Scarecrow
*****
Medical Bay
TFR Rubens
Location Unknown
A FEW HOURS’ NAP, OR so she had thought. When Liao woke, the lights of the ship were dimmed, and it was ‘night,’ Saeed’s subtle nudge that she should continue sleeping.
The presence of a figure had woken her up, not a nurse—a tall, European woman with blond hair and an unfamiliar uniform bearing a German flag on the shoulder. It seemed like a long time since Liao had seen someone with blond hair.
“Yes?” she asked, which came out more snappy than she had intended.
“Captain Liao, my name is Oberleutnant zur See Hanna Keller, Marinestützpunktkommando Kiel. I’m with the Marines on the Rubens. Saeed said I could speak with you if you were awake.”
“I wasn’t, but I’m awake now.” Liao pushed off the bottom of the tank, letting herself float back down to the ground. “What’s on your mind, Oberleutnant?”
“Ma’am, I wanted to talk to you about Ben and the Toralii prisoners we have in our care—over thirty from the Washington’s engagements above Velsharn and eight from the capture of the Knight.”
Discussing her mirror with a stranger, as well as discussing command decisions with a Marine, did not seem prudent, but benefit of the doubt won out. “Proceed, Oberleutnant. Ben first.”
Her tone was blunt. “Ben is dangerous.”
“I am aware, Oberleutnant.” The bombing of Velsharn and the annihilation of the Telvan colony there flashed into her mind. The Beijing’s nuclear missiles had burst above the surface, bathing the entire colony in fire. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What I meant was, he knows us too well. He knows you too well. His choice in bodies can’t possibly be a coincidence. He sees something in you that he wants to emulate—emulate or take for himself. He’s Pinocchio, the doll who wants to be a real boy, but he doesn’t truly know what that means.”
Liao mused over that. She too had called him Pinocchio. Her observations were not as unique as she thought. “My thoughts exactly. To be honest, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with Ben yet. He killed a lot of people on this planet, before we even arrived, and on Belthas IV as well. At the very least, he should deserve to suffer Telvan justice. Until then, he can sit in a cell and think about what he’s done.”
“Agreed,” said Keller. “Turn him over to them when we get a chance, let them sort it out.”
“I plan to.” She folded her arms, her fingers drumming lightly on the skin of her stump. The feeling was distinctly odd, as though she were passing through an incorporeal version of her own flesh. “You mentioned something about the Toralii prisoners?”
“Yes.” Keller’s voice became firmer. “Captain, I want to make sure that the Toralii prisoners are receiving the best of care and aren’t being abused or mistreated.”
A strange request. “I’m not sure why you’re asking—I don’t plan on mistreating them, nor would I support anyone under my command that does. Honestly, I haven’t even had the chance to deal with them. The prisoners are being kept aboard the Washington in their brig. The Americans are treating them well, to the best of my knowledge. Have you heard anything different?”
“No, ma’am,” she said, “although I’ve recently been made aware there was some kind of breakout. From what I heard, the eight from the Knight were determined to be the ringleaders and were moved from the Washington to the surface a few hours ago.”
“A breakout is a failure of discipline,” said Liao. “Captain Anderson is entitled to do whatever he needs to so order may be restored.”
“Germans disagree,” said Keller. “Under German law, freedom is considered a natural desire—attempting to escape detention is not a crime although, obviously, if someone were injured in the attempt, that would be a separate matter.”
“The Washington is under United States jurisdiction.” Liao understood there was little difference in semantics, with all their countries lying in ashes, but it was an important point. “I won’t attempt to undermine their authority in this matter—Anderson’s ship, Anderson’s rules.”
“I understand. I just want to make sure that I, personally, can get a chance to inspect them and verify that they’re not being mistreated and that their new accommodations are suitable both to hold them and to be, at least, some degree of comfortable.”
“We can’t have everyone traipsing over there to ensure the welfare of the prisoners,” said Liao, “especially if there are breakout attempts, but in this case, it’s not up to me. Such a request would have to be handled by Captain Anderson.”
“I see.” Keller hesitated. “Captain, can you make the request for me? It will carry more weight if it comes from you, I feel. Captain Williams has already said he will support stationing one of our Marines there as an observer until the prisoners are repatriated. He was hesitant, initially, but I convinced him.”
Liao chewed on the inside of her cheek. “There’s no clear timetable for that,” she said. “And there’s debate about what the eventual fate of these Toralii is going to be. There are a significant number of people who feel that, given everything that’s happened, we should no longer take prisoners, and we should execute the ones we have as an example.”
“With respect, that won’t work, Captain.”
Liao frowned despite an effort to maintain her composure. She always felt that when someone said ‘with respect,’ that was a polite way of saying they, in fact, did not respect her and her opinions at all.
“Explain, Oberleutnant.”
“The idea of surrender is simply, in practical terms and with all moral and ethical considerations aside, to provide a mechanism for armies to avoid having to fight each other to the death to resolve a conflict. It is designed to engender reciprocity—we take some of them as prisoners and treat them well. When hostilities have died down and it’s clear that those soldiers are not simply going to return to the front, we repatriate them. Our enemies do the same for their prisoners. The problem is this agreement is fragile. The moment either side breaks down the agreement, the other side does as well. Bullets are cheaper than prisoner-of-war camps.”
Bullets were simpler too, especially when dealing with a race taller and stronger than most Humans, and prideful too. However, violence had gotten them to that point, cowering on Velsharn, Earth in ruins.
“I am inclined to agree,” said Liao. “From a historical context, bloody revenge has rarely solved more problems than it has created. Heinlein was wrong—violence may well be the ultimate authority from which all other authorities extend, but history has shown decisively and convincingly that, in the end, it is the cooperators who eventually triumph. Many hands build our ships, more than any tyrant can muster. If we want more ships, we will need more even more hands, offered willingly.”
Keller smiled. “I agree. A noble sentiment, Captain.”
Liao regarded her curiously. An edge of formality crept into her tone. “I can understand your curiosity regarding the welfare of these prisoners, but this seems to be something more personal and deeper for you. Why are you asking me these questions?”
“Captain, I am German. We are a proud people with a long history. Some of that history is dark. History is a painful but accurate teacher. There’s one thing I’ve always kept close to my chest. When I was a teenager, my best friend’s parents moved from Essen to Frankfurt to be with their extended family. One day I was visiting my friend when her great-grandfather, a very nice man, told us, ‘Whatever you hear from other people from Germany about what went on before and during the war, don’t believe anyone who says they did not know. We all knew what was happening. We knew whole families were disappearing. People who were outspoken were gone in the morning. Anyone who tells you they were ignorant of what was happening is lying.’ If something’s happening to those prisoners, I want to know about it, own it, and never attempt to pretend that nothing was happening on my watch.”
Not on my watch. Important words for those with any kind of authority. “Very well, then. Out of consideration for your cultural history, I’ll lodge a request with Captain Anderson to permit either yourself or a trusted representative to inspect the welfare of the prisoners and their accommodation on Eden personally. In fact, when I get out of here, I’ll go see them myself as well.”
Keller relaxed, the tension flowing out of her. This was no show for promotion or praise—it was genuine concern. “Thank you, Captain. I appreciate it.”
“It’s important,” said Liao. She shuffled, sloshing the water. “Perhaps, then, you can do me a favour in exchange. Two, in fact.”
“Certainly, ma’am,” said Keller. “What do you need?”
“Firstly,” said Liao. “Tell me. What is Scarecrow?”
Keller stiffened. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that question, ma’am.”
Liao’s eyes narrowed. “On whose authority?”
“Captain Anderson, ma’am. He was specific that he wanted to tell you about it in person.”
“Well,” she said, “get him to come over here.”
“I will ask. What was the second request?”
“The presence of Toralii escape pods on Velsharn disturbs me. Those civilians down there are all we have left. There are too many weapons, at our disposal or theirs, which can end Eden in a heartbeat. I want to make sure these intruders are found and dealt with.”
“I can look into that personally if you wish, ma’am,” said Keller. “All I know is the Kel-Voran were concerned about the large number of escape pods jettisoned from the Seth’arak’s stern as it broke up in the atmosphere. They believe there may be more survivors on Velsharn than we know about. We cased the whole island and perform regular fly-bys, but we haven’t spotted anything.”
“Keep searching,” said Liao. The words came from her gut, a warrior’s instinct honed over years. “Avaran is stubborn. Strong. Dedicated. I can only assume his crew are as well. I think it’ll take more than a fiery fall through the atmosphere to kill him.”
Liao floated in the tank after Keller left to follow up on the Toralii prisoners. It was relaxing, in a sense, yet also confining—frustrating. It was time for her to get out. The universe had not stopped while she was in there, and every minute she spent in the tank, letting her body recover, was one during which her enemies continued to work against her and the rest of humanity.
Fortunately, she did not have to wait long before the next visitor, someone she’d been waiting to see, appeared in the Rubens’s med-bay. Her face lit up as James entered, his dark skin a pleasant contrast to the white, plain hospital room. Saeed and he had a brief conversation, and then he was permitted to see her.
Suddenly, the heart-rate monitor spiked, and her chest tightened. She had been badly burned. Her face tingled—it had been half melted, including her scalp, leaving her hair a freakish half head. Her right arm was a stump.
What would he say?
“Good morning, gorgeous.” James beamed as he stepped up to the tank, showing his white teeth. “How are you holding up?”
“So much better now.” His smile was infectious. Liao couldn’t help but return it. She squelched her insecurities and focused on his voice. “How are you doing, James?”
“Much better now that I’m off duty.” He reached up and unbuttoned the top of his uniform. He had a beard, several months’ growth. When last she had seen him, James was clean shaven. He was always clean shaven. “It’s just been one thing after the other.” He had heavy bags under his eyes, but his joy at seeing her was also equally plain. “I’m guessing Saeed and Saara have filled you in on everything.”
“More or less,” she said. “It’s just so weird… my instincts tell me it’s been only a few days, even now—as though the attacks were just yesterday. It feels like everyone’s pulling a huge prank on me, and some part of me is just waiting for everyone to jump out from those cabinets and shout, ‘Surprise!’”
“Honestly, after the last couple of years, I’m kind of appreciating a little boring tedium at this point.” He reached up to rub his right eye and then, refocusing, continued. “The rebuilding work continues. Civilian administration is turning out to be a large part of what I’m doing these days—Shepherd’s even talking about general elections. Sabeen’s got her own ship, damn her, otherwise I’d make her the CO and leave this whole thing behind, become the city mayor or something.”
Sabeen as a CO didn’t make any sense to her. “We… have a new ship?” There was no way it could have been built in that time, even if they had the shipwright’s facilities that had created the Triumph-class cruisers such as the Tehran and the Beijing. Even a smaller ship would take six months, minimum.
James regarded her curiously. “Before you were injured, we captured a Toralii scout vessel.” His face became playful. “Scouts arrive, and we steal their ships. Toralii fleet drops in, they get blown up. Now they know not to come here. We’re uncultured, unpredictable, violent kleptomaniacs. Velsharn is the Detroit of the galaxy.”
Liao remembered. She had seen the prisoners they had taken. It seemed like a lifetime ago. “What are we doing with it?”
“We’ve moved some crew over from the Washington and the Madrid. The vessel was lightly damaged in the battle, so it’s not fully operational yet. Repairs are continuing, and we’re preparing to press it into service. We need every ship we can get.”
That made sense. They absolutely did need more ships—taking them from the Toralii seemed as good a way to get them as any. “I thought it was too badly damaged to sail again,” she said. “Something about the reactor?”
“Damaged, but salvageable. Interesting side note: the name. Captain Williams named the Rubens after a slain crew member. We’ve christened this new ship the Knight.”
“I like it. I didn’t get to spend enough time with Captain Knight before he was killed.” Captain Knight had been the CO of the Sydney. More than the other things, his death seemed very recent. She had learnt about it only minutes before discovering Earth had been destroyed. Everything after that had just been a blur until the funeral, held months later. “I hope I’ll come to know his namesake a little better.”
James’s expression faded. He continued to smile, but something changed around his eyes that made his expression more serious. “As do I, but it was our second choice. Originally, after the battle, it was going to be called the Liao.”
How close she had come to being made into a ship. “I’m not dead yet. One day there’ll be a TFR Liao. Not today.”
Saeed spoke up from across the med-bay. “But for the grace of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, Captain. He has a purpose for you yet.”
She smiled, but there was no true joy there. “Thank you, but sometimes things happen with no purpose.”
“I know why you would say that, Captain, but you’re still here, aren’t you? Even if the reason why you survived isn’t clear to you just yet, it will be in time.”
Perhaps. Liao had no real answer to that. A vaguely uncomfortable silence fell over the whole room.
“I’m just going to check in on one of our other patients,” said Saeed, politely excusing himself. “I’ll be back later.”
Then it was just her and James.
“So,” she said, hope tingeing her voice. “How’s Allison?”
“Missing her mother,” said James, in a tone that pulled at her heart. “Penny is still taking care of her, on and off. Olivia, one of the American survivors you pulled off the surface, is helping a lot. The kids take care of each other.”
“Can I see her?” She couldn’t help a little pleading edge creeping into her voice.
“Not yet,” said James. “She doesn’t like being in space. Allison’s doing better on the surface… but Penny’s doing a really good job, trust me. She’s almost walking, which is scary.”
Liao understood the mixture of joy and terror that came with being entrusted with a tiny Human who could move around under her own power, especially in somewhere as child-unfriendly as a space craft. “I want to see her,” she insisted.
“Soon,” James promised, “when you get out of there. We don’t want to frighten or confuse her—and this ship is strange and upsetting for a small child. Next time Penny rotates aboard, we’ll see, but that might be some time. Especially now, a lot of her time is taken up with training.”
All those months Liao had spent grieving for Allison came back. Penny and her husband had saved Allison from the Toralii attack, a fact that only came to light much later. To miss her again hurt—far more than her wounds ever could.
Liao wanted to never be apart from her daughter again. Fortunately, she had learnt to deal with not seeing Allison as often as she would have liked. It was time to draw upon that strength.
Something else caught her attention. “Training?” Liao inclined her head. “What’s Penny up to these days?”
“Well, the Rubens is understaffed, and they need a dedicated communications officer now they’re officially part of the fleet. Penny may be blind for now, but Captain Williams believes that the more training they can accomplish now, the easier she’ll adjust when she gets her new eyes.”
“New eyes?”
James tapped on the glass of the tank. “There’s a bit of a queue forming for the use of this thing. Amongst the prosthetics Saeed discovered are prosthetic optics. They’re made for Toralii, of course, which is going to be harder to fit into Human eye sockets, but the technology presents some… interesting opportunities. Toralii can see into the ultraviolet spectrum, something which will be helpful if serving on one of their ships. Williams is going to give her an enlisted crewman’s brevet.”
“Giving your girlfriend a field commission is pretty dodgy,” she said, frowning a little. “Although that raises other problems—the CO married to an enlisted crewman on the same vessel. Better to bring her in as a junior officer. Not that it’s much better.”
“I’m not sure we’re in much of a position to talk about fraternisation guidelines,” James said with a vague smile, “but I actually advised him of the same. It’s going to be difficult to avoid a conflict of interest. No serious navy would ever allow this.”
“He’s going to have to deal with it, and so is everyone else. We don’t exactly have the opportunity to move people around to accommodate an ideal situation. Every ship is hurting for crew, as I hear it.”
“You hear right.”
They spent a moment in quiet reflection. The grimness of their situation cast a dark pall over everything. Her stump itched, her scalp hurt, and although important, none of that talk would help her heal. She tried to lighten the mood. “So,” she said. “How’s it feel having your girlfriend in a fish tank?”
“Pretty good,” he said, smirking. “How is it in there? Need me to drop a little food in the top?”
She laughed.
“How about that breathing tube?” asked James. “Looks pretty uncomfortable.”
“Mmm hmm. You’d be surprised at how strange having a long black thing in my throat felt. You’d imagine I’d be more used to it by now.”
He tittered. “Well, at least you have your sense of humour.”
“Hey, you’re lucky I’m in a good mood—and high on a million different kinds of drugs—because otherwise I’d smash my way out of here and beat you up again.”
“You did a pretty good job last time,” he said, the edges of his mouth climbing. “I was sore for ages.”
“Good.” She enjoyed that memory—even if it had come at a dark time in her life—breaking into the bottom of the Beijing with James, just like silly little schoolkids, and having a boxing match in the abandoned, derelict gym in the lower decks.
Such a little thing had restored her will to fight.
She couldn’t help but look at the flat stump of her arm. “Don’t think we’ll be able to do it again, though.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said James. “Saeed’s hopeful—”
“Yeah, yeah, the prosthetic.” She suddenly felt a little humourless. “It’ll be clumsy and awkward and the one thing everyone’s dancing around: ugly.” Her voice cracked, her fears returning. “You know, I was always told I was beautiful. It’s kind of a relief—a relief in a strange way—to not be that anymore. Now, people will hopefully just see me as an officer, a military woman, nothing more.”
“Melissa…” James leaned up against the tank. “I’m not going to say you’re as pretty as you ever were. That’s a transparent lie you’d see right through. Instead, I might say this: Parts of you I like are damaged. The part of you that I love isn’t. You’re still alive. That’s enough for me.”
Her heart hurt in her chest. “Is it?”
His answer was emphatic. “Yes.”
She tried hard not to cry, and although it would be difficult for him to know since she was surrounded by green-tinged liquid, she was glad that—at least probably—she succeeded. “Thank you,” she managed, her voice wavering. “I was… worried.”
“Don’t be,” James said. “The best part of you is on the inside. Your heart. You’ll be fine.”
Another polite silence fell over them, a welcome piece of quiet where they shared each other’s company with nothing but the faint whine of machinery and computers in the background.
“Anderson’s doing a good job,” said James. “You know, he’d be getting close to admiral rank now if the military still existed.”
“Well, he threw me some captain’s pips. No idea where he found them. I think we can probably manage to nudge him up a rank at some point.”
“Probably,” he said. “Although… heh.” He gave a rueful smile. “Serving under an American. Lovely.”
“They’re not so bad,” said Liao. “When I was younger, I didn’t like them, but I hadn’t met any at that stage. As I’ve come to be part of Task Force Resolution, I’ve changed my tune. Anderson, Shepherd, Jennifer… they’ve shown me that Americans are a strange, diverse, mixed bunch but they’re all right in the end. Loyal allies and quite inventive, too. Decent folk.”
“I’m inclined to agree. It’s fun to poke although I will preface that agreement with some reservations.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Want to know a secret?”
Liao smiled. “We have a child together. I’m not sure you could say anything that would shock me at this point.”
“People say it’s hard being black. I loved being black… in Europe, when there was a Europe. I mean, blackness had its ups and down, sure, but I felt like I belonged. I wasn’t Kenyan-Belgian—I was Belgian.” He ran his hand over his beard. “But when I visited America, it wasn’t like that. I felt like if I lived there, in the US, people wouldn’t consider me American, I’d always be African-American. That distinction came not from white people—they were nervous around me, sometimes, but when I spoke clearly and dressed sharply, I was treated as one of them. The issues came not from any institutionalised racism but because of other black people.”
That did surprise her. “There aren’t exactly many black women and men in China, I rarely saw them, growing up. A lot of what I know and feel about blacks comes from the media. And you, of course.”
“Well,” said James, a scowl over his face, “there’s a lot the media can tell you—a lot of it useful and helpful, and a lot of it… not so much. I can safely say, as a black man, that blacks as a collective were never going to be successful in the United States, not because of white people, but because of other black people. Any time a black person studies, learns, develops an intellectual skill, stays in school, does well at maths, science, literature; suddenly they are race traitors. They are ‘acting white’. There were plenty of exceptions, of course, but by and large if you were not a thug, not into that culture and that side of things, then you were not truly black. I felt as though blackness celebrated failure, applauded falling through the gaps of society and becoming less than we can truly be.
“I avoided the worst of it because I’m European, but I had spent enough time in the US to know that when a black man does anything worthy of success—not so much with sporting prowess, but especially in an intellectual capacity—then there’s a pronounced ostracisation that occurs from within their own community. It’s a dark part of the community and the culture there. If you’re arrested, that’s a compliment. They say you have ‘cred.’ What you really have, though, is a criminal record that further isolates you from society. It’s bullshit, frankly, how much American blacks venerate thug culture as something good, and because of it, they all suffer.”
“Interesting,” said Liao. “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve always lived in very homogeneous societies.” She paused. He seemed frustrated, as though despite his protestations, that was something personal for him. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just worried about this new melting-pot city we’ve created. We have Chinese, we have Brazilians, we have Iranians, we have Americans… we have some South Koreans, a handful of Germans, scattered people from all over the EU, we have a few Australians, we have Israelis. We have so many people, languages, cultures… What are the long-term products of this? What negative cultural kinks are going to express themselves over the coming years, and how can we work on fixing them before they start?”
It was a very interesting set of problems. “Maybe we need to start with… with something a little simpler. Toning down our now-antiquated national boundaries. There’s no China anymore. There’s no United States or EU or anything like that. We are all Humans. That’s all.”
“I think that’s a noble ambition. I’m not sure everyone will be on board with it initially.”
“The Chinese will be the hardest,” she said. Might as well get that out there first. “Americans have a strong national identity but it’s one that’s built on an artificial country made from the blood of the world; Chinese culture is heavily influenced by the Han ideal. Every beauty store in China, without fail, stocks skin-whitening cream. White skin is the ideal. There’s even a saying: ‘A woman can be ugly, as long as her skin is white.’ It’s crazy.” A sly grin spread over her face. “I never really agreed with that.”
James grinned back. “You don’t say.”
“Fortunately, you have a lot more going for you than your skin colour.”
He snickered. “Feel free to tell me more about how attractive I am.”
She wanted to. She wanted to tell James how much he meant to her, but the words stuck in her throat. All she could think of were the burns on her face and body and her metal arm. He couldn’t love a half machine, half woman, could he?
James’s expression changed, becoming more reserved. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s just you and me to the end, right?”
“You and me and the railguns,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “That’s how it’s going to be.”
“It is.” James’s sincerity was clear and forceful, but no matter how hard she tried, there were doubts.
A device on James’s belt beeped. He read it, a frown crossing his features. “I should go,” he said. “Work, work.”
She wanted to ask about Scarecrow, but Keller had been clear. “Take care,” she said, suddenly wishing he could stay longer.
“I will.”
And then she was alone again.
She slept, woke, and then slept again—sixteen hours. When she woke again, she had a new visitor, Captain Anderson, his United States Navy uniform clean and well attended, grey hair stained green through the liquid. Despite his hair, Anderson always looked younger than she expected—his tan face had retained a youthful visage that Liao found remarkable—but she could have sworn the months had treated him like years. It was visible around his eyes. Something had been his burden.
He seemed to study her with a quiet intensity that Liao did not understand.
“Good morning,” he said, his quiet American Southern accent seeming to reverberate in the med-bay. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“No apologies are necessary,” she said, strange as it was to be coming back to consciousness on her feet. Waking up while standing was something she had grown accustomed to. “I’ve been waiting to talk to you for some time. I assume there’s a good reason for instructing Keller not to talk to me about the Scarecrow.”
“You asked her, I presume?” He inhaled, letting the breath out slowly. “I’ll be honest, Captain Liao, this had nothing at all to do with you and everything to do with Captain Williams.”
Liao presumed he meant Captain Mike Williams of the TFR Rubens. “I’m listening. What does he have to do with all this?”
“Well, the Rubens under Captain Williams was involved in privateering operations against the Toralii Alliance. Their record was impressive. I haven’t had an opportunity to review the log yet, but my understanding is that they engaged and destroyed over thirty enemy vessels. And one friendly.”
“The Scarecrow,” she surmised. She felt the dark stab in her gut that military personnel frequently felt when discussing fratricide. “These things are bound to happen.”
“Agreed. Captain Williams was operating on a skeleton crew. Most of them are, or were, pilots of various qualifications. They took turns flying CAP. It was Williams’s turn when the Scarecrow appeared, squawking no IFF, and was destroyed as a target of opportunity. It crashed on the surface of a moon we have named Perth. There were no survivors.”
Williams had made a call—the wrong call. She had been in those boots. Command required a decisiveness of action such that every decision was gambling with lives. So far, she had not been faced with a serious mistake of that nature.
So far.
“He okay?” she asked.
“I’ve spoken to Captain Williams about this incident. I’m confident in his operational capacity.”
There was something in his tone that Liao found overly formal, even for Anderson, and she knew. Williams wasn’t okay. Yet… neither was Anderson. She couldn’t put her finger on why.
“Very well,” she said. “So it’s a salvage operation.”
“Correct,” said Anderson. “The craft is a lost cause. It’s what they were carrying that’s valuable—valuable enough for the Toralii to dedicate a pair of cruisers to guard it. At least, they did until the Knight led them away. It took them a while to bite our bait, but they have.”
Liao narrowed her eyes. “We’re not near Velsharn, are we?”
“No.” Anderson folded his hands. “Saeed doesn’t want me telling you this. He thinks you need to rest. Unfortunately, so does he, and while he’s asleep, I’m going to fill you in.” He took a deep breath. “The Alliance cruisers are chasing the Knight. They’ve left Scarecrow undefended. Our window is limited. We need to land, retrieve the cargo, and get the hell out of here. The Washington is escorting the Rubens to her final jump point before they make the attempt. Unfortunately, you’re along for the ride.”
That made no sense. “What could the Scarecrow possibly be carrying that would justify risking so many fleet assets?”
Hesitant, as though sharing the great burden that was upon him, Anderson locked eyes with her. “The end.”
Perhaps she had not heard him correctly. “The… end?”
Penny punched in the commands on her console as Mike—No no, “Captain Williams”—touched a key on the command console and issued the order to prepare for jump.
She had expected the jump process to be dramatic, even spectacular—moving from one whole solar system to another was an incredible feat of engineering power that could only inspire awe—but instead, it was entirely mundane. The ship’s radar was momentarily a field of static, and then as the first pulse went out, everything slowly returned to normal—smooth, subtle, imperceptible, just like the hand of God.
The only thing bothering her was the light—the strange hues flooding the room, an alarm tone fading away as the ship’s systems recovered. Light in the ultraviolet spectrum. Her prosthetic eyes struggled to translate the feedback into a sane format. Processing a new colour was a unique experience—it could not be imagined, only experienced. It was as though she could see the world through a black light. A strange, lurid, out-of-place sheen lit things up in a strange, otherworldly hue. It was opalescence, every spectrum at once, depending on how it was viewed, and every surface shimmered slightly.
She had adjusted quickly—the initial headaches and nausea had faded to a dull roar—but it was still disconcerting. Captain Williams had tried to remove as much of the ultraviolet light as possible, but Toralii used purple and ultraviolet as warning colours, presumably because their blood was purple, in the same way Humans used red as warning.
“Jump complete,” she said.
“Excellent, Ensign.” Williams gave her a just-a-little-more-than-entirely-professional smile. She just-a-little-more-than-entirely-professionally smiled back.
Would this be a problem in the future, them working together? Maybe. She had considered the problem. Would Mike be strong enough to be only ‘Captain Williams’?
Would she?
Shaba spoke up. “Mags, we’re in position. Holding at the Perth-L2 Lagrange point.”
Lieutenant Rachel “Shaba” Kollek. Penny had, for some time, hated her from afar—hated her because she was so lovable. Who wouldn’t love her? She was pretty, smart, trilingual… a gifted pilot and working closely with Captain Williams—intimately, even.
And she had sharp eyesight.
Penny knew pilots were randy individuals, and Captain Williams’s deployment often took him away from her for months at a time. She had accepted, on some level, that Shaba and her husband would have probably shacked up at some point. When Captain Williams had returned from one mission, guilt ridden and depressed, she had expected the worst and steeled herself to receive it.
Her fears, though, were not to be. Her then-boyfriend had instead accidentally shot down a friendly gunship, the Scarecrow—in that very system, no less.
“Launch the CAP,” ordered Captain Williams. “Long-range scout. I want pings to sweep the planetary system. Make sure there’s nothing hiding on the other side of this moon or in the planet’s shadow. Prep the ship for emergency egress if we detect anything Toralii.”
“Aye aye,” said Shaba. “CAP away.”
Over the time of their deployment, Penny had come to love Shaba as a sister and felt intensely guilty whenever she thought of her past suspicions. It wasn’t fair to either of them: they had both been silently accused of something they hadn’t done. She disliked having doubted.
Her console lit up, chasing away the pesky thoughts. She scanned it, drinking in the huge volume of information presented to her. Getting her sight back was truly an odd experience. In the beginning, the world was awash with colour, and everything she saw was blurry, indistinct, and overly saturated by brightness. Nothing made sense as a shape or a face or anything recognisable. Existence was just bright splatterings of light.
Initially, it was thought to be a problem with the eyes and an incompatibility between Toralii and Human biology, but a review of the direct feed showed it was normal. Instead, it was how her brain perceived the image.
She found closing one eye helped. Penny knew that many of the seemingly natural qualities of everyday vision were not innate but instead learnt through experience. She had not always been blind, but so many years of sightlessness had moulded her brain a certain way. Stereo vision—which required the eyes to combine the two slightly different images that they receive into a single, sharp percept—became a foreign concept. When one had fingers for eyes, a shape did not become smaller as it went farther away. This was an entirely rational concept for someone who couldn’t see: a held box did not change “size” when brought close or held at arm’s length.
Adjusting had taken time. Fortunately, a flat console full of lights presented little difficulty to her.
“No communications,” she said. “Nothing on any frequency. Only static.”
“Any sign of the cruisers? Or a Forerunner?”
“Nothing, Mags,” said Shaba. “Though that doesn’t mean shit. Those things have the same thermal profile as a comet and send out signals irregularly. There could be fifty of the bastards here, and we wouldn’t know from this distance.”
Nobody seemed to object to Shaba swearing, nor her referring to Captain Williams by his call sign, which she did from time to time. Penny knew the rest of the fleet wasn’t like that, and given they were married, erring on the side of caution was better. Williams had told her several times he preferred informality in Operations, something that wasn’t common elsewhere, but swearing still made her squirm.
God would forgive her, she reasoned. God would forgive them all. It was just a word.
Time ticked away. The waiting was the worst part for her. Every other member of the crew seemed content with letting time pass, but Penny’s eyes were stuck on the clock, watching time pass impossibly slowly. One hour. Two. Three. The only interruptions were the occasional reports from the Broadswords and Wasps.
“Any sign of contacts?” asked Williams, more often than he usually did.
“No,” said Shaba. Her eyes met Penny’s briefly, subtly communicating this strange, repeated request. Fortunately, Shaba had more guts. “Captain,” she said. “What are waiting for?”
If Shaba was calling him ‘Captain,’ that meant something. Instead of looking at Shaba, though, Captain Williams spoke to Penny.
“I have a contact with the Kel-Voran,” he said. “I dropped her a word. She might be able to help us with this particular problem.”
Shaba groaned audibly. “Hatichat hara mizdayen batachat, surely you don’t mean…”
“I do mean,” he said to her and once again turned to Penny. “Someone we did a favour for a while back—a special mission, delivering her a new husband. She gives us intel every now and then. When Avaran showed up, thinking we had taken Belthas IV… she told us he was on the move. That’s how we knew to come back to Earth.”
“We’re meeting a Kel-Voran?” Penny shuffled in her seat. “I’ve never seen one up close before.”
“If all things go well, you might just get your chance. Otherwise, I guess we’ll have to just do this ourselves.”
“Can we do that?”
“Sure,” said Williams. Penny got the distinct impression she was missing something important. “It’s our technology. The Scarecrow is—was—a Broadsword. Just a regular ship.” He looked down at his console. “It’s what it’s carrying that’s special.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, and despite the probing eyes of the rest of the Operations crew, simply continued staring at his command console.
Time ticked away. Her shift ended, and Penny left to take a few hours’ rest. The ship would have to sail on to the L1 point, and if anyone needed her, they could patch through communications to her quarters. Rest would sharpen her focus. She was used to dealing with very young children and sleeping in shifts, so a nice four-hour block was just perfect.
Still, when she returned to duty, her eyes itched, her back was sore, and her headache—fortunately now a background rumble—returned.
Stress, it seemed, would still aggravate the issues with the implants. She put the discomfort out of her mind. This was her first real mission, and the crew would need her.
Operations was as quiet as when she left. The replacement—a fresh-faced lieutenant transferred from the Madrid—stepped away from her console. He looked in her eyes and then away, too quickly.
It seemed she wasn’t the only one still having to do some adjustment.
“Any word, Lieutenant?” she asked the man.
“None, Ensign. The system is dead quiet.”
That was exactly what she wanted to hear. “Any thing from third parties? Any communications at all?”
“None.” He stood. “I stand relieved, Ensign.”
Penny took her position at the console. The rest of the shift filed back in, some refreshed by a quick nap, others more tired.
“Any contacts, Ensign Williams?” asked Captain Williams, taking the command console. “Especially from our friend?”
She was about to answer no as her console lit up—an incoming jump contact, followed closely by a radio signal. “Incoming transmission,” she said.
“Speak of the devil,” grumbled Captain Williams.
Penny touched a button to open the channel. A voice greeted them, synthetic as though generated by computer, but also rich and feminine, carrying an overdone femme-fatale tone. “Oh Captain Williams, how glad I am to be so close to you again. It warms my body from the tip of my snout to the bottom of my toes. How are you, my darling?”
Captain Williams shifted his weight from foot to foot, fiddling with the transmit key. In the past, his nervousness might have worried her, but she was just amused.
“She has a thing for me,” said Williams over his shoulder. “It’s just a way for us to… remain good friends.”
Penny didn’t say anything, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
“There’s nothing happening,” said Williams. “I promise. She’s a Kel-Voran.”
Penny still continued to say nothing, smile widening. She tapped a key to transfer the call to the command console but, quite deliberately, left it open for herself.
Williams sighed and slipped on a headset, focused a moment with his eyes closed, took a deep breath, and forced an overly-wide smile. “Good evening, Matron El’vass Helvhara the Stoic! How lovely to hear your voice, as always.”
“Yours is ambrosia to me,” she said, practically purring into the earpiece, a subtle nuance in tone that whatever synthetic vocal translator she was using had obviously been programmed with. “When can I convince you to come and marry me as well, my dear?”
Quiet snickering echoed around Operations, and Penny joined in.
Williams gritted his teeth although his words remained as sweet as ever. “Oh I would, you gorgeous little thing, but I’m already married.”
“So you keep saying,” said Helvhara, dismissal creeping in. “You say that as though it were not a problem fixable with a payment to your father. Is your bride so poor she cannot afford such a thing? I have many resources. I can arrange to pay for your freedom… on certain conditions, of course.”
No prizes for guessing what those were. Penny snickered quietly. The reaction around Operations was much the same from the rest of the crew.
“Alas,” said Captain Williams, eyes rolling back in his head. “It just won’t be possible today. We do, however, require a little help with something…”
“Work, work, always with work!” Helvhara sighed dramatically over the line. “Why is it always something else for you, my dear? We came to your aid against the Toralii bastards and claimed many heads in the great battle above Velsharn, but why are you not happy? Our ships help protect you, our soldiers help you exterminate the remaining Toralii filth, and our jump inhibitors help protect your systems. You are safe, safe as anyone can be in this galaxy, and yet you continue to slave away for masters who do not appreciate you!” Her tone became sultry again. “Does Commander Liao not appreciate your ‘masculine service’?”
Captain Williams muted the line. “Not true,” he clarified. “Totally and completely untrue.”
“Oh, of course,” said Penny, barely able to keep a straight face.
Williams unmuted the line. “On occasion,” he said, “when her needs become too great. But for now, my dear Helvhara, we need help with this salvage…”
“Of course, of course.” Defeat saturated her words. “I will send that useless worm Belvarn the Undying, son of Vrald the Blood Soaked, to help you on the surface while we keep the Toralii bastards busy in space. You do remember that lump, don’t you?”
“Vividly,” said Williams. The levity was gone, replaced by something darker. “Are you certain that’s appropriate? He murdered my combat systems officer. Going to be honest with you, my dear, I’d much rather spend time with you than him.”
Penny didn’t doubt that was true at all. Her husband had told her about Gutterball, his crewmember who was murdered by a Kel-Voran. Suddenly, she didn’t find it funny either.
“I tire of his whining,” said Helvhara. “I just want him away from me.”
“Forever?” asked Williams, hopefully.
Penny didn’t like that implication and tried to signal no murder to him with her eyes. He deliberately avoided her gaze.
“Alas, my dear, no. Once someone is mine, they never cease to be mine. I will need him back when you’re done.”
“Tragic,” said Williams. “Very well. We will meet you at the crash site shortly. Rubens out.”
Williams took off the headset. Penny tried to force some energy back into her voice. “Well,” she said. “I’m glad I married you when I did.”
He swirled his finger near his head making a “cuckoo” gesture. “Yeah. No. She’d be great. Just a little crazy. There’s over a hundred other husbands, you know.”
“One’s just enough for me,” Penny said, leaning back in her chair.
“You’re hilarious.”
“Honestly,” said Penny, “I’m glad they’re here. They seem useful.”
Shaba shook her head. “The Kel-Voran are… useful but not that useful. Sure, they’ll keep the Toralii busy, which is good, but honestly, I’d rather they not be here.”
“How do you mean?”
Williams rolled his shoulders, arching his back and stretching out his arms. Crack, crack, crack. “It’s hard to explain. They stay to their ships, fight like the devil, and happily provide security escorts for salvage operations and patrols. They hardly need any encouragement to brawl with the Toralii—quite the opposite, in fact. It’s getting them to stop shooting that’s the trick. The more we learn about them, though, the more I’m inclined to just leave them be.”
Penny was no military strategist, but as far as she could see, they were in no position to turn away helpful allies. “Why?”
“The Kel-Voran sometimes go on something which Commander Wolfe, from the Washington, called a redneck road trip. They drive down the road with a shotgun, laughing and blasting street signs. Only these are planet-sized, spherical street signs teeming with developing life forms, and the shotguns are worldshatter devices.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, everyone’s got to have a hobby, I suppose.”
“That’s not really the problem, to be honest,” said Shaba. “It’s more… what happens when they get bored of driving around?”
“Or the car runs out of gas,” said Williams.
“Or we run out of shotgun shells, and they rip off our arms and beat us with the soggy ends,” said Mace.
Penny wanted to contribute something equally silly. “Maybe we need better friends,” she said.
Nobody laughed. There was too much truth in her joke. Penny refocused on her work.
The closer the Rubens sailed toward the planet—a blue frozen hunk of ice floating in a sea of void—the more agitated her husband became. Penny reminded herself that Mike was a well-trained career officer and a pilot. His kind had to remain calm under all kinds of pressure.
He was far from calm.
The others noticed it too. Penny could see them exchanging concerned glances. Soon they started talking—informally, casually, without regard to rank. Worse than usual.
They were trying to make him feel better.
“Vrald the Blood-Soaked, huh,” said Shaba. “I guess they didn’t mention that it was probably his own blood from all those knife wounds he carved all over himself. What a fucking idiot.”
Mace laughed. “Well, that’s how they do things, apparently. They cut themselves up, carve things into their own skin to prove their strength. Prove how much pain they can tolerate. It’s a display of their manliness.”
“I say again: what a fucking idiot.”
“Hey,” said Mace, “Kel-Voran chicks dig scars, I guess.”
Shaba snorted. “From what we’ve seen of their mating habits, they tend to like guys in weird dresses or whatever. Right?”
Everyone was waiting for the captain to join in. He didn’t. Every little gap where there was a chance for him to jump in but he stayed silent, the growing doubt inside her gained strength.
When she worried, he was less Captain Mike “Magnet” Williams and more Mike, her husband, whom she loved and wanted to be with forever. Away from war. Away from death. Away from whatever turned him from a nice, gentle, soft man into this hard, shaken parody of himself.
A lovely dream—not something she could make happen unless she joined in too, sharing the burden, the pain, the stress. Helping make him feel better.
She was making him feel better by being here, right?
Finally, Shaba maneuvered the ship into orbit. “We are geostationary above the Scarecrow crash site,” she said. “Shall we send down a team?”
Mike—Captain Williams, Penny forced herself to ignore the instincts screaming in her mind—hadn’t said a single thing in hours. He just stood there, staring down at the panel, watching the planet get closer and closer.
God, if you’re really out there, Mike could use some help right now. Don’t be stingy, Lord.
God didn’t say anything. Neither did Captain Williams.
“Mags? Magnet?” Shaba snapped her fingers in an entirely unprofessional manner. “Hey! Captain?”
He seemed to break out of whatever spell held him. “What?” And then, “Oh. Right. Good. Send down a team. I’ll meet them in the hangar bay.”
Wait—he was going down there? Penny shook her head. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Have our reptilian buddies said anything?”
“No transmissions from the Kel-Voran or anyone else,” said Penny. “But they’re a long way away. The two are exchanging fire, but the Kel-Voran are dodging pretty good. Did you want me to talk to them?”
“No.” He stepped down off the command dais. “Shaba, you have Operations. Ensign Williams, come down with me.”
A knot formed in Penny’s gut, clenching tightly. “Me? Why me? I’m barely qualified to be a communications officer, let alone a field agent or whatever.”
For a moment, Penny thought he was going to say something really stupid. Although Mike preferred a much more relaxed atmosphere than most other commands, there were lines that could not be crossed. Everyone else evidently thought the same—a hushed, unspoken awkwardness swept over Operations.
“Field agents are spies,” he said. “As it happens, I technically only need your eyes. They can record things, right?”
She felt a little relief—not much, just a bit. “That’s right. Saeed said it’s about twenty minutes worth of footage per eye at half the theoretical max resolution, which is pretty good, from what I’ve heard. Half that if you want me to get everything. Half again if you want 3D footage for some reason. You’ll have to give me some time to figure out how they work. I’ve never switched them on before.”
“Can’t you pack a fucking camera?” said Mace. Penny wasn’t sure if that was directed to her or not.
“Ten minutes it is,” said Captain Williams, ignoring Mace’s jab. “Walk with me to the hangar bay.”
Keeping her eyes away from anyone else—she felt a churning unease in her belly, knowing she was receiving special treatment—Penny said nothing and fell into step with him as they left.
The moment the door to Operations closed, he became Mike and nothing else. Penny gripped his hand.
“Hey,” she said. “What the heck?”
He squeezed her hand pretty hard. “I need you right now,” said Mike. “Not any stupid camera eyes you might have.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I figured that. Me and the whole crew.” There wasn’t any point denying it. “Pretty sure they’re worried about you.”
“They’re right to be worried,” he said. “I’m a mess.”
“We’ll get through it.” Penny squeezed tighter. “Show me this Scarecrow. I promise you, it’s really not scary.”
“I changed my mind,” she said. Air hissed as it circled through her space suit. The frozen-over field of scorched debris—she could recognise no part of the Broadsword it had once been—was littered with body parts frozen by howling winds. The frigid conditions had prevented decomposition, but the impact had torn them to pieces. There must have been twenty people’s worth, all things told, now only icy bones and scorched meat. Some light source near the edge painted the whole scene in Technicolour—lurid greens and purples and reds. “This is scary.”
“Believe me,” said Mike, the calm in his voice unsettling as the wind whipped around them both, “what was inside is even worse.”
Was inside. The ship had no inside now. It was on the outside and everywhere.
“This part’s going to take a long time,” Mike said. “We’re looking for a bright-yellow storage device—something about the size of a forty-four-gallon drum—and an ID fob. The storage device might be ruptured, but that’s okay. If we bring it back intact, that should be enough.”
“Okay,” she said. She wanted to say more, but the whine of approaching engines from above stole her attention.
A strange, blocky ship sank toward them, something that looked like part of a larger spacecraft. It touched down on the ice, a hatchway opened, and a short, wiry Kel-Voran slipped out. He immediately sat on the ice and contributed exactly nothing, not looking at either of them.
Mike looked as though he was going to strangle the stranger. “Going to help us, Belvarn?”
[“Silence.”]
“Well fuck you too, cunt.”
Penny grimaced and then reached out and touched Mike’s shoulder. She flicked her suit over to a private frequency so neither the Rubens nor their new companion could hear. “Hey, now we’re alone down here, I want to ask… I know you’re in a bad place now, but are you going to be okay?”
“Nope.” Mike looked at her, and despite the smile on his face, she could see the real pain behind his eyes. “I need one of those hugs that turns into sex.”
“When we get back to the ship,” Penny said, unable to hide a smile. “For now, though, I’m pretty sure that guy isn’t going to help, so… how do we find this fob?”
“It’ll be hard to spot—small, about the palm of my hand, and bright purple.”
She looked over the wreckage, her heart sinking. How could they find something the size of a fist in a field of debris almost the size of a football field?
“Is this Toralii technology?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said Mike. “Matter of fact, it is.”
“Is it flat and shaped like one of those clip-on ID cards?”
He paused. “Yes?”
Penny gingerly tiptoed several metres into the debris field to where a light was emanating, reached down and yanked a glowing device out of the ice, a flat rectangle about the size of a business card. It shimmered as she turned it. “Is it this thing that’s practically an ultraviolet glow stick?”
Mike laughed with a mixture of relief and disbelief. “Wow. Yeah. Of course, it has an emergency locator beacon. That makes sense.”
“Well, turns out you did need my eyes anyway.”
She handed it to him, shielding her face. Mike put it in his pouch.
“So,” said Penny when the light was gone. “What are we going to do with Belvarn?”
Mike dialed his suit to the standard frequency. “Go home,” he said to the Kel-Voran.
[“Finally.”] Belvarn stood and, after a tense silence, marched back into his ship.
The moment he was gone and the hatchway sealed, Penny could sense the tension flow out of Mike. He wasn’t normal although Penny wasn’t sure what normal was anymore, but he was better.
“Better” was a start. Belvarn’s ship rose into the air, and when it was just a tiny dot in the sky, she gestured to the bodies. “Who were these guys?”
Mike’s voice tightened a little. “They were Marines. French special forces. Commandement des Opérations Spéciales, Marine Nationale. Or so Anderson tells me.”
“What were they doing here?”
“Killing all of the Toralii everywhere.” He stated it boldly but completely without emotion.
Penny shuffled her booted foot, careful not to step on any remains. “What?”
“Scarecrow’s a name of a ship, but it’s also the name of a plan, a plan Fleet Command made before the destruction of Earth to infect Alliance ships with a virus. A sample was in the large yellow drum we’re looking for.” Mike spoke with a mix of apprehension and apathy that unnerved her. “Anderson was light on the details, but from what I can gather, it’s basically the perfect weapon. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing it’s airborne, fast reproducing, hardy, and highly contagious but with a nice asymptomatic period so the thing can spread and spread far.”
Genocide. Fleet Command, back when it had existed, was planning genocide. Penny felt compelled to ask, “What was the delivery method?”
“The Forerunner network. The ID-card thing is actually a piece of very important hardware: Toralii access codes. A computer virus would spread throughout the entire Forerunner system network, find the probes, and reprogram them to jump to a central meeting point to be retrofitted with the virus plus a dispersal agent. They’d then spread out to populated Toralii worlds and deploy their payload. The idea was to affect as many worlds as possible, all at once, so their emergency services couldn’t possibly hope to recover, and they’d all die.” His voice was bitter. “The truth is, the Toralii only did to us what we were planning to do to them.”
As she had watched Earth burn, Penny had prayed to God to make the bastards pay. Now she had been handed exactly what she wanted.
How could she tell if this was the work of God or the other guy?
“We’re here to recover the data and the virus, aren’t we?” There wasn’t much of a question in there.
“Yes.”
“And… you’re going to give them both to Liao and Anderson and the others, so they can use it against the Toralii, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She stared out at the ice-white horizon, with nothing but the constant wind and the sea of frozen corpses around them. “I’m guessing the virus is engineered to kill only Toralii.”
“Yes,” he said.
A virus wouldn’t know the difference between Telvan and the Toralii Alliance. A virus could not tell allies from the enemy. “And the Toralii Alliance trades with the Telvan,” she said. “Ships come and go every day. They’ll get infected too. Hundreds of them.”
Mike’s facade started to break down. “Tens of thousands every day, to systems all over the galaxy.”
Thou shalt not kill. “And the virus is active and infectious for a week. A freighter might visit, what… four, five, six systems in that time?”
“More.” He too stared out over the ice. “I’m not going to lie to you, Penny. I’m not entirely comfortable with this.”
Neither was she, but she was the instrument in the plan, not the agent. If she refused to search, then Liao, Anderson, and the others would simply find someone else to do it.
Was that enough? To simply resign oneself to being an instrument of another’s will? Could that excuse evil?
“Let’s leave.” Penny’s visor fogged with her breath. “Let’s just leave and say we couldn’t find it.”
Mike broke through the ice with a pick, shoving shards of frozen water away as he searched. “We need that weapon, love.”
“So the Toralii dug a big grave for us and threw most of us in. So our plan is to dig a bigger one and do the same to them?” Her chest hurt. “It’s wrong.”
Mike said nothing, brushing his hand over the ice. Then he stood up, eyes fixed downward on a sliver of yellow.
“Magnet to Rubens,” he said, palpable hesitation in his voice. “I’ve found it.”