palasian System. Roche could understand that.

“The other spine, Wide Berth,” she said, fishing for information of her own. “What exactly happened to them over Aro?”

“We received distress signals,” said Byrne. “A number of small pods, possibly escape capsules. Wide Berth decided to attempt a rescue. We advised against it, and suspected that the one behind the attack on the domed city—the Sol clone warrior, as you call him—was still in the area. Whether he was or not, we never did find out, but the pods were a trap. An orbital whip decimated the main body of those who went to investigate, while gas-guns picked off the survivors.”

“We were unable to assist them in time,” Lud’s bitter voice broke in. “And those observing from the Galine station did not intervene.”

“You saw the observers?”

“Yes.”

“But you’ve had no contact at all with Galine Four?” said Roche.

“We hailed them when it arrived, but they ignored us,” said Byrne. “This is not uncommon, of course, as outriggers are often overlooked. But when they also ignored the plight of Wide Berth, we knew its disinterest was more malevolent than usual.”

Roche absorbed this. The ferocity of the attack on the Wide Berth outriggers didn’t necessarily mean that the Sol clone warrior was personally directing it; automatic systems could have done as well. But Aro was the last location he’d been known to be; the chance of an eyewitness report was worth following up.

“No one survived the attack?”

“One,” said Byrne. “The youngest of the clan, a boy named Yarrow. His role in the spine was observer, so he was removed from the focus of attack. We found his all-suit breached and drifting a day later. His emergency systems lasted barely long enough to return him to Long Span, where his all-suit was repaired.”

“Could I talk to him?”

“That is impossible,” said Byrne.

“He might have information—”

“He can tell you nothing,” said Lud firmly.

“I’d still like to ask.”

“His peace is more important than your wishes!” spat Lud.

The softer voice of Auditor Byrne filled the quiet following Lud’s anger: “Yarrow has not spoken since the attack on his clan. You are welcome to try, but I don’t like your chances.”

“You’re sure it is him?”

“Of course,” said Byrne. “I oversaw his healing myself.”

Roche wondered whether Byrne had actually seen the boy in the flesh or operated through his all-suit. She also wondered how Byrne could be so sure he was who he said he was since he’d come from another spine. It would be all too easy to hide in an all-suit and pretend to be someone who was actually dead.

But she decided not to push the issue any further, for now. Byrne seemed convinced of the boy’s identity. Instead Roche promised herself she would try to talk to the boy herself, later.

“Is there nothing new you can tell me about the Sol clone warrior’s activities?” she said.

The spinning of Lud’s striped all-suit slowed. “No.”

“He speaks the truth.” Byrne’s voice was regretful. “By the time we knew something was wrong, the clone warrior had gone into hiding; and before we could escape, the system was enclosed. We are trapped here as surely as he is.”

“Perhaps not any more,” said Lud.

“True.” Byrne’s tone was thoughtful. “Morgan Roche, although I have said that I trust you, that does not mean that we will help you freely, or at all. The clan as a whole needs to consider everything you’ve told us. Your actions and those of Linegar Rufo could be interpreted many ways, and I must consult with my people before making any decisions.”

“How long will that take?” Roche asked.

“Several hours. The debate will be thorough, with as many attending the Plenary as possible. You may attend the summation, if you wish.”

“Thank you. I’d like that.” Roche was curious to see how the outriggers would attain consensus on such a complex issue in so short a time, and was naturally concerned that its outcome would be in her favor. “But first I’m going to have to contact my ship from the surface. I told my crew that I would report in.”

“Idil and Yul will escort you.”

“I have no intention of escaping.”

“I believe you, Morgan Roche,” said Byrne. “They will act more as your guides than your guards.”

Nothing was said, but Byrne’s words still carried an implicit warning. Mok’s labyrinth was extensive and difficult to navigate, and should Roche choose to attempt to elude her guides, she knew she would quickly become lost. If that happened, it was possible they would not be able to find her again. If they even tried.

To Roche’s nominated guides, Auditor Byrne added: “Perhaps you could show her the central chamber on your return.” Roche neither saw nor heard any kind of acknowledgment from either Idil or Yul, yet something seemed to be conveyed to the auditor. A second later she said: “Excellent, then you can join us from there.”

With that, the outriggers led Roche out of the chamber, while the quorum assumed its former configuration, only with Auditor Byrne at the center and the remaining seven around her.

Roche’s guides took her along the corridor outside at a more sedate pace than before. Roche couldn’t tell if they were retracing their steps. The many turns and lack of reference points had her thoroughly confused, substantiating Byrne’s unspoken warning.

“How do you know where you’re going?” Roche asked.

Yul’s gruff voice answered: “Breeding.”

“Our internal guidance systems are highly specialized,” Idil chipped in. “Much more sophisticated than yours. You could sever us from all our senses and take us anywhere across the system. Set us adrift, and we could find our way to within a kilometer of where we started.”

“What’s that got to do with breeding?” Roche asked.

“Some of us are third- or fourth-generation clan members,” said Idil. “We gestated within and were raised as part of our suits; its systems are ours, although naturally the interface is not perfect. With every generation, however, we improve.”

Roche was reminded of Uri Kajic. This wasn’t so different. The ancient Dato Ataman, for whom the Marauder was named, might’ve saved herself a lot of trouble if only she’d talked to outriggers before launching the Andermahr Experiment.

But traditionally no one talked to outriggers. Did business with them, yes, but did not converse as equals. They were regarded with the same sort of suspicion and contempt as nomads were on some backward worlds. That they were capable of great technical skill didn’t especially surprise Roche, but their sense of honor and integrity did. Auditor Byrne and Idil had both demonstrated clearheadedness and willingness to trust under difficult circumstances—something Roche’s former colleagues in COE Intelligence were not renowned for.

“How many of you come from outside the clan?” she asked.

“About half,” Idil replied. “We see a lot of disaffected types as we travel. Jaded combat soldiers; criminals looking for somewhere to hide; sociophobes. Most we reject out of hand. The ones we keep are those who demonstrate an ability to maintain group integrity over vast distances. It’s a difficult thing to manage; some never do come to terms with the isolation. But once accepted, the lifestyle does have its rewards.”

“Do you give preference to those who come from the same place as others within the clan? Or to groups of applicants? I notice that you and the auditor have a similar accent.”

“We do, but our relationship is not what you might think. I joined Long Span as a teenager when it passed through the fringes of Gwydyon seventy-eight subjective years ago—one hundred and twenty of yours. My all-suit used to belong to the woman whose clan name I took after my tenth year as a member. She died of old age six months before I joined. In my twentieth year I elected to have a child, conceived parthenogenetically from my own tissue. I gave her the name of my mother, back on Gwydyon, and designed her all-suit myself. Auditor Byrne is my daughter.”

Roche pondered this as Idil and Yul led her toward the surface of the strange, alien moon.

 

* * *

 

“I’m sure it’s okay, Ameidio.”

“Damn it, Morgan!” The annoyance was obvious in Haid’s voice. “You’re taking an awful risk.”

“Only because I need to. You know that. I’ll be away a few hours longer, and the suit will need a top-up. If I had a choice, I’d let you come down, but I don’t trust Myer and Disisto alone in the ship. So you’ll have to send Disisto with everything I need.”

“Why don’t you just come up here? You can be here and back within an hour.”

“Because it’s not just about supplies. I might need someone else down here if the decision doesn’t go our way. They’ve said we can trust them, but I’m not willing to believe everything they say just yet.”

Haid was silent for a second. “Besides which, you want to have a look around, right?”

Roche smiled to herself. “You got it.”

“I guess I can’t blame you, Morgan. From what the suit recorded, I can’t say I’ve seen anywhere like it before.”

“Disisto will be interested in it too, given his association with Rufo’s work. Another reason to send him down. And maybe I can work on him a little, get him to change his mind.”

“Okay, okay,” Haid said with a mix of resignation and levity. “Besides, it’s getting a little crowded up here. Mavalhin’s awake, and if I hear one more complaint out of him, I swear I’m going to put him in the airlock.”

“Any particular issue?”

“He wants to talk to you.”

“Naturally. But if it’s not important, he can wait.”

“That’s what I keep telling him. Unfortunately, I’ve run out of reasons to keep him under sedation, and he gripes about being tied up.”

Roche chuckled to herself. She could sympathize, but there was little else she could do. “Any other news?”

“A tightbeam from the Box arrived not long ago, bounced off a drone near Herensung. We have an ETA with the Ana Vereine in five days. The Box says we’ll be able to contact it safely in twenty-four hours. It’ll send us coordinates before then.”

“That’s progress, I guess.” Since their last exchange of messages to arrange the rendezvous point, they had maintained strict radio silence. “Good to know the ship evaded capture.”

“The Box never seemed to have any worries.”

“It wouldn’t.” Roche scanned the sky for any sign of Daybreak, but it wasn’t visible. “Myself or one of the outriggers”—she forwarded him the unique frequencies Idil had given her—”will stay on the surface to wait for Disisto. The sooner he leaves, the better. Call me if there are any problems.”

Haid signed off and Roche returned her attention to the world around her. She was resting in the very low local gravity near one of the hairlike spikes protruding from the surface of the moon. The soil below her seemed to glitter faintly—an effect magnified by the crackling of the ion bridge high above her. When she bent to touch it, she learned that it was only a centimeter or two deep; below that was black rock, inert to all the suit’s sensors.

“You’ll find it difficult to chip,” said Idil, balancing on her main thruster not far away. “Some of us tried to analyze it when we arrived, but didn’t have much luck. It might be some sort of artificial material we haven’t come across before. Designed from the molecules up.”

“Any idea who made it?”

“That’s hard to say. There are living quarters off one of the central chambers. We can’t get into them ourselves, but we managed to get some of our remote probes in.”

“Did you find anything? Any reason why the builders left? Any bodies that might help identify the Caste?”

“Nothing. In fact, the quarters were never inhabited. They were possibly intended as a shrine, or a museum perhaps.”

Roche considered this. An ancient, unknown Caste, close enough to Transcendence to no longer need its hereditary form but not so removed to have lost all affection for it, might have modified or built the small moon for purposes that had become meaningless over time. Mok might have drifted far from its origins before being captured by the double-jovian, or—and this was an area Roche hardly dared venture into—the entire arrangement could have been artificial. The two gas giants, the ion bridge, and the single moon were an unlikely combination to have formed naturally. Although the possibility was daunting, the universe had a capacity for surprise far exceeding Roche’s own imagination and she knew better than to base any opinions on what she considered normal.

The aspirations and achievements, and even the whereabouts, of the Caste responsible for the artifacts were as impenetrable as the artifacts themselves. And that only made her more curious. Assuming the outriggers joined her cause, she would have days before the Box arrived. Which would be plenty long enough to have a decent look around.

 

* * *

 

Disisto complied readily with her instructions, and was suited and able to go within the hour. Half an hour after that, he had joined Roche on the surface with a utility containing the requisitions her suit needed to remain operating for an extended period. While it looked after itself, she introduced him to the two outriggers.

Mil’s voice was frosty. “You’re from the Galine station?”

“I ran dock security.”

“How much say do you have regarding policy?”

“None, really. That’s all handled by the chief.”

“Linegar Rufo?”

“Yes.”

If Mil was appeased by that, Yul was not. “Your people stood by while a clan was murdered.”

‘That’s simply not true—” Disisto began.

“You deny that you had observers in the area of Aro when the spine was attacked?”

“No, but—”

“They did nothing.”

“What could they have done? They were only a handful. If your people couldn’t do anything, how could mine?”

“At least you could’ve talked to us afterwards,” said Idil. “Traded information.”

“To have broadcast like that would have given away our location!”

“You’re lying,” said Yul. “You broadcast regularly on the old channels.”

“Through relays.”

“Exactly. That must be safe enough. Whoever it is you’re talking to can’t be any less dangerous than us.”

Roche noted the comment. It seemed the outriggers also suspected Rufo of trying to contact the Sol warrior.

“This is all irrelevant,” she interrupted. “Disisto is here because he’s interested in the ruins you’ve found. He’s not here as my ally, or yours. Far from it. If you object to his presence, I’ll happily send him back.”

Yul grunted, the waldoes on his all-suit twitching uncertainly.

“We will suffer his presence,” Idil decided. “But if he gets into trouble, don’t expect us to help.”

“At least we know where we stand.” Disisto’s voice was stiff and formal.

Roche didn’t trust herself to comment. “Shall we get on with it?” she suggested.

They descended into the moon, this time via another shaft. Roche had no way to tell this one from the rest, apart from its map coordinates. Again she had to rely on the outriggers to navigate for her and Disisto as they zigzagged through the tunnels.

“There are four thousand two hundred seventeen entrances on the surface of Mok,” Idil said as they traveled. “The tunnels themselves extend for many thousands of kilometers within the moon. We haven’t even come close to mapping them all. Some go nowhere or loop back on themselves; others end in chambers like the one you saw earlier; still others lead to museums, or what might be machines of some kind. It’s hard to tell. But I get the feeling that we haven’t touched upon the stuff that actually matters. It’s hidden in some recesses of this moon we haven’t discovered yet.”

“You think this is just a smoke screen?” Disisto asked.

“It’s a possibility. A labyrinth designed to make it difficult for intruders to get in.”

“Or out,” Roche added quietly to herself.

“They could’ve built a door out of the crust material and kept just about everything out,” said Yul.

“Perhaps that wasn’t enough,” Idil ventured. “Depends how fearful their enemies were, I guess.”

“It seems like you picked a good place to hide, then,” said Roche. “Too good, almost.”

“When the clan of Wide Berth died,” said Yul, “it was an obvious place to seek shelter: distant, relatively secure, and belonging to no one else. We were hoping we’d go undetected.” The outrigger’s all-suit rotated slightly on its axis. A shrug, Roche intuited. “We have ruins similar to these recorded in the spine’s archives. Other clans have found them and passed on the knowledge. This one was unrecorded because we are the first outriggers to come here. Until DAOC announced that they were seeding the inner belts with prowling mines, the system was never considered worth looking at. It wasn’t until Thin Trunk spine passed on the word that there was a vacant turf large enough for two spines, and Wide Berth was free at the same time as us, that we decided to come...”

Yul talked on, but Roche let her mind wander. She was less interested in why the outriggers had come here than how they could help her. No one had mentioned it yet, but she was probably their only hope of leaving the system. If the Kesh destroyer that delivered Galine Four didn’t stop to pick them up—which was unlikely—they would be destroyed along with the ruins they inhabited. And while Roche wasn’t keen to use blackmail to get the help she needed, she would do so if it was the only option left to her.

It wasn’t just the matter of information on the Sol warrior she wanted. If the outriggers were working with her, the chances of rescuing Maii and Cane improved. The only question was, still, how?

When Yul had finished, Roche broke in with: “How heavily armed are you?”

“That depends,” Idil responded.

“On?”

“If you want to know what weapons we have, the answer is none. But we do have cutting lasers, ion drilling cannons, spectrometry bombs, nano seeders, seetee crust-rippers—”

“Ah.” Disisto suppressed a chuckle. “The smuggler’s toolkit: weapons that never show up on customs declarations, but always appear when you try to haul them in.”

“These are not weapons,” Idil said coolly. “We would only use them as such if we are attacked.”

“Why didn’t Wide Berth spine do that on Aro?”

“They did, but...” Idil hesitated. “They didn’t know how to retaliate. We are not trained at war.”

“What about the stories I’ve heard about dust-shoals and booby-trapped asteroids?” said Disisto.

“All retaliatory,” Idil insisted. “If one of our kind makes the mistake of broadcasting the discovery of a rich deposit, it is not uncommon for that deposit to be taken away from us. We can’t prevent a system’s owners from moving us on; even if we have a legal licensing agreement for the territory, the fact that they technically own it works against us. We are regarded as scavengers, or worse, by most people. Most of the time, we lose everything we have worked for, and that is all. But if we are expelled by force, we feel it to be our right to retaliate. So we leave reminders that we have been there, and that we are angry at being robbed.”

“It’s ironic,” said Disisto. “The Sol clone warrior used some of your own tactics against you, over Aro.”

“But his motives are decidedly more malicious than ours,” said Yul. “Or yours.”

“True,” said Roche. She wanted to move the subject on, but before she could, her suit signaled that she was receiving a tightbeam from a source nearby.

“Disisto? Is that you?”

“Yes. Haid gave me this frequency if I needed to talk to you in private.”

“Good thinking.” She glanced at her instruments; none of the outriggers seemed to have noticed the private conversation. “What do you want?”

“To explain what happened back on Aro. You seem to agree with the outriggers that the chief is at fault.”

Roche sighed. “You want to defend Rufo?”

“There really was nothing those observers could have done to save anyone.”

“You don’t know that. And they certainly didn’t know that at the time.”

“They were only there to observe—”

“What if they’d observed survivors on the ground?”

“They didn’t, did they? Listen, Roche: if one of our observers had been captured, the location of Galine Four could’ve been traced. That would’ve placed all our lives in danger.”

“I thought you said the clone warrior had left the system.”

“That’s what I believe, not the chief. And it pays to be safe rather than sorry.”

“What pays isn’t the issue here. I’m talking about basic Humanity: helping people in trouble.”

“I’m sure Rufo would have allowed the observers to intervene,” Disisto said, “but the fact is hours would’ve passed before signals from the observers reached the station and our replies went back. By then, the attack would’ve been over. There was nothing those observers could do—except watch.”

Roche didn’t respond immediately. Disisto’s last point was probably true, but it didn’t allay her doubts. And there was something else, something he wasn’t telling her....

“You can ask Mavalhin if you don’t believe me,” he said into her reflective silence. “He was one of the senior observers of the Aro attack.”

“Well, that explains why they didn’t use their initiative,” said Roche. “Or follow their conscience.”

He was quick to reply: “Exactly.”

The sharpness of his voice startled her, but she had no time to ask him what he meant. The outriggers were slowing again, and—now that she was paying attention to her environment—she became aware that she was feeling gravity. Gently at first, but becoming stronger, her sense of up and down was returning.

The only problem was, it was coming at right angles to where it should have been. She let the suit orient itself properly against the field and scanned ahead to see where they were headed.

Not an exit, as she first guessed. The tunnel around them ballooned outward until it reached almost ten meters across, then joined another to form the stem of a Y. Two more joined, one after the other, and Roche began to feel as though she were swimming through the veins of an enormous beast.

“We’re approaching the heart of the maze,” said Idil. “Be careful. Gravity does odd things ahead.”

Roche was grateful for the warning as, moments later, up suddenly became down, then began to corkscrew rapidly around her. Her inner ears complained at the disorientation, and for one horrible second her gorge rose in a manner she hadn’t experienced since her early days of training. Only when the sensation subsided did she become aware of Disisto’s chuckling.

“Neat trick,” he said.

“What’s that?” asked Yul, his voice as surprised as Roche felt.

“The only safe way past that point is to fly past,” Disisto explained. “It’d be impossible to walk without bouncing off the walls.”

Roche cast an eye behind her, studying the width of the tunnel. “Another defense?”

“That’s the only thing we can think of,” said Idil.

“What were they hiding?” asked Roche.

“I don’t know,” said Disisto. “But can you imagine the technology required to construct all of this?”

“Opaque your visors as we go through this next bit,” Idil interrupted, a mandible waving toward the end of the tunnel. Ahead of them a cerulean membrane seemed to ripple as they approached. “Don’t worry. It’s quite safe. Just better to see it cold the first time.”

Roche’s stomach felt full of water as she took the outrigger’s advice and let the instruments in her left eye guide her through the membrane.

 

* * *

 

There, rotating oddly in the center of a spherical chamber easily a kilometer across, was a pinch of space that defied Roche’s best efforts to describe. It was hard to see directly, appearing almost as a shimmer in her view of the walls behind it. But it was more than a mirage. Much more. It had its own structure, its own definition—yet it wasn’t anything at all. In a strange way, it reminded her of the anomaly they had passed through in order to enter Palasian System.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“It might be,” said Idil. “It’s hard to tell from within the Gauntlet, but we’ve found no reason to doubt it.”

“An anchor point—inside the moon?”

“Why not? There’s no particular law that says they have to be in open space. The vacuum’s as perfect as it can be in here. Even the atoms and particles spilling off us somehow disappear into the background flux. As long as it doesn’t bump into the walls, or anything else, it’s quite safe.”

“But an anchor point is fixed to the space-time grid, not the things around it,” said Roche. “The ones near systems have to be taken apart and rebuilt regularly or else they drift. To try to fix one in place while the moon orbits Kukumat and Murukan and Hintubet would be impossible, surely.”

“And yet there you have it,” said Idil. A waldo waved at the odd patch of space before her. “It doesn’t work, of course.”

“Because the whole system is in hyperspace,” Roche said. “The only way out is through the external boundary, and even then only by slow-jump.”

“It cost us lives in Free-For-All figuring that one out,” said Yul.

“But an anchor point is a weakness in space-time,” said Disisto. “What’s this a weakness in?”

“Good question,” said Idil. “If you find the answer, let us know.”

A thought struck Roche: that if the anchor point was fixed, and the system revolved around it, then that would explain why it could be contained in such a way. But that didn’t make sense either. Her mind hurt just thinking about it.

“Why did you bring us here?” she said after a moment.

Neither Idil nor Yul replied immediately. She looked around at the outriggers. They were floating motionless in the vacuum. She repeated the question.

“Sorry,” said Idil. “The Plenary has begun. We would all like to attend, so we’ve brought you here to keep you occupied. There’s a lot to look at without leaving this chamber. Down the far end are some structures that will interest you.”

“You’re leaving us here?” asked Disisto, glancing at Roche.

“No. The Plenary doesn’t require our actual presence. We’ll simply interface with the others from here. It’s just that we’ll be preoccupied if you try to talk to us, that’s all.”

Roche tried unsuccessfully to read Disisto’s expression through his transparent helmet.

“That sounds fine to me,” she said. “We won’t be going anywhere.”

The all-suits floated motionless in the zero gravity without response.

“Shall we take a look?” Disisto said, indicating the far end of the chamber.

The anchor half hid a structure of some kind. Roche couldn’t make it out. “After you.”

Disisto used his thrusters to head off across the space, cutting a chord deeper into the chamber rather than hugging the outside. Roche did likewise, keeping an eye on her instruments.

“Don’t go too close,” she said as they neared the anchor point. Although it seemed, perversely, to shrink in size, she was wary of it all the same. In the highly unorthodox domain of the Gauntlet, anything was possible.

“So they’ve convened a Plenary,” he said, ignoring her instruction. “To talk about what?”

“Us. Whether or not to help me.”

“I see.”

His gaze was fixed forward. He began to fire his thrusters, nudging his way around the anchor. This close it looked like smoked glass spun into a tangled web and seen through a foggy lens. It still looked as though it was moving, although in which direction was hard to determine.

“Do you expect me to help you when it comes time to rescue your friends?”

“You’ve told me you won’t betray Rufo.”

“That’s right. I have.”

“You won’t change your mind?”

“No.”

“It would be easier if you did,” she said. Then, watching his movements around the anchor point: “I can take over your suit at any time, you know, in case you were thinking of throwing yourself into that thing.”

His laugh was loud but forced. “Don’t flatter yourself, Roche. The idea hadn’t even occurred to me,” he said. “Tell me, though, what you would do to ensure my cooperation. Torture me?”

“Anything’s possible,” she said. “I’m determined to rescue Maii.”

“And Cane?”

She hesitated before answering. “Yes, Cane as well.”

Disisto grunted as they swooped past the anchor point. “You know what I think this is?” he said, gesturing around him. He didn’t wait for her reply: “Some sort of covert transportation system. The anchor point obviously led somewhere, once, and the shell of moon around it would’ve absorbed any emissions when it was used. The labyrinth and the gravity trap would have stopped anyone just wandering in. There could be hundreds of these things scattered across the galaxy and no one would ever know about them.”

“But the outriggers got through the traps easily enough. It’s not really that secure. Especially given its location.”

“Maybe the builders just wanted a little privacy.”

“Maybe,” she muttered, turning her attention to the structure they were approaching. It looked like a cannon of some kind, or an elongated funnel, directed at the anchor point. Instead of a barrel, though, it contained a cuplike hollow thirty-five meters in diameter. Despite her instruments saying it was inactive, Roche still regarded the structure warily. There was undoubtedly a connection between it and the anchor point, and until she knew exactly what that connection was, she had no desire to be anywhere between them.

They split up when they reached it. Roche circled its lip while Disisto traveled along its underside. It seemed to be made of the same material as the crust, but whorled and knotted as though eroded by centuries of running water.

The channel between them was thick with their silence. Neither was talking for fear of provoking the other.

“Any theories?” she asked. Anything was better than that silence.

“I’ve never come across anything like this before,” he said. “And I’ve been on plenty of excavations.”

“What about Rufo? Think there’d be anything in his files?”

“He’s covered more of the galaxy than most people,”

Disisto said thoughtfully. “His records contain thousands of examples of Caste-types and divergent engineering and exotic materials and bizarre technologies, but...” He stopped. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this wasn’t even Human.”

“There’s no chance of that, I suppose?”

He snorted. “None. Believe me, if there was any sign of alien life in the galaxy, past or present, Linegar Rufo would know about it.”

“He seems the secretive type to me,” she said, to see if she would get a reaction.

She did: he laughed. “Listen, Roche. Don’t play me for the fool. Making me doubt my boss isn’t going to make me automatically want to help you get your friends back.” She watched as he jetted up to where she floated near the mouth of the giant trumpet. Through his faceplate she could see him smiling humorlessly. “But I may be useful to you in other ways.”

“Such as?”

“I’ve been thinking. Even if I won’t help you fight Linegar, I can tell you some things you probably should know.”

She cleared her faceplate and met his eye. She sensed an internal struggle raging within him. He wasn’t going to betray his boss, but he didn’t want to see her fail, either. How he could possibly hope to succeed at both—and why—she didn’t know, but she was keen to see him try.

“Go on,” she said.

“It’s about Cane,” he said. “And the other one we’re chasing. The Kesh believe they’re something to do with the Sol Apotheosis Movement, but Rufo doesn’t. He’s letting them believe it because it gives him an edge. But he suspects it’s all a smoke screen.”

Roche shook her head. “A smoke screen? What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I say. There might be no connection between the two. And if so, you could be basing assumptions on imperfect data.”

“But we’ve got proof that Cane is a Sol Wunderkind: his genetic design, the control language you’ve been broadcasting—”

“I’m not a biogeneticist, so I can’t argue about his makeup. But I do know the control language didn’t come from any of the historical archives. You must have looked before you came here. Did you find the codes?”

“No. I assumed Rufo had access to other records—”

“The language wasn’t in the records,” he cut in. “None that any of us can access, anyway. I don’t know where the codes came from or what they mean, and I doubt the chief knows either, but I know he was given those codes. He’s deliberately keeping Shak’ni out of the full picture—and he’s letting you believe what you want to believe, too.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Disisto seemed frustrated. “But I think it’s dangerous. We should be sharing information. Otherwise we could all be killed by this thing. Or even Cane, for that matter—whatever the hell he is.”

“No, you’re wrong,” said Roche. “Uri found a correlation in the Ana Vereine’s database. Cane’s face matched that of the man who wiped out the Sol Apotheosis Movement. How can you ignore that kind of connection?”

“Because we have no records of any ‘Adoni Cane’ at all—in the Sol files or elsewhere.”

“What?”

“I can’t explain it, Roche. All I know is that while you were in the meeting with Linegar, he ordered a confirmatory search, and nothing was found.”

“This is insane.” She groped for an explanation that made sense. Either Rufo had corrupted his own files in order to keep the information a secret, or the Ana Vereine’s records were wrong—along with those of COE Intelligence HQ, which had confirmed the match. For the first time, she wished the Box was around to help her work out what was going on.

The Box... It had a habit of manipulating records to suit its own agenda. But why would it encourage her to believe, mistakenly, that Cane’s origins lay with the Sol Apotheosis Movement? What could it possibly gain from that? And where had Rufo’s information come from? The Kesh didn’t know, so that ruled them out, and the Box had been with her for weeks. It just didn’t fit together.

“You disapprove of what Rufo is doing,” she said, trying to clarify Disisto’s feelings on the matter of Cane. “But I suppose you don’t disapprove enough to help me rectify the problem, either.”

Disisto drifted until one hand rested on the alien surface. “Look, I’d rather we were taking an active role here in the system. The Kesh might go along with it, although I don’t really know what they’re after. Rufo’s attempts to contact the warrior give me the creeps, to be honest Whoever gave him the information he needed to do that, whoever knew enough about the warrior to identify his type even though we can’t—whoever that is, I think they know a lot more than they’re saying. And I think Rufo is being used. This ‘whoever’ was too afraid to come here themselves, so we were dispatched. We’re all expendable.”

Roche suddenly felt cold and vulnerable. The Box had something to do with the High Human called the Crescend. High Humans had access to all sorts of information mundanes never even suspected existed. It might have given the control language to Rufo in exchange for firsthand information. And where was the Box now? Jetting around the system in her one and only escape route, while she played xenoarchaeologist with a genocidal clone warrior possibly nearby....

She cursed under her breath and tried to shake the paranoid thoughts. Such a line of thinking was neither helpful nor healthy. Nevertheless, one thing she had learned in recent weeks was that being merely paranoid wasn’t paranoid enough. And she certainly was expendable      

No. She couldn’t let Disisto confuse her. She had no reason to believe that the Sol Apotheosis Movement was a smoke screen. Linegar Rufo could be wrong for a change, or Disisto could be lying. Better the latter than the tangled skein of deceit he was proposing in its place.

Disisto seemed unaware of the uncertainty he had provoked in her. That only made it worse. If he had done it deliberately, then he was a better liar than she believed him to be.

“Anyway,” he said, “I thought you ought to know about my dilemma. If you can help me out of it, then—”

“That’s not my problem,” she said, pushing herself impatiently away from the alien trumpet. “And there’s too much going on for us to just float around sightseeing. The more I can sort out before the Box gets here, the better.” She switched to a more general frequency. “Byrne? Idil? Can anyone hear me?”

“Is something wrong?” said Idil after a few moments.

“I want to attend the Plenary. I want to hear what you’re saying about me.”

“You don’t have the interfaces required to do that.”

“Byrne said I could sit in on the summary. How much different could it be?”

“Fundamentally.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Roche saw Disisto moving away from her. She froze his suit with a simple command. “Regardless, I want to know what’s going on. Maybe I can contribute.” Or make sure you come to the right decision, she thought.

“I’m sorry, but it just isn’t possible—”

The auditor’s voice cut into the conversation. “Let her,” she said. “It will do us no harm.”

“Very well, Roche. Surrender your suit’s input channels,” said Idil. “Do you have direct inputs?”

“My left eye and ear.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do to make it easier.”

Roche hesitated before handing over control, wondering what she had let herself in for.

She gave Idil the access codes required to patch into her implants. The outriggers would be able to draw upon her suit’s full communication capacity; she could pull out any time she wanted, she assumed.

“Five seconds,” Idil said. “Prepare yourself.”

For what? she wanted to ask.

Then she recalled that Auditor Byrne hadn’t said “harmless” to everyone. Byrne had said that it wouldn’t harm them.

With a click and a flash deep in the underside of her brain, the Plenary of Long Span spine exploded through her.