“YOU LOOK LIKE Hell.”

“I just came through the looking glass—Hell’s not a nice place to visit.” Reynard pulls a meat-covered bone from the refrigerator. Recreating an Osirian apartment, his accommodations are the size of three crews’ quarters combined.

“Just use the food replicator. It’s faster and maintains your daily nutrition standards,” Scott suggests.

“I need more protein than the food replicator will allot.”

“Aus isn’t here, so this falls to me. Amye’s a time bomb. You disappeared and she’s lost all power to her thruster rockets.”

“The drinking?” Reynard cuts a chunk of meet free. “I need to eat. Sleep, too. I haven’t had any real sleep in days. You don’t function correctly in an alternate reality.”

“She assaulted Doug. She’s drinking nonstop.” Scott pauses. “She’s talking to someone who’s not there.”

“I noticed after the crash.” He chews a slice of beef and cuts another piece for a sandwich. “It’s her sister.”

Scott bites his bottom lip.

“Speak freely. None of this officer shit. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“You put us all in danger. We face enough already to have one of our own drazz’n lose her smerth’n shit,” Scott says.

“Aus’s on Parliament. When we retrieve her, we’ll get a UCP doctor to examine Amye. I’ll make it an order.”

“And if she refuses?”

Reynard takes a bite of his sandwich. His stomach greets the food. “We examine the alternatives.”

“I’ll spare you all the damage reports until you’ve rested.”

“I got to eat before I sleep. Might as well start.”

Scott opens a back weapons case. “Scavengers beat us to the Kalshir’ ship.” Scott lifts an elongated blaster. “This was one of the weapons they carried.”

“IMC manufacturer?” Reynard cuts a slab for a second sandwich.

Scott flips it over, sliding a side panel open. “It’s fake.”

“These are not the same weapons Ki-Ton acquired?”

Scott shakes his head. “Slightly better quality. Won’t explode after three blasts. The first three numbers identify it as IMC manufactured, but the remaining digits show it to be a fake. The IMC does not fabricate any weapons with that series number. At least not officially.”

“Officially?”

“Since the victory on Summersun I haven’t dived into the weapons issue. I am bothered how each of these weapons is formed with the identical molds the IMC uses. I bought an IMC weapon. Stripped it down. Created a mold from the parts. The weapons dimensions would all be a sixteenth larger. These are not. They’re IMC weapons. The substandard material used makes them fakes.”

“We’ll give it to Maxtin.”

“He questions IMC involvement in their own smuggling operation. A few rumors about a ghost fleet persisted when I was stationed on Tartarus. Since I was an outsider, I never uncovered much.”

“So you attempted to worm information out of Amye’s sister?” Reynard asks.

“They both were generational miners. A part of the company family, but blackballed due to the accidents taking both their father’s and grandfather’s life.”

“And then Kymberlynn died.”

“Amye seems confused about her death,” Scott says, “but she witnessed the shuttle exploding.”

“We won’t antagonize her with this information about the guns until we’ve a doc examine her.” Reynard switches back to the new danger they face. “How hard would it be to convert one of the smaller azure stones we brought back from Ki-Ton’s home world into a few rounds for my magnum?”

“Easy.”

“Make me a few. If they work on the next Sandman we encounter, we’ve our first weapon against them.”

Reynard places his half-eaten sandwich on a plate. His stomach’s churning subsides. “You should have made the repairs if you weren’t sure if I was dead. All signs pointed to me being dead.”

Before Scott speaks, Reynard raises his hand to signal quiet. “Thank you for coming after me.”

“Amye was adamant you were alive.”

“Given her insistence about her dead sister, I need to thank you for not giving up.”

“When the Sandmen didn’t take your brains on Summersun, we felt you had to be alive somewhere.”

“None of my experience with them adds credence to any myth.”

“I’ve got repairs. I’ll get more done without Aus to distract me. You need your sleep.”

Reynard packs away his half-eaten sandwich. Once Scott leaves him, he snaps loose the tie-down strap keeping the belt against his hip for unobstructed quick draw. Once the weapon dangles free, he unbuckles his gun belt and drops it on the couch. He wishes he had the revolver, but it vanished. Along with everything else he pocketed when he met Eymaxin. No coexisting between realities.

He places his clan sword on locking hooks, mounting the Calthos weapon to the wall next to his bunk. Reynard flexes his fingers. As he balls his right hand into a fist, it tingles as if he had fallen asleep on it. Releasing the fist prevents any pain.

Fist.

Open.

Fist.

Open.

Reynard stands. Shifting his feet into a kata designated for the sword draw, he reaches his right hand across his abdomen to draw an invisible blade. As he draws the imaginary sword to complete the form, he closes his grip. Bringing the movement to completion, the sword appears in his hand.