“By now, Barnes and that cat sapp might have constructed some kind of viable narrative exonerating Qaderi. We have to keep them from peddling it to Sensorium.”
“Do you know how the Kinze did it—set him up?” Champ asked primarily as a delaying tactic; he found himself reluctant to receive the actual kill order.
Misfortune raised a brow. “Know what a paper town is?”
Champ shook his head.
“Back in the days of offline help apps, cartographers occasionally put false towns on their hardcopies of maps. The idea was that if someone stole their map design—copied and sold it—the IP case would have proof of theft. The symbol for Dhurma’s Constant is like that. All the budding anyspace physicists got a nudge or two, something that ensured they’d be likely to use Kinze iconography and derivation techniques to arrive at key anyspace concepts.”
“Simple as that? You tricked the physicist into reaching for the palm tree glyph.”
“Upton says there was a bit more to it. Subliminal prompts, via augmented reality? But once the Solakinder started to produce anyspace theoreticians, Qaderi was an obvious target for suggestion. It was easier work than modifying you.”
She raised a hand, as if to hit his berserker button. Champ felt a surge of hot, bubbling lust at the thought of hammering the old woman’s face into apple crumble.
“The Kinze should lob a missile into Sneezy and be done with it,” he said.
“Someone would catch them at it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow.” She cupped his face, expression almost tender. “The Kinze have to think about evidence control on a millennial scale. I gather they’re paying, even now, for something they did four thousand years ago.”
“They got sued?”
“It’s a sensitive topic. But imagine the compound interest on four millennia of reparations.”
“No wonder they’re desperate to sell Earth to the highest bidder.”
“The upshot is that we @Visionaries have to clean up our own mess. The All are unwilling to be on the hook for damages incurred in the Foreclosure.”
“They shouldn’t have had me put Scrap on Sneezy.”
“We promised them we had the situation in hand. Barnes outplayed us. No help for that.”
Champ tilted his head, extricating his face from her grip. “One way or another, the Kinze want to be sure we’re the ones blamed if anyone gets their hand caught in the cookie jar. Someone’s sure to figure it out, sooner or later—”
“Later’s fine. I’ve opted out of any further life extension. When all this”—Misfortune indicated her body—“goes, I go with it.”
“Nice that you got an out.” Champ meant to keep his voice light, but there was a rasp there. Ever since he’d started pummeling people to death, he’d sounded wrong to himself, more guttural, as if there was something physically caught in his throat. He kept imagining using a needle to make a pinhole under his trachea, trying to let out whatever had been put inside him.
Hadn’t done it, of course. But the thought of a needle, steel-smooth, the length of his whole hand …
He focused on convincing himself that once Frankie was dead, they’d be satisfied. Upton could take out the kill switch.
“Wealth, power, digital imMortality, Champ. Do this and all your wishes come true.”
Champ asked, “What’s the plan?”
“We’ve got our hands on the Sneezy escape pod, the one that brought you back.”
“You stole the Booger?”
“Fair play, considering that Barnes stole Jalopy. The Kinze will slip inside the noninterference zone and fire the pod at the station. Sneezy can’t refuse a boarding request from its own emergency equipment. It’s a perfect Trojan horse.”
“Perfect,” Champ echoed.
“Use it to get aboard and clear all personnel. That means kill everyone, get it?”
“Except Scrap, I assume.”
“Including Scrap, if he hasn’t done himself already.”
He felt his jaw hanging. “Seriously?”
“Herringbo was very clear. Whenever one of them gets cut off from the herd, it apparently gets radical ideas.”
Why this should strike him as especially cold-blooded, Champ didn’t know. “He’s a cockroach-sized infiltration expert. What if I can’t catch him?”
“There’s tech aboard your pod for decommissioning the whole station.”
Decommission, meaning destroy. Tech, presumably meaning bomb. Champ chewed on that for a second. “And then how exactly do I get back to Earthspace if I nuke the site from orbit?”
From her face, she didn’t get the media reference. “Your supplies will include maintenance and repair packs for Iktomi and Jalopy. Install the upgrades and return in whichever ship you prefer.”
Champ bit his lip. “That ain’t too good to be true.”
Misfortune shook her head. “Relax, Champ. Your value as an asset has increased now your hands are a little dirty. Do you know how rare it is nowadays to find someone with your emotional tolerances?”
Meaning my willingness to kill?
“Once you sort Barnes, I’ll appoint myself your number-one fan. Personally clearing your path to palaces and power games.”
“Screw it up and I’m the patsy who takes the blame.”
Misfortune shrugged. “That’s already true.”
No point spitting into the prevailing wind. Champ let them drug him, merciful submergence beyond the reach of his nightly, bloody-fisted dreams. Time scrolled by in a blink; he arose to find himself in a sarco pod, another piece of cargo within a Kinze ship’s loading bay.
Champ had been aboard this saucer before. It had met him at the Dumpster on one of his test runs for the project; he’d picked up Scrap there. He remembered the momentary itch as he’d tucked the offworlder behind his ear. Rustle in his hair, weight no bigger than a dust mote. Treason so light he could barely reckon its weight.
Today, the hangar’s floor and ceiling—all the surfaces—were covered in Kinze spines, most of them apparently inert. The sensation was like walking on tiny bird bones, or a lawn of plastic needles, strolling on breakable shards in artificial gravity. As far as Champ could tell, the material was dead Kinze, a sort of crunchy graveyard they carried with them wherever they went. Did they eat the remains over time? He wasn’t sure.
As Champ stretched, shaking off remnants of his voyage, a familiar pattern of spines assembled itself from needles in the walls. “Welcome back, Champ-Them.”
“Thank you, Herringbo. Are we there yet?”
It sent time and location references. “Us left Europa seventy of your minutes ago. The All will launch your pod within an hour.”
Champ nodded, crossing the hangar to Booger. Within the escape pod was equipment, lots of it: packets webbed to its ceiling, in bundles the size of railroad ties. He saw the repair modules, earmarked for Jalopy and Iktomi. Components of a pegasus dangled, like bound octopus limbs, from the wall. Some assembly required.
“Barely room in here for me,” he observed, tightening the strap on a pair of rolled-up sarco pods. “Good thing I’m supposed to be the last man standing.”
“Not quite last. There is the matter of Ember Qaderi-Them,” Herringbo said.
“Misfortune told me to kill everyone. Including your guy on the ground.”
“Yes, Scrap-Them has surely individuated by now. We prefer Ember Qaderi-Them be captured alive.”
Champ wondered if the @Visionaries knew the Kinze were still after colonizing Ember’s big brain. Wondered where he fit into a scheme where everyone seemed, on one level or another, to be screwing their supposed partners. Didn’t much care for the conclusions he reached.
Still, if Champ had Ember as a bargaining chip, the Kinze might be less likely to shaft him.
Booger was equipped with ready-to-hand clusters of hydrogel in two variations, white to indicate water with a trace of vitamin and carb, red for a protein-laced energy booster. Champ grabbed one of each and checked the meds inventory as
he chomped them down. There was a wristband laden with a cache of Superhoomin tabs, enhancement meds capable of bringing him back from anything short of a busted bone or an actual heart attack. Champ peeled back the primer on his arm. The wristband was self-adjusting; it cinched into place.
Small poke, and a flush ran through his body.
He had an intense memory of the desert beyond Pretoria, back when he’d been learning to fly water bombers. Shimmer of heat on sand and—
“Observe,” Herringbo interrupted.
Champ’s augments came online, overwriting the hangar and the escape pod. An illusion of open space sketched itself around them, leaving Champ and the Kinze looking down at Sneezy. The gold cobweb of the station’s energy harvester was expanded, drum-taut, and aglow. Bots crawled the outer hull, repairing breaches and running printers. Despite having the most bony-assed skeleton crew imaginable, Sneezy was growing.
He felt a strange sense of pride.
Infrared layers in the graphics showed mammalian heat signatures, four or five of them, near the infirmary and crew quarters.
“Teagan’s still holding on, then?”
Herringbo replied, “The readings are anomalous.”
“Anomalous how?”
“The dark matter attractors on the station, as Thems call them, have been firing,” Herringbo said. “The sapient-Barbara-Craneborn-Whiting-Them—”
“The tab running the station calls itself Babs1.”
“Babs1-Them appears to have correctly theorized that random anyspace surges disrupt comms.”
“That why you lost touch with Scrap?”
“Indeed.”
“Is this realtime?”
“No.” A clock appeared on the display, showing timeline—the footage was thirty-two minutes old.
Champ examined the controls, figured out scrollback and views, and shifted his perspective so he could do a swift loop around the whole station. Jalopy drifted, connected by umbilical to the station’s aft side. Champ expected to find Iktomi to port, snugged in near the portal membrane …
He scratched at his forearm. “Where’s my saucer? Where’s Iktomi?”
“Perhaps there are gaps in the scan because of the interference.”
“Does the feed rewind?” Champ found the controls, running it back without asking. The station blurred into reverse timelapse. Iktomi reappeared. “See, it was there.”
Walking the feed backward, Champ homed in on the human-built saucer.
“That’s no blind spot! Two hours ago, they had bots running all over that ship. That’s prelaunch safety checks.”
Herringbo shook itself out, motion a little like a parachute deploying. “Can you discern Them’s purpose?”
Champ ran the feed back. Forward. Back again. “Loading supplies.”
Herringbo asked, “Did they evacuate?”
They ran the feed forward again, to the most recent shot. “Heat signature shows a few warm bodies. Someone’s there.”
“But only Frankie can fly Iktomi. She must’ve headed back to Earth.”
“If Barnes-Them has hard evidence of Kinze interference—”
“For all you know, she might have Scrap.”
“Thems must not be permitted to communicate with Sensorium!”
A peculiar, semi-electrical sensation in Champ’s fingers and toes hinted they were, even now, dropping out of anyspace.
“Are we gonna head back and catch ’er?”
“All shall return,” Herringbo said. “You, Champ-Them, will establish control over Emerald Station and acquire Qaderi.”
Champ stepped aboard the Booger, checked the seals, and strapped into the pilot station. As he did so, another flash of intense remembrance hit him: Frankie, there in the pod, accusing him of treason and stunt-flying them all home. Dragging Champ back to Mars with his reputation in tatters.
His newly volatile emotions spiked, burning with outrage.
“Acquire Qaderi-Them and salvage or destroy the station,” Herringbo repeated. “The All will ensure that Iktomi does not return to Earthspace.”
“Got it,” Champ said.
The Kinze ship broke out of anyspace, and suddenly, Booger was in the void, hurtling through the black, bound for Sneezy.
For twenty blessed minutes, Champ was just a pilot again.
He savored every minute, checking systems, working his way through a deceleration checklist, bleeding his velocity. It was almost a disappointment when his scans picked up the station.
Still no sign of Iktomi. Why would Frankie head home without taking her family?
Babs1 pinged. “Calling whoever’s in the escape pod. ID yourself.”
He didn’t bother replying. Not even Babs1 could keep the station hangar from taking him in. As far as Sneezy was concerned, the Booger was part of its essential systems. They docked, and too bad if anyone didn’t like it.
He glided into the airlock, sank into the nanotech quicksand, cycled air. Before cracking the seals, he scanned for bots or traps. Then he let himself back into the hangar.
“Home, sweet home.”
He could hear locks clanging shut on all the hangar hatches.
“Yeah, you try to contain me.” Chuckling, he loaded Kinze-beefed code to the station’s root menu, reauthorizing himself as the human in command.
Babs1 appeared before him, fluffy white toon on his HUD, they/them pronouns, skinned in maintenance overalls. “Stop right there!”
“Who stayed aboard, kittycat?” he asked. “Who’s here? And where’d Hedgehog go?”
Babs1 didn’t answer.
Champ pointed himself at the hatch and sprang, letting himself float across the expanse, drifting over a BeetleBOT crew tasked with assembling a husky out of scavenged parts. It felt good to stretch out in nullgrav.
“Y’all print up some Mayflies? Shiny new Teagan Point Ten?”
“That would be profoundly illegal.”
“Then … is the brain trust here?”
“You don’t have the authority—”
“No, you don’t—not anymore.” Root directory changes took hold, and Champ had full command of the station’s deep systems. He took pleasure in locking Babs1 out of everything but essentials—leaving them to maintain life support, really.
“I say!” Babs1 let out a hiss, fluffing out their tail as the hangar door unlatched for Champ with a submissive little click.
“Now, then.” He brought up the station controls, powering down the dark matter attractors. “Where’d Barnes go, Babs1, and who’d she take with her?”
“It’s okay, Babs—let him come.” That was Ember.
“What’s he gonna do?” Jermaine agreed.
Oh, you can’t even imagine!
The AI shrugged, dropping the attempt to claw back comms access. Champs tasked a FoxBOT with loading the Jalopy repair bundle the Kinze had provided. It wouldn’t do to be stuck there with no viable ship. Get in, grab Ember, get out.
Champ took in the whole station. Teagan9 effectively dead and on backup in a consciousness vault. Scrap imprisoned, in a bell jar in the infirmary, going nowhere. The husbands were in crew quarters. The doctor appeared to be all but incapacitated. Qaderi was playing nursemaid.
Well, that makes things easy.
Without Frankie’s paranoia to poison everything, the men would be as trusting as babes.
“Stand down the dark matter wands.”
The comms interference began to clear. He felt an itch in his spinal implant. Herringbo, asking for a report?
Have you caught Iktomi? he sent, via @ButtSig.
Champ-Them.
It was Scrap.
He ignored it.
Herringbo broke through: The All are searching for Iktomi. Secure Qaderi-Them.
I want Barnes, Herringbo, Champ replied. You round her up, understand, and then bring her to me.
Herringbo: Stay on task, Champ-Them.
Champ-Me’s got conflicting orders. The @Visionaries told me to kill Qaderi. If I’m supposed to defy
Misfortune for your sake, I want something in return.
Herringbo: Agreed. Barnes will be yours once you make good on all promises.
On it. Champ floated into crew quarters, a big, harmless smile on his face as he came face to face with EmberJerm. “How’s it going, fellas?”
CHAPTER 37
NONINTERFERENCE ZONE, PROCYON SYSTEM
EMERALD STATION (INFORMAL DESIGNATION: SNEEZY)
The last thing Frankie wanted was to load up Iktomi and go chasing off after more people from another alien race who might—for all she knew—up and decide that humanity was meat for the grilling.
But she’d barely gotten her family aboard Sneezy when the HawkBOT she’d left behind at the Dumpster followed them, popping out of the tiniest anyspace portal anyone had ever seen.
Ember, typically, found this off-the-scale exciting. “Did you see that? Can somebody measure—”
“We’re all seeing it, honey,” Jermaine managed. The station’s exterior cams showed the HawkBOT covered in a clear, slimy-looking substance—possibly the same stuff Frankie had seen rupturing from the apparent wound in the massive ship. It did a slow roll into a station bulkhead and stuck there.
Unimpeded by the slime, the HawkBOT memory chip and comms synced to Babs1, transmitting a repeating message that was, more joy for Ember, 99 percent maths.
The remainder was a sound file: “We. Need assistance. Do whatever. Can you.”
“Is that your voice, Frankie?”
Frankie signed yes. In her original message, she’d said something like: “If you need assistance, we will do whatever we can.”
The damaged ship had apparently chopped and reassembled her words.
“Rescue mission, then,” Jermaine said, aiming for cheer despite his obvious exhaustion and the raw state of his vocal cords. “My favorite.”
“Hydrate, baby.” Frankie shared the Jalopy footage of the damaged alien ship to the whole channel. “Scrap, you attending? Do you know this race?”
“That ship design is common to a number of Them races you tag Exemplar,” Scrap said. “They will not be mammals.”
“Can you narrow that down?”
“A leased ship? Scrap lacks sufficient context for a guess.”
“Any idea how they got that crack in its casing?”
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