Prelude

FINGERS, four and a thumb, tapped the metal edge of the vent. The fingers were dark blue from tip to second joint, as if dipped in paint.

Or pox blood.

The fingers gripped and pulled. The covering grate came free without sound or resistance, revealing an opening twice the span of those fingers spread wide.

Wide enough.

The right hand led the way, scrabbling into the pipe. Body parts, riding on tough fleshy limbs and careful of clothing, followed in turn. The head produced eyes to survey the shadowed rooftop, but didn’t tarry. It ducked through the opening, canting forward so its well-secured hat went first.

The left hand did what it could to pull the grate into place behind it, breaking a nail. Regardless, it subvocalized a chuckle.

At last, their time had come.

Barrels waited on their racks, the more costly brews festooned with cobwebs and dust. A pair of aged portlights hovered near the rafters, their fitful glow doing little to dispel the gloom. The cellar’s chill suited only one of those gathered around a table made from two empty barrels and a sheet of real wood, and only one felt sufficiently at ease to sit on a stool.

Board Member Theo Schrivens Cartnell, representative for the Human species in the conglomeration of mutual interests known as the Trade Pact, trusted he appeared at ease and not exhausted. To reach Stonerim III unremarked, he’d traveled in a succession of starships, each more decrepit than the one before. In the last, he’d had the choice of being crammed together in a cabin with itinerant Lemmicks or Turrned Missionaries. He should have gone with the missionaries. After vomiting most of his insides at the stench, the rest of the journey had passed in a haze. He’d staggered into the first portcity hotel for a bath and change of clothing.

And the last of his stims.

What mattered was this gathering; typically, an important member wasn’t here. Late, he hoped, or waiting to make an entrance.

Risky, with such as these. Cartnell lifted his glass in a gloved hand and pretended to admire the bubbles rising through the tawny liquid as his stomach roiled in protest. “Rare, this,” he said. “Sure you won’t join me?”

The other Humans in the room, a slim woman with her face hazed behind a vis-shield and an even slimmer man, his face pocked and scarred, didn’t move. “Time’s wasting,” she said, her voice distorted. “You called us. Get to the point.”

“I accept and gladly.” A callused palm engulfed a glass, ivory-tipped fingers clicking together like castanets. The contents were drained in a single swallow. As Brill went, the male was almost dainty, no bulkier than a very large Human. Still, he’d opened his coat with an exclamation of relief. Warmth was a trial, given those layers of blubber and thick leathery skin, and the land above the cellar was in the midst of a tropical summer.

It couldn’t be helped. This was their first—the only—chance to meet. They couldn’t do so for long.

Not with the aliens known as Clan on all their worlds.

Not with what the Clan could do.

Cartnell put down his glass and stood. No more codenames. “Cartnell, Board Member.” He pulled a datadisk from his pocket and set it on the table.

“We know who you are.” The other Human male touched finger to forehead and smiled without humor. “Sansom Fry, Deneb Blues.” Fry put a second disk by the first. “My contribution.”

The woman passed her hand in front of her vis-shield, shutting it off. Tiny black spiders spilled across her forehead and along her right cheek to her chin, tattoos that shifted and seemed to crawl with each movement of her lips. “Ambridge Gayle. Grays.” Without hesitation, she tossed her disk on the table; it tumbled to meet the rest.

“I never thought to see Deneb’s syndicate heads in the flesh, let alone in the same room. If you can do this, friend Cartnell, I am confident of wonders!” The Brill smacked his thick lips, then struck his chest with a curled fist. “Manouya!”

Fry’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Who?”

“You know him as the Facilitator.” Gayle raised a brow, spiders scurrying in accent. “Whom I never thought to meet. Greetings.” A gracious nod, during which her eyes didn’t leave the others.

“You?” With deliberate disbelief. “Behind every major smuggling ring within Human space?”

“Why not me?” The Brill hit his chest again. “We’re smarter than any of you. Who do you think got you here, safe and secret? Who’ll get you back?”

“Is that a threat?” Gayle said, her voice like the flow of silk over steel.

He’d be lucky if they didn’t kill one another first. Cartnell coughed. “If we could move along, please?”

Manouya chuckled. “Here’s my share.” A fourth disk landed on the table.

He’d planned for five. There should be—

So be it. Cartnell pushed aside the tray with its offerings and replaced it with a reader, outwardly typical of its kind. “This will copy across, once each disk is activated. As agreed, what we’ve brought will be shared with all.”

“And better be worth this nonsense,” Fry said, gesturing to their surroundings. He smiled unpleasantly. “Or someone dies.”

If not “worth this,” nothing was. Cartnell loaded the disks into the reader, their stubby ends protruding. “Then I’ll go first. As you know, the Clan’s advantage is that they can pass as Human.”

“And there are more of you than anything else,” grumbled Manouya. “There are,” he stated as the others glared at him. “You’re everywhere.”

“It’s not coincidence.” Cartnell licked a finger, touching its damp tip to the disk end. An image glowed above the table, brighter than the portlights. It was a chart of the richest, oldest Human-settled span of the Trade Pact, the so-called Inner Systems.

What drew those viewing it an involuntary step closer, staring, was the red staining most of those worlds. “I give you the Clan.”

The Brill rumbled in dismay.

Fry’s fist rose, then fell to his side.

“Caraat claimed his kind were everywhere. Inescapable. That foul—” Gayle cursed, tattooed spiders writhing along her lips. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she finished harshly, but made no move to leave.

“‘Caraat’?” A Clan name. Cartnell frowned, withdrawing his hand from the map. “Our arrangement’s full disclosure. Who is he?”

“Yihtor di Caraat,” Fry said heavily. Gayle shot him a dire look; he spread empty hands. “You didn’t think the crasnig was exclusive, did you? He dealt with anyone who could afford him.”

An unfamiliar name, itself a shock, but what twisted inside Cartnell’s gut like fire was the realization of who this Yihtor must be. Had to be.

The destroyer.

Three Human scientists had succumbed before anyone made the connection. They’d been in different systems; their projects, classified at the highest levels, in different fields. None knew the other, yet all three had been found curled in a fetal position, their once-brilliant minds ripped apart and barely functional.

One of them, Sarran Coffler. His Sarran.

They’d studied together as young men, Sarran’s intellect like radiance itself. Fallen in love as fiercely as only first love could and might have been lifemates—should have been, Cartnell thought with that old and ugly pain—but for work they loved more. Oh, they’d kept in touch over the years. Always, they’d kept in touch. By vid, lately, being busy. Lazy. He should have visited. Made the time.

Too late. Seeing the name in the newsfeed, he’d cleared his schedule in frantic haste, tracked Sarran not to a hospital, but a hospice. There’d been a window. Flowers. Air rank with piss. He’d stood, looking down. At a body still fit and cared for. At a face, slack and drooling. Into brown eyes, terrible, empty brown eyes . . .

Cartnell swallowed bile.

He’d walked away, each step burning aside grief to leave one goal: to find who’d destroyed Sarran and how. Locking himself in his office, he’d sat at his desk and, for the first time in his career, used his executive codes to override protocol and privilege. Anything about Sarran’s case—cases—came to him. Nothing led back. No one would be allowed to stop him.

Reports flooded in, of no use. Cartnell’d widened his search and there it was: a neglected, overlooked message from a lowly Port Authority constable, suggesting a link: all three scientists had been sensitives—their minds not telepathic but receptive, making them vulnerable to those with full abilities. The usual precaution, keeping away Human telepaths, hadn’t been enough, the message went on to claim, because the culprit might have been Clan.

Who?

Cartnell’d followed any and every rumor, building a startling profile of an alien race living among Humans, as Humans. A race defined by wealth and power—being telepaths of unknown ability—without a single official document to confirm their existence, nor a single complaint registered against them, anywhere, ever, until this one Port Jelly sent her message.

Impossible.

His searches had an echo. The Port Jelly was slipping through channels, way outside her pay grade or clearance, hunting news of the Clan. Cartnell made a decision. Working from the dark, he arranged for the curious constable to be offered a post as a Trade Pact Enforcer, entitled to work offworld, then made sure she was assigned Sarran’s case and any like it. Any request she made was granted, including the implantation of experimental mind-shields in her and those working with her.

Soon he had a report on his desk detailing rumors of a Clan renegade—or group—who’d flouted the laws of their kind and sold their Power. Nothing proven.

Nothing ever was, but whatever else had been suspicion about the Clan became fact, insofar as he was concerned. They existed. He had them under scrutiny. As for Sarran’s destroyer? He’d taken comfort there’d been no more minds lost.

Freed from a meaningless career digging through musty cargo holds, the former Port Jelly—with Cartnell’s now-public endorsement—advanced to Sector Chief, with a ship of her own and a reputation for results.

A shame he hadn’t realized what else she was. “Are you still in contact with him?” Cartnell asked quietly. “Yihtor di Caraat?”

Gayle stiffened. “No. And I don’t plan to be.”

“Caraat’s dropped from sight.” Fry stared at the map. “He wouldn’t like this. He wouldn’t like this at all.”

“I don’t.” Manouya’s wide shoulders hunched. “So many Clan. Too many!”

“Too few,” corrected Cartnell. He fought a wave of familiar dizziness. It would pass. He’d time. “Don’t let this fool you. The Clan are scattered. Each of these—” he pointed at a red world “—has but one. At most, a small family.”

“Fool us? I think you’ve been fooled, Cartnell.” Gayle nodded at the map. “Caraat paid for ships to deliver luxury items, nothing but the best. Furnishings. Food. You name it. For more than a family, believe me. Where’s his world on your map, Cartnell? What about Acranam?”

The name of the Clan’s remote and solitary colony, a colony for which they’d offered no explanation. So much becoming clear at once—calm, he told himself. Calm and control. “Acranam’s different, yes. There are twenty-nine families living there.” He paused for effect. “Less than two hundred Clan.”

She stared at him. “That’s—that’s not possible.”

“Might be.” Fry stuck his thumb in his mouth, then pressed it to his disk. A vid appeared, showing a wide street ending in dense jungle. The image moved from side to side, picking out buildings with windows but no doors. The viewpoint soared up, and foliage met over rooftops, hiding them; beyond, foliage stretched unbroken to the horizon. “Scans are useless—traded top of the line blockers to him myself—so I had my people drop a ’bot—what?” at Gayle’s shake of her head. “Caraat disappeared mid-contract. For all I knew, the whole place had been wiped out. Besides, I wanted some leverage. In case it wasn’t.”

“It’s always tech with you.” Gayle spat tidily, catching the moisture midair with a finger’s tip, touching that to her disk. “Now this is leverage.” Numbers stacked themselves in tidy rows, then clustered. Lines drew between certain groups, names appearing in color along them. “While you took pretty pictures, my people uncovered those managing Caraat’s offworld finances, as well as those of other known Clan. More than a few remain—how shall I put it?—free agents. Accessible.” Spiders danced to her smile. “I’ve left them be, for now.”

“I’d say that beats you, Blue.” Manouya chuckled at Fry’s dour look, then wiped sweat from his cheek, dripping the result on his disk. Green ripples appeared in Cartnell’s chart, seemingly random until they converged around three points. “The Clan can’t be tracked,” the Brill said, “but lately they’ve drawn attention.” An ivory nail went to the first point. “Plexis? Fair enough. Who doesn’t shop there?” It moved to the next. “Ret 7. Some nasty business there, I’m told, but all’s been quiet since.” The final point. “Camos, however, remains active. Why?”

“Their ruling Council met there,” Cartnell supplied. “Probably still does.”

Predators in the wild gained that intent focus.

When Cartnell didn’t elaborate, Manouya shrugged. “The Clan might be tricky to spot; not so a heavy cruiser. I found it fascinating, Board Member, how often Sector Chief Lydis Bowman, one of your Trade Pact Enforcers, has taken her ship to a world with a confirmed Clan presence.”

Fascinating wasn’t the word he’d use. Cartnell held his tongue.

Fry’s eyes sharpened. “I know that name.”

“Who doesn’t? Someone rises that far and fast, people like us better notice.” Gayle gestured magnanimously. “In the interests of ‘full disclosure.’ I was made aware that certain Human telepaths were abducted by the Clan. Bowman’s constables recovered what was left.”

“As if she knew where to look. Yes, ours, too,” Fry added at Gayle’s raised eyebrow. “Why’d a Sector Chief get involved in the first place?” He hesitated, then went on grimly. “What are we saying here—Bowman’s one of them? Clan?”

“She’s Human.” Whatever that heritage meant to her. Cartnell chose his words with care. “There is something between them. Bowman’s not controlled—” as he’d first suspected, “—but the Clan have tolerated her snooping around them for years.” Bowman’s own reports spoke of how the Clan defended their privacy by selectively erasing memories, a process so subtle it escaped notice.

Unlike what had been done to Sarran’s wonderful mind. Cartnell pushed that aside. “I believe they can’t touch her. I don’t know why. Not yet.”

“That could be of use.” Fry’s eyes narrowed. “On our side, then? Is it possible?”

He’d thought so. Hoped so, until— “She’s on theirs,” flat and sure. “Lydis Bowman made the arrangements to formally invite the Clan into the Trade Pact.”

The ensuing silence was more stunned than predatory.

“I was there for the signing.” Hadn’t that been the greatest challenge of his long career, to smile and seem proud? “They came. The Clan. Every single one.”

Gayle spoke first. “You’re saying you knew them for what they were.”

“There was no doubt.” Cartnell repressed a shudder, remembering. Humans didn’t appear out of thin air, to stand voiceless and stare . . .

. . . stare at him. They still did, when he could sleep. Nightmares shaped like people, staring . . .

Cartnell collected himself. Why shouldn’t Clan pass a visual inspection? They lived on Human-dominant planets for a reason. He’d been overjoyed to finally obtain internal data on them, until he’d seen for himself what they could do.

Of what use was a physiological scan on beings who never passed through shipcities or customs ports?

Who simply wished themselves where they wanted to be, like something out of a story.

Cartnell tapped a finger on the table, feeling their attention. Now, he thought. “Nine hundred and thirty-three.”

“Which is?”

“The number of Clan in Trade Pact space, including children. The sum of their species. Nine hundred and thirty-three.”

The three exchanged incredulous looks. “Less than—” Fry stopped and swallowed, hard. “My son’s last music recital had more in the audience.”

Gayle shook her head. “This treaty you say they signed—we would have heard.”

He’d anticipated disbelief. “Board exec-level only, immediate staff excluded.” Sensible, there being more species in the Trade Pact—each with its Board member—than there were Clan. Pragmatic, most of those species disinterested in Human-centric problems.

He’d known he was alone from the start.

“As it stands, few know the Clan exist, even less their—situation. The Board wants it kept that way. They think signing the treaty means the last of Clan meddling. Like that—” Cartnell snapped his fingers “—they’ve become model citizens.”

“‘Meddling’?” Fry echoed, eyes narrowed. “Ripping minds apart for their secrets? Rewriting memories so anyone you trust becomes your worst enemy? You can’t be—”

Gayle silenced her colleague with a lift of her hand. “We’re here for the same reason,” she said almost gently. With a sharp look at Cartnell. “What ‘situation,’ Board Member? Why would the Clan reveal themselves?”

The right question. “They’ve run out of time.” Cartnell clenched his hand within the stars, the fist spotted with red. “The Clan are desperate. There’s some reproductive issue. If it can’t be resolved?” The fist opened and withdrew. “They go extinct.”

The Board’s reaction? Powerful, secret telepaths asking for help, each able to move between worlds without technology or trace? Like spilling syrup near a sippek nest.

The greater fools among his colleagues expected gratitude: Clan to serve in their offices, perhaps, or assist in negotiations.

Run errands. Fetch.

Steal. Assassinate.

Destroy the precarious balance between species who scarcely tolerated one another enough to trade, let alone sit in debate.

This was about more than his lost love. This was chaos. Intersystem war. He saw it so clearly.

While Cartnell had been frozen with horror, the rest of the executives had almost wet themselves, or whatever their species did, in their eagerness to come to the Clan’s aid.

“The Trade Pact has offered every resource,” he finished, pleased to sound normal.

“Have they . . .” murmured Gayle, a perilous smile elongating the legs tattooed beneath her lips.

These three understood; had hidden themselves almost as successfully as the Clan, acting from the shadows with an effective reach the Board should envy. Everything he had had gone into this toss: to find them, to reach out to arrange this meeting. He’d have their help.

After that? He’d have justice.

“Their desperation’s our chance.” Cartnell gestured to the map. “We know where they are—who they are. We can move against them—”

“‘We’?” Fry slammed his hands flat on the table and drove his face through the display, red dots careening into pockmarks and scars. “You mean us, Board Member, that’s who you plan to do your dirty work. Take all the risk and blame. For what?”

“To put an end to the Clan.” Spiders collided as Gayle scowled at her counterpart. “I didn’t think you a coward.”

Straightening, Fry yanked down his collar and turned, pointing to the gleam of dull metal where his skull met his neck, flesh ridged in callus along the edge. “We’ve all had these damned things installed just to keep our thoughts to ourselves. Knowing who the Clan are isn’t enough. How can we know whose minds they control?” He took a ragged breath. “I want them gone, but nothing’s worth the risk. If they’re going extinct, I say let them!”

“Agreed.” The Brill’s voice rattled the glasses on the tray. “Grasis-sucking amount of gall, Cartnell, thinking to take on the Clan. Why can’t we wait?”

He’d prepared for resistance, to bargain, but even as Cartnell readied his arguments, the leader of the Deneb Grays spoke.

“Because they’re an imminent threat.” Gayle faced the Brill and her counterpart. “Don’t you see? The Clan tolerated us while we had use. Well, now they’ve the Trade Pact. Authority! They’ll want to be seen as law-abiding. How better than to turn on us? How can we know,” her voice lowered, “they haven’t?”

Cartnell held his breath.

“Less than a thousand,” Fry said after a fraught moment, staring past her into the map. “If we could get them in one place again . . .”

“That won’t happen,” replied Cartnell. The Clan had been summoned by their own leadership; they hadn’t enjoyed being together. He’d seen it on their faces, in how they’d moved uneasily to keep apart.

“Then it’s impossible.” Fry rubbed a hand over his face, then shook his head. “They’re spread across what, two hundred plus worlds? We don’t have the numbers to hit them simultaneously and that’s the only way, quick and clean.”

The Brill grunted thoughtfully. “If we did—”

“Even if, forget it. Having Sector Chief Bowman on their side? The instant we struck she’d know exactly who made it possible. Our friend here might consider himself expendable. I don’t.”

“Leave Bowman and the Enforcers to me,” Cartnell said firmly. “It’s the Clan we must be rid of—only then will we be free and safe.” He sat, fighting another gentle wave of dizziness. Expendable, was he? Fry wasn’t wrong. The syndicate leaders were among the lucky ones. Mind-shield implants were risky by nature, being alien tech wired to Human flesh. When that flesh objected—

He’d time.

Just not much.

“Gayle. Say they give us up. We go low. Wait it out.” Fry spat over one shoulder. “But if the Clan see us coming, we’ll be done, forever. All of us. I say protect what we have. Look to our own.”

She looked halfway convinced.

What was that? Cartnell went still, waited.

“They won’t see us.”

The Brill’s great head spun around to aim at the form stepping from the shadows. Outlawed weapons appeared in every hand but Cartnell’s, coming alive with snaps and whines.

“Our final guest,” the Board Member announced, dizzy now with fierce hope.

Seams stitched themselves as the Assembler walked forward, the clothing a match in style and size, if not in color. It—she wore a hat set at a jaunty angle, and appeared weaponless.

Not that anyone with sense trusted what they saw, when it came to beings composed of sentient parts who didn’t always agree. Weapons had lowered, not vanished.

“My name-for-one-minds is Magpie Louli,” the Assembler told them, her voice strengthening as her upper torso began to inflate and deflate. “I bring information to destroy the Clan.”

While Cartnell cleared the reader displays, readying the device for a new disk, Louli sat, more or less erect, on the facing stool. Her left fingers drummed on her hat as her right dug into a deep bag at her waist. With a sweeping gesture, she drew forth an object and laid it proudly beside the reader.

Not a disk. A mummified hand. The withered fingers curled as though they’d died cupping something while around the wrist glowed a band inset with symbols and controls.

“If this is some joke—”

Louli stared up at Fry, her eyes cold beneath long lashes. “The Clan robbed us first. We don’t forget. We want what’s rightly ours.” She transferred her gaze to Cartnell. “It’s true? You have their faces?”

He nodded. “More. I’ve personal idents and locations. If you have what you promised . . .” The final piece. The key . . .

Bowman.

Her shoulders began to quiver, as if dancing. A foot joined in; the other stepped firmly on its toes. “I do.” Louli gestured at the withered hand. “I have their past.”

No one moved or spoke.

“Their past,” the Assembler insisted, her voice rising with an odd echo behind it. “Meet the Witness.” She shook her right arm vigorously. The seam parted and what had been her wrist and hand dropped on the table, scurrying to their counterparts. Plump living fingers wrapped around the desiccated thumb, tugging it to where Louli could reach it with her left. She did something to the band on the wrist and deftly brought the wrist to meet the end of her arm.

Her face contorted as the two joined with a meaty click. The withered fingers trembled and moved, ever-so-slightly. “Nasty,” she muttered, adding a string of syllables that needed no translation.

Fry snapped, “Well?”

Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, then dropped to stare at them. The pupils, once Human-norm, now had milky depths. When she spoke, her voice had changed, its Comspeak accented and so rapid it seemed she didn’t stop to breathe. “The Clan arrived in Trade Pact space here. Not here, this room. This world, Stonerim III, in Norval, when it was, in what was our place, a fine place, Doc’s Dive—”

Sarran, do you hear? I was right, Cartnell thought, flushed with triumph. I was right! He’d gambled on this world, guessed its significance based not on any facts—where would he find those—but on Bowman herself. Born here. A constable, here. Curious about the Clan, here.

“—Clan walked in, dressed like beggars, begging for help. Took a blood sample, always did, kept the data, want it? Would have tossed them but for the cases. Packed with artifacts—priceless, perfect, prime! No idea of their value till that fool told them—”

“What kind of artifacts?” Manouya interrupted.

“The kind worth coming back to life for, solo-brain.” Fingers and thumb clawed at the tabletop, dead skin cracking at the knuckles. Bone glinted. “Hoveny!”

Manouya hummed a hasty prayer, the low sound resonating through Cartnell’s bones and teeth. No one knew why the Hoveny Concentrix, that greatest of known civilizations, had fallen. Brill had been among the founding species of the next, the First, come together out of a shared curiosity. Or had it been dread?

To those not of the First, the word “Hoveny” meant one thing: treasure.

“Gods!” Fry grabbed one of the glasses of beer, the scars on his face whitened by a feral grin. “My grandmother’d talk my ear off about the Hoveny, how she’d send an acquisition team at the mere sniff of a find. Those were the days.” He took a quick swallow, giving the drink a surprised look before taking a second, longer one.

“With that kind of credit lining our pockets,” Gayle mused, “what couldn’t we do?”

Fry lifted the glass at her. “Exactly.”

“There’ve been no new Hoveny offering for years,” Manouya pointed out. “The Clan must have sold any artifacts they possessed long ago.”

He mustn’t allow distraction. “Wait.” Cartnell lifted his hand. “There’s more.” There had to be. “Witness?”

The Assembler’s nose melted into her face, a second gasping mouth taking its place as words rattled from the first. “Sold them? Kept some, maybe. Hidden if they did. Worth the look. Not important. Not what matters! Aggsht—” as it gagged, then spat a stream of yellow goo over the table.

“What does, then?” Fry snapped. “Get to the point.”

“I’m dead. Why should I?” Perhaps judging the mood in the cellar, the Assembler didn’t wait for an answer. “Yes, more. Much more. Don’t waste time. Cases had Triad seals. Authentication! Understand? Came from a Triad site, must have. But no world on record with finds like these. None. Ever.”

“An unknown Hoveny world?”

“Where!?”

“Secrets. Secrets. Never knew, but someone does.” A sly wink. “Someone with the Clan before. Someone on their world. That world. Someone helps them steal Hoveny artifacts and wipe the source. Triad someone. Who? Who?” Both mouths snapped shut.

One smiled.

“Helped—or was influenced,” Gayle ventured, breaking the hush.

Fry’s gaze didn’t leave the Assembler. “Wasn’t there a new Hoveny find? Thirty years or so back.”

“Fakes.” Manouya sounded certain. “The First spend more to discredit forgers than fund new digs. They let the site at Aeande XII be covered by a glacier, for Grasis’ sake; the finest Hoveny building ever found, not that anything inside worked or made sense.” He rolled his head from side to side, a crackle of extra joints accompanying the movement. “An accessible Hoveny site, unrecorded? Hard to credit.”

“This REAL!” Spittle flew from both mouths.

“What if it is?” Fry flung his drink against the barrel rack, shattered glass and beer spraying into the darkness. “That, for treasure we can’t find.”

“Not find for you! US! Belongs to us! Belongs to—”

Cartnell grabbed the withered hand and snapped it free at the band, grimacing as it collapsed into dust.

The rest of the Assembler fragmented, parts scampering in every direction. The Brill stomped at what had been a knee joint but wasn’t fast enough. Gayle gracefully dodged the feet.

Fry spoke. “Board Member.” Quiet threat.

Cartnell spread his arms. “It’s Bowman.” He’d had the pieces all along, just not how they fit. “Her great-grandfather was a Triad analyst. Here, on Stonerim III.”

“Ah!” Excitement puffed the Brill’s cheeks.

“Coincidence,” cautioned Gayle.

“Certainty,” Cartnell replied, ticking points on fingers that wanted to shake. “The timing. Marcus Bowman died or disappeared offworld while working in a Triad. The First seized any and all property owned by his family without explanation. We can guess why.”

He paused to settle himself. No showing weakness, not here, not to these. For Sarran’s sake. For every innocent’s. “Marcus Bowman was involved in how the Clan arrived—and succeeded—in Trade Pact space. That’s why the Clan won’t touch his great-granddaughter now.”

“You imply gratitude, from the Clan?” Gayle’s lips twisted, spiders pulled this way and that. “She’s never taken a bribe. I’ve inquired.”

“Maybe she’s a pet.” Manouya grinned. “Maybe the Clan’s been raising Bowmans. A hobby. It could happen,” as Gayle gave him a disgusted look. “There’s a market. Your species is adorable while nonverbal.”

Ignoring the interchange, Fry leaned forward, eyes glittering with renewed interest. “We’re all thinking it. Not gratitude. Extortion. What if Bowman has something to use against them?”

“Something Marcus left his family for protection.” Manouya’s grin widened improbably, splitting his face. “Grasis’ Glory! What if he left them the coordinates for the Hoveny world?!”

“No new artifacts means no one’s been back—bah!” Fry smacked his fist on the table. “We’re blowing smoke here.”

“Unless what Marcus left was hidden from his family, too,” Gayle said. They all looked at her; she nodded at Fry. “If I wanted to keep something safe from mindcrawlers, I’d go tech, not people.”

“Yes.” He narrowed his eyes. “Simple. Meant to last. Sentimental value, to keep it passing down; no more, or it might be sold. But how would it activate?”

Cartnell rose to his feet. “Get rid of the Clan and I’ll give you Bowman. Ask her yourself.”

Gayle laughed. “Really, Board Member. That’s all you’ve got to offer? A chance for a hidden clue to a world that might not exist, for treasure we might never find—”

“Treasure exists! Wealth beyond measure! Share and we are prepared to cooperate despite your nasty manners.” The Assembler adjusted her hat as she came forward, pointedly flexing the fingers of her own right hand once it climbed up her leg to reattach. “Clan can’t see us. Think we’re you.” A nod. “Clan bleed like you.” A sly smile. “Clan won’t know we are many and more, till too late and dead! Give us good weapons. Take us all places!”

“Not adorable, ever.” Manouya made a rude noise. “And you sneak on ships like pox.”

“Saves fare,” the Assembler said smugly.

“Grasis’ Seventieth Hell.” The Brill shook himself, sweat drops flying. “Could we actually pull this off?”

“The Clan aren’t alone,” countered Gayle. “What of their puppets?”

“Kill them,” Louli said cheerfully. “Traitors!”

“Not by choice!” Cartnell objected, so sharply the Assembler scrambled away.

“Mind-wiped carrion,” a disagreeable mutter from the shadows. “Almost dead now.”

“About that.” Fry licked his lips. “We do this, be a shame to see those Clan creds go to taxes. You said you found some who’d listen to reason.” He looked at Gayle, then Manouya, as if asking a question.

Gayle’s nod was almost imperceptible. “We’d need room to work. What about the rest of the enforcers?”

“Leave them to me,” Cartnell replied, cold and sure. He’d been forced to sign a treaty absolving the Clan of past crimes against Humans. Well, he’d have his justice. Sarran’s justice.

The Board Member representing Humans within the Trade Pact retrieved his disk from the reader and tucked it in a pocket. “Are we agreed?”

Gayle took hers. “We’ll need to go over arrangements with our eager new—allies.”

Cartnell assumed the malicious giggle from the dark was Louli’s reply.

“The Deneb Blues agree,” Sansom Fry said dryly. “And won’t kill you, Board Member Cartnell.” He smiled. “Today.”

Vis-shield restored, Ambridge Gayle nodded. “The Grays agree.”

“Manouya?”

Sweat beaded the Brill’s broad forehead, trickling down his cheek. He collected his disk, the now-emptied reader crumbling into itself, then looked up, eyes somber. “Yes, yes. I agree.”

“Hearing a ‘but’ in that,” Fry observed. A needler appeared in his hand, business end aimed at the floor. “Are you with us or not?”

“We need you, Facilitator,” added Gayle.

“Yes, you do.” The Brill sighed and nodded. “I have questions. The Clan arrived. They settled in Trade Pact space. Why? Who are they? We don’t know.”

Sarran’s sort of questions. For a fleeting instant, Cartnell felt the stir of doubt.

Fry took another beer. “Very soon, my friend, no one will care.”