11

Logan’s teams maintained a watch-on-watch schedule throughout the voyage, though there was nothing to guard and no enemy within reach. But the duties were important, and that night Vance and Nicolette volunteered to stand a double watch together. Logan had no interest in returning to his steel chamber or in worrying through his last hours on this vessel. So he hunkered down in the main hold, back where no one would notice, and pretended to study the Aldwyn maps. All their charts were vague when it came to the Outer Rim. Logan filled the empty reaches with his worries.

He heard soft voices, and the tone surprised him. His two officers had snapped and quarreled for the entire journey. Until this moment, when he heard Nicolette say, “I should not have condemned you for what is your nature.”

Logan heard their footsteps come closer, then halt just beyond his alcove. He held his breath, intent on not allowing his presence to disturb their conversation.

“You are a stronger person than I will ever be,” Vance replied.

Nicolette asked, “What brought that on?”

“I have wanted to apologize since the day we met in the commandant’s office. I was wrong to treat you as I did. You are far too good to be anyone’s plaything.”

“Most women are,” she said.

“You will forgive me if I speak only of you. To include all womankind would . . .”

“Leave you bereft and your life empty of purpose?”

“Something like that,” Vance said. “I think in part I went after you like I did . . .”

“And then cast me aside like an empty plate,” Nicolette added, but the bitterness for once was absent. “Like a meal enjoyed and then forgotten.”

“All that,” Vance said. “I knew you were better than me. I knew . . .”

Logan’s left leg itched so fiercely it trembled. He felt an overpowering urge to sneeze. He stifled both as best he could and did not move.

“My family comes from the mountain fastness east of the capitol,” Nicolette said. “My forebears were clan leaders whose lands were swallowed by the Aldeans.”

“Like Logan’s clan, the Hawk Fief,” Vance said, the surprise clear in his voice.

“Only our defeat was done in gentlemanly fashion. The Aldean warriors surrounded our lands. They invited my great-grandfather to join them in an alliance, which was a polite way of saying that either he agreed or they would not leave even the bones.”

“I did not know this,” Vance said.

“No reason you should. When I was a child, my grandmother sang to me the songs Logan spoke of tonight. I had not thought of them in years. Of men who defeated dragons, and humans who ruled a world where before they had been hunted for sport. Of ghost-walkers and their tragic end. Of Assassins and kings with bloodlust and a vicious desire to crush their neighbors. I heard my grandmother’s voice as Logan addressed the troops. It seemed as though she spoke to me.”

“Will you tell me what she said?”

“She whispered that we might emerge victorious. But only if each of us does the impossible.”

It seemed to Logan as though Vance had become as frozen as he.

Nicolette went on, “My first challenge, she said, was to forget the past and focus upon the future. Which is why I offer you the hand of friendship.”

“I am honored,” Vance said.

“And I, for one, am glad to have you at my back,” Nicolette replied.

Logan waited until they continued on their rounds. Then he slipped unseen from his corner, padded quietly to his chamber, and slept, and did not dream.

Logan had never known a full-scale battle. The border skirmishes he had survived had been fierce enough to cost the lives of men, and that was close enough to understand the flavor of combat. He tasted it the next morning and saw it in the eyes of his team. The soldiers were stiff and sullen, the civilians fearing a storm they could not name. He ordered a final training and directed Vance and Nicolette to go hard on any slackers. But they performed well, his crews, and he knew they were as ready as he could make them.

They gathered in the dining hall afterward, the air tense with the knowledge that their waiting was almost over. The hold had no windows. Since liftoff they had lived according to the Outer Rim cycle, as well as it was known. Their dining hall was a comfortable enough place, with space for three times their number. They had turned one section by the kitchen into a sort of ready room. Equipment and unused bedding formed cushions. There was no rank here, and little discipline.

Vance was sprawled on his back in the corner. He lifted his head far enough to eye Logan and ask, “Why can’t you shift?”

Sidra, the former rat-faced child, had grown into a sharp-edged woman with spiked hair and a great love of body art. “We don’t like that word.”

“I meant no offense,” Vance said.

“Just the same, you should know better than to use it. The term is offensive.”

According to the legends, ghost-walkers who had become turncoats to their own kind and allied themselves to the Assassins had been known as Shifters. Logan had related the old tales to his crew. Added to this were Sidra’s nerves. Logan knew tension took her back to the bad old days.

Nicolette saved him from needing to speak. “Our survival depends on trust. The best trust is between friends. Friends give allowances. Even when it costs.”

Logan saw Vance nod to his fellow officer. This new harmony between them filled Logan with an uncommon sense of hope. He replied, “To answer your question, I’ve tried to ghost-walk. Sidra worked with me for months. I never could.”

Sidra eased back against the wall. “The legends speak of his kind. The ones who find us. Or did.”

“My kind were the first to become Shifters,” Logan said. “They were rewarded with palaces and titles. My kind hunted, the Assassins killed.”

Nicolette shifted her gaze, and Logan saw the question there in her eyes. He waited for her to ask if his own clan had possessed the talent and become traitors. The answer was, he suspected this but had found no record. But Nicolette returned her gaze to Vance and left the words unspoken. Logan breathed easier.

Vance asked Sidra, “That first time, how did you know what to do?”

She pointed her chin at Logan. “He told me. I was nine and starving. I thought he was a nightwalker come to steal my breath. But he had fed me for months, and he had found me shelter. So I listened. Though he frightened me terribly.”

“I had just turned ten,” Logan recalled. “Most nights I slept in the scullery where my mother could protect me, for there were predators in the merchant clan. In my heart I knew I was just one step away from where Sidra was.”

“Logan did not know what to tell me,” Sidra went on. “Only that I should try to move without walking.”

“I sensed this ability she didn’t even know she had,” Logan said. “And then for weeks after, I had a recurring dream. It was exactly what happened.”

“I trusted him enough to try, though I thought he was insane.” Sidra smiled. “It was the finest day of my life.”

Logan saw grins from his team, even the most frightened. They all remembered their first outing.

Vance admitted, “I would like to try that more than anything.”

“We have offered,” Logan said. “Many times.”

“I haven’t accepted because the prospect terrifies me.” There were nods from many of the soldiers, and Vance asked, “Does it hurt?”

“Not for me,” Nicolette replied. “Not yet.”

Logan replied, “I’ve done it a hundred times and more. And I’m still scared. But never is there any discomfort. I take their hand, I step forward with them, and I am there.”

One of Vance’s team asked, “Can you go anywhere?”

“Anywhere we have been before,” Sidra replied.

“And that is the catch,” Logan said. “That’s why Nicolette and Sidra must perform the first duty when we arrive. It must happen before we make landfall. While they do not know why we’ve come.”

As though in confirmation, the ship’s gong sounded. Logan rose and said, “First team, prepare yourselves. Vance, Nicolette, Sidra, come with me.”

As they walked a long iron tunnel, through the crew’s quarters and another mess hall, Sidra drew Logan back far enough to hiss, “I can handle this first duty alone.”

Logan pointed to where Vance and Nicolette stood before the steel portal leading to the flight deck. “Study them well. Let them teach you by example.”

“Did you not hear what I said?”

“And I answered you. Why do you think they’re here at all?”

“They are military.” Her mouth shaped one word, her face another.

“They understand how to form and lead a team. Your chance to do the same will come soon enough. You must learn everything they have to teach you.” Logan walked away. A moment passed, then Sidra followed.

When they joined the pair by the access door, Vance murmured, “You are a better man than you let on.”

The door slid open while Logan was still searching for a response. The four of them entered the flight deck and froze.

The flight deck was rimmed by a steel rail forming an interplanetary balcony. Before them was a wall of stars.

A fraction of Logan’s brain said he had to be looking at giant monitors. But most of his mind was as immobilized as his body. He stared at the center of the galaxy. Seeing a photograph and staring at the view from space were entirely different. Before him a vast blanket of stars formed a cloud of fire and splendor. The colors were without name, the brilliance almost blinding.

Captain Hattie was a brusque woman with the hands of a bricklayer and a voice to match. “You’ve never been to space?”

Logan licked his lips, swallowed, then managed, “No, ma’am.”

“You may address me as Captain Hattie or Skipper. All right. Enough gawking.” She glowered at them. “Listen up. I won’t be hauling anybody’s ashes home, no matter what some general might think. You buy the farm on Aldwyn, you rot here. Read me?”

“Aye, Skipper.”

She said to her pilot, “Swing the image.” The sky pivoted to the right. Gradually a dark mass bit a slice from the stars to their right, and their destination came into view.

Aldwyn was a planetary name from the distant past, and in the old tongue the word meant thief. Eons ago, the wandering planet was said to steal away men’s breath, turning them old before their time. The miners called it the Dead World and took pride in its title. Aldwyn was a tomb of slag and glistening rock, adorned with little save frozen streams of lava.

The scientists had argued for centuries over how Aldwyn came to be. The current theory was that it was in fact an orphan world. At some point in the far-distant past, a sun had gone nova, blasting its core in a furious display that had consumed all the inner worlds. But Aldwyn had been expelled, cast from its orbit and sent to wander the empty reaches. Centuries passed beyond count until the Cygneus star had captured it. Which was a very good thing indeed, despite the ancient fables. For Aldwyn was filled to bursting with treasure.

There was gold to be had and a multitude of other precious metals. But most valuable of all was an element found nowhere else. Ditrinium, the scientists named it. A miner’s weight of rarified ditrinium promised a lifetime of wealth and ease. Ditrinium now formed the heart of their most potent weapons and transports. It defined who ruled the Cygnean system.

Gradually Aldwyn had been parceled out between the most powerful clans. All but one small segment, a pirate’s haven known as the Outer Rim. It had been ruled by outlaw fiefs for eons. So long, in fact, that some suggested it was time to recognize the Outer Rim as a nation unto itself. But it was controlled by a clan that still preyed on others. They had no interest in joining anyone. They took pleasure from the warrior’s creed. The clan’s name was Havoc.

Captain Hattie said, “Those lights you see in the bottom right—that’s supposedly our destination. You know it?”

“Loghir, capital of Aldwyn,” Logan said. “In the old tongue it means ‘lost lands.’”

She grunted approval. “The lights mark the mine heads and the landing site. The city’s mostly underground.” She pointed to the curved border where the stars met the planet. “The Outer Rim is beyond the horizon there to your left. If you want my advice, you’d be better off not splitting your troops.”

“Four of my team members have to make landfall at Loghir,” Logan insisted.

“Whatever your reasons, they’re as insane as your being here at all,” Hattie barked.

“We’re wasting time,” Logan said.

Biting down on her argument gave her voice a savage note. She stomped about and yelled, “Ready the pod!”