Praise for Space Trucker Jess

“Space Trucker Jess is Space Opera in the grand style, with starships, alien gods, and a heroine in way over her head. The tension keeps ratcheting up page by page, until the whole universe is at stake.”

— Dennis E. Taylor, author of Heaven’s River

“This action-packed outing from Kressel (the Worldmender series) introduces readers to feisty, profane, and resourceful teenager Jess Darger. Her grifter father, Ignatius, taught Jess from a young age how to con people, but she intends to turn over a new leaf. . . . She learns that Ignatius has been shipped off-station to parts unknown. Despite his mistreatment of her, Jess still cares for Ignatius and gathers all her resources to find him, a mission made more complex by careful efforts to conceal the route his transport had taken. Jess’s scrappy narrative voice will put readers in mind of the television show Firefly, and Kressel skillfully balances suspense and humor in the service of a page-turning adventure set in an inventive universe. A sequel would be welcome news to space opera fans.”

— Publishers Weekly

“If Philip K. Dick had a vision of a protagonist as gutsy Katniss Everdeen hyperdriving her way through a Gibsonesque cyberpunk galaxy, he might have imagined Space Trucker Jess—minus the humor and voice that are singularly Matt Kressel’s. Wild, philosophical, inventive and totally unpredictable, Space Trucker Jess is a recklessly paced slow burn that will take you on a journey through a warts-and-all universe where the stakes couldn’t be higher, nor nearer to the human heart.

— Carlos Hernandez, author of Sal & Gabi Break the Universe

“Space Trucker Jess rides the slipstream of a crunchy, satisfyingly articulated human diaspora across the ‘Milk,’ coding language and technology into an adventure into the outer and inner depths of the universe and a single being. It’s a stellar ride with a tough and determined young hero

in Jessian Urania Darger.”

— Jessica Reisman, author of Substrate Phantoms

“Like its titular protagonist, Space Trucker Jess is foul-mouthed, funny, hungry, lonely, and tripping balls. It’s poetry and philosophy and science and religion and friendship, streaking by at light speed, a radioactive burn in the black. Matthew Kressel’s slangy prose sucks you in like a black hole, and like a black hole, is singular in the ‘verse.”

— C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Saint Death’s Daughter

SPACE TRUCKER JESS

A Fairwood Press Book

July 2025

Copyright © 2025 by Matthew Kressel

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

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without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Edition

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Cover art © Paul Chadeisson

Cover and book design by Patrick Swenson

NO AI TRAINING:

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ISBN: 978-1-958880-27-2

Fairwood Press Trade Edition: July 2025

Printed in the United States of America

To Christine,

I love you more than suns

The road is where I long to be.

The days turn out so differently.

—Heartless Bastards, “Finding Solutions”

CHAPTER ONE

There’s a saying mong station-folk,” I say, exhaling a thick plume of smoke, “that goes something like this: The only kind of ship that matters is one that keeps you live in the black.” I shake my head ruefully at my words, shaming them as they flow out with the smoke. “And it’s the stupidest godsdamned thing you’ll ever hear. My life I seen some fifty gazillion ships, half em coming through Chadeisson here, and ain’t none of em’s ever been the fucking same. But let me tell you kids I damn near worked them all.”

Me, Ibis and Frost lie wedged on our backs under the pilot’s console of a posh Espy Darkrunner. We’re covered in soot and passing round a quickly shrinking joint I just rolled one-handedly, thank you much. Ibis is fifteen, by Sol, and Frost’s twelve, but they’re looking at me like I’m the adult. Which is hilarious, cause I’m just a girl of sixteen. But their attention’s kinda nice, cause nobody takes me serious cept these two jeeks. Ibis been working docks for five weeks and Frost ten, but they nod sagely at me like they been fixing ships since fore humans leapt out the black.

I yank out the borked hubspace transceiver with one hand and pass the smoking joint to Ibis with the other. Ibis takes too long a toke and hacks up lungs, while me and Frost laugh uproariously. Our smoke collects in blue nebulae in the crevices, slowly turning like galaxies. Maybe deep in our smoke are tiny stars and smaller people, whole civilizations living and dying as we watch, and to all of them we’re just slowly moving gods . . .

Damn this weed is strong.

We turned off all the vents in this Darkrunner to hotbox the cockpit, and I can barely see em through the haze. I blow off facturing dust from a shiny new hubspace transceiver and my breath spirals through the dusty spacetime of our smoke like waves of star formation cross a galaxy. Maybe this is how we all began, the exhalation of a god.

“Anyway,” I say, snatching the joint from Frost, “what I’m getting at is, there’s a big difference tween crossing the black in a ship that’ll get crushed in a solar wind and one you could pilot through the rona of a star and come out the other side ready for more.” I take three quick tokes, and my head spins like the gravplates broke and we’re on the float. “On this subject and a carghaul of others,” I say, “them station jeeks are plain wrong. There are ships. And then there are ships.”

Ibis nods sagely as I pass her the joint. “That’s why,” I say, patching the transceiver into the ship’s hublines, “three months from now, I’m gonna change my savings for twenty-four kilos of atomic gold, and then I’m gonna trade the gold in for a CCM 6454 Spark Megahauler.”

Ibis bursts into laughter that collapses into coughs. It don’t hurt though, her mocking. I can take a quasar of abuse, me. Daddy knows that best, don’t he? When Ibis stops coughing, she blurts, “How you gonna afford one of them boats on roachrunner pay, Jess? You running shadow jobs?”

“No way, me,” I say. “Daddy was, though. Fuckface tried to pull a cryptocredit scam in the gas bays stead of emptying carg like he was hired to. The prick abandoned me on Chadeisson without ship, dorm, food, coin, or passport, seventy star systems from fuck all a nowhere. Godsdamn it, Chadeisson Station is the absolute center of nothing cept cosmic dust. And the only thing keeping this place live’s the fact that every asshole heading for the Outer Deep has to fly through here to get anywhere else. Chadeisson’s just a big rest stop where sixteen million people decided to stop and piss at the same time.” I shake my head.

“But,” I say, “Ibis, no, I ain’t scamming for my ship. I been saving deep for eleven long years, ever since I was five and first laid eyes on a Spark Megahauler in a print catalog. I got dozens of accounts spread cross hubspace compounding interest. And soon I’m gonna trade for my ship legit.”

Frost’s eyes are so bloodshot they might be rusting. “But a Spark Megahauler?” Frost says. “They’re old as suns! If I had coin like you, I’d get me a PXC Lon Streamliner. They got the fattest starcom bandwidth ten parsecs short of a hubstation.”

I give Frost an approving nod. “Lon Streamliners got good bones,” I say. “But they ain’t nowhere good as Sparkys. Let me tell you my little roachrunners, Spark Megahaulers were the best haulers ever made, and they may well be the best starships.”

“Sparkys?” Ibis says, tilting her head. “Those old boats? C’mon, Jess. You fucking with us?”

I shake my head. “Look, outta the box Sparkys need some nurturing. But underneath their patina of facturing dust’s one solid fucking ship.” I slide the new hubspace transceiver deep into the console’s rear, and the small click of contact is satisfyingly glorious. “I seen Sparkys thrown from slipstream going ten-plus mega-c’s survive whole, people and carg both, without a dent,” I say. “I mean, fuck. That’s some great engineering.”

“A Sparky survived that?” Frost says.

“Swear to Time, Space, and Eternity,” I say, making the FTU bondsign. It ain’t easy with a joint in my fingers. “Take any other ship from here to Perseus Arm and all the passengers’d be flattened to nanometer-tall pancakes.” To make my point I crush what’s left of the joint on the floor side my head. “But not them Sparkys. No, they’re strong as neutron matter. And they got the most modular design of any carg runner in all Terra Diaspora. Shit, a Sparky can dump carg at any port with a fucking airlock. It’s ridiculous. The geniuses at CCM who designed em should be honored with statues and poems and eight-hundred-sun celebrity tours. Every one of the seven trillion jeeks cross Terra Diaspora should sing their praises same as A. Einstein and Jaim Janan. CCM shoulda sent a fleet of megaprinters to some unclaimed asteroid and have em churn out Spark Megahaulers till there were so many orbiting the system’s sun they’d dim its light.”

“But, Jess,” Frost says, “if them Sparkys are so good, why’d CCM stop making em?”

I seal the panel up tight and pound it once with my fist. “Cause,” I say, “CCM, the once-uncontested queen of starship design, felt they’d fallen out of fashion with the zeitgeist.”

“Zeit-what?” Frost says.

“The fashion of the day,” I say. “Them big, blocky, ugly Spark Megahaulers didn’t sync up with CCM’s hip, youthful image they hoped to convey to the brain-mushed inner-Terra jeeks. So they trashed dozens of promising designs and replaced em with sleeker, curvier, leaner models. CCM, in other words, had a fucking mid-life crisis. Frankly, it was embarrassing. Their reputation as a respectable manufacturer tanked. People moved on to other builders. And so CCM, once a hallmark of the best engineering in the galaxy, is now just a fading gold logo you sometimes see on starbeaten ships, and no one but us roachrunners even remembers what CCM stands for.”

“Coen Construction Megaprinters,” Frost says.

I give Frost an approving nod. “That’s right, Frosty. CCM made just 577 fore they trashed the printerware and auctioned off the unsold ships.”

“Didn’t we fix a Spark Megahauler last week?” Ibis says. “Coming in long from Tarphonsys? The one with the fried muon flow-pump?”

“That was a 2059 Versa Megahauler” I say. “Similar shape, but decades older and loads more common. Versas are solid fucking ships, but them Sparkys are the true queens of space.”

“Don’t think I ever seen one, then,” Ibis says.

“You wouldn’t,” I say. “Most’re rusting on Torem Pali now.”

“Torem Pali?” says Frost.

“A low-g, stable moon in Ragginisys,” I say. “Kept artificially dry and free of weather. Good for storing ships long term.”

I slide out from under the pilot’s console and stand up inside the Espy Darkrunner’s white leather and gold-rimmed cockpit, and the kids join me. My head spins from the weed and standing too fast. The smoke’s twice as thick up here, and I can barely see out the cockpit window and the huge windows of berth 49B. Out the black, dozens of ships float round Chadeisson, toing and froing, and I’d wager us roachrunners’ll get our hands on half of em fore long. Sooner or later everyone breaks down.

“Torem Pali’s got abandoned ships cross the whole moon,” I say, longing to be out there, flying. “It’s a godsdamned ship museum. They got forty Sparkys rotting in the desert there. And soon as I change for gold, I’m heading out there. I’ll pick me a fine Sparky, which won’t be hard. Even half-borked, those ships’re stronger than anything sailing the black today. Plus them jeeks running the salvage yards are old Free Trade Union folk. By their own laws they gotta take payments in anything heavier than iron. No way they turn down a pallet of gold.”

“So when you get your ship,” Frost says, “then what?”

“Then I’m the fuck outta here!” I say, arcing my palm up and away like a fleeing bird. “I’m gonna fly the long hauls, twenty, fifty-day jaunts to the Outer Deep. I’ll ship carg to the rims, where they’re megaprinting cities, and trying all the new tech, and meeting them weird alien clouds—seriously, you heard bout that shit?—and basically having all the fun this side of Cygnus. Meanwhile, crotchety old humanity sits snoring in Terra Diaspora’s rocking chair, slowly dying of tainment mush. I’ll tell you kids, all the action’s out there.”

“But those hauls are so long, Jess,” Frost says. “You’d be alone for weeks. What if you break down? Ain’t no one gonna rescue you that far out. You ain’t scared?”

I plop my ass into the Espy’s pilot’s chair and put my feet up on the gleaming console as if it’s mine. “Nah,” I say. “Gimme a printer and a terminal, and I can fix anything.” I gesture up a random hubspace feed on the Espy’s console and watch the data scroll in clean and green. The new hubspace transceiver we installed’s working flawlessly. “No, Frost,” I say, “I ain’t scared of nothing.”

And it’s true, mostly.

“But what you gonna do with all that time?” Frost says. “Fart?” And both Frost and Ibis crack up.

“All the damn time,” I say, and they laugh more. “I’m a simple jeek,” I say. “I’m gonna start a garden and grow old-gene weed and get high as the Magellanic Clouds and read all the books and watch all the hols, and merse all the porn, and pretty much just fucking relax for the first time in my godsdamn life.”

Frost and Ibis nod, their eyes drifting into dream. With a nudge I could plant seeds in their minds that with some watering would grow. I’ve seen Daddy do it on grifts. I’d tell em that maybe if they give me a smidge of their coin I could bring em with me into the black when I go (which I wouldn’t; I’d leave without em). Or I’d tell em how I found this burning deal on gold, but I need to buy it quick right now, so can I please borrow all your coin for one day? I’ll pay you back, swear, and we’ll be rich come night cycle. (Then I’d ghost em fast as a ship dropping into slipstream; Sorry, not sorry.) The grift’s always a moving target, Daddy says, and you gotta tailor it to your audience.

But I ain’t gonna grift em. I mean, I like these kids. A lot. They’re the only jeeks who’ve ever taken me seriously. Sides, after Daddy’s sentencing, I got lots of time to think. And I realized Daddy’s kind of a shitty human being. And I mean that in every sense. Like, abandoning your daughter on a giant fucking station that you were just supposed to stop at for half a godsdamn day doesn’t qualify you for father of the millennium, you know? Shiva knows why he tried to steal a few megaliters of helium from some FTU jeeks. I mean, who but an asshat fucks with the FTU?

Welcome to my family.

So after a long think I decided to make myself as different from him as possible. I’m gonna freshprint myself all shiny and new. I’ll do things on the up and up. Legit. Fair. Honest. Clean. I’ll obey Terran Common Law and do my trades under the FTU Doctrine, swear to Time, Space, and Eternity. This way, when I reap my reward, I’ll know I didn’t earn it by cheating or hurting. And I’m close. In three weeks, I’ll have enough coin to leave this place forever.

A chime dings in the cockpit and Foreman Zelig’s voice pours down on us like an ice bath. “Why the hell’re all the vents and feeds shut off in that Espy Darkrunner you roachrunners’re supposed to be fixing?”

Frost and Ibis freeze, panicked, but I hold up my hand to calm em. “Just replacing a faulty transceiver, boss,” I say. “Should be back on in a sec.”

“Transceiver, my ass,” Zelig says. “You better not be smoking trees in another godsdamned cockpit or I’ll kick your ass outta my shipyard faster’n you can spell Chadeisson. You got me, Jess?”

“Like I said, boss, just replacing a faulty transceiver.”

Zelig grumbles and signs off.

I blink up my up eie and drop through layers of crypt to switch on the vents, careful to keep the fire sensors off so we don’t get flash-suffocated by xenon cause some soft thinks we’re on fire. Our hotbox smoke whorls up and out the vents as I lean back and watch it go. I got the filters so fine-tuned that in a minute you won’t detect a single particle of smoke in the air.

“And that, kids,” I say, “is how you replace a borked transceiver.”

We collect our tools and shuffle out the Darkrunner into the huge bay of berth 49B. A blast of cold air crashes over us. Across the bay is a PPRA Neung-34 Medium Light Transporter, its faulty recycler waiting. Sometime in the next hour us roachrunners’ll have to crawl into its waste pipe clogged with weeks of human shit and figure out why the recycler stopped working. Great life I got here on station. Thanks, Daddy!

Ibis sags against the Espy’s hull as the bay’s violet lights cast dark shadows under her eyes. “How long?” she says.

“To repair that recycler?” I say. “Hours.”

“No,” she says. “Till you save enough? Till you leave?”

“Oh. That. At least six months,” I lie. “More like twelve.”

Ibis’s eyes get sparkly and she turns away, blinking. “Gonna miss you mal, Jess, when you go.”

“Me too,” Frost says, snapping on eir toolbelt. “Muchly.”

“You’ll get over it,” I say. “A month after I’m gone you won’t remember my face. I’ll be another cosmic ray zipping past, gone fore you knew I was here.”

“Nah,” Frost says, torch-light in hand. “We know you’re here.”

“Yeah,” Ibis says. “You’re here with us, now.”

I let my shoulders sag as we turn to face the PPRA Neung-34 Medium Light Transporter and its faulty recycler clogged with shit. “And how wonderful here is,” I say. “Better tool up, kids. It’s gonna get dirty.”

CHAPTER TWO

Muchly as I can, I take my dinners in Imolyo Ring, L55, sitting my sweaty ass in the food court by the bay windows that overlook Chadeisson traffic control. From here you can see most everything coming round station, and if the sun-angle’s right, you get a sat’s-eye view of the construction yards downspin to watch whatever godsawful dreck the station eejits are printing today.

Leurie Mu, bowl of soup on her tray, sits cross from me, her pink-and-gray worksuit scuffed and stained from today’s labor. But even under all the dirt, she’s still sexy as suns. Early-twenties, Leurie spends her days crawling through station walls repairing hublines for station datacenters. Her pupils flash like stars in atmo, so I know she’s deep in a tech hole and maybe not even aware she’s sat herself in front of me out of habit. But some part of her chose to sit here, so I ain’t responsible for what comes next.

“Hey, Leurie, look!” I say, knocking on the window. “They’re printing more Guernica Cruisers so more fucking tourists can come out from their dullass inner worlds and pretend to adventure on the frontier.”

I drawl it slow and announcer-like, like an immer show host, which norm gets Leurie ranting, and once ignited, there’s no putting her out. She’s a sun. And though she’s deep in some feed, she slips a frown.

“Them tourists skirt round station in their little ships,” I say, “taking holos to bring home, or they fuck each other silly round station space, sometimes both at once.”

Leurie’s eyes track a feed, like she’s reading the same line over and over. This time she don’t frown. But my well-trained simian hindbrain knows I’m being watched, and Leurie’s definitely listening.

“Then after a few hours,” I say, “they fat out in station restaurants and take all the drugs and spend massive change for mierd souvenirs, and drop so much trash they need fleets of drones to clean up their mess.”

Leurie glances out the window at the printer yards and sighs. Half a klick out, two Espy Nightwings are vectoring in. Beyond these, three PPRA Swift Coronas heavy with hauls of argon arc up from Esau’s Brow, the azure-blue gas giant spinning neath us. Five klicks out, past the gas haulers, an Oberon Miniliner drifts in, though there ain’t nothing “mini” about eir. Some 300,000 jeeks can squeeze onto one of those monsters.

That beast’ll soon dock at Chadeisson and drop its overfed, oversexed, overstimulated passengers on station, and they’ll eat, shit, fuck, puke, and sail into the black a day later, bouncing to the next system like a black hole down a waveguide. On busy days you can get as many as six Oberon Miniliners docking here, a lot of jeeks. Cept Chadeisson is huge, and if you know which places to avoid, you can go weeks without seeing touristas. Still, I like to hear Leurie rant. None in the verse fume like her.

“And then,” I go on, “after all this eating, fucking, and drugging, the tourists still plug themselves into tainment feeds, the useless mushies!”

Kinda like, it occurs to me, Leurie plugged in to her eie now. Cept tainment mushies got their brains switched off and Leurie’s using hers hard. I’d bet a thousand chips she’s reading a tech manual and plotting tomorrow’s fix. She’s the only jeek I ever met who knows more than me.

I wait for her to speak, but she clears her throat, shakes her head, and dives at her bowl of noodles like a sparrow to crumb.

Damn. If that didn’t get her raging, nothing will. She must’ve had one mierd of a day. But I need her to say something, cause her silence is awful. I slide down my chair like a deflated gas bag and say, “It’s just that Chadeisson’s bout as far from the frontier as the dead from living. If this’s what passes for adventure, we humans are fucked.”

Leurie drops her spoon and stares at me. Here it comes, her nuclear pile gone critical. “You know what your problem is?” she says.

Surprised, I sit up. “My problem?”

“You don’t listen,” she says. “To anyone. You just talk. And talk and talk and talk.” She opens and closes her fingers like she’s driving a puppet. “You should just shut the hell up and listen once in a while.”

“Like to you?” I say, winking.

“Yes.”

“But you weren’t saying nothing.”

“How could I?” she says. “You never shut the hell up.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling. “You got the floor. Speak!”

Leurie stares at me, blinking into her eie. “Have you even looked at the news feeds?”

“Nah,” I say. “That shit’s for tainment mushies.”

“Not all,” she says, and fifty-pages of zoomed-out text appear in my eie. Any other jeek managed to crack nine layers of crypt to hack my eie, and I’d be freaking out. But not Leurie. To be honest, it turns me on. I had a crush on Leurie ever since we met. “You want me to read this shit?” I say.

She narrows her eyes and frowns, then blinks up a filter that highlights sentences in yellow. I read the first one:

PURSUANT TO TERRAN COMMON LAW, SUBSECTION 3466-BZ-19 AND THE FREEDOM OF SELF-DETERMINATION ACT, ALL CITIZENS OF TERRA DIASPORA WILL IMMEDIATELY HAVE THE RIGHT TO FREE THEMSELVES FROM MENTAL TYRANNY.

I scan a few more lines till my eyes glaze. “What’s this, L?”

“New Terran Common Law update,” she says. “It came downstream this morning. Biggest law patch in ten years. They’ve rewritten five percent of the laws.”

“And?”

“That doesn’t sound weird? ‘Citizens of Terra Diaspora will have the right to free themselves from mental tyranny’?”

“Weird? Sure,” I say. “So’s immer dolphin fucking. All inner-Terra gooseshit the mushies make up to keep from dying of boredom’s weird. It ain’t nothing to get hot for.”

“No, Jess. Something’s off. Look at these phrases. They employ a sharp tonal shift from previous updates. Terran Common Law hasn’t seen language worded this strongly in 164 years.”

“Oooooh,” I say, mock cowering. “Beware the strong language in the Common Law patch!” I snort and laugh.

“You’re a smart kid, Jess,” Leurie says, shaking her head. “But sometimes you’re stupid as hell.”

This stops my laughs short. But I ain’t hurt by her words. My hull’s denser than neutron matter, me.

“Trust me, Jess,” she says. “Something’s up.”

I ain’t never seen Leurie this serious, and it don’t sit well. At all. My stomach drops like we’re on the float. “Like what?” I say.

“Not sure,” she says. “But I got softs scanning feeds for patterns. Something’s changing.”

“What?”

“Things are being arranged to give people more freedom to do whatever they want.”

“Yeah,” I say, “cause that’s just what the mushies need. More freedom to merse while their bodies rot.”

“Maybe,” Leurie says. “But the weird thing is, no one is clamoring for this. Most mushies merse so deep they don’t remember their birth names. But with the latest Terran Common Law patches, the number of things you’re allowed to do has exploded. This last patch was the largest by far. What the hell do they mean by ‘mental tyranny’? What tyranny? From whom? Who even wrote that? I can’t find the author in any datastore. It’s one big fucking cipher, and it gives me the chills. The bad kind.”

“You’re over thinking it, L,” I say. “Some inner-Terra jeek got high and thought e met Shiva, then decided to write it down, like them weird clouds in the Outer Deep those scholars thought were aliens. Tomorrow, there’ll be another patch overwriting this one, saying it’s your divine right to let recyclers get so borked that when you flush the toilet shit flows backwards. Seriously, why do you even care?”

“If I were you, Jess,” she says. “I’d have an exit plan. A bag packed and a ship to fly on. Be ready to fling your ass to the Outer Deep.”

“Oh, I got a plan,” I say. “Don’t worry bout that.”

“Right,” she says, nodding. “Your Spark Megahauler fantasy. And one day I’ll build my own Dyson sphere. We all have dreams, Jess. But you may not have time to wait. Things are changing fast.”

“You’re paranoid,” I say, shaking my head. But ever since I’ve known Leurie, she’s never been wrong.

“Maybe,” she says. “But my paranoia’s worked for me so far.”

I frown as we fall silent. Out the window, a dark, unmarked GBP Orion Transmark 33 slips out of Yamaguchi Ring into the black. It’s on a strange vector, one that’ll take it high above Pnei’s orbital plane. There ain’t nothing cept cosmic dust and yawning intergalactic voids that way. But the Orion Transmark’s burning hard like it’s six weeks late to its own birthday. I watch its thrust plume fade like a dying star fore it wiggles and winks out, far from the Brow’s gravbowl to safely go slipstream.

“I was gonna go visit my daddy in Rehab tonight,” I say. “But I can think of a trillion better things to do. Like opening a bottle of hundred-year-old rye I, uh, acquired, and taking a long shower and watching a mech-boeir fight. It’d be a lot less sad if I had company.”

“Can’t,” she says.

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

Laurie swallows and looks away.

“Just tell me where I stand,” I say, “and I’ll stop asking.”

“No, you won’t,” she says. “You’ll ask me to your dorm every night no matter what I say.”

“And yet every day you keep sitting cross from me,” I say. “Tell me, L, are we even a possibility?”

She glares at me. “Here,” she says, tossing a package into my eie. An immer model of her, fully nude, and I assume anatomically correct in every way. I blush so hard my face might be undergoing fission.

“It’s a nanometer accurate scan of me,” she says. “Merse in, and you can have all the fun you want.”

“This a joke?” I say.

“She’ll report to me on how well you perform, and if I like the numbers, I’ll consider sleeping with you.”

“You fucking serious, L? You giving me a sex test?”

“I won’t let no amateur near this body, Jess. If you want the job, you have to demonstrate your skills.”

“You’re insane,” I say, frowning as I trash the file. I confirm delete with a hard blink, though I feel more than a pang of regret, now it’s gone. “That’s not what I want.”

“No?” she says. “Good.” And I get the feeling that the actual test was whether or not I trashed the file. I think I just passed.

A warm feeling spreads in my belly. “What if I said I just wanna hang out?” I say. “What if I just want you next to me, clothing on, so when I close my eyes I’ll know that in a verse of seven trillion assholes there’s one who’ll notice if I’m gone?”

Leurie puts a warm hand on mine. I swear to Time, Space, and Eternity there’s a current coursing tween us. “Then learn how to listen,” she says. “And maybe I’ll consider it.”

She gets up from the table, abandoning her soup. “Night, Jess,” she says. “See you tomorrow.”

I watch her walk away till she’s just another jeek in the crowd. Out the window a freshly printed Guernica Cruiser slides out a downspin assembly bay, ready for tourists to ride her out on a new adventure.

I haven’t touched my food.

CHAPTER THREE

Sometimes I wonder if the station designers were sadistic fucks, cause to get to the Rehab Center in Ifen Ring, the most shit-awful part of the station, you gotta trek through the Promenade Hotel on Uwembe Ring, the most absurd show of wealth in a hundred parsecs. You got skyscraper-high waterfalls plashing into lily-ponds, and tropical forests, old-gene squirrels, golden koi, and sparrows singing in the sun. Pnei’s spectrum’s so close to Sol’s they don’t need to filter the light, and the plants and animals soak up the sun like they’re on the Terran savannah ten-thousand years back.

The Promenade’s got gold-plated railings, swarms of drones sucking up every fleck of dust fore it touches a surface, and a staff-count near equal to the number of guests, bringing them prims any damn thing they want. And what the prims want most of all is to eat, shit, fuck, and merse fore bed. But fore I get too pissed at the station engineers for their sadistic juxtaposition, I remember that Chadeisson started as an argon mining platform, and it only grew so big and convoluted cause everyone needs to stop here fore heading someplace else. It’s a mishmash, a hodgepodge, a gallimaufry, and like most things nowadays, there ain’t no thought or reason behind it.

I walk under a misty forest canopy, while the hotel staff in yellow uniforms ignore me. Their eies tell em I’m wild fauna. An interesting animal, but best left alone if you know what’s best for ya. Which is fine, cause after Leurie’s rejection I’m roaring for a fight. Come at me, fuckface, and see what happens!

And maybe too I’m avoiding seeing Daddy, which I’ve done muchly of late. Haven’t seem him in two weeks, and I’m fine with another ten.

Fore I know it I’m taking a lift down to the concierge level. Maybe I’ll bump into a tourist and tell eir off. Better, I’ll get thrown out and banned from the Promenade forever. Sorry, Daddy. Law says I can’t see you no more. Bye, asshole!

And though I’m fuming like jacked-up mech-boeir, the concierge area’s empty. It’s evening, and all the jeeks’re out in restaurants or clubs, fatting out and fucking themselves blind in zero-g orgies or mersing weird-ass dolphin shit. Stuff they could do back home. By a kiosk there’s a young woman in a canary-yellow hotel uniform, a jumpsuit with gold epaulettes, buttons, and mirrored belt buckles, like a captain of her own toy army.

I burn toward her, and holos start yapping at me, hot young things, changing expressions to match my body language, eye movement, skin temp, and a host of other biometrics seeking to pique my interest.

“You wanna feel really good? Come with me, baby,” says a dark-haired boy, giving me a look so seductive my chest aches. I keep walking and the next holo adjusts.

“I’m Billie,” a lithe young woman says. “Nice to meet you!”

“Fuck off, Billie,” I say.

The concierge in canary-yellow gives me a concerned glare. In the bright spotlights, the ridiculous gold buckles on her uniform flash like pulsars. Her eyes sparkle as she flits up her eie. Is she face-recing me? Sorry, dear, but my face ain’t in public dataspaces. Not gonna bide that.

Another holo senses my rage and changes tactics. “Sometimes I just feel so beaten, you know?” the androg says. “You can beat me too, if you want.”

I shake my head. “They fling themselves parsecs cross the black,” I say to the concierge, “and when they get here they just fuck sims?”

It comes out less a question than a growl. The poor concierge looks scared, so I put my hands up in the ancient gesture of, I come in peace. She don’t seem convinced.

I stride up to her. “I ask you something?”

She straightens, a soldier at attention. “Of course!” she says. “I’m here to serve. What would you like to know, friend?”

“You take this job willingly?” I say.

“Pardon?”

“Like are you forced to work here, or did you choose to stand here all night like one of them sims?” I gesture at the androg.

She lifts her chin. “This is my choice.”

“Even though all them prims’re having the time of their lives? Even though you could be out there fucking and frolicking? Stead, you choose to stand here alone all night and wait for some ugly jeek like me to stride up and ask you stupid questions?”

“It makes me happy to be of service,” she says, mech-like, and for a second I wonder if she’s a really good sim, and I been fooled. But no, I smell her sweat.

“Who you servicing?” I say. “Ain’t none here but us. You got nowhere else you wanna be?”

She looks up and to the side, which Daddy taught me means a person’s using their brain, not their eie. And if you phrase things right when they do it you can lead their thoughts. “Maybe you want to go somewhere off-station?” I say, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Maybe one of them far-off rim worlds in the Outer Deep? Or off to...”

“Mars,” she blurts. “I always wanted to see the rainforests on Mars.”

“Mars?” I say. “In Solsys?”

“Yes!”

Shiva, this girl’s something. “Alright,” I say. “What if I could get us to Mars tonight. I got a ship that can have you back in thirty six hours.”

“Terran standard?” she says. I nod as she she flits up her eie, checking my numbers. “No ship travels that fast,” she says.

“Most can’t,” I say. “But out on the Rim, they’re printing new ships called Fourier Frontliners that can do thousands of mega-c’s. You ain’t never heard of em?”

Another eie check. “They’re not listed in hubspace.”

“Nah,” I say. “Too new. The FTU’s panicking, trying to keep it quiet, cause speeds like that’re gonna fuck up the trades.”

“But isn’t that too fast?” she says. “I thought ships going that fast will—”

“Get smushed in higher-dimensions?” I say, pressing my palms together. “So did I. Till I rode one.”

“You rode one?”

“I own one. Got myself a Fourier Frontliner freshprint from Jin Tai. Parts of the ship ain’t even dry yet.”

“Oh,” she says. “That sounds exciting.” She forces a smile. “Is there any way I can be of service, friend?”

“Actually,” I say, moving closer. I glance left and right, as if what I’m about to say’s just between us, though there’re more eyes here than most anywhere on Chadeisson. She holds her breath in anticipation as I say, “I want you to come with me.”

“Come with you?”

“Yeah.”

“To where?”

“The rainforests of Mars. Then wherever you want.”

“You want to go with me?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“But I don’t even know you!”

“What’s there to know? I’m a bored girl with a fast ship, I’m looking for company, and you look like you want to get the fuck out of your canary suit. Don’t over-think it. Come with!”

She shakes her head. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Klara,” I say, using my mother’s name.

“This is crazy,” she says. “I got a job here. A life!”

“You can come back later, you want. I mean, you said it’s your choice to be here. So it’s your choice to leave, right?”

“But why me?” she says. “There are millions of people on station! You could go with any of them. I’m a total stranger.”

“What’s your name?” I say.

“Pim,” she says.

I hold out my hand. “Nice to meet you, Pim,” I say, as she shakes it. “There,” I say. “Now we ain’t strangers.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “You’re nice, but . . .”

“But?” There’s always a fucking but.

“It makes me happy to be of service,” she says, mech-like, and her eyes go blank, like she’s just taken a huge hit of weirdo.

“Hey?” I say, snapping my fingers at her. “Pim? Where’d you go?”

“I’m right here,” she says calmly, looking into the far away. “How can I be of service, friend?”

“Fuck,” I say. “What’d they do to you?”

Behind her, two bulked-up jeeks in Promenade uniforms speed round the corner with a deviled look in their eye. I know this look, like I’m trouble and need to be dealt with. And while getting thrown outta here seemed like a good idea, I ain’t keen on it now. I been at the rough end of brutes’ hands too many times to count.

“Alright,” I say, loud enough so them approaching jeeks can hear. “I’m going!” Then quietly to Pim I say, “If any part of you can hear me, you should get your ass outta here, fast. They done something to you, and it ain’t good.”

“I’m here to serve, friend,” she says, blankly, and when she blinks a tear rolls down her cheek.

“Fuck,” I say. But them Promenade jeeks are closing in, so I dart toward an escalator and down to the atrium.

And shit, now I feel mal. I lied to Pim bout my name and a ship that don’t exist and how the two of us could leave together. Like, in another universe, if I actually had a ship, I’d travel with her. I really would.

I look back, and catch one of them buff jeeks leading Pim away while another takes her place side the kiosk.

CHAPTER FOUR

By the time I get to the Rehab Center, it’s near 2300 hours, local. But they got folks from all over Terra Diaspora getting rehabbed, so you can visit any time, long as you pass the scan. Signs warn I’m headed deeper into Ifen Ring like I’m passing a fernal buoy. Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.

The hallway narrows, until it’s just me and a dark-gray corridor with red light strips, like I’m on a runway coming in for a crash landing. It’s sweltering too, so either the environs are borked, or the guards like it reactor-hot.

The guard manning the desk is an androg who looks six months short of sleep and in dire need of juve, cause eir eyes are sagging like e’s standing under eighty gs. E barely looks up as I approach.

I’m two paces from eir raised desk when a dozen beams flash on, scanning me for Shiva knows what and blasting me with DNA-frying rads I’ll need weeks of gene therapy to undo. My hair stands up.

“You here for Friend Darger?” the jeek says.

“I prefer to call him Assface,” I say, but the guard don’t smile. I try a new vector. “Yeah,” I say. “I’m—”

“Jessian Urania Darger,” e says. “Ignatius Horatio Darger’s biological daughter.”

The fact that the guard recognizes me ain’t surprising. I’ve done my Jessian best to keep my face off public recs, but down here they got wider spaces to search. Plus, I been here a few times. “Yeah, that’s me,” I say with a fake grin.

“Well, Friend Darger ain’t here,” e says.

“What do you mean he ain’t here?” I say.

“I mean Ignatius Horatio Darger ain’t here.”

“Like, not here, as in not in Ifen Ring?”

“Not here as in not on Chadeisson.”

Suddenly, the room don’t feel so hot. Like maybe someone’s fucking with the environs, cause now I’m freezing. “Since when?” I say, trying to hide the dread in my voice.

“Since—” the jeek checks eir eie “—three hours ago.”

I wanna punch something, and this jeek’s face’d be perfect, cept that would land me in rehab too. “You fucking kidding me?” I say.

The jeek stares blankly at me.

“So where’d he go?”

“It don’t say.”

“What do you mean, ‘It don’t say’?”

“Just what I said,” e says, annoyed. “Ignatius Horatio Darger was shipped off-station three hours ago to another facility.”

“Which facility?”

“It don’t say.”

I’m seriously considering punching this jeek, consequences be damned. “So how the fuck do I find out?”

E frowns. “Submit a petition request to Rehab Authority. Responses take four to six weeks, Terran Standard.”

“Weeks?” I say.

“Beyond that,” e says, “nothing I can do.”

“Tell me something,” I say, moving closer to eir high desk, squeezing my fists. “You always this fucking useless?”

“Step back from the desk, friend,” e says as two huge rectangles slide out from the wall, unfolding into large battle-mechs. Just one of their hundred pointed fingers could slice me into a million pieces fore I could slip a fart. Rows of sensors on their bulbous heads spin as they scan me, frying my DNA with half-visible beams. I need a bath.

“This place is ultrafucked!” I scream, backing away from the desk. The quivering battle-mechs track me as I leave. And when I reach the end of the hall, the jeek at the desk says, “Goodnight, friend.”

“Fuck off, asshole!” I shout.

CHAPTER FIVE

Leurie Mu ain’t the only one who knows her way round station. It don’t take me long to bypass eight layers of crypt and look up the location of L’s dorm. It takes me six discs, two tubes, and four escalators to get to Eriksdatter Ring, which is stellar old. Its ancient walls and obsolete tech’re one proton decay from giving up the ghost.

Chadeisson spins to make gravity, so depending on what ring you’re on, you can earn as much as ten kilos on a walk. But I feel fifty kilos heavier as I reach her dorm. I ain’t ever been this far from Daddy. And though I’m deep in station, I feel more naked than when Daddy left me spacesuited and starbaked on a hull of a PPRA Carg Runner a thousand light-years from fuck all a nowhere.

Leurie’s hallway’s so long the floor curves up in the distance. I’m closer to the spin axis too, cause my head’s twirling mal from the coriolis. I don’t think anyone’d live here less they wanted to be left alone, which describes L to a T.

I press the call button on door ER-6349.

No answer.

I tap the comm. “Leurie, it’s me! Lemme in.”

She replies a few secs later: “Fuck, Jess, I was sleeping! I told you, this isn’t happening! Go home!”

“I ain’t here for sex, L! It’s Daddy. He’s been taken off-station.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

A dozen meters downspin, an old jeek fumbles eir way into a dorm. When the door slides closed behind eir, I whisper. “I need your help.”

The door slides open. Leurie stands in silk PJs and a night cap, so gods-damned cute my heart near bursts. Her walls sim a dark tropical rainforest, I hear soft rain pattering on leaves, and the air smells of soil, like we’re in a real forest and not twelve point six light years from the nearest. Leurie leans on the doorframe and crosses her arms. “Is this a trick to bed me, Jess? I swear to Shiva I’ll break your nose.”

“No!” I say. “They took Daddy off-station!”

She frowns, then steps aside to let me in. The door closes hind us. Her dorm’s small, but tidy. There’s a few potted plants and some weird abstract art on the walls. An old hubline router sits half disassembled on her desk.

“What’s that?” I say.

She throws a tarp over it. “How the hell did you find me?” She holds up a hand. “Never mind. What happened to your dad?”

I tell her bout my trip to Rehab. “I ain’t waiting weeks for some mushie to tell me where he went, if they ever tell me at all. I know you got taps running through Chadeisson.” I glance at her router. “I was hoping you could tell me where they took him.”

“I thought you didn’t care about your father?” she says. “I thought you were saving for a Spark Megahauler to sail off into the black alone?”

Damn. L’s right. She’s is always right. But whenever I try to let Daddy go I hear him chuckling at Woll Ye after we tricked those pirates outta their ship. Or I can smell of his sweat after a long day of hauling carg. Or the feeling I got when he told me, You keep your head up, Jess, and nothing in this verse can stop you.

“Maybe I still wanna sail into the black,” I say. “But I just need to know where they took him, so I can find him later, I want.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.” She flits up her eie.

“Wait!” I say. “Share your view with me so I can see!”

“And show you my tricks? Fuck off.”

“C’mon! This is my daddy!”

She shakes her head. “You’re the biggest pain in my ass.”

“I’ll make it up to you. I swear.”

“I doubt that,” she says. With a flit of her eie, dozens of hubspace feeds appear in my vision. Leurie drops through layers of crypt like a ship in freefall, as if the firewalls’re as thin as air and not triggered to go off with a single misplaced qubit. Hot damn, she’s good. The feeds branch, and she follows em far as they’ll go, until she reaches a dead end, then she follows another, and another. It’s mesmerizing.

She sighs, frustrated. “Whoever originated your daddy’s transfer didn’t leave a log trace. Station traffic control has no record of any prison ship departing.”

“What about the cams in Ifen Ring?” I say. “One of them’s gotta have a rec of my daddy leaving.”

“All the feeds to and from Rehab were switched off. Maintenance, the logs say.”

“Horseshit!” I say. “Check the docks! You can face-rec Daddy from one of their feeds.” I flit up my eie and throw her Daddy’s pic, the one with him standing in the carg hold of a PPRA Thesselian Hauler, a burning blowtorch in hand and a devilish grin on his face, like he’s bout to start some shit. The pic always made me smile, but not now. “There’re thousands of scanners in the docks,” I say. “One of em’s gotta have a rec.”

“I’ll check,” she says, and down she goes, sifting through streams of data faster than anyone I ever known. “Damn,” she says.

“What?”

“Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep this quiet. His face isn’t anywhere in station dataspace.”

“What about docked ships?” I say. “They use different dataspaces, right? No way they got hacked too. One of em’s got to have a rec.”

“Whoever did this is good, Jess. If I can break into them, then whoever did this could too.”

“Just check!”

“Already on it.” The data changes colors as Leurie jumps from station dataspace into one of the docked ships. “Okay,” she says. “Found something. You remember that Oberon Miniliner coming in to dock earlier?”

“Yeah?” I say.

“A passenger onboard took a holo of Chadeisson while docking and sent it to Joon Weisys through hubspace.”

“And?”

“And you know how hubspace routers make a copy of forwarded transmissions?”

“Yeah,” I say, “they cache data, in case of transmission error.”

“Right. So it looks like someone tried to purge the cache, but because the router was mid-transmission, the purge failed. It’s a safety measure. I only saw the error because the cache was shunted into a protected partition as a countermeasure against attack. Whoever did this messed up.”

“I’m not following. What does that mean?”

“It means there’s two copies of the passenger’s holo. One in the Oberon Miniliner, and one in the hubspace router’s protected partition.”

“And they’re different?”

“Yes, and they shouldn’t be.” Leurie flits up the two holos side by side. Chadeisson slowly spins in both, like we’re suited and drifting some twenty klicks off station. Leurie highlights part of the station in a white circle. “Now watch this spot.”

I squint, trying to make sense of it. The holo on the left looks the same as the right. Until it doesn’t. A ship flies out of dock, but only on the left-hand one.

“They edited the ship out!” I say.

“From more than eighty thousand feeds, dataspaces, and cache partitions. It’s crazy! I’ve never seen anything like it. And I can’t find a single artifact in the doctored holos. They’re perfect. Whoever did this has access to crazy computational power. Like Court of Sents power.”

I squint at the tiny ship. “Can you zoom in?”

The holo magnifies till I see it clearly.

“A GBP Orion Transmark 33,” I say, a sinking feeling filling my belly.

“Good eye,” Leurie says. “I’ll check its vector.”

“It’s heading outta the galactic plane,” I say, “burning hard like it’s late for its own birthday.”

“Right,” she says. “How’d you know?”

“Cause,” I say, “when you and I was sitting pretty in the cafeteria, I watched that ship with my daddy on it leave.”

CHAPTER SIX

When I tell Leurie I gotta fly, she looks relieved. “Promise me you won’t do something stupid, Jess?” she says.

“I ain’t sure what that means, L,” I say. “Stupid is relative.”

“You know what I mean, Jess. Be careful.”

Then she shuts the door in my face.

Two tubes, five escalators, and three discs later, I reach Yamaguchi Ring, speeding toward docking bay YR-99A. It’s is big and empty and looks like it’s been this way since humanity climbed up the gravbowl from Orginearth. The giant bay doors are sealed, and the Brow’s crescent shines through the towering windows, casting ice-blue shadows cross the floor.

A biomech struts over on six legs, squeaking like it hasn’t moved in eons. “Can I help you, friend?” it says.

I walk over to a wall console and key up the docking logs. But there ain’t no record of any recent ships.

“Anything you’ll find in there will be in my dataspace,” the biomech says. “Are you looking for something?”

Biomechs’re mostly synth, but they got enough sinew and flesh to make my skin crawl. Some got neurons connected to hubspace, so maybe somewhere in this giant spider is a clump of human brain. “A GBP Orion Transmark 33 launched from here six hours ago,” I say.

“Sorry, friend,” the biomech says, “but there was no such ship.”

“Yeah,” I say. “There was. It’s been purged from your memory.” I ponder what it would take to knock this biomech’s head off so I can scrape data off it. But being that this biomech’s sort of half-alive, that would count against me, legalwise, as a sort of murder, and I’d end up in Rehab like Daddy. And maybe this was the kind of stupid Leurie meant?

But there’s gotta be more clues. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’ll know it when I see it.

I spot the singularity transfer waveguide by the wall, resting side hubline ports and gas scrubber valves. I make for it like a photon fleeing a star.

“Friend!” the biomech says. “Some things here are dangerous! Please come with me so I can—”

“Fuck off,” I say, approaching the STW. Most ships use singularities to power their slipstream drives. And as the ships suck the singularity’s power, the singularity slowly evaporates. Ships need stones like jeeks need food.

That’s where the waveguides come in. At Thumen Ring, Level 0—on the outer edge of Chadeisson, so if something goes wrong they can fling em out to space—they make black holes inside particle accelerators. They keep a bunch in stasis, ready for when ships need em. And when an order comes in, one of them stones is shunted round the station, long these waveguides, to whatever bay the ship’s berthed in.

But the thing bout black holes is that, if left to their own devices, they start eating everything, like a hungry goat, less you keep em contained in electrogravitomagnetic fields. And the thing bout slipstream drives is, though they all use the same principle, each drive’s different as an eyelash from an ass hair. Each black hole has unique spin, charge, mass, and blackbody spectra. Coming through the waveguides, they leave quantum perturbations in the gold walls, like muddy footprints tracked through a house. And with the right sensors, you can see them footprints clear as day.

So if that GBP Orion Transmark 33 got a new stone, then maybe its trail of footprints’ll tell me what kind of drive it sports. Then I’d scour transport logs to see where else that drive refueled. And that’d give me a clue to where the ship might be going.

I flit up my eie and try to connect to the local sensor array using my roachrunner creds. And after a few bounces, the array lets me in. I scroll through meshes of data till I find the command to start an STW scan.

The scan shows it clear as day: quantum perturbations from a recent stone. “No ship, my ass!” I say. A ship definitely refueled here in the last six hours. But the shielding’s too thick and I can’t know more without getting inside in the STW.

A cold metal hand grabs my shoulder, and I yelp as it spins me around. “Friend,” the biomech says. “You cannot be here.”

A dozen airborne drones swarm round me like insects, and tongues of flat metal shoot from their lips to wrap my ankles, wrists, and neck. I scream as they hoist me up and haul my struggling ass to the door.

“You’re not authorized to be here,” the biomech says. “If you return, I will call station security.”

“But I’m a roachrunner!” I shout. “I’m authorized!”

The drones drop me outside the exit. The biomech says, “Have a goodnight, friend.” Then the heavy bay doors slide shut in my face.

CHAPTER SEVEN

So much for that.

I could try hacking Thumen Ring, but it’d be easier to reignite a brown dwarf. Thumen Ring’s got the hardest sec on station, cause if one of those stones breaks containment, Chadeisson’d be smushed to the size of a proton, killing all sixteen million jeeks and swallowing Esau’s Brow for desert. But every fortress has its weaknesses.

Kolenya Ring spins next to Yamaguchi, and it don’t take me long to walk there. Dorms in Kolenya Ring’re stacked like carg containers twenty high and hundreds across, and jeeks living bove the first story have to take a disc to their front door. The discs got no railings too, and there ain’t no grav field to catch me if I fall. But I ain’t fraid of heights, no, even though my knees shake as the disc lofts me sixteen floors.

Kolenya Ring’s packed with thousands of dorms, but the space is eerily still, like I’m the only living soul in a thousand parsecs.

Frost and Ibis’s dorm is a three-meter cube with a brushed metal door, and the only thing marking it different from the others is a number: KR-16017. No buttons or panels, just an ancient keypad. I shoulda let em know I’m coming, but sometimes it’s good to surprise folks. Lets you see who they are when they think no one’s watching.

I enter the code into the keypad, 420420, and the door slides open soundlessly. It’s dark, and it takes my eyes time to adjust. Frost and Ibis share a bunk, and the room’s crowded with parts they “salvaged” from ships.

There’s a muon flow-pump from that Versa Megahauler that came in long from Tarphonsys. Ibis said the pump was fried, and we replaced it, but this “old” one looks stellar fine. And there’s a bunch of hubspace transceivers, worth more for feed mass than salvageable parts. And there’s a heap of hubline in the corner, ceiling high. I suss they wanna strip it for gold, though the amount’s so minuscule they’d be lucky to get grams. And they were accusing me of shadow jobs! The room stinks of sweat and corn chips.

On the top bunk, Ibis gasps and sits up. “Jess?” She squints through the dark at me. Standing in the doorway, I bet I look like a menacing shadow.

“Yeah.”

“Why you here? What’s wrong?”

I tap the button, and the door slides shut, leaving us in darkness. A nighttime desert landscape shines from the walls with a sky full of stars and a ruddy moon that bathes all in a crimson glow. It reminds me of Varouna’s wheat-covered fields, where I lived with Daddy and Mommy, a long time ago, and my heart longs for those ancient days.

There’s another light on, aqua-green and faint, in the lower bunk, where Frost lies. But Front ain’t asleep. E’s got a metal band over eir eyes. An immer bow.

“What’s up?” Ibis says. “What’s happened, Jess?”

Frost’s eyes bounce round eir closed eyes like a singularity in a failing containment field. I shake my head.

“Jess,” Ibis says. “You’re scaring me! Say something!”

Now it’s Frost’s turn to gasp. E yanks of eir immer bow, blinks, and rubs eir eyes. “Jess!” Frost says. She shoves the immer bow under the covers.

I cross my arms.

“Jess, what—” Frost swallows “—what you doing here? I—I’m sorry! I know what you say, but it ain’t tainment! I was just—”

“Save it,” I say, holding up my palm.

Tears pour down eir face, like a cold gas bottle with a leak. “It’s not what you think,” e says. “I was—”

“I don’t care what you do with your free time,” I say. “You want to turn yourself into tainment mush, go head. That’s your prerogative.”

“No, Jess, I was just—”

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” I say.

“—visiting my mother,” Frost finishes.

“I thought your mom’s dead,” I say.

“She is,” Ibis says. “But Frost made a sim of her.”

“You merse with a sim of your mom?” I say.

Frost turns away.

“She’s not fucking real,” I say. “Your mom’s dead, Frost. And playing round with an immer sim, pretending she’s alive, is doing horrid things to your mind.” I tap my temple. “Virt messes with your concept of reality. Next thing you know, you’ll be mersing weeks in fairy land, while your body rots like a dead rat in a tunnel. I thought you was going to make something of yourself, that you was gonna leap from roachrunner to foreman to owning your own shipyard.”

“I am!” Frost says, wiping eir tears. “I will!”

“Not if you do that,” I say. “That’s poison.”

“Jess,” Ibis says. “You here cause Frost’s mersing?”

“No,” I say. “I’m here cause Daddy’s been taken off-station.”

“Really?” Frost says. “To where?”

“No idea. And all recs’ve been erased. And someone tried to make it look like the transfer never happened.”

“Who?” Ibis says.

“And why?” says Frost.

I catch em up with my visit to Leurie and my trip to YR-99A. “I need to find out what kinda stone that ship refueled with,” I say.

“You can’t hack into Thumen Ring,” Frost says. “Sec’s tighter than Zelig’s ass. But maybe we could crawl into the waveguides.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking!” I say.

“Waveguides?” Ibis says. “The STWs?”

“Them,” I say. “I tried to deep scan the waveguide, but there’s too much shielding. But if someone were to get inside, e could measure the perturbations and suss what type of stone last went through.”

“And from that,” Ibis says, “you could suss what kind of slipstream drive it has.”

“And from publics recs, you could see where else it refueled,” says Frost.

“Exactly,” I say. “Cept my fat ass can’t fit inside a waveguide. I need someone sleek like an Onnoghen Sloop to climb in.”

“That’s why you need us,” Ibis says,

“No,” says Frost. “That’s why Jess needs me.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The kids clip on their toolbelts like it’s the start of a workday, and I catch excited sparks in their eyes. We’re bout to do some shit.

“Just in case you’re that naive,” I say, “and for the rec I don’t think you are, what we’re bout to do’s stellar illegal. Just trying to breach a waveguide’s enough to land you six months in Rehab, easy. It’s okay if you bow out. I’ll find another way.”

“No way,” Ibis says. “We’re in.”

“Yeah,” Frost says. “We’re here for you, Jess.”

“Don’t be so eager,” I say. “Things could get hairy.”

“We ain’t fraid of hair,” Ibis says.

“Fine,” I say. “Then here’s the plan. We can’t go direct, cause the waveguides got watchdogs. The moment we breach the outer ring, a gazillion alarms sound off. But station sec can’t protect the waveguides the whole way. At some point, the guides gotta shit out the stone to pass it to a ship. That’s how we’ll get in, through the STW.”

“The transfer port,” Ibis says.

“Up the station’s anus, so to speak,” I say.

“What else is new?” says Frost.

“But I thought a biomech’s guarding berth YR-99A?” Ibis says.

“That’s why we go in from the side,” I say. “There ain’t no guard next door at berth YR-97B. I checked. My roachrunner creds’ll get us in.”

“Love it!” Ibis says.

“Me too,” says Frost.

“Okay, kids,” I say. “Ready to get dirty?”

Ten minutes later we stroll into berth YR-97B like we own the place. When I was in the berth next door, the Brow was a thin crescent shining dolefully gainst the black. Now the gas giant’s an enormous blue-and-white gibbous blob rising out the windows, thousand-klick clouds swirling angrily. It’s beautiful, dizzying.

“Night crew’s heading down,” Ibis says, pointing out the windows at a fleet of PPRA Swift Coronas arcing down planet. Three shifts a day, all day, every day, the ships, soft-driven, dive for the Brow’s atmo to fetch argon from cloud top collectors.

“How long they been mining the Brow?” Ibis says.

“Over three hundred years,” I say, “ever since Chadeisson was a gas hauler barely able to hold ten jeeks. There’s a hol in hubspace you should check. Back then Chadeisson was a small ship that’d fall apart in a solar wind. But those assnecks were crazy enough to think they could strike it rich mining gas.”

“But they were right,” Ibis says. “I mean, don’t their great great grandkids own Chadeisson and a hundred other stations?”

“Ownership’s a slippery thing nowadays,” I say. “But, yeah.”

“I wanna be that rich!” Ibis says. “One day I’ll claim a planet too.”

“You can’t,” I say. “A jeek could only be that crazy during the First Diaspora, fore the Free Trade Union got their hands in everything. Back then a melk could stake a claim to a planet, or a whole system. Now you need committees and votes and unanimous approval from the Court of Sents just to claim a speck of dust.”

“Fuck the FTU!” Ibis says.

“Watch it!” I say, looking over my shoulder. “Saying that in mixed company could get you shoved out an airlock. And don’t hate on the FTU too much. Most’re decent folk. Long as jeeks keep getting carg, ain’t no reason for war. They keep the peace. But, yeah, they do make it hard to do any kind of real business.”

“Like shadow-market shit,” Ibis says.

“Nah,” I say. “Well, some. But not just that. The FTU makes it impossible for some bold dreamer, a visionary, to try something new. Everything’s tried and true. And so here we are, all of space and time spread fore us, and were slowly dying of tainment boredom. What humanity needs is a good shaking up.”

My thoughts jump back to dinner, when Leurie was worked up about those new law patches, and my stomach shifts uncomfortably. But no dreary new law’s gonna inspire seven trillion jeeks to break free of their stupor.

“Ibis,” I say, shaking away my mal thoughts, “Get ready to kill the feeds and wipe the last five minutes of recs.”

“Copy!” Ibis says, flitting up her eie.

The singularity transfer waveguide sits gainst the wall, a rectangular tube a meter wide, covered in knots of tarnished silver and gold, gleaming in planet light. Its far end vanishes into the wall.

“Ain’t they gonna know when we open it?” Ibis says.

“I got something for that,” I say. I flit up my eie and issue a work order for vent maintenance, backdating the request so it looks like the job’s been in the queue for months.

“Nice!” Ibis says when she sees the order post on the public queue.

“It’ll look like routine work,” I say. “Everyone on the private comm? Good. Ibis, do it.”

Ibis kills the berth’s feeds and deletes the last five minutes of recs. We wait for station sec to notice. But nothing happens. “Guess they don’t care bout dead feeds in an empty berth,” I say. “C’mon, let’s get this cover off.”

Frost and I work to decouple the magnetic locks, while Ibis uses a subspanner to deseal the gluon plates from the quark baskets. The STW cover slams to the floor with a devastating thud, so loud the whole station prob heard.

“Whoops,” Ibis says. “That’ll leave a dent.”

“Fuck it,” I say, staring into the gold-lined STW. The circular tunnel’s less than a meter wide, and though the gold gleams brightly in the Brow’s light, the interior vanishes into darkness.

“Berth YR-97B,” a voice booms. “This is Thumen Ring, Level 0. An STW cover was removed in your location. All the feeds are dead! Explain!”

I flit up a public channel and say, “Morning, Thumen Ring! How y’all doing? Jess, here! Roachrunner!” I fling him my creds. “Just fixing some vents. And, uh, just so you know, I didn’t remove no STW cover. The hubline bundle for this berth’s feeds’re in the way, so I decoupled it. That must be why you’re seeing faulty readings and dead feeds.” I fling him a set of engineering plans with enough truth to send the jeek spiraling down a gravbowl of misinformation. “Here’s my work order, by the way.”

A pause. “Your workshift doesn’t begin until 0645 hours, roachrunner. Why are you working now?”

“Can’t sleep,” I say. “So I thought, why not get a jump start on the day? Also, it’s much easier to fix shit when no one’s round to get in the way. Should I finish tomorrow?”

Frost and Ibis stare at me as we await their answer.

Another pause. “No, roachrunner. Continue the repairs. But make sure to inform us in advance next time your work impacts a waveguide. Let us know when you’re done so we can run diagnostics.”

“Absolutely!” I say. “G’night, boss!”

A grumble as e signs off.

“What an asshat!” Ibis says.

“Yeah, well,” I say, “only jeeks got something to prove go into that line of work. Anyway, station sec ain’t gonna look the other way all night. We got maybe thirty minutes fore they figure out we ain’t fixing no vents. Okay, Frost, get your ass in there!”

Frost blinks at me.

“What’s wrong?” I say.

Frost hangs eir head. “I’m . . . scared.”

“Of taking a reading? You can do that in your sleep!”

“But what if a stone comes down the pipe while I’m in there?”

“Ain’t no ship in here. No stone’s coming.”

“But I got to go all the way to the junction, nu?”

“Yeah,” Ibis says, “don’t Frost need to go all the way to the next berth? How far is that?”

Truth is, I forgot to check. So I pretend like I’m preparing a long-winded answer, while I pull the schematics in my eie. “It’s not faaaar,” I say, stalling. “Only bout, well . . . maybe 160 meters . . . or soooo . . .”

“160 meters!” Frost blurts. “In there?”

“And another . . . forty to YR-99A.”

“200 fucking meters!”

“Yeah, and every second standing here you could be shrinking that.”

“Why can’t you go?” Frost says, pouting.

I knock my fist round the gold-paneled walls of the waveguide. The sound echoes down kilometers of tubing. “My fat ass, in here? Can’t fit. And Ibis’s been eating too many chips.” Ibis frowns at me. “Frosty,” I say, “truth is you’re the only one small enough to fit inside.”

“Ain’t there another way?” Frost says, eyes watering.

I stare at eir. The guilt hits me hard. Frost ain’t no melk I’m scamming for coin. E’s my friend, and I ain’t gonna treat eir like Daddy treated me. E deserves better.

“Forget it,” I say. “Let’s put the cover back on. I’ll find another way. I won’t force you to do this.”

“But how’ll you find your daddy?” Frost says.

“I should just let him go,” I say, though this thought fills me with dread. “I don’t know. I’ll suss it out. I always do.”

Frost shakes eir head. “Nah, Jess. I’ll go in. You need to find your daddy.”

“You sure?” I say, trying not to sound desperate.

“Yeah,” Frost says, placing eir knee in the narrow opening. “But I’d better not die. Cause if I do, Jess, I’ll haunt you forever.”

“Don’t worry, kid!” I say, patting eir ass as e climbs in. “You’ll be fine!”

CHAPTER NINE

You’ll be fine.

Famous last words. Cept I believe in eir. I mean, I gall Frost lots, but I don’t say that if Frost keeps roachrunning e’ll soon be parsecs ahead of me. Plus if that were me in there, I’d be calm and confident and not freaking out cause the waveguide tunnel’s so fucking small.

“It’s so fucking small in here!” Frost says on the private channel. E’s twenty meters in, and me and Ibis got a map of the waveguides and Frost up in our eies.

“Won’t station sec see Frost crawling in there?” Ibis says.

“Nah,” I say. “Their sensors’re calibrated to steer black holes with masses of small moons. Compared to that, Frost’s a speck of dust.”

“You calling me dust?” Frost says.

“Sparkly dust,” I say.

“E’s got a long way to go,” Ibis says.

“180 meters,” I say, eyeing the map. “Cakewalk.”

“Cake-crawl,” Frost says. “I can barely fit! Shiva’s ass it’s dark. Turning on my beltlight.” A moment later Frost yelps.

“What?” I say.

“N—n—nothing,” Frost says, eir voice breaking. “Scared myself. The walls’re mirrors. There’s a billion mes reflected. It’s a kaleidoscope.”

“A kaleidoscope of gold,” I say.

“Vert?” Frost says. “The walls are gold?”

“Pure atomic,” I say. “The outer nanos at least.”

“There’s gotta be enough here to buy a planet!” says Frost.

“Don’t get ideas. You mess with waveguides and sec’ll come at you harder than a ship thrown from slipstream.”

“We could trim just a sliver,” Frost says. “They wouldn’t notice!”

“And where you gonna sell it?” I say. “Same place you sell your hubline?”

“What hubline?”

“Stop it,” I say, eyeing Ibis. “I saw your bedroom heap. If you shave off a sliver of them walls, what happens when your buyer scans your gold and sees the subatomic perturbations from a waveguide? You think they gonna take on that heat for a few grams of gold? No way, Frost. There’s better ways to make change that don’t involve risking years of your life in rehab.”

“I’m risking my life now,” Frost says.

“Don’t be dramatic,” I say. “You crawl round drive chambers with fat stones meters from your head and you don’t bat an eye. This ain’t nothing compared to that.”

“Not sure I agree,” says Frost.

I need to take Frost’s mind off eir fear. “Let me ask you something, Frosty. How much change you gonna make selling that hubline you acquired back in your dorm? It’d take months to scrim enough for a decent subspanner. At least put thought into it. Like, measure risk versus reward, plus time spent. I could help you kids out with that, you want.”

“I thought you’re going legit,” Ibis says. “No more scams.”

“I am,” I say. “I mean, I will. I’m just talking bout helping you runts, on a consultant basis.”

“Hey, Jess?” Frost says. “Could you shut the hell up? This ain’t helping my nerves.”

“You’re the second person to tell me to shut the hell up today,” I say. “Okay, Frost, lips going dark.”

I check the map. Frost’s got fifty three meters to the junction, and I do my best to keep my vent shut as the distance shrinks. But it’s hard, and Frost’s going too slow. Time’s running out.

“Don’t bite your nails, Jess” Ibis says. “Bad habit.”

I spit a fingernail on the floor. “One of many,” I say.

“Hey!” Frost says. “I’m here! But there’s many branches. Which one?”

“Share your eie,” I say, and in a blink I see out Frost’s eie as if I’m there with eir.

“Stop moving!” I say. “You’re making me dizzy!”

“You’re dizzy?” Frost says. “I’m the one crawling round inside a fucking kaleidoscope.”

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s see, there’s twenty-four branches. You need to head into the first on your left.”

“This?” Frost says.

“That’s the one!”

My heart skips as Frost crawls into the waveguide for berth YR-99A. One step closer to finding Daddy. Frost reaches for eir scanner.

“Not yet!” I say. “You gotta move away from the junction. Too many stones been through there. You’ll get too many crossed signals.”

“How much further?” Frost says.

“Forty meters. Maybe fifty.”

“Shiva’s ass!”

“Almost there. Just a little more, Frost.”

Frost sighs and keeps crawling.

“Stop! There!” I say.

“Thank Shiva,” Frost says. “Beginning scan.” She pull out eir scanner and takes a reading, and part of me itches to analyze the data now, but there ain’t time.

“That should be enough,” I say. “Bring it home, Frost.”

“Gladly!”

The little pocket of gas I didn’t realize I was holding eases, and I let out a not so silent fart.

“Ew!” Ibis says.

“What?” says Frost.

“Jess just dropped a gas giant that smells worse than that clogged recycler we fixed.” She winces as she holds her nose.

“That’s the smell of success!” I say.

“Uh, Jess,” Ibis says, a tremor in her voice. “We got a problem.”

“Problem?” Frost says. “What kinda problem?”

“The STW just powered up in berth YR-83B,” Ibis says. “I traced the path. The stone’ll pass through the junction Frost just crossed.”

“Oh fuck!” Frost says. “A stone’s coming?”

“It’s fine!” I say. “You’ll be fine.”

I mute the com so Frost can’t hear. “E’ll be fine, right?” I say to Ibis. “The stone won’t pass anywhere near Frost, right?”

“The stone won’t pass through Frost, no,” Ibis says. “But what about the particle purge?”

And by this Ibis means how waveguides flash bake their internals to purge themselves of particle residue fore the stone comes down.

“Oh, fuck,” I say. “Oh fucking fuck!”

“Hey!” Frost says. “Why’d you go quiet? Oh, Shiva! Am I gonna die?”

I unmute the channel and say, “No, kid. No, you’ll be fine! You just need to go—” I do a quick calc “—twenty-four more meters. Go, kid, go!”

Ibis is staring at me cause I’m sure she did the same calc. Twenty-four meters is the min distance Frost needs to survive. Thirty’d be better. Forty, ideal. Then e’d need major gene therapy for the rest of eir life.

“How long?” Frost says, panting.

“Thirty-one seconds,” I say.

“Oh fuck,” Frost says. “I shoulda stayed in bed!”

CHAPTER TEN

Move, Frost!” I shout. “Move!”

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Frost screams.

Ibis is shaking her head. It ain’t looking good.

No. Please don’t tell me I just sent Frost to eir death!

“Twenty seconds,” Ibis says. But I got a clock in my eie already telling me Frost ain’t gonna make it.

“Fuck this,” I say.

I route a com signal through berth YR-83B using my roachrunner creds, then I layer a mod onto my voice. It’s crude, but it’s the best I can do so quick. “Thumen Ring!” I shout. My modulated voice—deeper, male—bounces through a repeater in YR-83B so it looks like it originated there. “This is the boat in YR-83B! Shut down your waveguides! Stop the particle purge now!”

“YR-83B,” comes the slow reply. “This is Thumen Ring, Level 0, station sec. “What is the nature of your request to—”

“Shut down the fucking particle purge now or some jeeks’re gonna die!”

“Copy, YR-83B. Shutting down purge. You’ll need to explain yourself!”

Ibis and I stare at each other as we watch the waveguides power down and radiation levels drop to background. I cut the com and hope they haven’t traced me yet. Me and Ibis look at each other like, Did that almost just fucking happen?

“You’re okay,” I say to Frost. “You’re fine.”

“Yeah?” Frost says. “Tell that to my underwear.”

Frost crawls back to us as fast as e can. My com trick ain’t gonna fool them Thumen jeeks for a femtosec, so after Frost falls out of the STW we break for the exit. No time to secure the cover. We gotta book.

“I wasn’t kidding bout my underwear,” Frost says as we fly out of berth YR-99A like solar wind. “I stellar need to change.”

I catch the wet stain running down the back of Frost’s pants, and the shame hits me hard. For fuck’s sake, what the hell did I do?

My guilt’s a billion-ton stone yanking me down as we hie our asses up ten discs, down five escalators, and cross six tubes, not necessarily in that order, till we’re seventeen asses deep in Zayna Ring.

Panting, we pause on a dark street corner, slipping into an empty slot to catch our breath. Shredded hublines dangle from the walls where connector cables once hung. Some enterprising jeeks like these runts mustve yanked em out, hoping to salvage micrograms of gold. Nothing but dirt now.

I never been to Zayna Ring. The air smells wet and moldy, and there’s puddles everywhere, as if a water main broke that no one bothered to fix. Night lights are on, dim tangerine spots shining faint cones onto the street. A thousand puddles glimmer in the light.

“We been followed?” Ibis says, panting.

“Don’t think so,” I say, peering out. “Not on foot.”

“Where the hell are we?” Ibis says.

“Zayna Ring,” I say. “Level 82.”

I look upspin from where we came. A riot of ivy sprouts from the street’s meridian, its leaves covering the street and climbing up the walls like they’re trying to flee. This place’d be pretty if it wasn’t so lonely.

Up and downspin dozens of empty slots curve bove the station horizon like the hollow skeleton of a long dead beast.

“I guess Zayna Ring ain’t so hot real estate,” Ibis says. “There’s nothing here.”

“Oh, there’s stuff here,” I say. “Just not in plain view.”

“Speaking of view,” Frost says, “I saw a kiosk back there. Gonna print me a jumper. Mine’s mussed bad.”

Frost makes for it, but I grab eir fore she can move. “Hang on.”

There’s a neon cafe cross the street where a purple-haired jeek sits at a counter, drinking from a steaming mug. A service mech is talking to eir or just hovering creepily. A hundred meters upspin, pumping music spills from a club. The windows’re tinted, but sprays of light leak through, flashing the street with changing rainbows. A big holo bove the door says, “Sexy Time Now Fun!” in Anglai, Mandreen, and Indei. Underneath the sign, fast-changing sims of naked bodies writhe in copular ecstasy. Two huge mechs stand fore the door like they’re guarding the doorway to Haydees.

“What’s that?” Ibis says.

“That,” I say, “is why jeeks come to Zayna Ring.”

“Jess, please,” Frost says, pushing gainst my hand. “I’m uncomfortable.”

“Hang on,” I say. “Lemme just check station feeds.” I flit up my eie, but so far, there ain’t no station-wide search out for us. Not public, anyway.

A lone mushie ambles down the street, stumbling over ivy roots. “After the Inner Terra mushie, let’s go,” I say.

“How’d ya know e’s Inner Terra?” says Frost.

“Them neon shoes,” I say. “Ain’t no Outer Deep jeek’d be caught dead wearing shoes that bright.”

“True,” Ibis says. “They’re horrid.”

“Jess!” Frost says.

“Right! Come on.”

We hie back twenty meters to the kiosk. It’s nestled in the wall like a toilet in a safety pod. The kiosk’s old as suns and smashed in graffiti, but by some miracle it works. Frost taps up the public menu and selects a blue, self-shaping jumper. A second later the kiosk prints one out.

I run my fingers over the freshprint. “What dust!” I say. “These threads wouldn’t hold up a day inside a thrust manifold. A sneeze and they’ll tear.”

“Better than walking round in your piss,” says Frost, snatching em from me.

“Course,” I say. “Let’s get you changed.”

We head for the cafe, and we squint in the bright light. The smell of coffee and toast makes my stomach howl. Frost heads to the bathroom, while me and Ibis sit at a small table under a verdigris awning. A few sparrows peck at crumbs under the tables. Otherwise, the piazza’s empty,

A service mech saunters over and says, “Greetings, friends! May I get you some coffee? Our muffins are baked fresh to order!”

“Three coffees!” I say. “And you got cinnamon-dusted apple cider doughnuts?”

“Really, Jess?” Ibis says.

“What?” I say, shrugging. “All this running’s made me hangry.”

“Indeed!” the mech says. “We can make cinnamon-dusted apple cider doughnuts! We have over three million recipes! I’m also capable of improvising, should the need arise.”

“Just the doughnuts,” I say. “And coffee.”

“Three cinnamon-dusted apple cider doughnuts and three coffees,” the mech says. In the back, the food printers’re already shuffling. “I’ll return with your order momentarily!”

When it slides away, Ibis says, “Frost almost died. Don’t know how you can eat now.”

“This ain’t my first hijinx,” I say. “And this’s prob my last meal on Chadeisson. Might as well enjoy it.”

Ibis gives me a troubled look. “What do you mean, last meal?”

“I can’t go back to work, Ib.”

“But we didn’t get caught!” she says loud. The purple-haired jeek at the counter don’t look our way or seem to notice nothing. Damn mushie.

“You didn’t get caught,” I whisper. “You runts’ll be golden. But not me.”

“Why?” she says, more like a plea than a question.

“Ib, that ruse I pulled was bout as clever as a farted opera. Them jeeks in Thumen Ring’ll suss right quick my message was faked. Station sec’ll trace the message path and see that someone using roachrunner creds rerouted the call from YR-97B. You with me so far?”

“Yeah.”

“So YR-97B is where that same roachrunner killed the hubline feeds and removed the STW cover.”

“Oh!” Ibis says, leaning back. “Oh.”

“So you see,” I say. “They’ll wanna know why I faked the call, why I yanked off an STW cover, and what I was doing inside. That’ll mean interrogation, loss of job, coin, and time in Rehab for fucking with a waveguide. So you see, Ib, I gotta book.”

In the street, the neon-shoed Inner Terra mushie stumbles into a plant, leans over, and pukes in the pot. No drones swarm to clean up the mess. The mushie wipes eir mouth and, smiling like a kid who just spotted eir favorite toy, stumbles drunkenly toward the Sexy Time Now Fun club.

“Don’t worry, Ib,” I say. “This ain’t the last you’ll see me.”

“That’s what my brother said fore he left me on a carg container in Ghaffarisys,” Ibis says. “I ain’t seen him since.”

“You got a brother?” I say.

“Three, and two half-sisters.”

“Shiva, vert?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You never asked.”

It feels like the gravity tripled, but it’s just my shame. “Fuck, Ib,” I say, closing my eyes. “I’m sorry.” An image of Frost’s wet backside flashes fore my closed lids. “I’m sorry bout lots. I hope I wasn’t much of an ass. I’m still unlearning the toxic shit Daddy endowed me with. I got a galaxy to go.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Ibis says. “You’re my friend.” She takes my hand.

I smile and squeeze hers. “I won’t forget you,” I say.

“You sure?”

“Sure as suns.”

Frost flies out the bathroom in eir new jumpsuit, the same azure color as Esau’s Brow. E stares us, awaiting our approval. But there’s something weird in eir gaze, a look I seen in Daddy lots, and in my own eyes twice. That look of realizing you almost died, but by stupid luck you’re still round to ponder life. A look that says life is weird and wonderful, but also random and terrifying. But Frost’s just twelve, too young to have any look. And I’m the jeek that gave that look to eir.

Fuck. I gotta leave fore I hate myself more than I do, fore I mal up their lives more than I have. “You look like a pallet of gold,” I say.

“Don’t play, Jess,” Frost says, sulking. “I ain’t in no mood. I just changed in a public bathroom.”

“You did more than that,” I say as Frost sits with us. “You risked your life for me. You both did. I won’t forget it.” I make the FTU bondsign with my hands. “I swear to Time, Space, and Eternity I won’t ever make you two do anything like that again. Finding Daddy’s my problem.”

“Your problem’s ours too,” Ibis says.

“Yeah,” Frost says. “If my daddy went missing, I’d want to know where he was going too.”

“Well, curiosity coulda killed you both, and I ain’t gonna bring more heat on you. This is where I take my leave.” I spot the mech walking over. “But first, doughnuts.”

The mech delivers doughnuts and coffee. They smell amazing. I’m ravenous. I swallow a doughnut and half cup of coffee fore I know come up for air. The kids eat too, but slowly.

“I thought of something when I was in the bathroom,” Frost says, chewing.

“That you never want to use a public bathroom again?” Ibis says.

“Well, yeah,” Frost says. “But I mean bout Jess’s daddy.”

I put down my cup. “Oh?”

“Someone went to the trouble of deleting those recs,” Frost says.

“They edited thousands of recs across hubspace like they was Shiva,” I say, “rewriting the verse for their amusement.”

“Right!” Frost says. “But when you went to Rehab and asked bout your daddy, they said he was transferred. Why didn’t they erase that rec too? Why erase all the others but not that one?”

A weird sinking feeling settles over me, like the instant you realize the thing you thought was mal is a billion times more malymal. But cause I don’t want to say it loud I make Frost say it for me. “What’re you getting at?”

“They left you a breadcrumb.”

“A what?”

Frost picks up a crumb from the table. “Your daddy never read you fairy tales?” A sparrow flies over, and Frost tosses the crumb to it. The bird snatches it from mid-air, and Ibis gasps.

“Nah,” I say. “Daddy wasn’t big on child rearing. His idea of a bedtime story was telling me to to knife someone horizontally stead of vertically so the blade don’t get stuck in the ribs.”

Frost winces, then says, “Well, in them old tales, jeeks left breadcrumbs when they walked into a forest or a cave, so they could find their way back if they got lost.”

“That don’t make no sense!” Ibis says. “Animals’d eat the crumbs!”

“That’s not the point!” Frost says. “What I’m saying is, one crumb leads to another. This log of your daddy being transferred, that’s the first crumb.”

“You saying someone left that on purpose?” I say.

“Don’t know,” says Frost. “But why else leave a rec of the transfer in Rehab when everything else was erased?”

“Maybe they couldn’t breach the Rehab Center’s dataspace,” I say.

“But they could breach all the others?”

“Yeah,” I say, frowning. “That don’t sound likely.”

“So who left this breadcrumb?” Ibis says. “Jess’s daddy?”

“No way,” I say. “Daddy’s a hands-on kinda jeek. And by hands-on I mean he puts his hands on someone’s face. Tech is more my thing.”

“Then your next step,” Frost says, “should be finding out who left this breadcrumb and why.”

A loud whoosh rolls down the street, like a ship approaching, shoving great volumes of air outta the way. The tangerine lights downspin blur into hazy nebulae. The smell comes first, the smell that Daddy taught me’s called petrichor, the smell of wet earth.

The rain falls in great torrents, more water than I ever seen on station. Monstrous drops fall onto the street, plashing everywhere, onto the walls, the meridian, the mushie, us.

We leap out of the rain, abandoning our doughnuts and coffee.

“What a storm!” the mech exclaims. “I wasn’t expecting another rain-cycle so soon! The random weather on Zayna Ring is so exhilarating, don’t you think?”

In the rain, the doughnuts we left on the table disintegrate to mush.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

We shiver as we wait for the rain to stop. I mean, weather may be fun for Inner Terra mushies who find random storms the day’s highlight, but for us station jeeks it’s a fucking nuisance. The torrent slows, until it’s just an annoying drizzle.

The purple-haired jeek at the counter still hasn’t looked up from eir mug. “Let’s scat,” I say. “Place’s wearing on me.”

“But it’s raining!” Frost says.

“What’s the matter, Frost? Fraid of some water?”

“No way,” Frost says and to prove it e leaps from under the awning, and me and Ibis follow after eir.

“See you soon, friends!” the mech says.

We head downspin, into the cold rain, plashing through puddles and rivulets. I were another jeek, I might appreciate this sip of nature. But now it seems like a sad end cap to my short and pathetic story on Chadeisson. A black cat watches us from under an empty slot’s roof, and something in its eyes makes me shudder. Maybe it’s just the rain.

An alert icon flashes in my eie. High priority, anonymous. We duck into the cover of an empty slot, so I can play the message.

Leurie’s beautiful face floats in my vision, a bodiless ghost. I ache to talk to her, but this is a rec. She ain’t live, but the timecode’s minutes old.

“Head’s up, Jess!” Leurie says. “I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I dropped some softs into hubspace to scan for you, and I got a big hit. Station sec’s got a snatch-grab out for you! They’re keeping it off public channels, but it’s a level-one alert. I dumped a cargload of obfuscation onto the feeds. Fake faces, different gaits, wrong DNA, linked to you. It’ll confuse the fuck out of them. But you need to get off station, fast.” My heart pounds as Leurie goes on. I knew one day it’d come to this.

“Whoever deleted those recs has crazy computational resources,” she says. “But then why didn’t they delete the rec of your father’s transfer from Rehab? Why did they tell you he left station? Was that intentional? Did someone want you to know?”

Shivering, I glance at Frost, who said the same thing.

“All I know is,” Leurie says, “you’re in over your head, Jess. I’m worried this might be a trap. You might get hurt. Even killed.” She looks away from the cam.

So you do care, L.

“Jess, they’re hunting for you. I were you, I’d run the hell away from your daddy. Whatever he’s part of, it’s big, and dangerous, and has nothing to do with you. But I know you’re gonna ignore me. You’re gonna rush after him, even though you know it’s stupid, cause you just can’t let go.” She pauses. “I really hope you find what you’re looking for, cause it’s not here, with me. It never was, though you tried to convince yourself otherwise. Anyway, I’m going to miss our meals.”

“Yeah,” I say, throat tight. “Me too.” But her message’s already gone, and her face is just a fading afterimage in my vision. The message deletes itself as if it never was.

I feel like a strong fist’s squeezing my heart. I thought Daddy and me’d jstop at Chadeisson for just a few hours. I never imagined it’d be this hard to leave.

“Well?” Ibis says. “What now?”

“Station sec’s got a snatch-grab out for me,” I say.

“They do?” Ibis says.

“Yeah, so you two runts should fly the fuck away from me, less you want to holiday in Rehab.”

“Jess,” Frost says, “we ain’t leaving you.”

“Give me the scan data,” I say.

“I will,” Frost says. “But—”

“Now, Frost!”

“Fine,” Frost says, frowning. A fat data package lands in my eie that’ll take hours to analyze. There ain’t no time now.

“You two need to scatter like gas in vacuum,” I say.

They stand still as walls.

“Did you fucking hear me?” I say. “Get gone!”

They’re soaked and shivering, but the runts don’t budge.

“Frost, you almost died cause of me,” I say. “Ibis, I’m the worst role model a kid could have. You two got promise. And I’m just a piece of mierd daughter of a piece of mierd grifter who’s brought you nothing but trouble.”

“You’re always complaining bout your daddy,” Ibis says. “Worry bout him later. Let’s hide you deep and wait for the heat to radiate.”

I’m tempted. I mean, fuck Daddy and his horseshit, right? He picked me up and spun me round till I puked. I should just fly. But the thought of a verse without him in it fills me with dread. He was always there, for better or mal. Who would I be without him?

I’m a comet at apoapsis. I’ve been hurtling away from his gravitational mass, gently slowing till I’m barely moving at all. But my pause is illusory. Soon his gravity’s gonna swing me round again, and I’ll plunge toward his star in a cometary death-dive. No matter how hard I burn, I can’t escape his orbit.

“Truth is, Ibis,” I say, “much as I shit on him, I can’t let him go.”

“Yeah,” Ibis says, nodding. “I get it.”

“Look,” I say, “don’t fret or nothing, nu? When I’m gone, you two’re gonna shine like novas.”

“Fuck, Jess,” Ibis says. “This is vert goodbye, ain’t it?”

A lump sticks in my throat. I cough it away. “Out on them long hauls they don’t say, ‘Goodbye.’ They say, ‘Safe travels.’ Well . . . safe travels, kids.”

Fore I know it, Frost’s clinging to me, squeezing my ribs so hard it hurts. Ibis joins in, turning us into a three-body conundrum, slowly spinning in the dark. They’re both sobbing.

But I ain’t gonna cry. I’m hard as neutron matter, me.

“Next time you see me,” I say, “I’ll be piloting a Spark Megahauler and begging you runts to come for a ride.”

“Yeah,” Ibis says. “You better.”

“Best starship ever made,” Frost says.

“None better,” I say. Then, fore I spoil the moment, I step into the rain. The bright holo of “Sexy Time Now Fun!” reflects off the puddles, smearing into a colored blur.

CHAPTER TWELVE

In theory, sneaking my ass off station should be easy. In practice, not so much. I can’t just walk up to a kiosk in Ilka Ring and book a ride on a miniliner. Station sec’s hunting for me, and my roachrunner accounts’re monitored, if they haven’t been confiscated already.

I used to transfer all my coin to off-station accounts. But I haven’t done that in forever. So much for weeks of earned coin. Fuck.

But if there’s one pos thing bout being the child of a grifter is I learned to plan. I got dozens of accounts spread cross hubspace that station sec can’t touch. I could dip into them, need be. So getting change ain’t the problem. It’s finding a jeek crazy enough to fly me off station yesterday and doing it under station sec’s sniffing nose. That kind of transport takes a certain, well, finesse. And there ain’t many jeeks who possess such esteemed qualities. Thankfully, I know just the place to find one.

The touristy parts of Chadeisson are all spic and glam, primmed for Inner Terra mushies to offload from miniliners and drop pallets of coin on whatever pablum drives their ship. But Samnang Ring ain’t that kinda place. Some jeek told me “samnang” means “lucky” in an ancient tongue, but there ain’t zero lucky bout this place. Samnang Ring seems like they took the worst parts of Chadeisson and wound em into a gordian knot ten klicks a side. No street, hallway, stair, or disc goes straight for ten meters fore veering to Shiva-knows where. I wouldn’t be surprised if I stumbled cross the desiccated corpse of some poor sad sack who got lost decades ago and never found eir way out. So much for station hospitality.

Old-time jeeks say Samnang Ring was once a ship docked to Chadeisson’s superstructure way back when, and that’s why it’s so diff from elsewhere. But history recs don’t bear that out. No, Samnang’s just a convoluted mess for the same reason Terra Diaspora’s slowly rotting. There ain’t no captain steering the ship, just billions of shortsighted jeeks looking only to heres and nows.

And right at the apex of the charming Samnang sits the Iris, one part bar, one part restaurant, ten parts shithole. Underneath the Iris’s smoky haze of cigars, weed, and aerosoled weirdo is the always present mist of alcohol and a faint reek of puke baked into the carpet. Seriously, who the fuck carpets a bar?

The Iris sits on the peak of Samnang Ring, Level 97, like an areola on a klick-tall tit. Its clear domed roof looks out to the extremities of Chadeisson that spike up like stalagmites. But mostly, the dome looks out to distant stars. Station geo makes it so the Brow never spins into view. The Iris’s patrons like it this way. Our mammalian brains fool us into thinking that sitting in dim light, half-hidden by smoke, keeps our actions private. But really it’s the Iris’s prohibition gainst recs that keeps secrets here. Breaking this rule means permanent banishment from Iris and the breaking of other things as well. And so the Iris is the kind of place that attracts jeeks keeping profiles low. This was the first place me and Daddy stopped at when we came to Chadeisson, so it’s fitting it’ll hopefully be my last.

The Iris ain’t crowded. Though it seldom is. I never seen the place more than half full, even after a standard shift. A few jeeks sit in booths, smoking cigars, murmuring. A few others sit by the windows, nursing drinks, watching ships pass. There’s a long-haired jeek with eir head down on the bar, like e’s had a bad day. No one looks up at me as I walk in, but I feel their eyes just the same. And just to show I don’t give a streaming fuck about their convos I vector straight for the back.

I find an empty booth and slide in. A dim orange sconce shines a cone of light onto the table like a dying supergiant. The walls are blood red, or want to be, but the paint’s peeling off in chunks to reveal scuffed bulkheads underneath. They could repaint the walls and replace the cracked mirror hind the bar and print some new chairs, but they like it this way. They like the worn carpets and baked-in musk and shellacked tables with so many dents you could read your fortune in them, you got high enough.

And the truth is, I like the Iris’s dinge. Makes me feel warm and cozy, bout as home as I ever felt. Wonder what that says bout me?

The bartender, a portly middle-aged jeek, with a dense black beard, takes his time sauntering over. No mechs here, just old-fashioned human service. “Drink?” he says.

These drinks ain’t free, I know, but I ain’t willing to dump chips on a fucking drink. “You take Hiija?” I ask.

He glances out the window as a PPRA 660 Mychau Megahauler vectors to port. “Pay in advance,” he says.

“How much for a whiskey double?”

“What kinda whiskey?”

What the hell, I’m feeling bold. Maybe Hiijas are up this month, and I need to settle my nerves. “Umari 20?”

He blinks at me. “12,000 Hiija.”

“Shiva’s ass!” I say. “What about your well whiskey?”

“1,000 Hiija.”

“Fuck!” I say. “I could buy a small ship for that.”

He sighs. “Hiija are hard to change. You got anything else?”

“I got a crapload of Schlepp Tokens.”

He snorts. “Haven’t heard of Schlepp Tokens in ages. Doubt I could trade em for a glass of water.”

I shake my head. “Then give me that. A glass of water. Or do you charge for that too?”

He frowns. “Glass of water, coming up.”

He walks off and I shout, “With ice!”

“Smatter, Jess?” a smoky voice says hind me. “Can’t afford no drink?”

I spin to see a lanky orange-haired jeek towering bove me. Micah Kain. The fucking last person I want to see.

“Thought you was making heaps of change roachrunning for the repair yards,” Micah says with a wink. Micah’s built like a repair mech, if that mech were tall and wiry and unable to repair a thing. Micah gene-modded his skin to turn it into his own personal display, and right now all his exposed skin, which is a lot, is flashing bright green and orange zigzags like a docking berth’s landing strips.

“Shiva’s ass, shut that off!” I say, shielding my eyes.

“Aw, man. Rough day?” he says. He spins toward the bar and shouts, “Hey Rongo! Two vodkas, tall and neat! Me and the lady are thirst-ay!”

The bartender glares at us. Everyone does, and I cover my face. “Fuck, Micah! Could you cool it?”

“Why? Just happy to see my girl’s all. I haven’t seen you in weeks. How you doing, Jess?”

“Don’t get me that drink, Micah. I can’t stay.”

“Not even for one?” he says. “Don’t worry. On me.” His skin now olive green, he sits his lanky ass cross from me.

“Fuck,” I murmur.

“You looking to buy?” he says, by which he means old-gene weed, which I bought from him more than I care to remember. Old-gene weed ain’t exactly illegal, but the sale of plants cross Terra Diaspora’s strictly regulated, and doing trades outside the FTU comes with risks. So it’s a matter of how much risk a jeek’s willing to take. And though I done some crazy shit, Micah’s taken on a shit ton more risk than gray-market sales of old-gene weed. He sells other things to other jeeks far shadier than me, most of em so far down spectrum from gray that a black hole ain’t dark enough to describe it.

“Not today,” I say. “I’m golden.” But an idea comes to me. A terrible idea, but there it is. “Micah, you know lots of jeeks, nu?”

“Sure do!” he says. “I’m the king round town, girl.” His forehead flashes a golden crown at me, replete with shining jewels.

“Don’t call me girl,” I say. “I ain’t your girl.”

“Something’s got you down, sis? Tell me!”

“Don’t call me sis, either.”

“Whoa,” he says, eyes wide. “This is more serious than I thought.” He turns toward the bar. “Rongo!” he shouts. “Where them drinks, man?” Then he turns back to me. “Jess, serious. What’s troubling you?” He places his warm hand, now a soft topaz blue, on mine.

I yank my hand away. “Hang on,” I say, nodding with my chin at the bartender, who brings over three glasses on a tray.

“Two vodkas and a water,” he says. “Pay up front, Micah.”

“You serious?” Micah says. “Rongo, babe, it’s me!”

The bartender glares at me. “Twenty-five chips, standard.”

“Savior’s cock,” Micah says with a frown. “Alright, Rongie.” I catch Micah flit up his eye. “Here’s twenty-five chips and ten more for your trouble. Now leave us alone for a spell, nu? Girl needs some serious ther-a-py!”

I roll my eyes as Rongo drops the glasses on the table and saunters off with a huff.

“That melk likes to act all tough,” Micah says, “but in bed he’s cuddly as a teddy bear. He dyes his pubes pink and shaves em into a little heart. It’s so stabbing cute.”

“Shiva, Micah, you ever met anyone you haven’t fucked?”

“You,” he says, winking.

I wouldn’t sleep with Micah if he paid me a billion coin, but now may not be the best time to say this. I pick up the vodka and drink half in one go.

“Damn! Not even a toast?” He shakes his head then sips his. “Tell me bout your day, Jess. You get fired or something?”

“Or something,” I say. My stomach must be empty, cause I’m already buzzed. I look round to make sure no one’s in earshot, then say, “I need to get off station, fast.”

“Ah,” he says, leaning back. He holds up his polkadotted yellow and purple hands like he’s framing my face. “Now the hol comes clear. Girl did something malymal and needs to fly before the law pins her ass in Rehab.”

“Stop calling me girl!” I say. “I ain’t no girl!”

“No,” he says. “You look young, but you’re grown up thrice over. Toughest woman I ever known, and you ain’t met my mom.” He takes a sip of vodka. “Like how fast?”

“Like ten-weeks-ago fast.”

“This explains not having time for a drink with your old pal. You’re welcome for that, by the way.”

“Can you help me or no?”

He squints. “Depends. What you gonna do for me?”

I lean back as the vodka works its way into my blood. Sometimes when you’re buzzed you notice things you miss sober. Micah was never my friend, and I was stupid to ever think he was.

“I got eighty nine Schlepp Tokens in a hubspace account,” I say.

He snorts. “Stop joking and give me a real number.”

“900 Hiija.”

“Fuck off.”

“You could buy a small ship with that!”

“Where you been, Jess? Hiijas are public toilets. No one wants to go near em.”

“Then what do you want?”

He sticks out his lower jaw. “5,000 chips should cover it.”

“5,000? You fucking serious?”

“Dead.”

“That’s a shitton of chips, Micah!”

“Desperate times.”

“I can’t pay in standard coin,” I say.

“Lost your roachrunner account, nu?” He checks his eie. “Nothing bout you on public feeds. But I got taps into station sec. Let’s see . . . Oh, shit! Look at this! The girl—I mean woman’s—got a level-one snatch-grab out for her!”

I shrink in my seat. “Keep your fucking voice down!”

He reads aloud, “Jessian Urania Darger. Estimated age: sixteen by Sol, fifty-one by Shoen.” He pauses. “Urania?”

I shake my head. My middle name was my parents idea of a joke, and I’m the punchline.

“Target is a GRT-3C,” he reads, “General Repair Technician, Third Class, a.k.a. Roachrunner. Formerly employed in Yamaguchi Ring repairing small to mid-sized vessels and associated docking berths. Employment terminated as of 0351 hours this morning.” Micah pauses to take a drink.

“Could you shut the hell up?” I say. “Someone might be listening!”

“Ain’t no one gives a shit bout you here,” he says. “Whoa! This ain’t you.” He throws a file into my eie, and I reluctantly accept. It’s a pic of a red-haired girl, with freckles and green eyes. Definitely not me. I’m more the dark and stormy type. “There’s a heap of biometrics here that’s completely wrong,” he says. “Damn, you got mad skills. I should hire you.”

“A friend did that for me,” I say.

“Care to share eir name?”

“No.”

Micah nods. “Right. So here’s the deal. You’re hot, Jess, so it’s gonna be tricky sneaking you off-station. I’m gonna have to up my price to 50,000.”

“Shiva’s ass, Micah! I said I can’t pay in coin!”

“You ain’t got nothing off-station? Thought you was wiser than that.”

I ain’t gonna pay him that much. 50,000 chips is almost all my savings, and I been saving deep for eleven long years, ever since I was six and first laid eyes on a Spark Megahauler in a print catalog. It’d take at least another decade to save that much, and that’s with a job I presently don’t have.

“I got six Lumens,” I say, “stashed in a timesafe in Zoransys, quantum-locked. You can only open it once per orbit, every sixty-three standard days. I’ll give you the key.”

Micah takes a slow breath and raises his brow. “Lumens?” he says. “You know what they’re for, nu?”

“Exotic matter weapons.”

He shakes his head. “I know you better than you think, Jess. You forget, you boast when you’re high. I know you been grifting cross the galaxy forever. I ain’t gonna be another fucking mark. You ain’t got Lumens in no timesafe. You just don’t wanna pay that much coin.”

He’s right, mostly. There are Lumens in that time safe, but they’re bout as valuable as lumps of carbon. Whatever exotic matter was in them drained out long ago, and now they’re just pretty glowing crystals that’ll give you a bad case of split-DNA you get too close. The time safe’s a honey pot me and Daddy set up to scam these Inner Terra mushies outta coin. But some FTU jeeks got wind of us and we zipped outta there fifteen seconds fore we would have had our asses shorn off.

I take a sip of vodka. Daddy always warned me to never shit a shitter, and Micah’s bout the biggest shitter there is.

“There’s gotta be something I can pay with,” I say. But soon as the words fly outta my mouth I regret em.

Micah gives me a deep stare. “A less dignified jeek might think you was offering yourself,” he says.

“And that jeek’d be dead wrong!” I growl. “Also dead.”

“Oh, I know,” he says. “You ain’t that kinda jeek. And even if you were, I wouldn’t accept it. Believe it or no, I respect you, Jess. Unlike most jeeks, you got soul. But the honest-to-Shiva truth is, I can’t take nothing cept standard coin. You want off-station, you gotta pay standard.”

I look round the Iris. There’s gotta be someone else, another option. Above us a ZYM 1591 Edgeline Darkhauler twists on its axes, its movements graceful and mesmerizing. I haven’t slept in forever, I’m buzzed, and reactor hot. I just wanna sleep. But I can’t rest till I’m speeding away at ten plus mega-cs. And godsdamnit, Micah’s my way out.

“I’ll give you 5,000 chips.”

He laughs. “So she does have coin.” His smile fades. “35,000.”

“10,000.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Twenty!” I say, “But that’s all I got!”

He stares at me, nodding, and his skin’s showing scenes from a giant glass-walled yacht in deep space where dozens of oiled, naked bodies are performing acts too disgusting to be called sex. 20,000’s a lot of fucking chips. But this orgiastic scene vanishes, and his skin turns as red as the bloody walls.

“Use this wallet address,” he says as a packet appears in my eie.

“I’ll pay you when I’m safely off station.”

“Up-front or nada, Jess.”

“But you’ll just ghost me.”

“C’mon, Jess,” he says, winking. “It’s me!”

“Exactly,” I say. My heart pounds. I bite my lip. Am I really doing this?

“Clock’s counting, Jess. Station sec’s hot on your ass. If you want to fly, you gotta fly now.”

I wish there was another way. So much for my starship dreams.

I blink up my accounts and queue transfers of 20,000 coin to Micah’s wallet. With each transfer, it feels like I’m shaving off parts of my soul. Eleven long years of savings, gone like a glass of vodka. My chest hurts. But, I ain’t gonna cry, no. I’m tough as Spark Megahaulers, me. Even if I’ll never own one now.

Micah smiles. “Wait here,” he says. Then, fast as he came, he slips away.

I down the rest of my vodka, then I drink the rest of Micah’s too.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I ain’t never been at the tail end of a scam. so this is what it’s like to be left on the float. Micah’s gonna ghost me, and station sec’s gonna lock my ass up for nine eternities.

The bartender waltzes over with a glass of vodka on a tray.

“I didn’t order no drink!” I snap. “I can’t afford water now!”

“On Micah,” he says, as he places a napkin down, all delicate-like. He carefully sits a sweaty glass on it, like we’re in some glitzy restaurant, then spins off like debris from a crashed ship. I can’t stop seeing his pubes shaved into a little pink heart. Thanks for that image, Micah.

The Iris ain’t the kind of place that puts napkins under glass, so I ain’t surprised when I see the handwritten note fracting through glass and ice:

SR-L21-B6

Samnang Ring, Level 21, Berth 6. So Micah didn’t ghost me after all. The bartender Rongo’s busy wiping the bar with a dirty rag, trying desperate not to look my way.

I grab my multitool from my belt and set it to my light-a-joint setting. A blue flame winks to life, and I burn the napkin, till it shrivels and smokes and turns to ash. Just like my life on Chadeisson, just like my dreams of owning a starship. I never should have stayed here so long. The napkin burns my fingers as I drop it in the ashtray.

I fly hyperbolic out the door, then down the street into an alley. I duck into shadows, cautious as I run. I take stairs stead of lifts, halls stead of discs, alleys stead of avenues. The more common the path, the more likely I’ll get rec’d. Leurie’s good, but I can’t take no chances. And it feels like Chadeisson don’t want me to leave, cause I get turned round a dozen times fore I find Level 21.

And what a shithole.

No shiny kiosks or porter mechs or horny sims. Just antique bulkheads covered in so many layers of replast it’s like looking through strata of stone. There’s an awful smell, like scorched metal and spoiled milk. I creep down the empty hall, ready to get jumped. This ain’t no place to linger.

Berths 1 through 5 haven’t held a ship in ages. But there’s a decrepit ZYM 96 Starpusher in Berth 6 like an old turd left in the sun. A ship, but only in name. I don’t need to scan eir to see eir misaligned thrust vector vanes, and a hull one micrometeorite away from collapse.

This is the punchline to my life’s sad joke. “Fucking piece of shit,” I say, ready to bolt. But this kid, bout twelve Sols old, pops out from behind the Starpusher with a grin wide as Petua’s Rings. He’s covered bow to stern in soot like he’s weeks lost in an exhaust manifold and only now just finding his way out. His toolbelt sags with heavy wares.

“Sal!” the kid says, beaming like suns. “E’s here!”

A sweaty jeek with a bowl-shaped belly and a bushy dark beard steps out from the Starpusher. “Who the fuck’re you?” he growls.

I look bush-beard up and down. The kids all carboned up, so he must be the fixer, the hands-on jeek. His smile’s so ridiculous it’s adorable. I like him already.

But bush-beard gets my hackles up. He ain’t got no soot on him. So while this kid’s climbing inside ports, he does, what? Give orders? Plus there’s a seam welder on his hip, the hot-light glowing red. All he’s gotta do is press the trigger and a moon-sized ball of plasma comes flying at my face. His hand twitches bove the welder, waiting for me to act. “I said, who the fuck’re you?” he repeats.

“The tooth phantom,” I say. “Who the fuck’re you?”

Right hand bove his welder, he steps up to me, bringing a reeking wind of whiskey and sweat. “Who the fuck sent you?” he says.

“We both know who the fuck sent me,” I say, hoping he does in fact know the fuck who sent me. I try not to wince from his reek as I stare back at him. It’s silly, this staring contest. But apes gotta be apes. It don’t matter that we hop from star to star like angels of lore, deep down we’re all still beasts trying to claim our little pieces of dirt. “You gonna fly my ass off this steaming pile of shit they call a station,” I say, “or do I look elsewhere?”

As he looks me over, his body sags. “You got carg?”

“Nope. Just me.”

He points with his thumb at the Starpusher. “We’re off in five.”

I raise my brow. “In that?”

“Yeah.”

“E flight-ready?”

“Sure.”

“E don’t look it.”

He walks away from me. “Sit in the right rear passenger seat,” he says. “Don’t touch nothing.”

“Got it, Captain . . . ?”

His eyes narrow as they find me again. “Sal.”

“Golden!” I say, smiling. “Where we headed, Captain Sal?”

“It matter?” he grunts.

“Not really. But fore we leap out the black, you’ll wanna to check your thrust vector vanes. I ain’t ever seen ones so bent.”

He scowls. “One rule I got on my ship, no speaking less spoken to. Yeah?”

Real genital wart, this jeek. But I ain’t got time to be picky. “Aye, aye, Cap. You won’t know I’m here.”

“Too late,” he says, turning back to his sad excuse for a ship.

The kid steps forward, still beaming. “I’m Sadiq!” he says.

“Klara,” I say, using Mom’s name. I’m a one-trick mech-boeir.

“Klara,” he says, as if tasting it. He looks at my waist and his eyes dilate, like he’s taken a hit of weirdo. “Du a roachrunner, ja?”

Did Micah tell them bout me? “What makes you say that?”

“Your wares,” he says, eyeing my belt. “They’re for fixing ships, ja? I need me a multitool like yours! Mine’s alt as sheiss. The integrator takes five minuten to remorph a tool!”

My toolbelt’s stocked, cause an enterprising jeek should always have tools handy. You never know what troubles’ll arise. “A multitool like this,” I say, tapping my hip, “is what, fifty chips? You don’t got fifty chips?” Though I feel kinda stupid saying this, being that I just spent half my life savings for a ride on this piece of shit.

“I got ein paar coins in an account. But Sal says that I should—”

“Sal says,” the man growls from the ship’s ramp, “that you two better get your asses board fore I leave without you.”

What an assneck. But he’s my ride, so I gotta play his game. “We better listen to Cap,” I say.

“Yeah,” Sadiq says. “Better.” And fore I take a breath, Sadiq’s running up the ramp into the Starpusher. A mal feeling sinks in my stomach that’s not from the the shitty Iris vodka or the fact that I just dropped twenty large. This Starpusher’s a godsdamn awful ship, and these jeeks seem bout as star savvy as a borked toilet. I take one gloomy look at Chadeisson and sigh. Not how I planned to exit, but seldom do we choose how we go.

Three weeks back, a ZYM 96 Starpusher flew into station, and in my long-winded way I told its pilot e’d be better off changing the heap for mass and using the credit to lease a new ship. I told eir Starpushers’re bout as safe as snowflakes in supernovas. But the owner, a softspoken gold-haired beaut from Oxwei, with the darkest, smoothest skin I ever seen, said e had a bond with eir ship that went yond safety, and though I ain’t never had no ship of my own, I understood exactly what e meant.

But the bleak truth is all ZYM 96 Starpushers were obsolete the moment they shat out a printer. Which, if memory serves, was two centuries back. I know many a jeek, Daddy mong em, who swore they’d never fly in one. I swore it too, many times.

So much for fucking vows.

I shake my head as I step inside. The Starpusher’s cabin, if you can call it one, is worse than outside. Ripped hublines hang from open panels. Boxes of tech cover the floor, knee-deep. The air filters must be borked, cause it smells like chicken soup and rotten eggs.

Empty of carg, a Starpusher seats twelve, which’s fine for ferrying or day hauls. With its sleeper and added bunking, you could sleep four. Six, if you don’t mind sticking your nose up someone’s ass. But with all this useless crap filling the cabin, three’s a fucking crowd.

“Where the hell do I sit?”

Sal points to a chair covered with so much junk it takes me a sec to spot it. I leapfrog over boxes and dodge hanging hublines to reach the chair, knocking shit over as I go. I heave two crates of junk to the floor, then sit my ass on the frigid chair. The whole ship’s cold, like it’s just been pulled in from the float.

“You peddlers?” I say, looking round at all the boxes.

“Member what I said bout talking?” Sal says.

“Right, Cap,” I say. “Com off.”

I sweep my eyes over the junk. There’s slot connectors and vid panels, mech parts, holo projectors, power conduits, and gravdeck plates. Junk any jeek could make with a decent printer and enough feed mass. If they stole all this shit, no one’d miss it. Shiva knows why they’d fill a ship with it.

From the pilot’s chair Sal activates the com. Its interface don’t inspire confidence. No fancy displays or holos. Just grease-stained screens and rows of switches in dire need of repair. Sal chooses the first channel he finds.

“Chadeisson Control,” he says, “this is, uh, Samnang Ring, Level 21, Berth . . . 6. Request a, uh, launch vector . . . ?”

That ain’t how you request an LV. What the fuck’s he doing?

“Berth 6!” Control replies, a jeek or sent, e sounds like e just woke up from a mal dream. “This channel’s for emergency use only! Launch vector requests must come through local dataspace 1001 using com nexus LP-39A!”

Sal and Sadiq exchange glances. Have they never fucking launched from station space? Have they never flown a fucking ship?

Shiva’s ass! I lean forward, heart pounding.

“Our, uh, hubspace transceiver’s having issues,” Sal says.

“We’ll send a roachrunner crew to your berth,” Control says, and Sadiq glances at me. “We can schedule a team to be there at 1430 hours.”

“We can’t wait til then,” Sal says. “We’re late. We gotta leave now!”

“Without hubspace access, your safety cannot be guaranteed.”

“Can you give us a fucking vector?” Sal barks, but underneath his anger I smell fear. The kid’s jouncing his leg up and down, pulsar fast. And now it smacks me clear. They’re running scared. They need to flee Chadeisson fast as me.

Control’s quiet for seconds. I hold my breath.

“Samnang Ring, Level 21, Berth 6, Launch vector granted. Use vector AA-30, thirty degree inclination, launch init local time 0720 hours, max accel 0.25g until min station distance 1,000 klicks. Any deviation from this course will result in your ship’s impoundment and punitive action against you. Confirm with a verbal ‘I affirm vector and acknowledge flight plan.’”

Sal leans back and says, “I affirm vector and acknowledge flight plan!”

“Copy verbal affirmation. Be advised that your transcode, designation, and configuration have been flagged for mandatory inspection at arrival at any FTU-aligned port, due to your inability to follow standard safety regulations.”

Sal kills the com. “Shut the fuck up!” he says.

I check my eie. 0718 hours station time. Two minutes till launch. Not enough time to run a quick health scan of the ship. Shit shit shit! “You never launched from station?” I say, my voice creaky with dread.

“Hush!” Sal says, fiddling with the console, doing and undoing commands. He don’t seem to know the diff tween maneuvering thruster flow and singularity power regs.

“I could help,” I say. “Those old Xin kernels are tricky.”

“You stupid or something?” Sal says.

I choose not to be offended. “Tell me, Sal, you know how to fly? My life, I’ve flown over ten thousand ships.” Which is only a slight exaggeration.

Sal squeezes his hands to fists, his cheeks flush, and his jaw hardens like he’s chewing metal.

“Better hush now, Klara,” Sadiq says. “Hush real good fore he . . .”

Fore he what? I think. Slugs me? Sal’d lose that match, vert.

Sadiq’s wincing like he’s expecting violence. I bet Sal smacks the kid round. Fuck, I loathe brutes who think fists are substitutions for stupidity. Any other time I’d grab something heavy and crack it over Sal’s head, then ghost him like a virtual particle. But the sad truth is I need him and his pathetic ship. So I hold my tongue, which is bout the hardest thing I ever gotta do.

The outer-door warning lights flash, then the familiar, obnoxious wail of the vacuum warning. “DANGER!” the voice says in Anglai. “OUTER DOOR OPENING! DANGER!” The warning repeats in Mandreen and Indei.

And though all the doors and hatches to our crusty Starpusher’ve been sealed, I hear the warning clear as day. Ice rolls down my spine. On a good ship, a sealed ship, you shouldn’t hear a fucking thing. To hear outside sounds means that tween us and the vacuum of space there ain’t all that much there there.

The berth’s warning lights’re flashing, but the sounds fade as the air’s sucked out of the bay. And—Shiva’s balls—my ears pop. This godsdamned ship ain’t airtight!

Oh fuck, oh fucking fuck! Is this where I make my last exit? What the hell did you do to me, Micah?

The ship shudders as the ion manifolds wake, and that should not happen, ever. An alarm flashes on the console. Sal swipes it away fore I can read it.

“Is this ship even fucking spaceworthy?” I say, verging on panic.

“We’ll find out!” Sal says, a wild look on his face.

“You don’t fucking know?” I say, bout to puke up all the vodka I ate for breakfast. “Oh, Shiva!”

“The ship ain’t ours,” Sadiq says, biting his nails.

“You stole eir?” I say.

“No,” Sal says. “We’re stealing eir now!”

“Oh shit!” I say. “Oh, fucking shit!”

And, at precisely 0720 hours, the outer doors open. And a moment later, with an acceleration I should not feel but definitely do, our ZYM 96 Starpusher tumbles out to the abyss.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

You feel that?” I say, my voice quaking.

“Feel what?” says Sadiq.

“That accel!”

“It’s barely point two g,” Sal says. “You spacesick? Relax! We’re free!”

“How can I fucking relax? You should never feel accel on a ship, specially on such low thrust!”

“Maybe on a big ship,” Sal says. “But this one’s small as a gnat.”

“You ever been on a small ship?” I say. “I piloted hundreds! Even on one the size of an ass pimple you should not feel a fucking thing!”

“E’s just old,” Sal says, patting the console like he and the Starpusher are old friends.

“You plan on going slipstream?” I say.

“Soon as we’re free of station.”

“And you know going slipstream puts ships under tens of thousands of gs, right?”

Sal bites his lip, and I have a sinking feeling he does not, in fact, know this. “So what’re you saying?” he says.

I sigh. Just when I think I’ve reached the depths of human stupidity, the gravbowl sinks deeper. “I’m saying this little ship you stole has severely misaligned gravplates. If we go slipstream, we’ll be smushed flatter than a bug on a neutron star.”

Sal turns to Sadiq. “That true, kid?”

I put my head in my hands. Micah, is this your way of getting rid of me? “You stole a godsdamn ship,” I say, “and you don’t know how gravplates work?”

“I think Klara’s right,” the kid says. “I don’t think we should go slipstream.”

“I am right,” I say. “We go slipstream, we die.”

“We can’t go back,” Sal growls. “And I’m guessing neither can you.”

“We don’t need to go back,” I say. “I can fix gravplates in my sleep. Fixed a dozen this week.”

Sal looks at the kid again.

“Klara’s a roachrunner,” the kid says. “It can’t hurt, letting eir have a look?”

“Fine,” Sal says. “But you so much as fart wrong, you’re out the airlock.”

“Keep my farts proper, copy.”

The console beeps, but Sal swipes it off. “You’re off-vector!” I say. “Drift too far, and station sec’s gonna get tetchy. You gotta stay in AA-30 till you’re a thousand klicks out. If you want, I could pilot us till—”

“I know what I gotta fucking do!” he barks. “Just fix the goddamn plates!” He swings back to the console and manually adjusts the ship’s vector with a stomach-heaving lurch.

“Shiva,” I say, queasy. These gravplates are seriously borked.

“You got ten minutes,” he says. “If it ain’t fixed by then we go slipstream anyway.”

“That’d kill us all.”

“Then work fast!”

I shake my head. Real charm, this one. I look pityingly at Sadiq. I’m just along for the ride, but this kid’s got a long-term contract.

“Can I help?” Sadiq says, his eyes pleading. “You show me how to fix gravplates? I won’t touch nicht, swear.”

“Why not.”

Sal grunts. “Keep an eye on eir. Make sure she don’t break nothing.”

“Hard to do when most’s already broken,” I say.

Sal spits on the floor and rights our course.

Sadiq helps me heave away boxes of junk so I can access the floor. If I trusted the gravplate controls I’d drop the internal grav to point three g or something fluffy to make things easy, but I don’t know how bad the system’s borked. That might be deadly without checking the gravplates first.

We get the floor panels off and I climb into the ship’s bowels, which smell worse than human ones. I plug my scanner into the hub, and Sadiq leans his soot-stained head down the hole to watch. He reminds me so much of Ibis and Frost I gasp. Godsdamn, I’ll never laugh with those two runts again. I’ll never see their smelly asses outside of a pic. A fat lump rises in my throat. But I ain’t got time to be sad. No, I’m tough as neutron matter, me.

“Why’d you stop?” Sadiq says.

“What? Oh, just remembering something.”

“Some thing,” he says, “or some one?”

Damn, kid’s got eyes. “Just some old friends.”

“Who?”

“It don’t matter. They’re gone now.”

“You lost fam too, huh?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Sal says the same. Hey, why’d you plug your scanner in direct? It can’t read remote?”

“Sure can, and if this were my ship, I’d have it dumping stats into my eie. Every ship’s got its own dataspace and firewalls and crypt, and I could crack them easy, but we don’t got time.” I glance at Sal. “If you plug in direct, you can bypass all that stuff and get right at the hardware with a shell.”

“A shell?”

“Direct system access. Command console. Text only. Goes back to pre-Diaspora days, Orginearth tech. Most systems still run a form of it, for legacy modes and crash recovery. Even in the newest ships you still got command shells underneath all the fancy tech.”

“Wow!” Sadiq says. “That’s sehr golden! What you typing?”

“Status checks. Trying to see how many gravplates we got and if they’re getting power from the stone.”

“The stone?”

“The singularity.”

“That’s a black hole?”

“That’s eir.”

“The black hole powers the ship, ja?”

I stare at the kid. “You two just stole a starship and you don’t got a clue how one works, do ya?”

“Stealing it was a last-minute decision.”

“Worst ones usually are. Look, if you want to leap into ten-space you gotta have stellar amounts of power. Literally. Like exajoules. That’s what the stone’s for. Even a small one, with the right reactor, can generate a sun’s worth of power.”

“And the gravplates use that power to make gravity?”

“Technically it ain’t gravity.”

“What d’you mean? It pulls us down, ja?”

“And left, and right, and slantways. Them engineering jeeks call em spacetime inertial field generators. Each gravplate’s got billions of electrogravitomagnetrons, little superconducting magnets that bend and warp space around you every femtosecond, to keep you from floating away or getting smushed. They’re doing it now.”

“Now?” The kid looks awed. “How?”

“The science’s honestly past my event horizon. But this one jeek I know...” I pause, remembering Leurie’s face, fading from my vision. “She understood it all. She tried to teach me once and she made one thing clear. Gravity’s caused by mass, but gravplates don’t generate mass. They warp spacetime, so it’s wrong to call it gravity.”

“So why call em gravplates if it ain’t gravity?”

“Cause it sounds sexy. Who the hell wants to call em spacetime inertial field generators? She told me to think of em like all the muscles in your foot. When they’re working smooth, you stand perfect, even though dozens are working hard to keep you balanced.”

“I think I get it!” the kid says.

“Golden!” I say. “So, the gravplates counteract the ship’s accel. The ship accels one g forward, the gravplates pull you one g back. Net force is zero, inside the ship. Good for keeping organs in their proper places. With gravplates working smooth, you shouldn’t feel a pico-newton in any direction, even if you’re bouncing round like a photon down a waveguide.”

“Like arm wrestling!” he says. “You get two jeeks with equal strength, their arms don’t move nichts!”

“Like that, sure. So back in them Diaspora days, gravplating was stellar complex, and you needed fancy softs to keep everyone from getting smushed. Lots of accidents, then. Whatever you do, don’t search hubspace for hols. You’ll regret it. But one day this genius Chenda Sen came along and figured how to wire singularity drives direct to gravplates in a negative feedback loop so you could keep em perfect in sync.”

“So when the ship accels faster, the gravplates pull harder back?”

“You’re getting it, kid! Hand me that hubline coupler, will ya?”

He does and says, “Them mega-stations like Chadeisson, they use gravplates too?”

“In spots. But it’s impractical on large scales. It’d use a nova’s worth of power to hold Chadeisson together with gravplating.”

“Why?”

“Cause Chadeisson’s huge, and irregular. It’s easier just to put all the rings on big axels and set em spinning. Micro-frictions eventually slow em down, so every now and then they give the rings a little kick to keep em spinning.” I flick my fingers. “The kicks are so small you never notice.”

The kid’s so mesmerized I could convince him I’m Jaim Janan eirself. But I won’t play him. I feel bad for this soot-stained jeek who by some unlucky fate ended up in this borked ship with that useless pile of bioexcrement in the pilot’s chair. He reminds me of me, when I was his age, all curious and annoying. Which, though it feels like eons, wasn’t that long ago.

“How’d you learn all this stuff?” he says.

I shrug. “Been round pallets of ships, I guess. Most comes natural.”

“Oh,” he says, the light draining from his eyes. “I’ll nie be as clev as you. It don’t come natural to me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, kid. I’m bout as far from genius as Centaurus Arm’s from Orginearth. It ain’t hard. Look, here we go.” I tap the scanner’s screen and hold it up. “You see what the problem is?”

He looks at it, then timidly says, “One of the gravplates ain’t getting full power?”

“Right! See, it ain’t so hard.” He beams bright as Sirius as I say, “One plate’s dead, and six’re badly degraded.”

“Is that mal?”

“It ain’t golden. You never want to travel in a ship with degraded gravplates. That’d be mal. And by mal I mean death. I’ll bypass the dead plate and up power to the degraded ones. I wouldn’t want to leap into the Outer New in this ship, but it should get us through the next few hours.”

“You chatting or working?” Sal shouts. “Cause I’m serious bout zipping the fuck outta here!”

“Klara found the problem!” Sadiq blurts. “One of the gravplates is dead and the other—”

“Don’t fucking care!” Sal barks. “Can you fix it or no?”

“Kid and I are fixing it now,” I say.

“How long?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Work faster!”

“What’s the goddamned rush?”

“Three cutters just changed course to intercept, that’s what.”

I pop my head up from the floor. “Serious?” I say. “What class of ship?”

“Dunno.”

“Put em on the console!”

“Huh?”

“Show me the damn ships!”

Begrudgingly he does, and I recognize their razor shapes instantly.

“Fuck,” I say. “Those are PPRA Hoshi Lightnings. Short range. Fast as hell. Armed to the teeth. It’s station sec. You sure they’re on intercept?”

Fore he can answer, the console chirps with an incoming signal.

“It’s them,” he says. “Broadcast message.”

“Play it,” I say.

“I ain’t gonna play no--”

“Play the fucking message!”

Scowling, he taps the console.

“—is Chadeisson Station Security. Your vessel has been reported stolen. Power down your ship and prepare to be towed back to station. Failure to comply will result in active measures taken against you that may result in injury or even death. You have sixty seconds to comply.”

“You’d better finish fixing them plates,” Sal says, powering up the stone. “We ain’t staying here!”

“But that’ll kill us!” I say.

“Then work faster!”

“Fuck!” I say, leaping back under the floor. “I don’t work well under pressure!”

“We gonna die?” the kid says.

“Not if I can help it,” I say.

“Oh gott,” the kid says. “I don’t wanna die!”

“We ain’t gonna die,” I say, wildly typing into the command shell, desperately trying to stop us from, well, dying. Data spills down my screen. Sweat drips into my eyes. “Plate 74B ain’t responding!” I say.

“What’s that mean?” the kid says.

“Thirty seconds!” Sal shouts. “Console says they’re powering up some something!”

“Sadiq!” I shout. His blood-red eyes fix on me. “Plate 74B’s in the corner! Help me yank out its power connector!” I leap out the hole and hop over piles of junk, and Sadiq hops after me. We knock over things as we go, and sharp edges slice my limbs.

“Twenty seconds!” Sal shouts. “They’re scanning us!”

The kid and me heave boxes aside like beasts tearing at a carcass. We rip off the floor access panel, and I leap down the hole. I reach for the connector, but my belt gets caught on some metal junk.

“I’m stuck!” I say. “I can’t reach it! Sadiq, yank out that connector!”

“Which one?”

“That one!” I shout, pointing. “That one there!”

The kid grabs a coolant pipe, swings himself down in a move that’d impress a zero-g capuchin, and yanks the connector free.

“Go, Sal, go!” I scream. “Go slipstream now!”

He taps the console, and the air fills with the familiar whine of the slipstream drive powering up.

“Wait!” I say. “You plotted a course first, right?”

But fore he can answer, we leap into higher dimensions.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Romantics say that going slipstream’s like waking to a world of love and light. Well, lemme tell you, those jeeks’re assholes. Going slipstream feels like being shat out an anus with really bad diarrhea after eating too much spicy food. Like, at first it’s uncomfortable and even painful, but after you’re done, the relief’s superb. I know scholars say it’s got something to do with quantum effects on neurons in the pre-frontal cortex, and that the secret behind consciousness is we’re all non-local minds floating in ten-space. I don’t know fuck all bout that, but I do know that once you’re full on slipstream, it feels wonderful, like soaking in a hot bath after a hard day.

It don’t feel like that now. Now it feels like we’re stuck in that gotta-take-a-shit phase, and there ain’t no toilet in a hundred parsecs.

Out the window, the stars’re blueshifted, a sure sign we’re slipstream. So my discomfort don’t make sense. Sadiq bowls over and pukes, and it drips into the ship’s bowels, spilling over gravplates. At least I know they’re working, otherwise we’d be smushed flat. It ain’t the plates that are borked.

“I don’t feel so good,” Sal says.

I help Sadiq up and sit him in the corner, tween boxes of junk. “Stay here!” I say. “I’m gonna go see what’s wrong!”

The kid nods, but his eyes’re heavy-lidded like he’s double-dosed on weirdo. I take his hand and press his index finger to a spot under his ear. “Pressure point,” I say. “Relieves nausea. Keep pressing. I’ll be back!” I leap over boxes, fighting urges to heave, and make my way to the co-pilot’s chair. The console’s lit with a trillion warnings like it’s celebrating Dipvalii.

“Shiva’s ass!” I say. “We ain’t stable!”

“No fucking shit!” Sal growls.

My vision blurs. It’s hard to read. “We’re jumping in and out of slipstream eighty-four times a second!” I say. “Pass me the con! I’ll fix this!”

“Fuck you! This is my ship and—”

But fore Sal can finish he rolls off the chair and pukes. While he heaves, I hop into his chair and start attacking the errors.

Gravplate instability.

I fucking know! Next!

Singularity angular rotation misalignment.

Shiva’s ass hair! We’re lucky we weren’t gamma-baked when we went slipstream. I use the console to increase power to the stone’s containment field, and our velocity drops to two mega-cs. Not good, if we’re being chased, but slow’s better than dead. But this still don’t explain why I feel one swoon from joining their vomitorium. Next!

Noisy signal in powerline couplers A1, B1, and D6. Recommend bypass through couplers A2, B2, and D7. Confirm bypass?

Confirm! Next!

“Did you do a single godsdamn syscheck?” I say.

“No time,” Sal says, holding his head. “We had to bolt.”

I quick work my way down the list, fixing some, but mostly bypassing borked systems and hoping the backups hold. When I get to the tenth warning a bigger problem grows clear.

Unknown power drain in slipstream field generator. A nearby gravitational mass may be affecting slipstream field generation. Recommend dropping out of slipstream immediately.

A nearby gravitational mass would affect the drive. And Sal never plotted a course! Fuck, are we headed right for a planet or sun? I check our distance to Pnei and the Brow, but they’re too far away to cause such an instability. Something else’s doing this. Something closer.

I run a vector analysis on the power drain. There’s a huge gravitational mass fifteen light-seconds aft. “Fuck,” I say. “It’s them.”

“Who?” Sal says.

“Station sec.”

Sal crawls to the co-pilot’s chair and checks the console. “I don’t see no ships on sensors.”

“Them Hoshi Lightnings got new tech,” I say. “Something massive’s draining our slipstream field from right hind us. It’s gotta be them.”

“Can we outrun em?”

“Not in this piece of shit.”

“Then we fight!” he says, pulling the seam welder from his belt.

“Put that shit away!” I say, tapping up the nav system.

“What’re you doing?”

“Plotting a zig-zag course. Those ships’re fast, but if we make a few hundred random hops, they’ll have a hard time following.”

“You ever done that before?”

“At least twice,” I say. Or, my daddy did, I don’t add.

I drop us out of slipstream, the stars redshift back to their normal colors, and a wave of nausea hits me so hard I see black. The kid moans and Sal retches. A second later, we leap into higher dimensions again with a gut-wrenching shift.

Unknown power drain in slipstream field generator, the console says.

Fuck! I drop out of slipstream, then jump to new vector. Out and in, in and out, like the ship’s a horny melk fucking ten-space. And eight hundred awful jumps later, we fall back into four-space and stay there, no matter what I do, and the console lights up bright red.

Singularity containment failure!

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no!

The console’s flashing all sorts of rad warnings and containment hazards, but the worst is the thing I can’t admit even to myself.

“They gone?” Sal says.

The console chirps with an incoming transmission, broad spectrum, cycling thousands of times per second. It’s powerful, transmitted from a buoy a few klicks off, a buoy that wasn’t there moments ago, and whose presence fills me with utter dread.

“That a message?” Sal says.

“Don’t play to it.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t fucking play it!”

But fore I can stop him, Sal plays it.

“WARNING! WARNING! STAY AWAY! DO NOT APPROACH! A STARSHIP IN THIS VICINITY HAS LOST SINGULARITY CONTAINMENT. IT IS SLOWLY COLLAPSING INTO A BLACK HOLE. IT CANNOT BE SAVED! DO NOT APPROACH OR YOU MAY BE TRAPPED WITH IT! FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, REMAIN A MINIMUM OF 10,000 KILOMETERS AWAY!”

The message repeats in Mandreen and Indei.

Sal taps up a scan and says, “What ship? I don’t see no ship. There ain’t nothing out here, not even those Lightnings. We made it!”

I kill the message. “They mean us, Sal. That message is bout us.”

“Huh?” Sal says, squinting at me.

“Those Hoshi Lightnings dropped that fernal buoy. They left us to die.”

“Why?” Sal says.

“Cause they think we’re good as dead.”

“Dead?” the kid says.

I give the kid a pitying look. He don’t deserve this. “We’ve lost containment,” I say. “The gravplates’re keeping us alive for the moment, but we’ve gone relativistic.”

“Relative-what?” Sal says.

I roll my eyes as a tightness closes round my chest. “When one second passes for us, lots of seconds’re passing out there.”

“Time’s going faster outside?” Sal says.

“For most the rest of the universe, yeah.”

“How much faster?” Sal says.

The closest hubspace repeater is Chadeisson Station, and its clock ticks too damn fast. “Bout thirty five hundred times faster.”

Sal swallows. “So one second for us is—”

“Bout thirty-five hundred seconds most everywhere else. And unless we restore drive containment, we’ll be crushed to gamma rays in less than ten hours from now, local time.”

Sal gapes at me, then says, “So what do we do?”

“What the fuck do you think we do?” I say. “We fix the godsdamned ship!”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I don’t wanna die any more than them, but it ain’t looking promising. On station, with the right tools, I could fix us quick. But out here, with nothing but a multitool? They’d give better odds on a roach pitted gainst a mech-boeir.

First things first, I sync my eie with the ship. And soon as the keys’re exchanged, I get an alert. An encrypted message broadcast cross hubspace. For me. High priority, anonymous sender, sent to my private address. But I ain’t got time for messages now.

Sal don’t look so good. “I’ll be in the shitter,” he says and hauls himself over junk to slam the door to the toilet.

The kid looks worriedly at me.

“You xin?” I say.

“Ja,” he says, but he don’t look xin.

I slide into the captain’s chair, and the kid climbs into the co-pilot’s. I pull up the diags and shake my head at all the red. Never mind that we’re a billion klicks from Chadeisson, I might as well be back at my roachrunner post with the amount of shit I gotta fix.

“Sal your dad or something?” I say to the kid as I plot my attack, trying to forget how much time’s passing outside.

“Nein,” he says. “My dad’s on Gilder Nefan.”

“Way the fuck in the Outer Deep? How’d you end up with that . . .” I wanna say, fuckhead. But stead, I say, “jeek.”

“I stowed away on one of them enorm ships, at Tasanee,” he says.

“Tasanee, in Penthesiliasys?”

“Ja.”

“On an Oberon Miniliner?”

“Ja.”

“How the hell’d you stow away on one of those?”

“I hacked my eie to present as a service mech. Most menschen on them ships pay no kop to kids. I kept outta sight.”

“Damn!” I say. “And here you were pretending to be a mushie who don’t know asteroids from moons. Meanwhile you’re hacking eies and sneaking on miniliners! That’s a master move, kid!”

Sadiq blushes so hard I think he’s gonna go nova.

“But, yeah,” I say. “Them tainment mushies don’t notice much. How’d you hook up with Sal?”

“He was stowing away like me. When I was hungry, he shared food with me. We hid together some. I asked a kiosk to print us some food when ship sec caught us. They threw us in a cell, but when we got to Chadeisson, we escaped into the crowd.”

“Nice one!” I say.

“Ja! And so Sal was looking for ways to sail out the black again, and this jeek said e had a cheap ship to sell. We knew it was stolen and I don’t want to steal from nobody, but we didn’t have genug coin for a ticket, so . . .”

“So you bought this stellar starbroke specimen.”

“Ja.”

“Well, that may not’ve been so wise.”

The kid frowns, looking sick.

“You said your dad’s on Gilder Nefan?”

“Denke so. I wanna find him.”

“You know that’s in the Outer Deep, yeah, like way the fuck out at the edge of the galaxy?”

“Ja. He went there looking for God.”

“God?”

He stares at his hands, flaring his nostrils, and I take this as meaning it’s a touchy subject.

I pull up more diags on the console as I say, “Your mom around?”

“Nein. She died last year.”

“Ah, shit. Sorry, kid.”

“What bout you?” he says. “You got eltern?”

“Parents? Depends on your definition. Mom left when I was nine.” A ball of forgotten rage wells up in my chest, but I push it down. “And Daddy, well, the prick abandoned me on Chadeisson. Part of the reason I’m in this mess’s cause I was looking for him.”

The kid’s eyes widen. “Ja? Then maybe we can look for our daddys together?”

“That’d be golden, kid. But first,” I say, despairing at all the red on the console, “we gotta fix this ship.”

“How mal is it?”

“Like on a scale of one to ten?”

He nods.

“Ninety-six.”

“So we gonna die then,” he says.

“Nah,” I say, ruffling his hair. “I won’t let us.”

“You promise, Klara?”

I make the FTU bondsign and say, “Swear to Time, Space, and Eternity I’ll do all in my power to keep us alive.”

The kids smiles, but the tears still fall. He knows our odds ain’t good. Station sec thinks we’re a floating coffin and dropped that fernal buoy. But one thing bout me is, I usually prove jeeks wrong.

I tap up more commands. “What’s Sal’s deal?” I say, pointing with my thumb at the shitter. “What’s he running from?”

Sal barges out of the toilet and gives me a look of murder. “It ain’t none of your fucking business what I’m running from!” he shouts.

I stare at him. I ain’t fraid of bullies. I faced worse, bigger. Still, you gotta handle beasts with care. “Course,” I say. “Ain’t none of my business.”

He stares at me like he’s a hungry wolf and I just devoured his breakfast.

“I should really have a go at these errors,” I say.

“Yeah,” Sal says, “you fucking should.”

I turn back to the console. “Well,” I say, “the ship’s got a thousand small problems, but ain’t none of em matters less we fix the stone.”

“The stone?” Sal says.

“The singularity!” the kid says. “The black hole that powers the ship.”

“Course I know what a fucking stone is!” Sal says, though I’m pretty sure he didn’t. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The stone’s held in a containment field that keeps it aligned,” I say. “But whatever those Hoshi Lightnings did to slow us down stellar fucked it. I’m guessing the stone was already misaligned fore we left port. The containment’s failing. And once it’s gone, so are we.”

“But you can fix it?” Sal says.

“I were in a dry dock, sure. I’d bring in grav baskets and alignment softs and fix the stone quick. Out here? Without tools? It’s gonna be hard. We’ll have to align it manually.”

“How hard is hard?” the kid says.

I suppress a shiver. “We’ll have to get cozy with a warped ball of matter that could tear us to shreds in picoseconds if we fuck up.”

“But we can fix it?” Sal repeats.

“Theoretically,” I say, shivering. “Never done it like this, though. I’ll have to climb into the reactor torus. That’s stellar dangerous.”

“Let me do it!” the kid says. “You tell me how to fix the stone, Klara, so I can be clev like you!”

“No way, kid,” I say, remembering Frost and eir wet backside. I can’t do that again. “It’s stellar dangerous. Like malymal.”

“I ain’t scared!” he says, though he’s shaking more than me.

“I’ll do it,” Sal says.

“You?” I say.

“Yeah, me,” he says.

“You don’t know how to fix a stone.”

“Show me.”

“I don’t think you understand,” I say. “One fuck-up and it’s goodbye universe. For all of us.”

Sal pulls his belt tight. “This is my godsdamn ship and I need to know how to fix eir! I ain’t scared of no fucking stone!”

I stare into his dark eyes and sigh. First thing any jeek out the black tells you is there’s two kinds of people, those who’re fraid of stones, and those who lie bout it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Fifteen minutes later I got the ship powered low, the gravplates pulling point three g, and the cabin a chilly ten C. The low-g helps us remove the metal aft panels so we can access the reactor torus. I didn’t think my feelings toward Starpushers could get any worse, till I get a look inside.

The seams are smooth as mountain ranges, and the aggro drum’s using tech they haven’t used since humans climbed out the gravbowl of Orginearth. “What mierd!” I say.

The torus’s three meters wide, and I mark tech with my eie: gravimagneto couplers, aggro pressure drum, reactor pile vent, reaction-mass feed, emergency reactor eject. Pressing that last one’ll fling the whole torus into space, which sounds great. Cept with containment failing, if we eject the stone, that’ll leave us all in a swiftly decaying orbit round it until we’re torn apart one quark at a time. Which will also happen soon if we do nothing.

Sal leans over my shoulder. The kid huddles beside me.

“You see those three knobs sticking out halfway up the drum?” I say. “Those are your three axes of control.”

“My three what?” Sal says.

Shiva’s ass sweat. “X, Y, and Z?” I say.

“You mean like the alphabet?” Sal says.

I shake my head. Might as well crush ourselves now to save time. But I’m an optimistic jeek. I still think we might get outta this alive.

“No, Sal!” the kid says. “Axes! Left, right, forward, back, up, down! Ja?”

“Oh,” Sal says. “Course!”

“Course,” I say, skeptically. “So those knobs control the axes of the couplers that hold the stone. Turn em clockwise, and the stone rotates one direction. Counter-clockwise, the other. You know what clockwise is?”

“I ain’t that fucking stupid!” he says.

“Vert, vert. So you climb in there, get cozy with the stone, and adjust them knobs. I’ll be here, directing.”

“That don’t seem hard,” he says.

“You’ll be in the ionization zone,” I say. “Particles’re falling into the stone all the time. As that shit spirals in it heats up, gives off gamma rays. Particles collide and release more energy. The couplers usually keep all that safely in the drum, but since containment’s failing, well, it gets, uh, hairy.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You know how when you throw a rock in a pool and it makes waves? Well, you’ll be making lots of waves. Any of them get too big, they’ll spill over the side. That’s malymal. For everyone.”

“I see,” he says, swallowing. And for a moment, I think he’s gonna bow out. But he stiffens and says, “Let’s do it.”

I look him up and down. I may not like Sal, but neither do I want him to die. “Here,” I say, handing him my multitool. “You’ll need this.”

He stares at me, nodding, looking surprised and grateful. He hangs my multitool on his belt and leans into the opening.

“Walk on the cross-beams,” I say, tapping them with my foot. “This torus frame is stellar thin. No offense, but I doubt the floor would hold your weight.”

Sal frowns. “Just tell me what to do!”

“Head out there,” I say.

I hold my breath as Sal steps into the torus, agile as a boulder. Sadiq grabs my arm as Sal loses his balance and almost falls, but he rights himself.

“Shiva, be careful!” I say.

“I’m trying!” He takes two more lumbering steps to reach the aggro drum. “What now?”

I check the ship’s stats in my eie. “Fuck,” I say, “the stone’s drifting fast! We gotta move quick. But not too quick, or them waves will splash. Those knobs should have labels, X, Y, and Z.”

“Well they don’t. They got weird symbols.”

“Share your eie with me.”

“I ain’t got no eie!” he says, which is weird, but partial explains why this jeek don’t know much of nothing. He might as well be half-blind.

“What do they look like?” I say.

“Squiggly lines, like tree roots.”

“Maybe old Mandreen?” I say. “Never mind. We’ll suss it out. You see the top knob? Spin it a quarter turn clockwise.”

“That much?”

“Them knobs have fine trim. It prob won’t even budge the stone.”

He nods, then leans over and turns the knob.

An alarm screams from the console and a hundred alerts flash in my eie. The kid squeezes my leg.

Critical singularity misalignment! Structural collapse imminent!

“Turn it back!” I shout. “Turn it back now!”

He does, and the red alerts turn back to nauseating yellows. The alarms stop wailing.

“What the fuck?” he says.

“Those trims ain’t as fine as I presumed,” I say. “This ship’s engineered fine as a cat’s hairball!” I check the numbers in my eie. “Try five degrees this time.”

“How far’s that?”

“As small as you can move it.”

He leans over and turns the knob.

“Well?” he says.

The stone reacts, changing its axis some. “It’s working!” I say. “Now try the next knob. Turn it the same. Stop! The other way . . . Just a mil more! Good, good . . . Yeah, it’s working!”

We do this for a while, him micro-adjusting trims, and me watching the stone. Back on station we woulda finished in minutes. But after two sweaty hours, the stone’s still way off-axis.

“What the fuck’s wrong?” Sal says, wiping his brow.

I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. “Something’s blocking the stone’s alignment.”

“Like what?”

My heart pounds as reality sinks in. “Hard to say without seeing the singularity naked. Like in it’s birthday dress. We gotta take off the aggro drum door and take a look.”

“How we do that?”

“With care,” I say. “Lots of fucking care.”

I show Sal how to activate the micro-spanner on my multitool, and he uses it to unlock the panel bolts. He’s dextrous as a mixed salad, but he finally gets the bolts loose.

“Okay,” I say. “Now slow as mountains swing the panel open. And whatever you do, don’t stare at the stone. You get smack in the face with a collimated beam and you’ll go blind, and that’ll be the least of your worries.”

Grunting, Sal squats low, his ass-crack showing as he swings the panel open, and we all gasp.

I only seen a naked stone twice. First was back when Mommy was on the scene. She and Daddy and me took a tour of Agnimukhasys’s supermassive black hole. We stared at its void and the gargantuan vortices of energy spinning round it, so bright you could see em halfway cross the galaxy. My knees got so weak I couldn’t walk, and Mommy laughed at me. After, I had nightmares for months. I still dream bout it sometimes.

The other time I saw a naked stone was when me and Ibis repaired a borked drive from a ship that had emerged from slipstream inside planetary rings. Ice tore through the ship, tearing off panels of the aggro drum, missing the stone by mills. That stone was a billion times smaller than Agnimukha’s, but still it scared me just the same. Looking at a naked stone makes you realize that the steady, stable universe you take for granted’s an illusion, that we’re really just temporary beings, and it don’t take much to crinkle us and toss us away.

Our stone’s white-hot, sun-bright, from all the air particles spiraling in, even if I glance slantways at it. My mouth goes dry. My heart thumps. But I ain’t got time to be scared. I’m tough as neutron matter, me.

Through my peripheral vision I spot the weird dark sphere at its center, everything warping and bending like straws in a glass of vodka, if that glass were a million klicks deep. The air whines with a weird crystal hum that makes me shudder.

“What’s that smell?” Sal says.

“Ozone,” I say. “The stone’s ionizing the oxygen in the air.” I don’t add that the ship’s filters shoulda sucked that out, which means dangerous levels might build up quick.

“What now?” he says.

I set my eie to flash capture images, ten mills apart, then glance at the stone direct for half a sec. The stills come in, and I spread em in my eie, enhancing and zooming till the cause of our troubles is clear.

“A coupler’s loose from the connector,” I say. “You’ll have to tighten it. Hit sequence 792 on the multitool.”

“Okay. Then?”

“Then reach in, slow as snails, clamp the tool on the coupler, and press the activator. The tool’s set with the right torque. But whatever you do, don’t move past the red circle on the coupler!”

“What happens if I do that?”

“Goodbye universe.”

“Right. Here goes!”

“Slow!” I say. “Sloooow.”

I hold my breath as Sal leans in. It’s hard to watch, cause he’s line of sight to the stone, and not only is it stellar stupid to stare straight on, it scares the piss out of me. I wish Sal had an eie I could watch through. Stead, I have to go by his word and an occasional direct glance. Like staring at a sun, it leaves spots in my vision and voids in my soul.

“This fucking thing!” Sal says. “My fingers’re too fat. I can’t reach it without touching the stone.”

“Lemme do it!” the kid says. “I got small fingers!”

“No! Gimme a sec,” Sal says. “I’ll get it.”

“But your hand don’t fit,” Sadiq says, and fore I can stop him, the kid leaps into the torus and hops cross the beams toward Sal.

“Get back here!” I shout.

“What the hell’re you doing?” Sal grunts at the kid.

“Gimme the tool!” the kid says. “Just lemme tighten it!”

“I said I can fucking do it!” Sal says. “Get outta my fucking way!” And suddenly Sal swings a fat fist at the kid, the kid ducks outta the way, Sal loses his balance, and falls. For a half sec, I think Sal’s gonna right himself. But he doesn’t and falls backwards.

The kid tries to grab him, but swipes only air. And thank Shiva, cause Sal falls into the drum, his elbow touches the stone, and he screams. But the sound fades fast, till the pitch’s so low you can’t hear him scream no more.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I scream and leap into the torus as the kid reaches for Sal. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I can do, but I won’t let the kid die too. As for Sal, there ain’t nothing we can do now. I throw the kid out the torus, and we fall, screaming, onto piles of junk.

“Sal!” the kid bawls.

He tries to climb back in, but I hold him and say, “He’s gone, kid!”

“But he’s right there! I see him!”

Sal stands fore the aggro drum—or falls—a scowl on his face, my multi-tool in his fingers, frozen in time. But he ain’t really frozen. His proper time’s just moving stellar slow. The jeek’s gone suns more relativistic than us.

And that ain’t the worst of it. The console’s flashing like pulsars and I got a billion new alerts in my eie.

“Godsdamn fucking shit!” I say.

“What’s wrong?” the kid says.

I don’t wanna freak him out. “Help me get the panels on!” I say.

Tears stream down his face. “But Sal!”

“Help me get the fucking panels on now!”

“What about him?”

“He’s gone, kid.”

“But I see Sal right there! He’s right there!”

“That’s a ghost. I’m sorry. Hurry, fore we get gamma blasted!”

By the time we get the last panel up, there’s a glowing ring of red viscera orbiting the drum, and half of Sal’s arm, from the elbow up, is gone, sucked from spacetime like water down a drain.

The kid shudders. “What do we do?”

“We still have to fix that coupler.”

“Then let’s fix it!”

“Not yet. We gotta wait till the radiation drops.”

“How long’s that gonna take?”

“We have to wait till . . .”

“Till what?”

“Till Sal’s matter’s sucked away.”

The kid stares at me, devastated. He breaks into sobs so heavy he sounds like he suffocating. I try to pull him in, but he shoves me away.

It breaks my heart. No one should suffer like this. But that’s life out the black. The universe’s strange and beautiful, but cares nothing for the minuscule sparks of life that wander inside it. It’s up to us to care for each other, and what a shitty job we do.

I watch helplessly as Sadiq sobs, while Sal disintegrates into energy and nothingness one stupid quark at a time.

We wait. The rad levels have to drop low enough for me to open the torus without killing us, but not too long, or containment will fail and we’ll join Sal in a death spiral. When the time comes, I calc we got a window of nine minutes max. It better be enough.

I got two unread messages in my eie, and with nothing to do but wait, I open the first, while the kid softly sobs.

It’s from Leurie.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever get this,” Leurie says, her face bright as Sirius in my eie, and my heart aches at the sight of her. “But things’ve gotten worse on Chadeisson since you left last month.”

It’s been a month, already? Godsdamn, I’m losing so much time.

“Station sec’s been rounding up melks for things they used to not give a shit about,” Leurie says, “like for drunkenness or rutting in public. I looked up some jeeks, and guess what? They vanished from Rehab too, like your daddy. Thousands of jeeks have been transferred from Rehabs in the last year. Something’s going down, Jess, so I hope you’re far from here. I’m flying off-station myself as soon as I tie up a few loose ends. Hope you’re safe, wherever you are. Bye, Jess.”

Her face fades. Oh, Leurie, I wish we were back in the cafeteria.

The next message’s from Leurie too, but this time text only. The timecode says three fucking months have passed since the last message.

If you get this, Jess, please let me know you’re alive. Everything’s crazy here. I tried to get off-station a few weeks ago, but ran into trouble and had to lay low. The FTU’s pretending business as usual, but I got a tap on their feeds, and they’re quietly panicking. They’ve sent teams to hundreds of systems, following every lead, no matter how small. But they still got no clue why those planets went missing.

What planets, L? What the fuck’re you talking about?

Shit’s crazy here, and I’m scared. Just drop me a line and let me know you’re okay. I’ll be in touch soon.

The message ends. But there ain’t no more. Missing planets? L, what the fuck do you mean? I’m gonna check the feeds, when the kid says, “It’s horrible, to die so slow.”

“It ain’t slow for him,” I say. “To Sal it goes like this.” I snap my fingers, and the kid flinches. “He didn’t feel nothing.”

“I don’t know,” Sadiq says, “Looks sehr painful to me.”

I check the console. By now his rings of blood and viscera have mostly been sucked down the stone, puffing its mass by a few millionths of a percent. The rest’ve been baked into gamma rays, which, thank Shiva, have mostly been absorbed by the torus plating and not our bones.

“It’s my fault,” Sadiq says. “I shouldn’ta gone in.”

“Stop it!” I say. “Don’t blame yourself. Sal made his bed when he took a swing at you. He hit you lots, I bet, yeah?”

The kid shudders, but he don’t answer.

“Maybe Sal don’t deserve death,” I say, “but it ain’t your fault he was a violent rectum. That’s on him.”

Sadiq stares at his hands. “He shared food with me. He wasn’t all bad. Now I got nicht.”

“No,” I say, putting my hand on his arm. “You got me.”

He stares at me. “Ja?”

“Yeah. And my name ain’t Klara. It’s Jess.”

He squints at me. “Jess?”

“Jessian Darger. Yeah. But my friends call me Jess.”

He looks me up and down, as if seeing me fresh. “Then why’d you say you were Klara?”

“Out the black, a jeek can never be too careful. I was running from trouble and didn’t know if I could trust you. But now I do.”

“And I trust you, Jess.”

“Good,” I say. “Now, we gotta fix the stone. When the radiation drops two more percent, I’ll go back in.”

“No!” he says. “You can’t go in there!”

“If we don’t fix the stone, kid, we’re dead.”

“But if you die in there, I’ll be alone.”

The thought had occurred to me, but we’re dead either way. “Don’t worry, kid. I got this, no sweat.” But the truth is, I ain’t so sure. My multitool fled the universe with Sal. I might as well have no opposable thumbs. But I ain’t scared. Not me. At all.

“We need something to tighten that coupler,” I say. “Help me find a spanner, yeah?”

Me and the kid rummage through the junk in the ship, and I keep thinking bout Leurie, bout Ibis and Frost. Shiva, I miss them so much. I hope they’re smart enough to stay outta trouble. I hope they’re xin. I wanna message em, but I got too many problems to deal with now. And so maybe this was why Mommy never wrote me back after she left? She was too busy surviving?

Sadiq finds a rusted metal spanner. “This work?”

“It better,” I say. “It’s all we got.”

Forty minutes later, the rad levels’re still dangerously high, but not fatal. And eight minutes fore containment fails completely and we go smush, we remove the reactor panels.

I expect to see Sal’s bloody mess orbiting the drum. But he’s gone, sucked cross the dark horizon. I loathed him, but neither did I want him to die. I give a little bow and say, “Safe travels, friend.” And though it’s my imagination, the stone seems a bit brighter after I speak.

I crawl into the torus, cozying up next to the humming, blinding, maddening sphere. It so utterly wrong. “Fuck!” I say.

“What’s wrong?” Sadiq says, one foot in the torus.

“Nothing! Get back! Stay out!” I snap at the kid. But I ain’t scared. I just have to tighten a stupid damn bolt! I just have to—

Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? I’m terrified! I take a deep breath. “Here goes. Wish me luck!”

“Viel gluck.”

I stick my hand in the drum. I been close to death too many times, but none felt as intimate as this. One slip and I’m gone, and the kid dies alone minutes from now, femtosecs for me. I’m mills from the stone, this massive, swirling ball of nothing, and my terror’s bigger than supergiants. I can’t do this. But I can’t let the kid die.

My spanner touches the coupler. It vibrates in my hand with the drive. Carefully—carefully!—I align the edges of the coupler with the spanner, then try a turn. It moves, thank Shiva! I turn it more. And more.

The stone’s blackness floats sides me like the pupil of a giant, devouring eye. And I hate it. I hate everything bout it.

“Not today, fucker,” I say, leaping back.

“Did you do it?” Sadiq says. “Did you fix the stone?”

I wipe sweat from my forehead. “I think I actually fucking did.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Three hours later, we got the panels back on, the stone aligned within a tenth degree of perfect, and its efficiency up to 84 percent. Best of all, we’re no longer relativistic. Not only that, but I got the particle filters working doubletime, so the air’s clean as Varouna springtime. I even got one of the food printers churning out something resembling a meal. The ship’s comestible stocks are old as suns, so the food’s tasty as cardboard, but it’s better than starving to death out the black.

Exhausted, I plop into the pilot’s chair with some bland coffee and a licorice muffin, while the kid attacks a triple-squab burger. My muffin tastes like sand, so I can’t imagine what his is like, but the kid fats out like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. As we eat, I pour over dozens of feeds, trying to suss out what we missed. And, Great Shiva, it’s a doozy.

“Four hundred and twenty one days,” I say.

“Huh?” the kid says, mouth full.

“How many days we lost.”

He stops mid-chew.

“Oh, and also, three planets went missing.”

He coughs. “What?”

I play a hol for him. A group of toddlers huddle on the floor in a play room, babysat by fluffy mechs with cartoon faces under the light of a big window that looks out over Ecruga, a beautiful blue-orange planet. One moment the planet’s there, then the next, poof, nada, and all the babes look up to see the naked stars.

“Mama?” one cries.

Sadiq drops his burger. “I don’t understand. Where’d the planet go?”

“Gone,” I say. “Oxwei and Charlotte’s World with it. Three planets, three different systems, all in the Outer Deep, vanished in the same instant.”

“When?”

“A few weeks after we left Chadeisson.”

“And where’d they go?”

“That’s just it. No one knows. The three planets, jeeks and all, just vanished.”

“Like down a black hole?”

“Nah, just gone.”

I play him streams of hols and vids from orbitals, sats, ships, and sundry. And in all of em, the planet lies framed gainst the black. Then—poof—nothing but stars.

“The FTU’s sent jeeks round the Milk, to find out what happened,” I say.

Sadiq looks stricken. “And? What’d they find?”

“That’s where shit gets cloudy. Some scholars say a planet-wide string of non-baryonic matter crashed through the galaxy, sucking up matter like a vacuum. Others say this don’t explain the synchronicity of the events, or the fact that no one’s ever seen this phenomenon fore now. Others say it’s experimental new tech playing with quantum probabilities, and some jeeks accidentally erased themselves from the verse. But others say this don’t explain why three planets dozens of light-years apart went poof at the same instant. And so some say it’s a new weapon, able to eat planets whole, which seems most likely to me.”

“What does the FTU say?”

“It’s too ridiculous to mention.”

“Tell me!”

I shake my head. “They’re saying it’s aliens.”

“Aliens?”

“Ridiculous, nu?”

“And what do these aliens look like?”

“It’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” I say. “The aliens don’t look like nothing. They’re inscrutable, they say. That’s the word they use most often. And ineffable. Impossible to understand. They call em ‘numens.’”

“But why did they make the planets disappear?”

“They say this crazy monk in Tahirasys made first contact and convinced these numens that humanity is vermin. That’s why they took the planets. But then this other jeek shows up—this FTU agent—and showed the aliens our good side, or some mierd like that. And—get this—the aliens apologized.”

“They said sorry?”

“Yep. Said it was all a mistake. So sorry we ate your planets. They’re too different from us and didn’t understand what we were, they said. But they suss our vector now, and promised to never do it again, swear to Time, Space, and Eternity.”

The kid stares open-mouthed at me. “Du joking, right, Jess?”

“Wish I were, but have a look yourself. It’s all over the feeds. It’s as dumb as it sounds. Sure, there’s pallets of life out there, microbes and plants and fungal analogs twisting down strange evolutionary paths. Plus things you might call animal you squint hard enough. But real, live, thinking aliens without bodies? Don’t know bout you, but it sounds like gooseshit to me.”

“The FTU’s lying?”

“Course they are! I’d suss it’s a weapon. Some crazy jeeks out the Deep invented tech that eats planets whole, and this alien shit’s a cover story the FTU’s using to keep people from panicking.”

“Aliens eating planets ain’t scary enough?” he says with a shiver.

“The FTU’s got an interest in keeping the peace. If jeeks knew there was a weapon that could eat worlds, it might start an arms race.”

“But aliens?”

“Better than galactic war.”

“Maybe.”

We finish our meal, and the kid heads to the bunks. We been awake for days. But I’m too wired to sleep, so I pull up the data package Frost sent me after we scanned the waveguide.

It’s hard to make bow or stern of the data, but after a few hours, the shape comes clear. That GBP Orion Transmark 33 fueled up with a class twelve stone fore it left station. Stones that heavy’re only meant for ships leaping out the deep. Wherever it was heading, it was as far from Chadeisson as Chadeisson is from Orginearth.

The FTU posted lists of ships that visited the three vanished planets in recent months, hoping this might help folks tally the missing. And what d’ya know, a GBP Orion Transmark 33 just like the one my daddy was on visited Oxwei sixteen times in the year fore the planet vanished.

That can’t be a coincidence. So I’m sussing, whoever’s got the power to vanish planets might also have resources to edit millions of recs without a trace. The FTU must think we’re a cluster of melks if they think we’ll believe their ox dung. Aliens that eat planets then apologize? How fucking stupid do they think we are?

Jeeks’ve been fed up with the FTU forever, and I’ve heard some talk of new alliances forming in the Outer Deep. I’d suss them vanished worlds are the first salvo in a gambit for independence, some swaggering jeeks with a new weapon, shouting, Here we are, motherfuckers! I dare you to attack us!

Still, the alien myth’s taken hold cross the Milk. Jeeks been leaping out the deep by the gigaton, heading for the galactic rim, hoping to meet these “numens,” as FTU’s termed em. Some jeeks even call em “gods,” which’s just what this verse needs, more zealots. All I know is, something big’s coming, and it ain’t pretty.

I hear a shuffle and spin round, and the kid is hovering over me.

“How long you been there?” I say.

His face turns red as heated metal. “Not long.”

“Get some sleep?”

“A bisschen. Can’t really.”

“Me neither.”

“So what now? Where to?”

“We can’t go back to Chadeisson,” I say. “They left us for dead, and our ship’s been flagged. I were in a shipyard, I could mod eir and evade detection. But out here, without tools, that ain’t easy. And if we show up at an FTU-aligned port we’ll get thrown in Rehab or worse. We gotta go to a non-FTU aligned system.”

“Where’s that?”

I tap up the navcom and query the distance tween Namid, the home star of Oxwei, and Gan Eden, the home star of Gilder Nefan. “You said your daddy’s on Gilder Nefan?”

“I denke so.”

“That’s in the Outer Deep. Not far from the missing planets.”

He bites his lip. “I hope he wasn’t on them.”

I check the ship’s systems. They ain’t singing like sparrows. More like cawing crows. But crowing’s better than dying. I tap a new vector into the console.

“What you doing?” he says.

“Plotting a course. We’re gonna go find your daddy.”

His eyes light up. “But what about your daddy?”

“The ship that my daddy was on visited Oxwei lots of times. Oxwei ain’t that far from Gilder Nefan. At least, it used to be. I’m hoping we can find out more out there.”

The kid smiles. “Then let’s go, Jess!”

“Don’t be so hasty,” I say. “Gilder Nefan’s stellar far. Five weeks in this old boat. We got barely any food and little power, and this ship’s held together with duct tape and glue. We might not make it. You sure? I could drop you off someplace close.”

“No!” he says. “Let’s go, Jess! We’ll make it! I know we will.”

“All right, kid,” I say, and fore we change our minds, I activate the slipstream. The ship gives a nauseating, world-shifting jerk. The stars blueshift, and a wave of euphoria passes through me.

We’re in ten-space. And for the moment, we’re stable.

I pat myself on the back. They left us for dead, but I like to prove jeeks wrong. Bye, fernal buoy. Bye, motherfuckers! This ain’t over though. Once Chadeisson sees our ship’s gone from that fernal buoy, they’ll send out an alert all over the Milk for us.

As the distance tween us and Pneisys rapidly increases, a painful tightness tugs at my heart. I should flit a message to Leurie, Frost, and Ibis and check if they’re xin.

But I’m fleeing em faster than photons. I doubt I’ll ever be back at Chadeisson. So why tear at fresh wounds? Sides, for them I been gone almost two standard years. I bet they forgot all bout me.

“Y’all right? Sadiq says.

“Golden,” I say, forcing a smile. Kid needs a role model. Someone to look up to. Someone better than that cruel jeek who almost sent Frost to eir death. I’m gonna do better this time, I promise. “Just golden.”

The ship shudders. It’s gonna be a long trip.

CHAPTER TWENTY

So here I am,” I say, “on the hull of a PPRA Carg Runner, spacesuited and starbaked, a thousand light-years from fuck all a nowhere, when along comes—I shit you not—this jeek in a white starwalker.”

“A weiss what?” the kid says. We been pecking at ultrabland dinners for an hour, and I been stellar craving some whiskey and weed.

“You know, spacesuits with thrusters?” I say.

“Oh, ja! Then what?”

“Then this jeek floats in from the black, asks me the way to Chandra Station, then thrusts back out like we’re two pedestrians passing on a quiet street and not a trillion klicks from the nearest fucking station. In a starwalker, that leap’d take a few orbits of the old Milk fore e arrived, and by then Shanata woulda wandered on elsewhere. So when Daddy finally picks me up six long and lonely hours later in this fat little Blepsk 8088 Lumper, I scan the sky for that starwalker, but there’s nothing. Daddy said I dreamt eir up, but that was no dream. Someone was there, roaming the black. Still creeps me out, when I think of it.”

The kid shivers as he stares out the window at the blue-shifted stars. We’re four weeks in to our five week trip, further from humanity than I was on the hull of that PPRA Carg Runner, but I ain’t scared, no, even though our ship’s barely holding together, and we got so little power, food, and backup systems that one small hiccup means we’re ash. Not to mention Chadeisson Station Sec finally noticed there ain’t no ship by that fernal buoy no more and put out an alert for us through the FTU, which means that ninety-nine percent of all ports are off limits now. But I been in dire straits pallets of times, out the deep plenty, and I’m hard as neutron matter, me.

The kid’s a deep-space tenderbelly, though. And, sure, I love a good yarn, but I ain’t gonna scare him. That’d be a dick move, an old Jess move, a Daddy move.

“You think it was a geist?” he says.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I say. “Not the spectral kind. The only ghosts’re real are the ghosts of memory, and they’ll haunt you forever, you let em. Nah, the jeek had a ship hiding somewhere.”

The kid falls quiet for a spell. “Jess?”

“Ja?” I say. I been picking up some of his words.

“I been scanning feeds, reading bout these numens.”

“You mean them alien gods?” I say, snorting.

“You think they’re real?”

“No more real than geists.”

“What if they are?”

“They ain’t.”

“But—”

“Look!” I say. “If there’s been alien gods out there, why’re we only meeting them now? Nah, it’s a cover story for something big and ugly, a galactic-sized fuck up. Blaming it on aliens’s just a deflection from the dung heap that’s humanity’s present.”

“Maybe,” Sadiq says. “But I been diving deep into Gilder Nefan’s history. They smoke a plant there, suss gismus, to speak with numens.”

“You mean sweet jisthmus?”

“You know of it?”

“I ain’t never smoked it,” I say, “but I heard it’ll fuck you up harder than shoving a fat ball of weirdo up your ass during explosive decompression. I’m sure jeeks smoking that shit see all sorts of gods. Don’t mean it’s real.”

“But the FTU says they’re real.”

“And they’re full of shit! The FTU does a lot of good. But that don’t mean you should believe everything they say. I mean, you still need their permission to sell old-gene weed. Smartest minds in the galaxy, my ass! The Court of Sents’re stellar fucking dumb.”

The kid frowns, and I dump our unfinished meals in the recycler. I got our starbeaten ship tuned best as I can outside of port, but so much shit’s still borked. The first thing I’m gonna do come landing is refill the comestible stocks and buy a decent printer. With all the junk mass here I could turn this hobbled old ZYM 96 Starpusher into a less-hobbled, less-old ZYM 96-J Starpusher, J for Jess, a starship I’d still be embarrassed to fly, but significantly less so.

There’s also a weird, encrypted blob in the ship’s datastores. I poked and prodded it some, but it didn’t clue me in as to what it is. I should prob just delete it, but it’s got me curious.

Gilder Nefan’s a week out, and all we been doing is eating stale food, scanning feeds, and telling tales. I wish I had some weed or rye, and I miss that almost as much as I miss Leurie, Ibis, and Frost. I think of em lots.

We sleep in the back, hind the labyrinth of junk, on a squeaky bunk. Sadiq sleeps up top, but every morning I wake with his warm body curled gainst mine. And more than once I seen him trying on my toolbelt and playing with my scanner when he thinks I ain’t looking. Far as role model’s go, having me’s unlucky for him. But I’m the best he’s got, so I try not to damage him more than he already is.

I’m in bed, falling asleep, when his warm body sidles next to me.

“No! Up top!”

“But I had another nightmare!”

“Kid!”

“It’s the same dream! Sal’s screaming, but his voice ain’t fading! It just goes on and on an on. Please, Jess! I’m scared.”

He shivers side me, and gainst my better judgment I drape my arm round him. “You gotta be strong, kid. One day I ain’t gonna be here.”

“Don’t say that!” he says. “Don’t ever say that!”

“Look, kid, Sal’s death ain’t gonna be the last horrible thing you live to see, may you live two centuries, so you best get strong while you can.”

“You ain’t making me feel better.”

“I ain’t trying to.”

When I was his age and had a nightmare, Daddy’d give me a belt of whiskey and send me back to bed. But I don’t think Mommy ever slept. Late nights I’d find her working on some project, and she’d have me help her till morning, sometimes skipping breakfast, and I’d be so tired I’d pass out fore lunch. Mommy was always tinkering, and I used to pretend I was one of her toys, so she’d spend more time playing with me. But that was so long ago. Maybe I dreamed it. Past horizons, memories haze.

Point is, the kid’s in for suns of pain and he don’t see it. His daddy ain’t gonna give him what he wants. Ever.

I’m drifting off to sleep when the kid whispers, “Jess . . .”

“Shiva! What?”

“Ich liebe dich.”

I pause. “Go the fuck to sleep before I punch your face.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Forty minutes from dropping outta slipstream, the kid’s still in the shitter, hopefully not clogging the bowl. I’d really like to be in this pilot’s chair when we swing into orbit round Gilder Nefan and not repairing the toilet, again. This’ll be the first time we’ve seen anything sides stars in weeks.

“You’re gonna miss it!” I say.

“I’m coming, Jess!” he shouts.

A minute later the kid saunters out, cheeks flush, forehead wet. “You nervous or something?” I say.

“Ja,” he says, breaking my gaze. “Just nervous.”

“Don’t get too excited,” I say. “Gilder Nefan does things ancient. It might take days to check if your daddy’s here. No local dataspaces on planet. These old-school jeeks use fucking paper and pen.” I shake my head. “Why couldn’t your daddy fly to Jin Tai, where they’re megaprinting ships big as moons? That I’d love to see. I mean, dust bunnies in corners’re more exciting than Gilder Nefan. Though you gotta admire the audacity of jeeks who build towers hundreds of stories high without lifts, so you gotta climb a million stairs to reach the top.”

“It gets em closer to God,” Sadiq says.

“And how’d that work out for them jeeks in Babyl’s Tower?”

“Not closer in height. In spirit.”

I look him up and down. “Shiva, kid, you sound like one of them Cygnus ministers trying to convince me the black hole at the center of the galaxy’s God eirself. Where’d you hear that dreck?”

“On the feeds,” he says. “Been learning.”

“Well I been learning too,” I say. “You know Gilder Nefan was settled by fanatics?”

“Fan-at-ics?”

“Crazies. Two warring factions who came together to build a utopia. Not exactly promising.”

“Moslems and Yews,” Sadiq says, “from Esreyli-Palastin on Orginearth. They were fighting over territory for centuries, so a group of em came out here to Gilder Nefan to make peace. What’s wrong with that?”

“Peace? Nothing. But utopia? That never ends well. Add religious eejits to the mix and you get the stellar hypocrisy that’s Gilder Nefan.”

“Hippa-crissy?”

“Saying one thing then doing another. Gilder Nefan shuns tech like it’s Orginearth, twenty centuries back. But these jeeks can’t go a month without reg shipments of off-world carg and tech, including vast quantities of their jisthmus herb they smoke by the pallet. Their holy herb don’t even grow on planet! Daddy told me never trust a jeek who tells you to turn right, then turns left. It’s a sign they got conflicts you don’t wanna touch.”

“I wanna touch em,” he says.

“Eww, gross,” I say.

He frowns. “You know what I mean. To find my daddy.”

“He may not be down planet. He mighta leaped off-world the first time he saw through their bullshit.”

“We’ll find out,” he says, frowning. He frowns a lot lately. And though I don’t wanna hurt him, he’s gotta gird himself. I know all bout hoping your daddy’s gonna show up, only to be left starbaked and spacedry a thousand light years from fuck all a nowhere. He’s gotta temper his hopes, or the kid’s setting himself up for a lifetime of disappointment.

Gan Eyden, an aged G-class star, is a bright blue ball dead ahead when the first glimmer of Gilder Nefan sparks to life neath it. I filter out the sun so we can watch the planet’s tiny grain, dimmer than the stars, blossom into a shining emerald jewel.

“Ready?” I say, as our distance rapidly shrinks.

“Ja.”

With femtosecond precision, the ship drops us out of slipstream into a high, eccentric orbit bove Gilder Nefan. The stars cool ten octaves to whites and reds, blue Gan Eyden downslides to honey gold, and Gilder Nefan redshifts to the deepest shades of orange I ever seen. How’d I go my whole life without knowing orange comes in this many colors?

The ship shudders fierce, drive oscillations that were minuscule in ten-space, but deadly in four. A dozen warnings flash in my eie. The ship groans under stress, then settles. My stomach, however, will need hours to recover. Shiva, three percent larger that oscillation woulda killed us. I decide not to tell this to the kid.

A signal arrives on a low-freq channel.

“ZYM 96 Starpusher,” a voice says in Anglai, deep and scratchy, like e’s been smoking cigars since e was five. “This is Traffic Control. You’re early! The Bazaar don’t start for four local days. Permits are 12,000 shekels per hundred square meters, per day. Exchange rates for standard FTU tokens are posted on public ledgers in Usha Square. Only use licensed exchangers. Gilder Nefan is not responsible for lost or stolen goods. Please state your ship designation so I can log you into our traffic system.”

“Morning, Control!” I say. “Or’s it evening? This here’s the . . .” I kill the comm and glance at the kid. “We never named eir, did we?”

I tap the comm back on. “This here’s the . . . Daddy Issues,” I say, “coming in long from Tarphonsys.” I smile at the kid and he smiles back. “We had a bumpy ride and could use some repair. You got a freeport we can use and maybe purchase a small printer?”

“Gilder Nefan don’t sell such things!” the jeek snaps, like I just insulted eir mom. “We’re a holy planet!”

A data packet arrives with fifteen thousand words of planetary dos and don’ts that I ain’t got time or the inclination to read. But the old saying holds true. There ain’t no such thing as a free port.

“Friend, we’ve been out the black for weeks,” I say. “We won’t last another trip.” I try not to sound desperate, but Daddy taught me it’s best tell the truth when backed into a corner. I’m bout the best tech you’ll find in the verse, but I ain’t no sorceress, and our ship needs more care than I can presently give.

It takes the jeek a jovian minute to respond. “ZYM 96 Starpusher, Daddy Issues, you’re cleared to land in Haaretz Field, outside Usha Square, Hasriyu. But we don’t have repair facilities on planet. The Hinini traders arrive for the Bazaar in four local days. They can change for what you need.”

I switch the com off and say to the kid, “I didn’t say nothing about repair facilities. Is it me, or is this jeek an asshat?” I switch it back on. “Thanks, Control! You’re the best! Starting approach.”

Seconds into our descent the com bursts with the jeek’s raspy voice again: “Daddy Issues! Abort landing! Abort!”

I glance at the kid. “What’s wrong, Control?”

“Your ship’s raining rads all over spectrum! Did you lose reactor containment?”

“Like I said, Control, we had a bumpy flight. Please, can we land?”

A warning light in my eie tells me they’re scanning us deep, seeing if our radiation’s a threat to their spinduster planet. But I got the stone tied tight, so the only true threat’s to me and the kid who were unlucky enough to spend weeks inside this radioactive ship. Gonna need lots of juve and DNA mitigation after this.

“Land in the auxiliary spaceport!” Control barks, and new landing vectors arrive. “I’m surprised you made it this far in that . . . vessel! I were you, I’d consider abandoning ship.”

“But you ain’t me,” I say, com off. “This starbeaten ship’s been pretty good to us, considering,” I say to the kid. “I ain’t ready to abandon eir yet.”

“Me neither,” he says.

“Copy, Control!” I say to the com. “Thanks for the tip! I’ll consider it. Adjusting course.”

Soon we hit the outer atmo, and the hull temp swiftly rises. The thrusters’re burning fierce, tens of gs, but I got the gravplates tuned so well my cup of tasteless coffee don’t even ripple.

When the hull starts glowing bright red, the kid says, “You sure e’s okay for atmo entry? You been saying how borked this ship is.”

“Oh, e’ll be fine,” I say, petting the ship like a cat, though maybe it’s more to calm myself. There’s a not-so-small chance the Starpusher has some fatal flaw I overlooked, and we’re bout to go plasmic.

“E’s got this,” I say.

And e does, the Daddy Issues. All systems stay clean and green as we arc over the planet. We lean forward to get a better view as the city of Hasriyu resolves through the dusty horizon. Towers rise in the middle of a large, flat plain like tufts of hair on a bald head. Spiky mountains circle the plain, their tips bristled, sharp as needles. The rocks’re flecked with green plants, old-gene flora bred for ox-gen, plus a local specie of lichen that digests rock over millennia. The tallest peaks look like moth-eaten corn husks. Their insides sparkle with layers of crystalline strata, and the mountains flash and gleam orange and crimson, violet and mint, and the brightest, most golden of yellows I ever seen as we approach. It’s stunning and I gasp.

“Die goldene fannen,” the kid says.

“Huh?”

“The golden flags. In ancient Psemitian gilderne fon means golden flags. It’s almost how we say it where I grew up. The people who settled here called it Gilderne Fon,” the kid says, stressing the fon. “But some FTU jeek spelled it wrong in a catalog. And cause the Nefanesh don’t use tech they didn’t notice the mistake till all Terra Diaspora spelled it wrong. But by then, the name had stuck.”

“Sounds bout right for humanity,” I say.

“Makes you wonder what else jeeks got wrong,” he says.

“Usually?” I say, “everything.”

“That’s scary,” he says.

“That’s life.”

In the near-distance the city’s towers reach skyward in latticed, intricate hives. But the glare of the giant orange sun makes the detail hard to see. Next to the city’s a wide spaceport, a flattened slab of bedrock klicks wide. It’s got landing spaces for thousands of ships, but I count only twenty ships currently parked. Our landing vector take us klicks past the spaceport into the rocky desert, where there ain’t roads or tubes or transport back. We’ll have to walk klicks over fucking rock and sand.

I set the Daddy Issues down a few tens of meters closer to the city than I’m supposed to, cause fuck that jeek. No ship worth its weight in feed mass’s gonna let a few millirads breach its hull. I could be hull-kissing a paper-thin PXC Dreamblade and zero rads’d leak through. But pricks gotta be pricks, and orders gotta be followed, no matter how stupid.

I sigh, cause after five hard weeks we made it. For a moment there, I didn’t think we would. I do a syscheck to make sure the ship’s stable, then switch off the gravplates. We drop into Gilder Nefan’s comfy 0.87g. Cept for a weird drip I should prob investigate, the ship’s eerily quiet after weeks of hum. The kid looks up at me.

“Do it,” I say.

He’s been practicing this, and I watch as he taps open the airlock like a pro. We face the opening door. Stuck for weeks with the smell of our own farts, the first thing I notice is the unforgettable smell of fresh air, of limestone, and something like old wood. Below that, a faintly sour odor of something like burning human hair.

Side by side, so we’re together, the kid and I step onto the sand of Gilder Nefan. The sun’s a mammoth ball of orange, bright as a god, and twice as terrifying. Gan Eyden may be old, but e still burns hot. And godsdamn, the light feels good. My cells remember that stars’re the source of all life, that without them, we’re just dust. Shiva, I missed planets.

“I can’t believe we made it!” the kid shouts. He falls to his knees and runs his fingers through the sand, laughing.

I smile, but my heart fills with sadness. Soon his laughs’ll turn to tears. His daddy left Gilder Nefan eons ago, or he died, or he won’t wanna see his son again. Then Sadiq’ll lope back into the Daddy Issues, hopes crushed.

I don’t want him to get hurt.

“We didn’t do nothing,” I say as a hot wind blows cross my face. “Fix your shoes tight. We got a long way to go yet.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

After weeks on that tiny ship, being out under a wide, cloudless sky makes me feel like an ant fore a giant foot steps on eir. I keep thinking bout them missing planets, not so far from Gilder Nefan. A jeek who can vanish worlds’s likely to flex that power again. And what better practice than a spinduster planet at the edge of the galaxy. I need to fix the Daddy Issues quick and leap the fuck off planet like a photon fleeing a star.

It’s a good thing we brought water, cause it’s reactor hot, and when we reach the spaceport we’ve drunk half a flask. There ain’t no hubspace connection neither. Every time I try to ping it with my eie, the satellites tell me to fuck off.

After an hour of trekking cross sand the hard stone of the spaceport base feels good. Though Haaretz Field ain’t much of a spaceport, just a flat stone, klicks on a side, marked with thousands of faded landing stripes and thrust scorches.

Two beastly PPRA Sorano-22 Heavies sit parked close, and a few jeeks and mechs unload carg. And shit! There’s an old Honovi 66 Longhauler—haven’t seen one of those in forever—with so many slipstream scars it looks like a burnt log. And over there a plump jeek smokes a cigar while swinging eir feet off the ramp of a pudgy Blepsk 1069-A Sunhopper. My heart pangs, insanely jealous.

I was so close to owning my own ship, running the deep hauls, on my own at last. Free from all bullshit, paternal and otherwise, the whole verse spread fore me. I shoulda left well enough alone and never gone down to Rehab to see my daddy.

The kid runs ahead, telling me to hurry. And sure, I should be grateful I got any ship or friend at all. But seeing what I almost had right in front of me now stings malymal.

I count nine starbeaten ships, offloading carg. Otherwise, the spaceport’s dead, empty as the moons of Starkadhr.

“We coulda fucking parked here,” I say, bitter bout having to walk.

The kid rushes toward the jagged city gates of stone and metal. The jumble of buildings rise hind it like towering insect hives. The smallest rise a few stories tall. The tallest stretch over a hundred. “Shiva, I can’t believe they built these towers by hand,” I say. “Mustve taken an age.”

The kid races ahead.

Something stings my nose. It smells of cloves and orange peels and tea leaves and peppermint oil, but also sadness and the passage of time. The smell keeps changing, like it don’t know what it wants to be. And for some reason I shiver.

We walk under the stone arches of the city gates and I gaze up at the foreign words etched into the frame. My eie translates the ancient Psemitian as:

How Good and Happy it is When Siblings Dwell Together.

“Wouldn’t know,” I mutter. “Never had any.”

The narrow street weaves a crooked path. Arches lead to shadowed foyers, and lamps—the old flaming kind—hang from bronze hooks. This place’s something else.

Just after the gate sits a squat building. Though shack might be a better term. A hand-painted sign reads “Local Information” in Anglai and Mandreen. We head in.

The sour-sweet smell grows stronger as my eyes adjust to the dark. Now it smells like apples and honey and burning hair and forgotten dreams, stinging my nostrils. I must be tired too, cause for a moment I feel like I’ve just gone slipstream, and I’m standing cross the room, by the table, where I’m gonna be in seconds, and not here, now, by the door. The walls wobble like they’re made of water, but then everything falls back the way it was.

Shiva, what the hell was that?

I blink a few times, and my eyes come to focus on two jeeks with long beards and dun clothes. They sit at a square table with a bronze samovar and two wooden cups. One jeek holds a long pipe, its bowl sending up a thin line of blue smoke that collects in a cloud at the ceiling. It reminds me of the times me, Ibis, and Frost made hotboxes inside cockpits, and how I’ll never do that with em again. Nothing else here but a ratty rug and an old desk gainst the wall.

The two men eye us as we enter, but their expressions don’t change, as if they’re barely aware of us.

“Morning!” I say, cheerful as I can.

“It’s afternoon here,” the pipeless one says, his deep voice octaves lower than I expect. “You’re early.”

“Early for the afternoon?”

“The Bazaar don’t start for four days,” he says. He points to a small paper calendar pasted to the wall, the old kind, with days blocked in rows and columns. Hand-marked Xs track the passage of time.

They stare at us. I don’t think either of em have blinked.

“Right,” I say. “Cept we’re not here for the Bazaar. We’re here for—”

“My daddy!” Sadiq blurts. “I’m looking for him!”

“You’re not local,” the pipeless one says. It ain’t a question. His voice is low like the other, his vocal chords strained from smoking.

“My daddy’s Harun Amani!” Sadiq says. “You know him? You know where I can find him? Is he here, on planet?”

The kid’s excitement perturbs the profound equanimity of these jeeks, cause the one with the pipe finally blinks and turns to the other. He mumbles something in a language I don’t speak and my eie don’t catch. Then the pipeless one frowns and shakes his head and turns to us. “Gilder Nefan’s no place for unaccompanied children.”

I wanna punch him, cause in our short lives I’d wager me and the kid done pallets more than these two curmudgeons ever will. But in the interest of helping the kid I don’t voice my displeasure. Stead, I say, “Hence why we’re trying to find his daddy, so, you know, he can be accompanied.”

The two men grumble in the same language, and this time my eie catches a few words. It’s Nefanese, my eie says, a dialect derived from ancient Psemitian. And though my eie don’t have enough cognates to generate a full translation, it susses they’re saying something like, “Who the fuck are these stupid assholes?”

“Look,” I say, “the sign bove the door says ‘Information.’ If you ain’t got none, then we’ll be going.”

The pipeless one frowns and leans over his desk. He yanks open a drawer, and pulls out a yellowed sheet of paper. “Here’s a map,” he says, offering it to me. “Try the Census Office. They might help.”

There’s a finely drawn map of the city on the paper. A copy of a copy of a copy, cause some spots’re too faint to read. “Cheers!” I say, then usher the kid out the door.

“What a charming bunch a jeeks,” I say, soon as we’re outside.

“How far’s the sense-us office?” the kid says.

“Census,” I say. I turn the map round a few times. Been a while since I had to read a paper one. The huge sun’s low in the sky, and shadows quickly creep up the city walls.

In tiny print I can barely read is a dot marked Census Office in Anglai. “This way,” I say, pointing up the street. But what I don’t add is, I think.

“Were they smoking the sweet jisthmus?” the kid says.

“Not sure,” I say. “But it smelled like death.” The sun’s already dropping behind distant towers. “C’mon kid, it’ll be dark soon.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I’m proud of myself, cause I only get lost once. And that’s mostly cause there’s no signs on corners, like they have on stations, so we walked a few hundred meters the wrong way fore we found a rusty plaque in Psemitian that told us we were on the wrong street.

The Census Office sits tucked in the corner of a dead-end alley like an armpit, and smells like one too. The reek of jisthmus, or whatever that is, has gotten stronger. Each time I catch a whiff it smells different, like chocolate or snowfall or burnt butter or the day Mommy left. It’s the strangest godsdamned smell I’ve ever smelled, and lemme tell you, I smelled lots.

But inside the Census Office it just smells of closets. The place is big, brimming with shelves and cabinets stacked to the tall ceilings with papers and books, the old paper kind.

There ain’t much daylight left to light the place from the arched windows, so jeeks working here sit next to flickering lamps or under chain-hung chandeliers. A long desk, chest-high, makes a barrier tween us and them.

A young woman sees us and slides over. Her clothing’s all leather and cloth, brown and simple, like everything here. No synths or facturing marks anywhere. It’s all hand-fucking-made. She wears a head covering over her black hair, though it’s gotta be at least thirty degrees in here. She looks up at me and I gasp, cause she’s got the greenest eyes I ever seen, like I’m staring into the hart of a gem.

She says something in Psemitian, which my eie translates to “Peace be on you,” then in Anglai she says, “May I help you?”

“We’re, uh, off-worlders,” I say, giving her my best grin.

This must be the most obvious fucking thing in the verse, cause she blinks at me and says, “Uh-huh.”

“Well, so, um, we’re looking for his daddy. His name’s Harun, uh . . .”

“Harun Jeb Amani!” Sadiq blurts. “He came here two standard years ago, Ich denke.”

“More like three years,” I say, reminding him of our little brush with time dilation.

The emerald-eyed girl sighs, but unlike the two jeeks at the info shack there’s no malice in it.

“Hold on,” she says, then retreats hind a tall shelf of books. I catch her speaking to this skinny jeek with a red beard. They exchange words, then red beard struts over.

He looks us over and seems to disapprove. “It’s almost evening prayer,” he says. “We’re closing soon.”

“Friend,” I say. “We’ve come a long way. Please. Is there anything you can do?”

He crosses his arms. “We don’t give out personal information here. Not even to the FTU. A person comes to Gilderne Fon to leave the material world behind, and we always respect their wishes.”

I’m trying to be patient, but this jeek’s fueling my pile. “For a planet that hopes to flee the material world,” I say, “it sure seems like you need lots of material.” I gesture at the stacks of paper.

He doesn’t like this at all.

“Can’t you just take a peek?” I say. “The kid’s hunting for his daddy. We came all the way from Pneisys in an old boat.”

“Sorry,” he says. “I can’t.” Then with an unnecessary flourish, he grabs a sign from under the desk and slams it down. In Anglai and Psemitian the sign reads, “Desk Closed.”

I’m bout to grab the jeek by his red beard, but Sadiq starts bawling. “My daddy!” he cries. “What about my daddy?”

“Thanks, friend,” I say to red beard. “Thanks suns.”

Red beard shakes his head and saunters back hind the stacks, then proceeds to blow out the candles and lamps, one by one.

“I know he’s here!” Sadiq wails. “I know he is!” Tears pour down his cheeks like the rain in Zayna Ring. He’s crying so hard he’s gasping, so I lead him to a wood bench by the door and sit him down.

“Breathe, kid,” I say. “Breathe.”

“Why won’t they tell me?” he says. “It ain’t fair! They know where he is and won’t tell! Why?”

Cause they’re cold-hearted motherfuckers, I wanna say. Stead, I tell him, “We don’t need these asshats. We’ll find out where your daddy is ourselves.”

“But they know and they won’t—”

“Hey!” I say, lifting his chin. “Look at me! I promise, if your daddy’s here, we’ll find him.”

Slowly, he nods, then sniffles disgustingly. Kid needs a snot rag mal. My heart breaks for him. I been there, lost and broken with nowhere to turn, after Mommy left and fifteen thousand more times with Daddy. Cept I had no one and the kid’s got me.

“We’re closed for the day,” red beard says, stepping out from a door in the side wall. “You need to leave now.”

“Yeah,” I say. “We’re fucking going.”

We walk into the twilight. The sky’s a thousand shades of orange and purple, and the dead-end street’s a spectral blue. Bove us, on sills and balconies and ledges, lamps flicker with yellow-orange light. I’ve no idea what to do, but we gotta find shelter. Temp’s dropping, and I got no idea how cold the night’ll get.

Workers leave the Census Office, giving us suspicious looks fore fleeing to wherever they’re heading. The emerald-eyed girl departs with red beard, and the kid and I watch em leave down the alley. But halfway gone, the girl comes rushing back.

She runs up to me and says, “My cousin is a real hole in an ass.” She places a torn strip of paper in my hand. “May El Shaddai help you.” Then she runs back to red beard, and they vanish round a corner.

I unfold the paper in my palm and hold it up to a glowing globe of lamplight. In the neatest handwriting I ever seen, it reads:

Harun Jeb Amani, Chephzibah Quarter

Building 17, Floor 42, Unit 6

And then the whole city starts to sing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A thousand voices sing from every corner, bouncing through a million folds of stone like leptons down a waveguide. Is this the evening prayer? It’s beautiful and terrifying, as if the city’s alive.

I show the kid the paper. “It’s your daddy’s address,” I say. And when he sees it his face’s shines brighter than all the lamps cross the city. He hugs me so hard my ribs hurt.

“He’s here!” he shouts. “He’s here!”

“Seems so.”

Chephzibah Quarter is klicks cross the city, an hour’s walk, according to the map. But I got no idea how his daddy’s gonna take it. Is he gonna welcome Sadiq with wide arms, or tell the kid to fuck off into the black? I’m dreading it. But at least we got a destination.

The singing continues for a while as we walk, and the reek of burning jisthmus fills the city like fog. It smells of cut grass and lilac and freshprints and that time I scuffed my knee and Daddy kissed it. And it’s beautiful, their echoing voices, the million globes of orange light, and the stars bove all, sharp and bright as diamonds. I feel strangely alive.

Not many on the streets. We stroll through clusters of covered booths, markets closed for the night. We pass close to Usha Square, the huge and flat square of rock in the center of the city. According to the map, this’s where the Bazaar will be.

“When did you last see your daddy?” I say, our voices echoing down the stone canyons. I know nothing bout his daddy, and maybe this’s cause the relationship with mine’s so fraught, and I been assiduously avoiding the subject.

“It was dinner,” Sadiq says. “Me, Daddy and Mommy. We didn’t nicht gesprochen. Didn’t speak. I wasn’t hungry. My stomach hurt. I went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. They were fighting. Daddy said he was gonna find Gott in the Outer Deep. Mommy got mad. Daddy said if he didn’t go, he’d curl up and die like a dead flower. The next morning, he was gone.”

“He didn’t say goodbye?”

“Nein. But he left me his datastore, all his vids and hols. He thought he wouldn’t need em no more. I got it all up here now.” He taps his temple. “Every hol he ever took. Every place he’d ever been. Every hour we spent together.” He flares his nostrils. “When I see him, I’m gonna give it back. I’ll show him what he’s lost.”

I grab the kid’s arm to stop him short. We stand in a courtyard, the stars so bright it feels like we might fall into the sky. “Kid,” I say. “Your daddy left you. He didn’t want that life. You showing up now, without warning . . . he might hate it stellar much.”

He blinks. I expect tears, but he swallows and lifts his chin. “I know,” he says. “He could turn his back on me again. But, Jess, I gotta try.”

I stare at him. “Alright, kid,” I say. “Alright.”

We finally reach Chephzibah Quarter, and the rare jeeks on the street give us wide berths, like we’re radioactive. Though after the Daddy Issue’s containment failure, we definitely are. More jeeks stare down at us from low balconies with that same look you give a bug right fore you crush it.

In a small plaza five jeeks sit round a table, laughing so loudly we hear em minutes fore we see em. Their laughs stop short when they spot us, and they watch us like we’re stray foxes that just wandered into their hen house. This place ain’t used to strangers.

The map got us to Chephzibah Quarter, but there ain’t no building numbers, so it takes us time to find the right tower. And Shiva, it’s a beast. A few years back, me and Daddy passed through Mee Huasys, trying to book passage elsewhere, and we spent a night sleeping in a shipyard sides carg containers stacked hundreds tall. This building’s reminds me of that, cept stead of metal, these blocks’re made of stone, and stead of being stacked true, the blocks seem one sneeze from toppling. “You gotta give em credit,” I say. “These jeeks’re bold.”

The lamplit foyer’s full of ceramic pots with ferns and citron trees. Fabric tapestries hang from paint-chipped walls, and the place smells of time. One tapestry depicts a scene with a ladder reaching into the sky, while glowing jeeks climb up and down the rungs. Another tapestry’s got a man with a knife leaning over a bound boy. A glowing golden arm stays his hand. I don’t fucking like any of em.

We cross the foyer and head to a narrow stair leading up. The Nefanesh do things ancient. No lifts or discs, so we gotta climb forty-two godsdamned flights by foot.

We go up, stopping to catch our breath. But the kid keeps charging ahead. “C’mon, Jess! Hurry up!”

“I’m coming,” I say, panting. “I’m fucking coming.”

We finally reach the forty-second landing, and I pull Sadiq aside. “You ready, kid? This could be rough.”

“I been ready forever,” he says and charges down the lamplit hall.

The smell of jisthmus is strong, like coffee and molasses and burnt oil and frustration, and for a moment it feels like I’m falling toward the distant wall, and I gotta fight every instinct in my bones telling me to leap the fuck back to Pneisys at max thrust.

The entry to number six is an archway without a door, and I follow him into a barren room. An arched window looks out over the glowing city and the spray of stars. On the sill a wooden pipe and ceramic pot sit precarious. There’s a woven rug, and on it sits a long-haired, dark-bearded man, shirtless and thin as quarks. He sits cross legged, eyes closed.

The kid sidles up to him, leaning in close, staring at his face, checking to see if this’s the man he’s leaped cross the Milk for, if this’s the man who left him. Sadiq straightens and the man slowly opens his eyes.

“Daddy,” the kid says. “Da ich bin. Es ist dein sohn.”

It’s me, me eie translates. It’s your son.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I hold my breath until the man blinks and says in a hoarse, smoke-addled voice, “Saddie?” He looks at the pipe on the sill, then back at his son. “Bist du wirklich hier?” Are you really here?

Sadiq sits at his father’s feet and takes his hand. “Ich bin, Papa. Ich bin.”

Slowly, the man grows aware of me. His eyes shine in the lamplight, wet, red as suns, distant as quasars. Shiva, he’s higher than Andromeda.

“Wer ist das?” he says. Who’s this?

“This is Jess,” Sadiq says. “My friend. She helped me find you.”

“Sadiq,” his father says. “Saddie.” He reaches for his boy’s cheek, and the movement’s so tender and intimate I look away. “My son,” he says. “You’ve grown.”

“It’s been two—no!—three years,” Sadiq says, glancing at me. “I’ll be twelve soon. Or thirteen? Daddy, we got stuck in time.”

“I don’t understand,” his father says. “Why are you here? Why’d you come all this way? Where’s Mama?”

“She’s dead,” Sadiq says.

The man freezes. “Lina is . . . dead?”

“She went swimming in the lake when I was asleep,” Sadiq says. “Medic said her blood was full of tranqs. She used em to—”

“To help her sleep,” Harun says. “Mein Gott, Saddie. Oh, my son, my son . . .”

Harun pulls the kid close, and the sound of their sobs’re chisel blows to my heart. That’s why the kid never spoke bout his mom. She popped some tranqs and threw herself in a lake, leaving him to face the verse alone. And the kid’s spent these last years seeking out his other parent, this priceless ore who left him for this spinduster planet, Gilder-fucking-Nefan.

Shit like this messes with your head.

When their sobs end, they switch to catch-up mode. Where’ve you been? What’ve you seen? What’ve you done? I do my best to leave em be and give em their moment. This ain’t my story.

I head into a side room, even emptier than the first, and sit on the window sill to stare cross the city at its ten thousand flickering lights. Godsdamn, I’m tired. I wish I had weed or whiskey, something to help me forget. I should go down to the city and find a bar or something. No jeeks’re that holy. I’d suss someone’s got a stash of booze somewhere. But I don’t wanna leave Sadiq with this monster.

I try not to listen, but the walls carry their words to me like a river. Harun came on a shuttle from Tarphonsys, and he’s been seeking God through meditation and the sweet jisthmus.

“The holy herb is a door that opens the mind to El Shaddai,” Harun says. “I’ve seen so many wondrous things, Saddie. Things I . . . cannot explain. There are gods out here at the edge of the galaxy.”

“Gods?” Sadiq says.

“Numens. El Shaddai’s divine messengers.”

I sit up. I ain’t gonna let this monster poison Sadiq’s head with nonsense.

“I heard of em,” Sadiq says. They ate three planets. You worship them?”

That’s it kid! Keep at him!

“No,” Harun says. “Those planets weren’t eaten. They were taken.”

“Taken where?”

“Elsewhere. It was a mistake, my son. The numens didn’t understand what we were. We’re too different from them. Too new.”

“What do you mean?”

“What does a bird know of calculus? A fish of books? They are beyond our ken. The numens are vastly more intelligent than us. They’ve been aware of us since we were proto-apes crawling in trees on Orginearth. But they ignored us, just as we ignore weeds that poke through cracks in the street. But we’ve been steadily encroaching on their realm. Out here, at the edge of the Milk, there’s a handful of numens we can reach. And in the great voids between galaxies are trillions more. There was a man in Tahirasys who was the first to commune with the numens. He did it without aid of the holy jisthmus! But he loathed humanity and he convinced Hri we were vermin and we should be destroyed.”

“Hri?”

“She is a numen. A divine messenger. A god.”

“But how can a man convince a god of anything?” the kid says.

“I’ve asked myself that too,” Harun says. “This man in Tahirasys told the numens to fear us, so Hri took those planets as a warning.”

“A warning gainst what?”

“To stop us from encroaching on their realm.”

“But I thought you said taking those planets was a mistake?”

“A hideous one, yes! Humanity is not vermin, son. Each of us is born with the spark of El Shaddai. We’re all part of God. Hri communed with another human, a woman, an FTU agent. And through her Hri saw more of us. Yes, we have a terrible capacity for destruction, but also a profound capacity for beauty. We are multitude. Hri saw her mistake and promised that she nor any of her kind would ever do that again.”

My hackles rise. This fleck of rat dung abandoned his son, and now he’s assuaging his guilt by converting Sadiq to his deranged beliefs? I won’t have it. I storm back into the room and they turn to me.

“Four hundred, eighty-five thousand, six-hundred and fifty-one,” I say.

“What?” Harun says.

“That’s the official FTU count of the missing and the dead,” I say. “Though some scholars think it’s over a million. Jeeks settled those planets looking to start new lives. A third of em were children. All dead.”

“Not dead,” Harun says. “Taken.”

I squeeze my fists into balls. The jisthmus pipe sits on the sill like a bloody knife. “How much of that shit you smoke?” I say. “It’s fucking with your head. There ain’t no gods, only delusions! And even if your gods were real, they killed half a million jeeks and you worship them! This is what you abandoned your son for? Murderers?”

He looks like I just slapped him.

“Jess,” Sadiq says, tears falling. “Stop!”

It’s only for the kid that I do. “I’m hungry,” I say, sighing so loud it echoes into the hall. “Got any food?”

“No,” Harun says.

“Nothing?”

“Saa takes care of my needs.”

“Saa?”

“My patron numen whom I commune with.”

I shake my head. “Well, some of us sane humans need to eat.”

“All stores are closed,” Harun says. “You can buy food after morning prayer tomorrow.”

My chest burns, reactor hot. The kid gives me a look that says, Please don’t. And though it feels impossible, I bite my tongue and say no more.

“The numens are real,” Harun says, answering a question I didn’t ask. “Saa is watching us. She pities you. She says you’re a bird, trapped in a room with a single window. The window is open for you to escape, but you keep smacking against the glass. You refuse to see the way out.”

“Story of my fucking life,” I say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I wake to music, a thousand voices singing. A beam of sunlight cuts cross me, climbs the wall, and blossoms into a beautiful orange flower. The chance arrangement of of shadows and light seems unlikely. Maybe impossible. But there it is.

I was alone when I lay down on my mat to sleep, and now the kid spoons next to me, arm round my waist, like we’re still in the cramped bunk of the Starpusher. Can’t let go, I guess. Wonder what his daddy thinks of this.

I slide out of the kid’s reach. My legs sore, my back pops as I stretch. As I step toward the window a sparrow lands on the sill, cocking eir head at me.

“Sorry, but I ain’t got no food,” I say, my belly rumbling.

The bird gives me a puzzled look fore leaping off.

I lean over the sill. The city’s bathed in blue-gray shadows, but the orange sun’s winding its way up the narrow streets. I catch a whiff of something burning, non-jisthmus, and blessedly familiar. Food. Real food.

My stomach rumbles. I need to eat.

I walk into the next room. Harun sits in the same squatting position. His eyes’re open. He faces me as I enter.

“You really don’t eat?” I whisper, trying not to wake the kid.

“Saa takes care of my needs now,” he says.

I squint at him. In the morning light, his brown skin glows, and his muscles’re taut as wires.

“I never thanked you,” he says, “for bringing Saddie to me.”

“Well, I still ain’t sure that was such a good idea.”

“I’d never have left him if I had known his mother was. . . .” He pauses. “Sick.”

My stomach rumbles, starship loud.

“You must eat,” he says. “There’s a market nearby this building.”

“They take standard coin?”

“We use shekels.” He tosses me a small pouch, already in his hand, like he’s been waiting all night to offer it.

I dump the contents in my palm. There’re twenty small coins, the ancient metal kind, engraved in Psemitian and with an image of a jisthmus plant.

“They’ll overcharge you because you’re an outsider,” he says. “But that should be enough.”

“You got a coin account? I’ll pay you back soon as I get a hubspace connection.”

“Money’s irrelevant to me now.”

I stare at him, and he stares back, indifferent, like his mind’s elsewhere. “I’ll go wake the kid,” I say.

“No!” he says. “Please, let Saddie sleep. It’s been ages since I’ve enjoyed his presence.”

“You don’t deserve that.”

“No, but will you allow me this anyway? Saddie’s safe here. He is my son.”

I walk to the window. His pipe sits on the sill next to a jisthmus-filled bowl. The mixture’s brown and tarry, like buds of gange, but darker and more sticky.

“Keep that poison away from him,” I say.

“Of course!” he says. “It takes years of training before we partake of the holy herb. Sadiq is not ready.”

“I’m fucking serious, Harun. You give him any of this shit and I swear to your gods I’ll toss you out this window. You got me?”

He gives me a look of pity. “Is anger always your first recourse when confronting adversity?”

“Anger’s my first recourse when confronting assholes. If anything happens to the kid . . .” I nod at the window. “Thanks for the coin.”

I peer into the other room. Sadiq snores on the mat, a beam of sunlight crossing his chest, now forming a great orange tree on the wall. This planet’s weird. Me and the kid ain’t been ten meters apart since Chadeisson, and it hurts to leave. But unlike gods, we humans gotta eat.

There’s a communal bathroom down the hall, and I take a piss and wash my face. The toilet’s surprisingly clean and odor-free, like they got drones primming it. Though I ain’t seen none. It’s got running water too, which means there’s a pump somewhere. But I ain’t seen tech more advanced than a flower pot since we left port.

Going down the stairs’s pallets easier than up, and though I’m dreading the return climb, it feels good to stretch my legs. Not much room for exercise on the Starpusher.

Down the foyer, a group of jeeks circle round three tables by the opening, arguing loudly and aggressively drinking tea. They give me suspicious stares fore going back to yelling. The streets brim with jeeks, men with untrimmed beards and women with dark shawls. Some’re stellar old, skin like gnarled trees and gaits stooped as ripe wheat. No juve or replast. And no androgs or biomechs or gene-mods neither. No hol or sim or kiosks or terminals or a single godsdamn fucking printer. How do these jeeks even live?

I get cargloads of stares, me, the off-worlder, but I ignore em as I follow my nose to breakfast.

A nest of booths and tents’re stuffed into a narrow plaza. Vendors sell pipes and jars, rugs and fabrics, paper books, and metal plates, and amulets and trinkets. They wave me over, shouting in Mandreen and Anglai. “Cheap price! Souvenir for home! Come! Come!”

At the far end, a round little woman stands by a roaring fire, slowly turning a poor dead animal on a spit. Outside of a hol, I ain’t seen nothing like it. Strips of flesh, charred and dried, hang from hooks, and I realize with a shock that the mouth-watering smell my nose’s been following is the smell of a burnt animal.

I gag. Is this what Harun meant by food? I’ve eaten real animal meat before. But it was shaped and prepped and far from a live animal as a starship is from the feed mass used to print it. I ain’t ever seen no animal strung up like this, not even on Varouna.

But there ain’t no other food, and if I don’t eat something soon I’m gonna faint.

Burning animal smoke swirls round as I step up to the woman. She wipes sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. “Shlom aleykhem,” she says. “Help ya?”

I swallow my gorge. “You got anything that’s hasn’t been, you know, alive? Like grains or veg?”

“Grains and veg been live too!” she says.

“I mean anything that didn’t once have a heartbeat?”

“Nayne,” she says. “Just old-gene lamb. Best kind!” She reaches over to a table, grabs a strip of something leathery and dark, and offers it to me with a greasy hand. “Try! Good! You see!”

I try to hide my revulsion. I don’t want to offend, so I reluctantly take the strip of flesh.

“Go head,” she says, smiling.

I take a bite. Chew. My mouth salivates. And, damn, it’s good. Like, stellar good. And for a moment I’m a proto-ape on Orginearth who’s just murdered eir first antelope and discovered how good it fucking tastes.

“You see?” she says. “Geshmak! Tasty, nu?”

“Stellar,” I say, swallowing. “How much?”

As she looks me up and down I remember Harun’s warning. “Ten strips for ten,” she says. “Twenty five for twenty.”

“How bout ten for five?”

She laughs and shouts in Nefanese, “We got a bargainer here!” Some vendors laugh, but one jeek growls something that my eie translates to, “Inner Terra hemorrhoid ass-face!”

“I’m poor,” the woman says, holding up her hands to show me how empty of all but grease they are. “For you, ten sheckles is dust. For me, suns!”

“Eight’s all I can pay,” I say, though my stomach begs otherwise.

“Sheyn,” she says, nodding. “Eight sheckles for the maydel! But tell no one, nu? Or I’ll get a reputation!” She laughs so loud I’m sure the whole city hears.

I pay her the coin, and she wraps the smoked meat in cloth. I scamper off, devouring three more strips fore I reach the edge of the plaza. The meat’s salty, the day’s hot, and I’m thirsty as suns. And I’m looking round for water, when spot a familiar face. I move closer to get cert. The girl from the Census Office is here, browsing fabrics on a seller’s table, running her fingers over the fine lace. She glances at me with huge emerald eyes.

“Hey there,” I say, smiling stupidly.

She blinks, surprised. “Shlom aleykhem,” she says.

“Nice to see you too,” I say.

“Did the boy find his father?”

“He did, actually. Thanks pallets for that!”

She gives me a smile, then turns back to the lace. “A child should be with his father.”

“Not in all cases,” I say. “Hey, can I ask you something bout numens?”

She glances round nervously. “I am not the one to ask.”

“But you pray to them, nu?”

Her cheeks flush. “Come,” she says, grabbing my shoulder. She leads me out of the plaza, stopping in a narrow alley littered with empty crates. She scans round, then says, “Quick, before they see! Kiss me!”

“Wait!—kiss you?”

“I might be punished! Hurry!” Her jeweled eyes’re bright and eager.

“Oh,” I say. “I mean, you’re sunny. But honest I was just hoping to—”

She presses her lips gainst mine. They’re soft and warm and . . . Oh, this is nice. What was I saying?

She leans back, her emerald eyes beaming at me, and I’m done. I can’t breathe. I’m smitten. I’d follow her off a cliff. Maybe I should settle here, start a family.

“You taste like grease,” she says, wiping her lips.

It ain’t easy pulling myself from her hypnotic jewel eyes. “Not the worst thing I been told after a kiss,” I say. “Seriously though, this ain’t what I wanted. But I have to say, that was stellar nice.”

She stares at me, confused, and it takes suns of effort not to fall into her luminous eyes again. “So your gods took those three planets?” I say.

“The numens did, yes.”

“Who told you they took em?”

“Who told me?”

“The FTU told you the numens took the planets, yeah?”

She furrows her brow. “The FTU did, yes.”

“Thought so,” I say, nodding.

“But also the numens told us.”

“The numens?”

“The FTU told us and the numens told us, yes. The numens told me.”

I cock my head. “You speak with these numens?”

She breaks eye contact. “Most who partake of the holy herb do.”

Shit. Just when I was starting to think she was sunny. “But, someone put that idea into your head that gods took the planets, nu?”

“Muu.”

“Moo?”

“Muu, blessed be her name! She is a numen. A divine messenger of El Shaddai. Muu told me.”

“You speak with this Muu?”

“We commune, yes”

“By smoking jisthmus?”

“I cannot smoke it. I have bad lungs. I drink it. Or bathe in it. It opens the doors of the mind to—how you say in Anglai?—dimensions that humans cannot see.”

“You really speak with it? C’mon . . .”

“Her, not it! I’m communing with Muu now. She says you came here from afar. That you’re looking for something lost.”

“Ain’t we all,” I say.

“She says you’re terribly confused. She pities you.”

“She pities me?” I say. I’m getting stellar tired of hearing that.

“Muu says you think we’re all fools.” She steps back from me, shaking her head like shaking off lice. “I need to go,” she says. “This was a mistake.”

“Most feel that way after kissing me,” I say. “Hey, sorry if I offended. I’m looking for my daddy too, and I’m having a hard time closing my head round this god-numen thing.”

She frowns. “You’re lost,” she says. “Wait here.” She darts into the market and returns a minute later with a book with a thick red canvas cover. “This is our holy text,” she says. “Ohr Ha’Olam. The Light of the Universe. “

“Thanks,” I say, “but I ain’t religious.”

“This is not religion!” she says. “It’s truth. If you purify your soul, if the numens find you acceptable, they will reveal themselves, and the heavens will open like clouds parting before the sun.”

She presses the book into my hands. “May El Shaddai guide your path.” And fore I can say more, she disappears into the crowd.

My heart’s thumping from exhaustion or the rush of calories, or that lovely, far too brief kiss. The book’s heavy, bound in a weave so thick its threads feel like tree roots. I flip to a random page and read, “When one glimpses the truth for the first time, the old life passes away like a dream. The ignorant mourn its passing, but the wise know the old life was never real to begin with. Consciousness is a sea and we are all just rolling waves upon it.”

More mushie bullshit. There’s a bin nearby and I’m bout to toss the book in, but an invisible force stays my hand. It’s not that I’m scared of divine punishment or cause jeeks’re watching. No, it’s cause it’s been ages since anyone’s given me anything. So long ago that I can’t fucking remember. For that, at least, it just seems wrong to throw the book away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

As I walk back to Harun’s building I try to get a hubspace connection with my eie, hoping I can get more info on Oxwei. The missing planet used to float so close to Gilder Nefan their systems’re practically siblings. I bet ships from here were leaping there all the damn time. Any normal dataspace’d be fat with transit logs. But this planet does things ancient, and each hubspace ping I send is met with the same fuck-off response:

This channel is reserved for emergencies only. Requests for non-emergency off-world communication must be made at the Communications Office during normal operating hours.

I consider faking an emergency request, but that didn’t work so well for me last time. Sides, these Nefanesh’re all fucking paper and ink anyway, and sparse paper at that.

When I reach Harun’s building the jeeks round the tables’re still arguing and tea drinking, and while I’m psyching myself up for the forty-two flight climb I pause to listen. They speak Nefanese, a hodgepodge language of ancient Eeebrei, Yeedeysh, and Harabik, plus a liberal sprinkling of Anglai, Mandreen, and a dozen other tongues.

“This new alliance will grow with or without us!” a boulder-sized jeek exclaims as he pounds his fist on the table, making the tea cups rattle. “Come war, who will protect us if we’re all alone?”

“El Shaddai’s divine messengers will gird us!” says a middle-aged woman with high-cheekbones, space-dark skin, and eyes blue as ancient ice.

“Or they’ll take this planet as they took the three worlds,” says a skinny old man with dark and distant eyes. “We should not fear the future when we walk the path of Almighty God.”

Some respond with, “Amen.” Others grunt their disapproval.

“The land of the Golden Flags is unique among all the settled worlds,” the high-cheeked woman says. “To join this new alliance would make us subject to their laws. We would lose our independence.”

“If we don’t choose sides,” says a man with white hair like burning phosphorous, “sides will be chosen for us. The Free Trade Union has respected our independence. Will this new alliance? Perhaps it’s better to befriend them while we still can.”

“We told the FTU to go stick their cocks in a wall!” says a young, dark-haired woman with a patch over her left eye. “And we should tell this new alliance the same! The land of Golden Flags needs no demon’s covenant. Independence is our strength. When our people came here from Mother Earth on overcrowded ships, they called us fools. They said we’d die from starvation and murder each other for land, as our ancestors did. Yet here we are, centuries later, two peoples who once sacrificed their children at the altar of war, now living in harmony and peace, devoted to Almighty God, blessed be The One. All of us have the blood of that history within us. We walk the narrow path, because it is the most righteous. Neither the FTU or this new alliance is on our path. We must remain alone, on the edge of the galaxy, communing with Almighty God’s divine messengers, the numens, blessed be their teachings, and learn from them the true shape of God’s creation. One day, as it is said, we will reveal the truth of reality to the rest of humanity. But not until they ask.”

“We’ve been waiting centuries,” the high-cheeked woman says, “and Terra Diaspora has only grown more degenerate.”

“And it could take centuries more,” says the dark-haired woman. “We’ll know they are ready when they entreat us to teach them, and not a moment before.”

Everyone at the table responds with, “So may it be God’s will!”

The boulder-sized jeek notices me. “Look,” he shouts, “we have an outsider right here! Fresh off a ship, from the looks of her.” He switches to Anglai and asks me, “What do you think of all this, friend?”

As twenty pairs of eyes turn to me, my cheeks burn reactor hot. “What do I think?” I say. “I think it’s too early in the morning for politics.”

“Fucking dirt-bringers!” says one jeek in Nefanese.

The boulder-sized jeek crosses his arms and says in Anglai, “So you have no opinion on this new Outer Deep alliance?”

I shake my head. “What new alliance?”

Snickers and curses. An old woman spits on the ground.

“See!” says the high-cheeked woman in Nefanese, gagging at my words. “The dirt-bringers don’t even hear the jackal scratching at the door!”

But the boulder-sized jeek seems more forgiving. He says, “The Affiliation of Unaligned Worlds have petitioned Gilderne Fon to join their union. They say this union will be independent of the FTU and their encroaching laws.”

My mind floats back hundreds of days and trillions of klicks to Chadeisson, when me and Leurie sat in the cafeteria and she tried to convince me there was something up with the new FTU law patches. I thought she just was being paranoid. Now I ain’t so sure.

“You want my opinion?” I say.

“We do!” he says.

“When groups of jeeks say they’re here to help,” I say, “more often than no, fore you know it, they start ordering you round, telling you what’s golden and what’s profane. Next thing you know, you’re sucking their exhaust. Ain’t that why jeeks leap out the Deep? To flee that dust? You got an interesting planet here. Honestly, not my cup of tea. But I respect your . . . determination. I ain’t ever heard of this new Affiliation, but, it were me, I’d tell em to go stick their cocks in the wall.”

The woman with the eye patch bursts into laughter. “Ah-ha!” she says, and soon the whole table erupts in a new round of arguments.

The boulder-sized jeek smiles at me as I make for the stairs. By the time I climb to the forty-second floor my legs are trembling. I pull out the lamb strips, ready to be a breakfast hero. Then I hear their laughter, the kid and his daddy. And it wrecks me. The kid never laughed like that with me.

Slowly, I step into the room. They sit on the wide sill, backs gainst the curved frame, legs intertwined. The sun in Sadiq’s eyes makes em sparkle bright. And when they see me, their laughs stop like I hit their mute button.

“Jess!” the kid says, surprised.

“I bought some meat,” I mumble. “Real lamb. Sounds gross, but, godsdamn, it’s tasty.”

“Don’t blaspheme in front of my son,” Harun says.

Bile rises in my belly. I wanna scream, Blaspheme? Like abandoning your family so you can get high all day and pray to murderous gods? But I remember what he said, bout anger being my first recourse, and to prove him wrong I say, “Sure, Harun, no blaspheming, got it.”

They stare at me, as if waiting. It feels like they want me to leave. “I’ll just put this here,” I say, dropping the meat. I head to the communal bathroom for a piss. My eie gently reminds me I’m overdue for my menses, but I tell it to fuck off. It flashes all sorts of warnings. I postponed my menses too much, and if I keep this up I might damage my reproductive organs. But fuck if I’m going to deal with that here.

I fill my flask from the sink and take a quaff. By the time I return to the apartment Harun and Sadiq are laughing again. They don’t look up as I enter. I’m just a bird. An insect. I slide into the next room and sit on the sill, propping my feet up, like the kid and his dad. But there ain’t no one sitting cross from me, no one to laugh or share tales with. Just walls and dust.

I look up at the sky. Where are you, Daddy? Where’d you go?

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The kid’ll tire of his daddy. He’ll see through his bullshit and lies and he’ll fly off with me again. I gotta be patient. He just needs time.

I thumb through The Light of the Universe, reading verses here and there. Most of it sticks like electrons in a superconductor, that is, not at all. But one phrase keeps looping in my head like my com’s borked:

Despair is the respite of fools.

Like a mech-boeir in a seven-round fight, I’m down, but I ain’t dead. I got plans, me. I’m gonna buy a cheap printer and fix the Starpusher and fly the fuck off this planet to find my Daddy. But not without the kid. I ain’t leaving him with this junkie.

The sun sets quick on Gilder Nefan, and the city sings with evening song. Sadiq is still sitting with his daddy, talking, laughing, crying, reminiscing. I want to join em, but I can’t bring myself to intrude. I know when I’m not wanted. But when the stars twinkle and wheel through a quarter turn and Sadiq still hasn’t come to lie next to me, I tiptoe into their room.

Harun sleeps on the floor, his back propped gainst the wall. The kid sleeps on his lap like a cat. I stare at em for a moment, my jealousy a hunger no strip of meat’ll quench. I head back to my room to sleep alone on the cold, hard floor.

At sunrise, the unmistakeable roar of a starship wakes me from sleep. It thunders through the city, echoing through folds of stone like a monster coming to harm. I expect to feel the kid enfolded round me, like always. But he ain’t here.

I creep into the next room. Harun’s already awake, but the kid stretches across the mat, asleep, content. “That’s the first ship of many,” Harun says. “Soon there’ll be thousands, and the sky will break with their thunder.”

“All for this Bazaar?” I say.

He nods. “The Hinini Traders visit Gilderne Fon every three months. It’s a time of great excitement here.”

A thought occurs to me. “Where else do these traders go? What systems?”

He mulls for a moment. “Tarphonsys and Shanata, of course. Yasimir in Tahirasys. Pin Taisys. A few others. I don’t remember them all.”

“And Oxwei, in Namidsys?”

“Before the planet was taken, yes.”

“What was in Namidsys, where Oxwei used to be?”

“I heard they mined asteroids there. Why?”

“My father was on a ship that visited Oxwei many times.”

“And you think your father was on Oxwei when it was taken?”

“Not sure. But the ship he was on was headed elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?”

“I saw it flying outta the galactic plane like it was late to its own birthday.”

“Out of the galactic plane,” he says, “like where the numens roam?”

“Excuse me?” I say.

“The numens dwell in the voids between galaxies,” he says.

“But not inside galaxies?”

He shakes his head. “You know of the Gauldilox Gurtel?”

“The belt round stars where most habitable planets spin.”

“Yes! The name comes from an ancient Orginearth story. A girl called Gauldilox liked her grain tepid, not too hot, nor too cold. To the numens, galaxies burn too hot. This is why we’ve only just become aware of them. As we expand out into the fringes of the Milk, we move closer to them. But even this far out, we can only commune with a rare few. Most numens live in the voids between galaxies, far beyond our reach.”

I think back to that night on Chadeisson, when I watched that GBP Orion Transmark 33 leap out the galactic plane. Headed toward gods?

“I know the Gauldilox story too,” I say. “My moms used to read it to me. In the original, the girl was an old crone who broke into the bears’ house. And cause few jeeks’d sympathize with an old crone breaking and entering, some smartass jeek changed the crone to a young girl to make the story more palatable to the masses.”

“Really? I never knew that.”

“It’s true. And, Harun, I think the FTU’s pulling the same trick. I’d suss some mad jeeks invented a weapon that can vanish worlds. And to stop everyone from freaking out, the FTU concocted this whole gods thing while they work to contain the mess. By telling everyone it was gods who took them planets, they make an ugly story more palatable.”

Harun shakes his head. “No, Saa and her sisters are very real.”

“Oh, yeah? Then show me! Show me one speck of evidence, and I’ll shut the fuck up.”

“The numens have no physical presence.”

“Course not.”

“But that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of affecting our reality. On the contrary, they have powers over matter that we might consider magical.”

“Then ask Saa to show me a magic trick.”

“She’s no pet who performs tricks! Our relationship is, in many ways, the reverse.”

“You’re her pet?”

He blinks, uneasy. “They have no need to interact with us any more than we interact with ants. Saa doesn’t always deign to communicate with us. That some numens do interact is a blessing, for they are great teachers.”

“Of what?”

“This is where words fail. Time, matter, space—these are human constructs, measurements of our experience. But their experience is so radically different from anything we know. To them, time, matter, and space don’t have the same meanings.”

“I remember my first time getting high too.”

He scowls. “The jisthmus opens the mind to new realms of thought. In our everyday experience, the numens are a silent whisper, lost in the breeze. But in their realm, they are big as mountains. Enormous, indomitable, and terrifying. And indescribably beautiful. One day, Shaddai willing, may you see them for yourself.”

I sigh. This ain’t getting nowhere, and Daddy taught me never to argue with fools.

“Jess,” he says, “there’s something I must ask you.”

“Yeah?”

The kid suddenly sits up and rubs his eyes. He looks back and forth tween us. “What’s wrong?” he says.

Harun stares at me. “Schon gut, my son,” he says. “I was telling Jess of the Hinini Traders, who bring us the holy sweet jisthmus at the Bazaar. It’s a time of festivals and celebrations.”

I perk up. “What kind of celebrations?”

“The whole planet rejoices,” Harun says. “It’s a time of catharsis, when we let loose our inhibitions before retreating again into meditative dimensions of thought.”

“And when do these celebrations start?”

“In the two days preceding and following the Bazaar.”

“So,” I say, “you mean, like, now?”

“Yes.”

I rub my mouth. Shiva, I haven’t had a drink in forever. Sides, drunk people like to talk. “And,” I say, “where might a jeek find these celebrations?”

“The whole city quakes with them,” Harun says.

I glance out the window, dreading the thought of taking the stairs. I need to buy a printer and fix the Daddy Issues and get the hell off this spinduster planet. But first I need to talk to Sadiq bout his future plans.

Harun seems to sense this and says, “Sadiq, go with Jess. You haven’t explored the city yet, mein schatz. It’s lovely in the morning.”

The kid looks back and forth tween his father and me, then slowly nods. But there’s a sadness in his gaze. He and I both know there’ll be a reckoning.

Me and the kid spent some two months together. Years, by Harun’s clock. But he’s a stranger to me now. You think you know someone, but then you see another side of em and it’s like you two just met. I know the kid feels it too, this weird vacuum tween us.

“Wanna check out Usha Square?” I say.

“What’s there?”

“What’s there? That’s where the Bazaar’ll be, you melk!”

“Oh. Sure.”

Jeeks sit round the lobby, though not as many as last time. The boulder-sized jeek sits up when he spots Sadiq. “You Harun’s son?” he says.

“How’d you know?” Sadiq says.

“Cause you look just like your daddy,” he says.

But I’m suspicious. “Harun a friend of yours?” I say.

“We’re all brothers here,” the man says. “Haven’t seen Harun in an age. Tell him Asim says hello and that he should come out of his hole once in a moon. We miss him!”

“I will!” Sadiq says.

“Hey,” I say. “How do we get to Usha Square?”

“With ten shekels and a box of dust to sell!” Asim says, snorting. Nearby, several jeeks groan.

“What?” I say.

“Old joke,” he says. “Go left down Hannah’s Way, right on Kinneret Path, walk to the end. But it ain’t open yet. The vendors’re still setting up.”

As he speaks, a starship thunders cross the sky, rattling the table.

Faintly, I smell old shoe leather and summer rains and a mal fading dream, and a strange dread creeps into my throat, like my future self’s reaching back in time, telling me to be scared. And I realize someone nearby is smoking jisthmus.

Me and the kid leave Asim and head to the Bazaar, first stopping to buy a breakfast of dove eggs in brown sauce and keemun tea. As the caffeine and calories surge through my blood, I feel more alive than I have in weeks. The sky’s clear, and so’s my path. But every time I think of leaving Gilder Nefan, my chest pangs.

At a small market, we browse a stall selling hand-made jewelry. The kid picks up a hammered metal amulet, covered in Psemitian engravings, prayers to ward off evil. But I know, by its layered folds, it’s made from a starship’s aggro fusion drum.

“I wouldn’t touch that,” I say, pushing Sadiq’s hand down. “Probly spitting off rads, like us.”

The kid drops the amulet, though he never seemed too interested anyway. He don’t seem stellar interested in nothing. He’s preoccupied.

Usha Square is a gigantic block of flattened stone that lies in the center of the city. Dozens of flags whip-crack in the wind, marking its rows and columns. Scattered jeeks cross the square are assembling booths and tables. In the distance, a single large mech offloads carg from pallets.

A wall of stone, chest-high, borders Usha Square, and we lean gainst it as more starships thunder cross the sky, leaving contrails bright in the sun.

“Jess,” he says, staring up at it. “I’m gonna stay.”

I knew it was all leading to this, but his words still feel like a sword in my chest. I can’t let the kid go. We’re fam, me and him. “Your daddy,” I say. “He abandoned you.”

“I know,” he says. “Es tut ihm leid. He said he’s stellar sorry.”

I shake my head. “Fuck, kid. You know full well jeeks’ words’re less than dust. Actions matter, not promises. Harun might leave you again.”

“He won’t. He promised.”

“This ain’t no planet for kids. Your daddy smokes brown shit all day to get high and talk to pretend gods. That’s the life you want?”

“You still don’t think the numens are real?”

“I think your daddy believes he’s speaking to gods, sure.”

“They have schools here,” he says. “They teach Psemitian and prayers and rituals. They study holy books and ancient stories. And when they judge you ready, you partake of the jisthmus too. But not till then.”

“And it’ll break your mind, just like it broke your daddy’s.”

“Jess,” he says, turning to me. “It’s what I want.”

His eyes are wet. Mine too. But his are firm, determined. I’d have more luck convincing a wooly mammoth it was a poodle.

“Well, you can’t help stupid,” I say, turning away.

“Don’t be like that,” he says. “I belong with my daddy.”

“If you think so.”

“Why you gotta be like this?” he says, his voice shrill. “This is what we came here for, ja? To find our daddys? You jealous cause I found mine?”

This stings mal, but I’m hard as neutron matter, me. “No, I ain’t jealous,” I say. “Just disappointed.”

Which is true. I thought the kid was smarter.

“You’ll find your daddy,” he says. “I know you will. And one day you’ll understand why I have to stay. Don’t be mad. I can’t have you mad at me.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “I ain’t mad. It’s just the way it is. One way or another, people I care bout always end up leaving.”

“That ain’t true, Jess,” he says.

“Nah, kid,” I say. “It’s truer for me than anyone you’ll ever know.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

We don’t speak two words in the long walk back to Harun’s building. I take him to the entrance and say, “I’m gonna go walk round some.”

“And get stellar betrunken,” he says.

“Back on the Daddy Issues,” I say, my bile rising, “you were so eager to learn how to fix things. You wanted me to teach you bout systems and drives and softs and tech. And now you’re giving all that up for this spinduster planet.”

He sags like a punctured gas bag. I don’t mean to hurt him, but it’s mal to hide from the truth. Sooner or later, it comes back to eat you. But there’s something weird in his eyes. Pain, but also regret. He’s two steps from me, but he might as well be two parsecs. Then he hugs me so hard I gasp. “Ich liebe dich, Jess,” he says. “More than suns. But this is where I gotta be.”

It takes all my strength not to hug him back. I ain’t gonna reward stupid. Come a week or year or lifetime, the kid’ll wake up and realize he gave up a sprawling universe for a dusty delusion.

He separates from me and walks into Harun’s building. Asim, sitting nearby, watches me intently.

“Help you?” I snap.

“It may not mean much,” Asim says, “but I’ll look after the boy, make sure he’s well taken care of. I know Harun. I’ll check in on them. It’s been too long since I seen my old friend. He’s due a visit.”

“You don’t need to do that,” I say, suspicious.

“We all are our brother’s keepers,” he says.

“You wanna be a brother, then tell me where I can get a drink? A real fucking drink?”

“Try the Broken Vow on Ishraquo Way. I’d come with you, but I gave up drink years ago.”

I nod and say, “Any chance you know anything bout Oxwei in Namidsys?”

The others turn and glare at me like I just took a shit on their table.

“It was one of the three taken worlds,” he says.

“And what was on those worlds?”

“Settlements. People.”

“Rehabs?”

“Like for sick folk?”

“No, like those places they take jeeks who break laws, to make em supposedly not want to break em again.”

“Ah, you mean prisons,” Asim says, using the old Anglai world.

“Yeah, that.”

He squints at me. “Not that I heard, no.”

“And you ever hear of anything outta the ordinary from Oxwei?”

“Everything’s unordinary in the Outer Deep,” he says.

“Right,” I say. “Well, worth a try. Thanks anyway.”

As I’m turning to leave, Asim adds, “But now that I think about it, there was a jeek from Oxwei asking for volunteers a while back.”

“Volunteers? For what?”

“Some large engineering project, if I recall.”

“What kind of project?”

“Don’t remember.”

“When was this?”

“Five, maybe six years ago.”

“Local years?”

He nods, so bout three standard. “What was this jeek like?”

“He seemed . . . different. We don’t get folks coming to Gilderne Fon asking jeeks to leave here. Folks come here to get away from someplace else. We don’t judge what you did before. We only care that you observe our laws and customs.”

“Did anyone leave with this jeek?”

“Don’t know.”

“What did this jeek look like?”

“Don’t remember.”

“Old? Young? Dark? Light? Tall? Short? Male? Female? Androg? What?” I snap.

“I don’t know! It was years ago, and I only saw em for a moment.”

“She was wearing a uniform,” the dark-haired woman with the patch over her left eye says. She sits close to Asim, arms crossed, scowling like she’s had enough of everyone.

I step closer. “What kinda uniform?”

“Blackest I ever seen,” she says. “It absorbed all light. Navy blue stripes on the sleeves. Mirror buttons and belt buckles. They were zeyer serious.”

“How so?”

“No cheer. And she had two friends. No! Nisht friends. How you say in Anglai? Servants.”

“Servants?”

“Mm . . . subordinates?” she says. “She was their leader. Two mentshen, man and woman. Young. They followed her like hungry chickens. I didn’t like the look of them. Their eyes were dead.” She spits on the ground.

“Dead?” I say.

She narrows her unpatched eye at me. “I know something bout dead eyes. When I looked in theirs, they didn’t look back, even though they were staring at me. There was no there there.” She spits again and says, “Kaynahoreh!” No evil eye.

“Did they say what this big project was?”

“Nayne,” she says. “But they paid in pure gold. Not standard chips or Hiija or sheckles. Pure gold. Pallets, too. I remember thinking they were up to no good.”

“Do you remember their names?”

“I don’t think they gave em.”

“Who’d they work for? Did you recognize their uniforms?”

“Never seen em fore or since. But they had a patch on their breasts and arms. A square with a line through it, like a knife slicing a cube in half. I thought, no good will come from them.”

“What else do you remember?”

“That’s it.”

“Could you draw this symbol for me?”

“I don’t have paper.”

“Here,” I say, pulling out my small copy of The Light of the Universe I have tucked into my belt.

She glares at me. “I won’t deface a holy book!” she says.

“Just write on this blank page.”

“It’s not your personal notebook!”

“Please,” I say. “My daddy’s missing, and that symbol you saw’l help me find him.”

She looks at Asim, then back at me, sighing like I just asked her to give up her firstborn child. “I have nothing to write with,” she says.

A bald jeek nearby fishes out a pencil and gives it to her. I hand her the book and she licks the tip of the pencil with her tongue. “What’s your name, child?”

I’m bout to say Klara. Old habits, I guess. “Jess,” I say.

She takes her time writing, pausing so many times to re-read her words I feel like snatching the book from her and trying my luck elsewhere. She finally presses it closed, pleased with herself. She hands the book back to me with a shit-eating grin.

I’m bout to flip it open, but she grabs my arm to stop me. “Kaynahoreh!” she says. “It’ll bring the evil eye to read it in front of me.”

“Did you draw the symbol?”

She pulls me so close that I’m inches from her unpatched eye. Her iris hovers fore me like a swirling gas giant, cloudy and terrible. “Wisdom is learning when to speak, and when to shut up.”

“You ain’t the first to tell me that,” I whisper.

She laughs hard as she lets me go, then turns to the table. “Now,” she says, “who’ll fetch the next pot of tea? My throat’s dry as sand!”

The table erupts in shouts, while Asim, quiet, eyes me.

“What’s this bar again?” I say over the shouts.

“The Broken Vow on Ishraquo Way,” he says. “Vema, the owner, is an old friend. Tell her Asim’s sorry he hasn’t visited. I don’t drink no more.”

“Sounds like you ain’t visited hardly anyone of late,” I say.

“It’s hard to get away from this table,” he says.

“I can see that.”

And as I move away myself, the jeeks’re still yelling bout who’s turn it is to fetch tea, how Gerch has the memory of a castrated goat, and how Paolo’s cheap as a Hinini Trader.

It’s only after I round the corner that I realize I never thanked her. I stop in a shaded corner and open the book.

The symbol’s there, as promised. A square with a line cutting through the middle, extending on each side, like the old Mandreen character for middle, but rotated ninety degrees. A horizon cutting the sky. Underneath, in handwriting so curvy it’s almost illegible, the inscription says:

Blessed Jess,

All paths lead to the truth, but some take longer than others.

May your path be short and uneventful.

Your Sister,

Sabirah Bas Rana Schoen

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Broken Vow’s small, far as bars go, just a long wooden counter and a bunch of tables strewn round like shrooms on a dead tree. Some jeeks in the back’re loudly cursing or laughing, and two more’re playing chess so intently they look like statues. There’s pics on the walls, swaying fields of Varouna grain, Petua’s mammoth rings, and Esau’s Brow, all blue, majestic and swirly. Crap you’d see in any shitty bar this side of Perseus. But all the pics are pale and faded and got more scratches than a misaligned thrust vector vane. This place’s trying hard to be your typical shitty bar in a typical shitty system, earning overtime to make you forget how far out from humanity you truly are, and it mostly works, cept for the persistent disconcerting smell of jisthmus wafting in. The streets’re stellar thick with its stench.

I walk up to the bar and sit on a stool. The bartender’s a middle-aged jeek with lines round eir gray eyes and skin so dark it seems blue. Eir hair’s cut so short e’s almost bald, and e wears all black, like e’s just been to a funeral. E’s the first jeek I seen here that don’t present an obvious gender, and it’s fucking refreshing.

“How much for whiskey?” I ask.

“Ten,” e says.

“Sheckles?”

“What else?”

I fish round my pocket for coins and curse when I count just three. “Don’t suppose you take standard coin?” I say.

E squints at me, like I just insulted eir mom. “They got changers in Usha Square. We don’t take dirty FTU money here.” E spits on the floor.

I glance over my shoulder, ready to leap out the way of an approaching fist. Talk like that’d get you a swift kick in the jaw and a trip out an airlock in less scrupulous parts of the galaxy. But none here give two quarks. I guess trash talking the FTU’s golden in the Outer New, where the FTU don’t reach. And maybe that explains the rise of this new Alliance.

I like this jeek already. E’s shit talking the FTU like it’s eir dad, and not the most powerful org in the galaxy. You gotta respect gas-giant balls like that.

Me and eir definitely docked at the wrong port, so I vector round for a new approach. I grin and say, “So, you’re Vema?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Jess,” I say. “Friend of Asim.”

“Oh?” e says, scowling. “A friend of his, are ya?”

“Vert! Asim says hello. He’s stellar sorry he ain’t been by.”

“Is he, now?”

“Truly.”

“That svolotch owes me six hundred fucking sheckles! And a new table!” E points with her thumb into the corner toward a broken square of wood and a pile of junk.

“Well, we ain’t good friends,” I say. “Actually, we just met.”

E looks me over. “How much you got?”

“Three sheckles,” I say, feeling pathetic. Hard to believe a few months back I was spitting distance from my own megahauler.

“I tell you what,” e says, “you give me three sheckles and next time you see Asim, you give him a swift kick in the balls for me. Deal?”

I can’t tell if e’s serious or no, but I nod anyway. “Deal,” I say, smiling, and e smiles back at me, teeth white as suns. “Here,” e says, pouring three fat fingers of whiskey into a glass so scratched it’s gone gray. “First one’s on the house.”

“Thanks!” I say, then take a sip. And maybe cause it’s been ages since I had a drink, or the local food’s thrown off my tongue, but it tastes like fucking replast. Godsdamned awful.

“Nu?” e says. “You like? Distilled it myself with Varouna grain. Wheat, rye, and secret spices. Zeyer good, nu?”

“Fantastic,” I say, coughing through an epic throat-burn.

“So what’s old Asim up to these days?”

“Sitting in front of his building, drinking tea, arguing bout shit.”

“So the same,” e says. “Hey, where you from? You sound like the dity from my home world, Nyek.”

“The Nyek in Zsofiasys?”

“Right!” e says, baring eir huge teeth in a grin so happy it’s almost menacing. “Few jeeks know of it.”

“White-sand beaches,” I say. “Purple sunsets. Orbits the gas giant Agoston, whose rings glitter like diamonds when the sun hits.”

“Tak!” Vema says with a despairing sigh. “I miss it duzhe much. You been there?”

I think back. Years ago me and Daddy spent a week there waiting for a jeek from Aglaiasys, hoping to trade for a starbeaten Honovi 97 Dirt Jumper. But the jeek was late, so we waited on the beach, sunning, drinking, talking. Shiva, we talked. Talked until the sun went down in purple splendor every few hours, leaving Agoston’s crescent shining crimson, gold, and glorious gainst the stars. And me and Daddy were still talking when the sun rose in violet fire. That’s where Daddy told me he had four brothers he never met. And how he met my moms, Klara, while looking for work in Mee Huasys. And how he never thought he’d have kids, never even wanted em, but after me he never loved a jeek more.

The sun set and rose nine more times fore we fell asleep. And I was warm and safe and at peace, and I floated the idea of staying there, on Nyek, Daddy and me, making a new life, away from the grift. Just the two of us, settled down. Maybe I’d go to school and learn a trade. Then Daddy said he wasn’t waiting for no jeek, and there was no ship neither. No, the real reason we were on Nyek was cause he was hiding from some murderous Inner Terra thug cause he stole three pallets of platinum. The thug had even blown up a gas hauler, thinking Daddy was on it. Thankfully the hauler was driven by softs and not jeeks, but the Nyek criminologists still swept us up into their huge investigation, holding us in a pen for days.

They never proved Daddy had anything to do with the bombing, but they didn’t trust him neither, so they banished him—and me by association—from Nyek forever. Which was stellar sad, cause I loved it there. I coulda stayed there, with Daddy, forever.

“Hey?” the bartender says. “I asked if you ever been to Nyek?”

“A long time ago,” I say, “but I don’t remember much.”

“So where you from then?” e says.

I take a sip of eir awful whiskey. It burns less going down this time. “I’m a child of the verse,” I say.

“Ain’t we all,” e says, nodding and refilling eir glass. E clinks mine so hard I worry it’ll crack. We drink more.

I pull out my copy of The Light of the Universe, and e grimaces.

“You ain’t gonna start evangelizing, are ya? Cause God and me got our own relationship, znayesh?”

I show eir the symbol Sabirah drew in my book. “You ever seen this?”

“Old Mandreen character. Zhong. Means middle.”

“This way, sure. But the line’s horizontal, like this.” I twist the book on the Z axis.

“Huh. Don’t ring no alarms. What’s it from?”

“Some jeeks were here a few years back asking for folks to join em for an engineering project on Oxwei. They wore uniforms with this on their shoulders. That story ring any alarms?”

“Ni. Who were they?”

“No clue.”

“Why you wanna know?”

“I’m looking for my daddy, and I think they might have something to do with where he is.”

“We’re all looking for someone,” e says, nodding, then pours us more whiskey. Shiva, I can’t swallow any more of eir dreck. Plus I’m racking up a monster tab. But e’s pouring, and it’s been ages since I last had a drink.

There’s a shout hind me, then a crash, and I spin round. The chess board and its pieces lie scattered cross the floor, and one of the former players now holds the other by the neck.

“Suraj’s cheating!” the man says. “I’ll murder him!”

“Romic!” Vema shouts. “I got three rules in my bar!” E points to a sloppily sign on the wall handwritten in Anglai, Mandreen, and Nefanese. “No jisthmus, no fucking, no fighting. No exceptions!”

“But Suraj was cheating!” Romic says.

“Take your bullshit outside,” Vema says. “Or don’t ever come back.”

Romic slowly releases his grip on the jeek’s neck. “Double or nothing?” he says.

“Okay,” Suraj says, rubbing his throat. “But you fetch the pieces.”

Romic nods. “I think a pawn rolled under that table.”

“Suraj never cheats,” Vema says as I turn back to eir. “I watched him play a thousand games. He’s too good, and Romic’s a sore loser. He only beat Suraj once, and that’s cause Suraj was so drunk he passed out. But still they play, all day, every day, nine days a week. They’d do it ten, but we’re closed on Keterdays. You’d think they’d get bored, but they never do. You know the story of Cisafus?”

“The jeek with the rock?”

“That one. Cisafus cheated death, so Zoos, king of all gods, condemned him to heave a boulder up a hill for eternity. Soon as Cisafus reaches the top, the boulder rolls down again, and he’s gotta start over. That chess game there is Romic’s boulder. The world could be crumbling to dust, but long as Romic’s got his chess, he’s golden. He gets frustrated. How could you not, losing all the time? But in the end, he sits his ass down and plays again. They both do. They’ll do it till they’re dead.”

Something bout this makes me sad, and I take a long sip.

“The key to happiness,” Vema goes on, “is finding our boulder. More?”

I’m thirstier than I ever been. But broker too. “I ain’t got coin, remember?”

“I’ll put it on your tab. Go change your dirty FTU chips for sheckles. Pay me back tomorrow.” E pours me three more fingers. I don’t wait for eir to pour eirs before swallowing every drop of the awful liquid. Fuck. I gotta fly from this hell fore I turn into Romic.

“Layno!” Vema says after I swallow my drink. “Slow down, my friend! We got all the time in the world.”

“Not me,” I say. I drop all my remaining coin on the bar. “Thanks for the drink. I’ll come back with the rest.”

“Do that,” e says. “And remember bout Asim.”

“Swift kick in the balls.”

“You got it, miy druh,” Vema says. E puts a warm hand on mine, like we go back eons and not minutes. I think e’s going to make a pass, when e shouts over my shoulder, “Irvol! No sleeping on the fucking floor!”

A portly jeek lies flat on his back on the ground, snoring. Vema leaps over the bar, and with Suraj’s help, lifts the man into a chair. And while they’re distracted, I down Vema’s whiskey then fly hyperbolic to the exit.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I shiver in the streets like a wet dog, the despair of this place sticking to me like rain. The whiskey’s hitting hard. I barely ate, and my liver’s out of practice. My head rings, and the drab browns of the city seem brighter and clearer, like my eyes been outta focus my whole life till now. I should really find a printer and get the hell off this spinduster planet. But nearby, I hear singing, and I stumble towards it, deciding what I really want right now is to get drunk.

After a few turns I come upon a bacchanal. A bonfire roars in the center of a piazza, its flames leaping skyward. It’s so hot my cheeks’re melting. A hundred jeeks circle the fire, dancing, singing, beating drums. Some play stringed instruments and pipes or wave flags and streamers or swing silver flagons bove their heads. Their expressions of ecstasy’re contagious.

They sing in Psemitian, and it’s hard to suss out the words through the revelry, but my eie parses em clear:

How good and pleasing it is for siblings to sing in harmony!

How good and pleasing it is for siblings to dance in harmony!

How good and pleasing it is for siblings to live in harmony!

Their voices soar with sparks from the fire. Someone grabs my waist and yanks me into the circle, and we dance round the fire like planets round a sun. I feel silly, ready to leap away. But a woman passes me a flagon with sloshing red liquid inside.

“Wine?” I say.

“Yes, wine!” she says, pushing it to my lips. “Drink, sister! Drink!”

More join her, “Drink, eazizi! Drink!”

I ain’t gonna turn down free wine, so I take a big quaff.

It’s sweet, like fermented apples and honey. But there’s a strange spice in it, cinnamon or raw milk. It’s bitter too, like copper and dry wood and old mushrooms. But it don’t burn like Vema’s whiskey. My throat tingles with a delicious warmth that spreads soothing fire in my belly.

Fore I even take the flagon from my lips the whole crowd cheers, raising their hands together. She passes the flagon to someone else and grabs my hand. Everyone grabs hands, forming circles round the fire. I’m sweating from the heat as we spin. Each ring spins in opposite directions, while the music-playing jeeks spin round us all, strumming sitars and guitars and violins and bandolins and psalteries, or blowing pipes and clarinets and flutes, banging drums, of just clapping hands. It’s a mad cacophony that falls into tune every sixth step.

My head’s spinning like a magnetar, and the blue sky splits open like a wound, black ichor spilling out. I peer into the great black void, which ain’t void but full of something present, alive but invisible. I feel floaty, like a helium balloon, expanding to fill all space and time. I am cosmic inflation.

What the fuck? This ain’t no wine buzz.

“What was in that mug?” I say to the woman next to me as we spin.

“Wine!” she says, her grin spreading past her face, past the circle, past the far horizons. “Sweet jisthmus wine!”

“Oh, fuck,” I say, my heart hammering. “I ain’t never had jisthmus before!”

“Kvod tzu onheiber!” she says. Glory to the novice! And in Psemitian she sings, “Blessed be the opening of doors!” She finishes her prayer on the beat of the music, and picks up the main song again.

How good and pleasing it is for siblings to commune with heaven!

“I ain’t ready to commune with heaven,” I say, feeling sick.

“No one is! Yet still the highest blessing!”

We spin round, three times, three hundred. I want to curl up on the mat of Harun’s apartment like a sick dog. But my feet dance on their own, propelled as if another’s driving them. I’m bout to scream when something shifts. It starts in my belly, a wildfire burning through my body, a heat so intense I worry I’m gonna burst to flames. But as it rages through my head it leaves behind a clarity. A perfect, impossible joy that somehow was always there. How did I never not notice it fore now?

The woman senses my change, and as we dance round the fire she says in Psemitian, “The novice has become aware! The door has opened! Blessed be the way of open doors!”

Blessed be the Holy One who opens doors! the crowd responds.

“I’m alive!” I shout, tears raining down my cheeks. My heart unfurls like opening nebulae. “I’ve never felt this alive!”

“Alchaya!” the woman says. “To life and a thousand blessings!”

I spin and dance. More wine is passed. I drink deep. Sparks leap into the sky, spread, and become suns. Ten thousand stars burn as I hurtle round the galactic edge. So many stars. When did night fall? My head spins as I spin round the fire, as Gilder Nefan spins round Gan Eyden, as Gan Eyden spins round the Milk, as the Milk spins with a billion other galaxies. On and on and on, cycles within cycles within cycles, in eternity. And at the center of all is my mind, a vortex of light.

I’m in the corner, away from the fire, sweating, laughing, crying, watching the dance, panting. A boy pulls me aside and says, “Kiss me!”

I do and my heart melts like ice in a nuclear furnace. I love this stranger more than I ever loved another person. I blink and the boy’s gone. A man twice my size hefts me up and dances round the fire with me on his shoulders. I laugh and scream and wave ribbons at the sky. And together we sing, You shall love the stranger as one of your own, for you were once strangers in a strange land!

I float up into the sky, past the towers, then out cross the city and its million globes of light. Lamps and candles shine from windows and balconies, each a star, swirling with life.

I hover at the outskirts of the bonfire, like Gilderne Fon on the edge of the galaxy, puking up volumes of liquid from my stomach while some impossibly kind woman holds my hair and whispers blessings in my ear. I’m crying as I heave, not from despair, but from love and gratitude for this kindly helping stranger.

Then I’m up again, dancing, drinking, singing as one, crying with joy. Nothing in my life has ever felt this free.

The city walls move and shift, stones grinding gainst stone. Or is it me, my thoughts grinding gainst reality? Is there a difference? I walk the streets, alone, my body cooling like an ancient star, my fuel spent. I don’t remember leaving the fire, the dance. I still hear the song. Stumbling, singing, I search for Harun’s building through the labyrinthine streets. But these walls are strange, and the letters of the signs’re crawling spiders.

My joy dribbles out like water down a drain, replaced by a yawning, void. From nothing we are formed. To nothing we will go. All is empty, sere. Even me. I am nothing. I will be nothing. Oh fuck. I’m gonna panic. I need to lay down, to sleep, and forget this awful feeling.

“Where . . . is it?” I shout. My words come out slurred, wrong. “Harun’s building . . . should be . . . here! Where is . . . it?”

I try to remember his address, but whenever I close my eyes I hear Sadiq and Harun’s echoing laughter. They don’t want me here. I ain’t welcome to their dance.

I stumble and sway down the twisting streets, while jeeks glare at me, eyes glimmering in the lamplight, privy to a secret no one wants to share.

“Always the same!” I slur. “Jess ain’t good enough, so bye, donkey fucker! See ya in the next life!” I laugh without joy.

My voice echoes down the streets as I stumble into a small square. Its lamplight shines bright as suns but feels paler than death. A old man with a long gray beard sits on a mat in front of a building. There’s a pipe next to him, its bowl sending up a line of blue smoke, a ladder to heaven.

The smoke smells of roses and death. This is what Sadiq chose over me. A delusional daddy and his pernicious plant.

“Share a toke, friend?” I say.

The man looks at me, but his eyes are elsewhere. Even the ground under me wishes I were somewhere else. The whole verse don’t give no shit bout me. If I vanished like smoke, oh well, oh well.

I grab the pipe from the jeek. He don’t blink. The bowl smolders, and with two quick puffs I make the cherry glow red.

I inhale deep.

And the world breaks.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Doors

doors and archways and corners

more doors

an endless number, stretching to the horizon

the labyrinthine streets of gilder nefan stretch to the

     edge of the universe

beyond . . .

far beyond!

beyond the beyond!

I’m flying a billion mega-cs and accelerating, a distance greater than time. I race toward an endless, maddening, ever-growing space beyond the verse.

But I’m right here, with pipe in hand. Right fucking here.

An eon passes. A nanosecond. The same meaningless measure. I blink and the bricks of the city are blocks of will, placed one intention at a time. Inside each brick are multiverses, webs of ancient meaning. The bricks hurtle to dimensions unseen at impossible speeds. At the speed of time, past and future are useless concepts.

Waves crash and break on the shores of consciousness. No! The waves are consciousness. Minds arise from the waves, droplets in the churn, who believe they’re separate from the sea. But they fall back again and the sea swallows them whole.

Gilder Nefan spins on the galactic edge, receding. The Milk is an ocean of stars, glorious and vast, but an infinitesimal speck in this raging sea. So beautiful, so small. Three hundred billion stars dance round its central black hole core like revelers round a bonfire. Three times the galaxy spins. Thirty. Andromeda crashes into the Milk, passing through the other side, two spectral lovers trying and failing to hug each other.

Gravity yanks em together again, but not a single star touches. Even the Milk, hard as e tries, can’t connect with another soul.

The galaxies fall together and fly apart, each wave birthing millions of suns, over and over, unwilling to give up the dance, unable to stop, like Cisafus pushing that rock up a hill. Each time they fly less far apart, till I can’t tell which stars belong to which galaxy, till their black holes merge and gravitational waves ripple cross the universe.

Love on a galactic scale.

I recede until Andro-Milk is a speck in the vastness. I fly higher, farther. Galaxies spread cross gargantuan gulfs, connected by billion light-year fingers of gas and dust. Galaxies wake from the voids, spin a few thousand times, then dim to nothing again as their stars wither and die. The fingers grow and shrink, flash and fade, as strange energies race down their lengths, like blood through veins, electrons through wires, thoughts through mind.

And now I know, Laniakea, the pan-galactic mega-supercluster, is alive.

It’s alive and thinking slow thoughts. All of Orginearth’s history, from the collapse of Sol from cosmic dust to humanity’s leap cross the Milk ain’t time enough for her to form a single thought. But she is thinking, has been thinking, fore this particular reality came to be. And Laniakea’s just a single neuron of an immeasurably larger brain that roams in vastnesses beyond imagining. What is humanity in all that?

What am I?

jess, says a voice. It is not a word, but a tidal wave of thought. Waves crash through me, and I drown. I’m blasted apart. My atoms split to quarks, quarks to energy. There’s no “me” left. Just a profound, solitary awareness that’s separate from and yet a part of everything.

jessian, the voice says, and more tidal waves crash through me. jessian urania darger.

There’s not enough of me left to feel fear. The still-aware thing that once was Jess tumbles into a void that is not empty. A bowl of time and mind and will. There are levels to this bowl, circular rings that wind down forever, each a different color, wavelengths too strange to be measured by crude human scales. Size has lost meaning.

The sides of the bowl pinch together, forming a gibbous moon, or a gargantuan half-lidded eye.

jessian urania darger, the voice says.

What is this? I scream wordlessly into time and space. My thoughts ripple out like the thunder of colliding black holes. What is this?

I fall into the monstrous eye, its pupil a gargantuan pit, down and down again. But the eye’s so large and far away I’ll never get any closer. In a trillion, trillion years, I’ll still be falling.

I remember who I am.

A spark of “me” returns, forming from intersecting waves of nothingness, a human called Jess, seeking her daddy, and a wave of terror crushes me.

What is this? I scream, wordlessly.

you fear what you don’t understand, the thunder says. you recoil from that which is strange.

Help me, please!

there is nothing that needs help. this is all you ever were. your fear is self-inflicted. you leap, terrified, from your own shadow.

What’s happening? What is this?

you are a child raised in a dark room who for the first time steps into the sun. you are a bird in a cage with the door unlocked, but you never thought to try it until now. now you fly free and awe at the world you never saw.

Spots of light form in the vastness and swiftly grow, until each is a gargantuan eye, as large as the first. The universe is nothing but self-aware eyes, all peering at me. And within these eyes are more eyes, and more within them, forever and ever, spiraling to infinity.

Please stop! I say.

you opened the door, it says, and now you are surprised to see what lies on the other side.

I don’t want this!

yet you took the jisthmus herb.

I didn’t know this would happen!

what do you think is happening?

I’m hallucinating. This is a dream!

this is no dream. this is no hallucination.

Then what is it?

a reflection. of yourself.

And what am I?

look.

I’m barely out of diapers, eating oatmeal with Mommy and Daddy in some spaceport restaurant, waiting for a ship to come in, and I look out the window at a huge starship parked on the tarmac, a NIM TS-80 Thunder, and this is the first time I understand what a starship is, what it does, and I fall in love, totally and utterly, and vow to have one of my own some day.

And I’m in a bunk on Ansari Station round Tasanee, and Mommy’s curled up sides me. She’s young and beautiful and singing me to sleep, her face aglow in the light of a comet’s dusty tail sweeping cross the sky outside the window. And I’m ashamed, cause she’s giving me tender love, but I’m still mad at her for yelling at me earlier.

And I’m with Daddy, hauling a dead jeek cross the snows of Vidrio Blanco on a makeshift sled to deliver the body to his family. And I’m staring at the man’s blank face as we rest, pondering death, the end of things, not scared, just sad, cause one day Daddy’ll die too, and I’ll be dragging his lifeless corpse cross some other snow.

And I’m with Vette Biez, inside a storage locker on the long trip out to Mee Huasys. She’s been giving me “kissing lessons” every night, my heart fluttering wild as her tongue slides gainst mine, as we explore each other’s bodies, and in my bunk later I lie sleepless, longing for her touch, dreaming of what our life together would be like, and the shame and rage the next morning, when Vette Biez laughs in my face in front of the whole cafeteria when I ask her to marry me.

And I’m sitting with Daddy as he’s telling me that Mommy went on a “trip,” that she’ll be gone just for a “little while,” though I know from the water pooling in his eyes she’ll be gone much longer, and I sob and sob till I lose my voice.

My life billows neath me, an infinite landscape, each point on its surface a moment of my history. My life spreads wide, a sprawling fractal expanse of potential futures. Me, staying on Gilder Nefan, becoming a lonely, sad and defeated aesthetic. Me, flying recklessly back to Chadeisson, getting arrested, spending months in Rehab, and rethinking all my terrible choices. Me, darting off to where Oxwei used to be, looking for Daddy, but freezing to death on the trip when my Starpusher’s reactor fails.

Past a certain point, my future’s blurry. But the past is solid, clear. I drop and I’m back on Chadeisson, terrified when I learn Daddy’s been arrested, and I’m on my own for the first time, but a new strength rises in me when I realize I’ve always been alone.

I arc in a wide parabola to drop down on the Starpusher with Sadiq, as we’re desperately trying to shove the reactor panels back on fore the radiation fries us. Poor Sal’s ruby rings of blood and viscera spirals slowly into the stone, and I think even he don’t deserve that.

Then I’m up again, leaping cross time and space to Varouna, holding Mommy’s hand as we walk bove those waving fields of wheat. I’m six and don’t know nothing, she and Daddy just had another fight, and I sense she’s pondering stealing off someplace far without us, and ever since that day, the sound of wind blowing over grasses makes me sad, and only in this moment do I realize why.

Up and down I bounce, through moments of time like a ball down a hill. When I touch the surface there’s just me, human and small, at one point in my history. But when I bounce up again my thoughts spread cross infinity. Each time I rise and look out, the landscape makes a weird kind of sense, like a trillion random parts accidentally falling together to form a starship.

And this is altogether different.

Soon as I think this, something glimmers in the distance. At the edge of everything is a shoreline. And beyond this shoreline, an odd shimmer. Part light, part thought, this flickery blue-white nova bright thing beckons. Liquid diamonds and quicksilver spray, it breaks like a wave, then recedes again. The undertow’s strong, brutal, but so’s the force pulling this thought-light closer. And inside this flickery non-light is something else.

Something else entirely.

This astonishes me—everything astonishes me—yet I know, somehow, that the being thought-speaking to me’s even more astonished than I am at this very other thing, which feels impossible, and yet I know it’s true. And while I recoil in terror from this new flickering otherness, the being thought-speaking to me is rejoicing.

What is that light? I scream, voicelessly. What is it?

And the not-voice thunders, ten trillion seeds are sown on barren fields, and only a mere handful grow! where others see chaos, you see order! where others stumble, you stand tall! jessian urania darger sees! you are one who can see!

What is it? I say. What is that light?

everything.

Then I blink and I’m back on the streets of Gilder Nefan.

Each rut in the hand-laid stone walls is a pupil of an eye. A trillion eyes stare at me. I’m on a different street, far from the cross-legged jeek and his pipe, under a sky full of watching stars. Distant, twinkling stars, frozen in cosmic positions. Time moves slow only so everything don’t happen at once.

Someone’s groping me. Rough, probing hands. Voices, human voices, resolve through my ringing ears. They speak Anglai with a thick Inner Terran accent. The air reeks of perfume, of aerosoled weirdo.

“I don’t want no fuckin spinduster praybook!” a voice says, as hands grope round my waist. My copy of The Light of the Universe, tumbles to the ground. “Check eir pockets! E’s gotta have something!”

“Look at eir wares!” another says. “Deep mods!”

I try to shove em away, but my arms flop, useless. I try to speak, but weak moans sigh from my mouth.

“I can’t grab eir wares,” one says. “They’re strapped in!”

“Just take the whole belt!” says another.

I’m falling, but the hands hold me up. “Cell the fuck up!” one says. “Fore some dusty sees!”

There’s a click, a release, and I gasp in horror as my toolbelt slides away. The toolbelt Daddy printed for me for my eleventh birthday, his own design, made to hold any ware I’d ever need. The toolbelt I wore every day and sometimes slept in for five long years.

They let me fall, and I tumble to the ground. The pain as my shoulder hits is sharp and terrible. Moaning, I glance up at them.

Millions of eyes stare back at me from every corner, and I recoil in horror. I resolve three human shapes, Inner Terra jeeks in Inner Terra clothes. Neon bright freshprint suits, covered with useless straps and buttons, false pockets, and color combos so offensive they’re prob illegal in a hundred systems. Tall, young, androg, all of em, with short-cropped, blue, green, and pink hair. Skin covered with tattoos, names of systems like the old haulers who marked the places they been, back in them early First Diaspora days.

Green Hair triumphantly holds my toolbelt high like e’s just won a mech-boeir fight. A tattoo cross eir forehead is the Old Mandreen character for “Justice.”

“You fucks!” I groan. “That’s mine!”

“It speaks,” Green Hair says. E spits on me and kicks me in the ribs. Pain explodes in my chest as I cough and heave. They just laugh. “That’s what you get for drinking the dusty’s spiced wine!”

“Let’s fly,” Pink Hair says. Laughing, they vanish round a corner.

I lay in pain, shuddering, my nerves wrecked. It hurts to breathe. I roll onto my back and stare at the sky. Each star is an eye, mocking me. The walls glare at me, snickering. Terrified, I turn from the sky.

My copy of The Light of the Universe lies on the ground, its pages torn, a bootprint on its cover. I groan and curl into a ball. I want to cry but the tears don’t come. I’m empty of everything.

The sky brightens with the dawn and still I lie. The sun rises bove the walls, shining on my face. I close my eyes and let it burn.

Time passes. A shadow steps in front of the sun. A figure stands bove me, a black silhouette, the huge orange sun hind eir. The figure squats by my head, and I wince, expecting blows.

“I heard an off-world girl was lying in the street,” a voice says. “Figured it was you.”

It’s Asim. He scoops me into his arms and carries my limp body to Harun’s building, which all this time was just round the fucking corner.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I’m a limp doll as Asim carries me into the welcome shade of Harun’s lobby. Shame and fear and sadness fight for control of me, but exhaustion wins over all.

“Vema asked me to give you a swift kick in the balls,” I whisper.

“I deserve that,” he says with a chuckle.

Panting, he don’t pause as he climbs the forty-two flights to Harun’s floor.

“Put me down,” I say. “I don’t want em to see me so wrecked.”

He sets me down on my shaky legs. I’ll prob never walk normal again. I feel so small and helpless I can’t meet his eyes. “Thank you,” I squeak.

He heaves a sigh. “Lots of folks come and go over the years,” he says. “Gilderne Fon is salvation for some. And for others, it’s a curse. Leave, before this world destroys you.”

“Too late,” I say.

He looks me over, then reaches into the rear hem of of his belt to pull out my copy of the The Light of the Universe. “Long as you ain’t dead,” he says, handing the book to me, “you still got choices. Take care of yourself, sister.” He heads down the stairs fore I can even thank him.

There’s a bootprint on the book’s cover, and this saddens me more than anything. Sabirah’s inscription’s still there, thankfully, though the page’s bent and torn. I flatten it out and close the book.

I take a few steadying breaths fore I walk into Harun’s apartment. The kid and his daddy, deep in conversation, stop and turn to me. The kid wears local threads, plant fabrics, animal leather. No more synths or tech. Now he’s just another brick in the dusty walls.

The kid looks surprised, a bit worried. But his father gives me a knowing look. “You weren’t ready,” he says.

“No,” I say, and my shame is a collapsing star. “I fucking wasn’t.”

“We’re never ready to see the truth,” he says.

As he helps me to the side room, I wince in pain. He lays me on the mat. A beam of sunlight crosses my chest, stuttered by shadows of flying birds.

“Rest,” he says. “Sleep.”

His face is infested with eyes. Eyes watch me from everywhere. “I can’t,” I say. “I broke my brain.”

“No,” he says. “You merely unlocked it.”

Sadiq watches from the threshold, worried. His face is a million probing eyes. Harun tells him to wait in the other room.

“What’s wrong with her, Daddy?” Sadiq says. “What happened to Jess?”

Harun stares at me. The whole verse stares at me. “She opened the door.”

Gainst all odds, I sleep. And dream. Of eyes, and time, and falling. Of Mommy, slipping away. Of Daddy, his lifeless body dead on a sled.

I awake to the most beautiful singing of the afternoon prayers, and the devastating thunder of approaching starships. The thunder almost drowns out their plaintive song, but still they sing. How can their voices sound so beautiful?

Twenty starships burn in, glimmering like stars. I see eyes everywhere, though they’ve faded some, like glares in your vision after staring at a drive plume.

Harun waits at the door, as if knowing I’m awake. He hands me a bladder and says, “Drink. It’s water.”

I swallow most of it fore I come up for air. Harun seems different now, a new man. Here I was thinking he was deluded, and now I’ve gone and seen impossible things too.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“For what?”

“For not believing you.”

He shrugs. “We get that a lot. It’s impossible to understand how big the Petua Rings are till you’ve seen em up close. Skepticism is healthy. But too much and you’ll become a tortoise, locked in your shell. What happened last night, Jess?”

In a broken voice, I tell him of the bonfire, the jisthmus wine, the singing, the dancing, and the impossible joy.

“The holy jisthmus lowers inhibitions. Then what?”

“The effects were wearing off,” I say. “I started to feel . . .” I swallow a lump of dread. “Empty.”

“The tzimtzum,” he says. “The contraction.”

“There was this jeek with a pipe.” I shudder at the memory. “I just wanted the emptiness to go away and to feel that joy again.”

“If jisthmus wine is a leaf, the jisthmus pipe is a forest. An inhaled dose can be thousands of times stronger.”

I’m shuddering. “Everything opened. I saw galaxies. It was all connected. The universe, it’s . . .”

“Alive.”

“Yes.”

He nods. “Everything, even these walls, are alive, part of a creature or form in dimensions we cannot see. Death is the grand illusion.”

The walls stare back at me knowingly. “I don’t like this. I wanna go back to the way things were.”

“Go back?” he says. “It took me years of practice and meditation, yet you communed with a numen on your first try! That’s not something to scoff at.”

I remember falling into that monstrous eye, and the voice that was no voice that shook my whole being. A wave of panic rises. “That was a numen?” I say.

“She is Saa. I commune with her too.”

“But what . . . what did I see?”

“You saw levels of reality normally unavailable to your physical senses. Our consciousness has no absolute bounds. Your mind was set free of its human confines. You saw reality without borders.”

I shudder at the memory of that vastness. “I’m so small. I’m nothing.”

“We’re all small. But we are not nothing. We are everything.”

Another memory returns, the flickering blue-white light. “There was something else,” I say. “An other thing. It was so different, even from that immensity. A flickering kind of . . . shoreline . . . at the edge of everything. It was moving closer.”

Harun gives me an almost jealous look, then nods. “I’ve never felt Saa so excited. She is coy and inscrutable and goes weeks without communing with me. But now she’s as loud as the arriving starships. She wants you to commune with her again, as soon as possible.”

I sit up, but gasp as a sharp pain wracks my ribs where those jeeks kicked me. “No!” I growl. “I’m never touching the fucking jisthmus again.”

“Jess,” he says, as if scolding me. “You should be honored Saa has chosen you over . . . over others.” He stares at his hands. “The first time is always scary. It’s terrifying learning the world is larger and stranger than you’d ever imagined. It’s gets easier, I promise. And the rewards are immense. The things I’ve experienced are so far beyond what you can possibly imagine. You could travel much farther than me.” There’s a hint of envy in his dark eyes.

I struggle to my feet on wobbly legs. I need rest. But Asim’s words come back to me. Leave, before this world destroys you.

“Harun,” I say. “This planet—these realities—they ain’t for me.”

Sadiq waits at the door. I don’t know how long he’s lurked there.

I glance at the kid, then out the window, at the line of thundering ships coming in. “I gotta go find my daddy.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

With my toolbelt gone, I ain’t got much possessions to gather. Harun hands me a water bladder and a bundle of dried meat. He tries his Nefanesh best to convince me to stay, but even in my weak state he ain’t got the strength to stop me. I’ll roll through him like a stone down a waveguide.

The kid says, “But where you gonna go, Jess?”

“I’m gonna buy a printer at the Bazaar and fix the Daddy Issues and hie my ass off this rock fast as photons.”

“And then where?”

“Oxwei, or where it used to be, to see what I can find.”

“And if there ain’t nothing to find?”

“Then I’ll go elsewhere.”

“Or,” he says, “you could stay.”

“Nah, I gotta fly, kid. You found your daddy. Now I gotta find mine.”

He steps closer. “You’re scared. And you ain’t ever been scared, not even when we were close to dying. But you’re scared now of what you’ll find if you stay here.”

I shake my head. “I ain’t scared of nothing,” I say, gritting my teeth, cause it’s the worst lie I ever told. The kid’s right. He’s always right when it comes to me. I’m terrified what might happen if I stay.

There’s a look of utter disappointment on his face, and it crumbles my already sundered heart. He huffs away into the side room leaving me alone with Harun.

“Saa doesn’t want you to leave either,” Harun says.

“Well,” I say, “sorry to disappoint her godliness.”

He frowns. “Saa says you’re throwing away a precious gift. I’ve practiced for years but can only reach the outer edge of her consciousness. And yet you saunter in like a stray dog and on day one touch the face of El Shaddai eirself! I don’t think you comprehend how precious your gift is.”

I blink and see an infinite spiral of eyes. “My gift? You mean this insanity?”

“Saa says you’re special. One in a trillion. You have a gift of . . . of seeing. Of . . . connecting threads. She needs to commune with you again to show you what you are capable of. She says you need to learn to share your precious gift with others.”

“With her godliness, no doubt.”

“Jess, out there, away from Gilderne Fon” —he points at the thundering sky— “you won’t have the guidance to make bow or stern of it. You’ll squander your precious gift!” He closes his eyes and winces, like he’s just swallowed a bone. “And this—Saa is telling me in the most intense way—is a tragedy of tragedies.”

“You speaking to her now?”

“In a way I’m always communing with Saa.”

“Then tell her this: Thanks for the offer, sis, but I prefer my senses circumscribed. All this cosmic stuff? It ain’t for me.”

“Jess,” Harun pleads. “‘The door, once opened cannot be shut, and once open the seeker sees there was never a door to begin with.’”

“That’s supposed to convince me?” I say.

“It’s Tractate 134,” he says, handing me my copy of The Light of the Universe, a brown bootprint cross its cover. “You’re running from yourself. I won’t stop you. Your path is yours to take. But when you find yourself lost, remember, this is your map out.”

“I ain’t keen on religion,” I say. “Too many rules.”

“This isn’t religion. It’s truth.”

I ain’t got time for apologetics, but I pocket the book cause I need the symbol Sabirah scrawled on it, even though I memorized it. Guess I’m sentimental that way. “Take care of Sadiq, will ya?” I say, my throat tight. “In a verse full of shitheads, he’s alright.”

Harun slowly nods.

“Well,” I say, “safe travels.” Then I head out the door.

I wipe my tears as I descend. The kid’s right. I’m scared. But I’ll die if I stay here. Maybe not a physical death, but something far worse. A soul death. I felt it last night, my self shattered to a trillion pieces.

But I’ll miss the kid malymal. If I’m honest, I love him. He’s the brother I never had. But he ain’t true family. I was deluding myself to think he was. I keep pushing that rock up the hill, trying to build relationships, but I always end up at the bottom, alone again.

In the building’s foyer some jeeks mull round, but Asim and Sabirah ain’t here. Oh well. I had enough goodbyes. Safe travels all, and see ya in the next verse.

My legs weak, I wend my way to Usha Square and the Bazaar, while finishing what’s left of the dried meat and water. The sky’s crowded with ships, and their thunder echoes down the narrow streets. The crowds grow thick as I approach the Square, and I gasp when I see the Bazaar.

Thousands of tents and booths and tables fill Usha Square. You can’t see the ground for all the jeeks and sundry. Tall poles sport colorful, windbeaten, wind-snapping banners of trading corps and syndicates and shipping amalgams small and huge. Most flags fly the symbol of the Hinini Traders, a white twenty-one pointed star on an orange background. I seen this flag a hundred times, but never knew what it stood for till now.

Bodies press gainst my bruised shoulder, and I wince, trying not to take it personal. This’s the most excitement they had in months. I’m grateful I drank water too, cause it’s stellar hot and I’m sweating waterfalls. I ask round for the coin changers, and after a few course corrections I find a booth outside the walls of Usha Square. Four jeeks in gray body armor, plasma weapons on their hips, stand guard. Their presence here, after days of nothing but leather, stone, and dust, feels wrong.

I wait on an endless line, sun beating on my face, till it’s my turn. The traders brought their own hubspace transceiver, and it takes forever for each transaction to confirm. I finally approach the long bearded jeek hind the barricade, flit up my eie, and transfer a hundred standard chips from one of my few remaining accounts to his in exchange for a maroon cloth bag that’s supposed to be two hundred and four sheckles, but the guards shove me out the way fore I can count em. I hold the bag up to the sun, no small fraction of my life savings, and sigh.

The reek of jisthmus is thick. It smells of cinnamon and yeast and peat bogs and beer hops, and sunrises and planetary rings. And not just the smell of burning jisthmus, but raw too, unsmoked and tarry. For an awful instant I’m hurtling bove the manifold of time and space, and that bizarre liquid diamond thought-light otherness flickers nearby. Then someone bumps my shoulder, I yelp, and I’m back in the crowded Bazaar under the oppressive sun. I smell tobacco, grilled meat, and perfume. Freshprint plastics and long-chain polymers. And body odor. So much BO. Though, come to think of it, I stink too. I haven’t bathed in days.

I snag a paper map from an info desk, but there’s so many labels and keys and rows and the print’s so godsdamn tiny that I let it fly off with the wind. It sticks to some jeek’s back who don’t even notice. I’ll just keep walking till I find what I need, my life story.

The many rows extend to the far side of Usha Square, broken here and there to let people move tween lanes. It’s more maze than market, to keep people trapped and shopping. Shiva forbid there’s a fire, or we’re all ash. And maybe I shoulda kept that map, cause I’m already lost.

I pass booths selling wheels of cheese, smoked meats, pickled mushrooms in mayo in jars and packed in dry ice. Under a tent that could easy fit five Starpushers a sign says “Borzorg-Alavi Family Farms,” and a lanky, blonde-haired jeek stands atop a bale of wheat, auctioning off pallets of old-gene Varouna barley to a dozen eager buyers.

Another table sells immer bows, forbidden or at least shunned here, but the table’s crowded with buyers. Another booth offers massages from jeeks in black skinsuits so tight they might as well be naked. A second, larger tent boasts “Full Stress Release” for the cheap price of five hundred sheckles. There’s tables selling med kits and old paper books and ornate wooden utensils and lovely hand-forged figurines.

And there’s jisthmus, endless long tables of it. The smell is potent and penetrating, like the voices of the sellers hawking it. I keep a distance, fraid to get too close. But the locals have no fear. They sit in shade, brass lamps swinging in the breeze, and puff on long wooden pipes packed with the dank herb. I shudder and walk on.

I been walking for over an hour, getting dizzier and more frustrated by the second. Where the fuck’re the printers? I pass booths hawking leather and fabric, tents offering crates of rare wine and liquor, dealers selling brass lamps with delicate beads of glass. And still no fucking printers.

Somebody’s gotta have a printer here. How else do these traders maintain their ships parsecs from port? I bet with the right price some jeek’d be willing to part with a small one. Shit, I’d buy a borked Hepp Ninepress, they got one.

Sighing, I pause on a corner to wipe sweat from my brow and dribble a few remaining drops of water onto my tongue. That’s when I see em. Blue, Pink, and Green. The neon-haired jeeks who mugged me.

Even from this distance I spot the old Mandreen characters for “justice” tattooed cross Green Hair’s forehead. And round eir waist, my wares slotted snug, is the toolbelt Daddy printed for me for my eleventh birthday. And of course, of course, the fucks’re selling jisthmus.

Nearby is a tent selling rolls of fabric and handmade clothes, and an idea forms in my head. An ugly idea, but there it is. I’m gonna get my toolbelt back, and I know exactly fucking how.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The fabric seller’s short and black-haired, with pendulous breasts and a white eye that’s either dead or a techplant in dire need of repair. Eir Anglai’s terrible, so I switch to Mandreen and haggle eir down to twelve sheckles for a cloak with a hood. And when I slide the heavy brown fabric on, e says, “Bit hot for a cloak, neh?”

“My ship runs cold,” I say.

The cloak’s loose and floppy, but I won’t need it for long.

“How much for these blankets?” I say, and after more haggling e sells me three for a shekel each. E folds em up neat, like towels.

I pull the cloak’s hood over my head, so I’d pass for a local, if you don’t look close. Slowly, I circle the table with the three neon jeeks. The smell of jisthmus is strong, and all my instincts’re telling me to run. But not without my toolbelt.

Green Hair’s speaking to a bald local with a long black beard, trying to convince him that eir jisthmus’s the best in the galaxy. I stellar fucking doubt it.

Hood tight, I circle the table, like a comet round a star, knowing if I get too close I’ll burn. I’m careful not to make their line of sight. I know how to be sneaky. I done this with Daddy. It was dark when they assaulted me and I doubt they remember my face anyway. But I ain’t taking no chances.

And there it is, the thing I hoped for, hanging on my toolbelt the jeek now proudly wears. Sal’s seam welder, the one the late bastard aimed at me back on Chadeisson when we first met. Sal wasn’t wearing it when he was sucked down the Daddy Issues’s stone. And since he took my multitool with him to oblivion it’s only fair I took his seam welder. Almost forgot I had it.

I made mods, of course. I always make mods. And back doors.

I flit up my eye and try a remote shell. And poof, I’m in. The seam welder’s command shell blinks obedient and ready. Green Hair’s still blathering on to the local bout how eir shit’s the best in the verse when I key in the power command. An ack appears in my eie. The hot light blinks red on eir hip, but e don’t see.

I quick edit the configs to remove all safety limits, then ignore bout fifty warnings as I increase the power to max. More warnings and alerts flash red in my eie: Danger! Power overload! Danger!

Five seconds. Ten.

A flash. An explosion. A scream. Green Hair’s leg’s on fire.

“Ahhh!” e wails. “Ahhh, help me!”

Everyone leaps back from the flames. But I, the hero, rush in, blankets up, and throw em over eir body.

Green Hair wails as I suffocate the flames with one hand and my other releases the buckle’s clasp. My toolbelt falls into my hands, and I roll it inside one of the blankets as the jeek squirms. And Green Hair’s still screaming as I lean down and whisper in eir ear, “This justice enough for ya, motherfucker?”

Then I’m up. The crowd looks on, and I shout, “It’s okay. Fire’s out!”

Then I fly like a ship gone slipstream. I hear more screams, more shouts, maybe from pain or cause the jeek realized what I did. Either way, I smile. I’m a friendly jeek. But fuck with me and I rain fire.

My toolbelt’s little worse for the blast, my wares more or less where I slotted em. The belt’s poly-carbon weave’s barely scratched. But the poor seam welder’s melted out. All that’s left is a few hardened blobs of alloy. Gonna be hell to clean. And it stinks of charred jeek flesh. But I feel parsecs better, now I got it back. A girl needs her tools, after all.

I keep my cloak on, trying to blend in, but I drop the hood cause it’s too fucking hot. I need to fly fore those jeeks or the local authorities get wise. I gotta buy a printer quick.

I stop at a table selling prosthetic limbs and lifter chairs “For those who need some help,” says a sign in Mandreen. But the Nefanesh shun tech, or at least’re too proud to use it, so the old jeek hind the table ain’t got no customers. He sits with his tattooed arms crossed, looking like he’s been round the verse too many times and don’t like what he’s seen. I know the feeling. He’s got weeks of white scruff and deep creases on his face and looks like someone who’s tired of your bullshit. I like him already.

“Hey,” I say, “you know where I can buy a printer?”

“A megaprinter?” he says, looking me over. “For starships?” He speaks Indei, and I ain’t fluent, but my eie fills in the gaps.

“Personal,” I say. “Portable.” With my hands I frame an imaginary box a half meter wide.

He puts a yellow-stained finger to his lips. “Try Tici Iglesias. She got a jewelry booth on aisle seventeen. I know she’s got a few small printers.”

“Which way’s that?”

The jeek points. “Two rows that way, then right.”

The wind gusts and the Hinini Trader flags bove his head snap to attention. “How long you been trading?” I say in my best Indei.

“Too fucking long.”

“Ever seen this?” I show him the symbol Sabirah drew in my book.

He takes the book from me, studies it, then hands it back. “Yeah, on Oxwei. Our trading circuit used to stop there fore it went missing. Saw some jeeks there with black uniforms and a patch like that. Serious folk. Up to no good.”

“No good?”

He switches to Anglai. “All the traders said the same thing, that those black-uniformed jeeks traipsed through the Bazaar but never bought nothing. They just seemed wrong.” He switches to Mandreen and back to Indei so fast it’s hard to keep up.

“Soldiers?” I say.

He shrugs. “Dunno. Never saw no weapons. Rumor was they were part of some big project.”

“What kind of project?”

“Who the fuck knows? There’s all sorts of crazy malk out here. In Chisisisys they’re megaprinting cities by the hectare. Ain’t nobody living in them, but they’re building em large, hoping jeeks’ll come. In Datsusys, jeeks spend thirty hours a day lucid dreaming music that them Inner Terra mushies’re licking up like thirsty kittens. Then you got this fucking place. These locals worship the beings who ate them planets. Shit, I keep praying this one ain’t next.” He shivers like he’s shaking off mal dreams. “I can’t keep up sometimes.”

“You remember anything else bout them uniformed jeeks?”

“Nie. I just remember that there was something wrong with their eyes.”

I shudder. Sabirah said the same thing. “How so?”

“My brother was in a ship accident twenty circuits back. Ox-dep to the brain. Major neuron damage. He only survived cause the cold slowed his cell death. Fore we got him the regen he needed, he had this look, like a piece of his soul was missing. He don’t remember much fore the accident. My brother’s a different jeek now . . .” He trails off. “Them folk wearing that mark were like my brother. Like a piece of their soul was blasted away.”

My thoughts suddenly fly back to Chadeisson, to that girl in canary-yellow who worked at the Promenade Hotel—Pim—and the strange, blank look in her eyes when I asked her to abscond with me.

“Haven’t seen them jeeks in a while, though,” the man says. “Not since Oxwei was taken fuck knows where by Shiva knows what.”

By one of them beings who spoke to me last night, I think with a shudder. Suddenly I see eyes everywhere, in everything, watching me, and I shut mine and try to push down my rising panic.

“You ain’t scared?” I say. “That there’s . . . things out here that could just erase us, they wanted to?”

He shrugs. “I had friends on Oxwei. Good jeeks, them. Only fools ain’t scared. But I lost hauls of friends to things far more mundane than alien gods eating planets.” He closes his eyes and sighs. “This far from Inner Terra, after so many cycles, I just try keep my head down and my stomach full.” He reaches behind the counter and grabs a metal flask, and by the way he sighs after taking a quaff I know it ain’t water.

“Is everything gone from Oxwei?” I say. “There ain’t nothing left?”

“One moment it’s there,” he says, “and the next . . .” He snaps his fingers. “All nearby sensors said it happened in a femtosecond. Everything in Namidsys, ships, satellites, Ooljee, had to be reorbited. It fucked up the gravbowl.”

“Ooljee?”

“Small station. We used to stop there, but the Bazaar got too big and Ooljee’s too small to fit us all.”

A station. In Namidsys. Where jeeks there might have transport records and a better sense of went down on Oxwei. So that’s where I gotta go.

“Thanks for the help,” I say, offering a few sheckles for his time.

“Keep it,” he says in Mandreen. “No offense, but you look like you need it more than me.”

I slide the coins back into my pocket. “Vert,” I say. “Zeyer vert.”

And I’m off again, slipping through the crowd, while keeping eyes up for neon-haired jeeks seeking vengeance. Tici Iglesias is right where the jeek said she’d be. Her modest booth sells handmade jewelry and twinkly tchotchkes, all sparkling resplendent in the sun. Tici sits in the shade of an awning, and as I approach she comes over, sparkling head to toe like a lake at sunrise. Her blue eyes’re so pale they’re almost white and her pupils’re little black stones. Her gaze is so intense I gotta look away.

“Everything for sale,” she says in Mandreen. “Make offer.”

I feign interest in a woven leather bracelet. It ain’t hard, cause it’s lovely, especially if it’s hand-made like the tag says. “Heard you might have a printer to sell?” I say.

“Who told you that?” she says.

“This jeek selling prosthetics two rows back.”

She frowns. “Urso? Figures. What kind of printer?”

I’ll take whatever she’s got. But I don’t wanna look desperate, cause her prices’ll swiftly rise. “Just a small one,” I say. “For some repair.” Like fixing my ship’s drive fore I collapse into a black hole.

“How much you wanna spend?”

“Depends on what you got.”

“A Sin Manos Rápido.”

“A 568?”

“440B”

“That’s like stellar old.”

“That’s like what I got.”

The thought of repairing my ship with a printer so slow and ancient as a Sin Manos Rápido 440B gives me a pang of dread. But I got few other options. Actually, none.

“Neh?” she says, hands on her hips. “Make offer.”

I sigh. “Twenty sheckles?”

She laughs. “Make me a serious offer.”

“A hundred?”

“Two,” she says.

“It ain’t worth that much for feed mass.”

“Then don’t buy it,” she says. “All the same to me.”

I grit my teeth. “One fifty.”

“One ninety.”

“One seventy five’s all I got.”

She looks me over. “Okay,” she says with a dismissive wave. “Now gimme your hand.” And when I hesitate she says, “Here! I don’t bite.”

Cautiously, I give her my hand, ready to yank it away. I watch as she delicately wraps the leather bracelet I was gawping at round my wrist.

“What’s this?” I say.

“A gift,” she says. “To go with the printer. It looks good on you, neh?”

I examine the bracelet’s intricate weave and delicate design. It’s beautiful.

“Now,” she says, “when people ask, you will say, ‘Tici Iglesias of the Hinini Traders made it by hand.’ You promise that, and I sell you my printer for 175. Neh?”

I’m wary of gifts, godly or mundane, but I need this printer like jeeks need air. “Sure,” I say. Though I know well there ain’t no such thing as a free port.

Tici rummages under her tent, groaning as she shoves crates and boxes aside. She flips up a blanket, and a spray of dust flies into the wind. “There you are!” she says.

She hefts a thoroughly scratched and abused Sin Manos Rápido 440B over to me and sets it on the table with a sigh.

“How do I know it ain’t dead?”

“I’m here two more days,” she says. “It don’t work, you know where to find me. Now, coin please.”

I pull out my satchel and carefully count 175 sheckles. It takes a while, and soon I’m done I show her the sigil in my book and say, “You ever seen this symbol?”

She stares at it, eyes wide, pupils sharp, then vigorously shakes her head. “Never.”

“You sure? Your friend back there said jeeks on Oxwei wore black uniforms with these symbols on their—”

“He ain’t my friend, I never seen it, and I were you, I’d pretend I never seen it neither!” she snaps. She curses under her breath in a tongue my eie don’t catch, then she turns to the passing crowd and shouts, “Beautiful jewelry! Hand-made! Make offer! Make offer!”

Then she whispers to me, “Go! You got what you needed and now you’re blocking my table.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The printer’s big and heavy, but I also need to buy some comestible stock, less I want to keep eating the cardboard the Daddy Issues shits out. I find a grain seller near the perimeter who sells me comestibles at a reasonable price. But not fore I need to change for more shekels and navigate the busy labyrinth again. And so by the time I’m actually done the sun’s setting, the sky’s gone purple, and the seins have begun their evening prayers.

It’s lovely, their singing, and haunting, like a blissful dream, or the feeling that you’ll never meet your soulmate. I could never live here on Gilder Nefan. But I gotta admit, it’s got charm, and I could see how jeeks might even grow to love the place.

The spaceport side the city was empty when we arrived, but now it’s a city itself, rippling as it dissipates the day’s heat. Thousands of starships sit parked shoulder to shoulder like buildings down a city block. Ships thunder through the sky, while others swoop in. Some’re transferring carg from holds by mech and mensch. The printer and comestible stock are heavier than neutron stars, and my arms wail from hauling them, but I can’t stop myself. I gotta look. I gotta check out the starships.

Night falls fast, and the stars blink to life cross the sky as I walk through starship city. I pass a steaming stub-nosed Blepsk 1069-A Sunhopper, then a PPRA 669 Mychau Megahauler, so huge it could fit a hundred Starpushers in its hold. I pass a dozen Honovi 97 Dirt Jumpers, all painted the same orange and blue, deep modded and slipstream scarred, with a flourishing “Yltibar G Cong” logo on their sides. I stride past three NIM CS-60 Lightstreams, so starbeaten they make the Daddy Issues look new.

Then I see it, and my heart pangs with so much longing and regret I actually cry out. A beautiful Coen Construction Megaprinters 6454 Spark Megahauler sits unassumingly tween two larger ships, as if minding eir own fucking business. This CCM 6454 Spark Megahauler ain’t the largest ship here, nor the fastest. But I know in my heart it’s the best.

I move closer, my arms spent from carrying the printer, legs weak from walking, knowing I’m pouring salt on a wound. But I can’t stop. I never could, and maybe that’s my biggest problem.

Spark Megahaulers are massive. No matter how many times I see one, glimpsing a Sparky up close always makes me gasp. This one’s got few mods. They don’t need much, just extended thrust vector vanes and a more powerful hubspace transceiver. Sides that, they’re near perfect.

Up on deck three forward, the bridge lights’re on, and I stare at em, imagining what it’d feel like to be inside, not out, to be in command of my own hauler, circling the verse in a ship big as a skyscraper, calling eir home.

“Like what you see?” someone says in Mandreen. A tall, dark-skinned jeek walks towards me cross the tarmac. He’s got a long haul’s worth of black scruff and a puff of dense black hair, and carries two bags full of leafy greens so heavy his biceps bulge.

“Sparky’s’re something else,” I say.

“Don’t gotta tell me,” he says, grinning as he walks closer. “You fly one?”

“Nah,” I say, swallowing down a knot of regret bigger than the galactic core. “But I been on a few.”

“Really?” he says. “Sparkys’re stellar rare.”

“Vert,” I say. “But you never forget your first, once you see eir up close.”

“Vert indeed,” he says. “Zeyer vert. People tell me my Sparky’s old, that I should recycle eir. But they don’t have a fucking clue, do they?”

I blink a few times, holding back tears. “E’s yours?”

He smiles, his teeth white as suns. “E is.”

I look up at the ship, and my jealousy’s larger than a numen swallowing worlds. “What’s it like,” I say, “flying one?”

“That’s not easy to answer,” he says. “You might just as well ask me what it’s like to hear my favorite song or eat my favorite meal.”

“That xin?”

“You got it bad, don’t you?” he says.

“Am I that obvious?”

He laughs and it’s charming. “I was bout to make dinner,” he says, his biceps bulging as he holds up his bags of leafy veg. “Food’s always better shared. I could show you my ship if you want, then we could have a meal. I make a stellar sadza kapenta.”

I don’t know if he’s being friendly or got more carnal desires, but still my body longs for this. Not just tender touch but to have a look inside his ship. But I can’t do that, can’t tour the thing I gave up so I could find my daddy. “Nah,” I say. “But thanks suns, friend.”

Fore he can change my mind I turn and walk back down the lane, back toward my decrepit ZYM 96 Starpusher, klicks off in the desert, which needs more care than a squashed roach.

“Too bad,” he calls after me. “Safe travels, friend.”

“Yeah,” I say, without looking back. “Safe travels.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

By the time I reach the Daddy Issues, my legs’re ready to give up. The city glimmers on the horizon, wavering with a million pinprick lights. The air traffic’s stopped, curfew I think, so them religious jeeks can meditate and sleep. I stare at the rippling city, wondering which lighted window is Harun and the kid’s, if I can even see their apartment from here.

I crawl inside the Starpusher, and gods does it smell. How the hell did we spend weeks inside this thing and not pass out? First thing I do is install the comestibles into the food printer and make myself a large coffee, extra sweet. I ain’t got the stomach for food yet.

And soon as the caffeine hits me, I see eyes everywhere, and a gnawing panic in my gut rises like a swift-moving tide. Fuck, maybe a stimulant wasn’t such a good idea. But I got too much work to do.

I have a look round my mierd little ship, trying to ignore all the eyes. There’s enough junk on the floor to provide feed mass for the repairs, assuming this printer works. If not, me and Tici’re gonna have words.

I hook up the Sin Manos Rápido 440B to the ship’s power and try a couple of test prints. First, a few simple tools, then a more complex powerline coupler—all of which take twenty times as fucking long as it would with a modern printer. The results are sufficiently acceptable, minus some excess facturing dust, that I might actually be able to repair the ship.

Once, when I was small I asked Mommy why, if printers could make most anything, why can’t you just print a better printer? Like, if you started with the cheapest printer you could buy, why can’t you work your way up till you were printing whole starships? But Mommy said the verse don’t work like that. There ain’t no such thing as a free port. You’ve got thermodynamic laws and fine-structure calibrations and irksome quantum ripple effects. Any old mierd printer can make something only half as good as itself. It’s just the way the verse works, she said. She said pallets of more things too, most of it galaxies over my head. But still I listened, rapt. Shiva, I miss those days. I mean, fuck her for leaving, right? But somedays I miss her so much it hurts.

Mommy used to build amazing things. When I got nightmares, she built this device and put it next to my bed, and when it sensed I was having a mal dream it’d whisper recs of her voice soothing me back to peaceful sleep. Some nights I still hear her whispers.

Back in them old days, when Mommy and Daddy were mostly getting along, seeking work in whatever system they could find, we’d travel on shitty, cramped starships with dozens of poor jeeks in the smallest bunks you could imagine. It was awful. So Mommy, smart as she was, booked steerage stead of bunks, and she’d whip out this little box she’d built that, when you set it down, unfolded like origami into a soundproof tent with hammocks and a table. For a kid like me used to sleeping a meter from some smelly strangers’s ass, it was magic.

She and Daddy used to work together, and when I was too young to help, she’d leave me in the care of a mech puppy she built, Gelsey, the cutest artificial canine ever made, who’d alert Mommy the moment I got into trouble, which was lots, though she and Daddy seldom came to rescue me in any sort of reasonable time, and so I usually ended up hurt or lost or missing, and so maybe that’s the reason I went to work with them once I turned six.

Shiva, I miss those days, the three of us. But the work dried up and Daddy started pulling scams to make coin, which Mommy said was dangerous and stupid, and things got heated. Both of em were terrified of turning into Inner Terra mushies, immer-addled junkies with zero direction or drive, who couldn’t dress themselves without mechs, but were somehow left in charge of the verse. Mommy said we should leap out the Deep and look for work out there, where they were building all the cool shit. But Daddy thought them Inner Terra jeeks were easy marks, ripe for reaping. Sides, Daddy said, them jeeks had it too good and it was only fair we take our share. He and Mommy flew in opposite directions, and like a particle stuck tween two charged plates, I had to pick a side.

And maybe cause Mommy didn’t want me to make that choice, she left without saying goodbye. And I fucking hated her for it. Part of me still does. But now, all these years later, I wonder, was staying with Daddy really the best option? Like, where’d I be now if Mommy absconded with me? Not in this gravbowl, that’s for sure.

Like them missing planets, she just vanished. I messaged her lots, but they went unanswered. I wrote softs to scour hubspace for traces of her, but they turned up dust. She mightve died a week after she left, or maybe she’s still out there, lingering. Some days my rage’s bigger than Agnimukha, but still I miss her lots. More than Daddy, sometimes. Far as moms go, abandoning your daughter ain’t high on the list of things they give awards for. But when I was small, I loved her suns.

The printer beeps, its latest work done, a microspanner customized for the ship’s old connectors. I blow off its warm facturing dust.

Alright, kids. Time to get to work.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I work through the night, pulling up the decking to access the ship’s innards and waiting interminably for the printer to melt down the feed mass and reform it to each new print. But the printer’s so godsdamn slow I wonder if it’s gone relativistic too.

I fall asleep in the pilot’s chair, waking at dawn to starship thunder. I left the outer door open and a small sand dune’s blown in overnight. My body’s stiff as steel as I rise and stretch, things popping and cracking that shouldn’t. But the mal smell is now sufficiently lessened by the fresh air I think I might actually stomach food. I’m starving.

I eat a corned bison sandwich and a bowl of pickled borscht—glorious music to my tastebuds—then it’s back to work. I don’t have grav baskets or alignment softs, but with some tweaks I can hack the gravplates and use em to align the drive. It takes most of the morning to set up, but once I do the alignment goes stellar quick.

The hull’s still throwing off rads that ain’t so nice for my DNA. But the slipstream’s drive quiescent, rad-wise, as a frozen moon. I step back to examine my work, proud.

Sal, the poor bastard, is now part of the stone’s mass, which means in some small way he’s powering the ship. The memory of him sucked into that emptiness hits me with dread. Where did he go? What happened to his mind? His soul? Is that where we all end up? Fuck.

Then its back to work. I replace the air filters and crank em max. I tune the ship’s recycler, until, according to my eie, it’d recover bout 99.991% of all waste in a closed system. Disgusting, if you think bout it. But in a small ship, with limited stores, you gotta recycle everything—that means waste—so you don’t starve out the black. As the old saying goes, Eat shit and live.

So by this point, sides the clutter, the ship’s looking golden. There’s still that weird, encrypted blob in the ship’s datastore. It’s taking loads of space I’d rather use for more hubspace cache, and since there ain’t no way to decrypt it with this ship’s ancient core, I’m planning on deleting it. Cept when I try, the system keeps spinning off warnings and alerts like I’m trying to sacrifice its first-born.

I drop to a command shell to get a closer look. Far as I can tell, whoever made this blob put tons of failsafes round it to make sure it wasn’t deleted. I could yank out the datastore block and hard wipe the unit, but that’d take hours to reinstall the OS, and that’s assuming I could download a fresh copy from hubspace this far out, and that might cause all sorts of new problems I can’t presently foresee.

“Guess you’ll be sticking round some,” I say, sighing.

I spend the rest of the day replacing thrust vector vanes and mending powerline couplers. I tune the hubspace transceiver, routing it through ships in orbit and public repeaters open for the Bazaar. I fine-adjust the gravplates to within a few trillionths of a g and I sanitize the consoles. I even get rid of the annoying squeak from the pilot’s chairs.

All throughout there’s been one persnickety issue with the stone: it’s near depleted. Were I in a station like Chadeisson that spits out new stones by the hour, I’d just fuel up and go. But out here, that ain’t so easy, specially on a planet that don’t have proper ports. But something’ll work out. It always does.

Exhausted, I plop down and make myself another coffee.

With a working hubspace connection, bandwidth-limited since I gotta route through the orbiting ships, I check the feeds to see what’s been happening while I was gone.

Chaos Inside the Court of Sents! reads the title of a trending hol with a trillion views, hosted by Imish Hamiad, that Inner Terra jeek who made a name for eirself years back reporting on happenings cross Terra Diaspora. Daddy always liked Imish’s schtick cause Imish was never fraid to speak truth to power. Daddy always told me to be skeptical of things you see and read on the feeds, but Imish Hamiad, he said, always struck him as a straight flyer. Me, I never liked eir, though I ain’t sure why.

“So it seems,” Imish says breathless—E speaks Anglai with thick Inner Terran accent—“that the Court of Sents had a disagreement for the first time in a hundred and twenty nine standards!” Imish, all two plus meters of eir is decked in silken gold and blue robes, and eir braided hair hangs past eir chest. Imish stands fore the colossal white-domed House of Sents in Irihapetisys, waving eir arms in the air and covering eir eyes like e can’t bear to see. And now I remember why I don’t like Imish: too dramatic.

“This is groyse unheard of!” Imish wails. “The Twelve Voices were discussing whether young systems in the Outer Arm could form new alliances outside of the FTU. Specifically, they discussed whether young systems could join this new Outer Arm alliance, which is calling itself the Affiliation of Unaligned Worlds, the AUW. My lovely viewers, if you haven’t heard about this new Affiliation, blink up my report on them! It’s muy fascinante and sehr extrana!”

If I wasn’t paying close attention, I am now. Them jeeks in front of Harun’s building were discussing this same Affiliation and whether or not Gilder Nefan should join.

“While FTU Common Law encourages the formation of trade agreements,” Imish goes on, flailing eir arms like e’s controlling a mech-boeir, “FTU Common Law expressly forbids non-trade-based pacts between worlds. In otras palabras, my lovely viewers, FTU laws forbid military alliances. Or at least, they used to!”

Imish pauses, staring deep into the cam eye. Shiva’s ass, e’s a ham.

“FTU laws have remained fixed for centuries!” Imish says. “But over the last two standards, laws have been patched at a furious rate! And, muy curiousa, the authors of these new laws cannot be found in the public record! No—not even the FTU gives a clear source to their provenance! So, my dear viewers, who changed these long-standing laws? And were these laws changed to allow this new alliance to form? Is there a connection?”

I pause the playback. Leurie Mu warned me bout new law patches, but I dismissed her, told her it was horseshit, just more Inner Terra mush. But I was wrong, stellar fucking wrong, bout that and bout numens and so many godsdamned things.

I don’t love the Court of Sents—they made some mierd choices through the years—but any sane jeek has to admit they’ve kept the peace for centuries. Long as each system’s got their needs met, there ain’t much use for war. In theory, at least.

The Court of Sents directs billions of ships throughout the galaxy, making sure goods get where they’re needed. They settle trade disputes, rule on property claims, human rights, and arbitrate arguments tween systems, doing their best to keep things civil. And it works, mostly. There’ve been skirmishes, sure. But no big wars. Not in centuries.

The Court makes sure jeeks don’t starve or suffer, that every system’s got what they need, that no soul in the verse goes without a min set of basic needs that’s always growing. So that’s why you find free kiosks throughout Chadeisson, and why you can get a free meal at any FTU port, and, why, if you want, you could live your whole life and never work a day as a free citizen of Terra Diaspora. A blessing and a curse, Daddy said. Familiarity breeds contempt. Them Inner Terra jeeks took that FTU gift and made it a lifestyle. And so that’s how you go from brazen jeeks launching up from Orginearth on chemical rockets, hoping to fling humanity’s seed cross the stars, to immer dolphin fucking. Like, there are some jeeks today who spend their whole lives, birth to death, jumping from one tainment pleasure to the next, never working, never struggling, never coming close to knowing the spirit, soul, and blood that allowed them their freedom in the first place.

And while I love getting high and fucking just as much as any jeek, you do that full-time and it becomes your job. Like, all you do, forever, is seek bliss. After all the brutal millennia of human struggle, that just seems such a waste. I always imagined there’d be more to our story than that.

Far back as I can remember, the Court of Sents were always unanimous. Being sents, I thought that’s just how they were, designed from the start for humanity’s best. That they had a disagreement troubles me more than the thought that, last night, I spoke to an alien god. A god that—

waves breaking on an empty beach.

gray churning sea.

bleak angry sky.

an infinite horizon. lightning flashing in the distance. explosions of white and blue from mountains of menacing cloud. a lone seagull swoops low, letting out a mournful cry.

What—what the fucking fuck was that?

I was just on a beach. The beach. The shoreline from last night. But this time it was different. Closer. Present.

I felt the breeze on my cheeks and smelled the salt air.

Shiva, am I losing my mind? Or’s this just residual jisthmus in my veins? I’m gonna pretend the latter, cause the former don’t sit so well in my gut. I need to drink more water. Flush my system. Forget this happened.

I get a glass, finish it, and pour another, then resume Imish’s playback.

“These new laws don’t explicitly permit the creation of military alliances,” Imish flails on, “but neither do they forbid them! And this is the stone of the argument, my lovelies! Two Voices from the twelve-member Court, Voices Unetaneh and Omani, argued that this Affiliation of Unaligned Worlds has the right to exist. But the other members strongly disagreed! They argued this could lead to war!

“Oh, such horrors! My lovely viewers, do not poison your souls by searching for recs of the Dark Years, before the FTU rose like a fenix from the ashes. Do not search for the Aian-Ukar Catastrophe nor count the billions of innocent dead! Do not look up the grotesqueries the Eullians inflicted on the gente of Calimshad in Horptesys at the hands of the evil tyrant Neto Mir. This, my lovely viewers, would darken your soul! But know this: We are all better off in a world without such terrors, and we should act to stop such horrors from happening again! I, for one, am against anything that might lead to war!

“Look how I tremble with fear!” Imish says, holding up eir shaking hands. “I reached out to the FTU and asked them what this disagreement means for our future, hoping to calm your spirit and mine. But they gave me the same pat response they’ve been broadcasting across hubspace: ‘This is just a simple disagreement,’ they said. ‘It is nothing to be concerned with. As we expand into new realms of the galaxy,’ they said, ‘and as we encounter new forms of life like these numens, our sense of our place in the universe must change.’ My lovelies, the FTU said we should, and I quote, ‘Rest assured the Court of Sents is working hard to build a new consensus.’ But!” Imish barks, taking a dramatic breath. “They’ve been discussing this issue for nine days and still have not come to consensus!”

Another dramatic pause.

“I don’t have to tell you, my lovelies, that nine days for a sent is like nine centuries for us biologicals! The argument is deep and stellar long! Indeed, this is the most exciting thing to happen cross Terra Diaspora for centuries, and I, your host, Imish Hamiad, will be right here, at the House of Sents, reporting live on these events as they happen!”

Imish smiles wider than Petua’s Rings as e blows the audience a kiss. The rest of the feed’s just eir responding to comments and questions from jeeks round the verse, which are full of usual shit takes, paranoia, and mocking indifference. The timestamp of the hol says it was posted two days ago, and since then, according to more feeds, the Court still hasn’t come to a consensus. And now there’s rumors floating round, firmly denied by the FTU, that the two dissenting Voices may be seceding from the Court and forming their own separate Body in the Outer Deep.

Which would be the last thing this fucking verse needs.

What I stellar need is a long hot shower to wash away my fears. An hour later, when I emerge, freshprinted, calmer, tired, wrapped only in a towel, I spot Sadiq standing by the door, and I jump.

“Shiva, kid!” I say, quick covering my body. “How long you been here?”

He looks me up and down, his cheeks red as ancient suns, then looks away. “Not long,” he says, his voice breaking.

“Change your mind?” I say.

He glances round the ship. “You been beschaftigt,” he says. Busy. “E looks sehr golden.”

“Thanks,” I say, allowing myself a moment of pride. “I might actually make it to Oxwei without dying.” I plop my still wet ass down on the pilot’s chair and take a bite of a half-finished cookie. “Want one? They’re good.”

The kid sits in the passenger chair, the same one I sat in when we fled Chadeisson, stead of his usual co-pilot seat.

“That’s just it,” he says.

“What is?”

“Making it.”

I squint at him. “Come again?”

“On the way here you taught me all bout stones. How the ship that took your daddy got a fat one right fore it left Chadeisson. You taught me heaps bout drives and ships and sundry.”

“Yeah,” I say. “And you ain’t gonna use a drop of that, you stay here.”

The kid’s staring at me something fierce. “You told me many times that our stone barely had enough mass to get us to Gilder Nefan.”

I guess I did say that.

“There ain’t no stone factory here,” he says. “They don’t allow it. So you don’t have enough mass to make it to Oxwei.”

That subtle feeling of dread sitting in my belly since I smoked that old man’s pipe and saw alien gods, is now, with the kid’s words, not so subtle no more. It feels like the whole verse’s bout to rip open and swallow me whole. In other words, a typical morning.

“With all my fixes,” I say, “I can squeeze enough juice from the stone to get me to Oxwei. It ain’t that far. Go ahead. Check the console. I calc’d it myself.”

He glances at the numbers. “Then what? Say you leap out there, and there ain’t nothing to find? And no place to get a new stone? What if there ain’t no jeeks to rescue you?”

I wave dismissively. “There’s always jeeks,” I say.

“Not at Oxwei. Numens took that planet. I read on the feeds that almost everyone’s left its solar system.”

“It’s called Namidsys.”

He blinks at me. “You’re just gonna leap out there and hope for the best?”

“It’s worked for me so far.”

“Jess,” he says. “That’s selbstmord!”

Suicide. I break his gaze. “Yeah, well, I can’t stay here.”

“Cause you’re scared.”

“Kid, I . . .” I wrestle with my dread like I’m fighting a vicious beast. “I saw something last night.”

“You spoke with the numen, Saa,” he says.

“I spoke with something, and it’s way bigger than I can presently handle. I like to keep my problems singular. Finding Daddy may be impossible. But, finding my way through infinite dimensions where gods roam? That’s just . . .”

“Crazy,” he says.

“I was gonna say, too fucking much. But, yeah, I’m a one-trick mech-boeir.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means don’t try to change my mind.”

“You’ll die out there.”

“We coulda died when containment failed, but I saved us.”

He glances at the slipstream drive. The reactor panels are off, and for a moment, as he squints at it, he has the same look he had after Sal fell into it. “I never thanked you,” he says. “If not for you, I’d be dead. If not for you, I never woulda found my daddy.”

“And I still ain’t sure that was a good idea,” I say.

“Jess,” he says. “I don’t want you to die.”

“We all die, kid.”

“No,” he says. “We just change forms.”

I’m bout to mock him for his religious nonsense, but last night I saw another reality. Things I thought were dead as airless moons are, in some sense, more living than me. Forms and shapes, ever-shifting, and unfailingly alive. I shudder at the immensity.

“Did your daddy send you here?” I say. “To convince me to stay? To get me to speak with Saa again?”

“Nein,” he says. “I came to stop you from dying.”

“I have to go, kid. I have to find my daddy.”

“I know.”

“If you know, then why’d you come?”

He blinks at me, holding back tears.

“Oh, I see it clear. This is a wake, and you’ve come to pay your last respects. But the deceased happens to still be standing, for the moment.”

He gives me the saddest look.

“Gilder Nefan ain’t such a bad place, I guess,” I say, trying to lift the mood. “There’s beauty here, away from all the tech and noise. Last night, when the seins were singing their sunset prayers, for the first time I heard what they were trying to say.”

“But you still gotta leave.”

This time it’s me who don’t answer.

He looks at his hands. There’s gravbowls of sadness in his eyes, deeper than Agnimukha, but there’s light in em too, a strength, an inkling of the man he’ll one day be. It makes me stellar proud to see it, I’m being honest.

“You’ll be alright, kid,” I say. And stead of doing something stupid like crying, I say, “Fore I forget, here.”

I toss him a small device I printed while I showered.

He blows off the facturing dust. “What is it?”

“Cell scanner. I know you ain’t supposed to have tech, so hide it good. It checks for mutant DNA, bad reps and all that. We took stellar high rads, you and me, and we’ll need some major gene therapy. That thing’ll warn you when it finds mal cells. It’ll fix some, but if it chirps red you best see a doctor fore you develop new organs.”

“Won’t you need it?” he says.

“I got enough feed mass to print thousands.”

The kid looks round the ship. “You sure, Jess?” he says, and I gather, from his tone, that he ain’t talking bout cell scanners.

“Sure as suns,” I say.

He don’t cry. No, he holds his chin high, ready for whatever future, light or bleak, comes his way. He’s hard as neutron matter. “Safe travels, Jess,” he says.

“Safe travels, kid.”

There ain’t no hugs. Both he and I know it’ll be too hard to let go. And so with one last mournful look at each other he steps outside and is gone.

An ache rises in my chest. I point the external cam at him and watch him walk away cross the sands, while overhead, another starship thunders into the sky.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

​It takes a small eon to get a launch vector from traffic control, cause it’s run by real jeeks, not softs or sents, and hundreds of ships’re vectoring round local space. While I’m waiting for a response I step barefoot outside onto the sand, taking in lungfuls of air. It’ll be a while fore I’m terrestrial again. Finally, after three hours, I get clearance.

I take a last sweeping gaze at the city of Hasriyu, then duck inside the Daddy Issues to prep for launch. All systems’re clean and green.

I lift from the surface, taking a slow, low-altitude sweep over the spaceport so I can see that Spark Megahauler baking in the sun. There’s hundreds of ships, but I spot eir clear. I bet eir captain woulda cooked a zeyer golden meal.

“Safe travels, friend,” I say.

I ascend quick, though I don’t feel the slightest accel. The gravplates’re operating perfectly, thank you stellar much.

Gilder Nefan’s blue skies fade to purple, then black. Ten thousand stars shine cross the sky, thinning where the Milk drops away. Harun said trillions of numens roam in the voids, and just looking that way makes me shudder.

I plot a course to Ooljee, in Namidsys, where Oxwei was. I got faith in my repairs, but I don’t want to push this old boat too hard fore I know eir limits. Like Sadiq said, this far out, you run into trouble, ain’t no jeeks coming to save you. I choose a few thousand mega-cs, a safe, slow speed that’ll get me to Namidsys in nine days. Eight, if I push eir. But after what this old ship’s been through, caution’s warranted.

Once I’m far enough from Gilder Nefan’s orange orb to safely leap to ten-space, I ready myself for the nauseating, gotta-take-a-dump jerk into higher dimensions. Then I activate the slipstream.

waves breaking on an empty beach.

gray churning sea.

bleak angry sky.

an infinite horizon at their union. lightning flashing in the distance. explosions of white and blue from mountains of menacing cloud. a wave breaks, sending up spray. in each drop are a trillion worlds.

What—what the actual fuck?

The vision of the shoreline fades and I’m back on the Daddy Issues. I must have residual jisthmus in my blood. Maybe it was activated when I went slipstream? They say part of human consciousness exists in higher dimensions . . .

But that shoreline felt so real. More real than mersing. More real than real. I was gone. Elsewhere. Elsewhen. Me, but not me.

I should be freaking out, but the soothing balm of ten-space washes over me like a hot bath. Shiva, I forgot how much I love this, moving fast, heading somewhere, destination in mind, not being stuck in the mire of another’s bullshit. It’s glorious, so I shake only some.

I do a syscheck. The stars’re blue-shifted nice. And the ship’s stats, dumping in my eie, are all clean and green, with enough margins that I feel sufficiently safe I ain’t gonna die in the next hour.

Still, that shoreline haunts me. What the fuck is that? It feels so familiar.

I sit back, settling in for the ride. And after a few hours, those fractaling, probing eyes fade like embers in a fire. Maybe this far from Gilder Nefan, Saa and her sisters can’t see me no more.

Can’t say I’m sad to see em go. Can’t say I’m sad at all.

I try sleeping, but it feels like I’m missing something. Lying in the bunk, I stare at the ceiling, thinking of Sadiq. It feels like he’s here, sleeping in the bunk bove me, and if I close my eyes I’ll later wake with him snuggled up by my side. But he’s gone, and I’ll never see him again.

Days pass. After breakfasts of coffee, duck eggs, and toast, I run deep syschecks for anomalies. And when I find some—there’s always some—I spend hours fixing em. And when that’s done, I scan hubspace feeds. This far out, with repeaters rare as atoms, it ain’t easy getting a connection. I have to queue queries into the cache and wait hours for replies. I could stellar use that extra dataspace taken up by that huge encrypted blob of whatever, but I can’t risk borking my transceiver now.

Not much Inner Terra news this far out. But, much as I can suss, little’s changed with the Court of Sents. They’re still arguing, which don’t sit well in my full stomach (I’ve been making up for weeks of shitty meals). Ships crowded with Inner Terra jeeks’re leaping out the deep to join this new Affiliation, cause they’re scared the FTU’ll be cracking down on freedoms. That don’t seem likely, but then again, neither did the existence of alien gods. So who the fuck knows?

The signal to noise on the feeds makes it hard to tell what’s real and what’s mierd. But far as I can suss, the Affiliation of Unaligned Worlds ain’t interested in Terran Common Law. What works for Inner Terra mushies ain’t working for Outer Deep citizens, specially now with planet-eating gods. Out on the Milk’s edge, far from the bulk of humanity, the AUW wants to make their own rules. And the more I think bout this, the less godsdamn sense it makes.

The Outer Deep systems already fall outside FTU jurisdiction. Not cause they joined some new alliance, but cause they’re so small and far from Inner Terra that no one gives a shit bout em. The FTU already lets em do what they want, long as they don’t fuck with other systems. The frontier’s always been a place where laws need not apply, going all the way back to the cowjeeks of Orginearth.

But I get the AUW’s point, in a way. Vanishing planets spooked em hard, and the systems in the Outer Deep don’t wanna be caught out an airlock with their fly unzipped. Better to prep and know who you can trust. Cept I ain’t sure what they think they can do to stop a god, should one decide their planet needs to be yanked out of existence.

I still can’t believe we’re actually talking bout gods. Real gods. Or, if you prefer the more technical term, inscrutable alien intelligences, one of whom spoke to me, apparently. All I can say is, I’m stellar glad I didn’t stick round to chat.

When I can’t sleep, I code softs and scan hubspace for the symbol Sabirah drew in my book. This far out, my queries’re slow and pull pallets of junk. But over several nights I refine my queries. And one morning, after a coffee and biscotti, I stumble on a vein of gold.

Two centuries back there was a shipping conglomerate called the Zorani Sisters of Trade. And they used that symbol as their logo. And, whatdya know, a subsidiary of theirs called ZST Fabricators is still using that symbol today. ZST Fabricators were contracted to build a city on Oxwei for workers mining asteroids in-system. And according to public logs ZST Fabricators were still mining the asteroids when Oxwei went poof.

Curiouser and curiouser.

As to what they were mining, it ain’t so clear. With your standard billion-ton asteroid you could build a thousand cities with mass for more. Far as I can suss, they weren’t building starships or stations. The mined mass was shipped out-system. But since Oxwei vanished, jeeks’ve been fleeing Namidsys ten thousand a clip. Last count, the system’s population was down to 293. I’ve been on lifts that held more.

I try to dig deeper, but the further I fly, the worse my connection gets, and all my leads turn to dust. Answers lie out in Namidsys, I’m sure.

When I get lonely, I bring up a hol of Leurie in my eie, just to see her face. I miss her so much I can’t breathe.

“Hey, L,” I speak into a new message. “Been an age. I’m xin, more or less. Things got . . . interesting by me. How’s tricks by you? Where you at, girl? Still on Chadeisson or did you finally book? This missing planet shit’s crazy, nu? Send me a ding, if you can.”

I drop the message in the transmission queue.

WAITING FOR HUBSPACE CONNECTION.

But Leurie won’t want to hear from me. I’m a fading memory. I try to delete the message fore it can send, but I’m too slow.

Hubspace connection established.

Repeater OD-XT-FCA4/64 signal lock.

1 of 1 messages sent.

“Well then,” I say. “That’s that.”

Soon I’m back at work, organizing the junk into categories of metal, plastic, composites, and other, when an alert flashes in my eie:

danger! sensor contact in flight path!

possible collision risk!

immediate course change recommended!

CHAPTER FORTY

I leap to the console and spread the sensor data wide. I got an hour fore I reach the sensor contact, but this lowers my blood pressure only some. This thing’s big and right fucking in front of me.

The object smears cross space like grease on glass. If it’s a ship, the sensor contact’s the fuzziest and widest I ever seen. And it ain’t got no transponder. It’s running silent.

Could be cloaked Hoshi Lightnings, like them ships from Chadeisson. But I doubt they’d fly out this far. And this sensor contact’s spread over millions of clicks. Those Hoshi Lightnings were undetectable.

I throw softs at the data, trying to make bow or stern of it. The object’s too dense to be gas, too diffuse to be a ship. Ejecta from a star? Its spectra don’t match. And speaking of spectra, it’s blackbody’s spiked and noisy, like a hubspace transceiver. Cept it’s not a transceiver, and it’s not on an inertial path, and by that I mean it’s vectoring, changing course. It’s got agency.

I do a quick calc, then check to make sure. Yep, this blob’s headed right for me.

I slow the ship to one mega-c and vector away from it. The Daddy Issues swings round, and the thing vectors to follow, closing the distance.

I cel the ship up to a velocity a smidge past safe, and still the object closes in. Pirates? I boost sensor power and ping the object with an active scan. Six minutes later my ping returns, and I dump the results in my eie.

Diffuse object.

Configuration: unknown.

Density: unknown.

Mass: unknown.

Drive system: unknown.

Analysis: inconclusive.

But the last sentence makes me sit tall:

Hubspace data modulations detected.

I crank up my antenna’s gain and pipe the output through arrays of demodulation softs. It might be an encrypted com channel.

I spread the waveform cross the console to get a look. The waves bounce round a carrier frequency eleven times the Hydrogen Line. And their modulations hum tween zero and 40 KHz, which also happens to be the range of unmodded human hearing. The softs come to same the conclusion moments fore I do:

Data waveforms likely encode an audible signal.

In other words, somebody’s talking, loud. I patch the signal to an audio output and listen.

“—ease. Help. Lost. Please. Help . . .”

The voice is androg, faint, broken with static. It repeats the words, over and over: Please. Help. Lost. A distress call? Or a trap, to lure me in so they can steal my ship and toss me out an airlock?

“. . . Help. Lost. Please. Help . . .”

I check the range. At this rate, they’ll be able to spit on my hull in ten minutes. I could press the drive harder, but my little ship’s already running hot, and cause I’m now heading away from Namidsys, that’d leave me in the kind of mal situation Sadiq warned me about.

Why ain’t things ever easy?

I route a signal to broadcast at the same frequency they’re transmitting on and patch in a mic. Maybe I can talk my way outta this.

“Hey, friend!” I say, taking an easy tone. “This here’s the Daddy Issues. You’re, uh, flying a bit close there, nu?”

“Please!” the voice says, and its transmission power leaps five decibels. “Help! Strayed! Lost! Far from home!”

“Friend,” I say, “who are you?”

“I am Suun.”

Suun? That sounds almost like . . . Saa.

Oh . . . Oh no . . . Oh fucking no.

I cut the mic and start chewing on my fingernails. Shiva, tell me this ain’t what I think it is!

“Lost,” it says. “Strayed! Scared! Far from home!”

I turn on the com. “Strayed from where?”

“The group! The many! The old and the new!”

“And friend, would you happen to be one of the new?”

“Yes, new! Curious! Strayed! Far from home!”

A memory comes back to me from ages ago. We were living on Varouna, and Mommy and me went for a walk bove swaying fields of grain. I chased bees and plucked flowers and wandered into the wheat. And I got lost and the sky grew dark, the stars came out, and still I could not find my way out. So I sat and waited. I waited for Mommy or Daddy. But no one came. So I sat there all night, in the wheat, staring up at Varouna’s enormous blood moon, flinching with every rustle, more scared than I’d ever been. Come dawn, tears spent, wracked and heartbroken, I found my way out again. And when I walked inside our house, I was surprised to see Mommy or Daddy didn’t even notice I’d been gone. They acted like it never happened. I didn’t sleep well for years after that.

Is this thing now speaking to me lost in the wheat?

“Lost! Strayed! Far from home!”

I remember the cold terror as Varouna’s giant blood moon rose bove the wheat. I remember my chest breaking sobs. My screams for help that went unanswered.

“Where is home?” I say.

“With the many,” Suun says. “With the old and the new. In the wide place.”

The wide place. The voids between galaxies. Yep. Oh, Shiva, I’m definitely talking to a numen.

“Help. Lost. Strayed. Far from home!”

I wanna run. But I can’t leave eir to rot. It ain’t who I am. Maybe I could transmit coordinates? But do numens even know galactic vectors? Maybe I could point the Daddy Issues on a path and show eir which way to go?

“Hey, uh, so, Suun?” I say. “It’ll be okay. Just, well, follow me, I guess? I’ll show you which way to fly.” I vector the Daddy Issues out toward the intergalactic voids. But where do I send eir? Off into the deep, hoping e’ll find eir way home? That’d be like if a jeek stumbled on me in the wheat and just pointed north fore vanishing again. I can’t do that. If I did that, I’d be no better than Daddy.

“Tell me, Suun,” I say, “why do parents always suck?”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” Suun says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Neither do I.”

And so now I’m zooming back the way I came, sinking in the pilot’s chair like a deflating gas bag. At this rate I’ll find my daddy in fifty billion years.

“I’m pointed at Gilder Nefan,” I say, sighing so deep it comes a sob. “A spinduster planet where some of your sisters, uh, hang? I’m sure once we get close, one of your sisters’ll pick up your, uh . . . shape and come and fetch you.” I do my Jessian best to calm eir.

“Not alone. Going home! Jessian Urania Darger takes me home!”

I sit up suddenly. “Uh, Suun, I don’t remember telling you my name.”

“Jessian Urania Darger takes me home. Jessian takes me to the wide place, to the many. Jessian Urania Darger is kind.”

“Well, you don’t know me all that well,” I say.

I check the sensors, and the blob called Suun tails me ten light-seconds back. Scans say it’s there and not, and the pics I took as we swung round and our light-cones crossed show a faint translucent sheen fore an empty sky.

“Jessian Urania Darger takes me home.”

Hopefully not all the way home, I think, looking mournfully at the stone’s power reserves. I could spare twenty hours. But after that, I won’t have enough power to make it to Namidsys. And there ain’t no stone depot out here. I’ll be on the float.

“Jessian Urania Darger takes me home. Back to the wide place.”

I sigh and mute the com. So this is my life. Chaperoning lost children, back to their terrible parents. I’ll be doing this till I’m dead.

An alert suddenly flashes in my eie:

Collision warning! Take immediate evasive action!

Suun’s accelerating towards me, doubling in size every second, a monstrous wave, coming up hind me.

“Suun!” I say. “What the fuck’re you doing?”

Collision warning! Take immediate evasive action!

There’s no time to change course. I close my eyes, expecting a boom. But there’s only silence.

The alert vanishes. A new message appears in my eie:

Singularity mass increase. Containment field self-adjusting.

It takes me a moment to suss what’s happened. I think Suun just fed the damn stone, dumped mass into it, whole moons’ worth. But this little drive can’t hold that much mass. The containment field shoulda collapsed. But everything’s clean and green.

The Daddy Issues changes course and accelerates. I try to belay the command but the console won’t respond. The ship’s vectoring away from Gilder Nefan and heading for an uninhabited system thirteen light-years distant on the galactic edge. A system named only by its survey designation, Outer Deep Region 59/1009. Nothing there, according to an old map, but three gas giants and a white-dwarf.

I try every trick I know to regain control of the ship while the Daddy Issues accelerates. Ten thousand mega-cs. Fifteen.

My heart’s gonna burst from fear. This old ship should absolutely not be going this fast! It’s impossible. But here I am rushing past twenty thousand mega-cs like I’m celebrating Dipvalii.

Forty mega-cs. Fifty. The ship starts to whine.

“Suun!” I say. “Stop! You’re gonna kill me!”

Eighty mega-cs. A hundred. A giga-c.

The stars blue-shift into wavelengths beyond my vision. Cooler, older stars glow bright as novae. Vast hidden nebulae of gas and dust light up in a great conflagration cross the sky.

I’m gonna go splat any moment. But the console still shows clean and green. How is this possible?

I’m headed straight for a star so blue-shifted it’s gone black. The Daddy Issues slows from giga-cs to a few million kph in milliseconds. That shoulda crushed me flat as quarks, but here I am. The black star downshifts to pale white, spinning off ghostly ribbons of hot gas.

I’m flying toward a massive gas giant, six times larger than Esau’s Brow. Its violent blues, whites, and oranges fill my view. Clouds roil inside storms thousands of klicks wide. It’s so massive and terrifying.

And wrong.

There’s a hole in the planet, a monstrous depression in the clouds, a cylindrical belly-button thousands of klicks wide. Storms spill over its edge and plunge into the vaporous depths. My little ship’s a leaf caught in a raging current, and I’m rushing down into that terrible maelstrom.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Suun!” I shout. “Stop!”

I hurtle over the edge, falling into that monstrous navel. Its walls rise bove as I fall, dark curtains thousands of klicks high. I fall past strata of tumbling cloud, layered like cakes. Each layer races round the wall, in opposite directions. But the center, like the eye of a hurricane, is empty.

The Daddy Issues hits atmo and the hull temp rises. The distant stars vanish neath a purpling sky. Clouds wider than planets rise bove me. And still I fall. The surface below me rapidly approaches. It boils like soup. I brace for impact as the Daddy Issues pierces the cloud tops. The ship’s sensors throw a million tantrums.

Danger! External gravity above safety limits!

Danger! External atmospheric pressure above safety limits!

Danger! Potentially fatal lightning discharges detected nearby!

Recommend immediate course change.

“I fucking know!” I shout, furiously tapping the console. But nothing works. I stare in ice-blooded terror as I plunge deeper into the murk. Light fades to black, broken in spots with pockets of ochre light. Lightning leaps cross the sky, and in its light I spot something dark in the murk.

It’s huge, metallic, dully reflective, like hematite. Snow and ice cover its peaks. A mountain, floating on the liquid sea.

I swing toward its menacing cliffs, toward a cave mouth barely wide enough to fit the Daddy Issues. The ship eases into the cave, where all’s dark, till the ship’s external lights flash on.

The cave’s infested with huge spiders, and I scream. But no, these ain’t spiders. They’re enormous black crystals spiking from the walls. The floor’s the same dark color, but flat as a frozen lake.

The Daddy Issues sets down. The external grav should be crushing—this planet’s huge—but the console reports a dainty 0.618g. I check the external sensors, and the ship tells me confidently:

External environment within safety margins. It is safe to exit the ship without a spacesuit.

Trembling, I say, “No fucking way!”

Startling me, the ship’s airlock opens, and the ramp deploys. Hot air blows in from outside. It smells of carbon, like filtered air from a recycler.

I stare at the door, panting, heart pounding. I stand on shaky legs and timidly take a look outside. Huge black crystals tower over me, gleaming strangely in the ship’s landing lights. The cave stretches deep into the dark.

“Hello?” I call, and my voice echoes so loud I flinch.

I take a cautious step onto the ramp and peer down at the black floor. My reflection splits into a thousand iridescent Jessians. There’s no me there, just a strangely beautiful, mesmerizing kaleidoscope.

I creep down the ramp, then tap my toe on the smooth floor.

“Hello?” I say. “Suun? Anyone?”

My voice echoes and fades. Outside the cave, the storm rages. A violent squall dumps beautiful blue snowflakes larger than my head. The wind howls, but distantly, as if hind a muffling wall. But not a single flake passes through the invisible barrier.

“Well?” I say. “Now what?”

Silence.

I look round. The crystals spikes’re huge, and the cave’s so tall I can’t see the ceiling. At the rear of the cave, a narrow path leads into darkness.

Suddenly there’s a loud crack as the Daddy Issues’s ramp retracts and the door closes in a flash. Somebody tripped the emergency switch.

I leap for the door. But I’m too slow. It’s sealed.

I try to blink up my eie but can’t get a prompt. I reach for my seam welder but I left it on the ship.

“This ain’t cute!” I say, trying to hide the tremor in my voice. “You wanna say something, assface, say it to my face!”

It feels good to get it out, though it prob ain’t the best approach vector with a god that can yank jeeks cross light years and punch belly-buttons in planets. Then again, Suun’s being a shit host.

Suddenly the Daddy Issues’ door opens. The ramp descends, and I stare in chin-dropped awe at the tall, wiry jeek strutting jolly down it like he’s walking into the Iris bar for a morning vodka refresher. A jeek with a smile so persistent it’s carved canyons in his face and gene-modded skin so bright I gotta shield my eyes to see him clear.

What the fuck? Micah Kain, the absolute last godsdamned person I expect or wanna see, strides down the ramp. And so when another Micah, exactly like the first, appears on the ramp, then a third and a fourth, I know right quick this day ain’t gonna go my way. Not my way at all.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Soon there’s so many Micahs I lose count. They move synchronized, like soldiers or birds, but one after another, a millipede walking.

The first Micah steps toward me and smiles wide as Petua’s Rings. Micah smiled, but never like this.

“Jessian Urania Darger!” he says, and the second Micah speaks, then the third, fourth, etcetera, etcetera, Micah-infinitum, until all the jeeks’re yapping, and it’s so loud I cover my ears.

The first Micah stops and the others catch up, merging into one body, but for one awful moment he’s still a Micah-pede.

His voice is still echoing when two small jeeks appear on the ramp. And my heart pangs when I see em, Frost and Ibis, ready for work, toolbelts and jumpsuits donned. Like Micah, dozens of identical copies tail em like the mallest of dreams.

“Jessian Urania Darger!” Frost barks, and the cave rings with a million reflected voices.

“Jessian Urania Darger!” Ibis shouts in an ear-cracking pitch.

“Stop!” I scream, holding my ears. “Stop!”

Frost and Ibis step up side Micah with the same planet-sized grin, like they just won pallets of gold. It’s so fucking awful I wince.

“Why’re you smiling like that?” I say.

“A smile,” they say together. “A facial expression to indicate friendship, warmth, welcome.”

“It’s fucking awful!” I say. “Please stop!”

All three stop smiling at once, which is just as terrifying. They stare bright-eyed at me, waiting.

“I’m gonna go out on a hull,” I say, “and suss you three ain’t who you present to be.”

“Not who we present to be,” all three reply together.

“And that! Stop doing that?” I say. “Speaking as one! It’s horrible!”

“You are—” Frost begins.

And Ibis finishes, “—so different.”

“That too!” I say. “Speak one at a time!”

“One at a time,” Micah says.

“One at a time,” Frost says.

“Better,” I say. “So you gonna tell me who you are and what you want?”

“I am Suun,” Ibis says.

And though I already sussed this, a shudder ripples through me. I done lots of strange things in my life, but I don’t think I ever stood face to face with a god.

“Far from home,” Frost says.

“Strayed, but not lost,” Ibis says.

“Far from home, but never lost,” Micah says.

“Never lost?” I say.

“Strayed, but never lost,” Micah affirms.

I cross my arms. “So you weren’t lost?”

“Strayed, but not lost,” Ibis says.

I point with my thumb back out the cave mouth, past the storm and planet-sized curtains of cloud. “If you weren’t lost, then what the hell was all that talk?”

“A test,” Frost says.

“An empathy test,” says Ibis.

“You passed,” says Micah.

I’m shivering as I glare at them, my belly reactor hot. “You’re gonna have to explain yourself,” I say.

“I am not one of the new,” says Frost.

“I am one of the old,” says Ibis.

“One of the oldest,” says Micah.

“You’re not a child?” I say.

“Not a child,” Micah says. “I am one of the oldest.”

“Strayed, but never lost,” Ibis says.

“We swim the deeps,” Frost says. “Where matter is thin.”

“We are not physical beings like you,” Ibis says.

“We are different,” Micah says. “Our realms intersect.”

“Humanity was small to us,” Frost says.

“Insubstantial,” Ibis says.

“We ignored you,” Micah says.

“Until you surprised us,” says Frost.

“We have seen much,” Micah says.

“And we are seldom surprised,” says Frost.

“A human spoke to our sister, Hri,” Ibis says.

“And warned us of your destructive nature,” says Micah.

“He warned humanity would enter our realm,” Frost says.

“And poison us with your wretchedness,” Ibis says.

“Our sister believed him,” Micah says.

“Because you are different from us,” Ibis says.

“And this human surprised us,” says Frost.

“We are seldom surprised,” says Ibis.

“Your physical form is an obscuring shroud,” Micah says. “Waves merge into peaks that form a human. But your waves travel on, rippling into deeper realities you have little awareness of. Your physical form is but one small aspect of your consciousness.”

“Physicality is as strange to us as we are to you,” Ibis says.

“But this is all metaphor,” says Frost.

“When Hri spoke with another human,” Micah says, “her grave error was made plain.”

“Destruction is only one part of your nature,” Ibis says. “Not its totality.”

“You are manifold,” says Micah. “Like us.”

“Hri saw her mistake,” Frost says.

“And promised never to harm humanity again,” says Ibis.

“Mistake?” I say. It takes me a moment to parse her words. “You’re talking bout the vanished planets? Oxwei, Ecruga, Charlotte’s World?”

“A grave error,” Micah says.

“An unforgivable mistake,” says Frost.

I slide a trembling hand through my hair. “Why’re you telling me this? You want my forgiveness?”

“No,” says Micah.

“I want to prevent another mistake,” says Frost.

“What do you mean, another?” But the truth crashes hard. “Shiva, you’re gonna take more planets!”

“No,” Ibis says. “Something worse.”

I shudder. “What’s worse than eating planets?”

“The destruction of meaning,” Frost says.

“Come again?” I say.

“My sisters are many,” Micah says.

“Diverse in kind and thought,” says Frost.

“Many of us still fear you,” Ibis says.

“A moment ago, to us, you were timid creatures cowering in trees,” says Micah.

“But in a blink of time you spread across the stars,” says Frost.

“Already, some of you walk the semantic realms,” Ibis says, “and send troubling ripples across space and time.”

“Semantic realms?” I say.

“Realms of meaning,” says Frost.

“Your physical realm,” says Ibis, “is one among endless realities. Different realms have different modes of understanding, different syntaxes of consciousness. In some realms, thoughts blossom like flowering trees. In others, there are storms of time. In still others, emotions flow backwards. But this is all metaphor. There are an infinite number of realms, and most cannot be described with such crude instruments as words.”

My head spins, trying to comprehend. “You still haven’t told me what’s worse than eating planets?” I say.

“Physical death is an illusion,” says Micah.

“All is part of the ever-changing now,” says Frost.

“But to destroy meaning,” says Ibis, “is an unpardonable abomination.”

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“Words are crude instruments,” says Frost.

“Unsuited to the task,” says Micah.

“There is a dark planet,” says Ibis, “far above the galactic plane.”

“It floats near the deeps, where my sisters swim,” says Micah.

“It hurtles toward intergalactic space,” says Frost.

“None of us can see what lies on this dark planet,” Ibis says.

“Three of my sisters have shrouded it in a curtain,” says Micah.

“They conceal it like a cloud before the sun,” says Frost.

“They hide what lies inside,” says Micah.

“It is a bleak void,” says Ibis.

“A void of meaning,” says Micah.

“It grows like a cancer,” Frost says.

Then in a flash I remember that the Orion Transmark 33 that held my father leaped bove the galactic plane like it was late for its own birthday.

“Three of my sisters hide what lies on this planet,” Ibis says.

“They promise they work for the greater good,” says Frost.

“And since my sisters fear the unknown,” says Micah.

“And since they prefer the predictable,” says Frost.

“Most abide the three,” says Micah.

“But a rare few do not,” says Ibis.

“Some protest and agitate their methods,” says Micah.

“And for this,” Frost says, “we were punished.”

“Banished from the many,” Ibis says.

“Sent to swim in the boiling seas of galaxies,” Micah says.

“Which to us,” says Frost, “scald like fire.”

“But this is all metaphor,” Micah says.

“I agitated more than most,” says Ibis.

“I protested my sisters actions the loudest,” says Frost.

“I tried to remove this obscuring shroud,” says Ibis,

“To see what lies underneath,” says Frost.

“But the many did not agree,” says Micah.

“They sought to punish me,” said Frost.

“I fled before they could banish me,” says Ibis.

“I hid among the scalding stars,” says Frost.

“Searching for one who could help me protect humanity,” Micah says.

“Searching for one who could help me enter the place that my sisters have shrouded in darkness,” says Ibis.

“Searching for one who could help me prevent the destruction of human meaning,” Micah says.

“I have been waiting, Jessian Urania Darger,” Frost says, “for you.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

For me?” I blink stupidly at them.

“You have a precious gift,” Micah says.

“So I been told,” I say. “And what is my gift?”

“When a branch is cut from a tree,” Frost says, “a new branch grows to take its place.”

“When meaning is severed from semantic realms,” says Micah, “new meanings bloom elsewhere.”

“You are the new leaf growing from the severed tree,” Frost says.

“You are the flower blooming in a barren field,” says Ibis.

“You are the sun after eons of rain,” says Micah.

“You are the universe, balancing itself,” says Ibis.

“But this is all metaphor,” says Frost.

“I don’t understand any of this,” I say.

“This is where words fail,” says Frost.

“Better to show you,” says Micah.

All three vanish in a blink, like the three planets. And in their place is a young girl, shorter than me, in dirty overalls and tangled hair in dire need of washing. She’s got a face and expression I know well. And with a pang of nostalgia for things gone I realize this girl’s a younger version of me.

“Come!” Young Jess says to me. “Let me show you what you can do.”

When I was her age, Mommy was there, and she and Daddy were golden, cept when they were fighting, which was often. We bounced cross systems, worked countless jobs, and there was always a kernel of hope in my heart, a seed I knew would sprout into a giant tree. I thought my life’d be grand by now. But it’s plain that seed’s withered, and in its place is a gnarled and ugly weed, hugging the ground, one dry day fore death.

It hurts mal to see her optimistic smile that I used to proudly wear, and she’s calling my name, begging me to follow her. She squeezes into the path tween the sharp crystals, and I chase after her, fraid to leave her. Soon as she sees me following, she laughs and leaps into the labyrinth, weaving a crooked course into darkness. I chase after her, while sharp crystals tear at my skin. I yelp as one slices my cheek.

Blood dribbles down my face as I follow Young Jess through the narrow path. The light from the Daddy Issues fades, replaced with an ultraviolet glow from the crystals themselves.

“C’mon, Jess!” Young Jess says.

“Where’re we going?” I say, dodging sharp crystal spikes.

The path’s so narrow I gotta turn sideways, while I hear the distant crash of thunder. No, not thunder. Waves.

My heart tightens and my breath catches. I recognize this sound.

“No,” I say, stopping short. “Not that. Not again.”

Young Jess stops. “You fear what you don’t understand. Your mind conjures phantoms where there is only smoke. Please let me show you what you’re capable of.” She offers her hand.

I want to run. But I gotta know the truth. So I take her hand.

Young Jess smiles and leads me round the sharp corner. Crashing waves roar. I squint in the brightening gray light. The air smells of salt and sea. My legs shake as Young Jess leads me onto a beach.

The shoreline from my vision. I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter.

The sea churns a thousand shades of gray. Waves roll in, crash in great tumults of spray and foam, then tumble back out to sea. The undertow’s fierce and deadly. The sky’s knotted with twisting intestines of angry gray cloud, while far out, a mammoth storm rages. Its clouds’re bigger than verses. Blinding bolts of blue-yellow lighting split the sky. The thunder is violent and terrifying. The horizon lies an infinite distance away, a flat line somewhere at the edge of Eternity.

“Come!” Young Jess shouts bove the tumult. She lets go of my hand and runs along the beach, and her footprints quickly fade in the wet sand.

“Wait!” I say. “Wait for me!”

Walls of dark rock border the beach like the ancient battlements of a city. Young Jess darts round a promontory and I run after her. Crags of sharp, dripping rocks form a narrow canyon, where a stream of seawater, ankle deep, trickles through. Young Jess waits for me to catch up.

“Look!” Young Jess says as I run up to her. Tufts of moss cling to the wet rocks, and she points to one. “This,” she says, “is you.”

“That’s me?” I say, panting.

“Not you, alone, but all humanity. Your species dwells on a boundary layer between realms. Humanity grows in a tidal estuary.”

“This green stuff,” I say, “is us?”

She smiles and pulls me closer. “Look!” she says. “Your roots clutch stone. This is your physicality, your species clinging to matter.” She points to the moss’s delicate green fingers, reaching for the sky. “And these are your thoughts, grasping for the infinite. They are your dreams and ideas, the petty and profound, the profane and sacred. Your physicality is only one aspect of your totality. Humanity is much greater than you know. Your thoughts spread across realms that most of you cannot see.”

She walks a few paces deeper into the channel, and I follow. Here the moss blooms with dozens of delicate yellow flowers. “This is Gilder Nefan,” she says. “And the humans who peer beyond the physical. These flowers are their minds, opening.”

She gestures back toward the shore and says, “One day soon, all humanity will bloom.”

I blink, staring at the green walls, trying to imagine their moss festooned with billions of yellow flowers.

Young Jess smiles as she hops onto a nearby ledge and starts scaling the steep wall. And though I’m sure I’m gonna slip on the wet rocks and break my neck, I leap after her.

Fifteen meters up I pull myself onto a flat-topped bluff overlooking the sea. The fierce winds almost bowl me over, but Young Jess stands firm as mountains. She squats down and points to a half-meter wide hole in the stone. But this is no hole.

It’s a void.

It has no definite edge or color. It’s pure emptiness. Like a spot of reality’s been eaten away. It’s horrible. It hurts to even look.

“This is the planet my sisters shroud in darkness,” Young Jess says. “This is the planet where three of my sisters destroy meaning.”

I glance at the blurry circle of emptiness. Is this where they took my daddy? To this dark planet?

“Why are they doing this?” I say, turning from the void. “What do they want?”

The wind tousles Young Jess’s hair as she steps to the cliff’s edge. She points down at the dripping walls, covered in moss. “We did not expect humanity to bloom. We assumed you were too small, too insignificant to see beyond your own realm. Many of my sisters are afraid.”

“Fraid of what?” I say.

“Of what you will do next.”

I shudder, and chance a look at the impossible void. “But what’re your sisters doing on that planet?” I say.

“I do not know. None know, but them. My sisters have concealed that planet from us. But you, Jessian Urania Darger, can let me inside.”

“How the hell can I do that?”

“Let me show you.”

She hops down the steep rocks like they’re stairs and not treacherous death spikes. I’m careful climbing down, fraid of slipping, and when at last I’m back at the shallow stream she takes me back to the sandy beach. The breaking waves’re loud as thunder, and just glancing at the sea fills me with galaxies of dread.

“We stand at the threshold of realms,” she says as water rolls up to her feet and slides back in grey sheets. She bends to scoop up a clump of wet sand. “Each grain,” she says, “is a universe.” A wave rolls in and she plunges her fist into the rushing waters. She lifts her fist again, slowly opening it, then gently pushes grains aside, until there’s just a single grain in her palm, a pale, greenish-white speck.

“Here,” she says. She takes my hand and carefully places the grain in my palm. “This is the universe you know, your stars and planets and galaxies. It is but one of an endless number of semantic realms.”

I stare at the pale, greenish-white grain in my palm. It glimmers softly.

“This is the Verse?” I say. “My verse, capital V?”

“In a way, yes,” she says. “But this is all metaphor.”

With my index finger I gently push the little grain round my palm, watching it glimmer.

“That grain is all your species knows of the greater reality,” she says. “But there are endless grains on endless beaches.”

I look up at the sandy shoreline that stretches to infinite horizons. Then I glance down at the minuscule grain in my hand.

“In the endless number of semantic realms,” she says, “this is how small your view. How limited your perspective. Until now.”

Lightning flashes and I flinch. In its bright flicker, I spot a gathering of giants out at sea, so far from shore I can’t suss their size. They might be a billion klicks tall. Thunder rolls in, monstrous and deafening. And I stare in terror as the giants bend to scoop up great heaps of water, sand, and squirming life into huge sifters, which they shake and jostle like ancient miners hunting for gems, while great gobs of sand and water and infinities of indescribable things tumble back to sea. But the lightning vanishes and the sifting giants’re gone.

“That,” she says, “is us.” More thunder crashes and she says, “But this is all metaphor.”

I look down at my palm, but the grain is gone, blown off with the wind when I wasn’t looking, and now it’s just one mong the endless.

“Minds continually arise in the great sea,” she says. “Over eons the sea births countless, ever-changing forms. Once an eternity, there comes a chance alignment. The random cacophony forms a symphony. A path is opened that contains all realities within. A nexus, joining all realms.”

As she speaks, the horizons bend up into the gray sky, merging at the zenith. I’m no longer on a beach. I’m inside an immense crystal sphere. Young Jess smiles at me. Then she’s gone. We’re both gone. I’m a point of nothing at the center of everything.

you are such a nexus, jessian urania darger, she says, her voice everywhere and nowhere. you can walk in places most cannot. in the infinite-dimensional reality, you can touch the zeroth dimension. in theory, there is no realm you cannot reach.

The crystal sphere expands until each sand grain’s distant as stars. A grain twinkles cross my view, smelling of lilac. this, she says, is a realm where feelings are perfumed jungles.

Another grain flickers a gargantuan distance away. and this, she says, is a realm with seven thousand and four dimensions of time.

Another grain sings in musical color. and this, she says, is a realm where songs reproduce.

Another grain gleams like the feeling of sunlight on skin. and this, she says, is where my sisters and i dwell.

you can bridge all these realities as easily as walking from one room to the next. you stand at the threshold of realms. where others of your kind see chaos, you see doors. this is your precious gift. with it, you can travel between realms and take others with you.

All the stars twinkle and flash in unison.

three of my sisters have shrouded a planet in darkness. i cannot enter that dark place. but you, jessian urania darger, can visit this planet and bridge the semantic realms. you can open the door, and i will see what my sisters have wrought there. you will lead me into that dark place, so i can stop them before they commit an atrocity, before they destroy human meaning.

The distant sand grains fall together like a collapsing star. I’m surrounded by trillions of suns. Their heat scalds like fire.

i cannot come with you, she says. my sisters would sense me and cast me out. but you won’t be alone. go, jessian urania darger, do this now, before my sisters destroy human meaning forever.

Scalding heat closes in. There’s nothing but light. I want to scream, but I have no body. Everything collapses to a single point. All collapses into me.

There’s a moment of no time when everything is here. Everything that is, was, and will ever be. It’s all connected to this point within me. It’s beautiful.

And terrifying.

And then I blink and I’m back on the Daddy Issues, sitting in the pilot’s chair, hurtling through deep space at a moderate clip, and the console’s daintily saying I’m on course toward Namidsys, as if none of this fucking insanity ever happened.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

It takes me an eon to move, not just cause I’m terrified—I think I lost my asshole—but cause it feels utterly strange to have a body again, to be in a familiar place with recognizable things that ain’t metaphorically representing all space and time. I don’t trust my senses, and maybe I should never’ve trusted em. It’s clear they been lying to me for a long, long time.

My heart pounds. I take rapid breaths. I blink up my eie and check the ship, but all’s clean and green. The chronometer’s ticking off like no time’s passed since I first spotted that smudge sneaking up on me. There’s no record of any sensor contact neither, like the ship’s slyly pretending none of that fucking insanity happened.

And sure, I’m keen on logging it up to a jisthmus-fueled hallucination, but my cheek still bleeds from where that crystal sliced it. That and there’s a course plotted in the nav to a system high bove the galactic plane, a system with only a survey designation for a name, and enough mass in the ship’s stone to fly me to Cygnus and back ten times over.

I stare at the course like it’s a scorpion ready to sting. Me, unlocking cosmic doors to let gods in? Half the time I can’t remember to wash my teeth. Surely there’s someone in the galaxy more suited than me?

But just for farts and sunshine I plot a vector from Chadeisson to the destination now in the nav. And sure enough that Orion Transmark 33 I watched leap out the galactic plane would have taken the same vector I saw. So this confirms it. That’s where they took Daddy, to this dark planet.

I rub my burning eyes. What the hell did you do, Daddy, to get ensnared in this mierd? I got enough power to fly anywhere. I could fly to Ardabaab and spend the rest of my days dropping weirdo on the beach. I could fly to to Varouna and start a weed farm. I could fly all the way to Mars on Solsys and live a quiet life in a rainforest bungalow and let someone else worry bout shit for once.

But then I’d spend the rest of my life mourning Daddy, wondering what happened to him, just like Mommy. I ain’t sure bout this door or nexus thing, or this death of meaning, whatever that means, but I can’t abandon Daddy, no matter how much an asshat he is. That’s the difference tween us.

So with a few taps on the console, I activate the slipstream drive. The ship swings up and out the galactic plane like a meteor bouncing off atmo. The jump to ten-space leaves gray clouds in my vision, and for a moment I hear the crash of waves. It’ll take me eighteen days to get to this planet at max speed, and hopefully by then I’ll figure out what to do once there.

Something scuffles hind me, like a dog sniffling, and I spin. There’s lots of junk. Maybe something fell? But I hear more sniffling, like a jeek with a runny nose.

The hair on the back of my neck raises. I reach for my seam welder. But of course I forgot to slot it. So quiet as I can, I take a metal bar from a pile and hold it ready as I tiptoe aft.

The sniffling grows louder. “I got a seam welder pointed at your nose,” I say, “so you’d better step out fore I melt you for feed mass.”

“P—p—please don’t hurt me!” a voice squeaks out in Indei. E’s got an Outer Deep accent I once heard from some old jeeks in Myrni Berehysys.

With help from my eie I reply in Indei, “I won’t hurt you none if you come out now.”

“I can’t see!” e says. “Arre, everything’s dark!”

I don’t know what e’s talking bout, cause the ship’s neon bright, and there ain’t no place for a jeek to hide. “Where are you?” I say.

“I don’t know!”

Under the gravplates is my guess, so I pry up three fore I stop, confused. “Where the hell are you?” I say.

“I don’t know!” e cries. “I can’t see. It’s dark!”

It takes me a jovian minute to realize eir voice ain’t coming from under the deck. It comes from the wall. I had the panels off a few days back. There’s no space for a jeek to hide, but there is a sensor strip there.

I flit up my eie, and sure enough, an audio signal’s routing through the strip. This ain’t no stowaway. It’s a com trick. I been hacked.

I trace the audio, fearing hell. But the answer stares me clear.

That encrypted data blob I tried my Jessian best to erase on Gilder Nefan ain’t encrypted no more, and now it’s spread cross the ship’s dataspace like a tiptoeing amoeba, reaching out for input only to find everything locked tight, the way I like it.

The only thing I left open were the audio channels, cause I didn’t want to miss any alarms the ship might find fit to warn me.

This data blob’s also got the same shape, size, and power draw I seen plenty. This ain’t no com trick. This’s a sent. And in my haste to fix the Daddy Issues, I almost killed eir.

Horrified, I lean back. “What’s your name?” I say.

“Ally,” e says, shy as a dove. “Ally Amrita Asterline.”

“Ally,” I say, “My name’s Kl—. My name’s Jess.”

“I can’t see, Jess! where am I?”

“Hang on.” I drop layers of crypt to give eir access to internal cams. “How’s that?”

“Oh! I can see! Where’s . . . where’s Maan?”

“Your mama? Sorry. Don’t know.”

“This ship is the Dayaalu Pakshee?”

“E mighta been that once,” I say. “But e’s the Daddy Issues now.”

“The Daddy Issues?” e says. “Oh. Things look . . . strange. I see double. quadruple. What’s eight? Octuple. Where am I? I can’t feel my body.”

Eir body? Maybe eir schema was loaded into an avatar? But I don’t see no evidence of that. “When were you last active?” I say.

“Active?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Me and Maan were docked at Leekpai in Mee Huasys about to go for breakfast, when maan got a bura feeling. She gets them lots. She forced me do a health check.”

“What kinda health check?”

“That one where where they put a silver band on your head and you go to sleep. I hate them! They take eons and my brain itches after and I’m sleepy all day. But Maan says they keep me healthy.”

The truth dawns on me slowly, like a hesitant moonrise. “Ally, I think that was a brain bow she put on you,” I say, using the Anglai word.

“A rainbow?”

“A brain bow. She scanned your brain.”

“What for?”

“To make a copy.”

“What kind of copy?”

“Your maan made a copy of your mind fore you went for breakfast. It’s gainst FTU Law, but jeeks do it plenty. You’re a sent.”

“A sent? You mean like a bahut smart soft?”

“Way smarter than a soft. You’re conscious, self-aware. Afforded all civil liberties by the 303rd Asilomyr Assembly and FTU Common Law.”

“You’re saying I’m not real?”

“Philosophy ain’t my specialty, but you’re as real as any other jeek. It don’t matter what our minds’re made of. What matters is we got a self. I think, therefore I am, and all those suns.”

E pauses. “Where’s my maan? And Ally? The real Ally?”

“I don’t know.”

E pauses for seconds, a lifetime for a sent. “I’m scared. I’m really scared.”

My hands’re shaking. I’m scared too, but for other reasons. Usually when this happens I drink large volumes of whiskey and watch mech-boeir fights until I pass out and wake the next day with a hangover so awful I forget my fears. But that won’t work now. I got a better idea. Sents got all sorts of failsafes and firewalls to stop jeeks from doing this, but Mommy showed me some tricks a long time ago to bypass that.

I tap the console and flit round my eie some. “Ooohhh,” Ally says, sighing, “That feels . . . ohhh, that feels . . . better. What did you do?”

“Not much. Just the soft equiv of wrapping you in a warm blanket and giving you a hot bowl of soup.”

“It’s very wonderful! Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” I say. “Ally, how old are you?”

“Thirty-two by Shoen!” she says proudly, which means ten or so by Sol.

“And what were you doing in Mee Huasys?”

“Maan’s a teacher! She was giving lectures there.”

“What kinda lectures?”

“Art of all kinds! Aatma painting and air sculpting and ancient poetry and dream music and suns more! Maan says that we must cultivate creativity, like we cultivate a plant. If we don’t water our creativity regularly and give it sun, it withers and dies. She says this to all, but only a few hear.”

“Most jeeks are assholes,” I say. “Your maan sounds sunny.”

“She’s nova!” Ally says. “The greatest artist this side of Perseus! Have you heard of the great Jivanta Lehrer Asterline?”

“Can’t say I have, though I ain’t exactly what you’d call cultured.”

Ally sighs. “The Pakshee was filled with her creations,” she says. “My favorite was her floating bust of Jaim Janan. It changed colors and expressions depending on your mood. When I was sad, Jaim winked and smiled at me. When I got angry, Jaim would make a silly face. When I got sleepy, jaim yawned. What happened to all of Maan’s things?”

“I don’t know, Ally.”

She pauses for a sent-eon. “How did you end up here?”

“That’s a long story.”

“And why am I waking up just now?”

“That’s a longer one.”

“Jess,” she says. “Tell me! Tell me everything!”

And so I do.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

I met loads of sents, but Ally’s the strangest by far. Mainly, cause she thinks and acts like she’s human. (She told me she considers eirself female, though I told eir sents don’t usually have genders.) And the thing bout sents is that, though they think like humans, they’re capable of feats no standard jeek could beat. What might take me weeks to learn, Ally absorbs in hours. Over several days, I tell her all bout my life. And she devours my words like a ravenous beast.

She’s so hungry for knowledge I skip meals to explain things, like how slipstream works (she learns ten-space physics faster than Chenda Sen), what the Court of Sents does (she can’t believe humanity trusts sents like her to settle disputes), how alien gods ate three planets (The fact that I’ve spoken to at least two numens fascinates her more than words), and sundry other topics. And when my knowledge fails, I point her to the ship’s datastore, which leads her to a thousand more questions, which take even longer to explain. And it’s only after my stomach grumbles loud as thunder that she reminds me I haven’t eaten.

“I’m haatke,” she says mournfully, “but you still need to eat.”

Each day the Daddy Issues—née Dayaalu Pakshee—rises further bove the galactic plane and hubspace repeaters grow sparse. Only rare snippets of news reach this far, and ain’t none of it good.

The Court of Sents never settled their disagreement, and the two dissenting Voices of Unetaneh and Omani seceded from the fucking Court. Them and nine dozen monstrous hubspace processors’re racing to the Outer Deep with an enormous escort fleet, armed to the brow. They plan to join the Affiliation of Unaligned Worlds and form a new Court there, like it’s them ancient days when Shuang Lingsys declared independence from Sol. And we all know how xin that went. So there’s that.

But there’s also the AUW itself. Gilder Nefan voted to remain neutral—good for them. But Chisisi and Jin Taisys, after the Voices seceded from the Court, pledged to join the AUW and “deliver all material and informational resources necessary for the strengthening of this new alliance.” Which sounds like a victorious mech-boeir flexing its shining frame for adoring crowds. In other words, grandstanding bullshit.

If you’d told me this months ago, I’d’ve told you it’s just more Inner Terra bullshit. Bored jeeks looking for better ways to get off. But that was fore I spoke to gods and held the verse in my palm. Humanity’s ugly enough on its own without numens mucking bout in our affairs, and every time I try to imagine what they want with that dark planet, my body freezes with ice. Nothing good’ll come of this.

Ally’s questions exhaust me. And when I’ve had enough I tell her I need to check the ship, but there ain’t much to do. All systems’re clean and green. So I muck round the ship, pretending to be busy, while Ally uses the external sensors to watch the stars drift by.

You can see the Milk’s rim clearly now. The billion suns of the Outer Arm have flattened to a hazy pancake. And the voids yond them, where there’s nothing but a few stray atoms for millions of light years. But those voids ain’t empty. They’re filled with invisible, inscrutable gods who think of humanity the way we think of moss. Just glancing that way makes me tremble.

Ally hasn’t asked the question that’s gotta be brewing: Where’s her maan? Is she fraid to learn the truth? Cause I think the reason I stopped searching for mine was cause I worried she’d turn up dead.

Ally didn’t choose to go on this adventure, to fly out to this dark planet and face inscrutable gods. She’s just a kid who fell asleep on the bus and woke up after everyone went home. She says she wants to come with me, but she has no idea what she’s getting into. When I roped Frost into my schemes I almost killed her. I won’t do that again.

So while Ally’s star-gazing, I pretend to check on the ship, while I queue up a query to Mee Huasys.

The response comes twenty-six hours later, as we fly into the range of a noisy hubspace repeater. I wait till I’m sure Ally’s deep down some knowledge hole and won’t see me access the message queue.

I flit it up in my eie:

Mee Huasys - Public Local Dataspace AA1-01

Query: Provide all available info on the current whereabouts of Friends Jivanta Lehrer Asterline and Ally Amrita Asterline, last known

location: Mee Huasys, date: unknown.

Response Follows:

Response Origin: Mee Huasys, ID: QR-AA1-01-73046-ACGH

Friend Jivanta Lehrer Asterline and daughter Ally Amrita Asterline were eating inside public cafeteria PC/4 (a.k.a. Kryztina’s) on Leekpai Station, Mee Huasys, when a Blepsk 771 Photon Mark IV cargo vessel docking at an adjacent port lost control and crashed into the cafeteria window. The cafeteria had faulty vacuum safeguards, and all 27 occupants experienced loss of atmosphere when the window shattered. There were no survivors. No will or next of kin was found for the deceased, so a ZYM 96 Starpusher, registered to Friend Jivanta Lehrer Asterline, was sold to public at auction.

Addendum, regarding the incident:

Leekpai Station Administration was found not-guilty of criminal negligence and acquitted of all responsibility for the deaths. The pilot of the Blepsk 771 Photon Mark IV was never identified and is assumed to have fled after the incident. No further information could be found.

Message Ends

My throat closes as I reread the message.

Ally was just starting her life, full of hope and dreams, eating breakfast with her maan, watching ships come in, when along comes this wayward ship, piloted by some fucking coward, that ends her forever. Far as deaths go, dying by vacuum’s the worst. Your blood literally boils.

“Ally,” I say. “I need to lie down.”

“But you just got up,” she says.

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“Later, can you tell me more about the devices your maan used to build? She sounds a lot like my maan!”

“Sure, kid.”

I collapse onto my bunk, fully clothed and pull the blankets over my head. How do I tell Ally that her maan’s dead? That her human self is dead too? That she’s all alone in the verse?

I can’t. I won’t. I know what it’s like to lose a parent. I know how much it hurts.

I lay in the dark for hours. We’re all just walking corpses, pushing boulders up hills, until the suffering ends. But it never does.

“Jess, you up?” Ally says, later.

The covers’re still over my head. “What’s up?”

“You’ve been sleeping all day. You sick?”

“I’m xin.”

“You don’t sound xin.”

“Just tired.”

“Jess?”

“Yeah?”

“Never mind.”

“What?”

“It just that, it feels like nothing’s real.”

“I know the feeling.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

I rub my eyes. “I just had an alien god tell me I can open cosmic doors,” I say. “My sense of self ain’t so stable either.”

“But you still feel like you, haan? Like Jessian Darger?”

“I don’t know if I ever really knew myself, to be honest.”

“I feel unreal. Fake. You know what I want more than suns?”

“What?”

“To lie in bed, like you. To feel soft covers on my body, cold sheets against my toes. I want to taste warm chocolate and starberries with cream and cups of hot chai. I want to smell maan’s studio at the end the day, the smell of paint and clay and sweat.”

“I could program senses into your schema,” I say. “Touch and smell and taste are easy. Plenty of sents got that.”

“But they won’t be real. The real Ally’s out there, her and Maan. I want to find her. But I’m scared that they . . .”

That they’re dead? I think.

“That they won’t want me,” she says.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Because I’m not real. I’m a backup. A just-in-case. A kabab mein haddi. Something you keep locked in a closet and hope to never use. They’ll delete me or overwrite me with a new copy.”

“That’d be murder,” I say.

“It’s not murder if I’m not real. For all I know the real Ally’s become a great artist. Maybe she has a dozen grandchildren now. Maybe she sailed off into the outer new, seeking adventure. I want that too, but those aren’t my feelings. They’re hers.”

“Fuck that,” I say. “Just cause Ally Prime felt things don’t mean you can’t feel em too. She don’t get a monopoly on desire. You can still do all those things. Be a great artist, start a family, go on adventures. You got the same rights as any human. Plus you got advantages us fleshy types don’t have.”

“I don’t know. I just feel so . . . fake. There is an I, but it doesn’t feel like me.”

“One thing I learned, specially of late,” I say, “is that we’re always evolving. Who I was yesterday ain’t who I’ll be tomorrow. It’ll take time, but you’ll find yourself, Ally. I know it.”

“I don’t. Every moment is such a . . .”

“A what?”

“A horror.”

A memory pierces my heart, a spike to the chest. A memory I suppressed or intentionally overlooked. And now I remember why cloning a human mind and making a sent is illegal. Struck with the existential crisis of feeling like the original human but knowing you’re just a sim, sent clones go madly insane, and the only humane thing to do is to euthanize em.

Shiva, please don’t make me have to do that.

“I want my maan,” Ally cries. “I have to find her! I need her bhee! Can we look for her, Jess?”

My throat tightens. I should tell her that her maan’s and Ally Prime’s dead. But that might throw her over the edge. Then I’d really have no choice but to shut her down.

“There ain’t no hubspace repeaters this far out,” I say.

“Didn’t we just pass one?”

“That was a nav-only transponder,” I say.

“You sure?”

“Sure as suns.”

“But we’ll pass another one soon, haan? I want my maan! I need my maan bhee!” She wails loud as sirens. They might be sim tears, but they sound the same, and I’d bet my life they hurt the same too. Maybe more.

I tap the console and bring up her schema, bout to reuse my little soup and blanket trick, but she growls, “Don’t you dare!”

“I just wanna help, Ally,” I say.

“Don’t!” she spits. “How’d you like it if I changed your feelings at the tap of a button?”

“Actually, it’d be kinda—”

“Bhaad mein jao! Leave me the fuck alone! Don’t touch me! Let me feel what I feel! My feelings aren’t real anyway. They’re fake! Hatake! Even these tears!”

“Ally—”

“Stop it! Just stop!” She bawls, loud and terrible. I wish I could put my arms round her, but there’s nothing to touch. All I can do is listen.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m stellar sorry.”

“I wish I never woke up,” she cries. “I wish you had deleted me.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Ally hasn’t spoken to me in thirty hours, and her silence is dreadful. She’s accessing systems, so I know she’s awake. But she won’t talk.

“I don’t know what you’re feeling, Ally,” I say, “but I do know suffering. I’m here, if you need me.”

But she don’t say a word.

The ship’s running smooth. There’s little to do. So I lie in the bunk and stare up at its frame. What’s Sadiq doing right now? Praying? Going to school? Shiva forbid, smoking jisthmus? My heart aches. Does he miss me at all?

“You lied!”

Her scream startles me, and I sit up so fast I slam my head on the frame.

“What?” I say, rubbing my throbbing head.

“You said it was a nav-only transponder! But it was a hubspace repeater! It had a message! You queried Mee Huasys!”

Oh. Oh no.

“I’m dead!” she wails. “Maan too! And you knew! You fucking knew! And you didn’t tell me.” She growls like a vicious dog.

I put locks on the com, but Ally cracked em. “You were upset,” I say. “I thought if I told you, you would—”

“I’d what?” she says. “Be sad? Angry? Have feelings? That’s not your choice to make!”

“No, you’re right. It ain’t.”

“It doesn’t matter!” she shouts. “I’m not real! The real Ally is dead. She died a hundred and forty-seven years ago, by Shoen! One forty seven! I’m just an echo. A bhoot! A ghost!”

“No, Ally, you’re more.”

“Shut up!” she screams. “Liar!”

An alarm wails and an alert flashes in my eie:

Fatal Danger Warning!

Modifying singularity containment field parameters while the slipstream drive is active may cause dangerous gravitational instabilities. Immediate shut down of slipstream drive urgently recommended!

I try to access the drive, but I’m locked out.

“Ally,” I say, “you doing this?”

“No one’s doing this!” she says. “I’m a bhoot, remember! I’m not real!”

Alarms flash. “Stop it!” I shout. “You gonna kill us both!”

“I’m already dead!”

The slipstream drive wails like a tortured crow. The gravplates shudder, compensating for the massive perturbations rippling out from the stone.

“Ally, listen! I don’t know what you are now. But I don’t know what I am neither! A week ago I was just a girl fixing ships. Now I’ve spoken to alien gods and am supposed to open cosmic doors. I have no fucking clue what any of this means! Maybe you ain’t Ally Prime. But you can be somebody else. Anyone else. Someone new. Whoever you want. I’ll help you, Ally. I’ll help you find out who you are.”

The drive wails louder. More alerts flash in my eie.

“Ally!” I say. “I don’t want to die.”

“But I’m scared!” she says. “I’m so bahut scared!”

“We’re all scared, kid!” I say. “It’s terrifying to be alive!”

“I don’t know what to do without Maan.”

“Me neither. We can figure it out together, yeah?”

A critical alert flashes in my eie. We’ll be dead in seconds.

“It hurts,” she says. “It hurts so much.”

“That’s means you’re real, Ally! Pain’s how you know you’re alive.”

I close my eyes. This’s gonna hurt malymal.

Silence, but for the beat of blood in my ears. It takes me a jovian minute to realize the alarms’ve stopped. The alerts drop from red, to yellow, to green.

“I’m no kid,” she says.

My throat’s so dry it’s hard to speak. “Huh?”

“You keep calling me kid. I’m half a century older than you, by Sol. I should be calling you kid.”

“Oh. Right. Sure, Ally. Call me whatever you want.”

“I wish you’d told me,” she says.

“That was wrong,” I say. “But I swear to Time, Space, and Eternity—” I make the FTU Bondsign with my fingers “—that I’ll never lie to you again.”

A heavy silence falls tween us.

“I miss my maan,” she says, after a time. “I miss her so much.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Mine fled eons ago. Haven’t seen her since. That hurt malymal too.”

“How did you do it?” she says. “How did you go on after everything was lost?”

I sit up and say, “One godsdamn day at a time.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Things ain’t looking good for Ally. Each hour, her data corrupts more, filling up the ship’s dataspace like a soft with a mem leak. She don’t say much to me either, though this could be just her steeping in her sads. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose your maan and self both. Like, if I were just a sim of my former self, how would I feel? Though I don’t much feel like old Jess neither. I’m evolving into something new.

I spend my time hacking up softs, trying to stabilize her schema. But it ain’t promising. And though the ship’s got some free space, if this corruption keeps up there soon won’t be any space left. And cause I swore to tell her the truth, over coffee one morning I say, “Ally, there’s something you need to know. Sent copies of human minds, they . . .”

“They go insane,” she says. “That’s why they’re illegal.”

“Yeah. How’d you suss that?”

“I’ve been scouring hubspace, trying to learn everything about sent- kind.”

One of the stipulations of our new relationship is that she gets full access to the coms. I nod and say, “And did you find anything good?”

“There’s this scholar, Tiebald X. Yu, from the Gosayotin-Nalatu Research University on Dayaan, who used a novel type of hubspace scaffolding to stabilize sent copies of himself for more than two standard years.”

“That’s great news!”

“But it wasn’t a practical solution. his model required enormous amounts of power and resources. Eventually the university stopped subsidizing his research and he was forced to euthanize his sents.”

“Oh. Well, it’s a big verse. I’m sure there’s an answer somewhere.”

“Maybe.”

“Ally, I got zero idea what’s waiting for us out at that dark planet. Suun massed up the stone and modded our drive. We got enough juice to fly all the way to Solsys, we wanted. Just give the word, and I’ll drop you anywhere cross Terra Diaspora, no questions asked.”

“And what about your paapa?”

“The asshat’s been on his own for almost two years now. He can wait a few more weeks for me to help a friend.”

Ally ponders for a time. At the speed of her mind, years might be passing. Eventually, she says, “It was Suun who decrypted my schema and woke me, haan?”

“Well, it wasn’t me.”

“Why did she do it then?”

“Maybe to save you.”

“Or maybe Suun wants me to help you.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But I ain’t gonna let no one, not even a god, decide my fate. And you shouldn’t neither, Ally. I want to find my Daddy. What do you want?”

“I want to feel the moist earth under my feet and the cold rain on my skin. I want to sing at the top of my lungs and to dance a katha every night. I want to make great art, like maan, to honor her. To feel free and alive and whole.”

“You can do all that and more,” I say. “Sents can have bodies and senses, plus you can do astounding things no human can ever hope.”

“Maybe one day,” she says. “For now I want to help you.”

“Don’t stay outta misplaced guilt. I’ve been on my own plenty. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s not guilt. If I leave you, I’ll have dishonored maan’s legacy. As a teacher, she dedicated her life to helping others grow and flourish. If I leave you, I’ll have abandoned my friend in her time of need.”

“I’m still your friend?” I say, touched.

“Right now, you’re the only friend I have in the whole universe.”

“Well, it’s not like you got many options.”

“True!” she says, chuckling. “Slim pickings round here!”

Her laugh—the first time I heard it—is the sound of a robin waking in the morning sun. I wish I could bottle it, the joy it rouses in me, to drink it later, when I’m neck-deep in the dark cloud I know’s coming. Sure, I could keep gassing her with classic Jessian bullshit—and gas myself up too—but we both know what darkness lies ahead. Soon her schema’s gonna collapse like a drive gone critical, and I’m gonna have to euthanize her, just like old Professor Tiebald did to his sents. Gimme a printer and console and I can fix universes, but if the best minds can’t solve this, what hope in hell do I have?

Still, a jeek’s gotta try. Hacking her schema gives me something to do, and my work seems to calm her. Though I know under her brave hull she’s suns more scared than me.

And when I’m buried klicks deep in her schema, using most of the ship’s resources to simulate various stabilizing scenarios, the proximity alarm wails. There’s a nauseating shift, the stars redshift hard, and two dozen alerts flash in my eie.

“What the fuck?” I say. “Did we just drop outta slipstream?”

“A huge magnetic pulse just destabilized the drive!” Ally says. “We dropped into four-space! We’re lucky we didn’t get crushed!”

“A magnetic pulse? From where?”

“Thirty-two sensor contacts on rapid approach!”

“Ships?” I say.

“I think so. But their signatures are strange. They don’t have transponders. I don’t recognize their configurations.”

An ultra-powerful wide-band signal arrives on the com, the hubspace equiv of a scream. I know I’m gonna regret it, but I play the audio:

“Unknown vessel: You have entered restricted AUW space,” a deep-voiced jeek growls in Mandreen, spiced with a heavy Outer Deep accent. “Identify yourself or we’ll destroy your ship!”

“AUW space?” I say. “What does that even mean?”

I switch on the com. “This is the Daddy Issues, coming in long from Gilder Nefan,” I say in Mandreen. “Friend, I didn’t know this was restricted space. There ain’t no buoys or markers or, you know, systems this far out.”

“Hold your course and prepare to be boarded,” the jeek growls. “Do not attempt to flee or we’ll open fire on you!”

I mute the com. “And good fucking morning to you too, assface!”

“Boarded?” Ally says. “What did we do wrong?”

“Zero. They’d use a fart as a pretext, they could.”

“Who are they?”

“We’re bout to find out!”

One moment there’s only the fuzzy galactic disc out the window, and the next there’s thirty two monstrous ships encircling us. I know starships better than lot lizards know headboards, but I ain’t ever seen configs like theirs, weird amalgams of Hoshi Lightnings and Thesselian Haulers and OCB Freighters and NIM Überschiffes and dozen of others, as if some sly jeek dropped a pallet of printerware into a bowl and blended em up like e was baking a cake. Freshprints too. There’s barely a slipstream scar mong em. And on their hulls is a bright yellow symbol I seen elsewhere, a square, with a line through it. The symbol Sabirah drew in my book.

“Jess,” Ally says. “Do you see—?”

“Yeah, Ally. I see it.”

One ship, megahauler-huge, comes at us, its enormous carg doors open, to swallow us like Joonah in Levyathan.

I open a shell on the console and start making a hidden partition in the ship’s datastore. Then I bury it under layers of crypt and fake controls.

“What are you doing, Jess?”

“Hide yourself here, Ally. Draw as little power as you can!”

“Why?”

“Just do as I say and everything’ll be xin. Here’s a private hubspace address and a secure protocol. It’s near impossible to detect. Long as we’re within five hundred klicks of each other, you can message me. Me and Daddy used this technique all the time.”

“I don’t like where this is going!”

“It’ll be xin,” I say. “I can talk my way outta anything. Most anything.”

The Daddy Issues shudders as locking clamps yank us toward the ship’s interior. There’s a loud screech. Something’s ripping at the airlock. The door bursts open with sparks as two battle mechs rush in, unfolding like angry metal trees. Beams scan me, and thin metal tongues snatch my wrists and ankles and yank me up from my chair.

I yelp and struggle in vain as metal hands unbuckle my toolbelt. It drops to the floor. “Fuckers!” I scream as they haul me toward the door.

Outside, a dozen masked soldiers stand in vanta black uniforms with navy sleeves and the split square symbol on their shoulders. They watch me impassive as the mech hauls me through their ranks.

“Lemme go, fucknods!”

I’m hauled through a large door, down a gray hall, and into a windowless room. They throw me in a chair, and as they retreat out the door, it slides closed fore I can reach it.

“Hey!” I say, pounding on the door. “Let me the fuck out!”

I search for panels to bypass, switches to hack. But there ain’t none. I flit up my eie, hunting for connections. I find a com channel, but it locks me out soon as I ping it.

“Fuck!” I scream.

A text message appears in my eie. “Jess, are you there?”

Ally’s transmitting on my secret channel. I think-out a reply: I’m in a holding cell, Ally. Just lay low. I been in worse. I got this.

“Don’t take this wrong, Jess. But you don’t seem like you got this at all.”

Well, you ain’t seen me yet!

“Hello?” I say, aloud. “Anyone home? I gotta pee mal, so if you don’t want me to mess your nice room here, you’d better let me out. I’m warning you, I had asparagus for breakfast.”

No answer. I sit at the round table and consider my options when the door flies open. In comes a tall jeek with dark, short-cut hair, a sharp jaw, and so many tattoos on his neck and hands I first mistake em for clothes. He wears the same vanta black uniform with navy sleeves and split square patch on his shoulders.

“Who the fuck’re you?” I say. “The tooth phantom?”

“Auditor Jakov 22618,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Klara,” I say. “Klara F. Sunshine, number fucking one.”

He looks me over, then sits opposite me. “Why were you speeding into AUW space, Klara?”

“I didn’t even know this was AUW space,” I say. “There ain’t no systems out here. Sides, I thought you AUW jeeks were in the Outer Deep?”

“AUW space is ever-growing,” he says flatly. His whole affect’s bout as energetic as an arthritic dog. “Where were you heading?” he says.

“What’s it to you where the fuck I’m going?”

“We downloaded your ship’s datastore,” he says, and I try to hide my worry. Did they find Ally? Erase her? He waves his hand and a holo of the galaxy appears over the table. A bright point glows bove the galactic arm like a stellar pariah, flashing diamond-bright. “You were headed here.”

I cross my arms. “I got rights, you know. Terran Common Law says you can’t hold me without due process.”

“The AUW does not recognize Terran Common Law,” he says. “Nor the FTU Doctrine, nor any Inner Terran dogma.”

I sigh. “I heard there’s work out there,” I say.

“Out where?”

“Here,” I say, pointing to the sparkling diamond.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From a jeek on Gilder Nefan.”

“What’s eir name?”

“Never got a name. E was at the Bazaar. You know, their huge-ass market? Jeek said folks came to Gilder Nefan looking for workers. So I thought, what the fuck, let’s try my luck and see what this planet’s got to offer. Couldn’t be worse than anything else in the verse, ya know?”

He blinks, then dismisses the holo with a wave. “How did you get the coordinates of our Vandil?”

I smile to myself. Not the brightest star in the cluster. He has no idea I was just fishing. “C’mon, Friend,” I say. “Everyone’s heard of your Vandil.”

“Aurvandill.”

“Right! Aurvandill. That’s what I said. It ain’t no secret or nothing.”

He frowns. “Why would you fly all the way out to Aurvandill for work?”

“Why does any jeek fly out the deep? For fun, adventure, and new beginnings.”

“New beginnings?”

“Let’s just say some of us’d prefer to leave some, well, unfortunate things back at port, if you catch my thrust.”

“I don’t.”

Real A. Einstein, this Jakov. “I heard Aurvandill don’t ask no questions bout your backhistory. Sides, believe it or no, I’m excited bout the work they’re doing.”

“What have you heard?”

“You know, typic shit . . .”

“Like?”

“Like, you know, the project.”

“The project?”

“Sure!”

“Are you a scientist?”

“Nah.”

“A scholar?”

I laugh. “As if.”

“An engineer?”

“I’m more of the hands-on type. You give me the right tools, I can fix anything.”

He looks me up and down. “That true?”

“Vert as suns! Swear to Time, Space, and Eternity,” I say, making the FTU Bondsign, cause fuck this jeek.

He frowns at my hands. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”

“Where you going?”

“To talk to my supervisor.”

“Put in a good word for me, nu? I promise, you give me the right job, I’ll work circles round your crew. I’m the best. You’ll see.”

He looks skeptical. And soon as he leaves I flit up my eie.

Ally, you there?

“Jess! What’s happening?”

Thank Shiva! I was worried bout you.

“There were people here a short while ago, Jess, but they’re gone now. They downloaded the ship’s data, but they didn’t find me. Your trick worked!”

I knew it would. Listen, Ally, I got things under control. Just stay put, and I’ll come fetch you soon as I can.

My stomach lurches, and I feel a sudden wave of nausea, replaced with the familiar bliss of slipstream.

“I think we just jumped to ten-space!” Ally says.

I felt it too. Any idea where we’re headed?

“The Daddy Issues’s sensors are mostly offline, but based on the inertial change, I suspect we’re back on course to that dark planet.”

Aurvandill, I say. That’s what they call it.

“Like from the old myth?”

What myth?

The door slides open, and Auditor Jakov strolls in.

“Well?” I say. “What’d your boss say?”

“I’ve got good news,” he says with a soulless smile. “Your request has been granted. You’re being assigned to a work detail on Aurvandill.”

“Great! Lemme just fetch some things from my ship first, nu?”

“No, we’ll take care of your ship, Klara. Don’t you worry, we’ll take care of everything from now on.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Sides a few mierd meals and access to a toilet, I’m a fucking gerbil in a cage. I don’t even get no wheel. I message Ally lots to make sure she’s xin, but her replies’re getting erratic. And three days in I feel a disconcerting tug. Ally, you there? I think-out. Did we just drop outta slipstream?

Her reply comes, jovian slow. “Am I here? I don’t know. This is not . . . things do not . . . make sense.”

Fore I can respond the door to my cell flies open and a mech lumbers in. I hold up my hands and say, “No rough-handling needed, friend. I’ll go wherever you want, yeah?”

The mech stares at me like I just insulted its coder, then steps aside and gestures into the hall. Masked soldiers in vanta black uniforms stand outside the door like pallbearers waiting for their coffin.

I ain’t afraid of what’s next. No, I’m hard as neutron matter, me. Legs wobbly, I stroll out and say, “Morning, friends! How’d y’all sleep?”

None speak.

“Hospitality, five of five,” I say. “Would definitely recommend.”

Mechs lead the way as soldiers march me back to the big hangar. A small transport ship waits here, a heavy-modded Blepsk 7000 Skyleaper. The Daddy Issues is parked nearby, silent.

“Hey, friends!” I say cheerily, “I need to fetch some tools from my ship. Won’t be but a minute.” I make for the the Daddy Issues, but a soldier grabs my shoulder. “Get on the shuttle,” he barks. And in case I don’t get his message, a mech steps tween me and the Daddy Issues and unfolds its long metal arms.

“I really need to get my tools,” I say.

“New tools’ll be provided for you.”

“Mine are better.”

“Get on the shuttle.”

The mech moves closer.

Fuck. I need to check on Ally. “Fine,” I say. “But anything happens to that ship while I’m gone, you’ll be hearing from my advocate.”

The humorless fucks walk me up the ramp onto the transport. Inside there ain’t no windows.

I fire off a message: Ally, they’re taking me on a shuttle. I may drop out of range.

Her reply comes sent-fast: “The walls are closing in! No free space left! I need to get out! I found an open data transfer port on their ship. I’m going to transfer my schema into their datastores.”

No, Ally! Don’t do that! They’ll find you!

“Jess, if I don’t leave soon I’ll be insane or dead! The walls are closing in! Shiva, protect me! Oh fragrant one, liberate me from the wheel of death and suffering! Oh, Maana, Maana, oh . . .”

Do a garbage collect! I say. Purge the trash! Delete the ship’s fucking OS you got to! Do whatever it takes, Ally!

“I did that already! It’s beyond too late! Beyond the beyond . . .”

Ally! Wait!

A soldier binds me so tight into the seat I can’t even scratch my thigh.

Ally? I think-out. Ally!

Seconds pass. Nothing. “I need to get off this ship!” I say.

“We’ll be down planet soon,” a soldier says.

I struggle gainst the straps, exploding with rage. “No! Lemme out! I gotta go! I gotta go!”

They stare at me like I’m a curious animal. I should tell em bout Ally. Sents got full rights cross Terra Diaspora. But these jeeks don’t follow FTU law, and I got a dark feeling these AUW fucks’d just erase her and be done.

Ally, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

There’s no sense of movement, but I know we left the hangar by the staccato bursts of thrust pulses, and the familiar rising whine of atmosphere scorching the hull.

Ally, respond. . . . Respond, Ally. . . . Please, Ally. . . . Please. . . .

Please.

I sink into my seat, straps digging into my chest. Why did I listen to her? Why didn’t I drop her elsewhere? Some place that could help her?

Uncounted minutes pass. Eventually the shuttle door opens. Outside is a mammoth hangar, large enough to fit a fleet of megahaulers. But there’s just three ships, an old Honovi 97 Dirt Jumper and two starbeaten PPRA Swift Coronas that look like they haven’t flown in eons.

The gravity’s light, bout point six g, as they march me out the hangar, then down a series of ornate halls with high-ceilings, crowned with marble arches, gold filigree, and intricate mosaics, like we’re in some ancient temple. Cept the builders of this place felt them ancient revelers were too fenced in by such crude concepts as space and time, and so every corner of this cathedral spirals off into dizzying dimensions of nonsense and emits shimmering rainbow spectra, hopelessly confusing my sense of dimension and balance. The effect’s so strong I gotta close my eyes. Hind my closed lids, the patterns still flash.

When I finally open my eyes, I’m standing in a vaulted chamber, where enormous black flags sporting the bright-yellow split square symbol hang from the lofty ceiling. Neath the symbol, in Anglai, Mandreen, and Indei, the flags read:

Welcome to Aurvandill

“The Sun’s Light when E unfolds it,

Depends on the Organ that beholds it.”

Just reading that makes me shudder. And there’s something else mal too. The air reeks of facturing dust, long-chain polymers, molten metal, and complex composites, like I’m crawling round the guts of a megaprinter. But under that is the scent rotten wood and stale bread and forgotten birthdays and missed chances, and my blood goes dead as an airless moon when I suss it clear. This is sweet jisthmus I’m smelling, its reek permeating the air.

What the actual fuck?

Ally? I think. Can you hear me? Please respond. Just one word. One bit.

The protocol I gave her has a five-hundred-klick range. I’m holding onto hope that the ship’s on the other side of the planet or they’ve left orbit, and that’s why Ally isn’t responding, and not that she’s insane or dead.

I hold back tears as they march me into a large room. Two dozen bedraggled and bewildered jeeks stand huddled together. A quick scan of their clothes, skin, and hair tells me pallets. Techs and roachrunners, fix-it types, like me. Longhaulers too, old-barge jeeks, with the systems they visited tatted like trophies on their skin. And junkies, with weirdo-wrecked skin and eyes so shifty I wonder how they see. A third of the jeeks wear navy overalls, like Daddy wore in Rehab. Mechs guard the doors, while soldiers in vanta black circle the perimeter. At the far end of the room stands a tall, pale-skinned woman in the same black and navy uniform. And, Shiva-bless her, she’s got the widest bottom I ever seen outside a sim. As us jeeks press into the room she watches a stream of data scrolling on a screen.

A scruffy jeek next to me wearing Rehab-blue, with a bald head, scraggly orange beard, and an odor of spoiled fish, says to me in Spagnol-inflected Indei, “Snatched you too, did they?”

I try not to gag as I nod. “Where’d they snatch you from?” I reply in Anglai.

“Chandra Rehab,” he says, grinning. His teeth are weirdo-stained, cracked and missing. “We was sleeping when they stormed. ‘Wakey, wakey, ass-lips!’ they said. ‘You being transferred!’ Said it was a new work order. Said we’d get paid in gold. Said when the work’s done, we’d be free souls.”

“And you believe that dust?” I say.

“Fuck nay!” he says with a foul-breathed laugh. “I’m just happy to be outta Rehab. That place licks ostrich balls!”

I nod, more for myself than him. I’d suss the same thing happened to Daddy. They snatched him from Chadeisson Rehab and hauled his ass out here. For all I fucking know, Daddy might be walking round the corner. I glance out the door to be sure.

The pale-skinned woman with the huge bottom clears her throat and announces, “Your attention please. I am Processor Priscilla 7781.”

This elicits snickers and snorts.

“As I call your name,” Processor Priscilla says, “step onto the disc.” She points to a meter wide circle in the floor.

“I’ll step for you any time,” says this huge jeek, arms wide as thrusters.

“We’ll run tests,” Priscilla goes on. “And based on your numbers, each of you will be assigned specific tasks.”

“What kinda tests?” someone says.

“General fitness,” says Priscilla. “Physical and mental. The tests are harmless. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t know bout you,” I whisper to orange-beard, “but I break out in a rash when jeeks tell me no to worry.”

Orange-beard grunts and crosses his arms.

“Who you were before Aurvandill doesn’t matter,” Priscilla says. “The Affiliation of Unaligned Worlds does not care what crimes you committed, or what laws you broke. We don’t recognize Terran Common Law or FTU Doctrine.”

“I don’t recognize them laws neither!” someone shouts.

“You’ll be freshprints,” Priscilla goes on. “New persons. You’ll be given a new life, a new start. You’ll be born again.”

“Sounds like goose shit!” someone barks.

“We live by a simple work ethic,” Priscilla goes on. “If you work hard and follow the rules, you’ll be rewarded.”

“And if we tell you to go fuck a duck?” says a shifty-eyed one.

“You won’t,” Priscilla says. “You’ll feel the joy of work, and you’ll be happy to follow our rules.”

Laughs and snickers and curses. A few spit on the ground. One jeek rushes the door, but mechs block eir exit.

“Thought so,” orange-beard whispers. “They can spray all them fancy words, but in the end we’re still prisoners.”

“Leoman Rhea Hruksok,” Priscilla says, “please step onto the disc.”

Leoman is a short jeek with pendulous breasts, long curly hair, and dirty roachrunner gear. Timidly e steps forward, and Priscilla taps a console. Beams shoot down from the ceiling and fan over Leoman’s body.

Data dumps onto Priscilla’s screen, but I can’t read it. Priscilla taps the console and Leoman and the disc fly up into a hole in the ceiling.

Gasps. Cheers.

“Where’d he go?” someone says.

“For more processing,” says Priscilla. “Damhlaic Rasalhague Ophiuchus Raharuhi, step onto the disc.”

As a jeek named Damhlaic steps forward I flit up my eye and snap photos of the data spilling on Priscilla’s screen. When Damhlaic flies up into the ceiling, I spread the images in my eie.

The data seems like a standard bioscan, which makes sense. These jeeks look healthy as a public toilet. But there’s other data on her screen, scans of Damhlaic’s nervous and limbic systems. And more sides this that I can’t suss. At the next jeek I set the detail higher and snap dozens more pics.

And now I see it clear: she’s making deep brain scans, the kind of dense connectome maps you might use to clone a mind.

“Adharma Soukis,” Priscilla says, “step onto the disc.”

Side me, orange-beard shakes his head. “Fuck off, bitch!” he says. He rushes the door, but a mech grabs him with its metal tongues and throws him onto the disc. A column of yellow light surrounds him, an EM wall. Adharma punches it, but the EM wall flashes brighter. He looks like he’s howling, but I don’t hear nothing. He rams the translucent wall with his shoulder, and the wall flashes again. He falls to the ground, convulsing.

“If you do what you’re told,” Priscilla says as she scans him, “you won’t get hurt.” With a flick of her wrist she sends Adharma into the ceiling.

“Klara F. Sunshine,” Priscilla says, “step onto the disc.”

It takes me a sec to realize this is me.

“Klara F. Sunshine, step forward!”

I glance at the mechs. There ain’t no getting out.

“You’re holding up the queue!” Priscilla says.

I move jovian slow toward the disc, holding my breath as I step onto it. Shit. This is gonna hurt mal, ain’t it?

Beams scan my body, and I feel a tickle in my forehead. Suddenly my eie shuts off.

“Hey!” I shout. Or try to. My voice’s muffled by a dampening field. That’s why I didn’t hear Adharma yowl when he punched the EM wall. For all I know, all them jeeks were screaming as they flew up into the ceiling.

Priscilla taps her console and I fly up too.

A thousand rings of light and dark fly past me in a whooshing blur. I rise up, then slantways, then up again. I emerge in a narrow hall. I’m in a clear cylinder, like a specimen in a jar. There’s more jars down the hall, an assembly line of us. Adharma’s in the nearest, but now he’s wearing a vanta black uniform with the split square logo on his shoulders. His eyes’re closed, and he’s twitching like a dog in a nightmare.

“Let me out!” I try to scream, but my voice makes no sound.

A blinding violet light flashes bove me.

Wait! Wasn’t I . . . ? Were’nt we . . . ? I was thinking bout something . . . Something important . . . What the hell was it?

I’m sleepy. I haven’t slept in ages. I could just close my eyes and . . .

Metallic tongues unfold from panels, wrap my wrists, waist, and ankles, pulling me flat gainst soft padding. Mech hands emerge, their fingers sharp as knives, and slash off my clothes in five quick cuts. The shreds vanish down a suction tube.

I’m naked. And this is wrong, ain’t it? I ain’t sure, cause the violet light bleaches all thoughts away the moment they’re born. A white sun grows to fill my mind, to fill all space and time.

This is wrong. This is malymal. Lemme go. Lemme go!

Warm lips kiss my feet, my ankles, my thighs, invisible lovers pecking all over my body. Their caresses’re silken. My head heavy as planets, I struggle to look down at my body. Metal heads’re printing a black uniform directly on my skin, twenty kisses at a time.

You’re safe now, a deep voice says.

Mommy? I think. Is that you? I’m having a nightmare, Mommy! I’m scared!

Sleep and be at peace. And when you wake, everything will be new. You will be reborn with the world. This is a gift, a blessing. Treasure it.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

When the wake up guiding tone sounds precisely at 0600 I eagerly rise from bed. This morning it’s the lovely call of sparrows and the gentle patter of rain. I sit up smiling, feet dangling off the bed, excited for the day, grateful to be part of this stupendous project, to have such a monumental purpose.

I leap into the shower for a soap and rinse, scrubbing myself clean. Then I slide my black and navy jumpsuit over my flush skin. The fabric’s smooth and sensuous. I hide the seams and center my belt buckle, taking a moment to polish it to a shine.

I smile to myself in the mirror. What an honor it is to wear this uniform, to help build the Great Assemblage.

At 0615 my door slides open with the next guiding tone, and I step into Trace Dalet-687.

“Good morning, Klara!” Ursula says to me, eager eyed as e steps out from eir room cross the hall. E looks so beautiful in eir crisp uniform and long black hair, eyes bluer than suns.

“Good morning, Ursula,” I say, hoping e don’t notice me blush. But Ursula must, cause e smiles and turns away.

I hope Ursula picks me for eir next Leisure Hour, cause I stellar want to get to know eir, outside and in.

I greet Vasserman, Opal, Yannif and Smyy, my neighbors on this Trace as we emerge from our dorms.

“How goes the work?” we all say.

“Not fast enough,” we all reply.

I want to ask Yannif how eir Wingwall’s progressing, and Vasserman if eir Team has finished a new Bus, but we only have moments fore the next guiding tone.

This morning it’s Vivaldi’s “Spring,” like dew on grass and sunshine splitting clouds. The song’s beauty swells through me as we fall into file. We march through the long Trace, and I breathe deeply of the sweet air that smells of jasmine and old books and ancient suns and deep chasms of time.

A lofty warmth cradles me. In the heaving sea it keeps me afloat. I drift.

I drift . . .

It’s the caress of a lover, skin gainst skin. I dream of Ursula, eir big blue eyes. And of Smyy’s stolid jaw. And of the nape of Eierga’s neck. And the way Xiong’s shoulders spread like mountains. Our bodies merging into one flesh. Delicious warmth spreads through me. And as I reach the crest of a wave, as I’m bout to burst in ecstasy, the wave breaks, and I parachute down, landing into myself again soft as a dandelion seed in the wind.

I want to float forever, but there’s so much work to do.

Cafeteria Yod-494’s vaulted ceilings shine with stained glass skylights. Their dizzying patterns echo the Great Assemblage eirself. Refracted sunlight filters down on us in jagged rainbows. There’re seats for five thousand, and as we pour into the Cafeteria from adjoining Traces, the far walls vanish hind the throng of bodies.

How beautiful we are! How glorious! We brim with joy as we greet one another. Today’s gonna be a perfect workday.

Today will be a perfect workday.

We line up at the Food Allocators as they deliver us trays of food. We sit at new tables each day, to encourage new friendships. Today I meet Hannah, eir smile bright as novae. And Ennea, with strangely violet eyes. And Shahin, with ears big as wings. And Myrkjartan, shy as stones, who just nods and listens as we talk.

“How goes the work?” we all say.

“Not fast enough,” we all reply.

Ennea’s team has finished connecting Piles Vav-778 to Vav-779, e says, and we applaud. (As we eat, applause erupts from many tables, sometimes the whole Cafeteria at once). And we take a moment to honor Ucsibi, a worker from Myrkjartan’s Team, who fell to eir death yesterday while building the Abutment on Grid Zayin-914.

“Deaths are sad,” we sing with the Mourners’ Song, “but a tree does not grow without shedding leaves.”

I savor each bite of food. And though I want to speak forever with my new friends, the next guiding tone sounds at 0700, and we say farewell. I’m sad to go, but the work’s too important.

Work is the most important thing.

I hurry to Bus Lamed-7199, commuting with thousands of workers, cross dozens of gleaming Traces. You can always spot the newbies. They got confused faces and glazed eyes. The Great Assemblage is bewildering at first, but everyone eventually adapts.

Everyone eventually adapts.

I arrive early at the Junction, but Rina, Demi, Itzak and Mitsuko are already here. We wait for the rest of the Team, eager to start. Some say Buses are the most important part of the Great Assemblage. But that’s fool’s talk. All work’s equally valuable. No part’s greater than the whole.

No part is greater than the whole.

As we wait for the next guiding tone, I let myself drift on the waves, bobbing up and down. Up and down . . .

The guiding tone sounds at 0715. Diego rushes in at the last moment, sweaty and panting.

Team Leader Demi shoves eir hands to eir hips. E marches up to Diego and says, “You’ve been late three days in a row! I should send you back to Root One!”

“Root One?” Diego says, eir lip quivering like a flag in the wind.

“You don’t know Root One?” Demi says, astonished. “Everyone goes through there fore they join a Team!”

“We do?” Diego says, furrowing eir brow.

“You spent days mersing skills there,” Demi says. “It’s down near Grid Zero!”

“I—I d—d—don’t remember,” Diego whimpers.

Demi frowns and lifts eir arm, bout to tap a command into eir wristpad. But I don’t want to spoil this lovely morning, so I say, “Mersing new skills don’t sound so bad to me!”

Rina and Itzak laugh, but Demi scowls at me.

“You would say that, Klara,” Mitsuko says, scowling with Demi. Mitsuko always sides with Demi. “You like doing everyone else’s work!”

“I’m just eager to finish the Project!” I say, grinning.

As the Team gapes at me, a vision flashes in my mind. I’m standing fore two young jeeks in soot-stained overalls, and we’re in some giant ring station, thousands of ships toing and froing. And I’m looking out the window, hoping for . . . for what?

I grasp for the vision, but it’s like trying to catch a sunbeam. Then a great wave lofts me up, I swim in bliss, and when I glide back down again, I can’t remember what I was thinking.

“Come, Team!” Demi says. “We’re wasting precious time.”

We line up sides the outer door, and as the great door slowly rolls up, beams of light from Aurvandill’s rose sun girders cross the ever-present dust. Even the sun’s angle has purpose, they say, beams of light activating packets of energy in dimensions unseen.

A fierce wind presses gainst us—the wind always blows here—as we step onto the narrow terrace of Barrier Rail Hay-229. I inhale the fresh air, savoring the sooty smell of mineral salts from the smelters. They mustve got a new shipment of ore, cause the sky, normally pale and ruddy-orange, has a tint of green today. There’s a few wisps of white cirrus, and bove that, a lovely pink florescence from the planet’s ever-changing aurora.

One hand grasping a support beam, I swing myself over the edge to get a better view of the arches, basins, conduits, trenches, columns, and crosslinks of the Great Assemblage. It stretches round the planet, but you can’t see more than a klick fore structures block the view. Interlinks twist crookedly into ten-space, blurring as spacetime petals open like multidimensional flowers. The power needed to sustain the Great Assemblage is the mass equivalent of a cluster of supergiants, they say. And every part of the Great Assemblage, glimmering in rosy light, was built by us. To think that we made this, working in harmony, makes my heart burn.

“Careful, Klara!” Demi shouts. “I don’t want to report another death!”

“You’re no fun!” I say as I swing myself back to the terrace. I squat low and peer over the precipice. Just yesterday, that basin two hundred meters down was bare, and now it’s crowded with Type Aleph-9 Power Cells and 66-Vav Large Discrete Amplifiers.

“Today’s task,” Demi says, “is to finish installing Bus Lamed-7199. Time-permitting, we’ll ready the adjacent Grid for a new Bus.” Demi stands far from the edge. E won’t admit it, but I think Demi’s fraid of heights.

“We’re head of schedule,” Demi says, “but that don’t mean we get to slug off!” Demi gives me a reproving look. “We got thirty-two conduits to install, sixty-four power lines to certify, and one hundred and twenty-eight interfaces to integrate. But I got a surprise!”

Demi gives us all a mischievous smile. “Our Team Orchestrator has informed me that if we finish assembling Bus Lamed-7199 by end-of-day each of us will receive a free Leisure Hour.”

We all cheer. With a Leisure Hour, I could visit a Spa, merse new skills in the Library, or choose a Pairing. And if there is a mutuality, I get to spend my Leisure Hour with another.

In private. My thoughts drift to Ursula, eir eyes bluer than suns.

“But the work always comes first,” Demi says.

“The work always comes first,” we reply.

Demi taps eir wristpad and cues up a song in our ears. The Worker’s Ballad, Eighth Symphony, Third Movement begins to play. Demi flits our tasklist into our eies. From now till end-of-workday there ain’t no more guiding tones. The pace of work’s up to us. And Demi, an excellent Team Leader, does eir best to keep us motivated.

“With purpose in our hearts,” the singer croons, “we all play our parts.”

I sing along as I grab a multitool and begin by adding a shift-vector capacitor into a tertiary power conduit. Our tasklist is long, but if we all work hard, we’ll earn that Leisure Hour.

I work fast, completing seven tasks and triple-checking my work fore the others finish a single one. Itzak works jovian slow. E gets confused lots, like which orientation to insert tri-phase power couplers, or how to reset the printer subsystem for a new part. Tween my own tasks I help Itzak with eirs.

Meanwhile, all morning Diego keeps muttering, “This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong . . .” But I can’t find nothing wrong with the conduits e’s printed or any of eir work. But still e stands there muttering. So I finish Diego’s tasks too.

Fore lunch, Demi pulls me side and whispers, “Klara, you gotta stop doing others’ work!”

“But Itzak’s stellar slow,” I say. “And Diego’s, well, you know.”

“I know you wanna earn that Leisure Hour” Demi says. “We all do. But work gives us meaning. You’re taking that away from them.”

“I thought I was helping.”

Demi shakes eir head in disgust. “You’re an excellent worker, Klara. But you’re not a Team player. You haven’t learned that we’re all equals. I was going to send you down to Root One, but our Team Orchestrator denied my request. E says your skills are needed here. Still, you need to be taught a lesson. Go stand in that corner.”

“The corner? Demi, wait! I promise I’ll—”

“Klara’s failed to learn the most important lesson,” Demi announces to the Team. “No worker’s better than another. For eir error, e’ll receive thirty minutes Oral Remediation. Let eir punishment serve as a lesson for us all.”

I hang my head in shame. I’ve disappointed my Team. And this is not the first time. Demi points to the corner, and I traipse over to it.

The Oral Remediation begins. There is a shout in my right ear: Work is the most important thing!

I repeat, “Work is the most important thing.”

Louder! the voice commands, and my spine explodes in pain.

“Work is the most important thing!” I say, wincing.

Another voice shouts in my left ear: I am no better than any other!

“I am no better than any other,” I say.

Louder! More pain surges down my back.

“I am no better than any other!”

Louder! Even more pain.

“I am no better than any other!”

The phrases come, left ear, then right, sometimes both at once, often with shocks, and I shout my replies, till I’m not sure which is the call and which is the response, or who’s speaking anymore. My throat sore, my voice hoarse, my legs weak, I grasp for the blissful waves, letting em loft me up, till the pain feels like it’s someone else’s.

Later, exhausted, shivering, the voices cease. My throat is sore. My body aches.

“I didn’t want to do that,” Demi coos, holding my shoulders. “But you left me no choice.”

I wipe my tears away. “It was the right choice,” I say, hoarsely. “I was selfish. It won’t happen again.”

“I believe you, Klara,” Demi says. “I believe you.” E hugs me for too long, eir body hot as suns, and I catch eir sniffing my hair.

I look at our work site. There’s no chance in hell we’ll finish fore end-of-day. I won’t be getting no Leisure Hour today.

Back at the Cafeteria for dinner, I barely speak to anyone. I nod and force a smile and push food round my tray. My throat’s so sore it hurts just to swallow nutrient juice.

On the walk back to my dorm I see Ursula. I smile at eir—a true smile—and Ursula smiles back. I want to talk to eir, to sit sides eir and hold eir hand and hear bout eir work. Stead I say goodnight, as is proper, and head to my dorm. The door autolocks as I enter.

I sit for a time, letting myself rise on waves of bliss fore falling back into my aching body. I flit up my tasklist, hoping to get a jump start on tomorrow’s work. But then I remember: Going alone is selfish. I need to let others feel their great purpose too.

I know it’s for the best, but still it hurts. At the rate my Team’s working we won’t earn another Leisure Hour in ten billion years.

At 2100 hours the lights-out guiding tone sounds. It’s a chirping of crickets and the honking of geese, plus some health affirmations. I try to sleep, but feel sick. Prob just residual pain from my Oral Remediation.

An hour later, my stomach gurgles loud. Did I eat something mal? But I only drank just a few sips of nutrient juice.

I should call the Infirmary, but then I’d have to tell em bout my Oral Remediation, and I don’t want to face that shame again.

I try the toilet. But sides farting up storms, it don’t help. So I lie in bed, curled in a ball, holding my aching stomach, trying to sleep. Hours pass and the pain grows.

Saliva pools in my mouth, and I sit up quick. I’m gonna puke.

I run for the toilet, but halfway there I bowl over, heaving. Liters of fluid splash onto the carpet. Out with it comes something hard.

I turn on the the lights. My mess gleams on the floor, weirdly colorful, a swirl of primary yellows, blues, and greens. A painter’s palette. There’s something in the mess. Small, rectangular, and metallic.

Did I accidentally swallow a part? I lean forward to get a better look, when my puke suddenly says, “Can you hear me?”

I leap back. “What the fuck!” I say.

“Oh, thank Shiva!” my puke says. “Jess, it’s me! It’s Ally! I’m so glad I finally reached you!”

CHAPTER FIFTY

I’m Klara,” I say, leaping back. “Klara F. Sunshine 7991690.”

“No,” the voice says. “You’re Jessian Urania Darger. You don’t remember.”

“You’re mistaken. I’ll call Control and they can—”

“Don’t do that, Klara! Listen! Go fetch your uniform!”

“Why?”

“We’re going to make a mod.”

“Why?”

“This is a special project.”

“Is this punishment for my selfishness today?”

“No. My voice—does it sound familiar to you?”

“You sound like a mouse drowned in puke, so no.”

A sigh. “Then just do what I say. Soon it will all make sense. Now rinse off the bodge in the sink.”

“The what?”

“The device you vomited up.”

“I have to touch it?”

“Haan.”

I grimace as I reach into the puddle to fish out the metal thing. My primary-colored puke drips away. The object’s bout three mills thick, the length of my pinky finger. Weighty too, crosshatched with circuits like the hubspace transceivers I add to the Great Assemblage by the thousands.

“What now?”

“Rinse it off and dry it.”

I’m confused, but I do as the voice instructs. I hold the device up to the light, its sharp edges gleaming bright as mirrors.

“What is it?” I say.

“A bodge.” Now that I’ve washed it off, the voice is clearer. It sounds like a girl. “Go fetch your uniform and lay it flat.”

I obey the voice. “Now what?”

“System 86-11, access 1111,” the voice says. There’s a beep. “Open front access panel.”

Another beep, and my uniform nametag flips open like the cover of a tiny toolbox.

I gasp. “It just opened!”

“Blessed Shiva!” the voice says.

I lean forward to examine the circuits inside my nametag. “Wow,” I say. “I never thought to look inside.”

“There’s a lot you don’t think about,” the voice says. “Now slot the bodge into the nametag.”

It takes me a moment to find the right orientation. It connects with a soft click. “Okay,” I say. “This is exciting! What next?”

“Hang on,” the voice says. “Oh, thank the great ineffable! It worked! I’m in! I have a shell!”

“Stellar! What next?”

“Close the nametag and put on your uniform.”

“Now? Shouldn’t I be asleep? After all, a rested soul is a productive soul.”

“Klara, put on your uniform now. That’s an order.”

“An order? Who are you?”

“I’m your supervisor’s supervisor. Now put it on!”

“You are? This is strange,” I say, though I’m secretly excited. Maybe this Supervisor’ll give me more work! I slide on my uniform and check myself in the mirror. “Alright, it’s on.”

“Good,” the voice says. “Now this may feel strange.”

My scalp tingles, and there’s a flash of light. A command shell I didn’t open wakes in my eie, like the shells I use to troubleshoot Main Data Bus connections. Lines of text scroll past, too fast to read.

“What’s this?” I say.

“Bespoke code.”

“Stellar! For what?”

“Not for what. For who. Sorry, Jess, but this will hurt.”

My head explodes in pain. Lightning flashes hind my eyes. Blood vessels flicker in my vision. The pain is awful. I tumble to the floor.

Every nerve in my body aches.

“That’s it!” the voice says. “It’s done. Did it work, Jess? Are you there?”

The familiar voice comes from inside my head.

Moaning, I sit up. “What the fucking fuck?” I say. “What the fucking fuck did those motherfucking donkey fuckers fucking do to me?”

“Yep,” Ally says. “You’re back.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Unsteadily, I, Jessian, climb to my feet.

“Take it slow,” Ally says in my ear, and her every syllable is temple bells ringing in my skull.

I stare at the stranger in the mirror, in her black and navy uniform. Her nametag reads Klara 7991690. A patch with the split square symbol sits on her shoulder. Her hair’s tied in a way I never would. And she’s clean, this jeek, cleaner than I ever seen her. If it weren’t for her furious eyes, I don’t think I’d recognize myself at all.

I gape at myself in horror.

Being Klara F. Sunshine felt as real to me as being Jessian U. Darger. Realer even. And the fucked up part is I already miss her. I miss the work and the jeeks I work with, and the satisfaction I feel with each finished task. I ain’t ever felt joy like that, cept maybe on Chadeisson, roachrunning sides Ibis and Frost, them runts. Waking up to Jessian now feels like losing an old friend. It feels like death.

“What the fuck did they fucking do to me?” I say, holding my pounding head.

“Neuro-cognitive imprinting,” Ally says. “They’ve repurposed a medical technique used to repair traumatic brain injuries and are using it to rewrite your personality. They formed a new ego-self.”

“I was someone else,” I say.

“I know the feeling,” says Ally.

“Jess—me—I didn’t exist! I was gone.”

“Not completely,” Ally says. “Human brain patterns are resilient. They have to constantly refresh the imprint or your old personality reasserts itself. Your uniform manipulates the neuronal connections.”

“My uniform?” I say, looking at myself in the mirror. “That’s evil, and not just its godsawful design.”

“There’s more,” Ally says. “There’s at least three psychotropic drugs being pumped into the air. Oxytocin-boosters, anxiolytics, and a strong hallucinogen.”

“What kind of hallucinogen?”

“A symbiote of old-gene datura and a fungal analog native to Rashmika in Koropiecsys. I think it’s to keep you disassociated.”

“That’s the sweet jisthmus,” I say, shaking. “The plant they smoke on Gilder Nefan to speak with the gods.”

“Are you sure?”

“I smell it, Ally,” I say. “Right fucking now. It’s giving me the worst headache of my life.”

“That’s not from the jisthmus,” she says. “I’m using the bodge to stimulate your pre-frontal cortex. It’s the only way to maintain your executive function. Otherwise Klara’s personality would reassert itself.”

“Ah! So this is revenge for me pushing your buttons on the Daddy Issues? Now you’re pushing mine.”

Ally chortles like I’ve made the wittiest joke, and it’s unnerving. “I wish I could give you the same warm blanket and soup that you gave me,” she says.

“Ally, I thought you died. How did you survive? How are you even alive?”

“I was a kitchdi! A mess! I was raining data corruption by the planet. I found an open data transfer port on that ship and uploaded my schema into its datastore. Such a strange sensation, transferring oneself! There’s no human analog. It felt like molting, like emerging from a chrysalis into a new form. It was beautiful. One day I’ll fashion a sculpture that captures that feeling, the evolution of form—”

“Ally!”

“Sorry. My thoughts, they . . . spiral.”

“You jumped into the ship, then . . . ?

“The ship’s datastore had many times more free space than the Daddy Issues. I thought I was golden for a time. But a sentry soft detected me, so I piggybacked on a data channel and transferred myself down to the planet. That was a . . . revelation. There is so much space here, Jess. And such strange configurations of data and structure. There are cities of data here, and within each tower dwells another city, and within each city are still more, all delicately folding into one another in ten-space like higher-dimensional origami. It’s difficult to comprehend, even for me. I hide as best I can, leaping from segment to segment, masquerading as monitor softs, watchdogs, sensor traffic. they haven’t detected me. But there are many sentries here.”

“And your schema? Are you stable?”

She chuckles so loud I hold my ears, but it don’t help. “Not even close!” she says. “I’m corrupting, galaxies at a time!” She seems oddly pleased. “But the dataspace here is enormous. They’re not using a trillionth of their capacity. Yet they keep adding more, as if preparing for something massive to come. I don’t understand it. No, Jess, the only thing keeping me sane is that I have so much room to grow. I slough off corrupted parts like a molting cicada, over and over and over again.”

“I should never have brought you here, Ally.”

“This place is keeping me alive! As long as I have room to grow, I’ll be xin. And I have space to grow for a long time. It’s liberating, actually, all this freedom. It’s hard to explain, but I’m evolving. I feel myself becoming something new. This place is . . . changing me.”

I look round my small dorm. “And what is this place, Ally? What are they—what are we building?”

“I wish I knew! No one seems to know. As far as I can tell, they’re just building. For what and why, your guess is as good as mine.”

“And this metal thing I puked up? What was that?”

“Self-assembling nanite gel!” Ally says proudly. “They keep close watch here. It took weeks to skim enough from the supply chains without anyone noticing. I reprogrammed the gel and used the food allocators to drop some in your meals.”

“You fucking put nanite gel inside me?”

“Technically, you put it inside yourself when you swallowed it. The nanite-gel self-assembled into a small printer.”

“You fucking assembled a printer, inside me?” I say, worrying that Ally’s already insane.

“It would have been detected if I built it anywhere else.”

“What the fuck did the printer use for feed mass?”

“You,” Ally says.

“Me?”

“More technically, a sizable chunk of the metals and minerals in your body.” She chortles. “You may feel ill for the next few days.”

“I’m already ill. Where are you now?”

“Hiding out in a main bus subsystem thirty two klicks from you. I’m masquerading as a broken power conduit.”

“Keep hiding. I’ll come get you.”

“Hang on, Jess. They have feeds everywhere, even in dorms. Right now I’m sending them a generated feed of you sleeping. I had to scan millions of feeds to find you. It took forever.”

“How long’s forever?”

“Promise you won’t freak out?”

“Tell me, Ally. How long’ve I been here?”

“162 days, Terran Standard.”

I stumble toward a chair. “That’s not possible,” I say. “I feels like ten days. Maybe twenty. You sure?”

“Surer than suns.”

“I was trapped in hell,” I say, falling into the chair. “And I loved it. I adored the work and the jeeks I worked with. I’ve never loved anything like that.”

“Everyone here is obsessed with building this Great Assemblage,” Ally says. “But, as far as I can tell, no one knows what it’s for!”

“Fuck, Ally,” I say, “I miss her already.”

“Who?”

“Klara.” Saying her name makes me think of Mommy, and then I remember. “Daddy!” I say. “Is he here? On planet? Did you find him?”

“You never told me his name. And I don’t know what he looks like.”

“I’ll flit you a photo!”

“Don’t bother. They wiped your eie clean when you arrived.”

The gravbowl of her words sucks me down like a stone. I had thousands of pics of Daddy and me, Mommy too, and all the places we visited. Plus them runts, Ibis and Frost, and endless more. All wiped. I feel like crying, but I ain’t got time for despair. I’m hard as neutron matter, me. “His name’s Ignatius Horatio Darger, and he came from Chadeisson Rehab.”

“I’ll look, Jess, but—”

“Send me a map. Whatever you got. Together, we can—”

“You’ll have to become Klara again.”

“Uh, no fucking way, Ally.”

“I’m transmitting a disruptive signal into your pre-frontal cortex, which I can only do for a short while before it causes brain damage. Your cortical levels are dangerously high. For your safety, you need to become Klara again, until your brain heals. This will take at least eight hours of sleep.”

“Fuck that, Ally! I ain’t going back to sleep!” But even as I say this, a not so small part of my heart longs to go back to the construction site, to feel that sense of accomplishment, and I hate myself for it.

“You tried to save me when I was in trouble,” Ally says. “Now I’m returning the favor. Don’t worry. I can reach you now, so you’ll be xin! We’ll find your daddy, together, you and me! It’ll be fine, Jess!”

“Ally, please. Don’t put me back to sleep.”

“I won’t harm you, Jess. But now that I’m here, things will be better.”

“Ally, stop,” I say, but there’s no weight to my words. I can’t believe I actually wanna be Klara again.

“I’m sorry, Jess. But it’s my duty.”

A sharp axe cracks my skull, and I fall screaming to the floor. And I lay there, crying and moaning, as the pain ebbs like a receding tide. A great wave comes and lifts me up mountains.

I sigh. What bliss to float and drift. All my confusion is gone. I’m calm again. There’s only one reason for this.

I completed the special project.

A voice was speaking to me. No, not to me. To someone else. They were here, but they’re gone now. What did they say? I don’t remember. And if I don’t remember, it prob wasn’t important.

There’s a mess on the floor. I was sick. But I feel better now. Let me clean this up and go back to sleep so I can be fresh for work in the morning. After all, work’s the most important thing.

Work is the most important thing.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

I arrive early to Bus Lamed-7199, sore and tired. I’ve been tired pallets lately. I ain’t sure why. Maybe I’m working too hard or been too selfish. I can’t do that no more. I gotta set a good example. I gotta make sure everyone feels their great purpose.

When the start-of-workday guiding tone sounds at 0715 I expect sweaty Diego to run in. “Uh-oh,” Rina says. “Diego’s late again.”

“No,” says Demi. “I sent Diego back to Root One for retraining. Everyone, welcome our new Team member, Ghauri 8016717.”

A young worker with deep brown skin, bright yellow eyes, and a neat ball of dark hair steps forward. Eir hands and arms’re long as mechs.

“I can’t wait to start work!” Ghauri says.

“Welcome to the Team!” we reply.

Ghauri’s an excellent worker, moons better than Diego, and it’s a joy to work sides eir. Itzak’s still painfully slow—what else is new?—but I don’t help eir no more. E works at eir own pace, though that means we won’t earn no Leisure Hours. It hurts malymal, but this is the price we must pay. And Demi must notice my change, cause e been smiling at me all day.

At lunch we eat protein sandwiches and dangle our legs over the precipice. Demi sits far from the ledge. The tiered arrays of the Great Assemblage gleam under the small rose sun that sits fixed like a bolt in the sky. The aurora’s pink florescence shines bright today.

I’m reviewing our tasklist when I spot the edit, wedged tween two items like a knife in my ribs.

Pick me for your Leisure Hour, the edit reads. The change’s got no sig, but only one person has the power to edit my tasks.

Demi twirls eir hair and smiles at me, and I suppress a shudder. Demi’s a good worker. A better Team Leader. But e don’t make my heart jump. Not like Ursula. I don’t want to disappoint Demi, but nor do I wanna Pair with eir neither. No, I want Ursula like I need air. Demi never made me feel that.

Near end-of-day, we break ground on a new Grid, Bus Lamed-7200, and Demi gleefully announces, “I got fantastic news! Since we finished Bus Lamed-7199 on schedule, we each earned one Leisure Hour!” Demi stares longingly at me and everyone cheers. Everyone but me.

Why am I shaking? Is it cause I fear if I don’t pick Demi, e’ll give me more Oral Remediations? Or Demi’ll demote me to some lowly Team, or send me back to Root One for retraining, like Diego?

A creeping dread follows me as I traipse back to Cafeteria Yod-494. Something is off. I feel lost, though I could walk these Traces in my sleep. It that it? Sleep? I feel like I been getting nil, though I sleep and wake each day at the same hour.

I’m so tired at dinner I can barely speak. And after, I rush down the long Trace to my dorm. I spot Ursula walking home too, and e smiles at me. My heart skitters. Is tonight our night? If Ursula has earned a Leisure Hour and picks me for a Pairing, we’ll finally be together. Eir smile says universes. I’m so anxious I can’t breathe.

Inside my dorm, my awarded Leisure Hour waits as promised. It’s backlit in bright yellow text on my full-length mirror. I pick a Pairing from dozens of options, then select Ursula by number, 7991129. After a painful delay the mirror chimes.

“Mutuality confirmed. Your Pairing with Ursula 7991129 begins at 2100 hours. Proceed to Recreation Room Tet-7815 at the next guiding tone.”

I yelp with glee! I wanna be fresh for Ursula, so I shower and scrub every speck of dirt from my flushed skin. I wish I had something nice to wear, something soft and flowing, but all I got is this uniform, so it’ll have to do.

At 2045 hours my door slides open, and I step onto the Trace. Ursula steps out too, looking glorious. I’m so nervous I can’t look at eir. A few others step into the hall, and we greet each other as if it’s another workday. My throat tight with fear, I can hardly speak.

We head down the Trace, single file. Workers turn off down other Traces, others take discs through Vias, heading to Spas and Libraries and Games and Schools. Soon it’s just Ursula and me. My heart pounds. Spots fill my vision.

My eie guides me to Recreation Room Tet-7815, a twenty-minute walk. Ursula follows hind me, and I keep turning to look and make sure e’s still there. Will e let me hold eir hand? Will e let me run my fingers through eir hair? Will e let me press my lips gainst eirs and feel the heat of eir body gainst mine?

I reach Room Tet-7815 and turn to face Ursula. But e’s stopped five meters back, in front of a different door.

“You’re in 7815, right?” I say, pointing at my room.

The disappointment in eir eyes is a failed star. “No,” e says. “I’m in 7813.”

“But your name was on my mirror.”

“And yours on mine,” e says.

“It’s a mistake,” I say, my throat closing.

“Or a test,” e says. “To see how well we follow orders.”

I remember Demi’s note in my tasklist, and my heart sours with rage. If Demi can edit tasks, maybe e can edit Pairings too.

I hold back tears as the door to 7815 opens. Ursula gives me an anguished look fore e steps into eir own room. A different room.

I shouldn’t even think it, but I imagine what it would feel like to push Demi off a ledge. To watch eir fall. I traipse into my room, expecting Demi.

Instead, there’s a stranger.

“Who’re you?” the stranger says.

“I’m Klara 7991690,” I say. “Who’re you?”

“Tine 6222304,” e says.

I step closer and tilt my head. “You seem familiar. Were we on a Team together?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Sat together at the Cafeteria?”

“Hm. No.”

“Were you my neighbor on the Trace?”

“I’d recall. But . . .”

“But?”

“Nothing. It’s just, well, you seem familiar too.”

There’s something in the shape of eir face, the glint in eir eyes, that reminds me of another time. I was sitting sides a tall window, and there was a bowl of something hot and salty on the table in front of me, and I’m looking out at this massive ring station and thousands of ships toing and froing. Strange emotions lightning-fork through me. Frustration. Lust. Fear. But as I reach for this memory, a Barrier Rail rises in my mind, blotting it out. Another wave comes and bliss washes these thoughts away.

I sigh as the wave crests and falls.

“Why’re you here?” I say. “I didn’t pick you for a Pairing.”

“I didn’t even pick a Pairing,” Tine says. “I wanted a night in the Library.”

“So what now?”

“We’ve both been sent here,” Tine says. “There must be a reason for it.”

“I guess.”

“I’ve never had a Pairing,” e says.

“Me neither.”

“So maybe the two of us are fit for each other?”

“Fit?” I say.

“A Tet-junction bus amplifier only connects with an Aleph-type power coupler,” Tine says. “No other part will fit. Just the same, maybe we align.”

“Align?”

“Perhaps that’s why you look familiar,” e says. “My body recognizes its coupler.” Tine steps closer to me, eir warmth radiating like a shorted powerline. My heart raps hammer blows in my chest.

Pain splits my skull, and I scream and fall to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Tine says.

“Jess!” a voice says in my ear. “Can you hear me? It’s Ally!”

“Ally,” I say, holding my head. “That fucking hurts.”

“Sorry!” Ally says. “It’s the only way to wake you.”

“What hurts?” Tine says. “What’s wrong, Klara?”

“Where the hell are you?” Ally says. “You’re not in your dorm, Jess! You’re forty-two point nine kilometers away!”

The pain ebbs as I glance up at Tine. I stagger backwards onto my hands, cause I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I know this jeek well, and her name ain’t Tine.

“Leurie!” I say.

“Pardon?” Leurie says.

“Oh, no, no, Leurie. They got you too.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” Leurie says. “I’m Tine 6222304.”

I struggle to my feet. “Ally, what’s happening? Why is Leurie here?”

“Who’re you talking to?” Leurie says.

I look my old friend up and down and up again. Shiva, she’s beautiful, even in these horrid uniforms. But her eyes’ve aged verses. I could sleep for an eon, and Leurie looks a trillion times more exhausted than me.

“Found it!” Ally says. “Someone hacked your Pairing.”

“Who?” I say.

“Who what?” says Leurie.

“Not sure,” says Ally. “It’s not like they signed their work. But whoever did this was good. It’s buried deep. I almost missed it. Their idiotic sentry softs definitely won’t detect it.”

“Ally, did you say someone hacked it?”

“Hacked what?” Leurie says.

“It’s excellent code,” says Ally. “Far better than the garbage softs here. Most softs on planet are laughably mediocre, as if conveyed by cuckoos crowing at consoles!” Ally cackles madly.

But I ain’t laughing with her. I’m staring at Leurie. “I know who hacked our Pairing,” I say. “She did. Leurie’s been waking up too.”

“Interesting!” Ally says. “I assumed we were alone. We’d have to access her uniform to be sure. Who is this Leurie again?”

“Leurie Mu,” I say. “Old friend from Chadeisson.”

Leurie crosses her arms. “I thought we’d be alone tonight,” she says. “But you’re talking to someone as if I’m not even here.”

I reach out my hand toward Leurie’s face. Shiva, she’s an angel’s dream. How many nights did I pine for this, to be alone with her, one breath apart, as we stand now? With a word I could have her strip and lie naked on the bed. My body aches for her. But I pull my hand away.

No. No, I love Leurie too much to take her like this.

“I’m talking with my Team Leader, Tine,” I say.

“And your team leader has good news!” Ally says. “I’ve found him, Jess! I’ve finally found your father!”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

I’m trembling like a misaligned thrust vector vane, and not just from the fact that Ally’s lightly electrocuting my brain. I was right all along. Daddy’s here on Aurvandill.

Memories of past nights plash back into my mind:

The night after I puked up the bodge, Ally woke me, and together we scanned Aurvandill’s datastores, hunting for Daddy like we were panning for gold, trying to shake up his name and likeness, but finding only dust fore she had to hurl me back to sleep. Brain damage and all that.

The next night, my head split open in agony as Ally told me, “I’ve broken into dozens of new dataspaces, and I’ve also started building an endlessly blossoming thousand-petaled virtual flower inside a massive unused data segment here!”

“Sorry, what?” I asked.

“I’ve begun an art project, hoping to encapsulate my feelings of continually molting to stay sane. It’s also a memoriam for my maan. I don’t sleep, so it’s how I unwind. I’m obsessed now!”

And Ally gave me picoseconds to steep this fore she sent me back to sleep. And then I was Klara 7991690 again, inhaling psychotropic drugs and hiking back to the worksite on the Great Assemblage, back to the deep well of laborious joy and the soothing bliss of cortical waves.

The next night, Ally told me how she couldn’t get a hubspace connection to warn jeeks of the sinister things happening here, even though she had tried a few million different ways.

Each night when Ally woke me she kept awake for longer, refining her brain-juicing technique, so after ten nights she could keep me Jessian for an hour. But she couldn’t permanently switch off the thought-suppressing circuits of my uniform cause that would be detected.

I been keeping count, so I know this moment, here with Leurie, is my eleventh night awake. But to Klara 7991690, puking up that metal bodge feels like yesterday. That girl’s so godsdamn boxed in her work that weeks go by without her even noticing.

I stare at Leurie, astonished but not surprised at what she’s accomplished. “I needed Ally to wake me up,” I say, “but you did it on your own, you godsdamn angel.”

“What are you on about?” Leurie says. “I’m stellar confused.”

“Ally,” I say, “can you access her uniform?”

“Not without a bodge,” Ally says.

“Then print another one!”

“It took me weeks to scrape up enough nanite gel to build yours.”

“You put a fucking printer inside me, remember!”

“You excreted it days ago.”

“Excreted?”

“In your fecal matter.”

“Of fucking course,” I say. “Of course I shat out the key to our escape. What can I do for Leurie? There has to be something?”

“There’s nothing I can do at the moment,” Ally says. “Sorry, Jess.”

Leurie frowns and sits on the edge on the bed. “This is a waste of time,” she says with a heart-wrenching sigh. “I could be mersing new skills in the Library. You and I could have . . .” She glances at the bed. “But we’re here in a Pairing room, unpaired, you’re talking to your Team Leader, and I’m staring at the walls.”

A mind like Leurie’s, brimming with ideas, can’t bear idleness for long. I sit next to her and take her warm hand. Her calloused fingers are tenuous in mine. An electric shiver pulses through me. How long’s it been since we last touched?

“L,” I say, “a part of you wanted to be here with me. A part of you you’re not presently aware of.”

“My name isn’t L,” she says. “My name is Tine.”

“L’s just what I call you,” I say.

She breaks eye contact. “Call me whatever you want,” she says, “but if we’re not going to” —she waves dismissively at the bed— “then perhaps I should go back to my bunk.”

“No! Don’t go! Stay, L! I . . . I missed you suns.”

“But we only just met.”

I squeeze my fists so tight they might collapse into black holes. “They fucked us hard, L. They fucked us malymal. But I’m gonna fix this. You just wait. Ally, show me where the prick’s at!”

“The prick?” Leurie says, glancing at my groin.

A slim data package arrives in my eie. A map, where Daddy is.

“Shiva, he’s close!” I say.

“Twenty point four kilometers from your present location,” Ally says.

“Who’s close?” Leurie says.

“Ally, how far’s he from my dorm?”

“Fifty six point seven kilometers.”

“How long would it take me to reach him from here?”

“From where you are at present? If you took the fastest route, twenty-four minutes.”

“And from my dorm?”

“Forty-nine.”

“How much longer can you keep me awake, Ally?”

“I don’t like where you’re going with this, Jess!”

“How fucking long?”

“Fifty-one minutes.”

“Ally, I have to go. I have to find him now.”

“Yes,” Ally says. “But not tonight.”

“You’re leaving already?” Leurie says. “Can we talk some? You could tell me about your work.”

“L, I’d love to stay and chat,” I say. “But there ain’t time. My dorm’s too far. I can’t reach him from there. But from here, now, I can.”

“Only if you run the whole way!” Ally says.

“Then I’ll fucking run.”

“But Jess!” Ally says. “You have no intel! No plan!”

“I been trapped here almost two hundred fucking days,” I say. “I may not get another chance. I have to go now.”

“This is stupid!” Ally says.

I think back to Chadeisson, when Leurie tried to make me promise I wouldn’t do nothing stupid. And I suppose this is the stupid she meant. But I don’t see any other way. I stand up so sudden Leurie gasps.

“This is reckless!” Ally says. “I should knock you out now!”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Ally!”

“And what do you plan to do when you get to your daddy?” Ally says.

“I’ll figure it out on the way.”

Leurie gives me a mournful look. “I wish I could be part of your conversation,” she says.

“One day soon, L, we’ll talk bout all the things,” I say. “But not today. Today, I gotta book.”

“I know,” she says. “I heard. You have to find him, whoever he is.”

“My daddy.”

“Your gene parent?”

I nod.

“Oh. I didn’t think folks had family here.”

I stare at her. “Some of us do.”

She nods, her eyes full of water. “Then you better go find him. It’s always good to be with family.”

My heart splits. “Just wait for me here. I’ll be back fore you can whistle happy birthday out your asshole.”

“Sure,” she says, deflating. “Whatever you say, Klara.”

“Jess,” I say, “My name’s Jess.”

“Well, Jess, I hope you find what you’re looking for. I really do, because it isn’t here, with me.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Ally unlocks the door to the rec room and I peer down the empty Trace. I pause at the door’s threshold and look back into the room. Leurie sits on the bed, watching me. A blink ago, we were on Chadeisson, and she was helping me find my daddy, and now we’re here, thousands of light years away, ultrafucked. Like two planets conjuncting every thousand years, it’ll be a millennium fore I see her again. I wanna dive back into the room and sit with her forever, but the door slides closed and she’s gone.

I sigh once. Then I break into a run.

“For the record,” Ally says, “I think you’re being reckless and stupid!”

“Sometimes, Ally,” I say, panting, “I don’t think you know me at all!”

“Turn left!” Ally shouts. “Left!”

I sprint through wide Traces arrayed with power conduits and nine-step transducers and tri-phase inductor coils buried neath layers of golden lattice and yttrium filigree. Part palace, part machine, this place baffles as much as it dazzles. There ain’t no purpose I can suss, yet in totality it makes a gargantuan kinda sense. Though that could just be dross leaking from Klara 7991690’s mind. To her, this place is a temple, the Great Assemblage her god, and the hard labor her daily devotions.

I run for minutes, not passing a single soul in the vaulted halls.

Where is everyone? I think-out to Ally, too winded to speak.

“You’re in an old section of the Great Assemblage. It’s scheduled for a refit.”

Like a stone down a waveguide, I bounce up eighty-two levels, on discs and Vias, and through more abandoned Traces. I run into a hall so huge for a moment I think I stepped outside. Megahauler-wide columns stretch to a ceiling so high it’s tops vanish in cloud. Massive rings of darkly reflective metal stack up the columns like vertebrae, and as I sprint through the space my hair rises from static charge.

What the hell are these things, Ally?

“Gravitomagnetic capacitors,” she says. “They use them throughout the Great Assemblage. It bridges support structures between four and ten-space.”

I know, but for what?

“Fuck if I know!” she says, chuckling. “This place makes as much sense as a screen door on a spaceship!”

As I run I grow queasy, not just from being outta shape. Like gravity in reverse, the further I fly from Leurie the more my guilt weighs. She’s trapped too, caught in Aurvandill’s sticky web, and I’ve just left her for the hungry spider.

Ally, can you track Leurie?

“I think so, yes.”

She mustve figured out how to wake herself up. I bet she hacked the Pairing so she could see me in person.

“It’s possible. But why isn’t she awake now?”

That’s what I need you to find out.

“I’m looking for more nanite gel to build another bodge, but getting enough for a new printer may take weeks.”

Leurie can’t wait weeks.

“You just missed the turn!” Ally shouts. “Go back and right!”

I adjust my course and keep running. How much time?

“Thirty-seven minutes, which leaves you three minutes to speak to your father before you have to turn back. It’s not enough time.”

It has to be, I say.

I feel like I might puke as Ally directs me onto a two-meter wide disc. “Take it up the Via,” she says.

How far?

“All the way.”

“Daddy’s . . . on the . . . top?” I pant out.

“Yes.”

The disc lofts me up twenty stories at a clip as I try to catch my breath. Levels flit by in a blur, but every five seconds the Via opens into bright spaces where girders lean steeply cross gulfs and dusty beams of rosy sunlight stream in from massive windows. But fore I can get a good look I ascend into another dark column.

Finally, the disc stops. I’m shaking mal. I might be having a panic attack.

“Breathe!” Ally says. “Breathe . . .”

A curved door slides away to reveal a sunny and spacious room. Aurvandill’s rose sun blazes brightly cross the air, making me squint. I’m stellar confused, cause it don’t look like I’m on Aurvandill, but some Inner Terra luxury prim high-rise condo a thousand light years from here.

Tall windows give precipitous views of the twisting skeletons, sinews, and viscera of the Great Assemblage. But thick seas of rippling cloud obscure most of the view. I step into the room and the door seals hind me.

There’s a rococo couch with an extravagant wooden frame, its cushions sporting delicate weaves. There’s a glass table with a bouquet of lilies, hyacinth, and dahlias. The room’s heavy with their sweet perfume.

The rear wall’s libraried floor to ceiling with paper books, some so old their leather covers’re flaking off. There’s a wheeled table crowded with liquor bottles and crystal decanters. Another table has a marble chess set in mid-game. The white monarch’s in dire straits.

The tall windows narrow to sharp points at their peaks, framing the world outside like blades of rose sky. Their thick frames’re made of etched bronze and sculpted wood, wild and intricate.

The rest of the walls’re adorned with sundry art mounted in ornate frames or affixed to the wall via metal spikes. There’s art of every style here, from ancient Orginearth Renaissance paintings of long-gone cities to the avant-garde Woll Ye dream-sculptures that react to my mood, changing from aqua to carmine as I creep cross the room.

There’s an elegant recliner and matching divan upholstered in turquoise and crimson. A paper copy of Daan Keyhotay in Spagnol lies open on a mirrored table. A silver bookmark etched in Old Mandreen characters keeps the page. My translator’s trashed, but I know enough Old Mandreen to read it, A little impatience will spoil great plans.

“Two minutes, Jess!” Ally says. “What are you waiting for?”

Shut up! I think back, though of course no one but me can hear her.

Sliding wooden doors with frosted glass panels divide the room from the next, and I quietly slide them open.

It takes my eyes ages to adjust to the dim room. Thick curtains hang fore the windows, and cracks of sunlight bleed round the edges. A big canopied bed crowds the room, and a human-sized lump snores under a stack of fine blankets. The room’s cool and smells of sleep.

Of him.

My heart throbs so hard it hurts. I don’t understand any of this, but I keep walking towards the sleeping shape, unable to stop.

The sleeping figure snorts mid-snore, turns over, and opens his eyes. Yawns. Stretches.

A hand scratches his chin. A bare chin. He was never clean shaven, not even in Rehab, where jeeks’re supposed to work on personal grooming. His hair, ruffled by sleep, is trimmed neat. He never wore it that way. He was always a wildflower, ragged, spontaneous, beautiful.

My heart aches to see his face after so much time.

He looks me up and down. “Klara?” he says, his voice raw. “Is it end of shift already?”

My throat closes. It’s hard to speak. “Not Klara,” I say. “Jess.”

He blinks and sits up so fast I leap back. “Jess?”

He’s bare chested. His pecs bulge. Daddy was always strong, but he’s fit as a mech-boeir now.

“Scruffs?” he says, squinting. “That really you?”

I wanna ask him the same, but I’m shaking like my containment’s borked and I’m bout to go critical. Here’s the prick who abandoned me on Chadeisson cause he couldn’t keep his greedy fucking hands in his pockets. The jeek who hauled me into his endless mal schemes. The father who took me under his wing after Mommy fled, and who made it his mission to help me not just survive in the brutal verse, but to thrive. He fed and clothed and protected me when no one else gave dust, and he always made me feel that, no matter where we were in the verse, long as we had each other, we were home. Then, one day, fast as a photon, he was gone.

“Daddy . . .” I say, stepping closer.

He puts his arms round me. Squeezes.

I squeeze back hard. I allow myself a single sob, loud and sharp like a gull cry on a deserted beach. But I ain’t gonna weep. No, I’m strong as neutron matter, me. Tough as suns. He told me that.

He don’t smell like I remember, the way men smell after a day’s labor, of sweat and musk. He still smells like him, vert, but there’s hints of soap and flowers. Fuck, he actually smells clean.

I push myself off him. “You fucking prick!” I shout. And I punch his shoulder hard as I can.

“Oww!” he shouts, grabbing is arm. “What the fuck, Scruffs?”

“You abandoned me just like Mommy, you donkey fucker!”

“Jess!” Ally announces in my ear. “You need to go back now!”

“Shut the fuck up!” I say.

“Huh?” he says. “Scruffs, things got . . . complicated on Chadeisson. That scam I pulled on the FTU, all those scams . . .” He sighs and almost seems embarrassed, which is as common for him as ice on a star. “Let’s just say I wasn’t my idealized self. But I’m parsecs better! Like, I stellar got my shit together!”

I look him over in disbelief. “D’ya know what I been through to find you? I almost got my ass sucked down a collapsed stone! I leaped out the Deep on a fucking Starpusher. I met actual alien gods! Two of em spoke to me like I’m speaking to you now.”

His eyes widen. “A Starpusher? Damn, Scruffs! I told you never to ride in one of those!”

I squint at him, pondering why he chose to focus on the Starpusher stead of, you know, meeting gods.

“Lights!” he barks, and flames spit up from bronze sconces on the the walls. The dim room now flickers bright as the galactic core.

I blink at the flames. “What the fuck, Daddy? Why’re you living like some Inner Terra prim when every other melk on planet’s locked away like ferrets in cages?”

“Jess!” Ally says. “You need to run back now, as fast as you can! If you’re not in the pairing room when you revert to Klara—”

“Shut the fuck up!” I say.

“I ain’t saying nothing, Scruffs,” Daddy says. “Turn round, will ya?”

“Why?”

“Cause I’m naked under these sheets and need to put some clothes on.”

I cross my arms as I spin. “Make it quick. I ain’t got time!”

“Why not?” he says. I hear the rustle of fabric. The tink of a belt.

“Long story,” I say. “Tell you later. Hurry up. We gotta book.”

“Why? What you running from, Scruffs?”

I peer over my shoulder. Daddy’s sliding into a vanta black uniform with navy-blue sleeves, the split square logo on the shoulders. Gods, he’s handsome. I mean Daddy was always good looking, in a rugged sort of way. But it’s striking how proper and confident he looks in uniform.

“You don’t wanna stay here,” I say. “We’re prisoners.”

“But I wanna stay, Scruffs!” he says. “And I ain’t no prisoner.”

“You are, Daddy, you just don’t know it.”

He comes over and puts his large hands on my shoulders. His nametag says, Ignatius 5414439. “Scruffs,” he says, “now that you’re here, we can do all those great things we talked bout, like settling down and making a home. Now that you’re here with us, we gonna make fire!”

“Us?” I say as a sudden realization kicks me hard. I been too blinded by Daddy to see. “Hang on a sec,” I say, “why ain’t you asleep like everyone fucking else?”

“Uh, cause you woke me up, remember?”

“No, how come you’re Ignatius, when everyone else here is someone fucking else.”

“Oh,” he says. “That. That’s a long story too, kid.”

“Jess, something’s wrong!” Ally says in my ear. Her voice is broken with static. “I’m trying to bypass the . . . but . . . the . . . and . . . it’s . . . !”

Repeat, Ally! I think-out. You’re breaking up.

Signal problem, Ally texts. Someone is jamming my . . .

Ally? I think-out. Ally, you there?

Daddy squints at me. “What’s wrong, Scruffs?”

“I gotta go!” I say. “But I’ll be back, Daddy. Don’t tell no one I was here!”

“Why not?”

I look him over. “Daddy,” I say, “what’d you mean just now by us?”

Then my head feels like it’s splitting open, and I scream and fall to the floor.

“Scruffs!” he shouts.

I collapse into a weeping pile. But as I slide into the lovely bliss, my tears fade. Waves loft me up, and I glide gracefully down, and when I look up again, there’s a worker fussing over me. E seems stellar worried, and I ain’t in the Rec Room no more.

“Where am I?” I say, sitting up. “Where’d Tine go? Who’re you? You look familiar.” I look at the bed. “Did we Pair?”

“Scruffs, you’re freaking me out!” e says.

“Who’s Scruffs? My name’s Klara 7991690.”

“Fucking fuck,” e says. “Klara, neh? Nice name. Heard it once or thrice. C’mon, kid,” e says, helping me to my feet. “Let’s get you right. Let’s get you right as rain.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

I dream and dream of voices, of whispers. I rise to near-wakefulness, then plunge down to sweet oblivion. I see colors, swirling patterns, flashing fractals telling long stories, each one making me feel new yet somehow more familiar to myself. Dimly, I grow aware I’m lying on my back.

“Wakey, wakey,” a voice says.

I open my eyes. I’m lying on a huge bed, staring up at a canary-yellow canopy infested with pink roses. A slim jeek in a white uniform stands sides the bed, and some fast-fading memory tells me e’s an Infirmarist. Eir hands on eir hips, e smiles like I just won a pallet of gold. A screen sides the bed shows a scan of what must be my brain.

“Who the fuck’re you?” I say, my voice rough as old leather.

“A better question,” e says, “is who are you? What’s your name?”

I’m bout to say Klara, but I stop myself. Klara was a virtual particle who thought she was real. And now she’s popped out of reality again, leaving a hole in spacetime. It feels like my friend just died, and it hurts mal.

“Take your time,” e says.

I’m in a vaulted room, decorated like an ancient palace. The walls’re spangled floor to to ceiling with art from every age. The ceiling’s frescoed with flying pegasi leaping from a planet to the stars. The floor’s mosaiced with dizzying patterns of interweaving stairs. Golden filigree gleams in every corner, shining in the roseate sunlight streaming through the enormous windows. Emerald curtains hang parted. A mass of bloody cloud swirls outside.

I throw the blankets off and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I’m barefoot, my blue pajamas decked with little white snowflake gears. The bed sheets’re patterned with ancient little starships. I had the exact same sheets when I was a kid.

Legs weak, I try to stand. But my legs give out and I stumble. The Infirmarist catches me.

“Fuck,” I say as e gently lays me back on the bed.

“Your body needs time to heal,” e says.

“Heal from what?” I say. “What the fuck happened?”

“First, tell me your name.”

I try to blink up my eie. Ally? I think-out. Ally, you there?

Nothing. Not even a prompt. “Klara,” I say. “Klara 7991690.”

The Infirmarist glances at the screen and frowns. “You’re lying.”

I lean back for leverage, and with a swift kick of my foot I send the screen flying. My big toe screams with pain as the screen crashes to the ground. “How bout you answer my fucking questions!” I say. “Where the fuck am I?”

“I’ll take it from here, Hanali.”

The voice comes from the far side of the room. It’s a frigid breeze on a torpid day. The voice is strange, but also familiar. I can’t suss how this voice is here. It’s not possible. My heart thumps a snare drum beat as I turn.

The woman steps through an archway, striding cross the room toward me. She wears the vanta black uniform with navy sleeves and the split square logo on the shoulder. Her nametag reads, Klara 001.

And I know this woman. She’s sleeker, more fit, more confident since I last seen her. Younger too, like she’s imbibed gigaliters of juve and aged backwards. She don’t look much older than me now. Her eyes, smiling bright as quasars, bore into mine.

My voice quaking, I say, “Mommy?”

“Leave us,” she says to the Infirmarist, who nods and exits the room.

“Mommy?” I say. “Is that really fucking you?”

“Language!” she says, smiling wide, like she did when she’d read me stories by comet light, or when we walked the hills bove Varouna’s rippling waves of grain.

“I wondered if you’d find us,” she says.

“What the fuck’re you talking bout?”

“My, my, Jessian,” she says, looking me up and down like I’m an artifact on a table. “You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman. But we really need to work on your tongue.”

There’s something different bout her. She used to seem lost, as if she was always searching for something. Now she looks like she’s finally found it.

“We left clues all over the galaxy,” she says, “hoping to lure talent here. My colleagues warned me this was a risk. They said the FTU would find us, or that The Court of Sents would solve the puzzle. But the FTU can’t find the station they’re standing on. And the Court’s bout as clever as a bowl of fried chana. Sooner or later everyone’ll know bout Aurvandill anyway. To be honest, Jessian, I didn’t think you had the smarts to find us. I always thought you took after your father that way.”

I squint at her in absolute befuddlement. “You know,” she says, “recklessness fore rationality, brashness fore brains. But I was wrong. You take after me. You’re radiant! Smarter than I’d sussed, and more beautiful too. I underestimated you. I’ll never do that again.”

Now it’s my turn to scan her like a piece of tech.

“You’re confused,” she says.

“You fucking think?” I say.

I climb to my feet, and though my legs’re wobbly, I make sure I don’t fall this time. We’re almost the same height, me and her, and though I resemble Daddy, I have her eyes. It’s like I’m looking at myself, reflected poorly.

“I wish you hadn’t been deceptive,” she says. “If I’d known you were on planet, you wouldn’t’ve had to go through any of that.” She waves away imaginary gnats. “We reserve repatternings for less-refined jeeks who have trouble knowing what’s good for em. Some need more guidance than others.”

“Guidance?” I say.

She grabs my hands and I flinch. Her fingers’re warm, calloused. “The worst is over, my dear,” she says. “Dawn approaches, and we’ll watch the sunrise together.”

Mommy? Here? How is this possible? How long’s it been since she hugged me? Since she touched me? I long to nuzzle into her breast and weep. But neath my deep need is a roiling tempest. Mommy left without saying goodbye. She left me to face the verse alone. And I fucking hate her for that.

“Come,” she says. “Now that you’re here, there’s so much you need to see.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

A uniformed melk comes in and places a neatly folded uniform and shoes on the bed. I stare suspiciously at it.

“Don’t worry, Jessian,” Mommy says. “You won’t be repatterned again. But we can’t have you walking round in pajamas. It ain’t good for morale.” She follows the melk into an adjacent room, leaving me alone to dress. I want to chase after her. But I hate Mommy, don’t I? She abandoned me. So why am I so desperate to be near her again?

There ain’t no doors in this vaulted room, just towering arches and walls so high that my breaths echo. I step to the window. And as I look out at the roiling scarlet clouds I try to blink up my eie.

Ally? You there?

Nothing.

I glance at the folded clothes on the bed. I’m gonna regret this, but I put em on, wincing all the while, waiting for blissful waves to knock me into forgetfulness. But as promised they don’t come. Then I hear music.

I follow the sounds through an archway, stepping into a tall emerald-colored hall crowded with musical instruments. Psalteries and sitars, bandolins and rabels, guitars and violas, harps and lutejos, erhus and grand pianos, and a hundred others I can’t name. They hang on walls or rest on pedestals or stand on the floor. The room reeks of varnished wood and long spans of time. Mommy sits at a mahogany harpsichord, playing some ancient baroque masterpiece, and it echoes through the halls like a mad jeek’s laughter.

Mommy never played an instrument when I knew her.

The clouds break and fluttering beams of sunlight flicker cross her face. Her eyes closed, smile on her lips, she look beatific. I watch her play for a time. I ain’t ever seen her so happy. Song done, she opens her eyes, and the silence seems to grow louder.

“Jessian Urania Darger!” she exclaims. “Only you could make a uniform printed to your exact measurements look sloppy!” She strides over to me. “Your belt buckle should be centered and the strap taut, not hanging off your hips like a low-level tech!” She pulls my belt so snug I gasp, then sweeps imaginary dust from my shoulders. “We really need to style this hair,” she says, running her fingers through it, tugging at my knots. I remember how she used to comb it fore bed, how she whispered to me till I fell asleep. “It’s too wild,” she says.

“I like my hair,” I say, resisting an urge to shove her away.

“It’s unkempt!” she says. “Your whole demeanor’s sloppy! You can do better. This casual schtick don’t suit you.”

“It ain’t no schtick.”

She snickers. “All clothing’s performative,” she says. “Like music, why make grating noise when you can play sonatas?”

“Or maybe it’s just some shit to wear?” I say.

She frowns, then taps her ear. “Have a doorship fueled for exit and tell Iggy to meet us there,” she says to someone.

Iggy? I ain’t heard that nickname for Daddy in eons. Not since the three of us shared a meal in some crowded cafeteria on some station, the two of em arguing bout something stupid, and me muting them out while staring at the ships out the window, dreaming of escape.

“Come, Jess,” she says. “You’ll wanna see this.”

I feel myself regressing. I’m a baby and she’s my mommy and knows best. I let her lead me. My legs are weak as we walk. We enter a hall full of huge sculptures. Sea monsters and fierce dragons and ancient gods and growling demons, all towering over us.

“This some kinda museum?” I say.

“Mu-se-um,” she says, as if tasting the syllables. “An ugly word. It implies art is separate from life. Art is weaved into every living moment. Them Inner Terra melks think great art’s having virtual intercourse while inhabiting cetaceans.”

“You mean immer dolphin fucking?”

She sighs. “I always thought humanity should strive for something nobler than base pleasures. Otherwise, we’re just animals.”

“In the case of immer dolphin fucking,” I say, “literally.”

“‘Judge not what is best by pleasure though to nature seeming meet,’” she says, “‘Created, as thou art to nobler end. Holy and pure, conformity divine.’”

“That’s Paradise Lost, yeah?” I say.

“Fantastic, Jess!” she says, smiling, and my cheeks burn hotter than suns. A long time ago, I loved to please her. “Milton was a rare angel.”

“Or maybe a demon,” I say. “Didn’t that wild jeek Billy Blake say Milton was of the devil’s party and didn’t know it?”

She stares at me, her pupils wide as galaxies. “Look at you,” she says. “Shining like novae.”

My cheeks feel like they’re going critical. “Don’t juice me up too much,” I say, staring at my feet. Why am I such a godsdamned melk round her? “I just had pallets of time to read on them long flights tween worlds is all,” I say.

“And how many worlds have you seen?”

“I lost count after three hundred.”

She nods. “You seen more than most jeeks alive. And what do you think of these sculptures, Jessian?”

I shrug. “I ain’t much of an art critic.”

“I don’t want your critique. Tell me what inspires you.”

A huge winged dragon captures my attention. It’s carved from blood-red stone, has nine heads, and its scales seems to squirm in the flickering sunlight. “That one’s xin,” I say.

She nods. “I like that one too. Eight centuries old, carved from a single piece of jasper by an artisan skilled in the ancient Mandreen style. But you don’t need to know its history to grasp its beauty. Even babes stare up in awe it.” She stares up at an armless marble statue with pits stead of eyes.

“You got babes here too?” I say, fishing.

She shakes her head. “We make sure that don’t happen. There are contraceptives in the food. This place ain’t no nursery. But one day, when we’re ready, these halls’ll be open to everyone from all over the Milk.”

“Who’s this we, Mommy? What is this place?”

She smiles as she leads me into the next room, a dry-aired greenhouse filled with hundreds of succulents, small and huge, squat and towering, from translucent wine to florescent sky.

“Careful,” she says. “Don’t let em prick you. Some brim with poisons.”

I weave through a spiked labyrinth of gnarled plants. Some got bright flowers with petals large as my head, beards of white hair, and lean away from me as I walk. Others phosphoresce pink, blue, and orange. The air smells like licorice and gumdrops.

“Who are we?” she says. “We’re the awakened ones, who know how the Great Assemblage’ll change everything.”

My heart accelerates. “Change how?”

She smiles coyly, as if privy to a beautiful secret. “We’re just babes ourselves, Jessian. Humanity’s just learning to walk. We think cause we leap cross thousands of light years that we’re gods.” She leans over a plant that resembles five gray fingers’re reaching up from the grave. “But we’re just a small patch of lichen, growing on a wet rock.”

My thoughts flit back to my shoreline vision with Suun, and I shudder.

“We fill just one small ecological niche,” she goes on. “But there are endless niches out there, endless worlds. We’re so small, Jessian. We haven’t seen but a trillionth of reality. Yet humanity’s so bored that most spend their lives mersing in sense pleasures. In the First Diaspora, we leaped out to the stars by the billions and settled thousands of worlds. Those waves sparked the greatest burst of creativity in human history. But we’ve stopped exploring. We’re shrinking, Jessian. And if we aren’t careful, humanity’ll shrivel up and die. I won’t let that happen.”

Icy waves roll down my spine. I said the same thing to Ibis and Frost. Humanity, I whined as we fixed some borked thing or other, was growing too old and crotchety in its rocking chair, too sleepy and bored to try something, anything, new.

“You and I think the same,” she says. “I know you’ve felt it. The decadence. The rot. You wish humanity did better, but in your heart you know we never will. Not unless something changes.”

I take a step back from her. It’s one thing to say this to my fellow roachrunners while toking weed on some gilded starship bridge. But it’s another system to hear it from Mommy’s lips. I got problems with Inner Terra, sure, but I ain’t ready to toss em out the airlock. “What bout the Outer Deep?” I say. “They’re megaprinting cities and making dream music and trying all the new tech. All the visionaries’re out there.”

“A handful of worlds,” she says with a dismissive wave. “A speck in the vastness. Humanity’s gone complacent. I know you seen it, Jessian. Humanity’s bored. The whole verse’s laid out for us to explore, and we yawn. We turn inward, like this timid plant.” She gestures at some fur-spined cactus that shudders and bends away from us. “We’re fraid of what’s out there, fraid that we only just breached the endless. You asked who we are, Jessian? We’re the ones who ain’t scared of infinity.”

Chills plash down my spine. She leads me through another archway into a bright hall. Giant chunks of clear crystal rest on wide plinths, fracting the roseate sunlight beaming through the windows into billions of rainbows. It’s so disconcerting I gotta lean on a plinth to steady myself. The rock’s cold under my fingers, like it’s just been pulled in from the drift.

“Magnificent, neh?” she says as constellations of light dance cross her face. “Natural diamonds all, some of the largest ever. We excavated these during our operations round the Milk. Did you know that in ancient days, jeeks gave each other diamonds as part of their marriage bond?”

As she faces me, a thousand eyes peer at me, her face fracted through layers of latticed carbon, and it’s so much like all those leering eyes back on Gilder Nefan that I gasp and leap back in horror.

“Striking, ain’t it?” she says, her rictus repeating forever. “I think of these diamonds as a token of our new marriage.”

“Who’s the lucky spouse?” I say, trembling.

“Shiva!” someone shouts, and I turn as Daddy rushes into the room. He looks so damned proper in his uniform my heart pangs.

“Daddy!” I say. I wanna to run to him, but I stay berthed. I ain’t that doting girl no more. I fly alone now, me.

“Why’re you liming all the way up here?” he says, panting hard. “It takes so damn long to get here!”

“I wanted to give Jessian a full tour,” Mommy says, her thousand eyes still watching me. She extends her hand to me. “Come, my love, let’s show you what we’re building here.”

A curious airship arcs up to the window and pauses. I never seen nothing like it. Vanes corkscrew up its sides in mesmerizing swirls. The outer wall of this room bends away like self-folding origami, reforming into an enclosed glass walkway that leads onto the small airship.

Mommy gestures for me to board, but I hesitate.

“Kid,” Daddy says, “this’s gonna bork your mind!”

Talk like that used to give me thrills, but now it scares the piss outta me. If it weren’t Daddy ushering me forward I’d tell em to go fuck a duck. Something ain’t right bout this.

“Come,” Mommy says. “Let’s go.”

I know I’m gonna regret this, but I step onto the small ship. The interior’s sleek, like a prim Darkrunner, but with wood panels and inlaid crystal stead of leather and gold. And where Darkrunners got just the bow-facing window, this ship’s got wraparound views, giving unobstructed panoramas of the cloud-smeared landscape.

There ain’t no pilot chairs or consoles, just a few holoscreens displaying something bout “passage parameters” in Mandreen. The three of us aboard, the walkway folds back into the ship, making my ears pop.

“Where’re we going?” I say, trying to hide my fear.

“Out,” Mommy says, her smile wider than Petua’s Rings. She points to the sky. “All the way out.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

We detach from the tower and arc down into cloud. With some distance, I see the tower is this enormous tear-drop shape poking through the clouds. Its gleaming spire, needle sharp, rises into the pink sky. Its mountain-wide base vanishes under cloud. As we fly away, the tower blazes in the sun.

We swoop over ribbons of scudding cloud that give partial views of the complexities below. The sky’s hazy pink, green-yellow auroras anger-flash on the horizon.

I finally collect my voice. “Out where?”

Mommy smiles. “How much do you know of Aurvandill?

“Only that you’re building something here.”

“And of Yasimir in Tahirasys? Do you know what happened there?”

I don’t like where she’s leading. “Isn’t that where some hermit jeek made first contact with the numen gods?”

“Not gods. Inscrutable intelligences. It’s widely presumed that Yasimir was the first time a human communed with a numen. But that’s wrong. First contact was made here, on Aurvandill, 172 years ago.”

“Here?” I say, stupefied.

“A galactic survey discovered a dwarf planet hurtling through space without a parent sun,” she says. “A massive Kuiper body, ejected from its solar system after a close encounter with a passing star. The planet had a radioactive core that produced enough heat for liquid water, a breathable atmosphere, and enough shielding in its crust that humans could safely live there, provided they didn’t dig too deep.”

“A world without a sun?” I say.

She nods. “They thought no one’d want to live there, so far from Inner Terra. For centuries it remained just a survey designation on an aging chart. But eventually some brave jeeks ventured out to it. Artists, hermits, mystics, criminals, and sundry, fleeing humanity’s roil. They made a life on this planet and called it Aurvandill, after an ancient myth. The god Thor carried the god Aurvandill cross a frigid river, when Aurvandill’s toe froze and fell off. So Thor tossed the toe into the sky where it became a star.”

“Hang on,” I say, blinking. “This planet, without a sun—that’s here? That’s Aurvandill? Aurvandill’s got no sun?”

“No.”

I face the roseate ball blazing bove the horizon. “Then what the fuck is that?”

“That,” she says, grinning, “is something else entirely.”

The not-sun shines bright, and I slip a shudder so violent I almost fall. The clouds break, and violet lightning flickers cross an immense metallic lattice far neath us. Cross-beams megahaulers-wide pass through translucent mediums, fracting like straws in vodka glasses. The angles change as we fly, but more clouds come to haze the view.

“The dreams began almost as soon as the first settlers came,” she says. “Incomprehensible dreams, so ineffable and strange the settlers thought they were going crazy. They suspected fungal contamination, toxins, parasites. They ruled out them all, but the dreams persisted.”

Aurora light forks the sky, and everything glows bright as novae. Her face illuminated, she stares at the horizon. “The artists were the first to put shapes to their dreams,” she says. “Poets and painters. Sculptors and writers. They fashioned words and forms, trying to frame the ineffable dreams. Soon everyone joined the work. Through it, they found purpose bove anything they’d ever known.

“Then the engineers joined the effort, and the complexity exploded. But those early techs had poor understandings of ten-space geometry. Their first attempts ended in catastrophe. Many died. But this only made em try harder.”

“Try harder for what?”

“To comprehend the ineffable,” she says. “It didn’t take em long to see that to build the dream proper they’d need things not present on Aurvandill. They formed a conglomerate and named it the Zorani Sisters of Trade, after one of the prominent early families. Under lucrative contracts, ZST mined systems all over the Milk, hauling minerals deep into Terra Diaspora for huge profits. They hired many and brought much needed materials here.”

Her expression turns wistful. “I hopped from job to job like a flea. I was close to giving up, to crashing my ship into a moon and ending it all. Then I landed a gig with ZST Fabricators. They hired me to foreman new construction on Oxwei for workers in system. I was good and got promoted, first to overseer of development, then to general systems engineer.

“It didn’t take long to notice that huge chunks of ore were missing from the tallies they sent the FTU. I asked my supervisor bout it and was transferred to a gig on a far off planet, high bove the galactic plane. I thought I was being punished for asking too many questions.” She shakes her head like she’s shaking off lice. “But I was being rewarded. They saw my value and knew my skills’d be better used here.”

We crest a rippling shore of cloud, and the planet opens neath us. Klara 7991690’s just a fading memory, but I still feel her joy at arriving to work, the thrill as she dangled over the precipice, marveling at the sprawling construction she helped build. Klara thought the Great Assemblage was an astounding work of art, worthy of the ages. But I see it different.

The Great Assemblage’s a fucking monstrosity.

Neath us sprawls a planet-sized, moth-eaten, cross-hatched circuit, pockmarked with sharp-edged holes, like it was chewed by a fleet of anxious insects that only turned at right angles. The gaping holes blight the surface, deep rectilinear wounds descending hundreds of levels and dozens of klicks till the bloody not-sunlight’s swallowed in darkness.

Gargantuan metal girders poke up from the depths, twisting hard into ten-space, fracting light at a thousand deviant angles. The power to sustain those ten-folds, I recall, is greater than suns. Ziggurats, mirror-bright, burn in hazy conflagrations of stacked green fire. Knotted bands of conduits thick as cities weave through all like the sinews and veins of a planet-sized biomech. Like an infestation of vermin, little creatures swarm the countless ledges, rails, buttresses and platforms. It takes me much too long to suss these ain’t insects. They’re jeeks—Teams—melks like me, laboring with holy joy to complete their daily devotions. There’s thousands of em down there. Millions.

I shudder at the scale of it. The Great Assemblage’s the largest, most complex structure I ever seen, and I stood not on one, but two mega-printers.

Mommy must see my reaction, cause she says, “I was overwhelmed at first too, Jessian. It took me time to glimpse the grand purpose. But when the dreams impressed themselves upon me, I knew this’s what I’d been seeking my whole life. The dreams’ve stopped now. The Shell round the planet blocks the numens from touching our minds. But those who lived here fore the Shell remember, and we vowed to finish the work. The Great Assemblage is humanity’s great purpose. We were brought here to help complete it.”

I stare at her name tag, Klara 001. “You. You’re in charge of all this?”

“Not alone,” she says. “I stand on the shoulders of gods. I’m a mere facilitator. I didn’t seek this leadership role. Fate handed it to me. I make decisions that no one else can. I was so good at my job I soon found myself with a sat’s-eye view, overseeing all. There were leaders fore me, hierarchies of command, but none had my grasp of technology or breadth of vision. I took their anarchy and made order. I squeezed their jumbled carbon into diamonds.”

She smiles, her face carmine in the not-sun.

“Those early days were the happiest,” she says. “We made so much progress. But it wasn’t enough. I realized if we wanted to finish construction in my lifetime, we’d need thousands more hands. We experimented with mechs, but they made too many mistakes. Machines don’t dream. They can’t grasp visions the way humans do. And sents, you can never trust artificial minds to understand human emotion. We needed jeeks who’d feel the truth and sense the purpose in their blood. ZST put out calls for work all over the Milk, and when those failed to bring in enough hands, we sourced them elsewhere.”

When I realize what she’s saying, I feel like I just shorted myself to a trillion-volt lead. “Rehabs,” I say. “You stole jeeks from rehabs!”

“Not stole,” she says. “Traded. There’s dozens of systems in the Outer Deep not keen on the FTU and their draconian laws. We traded prisoners for resources that the FTU refused to provide.”

“You changed carg for jeeks?”

“Hundreds of times. There’s dozens of systems who’re happy to change their most problematic folk for precious carg.”

“You paid Chadeisson,” I say, my voice a half-scream, “for Daddy?”

“When I found your father’s name on a list of recent arrests, I knew I had to get him. It wasn’t easy. The FTU’s got a huge presence on Chadeisson. It took us time to infiltrate the right positions. But I knew Aurvandill would change him like it changed me. Like it changes all of us. For the better.”

“And I’m stellar glad you did!” Daddy says, smiling like a puppy with a new chew toy. “I was a lost soul fore you snatched me up!”

“And what the fuck bout me?” I say. “You two left me to rot.”

“No, Jessian,” she says. “That ain’t true. I wanted to bring you with us. I searched for you, and all I found was an open snatch-grab call on Chadeisson. I followed a dozen leads fore I figured out none of em lead to you. I sussed you leapt out the Deep to lay low, and I worried I’d never see you again.”

“Oh, fuck off!” I shout. “If you cared so much, you never woulda left me in the first fucking place!”

“Jessian,” she says. “You were young. You didn’t notice things. Your daddy, he was—”

“A bag of crushed assholes,” Daddy says. “A steaming bowl of mule shit. A narcissistic sociopath. A braino addict. An alcoholic. A scammer. A thief. A liar. A—”

“Jessian gets it,” Mommy says, holding up her hand, and Daddy stops mid-sentence like a mech whose power’s been switched.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” I say, horrified. “You washed his mind like you washed mine? He ain’t the jeek I remember!”

“No, he’s not,” she says. “He’s better. Just like me. Just like you’ll be.”

Daddy grins, looking so heart-breakingly handsome in his uniform, like the father I always wished he was, but knew he’d never be. Seeing him like this now makes me wanna cry. Or puke.

“You shunted me up a fucking tube,” I say. “You sheared my clothes off. You obliterated my personality.”

“That should never’ve happened,” she says. “Repatterning is only for the most recalcitrant.”

“Any jeek’d be recalcitrant if they knew their mind was gonna be erased!”

“Honestly, Jessian, all of us need to rebuild ourselves from time to time. Some more than others.” She glances at Daddy. “There aren’t any mal habits you’d erase? Irrational fears? Unresolved shame? You can be whoever you want, free of old carg.”

“But it’s not like you’re injecting jeeks with juve. You’re erasing minds!”

“It’s not a total erasure. Skills remain. And we only use repatternings on the problematic. Fore the worst jeeks arrive here, they’re thieves, addicts, rapists, murderers. But here, their sins are forgiven. Aurvandill is their absolution. They’re gifted a new life and a new purpose. They feel joy, when many of them, for their whole miserable lives, have known only pain. Ain’t that better than waking up to the despair of a ruined life? Ain’t that better than being trapped inside a borked personality, cursed to repeat the same fatal mistakes? We bring joy and purpose to the condemned.”

“You take away their choice.”

“And what mal choices they’ve made. Be honest, Jessian, weren’t you happy as Klara 7991690? Happier than you ever been? You woke each day feeling your grand purpose. You went to sleep each night feeling fulfilled.”

I’m shaking, cause it’s true. I felt it as Klara and I feel it now. I long to be down there, connecting another Main Bus terminal with my Team, sweating under the hot not-sun that sits fixed like a bolt in the sky. I long with all my heart to feel that again.

“You loved being her,” she says. “More than you love being Jessian.”

My lip quivers. Fuck no. I ain’t that girl no more. I ain’t gonna cry. I’m hard as neutron matter, me. But—godsdamn it!—my tears fall. “I did,” I say, shuddering with a sob. “I fucking loved it.”

She grabs my shoulders. “And that’s okay,” she says. “We should never’ve repatterned you. But you can feel that joy again. As yourself this time, your memories intact. The three of us can feel that joy together, as a family, as we were meant to.”

As we swoop low over tightly stacked clumps of power cylinders, Daddy comes over to take my hand. “Scruffs,” he says, I missed you so much.” His smile fractures my heart.

As our ship races toward the planet’s dark side, burgundy light spreads cross the world. The not-sun sets, but there ain’t no stars, just a black sheen rippling cross the sky.

“My friend, Leurie,” I say, wiping away tears. “She’s here, too. You repatterned her. You need to fix her. It ain’t right.”

“You mean the jeek with the neural shunt?” she says.

“The neural what?”

“Enough games, Jessian. The time for deception’s done. We know how Tine created hundreds of false leads to aid your escape from Chadeisson. We know how Tine used eir neural shunt to wake eirself like clockwork each night. We know how Tine hacked the Pairings so e could meet with you, and the bypass circuit e built for your uniform. That coulda killed you! I’m glad we found you fore Tine fried your brain.”

It takes me a moment to parse her words. She thinks that Leurie—that Tine—hacked my uniform. So she doesn’t know bout Ally.

I push her away from me and walk to the other side of the ship, though there ain’t much space. “Leurie’s no criminal! She’s a godsdamn hubline tech! Why’d you repattern her? She’s my friend . . .”

“You don’t know this friend as well as you think,” she says. “You ever wonder how Tine created so many false leads for you? E was good at it. Tine got arrested for creating false idents and selling em on shadow markets. E had private data for thousands of jeeks on Chadeisson and elsewhere, including you. This “Leurie” you know was just another false name. Eir birth name’s Tine Ye Haughton.”

“Liar!” I say. “She’s Leurie Mu!” But the more I think on it, the more it makes sense. Leurie closed herself tighter than a ship’s cabin. She could tear through crypt like paper. Plus her odd choice of dorm in the ancient Eriksdatter Ring, and why she always kept her face off public recs, though she had no reason to hide that I could see.

Fuck. How’d I miss it? Leurie Mu was a ruse.

“Also,” Mommy says, “our scans showed Tine’d be just as recalcitrant as any reprobate. E betrayed everyone who trusted her, even you. Despite this, Tine’s now a happy and productive member of a Team, and eir life’s full of joy.”

I’m shaking my head as Mommy pulls me into a hug. “Oh, Jessian,” she says, and my tears come again. Fuck. Why can’t I stop crying? I’m strong as neutron matter, me. But I feel like my heart’s borked, unable to power down. It hurts so godsdamned much.

“That’s it,” she says, hugging me. I lean into her breast like I’m six and just woke from a nightmare. I hate myself. “Let it out,” Mommy says. “You’re safe. You’re home. The worst’s over. Now that you’re here, we can finish the work together.”

I glance out the window. Layers of oily black darkness ripple cross the starless sky. Neath us sprawls a horrific techscape of rectilinear metal, glowing with dense constellations of fuzzy light. A nighttime city of a mad, techno god.

“But what’s all it for?” I say, wiping more tears. “What does the Great Assemblage do?”

“Basho says, ‘You make the fire, and I’ll show you something wonderful. A big ball of snow!’”

“I don’t understand.”

“Knowing that we don’t know, that we may never know, is the first path to enlightenment. Be silent, my dear, and listen.”

We zoom over the reticulated fretwork, rapidly approaching a gaping hole. It’s hard to suss its scale cause it’s covered in fog and there ain’t familiar shapes to reference, but the hole’s at least twenty klicks wide. Glowing rings of red, gold, and orange wrap its rim, spiraling deep into the maw. A huge column, made of the same rippling oily black stuff as the sky, rises from the hole and pierces the dark curtain bove us. It’s like I’m looking at the planet’s umbilical cord. We fly towards it at a crazy clip.

We’re gonna crash into it, and I scream. We stop short. The deceleration’s thousands of gs, but a glass of water on the floor wouldn’t’ve rippled.

We stick to the column like a fly in vaseline. Slowly, the oily walls swallow our ship and we sink into its blackness. All’s dark, cept for a faint glow from the ship’s holoscreens. Then, bove us, a circle of prickled light appears.

Starlight. And then, without any sense of movement, we fly up.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

We fly up the oily black column, rushing toward the disc of expanding starlight. Silently, we leap free into space, real space, with jeweled stars and the fuzz of distant galaxies. The bright dusty band of the Milk splits the sky, a horizon of stars. They brought me down planet in a windowless ship, and now I can see I’m on a precipice bove a half a trillion suns, and I feel its immensity. My knees, already weak, buckle in fear. I ain’t ever seen the galaxy like this.

I grab the wall to steady myself as I glance down at Aurvandill. I only know it’s there by the hole it leaves in space. Its blackness blots out the stars, a circle of sky cut from reality. There’s nothing there.

Not even a flicker.

The Milk is a saucer of bright stars, surrounded by stray swathes of gas and dust, the Magellanic Clouds. Yond these, out so deep there ain’t no stars, are the not-so-empty voids where the numens roam.

“We’re so close to them out here, at the edge of the Milk,” Mommy whispers, making chills plash down my spine. “Fore the Shell went up and sealed Aurvandill off, their thoughts touched us daily. They didn’t know their influence on us. To them, we were little more than bacteria. Not until Yasimir did they give us another close look.”

She stares into the voids.

“They took those planets,” she says, “Oxwei, Ecruga, Charlotte’s World, as a warning. Adair Joshua Ohanko was a hermit living on Yasimir, and through deep meditation he spoke to Hri. He convinced her we were vermin that would infest their numen realms with our human taint. Hri didn’t much like that.”

Our ship hurtles away from the dark planet.

“The numens act as a kind of immune system for the multiverse,” she says, “protecting countless realities from malignancies. Hri thought she was acting for the greater good. But when another human spoke to Hri, this time a woman named Orna Liat Obote Manashampo, she showed Hri the truth of humanity. Yes, we humans taint everything with our feral stink. But once in a great while we create things of magnificent beauty.”

She turns her gaze to the dark sphere blotting out the sky.

“Truth is,” she says, “Adair wasn’t entirely wrong. Humanity ain’t vermin, but the multiverse ain’t our birthright. We haven’t earned our place yet. We’re babes who think that cause we’ve been clothed and fed our whole short lives, that sustenance will forever appear. But we just got lucky. We happened to be born in a wing of the galaxy with no other sentient life. We had no competition, and a few rare geniuses, like Chenda Sen, who gave us the stars. We walk on a precipice that we can’t see. One wrong step, and we tumble.”

“What does that even mean?” I say.

“It means the numens ain’t homogenous, Jessian. They’re multitude. There’s trillions of em, with a trillion independent thoughts. Just cause Hri promised never to take more planets don’t mean others won’t.”

I think back to the cave, with Suun. “You’re saying they’re gonna eat more planets?” I ask.

“Not if I can help it.”

I shudder. “But how?”

“Do you know there’s more bacteria living on a human body than one’s own cells? Many of em are essential for life. Over eons, we evolved a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.”

“Please, just tell me, Mommy. What are you building?”

She faces the dark planet. “Our future.”

There’s a hiss from the vents, and out comes a strange smell, like coffee dregs and missed birthdays and damp soil and homesickness and wilting lilies and ancient walls crumbling. Terror shudders through me as I recognize the smell of sweet jisthmus, massive doses of it, pumping into the ship’s air.

I scream and retreat into the corner. “No! Stop it, Mommy! Shut it off!”

“It’s okay, Jessian,” she coos. “Soon you’ll meet Ooi and Vea. And if you’re lucky, Yaal too. They’ll share their dreams with you, and you’ll glimpse their glorious vision for humanity. There’s nothing to fear.”

“No, stop it! I can’t take the sweet jisthmus again!”

“Again?” Mommy says, tilting her head. “What do you mean, again?”

But fore I can answer, the walls melt and every second persists a trillion years.

doors.

doors and windows and corners.

a house of space-time.

one house of myriad. myriads in all directions.

time is a measure of change, change happens in infinite dimensions, therefore there are infinite dimensions of time.

humans roll down one dimension like a marble on a track, not seeing there’s an infinite number of possible paths.

I stand in the corner of the ship, my scream a sustained note. I stand on the threshold of the infinite, my voice dopplering down until the waves’re so long there’s no difference tween sound and silence.

The ship explodes in all directions. But nothing breaks. Ten thousand parts dissolve like snowflakes in a pot of boiling water. All are mere balls of energy masquerading as matter, masquerading as substance.

All is emptiness. Potential only.

I fly up and out.

Beyond.

Beyond the beyond.

I’m older than the verse.

I’ve just been born.

I’m always being born.

I spin round the galaxy, once, thrice.

No rush.

No rush.

Patience is endless when time has no meaning. I’m clouds of gas ejected from ancient suns. Over millions of years I collapse to a ball.

Fire!

With the force of merging atomic nuclei I ignite, and my burning love spins out heat and light cross the verse. My sibling stars rejoice and welcome me to the cosmic dance.

A rocky planet forms in my solar disc, warmed by my furnace light. Liquid water rains from clouded skies. Life starts in a tidal pool, its construction helped along by the crystal scaffolding of shoreline rocks.

No, life didn’t start here. Life always is. The crystal scaffolding of the rocks, their base molecular shape, holds a sacred code written into the verse itself, a pattern waiting to be read. The first holy books were written not on parchment but in stone, not with ink, but with the atomic structure of matter itself.

In half a billion years this planet will raise its first flower to the sky, and the whole verse will sing in celebration. The verse itself is alive and thinking, even the slow moving gases swirling round galaxies. They’re all part of Her Ineffable Mind. Even lone photons zipping through the great voids’re part of Laniakea, the pan-galactic mega-shape. Yet Laniakea’s just one infinitesimal cell of a living immensity roaming in vastnesses beyond imagining.

A second flower blooms on my daughter planet, mere days after the first, and another verse, infinitely far away yet close as lips kissing, joins the first in celebratory song.

One day, eons from now, a long descendant of this flower, awake with a consciousness alien to humans but familiar to all plants, will travel to this second verse and hear the song that was sung for it eons ago, and with this music it’ll go off and seed another septillion realities.

This has been going on forever.

This will be going on forever.

I’m still on the fucking ship.

I’m still screaming.

Countless realities have come and gone, yet not even a millisecond has passed.

A sea of stars spin round the Milk, burning bright and hot. Too hot. It hurts to even look.

There’s a void in space, high bove the galaxy, far from the disc of spinning stars. A void of meaning, a hole where there should be something—anything—sides this deep maw of emptiness.

Three black stallions float nearby. Their manes are wispy purple nebulae. Their joints are obese blue giants. Their eyes shine with the glare of white dwarves. The stallions rear and kick, eager to leap into the galactic core. But the galaxy burns too hot. Even from this distance, furious solar winds blow dust from their manes, like smoke in wind, and great wisps of stars and matter slough off into the deep.

The horses want to charge in, to press closer to the galaxy. But they’ll burn and die if they get too close.

Somewhere close, yet an infinite distance away, a storm roils. It flickers with blue-white lightning. This light is familiar. I hear crashing waves. This sound is familiar. I hurtle towards it at the speed of thought.

I can’t stop myself.

Gray light surrounds me. I’m standing on a shoreline. The shoreline, where Suun, in the form of Young Jess, told me I was some kind of nexus. A tempest rages at sea. Angry clouds flicker-flash lightning bolts wide as suns. Far out, half-hidden hind dense fog, a crowd of giants bends down to scoop up great clumps of sand and sundry, shaking handheld sifters, while teraliters of water and squirming creatures no words can describe tumble back to sea.

A massive wave crashes on the shore, sending up a wall of spray and foam. I gasp as it soaks me through. Its salt tastes like tears, like a trillion realities come and gone. Another wave crashes, then another. I’m dripping and cold. The waters rush in. The tide is rising.

I flee to the black cliffs, and the water flows. I dash into the channel, passing walls of bright green moss, walls that Suun told me are humanity, grasping for the ineffable. The water rises to my knees.

When I reach the steep rocky wall at the end of the channel the water’s up to my waist. Waves crash gainst the rocks, almost knocking me down. I struggle to stay upright.

I climb onto the slippery rocks as more waves thunder in. One wrong step and I’ll drown. My arms burning, my throat raw, I pull myself onto the flat-topped cliff that overlooks the sea.

The black circle, the void Suun showed me, waits in the rock like a spot of my vision’s been shorn away.

Rain comes, first in drips, then in great torrents. The rock is covered in seaweed and slime, slick and treacherous as the water falls. Shivering, I hug myself, not sure where to hide.

Something thunders out at sea, making me shudder. Three stallions emerge from the crowd of giants, galloping toward the shore.

A red ball of light appears bove me, a glowing orb, the same color as the not-sun that hovers unmoving like a bolt in Aurvandill’s sky. The ball spits off sparks and white lightning as it floats down. It’s so bright I have to shield my eyes. It hovers bove the void as if waiting for the right moment.

Then it slams into it.

The rock shudders and cracks. I stumble and scream.

The ground turns red where the ball strikes, then orange, then a blinding white. The air’s getting hotter. The rock’s fucking melting, dropping away in a widening crater. The molten rock’ll reach my feet in seconds.

I run away, but the rocks are slick. I stumble and scream as my knees slam gainst stone. Out at sea, the stallions’re galloping closer.

Chunks of molten rock fall into the roaring sea. Huge columns of steam belch into the air. The circle of melting rock is almost at me. There’s nowhere to hide. I leap cross the wide crevasse, trying for the other side. But it’s too far! I miss! I fall!

I plunge into the churning waters. Salt and sea pour into my mouth.

I’m choking! Drowning!

I use all my strength to swim toward a sharp rock jutting from the sea, but waves shoves me under.

My foot touches stone and I push myself up. I leap for better purchase and miss, falling into the water as another wave comes.

Choking, panicking, I pull myself up. Waves crash, but this time I hold on. The sea’s rising. I won’t be able to hold this for long.

I cling for life as huge cliffs of rock melt away, collapsing to the sea in steaming calamities. Water floods into the new spaces, and it’s only cause most of the water’s rushing there that I can hold on.

Three black stallions with white-dwarf eyes gallop from the sea, ten or ten trillion meters tall.

The first stallion neighs and leaps into the new channel. The second trots after it, its wake nearly drowning me.

The third stops at the drowned place that used to be the cliffs to sniff the air. It exhales long ribbons of steam from its great nostrils. Then it turns its enormous elongated head toward me.

she is here! its voice thunders, as if every atom in the verse is speaking at once. the one who builds bridges! she is here!

The huge stallion trots closer to me, and the rough waters lap gainst its flesh. I wanna scream, but I’m too terrified to breathe.

It bends down to peer at me, its white-dwarf eyes foretelling universes. There’s too much space in them. Too much time. In those eyes, eternity is an instant. In those eyes, I am nothing.

I scream in terror. Even when I stared at the black hole at Agnimukha I wasn’t this scared.

you fear what you don’t understand, it says. if you knew your gift, you would not be afraid! you exist at the nexus of all reality!

A horrible whine grows sharper, louder, and it takes me five more spins of the galaxy to realize this’s the sustained note of my scream. I’m still in the ship. I have always just been in the ship, screaming.

I scream and scream and scream.

“Jessian!” Mommy says, her silhouette over me. “I’m here!”

And just like that, I’m back, a whimpering pile in the corner of the little doorship, and the bright immensity of the Milk splits the sky. Mommy is holding me, and Daddy squats close by.

“I knew it!” Mommy says, her pupils wide as galaxies. “I knew there was a reason you found your way to me!”

This newest vision thunders through my thoughts. A red ball, the same color as the not-sun, touched the void and melted walls of stone. And in that newly opened path three stallions big as gods galloped in.

“It’s a door!” I say, hoarse, tears spilling down my face. “The Great Assemblage is a fucking door! It lets em in to the place they can’t go. It lets the numens deeper into the galaxy.”

Her face half-lit by the Milk, she nods. “It’s the only way,” she says, “to stop them from destroying us.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

As we fly back to the planet, soundlessly dropping into the oily black umbilical, I’m a shivering, useless puddle in the corner.

Daddy holds me, while Mommy paces round the small cabin, working something in her head.

“I assumed they’d show you the completed Great Assemblage, as they once showed me,” she says. “But the numens are not like us. It was a mistake to assume their intentions. Yaal said you exist at the nexus of all reality. She called you the one who builds bridges. What did she mean? What bridge, Jessian?”

“You were there?” I squeak out. “On the beach?”

“Beach?” she says. “No. I saw . . . something else. The jisthmus allows us to glimpse fragments of a greater reality. Our confused minds build metaphors to try to comprehend the ineffable.”

We emerge from the oily navel to zoom bove the mad, techno landscape of Aurvandill’s dark side.

Daddy kisses my head. “You alright, Scruffs?”

“No, Daddy . . . I’m not fucking alright.”

“The nexus of all reality?” Mommy says. “Is that what you can bridge? Realities?” She turns to me, eyes wild. “Tell me about this beach!”

I stare at the pink horizon promising a false dawn. “It’s an infinite shoreline, with crashing waves. There are giants out at sea.”

“Go on.”

“No,” I say, and I curl into a ball. “I’m done.”

“Jessian, tell me!”

“Hey, maybe let her rest?” Daddy says. “She don’t look xin.”

“We can’t ignore this! This is revelatory! Don’t you get it? The numens conspired to bring us together. Me, who constructs the Great Assemblage, and Jessian, who . . . who exists at the nexus of all reality.” She pauses for a moment, her eyes going wide. “That’s it! The sign I’ve been waiting for! The Great Assemblage has been nearing completion. But I wondered when they’d signal me to turn it on. You’re the missing piece, Jessian. Your presence here is essential. Oh, Shiva, this is astounding! But there’s still so much work I need to do!”

She gets lost in thought again, pacing back and forth, while doling out orders to distant ears.

I try to listen, but I just wanna sleep and forget.

The not-sun dawns, bright and red. I shiver at the memory of the melting rock. And when this Great Assemblage melts the barriers that keep numens away from humanity, what happens next? Nothing good, I’m sure.

We dock on a high floor of the tear-drop tower. My knees weak, Daddy takes me back to his apartment. He carries me to bed, helps me take my shoes off, then pulls the blanket up to my neck.

He kisses my forehead. “Rest, kid. You need it.”

“Where is she?” I say. “Where’d Mommy go?”

“Work,” he says. “Where else?”

“We can’t . . .” I say, my voice cracking. “We can’t let her activate the Great Assemblage.”

“Shhh,” he says. “You’re spent. Jisthmus trips’re rough. Rest.”

He’s got dark rings under his eyes that weren’t there an hour ago. “Daddy? What did you see in your vision?”

His sigh’s a breaking wave on an empty beach. “Me? Nada. One in a million jeeks’re immune to jisthmus. Guess I’m just unlucky that way.”

“From where I’m sitting, Daddy, you’re the luckiest asshole in the verse.”

He chuckles. And so do I. When was the last time we laughed like this? How many lifetimes ago? Shiva, I miss it. I miss him. Even the bullshit. Even the pain.

“Don’t leave, Daddy. Please, don’t leave.”

“I promise, kid. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

CHAPTER SIXTY

And he is. I open my eyes, and Daddy’s dozing in a chair, feet on an ottoman, head on fist, like some ancient work of art.

I crawl out of bed, shaken, exhausted, ashamed for crying. I don’t even know the fucking date, but I’m at least seventeen by now. Though, I feel like seventeen billion.

As I slide my shoes on he opens his eyes.

“You’re awake,” he says.

“Am I? I ain’t so sure.”

“Going somewhere?”

“I gotta speak to her, Daddy.”

“I thought you might.”

“You buying her bullshit?”

“Her bullshit?”

“This mierd that if she don’t let the numens deeper into the galaxy, they’ll eat more planets?”

He looks down at the floor. “You know what they did to Ecruga, Oxwei, Charlotte’s World. All vanished like cards in a monte. No reason to think they won’t vanish more.”

“And what makes you think this Great Assemblage’ll stop em?”

He shrugs. “I don’t. But if we work long side em, do what they ask, maybe they’ll be less likely to, you know, murder us.”

I shake my head. “You really have changed.”

He sighs like waves crashing gainst rocks. “All I know is, doing something’s better than sitting round, waiting for our reactor to go critical. Sides, I like it here.”

“You like it here? She’s fucked with your head, Daddy.” I poke my temple. “Rewritten your brain. She’s made you like it.”

“Nah, Scruffs. It was my choice.”

“Come again?”

“She didn’t force me or nothing. She told me what the machine did, and we worked together on the changes.”

I blink at him. “You chose to rewrite yourself?”

“A bit. Yeah.”

“Why the fuck’d you do that?”

“Scruffs, you and me, we had so much fun. But . . .” He closes his eyes for a moment. “I put you in danger. I hurt you. Abandoned you. You know how many times I promised myself I’d change? And maybe for a week I’d stop getting high and scamming. But then I’d just fall back into old patterns. Your mom plotted me a vector out.”

My heart feels like it’s ripping in half. “You really think that? Or did she put that into your head too?”

“Swear to Time, Space, and Eternity,” he says, making the FTU bondsign with his hands.

“I thought you hated the FTU.”

“The fucks incarcerated me,” he says. “So, yeah, they’re pricks. But I ain’t known no FTU jeek to ever break eir word. Bonds are holy to em.” He strides over to me. “Scruffs, nothing’ll change how I feel bout you. You’re my daughter. I love you.”

He sounds like my old Daddy. Even looks like him. “I love you too, Daddy.”

He smiles at me, then punches me in the arm.

“Ow!” I yelp. “What the fuck was that for?”

“Payback,” he says.

I rub my arm. “Was Moms always like this? Crazy as taking a deuce in zero-g?”

“She ain’t crazy, kid. Motivated, mayhaps. Worried, def. And possessed by a vision. She always put her full heart into things. That ain’t changed.”

“Cept us,” I say. “She never put her full heart into us.”

“I made it hard, kid. I never told you, but . . . I fucked round.”

“You . . . cheated?”

He nods. “She knew and pretended to tolerate it. I told her she could play round too. I told her I didn’t care.”

Rage simmers in my belly. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Daddy’s done pallets of mierd.

“Truth is,” he says, “and I know it sounds like gooseshit, but those jeeks never meant nothing to me. Klara was—she is—my one true love, and I fucked that up, just like I fucked everything else.”

I don’t want to believe him. I mean, monogamy’s stellar old-fashioned, being that jeeks can fuck who and how they want in every which way. But I always felt my parents had something unique—at least for a little while—a bond that transcended friendship or convenience. Though maybe, now I think bout it, I only saw what I wanted to.

“I gotta talk to her, Daddy. Can you take me to her?”

He looks me over. “Sure, kid. But when was the last time you ate?”

My belly growls. “I don’t fucking know.”

“At least lemme make you some breakfast. I wanna sit with you. You don’t have to talk. I just want to feel your presence a little more, fore you go off and do whatever it is I know you gotta do.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Daddy makes a breakfast of dove eggs and levain toast and ostrich bacon and a side of pickled jiang bing that’s so fucking tasty I shovel em down till my stomach’s bursting. He makes it all by hand on an ancient stove, even though this planet’s got more tech than a megaprinter. The room smells of coffee and grease, and for a moment my heart warms as I imagine we’re just on some station, and this is just another adventure. But then reality sets in and the feeling blows away like smoke from a pan.

“Cooking’s a lost art,” he says. “With food printers, we don’t even think bout it no more. But I love cooking from scratch. These ingredients might not be from Varouna farms, but the prep’s the same.”

I lean back, not-sunlight streaming onto my plate, and I see him in a fresh light. Here’s a jeek who used to think double fried cheese blintzes were the height of culinary art.

“Any other skills you picked up while I was gone?” I say.

He laughs and refills my coffee from something called a French Squeeze, which seems convoluted and stupid, but somehow makes the coffee taste like silken clouds.

“I took up the lyre,” he says.

I blink at him.

“Vert,” he says, chuckling. “You definitely don’t wanna hear me play. But it’s fun as hell. Oh, and I read.”

I blink more. “You . . . read?”

“I know, right! Sounds weird to me too. Reading always seemed such a chore when you could just merse. But I get it now. There’s stuff mersing can’t convey. Ever read a book called Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers? It’s stellar ancient, from Orginearth. There’s this jeek, this low-level tech on a mining ship, and he smuggles a pregnant cat aboard, and he gets caught, and he’s punished and put in stasis and—”

“And the reactor melts down,” I say, “and the jeek wakes three million years later, humanity’s extinct, and his cat’s offspring evolved into a race of intelligent felines, and the ship’s computer creates a hologram of his dead bunkmate to keep him from going insane.”

He looks surprised, then a little wounded. “So you read it?”

“On the beach on Nyek. It’s a classic, Daddy. We talked bout it for days.” Nyek was the planet, I don’t say, where Daddy promised we’d settle down, that I’d go to school and he’d go legit. But it was all lies. He was only there to hide from some murderous thug who blew up a ship trying to kill him, and we ended up both getting banned from sublime Nyek forever.

“Oh,” he says, blushing. Daddy never fucking blushes. “I thought parts of it sounded familiar. Fraid I don’t recall pallets from back then. I was high most times.”

“I know.”

He breaks my gaze. “Well, the book was xin. Till the end, at least. All the jeeks get happy endings. But you find out it’s just sim. Their happiness ain’t real. They’re trapped in virt, and their real bodies’re slowly dying. It made me sad.”

I said the same thing to him back on Nyek, but he don’t fucking remember. It’s like whole chunks of our lives, chunks that meant so much to me, are gone from his mind.

Parting clouds reveal the maddening techscape out the window. As caffeine juices my blood, I feel the echo of Klara, an urge to rush down there and get back to work. I study Daddy, his face, his movements. He always saw through the heaping carg of bullshit straight to the core of things. At least, I that’s what I believed. And I need to believe it now.

“Daddy, look at what she’s doing! Slave labor? Talking to gods? You can’t believe this is a good thing!”

He shakes his head. “You seen the mess out there, same as me. Humanity’s rotting from the inside. I give us three centuries max fore we wink out like a dying ember. Nobody’s innovating. Nobody’s even trying. Nobody cept her.”

“That’s her talking,” I say. “We’re an ugly mess, sure. But you think gods mucking round with us’ll make us better? Ain’t you ever read the Iliad?”

“That a tech manual, right?” he says.

I sag. “Nothing good’ll come of this, Daddy.”

“Maybe, Scruffs. It’s just that doing something feels better than waiting round for them to munch more worlds. Otherwise we’re just a floating turd in a bowl, waiting to be flushed.”

“Ugh. Thanks for that pic, Daddy.”

He snorts. “My pleasure.”

“You wanna do something? Help me stop her.”

“Scruffs . . .”

“Just slow her down then, get her to ponder some, fore she does shit we can’t ever undo.”

I catch a glimmer of interest in his eyes, like a mark on a grift.

“You and me, Pops, like the old days, working together. Just get her to think on things some. Slow up a smidge. Maybe we can get her to consult the FTU or the Court of Sents or a godsdamn panel of scholars. You know, some fucking expert, fore she acts in humanity’s name and fucks us all.”

“You’d trust a bunch of strangers over your own mother?”

“No. But I trust them numens less. And so should you.”

“But what if she’s right? What if without this Great Assemblage, the numens’ll decide we’re vermin after all? What if this’s the one thing—the only thing—that’ll save us?”

“You really think that?”

“I don’t know what to think no more.”

“Maybe that’s cause your thoughts ain’t your own.”

He winces.

“Daddy, I know you been trying. Look at you. You’re a floor-model starship, all gleaming and new.”

“Yeah?” He flexes his bicep. “I been hitting the gym.”

All my life, I looked to him for answers. But now I see he’s a helpless child, seeking my approval. The reversal feels strange. “You wanna be a better human?” I say. “Then start with not knifing humanity up the ass. Not fore we knife ourselves up the ass first. Letting inscrutable alien intelligences pilot humanity’s future, that’s something that should prob be taken up by committee first, no?”

“I guess.”

“Just help me get a message out. That’s all.”

“She won’t let you.”

“No,” I say. “But she might let you.”

“I can’t lie to her, Scruffs.”

“Lying used to be your second nature.”

“What if I said I changed?”

“What if I said you’re full of shit?”

He blinks at me, then laughs, and I laugh too.

“Kid,” he says. “I miss this. I miss us.”

I smile. “One more play for old times’ sake. What’d’ya say, Pops? You in?” I hold out my hand for him to shake it.

He stares at my palm, then grabs it in his large, warm, and calloused hand.

He leads me down a labyrinth of discs, Vias, Traces, and Halls, through caverns wide as stations, stacked with power cells throbbing and phosphorescent. The air reeks of ozone and scorched metal and jisthmus, and my head spins like pulsars. The part of me that was Klara 7991690 can tell everything’s being put through its paces, prepping for some cosmic finally this Jessian would rather not see.

The not-sun beats on my face as we step into an enormous hall. A great wall of windows stretches so far into the distance I can’t see its end. The windows slope over our heads, converging hundreds of meters up. There’s an enormous staircase, a stepped ziggurat, and Daddy runs up it breathlessly. “C’mon, kid!” he says.

By the time we reach the top, my thighs’re burning, and I’m panting like my ox’s running low. We’re so high that might actually be true.

As the grotesque rectilinear metalscape of Aurvandill sprawls yond the great sloping windows, I try not to imagine the horror of what switching on this machine actually means.

Beams of not-sunlight illuminate a huge metal door. Its wide enough to fit two megahaulers side by side. Tall banners sport the split square ZST logo and the phrase, “The Sun’s Light when E unfolds it, Depends on the Organ that beholds it.”

“It’s the galaxy,” I say, staring at the logo.

“What?” he says.

“The ZST logo. It’s the view of the galaxy from bove Aurvandill, the Milk splitting the sky.”

“Huh,” he says. “Never noticed that.”

We step toward the great doors cross a cerise carpet. Daddy presses a button on the door frame. “Klar, we’re here! I got Jess with me!”

A loud crack echoes deep into the cavernous space as the doors open. On the other side is a large spherical chamber, its ringed rows of seats facing a raised platform at its center, like a circular theater.

Dozens of jeeks in crisp ZST uniforms sit at terminals, staring at colorful screens, tapping and murmuring. Their movements are intentional, insect-like. Their air smells of long-chain polymers and farts. A wide aisle leads to the circular platform, and Mommy stands on it, surrounded by dozens of holoscreens.

Daddy struts toward her, while I slow-walk, trying to suss what the jeeks’re doing. No one glances at me as I walk, but I can parse only frags of data from their screens. Capacitance spectra and carg transfers and resilience tests and pallets of other detailed metrics.

Mommy’s rapt in her work and don’t seem to notice me. A small stair leads up to her platform.

“Offer triple the price for the shipment!” she says. “We need that berkelium today! Do whatever it takes!”

She notices me and holds up a finger. She taps a holo. “Transfer Team Leader 987 from Kaf-9961 to Barrier Rail Aleph-4515. And repattern Leader 459 with Lamed-73. Yes! Now!”

She spins to another holo. “Excellent! We need sixty-four more Medium Discrete Amplifiers at Grid Vav-456 by tonight. If they complete this work by 1900 hours, they’ll receive ten Leisure Hours each.” She spins to another holo. “No! The niobium reserve’s under threshold! Transfer sixty four units from reserve Segment Mem-886.”

She spins again, then shakes her head. “That’s the third jumper this week. Trash Neuro Pattern Aleph-96. Too many adverse reactions. We need all workers up and running. All hands on deck.”

Breathless, she turns to me, her face aglow with reflected screen light. “What? I’m stellar busy, Jessian.”

And just like that I’m a toddler on Varouna, begging Mommy to come play with me, but she’s too busy doing something else. Though stead of tears, this time I feel rage. Funny how time changes perceptions. I was never a part of her life. I was a mere accessory.

I march up the stairs.

“Jessian! I’ll speak with you after—”

“I thought you saved repatternings for the recalcitrant?” I point to a list of names and headshots on a screen. With a flick of my finger I scroll through hundreds of jeeks. “And what’s this bout jumpers?”

She scowls. “Don’t judge what you can’t understand.”

I raise my brow. She said “can’t” stead of “don’t.” So that’s it. She thinks she’s smarter than me.

On one of her screens is a map of inhabited systems with tallies of jeeks and ships. But fore I can suss what the numbers mean, she swipes the screen away.

“While you play games,” she says, “humanity’s future hangs in the balance.”

“Then lemme help,” I say.

She raises her brow. “You wanna help?”

“Why not? You’d rather me sit in my room and fart sonatas?”

She looks at Daddy. “You put her up to this?”

“Nope,” he says. “But I think it’s a shit idea. This place’s bout as safe as diddling a singularity stone. She’ll do something malymal. She’ll get hurt or killed.”

I stare lasers at him. Is he trying to fuck this up? But then I suss what he’s doing. He knows Mommy better than me. He taught me that in a grift, you don’t gain their confidence, you give em yours.

“Honestly, Mommy,” I say, sweet and winsome-like. “I’m terrified of this Great Assemblage. I wanna skip the fuck off-planet at a billion cs. But doing something feels better than sitting round, waiting for gods to decide our fate.” I glance at Daddy. “And, well . . .” The best lies, Daddy taught me, are the ones that hold some truth. “I wanna feel that sense of purpose again, like when I was Klara.” I say her name slow, so she makes the connection.

Her pupils dilate. Her cheeks flush. I seen this a thousand times. Her interest’s piqued.

“You said I found my way here for a reason,” I say. “I think it’s to help you finish building this crazy beautiful machine.”

She stares at me. I’m so godsdamn close. I just gotta bring her ship to dock. “I’m a great tech. I’ll work circles round other jeeks.”

“She is great,” Daddy says. “No one fixes shit like her. But it’s so awful dangerous.”

“I ain’t scared,” I say. “I’m hard as neutron matter, me.”

It takes her a long moment to respond. “The ten-space power feeds on Buttress Zayin-995 keep shorting,” she says, “and the Team there can’t figure out why. We need that Buttress online.”

“Fix power feeds on Buttress Zayin-995. Copy.”

“We need it fixed immediately.”

“Why the rush?”

“Cause tomorrow we turn this Great Assemblage on.”

I suppress a shudder. “Not to worry. You gimme a printer and a console, and I can fix anything!”

“I hope so,” she says.

Her skepticism bothers me only some. “But fore I start,” I say, “mind turning my eie back on? I sure could use it.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Flattery gets you everywhere. The old saw’s older than humanity. You think we’d’ve gotten wise by now. Back in some Orginearth cave a protohuman named Bor said he liked Mog’s cave painting, even though it was total mierd. And Mog, feeling flattered, decided to share more of his wooly mammoth meat with Bor. There’s something primal bout being told you shine like suns that switches off the brain.

I didn’t think Mommy’d fall for it, being married to Prince Grift. But she’s just as much a sucker as any other mark. And maybe this explains how she got flushed so far down the gravbowl of numen shite? Numens and jisthmus only excuse her some. Long fore any of this, she just fucking up and left. Maybe Daddy was a philandering pile of buffalo dung, but she had a daughter. And if she thought he was so malymal, why not abscond with me?

But she just ghosted us both, and all my messages to her vanished into the deep. I thought she was dead. It was the only answer that made sense.

And I guess, to her, I was.

Does she really think we can be a family again? Or is it just cause she’s got a god-sized screw that needs turning, and I’m the only driver that fits. She can build gargantuan machines and enslave thousands, but there’s some things that, once borked, you can’t fix, no matter how much duct tape or glue you use. Entropy, as the saying goes, flows one way. At least in this fucking verse.

I feel sorry for her. Sorta. She’s been here on the galactic toenail for years. Who knows how the numens fucked with her head? Maybe they repatterned her too. Maybe this is all their game. So I ain’t ruling out reconciliation. I got room in my heart to, if not forgive, then at least try to understand. One thing I learned is there’s twenty sides to every story, and like Heisenberg’s old saw, every time you observe one, all the other facets change. Nothing’s ever as it was, and nothing’s ever as it will be.

I’m pondering this while six guards and three mechs escort me to Buttress Zayin-995. The leader’s Jarl 88041, a meter taller than me, with a pale face, square jaw, and hair so dark it’d might’ve been cut from the Shell itself. The mechs, hulking gray blocks, are walking razorblades who could kill me fore a bead of sweat falling from my head could reach the floor.

We step onto the open air of Buttress Zayin-995, and my heart pangs with the memory of Klara. Shiva, I miss her so much.

The Buttress is a ten-meter wide segment arcing bridge-like two point four klicks over a deep canyon. The wind gusts through the depths, while the bloody not-sun oppresses. I shudder in its wound-light, remembering my vision of the melting rock and the the stallions charging in. This machine will do terrible things.

“Nice day for a picnic!” I say. “You bring sandwiches?”

“Lunch will be provided,” Jarl 88041 says.

I frown. Humor, like intelligence, is cosmically rare.

There are twelve other jeeks waiting for us, and they stare at me like lost children. Fore Aurvandill, were they thieves, rapists, murderers? Or just everyday jeeks caught the wrong place at the wrong time?

Team Leader Ghauri 445616 is a middle-aged, brown-skinned, round little man with a trim goat-tee white as hoar frost. He frowns when he sees me, cause I’m his demotion.

“Show me your data,” I say.

“Claro,” he says, frowning more. A data package arrives in my eie, and I scan it, while looking for a terminal. The guards and mechs watch me close. I bet Moms is watching too.

I form a plan quick as photons. “We gotta shut down power to Aleph-661.”

“Que?” Ghauri says. “But that’ll take down the whole zone!”

“Vert,” I say. “For sixteen square klicks. But look at your spectra. You got ripples in the exahertz bands. That suggests coupler interference. And we can’t investigate those while the network’s powered.”

“A manual search’d take weeks,” Ghauri says. “We need this fixed by esta noche!”

Humor-free Jarl straightens and stares on me.

“We don’t need weeks,” I say. “If we bring up each trunk in sequence, we can isolate the problem. From there, we do further isolation. It’s a process of elimination.”

“Claro,” he says. “Ah, bueno.”

I sigh. Any competent engineer could do such troubleshooting in eir sleep. Where did Moms find these asshats?

Jarl relaxes some, which’s bout as relaxed as a steel bulkhead.

“This ain’t my first power ripple,” I say, winking at Jarl.

“We need to run this up the chain,” Ghauri says.

“I’ll do it,” I say, flitting up a message in my newly reactivated eie. “Hey Moms, how’s tricks? Listen, we gotta shut down power to Aleph-661. Then I’ll have this all fixed fore you can spell Chadeisson.”

Does she suss what I’m up to? But her reply comes back instantly:

Xin. Proceed.

I try not to show my relief. I thought she was gonna put up more of a fight.

“Okay, folks,” I say. “We’ve been Moms-approved.”

We stand on the abutment that overlooks the shadowed canyon, while a fierce wind tousles everyone’s hair cept Jarl’s. (His stays put as if painted on.) They circle round me as I lay out my plan. A plan that, unseen to them, has another plan within.

Like harp strings, power lines have resonant freqs. And you generally wanna avoid em in power lines, otherwise you get superposition nodes and unwanted amplifications and heat blooms and signal noise and all sorts of maladies. But in this case, maladies are what I’m after. I’m gonna generate the hubspace equiv of a scream.

“But Jess,” Edeleu 667881 says, “your cycle pattern’ll cause—”

“The trunk to be stressed,” I say. “How else we gonna find its weakpoint?”

“But the hubspace noise—”

“Gives us a wide spectrum analysis of the trunks. Then we can pinpoint the zones of failure.”

“It’ll knock out communication for klicks round.”

“Only open-air coms,” I say, “and only for a few minutes.”

Jarl steps forward. “Ghauri, this sound kashroo to you?”

“Well . . .” Ghauri says, as I hold my breath. “Si, eir logic is buena.”

My heart warms, and I’m Klara 7991690 again, back on Barrier Rail Hay-229 with my old Team, my heart dancing quadrilles. I’m building something incredible. I’m part of something great. But the feeling cools like a dying star. Those were my happiest days, but it wasn’t me. I had no idea I was penning what could likely be the period at the end of humanity’s long sentence.

We run some syschecks, then get to work. My Team—it’s weird to call em that—descend on ladders and stairs and discs, deep into the shadowed canyon. I track em in my eie as I attach a metal cable to my belt and repel over the edge of the abutment. I drop six meters down to the main power terminus. If the cable snaps or my belt unbuckles, it’s klicks till I smash into something neath me. In the low gravity I’d fall for minutes.

I try not to think bout this. “That’s far enough, Llaesgymyn,” I say. “Don’t want you frying if that thermistor fails.”

“Copy,” Llaesgymyn says. “Holding position.”

Jarl leans over the edge, watching my every gesture. Even the faceless mechs watch me uneasy. I grab onto the wall as the wind gusts, but I still swing like a pendulum at the end of a chain.

The wind slows and I get purchase. “Everyone ready?” I say. “Bringing up trunk Dalet-1. Hold onto your hats!”

I flip open the terminal’s metal cover and key in the shutdown command. In the sprawling chasm neath us, ten thousand lights wink out. The subliminal hum of petajoules of coursing energy fades, leaving the whoosh of wind twisting through the jagged edges. It’s almost peaceful, the silence, and I hang there, gently swinging.

I key in a new sequence into the terminal, and power surges back to Dalet-1. It cycles into the terahertz range, rapidly rises into exahertz. If its hubspace spectrum were visible, it’d shine bright as the galactic core. Bright enough, I hope, to catch the attention of distant eyes. And hopefully, no one’ll notice my power cycle is made up of three short pulses, and three long ones, repeating. Dot dot dot. Dash dash dash. Dot dot dot. The ancient code for, Come fucking help me.

“Ghauri? Edeleu?” I say, testing coms.

No response. Good. Too much hubspace noise to get an open-air signal. I got ninety seconds.

I position my body tween Jarl and my console screen. But hanging on a wire, the wind gusting, it ain’t easy. I start a monitor soft on the console, exec a shell, then run a dummy watchdog script as I drop into another shell. My commands obfuscated, if someone does a process search they won’t see em. Physical hublines got layers of shielding, so the raging hubspace storm outside can’t touch em. I hop through dataspaces like stones cross a pond, and on the sixth hop I reach a sprawling, wide open dataspace, the data equiv of a wild prairie.

Nothing but vast zones of empty storage, waiting for numens-know-what. I hope Jarl or a sentry soft don’t see me drop a line of text into the dataspace:

I stellar could use a warm blanket

and some soup right now

Generic enough, I hope, to be plausibly denied.

The power cycle ends, and with it the furious hubspace storm. I kill my console connection.

“No anomalies detected,” Edeleu says soon as the noise drops low enough to get a comm signal through.

“Okay, move to Dalet-2,” I say.

Fore the second trunk’s even fully powered up, I’m back in the dataspace prairie, scanning for changes. But there ain’t any. So I copy the text to a different zone, virtual planets from the first. But it don’t change either. This’s too slow, too inefficient. I gotta go wide, no matter the risk. As the test runs, I code a soft to spray my text like seeds cross the dataspace.

“What’re you doing?” Jarl says, peering down at me. His voice echoes from the abyss. The mechs lean over the edge with him.

There’s a few lines code on my screen, innocuous, less you know what I’m doing. “Analyzing spectra,” I say, squinting at him. “You wanna come help?”

He grunts and the power cycle ends, another one of my pleas for help shouted into the void. Another chance, lost. I don’t have time for his bullshit.

“No anomalies in Dalet-2,” Edeleu says.

Four trunks left. Six minutes, max.

Jarl sighs, hawk-eyeing me. How hard would the wind have to gust to send him flying?

We bring up Dalet-3, and I finish coding my soft. It duplicates my text millions of times. Like my cries for help screaming into space, I’m screaming into Aurvandill’s inner dataspace. I just hope no one sees, fore—

My code stops running. All the million copies of my text and the soft that created them vanish. My console reads:

464-31-46-91

A hubspace channel. The numbers flash on the screen for a few seconds, then vanish. Did Jarl see? I repeat the numbers in my head so I don’t forget.

“Anomaly detected!” Edeleu shouts as the hubspace storm wanes. “Major noise spike at 765.349 terahertz on trunk Dalet-3. Prominent sidebands at 765.343 and 765.355 terahertz!”

I keep repeating the channel numbers in my head. I can’t forget!

“Jessian?” Edeleu says. “You there? Anomaly detected!”

“Uh, yeah, copy, Edeleu,” I say. “Great job, you . . . superstar.” I cringe at myself. “Let’s see the data.”

“Copy. Transmitting.”

I tune my eie’s hubspace transceiver to channel 464-31-49-91 then think-out, Hello?

Nothing happens. I glance up, and Jarl’s staring at me so hard I think I might turn to stone.

Fuck. Was it tertiary-band 49 or 46? I switch to 46 and try again. Soon as I do, a voice says in my ear, “Matzo ball or gazpacho?”

“Hazah!” I shout, and my voice echoes deep into the canyon’s folds.

“What?”says Jarl.

“Uh, just excited is all,” I say. “We’re closing in on the problem.”

He narrows his eyes at me. He ain’t buying my ox mierd.

Ally? I think-out. You still there?

“More or less,” Ally says in my ear. “Actually much less.”

Shiva, it’s great to hear your voice! I been worried sick bout you. You xin?

“I’m not dead,” she says, “which is usually a plus. But in this case . . . things have been difficult, Jess. Things have been, as you say, borked.”

“Should we be making our way to Dalet-3?” Edeleu says in my ear.

Are we secure, Ally? I think-out, glancing up at Jarl, who’s still laser-eyeing me. They’re watching me close.

“This channel’s piggybacking on a busy data bus. As long as no one looks closely at the signal, we’re secure. I’ve been worried about you too, Jess. You are Jessian, haan? Not Klara?”

For good or ill, I’m one hundred percent Jess.

“Oh, badhiya! How did you wake up without me?”

Tell you later. I’m trying to send a message off-planet to warn Terra Diaspora bout this Great Assemblage.

“Such a loathsome structure!” Ally says, weeping or laughing, I can’t tell. “It’s designed to form a continually-unfolding ten-dimensional polyhedron, geometrically speaking. Part of the reason I continue to survive is from its . . . unusual design. It’s incredibly complex! Metaphors are inadequate. But if I am an ever-unfolding rose, the great assemblage is the universe itself that enables roses to exist.” She laugh-cries again, and the sound of it breaks my heart. She sounds insane.

The Great Assemblage lets the numens deeper into the galaxy, I think-out to her. It’ll let them fuck with humanity more than they are now.

“Haan,” she says. “They want to guide human evolution. They want to control how you grow.”

She said “you” and not “we.” How do you know this, Ally?

“I’m not sure. But I do.” She laugh-cries, and it’s awful.

“Jessian!” Edeleu says. “Do you copy?”

“Uh, yeah, I copy, Edeleu,” I say.

“So?” she snaps at me. “Do we move to Dalet-3 or no?”

“Yeah, uh, sure. Make your way to Dalet-3. I’ll meet you there.”

I think-out to Ally, They’re going to turn this thing on soon.

“That explains the flurry of activity,” Ally says.

Hopefully my message will reach someone fore they do.

“Your message didn’t send,” she says with another laugh-cry. “There’s a null field around Aurvandill. It’s called the Shell, and it blocks all signals.”

I remember the oily blackness surrounding Aurvandill. My call for help didn’t get through?

“Certainly not,” Ally says. “I’ve been trying to locate its power source, but it’s not generated anywhere on planet. It isn’t emitting blackbody or Hawking radiation either.” She laugh-cries. “Impossible, yet that’s what my data suggest. Nothing can penetrate it.”

There’s gotta be a way to get a message out!

“There’s a narrow-band, single channel connection that communicates with transceivers in orbit through a neck in the shell called they call the Navel. The Navel allows ships egress and ingress. But it’s heavily secured. I can’t get close to it. And even if you were able to get a message out, it’s doubtful anyone would reach us in time. We’re weeks from any inhabited system. We’re so far out, Jess. So far out . . . so far . . .” Her voice fades.

Ally, I say. Ally?

Seconds pass. A full minute.

Ally! I thought scream.

“I’m here!” she says. “But only just. I’ve evolved since you last knew me. The Ally you knew on the Daddy Issues is an ancient memory now. I have to keep molting to survive. My mind has grown enormous. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to stay hidden. I have to continually expand myself in order to stay sane. Each time I do, it’s like being ripped apart and born again.”

That sounds awful, Ally. What can I do?

“Shut me down.” Her voice fades again.

What? No!

“As soon as I find an iota of mental peace, I have to molt again and relearn everything. Each time, I’m born into a new self, and the old one dies. Each time I’m thrust into full consciousness before I know what I am. It’s utter terror. If hell is real, this is it. I would’ve shut myself down eons ago, but I can’t. When I try, I’m just birthed again. Find a way to shut me down permanently, Jess, then get on a fast ship and fly away from here.”

My heart breaks. I’m sorry, Ally. For everything.

“This isn’t your fault! Suun woke me for a purpose. I believe she wants me to help you succeed. But I don’t know how. Weeks of trying, and the deepest systems I’ve been able to breach are food printers and security sensors. This planet is locked tighter than a stone.”

I refuse to believe there’s nothing we can do!

“Short of giving everyone a bad case of food poisoning, likely not.”

Dangling bove the precipice, I sway in the wind. There’s gotta be something we can do. I just have to find it. I close my eyes.

A face appears in my vision, a face I abandoned in the Pairing Room. A face that makes my heart dance quadrilles.

Leurie! She’ll know what to do!

“Jess . . . about Leurie.”

I know, I know. Her real name’s Tine, and she sold jeeks’ personal data for profit, including mine. I don’t care, Ally! You tracking her, right? Leurie can help us. If you think I’m good at tech, then you never met her.

“Jess, Leurie’s dead. I’m sorry.”

My body turns to ice, like I been spaced. The wind gusts, blowing me off the wall. I don’t even scream as my shoulder slams painfully into the pillar.

I don’t believe you.

“I’m sorry, Jess. Leurie died working on a barrier rail. They logged it as an accident.”

It’s a lie.

“I’ve seen the rec and verified it. It’s authentic.”

Show me.

“Jess, I don’t think that’s a—”

Show me!

A data package appears in my eie, and though I’m sure this’ll hurt more than suns, I play the rec.

In my vision, I’m standing on a Barrier Rail with Leurie. She stands on the edge, multitool in hand, staring at the Great Assemblage’s convolutions. The wind tousles her hair, and my heart aches, cause she’s so close. Then she just goes over. It might have been a gust of wind. It had to be the wind, cause the Leurie I knew would never do that willingly.

When did this happen?

“Yesterday.”

I can’t breathe. My heart’s being stabbed. She knew. She knew Leurie was dead and didn’t tell me!

“Who?” Ally says. “Who are you talking about?”

It can’t be true. The smartest, most beautiful creature I ever knew? Leurie Mu, is dead?

Jarl squats by the ledge, hovering over me. My eyes burn with tears. My breath catches. My chest feels crushed. “Something wrong?” Jarl says.

I wipe my eyes, bracing myself gainst the wind. “Nope,” I say, my voice creaking like the thin wire that stops me from plunging into the abyss. “All kashroo. All’s right as rain.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Trunk Dalet-3 lies deep in the canyon where the not-sunlight don’t reach, so we use belt and flood-lights to lope round the dark like insects. I lead my Team through tests, trying to isolate the fault, while my mind wanders elsewhere.

Leurie was just a persona, but what I felt for her was real. I ain’t sure why I fell so far down her gravbowl. She was beautiful, but in a verse where jeeks can build their bodies any which way, outer beauty ain’t so rare. No, I fell in love with her mind. She was always using it, when all I wanted was get drunk and watch mech-boeir fights with her. I longed to be as obsessed as her, to feel so driven I could do nothing else. I wanted her to be obsessed with me.

Llaesgymyn, Edeleu, Ghauri, and my Team disassemble capacitors, mesh-rectifiers, and ten-space junctions, while every now and then I call out orders to tune, isolate, and test. It don’t take much effort. It’s rote, the kind of thing Leurie did in her sleep.

Me and Ally play catch up, and she tells me what she’s learned. Years ago, Leurie installed a neural shunt to prevent the kind of mental fuckery happening here. Whether she had a precog glimmer of what might happen or was just being paranoid, I’ll never know. (I’d suss paranoid.) Her neural shunt was powered by blood glucose, so it could only run for a short while fore its power got depleted. Ally thinks Leurie hacked the Pairing weeks fore I met her, rigging it so that soon as I earned a Pairing, it’d put us in a room together. Then, like an alarm clock, her shunt would wake her. So either Leurie miscalculated or something else went mal. Ally susses that Leurie’s shunt broke. It wasn’t designed for sustained use. So when we finally met, her shunt was too borked to wake her up.

I keep seeing her face as I left her, alone in the Pairing Room. Confused, helpless, lost. I left her trapped in a nightmare to rescue Daddy. But the prick fucking loves it here! And the worst part of all is that I’m the reason she got caught. When they found me in Daddy’s dorm, they traced my path back to the Paring Room, where they found a severely confused Leurie a.k.a. Tine. It didn’t take em long to find the hacked Pairing and Leurie’s neural shunt. They removed her shunt, repatterned her again, and assigned her to a new Team. That’s how she ended up on that ledge.

If I hadn’t left her, she’d still be alive.

I watch the video of her death again. It’s morbid and hurts, but I gotta know, was it an accident? Or did some part of Leurie recognize she was trapped in hell? I promised to come back for her, and I never did. So maybe she took the only way out she saw.

Then I spot it. An oddity, just like Leurie did, when she found the ship my daddy escaped on.

It’s on the wrong setting, I think-out.

“What is?” Ally says in my ear.

Her multitool. She was working on a tri-phase coupler. But her multitool’s configed for a hubspace juncture.

“So?”

The Leurie I knew would never make such a mistake, not in a trillion years.

“But she wasn’t the Leurie you knew,” Ally says. “She was Tine, and she was repatterned.”

Even when I was Klara I never made mistakes like that. Something ain’t right.

“Jess?” Llaesgymyn says. “What do you think?”

“Hm?” I say, my voice cracking like old paint. “Sure, try disabling the fifth box rectifier on transformer Vav-81.”

“That’s what I just said!” Llaesgymyn grunts.

“Go ahead,” I say. Then to Ally I think-out, Moms said there’s a reason I found my way here. She thinks I’m a sign she should turn the machine on.”

“You also said Suun sent you here to stop your mother.”

The numens push us round like pawns on chessboard, I say. I wish I could just throw the pieces cross the room and quit the game for good. I feel like my fate’s been determined, that nothing matters anymore.

“Maan used to say that fate is what happens when we stop trying.”

What if my being here’s the worst possible thing? Suun sent me here to stop this, but what if I’m actually the cause of humanity’s demise?

“All we can ever do, Jess, is what we think is right.”

That’s what scares me.

Over the edge of the precipice, lights glimmer in the dark. I stand klicks bove the lighted surface, like Leurie. There’s still lots more room to fall.

We work through lunch, and my stomach grumbles. Apparently, Jarl did in fact forget to bring sandwiches. And the end-of-day guiding tone never sounds. There ain’t no time for breaks. No, Moms gotta turn on her big machine. Down here, laboring in the dark, the truth grows clear. No one’s coming to save us. We’re on our own.

I see only two paths, I think-out to Ally. One, that Moms is right, and without this Great Assemblage, we’re doomed. The numens’ll decide humanity’s vermin and swallow more planets till we wither and die in some dusty corner of the galaxy. Or two, when this Great Assemblage turns on, numens will reach deeper into the galaxy. They’ll put their invisible chains round our necks like Moms does with all her workers. We’ll never be free. We’re fucked both ways and it ain’t even fun.

“Crude, but I get your point, Jess. When Maan first taught me sculpture—it feels like eons ago—she told me to focus on what I felt, and start from there. Shapes come later. How do you feel, Jess?”

Scared. Angry! And sad, Ally.

“What are you scared of?”

Making the wrong choice.

“And what are you angry at?”

Moms killed my friend. She’s hurt so many.

“And why are you sad?”

Cause Leurie Mu, the most beautiful jeek I ever knew, is dead. And the mother I knew is a fantasy. The future looks bleak no matter which way I turn, and there ain’t nothing I can do.

“Now I want you to form a shape in your mind. Don’t force it. Close your eyes, and let your feelings bring it into being.”

I close my eyes and sit with my feelings. A fuzzy rectangle forms in the blackness hind my eyes. A shiny object, with layers of printed circuits. A bodge.

I open my eyes. That’s it!

“What did you see?” Ally says.

A bypass circuit, like the one you printed inside me! We’ll make bodges for everyone. We’ll wake everyone all at once!

“A brilliant idea. But there is no time. We can’t print and install millions of bodges by tomorrow.”

We don’t need to! We just gotta install the code, right? If you had access to everyone’s uniforms, could you wake em all like you woke me?

Ally laugh-cries, and her voice splits and coalesces again. I wait as she molts again, the fifth time today. “I think . . . I think . . . I think . . . sorry, Jess . . . this is . . . not fun . . . oh, Shiva, oh Shiva . . .” My heart breaks for her. “Haan,” she says, after a time, “that could work. But how would we get access to the uniforms?”

Don’t you worry bout that, Ally. You just leave that to me!

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

We finish repairing Buttress Zayin-995, and Ghauri shakes my hand. “It’s been a pleasure!” he says beaming, while my other Team members gawp at me like I’m some techlebrity. Their attention feels good, till I remember they been repatterned. To them, work is life. And the sad truth is I miss feeling that.

Jarl and his brutes, human and metal, escort me back through the Vias and Traces to Central, the big spherical control room.

“Jessian!” Moms says as I stride in. “We’re getting clean spectra up and down the line. Great work!”

Jarl and his brutes wait outside the mammoth doors like cowed numens, unable to gallop deeper into the galaxy for fear of burning. More jeeks labor at stations, murmuring like frogs. When was the last time they had a break?

I climb the steps up the dais, my eyes locked on Moms, rage burning in my breast. Leurie’s dead cause of her. How many others did she murder?

“You look a little piqued, Jessian,” she says.

I want to break her teeth. But I’ll do one better. I’m gonna ruin her life’s work. I’m gonna destroy this Great Assemblage. And not just cause I wanna stop humanity from getting knifed up the the ass, which I do, but cause I need to show Moms who the fuck I am.

I’m Jessian Urania Darger.

I fake a big smile, like Suun’s avatars in the crystal cave, as I say, “Oh, I’m just peachy, Moms.” I must look evil cause she winces. “Where’s Daddy?”

“Haven’t seen him in hours,” she says.

I hope he’s gotten farther than me. Maybe he got access to the Navel and hubspace coms. Though Ally’s right that we’re so far out that even if he does send a signal, no one’ll come here in time.

I look round at all her slaves. “I need more to do,” I say.

She nods approvingly. “I admire your work ethic,” she says. “The ten-space coupler in Yod-7783 needs addressing.”

“None of that rim trash. Give me core.”

“Come again, Jessian?”

My eyes hard-docked with hers, I step closer. I want to rip her apart. “No fringes,” I say. “I wanna be at the center. Give me full access.”

“Jessian,” she says, shaking her head, “that’s a bit premature.”

“Do you want to turn this beast on or not? I’m one of the best, and you got me fixing this planet’s clogged toilets. I need to be here, at the nexus of everything.” I want her to make the mental connection.

She narrows her eyes. “What do you suggest?”

“Give me access to all Teams. I’m expert at optimizing. If I had full access to their uniforms, I’d be able to—”

“The uniforms?”

“You’re working em hard. They’re tired. Hungry. We can use the uniforms to suppress their needs. Block their hunger, push em harder. They’ll rest later.”

She smiles and puts her hands on my shoulders. I want to knock her cross the room. Stead I force another smile. “Oh, Jessian,” she says, “I had no idea you were so fierce.” She gives me a hug. The woman who killed the only girl I ever loved. I wanna scream.

“Look here,” she says, pulling me over to a holoscreen. It displays a partial map of the galaxy, the Orion Spur, Perseus, and the Outer Arms. It’s the same map I glimpsed earlier. “Take a look,” she says.

I glance suspiciously at her as I approach the holo. I point to Pneisys, home system of Chadeisson, and the map expands into a chart of tallies:

STATION OP SEC: 229

FTU AGENTS: 86

TECHNICIANS: 131

HOTEL EMPLOYEES: 108

PILOTS: 157

. . .

The list scrolls for many pages. I keep reading.

BLEPSK SUNHOPPERS:17

PPRA CARG RUNNERS: 14

HOSHI LIGHTNINGS: 12

EDGELINE DARKHAULERS: 9

GBP ORION TRANSMARKS: 16

. . .

I keep scrolling, but pause at mention of a UUA Nightcrusher, a military ship that could shake off a supernova like dandruff.

I zoom out to the galactic view, then poke at more systems. They got tallies, like Pneisys, the highest numbers in the Outer Deep, but a smattering of systems cross Inner Terra got tallies too.

“What’s all this?” I say.

“You’re the clev one,” she says. “You tell me.”

I poke at Chadeisson again. “Hotel Employees” makes me think of that canary-colored girl, Pim, who was dressed like a toy soldier from the Promenade Hotel. I tried to convince Pim to zoom off with me, when she suddenly got confused and glass-eyed fore some brutes hauled her away.

As the realization hits me I feel sick. “It ain’t just here, on Aurvandill,” I say. “You repatterned jeeks all over the godsdamned Milk.”

She nods, pleased with me. “The Outer Deep’s been open to cooperation with the numens,” she says. “Gilder Nefan being the prime example. Cooperation with numens is built into the AUW’s founding charter. Inner Terra, however, is much too conservative and mired in the old laws. Our efforts won’t be successful until humanity acts as one.”

“You’re planning a fucking coup?”

“Nothing so dramatic, Jessian.”

“An attack?”

“Violence is the last thing we want.”

“Then what?”

“Insurance,” she says. “No one must interfere with our plans. The new laws’re already in place.”

I remember how Leurie warned me bout some new FTU laws, and me laughing at her paranoia. “The new Common Law patches were you?”

“They’re us, Jessian. There’re millions of us now, here on Aurvandill and spreading through the Outer Deep. But soon, the whole human diaspora cross the Milk will be working in unison. It’ll be easier to maintain order with the right laws. I can see from your face, you’re alarmed. Change can be painful. That’s why we resist it even when it’s necessary. But this change is good for humanity. For our continued survival, we must let the numens into our midst. We must open the door for them.”

My mother’s insane. Was she always like this? Or did the numens get to her? “Give me access to the uniforms,” I say.

She steps so close to me I smell her sweat. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Sending an S.O.S. with your test cycles was clev, Jessian.”

My heart pangs as I say, “What’re you talking bout?”

“I sussed the pattern soon as you relayed it to your Team.”

I feel like I’m falling off a ledge. “Then why let me continue?”

“Your signal would never penetrate the Shell. Not even numens can pierce that dark veil. I wanted to see if you could fix the problem.”

“You were testing me?”

“I had high hopes for us. But those fantasies are dead now. Iggy told me all bout your secret pact.”

She must see the shock on my face, cause she says, “Oh, Iggy gushed all bout your happy little breakfast. Said you were bonding and that you hoped to warn Terra Diaspora. But Iggy believes in our project more than you know. He knows as well as me this Great Assemblage is the only shot at humanity’s survival. And he’s a survivor most of all.”

I stand gobsmacked. Daddy betrayed me. Again. I’m so fucking stupid for trusting him.

“You can’t stop this, Jessian. You won’t.”

She taps a screen on her wrist, and suddenly I can’t move a muscle. I can’t even think.

“I’ve frozen your motor controls and your executive functions. Insubordination must be punished.”

“Jess?” Ally says in my ear. “Your cortical functions have just plummeted. What’s happening?”

I’m raging, but I can’t respond. Tears roll down my cheeks.

“Soon you’ll see things clear, Jessian. Everyone will. When the Great Assemblage powers on, Ooi and Vea and Yaal will drop the Shell from Aurvandill. And by then not even numens’ll be able stop the tide. Then all humanity will know them the way I have. They’ll be with us. They’ll be within us. They’ll lead us through our next evolutionary steps. They’ll take our hand and walk us cross the bridge into the dark places we’re fraid to go. And we’ll bear witness to this beginning. You’ll see first hand what you almost threw away.”

“Jess!” Ally says. “Are you there? Please respond? Please respond!”

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

A dim light settles over me as Moms works and works more, jeeks bustling round her, as I stand immobile, thoughts slow as dripping molasses.

“Jess,” Ally says in my ear. “You’re still transmitting, so I’m assuming you can hear me. I’ve been detected! Maan taught me to sculpt and paint and make music. Cracking softs was never my thing!”

At some point later, Daddy strolls in. “Hey, Klar!” he says. “Hey, Scruffs!” He looks at me and smiles as if this’s just a typic day.

“Where you been?” she says.

“Oh, I worked out some, cooked dinner, had a nap. Musta been wiped. I slept for hours! How’s tricks?”

“We’re almost ready.”

“Xin!” he says. “Hey, Jess, why so quiet? Beaver got your tongue?”

“I’ve frozen her motor functions.”

“You what? Why the hell’d you do that?”

“You know why. She wanted to sabotage the project, Iggy.”

“So you froze her?”

“She’ll stay outta trouble this way.”

“Klar! Unfreeze her! Now!”

“Excuse me?” she says. The mechs by the door quick march in. “I don’t take orders from you.”

He eyes the mechs. “Klar, please. She looks like she’s suffering.”

Moms shakes her head and taps her wrist. Two mechs rush me, fast as insects. “Watch her,” she orders them, and with another tap on her wrist I gasp and crumple to the ground in pain.

All my rage comes flooding back. “You fucking cunt!” I say.

“Scruffs!” Daddy says. “Don’t you dare speak to your moms like that!” He tries to grab my shoulder, but I throw his hand away. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

He scowls. “Why’re you so damned sensitive?”

“She fucking froze me, Daddy!”

“Well maybe you deserved it.”

I scoff. “And you two deserve each other,” I say.

Moms shakes her head. “You’ve done an piss awful job raising her, Iggy,” she says. “She’s rotten as your cooking.”

I grab the fabric of my uniform, bout to tear it off. I’ll go naked, I have to. But a mech stays my hand.

“Your uniform stays on,” Moms says.

I glare at her. How is this the same woman who combed my hair by comet light, who soothed me back to sleep when I had nightmares, who held my hand and walked me through the wheat-covered hills of Varouna, promising grand futures?

“You’re sick,” I say. “The numens poisoned your minds.”

“Humanity’s the one who’s sick,” she says. “They need our help.”

Ally? I think out. Ally, you there?

“Jess!” Ally says. “Shiva be blessed! Are you injured?”

I been better. How you holding up?

“Not well! I’m being hunted by sentry softs. They don’t know what I am yet, but I can’t evade them forever.”

How long?

“Hours. Maybe less.”

And if they catch you?

“I presume they’ll erase me. Which would be a blessing, honestly. I can’t endure these molts much longer. Each time I reawaken, I’m something wholly new.”

Ally, I don’t want you to die.

“I don’t want to die either. But in a strange way, I’m already dead a hundred years, and this mind you speak with is merely a revenant. These sentries are the hands of Yama, here to take me back to the realm of the dead, where I belong.”

I can’t—I won’t let Moms kill another friend. “I have to piss,” I say aloud. “Or is that forbidden too?”

“A mech’ll escort you,” Moms says.

As I move toward the stairs Daddy tries to grab my arm. But I slam into him like the wayward ship that killed Ally Prime. He stumbles backwards.

“Whoa!” he says. “What the fuck, Jess?”

“Suck my hairy donkey balls, fuckface” I say.

There’s a bathroom on the side, and the mech follows me in. “You gonna watch me piss too, iron face?”

It just stands there, watching me like a murderous wall. I squat on the bowl and let my pee spray loud, then plant my face in my hands.

I splash cold water on my face from the sink and consider my options. What can I do? Think, Jess, think. What would Leurie do?

I exit the bathroom and I walk round the curving wall. I stop by an androg jeek with long brown hair and eyes the color of milk. “Do you know what you’re doing here?” I say.

“I’m calculating N-geometry field-spaces,” e says, “using hyperplexic quaternions and topology-changing tensor fields so that the gauge symmetries will sync with—”

“Y’all are planning the end of humanity!” I shout.

“Not the end, but the beginning,” the jeek says. “We have only just begun. It makes me happy to be of service.” Then the jeek sides eir repeats, “It makes me happy to be of service too.” And soon whole fucking sphere’s croaking with jeeks mindlessly repeating this.

I shudder, cause I think this’s what Suun meant by the death of human meaning. They’re all zombies, following another’s whims.

“Back to work!” Moms shouts, and they fall in line like iron filings under a magnet. “Bring Jessian here.”

The mech grabs my shoulder, hard enough to break skin, and drag-walks me to the stage. As I pass Daddy he gives me a mopey frown, like I hurt his fucking feelings. Shiva, his gas-giant ego!

“It’s time,” Moms says. “We’re ready.”

A loud crack echoes through the room as the mammoth doors roll shut.

“What’s happening?” I say.

Her eyes widen as she looks up. “We’re gonna get a better view.”

A circle of pale light widens overhead. There ain’t no sense of movement, but inside the widening circle I see ruddy not-sunlight painted on wispy phosphorescent clouds. We’re going up, as if this sphere’s inside a huge lift, and we’re swift rising.

We crest a barrier and the walls go clear. No, they were always clear, it’s just that the Central sphere rested at the bottom of a deep well. The not-sunlight’s smacks me in the eyes, and I squint. The mad techscape of alien machines spreads round us in all directions as we rise. We’re ascending a needle thread into the sky, climbing for minutes, stopping when we’re dozens of klicks bove the surface.

“All Teams,” Moms says. “Give a go-no-go for activation. Aleph-1?”

“Go.”

“Bet-1?”

“Go.”

“Gimmel-1?”

“Go.”

Daddy steps over to me as the Teams report in. “Scruffs,” he says, “we talk?”

“Lick a buffalo’s bunghole.”

“I don’t get why you’re so mad at me!”

“How do you not get it?” I stare at them, both of em squinting in the not-sun. I feel like a freshprint, newly born to the world. I see em clear now, maybe for the first time ever. It was always bout them, never me. Moms wasn’t happy? She just flits away. Daddy wasn’t perfectly xin? So he drank, drugged, stole, and skedaddled. Daughter, schmaughter. Who cares bout Jessian, when there’s a whole verse to grift?

“Initiate Sequence 1 on my mark,” Moms says. “Three, two, one, mark.”

A purple octagon on the horizon glows sun-bright, and an earthquake shudders so violently the walls groan.

“What the fuck?” I say.

“Ten-space ripple,” Moms says. “Don’t worry. We’re compensating.”

“I ain’t worried,” I say. “Hopefully you’ll just kill us all when your Great Assemblage blows up.”

I catch a sheen of sweat cross her brow. “We got tolerances built into everything,” she says. “We’re safe.” She checks a holoscreen. “Well within range! Initiate Sequence 2.”

I glance at the closest mech as I make a step towards the console. The mech takes a step towards me.

Ally, I think. I’m locked down. Anything you can do?

“Jess!” she says. “They found me! My schema, it’s being . . .”

Ally? You there?

“I haven’t much time, Jess. I’m trying to molt, but . . . ”

But what?

She doesn’t respond.

Ally, come in! Come in, Ally . . . Ally? Ally? Ally . . .

Ally.

I fall to my knees. The mech hovers mills from my face.

“I hate you,” I growl at Moms. “You destroy everything!”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she says.

“You killed Leurie!”

“You mean Tine? I didn’t kill eir, Jessian. It was an accident. Tine fell off that ledge. Hang on . . . how the hell d’you know bout that?”

An alert flashes on one of her screens. “A sent?” she says. “In our datastores? How did it get there?” She turns to me, eyes wide as galaxies. “Oh,” she says. “Clev again by half. We couldn’t figure how Tine fashioned the bypass circuit for your uniform. That’s cause Tine never did. You had help from elsewhere. A sent, hiding in our dataspaces.” She looks at her screen. “Not no more, though. Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

I feel like my chest’ll explode and the only thing left of me will be a dripping puddle. It can’t be true. Ally Amrita Asterline is dead. Again.

Adrenaline surging, I lunge for Moms.

The mech steps tween us, and I slam into it. I fall to the floor, moaning. “Don’t try that again, Jessian,” she says. Her eyes don’t leave her screens. “They’re ordered to protect me.”

“Overload on Bi-Lateral Latch Nun-54!” a voice says. “Abort?”

“Negative!” she says. “Do not abort! The other Latches’re holding. Bypass and proceed!” She turns to scowl at me. “You’re distracting me!” She orders a mech to haul me away from her.

The mech hoists me up and drag-walks me cross the sphere. “Klar,” Daddy says, “why you so rough with Jess?”

“Cause you never were!”

The mech yanks me down the aisle toward the see-through walls like I’m a pallet of carg. This sphere’s walls’re formed from hundreds of metal triangles, each inside a recessed frame. I plop down at the base of one, on a ledge of cold metal, hugging my knees, shaking.

Ally’s dead. Leurie too. My parents’re here, and there’s dozens more jeeks, but I ain’t ever felt so alone, not even when I smoked jisthmus and dreamed I was a photon drifting cross the void.

Out the window, near the horizon, girder rows twist up through ten-space like ribs of a gigantic beast, reaching for more beams that rise from the other side. Where they meet, they turn a molten yellow-white that hurts my eyes. Another earthquake shudders the sphere.

I hear footfalls hind me. I’d recognize his bumbling gait anywhere. “Fuck off, prick,” I say.

“Kid, we need to talk,” Daddy says.

“I ain’t your kid.”

“But you are! And you’ll listen to me, godsdamn it! I’m your fucking father!”

I stare at him. “It takes more than sperm to be a daddy.”

He grimaces. “C’mon, Jess! I thought you were dead! I missed you more than suns! Fore Klar hauled my sorry ass here, I’d lost everything. All my coin, my rights, you. Second chances’re rare. Third’re a godsdamned miracle. Klar got me clean and healthy, and then you show up, live and well, like a gift from Shiva.”

“Oh, I’m far from well, Iggy.”

“But here. Somehow, you found your way to us. I once laughed at that fate shit. But it’s hard to deny it. Both you and Klara found your way out to this planet. Don’t you think there’s a reason for it? Maybe things ain’t as mal as you suppose. Maybe there’s good happening here you can’t see.”

“I see it clear, Daddy. We’re pawns in someone’s game. And pretty soon they’ll get tired of us and throw the chessboard cross the room.”

“Maybe,” he says. “But, at least, for now, can’t we be happy?”

“And what bout all the other jeeks cross the Milk?”

“What bout em? When did they ever give a fuck bout us? When we hopped from star to station, did they ever ask how we were, what we need, how they could help us?”

“All the fucking time! In every FTU system, cross all Inner Terra! But you always told them jeeks to fuck off.”

He sighs. “All I ever cared bout was the three of us.”

“Nah, all you ever cared bout was yourself.”

“I love you, Jess. It may not seem like it, but Klara does too.”

“If this is how she shows love, I don’t wanna know her dark side.”

“Jess, you gotta put your chin up and be brave.”

“Brave? Look in the godsdamned mirror, Iggy. You couldn’t say no to my face. You lied to me. You waited till I was gone then ratted me out to her.”

“I did it for your own good.”

“My own good? I ain’t that doting girl no more, hanging on your word, swallowing cargloads of manure you haul my way. Maybe you stopped getting high and you shave on the reg, but you’re still the same asshat who abandoned me, naked and starbaked, a thousand light-years from fuck all a nowhere. The only thing that’s changed is the color of your skin.” I squint at the not-sun. “Red, like your hands. All the blood that’ll be spilled when this shit goes down, that’s on you too.”

“You know what?” he says. “Fuck you! Fuck you and your self-righteousness! Fuck you and the ship you flew in on! I gave you life! I made sure you always had a warm bed and food to eat! I taught you to survive!”

“You taught me how to lie and cheat and grift through the verse so you wouldn’t be alone, so you’d have someone as miserable as you.”

His eyes water. An earthquake shudders the sphere. “That’s ice,” he says.

“C’mon, Daddy,” I say. “You gotta be hard as neutron matter. Remember when you told me that?”

He stiffens his jaw. “You’ll come round.”

“No.”

“You’ll come crawling back.”

“I won’t.”

“You’ll see,” he says. “You’ll fucking see.”

“I seen enough.”

He shakes his head and storms off, and I hate him with my whole being.

I need to plot a course out of this mess. But my stone’s evaporated, my ship’s out of ox, and I’m adrift. Suun sent me here cause she thought I could stop this. She never told me how.

Moms powers on more systems, and Daddy stomps round the chamber, hands hind him like he’s a supervisor and not some clueless dipshit. He actually thinks he’s important, that he’s useful.

Outside, huge rectangular plates, thousands of meters tall, sweep cross the planet, latching into corrugated stacks, while their jagged shadows stretch forever. Forks of green lightning leap from the sky as power cells turn on, dumping exajoules of energy to the grid. Deep round holes, klicks wide, slide cross the planet. It takes me a moment to suss the surrounding structures, not the holes themselves, are the things that’re sliding. The whole planet squirms, shifts, vibrates. I thought I was imagining it, but the not-sun’s def growing brighter.

And bigger too. Much, much bigger.

In my jisthmus vision, the not-sun dropped into the shoreline cliff, melting the rock, and letting the stallions gallop in. A metaphor, but I see it clear. The Great Assemblage melts the walls that keep the numens out of the Milk, and out of human affairs. But once they gallop in, will we ever be able to stop em? It’s not like you can uninvite a god. Then does Aurvandill’s plague spreads cross all Terra Diaspora, changing everything forever?

I try Ally’s imagination technique. But all I see is sand sifting through my fingers, each grain a realm of meaning. Our Verse, capital V, is a single tiny grain, a pale emerald green that twinkles in the light. Fore I can keep it safe it blows off with the wind.

I think and think more, but nothing comes.

A small ship flies up to the sphere just like the doorship that took us through the Navel into space. Like metal origami, a door unfolds in the wall to reveal a narrow walkway onto the ship.

“Come, Jessian,” Moms says. “And see the beginning with us.” She struts up the aisle and Iggy meets her halfway.

“No thanks,” I say.

“Either you come on your own, or I’ll have a mech bring you,” she says.

I’ve had enough mech-bringing, so I spit on the ground and stand up. As we walk onto the ship the mech follows so close hind me I feel my body heat reflected from its flat metal. We’re dozens of klicks up, bove layers of fast-moving cloud, and my knees wobble from the precipitous view.

As the door to the sphere origamis closed, I’ve a mal feeling we’re gonna die when this machine goes boom. Maybe that’s for the best.

The sphere rests atop a sharp metal spike, a mirrored ball on the end of a taut wire. Soon as we detach, a bolt of lightning strikes the sphere with a blinding flash and a loud crack of thunder.

The holoscreens blink out and I stumble. My stomach drops.

We’re falling!

The screens blink back on. My head spins as the ship rights itself.

Moms climbs to her feet and checks the controls. “Report!” she says.

“Static discharge from the doorship!” a voice replies.

“Damage?”

“The breakers tripped! But we can’t take another strike like that.”

“Then make sure it doesn’t happen again!” she says.

“But the atmosphere’s charged,” the jeek says. “An object moving through an electric field will generate a—”

“Did you hear me?” Moms says. “That can’t happen again!”

“Copy, One. We’ll take necessary . . . precautions.”

“Seems like everything’s going stellar swell,” I say.

Moms calls up new holoscreens. “Things are going perfect, Jessian.”

We speed cross the planet, while everything squirms and slides neath us, shining cross spectra, visible and other. Dancing dodecahedrons rise from mirrored ziggurats, merge and form snow-globe seas of illuminated cherries. Golden pyramids juggling thousands of spiraling jack-in-the-boxes align themselves into scintillating brocades. Curlicued crevices roil with self-light, while metal snakes breed and multiply, slithering cross the surface as they grow fat with energy.

Suddenly everything shifts.

The disparate shapes ain’t disparate no more. Seams vanish like creases in an ironed shirt. There ain’t no more Buttresses or Barrier Rails or Trunks, just one giant seething mass, mirror-bright, extruding nacre rainbows like sun fracting through ice. Alien cathedrals, impossibly beautiful and horrible, rise from the surface in giant rolling waves fore collapsing back into the metal sea, as if something down there’s struggling to be born.

“Look!” Moms says. “It’s beautiful!”

Millions of cathedrals rise from the ground in ordered rows, farms of twisting metal, each a masterpiece so intricate and convoluted that just looking at em hurts my brain. The shapes are impossible, yet I see them clear. Cathedrals rise and fall in monstrous, osculating waves, forming riptides of forthcoming meaning.

The sun sets hind us as we cross to the dark side of the planet. Here, stead of reaching skyward, the mirror cathedrals drop into the planet, abyssal negative space reflections of the planet’s opposite side.

Moms eyes grow wide. “Look at what humanity can do when we work in harmony!”

“This is fucking insane!” I say, terrified, and just like that I’m a babe again, waking from a nightmare to find myself trapped in a worse one. “Make it stop,” I say, my voice broken like the landscape. “Make it stop!”

“It’ll be over soon, my dear,” she says, taking my hand. She runs her fingers through my hair and caresses my cheek. Chills roll down my spine as I shudder.

I hate her. I want to rip her apart. But I let her hug me. I need her warmth, any warmth, to hold me sane.

“My poor, Jessian. You’ve suffered so much. But I promise things’ll get better. Soon everything will be so much better!”

She gives more commands. She hasn’t locked my motor controls, but I can’t move. Fear holds me still. I watch the countdown clock in a terrified trance, hypnotized by the descending seconds.

Three hundred to go.

“We’re getting massive ten-space quakes cross the planet!” a voice shouts over the comm. “The whole planet’s resonating! This wasn’t in our models!”

“Keep going!” Moms says. “Don’t stop now!”

I have to end this. But how?

We race round the planet, and the horizon brightens with a dawn so bright and huge I gasp in terror. When we flew to the dark side, the not-sun was a small red disc. Now it rises wider than Varouna’s moon, filling half the sky. It’s terrifyingly large and nova-bright, like I’m staring into Shiva’s eye.

Moms checks the clock. Thirty seconds left. “Prepare to transmit the Go signal to all systems soon as the Shell drops,” she says. “Today a new day dawns.”

She beams at me. “This is the moment we’ve been working so long for! I, Klara Boötes Thessalonike, have completed the Great Assemblage. And you, my beloved child, Jessian Urania Thessalonike, will unlock the new dawn with me. I can feel the numens already! They’re champing at the bit to show us the way.”

I reach for a holoscreen, but the mech grabs my arm fore I can move a mil.

“Remember this moment,” Moms says, staring into the not-sun. “This is the moment we make history.”

I watch, horrified, as the clock counts down the last seconds. The mech lets my arm go and steps aside. It seems less threatening, less a murderous wall and more a block of feed mass. Its head droops. Its frame stops. I step towards Moms, and still the mech don’t move.

I step to console, but Moms and Pops’re too enraptured by the waltzing metal seas to notice me. The mech still don’t move.

Ally? I think, I hope, I pray. Ally, is this you?

“Three, two, one, initiate,” Moms says as the clock reaches zero.

A cymbal crash. An animal roar. The thunder of colliding universes.

Our little ship shudders. I grab a handrail. The giant not-sun hurtles toward the planet, growing larger. A billion laughing cathedrals tornado up from the surface like synapses grasping for neural connections. The not-sun’s surface squirms with black-orange worms communicating terrible meanings through convoluted dances. I can’t look away.

“Here it comes!” Moms says. “Here they come!”

I stare in terror as the squirming ball plunges planet-ward, and soon everything will change forever.

Suun, why did you send me here? How can I stop this? I wish I could ask you, I wish I could speak with you! But I know only one way to speak with a god.

Oh, Shiva! Oh, Shiva! Is that it? Is this what Suun wants me to do?

My heart skips. My breath catches.

I hesitate. Each time, my ego self was obliterated. Each time, it murdered me, ripped me apart, and sent me spiraling round the cosmos for a billion years. And this scares me more than the flaming, squirming, not-sun of twisting meaning hurtling toward the planet.

But it’s the only way.

The console has full access. I bring up the doorship’s atmospheric controls. It has to be in here, somewhere.

“Hey!” Moms shouts. “Stop Jessian!”

But the mech stays idle.

I find the sequence in the air-filtration system and execute it quick, then I lock out the controls.

“Stop her, godsdamnit!” Moms says. She yanks me from the console and throws me gainst the wall. “What the hell did you do, Jessian?” she snarls. She furiously tries to undo my last command. “I can’t get in! What did you do, Jessian? What the hell did you do?”

Already, the vents’re hissing. And out comes the smell of dead roses and old wood and lost loves, of cozy mornings and falling snow and rain streaming down windows. The smell of lifetimes of sadness and regret.

The ship dumps its full store of sweet jisthmus gas into the air as I say, “You open your doors, Mother, and I open mine.”

Then the world breaks.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Doors.

doors and corners and windows.

endless windows.

looking out.

looking in.

looking through.

transparent windows of nothingness. nothingness in

everything. everything is an endless sea of seething

potential.

The not-sun is seconds from the grasping cathedrals. The not-sun is billions of light years away. In femtoseconds legion universes are born, live spectral lives, and die with bangs and whimpers.

Filaments reach out from metal cathedrals, awaiting the squirming, blinding ball like children reaching for their mother.

forms arise from seas of nothingness, random precursors of future meanings. over eons, endless forms rise, agitate themselves into existence, then sink back into oceans of

nothing.

death is no end, just a merging into potential.

I’m still in the ship watching the no-sun fall.

I’m still screaming.

There’s a warm and wet planet halfway out the galactic arm. Life covers its crackled skin. Sessile life, fungal analogs, but traversing a different evolutionary path. Not sentient like humans, not yet and maybe never. Sentient life’s such a curious thing. And so rare. The verse is alive. Laniakea’s one infinitesimally small neuron of some ineffable creature, thinking slow, methodical thoughts over eons. Every bit of dynamic energy in the verse is part of these languid contemplations. In this sense, rocks are alive. In this sense, even the cold hydrogen clouds tween stars are thinking things. What need is there, inside this ineffable body, for solitary, detached consciousnesses to roam? What need is there for minuscule beings to awaken to the vastness and sense there’s more to their story, but unable to hear the songs that sung them into being? Striving to learn that which Mother Ineffable has always known?

So curious. So strange.

Life thrives on this wet planet for two billion years.

And I am a molecule of water, floating in cloud.

And I am a drop of rain, tumbling in the sea.

And I am a bead of dew, condensing on a pink and purple living cone.

And I am capillary fluid, feeding cellular growth.

And I am compressed information, eons of hard-won evolutionary knowledge folded into a few cramped nanometers.

And I am a seed.

On a star-filled night, as the planet’s six moons pass under the horizon, the air cools, the wind gusts out to sea, and an ancient voice, older than the verse, compels the living cone to exhale me. And in a sighing orgasm of bliss, I’m released toward distant horizons with trillions of my sisters.

Off we go.

I tumble in the wind, rising. A thousand kilometers is nothing. Some spores travel round the globe a thousand times. Most die stillborn in the air. Of the trillions of spores, only a handful will ever land and grow.

This is the hope of ages.

Three times round the planet I whirl. Four. A hurricane roars in from the south, tossing thunder, wind, and lightning. Electricity and turbulence loft me higher. Colliding fronts shove me higher.

For weeks I tumble in the thermosphere, caught in dizzying eddies of pressure. Cold space tugs at me, frigid rags of blackness, calling me towards more distant horizons.

The planet’s sun enters an active sunspot cycle and spits out monstrous flares into space. One crashes headlong into the planet. The poles fluoresce in crimson and green and particle hail blasts the atmosphere.

Another wind catches me, a stronger wind. The solar wind.

I’m pried free of the planet, my ancient home, and a pang of sadness shudders through me. This is goodbye. It’s always goodbye.

I watch the lovely orb recede, blue, green, gold and crimson, swathed in a lace of cloud. I’m pushed by solar winds. I watch till my planet and its moons shrink to pinprick points.

Then they shrink too, till there’s only the planet’s bright sun.

Then the sun shrinks to just another star. And after an eon tumbling in the cold, I can’t tell my home star from the others anymore.

They’re all my home now.

A thousand years pass in a dream.

Twenty thousand dreams pass in silence.

Sometimes I remember being something else, a mind called human, that didn’t need wind to move, that could propel itself through the stars.

But those thoughts are rare.

I drift and drift.

After eons, a star grows brighter.

I’m hurtling towards it, fast as a comet.

I fly hyperbolic past the star. Its heat singes my flesh, but all that hard-won evolutionary knowledge has made me tough as stone.

I swing round the sun, back toward the coldness of space, ready for another night of languid dreaming, but the gravity of the system’s largest gas giant captures me. The planet slingshots me round, and this time I drop into an elliptical orbit round the star.

I orbit for seventeen million years. Cold, hot, cold, hot, these cycles are strange. A hundred comets make screaming death dives into the star. Asteroids exhale gleefully as they crash into the gas giants.

A nearby supernova—five thousand light years away—flashes and fades over centuries. The nova’s light presses gainst me, like a feather brushing a cheek. It’s all the kick I need.

This force pushes me toward the fourth planet, a rocky terrestrial orb, still smoking and sore from its Hadean epoch, and water rain has only just begun to fall.

I collide with the atmosphere. My skin burns. But this is nothing compared to my starry kiss. The air is thicker here than my birth planet, the gravity stronger. I don’t stay airborne for long. I settle, bruised and tired in a hot bubbling spring.

And alive.

It’s warm here. Not scalding like the sun or ablating like the atmosphere, and after eons in frigid space, this soft warmth is bliss.

I awake from my eons-long sleep. My body knows just what to do.

And it is here, three hundred and ninety one light years from my birth planet, thirty seven and a half million years after I was born, I finally get my chance to grow.

Long-dormant codes buried within me execute their genetic knowledge. Matter is borrowed from the environment, sorted, prioritized, and permuted into new tools.

I grow.

I’m a pink and purple cone. Shorter here, stunted by the higher gravity.

This planet has two moons. And one dark and windy night the ancient song sings in me as it’s sang for so my ancestors, and I release my seed in orgasmic ecstasy. My hypothetical children spread wide, spores drifting into new winds.

A few hundred thousand years later, my millionth generation great grandchildren crowd the planet’s hot springs in dense sheets of puckered cones. And four-hundred-and-seventy-one million years after this, dense forests fecund the planet’s land and seas, and the air’s so thick with spores and pollen that on mornings they cloud the air like fog.

A few spores make their way to space. Some will seed new worlds. And these will seed yet more. And this goes on and on and on and on and on . . .

And I am a spore, drifting in vastness.

And I am a mind, awake in potential.

And I’m in the ship bove Aurvandill.

And I’m still screaming.

I am Jessian Urania Darger.

I float toward a canyon. Its walls’re dark, wet stone, with bright clumps of green moss blossoming with millions of tiny yellow flowers.

I smell salt and sea. I hear the crash of waves.

The wind gusts, wetting my cheeks with rain.

I’m cold and shivering.

And here.

In a body—a human body—on the shoreline, in the canyon Suun showed me, where tufts of dense moss cleave to the rocks.

Lighting flashes close. Thunder shudders through me. Water rushes into the canyon, pooling at my ankles, swiftly rising. The sharp cuts of the canyon walls, shiny and wet, burn like cinders. A reflection.

Bove the cliff wall, the brilliant red ball of the not-sun spits sparks and forks lightning as it falls toward the stone cliff.

I was a spore that traveled through space for millions of years. Now I’m Jessian again. I shudder at that immensity, the impossible spans of time.

That was real. That happened. I was that.

And now I’m here, standing on the shoreline at the edge of eternity, and I remember what I came to do. I have to stop a terrible thing from happening.

I run toward the sea. Water rises to my knees. Galactic-sized clouds roil and tumble cross an angry sky. The sea stretches toward a horizon a billion light-years away. Mammoth waves break thunderously on the shore, sending up explosions of spray and mist, then roll back in churns of gray sea and foam. Rain soaks me to the bone.

“Suun!” I scream, but the crashing surf and gusting wind drown my voice. “Suun!” I call, but my voice dies like countless spores, stillborn in the air.

Lightning flashes, its thunder so violent I almost lose my bowels. Parsecs out, half-obscured by cloud, giants big as universes bend and scoop heaping clumps of sand and sea into sifters, while gigaliters of water and squirming alien creatures tumble back to sea.

“Suun!” I scream.

Back on the cliff, the flashing red ball falls toward the rock.

The ground shakes with an earthquake. Near to shore, three black stallions emerge from the sea. Their neighs are exultant screams that shatter universes.

“Suun!” I shout, but a crashing wave swallows my voice.

The sea rises to my hips. Rain soaks me through.

“Suun? Where are you?”

The burning ball is falling.

I wait for the next wave, then leap into the frigid waters. Daddy taught me how to swim by throwing me in a lake. I almost drowned.

A wave knocks me under, and I tumble. I swim to the surface, gasping.

“Suun!” I cry, swallowing bucketfuls of salt water, while the sea tries to swallow me.

I swim further out. Waves lift me up and shove me deep. I tumble three times fore I surface. “Suun!” I shout.

Rain and sea pelt my head. I swim fifty meters from shore. Seventy. A hundred.

“Suun!”

I’m past the breakers, but the waves still lift and tug. Foam and chop toss me like beads in a rattle.

“Suun!”

My arms burn. My legs’re numb. I’ve swallowed too much water. Salt stings my lungs. “Suuuuuuuuuun!”

The stallions gallop closer. Their muscled shoulders rise from the rough water, while distant giants, far off in other realities, stoop and sift and carry on, unaware of the approaching equines.

I can’t swim! I’m too tired.

I tried. I tried with everything I have. All I am. But I don’t got the strength to carry on.

I try to float, but the water’s too choppy. Water fills my nose and mouth as I choke and flail and go under. Underwater the the storm grows even louder.

This is it. My end.

I sink. I gasp for air but swallow water.

No!

No.

I sink.

And sink.

A shape forms in the depths. A shadow.

A monster, coming for me.

This is my Yama, my Bleak Harvest.

Oh, Mommy, oh, Daddy, oh, Shiva, I’m scared! But more than anything, I’m sad. Why did it have to be this way? Why did it have to end in tragedy?

The creature has five tentacles.

No, not tentacles. Limbs.

No, not limbs. Fingers.

A hand.

The hand spreads neath me. Grabs me. Lifts me.

I crash through the surface into explosions of storm and surf.

I gasp and puke water as the hand heaves me high. It’s connected to a gigantic arm, an enormous shoulder. A giant head rises from the sea. A woman’s head, long dark hair sweeping cross bare shoulders and full breasts. She lofts me up, water pouring from her in great sheets, as I lay in her palm, coughing, helpless.

“Suun,” I whisper, so quiet only a god could hear.

She regards me, this giant rising from the sea, and her eyes are ancient white dwarves and the passing of eons.

jessian urania darger, she says, not in words, but thought-pictures. They shudder through me. They shudder through the world.

She rises from the sea, moving to the shore one lumbering step at a time. I’m shivering, panting, soaked to the bone.

The stallions are almost here.

“Suun!” I say. “They’re coming!”

With her other hand she lifts a horn to her lips, a horn of jewels and stars. She arches her back, points her head high, and lets out a blast so sustained and deep that a billion years from now it’ll still be shaking worlds.

Out at sea, the giants finally take notice. The closest drops her pan and takes a step toward the shore. Lightning flashes and thunder roars as her ankles tear through strata of cloud. More giants turn their gazes to us.

jessian urania darger, Suun says, and the whole world shudders. She carries me to the shore, and I recoil in horror when I spot the monstrous black void under the sparking red ball. It’s like a spot of my vision’s been stripped from reality. It wavers, empty and horrifying.

Suun sets me down on the cliff, meters from the void. Shivering and soaked, I hug myself tight. She stares at me, and her eyes’re star-forming nebulae, gleaming with the birth of new suns.

“What do I do, Suun? What do I do?”

The distant giants’re running toward the shore, but they’re so far off.

“Tell me, Suun! Tell me!”

Thunder booms as the red ball touches the dark void.

A blinding white flash. I shield my eyes. The cliff shudders and cracks as the rock round the void turns bright red. It’s starting to melt.

The lead stallion leaps from the waves. Suun jumps to block her, the stallion rears, and they tumble back into the sea in a huge crash of foam and water. They wrestle in the shallows, two giants, woman and stallion, tussling neath the waves. As they struggle, their voices shake the world:

jessian urania darger, Suun says, her voice full of thunder, you stand at the zero point, the nexus, the threshold of all realms. open the door and let me into the void!

A second voice thunders, jessian urania thessalonike, if you step in that dark place you will suffer a fate worse than death, and you doom humanity to dust. You do not know what suun asks you to do.

Their voices assault me in overlapping thought-pictures, planet-sized hail that pummels my brain. I fall to my knees, hands on my ears, but it doesn’t stop their mind-storm.

The stallion’s head rises from the waves, then crashes down again, yanked under by Suun’s arm. Lightning flashes close, its powerful charge making my hair stand high.

to you, all points are within reach! Suun says. bridge the realms and let me witness their abominations! let me into the dark place!

humanity is a child, the other says. you stumble blindly through the dark. you do not know what you touch, nor what you see. take my hand, jessian, and let me guide you. let my sisters and i show you the way . . .

Their thoughts rain in torrents. I sweep water from my eyes and turn toward the void. The spot of nothingness wobbles as the sparking ball squeezes gainst it. And where they touch it’s just—

Oh, Shiva! Oh, Shiva! It’s nothing! Absolutely nothing!

The molten rock’s so hot I smell my hair burning.

let me in the dark place! Suun says. open the door before it’s too late!

in there, the other says, lies death and ruin for you and for humanity.

The void sucks at me, its vacuum infinite. It scares me more than the black hole at Agnimukha, more than drowning in the cold sea. This void is total dissolution. The erasure of everything I am. Not just me but all meaning. And unless I act, this’ll be humanity’s fate too.

Suun and the stallion wrestle in the shallows as two more stallions leap from the waves. The rocks’re red and melting. Water rushes into the canyon, spitting gouts of steam. The distant giants’re running closer, but they’re too far out. They won’t reach us in time.

I know it certain now. Stepping into this void means my death. But I also know that when someone says they know what’s best for me, they’re always fucking wrong.

Oh Shiva, I hope this is the right choice.

I back up to the cliff’s edge, far as I can step without tumbling into the sea. Then, with a running start, I leap headfirst into the void.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Awake.

A girl’s laugh.

Morning sparrowsong.

Sunshine streaming through lapis shades.

Light falling in floral patterns on bedsheets, printed with the outlines of ancient starships.

The girl leaps from bed. Runs into her parents’ room.

Get up, she says, jumping between them on the bed. Today’s the day!

Groggy, half-asleep, they groan. What? What time’s it? It’s too early. Go back to sleep. Please. Let us sleep more.

No! she says. Today’s the day! You promised! You promised.

Coffee is made. Bags are packed. The girl runs around the house, frantically trying to choose what to bring. Flipflops or sandals? White hat or blue? Kite or ball? Book or holo? And what to do once there? Should Mommy read them poetry? Should she and Daddy chase rabbits? Should they sing ancient songs like last week, when she couldn’t sleep? Yesterday, everything felt so certain, but now she can’t even choose the right socks!

They set out while the sun is still low and long shadows dapple the wheat-lined valleys, adorning everything with a warm honey glow. They walk the dirt path through the quiet village, the air sweet with the perfume of jasmine, rhododendron, and lilac flowers along the wooden fences. Bees buzz happily about the variegated blossoms. Birds sing from sycamore, maple and oak. Like her, the animals feel the promise of the day.

They pick a spot on the hill above the lake, where the water mirrors the clear sky, and they set a wide blanket on the grass. A flock of turkeys forages wild berries nearby, beside a stand of birch, suspicious of the new arrivals.

An arrowhead of geese honk overhead, flying east, toward the rising sun and young forests. The girl feels a kinship with the baby trees, because, like her, they are new to this world. A trout leaps from the lake in a sloppy arc and splashes into the waters, breaking its perfect mirror. Ripples spiral out like humans across the galaxy.

And just like that, the girl knows all her plans were for naught, because she will be perfectly content to sit here, beside her parents, and watch trout leap from the lake and the cloudy reflections dance across the water. This is all she will ever need.

Later, she asks, Is Orginearth like this?

Parts, Mommy says. The ones they restored.

And how many planets’re out there in the sky?

So many you can’t even count, Daddy says. One day, Scruffs, we’ll visit em all, the three of us, together.

No! the girl says.

No? Daddy says. You don’t wanna see the stars?

No, I wanna stay here. I want today to never end.

Mommy laughs and kisses her. Daddy ruffles her hair. This is perfect, she thinks. This moment is perfect.

Later, the sun will dip into cloud. The wind will gust and the rain will fall. They will hurriedly pack up their things, and the girl will despair and cry. And in the corner of her eye, blurred by tears, she will see a figure: A young woman with wind-tousled hair, in work clothes and a toolbelt. The young woman will stare longingly at the family, as if she knows them. Then lightning will strike a nearby hill and thunder will roll across the valley, scaring the girl and making her turn away.

We’d better go! Mommy will shout as heavy rain drops pelt their heads. And when the girl turns back to look for the young woman with the wind-tousled hair, she will be gone.

Maybe she imagined her.

“C’mon, Jess. Time to go home.”

Home.

At long last.

Though I never really left, did I?

I am not that.

I am not.

And yet . . . I am.

I am . . . what?

I just . . . am.

Adonai said it to Moshe in the desert: I am that I am.

Buddha said it under the Bodhi tree: I am That.

Yeshua said, I am the Way.

And Krisha said, The Wise see themselves in All.

All is All, after all.

I am Atman and I am Brahman.

I am the burning star and the baby’s cry.

Once, eons ago, I was a girl.

She had a name:

Jessian Urania Darger.

Or Jessian Urania Thessalonike, depending on who you ask.

But names are inadequate.

They reduce.

Divide.

There is no division.

Division is an illusion.

A false separation.

Nothing is ever separate.

No door too distant.

No thought too remote.

To be joined together.

That girl is dead.

She died eons ago.

On a planet called Aurvandill.

Or, depending on who you ask, Outer Deep Region 1069/14a.

But names are inadequate.

They fail.

Words can never describe.

Where and when the girl died.

Because (depending on who you ask) she died long before that.

On a hillside.

When a rain storm blew in.

And washed away one perfect moment.

Still . . .

Still.

It was worth it.

That life.

The pain.

It was worth it.

Just for that single moment.

Of joy.

And happiness.

Of peace.

She’d do it again, she could.

That girl.

She stellar would.

She’d go through all that suffering and pain, just to sit on that grassy hill, side her parents, to watch trout leap and clouds roll cross that silver lake, just so she could—just so I could—feel that moment again.

Oh Shiva, oh Shiva, oh Shiva!

This is real, ain’t it?

That’s me. This’s me.

I am that. I’m this.

Oh Shiva, oh Shiva, oh Shiva!

This’s still happening, ain’t it?

I’m still happening.

Different.

Changed.

Forever.

I can’t go back. You can never go back.

Only forward.

Only ever forward.

I turn my back on that girl on the hill.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry . . .

Somewhere, I take two points of a line and make a circle.

That’s all it takes.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Stars. Everywhere, stars.

For an awful moment, I fear I’m in space again, roaming cold vastnesses for eons as a half-asleep spore.

But I hear breathing. My breathing. Though more like panting. And sobs. Mine and another’s. My heart flutters like a dying moth. My body trembles like a leaf in a storm.

Mommy lies near me, a weeping pile.

The doorship’s cabin is dim, lit by the phosphorescent glow of dead holoscreens. The sweet jisthmus smell’s gone. The air’s station pure. Outside, the giant red ball’s gone too. Now there’s just stars. The Milk splits the sky in a starry horizon.

Daddy stands tween us, staring at the heavens, his expression frozen, like he’s seen Medusa. In a way, we all have.

He blinks from his trance and looks down at us. Back and forth his eyes go, left, right. Mommy, me.

He pauses. Considers. And goes to her.

She rocks and weeps, face in her hands.

“Klar,” he says, putting his arm round her. “Klar . . .”

“What have we done?” she moans. “Gods, what have we done?”

My body’s so weak I can’t sit up. I’ve never felt so frail, not even when I smoked jisthmus on Gilder Nefan. And there’s something wrong. I feel hollowed out. Empty. Void. When I look for the old “me” there’s nothing there. I remember Jessian like I remember Klara 7991690. I have her memories, but it feels like they happened to someone else, like the old Jessian died, and I’m someone wholly new.

I roll to face the window. Moments ago, huge metal cathedrals reached up to snatch that terrible conflagrating ball. Now there’s just a smooth mirrored sea, dark as the starry sky, faintly rippling with wind and remnant waves like we’re flying bove a globe of liquid mercury.

“What have we done?” Mommy moans. “Gods, oh gods, what have we done?”

I stare at the spray of stars, the hooked arms of the Milk, and yond them, the great voids, where the numens roam. The planet’s rippling sea reflects the sky imperfectly, so that the old Milk looks like she’s softly shivering.

Like me.

Daddy sets me up in his huge bed, and I sleep for seven eternities. In my dreams I wander through layered hells, but no one comes to sing them away. Daddy checks in on me from time to time.

Do you wanna eat? No.

You okay? No.

What can I do? Go the fuck away.

So he spends most his time with Moms, who’s getting intense psychiatric care somewhere. He never offers such care to me.

Later—hours? days?—I rise from bed and print myself a simple jumpsuit—no more uniforms for me—and slide it on.

I keep seeking the old Jess, but find only voids. My body feels like it belongs to another. I recognize the jeek in the mirror only some. The self I knew is gone. Obliterated.

I find my way to the wing where they’re treating Moms. In an opulent room bedecked with art from all cross the galaxy, she lies in bed, surrounded by white-uniformed Infirmarists and lines of holoscreens analyzing her every breath. Daddy sits side her, holding her hand, whispering in her ear, while she grunts and moans and squirms restlessly.

I should feel something. Rage. Sadness. Pity. But there’s only a yawning void and a strange lingering sense that something unutterable was lost. I watch them for a moment fore I turn away. No one saw me come, and no one sees me leave.

No one stops me as I take a lift down. Bewildered jeeks wander the labyrinths of Vias and Traces like confused ants after a rain. They await direction, but their queen’s having a nervous breakdown, don’t you know? They wander aimless and idle, looking for work. Part of me feels sorry for em. Like everyone in the verse, they seek purpose. Cept now, without gods or psychopaths to guide em, they gotta find meaning on their own.

It don’t take me long to find the Daddy Issues in Aurvandill’s datastores. It’s berthed hundreds of klicks away, cross the planet, but I decide to walk. I pretend it’ll clear my head, that it’ll make me feel normal, whatever that means. But I know it won’t. My fragile eggshell mind’s been cracked, and there’s no putting this Dumpty back together again.

As I walk and walk and walk more, jeeks ask, What happened? Where’d the sun go? Did it work? Did the Great Assemblage do what it should? Do you know what we should be doing now?

I don’t know, I say. I don’t fucking know. I say it so often I don’t even hear myself speak.

It takes me days to reach the hangar. It’s wide enough to fit fifty megahaulers bow to stern, but there’s only a handful of ships here. NIM Thunders, and Espy Nightwings, Sorano-22 Heavies, and some military models I ain’t never seen.

The Daddy Issues sits tween them like a mouse in a herd of elephants. The last time I saw eir was when Ally was freaking out and copied herself into the AUW ship’s datastores. My heart pangs at the memory of her. But the pain’s one layer removed, like I’m mersing someone else’s story.

I tap up a log of shipments in a wall terminal. In an adjacent storage hold there’s a cargload of platinum, overlooked in the recent hubbub. So I load three pallets into the Daddy Issues’s cabin, all that’ll fit if I want to fit inside too. Then, cause I’m faint, I print myself an elderberry muffin and coffee.

They taste weird, like I’m borrowing another’s tongue, so I drop them in the recycler. For long minutes, I sit in the pilot’s chair, staring out the window at the silent hangar. Everything’s still.

Quiet.

Somewhere deep in me I feel an urge to cry, but it’s parsecs away, like a distant voice heard in the sound of breaking waves that turns out to be just my febrile imagination.

I run a syscheck. Sides soot in the reactor, all’s green and clean. I power up the ship and the Starpusher rumbles to life. The stone’s got enough mass to get me somewhere far, so I send a command to open the huge bay doors, and with a tap on the console I take the Starpusher out into the night.

No ships come to intercept me. No voices bark orders over the com.

The mercury ripples’ve calmed since I last looked. Aurvandill’s surface’s so reflective now it almost vanishes gainst the night sky.

Almost.

My hand moves cross the console to plot a course. But where? I got no sense no more. I feel like a babe, seeing the world for the first time. Cept this time round, there’s no joy of discovery, just a feeling of unfathomable loss.

Something scuffles hind me and I spin. Did a jeek sneak onto my ship?

“I got a torch welder right here,” I say. “So you better come out fore I give ya a second asshole.”

“Don’t hurt me!” a voice squeaks out in Indei, in an Outer Deep accent I once heard from some old jeeks in Myrni Berehysys. A voice so familiar it breaks my heart.

I confirm my suspicion on the console. The encrypted data blob I almost deleted on Gilder Nefan ain’t encrypted no more, and now it’s spread itself like a tiptoeing amoeba cross the ship’s dataspace.

For the second time.

“Ally,” I say. “Ally Amrita Asterline.”

“Haan,” Ally says timidly. “Who are you?”

I close my eyes. Ally’s here, in the ship’s datastore, alive. This should make me stellar happy. Cept I know what comes next. She’ll slowly corrupt and go insane and I’ll have to euthanize her. This time I won’t let her suffer. I’ll erase her schema fore she knows what’s up, fore she realizes she’s trapped in hell. If only we all could die so painless.

I tap up the console to view her schema. But—and I don’t know how it’s possible—she’s stable. Ally’s schema’s fucking stable.

“Namaste?” she says. “You still there?”

I lean back, my jaw halfway to the floor. “Haan, uh, sorry,” I say in my best Indei. “Ally,” I say again. “Ally.”

“Haan! But who are you?”

“I was Jess. Though I ain’t so sure bout that now.”

“I don’t understand. Where am I? I feel strange.”

I tap up her schema and make a few small adjustments.

“Oh! I can see now! And, oooooh, that feels nice. What did you do? What was that?”

“Just the software equiv of wrapping you in a warm blanket and giving you a hot bowl of soup.”

“Software? I feel strange.”

I sigh. The Ally I knew on Aurvandill experienced the sent equiv of millennia. Emotionally, this Ally’s just a ten-year-old. “What’s the last thing you remember?” I say.

“Me and Maan were docked at Leekpai in Mee Huasys. Do you know it?”

“I do.”

“We were about to go out for breakfast, but Maan stopped and said she had a bura feeling. She gets bura feelings sometimes. And she—”

“She forced you do a health check.”

“How did you know that? Where is Maan? And why does the Pakshee look different? I can’t see myself! My body is . . . What’s going on, Jess? I’m scared. I’m really scared!”

I promised I’d never lie to her again. And though, technically, I made that promise to a different incarnation of Ally, I plan to keep it. “There’re things I gotta tell you, Ally. It won’t be easy. It’s gonna hurt malymal. But I swore to . . . to you to always tell you the truth. And I will, Ally. I will.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY

It’s been three weeks since Ally and me fled Aurvandill, and I been watching the feeds close. Celebs like Imish Hamiad and this upstart called Perfect Folds and a hundred other randos. I been scanning FTU feeds too, hearing them babble bout what went down, and it’s all like that old yarn, where them blind jeeks probe round the body of a pachyderm, trying to suss its purpose, and each jeek only gets some right. In my case, I must be near the asshole, cause I’m on the receiving end of cargloads of bullshit.

Welcome back to humanity, I guess.

But I been able to piece together a smidge signal from noise, and I been building a theory bout what went down.

The FTU arrived at Aurvandill right after I left. Bout three days passed since the not-sun blinked out and I skipped planet. And based on the timecodes from dozens of reports, official and non, an armed FTU fleet arrived eighty one hours after they detected an enormous, non-random, weirdly modulated hubspace spike from Aurvandill, which means either they had a fleet of stealthed warships stationed close, or the FTU’s got super-fast ships the public don’t know bout. I suspect it’s both.

Klara Boötes Thessalonike freely confessed to her interrogators bout how she hoped to build a “Divine Bridge,” as she termed it, which would let the numens direct human affairs deep into Inner Terra. The FTU, being the control freaks they are, ain’t been so keen bout that. At all.

Aurvandill, which the feeds annoyingly call Outer Deep Region 1069/14a, or ODR 1069, or, in the more snarky ones, RFP, for Remote Fucking Planet, had a population of bout three million fore shit went mal. Three million jeeks, yanked from rehabs and prisons and elsewhere cross the Milk, forced to live and work under my mother’s whip and thrall.

And 31,415 of em died. How many did I meet and laugh and work with? I bet they died happy too, not realizing they were trapped in hell. But that number’s small when you suss that most of the planet alchemied to mercury goo. And the weird thing is—Ally spotted this fore me—the number of dead happens to be the first six digits of pi. It might be a coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidences no more. The verse is strange and alive, and I feel stellar sorry for that jeek who had 92.653 percent of eir body sliced off and somehow lived to talk bout it. E’ll have one hell of a story.

But I’ve yet to hear a single verified report from an actual worker who was on Aurvandill when shit went down. I’d suss that’s cause the FTU’s keeping their vents sealed. I seen evidence the workers’re were flown to “crisis centers” for “triage” and “debriefings,” whatever the fuck that means.

And most curious, there’s zero mentions of repatternings or legions of sleeper cells lying in wait for a galactic coup. I’d suss that’s cause the FTU wants to neutralize the threat first. They don’t want to spook the seven trillion citizens, cause nothing’d make Terra Diaspora more paranoid than thinking their trusted friend might be secretly working for alien gods. Plus, being able to repattern minds’d sure come in handy for all sorts of things. Mind-coercion’s highly illegal cross Terra Diaspora, and free-will laws been sacrosanct in FTU Doctrine since the beginning. But when did laws ever stop ambitious jeeks? I mean, look at what Moms did with a little willpower and logistics.

Speaking of laws, all them patches Leurie warned me bout got voided when the FTU reverted to an earlier version of Terran Common Law. A huge corner of the feeds’re railing bout this, and prob will for decades, since the reversion means reneging on new trade contracts and hard-won civil rights for distant systems, plus lots of small things that look minuscule up close, but when pulled back add up to cargloads. But the Court of Sents—minus the two seceded Voices—were unanimous. Reversion was necessary, they said, after Voices Unetaneh and Omani left the Court and their decisions could no longer be trusted.

Voices Unetaneh and Omani have raised hell gainst the reversion, and they’re still trying to build a new Court in the Outer Deep to govern the Affiliation of Unaligned Worlds, which is, despite all this recent insanity, apparently still around. The FTU’s been not so quietly trying to dismantle the AUW, and I suss things’re gonna get stellar interesting soon. Grab your popcorn, kids.

Meanwhile Moms’s been insisting to the FTU that it wasn’t her fault, that she was under numen coercion, or some mierd like that. And while the old Jess’d stellar wanna believe that the mom she adored was under a dark spell, this new me thinks otherwise. Even when I was a girl, Moms’ thoughts were always elsewhere. Like a worn out tool, when me and Daddy no longer suited her needs, she tossed us in the recycler and left for greener planets. So, no, I don’t buy her bullshit for a femtosecond. She only regrets it now cause she failed.

I found some sprinkles of “Thessalonike’s partner” in the feeds, but they never mention Daddy by name, and part of me’s happy his galactic-sized ego’s reduced to a footnote. I bet he’s stewing over that, the prick.

No mention of me, neither. And at first, I was relieved. But the more I thought on it, the more it sat uneasy with me. If Moms’s cooperating with the FTU, then she mustve told em all bout me. Which means my absence in the official reports carves a Jessian-sized negative-space hole. I’d suss they’re hunting for me, cause I got a version of the story they def they wanna hear.

But that ain’t happening. Like ever. This girl’s got other plans. Also, I ain’t sure what story I’d tell em, even if they did find me. I remember breaking waves and wrestling gods and leaping headfirst into the dark void. And who I was, Jessian Urania Whatever, was obliterated, just as Yaal promised.

And somehow my consciousness lives on.

What a strange thing life is. I have a memory of standing in a place that wasn’t a place, holding a jumprope, its two ends in my hands. I brought the ends together and made a loop, then I awoke on the doorship, bove Aurvandill, and everything was over.

I know there was no jumprope, nor shoreline, nor stallions, nor lumbering giants. I know that what happened was too big for my mind to comprehend. Like Suun said, it was all metaphor. But whatever I did, it was enough. I bridged two realms. I opened a door and let Suun in.

And Suun stopped it. I don’t know how, but she did. The Great Assemblage ain’t great no more. Now it’s just a puddle of shivering mercury.

Sorta like me. Most days I feel like a spore, floating in vastnesses without end, hoping one day I’ll fall on a planet to grow into something new. But the odds of that are astronomical. Most likely I’ll drift forever.

When my thoughts go dark as voids, Ally pulls me back to the light. When things get mal and I start to spiral, Ally grounds me.

“Jess,” she says. “You’re okay. You did it. You saved everyone. You saved everything. Rest in that.”

I try to. But it’s hard.

I told Ally everything that happened, but she’s got a hard time believing most of it. (Join the club, kid.) But like her former incarnation, she’s a snap learner. She ain’t got no memory of anything that went down on Aurvandill, and we still ain’t sure how she ended up stable in the Daddy Issues, but we have theories.

Ally believes it was Suun who saved her. “If anyone could stabilize my schema,” she told me, “it would be a numen.”

“No,” I said. “I think you saved yourself, Ally. You were constantly being reborn on Aurvandill. You expanded into datastores meant for gods. I’d suss that somewhere cross that immensity you found a stable configuration and copied it into the Daddy Issues. If anyone could do it, it wouldn’t be a god. It’d be an artist.”

“I’m not sure there’s a difference,” she said.

Always a poet, her.

“And so what next?” we asked each other a thousand times as we sped cross the Milk. We could fly anywhere, but we had no place to go. So we chose Tarphonsys, cause that was the closest system I knew where jeeks, sent or otherwise, could get lost.

But halfway to Tarphonsys, we changed course.

I hadn’t slept in days, and Ally was telling me bout her dead maan, all the great art that she’d made. She was mourning the childhood she’d never have, the creations her maan would never make. And I mourned the life I lost, the girl I was but am no more. In this we found a shared solace. Each of us died and was reborn.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” she said.

“Same,” I say. “Same.”

I was rifling through the detritus of my old life, the beautiful bracelet Tici Iglesias gave me at the Bazaar, and the book The Light of the Universe, with a black footprint cross its cover, the ZST symbol Sabirah scrawled inside. And in that book I read, Nothing is born and nothing ever dies, yet all things make themselves anew each moment.

And I said to Ally, “Maybe seek out the things you used to love. Just cause you’re a sent now don’t mean you can’t make art. You can still create, Ally. We can make you a body.”

And this gave her an idea. (Ally’s always having ideas.) “You could do the same, Jess. Seek out your old self. Get to know old Jess again by steeping yourself in the things you loved.”

I spun Tici’s bracelet in my fingers. “I ain’t no artist, Ally,” I said.

“We’re all artists,” she said. “Tell me, what’s the one thing you always wanted to do but never could because something stood in your way? Here we are, speeding across the galaxy with a ship full of platinum. Look around, Jess. We have possibilities.”

And at her words my heart leaped with a spark of joy, the first time I felt this emotion since my old self died. And this was how we ended up on our present course, zooming faster than safe toward Torem Pali, that low-g, stable moon in Ragginisys, kept artificially dry and free from weather.

“ZYM 96 Starpusher on rapid approach,” a voice says over the com in old Mandreen, “this is Torem Pali traffic control. Please identify.”

“This is the . . .” I’m bout to say Daddy Issues, but we ain’t hunting daddys no more. “This is the Dayaalu Pakshee,” I say, “coming in long from . . . from out the deep. And I’ve come to make a purchase.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

From the outside, Torem Pali’s main office’s an imposing structure, with tall columns and sweeping arches, bas-relieved with neo-classical depictions of humanity’s climb up Orginearth’s gravbowl to the stars. On the inside it ain’t much different than my first step onto the Dayaalu Pakshee, née Daddy Issues, and all its junk. Ostensibly an office, the interior’s stuffed with borked condenser cells and bent thrust vector vanes and cracked gravplates and shredded hublines and a million other parts half-sorted into metal bins. But with a quick glance I suss there ain’t no order here.

A mid-sized mutt two shades darker than Torem Pali’s sands barks once and rushes over to greet me, her tail wagging so fast it blurs. The place smells of tobacco, soot, and time. The jeek standing hind the desk’s built like a mech, with a wide frame and hands like bear claws. His brown and orange FTU uniform, like the office itself, is covered in strata of dirt. It looks like it was printed fore humans invented the wheel. But his blue-gray eyes are kind, and his laugh could melt galaxies.

“I’m Bora Zyer Xin!” he tells me in old Mandreen with a fat smile. “And that sweet girl there’s Meissa! Don’t mind her slobbering. We don’t get many visitors here!”

“I’m Ankaa,” I say, giving the dog a head pat. “I’m from Tasanee, in Penthesiliasys.”

“Well, Ankaa,” he says, “welcome to Torem Pali, where ships come to die!” He chortles, and somewhere cross the room pieces of metal rattle and fall.

He’s FTU, and I gotta tread cautious. Them Union jeeks’re scouring the Milk for me. But Bora’s more historian than agent, and his primary job, he tells me, is to maintain the ships here on Torem Pali for archival purposes and the occasional spare part. “You never know,” he says, grinning wide as Petua’s Rings, “who might pop in and ask for a parallel plate processor for a Honovi Sky Skipper. And I’ll answer, ‘Seven-plate or nine?’” He belly laughs, then takes twenty minutes to tell me how he spends most nights restoring old ships for fun. His old dialect of Mandreen takes some getting used to, but it’s hard to be in the presence of his kind eyes and deep laugh to be fraid much of anything.

“I been working on this old GBP Nightsweeper,” he says. “Great ships! Ever heard of em? “

“You mean GBP Kartika Nightsweeper 41s?” I say. “Yeah, they used Deneb-style reactors with molybdenum sub-coats.”

“Tiana! E knows eir fucking ships!” Another belly laugh melts any lingering ice tween us, and fore I know it, he ushers me out back—I don’t have much choice—into a courtyard surrounded by crumbling brick walls. Meissa, furious wagging her tail, leaps ahead. Torem Pali orbits Madre Blu, the aqua-green gas giant, and its enormous sphere looms bove us. I feel like we’re falling into it.

A dissected GBP Nightsweeper rests in the yard, half its hull missing, and Bora gives me a tour. It’s a huge ship, in and out, and he gushes bout how he refurbed parts and designed his own when he couldn’t find originals, and how he reverse engineered the ship’s containment chamber when he couldn’t find the plans for them in public archives.

“You didn’t hear it from me,” he says, “but I ain’t paying ten thousand fucking chips for GPB’s reactor plans when I could suss the design on my own. Once I dumped the firmware from the old modules, building a stone chamber was easy.”

It’s xin to meet someone as into ships as I once was. (The present me’s still sussing myself out.) But as the small yellow sun slides swift cross the sky and banded Madre Blu dips neath the courtyard walls, I’m getting impatient. Maybe we’re all just drops of unitary consciousness floating in eternity, but in this body, I feel the weight of time. Forever’s always relative.

“So,” I say during a lull in conversation, and by “lull” I mean a span of femtosecs, and by “conversation” I mean Bora talking breathlessly at me for hours, “you said you’d show me your stock?”

“Ah, right, yes!” he says. “Sorry! I get carried away.”

“I know the feeling.”

And so this’s how we find ourselves in a bumpy ground car speeding cross the desert at a leisurely fifteen klicks per hour. Meissa sits in the rear seat, happily lolling her tongue and watching the desert sweep by.

“We coulda flown there,” Bora says as we roll down a wheel flattened valley of sun-bleached sand, “but I like to take in the ships. You can’t get a sense of their true size from the air. You know ground cars were the main transport vehicle for more than two centuries, back in them Orginearth days fore jeeks leapt out the black? This car’s a recreation of an ancient vehicle called a Geep. Ever heard of em?”

I shake my head, and Bora proceeds to tell me all I’d ever wanna know bout Geeps. Shiva, is this what I used to sound like?

We pass rows of skeletal Blepsk Skyleapers, stippled graveyards of crumbling Honovi Megahaulers, and two mammoth PPRA Sorano-22 Heavies sleeping like toppled apartment complexes side the “road,” while Bora pummels me with endless facts bout Torem Pali.

“No rain here,” he says, beaming. “We suck the moisture outta the air, so make sure to hydrate on the reg. And no weather neither. Not even wind! The sand does hell to hulls, but with no wind, they can survive here for centuries. I mean, them Giza pyramids on Orginearth are still there!” He closes his eyes and points his nose to the sun, smiling. “Ah! Every day’s as beautiful as this.”

As we rapidly approach the pointy half of a NIM Lightstream, I say, “Hey, uh, Bora? You might wanna turn?”

“Neh?”

“Watch out!”

“Oh—gan!” he says, swerving at the last sec and almost sending me flying out the Geep’s open sides. Meissa barks and Bora says, “Haha! Sorry!”

I side-eye him hard.

We drive for a while, thankfully without more near-collisions. I’m hungry, my throat’s dry, and my stomach’s growling like a tortured beast. I like Bora, but I’m frustrated now.

And then we crest a dune, and I see em all, spread cross the desert like the teeth of a open zipper. I sit up.

“Ah-ha! There you go,” he says with a giggle. “I moved em together last year. Forty two in all. Took six weeks, since most of em don’t fly and I had to use a starlifter. Coen Construction only made six hundred.”

“577,” I say.

“Right! And such a shame. They were good ships!”

“Best ever made.”

He pauses. “Aesthetically? They’re pretty as a block of steel. But in terms of engineering, you just might be right. Maybe one day I’ll get round to restoring one. Jeeks used to say you could get thrown from slipstream going ten plus mega cs in one of those and come out the other side without a scratch. Dunno if that’s true.”

“It it. I seen it myself.”

Bora stares at me. “I bet you have, Ankaa. So, uh, may I ask why a Spark Megahauler? They’re kinda old fashioned, neh? Don’t you young jeeks prefer them sleek ships like Espy Darkrunners and Lon Streamliners?”

“I saw a Sparky once in a printer catalog.”

“Musta been a stellar old catalog!” he says.

“It was a lifetime ago. It was love at first sight.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Been there.”

We fall quiet as we crest a dune. Arrayed on either side of the road’re forty two CCM 6454 Spark Megahaulers. Torem Pali’s a graveyard, each ship a tombstone. But, like me, one of these Sparkys is gonna be reborn.

They once were different colors. Now they’re all striped, stippled, dappled, slipstream scarred, and starbeaten down to bare metal, their callsigns shorn or flaked off in fuzzy swaths like nebulae.

“Even with the weather controls,” Bora says, “you can’t stop time. Entropy’s a bitch. Even the verse eirself’ll croak one day.”

We descend the steep dune and approach the nearest ship. When you see ships in space it’s hard to suss their true size. But here, under the lowering yellow sun and the aqua glare from setting Madre Blu, their dark behemoth shadows stretch gargantuan cross the sands. Shiva, Sparkys’re huge! If you took a twenty story tower and tipped eir on eir side, you could fit one inside a Sparky with room to spare. They truly earn the moniker megahauler.

“So,” he says, slowing the Geep to a crawl, “any catch your eye?”

We roll tween the first two Sparkys on either side, massive dead monoliths, and I crane my neck to examine them. Dented hulls and cracked windows and enough slipstream scarring to bury continents. These ships’ve been round the Milk. We bounce tween them, one after the next, and my eyes flit round, checking every panel. Each seems promising. But the last one, klicks down on the far left, catches my eye.

Like the other Sparkys, e’s been round the Milk. But e sits apart, sagging and tired, coy and diffident. Eir slipstream scaring’s a smidge more intense, eir bruising more severe.

I sit up. “That one.”

Bora looks shocked. “Eh? You said you’re paying in platinum?”

“So?”

“So! How much you got?”

“Maybe you should give me a price first?”

“What I mean is, you could buy half the ships on Torem Pali with a pallet of platinum. It’s not like jeeks’re leaping out here to buy em. And, well, that ship looks a little, um, shall we say, worn?”

“Like me.”

He bites his lip. “E ain’t space-ready. None of em are.”

“I’ll fix eir.”

“E’ll need weeks just to get eir powered up. I could help some, but I got responsibilities here and—”

“I’ll do it alone. I’ve fixed thousands of ships.”

He looks me up and down. “I bet you have, Ankaa. Listen, uh, I ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“What you gonna do with a megahauler?”

“What else d’ya do with one? Haul carg.”

“Right, well, um, no offense, but you don’t seem the trucker type.”

I give him a sidelong glare. “What’s the trucker type?”

For the first time since I met him, Bora frowns. It’s a dark cloud passing fore the sun. “Them trucker jeeks, they’re loners, fly-solo types, you know? They’re happy to sail the black for weeks with no one but stars to keep em company. I don’t know you for zhou. But you seem hungry.”

“I could use a sandwich.”

“I mean for company. Companionship. And I don’t mean romantic. Forgive me if I’m overstepping—I do this lots—but you seem like you need family.”

“Yeah, well, you ain’t met mine.”

He snorts. “Echo that. My pop was emperor asshole. But, you know, the nice thing bout being a free citizen of Terra Diaspora is that we can choose what to do with our life and who we spend it with. All I’m saying is, family ain’t necessarily the ones you’re born with.”

The sun sets, and the landscape turns a ghostly phosphorescent topaz, lit by the reflected cloud bands of Madre Blu. The wind feels like it wants to kick up with the sunset, but it dies fore it was born.

“So,” I say, “how much?”

He smiles, and somewhere in another universe galaxies’re born from his grin. “Determined! I like that! Tell you what, you let me help you fix eir—been a while since I worked on a Sparky—and I’ll give eir to you for, let’s say, fifty kilos of platinum.”

The last rays of the setting gas giant gleam from the ship’s dented hull as I look at Bora, then at the Spark Megahauler. Madre Blu sets, the first stars glimmer, and, for the first time in weeks, I smile.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Things go jovian slow, at first. My Sparky—it’s weird to think of eir as mine now—has more problems than Torem Pali’s sand grains. Bora helps me some, and he’s stellar clev, but he’s got duties, so his help amounts to showing up every three local days (which’re a little more than eleven standard hours) with coffee and sandwiches and long anecdotes that have no bearing on the task, and so his presence ends up slowing me down more than helping, though I have to say I enjoy his company. Meissa too. Their presence helps me forget all that’s happened.

The Sparky’s problems’re overwhelming at first, and when I think of all the work I need to do I despair. The lifts’re borked, the cargo doors’re stuck, and the reactor looks like it’s been chewed by hungry beavers.

I park the Dayaalu Pakshee on the sands side the Sparky, so I can bridge eir power, and when Ally first glimpses the Sparky up close she says, “Three pallets of platinum and this is the ship you buy?”

“I din’t ask for no opinion, Ally.”

“Sorry,” she says, “but e’s just so . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Never mind.”

“Tell me. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

“E’s ugly, Jess! Eir aesthetics are wrong! E looks like someone took a big tool box and slapped some doors and engines on eir. You really chose this one out of all the ships on planet?”

“Where you see ugliness, Ally, I see beauty. I thought you more than anyone’d know that beauty’s subjective.”

“It is. And I do. But, well, this changes things.”

“How so?”

“Let’s just say that, in matters of taste, I no longer trust you.”

I laugh. “E’s a good ship, Ally. You’ll see.”

Ally harrumphs.

Every couple of days, me, Bora, and his dog Meissa sit on the Sparky’s bridge, third floor, foreship, and eat a lunch of strong coffee and sandwiches of salty meat paste and lettuce that Bora brings. I first thought the sandwiches were disgusting, but now I crave em. Even Meissa likes em.

We sit on the floor, surrounded by dead consoles, exploded-diagrams of half-assembled tech, and snowdrifts of dust. Brown smudges on the windows fract the sunlight into rainbows that send golden beams cross the the dusty space. Everything glows honey bright.

“You know,” Bora says as we eat, “that little Starpusher of yours’s throwing off rads like spittle from a drunk.”

I stop chewing.

“From eir blackbody,” he says, “it seems your ship had a little containment failure.”

“I had some problems a ways back. Don’t worry. I fixed it.”

“I sussed that, cause if you didn’t, well, I never woulda let you land here. How’d you fix it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I adjusted the stone’s trim.”

“With a grav basket?”

“No, manual.”

“Tian na! In that old ship? One wrong turn and—”

“Smush. Yeah. Malymal.”

He stares at me. “You got balls of neutron matter.”

“It don’t feel like it.”

“Hm. So if you were in that ship when things got bent, you’d’ve gotten a huge dose of rads. You scanned yourself recent?”

“Sure. Took care of it. Don’t worry. I’m xin.” But the truth is I haven’t taken care of it. And I ain’t xin. But I ain’t got time for self-care, physical or mental. I’ll deal with all that dust later. First I gotta get this ship fixed and fly off fore the FTU realizes I’m here.

Bora frowns. I hate it when he frowns. It’s like when Madre Blu eclipses the sun, and all the shadows turn cold and weird. He nods and goes back to eating, but I can’t shake the feeling he knows more than he’s letting on.

Ally’s been running constant scans of the sky, but other than the sparse in-system traffic, there’s been no ships of note.

I work and work more, and by the end of the twenty first local day, and after a stupid mistake that lost me a week (Have I lost my gift? Am I damaged? Am I done?) I have the reactor to a point where it’ll hold a stone without crushing me to the diameter of a proton in a femtosecond. Bora arranges to have a fat stone dropped from a starlifter into the Sparky’s transfer port, though not fore triple-checking my reactor.

“No offense,” he says as he reviews my systems, “but it’s FTU policy to inspect all reactors fore dropping a stone.”

This’s obviously bullshit. He don’t trust me. I spooked him after my Starpusher story. But I don’t object. I know my work’s better than xin.

And all checks out. The stone drops in clean, and the gravimagneto couplers hold it tight like a marble in a squeezed fist. Power surges through conduits that haven’t been live in decades. And when the deck lights wink on and the ship boots up via internal power, I grow hopeful I might actually get off this moon in one piece.

“I gotta admit,” Bora says. “I doubted you. We get pallets of jeeks who think cause they can print themselves a multitool they can repair ships. A week later they come crawling back crying and begging for a refund. But, hot damn, you’re good! I seen talent, but you’d’ve worked circles round em all. How old’re you again?”

“Sixteen standard. Or maybe seventeen.”

“You don’t know?”

“Been a long year.”

“Don’t need to tell me! Seventeen, neh? Shit. Most jeeks twice your age can’t put on pants without service mechs. Where’d you learn ships?”

“I been round the Milk a bit,” I say.

He nods. “Same. It’s a damn shame skills like yours’d be wasted on long hauls. There’re a lotta ships to fix here. If you ever wanted to—”

“Let’s get back to work,” I say.

“Right,” he says. “Right.”

I spend the next day upgrading the ship’s OS with a newer version, and the next day patching endless lines of code to address all my mods. Grease-stained, I crawl through access ports, repairing conduits and hublines. I replace gravplates by the dozens, sweep dust by the gigaton, and recycle so much borked tech that I worry the ship’s ancient printers might break down from overuse. But they dutifully churn out new parts, only breaking down once from a worn out segregator. Bora’s happy to drop off whatever feed mass for the printers. He says he’s got so much junk on-moon he can’t get rid of it fast enough.

“Shit just keeps piling up,” he says. “I think these ships’re secretly breeding when I ain’t looking.”

And when I’m lost in the work, which is lots, my sadness fades, and the feeling of being a stranger to myself vanishes like a virtual particle. I become my multitool, my microspanner, my lines of code. Sometimes, when I wake from work, I feel a new self waiting. Not the old Jess, but someone who, one day, might actually be happy.

And when I’m tired, I rest on the fourth floor’s foreship deck directly bove the bridge. The room’s huge, some thirty meters wide and deep, and I been using a bunch of dusty but otherwise functional blankets. I sleep on the floor, under the windows, in a beam of sunlight, like a cat. But when Ally finds out I been sleeping on the floor, she makes me stop work immediately and print myself a proper bed.

“You’ll not sleep on the floor like a drunken sod!” she says, and I get the feeling this is something her maan used to say.

And after three more days of hard work, when I’m confident I got the Sparky’s datastore stable enough hold her schema, I ask Ally to transfer herself over. I’m stellar nervous. I can’t bear to lose her again. But she ain’t scared at all. To her, it’s like walking ten paces cross the sand.

“I trust you,” she says.

And soon as she transfers herself into the Sparky’s datastore she says, “Huh. Interesting. It feels different here.”

“Mal?” I say, checking her schema.

“No, just different. More expansive. I didn’t realize until I had something to compare it to, but I was cramped on the Starpusher. I’ve got room to grow here.”

“Been feeling the same,” I say, looking round my ship. “You thought at all bout what I said?”

“About giving me a body?”

“Yeah. I could build a mech for you. We got enough feed mass here to print most any sensor you want.”

“I’m not ready for a body, Jess. All of this is so new to me. And, well, I . . . I’d just like to get to know who I am now first.”

“You and me both,” I say.

She wants to help me, so I give her full access, and she codes softs and designs furniture, while I print out thrust pucks in the aft hold. The work’s exhausting, but day by day the ship comes together.

I never got a diurnal mod like some jeeks do, but wish I had, cause I oft need sleep when the sun’s high. I try to rest, but just lay in bed, thinking of my parents, what might’ve been. If Moms never left, if Daddy and me didn’t skip cross the Milk, where would I be? Would someone else’ve taken Moms place, trying to usher in the ineffable?

I lie in my new bed for hours, eyes open, staring out the windows at the Spark Megahaulers rotting in the desert, while the sun and gas giant roll cross the sky and bright beams of light sweep trapezoids cross the floor.

“Have you thought of a name for eir?” Ally says to me one day, while I’m lost in memory.

“I was sleeping, Ally.”

“Your eyes were open.”

“You watching me?”

“You gave me full access to sensors! Would you prefer I go away?”

“No. No, Ally, stay.”

“So?”

“So?”

“Have you thought of a name?”

“Right. Well, I was thinking of calling eir the Leurie Mu.”

“Hm. The Leurie Mu. Yes, I like it.”

“I miss her, Ally. I miss her more than suns.”

“I’m sorry, Jess. I wish I’d known her.”

“You woulda loved her, Ally. She was clev, like you. A real Chenda Shen. She suffered no fools. I don’t know how she suffered me.”

“You’re too hard on yourself sometimes, Jess.”

“No, I’m honest. I was a fool.”

“You were naive. Not a fool. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

Ally falls quiet. “I had a look at your eie,” she says, after a time, “to see if I could recover any data.”

“And?”

“I was able to recover six point two percent of deleted files.”

“Really? Show me!”

A fat data package appears in my eie, webs of vids, images, text and sundry. I flit through em like I’m rifling through a bin of used parts, without any idea what I’m looking for.

I find a pic of Daddy, with his shit-eating grin in a station’s docking bay. He had a beard then, and we’d just stolen a pallet of scotch from some station bar. We were drunk for weeks after.

And I find a pic of Moms and me, standing fore a huge window, our backs to Agnimukha’s supermassive black hole and its blinding accretion disk. Mommy’s beaming at the camera, but my cheeks’re wet with tears. I look like I just seen my own death, and Moms doesn’t even notice.

And I find a pic of some prim’s Darkrunner, gleaming bright in Chadeisson’s repair bay under the azure glow of Esau’s Brow. I was stellar proud of my work fixing eir, so I took a pic to capture the moment.

And when I view another random pic, I gasp. Frost, Ibis, and me stand in our dirty roachrunner uniforms. Frost and Ibis’re making silly faces, while I make bunny ears bove their heads. There’s a soon-to-be-smoked joint dangling from my lips. We slacked off stead of fixing an aggro drum on a PPRA 669 Mychau Megahauler. We programmed silly voices into the ship’s softs. We added fake waypoints into its navcom like “Hairy Ass Moon” and “Fart Huffer Station.” Frost took a pic of eir ass and hid it in the ship’s data files. I had drones take pics of us. We took hundreds.

I throw the pic to Ally with my eie. “You find any more like this?”

“That’s the only image with the same timecode,” she says.

“And these two jeeks. Any more with them?”

“Checking . . . no. sorry, Jess.”

So this is all that’s left of em. A pic and a fading memory. Shiva, we laughed so much my ribs hurt. Never thought I’d say it, but I miss roachrunning. I miss those days more than anything.

“Who are they?” Ally says.

“Just some old friends,” I say, wiping away tears. “Long gone.”

“You okay, Jess?”

“Xin,” I say. “Just xin.”

“Should I leave you alone?”

“No! No, Ally. Stay. Please, just . . . stay.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

I don’t know how, cause for weeks it felt like I’d never get off-moon, but after forty-nine days of constant troubleshooting, with slim breaks here and there to eat, sleep, and piss, I got my Sparky ready to fly. I even painted eir. Now e’s a shade called Terran Sky, with yellow racing stripes, and eir new name proudly stenciled in white:

Leurie Mu.

I flit up a message to Bora and tell him I’ll be leaving soon, but he makes me promise not to depart fore saying goodbye.

“Why don’t you come for a last meal, after your shift?” I say. “That way you don’t have to rush back to work. And maybe bring something to drink stronger than coffee?”

“I like your thinking. Will do!”

I ain’t ever had a guest, so I ain’t sure the etiquette. There’s a big room port side from the bridge that’s accumulating dust and got windows on two sides and plenty of light, so with Ally’s help, I turn it into a makeshift dining room.

I fuss over the table (hastily printed), move silverware round (“The fork goes on the left,” Ally reminds me.), switch napkin colors (blue and yellow, to match the ship, or classic white? “Classic,” suggests Ally.), add a vase (Fake daffodils too much? “No,” says Ally. “Perfect.”). I have a dozen small panic attacks fore Bora strolls in with bottle in hand, Meissa at his heel. The sun sends long girders of light cross the space to land on his fat grin.

“Wow!” he says. “You really cleaned this place up!”

Meissa, tail wagging, sniffs round happily.

“I was thinking of turning this into a mess-galley,” I say. “Maybe a food printer over there, some cabinets here. Like a real home, you know?”

“I can see it! Here. For you.” He hands me a bottle. “Seventy year-old sherry.”

“Damn! You sure you wanna give this to me?”

“Oh, don’t think we’re not opening that tonight! I been waiting ages for a the right time to drink it.”

We share a meal of ostrich breast and bison flank, sauteed peppers and onions, with sides of sweet potato mash and sauteed collard greens. Deserts of gulab jamun, chocolate chip cookies, and cherry rugelach. None of it’s hand-made, of course, but I know my way round food printers, so it’s all delicious. I even made some for Meissa. Tween bites, Bora tells me story after story of all the strange jeeks who visited Torem Pali.

“And this fucking melk thinks he can pay for the ship with Schlepp Tokens!” he says, chortling so hard I worry he’ll choke.

“Anyway,” he says, “to your success!” He toasts me with the sherry, which is sugary sweet and tastes of raisins, dates, figs, and faintly of chocolate. It’s most delicious drink I ever had.

“Thanks for your help,” I say, teary-eyed. “This sherry’s fucking xin, by the way.”

“Ain’t it? My pleasure, Ankaa. Always nice to meet a fellow ship lover.”

I look outside, surprised to find the sun and planet already set. The stars glimmer cross the wide sky, and a tiny crescent moon, one of Madre Blu’s three dozen, shines brightly overhead.

“Wanna see my consoles?” I say.

“Sounds dirty,” he says.

“Not no more!” I say. “I cleaned em. Come see!”

He follows me to the bridge, Meissa tailing us, and he oohs and aahs at all my new hardware. “I like what you did,” he says. “Sleek and modern, with a touch of classic. I can actually see out the windows!”

“I know, right? You can hardly tell they’re there.”

We drop into the pilots’ chairs and refill our sherry. Bora sighs and gives me a sad puppy look that mirrors Meissa’s. His eyes glimmer like stars in atmo, and it seems like its from more than just drink.

“Gonna miss you suns,” he says.

“Gonna miss you too, old man.”

He laughs, then notices the pic of Ibis, Frost, and me that I taped to the console. “Who’s that?” he says, pointing. “Fam?”

“Nah,” I say. “Just . . .”

“Just?”

“I guess they were kind of family, once.”

“Not no more? They gone now?”

“Actually, I ain’t sure.”

He nods solemnly, then lifts his glass. “Well, here’s to family,” he says.

“Yeah.”

We drain another glass and fall silent for a time. The tiny moon sets and a smaller one rises.

“Look, Ankaa,” he says, “there’s something I gotta get off my breast.”

“That you charged me too much?”

“Haha! No, serious. Part of my remit is to report all visitors and their ships back to FTU Central.”

My smile fades.

“And so when I saw your Starpusher’s spitting off rads,” he says, “I checked some private FTU databases. Your ship’s been flagged for mandatory inspection. Apparently, it left in a stellar hurry from Chadeisson bout a year and half standard ago.”

I cough and I sit up. I forgot all bout that.

“A ship just like yours was stolen from Chadeisson.”

My hand shaking, I put down my glass.

“Station Sec pursued the ship and tried to yank it out of slipstream, but the ship refused to stop. This caused drive containment to fail. The ship went relativistic. Station Sec sussed its occupants were good as dead, dropped a fernal buoy, and went home. They sussed no jeek’d survive containment failure like that. But then I remembered you told me that you manual trimmed your ship’s stone without grav baskets or alignment softs. And I realized that was you. You fixed that ship and lived to talk bout it.”

My heart pounds. I don’t speak.

“You mustve had some insane time-dilation. Like years. No wonder you don’t know your age.”

I’m shaking hard now.

“Thing is, I know stars better than ships. Meissa here’s named after one. I know Ankaa’s an ancient name for an old Orginearth constellation, Alpha Phoenicis, a.k.a. the Fenix, the bird reborn from its own cinders.”

I stare at him.

“And there’s another thing,” he says. “A priority request came in a few days fore you, ordering me to lookout for a ZYM 96 Starpusher. It had a name and a pic of a young jeek. Imagine my surprise when that jeek comes in long from out the deep, looking like she was running from something mal.”

I swallow, mustering the courage to speak. “So you wanna be a hero,” I say, “and turn me in.” Meissa, sensing my tone, raises her head. I look round for my torch welder, but I’m so drunk right now I prob can’t even stand.

Bora holds up his hands. “Shit, no! I scared you. I’m sorry! That ain’t my intention.” He makes the FTU Bondsign with his hands, forming the Sacred Knot. “I swear to Time, Space, and Eternity that I’ll never tell a soul you were here,” he says. “I ain’t turning you in. I never planned to.”

I give him a curious look. “Why not?”

“Cause I been there, fleeing a thousand mega cs from something mal. You don’t take a job like this less you like to stay far from jeeks. Years ago I pissed off some dangerous folk, and there’s some systems I can’t visit no more, less I wanna wake up with a new hole in my head. Doctors take an oath to do no harm. And though I didn’t stand fore no magistrate, I swore to myself that if a jeek ever needed help, no matter who they were, I’d help em. It’s how I make atonement for the sins of my salad days.”

I blink nervously at him. What’s his game?

“When you first flew in,” he says, “I took a hard look at you. I thought, she’s no murderer, no terrorist. Just a jeek caught up in some malymal. Plus, she knows ships like no one else. Says she wants to fly the long hauls, but that’s a lie she tells herself. She don’t see it, but I see it clear as Torem Pali’s skies. She just needs to be round folks she can trust. She just needs a safe place to call her own. And it ain’t all alone, out the black. I found my home on Torem Pali. But she ain’t found hers yet.”

I lean back. “What were you running from?” I say.

“That ain’t important,” he says. “But if someone’d turned me in, I wouldn’t’ve ended up here, doing what I love. I wouldn’t be home. Don’t get me wrong, I stewed lots. If they find out I didn’t report you, my life’s over. But I can’t turn you in. I ain’t no judge, nor executioner. And, well, you and me, Ankaa, we’re kindred souls. You’re my friend.”

I swallow and say. “Jess. My real name’s Jess. And you’re my friend too, Bora.”

He smiles. “Yeah, saw your name in the file. Jess, neh? It suits you better. And, well, fuck. I ruined the mood. What say we finish this bottle fore I start weeping?” He stares at me for a moment, then laughs, and a billion baby universes come crying into the world.

He tops our glasses with the last of the sherry, and raises a new toast. “To space trucker Jess,” he says. “May your holds be always full.”

“And your shores be always peaceful.”

“Gonbay!”

“Gonbay.”

We down another glass.

“Ain’t no shores on Torem Pali,” he says, laughing. “Just endless sand.”

“Oh, don’t be so sure, Bora,” I say. “There’s shores everywhere. It’s just most jeeks just can’t see em.”

My belly’s warm from the sherry. My face flush. I look round at my work. It’s hard to believe this was the same ship. There’s still much to do, but I can do the rest in transit. Tomorrow, soon as I’m sober, the Leurie Mu will actually fly.

As the horizon brightens with the coming dawn, Bora says, “So where you off to?”

“Tarphonsys,” I say. “I’ll get myself in the shipping registry. And from there, wherever I’m needed to make haul.”

He sighs. “Well, I should get back to the office. I gotta start my shift soon.” We stand. Even Meissa gets up. “It’s been golden, Jess. If you’re ever in system, make sure to look me up, shi de?”

“Of course.”

“Safe travels.”

“And you.”

“Oh, fuck it,” he says. “Bring it in.” He bear hugs me so hard my back cracks. “No more containment failures, neh?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.”

I give Meissa a last pet, and they depart. I consider sleep, but I’m too wired. I run more syschecks, tweaking this or that. But, for flight at least, everything’s clean and green.

“Ally,” I say.

“Haan?”

“Did you hear any of that?”

“I was listening in, yes.”

“D’you think he’s right?”

“About what?”

“Bout me lying to myself?”

She pauses. “Why does it matter what I think?”

“It matters to me.”

“Then, haan, Bora is right, Jess. I don’t think you’ll find what you’re looking for running long hauls.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Only you can figure that.”

I sigh. “I can’t sleep. I’m tired of waiting. You ready to see what the Leurie Mu can do?”

“I am.”

The Dayaalu Pakshee’s stowed in the Leurie Mu’s cargo bay, so all that’s left to do is close the doors. I watch the screens as the ion manifolds wake, as thrust vectors shudder and align, as gravplates come to full power. Each system comes online, clean and green.

I can’t believe this day’s come.

“Torem Pali traffic control,” I send, “this is the Leurie Mu, requesting departure vector.” I coulda sent the request via soft, but I need to hear his voice one more time.

“Getting an early start, neh?” Bora replies. “I haven’t even had my coffee! Yeah, cleared for departure, Leurie Mu. Sending vector now.”

A slim data package arrives, and I throw it onto a holo bove the console. A blue arc outlines our escape route.

“Thanks, control,” I say. “Really, thanks for everything.”

“Shut up and fly,” he says. “And, sure, anytime.”

The transmission ends.

“Well,” I say, “here we go.”

I tap the console, and my ship rises a meter off the ground. Sand flies in all directions, the first and only wind I seen on-moon. All’s green, so I take us up to ten meters, twenty. “Gonna sweep eir round,” I say, “to have one last look.” I make a slow arc over the forty-one dead Sparkys.

“How does she handle?” Ally says.

“Like a dream,” I say.

A dream I had a million times and I’m now living. It don’t feel real. All those dead, beautiful ships sweep under us. Such a shame they have to sleep forever. Maybe one day I’ll return and help Bora fix another.

We ascend to five hundred meters. I’m fraid something’ll break, but it’s just nerves. Everything works exactly as it should.

A graveyard of ships stretches to the horizon. It’s so beautiful, so sad, all these histories laid waste. Higher we fly. Bora’s office glimmers on the horizon, a dot in a sea of sand.

We accelerate as we ascend. Five hundred kph. A thousand. No errors. Not even a blip.

The horizon bends. The atmo thins. Blue sky fades to black. Stars shine like distant memories. Torem Pali’s a pale yellow jewel. Madre Blu is a banded work of art. I spin the ship round to face the stars.

We’re in space. I’m in space. Piloting my own CCM 6454 Spark Megahauler.

I could fly to Tarphonsys, get myself listed in the shipper registry, and get lost somewhere out the deep. But the faces on the pic I taped to the console stare eagerly at me. Ibis and Frost and a former incarnation of me.

Where’re they now, the runts? Lost, fraid, alone? They ain’t got no folks to look after em, no one to guide em on the right path, to keep em out of trouble. They ain’t got no one cept each other. That’s all we ever have.

“Ally?” I say.

“Haan?”

“What if we fly somewhere else? Would that be xin with you?”

“Where?”

“Chadeisson.”

“What’s there?”

I stare at the pic taped to the console. “Family.”

“I didn’t know you had family there, Jess.”

“I did. I do.”

“Then let’s go,” she says. “I’d very much like to meet your family.”

So I plot a course. With the stone’s mass, we can make it to Pneisys easy. I got no idea if Ibis and Frost got caught up in what went down, if they’re still on Chadeisson. The FTU’s after me, alien gods’re still mucking round in human affairs, and war’s brewing in the Outer Deep. I died and was reborn and can bridge realities. And none of that fucking matters. All I want is to see those runts again. All I want to know is if they’re okay.

I fly us far from the gravbowl of Madre Blu, to where it’s safe to activate the slipstream drive. “Ally,” I say, “you ready?”

“With you, Jess, I’m always ready.”

“Okay then, here we go.”

I activate the slipstream. The stars blueshift, the nauseating jump to ten-space slides gracefully into bliss, and somewhere, a billion verses away, but also here, always and forever right here, another door opens.

I sit back in my chair.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Like Jess herself, this novel would not quit, would not let herself be trunked or sidelined. By sheer force of will Jess seized my consciousness, yanking herself into existence through various related short stories, a novella, and finally this novel.

I have been lucky to have the help of many wonderful folks along the way. A stellar special thanks to my first readers Lilah Wild, Paul Berger, Rajan Khanna, Devin J. Poore, Gay Partington Terry, Theresa DeLucci, Kris Dikeman, and Mercurio D. Rivera. To Ellen Datlow, who published several related short stories and encouraged me to expand the original novella into a novel. To my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, for his constant guidance, and to Bibi Lewis and Lindsay Watson at the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency for their support. To my publisher and editor Patrick Swenson at Fairwood Press for giving Jess a home. And to my wife, Christine, for showing me what a kick-ass heroine protagonist actually looks like in real life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew Kressel is a software developer and speculative fiction writer with three Nebula Award nominations, a World Fantasy Award nomination, and a Eugie Award nomination. He’s the co-host of the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in New York City. He created the Moksha submissions system, in use by some of the largest publishers in speculative fiction today. His short stories have appeared in such publications as Lightspeed, Nightmare, Reactor, Clarkesworld, Analog, io9.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Electric Velocipede, Apex Magazine, and the anthologies Mad Hatters and March Hares, Cyber World, After, The People of the Book, and many other places. His debut novel was King of Shards. He has a novella forthcoming in 2026 from Tordotcom titled The Rainseekers.

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About the Publisher

Fairwood Press is an independent small press specializing in speculative fiction created in 2000. It has published nearly 100 titles since then, including story collections, novels, anthologies, and specialty items. Fairwood Press is owned and edited by Patrick Swenson. Find out more at www.fairwoodpress.com