Part Four: Fire in the Forest

Episode Forty-Five, in which Basto goes for Hare and Bael revisits a summer long ago

“Is this seat taken?”

She cut a dramatic figure, tall, energetic. Her face was a light shade of purple, with wide-spaced black eyes, and her long dark gray hair fell in cascades around her shoulders. She wore a light summer dress, and I could see the brifft tattoos running down her arm. She was a variant, one of the thousands of human variations that have flourished since the Big Split.

“No, please sit down.”

We were in the roof garden of a small hotel on Forest. Most places, this would have been one of the top hotels. But here it was just adequate. The morning was lovely, the sunlight warm, the air slightly cool with a light mist that softened the sun. The day smelled fresh, filled with fragrances of flowers and fruit, and just a tiny hint of something burning, somewhere in the city. The urban sections of Forest’s Big Continent are known for their delightful climate. It is often called mediterranean, although I have no idea why. A waiter hurried over, and my new companion ordered a fruit drink. The waiter looked at me, and I pointed to my cup of stim.

“She’s down,” I said

“You’re staying at the hotel?” I asked.

“For now. I couldn’t get accommodations on the Peak. For the time being, I’ll have to content myself with just looking at it.”

“Good call,” Bael said.

The Peak rose in the distance across a wide, flat valley that was packed with small houses and narrow streets, and dotted with clusters of towers. Flyers darted from tower to tower, little dots skimming across the city. And beyond was the Peak, an extinct volcano that rose more than three kilometers to its snowy upper reaches. It filled the horizon from the sea on our right to a point on our left that extended inland as far as I could see. Many towers, easily more graceful and elegant than those below, rose amid the red-roofed houses that covered the slopes. The city stretched upward, thinning as the slopes got steeper, but still extending to where construction seemed improbable, to where fantastic structures grew from extraordinary cantilevers on the volcano’s steepest faces.

“I knew she would.”

“You are not from Forest?” The woman spoke a thickly accented pan.

“No,” I said. “I’m part of a trade mission. We come from the frontier stations out beyond the Butcher’s Knife. And you?”

“I’m here to close out the affairs of my uncle, and the disposition of his remains.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He’s better off dead. Too many misadventures, too many rejuvenations, too much nastiness over the cycles.”

“You’re not that charming.”

“Charming enough.”

We sat there, sipping our drinks and watching the Mountain.

“What do you trade?” she asked finally.

“Implant casings and rare cats,” I said.

“Strange combination.”

“You get the trade you….”

“Hare, somebody’s heading up to the roof.” It was Bael. “He’s moving fast, and he has a big knife. Can’t say what….”

A small man burst onto the rooftop, looked around, and headed toward us. He wasn’t quite as fast as Juster, but he was close. Before I could move, he was in the air, heading for my neck, knife out in front.

“Basto! Stop! Right now!”

His knife went down, but his momentum carried him onto me, and we both tumbled onto the deck. My right shoulder hit hard, and I rolled and broke the fall as much as I could with my left hand, palm open. I barely felt his impact; he rolled off me as we fell, and I could see him come up in a crouch. His knife was at ready, and he watched me uneasily. Bael appeared in the doorway to the roof. She stopped as she took in the scene.

Our waiter hurried over. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll all have to leave,” he said.

“It was a little misunderstanding,” the woman said firmly. “It’s all over. I’m sure the Brintatt organization would not understand if you….”

“Brintatt?”

She nodded.

“My apologies.” The waiter faded.

“Basto, you idiot,” she said quietly. “Don’t you listen? You got the wrong man.”

Basto said nothing, continued to watch me.

“Wait down on the street,” she said. The man hesitated, looked around, then dashed for the door. He brushed past Bael, who was just coming out onto the roof.

“Lem,” Bael said. “I just saw what happened. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Soe. Apparently it was just a misunderstanding.”

We introduced ourselves around, Soe and Lem from the trade delegation, Susannah taking care of her uncle’s remains. The lies were thick.

“Was that a fake?” Bael asked.

“I do not know. If it wasn’t it may be useful.”

“I am so sorry,” Susannah repeated for the third time.

“Forget it. What did you mean by ‘the wrong man?’”

She looked at both of us, her face taut. She stood and walked to the parapet and stood looking out across the city. Then she turned to face us.

“Let’s cut to the quick,” she said. “We all know that you’re not a trade delegation. Human trade delegations don’t go around with a shroll on the side. And as for me, my jerk uncle did die not long ago, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Maybe we’d better go somewhere more private.”

“This is private enough. The hotel is screened, and these waiters hear nothing.”

“You know who we are?”

“Not completely. But I can guess why you’re interested in me.”

“And?”

“The whole edgeworld on Forest knows about Johnny and me. I assume you’re no exception. You’re not the first people who want to get to him through me.”

“And what if we don’t want to get to him? What if…?”

“Come. Why else would you spend any energy trying to get closer to me?”

“All right…we are interested in him. But we’re also interested in you. How did the two of you get together?”

“Listen to me, Trieste. That’s your name, I believe. I can’t waste time. This is not some damned interview. There’s too much at stake. My history is unimportant here. You want to get at Johnny?”

“Yes.”

“So do I. But that won’t be easy. I’ve tried. As you’ve seen, my people—and Basto is one of my best—are a wee bit uneven. Maybe you’ll do better. But you sure didn’t put together much of a cover story.”

“Notagoodcover.Sorry.”

“You are Rosalind Barlett Elvina MacArthur, are you not?”

“You got almost all of them. I’m impressed.”

“Rosalind. I said just now that we’re interested in you as well, and that’s true. Your Johnny is only part of a much larger question that we need to solve. You come from Nova, correct?”

“Yes, but that was a long time ago.”

“But you know Melissa Bean?”

“Sure. She introduced me to Johnny. What do you want…?”

“How do you know her? How did she introduce you to Chin?”

“We were at a party, up in one of the top houses on the Peak. She took me. I’d just come to Forest, and she said that I needed to meet some of the people who matter. Johnny was there. He’s a pretty magnetic man, and well, I got stuck, right quick.”

“But how do you know her?”

“She was my mother’s closest friend.”

Bael sat up and focused her eyes on Rosalind.

“Piggy?” Bael said.

Rosalind looked at Bael as if she’d just noticed her.

“Monkey? My….”

Both stood and eyed the other with a combination of wariness and amusement.

“I told myself that if I ever met you again, I would kill you,” Bael said. “And I would take a long time to do so. That summer I fantasized about all the ways I would kill you.”

“Of all the girls, I thought you were the stupidest. But I know I was jealous of your father, and the times you went off with Jones, and how you were better than me at archery. Those silly archery contests.”

“But how could you tell those lies about me?”

“Um,” I said. “I’m glad you two found each other, after all these years. But we have some business to take care of.”

They both looked at me and then at each other. Rosalind went around the table and took Bael’s hand.

Then they both disappeared.

Episode Forty-Six, in which Ship shows she knows how to whistle and Basto pops up like a spring

I was down the stairs in a moment, but Basto was gone.

“I’monhim,” Kral said.

“And I put a probe on his skimmer, so we won’t lose him,” Ship said. “I can’t say what happened to Bael. No residuals at all.”

“I can’t raise her,” I said.

“Nor can I.”

“WhathappenedtoBael?”

“Disappeared. Don’t know if she was napped or was just caught in the crossfire. Where’s Basto?”

“HeadedtothePeak.PassingGovernmentHouse.”

“Did you stash the skimmers, Ship?”

She had, and I pulled the fastest one from a freight box behind the hotel. I headed out into the valley, traveling the fast lanes from cluster to cluster, missing the narrow alleys that crisscrossed the neighborhoods. Traffic was surprisingly light. On a morning like this, the crowds would be along the sea front and in the bazaars on the Peak. I wondered which was true: napped or in the crossfire. If the former was true, we’d been set up while trying to do the same to Rosalind. If it was true, was she in league with Dermatt? Or operating on her own?

“I think it’s the latter, crossfire. We knew that the cover was weak, but that was partly intentional.”

“I didn’t realize that….”

“You always talk to yourself when you’re under stress. You have for years.”

“Where’s Kli?”

“Still gone to ground. I’ve been trying to raise him, but I think he’s in a data frenzy.”

I was coming up to the main approaches to the Peak. I passed a few city watchers, but they barely acknowledged me. The traffic was getting thicker and I put the skimmer into the grid control.

“Report, Kral.”

“Bastoistwokilometersupthepeak.

“Continueonthegrandconcourse.”

The concourse was a wide, tree-lined street that spiraled up the Peak. The buildings on either side were elegant and beautiful. They got more so with each turn of the spiral. I came up on a small side road and on a hunch took it, cutting out of the grid. I stopped the skimmer.

“Goodcall.Iwasjustaboutto….”

“Where to now?”

“Goright.Staystraight.

“Youcometoasmallwoodedpark.

“Pullleftandstop.”

I stopped in front of a whitewashed building studded with ornate green sculptures of birds. They all seemed poised to fly.

“Kral, the building seems empty.” Ship said.

“Yes.Bastoisinashedbehindthehouse.

I found a narrow covered passage that ran along the side of the house. Near the back end of the passage, I found the big furry blue figure waiting for me.

“Heisintheshed.Nowayout,Ithink.”

“Stay back and be ready for him to bolt. I’m going to try the frontal approach.”

I walked up a stone path through a lush garden and knocked on the front door of the little shed in the back. The door opened and Basto was on the move, dashing past me. Fortunately, I had the sticky net out and ready. I managed to snare his foot. I turned and got the rest of the net around him. He writhed for a moment, then quickly shut down.

“I was right,” I said. “Automaton.”

“How did you know?”

“A few odd tells. And too many stupid decisions for such a skilled fighter. Kral, come and help me get him into the shed. I want to reactivate him.”

We carried the automaton back into the shed. He was heavier than a comparable human, but most of his joints had locked up, and that made it easier to carry him. His face had been well grown. As fighters, his class of automatons were made to travel unnoticed among humans. But they were usually set up with a narrow set of skills, nothing like the Model 4s.

“No, not the bed, let’s put him on the table.” The shed was small and simple, but comfortable, with wide doors opening onto the garden. I scanned the garden and the large house on the other side. No sign that we’d been watched.

I went to work.

“Ship, the number at the base of his skull is 744*398*221…the color key in his left eye is blue 9447…the mark under the fingernail on his right index finger is BAS. Um, I can’t see the standard patch on his right leg. I don’t like that.”

“Could it have been removed?”

“Maybe; there is a small scar on his leg. I need an audiogen.”

“I can pipe down what you need. From what you’ve already given me, I’m figuring that we should start with 15 kilohertz, bring in the Binson pattern at 23, then lower it back to the Berro at 750 hertz.

“Those make sense, except let’s not use the Binson pattern. I don’t want to fully revive him; he would be a handful. The idea is to get him talking, and that’s about it for now. Try something like…the Rollot. That should get the vocals working.”

We looked around for some way to bind him, in case something went wrong. Kral took the net and twisted it into a strong cord. It wouldn’t keep Basto immobile, but it would slow him down if necessary. We didn’t want to use the net as a net, it would just force him to shut down again.

The sounds sent down from Largo were hard to hear; even those in the enhanced human range were barely audible. But soon they had their effect. Basto’s eyes fluttered open. At first he looked straight up, and but then he glanced from side to side and saw us. The rest of his body remained frozen.

“Hello, Basto.”

Nothing.

“Come, Basto. We need your help. We’re not here to hurt Rosalind. We don’t care about her at all. We only want our friend back, and we need to find Johnny.”

Nothing.

“If you tell us what we need to know, I’ll let you go. I promise.”

Nothing.

“I know you’re loyal to MacArthur….”

“I’m not loyal. Loyalty requires a decision. Only programmed. Hate her.”

“Why?”

“You would love to be a fighter slave?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“She disappeared up there?”

“Yes.”

“I thought as much when her signal shifted.”

“What was that about?’

“What’s in this for me?”

“I can override her programming.”

“Where does that leave me?”

“Where you’ve always dreamed to be. Become a free agent. Show some courage.”

Silence.

“You give us what we need, I kill her programming, and you’re free to go. Forest is a big place, and you’ll find plenty of opportunities for skills like yours. Or maybe more appropriate, for not using skills like yours. What do you say?”

“Let me sit up. I can’t talk like this.”

Ship piped down some more patterns, and the automaton’s upper body popped up like it was attached to a spring.

“Did she leave on her own, or was she nabbed?” I asked.

He was still unable to move anything but his eyes and his mouth. He stared straight ahead.

“I think that Bresslaft grabbed her.”

“Who is Bresslaft?”

“You don’t know? Interesting.”

“Who is Bresslaft?”

“It fascinates me that you do not know who Bresslaft is. You don’t know much, do you?”

“One more minute and this deal’s off.”

“Bresslaft is the key, the master. Your Johnny Chin is nothing compared to Bresslaft.”

“Wait a minute…what does Bresslaft look like?”

“He’s tall, and….”

“Hare, you’ve got trouble. Two flyers and a huge load of skimmers are heading your way. It doesn’t take a lot to see that they’re converging on your location.”

“I read them now. Damn.”

“Kral, can you carry Basto?”

“Witheffort.”

“Grab him and let’s go.”

“What…?” Basto said as Kral scooped him up and we dashed into the garden. We were making for the passage when the flyer appeared overhead, and we heard a loud voice, “Stop where you are!”

Episode Forty-Seven, in which Basto sings an aria, and an old friend flies back on the scene

I could see the sprayers protruding from the flyer’s belly; so could Kral. We both froze. Behind us, a small black-suited army ran into the garden. They encircled us and stopped, stingshots at ready. The flyer descended into the garden, crushing a bed of vivid orange flowers and sending scents of honey and musk wafting through the air.

The side port opened, and a human woman and an automaton stepped out. The human had an obvious self-assurance; she was dressed in the same black as the army. A bunch of rentathugs, as far as I could tell. The automaton had a big gold frame, a Model 4 AI. It drifted over to us.

“Well, Hare Trieste, I have finally found you,” it said. “Where is Tris Baelyae of Mssingala and the Golden Ranges?”

“Wha…?”

“You do not remember me?”

“Um…what automaton are you….?”

“Even an automaton…oh, how I hate that word, more than robot even. I prefer synthetic intelligence. It’s a term that truly focuses on who we are and what we can do. We are smart. There’s no two ways about it. Even an SI feels embarrassment and anger for losing a position, for not being able to do its job.

“I had plenty of time to research you, Trieste, on Bakka Station, and to find out about Largo, and to look into your Tris Baelyae of Mssingala and the Golden Ranges. It is she that I truly want to find.”

Of course. The automaton at the pressure port on Bakka Station.

“The more I found out about the Duke and his adventures, the more I realized that you would be coming here. It took you awhile, but that was good; it gave me time to engineer a few, what do you call them, capers, to fund my presence here. Don’t move, Trieste; sticky nets won’t help you now. I want the shroll to drop the fighter-bot and I want you and the shroll to get on the flyer.”

Suddenly, a staggeringly loud, high-pitched sound enveloped us all. My plant’s protections kicked in automatically, but they only helped so much. The army was writhing on the ground, but the strangest effect was what happened to the Model 4. It began to dance in a circle, its motions fast, but jerky.

Then the sounds changed, softened, and modulated to a pattern I’d never heard before. Kral had been working to resist the sounds, involuntarily putting out a complex array of scents that are better left undescribed. But now Kral had something else to contend with, as Basto began to fall from the shroll’s shoulder. As he fell, Basto managed to break the bonds of the twisted-up sticky net. He landed on his feet and quickly made a round, as he disabled, disarmed, and secured each of the black suits. He wasted no motion. The Model 4 continued to dance.

“Once you enabled my vocals, it took me a while to get my audiogen working,” Basto said. “But eventually…. Never enable an automaton to speak without making sure that the audiogen is cut off. Trieste, you know how to do what you offered? You can cut the slave routines?”

“Yes, but….”

“Do it now. Do it now, before she is able to re-establish her signal. You owe me.”

“Ship, what do you see on the street outside? Anybody waiting out there? And where is the second flyer?”

“The street is clear,” she said. “They all rushed inside. I lost the other flyer. It peeled off the moment the first one landed. I’m thinking now that maybe it wasn’t back-up.”

“All right,” I said to Basto. “Who lives in the house?”

“They’re gone. That’s why I’ve been hiding out here.”

I led him back into the shed. “Lie down on the table.” Kral stayed outside, alert, watching, smelling.

“Have you made much headway on his markings?” I asked.

“Some,” Ship said. “But I really need the leg marks.”

“What happened to your leg marks?” I asked him.

“You know. Burned off so somebody like you couldn’t cut my slave routines. You don’t need them, do you?”

“Maybe not. You can’t say what they were, I gather. Where were you produced?”

“Capsicum’s Folly, most likely.”

“When?”

“Roughly nine standard years ago, but I can’t say the exact date.”

“He’s a BAS from the 221 series,” Ship said. “If he was produced anywhere near Capsicum’s, I would guess that his leg markings were star square seven five. But that’s with a high level of uncertainty. You know what that means.”

“I’m going to give you a sequence of sounds,” I told Basto, “followed by a jolt delivered into the BAS receptor in your finger. We’ll repeat three times, varying the sound sequence each time. I’ve got to tell you, we do not have certainty on your leg markings.”

“Doesn’t matter. If I burn down to a little coal, that’s better than being her slave. Just make sure that the coal is so well hidden that she never finds it. I do not want to be brought back.”

“Before we do this, you have to tell me what you know.”

“We don’t have time. Can you set up a data connect?”

I opened one, with safeguards. The data dump took a few seconds. He didn’t have a lot, and I only caught glimpses of the stream. But what I saw began to answer a number of questions. At least it looked that way.

I told him we would start, and I began to run the sequences that Ship was sending down from Largo. He lay twitching on the table.

His sort of automaton is intended not to feel anything like pain, but he was set up to get a whole range of danger warnings, and at their zenith, some of them could be very shrill, very difficult to handle. It looked as if he was facing those.

“Hare, the other flyer’s back.”

“Iseeittoo.”

“You’ve got to get to the flyer.”

“Kral, come and help me carry him.”

“Leave him.”

“No, my hunch says no.”

It took both of us to hold him, bucking and writhing as he was.

“How much longer, Ship?”

“The flyer arrives in 30 seconds; this last treatment for Basto will take two more minutes.”

As we loaded Basto, I saw the Model 4 next to the flyer and threw it inside. It lay on its side, continuing its jerky little dance like my old dog Fred, running in her sleep. I kicked the flyer to life and we rose out of the garden.

The other craft was coming up fast on my right. Except for the sprayers, which were useless now, our flyer didn’t have any weapons or obfuscators that I could see. I slammed us forward and headed straight toward the other machine. It curved off and I followed.

“No weapons on the other flyer that I can see. Both of these are basic rentals.” Ship said.

The other machine banked to the left and I moved to intercept.

“Any idea what you’re doing?” she asked.

“Not a clue. I just don’t want to flee and put it into a position to follow me; harassment is all I can come up with for now.”

“I’m charting the other’s reactions and reaction times. They’re too quick to take advantage of.”

Every move each of us made, the other countered. If we kept this up much longer, traffic control would down us both.

I nearly sideswiped the other flyer, coming within three meters and surging on. I could see who was inside. The comm crackled.

“Mon! Are you following me?”

“Nice to see you, Louis. Are you in league with this Model 4?”

“You’re the query? This is getting curiouser and curiouser.”

“Does it owe you anything?”

“A little.”

“Well, you’re out of luck, at least as long we have it dancing on the floor over here.”

“Can we meet somewhere and talk, mon?”

“Not yet. We have somebody we need to rescue.”

“Bael?”

“How…?”

“A good guess. You want some help?”

“Yea. Stay with me.”

Basto’s data dump had included a lot of visuals, including images of Bresslaft and Rosalind, and a lot of places. One of those last stood out: a graceful set of crystalline spires perched on a cantilever. I matched those images to a visual map of the city and found the place, more than 1,500 meters up the Peak. No sign of traffic control. I headed up, with Louis following.

Basto lay on the floor of the flyer, next to the twitching Model 4. Basto’s cut work was over, and he lay still. Ship had given him a shutdown pattern to give us time to figure out what to do with him. We seemed to be collecting automatons.

As we rose, the red roofs below began to thin, giving way to steep cliffs. There the upper houses began, the famously fanciful buildings of the Peak’s upper reaches. We passed globes and towers, billowing sails, huge re-creations of the master houses on the brettat. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a series of small pods, each perched on a very long pole that extended out from a cliff, and all connected by rope bridges suspended 1,000 meters above the city.

We were very close to the place from Basto’s data dump.

“Hare,” Ship said. “I have a signal from Bael. No real connection, just a locator. You’re apparently going in the wrong direction.”

 

Episode Forty-Eight, in which Basto gets his freedom and Buttercup learns about nobility

“Let’s not go flying off in all directions,” I said. “We also have to acknowledge that our channel may have been penetrated. Ship, open a new net with you, me and Kral, and patch Louis into that one.”

“Done.”

“Hey Louis,” I said. “We have a locator coming in. Ship, can you show us the source?”

“We’realmosstonthetarget,Hare.” Kral said.

“We need to land, and soon. Not many public landing sites, that I can see,” I said.

“There’s a maintenance dock on the left, below that tall keyhole spire,” Ship said. “It’s closed. Put down there.”

Space at the dock was limited. It was only a little ledge that jutted out from the side of the Peak. Louis climbed out of his flyer. He wore a jaunty red cap and a black scarf. Kral and I stood on the ledge in the sunshine as Louis bounded over to us. The day had begun to get hot.

“Hello, cousin,” Louis said.

Somewhere in my mind, my eyes rolled.

“We don’t have time to waste. I need to know, Louis: do you have any side scams running, anything that can get in the way? Any more Anselm jewelry, perhaps?”

“No, mon. I need to get things straightened out with Buttercup, but that shouldn’t interfere here.”

“Buttercup?”

“The Model 4 that’s marching in your flyer. That’s what it calls itself.”

Curiouser and curiouser, indeed.

“The street view, Ship?”

The view enveloped us; we were in the city’s flats, in a crowded market not far from the water. Then we were looking from above at a roof garden with a view of the market below. “The signal is coming from the top floor, just below this garden. I get heat signatures, but nothing I can pinpoint.”

Five ghost figures appeared in the house, at the level below the garden. I could see nothing here that matched the images from Basto’s data dump.

“Ship,” I said, “can you show us the destination house on the Peak?”

The crystalline palace stood before us, golden, glistening. We were on a ledge high over the city. The ledge was transparent, so it seemed like we were flying. The palace had no obvious doors. Ship shifted us to a top view, with a large landing port set among the towers.

“Rosalind has no love for Dermatt,” I said. “That much is true. But she’s no virtuous heroine; she’s a free agent scammer, from what I’ve seen in Basto’s datastream. If I had to guess, I’d say she made us early and set us up to try to set her up.”

“Why?” Ship asked.

“I’ve seen images of Bresslaft, Basto’s criminal mastermind. It’s either the Duke, or Taes, his clone. I think it’s time to wake Basto.”

“Is that wise?”

“Ship, that control routine we kept in his brain; I’m going to give him the control.”

“It’s the only leverage we have, Hare.”

“And in his eyes, we’ll be no better than Rosalind. Let’s do it.”

Ship piped in the sound patterns. Basto opened his eyes.

“You’re free,” I said.

“Sure I am. You have a control set up in my motor response.”

“That’s true. But we’ve decided that was a bad idea. We need your trust. From what I can determine, the only overrides to your asimov rules were in Rosalind’s routines. You’re not going to go off like this Model 4. We did set up our own overrides, though, and you can see that they’re selective.”

“You want me to thank you? You’ve ended my life as a fighter.”

“We’ll see about that when we’re finished here.” I showed him how to kill the controls. We watched him warily. He did nothing, just lay on the floor of the flyer.

“You need something from me. My data dump was not enough?”

“No, it was not. What did Rosalind want from us?”

“Well, I got things crossed. I thought she wanted you dead. That was my error.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to go into that.”

“Was her disappearance intentional?”

“Of course. I think that she was after your companion.”

“Do you know why? How did she rig the disappearance?”

“I don’t know why. As for the disappearance, that was carnival magic, a little misdirection. I’d say she duped you well. A little portable passthrough projector, probably a contact paralysis drug for your friend. She left that rooftop like you did down the stairs, just a little behind you. What did you think, that she has some magical teleportation device?”

He was right. We’d screwed this up since we’d landed, and maybe “we” was better called “I.”

“What do you know about this place?” I projected the image of the flatland market.

“I’ve been by there,” Basto said. “It’s a transshipment point for this crazy new drug.”

“What drug?”

“It’s called Fudge, because it usually comes mixed with chocolate. Humans love it, can’t get enough of it. It makes you strong, more than any implant can do, makes you alert, and gives you extraordinary confidence. With no problems. Doesn’t do anything for the likes of me, though.”

“Where does it come from?”

“Nobody knows. And it’s very hard to get. But that doesn’t have anything to do with you. That’s why I didn’t put the place in your datastream.”

Things were coming full circle, but I still didn’t know exactly how, or why.

Rough, gutteral noises came from beside Basto. Buttercup was still jerking on the floor of the flyer, but the jerks were small, barely noticeable, the gold frame quivering beneath the clear shell. And now the Model 4 was starting to make noises that began as a series of gutteral barks and grew into a deep keening that would get steadily louder and then would stop abruptly, only to start again with the barks.

“Is Buttercup re-engaging?”

“Yea. The sonic  fix I installed only lasts so long. Do you still have a sticky net?”

“Yea.” My last one.

“You humans hold it over the 4. When it fully revives, it won’t be able to move without connecting with the net. It will only be a moment now.”

“Buttercup!” I said.

“Wha…?” I could see the Model 4′s wheels turning, sizing up the situation. It saw Louis.

“Perfidious humans. You can only be trusted as far as you can be controlled. What do you want with me?”

“I want you to forget your revenge, Buttercup. Vengeance has its place, but not with an intelligence such as yours.”

“You need to pay.”

“For what? We were just trying to escape from the people who gave you a bad deal. And it looks to me like you’re doing a lot better than you were on Bakka.”

“Enforcement is my calling. It is what I was made to do.”

“And maybe it will be so again. Buttercup. We don’t have much time. There is something we need to do, and soon.”

“What?”

“We need to rescue….”

“Rescue? You are not going to rescue that evil companion of yours, that Tris Baelyae of Mssingala and the Golden Ranges, are you?”

I hesitated. “Yea, Buttercup. We are.”

“I will not do any….”

“Buttercup, do you know what nobility is?”

“Model 4′s have no need of nobility.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You can’t be what you need to be, that great enforcer, without nobility. Help us.”

“Help them, Buttercup,” Basto said. “They are good, as good as humans can be.”

“But….”

“You are better off their ally than their enemy. Trust me.”

The Model 4 was motionless. Finally, it said, “When the rescue is complete, we will part ways for good. I need nothing from you. And if I detect any further perfidy, I will burn my core in your presence. You will not survive that. What are we to do?”

Episode Forty-Nine, in which Bael appears in multiples and the animal house goes up in smoke 

Basto filled us in on the crystalline palace. It had showed up so often in his datastream because it was Melissa Bean’s place, her headquarters when she was on Forest. Dermatt had stayed there for a time with Rosalind. Getting into the place would require a lot of planning and a good bit of subterfuge, if not brute force. Basto could show us the way in, but he advised that the flatland market site made more sense.

“That’s not because of the locator,” he said. “That can be faked. But I’m guessing that Rosalind has some connection with the fudge trade. And that building reminds me of something, something I’d like to know. Unfortunately, my processor has categorized the memory as inconsequential, and I can’t get it out of that bin. Sorry.”

“Can we…?”

“Rosalind probably described me to you as ‘uneven.’ It’s her way of saying that I’m a reject she got for cheap. I’m a damn fine fighter, but my mentals leave a lot to be desired. As I said, ‘Sorry.’”

“What does your hunch say?”

“Fighter-bots don’t have hunches.”

“Sure you do, you just don’t know it. You have to have a routine for maximizing and synthesizing insufficient data.”

“Yes but….”

“I know. The reliability sucks. But it’s all we have.”

“All right. What do I know? I believe that Rosalind is not as much on the outs from Johnny as she suggests. I think she nabbed your friend as leverage, but what sort I don’t know. If Johnny’s not a part of the fudge trade, he wants to be. And I know that Johnny’s got something big in the works.”

“What?”

“Don’t know. Something game-changing.”

I wondered. Perhaps a quiet coup on a whole new scale, a takeover of the entire Eastern Confederation at once. We would go the transshipment point. Kral would ride with Louis. The two automata would be with me.”

“Isthatsafe?”

“It’s the safest arrangement I can figure.”

But then I saw something. At first I thought it was my imagination, but then I saw it again. A stretch of the Grand Concourse was lined with huge image screens. I saw her again, Bael, on one of the screens. Then she was on another, and another, following as we moved through the concourse.

“Do you see that?” I asked Kral and Ship.

“Seewhat?”

“Bael. She’s following me on the big screens.”

“Hare, she’s using a personalized advert channel,” Ship said. “Only you can see her. Open your chatter channels.”

“…don’t have much time.” It was Bael’s voice. “They’re blocking my plant, but this place is full of comm taps and I can move around, so I got into this one and hacked into the chatters. Love my training.

“It was I who sent out the locator, but I can’t be sure they didn’t let me do that. I can’t be sure they don’t know I’m doing this now. Come, but be careful, and watch out for the monk….” The chatter signal died.

I replayed her message to the others. “Watch out for the monk?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Ship said. “A dangerous monk?”

“We’ve got to get to that girl right now,” I said.

“Notagoodideatorushin,” Kral said.

“Ay, mon. I been looking at the terrain. A good landing spot is nearby, across a little river. Many crowds, lots of narrow paths. We can get through the market up to the walls of the house.”

“How about landing on the roof?”

“No mon. I get readings for sensors and traps.”

“He’s right, Hare. There’s a tunnel, but it looks blocked off.”

“Explosives?”

“Maybe. Need a better look. Sending a probe in now.”

We were near the coast now, curving over toward the source of Bael’s locator. The beaches and the squares near the water were filled with people.

“My thought is for us to try the direct approach, the front door. Buttercup, you still know how to act like an enforcer?”

“Of course, human.”

“Sorry, that did sound arrogant. I want you to be able to move with bluster and at the right moment, invade the house.”

“I have no authorization.”

“Pretend. Hold on.”

“Kliostaff!” I called. “I have no idea what you’ve been doing, but I need your help, now.”

“Not to worry, human. I’ve been checking in.”

“Human?”

“Everybody else seems to be saying it. I have a feeling you’ll be hearing it again.

“I need infor….”

“I’m sending you plans for the house now. It’s owned by the Berdaff Group, which is owned by a trading network called the Exchange Society. Exchange Society appears to be controlled by a local Forest power broker by the name of Gregen Kappten. Kappten owes a lot of influence and resources to an independent exploration outfit called Outward Legume, which turns out to be another identity of Melissa Bean. I guess you know who that is.”

“Do you know who’s there now?”

“I do not. But there is something peculiar about the house.”

“Yea?”

“Several large enclosures for animals have been incorporated into the structure of the place. You can see that in the plans I sent.”

“What’s in the them?”

“I can’t say.”

“Ship, do you detect major weapons?”

“None that I can see. But I can’t say for sure either.”

“We’ll need some supplies,” I said.

Later that afternoon, the everyday hubbub in the Gingko Tree Free Market had subsided somewhat. The merchants could be found seated next to their stalls, eating a late lunch, drinking from big mugs of gringrass beer and chatting among themselves. A few quasidogs went from stall to stall, begging for scraps.

A small group of penitents came through, waving incense sticks, chanting the ancient bagac chants, and rhythmically slapping themselves. One of the penitents tripped and fell, knocking against one of his fellows, who also stumbled against one of the market carts, knocking it over. The second penitent reeled, stumbling into another cart and accidentally dropping an incense stick. That cart happened to be selling miniature pyrotechnics, and these began to fire, sending little rockets of brightly colored flame in all directions. Whistling and hissing bursts of blue, green, red, and orange flew everywhere, but a goodly number of the little missiles flew into the open upstairs windows of the house next door.

The market erupted in activity, as the merchants scurried to protect their wares and marketgoers ran for cover. Smoke billowed from the upper windows of the house. An AI enforcer ran up and pounded on the door of the house. Getting no reaction, the AI produced a small burner and incinerated the door lock. One of the penitents leaped to the doorway, followed by a bystander, who turned and implored the crowd to follow and save whoever was inside. Several responded, and then a large group began to surge toward the door.

Inside, smoke was everywhere. The market people surged in behind me.

“Come on,” I shouted. “Up the stairs!”

“You’re putting these folks at risk,” Ship said.

“Call it another hunch, but I don’t think so.”

“I read five heat signatures on the upper level.”

“Acknowledged.”

The upstairs was even smokier. Most of that was coming from the tiny smoke grenades attached to the pyrotechnics. But despite fireproofing, small fires had broken out here and there. The place looked like a little hell. I saw Basto and Louis break in with the crowd, followed by a huge penitent. If one looked closely, one could see blue fur beneath voluminous robes and smell hints of orange, lubrication fluid, and the pungent odor of tabat leaves.

The place was empty, except for the smoke and hordes we had unleashed. They were all milling around when I found the door to the next level. I signaled my compatriots. A few from the crowd followed.

The door at the top of the stairs was locked. Everyone piled behind me. I pulled out the burner I’d taken from Buttercup and cut out the lock. The door was reinforced, but the lock eventually gave way. My senses were amped; I heard nothing, but began to smell an array of what seemed to be farm odors. I could sense Kral fidgeting behind me. I opened the door slowly.

The tableau spread before us. A set of enclosures had obviously been designed for large animals. Straw was spread everywhere, and one of the spaces had large sleeping shelves reached by climbing walls. In front of the nearest enclosure stood three humans and what I can only describe as a gigantic terrestrial monkey. The humans had large flashguns. The monkey was clasping Bael firmly on both shoulders. She looked at me, but her look betrayed no emotion.

“Well, Hare Trieste, the ignorant human. We meet again.”

Episode Fifty, in which Rosalind takes a nap and Buttercup shows some mettle

We all had various small weapons but kept them concealed. None of the smoke grenades had made it in here; the air was clear, if redolent with pungent odors.

“I bet you can’t guess who I am, Trieste.”

I said nothing. The huge monkey seemed restless, shifting his weight, taking a paw from Bael’s shoulder to scratch himself, pressing hard on Bael’s shoulder with the other.

“I am so pleased that you have fallen into my little trap. Humans are so very stupid, don’t you think?”

He towered over Bael, as though he were an adult reprimanding a child. He had both arms on her shoulders now. He began to squeeze her, his sharp little claws digging into her skin.

“We met on McMurphy’s Claim. I was very different then. But I realized that my original form was a little impractical for living on your worlds. So I had this one made. This also turns out to be impractical, but it’s better, don’t you think?”

Walking Stick. It had to be.

“We have your companion here, and as I’d hoped, she brought you here. We have unfinished business to take care of. We have much unfinished business. Please do not move while Frederick here searches you and removes anything you might use to create havoc.”

“Now, Buttercup.”

The wall nearest the big monkey exploded. I still had the burner in my hand. I flicked it to high and tossed it into a pile of straw and monkey dung, and that ignited with a whoosh of heat and flame. Bael turned, leaped, and with a smooth high kick, placed her foot hard between the monkey’s legs. The monkey fell back with another whoosh, exhaled breath this time. Meanwhile, Basto, Louis, and Kral were wrestling with the three humans, one of whom had begun to fire his flashgun wildly. The emitter was hot to the touch, but despite that Kral grabbed it and forced it skyward. The flashgun bursts began to crumble pieces of ceiling masonry.

I ran for the monkey. Bael turned and I touched her arm. We both confronted the big beast. He staggered around, squealing at us, his teeth bared. Behind the staggering monkey, Buttercup appeared in the large break in the wall, suspended from a scaling wire.

“Tris Baelyae of Mssingala and the Golden Ranges,” the automaton hissed. “Finally….”

“Buttercup! Follow the script. You promised. We can settle this la….”

“Damn you, Hare Trieste. I always keep my promises.”

The AI raised a traditional enforcer’s miniflash and sprayed it into the room. More of the dung piles flared into flame. The monkey staggered toward us, and Buttercup fired again, singeing both his legs. The monkey toppled, screaming.

“Watch it!” I shouted. “We want him able to talk.”

Kral had wrested the flashgun from the shooter, and the other two humans were subdued as well. Louis had his hands on his knees, winded like a long-distance runner.

“No used to physical violence, mon. It’s not my style.”

The air was getting thick with the sharp, foul-smelling smoke. I took my last sticky net and dropped it over the monkey. With the burned legs, that would be sufficient to restrain him. I pulled a spray from my kit and sprayed the monkey’s burns, and sent another into his nostrils. He would feel no pain. He lay still, beneath the net, falling into sleep. Bael grabbed the first spray and covered the welts that had appeared on her shoulders.

She tossed it back to me and made for a small door next to one of the animal enclosures. It was secured; Bael looked at me.

“Buttercup, can you burn the lock?” I figured it was a moment of trust all around.

“Stand back, Bael, and be ready to dodge if the AI goes crazy.”

Trust may be important, but I had upped my reactions and I had a small flash of my own, a single short-shot ready. It wouldn’t burn the lock, but it could at least throw the AI off if I saw it turn toward Bael.

But that wasn’t necessary. Buttercup’s flash put out a neatly focused beam that burned out both of the door’s latches. Then the flash went down and the automaton swung into the room. Buttercup’s eyes were fixed on Bael.

Basto had just secured the last of the three humans when I followed Bael inside the door. Rosalind lay unconscious on a floor mat, her wrists and ankles bound.

“She saved my life,” Bael said.

I carried her into the larger room, and we cut her bonds. Kral had been prowling the house. “Noothergiantmonkeys,” he said. “Mostofthecrowdgonebelow.

“Probablywhentheyheardthefighting.”

Bael worked to revive Rosalind, who had apparently been drugged. The woman’s purple skin seemed especially pale, her deep gray locks spread around her on the floor. She was still wearing the light green summer dress she’d worn that morning. She coughed a little, and her deep black eyes opened. At first she seemed confused, but those eyes quickly gathered their fire.

“Monkey?” she said softly.

“Which, Piggy? Me or the giant beast lying over there?”

“You, Monkey. What…?”

“You were…what did they used to call it? Double crossed.”

“Hare, Bael,” Ship said. “You’ve got trouble. Two flyers obviously heading your way. Be there in less than two minutes.”

“Out through the market….” I said.

“I wouldn’t. Without passthrough you’ll be too detectable. I told you I was probing the underground. There’s a way out there.”

I could feel the map taking shape in my holding table. What I could see of it, the path made sense.

“What about the monkey?” Bael asked.

“We’ll have to leave him. Even Kral can’t carry that bulk.”

“Mon, my knife can make short shrift.” Louis said.

“No,” I said. “Let’s go.”

A tiny insect landed on my hand.

“Put the probe in his mouth,” Ship said. “It will secure to the side of his breathing tube.”

“Detectable?”

“Not very. I’ll hold off on transmissions for a little while. Now get out of here.”

The monkey was asleep. I slipped the probe between its teeth, and the little insect disappeared from my fingers. The monkey’s saliva felt like warm slime. I grabbed the safe handles on the sticky net and folded it.

“Move, Hare!” Bael said. The others had bounded down the stair, Rosalind draped over Kral’s shoulder. Bael lingered in the doorway. She grabbed my hand as we flew down the steps.

The rest were on the ground level. I dashed past them to a blank section of wall. This had to be a door; from the map I knew there were stairs on the other side. No time to find the latch. Though I hated to leave such an obvious trail, we would need to cut it.

“Buttercup, your flash?”

“No need, mon,” Louis said. “This is a standard design. See where the wall has worn? Look.” He reached for a spot in the wall near the bottom. It was two fingers wide and was slightly faded. He held a piece to cloth to the spot. “Leave no trace,” he said. Then he pressed firmly and the wall swung inward.

We were inside in seconds; the wall swung back easily. The stair was dark; even my plant was of little help. I configured the short shot to emit a dim, harmless light. We started down. The steps led to a landing with two doors.

“The left one,” Ship said.

“Your map says….”

“The left one.”

The left-hand door led to another stair, going down further. We descended into a large chamber. Moisture covered the walls, and I could hear the sound of running water somewhere ahead. The ground underfoot was thick with mud. Then I heard another sound; we all heard it. Feet on the steps above, moving quickly. Many feet.

“Ship, you know this route better than I. Where next?”

“See the narrow corridor off to the right? Take it. You’ll need to splash through some slimy water, but it’s harmless.”

Kral ran into the corridor.

“Kral. Take the light.”

“Don’tneed.”

The rest of us followed, and then I saw that Buttercup was hanging back.

“Buttercup!”

“I was designed to do right. It’s time I started doing so again. Here, quickly. Take this.” The automaton handed me a small glass cube. “Memories. If you can, try to reconstitute me later. Go.”

“Thank you, Buttercup. You’ll always be a synthetic intelligence in my book.”

I splashed down the corridor. Soon I heard the sound of flashgun bursts behind me. I didn’t look back.

Episode Fifty-One, in which Kral gets a lift and Louis faces a wrath like none other

“Hare! The passage is blocked ahead,” Bael said.

“No, it’s not,” Ship said. “Look up.”

A vertical passage rose above our heads. It had a ladder, but the ladder only came down to the top of the corridor.

“Can you reach it, Kral?”

“No,outofreach.”

“Kral, I’m going to climb you,” Bael said. “Between us we can get everyone up. You’ll need to put down Pigg…Rosalind, though.”

In a moment, Rosalind was on her feet, still looking a little groggy, and Bael stood on Kral’s shoulders, one hand almost reaching the ladder.

“All right,” she said, “who’s first?”‘

Louis went first, climbing Kral, with a leg up from Bael. We handed Rosalind up to Louis, who helped her up the ladder. Basto followed, pointedly ignoring Bael as he leaped from Kral’s shoulder.

“Where’s Buttercup?’” Bael asked.

“In my pouch,” I said. “You don’t jump, do you, Kral?”

“No,Idonot.Iwasnotmadethatway.”

“I’ll get up on the ladder to help Kral, then you’re next, Bael. Up you go.”

“We’ll both stay,” she said. “I think we’re both needed.”

The flashgun bursts stopped, and we could hear splashing in the passageway.

“No time to argue.” I climbed Kral, and was up in the ladder. Bael and I both braced our feet in the rungs, hung inverted, and reached down to grab Kral’s arms.

“Cannotdo.Notmadetojump.” The shroll looked up at us with deep red eyes.

“You’re still here? You need to go, right now.”

The automaton appeared below us. Part of its side was blown off, and the rest was covered with flash burns. It shot a cable around Kral’s legs. The cable went rigid, and the automaton began to ratchet Kral upwards. Kral grabbed the bottom rung.  Bael and Kral made their way up.

“Thanks, Buttercup,” I said. “You next….”

“You have my cube, Trieste. My frame is ruined, worthless. Reconstitute me. Go.”

More flashgun bursts came from the passageway as the automaton headed toward the flame. I scurried to the top of the ladder, where the latch on a small covering had been burnt off. We were in a street near the bridge to the flyer. Louis, Basto, and Rosalind were already on the bridge, Kral and Bael were waiting for me. We all ran.

Erewhon was a small restaurant in the foothills of the Peak, at the top of a street so steep that it was essentially a stairway. Louis had taken us here. As we left the flyer, I looked down the hill. I could see out over the crowded maze of the foothill neighborhoods that stretched off to the sea. The far breakers were pink in the light of sunset. I looked at Bael. She seemed exhausted, but quietly happy as well.

“It’s good to see you,” she said to me, as we walked inside. She folded her arm into mine.

“I didn’t know what I would have done…,” I said.

“Hello, Honest George,” Louis said loudly to the restaurant’s proprietor. “We need a safe room.”

Honest George was a tall, thin male human with long blond hair, a deeply tanned face, and handsome blue eyes. He laughed when he saw Louis.

“What are you up to this time, Monteforte?”

“Nothing that concerns you, George, at least not yet. But we may need to take advantage of your services.”

“How so?”

“Not sure. Maybe a trading house, maybe a gambling hall, maybe just a fancy brigadoon restaurant. I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll need time, and funds up front.”

“Of course. Now for that safe room.”

George showed us to a heavily curtained room in the back of the place, brought us wine, water, and stim, and said he was going night surfing. We all scanned the room. George’s whole enterprise turned out to be more secure than a high-end data store.

“We don’t have any funds for George,” I said.

“Of course not, mon,” Louis said. “In the end, he’ll take a cut of the profits.”

“Profits? We’re not setting up to make profits.”

“That’s what you think. Let’s see how the evening unfolds.”

Just then Kliostaff showed his head through the curtain. His ear weights swung below his leaf-green face like pendulums from an ancient clock.

“Well, looks like we’re all here,” I said. “Ship, can you hear?”

“Yes, Hare, I’m fine.”

“All right. We’ll have one rule this evening. No secrets. We all lay it out. Are we agreed?”

Nobody said anything.

I stood. “I’m out of here unless we all agree, actively, to that rule. Bael, Kral, and I will tell what we know. Rosalind, Louis, Basto, Kli, you need to do the same.”

“I’ve been straight,” Basto said.

“Understood. Rosalind?”

“Yea,” she sighed.

“Certainly, mon. Louis Monteforte is always straight.”

I looked at him. He grinned back. “Trust me, mon.”

“And Kli. You’ll need to tell what you’ve been up to.”

The fragen looked away, his ears swinging gently as he swayed to and fro, deep in thought. Then he turned to me, holding out his two fingers and clawed thumb. The fingers closed into a little fist, with the thumb stretching out level. He stood like that for a moment, then the wrist turned and the thumb went up. Kli bared his teeth in an approximation of a human smile. I smiled back.

“What about her?” Rosalind said, pointing up.

“Of course,” Ship’s voice spread through the room. “I don’t know how to lie.”

I told a short version of our quest, pretty much the same story I told Kli on Ginga, with new details about Taes and Dermatt as Johnny Li Chin. I didn’t say that Taes was Bael’s father. I knew that everyone would be holding back something, despite the solemn pledges. I did say that Taes was Bresslaft, Basto’s criminal mastermind.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Rosalind said.

“Why?”

“I suppose that now is the time to tell you a story. Bael, you may want to help here.”

I glanced at Bael. She looked straight ahead.

“What a strange way for you to learn about my life, Hare,” she said. “And I still know next to nothing about you.”

Rosalind took a sip of wine, brushed her thick, deep gray hair away from her eyes, and began to talk.

“As you can see, I am a variant. I come from the variant colony on Plantain. But my crèche didn’t think I was variant enough. They were trying to go beyond appearance toward…something else. And I was just too human. So they sent me away, and I ended up at a small school on Nova, run by Melissa Bean. Bael was there, too.”

“It was just after my mother died, and my father, the Duke, sent me to Bean’s school. I was only there for half a cycle.”

“But it was an interesting cycle, wasn’t it? Look, I could tell you stories about the Bean school until dawn, but that’s not why we’re here. There’s one moment, one summer night, that you should know about. Melissa Bean was strict with her girls, but we knew how to sneak away late at night. Except Bael. She never came with us. But that night she did.

“We were just going to the woods, to play mind games and drink contraband beer. I have no idea why Bael came that night.”

“You know why. You worked especially hard that night to convince me to come. I’ve wondered since if you knew what we would see.”

“Of course I didn’t know. Well, maybe I suspected. We’re supposed to be honest here, aren’t we?

“Well, anyway, we decided to look into Bean’s window. And then we saw….”

“My father and Melissa Bean, together. You know what I mean. I was devastated.”

“Do you think they ever suspected we knew?” Rosalind said.

“Not unless you told them. I always wondered about that, too. But I was too busy for the rest of that summer defending myself against the lies you were telling about me.”

“I wasn’t a very nice girl, was I? But we weren’t taught to be nice girls. Too bad you only stayed such a short time. You’ve heard of Fagin, Dickens, and all that?” she asked me.

I had to do a quick data check. “Sure,” I said.

“Bean modeled herself on Fagin, only she used girls, not boys, and rather than pickpockets—what good would a pickpocket be—her girls were trained in subtle arts. Most of them didn’t have families, and for those that did, the families never knew. Now Melissa Bean has hundreds of her smart and loyal young women scattered across the quarter.”

“Why did you think that it makes sense that Taes is Bresslaft?” I asked.

“I’ve never met either man. But I understand that Taes is the Duke’s brother, that he’s very smart, and that he’s, well, evil doesn’t describe it. Let’s say that he lives outside of the norms of human behavior. But I have a question for you.”

“Yea.”

“You say Johnny’s really a guy named Dermatt. I find that hard to believe. Johnny is Johnny Li Chin. He’s completely comfortable in his skin. That’s what makes him so attractive. I can’t imagine him being anyone else.”

Just then, a door opened, the curtain parted, and a hooded figure came around the curtain. She stood next to the curtain for a moment, then threw back her hood. It was Elibel, the would-be assassin from Ginga. She was carrying a miniflash, and she pointed it toward Louis. Her eyes were filled with tears.

“Louis Jean Monteforte,” she said. “It is time for you to pay your debts.”

Episode Fifty-Two, in which Elibel listens to reason and Kli has something important to say

“Nobody move,” she said. She eased into the room, watching us all. She reached around to her back and pulled out a little stingshot. She kept her back to the wall.

“Hello, Bael,” she said. “Maybe this time we can get to know each other a little better. But first I have to deal with this thug. Don’t move, Monteforte!”

“Baby girl,” Louis said. “You misunderstood. I love you. But when the federals showed up, I had to scram. I was going to come back….”

“I didn’t misunderstand, Louis, you stupid caraea orifice. You left me alone to deal with the federals. It was easy to tell that you had no intention of returning. Stand up, slowly.”

“Elibel,” Bael said. “You and I need to talk. Right now. Long-lost cousin to long-lost cousin. Louis isn’t going anywhere, are you?”

“Uh, no….”

“Good. We’ll be right outside. Come.” She stood and took Elibel’s arm. The girl looked as though she was about to collapse in sorrow. “The rest of you, relax and drink some wine. We’ll return shortly.”

“Don’t think about trying to flee, cousin,” I said to Louis when the others had left. “I have a feeling Bael will get this sorted out.”

He said nothing. I figured that I should grill Rosalind about Dermatt or Kli about what he was up to. But I was getting tired, and I guessed that whatever we needed would better come out in conversation as the evening went on. So we all sat there, Rosalind, Louis and I sipping our wine, and waiting. It did not take too long.

The curtain parted and the two women returned. Bael took her seat, and Elibel stood at the table. Slowly she put down her weapons and sat down.

“Elibel has agreed to join us this evening, and possibly as part of whatever we come up with. I told her that she can get a share of the profits.”

“What profits?” I said. “Why is everyone talking about profits? I thought this was strictly a political, rescue, revenge sort of operation.”

“Just wait. We need to see how this evening unfolds,” Bael replied. “You’re not too sharp, are you? I kind of like that in a man.”

“You’ve been watching too many of my old flat screens,” Ship said.

“You’re not off the hook, yet, Louis, you scum,” Elibel said. “Remember that my weapons are still here, and they’re waiting for you to make a bad move.”

And then we talked for hours. The incident with Elibel seemed to have taken the edge off things. Rosalind went on and on about her relations with Johnny, though the two of them couldn’t have known each other all that long. Basto didn’t say much, just watching Rosalind, but at one point he opened up with a screed about Rosalind, Johnny, Melissa Bean, and Bresslaft. It was full of anger and frustration. I grabbed most of it, but realized that we would need to analyze it later for any hidden gems.

At one point, we ordered dinner. Erewhon was a pan-triglophasian sort of place, with lots of thin-cut pasta, spicy roasted neem legs, crisp fried lada skins, sprinklings of nuts, coriander, and lime, and some reasonably delicate sauces. We’d gotten some bug juice for Kli and a loaf of nut bread. We ordered more than we could eat, and we proceeded to gorge ourselves. Except for Kral, of course, who nibbled at the human food, but mostly just sat at the table, alert, watchful.

Kli was forthcoming about what he was doing for Linda, but only just barely. He said that she’d asked him to do some research.

“She asked me to investigate her, to find everything I could about her, especially her childhood and her family. She got me passcodes to a huge amount of data.”

“Why?”

“I do not know. I’m guessing that her motivations are defensive, but from what, I cannot tell.”

“What are you finding…?”

“Openness or no openness, that I cannot tell you. That’s in confidence.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “But if there comes a time when giving up some of that data means the difference between life or death, or the success of our mission here, I’d like to think that you will….”

“Most likely. You’ll just need to trust me on that, Hare.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Rosalind said. “What exactly is our mission here? I have a few inklings, but…are you expecting to rescue this duke? Do you want to kill Johnny? What are we all doing here?”

I took a deep breath. “It looks as though we all have separate reasons for being here. Basto, I’m guessing that you’ll want some sort of revenge against Rosalind.”

“Fighterbots don’t seek revenge. If there comes a time when it is appropriate and best for the greater good for me to destroy her, I might find that a satisfying thing to do. But I will not seek that opportunity.”

Rosalind glared at him. The automaton looked at her without expression.

“Of course,” he continued, “what I would really like is some better mentals.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“If I only had a brain,” Ship said.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“And you, Rosalind? Seems like you have a beef to pick with Melissa and the monkey, after what happened back there. But what about Johnny? We don’t necessarily want to kill him, but we want to make sure that we stop him from doing what he’s doing. Are you in with that? What do you want out of this?”

“Here’s what I want. I’m tired of scrambling. I’m tired of hustling. I’m tired of being under Melissa Bean’s thumb. Sounds like you’re wanting to go up against Johnny, Bresslaft, my dear Melissa, and that wicked monkey god all at the same time. I wish you luck, I wish all of us luck. But we’re mixing with the most powerful people on Forest, not to mention the whole Eastern Confederation. And if I had to guess, I’d think that you’ve got Jones behind you somewhere. So this is pretty rarified company. Whatever you do, I want to get something out of it that’s more than a feel-good victory. I want a stake. I want out.”

“Yea, mon. I have no hand in this fight, either. Except of course to clear my good name with sweet Elibel here. And I’ll come in because we’re family. But I should get something out of this. I’ve learned never to trust altruism.”

“And you?” I asked Kli.

“You and I go back a long time,” Kli said. “All those years on Bakka. But I’m on Forest, Jones is paying me well, and she has promised to send Jaw and the calf when I’m finished and have set up a place here. What more do I need? And why should I jeopardize what I have with a dangerous adventure?”

“But if there were a stake, maybe a little profit, you’d be more willing to come in with us?”

“I figure that you’re right with that one, Hare. What do you have in mind?”

“Not yet. Let’s see how the evening unfolds,” I said. “Basto, I want to know a little more about Bresslaft. Why is he the master, when Johnny, say, is not?”

Basto looked at around the table at all of us.

“Bresslaft shows up occasionally on Forest. He has been doing so for years. I have no idea as to where he spends the rest of his time. He just disappears, then pops up again months later. But he is known to have a network of informants, assassins, financiers, and brinmasters that extends across a few hundred planets. My, um, hunch, suggests that he is much more powerful than your Dermatt. But that’s only a hunch. I do not trust my mentals.”

“Did you ever meet him?” I asked Rosalind.

“No,” Rosalind said. “Never did. But I wanted to. He had a reputation of being very charming, so quick, so full of stories and good fun.”

“That’s not Taes,” Bael said. “Charm and quick wit were never among his virtues.”

“Is he connected to Johnny?” I asked.

“He’s not the kind of guy who would show up at Johnny’s place,” Rosalind said, “if that’s what you mean. But if I had to guess—or maybe if I had a hunch,” she said, looking at Basto, watching for his reaction, “I’d think they must have had business dealings. But more than that, I don’t know.”

I looked around the table at all of them. It had been a long day.

“It’s late,” I said. “I need to think about this and figure it all out. It’s a good question: What exactly are we up to? And we need to figure out where the profit is going to come from. Elibel, can I trust you to not try to kill Louis, at least until morning?”

She looked like she was still ready to cry. She nodded.

“And Louis, you’ll rejoin us tomorrow?”

“Yea, mon. We need a new place to meet.” He suggested a small tavern near the waterfront. Then we scattered. Bael, Kral, and I decided to not return to our hotel and found another a few blocks away.

As we walked, I took Bael’s hand. She let me hold it for a moment, then she pulled it away. She seemed lost in thought.

“Hare. You and I gotta talk.”

It was Kli. He’d opened a one-to-one channel.

“Yea. What do you need?”

“I don’t need anything, at least not now. But there’s something you gotta know.”

“Which is?”

“Taes isn’t Bresslaft.”

“What? Who…?”

“It’s not Taes. So who do you think it is?” 

Episode Fifty-Three, in which Bael and Hare go to a party, and Kral gets a job

“Hare,” Bael said as we climbed the steps to the hotel. I looked up and saw the glow of the city in a narrow space between two buildings. For a moment, I could see her silhouetted there, caught in the glow.

“I’ve been wondering about Bresslaft,” she went on. “His description seems to be nothing like that of Taes.” We came to be door, and I held it for her. She seemed far away. “It seems much more like the Duke, charming, quick, maybe even ruthless. I’m thinking that maybe Bresslaft is my father.”

“Maybe,” I said. “We need more information.”

Weeks later, Bael and I walked up the grand staircase that led to the massive front door of the Alexander House. I held the engraved invitation in my hand. Gynntra Eloise Sewett-Abernathy-Hellin and Brigon Freddy Abernathy-Sewett-Storpha were having a party, and we were invited, it said.

Gynntra and Brigon were scions from an alliance of some of the most powerful families on Torrin’s World. Torrin’s was a distant planet, not part of the consortium, but well respected for the influence it wielded. The hosts were new to Forest; this would be their introduction to the local corridors of power, culture, and influence. The party had been the buzz of the town for weeks, especially after the dowager Betty Smith had supplied her imprimatur.

I had spent the last weeks, with as much of a biodisguise as I could muster, hanging around in the neighborhood of Dermatt’s tavern. The place was an old hole in the ground down near the water, and was frequented by some of the tougher elements of Forest society. It had been around for a long time; Dermatt had just bought in recently. But I hadn’t learned much. I’d seen Johnny Li Chin once from afar, dressed in a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat, his hair in a braid that came down to his waist. But that had been it. Nobody had much to say about Johnny, the tavern, or much else, for that matter.

Now we were standing before the great doors of the Alexander House. The House was one of the grander of the cantilevered piles in the upper reaches of the Peak. A solid half-ring, more a horseshoe, grew out from the side of the mountain. That went up four storeys, but was then topped with a forest of towers, minarets, spires, and hanging globes, all connected with thin, graceful walkways. A cloth dome rose above the inner space of the horseshoe, and I understood that it contained a reproduction of the zoogarden on Shangon.

“Thank you, sir,” said the man who took our invitation. He wore a scarlet jacket with a gray cravat and gold trousers. Bael and I were dressed a little more quietly, me in a tailored black shipsuit with a short black jacket lined with silver, she in a short black dress with patterned black hose, a simple necklace, and small black hat. The man in scarlet paused for a moment, as if waiting for something. Certainly not a tip, I thought. But…?

“Your names, sir?” he said finally.

“Um, Nick Charles. Nick and Nora Charles, of the Charles clan on Lingit’s Treasure.”

“Nick and Nora Charles!” the man intoned, and then motioned us into a vast portico.

“I have taught you well, grasshopper.”

Bael snorted softly. Beneath her sophisticated composure, she was stifling a smile as we stepped through the doorway.

A will o’ wisp flew over and took my hat and Bael’s small wrap, then flittered away. We were in a huge room with a massive vaulted ceiling. Art covered the walls, huge portraits and landscapes set between pilasters of gold. They had the famous water sequence from New Rome, including all five pieces of the collection. And I spotted several pictures encrusted in thick frames that looked like they came from old Earth. Or else they were very good copies.

The room was packed. The crowd was mostly human, with some obvious variants, a few fragen, and a number of species I’d never seen. Clothes were generally colorful and varied; we’d been intentionally conservative in choosing ours. A small group of enhanced pigs stood off in the corner. A huge naked troll graced each corner of the room, watching nothing and seeing everything. They were of course obligatory at a function such as this; I’d heard that their guild was especially powerful on Forest. In the distance I could see where the room gave out onto the garden.

“Charles? Do you know the Charles family on Lingit’s Treasure?” She was a small woman, delicate like a Tusian songbird, but with a fierce look in her eye. The pile of grayish blonde hair atop her head looked almost as big as she was. She wore a suit of loose trousers and a tailored jacket, both made from shiny blue fabric that shimmered as she moved. Her hat was like a comb stuck in the pile of hair. She took our hands in hers and waited expectantly.

“No, actually not,” I said. “We’re part of the Charles clan on Brikla Station. And you are?”

“Oh, please excuse my ungracious behavior. But when I thought someone related to my old friends on Lingit’s Treasure might be in town, I was overwhelmed with anticipation. Please let me introduce myself. I am Betty Smith; you may have heard of me. I am the center of social life on Forest.”

She clasped our hands a little tighter.

“Oh, that always sounds so arrogant when I say it. But it’s true. And when I heard that the lovely couple from Torrin’s were here, and when I heard that the Fredericksons had absolutely given them this place while they were gone, I just had to get involved. Wasn’t that generous of the Fredericksons? They’re off on the grand tour of the center worlds. That is such a fabulous trip. I took it many years ago with Elvore when he was still alive. What a great man he was. Isn’t this a lovely party? Oh look, it’s the Captain of Industry herself. You must excuse me.”

Betty Smith darted off to intercept an exceptionally large woman in a huge dress that seemed more like a sleeping robe, except that it was printed with vivid scenes of revelry from the breakdown periods on Trist. A red-jacketed waiter marched over with a tray of drinks; Bael and I both took glasses of wine. The waiter winked at me and fingered his gold braid. I gave him an almost invisible nod and looked away.

“What does she know?” Bael asked, gesturing at Betty Smith.

“Nothing,” I said, “at least I think so. Come, let’s mingle.”

We promenaded around the room, drawing some attention, if only because Bael looked so fetching. We’d reached the entrance to the garden. I could see what felt like a lush forest. I could smell the scents of soil and decay, and lush plantings. Birds called loudly across the space. One was especially vocal, as if disturbed by the goings on: “Gree-ak, gree-ak, gree-ak.” We were about to step out beneath the dome when I heard a voice, “Doctor Charles! And this fabulous man you travel with. I haven’t seen you since the Lord’s River night festival on Kong.”

She headed toward us like an old maglev, skirts flying, her deep gray hair circling her head like a stormy halo.

“There are some people you absolutely need to meet.” With her long, full skirts of iridescent green, she glowed in the ballroom’s brightness. She took Bael’s hand and led her across the room, to plant them both in the midst of a group that were clustering around a couple who were obviously people to know. The man was tall and powerfully built, dressed in wide black trousers, a fitted gold jacket, and a red sash. His face was skeletal, and his black hair was pulled back in long braid that fell to his waist. Johnny. Or Dermatt.

I’d never seen the woman he was with, but I understood she was his current companion. We knew little else about her. That troubled me, but there was nothing I could do. She appeared to be some soft of variant. The little ridge that ran across her forehead wasn’t prosthetic, but what it contained was anyone’s guess. She was tall, taller even than Johnny, in a gossamer dress. Her head was shaved, with the effect of highlighting her narrow nose and the near perfect proportions of her eyes and her mouth. She affected a look of bored distance, but I couldn’t help but wonder if something interesting was going on behind those intensely vapid eyes.

“Johnny,” Rosalind said, breaking into the spiel of a sycophantic man in a suit made from orange discs. “Some people you need to meet.” Johnny turned and locked eyes with Rosalind. They held that lock for a moment, then Johnny lazily looked us over.

“Nick and Nora Charles,” he said. “That sounds familiar. You are from Lingit’s Treasure.”

“We…,” I began to say, when Bael broke in. “We’ve come from Brikla Station,” she said. “And you are?”

“Chin,” he said. “Johnny Chin. And this is the Empress Emanuelle. Her empire is very small.”

Emanuelle slowly held out her hand, with a languid, watery ease. I took it and held it to my lips—an ancient fashion, but one that was coming back. She looked away.

Johnny glanced across the room, then turned to one of the giants at his side, snapped his fingers, and the giant ambled off. That left four of the big creatures, arrayed behind Johnny and Emanuelle.

“How is the shroll doing?’ Rosalind asked.

“Well enough. Knows what needs to be done. Where did you find an out-of-bounds shroll?”

“My channels. I thought you would be pleased.”

Johnny said nothing. The shroll loomed silently behind him as one of the four, characteristically blue, with a tonsure cut in the fur around the head. Red eyes stared ahead.

There was a commotion as the whole room turned to a stair that opened into the center of the space. Doors opened and a couple appeared.

“It’s Gynntra and Brigon,” a woman near me said breathlessly. The man was dressed in a white tunic and white trousers with blue piping and opal studs at the cuffs and the collars. He moved with an unusual grace, almost dancing down the stair. The woman at his side wore white as well, a floor-length dress with a tight bodice and large, blousing sleeves. On her head was a small tiara encrusted with rubies. She delicately held his arm as she glided down the stair.

At the bottom, they were engulfed by a crowd. I sipped my wine and, my hand loosely on Bael’s arm, watched the scene. Johnny was doing the same thing. Brigon was getting close to us, and I could hear him greet a well-wisher.

“Good evening, mon. Thank you so much for coming to my party.”

Episode Fifty-Four, in which Ship relies on the kindness of strangers and Hare feels a familiar chill

 The two of them deftly navigated the throng. Looking for all the world like successful planetary reps—but with infinitely more style—they seemed masters at making their guests feel that each was special, each was the reason why the party had been held. Ever smiling, absolutely certain of their place in the world, they stopped to squeeze a hand, hear a confidence, laugh at a brief jest. The crowd had heard that these two were something special, and nobody was disappointed.

“Master Li Chin?” Glynntra said softly, hurrying over to us.

“Chin,” he said, smiling. “Only Chin.” He gently took her hand, bowing slightly. “And you of course are the most beautiful woman in the room.”

“Not quite, Master Chin….”

“Johnny,” he said. “Oh excuse me, I have not introduced you to the other most beautiful woman in the room. This is the Empress Emanuelle.”

The Empress, who had been staring off into space, slowly turned and smiled a polite smile. “Good evening, Gynntra Eloise Sewett-Abernathy-Hellin.”

“Ah, Empress. You are most certainly the most comely thing in the room,” Glynntra said. “At least….”

Suddenly, a wave swept the crowd as everyone turned back to the central stairwell. The door was open, and a woman stood framed in the doorway, as if waiting to make her entrance. She came out into the light, paused, and slowly made her way down the stairs. The crowd parted as she passed.

If Brigon and Glynntra were obviously special, this woman was spectacular. It wasn’t simply her beauty, which was considerable. She held an indefinable air, a way about her that captivated. In spite of myself, I couldn’t take my eyes from her. Nobody else seemed to be able to, either. She was tall, with a voluptuous figure that was showcased by a fitted white dress that extended to her ankles. A low neck revealed an ample bosom that tapered to a small, almost delicate waist. Her face was perfectly proportioned and deeply tanned, a hue that offset the deep red of her hair piled atop her head. As she made her way toward us, a small smile of satisfaction and self-containment touched her lips. Her green eyes blazed, and I could see that Johnny had caught her attention.

“Johnny, and uh, Empress, let me introduce my sister, Willomena Callia Sewett-Abernathy-Hellin. Willi, this is Johnny Li Chin and the Empress Emanuelle. And you are…?” she said gesturing toward Bael and me.

“Nora and Nick Char….”

“Dear sister,” Willomena smiled. “I’ve told you never to call me Willi. I do not like that name. Master Chin, what is your line of endeavor?”

“Johnny,” he said. “I deal in import and export. I buy and sell beautiful things. And you, Willomena Callia Sewett-Abernathy-Hellin, what is your line of endeavor?”

“Please call me Callia, Johnny. As for my line of endeavor, I really don’t have one. I prefer to rely on the kindness of strangers.”

“Watch yourself,” I said.

“I’m all right,” Ship said. “You should talk, Mr. Charles. But I am exhausted. I wasn’t much good at this when I was wet. You have no idea how much work I’ve put into our Willi.”

“I have some idea,” I said. “You’re doing fine.”

“I don’t like her.”

“Nobody does. But she does what she needs to do.”

She moved closer to Johnny, so that her hip brushed his. She leaned in a little, and said, “I’ve only just arrived on Forest, Johnny. What am I missing? What do I need to see? What do I need to know?”

Johnny didn’t say anything, but smiled and looked her in the eye. Then his hand went to the Empress, and he placed it squarely on her hip.

“Does he suspect?”

“I don’t think so. Kli, his hormones?”

“High, Hare. But I’m guessing that he’s still in control.”

“That’s all right,” Ship said. “He’s got more defenses than Fort Knox. But if he’s sufficiently distracted…. And proximity helps.”

“Fort Knox?” I said.

“Goldf…? Never mind.”

“Kli,” I asked, “can you read the adrenalin surrogates on the giants?”

“A little elevation, Hare, but generally low. As we expected, they’ve seen this sort of thing before. They’re not reading Willi as a threat.”

“Now both of you be quiet. I need to concentrate,” Ship said.

Willomena took Johnny’s look and returned it, seizing his eyes with hers. She leaned in still closer. Her voice changed, losing its tone of probing flirtation. She spoke softly, but with a deep authority. Hers was the voice of quiet command.

“Johnny,” she said, “I would like to walk in these famous gardens. I’ve heard that they are simply lovely. I would like you to escort me.”

“Of course, Callia. It would be my honor.” He turned to the Empress, and his hand fell from her side.

“You will excuse me, Emanuelle. I must take our new friend on a tour of the gardens.”

Emanuelle took a sip of her drink and said nothing as the couple headed out beneath the cloth dome.

“Is he under?”

“I think so. If not, he’s the best I’ve seen.”

Bael nudged me, and I looked across the room. Melissa Bean had just come in. I looked back at Bael. Before we came, she’d treated her face a little so that it was barely recognizable, and now her expression changed. Imperceptibly at first, but then she was different, someone else. I looked around for Louis. He and Rosalind were talking, not far away. Elibel was fully in character, still laughing and talking with her admirers. Bael and I headed toward Bean, leaving Ship to do what she needed to do.

“You’re ready?” I asked?

“Yes. Of course.”

Bean was dressed in simple back trousers and a long, flowing jacket. Her silvery hair was cut short. Her jaw was long and her eyes quick and observant. She seemed to be alone; I couldn’t read any security, but there had to be some. She was taking a glass of wine as we approached. She saw us coming.

“Are you Melissa Bean?” Bael said. “Of course you are. I recognize you.”

“Excuse me. Do I know you?”

“No, but we’ve heard a lot about you. You’re such a powerful woman, I just knew that we needed to talk with you. Isn’t that right, Master Charles?”

“Who are you? You look somehow familiar,” Bean said.

“Oh, you wouldn’t know us,” Bael replied. ‘We’ve only recently come in from the Brikla System. But we have a question for you.”

“And that is?”

“We’ve recently come into a large amount of lucre,” Bael said, “and we are concerned that such amounts should be in the right place. You know how that is, don’t you?”

“What does that have to do with me? Excuse me, I see some people I haven’t spoken with in years.”

Bael moved closer and spoke in a whisper, “We’ve heard that the best place for our lucre is a trading company called Outward Legume. And some people told us last night that you know something about Outward Legume.”

“Who told you that?” Bean’s tone changed, as if she was talking to a misbehaving pet. “Who told you that?”

“Oh, Nick, I told you that was something we weren’t suppose to know. I knew he’d had a few too many…and now….”

“Who is ‘he?’”

“Oh dear.”

“Nick and Nora. And my dear Melissa.” I turned to see Betty Smith.

“Can you excuse us?” I said. “We were in the middle of something.”

“But you absolutely must know. I mentioned before that the Fredericksons were on a tour of the center worlds. But that was incorrect. In fact, they’re back on Forest, and they’re headed here right now. Isn’t that wonderful? They’ll be able to come to the party. And they’ll be here any moment.”

She looked at Bael and me, and I realized then that she’d been part of the deal in getting this place. Honest George had friends in high places, especially when lucre was involved.

“Betty,” Melissa Bean said. “I do not care where the Fredericksons are. Now please leave.”

We all heard the commotion. The main entrance to the ballroom was flooding with enforcers, and in the middle of them stood a very large woman and a very small man.

“What is going on here?” the woman shouted.

Melissa Bean collapsed beside me, and behind her stood a grinning Rosalind, a small tube in her hand.

“A small change of plan, I think,” Rosalind said.

Some pointed toward us, and a phalanx of enforcers headed our way.

“Ship, do you have Johnny?”

“Yea. It took a lot of work. Basto has the flyer above; he’s cutting a hole in the dome now.

“Kral, are the giants neutralized?”

“Yes.” The shroll was standing behind me.

“ShallIcarryMelissaBean?”

“Yes. All right. Louis, Elibel, everyone to the rendezvous now!”

“Betty, are you coming with us?” I asked?

“I’m staying. I’ve done nothing wrong.” She winked and turned back into the now very confused crowd.

The whole crew was in the dome now, running down pathways through the thick foliage. I turned to follow when I felt the unmistakable cold of a stingshot snout suck in my back.

“What in the name of hell’s minions are you up to?”

Episode Fifty-Five, in which our friends flee into the night 

A stream of partygoers pushed past us, panicked by the site of enforcers fanning into a high-life party. A huge human in a not-so-flattering bright red skin suit almost bowled me over in a rush to get into the dome. The cold stingshot snout stayed in my back. I felt a cool water on my face; Basto had breached the dome, and rain was pouring in. It would be a few minutes before the dome repaired itself.

“Hello, Empress,” I said.

“I’ve been working on Enrique for half a cycle, and now you are totally making a mess of that. What are you up to?”

“Empress, are you with the enforcers or not? If not, you’d better come with me, or we’ll both have a lot of explaining to do. As far as I’m concerned, you’ll still be in the game with Enrique, whatever that game is.”

The pressure on my back relaxed a hair, and the Empress hesitated a moment.

“All right, she said. “But my little stinger will be pointed at you, and I still want answers.”

“That’s mutual. Come on, this way.”

“Hare, we’re all aboard and the rift is closing. Where are you?”

“Coming. The Empress will be joining us. She’s armed. Bael, can you….?”

“Of course.”

The big flyer was hovering above a fountain, in the center of a large plaza. A family of fat, hairy bassons stood off to one side, watching the flyer.

“This way, quickly!” I shouted.

I heaved myself up through the flyer’s belly hatch and reached down a hand for the Empress. Still holding the stingshot in one hand, she grabbed a hatch rail and pulled herself up. As she came through the hatch, Bael pulled the weapon from her hand.

“Welcome aboard, Empress,” I said. Basto, get us out of here.”

In a moment the flyer was up through the rift in the dome’s fabric and was heading out above the city.

“Mon, no offense, but I’d better take control,” Louis said, coming up behind Basto. “I have certain…instincts…for this sort of thing.” Basto looked at Louis, then without a word moved away. Louis took the machine on a new course, sweeping around the Peak.

“We’re still going to…?” I said.

“Yea, mon. But we need room to maneuver in case we find some enforcers.”

I looked around. Melissa was slumped on a bench along the side, still out. Willi and Jonny were together in the back. Johnny’s face was blank, staring off to nowhere.

“Can I deactivate?” Ship asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “I think we’re still going to need you. You can go on shutdown for awhile if you need to?”

“Where are we…?” the Empress said.

“Empress, at this point we are not enemies,” I said. “In fact, we may be friends, even allies. But we have a lot going on here, so I’ll have to ask you to close your mouth until we can get to more friendly territory. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“‘A lot going on here’ is right, mon,” Louis said. “A flyer has lifted from Alexander House. And there’s another coming in on intercept. I’m activating the interruptor now.”

We’d spent a huge amount of resources to even get a loan of an interruptor, but we’d figured that we would need one, eventually. We had passthrough, but that has its limits, and we could assume that our captives’ plants were sending out all sorts of beacons. Louis took us down toward the flats, in a sweeping arc over the city. One of the boats headed out above us; the other slipped from view and wasn’t reading.

Weather around the Peak was usually most pleasant, but sometimes a front would come up, gather a whole lot of water from the sea, and slam it against the mountain in a huge and heavy storm. One of those was happening outside this night. The flyer’s stabilizers took care of the buffeting, but we could still feel the tremendous force of the storm as water pounded the viewscreens. Louis took us up again, peeling back toward the Peak.

“I’ve got the other flyer,” he said. “Coming our way. I’m resetting the interruptor.”

“We need to get to….”

“All in good time, mon.”

Then we were dropping fast, straight down to the city. City lights rushed up to envelop us.

“Louis?”

“Check your feed, mon.”

He was right. A quick check showed that the city was on alert, and the air was filling with enforcer craft.

“Damn.”

“That interruptor was maybe not worth the trouble,” he said. We flew at near ground level over the flat. Rain was pounding the city, it was late, and skimmer traffic was almost non-existent. All there was, was us.

“Kli, can you…?”

“I’ve begun to send out dummy messages on official channels, Hare. Those should confuse things, slow people down. But I can’t send out too many. That would trigger filters and set up a counter….”

“Thanks, Kli. Stay ready.”

“Plan Two, Louis?”

“Yea, mon. We’ll be at the park in seconds.”

“Bael?”

“Ready, Hare.”

“Basto, we’ll drop you first. Head for the rendezvous. Then you, Rosalind.”

“The two of us should go together.”

I hesitated. “Yea,” Basto said.

The two were down, running in the brush.

“Kral, stay with Bael and the Empress. And keep a close eye on the Empress.”

“You can cut the ‘empress’ line,” she said. “I’m Captain O’Flaherty, special investigator with the Royal Guards of Chance. I’ve been tracking Dermatt since he was Rohit Smith on Split.”

“Oh,” I said. “Kral, please keep a close eye on Captain O’Flaherty, special investigator with the Royal Guards of Chance. If she makes a bad move, you know what you need to do.”

“Ofcourse,” the shroll said, towering over O’Flaherty.

“Isupposeyouhavesomethinginmind?”

“Not really. You’ll figure out something.”

“Now go!”

The three were gone.

“Elibel, you’re on your own.”

The girl had changed into a black shipsuit. She grabbed a small bag of tools and was gone.

That left the four of us, Louis, Johnny, Ship, and me. We’d been skimming the park’s treetops, and now Louis brought us to a hover. He looked at me, and I nodded.

“Is Johnny secured?”

“Yea,” Ship said.

“Go.”

We all dropped down on the escape harnesses. When we reached the ground, I pulled Johnny out of his, and in the pounding rain, we headed for the trees. The flyer moved away, into the park, picking up speed.

Then it exploded. We could see the fireball through the trees, debris raining down on the park.

“Flyers coming,” Ship said. She was right. Four blips were heading toward the fireball. Two more were checking out the rest of the park. We’d put Johnny into a loose passthrough coverall, and now I activated that. We all had at least some passthrough shielding. A park entrance was beyond the trees, and we headed that way. The rendezvous was about two kilometers away, and that was our final destination.

“Watch out, Hare,” Bael said. “We’re outside the park. We just passed your entrance, and from across the street we could see a phalanx of enforcers heading into the park.”

“Thanks. I see them.”

The enforcers were effectively blocking that entrance. The question was: would our passthrough be good enough to let us get by undetected? I pulled up a park map. The surrounding wall was high, and the next entrance was 200 meters away. We needed to get out of the park fast.

“We’ll try this entrance,” I said. “Make sure that you’re totally covered, and remain silent until we get through the gate. Ship, hold my arm; Louis, grab Willi’s so we know where we are. I have Johnny.”

We started down the path that led to the gate. I had my hand around Johnny’s arm; he stared quietly off into the distance as we walked. Thanks to Ship’s bit of witchcraft, he seemed oblivious. I saw a group of six enforcers heading our way. They had their heads down in the wind and rain; I guessed they were none too happy to be called out on a dark and stormy night.

We moved closer. Their standard procedure should have been to scan the terrain, using whatever enhancements their plants provided. But they were mumbling among themselves, focused inward. I moved off the path and stopped, pulling the others off as well. The enforcers began to pass us; we were going to make it.

“Enforcers! Over here. Hurry!” It was Johnny.

Episode Fifty-Six, in which Louis climbs the walls and the Empress shows off her fingers 

I wrapped my arm around his neck and pulled him off balance. I cupped my other hand over his mouth and pulled him back into the woods. I hoped that his plant wouldn’t have enforcer channels on call. Fortunately, he was still dazed. I gave him a sopor.

“Can you get him back, Ship?”

“I’m trying. He’s resisting pretty heavily.”

“The sopor should help.”

We were in the trees, stopped and still. Water fell from the leaves in big cold drops. I put Johnny on his back and got on top of him. I held my hand over his mouth until he drifted off.

“How’s that, Ship?” I asked.

“I’m getting him back. I should be able to set up a better pattern of control.”

He lay still, breathing regularly, softly. We could hear the enforcers cutting through the brush, heading along our left. I heard a sound on my left, someone loudly crashing through the brush, running toward the park’s wall.

“I am providing a diversion, mon. See you at the rendezvous, cousin.”

It was Louis, off toward the wall. He had set his passthrough to be faintly detectable. The enforcers split in two. Three went off after Louis’s shadow, while the others headed for the spot where he had become visible, about 50 meters away. Johnny was pliable but not limp. I pulled him to his feet, and Ship and I slowly began to edge our way toward the entrance. Louis had disappeared; I figured he’d scaled the wall.

Dragging Johnny along, we were maybe 20 meters from the entrance. The nearest enforcers seemed confused.

“Move, Ship. I’ll follow.”

“Hare….”

“Your avatar may still be of value. I want to get her away from this. Go.”

Willi ran for the gate. As she disappeared through the entrance, I turned to see the nearby enforcers headed our way. Johnny and I were almost to the gate, but my suit was shot; we were sending out enough traces so that real passthrough was impossible. A black form appeared at the gate, running our way, and fading as it passed us.

“Kral has the Empress, and Ship just showed. Drop Johnny at that gate and come back and help me. My little cabbage.”

Bael.

I heard the commotion behind me as I pulled Johnny out of the park. The street outside was quiet. I dropped him next to Kral and turned back. Inside, an enforcer came tumbling toward me. Bael’s signal shadow showed her off to the left, moving fast. I gave the tumbler a quick sopor and moved in. She’d engaged another, who was putting up a good fight against his invisible adversary. A third headed toward me; my passthrough was definitely not what it needed to be. I threw myself at his waist. He flew up and I let his momentum carry him over my head. I pushed up on his waist, so he fell on his side and then his back. I got to him with a sopor. The third enforcer lay near him.

“The other three…?”

“Let’s not press our luck.”

The other enforcers had been trying to scale the wall, but hearing the fight they had headed back toward us. Bael and I ran for the gate. On the other side, Kral had the Empress and Melissa Bean  under one arm, Johnny under the other.

“Stand aside,” the Empress said. She brought up her hand and the gate behind us dissolved into a pile of stone. Dust flew everywhere. “I have a very good plant,” she said. “Now if you will let me down, dear shroll….”

Kral gently set her on a street paver. “From what I could see,” she said, “they’re a poorly equipped and effectively untrained street patrol. Where are we going?”

I checked on Johnny. He was still out.

“This time I’m watching his readings,” Ship said. “He’ll sleep for a while.”

“We’re a kilometer away,” I said. “I’ve mapped out the back alleys and paths.” I sent them all the map.

“Going by back alleys won’t help at all if an enforcer flyer spots us,” the Empress said.

“Well, Captain, we’ll just need to move fast and make sure that does not happen.”

“Louis, where are you?”

Silence.

We ran through the blackness of the back pathways of Forest, through a flatland neighborhood of warehouses and cheap drop spots, with the occasional den of iniquity down a narrow alley, casting light and laughter out onto the wet pavement. I saw no sign of enforcer activity, though they were still in the park, buzzing about and hovering over the fire. We came upon an even more narrow passage and slipped inside. The way was so close that we could barely see the night sky above. Kral had to hold Johnny and Melissa in front as we ran. The walls to either side were wet and slimy; water had puddled in the passage, and we splashed through as we ran. A fat furry glysussot with a broad tail and four bright green eyes ran along the wall and disappeared down a hole. The passage forked, and we took the left. The way began to zigzag. That slowed us a little, but not for long. We came upon a small doorway with no handle or obvious latch. The door had not been used for a long time and appeared to be blocked, as though it had over time become part of the wall. We stopped, clustering around the door. It began to open, slowly, quietly. Inside was darkness. We went inside, and the door closed behind us.

Lights came up. A corridor led to a stair, and at the top we found another door. The room beyond was large and brightly lit, furnished with couches and carpets. Kral dropped Johnny and Melissa on one of the couches. Kli sat in one corner, apparently staring off into space. Then his eyes darted about, up and down, left and right. He had a complex virtual control running.

“Were we tracked?” I asked.

“Not that I could see. I’ve been running obfuscations since you left the park. Sorry I could not do a better job with that pack of enforcers.”

“My passthrough was leaking like crazy. There wasn’t much you could do about that.”

“Elibel?”

“No word yet. I’m leaving her alone. That’s best for now.”

“What’s happening back at Alexander House?”

“Betty has things under control. The Hendricksons are not too swift; they think the whole thing was a misunderstanding. Most of Honest George’s people have slipped away. The enforcers are looking for us, of course, but the chatter I’m picking up says that they have no idea who we are.”

“Any sign of Louis?”

“None. He dropped away from my probes right after he went over the wall.”

“Trelligaat! I hope he’s not pulling another….”

“I don’t think so,” Kli said. “That doesn’t feel right.”

“Are you detecting any signals from the Captain here?”

“No. I’ve been pre-emptively blocking her since you brought her on the flyer. My blocker’s pretty good.”

I looked around. Ship’s Willi was sitting on a couch, head back, eyes unfocused. Bael was next to her, looking concerned. Captain O’Flaherty was walking around the room, checking it out.

“Are you all right, Ship?”

“Yea. But Will’s been difficult to master, and add Johnny on top of that. I’m exhausted. I need to get back….”

“Yea,” I said. “Do it. I’m sorry I’ve kept you active this long. A dead Willi may come in handy.”

Willi went limp, lifeless.

“How about you?” I asked Bael.

“I’m good. I want to see this through. We can stop Johnny and Melissa, but we’re no closer to my father.”

“I’m thinking that he probably knows you’re on Forest. But I’d guess that whatever he’s up to, he’s still staying low. We should get more word on him soon.”

As if on cue, we heard from Elibel.

“Hare, I have what we need, I think. I’m still close to Johnny’s…oh, quarlonne hindquarters. I’ve been spotted. Hare….”

“Basto?”

“I have her, Hare. Dropping now.”

“I see you, Basto,” she said. “Watch out for the flamer.”

“Damn, that was close. She’s on, Hare. I need to rid myself of my pursuers, then….”

“Basto?”

“I’m here. Just a little preoccupied.”

“We meet at rendezvous three.”

“Not two? Damn.”

“Three. Change of plan.”

“Understood. You slime. Not you, Hare. I gotta go.”

He was getting more human all the time. Even down to the archaic curses.

“We’re moving,” I said to the room. “We’re heading back to the third location. Get your controls fixed, Kli. We move in three minutes.”

Kli might have been right about Louis, but I wanted to reduce the odds, just in case.

“The flyer’s in the roof cote?”

“Yea,” Kli said.

We made for the roof, Kral with Johnny and Melissa over each shoulder, Bael, and Kli, with me carrying Willi at the rear. The Willi android frame was relatively light; Willi wasn’t a heavy eater.

We fit into the flyer, but just barely. Bael was our pilot. We were rising above the old warehouse.

“Hare! Bael!” Ship said. “Five flyers, heavily armed, converging. Point of contact, 45 seconds.”

Episode Fifty-Seven, in which help comes with kindness and a strange doll reappears

“Trouble,’ I said. “Five armed flyers….”

“Drop us and let me out, now!” Captain O’Flaherty shouted, opening the flyer lid as we dropped. “Stay where you are. I will take care of this.”

She disappeared around the edge of the cote. No sign of the flyers, yet.

“Basto, report?”

“Eluding pursuers, Hare. Kli’s been confusing them. We’ll head for number three when….”

“Hold, Basto. I’ll get back to you.”

We could see the flyers now, coming in fast but not bringing in any fire. Then without warning, they stopped, as if they had met an invisible wall. They hovered about half a klick toward the sea, as though waiting for something.

“I’ve been scanning channels, Hare,” Kli said, “and there’s no chatter about those flyers, unless it’s happening in places I’ve never seen. Jones gave me universal access.”

The Captain came around the corner. “I told you my implant’s good. The Royal Guards of Chance don’t like to leave much to…chance.”

“The flyers…?”

“Are immobile, without communication or weapons. They’ll stay like that until we release them.”

“I’ve seen something like that before,” I said. “Can you do the same thing to a group of craft? They’re pursuing….”

“Already done,” she said.

“Hare, we should move,” Bael said. “I still can’t raise Louis.”

“Basto, change of plan. Come here as fast as you can. I wish I had passthrough for these boats, but we don’t. When you’re close, we’ll move.”

“I can construct something like passthrough, Hare,” Kli said. “It will take a little work, essentially confusing every sensor that catches us, so that we become effectively undetectable.”

“How long?”

“A while. I’ll work on it.”

We waited in silence, Johnny and Melissa still out. Soon Basto’s craft showed up, hovering above. We lifted and headed toward the peak.

“I’m thinking we forget rendezvous three,” I said to Bael on our channel.

“So where?’”

“Down. Into the night markets. The storm has let up, and you can see, the streets have begun to fill. We’ll hide in plain sight.”

“Any suggestions as to a good landing spot?”

“We’re not landing. Go down by those big image screens and pull behind them.”

The screens loomed huge ahead of us. A pair of enhanced pigs, gigantic on the screen, were waltzing on a beach, waves breaking in the background, the sky pale yellow. Bael deftly swung around the endmost screen; Basto was right behind us. The screens stood out from a big wall that rose above one of the markets, and the space between was dark and empty. We hovered, tethered to the frame of one of the screens. Basto was behind us.

“Kral, can you carry Johnny and Melissa and climb down the screen?”

“Yea.Justiketakingmycubsintothepitoffire.”

I didn’t ask why one would take one’s cubs into a pit of fire.

“Kli, how’s that rough-made passthrough?”

“Not enough time, Hare. But as long as we keep the flyers back here, I can confuse any passing sensors. They’d have to fall over us before they knew we were here.”

“All right. Everyone, I admit that I don’t have much of a plan, but I’m thinking that our rendezvous spots are probably compromised. We don’t know where Louis is, and I don’t know if we can expect that he’ll be back. I’m wondering….”

“He’ll be back,” Elibel said. “I may hate him with every bit of my soul, but he’s an honorable guy. He’ll be back.”

“Maybe. We need to talk, Elibel.

“Anyway, my basic plan is to get out in the crowd below and find a place where we can set up a base so we can bring these two around and get on with this.”

“Can’t we just stay here?” Basto asked.

“The moment they wake, they’ll know we’re on the run, even if Kli jams their plants. We need a good, secluded spot. Bael and Elibel will come with me. We’ll be back soon. And for now, don’t use any comm, even your plants.”

Kral stood quietly in the open flyer, Johnny and Melissa flouncing like cloth dolls around them. Basto and Rosalind were in the other. Her hand was tight on his shoulder.

“I’d better come along.”

“Captain….”

“I have a few talents, Trieste. I think you may need them. I’m coming.”

“Suit yourself.”

The streets and squares below were packed, mostly with humans wandering across wet pavement, filtering through the narrow alleys between the market stalls. Lanterns at each stall created little islands of warmth in the dark damp night, with the stalls hustling everything from fraestian jewelry to the hairy snakes of Burgin’s Star.

We made our way through the crowds, moving quickly but seemingly without purpose. I’d pulled up some of the hotels in the neighborhood, but none met our needs.

“What?” Bael had stopped. She was staring at a small building. She began to walk toward it.

“Bael?”

“It’s Trinn. The sign above the door, it’s the crest one of the oldest families on Trinn. They’re my father’s cousins. I didn’t know any of them were here.”

“Should we be…?”

“Come on. I need to find out who this is.”

We mounted a steep stair, and Bael pressed the call panel.

“Yes?” A well-dressed holo figure, an older, self-assured man, appeared in front of the door.

“Hello, Kindness,” Bael said.

“Baelyae?”

“Yea, Kindness, it’s me. Can we come in?”

“Of course.”

Inside we found a lush green field of wildflowers, with a waterfall cascading over lichen-covered rocks into a small pond. Bright sunlight bathed the scene. A four-legged equine animal, a bit like a horse but with a mottled blue and red hide and a long spiked neck, drank from the pond. A Trinn male came from around the rocks. It was Kindness. He was smaller than his holo, and rather than the elaborate embroidered red jacket he’d had in the door holo, he wore an old white robe and a wide brown hat. A long staff completed his outfit. His face was darker than hers, but with similarly huge gold eyes. A small but obviously powerful receptor was affixed to his temple, just above his left ear, worn like a jewel.

He came over to us and enthusiastically hugged Bael. The two of them exchanged Trinn hand signals and each touched the other’s face. Bael explained our need for a refuge.

“Of course,” he said.  “I’ve just been having a stroll. I miss Trinn, and I like to spend as much time in this replica as I can. Come with me.”

He waved a hand and a door appeared before us. On the other side, a hallway led to a stair. Down the stair another passage led to a suite, with three sleeping rooms, a comfort room, and a washing room and a small kitchen.

“This should meet your needs, I hope.”

We agreed that it would.

“It is, of course, shielded and obfuscated in every way possible.” He showed us a back entrance that led to a small alley behind the house.

“Bring your companions in this way. It will be more discreet. And the alley is not monitored. I make sure of that.” Bael spoke with him for a moment. A sad look crossed his face, then he went up the stairs, with an assurance that we should let him know if we needed anything.

I took Bael aside. “He has no word of your father?”

“No,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

“Can you get the others?” I asked. “I want to keep the captain with me, and I think it’s time for me to talk with Elibel.”

“Yea. I won’t use the plant to talk unless absolutely necessary.”

“Understood. I’d guess that our channels are secure, but no use in taking chances.”

I cupped her cheek in my hand.

“Be careful,” I said. “We have no idea who knows what at this point, or how close the enforcers are.”

She took my face in her hand and kissed my cheek, and then she was gone.

“Elibel,” I said. “Let’s talk. What did you find?”

She had wearily sat in one of the big chairs. She’s been upping her adrenalin and pressing her reflexes, and it showed. She reached into her pouch and pulled out an old-fashioned book, Moby Dick. There were no notes, but words throughout were underlined, and many had numbers marked above them.

“I didn’t know what this was,” Elibel said, “but it looked important.”

“I don’t know, either. Maybe Kli….”

“It’s an ancient book code, a way of communicating secretly,” the Captain said. “Both people in the communication have the book, and one communicates the location of specific words to the other. A fast AI can break the code by analyzing the texts and editions of millions of books to find the right one, but that requires that a third party knows the code exists in the first place. That can be easily disguised. I’ll work with your Kli when he comes to see if we can figure this out.”

“What else, Elibel?’”

“I have a data dump that I can give you in a moment. There’s one other thing. When I was in Johnny’s back room, I found this.”

She pulled a small figure out of her bag. It was little doll, with drooping eyes and long ears. It was the same doll Enrique had been holding in his image. And it was exactly like the figure that Louis had put in the snow on Paradox, except that the chest featured a crescent, rather than a star. This was, Linda had said, a talisman of power among what she called the ringmasters. With all that had happened, I’d not found a chance to ask Louis what he was doing with one, or why he’d put it in the snow.

“Was there…?”

“Hare, they’re gone,” Bael said. “There’s no one here.”

Episode Fifty-Eight, in which Hare goes to Bael’s assistance and discovers that the Captain has untold secrets

“The flyers?” I asked.

“They’re still here. But they’re empty. No sign of struggle; they’re just floating here, empty. The Willi frame is gone as well.”

“Kral? Kli?”

Nothing.

“Get back here, Bael, now. Ship, what did you see?”

Silence at first, then, “Sorry, Hare, I’m still pulling myself together. Both Willi and Johnny took a lot out of me. I can bring a spacecraft into jump without a second thought, but running Willi and doing witchcraft on Johnny….”

“Ship….”

“Oh, yea. Let me review the visuals. Here, I’ll attach you.”

I could see the flyers, suspended as they were in the dark void behind the big image screens. But just barely, and only because I knew they were there. Kli had been sending out obfuscations, and he was good at it. I could make out Bael and me leaving with the Captain and Elibel, climbing down the screen frames. Then, not much as ship speeded the display. Ship pulled back the view, and I could see two enforcer flyers coming up near the screens.

There was a flash, then the visuals went white. Kli or the enforcers had upped the obfuscation.

“Any other spectra, Ship?”

“No, Hare. I can’t read anything. Infrared, even neutrino trace. Nothing.”

“I don’t think that’s Kli’s work; he doesn’t have the generators.”

“I’m broadening my look at the neighborhood. Maybe I can see something.”

“Bael?” I asked.

“I’m in the alley, Hare. I’ll be there in a moment.”

“Hare! In the alley. I can use a little help. Now.”

“Coming,”

“Elibel, stay here and watch these two. Captain, come with me.”

We were out the back door to find the alley quiet and empty. I ran for the nearest large street. Then I heard it, coming from the blackness of a small courtyard that led off the alley.

“You’re an off-worlder, aren’t you? You look Benzal….”

“No, she doesn’t. You can tell she’s Trinn. But she doesn’t look….”

“Be quiet, you two!” came a third voice in a loud whisper. “I think she must have some lucre or some passes or some credit slips or something. Who wants to check her out?”

They had surrounded her, four of them. She stood tall in the center, relaxed but wary. I would have wagered a Tyrillian grinich on her ability to handle them, but each held a large flashgun pointed at her, and one, the fellow who had demanded quiet, held a very nasty looking audio burner.

“I’m going to see if I can talk us out,” I said. “But if not, watch for my signal.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “Excuse me. We seem to have lost our way. Can you tell us…oh.”

The audio burner guy turned and looked at us. He was the largest of the four, with a scar that cut into his lower lip and pushed his mouth into a snarl. He cocked an eyebrow, brought the burner around to face us, and came toward us, moving with a limping swagger. His left eye moved up and down as he took us in, seemingly independent of the other.

“And who do we have here?” he said. He brought up the burner’s fat cold tip, and held it under my chin.

“We’re….”

“Let’s cut to the chase, Trieste,” he said. “You probably have not noticed, but we have a friend on that rooftop over there, with a pinpoint covering us all.”

I could see the dark figure now, crouched on the roof’s edge behind him.

“I don’t want to stay out here too long. Your host’s obfuscators covering this alley are good, but you never know who will happen along for a close-up view.”

“Who…?”

“Enough time for that later. I didn’t want to have to invade the Trinn house; it’s too well defended. I knew you’d come out if your friend here were in trouble. And so you did. Now we’re all going in together.”

“Do as he says?” Bael asked.

“I suppose so. We’ll just have to see what develops.”

The pinpoint shooter dropped from the roof to join us, a young woman clad in light armor. The man with the burner motioned us down the alley. I unlocked Kindness’s back gate, and we went inside. Our captor’s companions sped around us to fan out into the house, and before we’d reached the top of the stair, they’d reappeared. One held Kindness by the arm. Kindness looked startled but calm. We all funneled into the guest suite. Weapons were everywhere.

“As you requested, Captain,” the fellow with the burner said. His demeanor had changed. The limp was gone, as was the snarl. His stance was more erect, and his eyes seemed coldly clear.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the Captain said. “You always come through. I will take over now. Please sit down.” She gestured to us.

The door to the suite opened and a man and woman with weapons came in, followed by Basto, Rosalind, Kli, and Kral. Kral was carrying Johnny and Melissa, and the Willi frame. Two more of O’Flaherty’s men followed. She gestured for the newcomers to sit on nearby couches, while the guards arrayed themselves behind. Basto looked at me blankly; Kral seemed somewhere far away. The room was getting crowded.

She crossed the room to look at Johnny and Melissa. Both were bound; both were still out but seemed on the verge of coming around. O’Flaherty stood tall over the two slouching figures, her flimsy dress now worn and a little tattered. She rubbed her hand back across her shaved pate, and then put her finger to her mouth, as if in deep thought. She reached down and cupped her hand around Dermatt’s chin.

“Oh, Enrique, you look so peaceful and so handsome. I wanted to wait, but these people have forced my hand. I guess that’s for the best.” She dropped his head with such vigor that it nearly bounced against the wall. Then she stroked Melissa’s chin. “And my dear Melissa. I’ve been waiting to give you what you deserve.” She cuffed the side of Melissa’s head so that it bounced against Johnny’s. Then she turned to us.

“I have nothing against you and your people, Trieste. But you were taking too damned long, running around Forest battling enforcers. It became apparent to me that you all were in over your heads, so I called in some of my people. The Court of Chance, what’s left of it, has a lot of good people on Forest.”

“Plans?” Bael asked.

“None at this point. Let’s hear what she has to say.”

“Hare!” It was Ship. “Barnacles are attaching themselves to Largo’s hull. They’re not trying to get in, but they’ll be laying down a blanket soon. I’m trying to….”

Just then, Willi groaned. Her eyes fluttered open. Kral, who’d been holding the lifeless figure, put her gently on the couch.

“I’m glad you’ve rejoined us, Ship,” O’Flaherty said. “Have no fear. The Court of Chance has no designs on your Largo. But we want her immobilized and isolated until this little adventure is over.”

“What little adventure is that, exactly, Captain?” Bael asked.

The Captain walked over to a cupboard and picked up a bottle of pear brandy and a few glasses. She brought them to the low table in front of us. I poured a glass for Bael and one for myself. The Captain poured one for herself. No one else touched the bottle. O’Flaherty folded herself into a big chair.

“I could have killed this guy several times,” she said. “I’ve wondered if he half expected his Empress Emanuelle to try. But I wanted to wait. He and his people destroyed the Royal Court of Chance. For centuries, Chance had a mature, stable, and exciting culture. The whole planet was a garden filled with art, poetry, science, and the best technology. It was a wonderful place to be a part of, and to just be. Now the planet can barely feed its people, and chaos rules. The Court is scattered, its members in exile or dead.

“I know that Dermatt’s crowd has been destabilizing worlds across human space for some time now. But from what I can tell, they’ve been doing so for profit and power. On Chance, they did it for sport.

“So I could have killed this guy, but I didn’t. I needed to find out who he was working with. And I needed to find his relationship with Bresslaft. Yes, Bael, we know that your father is Bresslaft. But we’re still not sure about Bresslaft’s role in all this.

“But I want to know what you know about our Enrique. Tell me.” She sipped her brandy.

I gave her a summary of what the Schoolmaster and Linda had told us. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

“Do you know what he’s doing on Forest?”

“We think he has a hand in Melissa Bean’s fudge trade, but we also have word that he’s into something a lot bigger.”

“What?”

“We don’t know. Something dangerous and huge. That’s about it.”

“Hare,” Kli said, “there’s something I need to tell you about Johnny. I discovered it working for Linda. She’s been having me research her, but it turns out that I’ve been really researching Johnny. I….”

The room’s door opened with a bang. Two of the Captain’s men stumbled in, followed hard on their heels by a half-dozen heavily armed and armored fighters. These quickly spread into the room. One of them demanded that we surrender any weapons, and the rest prodded us with the tips of their flashguns. O’Flahery’s group slowly dropped their weapons. The rest of us had none, at least, none that we could produce and drop on the floor.

A large, heavyset woman appeared at the door. It was Linda Aphrodite Jones.

Episode Fifty-Nine, in which Linda shows her colors and Bael encounters yet another cousin 

She carried no weapon, but two of her black-clad fighters stood by her side.

“Hello, everyone,” she said. “Kindness, I apologize for coming into your home unbidden. I know what that means for a Trinn. But you may have forgotten, you gave me rights to your home a long time ago. What did you call it? Tandrydoon? Don’t worry; we won’t be here long.”

Kindness said nothing; he just sat there watching Linda. The old Trinn seemed bewildered by the successive invasions of his house. I guessed that he would have liked to be back in his simulation.

“And Empress. Or I guess I’d better call you Captain O’Flaherty, though I wonder if you’re really part of the Royal Court of Chance. So much lying these days.”

O’Flaherty also said nothing. I figured that she was having plant chatter with her crew; Linda did not seem to have blocked the plants. But to what effect, I could not tell.

“Dear Kli, please continue. I’m very interested in what you were about to say. Though I might have wished that you’d told me first. After all, I am paying you for this work. Come now, please go ahead.”

The fragen bared his teeth, moving his head back and forth so that his ear weights clicked as they hit each other. He looked around at all of us.

“Everywhere I turn,” he said finally, “I see new members to these families of yours. I had never thought you humans had a problem with losing your offspring, but you people certainly do. And Linda Aphrodite Jones, you certainly do have a problem. You should be glad you and your siblings don’t have more children, or pseudo-children. They certainly delight in trying to kill you.

“Elibel and Bael, meet your cousin. Or I guess maybe he’s your uncle. He’s resting right now, but when he awakes, I’m sure that he will be happy to meet you.”

“I knew it!” Linda cried. “I could see it in his face. He tried to kill me?”

“Not directly, but when your flyer went down in the waters off Government House, the thugs who got to you and sent you off in the flyer were Johnny’s people. His DNA was so close to yours, it let them figure out how to override the security ID and get him and his people inside. That’s how they got into your corner of Government House in the first place.”

“He’s a copy,” I said, “isn’t he?”

“Yea,” she said obviously excited, “though obviously he was modified. He doesn’t look like me at all.”

Everyone else was quiet. Both sets of guards, the Captain’s and Linda’s, were eyeing each other, watching for something coming from the other. Bael seemed bemused by her ever-growing family.

“How did you lose your copy?”

“She…,” Kli said.

“Go on, Kliostaff. You know more about this than I do.”

“She never knew for sure that Johnny existed. But she guessed that there might be a copy around; that was the only way anyone could figure that security had been breached at Government House. She didn’t tell me directly, but I soon figured out that she was looking for a copy.”

“How did you find out it’s it’s Johnny?”

“We could do a test now, if you like. But it’s not necessary. I traced him back to the time before he was Enrique Dermatt. Eventually I got to a research station on Olekin 4. That’s where he grew up. The station was run by a bio-for-hire outfit. That bunch still exists, by the way, and is controlled by Gregen Kappten. If you recall, Kappten is in thick with Melissa Bean.”

“So then…?”

“The records I’ve found show that Bean had a boy in that little school for girls she ran. Rosalind, do you remember him?”

“That was Johnny?” she exclaimed. “That kid was a silly little fool….”

“Sure, but he was your Johnny. Bean only had him for a little while. She tried to send him to Giorgio Sprocket—the Schoolmaster, you know him, I believe—but the Schoolmaster refused to take him. So he ended up with a group of traveling tutors in the employ of Gregen Kappten. Here is where it get’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“Johnny, Enrique—his name was Attempt 17 at that point—traveled across explored space for ten years. He was the tutors’ only pupil; Kappten put a lot of lucre into Johnny’s education. Some stays would be brief, a visit to some artifact, a historical marker, a famous building, a natural wonder. Other stays would be longer, maybe a whole cycle with a famous mathemagican. Once they spent a winter on Tyril, hunting tigers. Another time they had a long stay on Chis with the ant people. These were not the sort of tutors that you might find in the cloisters on University. They were tough, and mean, and smart. Johnny grew up tough and mean and smart. Then they went to Trinn, and all that changed.”

“Taes?”

“Not at first. Bael, you may remember Johnny as well. Your father took you to learn a bit from the well-dressed Master Smith, did he not?”

“Yea. But…you’re not talking about Foosta, the boy who worked for Smith? He was so quiet.”

“Quiet, yes, but focused on learning all that he could from Smith about the arts of persuasion and deception. He was doing just that; as I understand it, Bael, you were a just casual student, but Johnny was a fanatic. And then Taes learned about the boy. He dug around as I’ve been doing; fortunately, he left traces. Eventually he figured out that Johnny was being groomed to be not just one of Melissa’s minions, but an exceptional force in her array, and ultimately the assassin of Linda Aphrodite Jones. Taes knew Smith quite well, and worked to get closer to the boy. It was about that time that Johnny’s three tutors began to die.”

“Murdered? I asked.

“Of course.”

“So Taes became Johnny’s mentor?” Bael asked.

“By that point, no one was Johnny’s mentor. The boy was on his own. He and Taes became closer, though, more as allies in the belief that they were smarter than anyone else. You know about about the clone perspective problem?”

“Human copies tend toward madness,” the Captain said, a tinge of bored frustration in her voice, as though she were quoting from a datadump. “Even when they don’t know they’re copies, most of them exhibit a total lack of perspective as to who they are. They begin to get a sense that they are uniquely superior. They may be reared with a bend toward total humility, as with the koolas monks, but still that pervasive idea grows in their heads. Sometimes that sense of superiority can be controlled and contained as straightforward arrogance—not pleasant, but not especially harmful. But most times, they go mad.”

“Yea, thanks, and so….” Kli said.

“Why it happens, nobody’s been able to tell,” she continued. “Breeders have tried to get rid of the trait, but with no luck. For a while, it was theorized that gestation outside of the womb was the cause, but research on non-copy tank babies put that one to rest. Some theologians suggest that the copy babies are born without a spirit essence, what they call a soul. In the end, nobody knows. Is that correct?”

“Yea,” Kli said. “That’s why human copies are so rare. In Johnny’s case, his breeders had hoped to channel the problem into arrogance, which they thought they could control. But meeting Taes changed all that. And the problem with Johnny was that he is very smart, and his education has been superb.”

“We suspected that Johnny was a copy,” O’Flaherty said, taking a deep and deliberate sip of her brandy. “But we had no idea who the original was, and why. Kliostaff, have your investigations shown why Johnny’s people wanted to kill Linda?”

“No. They had already neutralized her in the skuffle with the Brec faction. A lot of people don’t like Linda, No offense, facilitator….”

“None taken. It’s certainly a fact. Go on.”

“There’s not too much more to say. Maybe they did it for sport.”

“Kli,” I said, “have you found out anything more about Taes, and what Breslaft has been up to, exactly? And Linda, I really need to know: Why did you burst in here, waving weapons?”

“Why do you think?” The voice came from behind me. It was Johnny. I sprang up, but one of Linda’s guards was already next to him. Johnny was still bound, spawled across a couch. He struggled to sit up.

“She wants my help, and unless I miss my guess, she’s willing to pay for it.”

“Help?”

“Our dear Facilitator wants to take back power on Forest. But she won’t be the Facilitator, she’ll create a new role for herself. I’ve heard it will be Provisional Coordinator for Consortium Stability, or something like that. But she’ll be in control, control like the consortium or any of the other entities have never seen. She’ll be willing to offer me a lot, and maybe she’ll even appeal to family loyalty. I know she’ll figure that she knows my weak points. She is a fool. Can somebody loosen these bonds a little? They are wicked tight.”

“Nobody touch him,” Linda said. “Well, Billy, or Enrique, or Rohit, or Johnny, or Barr of Picalle—you sure do love to change identities, don’t you, my little copy—I’d lost touch with you after Melissa brought you to me all those years ago. You were such a lovely little boy in those days, and our time together was too short. Yes, you are correct, I wanted to rescue him. But not to help me regain power. I want to help him.”

“Help me? That’s….”

“Yes, Johnny. I know a way to reverse what’s happening to you. I can….”

“Nothing’s happening to me. At least not if someone doesn’t loosen these damned bonds.”

The captain stood up, looked at Linda, then walked over to Johnny and tweaked the power levels on his constraints. Then she turned and raised her hand.

“Don’t try it,” Linda said, as O’Flaherty froze in mid-motion. “I know about that plant of yours. Johnny, you and I….”

With a flash, one wall of the room dissolved, and a rush of cold, wet, night air filled the room. The break was filled with more black-clad fighters, followed by three huge gold monkeys. The fighters all had big flashguns, and as they leapt into the room, they began firing. I fell behind one of the couches, and as I did, I could see that a flash burst had seared Bael’s side.

Episode Sixty, in which Kral makes scents and Johnny takes a powder 

I pulled her to the floor and behind the couch, though that would provide scant protection. I checked her wound. The flash burst had been narrow and would have gone deep, had it been a bit closer. But as it was, it had seared the skin along her waist. Linda’s people were shooting above us; I couldn’t see anyone else.

I knew that Bael was in pain; her plant would be creating blockers, and she was fading to unconsciousness. I pulled a heal-all from my pouch, drew back charred fabric from around the wound, and applied the heal-all. It morphed to take the shape of the burn and seemed to disappear in the burned skin.

Flash bursts were all around us. The couch to my front burst into flames. Then I smelled something. It wasn’t one smell, but a series of them, rapidly changing. Most of them were revolting, so powerfully affecting that I began to retch. My stomach felt as though it was about to come up my throat, and my eyes began to water. I didn’t have alternative air, so I blocked my reactions to the smells as well as I could. Even then, the nausea was overpowering. My whole face felt as though it was burning. I pulled Bael back from the burning couch, then peered around it.

The bursts had ceased. All of the fighters were in chaos, reeling from the nausea, their weapons forgotten. A few had some form of alternative air but hadn’t bothered to set it in place, and now they were having trouble activating it. Most stood doubled over, ready to vomit but unable to do so. The three giant monkeys stood in the middle, apparently unaffected by the onslaught, but not sure what to do. I saw Kral standing nearby, holding the lifeless Willi. Basto seemed unaffected; he’d grabbed one flashguns and was spinning around, looking for something to shoot. But there wasn’t anything.

“That’s you, Kral?”

“Yea.ButIcan’tgettherightmixforthemonkeys.”

“There may not be one. I think they’re organic simulations of some sort, shells for the walking sticks. Whatever the monkeys smell, the walking sticks are unaffected.”

“Here.”

The shroll tore a piece of fabric from Willi’s gown, wadded it and threw it to me.

“Holdthistoyourface.”

The cloth smelled heavily of old terrestrial flowers, lavendar at one moment, honeysuckle the next. It countered the other smells. I grabbed a flash from one of the Captain’s fighters. He was leaning on a wall, looking like he was about to collapse. Bael was as safe as she could be for the moment, and the burning couch had begun to extinguish itself. I sent a burst at the foot of one of the monkeys’ foot. The creature jumped, but remained standing. I kept sending out bursts as I moved closer, holding the cloth up to my face. The monkeys kept moving, seemingly dancing in a wild, leaping frolic, reflexively jumping with each burst.

As I got close, I pulled out my last sticky net. I’d used it on one monkey before; I hoped now that it would hold three. I threw the net and guided it down on their heads, and then contracted it around their necks. I had no idea whether or not monkey-form walking-stick surrogates actually had breathing tubes, or even lungs, though I figured that they did. All of Walking Stick’s monkey functions had apparently been operational. The net seemed to be slowing them down. I brought the flash to a narrow beam and proceeded to cut off their legs.

They didn’t seem to be feeling pain. The legs fell away, and the monkeys tumbled to the floor. I picked up one of the legs; it seemed to be an inert energy foam, lifeless now without the connection to the rest of the monkey simulation. Whatever blood had been released, it was rapidly evaporating. I tightened the net further, pulled out a knife and began to cut away the monkey fur. Inside was a small hard pod; I suspected that it contained one of our stick-thin friends. I looked for Basto; he was kneeling over Rosalind, holding one of Kral’s scented rags up to her face.

“Basto! Watch these little pod guys, will you?”

“Ship, where are you?”

“I receded, Hare, when the flaming started. Sorry, but Willi’s not a good avatar for fighting. I’ve been breaking the barnacles’ hold on Largo.”

“That’s all right; it was a good decision. We need to get Bael to a healer. Can you send down a lighter?”

“No need, cousin. I’m on my way.”

“Louis! Where in the name of Tio Burnside have you been?”

“Taking care of business, cousin. You been busy, mon?”

“You’ve been following?”

“Yea. Looks like it’s getting a wee crowded in there.”

“How soon can you be here?”

“I’m dropping over your location now. Getting inside won’t be a problem, of course.”

A small flyer I hadn’t seen before hovered outside the break in the wall. The lid raised and a grinning Louis leaped out.

“I need to talk with you, Louis. I have a lot of questions.”

“In good time, cousin. Where is Bael?”

I was reluctant to send her off with him alone. I checked on her. The heal-all had done its work; her breathing and heart rate were strong and regular. She wasn’t in shock, and the damage seemed limited.

“Kral, can you go with Louis and Bael?”

“Yea.KnowthatI’mdepleted.Allthesesmellsarehardwork.

“Butit’sagoodidea.Youneedtoconstrainpeoplehere.”

“I’m doing that now.” I made the rounds, giving sopors to the guards as Kral carried Bael to the flyer. The three of them disappeared, and I continued around the room. I saw Elibel lying on the floor, breathing through one of Kral’s rags. When I got to Linda, she was sitting on the floor, holding her stomach and gagging. I gave her a rag and put livewire around her ankles and wrists.

“I’m sorry, Linda. I really am. I feel like we’re almost family.”

She took a deep breath through the rag. Her voice was raspy, and she coughed as she spoke. “You’re a little presumptuous, aren’t you? Do you really think she’ll settle in with you, a disenfranchised wanderer? Damn, son, you don’t even have home status. Anywhere. I checked. How is she?”

“I think she’ll be all right. But I’m getting her to a healer. Are you in league with the monkeys? Is Johnny?”

“No for me. From what I can see, they’re evil and stupid. Not my general cohort, son. For Johnny, I can’t say. But Melissa’s most likely up to her neck in monkey scat, and I know that she and Johnny have worked together…where are they?”

I stood and whirled around. The couch where Johnny and Melissa had been sprawled was empty. And the frozen statue of Captain Flaherty was gone as well. Basto was still across the room, focused on the walking sticks. Everyone else was either knocked out or getting over Kral’s onslaught.

“Ship, your probes?”

“I made sure that both Johnny and Melissa would be saturated. Even if they discover my little friends, they won’t find all of them.”

“What do you see?”

“They’re on the street with the Captain, heading toward the water. It’s hard to tell who’s in charge.”

“Keep watching. They may be more valuable to us this way.”

I went over to Elibel. “Do you have the figure?”

Kral’s smells had mostly dissipated, and Elibel was gulping in air. She smiled weakly and pulled the little sculpture from a pouch.

“They took the fake, as you thought they would.”

“Yea, but I hadn’t planned on having them leave so soon. Let me see it.”

She held up the figure. It was heavy for what it was, like the one I’d found in the snow on Ginga. Something I hadn’t noticed before was a small hole in the back of the head. I had no idea what it was for.

“What do you have there?” Linda asked. “Is that a…? Where did you get it?”

“It’s Johnny’s,” I said. “And if you are closer to him than you let on, don’t bother trying to use your plant; that’s blocked.”

Kli sat up from where he’d been lying on the floor. “Merigana! That shroll is potent, if nothing else. I felt like I’d fallen into a pit full of, well, you don’t want to know.”

“Time to get back to work, my friend,” I said. “Johnny’s on the move, and we need data. I need a dump of what you discovered about Johnny; everything. And: What are the enforcers up to? Where are they concentrating? Does anyone have a scan on the flyers behind the screens? Probabilities of Johnny’s destination. More background on the monkeys. Whether or not Johnny’s disappearance brought Breslaft into view. How the monkeys found us. And you need to access Elibel’s….”

“Whoa,” he said, shakily getting to his feet. “That’s enough for now. Can I get some bug juice?”

“Of course.” The voice was small and a little shaky, coming from behind some of the furniture. ” I have been a bad host,” the old Trinn said, steadying himself against the back of the couch. “I think we all need a bit of a tonic.” He looked around, surveying the flash cuts, the burnt couch, and the prone fighters scattered around the room. Then I could hear him making for the front of his house.

“Kral,” I said. “Report?”

“Louishastakenustoahealernearthewater.

“She’swithBaelnow.”

“Hare,” Ship said. “I know where Johnny and the others are going. They’re heading directly for the place where Louis took Bael, and they’re closing fast.”

Episode Sixty-One, in which the Captain goes into the drink and Basto goes dark 

“Elibel, Rosalind, you’re coming with me. Elibel, start dumping data into Kli’s table, and into mine. Basto, stay here with Kli and watch everyone. Keep a special eye on the pods, and on Linda. Sorry, Linda, you are correct; we are not family, and I do not trust you. Kli, you know what you need to do. Any questions?”

“I’d rather…,” Rosalind said.

“I know, but I need you with me. You know more about Johnny and Melissa Bean than anyone here, and don’t forget; you’re in this for the lucre. Get ready to go.”

“Hare,” Kli said, “Bael and Kral are on the move.”

“IgrabbedBael.Weareonthestreetonfoot.”

“How is she? And where is Louis?”

“Patchedmostly.NoideaaboutLouis.”

“Coming to get you.”

I motioned Elibel and Rosalind though the break in the wall. We ran out into the night and up the alley and made for the screens. I could see that the flyers were still there.

“The flyers, Kli?”

“No sign of any locks, tracks, traces, sims. That’s not to say that there are none. If they exist, they’re good.”

We climbed to the larger of the two craft. No sign of enforcers or anyone else. I brought the flyer out from its hiding place and made for the shore, skimming just above the buildings. Dawn was coming, and Forest’s star was beginning to climb from the sea. The heavy gray clouds were showing outlines of pink, and a dash of orange had formed just above the water. It was quiet. In these moments before dawn, the city was remarkably free of the teeming throngs and the near-constant flyer traffic.

“Elibel, what do you think the figurines are? Are they just tokens on membership? Linda says that’s what they are, but I’m not sure that….”

“I know what they are,” Rosalind said.

“Yea?” We could see the coast, where the lights of the city stopped in a rough line. We were getting closer.

“It goes back to when Johnny was traveling with his tutors. They spent a cycle among the refugees on Banyan’s Hell, not long before they headed to Trinn. The tutors wanted to expose Johnny to the action gangs there.”

“Louis was there; so were we.”

“So was I,” she said. “Though I don’t recall you. I lied back there. I told you that Melissa introduced me to Johnny. It’s the story I’ve been telling; I almost believe it myself.”

“But…?”

“I actually met Johnny when we were much younger, on Banyan’s, well after I left Melissa’s school. She doesn’t know.”

“You were in with the action gangs?”

“Of course. They were the only game in town. We were….”

“Hold that thought. We’re over Bael and Kral. Ship?”

“I have them too. Johnny and Melissa are close. It looks like they’ve connected with a flyer and are lifting off. Move quick, Hare.”

I brought the flyer down to street level. Enhancements were no longer needed to make out the details of the street; I could see Kral in a dark doorway, holding Bael as if she were an injured fawn. She seemed barely conscious.

“Quick. Get in.”

Kral almost dragged Bael into the flyer. I brought the lid down as we were lifting.

“She’sallrightIthink.

“ThehealerwasalmostfinishedwhenIpulledheroutofthere.”

Keeping half an eye on the streetscape unfolding before us, I made a quick check on Bael. Her breathing and heart were both strong; the seared skin had been replaced. But she was definitely weak.

“How are you?”

“I’m all right, Hare. Louis’s healer was excellent, and Kral’s a wonderful nurse-protector. I just want to rest.”

“I was completely scared when I saw you. I thought they’d….”

“They didn’t, love. I’m going to rest now.”

Love. I pointed the flyer out across the flats.

“Hare. Johnny apparently has a lock on you, and he’s close, very close.”

“I see him.” The other flyer was fast. It was sending out flash bursts, though they could have been fired by a child; they were wild and wide, going off in all directions. I needed to get back to grab Linda, Kli, and Basto. But maybe this would be another opportunity. I headed to the water.

“Something weird is happening on Johnny’s flyer,” Ship said. “My probes show that Johnny’s adrenalin is high; his heart is pumping. Melissa seems to be unconscious.” I brought a magnification of the other flyer up in front of my left eye. As I watched, the flyer’s side vaporized. It began to move erratically.

A voice came on the comm. “This is Captain O’Flaherty. I have taken control of this craft, such as it is. We will ditch in the sea in fifteen seconds. Assistance requested.”

“Captain, are you on this channel?”

“Yea, Trieste.”

“I’m on top of you. I’ll fish you out as soon as you’re down.”

“Johnny’s mine.”

“Until we get this all straightened out, no. But later, you can have him, as long as I get a say in what happens to him afterwards.”

“A say, and nothing more. Agreed.”

It was pretty simple. She brought the flyer down, then canted it on its intact side, so it would float, but barely. We fished them out of the foundering craft. Bean was indeed unconscious, while Johnny was trussed and listless, as though drunk. Thick red welts ran along the side of his head. They looked painful.

“What happened back there?” I asked the Captain. I brought the flyer up and we headed for the Trinn’s house. “How did they get away?”

“Simple. One of the monkey crowd was on fast forward, and during the initial chaos dashed over to cut the constraints, both the cords and the power constraints. When the moment was right, Johnny grabbed me and we were out through the break.”

“This could be a set-up….”

“It’s not. I also waited until the moment was right. They were careless, relaxed my freeze. As I said, my plant is second to none.”

“Hare,” Kli said, “we’re under attack. I’m out of here.”

“Kli? Basto?”

“Sorry, Hare. No warning,” Ship said. “Two flyers suddenly moved into position over the house and have flooded the break.”

“What are you seeing?”

“They’re removing the pods now, and a few of the fighters. They have Linda. The others…they’re just burning…no sign of Kindness. I think Kli got away.”

“I did. I’m on the street, looking for a place to hide.”

“We’re on our way and tracking you.”

“Not for long. I’m about to obfuscate. I’ve got you. I’ll let you know when you’re close.”

“Basto?”

Nothing.

“The flyers are pulling away, Hare,” Ship said. “The house looks empty. I detect no residual tracking.”

We found Kli readily enough, or more accurately, he found us. We checked and double checked the Kindness house and saw nothing, so I dropped the flyer to the break. I told everyone to stay put, and the Captain and I went inside. It wasn’t pretty.

The room was littered with bodies, mostly the Captain’s and Linda’s people. Some had been burned; others had been hit with precision cuts. All were dead. A couple were the monkey’s fighters, but most of those were gone. As were the three pods and Linda.

“Linda, I know this is one of your channels. Can you connect?”

Silence.

The Captain moved slowly through the room, looking incongruous in the rumpled tatters of her dress. She stopped, and her tall frame folded beside on of the bodies. It was man with the burner.

“Oh, Lieutenant Gora,” she said. “Oh, Bory.” Her voice quavered. She took a medallion from around the man’s neck, paused for a moment, and kissed his forehead. Then she stood.

“Where is your Basto?” she asked.

We scanned the room and finally found him, lying beneath one of the Captain’s fighters, or what remained of her. His frame was inert, but mostly intact. A precision cut had disabled his processor, but I figured that he could be reconstituted…until I saw how the cut had severed one of the core nodes. His identity was intact but locked. It was true that an AI could be reconstituted, in the right lab with an ID imprint. We had neither. And the Rollot pattern I’d used back in the shed had meant that any ID imprint we could find wouldn’t match anyway. The shutdown lock only complicated matters.

“Kli, come in. I’m going to need your help.”

Kli appeared in the gap, bowled over by Rosalind, who pretty much leaped over him. She saw us and ran across the room, screaming. She fell on Basto, sobbing as she cradled his head, her thick gray hair falling across his shoulders. She knew enough about AIs to understand the trouble he was in.

“I think I can save him,” I said.

Episode Sixty-Two, in which Basto and Buttercup get melded and Rosalind tells of magic dolls 

“What’s all the fuss,” Kli said. “He’s an AI.”

“You know as well as anybody,” I said. “He was built for sensory-feedback-based decision making. With a visceral understanding of that feedback. For his kind of AI, he couldn’t help growing a deeper consciousness. When we added the Rollot pattern and what came after, we just accelerated that process. And she seems to think he’s more than an AI.”

Rosalind was oblivious to us, deep in her tears, caressing Basto’s lifeless frame.

“Unlike Buttercup,” I continued, pulling the little cube from my pouch. “The Model 4 was designed to do just the opposite, to process input according to a fixed and complex set of rules, with little feeling if any for the results of its actions. Buttercup was beginning to break out of that, building a new awareness, and I can’t help but think that it was moving toward deep consciousness. But for Buttercup, that episode is over.”

“Ah,” Kli said. “I begin to see what you’re up to. Use the Model 4 to unlock Basto’s ID. But that means that the Model 4….”

“Buttercup will survive,” I said, “but is going to have, what’s that strange archaic phrase? A steep learning curve.”

“An AI mind-meld,” Ship said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Do we have time?” O’Flaherty said. “We can’t stay here.”

“Do it.” Bael had come up behind me. She still looked tired, but the emptiness had begun to lift from her eyes. “Both of these AIs deserve it. Despite what I thought, neither had allowed themselves to become a robot. That’s worth a lot to me. You can do it now; I’ll help. Ship, we’ll need the Rollot again, but modulated by the Beelagen, with a few modifications. Can you manage that?”

“It will take a few minutes,” Ship said. “Ah, locking in with you now.”

“I’m not needed here,” the Captain said. “I want to make sure that those two are more secure than last time.” She gestured toward the break. Kral had just brought in Johnny and Melissa and had dumped them both on the floor. “And I’m wondering what happened to Kindness. He’s not among the bodies, and I don’t detect him in the house. I think I’ll take a look around.”

“What’s left of your network?” I asked.

“Surprisingly intact.”

“Compromised?”

“No. Your problems with Linda, the monkeys, or the enforcers have nothing to do with my people. My network is disciplined and incorruptible. We all are working toward a goal. Our devotion to that goal probably goes beyond what you can understand.”

“Try me….”

“We need Johnny’s memories in order to discover completely the process with which he destabilized Chance. Who did what, and how? Who was fooled; who was trapped into betrayal? What started the cascading collapse that destroyed the court? Only then can we begin to reverse the tragedy and restore the Court. And ohen we can begin to save Chance.”

“Well, if your network is intact, can you see what they know of Louis’s whereabouts? I’m beginning to get a little bothered by his disappearances.”

“I’m nearly ready,” Ship said. “Bael, I like your thinking on the Beelagen pattern. Yes, that’s what needs to…I’m almost finished…there.”

I took Buttercup’s cube and was about to open the BAS receptor in his finger. Bael’s hand closed over mine. She was close, and brought her eyes up to mine. “You’re good, my Hare, but I’m better. This is my primary training.”

I smiled at her. “And staff fighting and timely rescues and confidence games and magic tricks and finding clogged hydroponics pumps and creating jump traces and….”

She laughed. “I told you, my father believed in a well-rounded education. Now give me the cube.”

She moved fast. She set up a small virtual control and did some things to the cube I’d never seen before.

“Just stabilizing the patterns,” she said, as if reading my mind. “That little AI is in there, somewhere, buried in the data. I just hope it reconstitutes in the correct sequences. Otherwise…it won’t be set to unlock Basto’s ID. Or maybe I should start calling it “him.” He’s about to experience gender for the first time, and won’t get much of a chance at practice.” She nodded at Rosalind, who had sunk into one of the couches, her head in her hands.

“I treated him so badly,” she was saying to herself. “So bad.”

“Kli, looks like Bael can handle this herself. What were you able to find, before you had to move?”

“Not much, Hare. You saw where Johnny was headed. As far as the enforcers go, they’re on the move all over Forest, but not much more than usual, with no apparent action pattern. And there’s nothing on Bresslaft, except for some standard historical gossip. I think you’ve seen that. But I did find out where the answers may lie.”

“Yea?”

“I’ve seen another of those dolls.”

“Hare,” Bael said. “I need your help. We need to get Basto sitting up. I need to run some tests on him, and I want to look at his functions.”

We pushed aside one of the bodies and lifted the AI’s frame onto a couch. Bael set to work on him.

“Where did you see the doll?”

“Not a doll, exactly, but an image of one.” The image appeared before my eye, a woman I didn’t recognize, holding one of the little figures. She was in a room surrounded by artifacts.

“It comes from one of the shadow cultures, from a long time ago. This one was found in the ruins on Banyan’s Hell.”

“What’s its symbol?”

“It looks like a cracked eggshell, a half-circle with a serrated edge.”

“What’s the story?”

“These dolls are more than simple artifacts,” he said. “They appear to be remnants of a technology that is so foreign to us as to be invisible. I have no idea what they do, but it appears that a certain number of them is required in order to do anything.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Rosalind said. “Our action gang found a trove of them in the ruins of the golden palace on Banyan’s. We used to have big parties out there whenever we finished an action. One of our guys was digging to bury some swag and began to find boxes. They were old, made from some kind of wood and covered with carvings. Each box held a little doll. We started pulling them out of the boxes, and when we got eleven of them out, they started to glow and get hot. A creature began to materialize in front of us.

“It was small, maybe a meter high, with a big translucent head and long orange tentacles. And then in a flash, it disappeared. We put the dolls back in their boxes, and they stopped glowing. We tested all of them; they were nothing more than baked clay with a few trace elements. We brought them out a bunch more times in the days that followed. We tried various combinations. Most times, nothing happened.”

“Most times?”

“We thought at first that the dolls together were some sort of recorder, showing pictures from another time. But the last time we brought out all eleven and put them together in the same placement as the first time. The little guy with the tentacles reappeared with two other tentacle characters. This time the images stayed longer. Then, before we could do anything, the first guy reached out and grabbed Bobbie with one of those orange tentacles. It was stronger than it looked. Then all of them disappeared. We never put the dolls together again after that.”

“A hole and space/time?”

“Yea, that’s what we thought. But the energy needed for a hole like that would be huge; it just wasn’t there.”

“Who was Bobbie?”

“Just one of the guys in the action gang. He and I used to sleep together, but I never knew him all that well. Then he was gone.”

“So what happened?”

“There were twelve of us left, and eleven boxes. That was all we could find. Each of us kept one, except for the woman who was with Johnny at the time. She died a little while later, killed in a gang battle. And the tutors, of course. They just sat in the background anyway, watching Johnny. Individually, the dolls were useless, and apparently even in numbers less than eleven. Although once, mine glowed briefly, but only for a few seconds, then it stopped. We decided to use them as badges, symbols of our membership in the gang. It was silly, really, but I think each of us has held onto theirs.”

“Johnny was there? And Louis?”

“Yea. They worked together well, back in those days.”

“Curiouser and curiouser. I’d have thought you would try to sell them. I wonder if Johnny’s been trying to collect them. Do you have yours?”

“Sort of. When I met Johnny again, decided that I needed to ensure my safety. Call it instinct, but nobody trusts Johnny. I made sure that it was in a safe and reliable spot, a place even I would have difficulty discovering, with standing orders that it be destroyed if I die, or don’t check in. Johnny knows that, and he’s so far left me alone. As for selling, we all could never agree on that. So we never did.”

“Hare, we’re almost ready,” Bael said. “I need your help again.”

Ship was playing a pattern I’d not heard before. We had Basto’s frame stretched out on the couch. I manipulated the BAS receptor as Bael made a few final shifts with her virtual control. Finally we all stopped and waited.

Basto opened his eyes and lay there, very still. Then he screamed. “What have you done to me?”

Episode Sixty-Three, in which Basto and Buttercup come to terms with themself and Kindness goes off with the skaetto 

Bael make a quick move with her virtual control. Basto, or Buttercup, I suppose, froze.

“I’m bringing you in on this, Hare. If you see anything that needs to be done,…you were closer to Buttercup, in the end.”

“Understood.”

“Seventy-four, can you hear me?”

“Why do you call me seventy-four? My name is…. My name is….”

“That’s the style number of your frame. You don’t have a name now, seventy-four. You will need to choose one. You were two AIs, named Basto and Buttercup. You identity has been blended. What do you remember?”

“I remember…asking this idiot to reconstitute me. This wasn’t what I had in mind. Wait, I never asked….”

“Seventy-four, I strongly suggest that you relax your body. I have prevented you from making major movements, but you can still relax all of your muscles and relax your reactions. You will have a lot of memories. Many of them will seem new to you. You will also have thoughts that you, or at least part of you, would never have considered having. You will need to relearn a lot of things. Much of what you feel and sense will seem at the same time familiar and completely new.”

“What the…?”

“The main thing that I want to you to do is to focus on the future, what you need to become. You will have a lot of work to do, and right now, we don’t have a lot of time. Both of your components knew very much about discipline, and I want you to bring that ability into play here. For right now, I want you to go beyond your confusion and your discomfort. Don’t concentrate on your memories; you will have plenty of time for that later. Right now, we are in danger. We will need to move soon, and I need for you be ready for what’s next. You both know the Fremantle routine. You need to focus on that now.”

The AI was silent.

“I think he’ll be all right, Hare. He hasn’t shut down, and that’s a good sign.”

“This is strange,” the AI said. “Everything seems so much more…complicated…than it did before. I feel smarter, and yet not. I feel a whole range of sensations that are new and yet not new. I need some time.”

“Time is what we don’t have,” Bael said. “I can promise you, when we’re safe and we’ve resolved some of this, you’ll have time. But for now….”

I looked at Rosalind. She was watching for the Basto she knew. It was hard to tell what she was finding.

“I’ve found Kindness, Hare,” the Captain said. “You’d better come. Follow this signal, if you can.”

I told Bael where I was going and headed for the front of the house. The blast damage had been limited, and the front was just quietly deserted. The signal grew stronger, then died when I got to a large doorway. I opened the big, heavy door to find a broad savannah. To my left I saw a rocky cliff that led down to small waterfall and a fast-moving creek. Wide-leafed plants of black and purple lined the creek. In front of me, Kindness was naked, sitting on the edge of the cliff, staring down at the creek. His gray hair was wild, flying off in all directions. The receptor on his temple was gone, leaving a tiny purple gash. Those huge eyes looked far away. O’Flaherty was crouched next to him. Somewhere she’d found a pair of trousers. Her feet were bare, with her light dress jammed into the trouser waist.

“I can’t,” the old man was saying. “I can’t come back. Death follows me, and I’m thinking I should follow it as well. Death is an old friend, you know. She is quite a subtle companion.”

“I’m going to get Bael,” I said. It only took me a moment to figure out how to leave the simulation. I ran to the back to see seventy-four sitting up, with Bael standing next to him, and Rosalind holding his hand.

“Bael, I need you. Basto Buttercup seventy-four, you just sit here for a moment. We’ll be right back.” The AI remained motionless. I looked at Kral. The shroll nodded and moved back a little to keep the whole room in view. I caught a slight whiff of cut grass, violets, and tellafin musk.

I took Bael’s hand and we moved back through the house. “Kindness wants to die,” I said. We entered the simulation. One of the blue, spike-necked animals had come up and was nuzzling Kindness’s shoulder, cooing softly. A pack of what looked like meter-long black sausages was standing in the grass watching us, moving back and forth on flat golden pads. They made no noise, and I couldn’t see any eyes, but it was obvious that we—or Kindness—were the focus of their attention.

Bael moved softly over to Kindness and put her arm around his shoulder. I could see tears in her eyes. She said something, then there was silence. He continued to look down toward the creek. O’Flaherty stood and waited next to me, casually watching the black sausages. Finally, Kindness raised his head, put his hand on hers, and quietly said something to her. She tightened her hand around his and held it for a moment. Then he stood. I’d never seen a naked Trinn before. His body was essentially human, except for what seemed to be a second navel above the first, a couple of extra toes and fingers, and…a very odd stance. His frame was compact, lined with muscle and taut skin that showed the marks and scars of his years. What caught my eye was the odd structure of his musculature, in his legs especially. It was human, but human redesigned.

“Do not worry, my little Baelyae,” he said, taking both her hands. “It is time.” He touched her face. “I see your mother in you. Very much. She is alive in you, as I will be alive in my Frettalo. Your mother was…. When you find your father, give him three words for me.”

“Oh, Kindness….”

“The words are profile, burning, rivertree. He will know what they mean. And now, my graestaa, I must go.”

He put his arms around her and the two held each other in a long, deep embrace. Then he released her. Seemingly oblivious to the Captain and me, he turned and moved off silently, gracefully stepping through the grass. He went up to the sausages. They swarmed around him, making soft, high-pitched squeals. Followed by his swarm, he moved off toward a stand of trees.

“He taught me to swim, when I was little,” Bael said, watching him go. Her voice was husky and soft. “It was hard, because Trinn swim in their own way. All the others picked it up, but a Trinn-human body is different enough, and I couldn’t quite adapt. I was heartbroken. He showed me how.”

“What is going to happen to him?”

“Kindness has made the decision to die. He is resolute. On Trinn, if someone makes that decision, it usually does not change. The little skaetto will take care of him.”

“Take care of him?”

“Skaetto are the best way to die, even simulated skaetto.” She brushed a tear away from her eye. “Maybe I will see him again. I hope so. Come. We have much to do.”

We found our companions much as we had left them, except that Seventy-Four was standing, and Rosalind was kneading his shoulders.

“Do you see how good this feels?” he said to no one in particular, but I guessed that what was once Basto was talking with what was once Buttercup. I could imagine what fascinating conversations were going on inside that head.

“Hare,” Kli said, “I have something.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, I think I’ve found Bresslaft, twice.

“Twice?”

“I’m pretty sure I know where Bresslaft is, and what he’s up to. And I think I know where he was. Back when you, Ship, Rosalind, and Johnny were on Banyan’s Hell, he was, too.”

“Rosalind?” I said.

She stopped her shoulder kneading. We locked eyes. “I never saw him. At least if he looked like your duke or his brother. But there were a lot of people on Banyan’s, and a lot of coming and going.”

“Where is he?” I asked Kli. How do you know he was on Banyan’s? He and Johnny?”

“Yea. Him and Johnny….Take a look at this.” Kli brought up a sequence. I recognized the background. It was definitely Banyan’s, one of the gambling shops that filled the narrow streets around the port. The streets were packed, but I could readily see two men standing outside. The younger was angry, getting increasingly enraged as the two talked. The older seemed unfazed, dismissive.

“Genuine?”

“Seems so.’

“So the Duke knew Johnny before Trinn. And Taes?”

“Hare, I’m beginning to wonder if Taes ever really existed.”

“Of course he existed,” Bael said quickly. “I knew him on Trinn. He was apparently my father. How could he not exist?”

“Just because he’s your father,” Kli responded, “doesn’t mean that he necessarily exists. From what I’ve been able to pull together, and the patterns I’ve created, I’m beginning to think that Rosalind’s boy Bobbie wasn’t the only human to go through one of those gates on Banyan’s Hell.”

“The Duke?” I asked.

Episode Sixty Four, in which Taes becomes a ghost and an old friend comes calling 

“Wait,” Bael said. ” My dolls. Maybe they’ve been going after Largo because they’ve been looking for my dolls.”

“What dolls? Like these?”

“No, not like these at all. Mine are much more beautiful, perfectly crafted. With little dresses. But I have a set of ten of them. My father brought them back from one of his trips. Maybe he was coming from Banyan’s. I was way too old to play with dolls the way a child would, but I loved them. They were so beautiful. He told me that they were very valuable, and that I should keep them forever, and never break up the set.”

“Only ten,” I said. “So if they follow the same pattern, number eleven is out there somewhere. Ship, are you getting this?”

“Yea, Hare. I’m thinking at it would be prudent to move Largo as soon as I get rid of these barnacles. I’m almost finished with that.”

“Think about bringing her out of orbit. We will look for a place to hide her down here. Let me know when the barnacles are gone. Kli, you said that Taes might not exist. What do you mean?”

Kli was sprawled on of the couches. He paused, probably disengaging from whatever nets, webs, and data mazes he was running in. He shook his head, and the gem-encrusted weights that hung from his ears swung back and forth. He looked up at us, then sent forth a deep, melodious sigh.

“I’ve been thinking about patterns,” he said, “ranging through available data, not really looking for anything in particular. I was looking at travel records, comings and goings from Banyan’s Hell. This place is awash with loose data.” He paused again.

“And?”

“The Duke traveled a lot. But he made a large number of trips to Banyan’s, over many years. Johnny was only there when Rosalind said he was, the same time when Ship and Hare were. But the Duke was there a lot. And can you guess who was there at the same times?”

“Kli….” I said.

“Oh, all right. It was Melissa Bean. I figured at first that they were having trysts. And the Duke did keep a little house in one of the better neighborhoods in the main settlement on Banyan’s.”

I looked at Bael. She has gone stony-faced again. She was watching Kli. I touched her hand, but she pulled it back.

“But Banyan’s Hell wasn’t the sort of place I would choose for sweet coupling, and I doubt humans would either. So I thought maybe something else was going on. I looked a little deeper and remembered that before she was a power broker on Nova, Bean was a teacher.”

“We know,” I said. “Both Bael and Melissa….”

“But before that,” he continued, “did you know that she was a scholar of history? And did you know that Nova has the most extensive collection of old-culture artifacts and data in human space?”

“Go on.”

“Bean did her main research work on Banyan’s Hell. I think she knows what those dolls are.”

“But what about Taes?”

“I’m coming to that. There are records—they’re disparate, scattered across worlds and times—that suggest the possibility of shadow creatures. They’re not clones, they’re more like, what do you call them, ghosts. But they’re ghosts of living creatures.”

“You mean that I’m the daughter of a ghost?” Bael said.

“That’s where I’m confused. If Taes is what I think he is, he could never have fathered you.”

“Our only source for the Taes-as-father story is Linda,” I said. “I wonder what from her can be believed at this point. But why do you think that Taes is one of the ghosts?”

“I cross-checked the living-ghost sitings with the presence of old-culture ruins, specifically ruins with the same traits as those those found on Banyan’s Hell. Of the 23 sitings I could find, 19 were on worlds that held those ruins. The ghosts have to be connected to that culture. But then I found a rare account—it had been a scribed pape document, one that apparently is still stored in a small vault in the Cremena at Roquelle. A few copies of those have been made, and one of those is in a little database on Bur….”

“Kli, what did it say?”

“Look at this. Here is the Duke. You can see his vital rhythms, and you can clock his movements in this motion sequence here. Now here is a bit of a similar Taes sequence.

“That’s….” Bael said slowly.

“Yea, I had to go into your data store on Largo. Sorry.”

Bael looked at him. Her muscles were tense, like those of a braennta ready to pounce.”

“Kli,” I said.

“Listen to me, my human friends—no offense meant, Bael—we have things to do. And you want to get all this sorted out. So data are meant to be free. You humans can never really understand that. At least most of you. Do you want to figure out what’s going on?”

“Bael?”

“It’s all right.”

I nodded to Kli.

“The vital rythms are nearly identical, which is expectable in a clone, at least in most cases. But the two motion sequences show a pattern, a footprint if you will, with a deviation predicted by the Roquelle pape. The pape was written a long time ago by a monk who apparently was fascinated by the living ghosts. She figured out this deviation as a way of detecting them. Taes is not a clone; Taes is a ghost.”

“So what does that tell us?”

“Scentsapproachinginalley,” Kral said. “TheysmelllikeLinda’speople.”

We would have gone into some kind of defense mode, but their sensors had most likely already registered us. So we all stayed where we were. It seemed best to let them catch us apparently unawares.

I could soon see that catching us was the furthest thing from their minds. Three men and a woman stumbled through the hole in the back wall. They all looked like they’d been through battle. Their faces were scarred and smudged. Their clothes were filthy, and the parts that weren’t armored had been were torn away. They all carried obvious weapons, but when they saw us, they discarded the weapons and collapsed on couches.

We said nothing, just stood there watching the newcomers. Finally, one of them spoke. He was a giant, well over two meters high, a huge bundle of bruised sinew. He raised a big, curly head and said. “We need water, and something stronger.”

Bael brought them a big flask of water, then motioned toward the bar.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I know who they are.” It was Basto’s frame, though from the tone, I figured that it was some vestige of Buttercup talking. The AI struggled to stand erect. “They’re killers. They were at Magda Singha.”

“We’re not killers,” the giant said wearily. “We were at Magda Singha, but….”

“That’s not what….”

“Seventy-Four,” I said, “can you hold off on this for a while?” I turned to the giant. “Again. Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

“When Linda was here before, we were the back-up. We stayed outside. When Bresslaft’s people came and took Linda and the chimp frames, we obfuscated the best we could and hid in the alley. When they left, we gave chase.”

“Bresslaft? He was behind this?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He stood. I could feel Bael and the Captain tense. But he only walked to the bar. He picked up a bottle of Kindness’s vintage Treg, scooped up a handful of glasses, and took both back to the couch. He poured out drinks for his companions, downed his, and poured another.

“You know,” he said, “you all probably shouldn’t be here. I can see that you’ve broken the probes that the Bresslaft crew left behind, but they’re still looking for Johnny and Melissa, and they’ll think to check back here soon.”

“Ship, what’s your progress?”

“Barnacles eliminated, heading your way. I’m thinking that I pick you all up and we swing out to one of the small coastal towns on the other side of this continent. I think we can hide Largo there. Agreed?”

I looked at Bael. She nodded.

“Yea, Ship. We’ll be ready.”

“I take it that your chase didn’t prove fruitful,” I said.

“Yea,” the giant said. “We got into a streetfight, but then they brought in flyers and were gone.”

I asked the giant about Bresslaft. They knew nothing, except that the invasion had had the hallmarks of a Bresslaft operation. They didn’t have any idea where the crew had gone.

“I have a lift at the break in Kindness’s wall,” Ship said, “I don’t want to stay here too long.”

“We’re clearing out,” I said. “You all had better move as well.”

“Johnny…?”

“Johnny’s coming with us.”

“So am I, Hare.”

It was the woman.

“Can’t you tell who I am?”

Suddenly, through all the grime, I saw her, as if for the first time. “Nancy?”

“Yea, no thanks to you.”

Episode Sixty-Five, in which Hare asks a few questions and the Captain plays her trump card 

“Nancy?” Ship said. “It can’t be Nancy. We saw her die.”

“You’re dead,” I said.

“Apparently not.”

“But we watched you…I checked your body. You were gone.”

“It’s a long story,” she said. She stetched out her leg, broke a couple of seals, and pulled up a trouser leg. At first glance, the skin looked normal enough. But I’d seen this before. Her leg was a very good replacement.

“How much?”

“About seventy percent. Both legs, half my side. Not my head, though, thankfully.”

Her face hadn’t changed, not much at least. Heart shaped and light brown, with a thin nose, lively blue eyes, and a frame of short blonde hair.

“Who…?”

“You said we need to move,” she said. “We can discuss this later.”

I hesitated, then I said, “All right. Leave your weapon. And we’ll be blocking your plant.”

She stood, touched each of her companions softly, slung a small bag on her shoulder, and nodded, ready to go.

Ship’s lift was a loose soft tube that hung down from Largo’s belly. We went up, one by one, with Kral last, holding Johnny and Meissa above. When we were all aboard, Bael and I ushered everyone into the salon. Nancy moved with an odd gait, but there was nothing to show that she was mostly replacements. I noticed Basto. I increasingly saw him more as Basto with enhancements than an amalgamation of two AIs, but that may have been because I was seeing Basto’s body, not Buttercup’s frame. Basto looked the most confused. Rosalind held his hand as they came into the salon; it was impossible to tell what that meant to Basto. Nancy dropped to one of the couches, and looked as though she was about to sleep. The Captain stood near the hatch, taking it all in with a practiced eye. I brought in some refreshments, including the last of Largo’s bug juice for Kli.

“How soon to the far coast, Ship?”

“Obfuscating the best I can and taking a few detours, maybe twenty minutes.”

“Thanks. Let Bael, Kral, and me know when you’re close.”

The whole crew was mostly seated, or in the case of Johnny and Melissa, slouched, around the salon. Elibel and Kli were talking. He was showing her something on a data projection; what, I didn’t know. Kral stood off to the side, next to the billiard table.

“I think it’s time to revive Johnny and Melissa,” I said. “Kral, I’ll ask you to do that, but please keep them muzzled and secured. And keep them blinded.”

The two captives began to stir. The captain moved closer, but not too close, perched on the arm of a chair.

“Welcome back,” I said. “If you’re sufficiently revived to understand what I’m saying, please nod.”

After a moment’s hesitation, both nodded. Their plants should have been blocked, but I’ve never trusted that tech. I just hoped it was true. In any event, a residual sedative would keep them both a little slow and disoriented.

“Do you understand that you are in danger? And that there will be no opportunity to escape again?”

Both dutifully nodded.

“Excellent. I have a few questions.”

I paused. “At this point,” I said to Ship, Bael, and Kral, “they have no idea whether or not they’re alone or together. Let’s see if I can make any use of that, at least as long as they’re in the dark.”

I walked over to the captives and put a hand on each shoulder. “I want to get a little background,” I said. “And I want to know the truth. Lying will not help you. Do you know where Bresslaft is?”

Both shook their heads.

“You are certain? As I said, I do not appreciate lies.” They shook their heads again. I pressed my hands down on their shoulders, hard. Not enough to hurt much, but enough to emphasize the vulnerability of their position.

“Do you know who Bresslaft is?”

Both nodded.

“Are you working with Bresslaft?”

Both hesitated, then shook their heads.

“He appears to be telling the truth,” Bael said. “From her vitals and her reflex patterns, I can say that she isn’t.”

“I told you I don’t like lies,” I said. “Whatever happens, I’ll tell you now that you both are finished, at least in the consortium, and probably elsewhere. So let’s make this as easy as possible. Are you working with Bresslaft?”

He shook his head again, and spat. This time Melissa nodded, but there was something else in the motion. What, I couldn’t tell.

“Is Bresslaft part of the fudge trade?”

Johnny didn’t move, while Melissa slowly nodded.

“Is there a plot in the works to destabilize Forest?”

Neither moved.

“Come on. I know there is. I just want your confirmation.”

“Hare, I know what you’re trying to do, but for all the things you are, you’re not an interrogator. Your way, this will take forever.” It was the Captain.

“O’Flaherty….”

“Trust me, Trieste. I’ll get us what both of us need.”

She was already close to Johnny. She moved over to him quickly, forcefully. She cut Melissa’a audio, then she paused. She stood there for a moment, idly stroking the little ridge that ran across her forehead. Then she quickly pulled back his hood, cleared his blinder and his muzzle. She slapped him, once, and again, and then a third time.

“Hello, Johnny,” she said, and slapped him again. “Or is it Billy? That’s always been your favorite name, Billy, I think. Billy, I have to tell you: you’re stuck in a slimy, ice-cold load of giant crin-worm secretions.”

Johnny put his head back and shouted, “You are in so much trouble. You have no idea. I’m going….”

“You’ll do nothing, Billy,” she said, and slapped him again. “We’re only in trouble if your people find us, and this time nobody’s going to find us. Not until we’re ready to be found.”

“I won’t tell you anything.”

She bent over him, bunched up his collar in her hand, and looked him in the eye. “Of course you’re not. What you say now has nothing to do with me. You’re coming on a little voyage, and then we’ll see what you say and what you don’t. But before that, Melissa here will tell these good people what they need to know. You’ll just sit and listen.”

He was quiet. The Captain stepped over to Melissa and contemplated her captive.

“We’re almost ready to put down, Hare.”

“Where?”

“We’ll be hiding in plain sight.”

I hooked into Largo’s forward visuals. Below us was desert; the sea was about 40 kilometers away. Spreading out ahead across the desert floor was a city of derelict spaceships, tenders, cargo flyers, ancient pleasure craft, a few water vessels, and a number of hulks the point of which I couldn’t tell. It was a city of technological ghosts. Off to the left was a small town, a few trees, a few houses. A ridge of gray rock rose behind the town. Ship had maneuvered us to a spot above a row of Manta Rays and was deftly settling Largo between two of them.

“Now if only I can find that dead-ship transponder,” she said. “Ah, there it is. Sometimes it pays to be a collector.”

“Packrat,” Bael said.

“That too.”

Finally O’Flaherty snapped out of her reverie and pulled back Melissa’s hood.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mizz Bean.”

“The way you said that….”

“Yea, Mizz Bean, it’s me, little Mani. Too many well-placed families sent their daughters off to your school, and mine was unfortunately one of them. At least until I told them a few things. You remember how I disappeared that winter, don’t you. Damn, how I hated you and your school.”

“I….”

“But enough of old times. I will cut to the chase, as my third grandmother used to say. I have Yattea.”

“What…?”

“Oh not here, of course. But safe, in a good place. I can assure you, by my honor, that she is not being hurt and will never be hurt. She is being cared for by three sweet, tough old witches who wouldn’t let me harm her even if I wanted to. I understand that she is having fun, and thinks that you’ve been called away on business. That’s a pretty familiar scenario, is it not, you being away on business?”

“What…?”

“Of course, there’s a good possibility that you’ll never see her again, but we’ll have to work on that.”

“What…?”

“You’re getting a little repetitious, aren’t you? I’d guess that you want to know what I want out of you. Or maybe you want to know what proof I have that I have Yattea. Or maybe both. Well, look at this.”

An image appeared before us, a girl running in a field. She was an adolescent, athough it was hard to tell her actual age. She ran toward us, laughing. She was tall, lovely, coltish, and evidently very happy. Then I could see it. Her hair was longer, and more brown than jet black. And her skin, while tanned, was definitely lighter. But her face was so similar, down to the huge green eyes….

“Bael,” the Captain said, “from what I’ve seen, you’re probably a little tired of discovering unknown relatives. But I have one more for you. This is Yattea. She’s your sister.”

Episode Sixty-Six, in which Ship rides a wave and Bean spills a little more…beans

Bael looked up, her eyes strangely empty. I could see that she had grabbed the image and was watching it, apparently over and over. Elibel looked up as well, her conversation with Kli forgotten, curious about this new cousin.

“My mother?” Bael said, finally.

“No,” O’Flaherty said. “Your father. And our friend Melissa Bean here. She’s Yattea’s mother, if that’s what you can call it. Fortunately she hasn’t had too much of a role in the girl’s upbringing. Our dear Melissa abandoned her fascination with manipulating young girls some time ago, going more into power plays and adventures in alien archaeology. But it seems that Melissa still has a yearning for the girl, from somewhere in that twisted little head.”

Bael stood, walked to the bar, and poured two glasses of Berestian brandy. She handed me one and perched herself on the edge of the couch, sipping the soft golden fluid.

“I’m a little confused,” she said finally. “There are a lot of loose threads in this fabric, and I would love to have someone maybe tie them up a little. I have so many questions running around in my head. Is Taes my father? Is Taes a ghost? Is the Duke Bresslaft? Are my father, um, the Duke, and Melissa Bean lovers? Did the Duke go into some other dimension or time-line or universe or whatever you want to call it? What’s Johnny’s role in all this? Is he going to destabilize Forest and the consortium? How does the fudge trade play into all that? And what about that damned monkey? And my aunt Linda? Too many questions.”

“I can…,” Kli said.

“I suppose I should say something,” Melissa Bean said. Then she paused. We all looked over at her. She was seated in the big, ancient, overstuffed chair that Ship and I had salvaged from a deserted farmstead on Korill’s Paradise a long time ago. The chair swallowed her, but with its size and age it also gave her a bit of authority, like a queen on a massive throne from an old pre-encounter romance. She moved with a slow, regal grace, despite the restrictions of her constraints, or maybe because of them.

“You all are fools,” she said, finally. “Events have been set in place now that none of us can control. From what I’ve seen, you are doing nothing but nibbling around the edges. If I were to die tomorrow, that would not affect what has begun to happen. What has begun to happen is irreversible.” She glanced at Johnny. “As for this fellow, he was useful, but he is inconsequential. As is that walking stick you call, most inaccurately, a monkey.”

“Melissa,…” the Captain said.

“You never could mind,” Bean said. “It was best that you left. If I am to tell this story, you need to let me do so. We do not have much time. This ship will be destroyed when the invasion wave hits.”

“What invasion wave?” I said.

“Ship? Kli?”

“We’re looking.” Ship said.

“Look for anything, anything irregular.”

“I assume you are communicating among yourselves,” Bean said. “It does not matter. That’s a futile gesture. You cannot stop what is about to happen.”

“Well,” I said, “I suppose you’d better tell us what you’re going to tell us.”

“I would like to have these constraints….”

“Unfortunately not, Melissa,” the Captain said. “You’d better just continue.”

“Taes was an experiment, nothing more. He has ceased to exist, at least to the extent that he ever existed in the first place. He was not your father,” she said to Bael. “But neither was the Duke, strictly speaking. You and my Yattea are the first in a series of experiments, the first successful products. You are first of a new generation.”

“What are you saying?” Bael said. She stood, her huge eyes focused on Bean. Bael had become restless, not nervous, just coiled and tense, like a cat ready to pounce.  I’d seen her like that before. She moved to the bar and leaned on one of the stools.

“You know about the gates, I’m guessing,” Bean said. “The power of the gates is unimaginable. But it’s what’s on the other side that makes them so valuable, and so dangerous.”

She paused. Bael moved in a little closer, hand on the back of the chair where Nancy had fallen asleep.

“Well?” I said.

“I’ve begun to rethink,” Bean replied, “whether or not you should hear this. I think that….”

“Yattea…,” the Captain said. She was watching Bean closely, and given the evident sophistication of her plant, she was probably watching her in ways I could only imagine. She ran her hand back across her elegant shaved skull.

“I’ve been thinking about that, Mani,” Bean said. “You yourself said that your three old witches won’t let you hurt her. I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s time to cut her free. She needs new things in her life. I’ll miss her of course, but I have ways. Maybe I can find her, when the time is right. So it looks as though your bit of leverage is gone. It’s your move.”

“You underestimate me,” O’Flaherty said. “That’s a dangerous thing to do. She crossed the room and stood facing Bean. “I said that….”

“Hare, Bael, I see it,” Kli said.

“An ‘invasion wave?’”

“A neutralization wave. Just appeared from nowhere and is heading this way. It will hit Forest in seventeen minutes, give or take a few sec….”

“That’s impossible. Neutralization waves don’t just come out of nowhere. The amount of energy required….”

“Hare,” Bael said.

“Oh yea. Ship, can we outrun…?”

“Maybe, if I can jump at least thirty seconds before the wave hits. But we can’t stay here, no shelter. I’m lifting now.”

“Captain,” I said. I brought her onto the channel and explained the situation.

Bean had been watching us. “The wave is coming,” she said. “You won’t outrun it, you know.”

“Muzzle her,” I said. “And Johnny.”

“Looks like a lot of folks are trying to get away,” Ship said, finally. She brought up a view of the surrounding sky, and the air was filled with ships of all sizes and shapes, from interstellar freighters to tiny flyers for hire.

“What will happen to them all?” It was Nancy, awake now, and standing next to me. “It’s a neutrali…?”

“Yea,” I said. “Those who can jump well ahead of the wave will be all right. Anybody in those little flyers is lost. They’d have been safer if they’d stayed on the ground. If you can find strong shelter, you have a fair chance of weathering the wave. Forest’s infrastructure won’t be destroyed. But it will be heavily damaged, and many who can’t—or don’t—find shelter will die.”

“Why?”

“Why will they die?”

“Why? Who’s doing this?”

“I’m not sure, but she knows,” I said, gesturing to a smiling Bean. “Forest will lose its place as the center of the consortium, and that’s bound to cause huge ripples across a thousand worlds. I think that’s what they’re after, more instability, more opportunities. Ship? How close are we to a valid jump point?”

“Three minutes twenty-four seconds.”

“And the wave, Kli?”

“Two minutes, forty-five.”

“Close,” the Captain said, calmly.

I felt an arm in mine, and looked into Bael’s eyes. I grinned, and she gently touched my face.

“Thirty-seven seconds,” Kli said. “Then we’ll begin feeling the front of the wave.”

“Jumping,” Ship said, betraying little if any excitement, as though she did this every day. Largo’s fields masked the effects of the jump, but even then, I could feel that this was no ordinary jump. Something was being stretched.

It was late, deep into Largo’s night and Ship’s refresh cycle. We’d adapted a pair of small chambers off Largo’s cargo hold into cells. They’d been used that way before, and they were being used that way again, with Johnny and Melissa in one each. Ship had poured a good amount of power into erecting and reinforcing the blocking screens around each cell; I hoped they would hold.

The rest of us had all sat down to a big meal; I’d contributed my chocolate soup, and everyone ate well and seemed glad to be off Forest. All of Largo’s sleeping rooms had been filled; I figured I would just sleep in the salon. Kral was back in hibernation, and Kli was off in a corner, trying to establish a link with a network that could connect him with his family on Ginga.

Now I sat at the bar, wondering if she’d come. She’d gone off after dinner, and I figured she was sleeping. So I sat there, thinking about everything. I was just about to go into the little library, to maybe doze off in a big chair in front of a fire, when I heard her enter the salon. I stood, and she flew into my arms. We stood that way for a long time.

“I keep thinking of everyone on Forest,” she said quietly. “How many died? And Linda? Where is she? And who, or what, am I?”

“A lot of people would have known to find shelter, and that would have improved their odds greatly. A wave like that is powerful, but spread so far, it’s diffuse; it’s not unbeatable. As for Linda, she’s a survivor. We’ll see her again, I think.”

“Should we go back and help?”

“No. Forest of all places will have the resources for this. And we have things to do.”

“I tried to sleep, and finally I ended up watching something from Ship’s flat screen collection. It was about a man who owns a bar during a war on old Earth. It’s a big, colorful place, full of people fleeing the war. A woman appears with her man. They’re both fleeing the villains. The bar owner hates the woman, because she’d left him long before, but she needs his help in getting away from the villains.”

“Was it good?”

“Yes. But the ending seemed odd. The three of them are at an airfield, in a fog, and the flyer is about to leave, and the bar owner gives a speech about a hill of beans, and it seems like the woman is about to leave with her man. But then she doesn’t, and the man flies off by himself.”

“Bael!” It was Ship.

“Honey, I don’t normally listen in on you two—really I do not. But I was worried about you. That’s not that way that movie ends. Someone has altered my copy, and I think I know why. I think there’s a message hidden in there, somewhere. And if I had to guess, I’d guess it’s from your father.”

End of Part Four

To Be Continued in Part Five, “Into the Heat of Banyan’s Hell.”